Pod Save America - “Another cuck bites the dust.”

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

Corker and Flake take on Trump, Wall Street wins in the Senate, and Clinton conspiracies are back. Then New Jersey gubenatorial candidate Phil Murphy talks to Jon about what’s at stake in his race, and Crooked contributor Tim Miller takes Jon and Dan back to the Cuck Zone. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we have the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy. And we're taking a trip to the cuck zone with Cricket contributor Tim Miller. I should say we're also recording this Wednesday evening. And I know that, of course, the JFK assassination files are going to be released tonight. So who knows? By the time you're listening to this, Ted Cruz's dad could already be on the lam.

It's so weird. It could be so dated. I don't know. We'll see what happens. On Pod Save the World this week, Tommy talked to former acting CIA director Mike Morrell. Morrell was Bush's PDB briefer on 9-11, walks through what that day was like as he tried to help President Bush figure out what happened. Fast forward a decade later, Morrell was the deputy director of the CIA when they first thought they might have located bin Laden. He walks through that process, how he briefed the

White House, what it was like to be there for the day of the operation it's a great pod they also talk about the state of isis state of extremism in nigeria and across africa north korea and the upcoming release of the kennedy assassination files which has happened this is a seven hour pod it's a seven hour pod it's quite good it's quite a good pod, so take a listen. Okay, let's start, Dan, with what two U.S. senators said about Donald Trump on Tuesday. They accused him of being untruthful, unable to rise to the occasion, a bad role model for children. They called him a bully, childish, indecent, dangerous, and disgraceful. They said he's a train wreck who's debasing our nation, damaging our democracy, and compared him to red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy.

And those two senators are Republicans. What? Yes, that's the payoff right there, the Republicans. One is Bob Corker, the retiring chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the other is Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who announced on Tuesday that, like Corker, he will not be seeking re-election in 2018. Dan, let's begin with Corker, since that fight happened earlier in the morning. Trump kicked it off by accusing Corker of fighting tax cuts. Corker tweeted back that Trump was being untruthful.

Hashtag adult daycare center. I wish he would stop that. And then CNN interviewed Corker about the exchange and he sort of went off on Trump. What did you make of all this? Well, I got a couple of general thoughts. One,

I'm coming in hot today. I have been great on fire. I've been, I've been so angry about everything today that I told how late one or two things would happen. I was going to rant like hell on this podcast, or I was going to exhaust myself and slumber through the podcast. So I think I'm still coming in hot. Good.

I hope you saved your energy. I'll give one factual correction. Right, about Corker and tax cuts, because Corker did once say something that in recent days that is a mortal sin within the Republican Party, which he said he would not support tax cuts if they added to the deficit. Right. Which they do by the tune of many trillions of dollars. So there's that. About 1.5 so far. So it's hard to separate Corker and Flake because of the one thing that they have in common other than being Republican is they are not running for reelection. And so that seems to be directly – and we'll get to this – but directly tied to their newfound courage. There are a couple other things that Trump said.

He might have been right about tax cuts, but he said – he called them little with an L-I-D-D-L-E with a hanging apostrophe, Bob Corker. I don't think Bob Corker is little. I don't know that he's big either. But it said that little Bob Corker was responsible for helping Obama get the Iran deal and for our failed foreign policy. Now, I wasn't there for the last two years, but I can tell you that for the years I was there, Bob Corker did not help us get our foreign policy. He was a pain in our ass. So it was just like the Trump thing, his response is just so absurd that it's hard sort of to separate reality from just the weird fever dreams that he has but uh the press treats this and this is where i think corker makes a mistake with his like sick hashtag adult daycare burn first you should there's no sick bird that

includes a hashtag like no lost at that point just don't do it don't do it also just don't hashtag don't hashtag unless it's an ironic hashtag hashtag ironic hashtag yes or if it's like to link a bunch of stories about a bunch of tweets about a thing happening like hashtag hurricane maria right that's that's that's acceptable there is no if you click on hashtag adult daycare center i don't know what you find but i don't think it relates to what corker thinks it relates to but is what this really is is like you gotta like boil it down to his essence because we get caught in all the theatrics which is bob corker is the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.

He is the top ranking Republican in Congress on foreign affairs. And he thinks that if Congress and the Trump staff does not do a better job, Trump could get us into World War Three. Like, let's not lose that in the midst of the hashtags. Yeah, he's not some like backbench Freedom Caucus loony tune in the house, although they wouldn't criticize Trump. You know, he's not some like freshman Republican. He is one of the senior most Republicans in his party, responsible for foreign affairs, a very, very powerful committee. He's also not some blue state moderate breaks with his party. This is not Susan Collins orins um or even lisa murkowski this is

deep red tennessee and corker is a rock rib conservative if he is but he is not a trump like white nationalist right no and this is an important distinction for when we get into discussion later about flake and corker because flake is the same thing jeff flake is a a conservative a very conservative senator, even though he's in a state that's a bit bluer or a little bit more purple than Tennessee. These are both hardcore conservatives. They're not moderate.

So let's not, just because they're attacking Trump, let's not think that they're moderate. They're not. So first of all, I do think it was funny that right after the Corker-Trump feud, our friend Paul Ryan goes out with a press conference. And he basically, like you said, what the media did, dismisses it as a Twitter spat, Twitter fight, and said, you know, everyone's just got to focus on tax cuts. Let's not worry about this. I thought you would like that, Dan.

I hate Paul Ryan. And let me tell you why I hate Paul Ryan. It's not because he's a bad person. I'm sure he's nice to his children. I don't think he's particularly nice to other people's children who are on things like Medicaid and children's health insurance. But there is no human being walking the planet right now that is more responsible for enabling Trump's absolutely horrendous behavior than Paul Ryan. He does it with sad eyes, but that is it. He has the power. I'm not saying that he has to oppose tax cuts or oppose Trump's agenda, but he believes that, I believe at least that Paul Ryan believes that Trump is a dangerously

unfit human being who is racist. And Paul Ryan's response to that is, I don't read his Twitter feed and do whatever the fuck you want as long as I get my tax cuts, which is a really gross way of going through life. And I imagine if you gave Paul Ryan truth serum, or if we got some of his staff here and spoke behind closed doors, they would tell you, well, what Ryan thinks is if Ryan speaks out against Trump, the way that the politics in the House are, he would immediately be deposed as Speaker. They would vote for, and they would vote for a much more conservative right-wing Trumpist sort of Speaker. And wouldn't

things be worse if you had a Trump-like Speaker who was enabling all kinds of crazy policies, when we could have Paul Ryan, who, you know, will at least shuffle through all the tax cuts that we want. That's probably what they would say, right? Right. And the answer to that is no, we are not better off. Right. Yeah, no, at this point we're not better off. Because Paul Ryan is not stopping Trump from doing anything Trump wants to do. Paul Ryan is not stopping Trump from doing anything Trump wants to do. He is not, he is standing in the way, he is blocking investigations into Russian interference in our elections. He is allowing Trump and his cabinet to basically rip off taxpayers left and right in some sort of grand, you know, corruption pyramid scheme. And because Paul Ryan, for reasons that escape me, retains credibility among the Washington press, he creates a permission structure for Trump to do these things. Because he sends a signal to Republicans across Washington and across the country, frankly, that if Paul Ryan is okay with

it, then I can feel comfortable and it's not really as bad as it actually is. So Paul Ryan is doing damage to the country. And frankly, even if he didn't care about the country, and I's not really as bad as it actually is. That's right. So Paul Ryan is doing damage to the country. And frankly, even if he didn't care about the country, and I'm not going to say he doesn't care about the country. I will not say that. I'm just not sure he knows what's in the best interest of the country. But if he cares about his party, he's doing tremendous long-term damage to his party by acting the way in which he's acting.

Yeah, we're not going to go down the path that Marco Rubio went down when he said that Obama was intentionally trying to destroy America. Thank you for that, Marco Rubio. Yeah, Paul Ryan is accidentally destroying America. Right. So a few hours after the Corker spat, Jeff Flake announces he's not running for re-election. He goes to the Senate floor, gives quite a speech. And the speech is notable not just for what Flake says about Trump, but because of what

he said about his fellow Republicans. Quote, it's time for our complicity and accommodation to the unacceptable to end. Could have been talking to good old Paul Ryan with that. Yes. It is a massive subtweet of Paul Ryan. And a whole bunch of his other colleagues, too. I mean, there's plenty of complicity and accommodation to go around in the Republican Party right now. Yeah, I mean, Mitch McConnell sat right next to Trump in the Rose Garden like his ventriloquist dummy just last week, I think.

So let's dispense with the politics of it first. Why did Flake decide to retire, and do you think he could have won if he had stuck around? It does not seem like he could have won, based on what I've read. It was going to be a tough race. He was facing a truly terrible person named Kelly Ward in the primary, who I believe ran against McCain last time around. And when McCain's brain cancer diagnosis came in, she publicly volunteered to take his seat if and when he died. Yeah. She's been referred by her, referred to as Chemtrail Kelly by her

fellow Republicans for her conspiracy theories about chemtrails. I mean, she is like severely crazy. But what do you think will happen when she wins the primary at some point next year? Will they call her Chemtrail Kelly or will they just...

Oh, no, they'll embrace her. Roll out the red carpet. They will embrace her and roll out the red carpet, much like they have done for homosexuality is illegal Roy Moore. The same thing. There's a bigot right now running in Alabama who thinks that the law does not apply to him, who does not believe in the rule of law.

He's against Supreme Court decisions. He's against long-settled cases, thinks that 9-11 was God's punishment for all of our cultural liberalism. You name it, that's what Roy Moore has embraced. He thinks Roy Moore – I've been so angry about this all day after John Cornyn, the second number two Republican in the Senate, endorsed it. Roy Moore believes that Muslim Americans cannot, should not be able to serve in Congress or in government because they're Muslim. Right. Now, the fact that the Republican Party is willing to tolerate that level of explicit bigotry. And we are so numbed down to anti-Muslim bigotry in this country that sometimes you substitute the word.

Take out the word Muslim and put in Christian. Take out the word Muslim and put in Jewish. And imagine a world in which John Cornyn in the Republican Party endorses someone who said Jews cannot serve in Congress because we can't trust their loyalty. Right. And John Cornyn got asked about the state and kudos to Frank Thorpe of NBC News for pushing this issue because every fucking Republican should be asked about Roy Moore's beliefs because they own him now. And Cornyn said, well, you know, it's a family and we have disagreements and i'll support republicans always it's like really there was a time in which david duke was had to be disavowed by the republican party and they did it with courage and here we just welcome rory moore

into the party as if it was no thing because he will be one more vote and you know what like they did not have to i mean it would have been courageous, right thing to do for all of them to say, no, we're going to support Doug Jones for Senate in this case because this guy is so far to the right. I don't expect them to do that. The RNC could have chosen not to fund the campaign. The NRSC could have chosen not to fund it. Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, they could have declined to endorse them. RSC could have chosen not to fund it. Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, they could have declined to endorse them. I mean, like, there are steps the Republicans could have taken to distance themselves, the National Party, to distance itself from Roy Moore if they wanted to. Instead, they're going all in, full embrace. I mean, they could, at bare minimum, they could have said, we'll let the people of Mississippi choose.

And if he comes to, and if he gets elected and he chooses to caucus with Republicans, that's a choice the people of Mississippi or people of Alabama, that is a fair position. But that's not the one they have. They are holding fundraisers at the homes of lobbyists for this guy and putting their name on it proudly. Which like you said, they will probably do with Kelly Ward should she win. I mean, I think on the Flake thing, it's like he, you know, Ward should she win? I mean, I think on the Flake thing, it's like he, you know, Jeff Flake basically said, you know, I'm wondering, I'm stepping down because maybe there's a Republican with my views, with my positions that has less baggage than me, you know, being an establishment DC insider who Donald Trump hates that can possibly beat Kelly Ward in a primary. They cannot lose to her. And I don't know if that's the case. I don't know if another Republican can beat Kelly Ward, can ward off that challenge. And, you know, what do you think? Do you think another Republican could do that? Or

do you think it's... Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's hard to say it's all theoretical, but I think Flake was probably pretty close to doomed to lose because he was either going to lose to kelly ward or he was going to be it was going to be such a bitter primary that he was going to lose to kristin cinema the democratic congresswoman who was very who's a very good candidate who was running on i think basically on a post in the democratic primary so now you know now there's a you know an element of variability to it maybe there'll be a different republican who can run who you know will not because flake's numbers were horrendous because he had played his politics very poorly because he refused you know he did this sort of thing

where it's like he's anti-trump but then he voted for a lot for you know all the various affordable care act repeal bills which were very unpopular in the state of arizona and would have dramatically hurt his own so he like was sort of betwixt in between being against Trump and for Trump's agenda. And probably if he would have been in a stronger political position, just to pick one side and stick to it doesn't mean he has to oppose Trump all the time. Yeah, but he was sort of left isolated between on the first on Acha, I guess, whichever the first one was, Bikra, wealth care, whatever you call it. You know, McCain was against it, the governor was against it, and Flake was for it. That was a pretty

bad position to be in. It's interesting. A lot of these Republicans are screwed because Trump is personally popular with the base, but many of Trump's policies are very unpopular with the base. And so he went the worst route you can go, which is supporting the policies, but opposing the man. So let's talk about the reaction to this speech. I see four different kinds of reactions to the Flake speech. So on the right, you had the Steve Bannon wing of the party, super excited, bragging about how they took down another establishment cuck, right? You had some Republicans and other political observers saying that Flake should have stayed and fought Trump. This is what Tim Miller

believes who we'll be talking to shortly. You had DC pundit types who fell all over themselves to say that like Flake's speech was the greatest act of courage in human history and should be taught in every elementary school until the end of time. And then on the left, there was a little debate. You had people saying that Flake should have spoken up earlier or should do something more than give a speech or should stop voting for Trump's agenda. What do you think, Dan? What's your position on all this? Well, I understand why Flake retired, because he was probably going to get sent home anyway and he probably didn't want to spend the next year of his life running a losing race against kelly ward when he could potentially have this platform to say what he wants to say and be heard on this it goes beyond

flake also to quirker because you know ross d Douthat, the New York Times conservative columnist. Yes, please. Tell me more. But names, I'm not, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. I never have, even though I've met him on multiple occasions. Ross, either way, he tweeted earlier today that if Corker really believes what he's saying, and then I think that the same is largely true for Flake. If you really believe that Trump is dangerously unfit and may potentially push us into World War III, then they are obligated to call for the 25th Amendment or impeachment proceedings. I thought that was an interesting take. I understand why they don't do that, because there's no chance of success, I guess, would be the argument. And so it just, it wouldn't really work.

But Ross's position is logically correct, I think. If you think someone is so unfit that they could blow up the world, then you have something to do. You have an obligation to do something more than do an interview with Manu Raju on CNN. Right. I mean, from the left reaction, like, I had a couple thoughts on this. I mean, we have to understand that Trump is bad for two big reasons that are not the same. The first has to do with his character qualities.

Right. He's a liar. He's ignorant. Got authoritarian tendencies. May kill us all in a nuclear war. And these are things that worry not just Democrats, but Republicans like Flake, Corker, and probably the rest of the Senate Republicans, except a few, just that they're too chicken shit to say it out loud. The second reason we think Trump is bad is that he is pushing the most right-wing agenda of maybe any president in history. Tax cuts for the rich, gutting health care, the environment, choice, immigration, you name it. They're all bad.

Now, just about all of the Republicans have no problem with this whatsoever. And that's because they are an extremely right-wing party right now. And we were just saying this earlier, like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, they are not moderates, they're conservatives. And I don't think we can expect them to vote for liberal or even moderate policies. If we are hoping for that, then we need to just replace them with Democrats, which is what we're trying to do anyway.

What we can expect them to do is to go after Trump on those character flaws. Right. So what can we expect them to do? Hearings, investigations, they can constrain them on foreign policy. I mean, there's plenty of things that they can do and probably should do. I mean, what you were just talking about, which is like on one end, there's impeachment, 25th Amendment kind of stuff. But even before that, right, they can, I mean, Brian Boitler has a great piece in cricket.com right now about how they can, you know, McCain, Corker, and Flake, just those three can basically, you know, force Trump to put in place plans and policies to protect us from another Russia, right? And more election interference in 2018 and 2020. They can demand his tax returns. They can hold hearings and investigations. They can support, you know,

Mueller's investigation. So there's plenty of things that these Republicans can do to constrain Trump that still don't go against their conservative beliefs, right? Like we're not asking them to support Obamacare and to stop trying to cut taxes for the rich, though I would very much like them to do those things. But there's a lot of other things that they probably should do, right? That's right. There's a model for this that actually happened early in this presidency, which is both parties, Republicans and Democrats, were deeply concerned about Trump's friendly relations, to say the least, with Putin and Russia, and were afraid that he was going to roll back the sanctions that the Obama administration had put in place. These were bipartisan supported sanctions

by Republicans and Democrats, that Trump would roll them back to repay Putin to keep the pee tape out of the press, whatever it would be. And so Republicans, Democrats got together, and they put together a package of sanctions with a veto proof majority to lock in those sanctions legally and limit Trump's hands. They could do that on any number of things, including his ability to launch a first-strike nuclear weapon against North Korea. They could put in – within the budget appropriations process, they can put in checks and balances that requires Trump to come back to Congress before doing certain things.

And so that's what they can and should be doing, which I would point out, regardless of who the president is, is actually their job. And Congress does not like to do its job. This is sort of the McConnell strategy against Obama, which is, we're going to step back, we're going to let the president do everything, and he's going to get credit or blame, right, depending on which party you're in. And Congress is, particularly on matters of foreign policy, has completely ceded the ground to the presidency. And there are dangers in that. And it seems less annoying when it's a president we like and trust like Barack Obama than it is when you have Bush doing warrantless wiretapping and sending people to Gitmo and torture, and you have Trump who could do literally anything.

But Congress could do its job, right? You should not get a profile on courage for doing your job. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, what we can expect them to do, one good example of this was, so right after all this happens yesterday with Corker and Flake, So right after all this happens yesterday with Corker and Flake, there's this, maybe, you know, in fine print somewhere, there are a bunch of overdraft fees in your account that you don't know about, right? You know, you wouldn't sue the bank about this yourself because it wouldn't, it's like $30 and you wouldn't hire a lawyer for this. But if the bank is doing that to hundreds of people, to

thousands of people, then you can all get together and you can have a class action lawsuit against the bank, right? So what banks did and what financial institutions have done is they, to get smart about this, they're like, all right, well, we're going to put in the fine print when you sign up for an account or you sign up for a cell phone or you buy a car, in the fine print, we're going to say no class action lawsuits allowed. You have to go to mandatory forced arbitration, which doesn't really include a judge and a jury. It's just sort of a private thing. And you're going to work out your differences there. And consumers don't usually win an arbitration. It's just something for companies

to shut this down, right? So when Obama and Elizabeth Warren passed Wall Street reform, and they created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they have a new rule that says, no, no, no, no more forced arbitration. People get to have their class action lawsuits. They get their day in court. And these class action lawsuits actually force these financial institutions to change their shady fucking practices.

Fine. And last night, 50 Republicans, plus Mike Pence to break the tie, voted to say, no, no, no, we're going back to forced arbitration. No more class action lawsuits. And the people who voted yes for this include Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and John McCain and Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, all our favorites. And, you know, a bunch of people were like, oh, the great heroes of the resistance speaking out

now that this is the vote. It's like, I'm not surprised by that vote. They're Republicans. This is what they do. This is why we're trying to put Democrats in the Senate and to elect more Democrats, because Republicans don't vote the way we want them to vote on issues that affect working and middle class families. This is what we've been saying. So like, I don't think it's too hard to say, we don't think Republicans are going to vote with us on this on this really critical Wall Street bill, which is why, which is why we want to elect more Democrats. But also the Republicans who are in there who don't like Trump for all those personality reasons and because he's a danger to the fucking world should take steps to rein him in. I think that's all right. First, I would say that was top-notch explanatory journalism for me.

Oh, thank you. Watch out, Ezra Klein. Crooked is coming for Vox. That was just impressive. I'm just going to say, too. top-notch explanatory journalism for me oh thank you watch out ezra watch watch out ezra klein crooked is coming for box well that was just impressive i'm just gonna say too i'm watching some of these senators and not warren warren's great on this and so was l franken and they did some good stuff on this and show the sherrod brown some of these senators are tweeting out like join us in the cfpb bill blah blah blah like no one knows what the fuck the CFPB is. Like explain this in a way that people can understand it. For God's sakes, Democrats. Anyway, that was my little rant about that.

Go ahead. Okay. All right. Second point. You are correct that we cannot expect Republicans to vote like Democrats. But that is true. But that does not mean we just throw up our hands and wait till the next election and say, God, I hope we get more Democrats. Oh, yes.

These people doing horrible things. For sure. The Republican Party is a giant myth right now. They are wearing populist clothes and doing things to help the very wealth. They're an elitist party in a populist costume. And we need to call them out on it. Like, if people knew in those states, whether it's Maine or Arizona or Alaska or any of the other states where there's Republicans who voted for this, if their constituents knew that they did this, it would make them unhappy. And so we should make sure they know. We should, like, yes, you are required to swear an oath to repeal in the ACA when you join the Republican Party, but that does not mean that you get to vote for something that would literally kill your constituents without being called to the carpet on it, right? And so we can't expect them to vote like democrats but we can make sure that

their constituents know who they voted for and who they're fighting for because it sure is how many of their constituents yeah they need to pay a price for this and it should be a big i mean there are some really big issues that we should be fighting on and we should remind people of as we get to 2018 everything they've done around the affordable care act is one the vote last night on this uh class action lawsuit thing that's another and anything that all the stuff they've done that really screws people that goes right against their populist promises i think is uh you know fertile territory for democrats in 2018 remember when they voted to repeal the rule that prevented people from selling your internet history oh yeah we yeah. We should have a list of these.

We should have a list of, like, screwing consumers and working people and what the Republicans have done about that. It would be a long list, I think. It would be a long list. But, you know, we don't talk about it as much because it's not always as sexy as, like, the latest Trump tweet or scandal. So we should keep that in mind. Okay.

When we come back, we will talk about all of this with our friend, Crooked contributor, Tim Miller. On the pod, we have with us Crooked Contributor, Tim Miller. Tim, take us to the Cuck Zone. What's happening, gents? It's good to be with you. Good to be cucking here. That's my first time on as a member of the Salon Conservatives, Top 25 Salon Conservatives. So in

addition to being the Cuckie Cuck, I'm also a Salon Conservative. Yeah, I know. My mother is very proud. And I'm definitely, my conservative bona fides are disappearing by the minute. So I want to talk to you about, you know, another one of your cucks bit the dust on Tuesday, Jeff Flake. I know you've been working on a piece for Crooked.com, which is probably up right now, as you're hearing this, about how you wish Flake would have stuck around and put up a fight. Talk about that. Yeah, dude, the point of it is basically this argument that it was so frustrating during the campaign. And, you know, maybe many of the liberal listeners weren't exposed to this because they weren't getting trolled by the racist Pepe avatars like I was.

But the refrain of the Trump supporter during 2016 was no matter what apostasy you highlighted, no matter what old video came up, no matter whose pussy he grabbed, they just, their response was, but he fights. And the establishment cucks won't fight for us, but Trump will fight for us. And, you know, the frustrating thing about that here two years later is they were right. Trump was right. Trump fought. And, you know, my fellow cohorts, whether they're, you know, the cucks or, you know, even the more conservative, you know, members of the party, you know, basically have just laid down our arms. And that goes all the way back to 2016, in the spring of 2016, when they wouldn't rally behind Marco or Ted Cruz after Jeb dropped out and others. And it goes to the convention where

pretty much everybody attended the convention. And now here we are, and he's the president. And the same thing is happening. Nobody is fighting this fight. And, you know, now it's even more acute because you have Steve Bannon out there in the midterms, and he's just laying waste to fools. Bannon is on the battlefield with blood in his mouth fighting this fight for the soul of the right and the soul of the Republican Party and nobody else is. And so while I appreciated what Jeff Flake said and I'm happy that he's out there saying it and certainly would take him over a lot of the other folks in the Senate, it's frustrating to feel like there's this big war happening on the right and the only side fighting it is the bad guys.

And, you know, Flake leaving the Senate is just another example of that. Do you think that one of the arguments is that the Bannon types would make is, you know, there's no constituency for the Jeff Flakes and the Tim Millers of the world anymore. You know, Republicans who believe in low taxes, low regulation, free trade, pro-immigration, you know, globalist cucks. What do you think about that? I mean, do you think that the constituency for that worldview has, you know, shrunk a little bit? Or do you think it's just a matter of there isn't a Republican who can articulate it well, who's fought for it? Well, what are your thoughts there? A little bit of both. There's no doubt that the energy is on the side of kind of this populist,

nationalist Trump base. You know, Ben Dominic, who's at the Federalist, I think deep in his heart is sympathetic to my point of view, but oftentimes, you know, manifests as, you know, I think a good analyst of the mindset of the Trump world. You know, he wrote yesterday that basically this war that I'm talking about is over already, and that there is the zombie Reagan, Reaganists on one side, who just are eventually going to die off or quit or be defeated. And then there's the, you know, increasingly Trumpified GOP on the other side that is just going to continue to grow and grow until, you know, the party is fully in Trump's hands. And Ben presents a good argument.

I think I agree with that, the sense that that is, you know, where things are moving. It's where they've been moving for a while, going all the way back to, you know, Santorum and Newt versus Mitt in 2012. That said, though, you know, in order to reverse that trend, you know, you've got to fight for it. And, you know, things change in politics. The tectonic plates shift. Plates shift. You know, I think that people, you know, before Donald Trump got elected, I think all of us were guilty of this idea that, you know, we're so smart and that, you know, we know what we can predict the trends and what's going to happen in politics. And I think that it should have been a wake up call that, you know, our field of vision for the potential outcomes

is much wider than anybody thought. I mean, Donald fucking Trump is the president of the United States. And so, you know, Jeff Flake winning his Senate seat is not any more improbable than Donald Trump besting, you know, 16 Republican candidates and then Hillary Clinton. And so, you know, even though, you know, the energy is moving to the other side, you know, these things can change. And, you know, I think that as Trump's, you know, even though, you know, the energy is moving to the other side, you know, these things can change. And, you know, I think that as Trump's, you know, presidency wears on and on, you know, I don't think he's building any support. His support is waning. And, you know, it's possible that, you know, Trump could find himself in a similar place to where, you know, my man George W. found himself in 2005 after, you know, Katrina

and Harriet Myers, where he was so unpopular that he ends up being kind of a stink on his side of the party. But in order to take advantage of that, you know, you've got to be on the field. And right now, we don't have anybody that's on the field trying to fight it. And, you know, the case that I'm making is that we need to have those folks out there to take advantage of Trump's weaknesses. And even if it is inevitable, even if Dominic is right, and the Trumps are going to take over the party, well, that doesn't mean we should just, you know, lay down and let them do it. I guess the question is, what are you fighting for, right? There is a fight, a specific fight against a dangerously unfit human being

who may have who controls the military and the nuclear arsenal or is it a fight for you know what i will jokingly and pejoratively call globalist cuck values free trade immigration reform like like what is the battle is it control of the party apparatus? Is it for a worldview? Because if it's for a worldview, then, you know, Ben Domenech may be right, because we've been headed in this direction for a while now. Corker is, and like I am, that Donald Trump is a danger to the republic, and that anybody concerned about the republic should be deeply concerned about Donald Trump every day he's in the White House, then the primary fight is against Donald Trump. And I think in that sense, you know, Flake hopefully can still be on the battlefield. Maybe there are things that can be done in the Senate to constrain him through executive order reform or ethics reform or investigations. And, you know, I think that when you look ahead, I'll probably be on this pod a million times talking about 2020, so I don't want to obsess about it. But when you look ahead

to that, you know, obviously the primary goal is to defeat Donald Trump at all costs. But that said, yes, there is a broader fight on behalf of globalist values. that can argue for small-L liberalism, that can argue for, you know, freedom of speech and freedom of religion and cultural pluralism, you know, then, you know, I think that we're going to be harmed to not have that, to not have that point of view. And I think those values are extremely important. And, you know, then we can have the fight on ideological grounds about, you know, single-payer health care versus free market health care, pro-life versus pro-choice. But, you know, there needs to be two sides that both, you know, at least have a basic agreement about those fundamental American Western principles.

I guess our question is, how do we get, do you think the point the Republican Party is in, like it's this weird paradox, which is, it feels like the modern Republican Party is either dead or dying, yet controls all levers of power. But I'm interested in what you think the cause is, because is it, you know, one theory is just, you know, the tectonic plates of, you know, who makes up the base of the Republican Party, the changing demographics in the country. And the, you know, another theory would be that it's the fault, in some ways, is the fault of Republican leadership, because they basically decided during the Obama years to have no policy, right? They had to stand for nothing other than against whatever Obama's for.

So like why there was no, there was never a place to repeal and replace, you know, so there was a vacuum created to which people like Trump and Bannon came in. Where do you sort of see the cause of the current problem coming? Again, I think the answer is both. These things are complicated. I'll briefly just say about the tectonic plates. Literally, that goes all the way back to Buchanan, you know, against H.W. and, you know, Perot. And then, you know, in 2000, W. had Alan Keyes and Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer. You know, luckily, it was just that the, you know, our adversaries were divided and, you know, we were united behind W. And then similar thing happened with Mitt, where, you know, the adversaries were divided with, you know, kind of a lot of the more populous candidates on one side.

candidates on one side. And so, you know, kind of the chickens came home to roost on that with Trump. And, you know, I do think increasingly, more and more, you know, as the party became more and more, more and more rural, you know, that these, you know, populist, the populist size part of the pie was growing. I do think that us, that we have responsibility about this in the establishment. Raihan Salam wrote about this this week, and I thought he went a little further than I would go about the responsibility, but he pointed to, you know, really the Bush presidency, which unfortunately I have to agree with, was the embers of this more so than, I understand that you are sad that the Republicans wouldn't just kind of rubber stamp your Obamacare there, Pfeiffer, but I think that you are sad that the Republicans wouldn't just kind of rubber stamp

your Obamacare there, Pfeiffer. But I think that really the frustration was happened with back with W and the spending and Harriet Myers and just the sense that they weren't listening to the base of the party. Look, I think the Democrats are seeing this now where there was there's some frustration that Obama wasn't listening to the to the base of the party on the left, and certainly Hillary during the campaign. And so I do think that there was the embers of this were back in the Bush presidency, and that there were mistakes in kind of making promises that couldn't be delivered on to the conservative base. You know, obviously, you know, with the wars in Iraq, and you know, a lot of the people that were fighting these wars are these blue collar, you know, families and

communities that rallied to Trump. And so certainly, I think that there's some responsibility to be had on our side. And I think certainly that argues for, you know, maybe in this fight, I'm talking for the more credible, you know, people will be those who haven't been involved, and that maybe Flake isn't the right messenger or Tim Miller isn't the right messenger for that matter. But I guess somebody is better than nobody. So we were just talking about, you know, what Flake and Corker and McCain should do now with their time left in the Senate. And, you know, neither of us think that or expect them to suddenly start voting for liberal policies or even even moderate policies, because they're all pretty solid conservatives

used to be the center of the party. But what if you were advising them right now and they've all just spoken out and they all have, you know, they're all not going to run for reelection again. They have nothing to fear from Donald Trump. What should they be doing to rein him in that doesn't violate their conservative principles? Well, I'm not a Senate parliamentarian, so I'm going to do my best to answer this question. And hopefully none of this stuff sounds stupid. And some of my buddies in the Senate will probably call tomorrow and let me know that they can't do this. But here are the areas I think they can be effective. One is obviously with the Russia investigation. I do think Burr is taking it seriously. But I think the more, you know, Republican senators who are, you know, active

and looking into all of the different elements of this, calling for hearings about all the different elements to this is where Lindsey Graham could also, you know, be helpful, even though he's been kind of flirting with Trump lately, you know, given his role as a committee chair. So that is one area. Two, I don't know that Mitch would even let this to the floor right now, but I think that we need to have a conversation about executive power restraints. And this would have been a unanimous position in the Republican Party two years ago, that we need to put limits on executive orders and that we need to revisit. This wouldn't have been unanimous, but it would

have been a majority position revisiting the AUMF to put constraints on the president. Like I said, I doubt Mitch would let that go to the floor, but I think having Republicans and Democrats together talking about that, it would be useful and helpful for long term for the health of our democracy. And I think whistleblowing, I guess, sort of a non-traditional sense that it's whistleblowing, but I wish Corker would go out and say what exactly Trump has been saying in those private meetings that make him so concerned. You know, and Corker has been on the phone with Trump and Tillerson. And from everything I've heard from people one or two steps removed from that Oval Office is, you know, there's wheels off things happening in the Oval's office all the time. And, you know, Corker, I think, sounded an alarm about how concerning it is, particularly in North Korea. But we could benefit from people who are in the room or near the room giving specific examples of things Trump is doing, shining a light on that. So those are three things I would say.

And, you know, I think it goes without saying that I don't think they need to oppose everything that the Republican leadership does. I think they should vote for things they agree with. And, you know, obviously, I think that we should pass tax reform if we can. That's my opinion. But those other areas are ripe for them to make a difference. issue because the Washington Post reported last night that for a long time we've known that the Steele dossier, which is, you know, Christopher Steele, ex-British intelligence, was hired to go dig up dirt on Trump's business ties and his Russia ties during the campaign. He was originally hired by a Republican campaign that was running against Donald Trump, still unnamed.

When Trump won or when it looked like Trump was going to win and the Republican campaign lost interest, Steele was then paid, or this go-between, which is Fusion GPS, which is a research firm. They were then paid by a Democratic supporter or donor of Hillary Clinton. We didn't know who at the time, but so then they continued to fund it and then Steele put together this dossier with all kinds of, you know, findings about Trump's connections with Russia and that Russia possibly had blackmail on Trump.

The most salacious detail, of course, is the pee tape that we still haven't seen, but there was all kinds of other allegations about Trump's connections with Russia. So, and then the FBI was so interested in Steele's work that the FBI decided to pay him to continue the work later. So last night we find out that it wasn't just a Clinton donor or a group that funded it, but Mark Elias and Perkins Coie, who was the law firm that was working for both Clinton and the DNC. And now suddenly, I guess this nullifies Mueller's entire investigation. I don't know.

Tim, you were- I have a wheels off rant about this. So Dan, you can go first if you want, because I'm getting warmed up. All right, let's do it. All right. You do your verbal calisthenics for a sec. Look, I think it is important to recognize two things. One, I don't care who paid for it. It doesn't matter. The only thing that's interesting is what's in the dossier. And we should stop calling it a dossier because that makes it sound like some sort of James Bond-like espionage artifact when it's really, I think, just a Word document that includes some research. And the second thing is that what the Clinton – let's be very – this is all sort of – it's all treated with like cloak and dagger and Chris Steele, a former spy and all that. What the Clinton campaign did, as I understand it from public news reports, is through their attorney, they contracted out to a opposition research firm to ask them to do in-depth research on their opponent. That has happened in every campaign that I've ever been a part of.

And so it is a very standard thing. And it's as you pointed out, some Republican candidate or donor had done the same thing with the same firm utilizing the same individual before Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign ever did it. And so we're going to, per usual in the Trump world, focus on the dumbest, least relevant part of any discussion and ignore the fact that there is this, despite what Trump said, set of information, none of which has been debunked, that is very alarming about, that was so alarming about the president that the intelligence community thought they should present it to him so he was aware that it was existing. Instead, we're going to worry about what Mark Elias, a very good Democratic lawyer and a good guy, said to which New York Times reporter when. Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything Dan

said. And before I get heated up, because, you know, folks will listen and ask me why I wasn't clear about this. You know, I've had 50 reporters call me today about who the Republican is. And so I'll just say that, you know, Jeb did not pay for this. Jeb was unfortunately out of the race before, as best I could tell from the timeline, before this thing even came together. that if somebody that was paying me had paid for it and I had the dossier, it sure as hell would have come out long before November of 2016. So that's the thing I don't get. Yeah, if I had the dossier, you would have heard about it. Trust me. Are we saying now that the Clinton campaign's grand scheme was to pay money for opposition research, have a dossier produced, say nothing,

lose the election, and then profit. Yeah, this is what pisses me off so much. I got into, I started tweeting at Ari Fleischer this morning. This is what pisses me off so much. Ari Fleischer. We all started tweeting at Ari Fleischer.

Yeah, that hack sends out a tweet that's like, you know, now it seems like the Clinton, this proves that the Clinton campaign actually worked with with russia like are you fucking kidding me okay this was their grand plan was to have russia hack into their private emails of the chairman release all of those emails pretend like they were for trump when really they were secretly for hillary put together a fake dossier for like a triple bank shot story, give the fake dossier to the Clinton campaign, and then have the Clinton campaign not actually release it before the election. Literally, this is what Trump people that I follow on Twitter

and the Trump media folks, that is what they're putting out there. And then a lot of mainstream folks are doing like a he said, she said about this because they care about the parlor aspect of this, the parlor game of the who funded it, which no real people care about because nobody knows who any of these donors, nobody knows who Mark Elias is or who the Republican big money donors are, except for the Kochs. That's the only one anybody's ever heard of. But the reporters know all these people, so they're obsessed with this parlor game rather than the substance of what happened, which is that the Trump campaign obviously was at least actively encouraging our adversary to attack people's private emails in our country in order to impact the election and very possibly

working directly with them. And at the least we know that Don Jr. said that he wanted to in an email. So it's just, it's really frustrating and bewildering. Yeah. And it's the mainstream media that really drives me nuts about this. The people who, like you said, it's a parlor game for them. Like, why did Mark Elias lie to reporters about this if he indeed lied to reporters about this i don't know i don't really care if i was mark elias i would have been like fuck yeah i paid for this research i want to know i hate having to defend mark elias it's just it's really frustrating to keep having to be in this situation to defend the goddamn hillary lawyer

literally who cares who cares in the grand scheme of things yeah sure he should have said it yeah i would yeah sing it from the rooftops i'm funding research into donald trump's shady business ties and possible ties to a foreign power who's trying to influence our election fuck yeah i'm doing that if mark had given it to me i would have started p-tape.com you know as soon as he gave it to me like i just i don't i don't understand and also if i don't think anyone i'm against lying to reporters but if lying to reporters was a crime subject to penalty by death everyone in the trump white house would be dead they lie to report like sarah huckabee sanders goes up there and lies reporters every day but mark elias if he i don't

know i would be surprised if mark elias lied. I really would knowing him. I think he probably had a lot of, you know, he was protecting his clients interest and trying not to answer questions. But even if he did, it is the stupidest part of this story to focus on. And I would note one other thing we learned today that the head of Cambridge Analytica reached out directly to Julian Assange to try to get Hillary Clinton's hackneyed bills. And we knew, by the way, the whole time. I'm going to disagree with you on that. I think he did like the Clinton's lie, but who cares? It's just a water muddying thing. It doesn't matter. But Assange, you know, we knew, everybody knew that Assange was a Russian stooge for years. And, Jr. is DMing with him. And Hannity is doing

interviews with him. And now we know Cambridge Analytica is emailing with him. And Roger Stone was emailing with him. How much more evidence do we need that these guys actively wanted help from the Russians? Yeah. But I mean, it's like what you just said, Tim, which is this was all the intention behind this on the Trump side is to muddy the waters, right? Like these people are not trying to convince you that they're not shady, because they know it's much easier to convince you that the other side is shady, too. And so if we're all shady together, then what's the fucking problem? That's what this comes down to. The last thing is, there is no question, based on the chain of facts that Tim just laid out, that the Trump campaign tried to collude with Russia. Right. The only question is whether they were too stupid to actually succeed in it. And that's what we will find out from our friend Bob Mueller in due time.

In due time. All right, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us, Tim. And I guess we'll see you all later. Thanks, Jen. See you at the live Oakland show in a couple months. I can't wait. Can't wait.

My new hometown deal. All right, guys. Take it easy. Later. On the pod today, we have the Democratic candidate for governor in new jersey phil murphy phil how are you i'm doing great john i'm thrilled to be on with you so you're running for governor to replace one-time trump errand boy chris christie um joe biden our pal recently called us the single most important race in the country though i have to say most democrats seem to be focused on the

the much tighter race in Virginia, and some people I've talked to didn't even know there was a race in New Jersey. Can you tell people what's at stake here, not only in New Jersey, but nationally with this race? Absolutely. And again, it's great to be on with you, John. So New Jersey and Virginia are the only two governor's races this year in the United States. Next year, there are 36. We happen to be the first two up to bat in the Trump presidency. And there's a lot at stake. You know, we've got 15, only 15 governors in the country. That's the lowest in almost 100 years. We lost hundreds of state legislative seats over the past eight or nine years. We don't have the House, the Senate,

the White House, the Supreme Court. So we got to start winning some back here. And so far, so good. But we're taking nothing for granted. There are far too many folks who haven't made their mind up yet here in New Jersey with 12 days to go. So we're out there every single day pounding away. You know, a lot of New Jersey specific stuff. The economy here is busted. It's profoundly unfair. It works for very few. stuff. The economy here is busted. It's profoundly unfair. It works for very few. So that's our big focus in New Jersey. But we also can't ignore all the stuff that's coming at us nationally and from Trump and the Republicans in Congress. So we find ourselves talking all the time about health care bills that would be devastating if they became law in New Jersey, tax bills that are getting baked that would be devastating to us, moral authority breakdowns like we saw in Charlottesville.

You know, dreamers being shown the door. We are the most, by many measures, the most diverse state in the country. So a lot of that immigrant, anti-immigrant stuff, us versus them stuff, plays out quite deeply in New Jersey. So there are a lot of different balls in the air right now for us. So before you were Obama's first ambassador to Germany, you had a very successful career at Goldman Sachs. Your opponent, Kim Guadagno, has tried to tag you as an elitist millionaire. And yet, here's a recent Reuters headline. New Jersey's Phil Murphy echoes Bernie Sanders in Democratic bid for governor. What have you done to thread that particular needle

during this race? It's a great question. What I always remind people of, I just turned 60. My life is a book with a lot of different chapters. I'm proud of all. The most important is the way I grew up, which is working poor just outside of Boston. My dad didn't get out of high school. My mom did.

From Needham, right? Newton and Needham. Amen. I'm from North Reading, so there you go. I know you are. I was going to do some Bay State note comparing there with you. So that's the experience, that's the part of my life that burns most deeply in me. I grew up a John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, those were the heroes around our kitchen table, and that's never left me. I hope in my, whether it's my business career or my diplomatic career or other non-profits,

I proudly served until recently on the board of the NAACP. I believe there's a lot of relevance to those experiences that we can apply to a state that, as I mentioned a minute ago, that is busted and really unfair. You know, we haven't had the sort of, we may have seen this other places in the country, we haven't had the sort of breakdown or a civil war in our party in New Jersey. It's probably the only silver lining of an economy that's busted. No matter what coalition you think you're in, you've been left behind by Chris Christie and his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, who's my opponent. And so, you know, we've had a very good, you know, progressive pro-growth campaign where folks say, you know what, we have to be open to all ideas. You know, if health care is going to be ripped apart by Trump and the Republicans in Congress, we have to be open-minded as to the

variety of ways we can achieve the ultimate objective of healthcare as a right, not a privilege. So we haven't had those sort of breakdowns in our party. So far, so good. So you've proposed a lot of great progressive policies in this race, $15 minimum wage. You have a proposal to help people for college. You've also proposed something that I've never heard of, the creation of a public bank, college. You've also proposed something that I've never heard of, the creation of a public bank, which I guess is a policy inspired by an old populist uprising in North Dakota. Talk about what that bank would do. Talk about that policy. I haven't heard about that before. I'm so glad you asked, John. You're absolutely right. North Dakota is the only state in the

country that's got it. 98 years ago, people say to me all the time, hey, Murph, if it's such a good idea, how come nobody else has done it? I think the answer is the big banks don't like it, and they've lobbied hard against it. It's a fairly simple concept, and we want to establish it in New Jersey. And here goes. Right now, when the state, county, local, municipality, school board raises taxes or fees, they put them in the bank until they have to spend them. It turns out the local communities put them in community banks, and we like that. But the state puts them in big Wall Street banks or foreign banks, or they buy commercial paper from places literally like Coke Industries. And hardly any of that money ever comes back to work in New Jersey. It goes to fund

I said recently, listen, the good news is our tax dollars are funding infrastructure, which we desperately need. The bad news is it's getting funded in Japan and Sweden. So the notion is this, establish a bank in New Jersey that all the citizens that we would own, and it would be the exact mirror image. Its charter would mandate that it does all of all the deposits from the state would go to that bank, and it would do all of its lending in New Jersey. And that's a significant, you know, John, that could be 10 or $12 billion of loans a year. In the three areas we've talked about most are student loans at reasonable rates, still commercial, but reasonable, small business loans, and small scale infrastructure loans. And any anybody who's in banking will tell you for a buck

you lend, you get about a buck fifty back in economic activity. So we think it's a huge win-win-win for us. That's great. So you've said that if need be, you'd make New Jersey a sanctuary state and protect undocumented immigrants from mass deportations. Kim Guadagno used this promise as the basis for an attack ad where she said that you have the backs of quote deranged murderers. Now we have seen the same strategy from Republicans all over the country whether it's Ed Gillespie in Virginia, Kim Guadagno in New Jersey or Donald Trump basically every day. What does that say to you about the Republican Party today and how what have you learned about how Democrats should fight back against those attacks?

Yeah, I mean, it got lower than Willie Horton in our state. And it is without question, she's ripping a page out of the National Republican Playbook and she's trying to apply it in New Jersey. And the good news is folks have risen up and say, you know, with all due respect, you're not going to do that to us in the state of New Jersey. It's a bunch of half-truths. It's wires that they've crossed deliberately. And they know they're doing it, John, and you see it nationally.

So they cross wires between criminals and immigrants. They cross wires between good law enforcement and public safety on the one hand and smart immigration policy on the other. And I'm honored to have a lot of folks endorsing me, and most importantly in this discussion, a lot of law enforcement. And you know, as they do and as I do, that if residents in a community or in a state feel like they can come out of the shadows, be fully engaged in their community with other residents, with community leaders, and importantly, with law enforcement, you have a safer community and a safer state. And so what they're doing and what she's doing is putting politics ahead of public safety, which I think is lower than low. And as I say, the good news

so far, folks have risen up and said, you know what, you're not going to do that. It's a classic, you know, Trump does this all the time. But I've said this a lot, Christie and Guadagno were Trump before Trump was Trump. You know, this is the ultimate us versus them laboratory since Christie became governor. It's a constant, you know, public sector unions, immigrants. He said he wouldn't let a Syrian in New Jersey, even if, I think this is a quote, even if he or she were five years old. You know, that's not America. That's not our state. And I want to undo all that.

Yeah, no, it does seem like a lot of these, the Republican strategy now, at least the Trump strategy, is to give people someone to blame for their problems, someone to blame for what's going wrong. Do you think that as Democrats, our job is to tell people, no, no, blame someone else? Or is there another strategy altogether we need to tell people who's responsible for their problems and how we fix it? Yeah, I think it's not to blame someone else, John, would be my view. I think this is a Joseph Welsh moment standing up to Joe McCarthy and saying, basically calling them out and saying, have you no decency? Back off. This is not America. You know, we rise and fall as one together. I think it's Jesse Jackson. And if it isn't, forgive me, but I believe he's the one in the early 70s, I think

at that point out of anger, who rejected the melting pot notion and put forward the vegetable soup notion you know that we're that america is a vegetable stew in a big pot that simmers on the stove and the longer it simmers the more harmonious it gets the better it tastes but we can say with pride the carrots are always tasted like carrots the green beans like green beans the potatoes like the potatoes that's what america is to me right so we should we should all be proud of our our whatever our unique heritage is but at the end of the day we rise and fall as one and i don't think returning fire with fire is the right thing here i think that martin luther king's you'll only love solves hate and i think that's what our objective ought to be phil murphy thank you so much for joining us here today we

really appreciate you best of luck on the race. And if anyone wants to help out or donate any kind of last minute volunteering, where should they go? What should they do? John, you're the best. And thank you for having me. Murphy4NJ.com. Murphy4NJ.com. And thank you so much for having me on. All right. Take care. Good luck. You too, John. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. All right. That's all the time we have for today. Thanks to Phil Murphy and Tim Miller for joining us, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, guys. I'm