Pod Save America - "Attack of the Racist Babies."

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Republicans beclown themselves while testing their midterm attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, State Department Counselor Derek Chollet joins to talk about President Biden’s trip to Brussels as war rages in Ukraine, and Donald Trump is ditching some loser Senate candidates as reports show how close he came to being indicted in New York.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Republicans beclown themselves while testing their midterm attacks on Judge Katonji Brown-Jackson. State Department Counselor Derek Chalet joins to talk about President Biden's trip to Brussels as war rages in Ukraine. And Donald Trump is ditching some loser Senate candidates as we also learn how close he came to being indicted in New York. A lot of news today. A lot of news. Big day for the Thursday pod.

Big day for the Thursday pod. I know, Tommy's already jealous, he's been telling us. But before we start, please subscribe to Offline if you haven't already. Last week, I had a fantastic conversation about journalism in the digital age with technology reporter Taylor Lorenz, and I just recorded a conversation for this Sunday with Lilly Singh, actor, comedian, Thank you. which makes her the perfect offline guest. It was a great conversation. It was really fun. Check it out this Sunday. Also check out the latest episode of Keep It, where Gabrielle Union joins Ira and Louis to discuss her new film, Cheaper by the Dozen,

as well as activism in Hollywood. She is always fantastic on that show, Gabrielle Union is. New episodes of Keep It drop every Wednesday, so go check it out. And finally, Dan, how are those pre-order sales going for Battling the Big Lie? Well, John, I'm so glad you asked. Thank you.

Look, in all seriousness, I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone, all the Pod Save America listeners, friends of the pod who went out and pre-ordered Battling the Big Lie, my book about right-wing disinformation and what Democrats can do about it. That comes out on June 7th. You know, it's never, you know, you know when you're doing your offline pitches, it's never easy to like try to sell the thing you worked on. And it's even harder when it's something like you're really proud of. And so just like always so grateful for this community of people who always

come together and support our stuff and have been very supportive of my books in the past. And so I just want to thank everyone. I know, John, you personally kind of made fun of the book plates, but it's possible. You took that tone as sarcasm, but I'm waiting for my book plates. That tone can only be taken one way, Ted Cruz. And I'd like to say that perhaps you're jaded because more than a thousand people

signed up for signed book plates. And the response was such that my publisher, much to their chagrin, agreed to extend the offer, which was supposed to expire today, Thursday, March 24th, until next Thursday. So we have another week. So if you go to battlingthebiglie.com, you can buy the book and submit your proof of purchase and get a signed book plate to prove that you're a more thoughtful person than Jon Favreau. And so look, things have gone,

pre-sales went really great. I was very grateful and excited about it. We got some work to do before Kellyanne Conway starts seeing us in her rear view mirror, but we're making real progress. So thanks everyone who pre-ordered. If you haven't pre-ordered it,

please go do it as soon as you can. I'd really appreciate it. I can't wait till I see you for our upcoming shows in April and get you to sign an advance copy. You're not, I'm not signing your book. I'm signing everyone else's book. Emily's going to get a book.

Charlie's going to get a book. Leo's going to get a book. You're getting to get a book. Leo's going to get a book. You're getting nothing. Screwed up now. All right. Battling the big lie. Go order it. Do it.

Don't let Kellyanne Conway beat Dan. We don't need that here. We do not need that. We're dealing with enough shit. Let's talk about some of it. Supreme Court nominee Katonji Brown-Jackson has now finished the question and answer portion

of her confirmation hearing after three days of absolute nonsense from Republican senators who were competing to get a soundbite on primetime Fox so they could build their profiles

ahead of the 2024 primary. Here's how Lindsey Graham promised the hearing would go earlier this week. So the hearings are going to be challenging for you, informative for the public, and respectful by us. I hope we can meet those criteria. It won't be a circus. We're off to a good start. Yeah, it won't be a circus. Here's how it actually went.

Good. Good. Absolutely good. I hope you are. Good. Allow won't be a circus. Here's how it actually went. Good. Cut. Good. I understand, Senator, but what are you trying to do? Good. Allow her to finish, please. I hope you go to jail for 50 years if you're on the internet trolling for images of children in sexual exploitation so you don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's a horrible thing. That's not what the witness

said. Look at the friggin' Afghan government. It's made up of former detainees and Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain't working. Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that the babies are racist? Did you ever accuse in one of your habeas petitions, the government of acting as war criminals for holding the detainees, the holding of the detainees by our government, that we were acting as war criminals.

Is it your personal hidden agenda to incorporate critical race theory into our legal system? When you accuse somebody of a crime, are you calling them a criminal? Can you provide a definition for the word woman?

Fucking nonsense. Nonsense. What do we know about whether that rather sad display of assholery actually moved any votes or shifted public opinion in any way? Well, it does not seem to have moved any votes. public opinion in any way. Well, it does not seem to have moved any votes. And from what we understand right now, I think that Judge Jackson came into this hearing on a strong path to being confirmed as the first Black woman Supreme Court justice in this country's history, and none of that has changed. In fact, I think if any votes were moved, they might have happened among the Senate Republicans who might be embarrassed to be periodically associated with this collection of dumb assholes, like a Rob Portman or Mitt Romney

or Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins who might have been on the fence. This might help move them in the direction of voting for it. In terms of public opinion, Judge Jackson came into this with the greatest base of support of any Supreme Court nominee since John Roberts. And I don't think she lost any support. It would not surprise me if opposition grew a little bit only because the right wing media had sort of taken a pass on this confirmation hearing and this nominations from the beginning. And so a lot of the Republicans in the poll told Gallup who did the poll that they did not have enough information to make a beginning. And so a lot of the Republicans in the poll told Gallup, who did the poll, that they did not have enough information to make a decision. And now I'm sure all of these clips were all over Facebook and Fox News. So you may get a few,

but I don't think it changes any of the dynamics. Yeah. The right-wing media was like, wait a minute, a black woman's being nominated to the Supreme Court. We're not going to sleep on that. What are we, are we crazy? We're not taking a pass on that. No, you're right. I mean, Gallup, the poll was taken March 1st through 18th, and it found 58% of Americans support Judge Jackson's confirmation, as you said, highest since John Roberts 17 years ago. So a pretty strong base of support. Manchin and Sinema seem solid. Debbie Stabenow, who's the number four Democrat in the Senate, it's her job to count the votes.

Uh, she said, I don't know if any of us would be able to sustain that with the grace, the poison intelligence that she showed. If anything, it's just strengthening how people feel about her on the Democratic side. She's seen no change in any of the votes. Um, look, I, I, right. If you're the MAGA base, you're the MAGA base. You see this stuff on, on, uh, on your primetime Fox and you know, you're, you're the MAGA base, you're the MAGA base. You see this stuff on your primetime Fox and, you know, you're probably getting angry and outraged and suddenly you don't like Katonji Brown-Jackson, even though you never heard of her before. That's how that goes. Right. a casual news consumer who just happened to see, you know, turn on the news for a couple minutes or scroll through some headlines. I think you come away with the impression that a bunch of

these assholes were just yelling things at her that didn't really make any sense. Like they sounded extreme and incoherent, which is like, you know, you can do one or the other, but you do both. And I don't know if you're landing any, uh, landing any blows there on the Supreme court Supreme Court nominee, particularly because so many of the issues they raised with her had absolutely nothing to do with any of the cases that she would weigh in on as a Supreme Court justice. They didn't really link her views or judicial philosophy to cases that she might see when she's – she might hear when she's a Supreme Court Justice. They basically just talked about random culture war shit that they've been talking about for the last couple years anyway and that they want to talk about in the midterms and they used the confirmation of the first black woman to serve

on the Supreme Court as an excuse to bring up all the attacks they want to bring up over the midterms. That's basically what I saw and I think it's actually pretty obvious to any sort of casual news consumer who saw that. Yeah, there was no subtlety there. There was no subtlety. You know, there was stiff competition between Graham, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, and Tom Cotton for the title of biggest Senate asshole. But in the end, Dan,

none of them were able to beat the man who's been training his entire life for moments just like these. And under the modern leftist sensibilities, if I decide right now that I'm a woman, then apparently I'm a woman. Tell me, does that same principle apply to other protected characteristics? For example, I'm an Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man? Dan, is Ted Cruz okay? Define okay. Is he confused? What's going on with Ted Cruz?

He is being his full Ted Cruz self. Look, I think you've got to put yourself in Ted Cruz's shoes for a minute, which seems uncomfortable, I'm sure. But look, you lost your second grade class selection, your third grade class selection, your fourth grade class selection. Pick last for everything in your life. You never won anything until you realize the only contest you can win and never lose is

Biggest Asshole. So congratulations, Ted Cruz. You know, and he just, maybe you missed this, but he just came from the Montana airport where he was screaming at a bunch of people, do you know who I am? Because I don't know, he was having an issue at the airport. It's like, the thing that's so funny is for Ted Cruz is, he has spent his entire life being the most unlikable person in any organization, room, whatever he's ever been in. The only people who don't dislike Ted Cruz are the people who don't know him. And now he's mad at people for not knowing him. He's like, why don't you hate me?

To know him is to loathe him. I mean, that is just the truth. I thought that the best comment about Ted Cruz's performance came from our own Tommy Vitor, who tweeted, no politician consistently looks as petty and small as Ted Cruz. He is the human equivalent of a flaccid penis in a freezing cold pool. I would say, I just to give you a little peek behind the curtain here. When Tommy tweeted that,

I texted it to him and he said, is this not okay? I ran it by John. And I said, which John? Yeah. And it was me. You thought it was love.

I assume love it. Okay. That yes. No, I signed up. Cause I said to Tommy, I said, which John? Yeah, and it was me. You thought it was Lovett to sign off on that. I assume Lovett okayed that, yes. No, I signed off. Because I said to Tommy, I said, look, there's no one, no one is going to ever attack you for whatever you say about Ted Cruz unless it's a compliment. Yeah, you were correct. That is a free shot at Ted Cruz. Even Republicans don't like Ted Cruz. No one likes Ted Cruz.

I will say, though, on Tommy's tweet, total cowards ratio, 10 times the number of likes than RTs on that tweet. I don't know you guys like that tweet. Just go ahead and retweet it. What's the Ted Cruz quote? Is it Lindsey Graham who said that if Ted Cruz was murdered on the floor of the Senate, no one would testify against the murder? Correct. Correct. That was Lindsey Graham.

Ted Cruz murdered on the floor of the Senate. No one would testify against the murder. Correct. Correct. That was Lindsey Graham. Here's everything you need to know about why Republicans did what they did over the last three days. An LA Times photographer got a fantastic picture of Ted Cruz searching Twitter for his own name just after he finished yelling at Judge Jackson, including the ridiculous quote that we had in that first clip, which was, do you think that babies are racist?

Like, it just I really first of all, yes, it was a complete outrage what Republicans did on the Senate. Like, everyone should be mad about it. I was mad about it. It was also fucking clownish and ridiculous. about it it was also fucking clownish and ridiculous and i don't want to let that part go either because ted cruz if you didn't see it like blew up a picture of a kid's book called anti-racist baby blew it up put it on an easel and asked the supreme court nominee if she thinks that babies are racist it doesn't get more fucking nuts than that. It doesn't.

I mean, there is a more serious, there'll be lots of more serious points and we'll get to some of them, but many people pointed this out, but I think we should just reiterate it, which is the fact that Judge Jackson had to sit there and calmly take all of this bullshit is – it's offensive to her as a person, and it bespeaks a larger double standard in this country because take Brett Kavanaugh, for instance, who got to take legitimate lines of inquiry about credible allegations of sexual assault, throw a fucking hissy fit, act like a giant asshole on the stand, and it won him votes.

That is not a thing a black woman could do in this country. And so she had to sit there and listen to these people patronize her, demean her, demagogue her record and sit there and take it. And how she did that, I do not know. It is to her great credit. I'm sure it's probably spending an entire life listening to a bunch of assholes like this. Maybe not always on national television. It's why she was sitting there

in the first place. It's how she got there in the first place. And she'd also, and you know, we were saying this before, but she's been through a couple of these

confirmations before, so she's a pro in every way. You know, even the New York Times, not in an editorial and an analysis piece, got exactly what was going on uh they wrote the message from the texas republicans seemed clear a black woman vying

for a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land would coddle criminals go easy on pedophiles and subject white people to the view that they were by nature oppressors um not subtle it was not really that subtle i'll tell you what was the least subtle thing uh in case case you were wondering if the Republican senators were still a little too subtle for you in what they were trying to do. Here's MAGA youth media star Charlie Kirk saying the quiet part out loud on his show this week. Quote, Ketanji Brown Jackson is what your country looks like on critical race theory. Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her. And what's amazing is that she has kind of an attitude too. Fucking gross.

Just gross. How do you think Judge Jackson and the Democrats on the committee handled all this bullshit? I mean, she did a phenomenal job. I mean, like as I was saying, who knows how anyone has the forbearance to put up with these people

and answer it calmly and try to make sense of these asinine questions to make legitimate points about the kind of justice she would be and make the case for a corporation. She did a phenomenal job. I think some Democrats did better than others. Obviously, Senator Booker gave a speech that was incredibly emotional and powerful and was very worthy of the moment. I think other Democrats could have done more to push back on her behalf to call out what the Republicans were doing more explicitly. This is the asymmetry of a lot of these hearings for Democrats, either whether the House or the Senate is.

Republicans treat them as performance art for social media and cable television, and Democrats treat them as a serious congressional hearing. Now, I'm not saying we should act like them, but we need to be able to anticipate and respond to their tactics more aggressively and cleverly than just suggesting that they have exceeded their time limits, right? It's like, the problem is not that you're an asshole for six minutes and a five minute a lot of time the problem is you're an asshole right i think that's the part we have to call out yeah i just want to um i want to have a play a couple clips here just to get katanji brown jackson's voice in here and cory booker's speech, I thought, phenomenal. This is as close as Judge Jackson got to annoyed during this entire three days of really annoying bullshit from Republicans. People commit.

You gave him three months. My question is, do you regret it or not? Senator, what I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme abuse, like some of these cases that they were questioning her about, it is a grueling thing to go through, you know? And if you know any judges that have had to do this, and I do, it is like, you have to look through the images, you have to read the testimony of the case it is not easy and and she spoke eloquently i thought about how awful and hard it was and how just just despicable uh these crimes are and she in her sentencing is just right in the center with all these other judges republican

nominated judges democrat nominated judges judges that that Josh Hawley voted for. She's given the same fucking sentences as they have. That's all other judges have. And yet she has to deal with this because Josh Hawley decided that it would be a good line of attack, that it was not just soft on crime, but also soft on child crime, which is a, you know, dog whistle to the fucking QAnon people who, by the way, got it because it was all over their message board. So they heard it. They heard the whistle. And here's Cory Booker's speech, which I thought was by far just the best of the week. It's hard for me not to look at you and not see my mom, not to see my cousins, one of them who had to come here and sit behind you.

My cousins, one of them who had to come here and sit behind you. She had to have your back. I see my ancestors and yours. Nobody's going to steal the joy of that woman in the street or the calls that I'm getting or the texts. Nobody's going to steal that joy. You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American. I will just say that I thought no one made Republican senators seem smaller than Cory Booker did the other day. No expression of outrage,

no burn, no tweet, no attack on Republicans from any other Democrats. Like I, I, I get what you're saying about, you know, other Democrats definitely could have, you know, done a little bit more. And when you actually look through the hearings, you know, they said it was gross and beneath the hearings and how are we dealing with this? And, you know, you're putting words in the witness's mouth like they did all that. Dick Durbin did not get control of the committee and, you know, let them keep going and probably could have gaveled them in earlier for sure. But like they did attack the other Republican senators, but that's not what was needed. And that's not necessarily what was going to stick with people.

What was going to stick with people, what people are going to take away from this and remember if they remember anything aside from those fucking awful gross attacks is what Cory Booker said there. And I think that only Cory Booker could have done that. And I don't know that we needed another impassioned speech from like a white guy on the committee. Like I, what we needed was what Cory Booker said just then. And I thought that, well, I like cried now multiple times when I've heard that,

which is just, it was an, it was an amazing speech. Yeah. I think you're exactly right about the power of Booker's speech, but also the right approach is to return to first principles here. This hearing is theoretically about the qualifications of this judge to become a Supreme Court justice. become a Supreme Court justice. And this is sort of what Republicans are trying to do, and they're very good at, is dragging us all into the mud and losing sight of the bigger picture,

which is it is a horrendous injustice that for the history of this country, there's never been a black woman on the United States Supreme Court. That's horrendous. And that wrong is being righted here. And it's being righted with a tremendous, qualified, brilliant woman and apparently incredibly patient woman to do it. whether it was Elena Kagan or Neil Gorsuch for Republicans or whatever else, was because this was a moment people recognized that moment and Cory Booker reminded us of that moment. That's what Republicans are trying – that's part of the tactic here. With some efficacy because it took us until the, I don't know, 15-minute mark of this podcast to hear Judge Jackson's voice, right, to talk about that.

Kudos to Cory Booker for sort of thinking about politics in a bigger way and reminding us of the greater truth here. And that's what cuts through all the bullshit. And I think what Democrats need to keep in mind is one of the most important things he said was, I'm not letting anyone in the Senate steal my joy. Katonji Brown Jackson is going to get confirmed. She's 51 years old. She's going to be on the Supreme Court for a long time. She'll be the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court after far, far too long. And she is going to have a huge impact, not just a symbolic impact, but in the actual decisions that she hands down. And hopefully she can hand them down at some point

when the liberal justices are in the majority. But we're going to get her on the court. And that's the win. And people should feel very proud of that. And you should not let yourself get dragged down in the mud with Republicans because that is what they want. Our friend Heather McGee really made me think with a tweet where she tweeted the picture of Cruz looking for his own name. And she said, you know, this is why I haven't amplified a lot of the Republican comments over the last couple of days, even to attack them, even to disagree with them, because that's what they want. They want us to argue about the bullshit that they said. They want us to remember that that's what they said. And what we should take away from this

hearing is what Katonji Brown Jackson said about herself, about her record, about her life, about her qualifications, and what Cory Booker said about what this moment truly means for her, for Black Americans, and for the entire country. And that's what we should take away from this. I mean, this period of the last year or so has been incredibly frustrating for a lot of progressives, right? A lot of the things that we hope to get done have run into Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema and all of that. But the fact that Katachi Brown Jackson was sitting there in that hearing room yesterday and is going to be confirmed in the Supreme Court is only because of the work people did in this presidential election and in Georgia. And so for whatever things that we wanted to get done, we have not gotten done yet. That hugely important, incredible thing that is going to last for decades happened because a bunch of people did a whole bunch of really important organizing and work. And so if you're looking for reasons to remember what felt so good, this is one of them. Yeah. You wonder why you did the work. This is why you do the work.

We talked a little bit about this on Tuesday's pod, but even though a lot of the antics from the hearings were just Republicans being Republicans, it also seemed like they were testing out lines of attack for the midterms on their favorite culture war issues, crime, critical race theory, transgender rights. I know you wrote a message box about this today. What are your thoughts? Republicans have two strategies for 2022. And one of them is they have to keep their base at a fever pitch. And that's what all of this culture war stuff is about. It's about weaponizing race in crime and demagoguing the trans community and everything else is to scare the living shit out of their base, right? Their overwhelmingly white base. But they want to do that for their base, and then which they believe they can communicate with directly through Fox, Facebook, whatever

sort of right wing media machine, but then also have a separate message that is about inflation and gas prices and wherever we are in the pandemic when Election Day comes. And so this is that first part about trying to keep people as fired up as possible to get as much turnout as they can possibly get, which is why it's not an accident that they made these explicit appeals to QAnon because – and we should be very specific about what that is. QAnon is a cult that the FBI has called a domestic terror threat. And Republicans need them as part of their coalition because for all of the discussion of the strength they have in this election because of inflation or gas prices or President Biden's approval rating, the political position of Republicans continues to deterior deteriorate nationally their base is shrinking as a percentage of the country and so they need cuban on so this is this is an explicit appeal to keep those people in the base yeah no i think it's a very good point that if republicans just get their base excited, outraged over all of this shit, as they like to do,

that's probably not enough for them. What they have also is this message about inflation and chaos everywhere and aren't you just unhappy with the way things are going in the country, particularly the economy, right? That's, of course, they may end up winning the midterms

based on that message. That's not what gets them up in the morning. Right. What gets them up in the morning is picking fights about race and sex and gender and identity. And that's what you saw in these hearings, that that's what they really care about. But it is it is tricky for them because some of the voters they may get by saying, aren't you just pissed off about inflation? Don't you think Biden should have fixed it by now? Do not agree with them on all of these positions that they took this week that people saw on TV.

And I actually think that I think that they overreached by quite a good deal in this hearing, because it's like they I think they seemed obsessed with race and sex and gender in a way where, you know, like I said, Ted Cruz is blowing up a kid's book. Marsha Blackburn is asking a Supreme Court nominee to define the word woman. I mean, it seems like an obsession. Again, I'm not talking about to the base. The base loves us. The base gets it. The base gets outraged over this shit. But for most people who don't follow this, seems fucking weird it seems like a weird fucking obsession and also like you know this wasn't part of the hearing but mike braun a republican senator from indiana said during an interview about judge jackson's confirmation on tuesday that he'd be open to the supreme court overturning its 1967 ruling that legalized interracial marriage uh and he'd be okay with that

with the supreme court leaving that issue up to the states also uh contraception as well here's a clip so you would be okay with the supreme court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states yes i think that that's something that that if you're not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you're not going to be able to have your cake and eat it, too. I think that's hypocritical. Not going to be able to have your cake and eat it, too. Interracial marriage. They went on to ask him about Griswold versus Connecticut, which is a case about contraception. He said the same thing with that, too.

So that's contraception. Here's just 95% of Americans support interracial marriage, Dan. I never thought we'd have to bring out that number from a poll. But just so you know, 95% of people support interracial marriage. 78% support birth control, access to fucking birth control in this country. And, you know, Mark Joseph Stern at Slate pointed something else out, which sort of got lost in the hearings. John Cornyn during the hearing went after Obergefell, which is the decision that legalizes same sex marriage in this country. And lest you think that because Obergefell was decided

in 2015 that Republicans have given up on attacking same sex marriage. Not so. Not so. Because John Cornyn, during the hearing, started going after Obergefell and basically let them know that that's what they want their justices to do. That's what they want conservative justices to do, is to overturn Obergefell. And that's 75% support for gay marriage in this country.

You know, I wasn't expecting to hear all that this week, especially Mike Braun talking about interracial marriage. Were you? Were, what did, were you more surprised by that someone named Mike Braun said that, or that there was someone named Mike Braun who serves the United States Senate? I did not. Yeah. He's a Senator from Indiana. Apparently. Apparently so. Yes. Look, I mean, he made it, he made this lame attempt to clean up the statement later on, which you all heard it. It seemed pretty, you know, we played the clip. We didn't have the clip originally.

I'm like, you know what? He tried to clean it up. Let's make sure everyone can hear it. Just that there he was right there. I don't think that was a mistake. I don't think it was a mishap. It was a yes or no question. He answered yes. There is no – look, I mean I think there is something to be taken from this that connects to the earlier discussion about how the republicans have been trying to weaponize race in class. And what I was most struck by, other than a sitting United States senator saying he'd be okay with states banning interracial marriage, is that almost no Democrats talked about it.

It just came and went. And I – you know, when I had this conversation with you, you know there's nothing I fucking hate more than the people who've never worked in politics, who just have access to Twitter, who constantly just yell about Democrats doing more. Fight harder. Do more. Have more press conferences. Those people have no idea what it's the types of decisions that politicians have to make and how hard it is to get your message out. And they never sort of account for the Democratic messaging disadvantage or that there's no one person in charge of the party. But this is one of those situations where Democrats should have done more. Because this is not just one statement by one random senator who we discovered existed 24 hours ago. This is essentially the truth, the underbelly of the entire Republican message. The Republican message is make America great again. It is a restorative message. The argument is that America is getting more diverse. It's changing. We are

heading towards a multiracial democracy. And that multiracial democracy is bad for you, white people. And so we are going to return to the period before that, before voting rights, before civil rights, before the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage. And when people, your opponents tell you something that is supported by 5% of the country, that is core to their message, you have to hammer them over the fucking heads on it. And yes, there was a lot going on there. We're in the middle of confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court justice, Ukraine Ukraine gas prices. Everyone's saying, talk about this, talk about that. But I do think there's this learned helplessness among Democrats that is, if the topic is race or crime, it's an automatic loser for us.

So we have to immediately ignore it, let the pitch go by, and try to get on a more favorable territory. And we know Republicans, because of their messaging power, dictate the terms of conversation in political conversation in America. So we have to figure out how to take those issues on and win them and then be able to move to more favorable terrain. And so if a Republican, just imagine for a second if the shoe was on another foot and a Democrat said something like that.

Imagine what the Republicans would have done, what Fox would have done. There would have been statements on the floor of the Senate, the tweets, and there was nothing. Lots of Democratic activists talked about it. Some Democratic groups pushed it. But the official establishment Democratic Party let this pitch go by. And there aren't that many pitches left until 2022. I think that the problem is some Democrats treat all of these culture war issues the same. And they believe that they are all divisive and that we shouldn't talk about them because, you know, sometimes it's unpopular. And look, there are some positions that we hold as Democrats on cultural and racial issues that

aren't as popular, but we hold them because it's the right thing to do. And that's our values. And we believe in them and good for us. This what we saw this week, Republicans going after interracial marriage, gay marriage, birth control. That is not something anyone needs to be afraid of. That is something that Democrats should be shouting from the rooftops. 95% support, 75% support, 80% support. These are issues that we are on the right. This is issues that splits the Republican Party,

right? This unites Democrats. This is 70, 80%, 90% support among independents and probably half of Republican voters believe these things too. And Democrats should absolutely march away from these hearings being like, we saw this week that Republicans told the country that if they return to power, they want to go after interracial marriage. They want to go after gay marriage. They want to go after your contraception. That's the kind of judicial system that they want in this country. You know, and if you're not doing that, what are you doing? Maybe they will. Maybe they will. It's just been a week. Let's talk about what else Democrats can do to respond to these lines of attack ahead of the

midterms. The National Republican Congressional Committee leaked an internal poll to Politico this week that showed Republicans ahead on the generic ballot by four points in 77 competitive districts that Joe Biden won by an average of 5.5 points in 2020. 75% of voters in these districts say that Democrats are, quote, out of touch or condescending. And those who identify the economy or inflation as their top concern support Republicans by over 20 points. This is an internal NRCC poll, so obviously it should be taken with a huge grain of salt. But if you're DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney and the Democratic candidates in those districts, how, if at all, does what you heard this week from those Republican senators change or shape your campaign going forward? It is yet another argument for why making this election more of a choice and less of a referendum is too hard. Dramatic advantage.

Republicans have unpopular positions. They are obsessed with cultural issues that are massively detached from the huge challenges that American families are facing. Instead of worrying about gas prices or the cost of things at the grocery store, they are focused on policing kids' books, overturning, getting rid of gay marriage, deciding who marries who, right? Gay marriage, interracial marriage. We have to go on offense. to go on offense. And that may not be enough. This is a brutal political environment. But it sure is hell better than what it is that has been happening. So we have to go on offense. We have to attack the Republicans. We have to do it with a unified voice, with a singular message. We're not running local campaigns. This is generic Democratic against generic Republican. People actually like generic Democrats better than generic Republicans. They really like generic Democratic policies better than generic Republicans. And so let's go have the argument. Yeah, it's actually a lot more simple than people make it out to be. We need to remind people of

their extreme positions and remind them they will turn those positions into laws if they win. need to remind people of their extreme positions and remind them they will turn those positions into laws if they win. These are extreme right wing culture warriors who will fuck with your life if they win. They will fuck with they will fuck with you over who you are, who you love, who you marry, what you look like, what you do with your own body, what kind of health care you can get, how easy it is for you to vote, whether your vote will even count. They will not take care of you. They will not protect you. They will not make you rich.

They only care about themselves, making themselves rich, protecting themselves, taking care of themselves. That's who they are as a party. You're upset. The country things aren't going well. Understandable. This is the alternative. What they have offered this week.

Pretty clear message message the message is it could be worse i mean do we want to be honest it could be worse it would definitely be worse yes yeah there's also a number of wonderful policies that democrats have that if only we had a couple more democratic senators would make a huge difference in people's lives so that's the other that's the other message as well we had a lot of good stuff uh that uh that joe manchin and kirsten cinema have been fucking with that if you give us two more senators we could actually pass into law so that's that's the other side here your bumper stickers it could be worse in 52 is the new 50 all All right. When we come back, Dan will talk to State Department Counselor Derek Chalet about Joe Biden's trip to Brussels amid the raging war in Ukraine.

Right now, President Biden is in Europe for a series of critical meetings with our allies to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is now entering its second month. Joining me now to discuss Biden's trip is State Department Counselor Derek Shillay. Derek, welcome to Pod Save America. Dan, it's great to be with you. Great to be out with the pod here. Absolutely. So, Derek, let's start with this high-profile series of meetings the President is doing. What are he and the administration trying to accomplish abroad on this trip? Sure, Dan. Well, today, it's been a month since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began.

And of course, every day we see new images of brutality and terrible things happening in Ukraine. And so this was a special NATO summit. Normally, as you know, these summits take months and months and months to prepare, but this was something that was not planned a month ago. This was just put together just really in the last week. And so it's the opportunity for President Biden to be in Brussels with 29 other NATO leaders. And then also he's going to be seeing leaders of the G7, as well as the

European Union. So really over the 24 hour span here, this is an opportunity for the president to obviously check signals with all of our important partners who have all been contributing to this effort to support Ukraine and punish Russia, but also to chart a way ahead on some of the things that we're worried about happening in the future regarding this conflict. So as we sort of look at what's happening, there's sort of like two things that I think are true at the same time. One is anyone who looks at the sanctions that have been put into date by the US, NATO, all of our partners, they've been very damaging to the Russian economy, to the oligarchs who fund Putin's efforts.

Yet at the same time, it does not seem to have stopped, certainly not stopped the invasion, or even really hemmed in some of the atrocious and horrendous things that President Putin is doing in Ukraine. Are there more levers the president wants to pull? Or is there things he's trying to get his allies to agree to here that would put additional pressure on Russia? Sure. Well, there's more sanctions that are being outlined right now. In fact, just today, the president outlined another 300 some Russian individuals, members of the Duma, other government leaders that the United States is going to be sanctioning as well as other defense entities. As we continue to go at the various pieces of the Russian economy that's fueling this conflict and also enabling Putin to stay in power.

At the same time, the Europeans are also going to be putting additional sanctions on, which is particularly meaningful because of the extent of Europe's economic relationship with Russia, which is much larger than the U.S. relationship. Also, importantly, and this is something the president's going to be talking about with European Union leadership, is working with Europe on their own energy independence, because the area where Europe and Russia have the deepest relationship is on energy. And so, look, Europe gets a good chunk of its energy supplies from Russia. It has for many years. So that is a point of leverage that Russia has over Europe. Europe has nevertheless

moved forward on sanctions, many of which I think surprised a lot of folks about the degree of which Europe was willing to go forward on meaningful sanctions against Russia. And they're willing to do more. But importantly, we're going to talk to them about ways we, the United States, can help European partners become more energy independent. So they're less reliant on Russia. And that's more of a long term strategy to deal with Russia's influence in the region, correct? Yeah. I mean, there's some short term things we can do to help bridge these remaining cold months to get through the summer and the fall. But yes, this is something that you're not going to be able to wean Europe off Russian energy in a matter of months.

It's going to take years to do that. And so another important aspect of this trip has to do with the refugee crisis in Europe. It's something President Biden intends to address. There are reports today that the United States is prepared to accept upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and make a significant resource commitment to the region. What can you tell us about that? So you're right. I mean, this is the largest refugee crisis we've seen in Europe since the Second World War. There are more than 3 million folks who've left Ukraine. And then there's more than double that displaced within Ukraine. So at this point, about a quarter of Ukraine's

population is displaced. And what that means is that they have left their home. So they are either somewhere else in Ukraine seeking safety and shelter, or they have crossed the border and become refugees. The brunt of that is being bore by the polls. And so the polls right now have over 2 million refugees from Ukraine. That's why President Biden will be going to meet with some of these refugees over the weekend and then also meet with the Polish government, because the Polish government and their people are sacrificing a huge amount. So the United States, we got to do our part. And so part of that is what the president's announced that we'd be willing to take up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

What the president's announced that we'd be willing to take up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. That's a significant number. I mean, that's that that number itself is more than refugees all around the world that we take a year annually. Now, look, it's unclear, frankly, how many of these refugees would want to come to the United States at this point. I mean, I think a lot of folks who've left Ukraine because of the war, perhaps they want to go back once the war ends. It would make sense. They want to go back to their homes. And so, but we nevertheless are willing to take up to 100,000. And I think that's the least we can do right now, given the magnitude of this crisis. Another element of this that I know is on the agenda for the meeting, particularly with NATO, is the potential for Russian cyber attacks on the US or NATO partners. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan talked a little bit about this the other day. What can you tell us about what the United States is

doing to prepare for such attacks and how we're thinking or what the discussions are happening with our allies about what a response to those attacks would look like? Sure. Obviously, we've been worried about Russian cyber attacks for quite some time preceding this crisis, and we've been the victim, we, the United States, of Russian cyber attacks over the last several years. So part of what we're trying to do is build our resilience and make sure that the particularly critical infrastructure is protected as best we can. We're also, the U.S. government, to the extent we have information or getting information out to industry and to particularly those who would be most vulnerable to a Russian cyber attack, trying to build awareness among the American people as well. And so that's why I'm glad you asked me about it, because I think all

of us could be victimized by a Russian cyber attack in some shape or another. And so although we haven't seen necessarily evidence that one is looming, we have to be vigilant and ready for one. But then also we've been very clear to the Russians that that that would cross a line. And, you know, President Biden, when he was with Vladimir Putin last summer in Geneva, when they had a summit meeting there, and it was shortly after the Colonial Pipeline attack, which took offline an energy pipeline. And it was attributed to criminal network, not necessarily backed by the Russian government. But, you know, President Biden said to President Putin in the wake of that, look, you got to crack down on these guys. You got to do something about this because, you know, you got a lot of energy pipelines, too. And boy, it would be pretty inconvenient for you if some of those went offline.

So, you know, I think we the good news is we haven't seen evidence of that yet. The bad news is we have to be ready for it and be vigilant in case one of those attacks were to happen. It's something President Biden talked about with NATO allies in my years of going back and forth to NATO meetings. It's been an ongoing discussion at NATO for many years about what the alliance can do. So working with other countries to try to deter those attacks, but then also respond if they were to occur. Yesterday, Secretary Blinken reaffirmed a statement that President Biden made recently, suggesting that the Russians had engaged in war crimes. And this was, Secretary Blinken made a more formal, detailed presentation of that case. Can you, what is the sort of substantive legal value of that, and where does it go from here? Sure. Well, as you said, Dan, that last

week, the president and the secretary of state said that in their opinion, their war crimes were being committed inside Ukraine. And we just needed to use our own eyes to see that happen when hospitals getting bombed and shelters that are clearly identified with children and them being bombed. It is a war crime to intentionally target civilian areas, and that is happening. So what was announced the other day here at the State Department was the conclusion of some evidentiary work that had been done, some research and gathering of the data that could conclusively say that war crimes had been committed. Now, there's various legal processes underway in the

international community. There is an international criminal court, which of course the United States is not part of, but we can contribute evidence to, to the extent cases are going to come forward. And so one of the reasons why we did this yesterday is to make clear that, A, this is happening and there's an evidentiary basis for it, but that, B, there needs to be accountability. It's actually interesting this week, this is a little off topic, but on Monday of this week, Secretary Blinken went to the Holocaust Museum here in Washington and announced a conclusion that he had made, the State Department had made, that genocide had occurred in Burma several years ago. And that's something that took a lot of research and time to come to that conclusion. And even though these crimes, those crimes were committed

several years ago, it was important for us here today, four years later, to talk about it, to show that we are watching and that there's accountability. And so that's part of why we wanted to make this announcement yesterday. This is going to start a process that the U.S. will be part of in the international community to ensure that there's accountability for the actions that are taking place today in Ukraine down the road. So just to kind of dig in on this a sec, because the U.S. is not a part, like Russia, not a part of the International Criminal Court, if another country, where maybe this is part of the plan, were to make a finding to that court, the U.S. would supply evidence? Exactly. We can provide information for that case. And so that's part of what we had started to do when the invasion started. We put together a team here in the U.S. government to accrue the evidence and sort of keep an eye on everything. And to the extent we had information

that could corroborate anything that we're seeing with our own eyes, I mean, that's one thing that's remarkable about this war is so much of it is unfolding right in front of us in real time, either from citizen journalists on the ground or all of the journalists we've got out there in the field. So this was just the formal evidentiary basis of the war crimes. I know another topic of discussion among the US and our allies over the course of this 24-hour period is about the potential for Russia to use weapons of mass destruction. There have been some concerns raised about the potential for using chemical weapons and even nuclear weapons. And in fact, a pretty disturbing

report in a recent day or so that suggested that US military officials were unable to get Russian officials on the phone to have conversations. That may seem weird to folks now, like, why would they talk on the phone? But even in the height of the Cold War, it was very important to keep those back channels open so that no one misunderstood something and ended the world. And have an accident occur. Yes, exactly. What is the level of concern about that?

Are there other back channels we're unaware of or just communications happening that are more in the normal course of business here? What's the conversation like about this concern? We are very concerned about it. And one of the reasons why we're concerned is Russia is talking a lot about it. And as we've seen in their playbook, they tend to assert that Ukraine is using chemical weapons or Ukraine and the US are creating chemical weapons on their own. The bio lab conspiracy, for instance. Totally bogus, right? And this is right out of

their playbook, but that then creates a pretext or a justification in their minds for the use of such weapons. So we haven't seen indications that they're preparing for that. However, we are hearing them say publicly and raise concerns about Ukraine chemical weapons, which again, is completely bogus. So that's why we need to be vigilant about this. It's one of the things that President Biden talked about today at NATO and with other European leaders about hearing from them about their concerns, but then also thinking about what we may do in response or how we could best prepare for that. And actually, NATO made some decisions today. do in response or how we could best prepare for that. And actually, NATO made some decisions today.

And again, NATO is a military alliance. And so for our NATO militaries to coordinate on response options in terms of how, if God forbid, a chemical weapon were used, there could be a real danger to European countries with plumes of chemical weapon materials flowing across borders about how we can best defend ourselves from that. Derek, last question. I know another huge priority of Secretary Blinken in the Biden administration is trying to reconstitute a nuclear agreement with Iran. What is happening in Russia has created some complications for that. I think you can tell me about progress you were making and how you're navigating the situation that Russia was a part of the original agreement and plays an important role in what a new agreement would look like. Yeah. So Russia has been part of the

process going back to the original Iran agreement negotiated during the Obama administration as part of the negotiations with the Iranians to curb their nuclear program. Really, up until this crisis, up until the invasion, they had been a relatively constructive part of those negotiations. So they weren't throwing up roadblocks or anything. We hit a wrinkle a few weeks ago with them, but I think that could be ironed out. But we're still not in an agreement yet with return to the so-called the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. I think our perspective is, Dan, first, the policy that we inherited, the policy of the last several years now of so-called maximum pressure against Iran has not worked at all. It's made Iran's program more dangerous, nuclear program more dangerous, and it's made Iran a more dangerous actor throughout the Middle East. So we believe that getting back to the JCPOA, which puts Iran's nuclear program in a box, is the best way forward. I think particularly given the moment we're in,

where we were just talking about the possible use of WMD in Ukraine, the last thing we need is another nuclear crisis in the world happening simultaneously. So we're not there yet in a deal. I don't know whether we will be able to finish the deal with the Iranians because we still have some details to figure out. But if we do enter the deal, re-enter the deal, I think it would make us safer. Derek Shillay, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save America. And I will let you get back to this very, very busy day I imagine you have. Thanks. It was great to be here. Appreciate it. Okay, before we go, some goodish news for your weekend from NBC's first read.

Quote, when Donald Trump travels to Georgia this Sunday for his latest rally, he'll arrive in his weakest political position in months within his own party. Here's why. In Georgia, polls show the Trump-backed David Perdue trailing Governor Brian Kemp, despite Trump appearing in multiple Perdue ads. In Missouri, Trump is now hinting that he may end his flirtation with endorsing Eric Greitens after court filings revealed the former governor's ex-wife accused him of physically abusing her and their three-year-old son to the point where she slept in the child's room to protect him. Fucking revolting. And in Alabama, the former president made some news this week when he rescinded his endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks, because Brooks is badly trailing his opponents.

But obviously, Trump needed to concoct a better reason than that. So he released a statement saying that Brooks, who famously urged January 6th rally goers to, quote, start taking down names and kicking ass, has, in Trump's words, gone woke. Dan, what's Trump's evidence for Mo Brooks going woke? This is truly my favorite story in months. Because Mo Brooks...

That's a high standard. Well, no, not if you look at the news we've been getting on Thursdays for a while here. True, true, true, true. It's my favorite Thursday story. There have been a lot of other good stories. But Mo Brooks is a fucking lunatic. He says insane, stupid things 24 seven.

He says one thing that is not insane. And that is that Donald Trump, there is not the legal authority to reinstate Donald Trump and remove Joe Biden from the white house right here and now. He says that one thing and Donald Trump calls him woke in unendorsism. It is just fucking, nothing has ever better explained

the state of the Trump-era Republican Party than that. Say one thing and you are on the outs. It's just, it's fucking great. Did you read the interview that Mo Brooks gave when he talked about this? When Trump was trump was with him it was around labor day last year in september and and he basically tells brooks i want you to rescind the 2020 election and hold a special election an emergency election to put me back in the white house and get joe biden out of there and he got mo bro, one of the craziest fucking members in Congress,

to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am just a country lawyer here, sir, but I do not believe that I have the power to reinstate you as president. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. I know we talked about Trump's endorsement effect on other Senate races last week, but what do you think about how much it matters in these three states, Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri? Apparently it doesn't matter very much at all. I mean, he can't, it's Alabama, right? He cannot help Mo Brooks even before Mo Brooks went woke on him.

In Georgia, his candidate, at least Hershel Walker, his Senate candidate, is doing very well, but Hershel Walker does not need Donald Trump to be doing well. I mean, there is real evidence that Trump's support is not worth as much as everyone assumed it was. Now, that doesn't mean that Trump's active opposition might not be very damaging to people, but simply having Donald Trump endorse you is not the golden ticket to Congress that it potentially was a few years ago. That has changed for sure. Yeah. This is one more notable Trump story we should talk about that broke late Wednesday night in the New York Times. This one is much more frustrating than anything else. Remember when the Times reported last month that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had

decided to stop pursuing a criminal indictment against Trump for his corrupt business dealings? Well, the Times got a copy of the resignation letter submitted by one of the top prosecutors in the case, Mark Pomerantz, who wrote in the letter that he believed the former president was quote, guilty of numerous felony violations, that there was enough evidence to prove Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that it was a, quote, grave failure of justice for Bragg not to hold him accountable and move forward with the indictment. What was your reaction to that story? One, just as you read it, it was like, God, how did the Times stumble on the resignation letter?

Did they find it in Mark Pomerantz's trash? Why can't they just say that Mark Pomerantz gave it to him? Which he has every right to do, and I'm glad he fucking did, but it's like you're not Woodward and Bernstein getting something from Deep Throat in the parking lot, right? It's just like something they emailed it to you. Honestly, he might as well have just tweeted out the letter. I know, huge.

He should have just put it on a notes app. He'd have a million Twitter followers. Think of the clout he would have if he had just end-runted the Times. Yeah, he'd be like

Occupy Democrat. That's right. RT if you think. Well, I mean, I just, I envision people standing at the Supreme Court and watching the impeachment eagle flying in and thinking it's gonna land and then it just turns and goes right away like we

were so fucking close they really pulled up at the last minute there i mean one thing we learned from the story that was that was news is that cyrus vance the last da right before he left office had in fact decided to pursue a criminal indictment of donald trump like it was going to happen and then fucking alvin bragg took over and backed off whoa what's going on here i'd like to know more about why that happened why bragg backed off yeah i mean it seems like if you're reading the when i read the story a couple times try to figure this out it seemed like what they had decided to move forward with, the case they thought was going to be the easiest to prove, is that Trump had falsified his business records. The prosecutors, Pomerantz and his partner, both believed that there was enough evidence to prove that Trump had knowingly falsified the records. It seems like Bragg thought that, yes, the records were false, but that maybe it would be harder to prove that Trump knew that they were false or that

knew which, you know, clearly the prosecutors disagree. Now, look, in these cases, prosecutors disagree with their supervisors all the time. Sometimes supervisors don't bring a case that prosecutors very much want them to bring. It's very much out of school for then a prosecutor to go out and publicize the fact that they thought that someone was guilty, that they were going to charge without charging them. Like you wouldn't want that to happen in many cases, I should say. I know that's Donald Trump, so we say whatever, but like that's not a normal practice. But it does also suggest that like Bragg's official line right now is, oh, we're continuing the investigation. If he we're continuing the investigation.

If he really is continuing the investigation and there might be a chance that he indicts Trump, then Pomerantz putting that letter out actually harms that investigation, which makes you think that Pomerantz released the letter because he actually knows that Bragg is never going to bring the charge against Trump, which sucks, Dan. We've been waiting so long.

We're waiting for that impeachment eagle. It's not even an impeachment eagle. It's an indictment eagle. We've been doing this for so long. It has evolved into the indictment eagle. I mean, just to sort of tie this in a bow, as a professional podcaster should, this seems at least somewhat adjacent to the fact that the Republicans are running around accusing Democrats of being soft on crime when their chosen party leader, the person who holds fundraisers for them, who attends rallies for

them, who they're willing to storm the Capitol for is a fucking criminal, right? Criminal. It is. Being a Trump-enabling Republican means you are soft on crime, right? And it seems like a point we could point out at some point, in addition to yelling, fund the police at the top of our lungs, we could point out that the Republican Party has been helping their leader avoid criminal prosecution for years now. Yeah, they love crime when it's one of their own. When it's committed by a powerful Republican, eh, whatever.

Putting the white in white collar crime. We can't top that, Dan. We can't top that. Thank you to Derek Chalet for joining us today that's just how Derek Chalet

I had to do that with Lovett and Judd Apatow on the Monday pod thank you thank you to Derek Chalet for joining us today

everyone go buy pre-order Battling the Big Lie have a great weekend and we will talk to you next week and subscribe to offline. Bye everyone.

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