Pod Save America - "Comey came to play."

Episode Date: June 8, 2017

Jim Comey builds a case for obstruction of justice in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff joins Jon and Dan to break it down. Then, Trumpcare 2.0 gets new life in the Senate, and Ana Marie Cox joins to talk about the Republican reaction to Comey's testimony.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today to get his immediate reaction to the James Comey hearing. The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and friend of the pod, Adam Schiff, will be joining us in just a few minutes. Later in the program, we're also going to have the host of Crooked Media is with friends like these, Anna Marie Cox. And, yeah, exciting show. We've got quite a hearing just now, Dan. Happy Comey Day.

Happy Comey Day. Also, a reminder, some voting reminders. June 20th is coming up, and that is the day that the election in the Georgia 6th will be taking place. So if you're in Georgia, if you have friends in Georgia, remind them to vote for John Ossoff. He's in a tight race with Karen Handel, who during their last debate said, quote, I do not support a livable wage. That was a great move by Karen Handel there. So go vote for John Ossoff.

Also, this hasn't been covered as much because it's not quite as close, unfortunately. But the race to replace Mick Mulvaney in South Carolina, the Democrat there is Archie Purnell. And he's making it a close race there. So if you're in South Carolina and you're in that district, in Mulvaney's old district, or you know someone there, go vote for Archie Purnell. And, of course, the Virginia primary. Tuesday. Tuesday, between Northam and Tom Perriello, who's on the pod for governor. Look, we're on this pod, we're for Tom Perriello, but, you know, we're just a reminder for everyone

to go vote in the primary for sure. That's right, vote. Oh, we have Representative Schiff. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Very good. Okay, we know you've got. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Very good. Okay, we know you've got a whole bunch of things to do today, so we'll get right to it for you. Alright.

So, on the pod today, we are very lucky to have, for his reaction to the Comey hearing, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff. I'm assuming he just came from one of the bars in D.C. to talk to us right now and give a reaction. Representative Schiff, thanks for joining the pod. Okay, first question. What was the most important thing you learned from the Comey hearing today? Well, what I found most striking was the President of the United States basically told the director of the FBI to drop a pending criminal case involving his national security advisor. That is pretty stunning. And the FBI director also testifying that he was fired basically in an

effort to alter the course of the Russia investigation. It's hard to imagine something much more serious than that. So the standard for obstruction of justice is corrupt intent, is the legal phrase. I know you're not, you know, prosecuting a legal case here, but what other kind of intent could Trump have had when he asked Comey to drop the investigation of his national security advisor? Well, I have the same impression that Director Comey testified today about when it comes to the president's intent. And that is, to me, what has always been most striking is the fact that the president asked everybody else to leave the room.

That certainly suggests to me that he was conscious that what he was doing was wrong. And so that's probably among the best insights into what the president knew and whether his intent was corrupt or not. If it was above board, then why have this conversation completely in private? Why orchestrate it to have all these conversations in private? I think the president was certainly aware that what he was doing was improper. So that, to me, is the most telling thing. We're also going to want to know, though, what conversations did he have with other intelligence agency heads? Did he ask Directors Coats or Rogers or Pompeo to weigh in with Comey also?

Because whether they did it or not, and Comey said they didn't weigh in with him, the more important question is, did the president make this ask also of these other directors? Representative Schiff, I was curious what your reaction was to Mr. Coats, Pompeo, and others being unwilling to answer these questions yesterday? Well, I thought it was completely unacceptable. There is no legal basis that they articulated for them to refuse to answer the questions. It clearly is not classified. They can't hide behind classification and really didn't make an effort to do that. There was also no claim of executive privilege. Now, there may be a subsequent claim, but there hadn't been one made at that time. And so they should

have answered the questions. The fact that it was awkward is not a reason not to. The fact that they want to keep their jobs is not a reason not to. So ultimately, we're going to have to get those answers. I did speak to Director Rogers after his testimony to underscore my view that they're not going to be able to persist in refusing to answer those questions. What kind of means do you have to get them to answer these questions? Well, we can compel them to answer. I ultimately don't think that's going to be necessary. We should find out in short order whether the administration is going to make a claim of privilege. I think it's going to be a very weak case if they try.

In fact, I think the president has waived any privilege. I think the witnesses yesterday waived any privilege by talking in part about this, by saying basically they didn't feel that this president had pressured them to do something they thought was illegal or improper. It's not really the question whether they felt it was improper or illegal. The question is, did the president make that ask, whether they did it or not? So I think it would be a flawed claim of privilege, and then we'd have to litigate it if it came to that. But I don't think we're going to have to compel them. I think these witnesses are ultimately, and I hope sooner rather than later,

But I don't think we're going to have to compel them. I think these witnesses are ultimately, and I hope sooner rather than later, are going to agree to answer those questions. Let's go back to Comey for a second. Speaker Ryan, I guess, had a press conference during the hearings where he said that he sort of attributed Trump's actions related to Comey to the fact that he's, quote, new to this. I wanted to get your reaction to that. I don't buy that at all.

I think a lot of people want to write off this president's conduct and say well he's not a career politician this is just as yes wave his way of doing business i think everyone understands uh... how inappropriate this is you don't have to be a career politician we don't hold you to a different standard uh... depending on what your path is to the highest office in the land. You're held to the standard of the law and the Constitution. So I don't buy that. I don't accept that.

I think that's really a dodge, and we ought to demand the same high standard of behavior from this president as we do of any other. Some Republicans are arguing that today was a win because Comey said that he told Trump he wasn't personally a subject of their counterintelligence investigation. Obviously, in the House, you're running an investigation yourself. Is Trump himself connected to the House investigation? Well, you know, all I can talk about publicly is, you know, we're looking at any of the connections between the Trump organization and the Russians. We're looking at issues, obviously, of whether there was any coordination or collusion in terms of the hacking and dumping operation.

We're also looking at whether the Russians exerted any kind of financial interest, financial entanglement over the Trump family or organization in the same way they have done in Europe, where they entangle people economically as a way of using leverage. We're looking at allegations, obviously, of whether there was any compromise or compromising material on anyone affiliated with the Trump organization or administration. So all of these are issues that we're looking into. And I think if we're going to do a thorough job, we have to look at all the tactics that the Russians use elsewhere and try to determine how many of them were used here and against whom. You had said previously that you believe there's more than circumstantial evidence of collusion between Trump associates

and Russia. Do you believe that's still the case? Yes, I do. And, you know, I thought it was very illuminating people's reaction to the written testimony and i'm sure the actual testimony that we've had it uh... with some members saying well there's no evidence of obstruction i think there is evidence here of interference and obstruction whether there is sufficient evidence is a different question but if we were prosecuting a case of obstruction and you move to admit this as evidence that the president demanded loyalty, that when he didn't get that answer, he later fired the director, that the president directed him to drop a case involving Mike Flynn.

When that didn't happen, he was fired. That he wanted the cloud lifted, all of these things, and the president's own explanation for why he acted, all of that is evidence. Now people may have different views about whether it's sufficient evidence, but it is evidence. And I feel the same way in terms of the collusion issue. There is evidence, whether it is sufficient or not. We can't say at the beginning of the investigation, but there's certainly a good reason why the

FBI opened their investigation. There's a good reason why the FBI and special counsel continue that investigation, and there's good reason for us to continue our investigation in Congress. As your committee pursues this, do you feel like you're getting good cooperation from the Republicans? Do you think that, for the most part, the Republicans actually want to get to the bottom of this, or is there sort of a lot of the traditional politics being played? You know, I think you saw during the open hearing today in the Senate, there's obviously a variety of perspectives among Democrats and Republicans. I do think there is a willingness and a commitment

to get to the bottom of this. At the same time, you know, there were members who were much more interested in looking at the Clinton administration and actions during the Clinton administration, interested in looking at the Clinton administration and actions during the Clinton administration and whose questions were more focused to that. But I would certainly hope that there's a bipartisan interest and commitment to following the evidence wherever it leads. I know that Mr. Conaway and I have both committed to doing that and to doing everything possible to conduct the investigation in a nonpartisan way. I think Mr. Senators Burr and to doing everything possible to conduct investigation and nonpartisan way i think uh... mister senator's burn warner are endeavoring to do the same thing and i think that really

i have to be the right approach what would you be doing differently uh... if you were the chairman of the intelligence committee right now or anything that any actions you'd be taking that you cannot right now because uh... you're the ranking member not the chairman well you know i i i can't say say that my perspective is going to be identical with any of my colleagues on the GOP side, so I'm sure I would do things a bit differently. But nonetheless, the witnesses that I want to bring in have been agreed to.

The witnesses that my GOP colleagues want to bring in, we've agreed to. You know, we'll have discussions, I'm sure, about what the best strategy is and what the best timing is and how much of our investigation should be done publicly and how much should be done privately. Those will be the subject of ongoing discussion, and I'm sure I would have a somewhat different approach if I were running the investigation rather than the minority lead in this investigation. But the most important thing is that it go forward and that the work get done, that there not be any artificial

constraint on the information that we can get, that when people refuse to cooperate, that we have agreement to subpoena them. And that, I think, is the common ground that we have to have. Will Jared Kushner be testifying publicly before your committee? that we have to have. Will Jared Kushner be testifying publicly before your committee? We'll certainly want Mr. Kushner to come before our committee. It's my expectation that with respect to most of the fact witnesses, what you'd call percipient witnesses, those who are involved in the actual events, I would expect that most of those interviews are going to be in private closed session. I would like to have as many hearings as we can in public. Like the hearing today, I thought it was enormously valuable.

I certainly would have loved to have that in the House, but the most important thing is that it get done in one committee or the other in public. We are in the midst of scheduling our next public hearing with former Secretary Jay Johnson. He was one of the signators of the attribution of the first public acknowledgment by the administration that the Russians had done this hack and that it was ordered at the highest levels of the Kremlin. He was also the one who was interfacing with our state elections officials and can talk to the threat that is posed to our elections infrastructure. So that'll be our next open hearing. But I do think that Bob Mueller has

one responsibility, and that is doing investigation in terms of what criminal charges ought to be brought. We have a different responsibility, and a key part of that is informing the public. And that needs to be done in open session as much as possible. Congressman, for our listeners who may not have followed the congressional oversight process, particularly carefully before this, can you help them? How does this end? Will your committee publish a report that lays out its findings? Where does this end and how will the public know what happened? Yes, at the end of the day, and if all goes well, we will conclude our investigation.

We will develop two reports, one classified and one unclassified. The unclassified report will tell the country, okay, here's what we found. Here's what we found on these allegations. Here's what we were able to corroborate. Here's what we couldn't corroborate. Here is where we think a criminal referral is necessary to Bob Mueller. Here are the steps that we think we need to take to protect ourselves in the future. Here's what we can learn about how the government responded in the past and deficiencies in the

government response. So I would imagine our report will cover all those things. The key question, which we won't know until we get done with the investigation, is will it be, in addition to a classified and unclassified report, will it be uh... in addition to a classified and unclassified report will it be one report for both democrats and republicans uh... or will there be a majority report a minority report i sincerely hope that we have one report reflecting uh... all the members uh... and ideally one report that is uh... you know very much the same in both house and senate

i think that would be the best service that we can perform to the public. Representative Schiff, thank you so much. I know you're busy today. We appreciate you coming by. Thank you very much. Take care. This is Pod Save America.

Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. All right, so that was Adam Schiff's take on the testimony. Dan, what was your main takeaway? Well, first I want to say we're becoming a real journalistic enterprise. Yeah, look at us. We have the ranking of the Intel Committee calling in moments after the hearing ends so we can provide our listeners with up-to-the-minute takes.

It's more of a journalistic enterprise than how I watched the hearing in so we can provide our listeners with up to the minute takes. I mean, it's, um, it's more of a journalistic enterprise than how I watched the hearing, which was just lying in bed, tweeting. Emily and I were just dual tweeting in bed with, with Leo. So that was the, that was the, that was the kind of operation we had running this morning, but now, now we had shift on the phone. So that was pretty great. I know we're, know we're legit i went in with high expectations of course and my and the drama and what comey said and the political significance of what comey said greatly exceeded my very high expectations yeah it's funny my expectations were lowered slightly yesterday because i didn't realize that they were going to release his written testimony

for the record as they did yesterday. And so first of all, that was some gripping fucking testimony, right? Like a novel. And whoever would have thought that James Comey would have inserted testimony into the record that used the phrase Russian hookers, but we'll get there later. But once that happened, I was like, well, maybe this is all the good stuff. And it also was so carefully written that I thought maybe he would be in typical James Comey fashion, pretty dry today and just sort of lay out facts and not really comment that much. But he he he opens the hearing with this impromptu statement without notes um that was very compelling and basically just called the president united states a liar

um not basically did call them a liar said that the trump administration tried to defame the fbi and the with lies and sort of the way he went after Trump from that opening statement, I was like, okay, well, James Comey came to play. Yes, he did. I mean, the drama was incredible. And it is worth taking a step back to realize where we are, which is because everything is not in a great place. There's the insanity of the Trump presidency, but the fired director of the FBI went before Congress and broadcast live on all the networks. because he refused to drop an investigation into the president's associates and said essentially that while the president of the United States may not have been part of the counterintelligence investigation that Comey was overseeing as FBI director, in part because he fired Comey, he was now pretty sure President Trump was under investigation for obstructing justice. The president of the United States is under investigation for obstructing justice. this up in James Comey's words. There's two investigations going. What started was a FBI

counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in our election in 2016, right? As part of that investigation, we know that they are currently investigating various Trump associates, right? And yet, we also found out that Trump was right that James Comey assured him on a few different occasions that Trump himself was not personally the target of the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference yet, but his associates are, right? So you have that investigation. Trump, through his actions and general fucking idiocy, has now created another investigation, most likely, as Comey said today, into whether Trump obstructed justice, into whether Trump interfered with the investigation that Comey was running,

and specifically into an investigation into Trump's national security advisor, Michael Flynn, which Comey also confirmed today was a criminal investigation into Michael Flynn for possibly making false statements to federal investigators. And Comey said today that, you know, I mean, Comey basically built a good case for obstruction of justice today without saying the words. He said, of course, as we all expected him to say, you know, I'm not a lawyer. It's not for me to decide whether it was obstruction. But two things, two points he made strongly lead you to believe that it was obstruction.

One, which is Comey said he believes, he's like, I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the way I was conducting the Russia investigation. That's number one. And number two, he told him to let, he believed that when the president said, I hope you can let this go, meaning I hope you can let Flynn go and let that investigation go. He took that as quote, a directive from the president of the United States. from the president of the United States. So I think that's probably a pretty big deal. If Trump had a subconscious, you would think he wanted to go to jail or wanted to get out of the White House because all of his actions are the actions of someone who wants to get caught. Fact is, though, Trump doesn't have a subconscious. He basically has the complex thought processes of a single-celled organism. Eat, sleep, tweet, whatever.

And... But he... The idea... Like, you think, if you go back to the mistakes here, right? I mean, first one's obviously firing Jim Comey, but Jim Comey is probably the worst person. Like, if you were set yourself in Trump's place,

like, after the election, and you think, based on reports, that I have some, my presidency has some legal vulnerability because of Russia and Jared Kush, potentially being a Russian mole and all the other things. And you're in you would say to yourself, what should we do? But we really don't want to anger Jim Comey. Right. And so he tried he did the opposite of that he tried to inappropriately suck up to him. And then or and then he angered him. And you basically the Jim Comey is the perfect if you were to design the worst person to be compared to Trump in the role that might be Jim Comey.

On May 18th, Trump was asked at a press conference, did you at any time urge former FBI Director James Comey in any way, shape, or form to close or to back down the investigation into Michael Flynn? Trump's response, no, no, next question. So, either Jim Comey, the FBI director, chose to lie under oath today, even after Trump said, by the way, I might have tapes that recorded our conversation. So, if you're Jim Comey, you're thinking, what should I do? Trump said there might be tapes. I'm under oath. Should I lie about what Trump said to me or tell the truth?

Seems like from everything we know about Jim Comey, he's probably telling the truth there, right? Yeah, 100, 100 percent. If you read between the lines of Comey's testimony, he very carefully and smartly listed that revealed the names of people who can corroborate in real time what was said to him by Trump. He mentioned the names of people at the FBI, the Department of Justice that he went to and relayed the conversations when they happened. And so if this proceeds down the investigative path, now the investigators know who to call and who to ask, who will then testify under oath that, yes, Jim Comey told me long before he was fired that Trump said these things to him. And I mean, he played this masterfully. He absolutely played it masterfully and as he should, because he's been in this exact

position before, once before being at war with an administration who wanted him to do something illegal. Also, like, I just like to say, if Trump is going to go out there or the White House is going to go out there and say, no, no, no, Jim Comey was lying and Trump was right that he never did ask him to back down the investigation to Michael Flynn, then you know what, Mr. President? Put yourself under oath and tell us then. Put yourself under oath and tell us then. You know, like, go ahead and go into public testimony, go under oath, and tell us that what you said was still true. Because he won't, and his lawyers won't have him do that.

Because they know he'd be lying, and then he'd be, you know, then he'd be in trouble for perjury as well as obstruction of justice. That's actually a great question for the next reporter who interviews him to ask him. Yeah. Would you be willing to testify under oath? This is a free idea, Glenn Thrush. This is all yours would or to the white house would the president be willing to testify under oath that he did not ask jim comey to back down the investigation of michael flynn because i bet they're not going to say yes i bet trump might yeah actually i really do i think if asked he might say yes because he that it tests his manhood, and he might do that.

I don't think the White House press office would do it, and we wouldn't know because they have approximately 45 seconds of question and answer every day. 30 of those seconds are for Life's at Breitbart andowars, but which does bring me to see, I guess Sarah Huckabee Sanders did an off-camera press briefing today, which is fucking convenient, and I cannot, I can't even imagine the reaction of the White House press corps

to the fact that on this day they refused to do it on camera, but I guess no one cares. But she said she can definitively say trump is not a liar yeah so that's which is a lie this is why this is why you can't keep your integrity when you flack for a liar right because then you have to get into a meta situation where you say that you the liar is not a liar and thus you have lied um she also said when someone asked is there a taping device is there a secret recording device? Is there a secret recording

device at the White House? She said, I don't know. That's actually probably the only truthful thing she said. Right. That's probably wise for her to say that. You made this point on Twitter, and I think we just we said earlier, too, but a huge point from this whole hearing today was the fact that it seems pretty clear that Bob Mueller, the special counsel, is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice. Because Jim Comey told us someone said, you know, will he be looking at this? Will he be looking at whether this is obstruction? And Jim Comey said the word sure. He's sure. He's sure that Mueller is investigating. There's no way Comey would have said that without knowing.

He and Bob Mueller are incredibly close, and he clearly has the utmost respect for Bob Mueller. And he would not have said that if it was not planned. Right. So I bet Bob Mueller could not say publicly that the president is not a target of investigation right now. That's right. So a couple other things besides Trump. I think I think Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein had sort of a bad day today. Comey told Rosenstein about his concerns with Trump before he was fired.

about his concerns with Trump before he was fired, and yet Rosenstein still wrote the memo saying that he was fired because of the way he handled the Clinton email investigation. That seems pretty off. Really, Rod Rosenstein, who, I mean, I guess he redeemed himself somewhat by picking Bob Mueller, which is really bad news for the rest of the administration, but who had this quote-unquote sterling reputation that the Republicans and Democrats were so excited about when he took the job, really acted like a partisan hack who was afraid for his job

instead of standing up for the right thing. And just stupid. Like, you know how these things end. Like, walk away while you still can. And writing that memo will be like the first line in his Wikipedia page for the rest of his life. He was not a... And if it's not, friends of the pod, please add it, always, for the rest of time. He was not, in Jim Comey's words today, Captain Courageous.

No. Also, Comey said that the FBI was aware of facts that would have made attorney general sessions continued involvement in the Russia probe problematic. So sessions has got some stuff that he's hiding there as well. I mean, it could be the multiple meetings with Russian, Russian spy recruiters that he failed to put on a security forum or disclosed under oath to the Senate? Just a couple of thoughts. Possibly.

So how do you think, let's talk a little about the Republican reaction to all this. How do you think these profiles in Courage have handled themselves so far? Well, to be a Lovett-esque straight shooter, I would say that it could have been worse. I thought Richard Burr actually handled it the best today. Like, he handled the hearing fairly well. Burr? Yeah. Yeah.

I think their main goal, with a couple of notable exceptions, was to try to tread water, to neither do anything that would really hurt Trump nor carry water for him. Like maybe ask one or two questions that they can say when, you know, Don McGahn or Mike Pence calls them. Say, look, I asked this, but to not seem as ridiculous as I'm sure members of the Republican House will seem. Like they kind of would walk up the line and ask a couple questions that might maybe help Trump, but they didn't push it, and they didn't get in Comey's face. I would say that's true,

except for my exception would be two Republican senators. Can you guess who I'm going to say? Does one of them have the first name Little? Correct. Marco Rubio and... Let me guess. Let me guess the other one. Is the other one a pen pal with the iranian regime that is correct ding ding ding tom cotton what do i i went some parachute sheets or

something you did um coincidence those are the two republican senators that had dinner with trump a couple nights before the hearing what a surprise That was so dumb of them. Like everything is so ham-handed. Like Trump's obvious reason to have dinner with them is so that he can influence them to carry water for him on the committee. They are smart enough to know that's what he's doing, yet they still go and then they carry water from the committee it's like they don't even put the cards up their sleeves they just stick them on their forehead and walk out i mean it's just so so the big it's like it's offensive on the level of just have some fucking savvy if you want to do bad things so i haven't really been paying attention to the uh right-wing media the entertainment media reaction republican media as you call it

but i'm guessing the big headlines they are going to be basically Trump is exonerated because Comey told him he wasn't way back when the target of their counterintelligence investigation. Bad day for Loretta Lynch, because at one point during the Clinton email investigation, she asked Comey to call it a matter instead of an investigation, which is sort of silly because everyone was calling it a fucking investigation anyway. So what difference did that make?

And also Comey basically acknowledging that he did sort of take over that investigation and give that public press conference because Bill Clinton decided to wander over on the tarmac to Loretta Lynch, which was a savvy move by Bill Clinton. So that's going to be a big thing for them. And I'm trying to think what else. I'm sure they'll all call James Comey like a criminal or something like that and say that he's the one in actual legal trouble. I'm sure that's coming. I'm going to take my guess.

All the things you said are undoubtedly true. I'm going to guess the Fox News reaction will be around hypocrisy from the Democrats and they'll just show clips of people like Dianne Feinstein fairly criticizing Jim Comey for his'll be democratic hypocrisy and liberal media hysteria. ABC, liberal NBC, liberal ABC, CBS carrying this thing live, just the media's in the bag against Trump. I mean, it'll all be so dumb. I guess Fox carried it live. I assume that, right? I think they couldn't get away with that. Even Fox probably couldn't get away with that, with not covering it. Did you love Chris Christie's comment yesterday to Nicole Wallace, friend of the pod, Nicole Wallace, when he said that Trump telling Comey to back down, that I hope you can let this go on Flynn was a, quote, normal New York City conversation? Yeah, if you're in the New York City mafia. All the time New Yorkers are walking around to each other

directing law enforcement officials to drop federal investigations. It always happens. I mean, it's always worth doing. This is tiring and frustrating, but let's just do the alternative universe where Barack Obama fires Jim Comey because he won't drop the email investigation to Hillary Clinton during the election year, and then does an interview with Lester Holt where he says that's exactly why he did it. I mean, it makes me laugh because it's just, it's so crazy to think about that. Yeah, I was in an email exchange with a Republican who was defending the indefensible actions of their party. And I used this example and said,

if that had happened, the Republicans would have drawn up articles of impeachment in two minutes and they would not have been wrong to do so. Right. But that's also why Barack Obama didn't do it because he's neither evil nor dumb. Well, I mean, you said dumb, right? And you mentioned this to Schiff.

Like the fucking, the Paul Ryan reaction. I mean, talking about Republican reactions, right? So they range from the, I'm going to ignore everything that happened and just focus on trolling liberals like we usually do or Loretta Lynch or whatever else, to what Paul Ryan said, which was, oh, you know, it sounds like another example of Donald Trump being a novice in politics and just not really, you know, just sort of stumbled into obstruction of justice. Just you got to give him a break on that. I mean, I don't know about that. OK, well, one, if your defense is the president is too dumb to know what the law is or too dumb to have seen all the president's men, that's not a good defense. Second, if Trump thought this was totally appropriate, he probably would not have kicked out other people from the room so we could have a private conversation with Comey. And three, I'm not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure this is true. Ignorance is not exculpatory.

No. If you were to get pulled over DUI and you were to say, oh, I thought the law was 0.8, not 0.08, you still go to jail. It's like, it's such a stupid argument. Yeah. So a lot of people are asking now, like, okay, so what does this all mean? What happens next? Does anything come of this? Was this just like some fucking show that the whole country got together and watched on a Thursday morning and now we're all going to go back to everything else and no one's going to care and the Republicans aren't going to do anything and that's that. So what can come out of this now in terms of the next steps on whether Trump obstructed justice and whether he's going to be held accountable for that?

and whether he's going to be held accountable for that. This is depressing. It is. I know. Trump has immunity by Republican majority. And there's no crime he could commit that would lead to the Republicans impeaching him. Jonathan Chait yesterday wrote a piece where he said on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being a videotape of Trump speaking in Russian to his handlers from the Kremlin, we're currently at about a 7.5. That's right.

I mean, there is there's nothing. Paul Ryan is the most embarrassing. Like Trump's corruption is not the problem in America. It's Paul Ryan's cowardice. And so I, but, but that does not, there are congressional outcomes and there are political outcomes and Trump's approval rating is in the toilet and going down. And if you want to get some, and so we have to win elections. We have. Everyone says nothing matters, but there's a pretty clear connection between the heightening noise around the Russia investigation and Trump's approval rating. And Republicans may stand with him at 34, but they may stand with him with his approval rating at 34 a year and a half from the election.

Six months from the election, if Trump's approval rating is at 34 or below, they are unlikely to stand with him. That doesn't mean that they will impeach him, but it means they may become more aggressive oversight critics of him as opposed to sad water carriers. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm at this point, too. I don't believe that any action or any revelation of actions or statements that Donald Trump has made in the past would lead Republicans and a Republican unwilling to even get close to that now. I do think that jury selection in the trial of Donald Trump's possible obstruction of justice is November of 2018, basically. That's when you can pick a Democratic Congress that can get to the bottom of this. Short of that, I think the only other avenue here is special counsel Bob Mueller, right? Because Bob Mueller, through his investigation, remember now that his investigation is not just a counterintelligence investigation. It is now, you know, by all accounts or by James

Comey's account today, very probably an investigation into whether the president obstructed justice. That's all true. And that's where the meat of this is. It's in Bob Mueller's hands. The challenge is it's not clear that Trump could be indicted. It's not even clear that Trump could be indicted while he's still in office. You would potentially have to remove him from office to do that. Right. I would like to. We need to hear from friends of the pod like Kathy Rumler and Norm Eisen or others.

But there are some real questions about whether this has to end in some sort of political outcome. And I actually I do believe that if you could, if, if a grand jury indicted Trump for objection of justice, I believe Paul Ryan would not do anything. I a hundred percent believe that. Yeah. I mean, I hate saying that. I never thought, I mean, yeah, probably you're probably right. It's very, very sad. So, you know, we've said this a million times here on Pod Save America, but we can easily get wrapped up in this Russia stuff. And I do believe, like, you have to walk and chew gum at the same time. I believe that this, like, some things that don't necessarily matter to voters and, you know, that people out in Ohio and Wisconsin and stuff like that aren't, you know, caring about every day still may matter um uh as a as a general you know like did the president obstruct justice like i don't care if that's like politically wise

or not as a message but that's something that we have to find out regardless of whether people are caring about it every day um but that said it seems like there's a lot of other issues out there that are getting uh short shrift because because everyone's focused pretty intently on the Russia circus. And one of those is health care. on the fact that the rewrite of the House Trumpcare bill is happening in the Senate right now. And it is more probable that it could get out of the Senate, it could be voted out of the Senate now than it ever has been. And that's extremely alarming. Yeah, I have some breaking news on this, or at least I think it's breaking.

Dean Heller, who is the top target here, just flipped his position on phasing out of Medicaid expansion and now said he'd be okay with a seven-year phase-out, which seems to be the idea that the Republicans are coming around. coming around. So it is very, very, very possible that, and maybe even probable, that absent some massive activity on the part of the grassroots and Democrats, that McConnell will get this bill out of the Senate with 50 votes, and then the Affordable Care Act, as we know it, will be gone. So we should tell people first what the bill looks like that's coming out of the Senate. Okay, so how is it different than the House bill? Well, we don't know exactly, but so far what we're hearing from reporting is, remember the House bill allowed certain states to apply for waivers to do away with the protections for pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits.

It looks like the Senate bill will not allow states to apply for waivers on the protections for pre-existing conditions, but it will still allow them to apply for waivers to get rid of essential health benefits. Remember, essential health benefits say that every insurance plan that is sold has to cover things like hospitalization, ambulation, ambulance rides, doctor's visits, cancer screenings, right? Like all kinds of maternity care, right? Substance abuse. All kinds of benefits that theoretically then could allow insurers still to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions by not offering these essential services.

So very, very bad. The level of Medicaid cuts are the same as the House. They are just delayed longer than the House cuts are delayed. bill that the 14 million who will lose their insurance because of Medicaid cuts, which was how many would lose it in the House bill on top of the 10 million who would lose it for other reasons, that adds up to 24, you'll still probably have 14 million, at least 14 million losing their health insurance because of Medicaid, and probably millions and millions more because of, you know, less generous tax credits, subsidies, the waivers, etc. So the Senate, whatever you're reading, the Senate is not improving the House bill by much at all. So that's the substance of the bill, the politics of the bill. It appears now that you probably lose Susan Collins because the

bill is too conservative, hopefully, right? We don't know that for sure, but in all of her statements, she seems like she's not too keen on this bill. You probably lose Rand Paul because it's not conservative enough. He basically wants, you know, no subsidies, no tax credits. Rand Paul thinks, you know, the government shouldn't have any role in providing people health care. So now that means if you lose those two, McConnell needs all 50

votes in the Republican caucus that are out there otherwise. And then Pence breaks the tie for 51. So who do you have? You have Rob Portman from Ohio, Cory Gardner from Colorado, and Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, all states that accepted the Medicaid expansions that have high Medicaid populations. Most of them have said, all those three now have said that they're probably on board with the slower Medicaid cuts in the Senate bill. And as you just said, Dan, so is Dean Heller. You've got Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, who might be like Rand Paul in saying that the bill isn't conservative enough. But you know what? I don't think Ted Cruz or Mike Lee are going to be the ones who stand in the way of Mitch McConnell passing this thing in the Senate. You've got Dean Heller and Jeff Flake,

who just mentioned those are the two senators who are up in 2018, who are in the most purple states, Nevada and Arizona. So far, Heller's said very disconcerting things about this bill, that he likes it. And then you've got Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska. Alaska took the Medicaid expansion. They have the highest health care costs in the nation. So it is a special deal with Alaska. And you think they might McConnell and at the end of the day might buy off Murkowski and Sullivan with some kind of special Alaska deal that gets their votes. So it is I mean, he does have to he does have to, you know, run the table and get every single one of those 50 votes. But it is, I mean, he does have to, he does have to, you know, run the table and get every single one of those 50 votes,

but it's looking like it's possible right now, which is fucking terrifying. It's very possible. Because at the end of the day, I mean, Lisa Murkowski, to her credit, has shown political, modicums of political courage over time. Yes.

Just like Collins. And Flake, also, to his credit. The rest of these folks, I wouldn't bet on very much. But McConnell, unlike Paul Ryan, McConnell is good at his job. His job is to do evil in the world, but he gets things done. And we are going to have to fight like hell here. And what I do not want to hear from one single fucking person is, think how good the politics will be if senators have to vote for this piece of shit to advance it. Fuck that. We do not gamble with the health care of 23 million people.

That is a shitty reason to be in office. Yeah, that's exactly right. You win elections so you can give people health care, even if it means you may lose them down the line. You do not allow people to lose health care so you can win more elections. That's why people hate politics. So the timeline for this, they basically need, first they need to come up with the bill, and then after they have the actual text of a bill, they need about two weeks for the CBO to score. Again, they are going to wait for a CBO score, unlike the House. That's the Congressional Budget Office.

They'll calculate how many people will lose their insurance, what premiums, what would happen to premiums, how far they'd go up, etc., etc. McConnell really wants to get this done before the July 4th recess, because he knows if these members go home for recess, again, there'll be town halls and protests and everything. And so he wants to get this done. So he has very little room for error here and for delay. So what can people do? I emailed Ben Wickler last night from moveon.org, I emailed Ben Wickler last night from moveon.org, who's been on the pod before.

And he said, so here's what he said to me. He said, first of all, put the Capitol switchboard phone number, just program it into your phone. It's 202-224-3121. And he said, just make as many calls as you possibly can every day. He also said, when you call, don't just register your opinion for the call tally. Instead, ask for the health legislative assistant in the specific senator's office. So, for example, if you're calling Susan Collins, that's Elizabeth Allen. For Murkowski, it's Chelsea Holtz. We have a whole list of the legislative assistants on healthcare. We will send them. I will tweet them out after this. Pod Save America will tweet them out. He also said recruit others to call.

Go on Facebook and type in friends who live in Maine or friends who live in Alaska or friends who live in Nevada. And ask them to call Susan Collins and Murkowski and Sullivan and Capito and Heller and Flake and Gardner. And he also said visit congressional offices. Don't wait for some group like Indivisible or move on to plan a protest. Just go to your local office. Camp out there. demand that you be seen, take pictures of yourself, video it. We have to just put as much possible pressure on these senators as we can and make as much noise as we can and break through the other noise, whether it's Russia or anything else, to really make ourselves hurt on this because we have a couple weeks here. And, you know, the fate of millions and millions of Americans' health insurance is hanging in the balance right now. And I can't imagine anything

more important for the resistance to focus their time and effort on than stopping this monstrosity from passing. Free idea for Democratic senators who want to become close friends of the pod. Filibuster all the time. Yeah. Take every hour, every hour that is sucked up between now and July 4th is an hour they don't have to pass this. And I mean, Brand Paul did this a few years ago.

Chris Murphy has done something, friend of the pod. Just every trick, like there's nothing, nothing, nothing more important than making sure that this goes to, that the Republicans have to go to recess without passing this. Like that every, like no, there's no agreement on votes.

There is no, let's cut it. Let's make Senator Flake happy by letting him go on the floor and tout some tree in Arizona. No, just every trick in the possible book you can do. I mean, this is what it's about. It's people. This is about whether people will live or die. Full stop. And everything we do, everything that can be done should be done. And I have faith in our Democratic Senate colleagues. They have been very strong since the day Trump was inaugurated. And I just hope that we can get this thing, we can do everything we can to save the Affordable Care Act.

Yeah, and crunch time looks like it will be between June 26th and June 28th. That's probably when the CBO score ends up coming out. That's what Ben was telling me. So, you know, it's going to be, there could be like 48 hours between the CBO score and when this passes the Senate. We know from the House bill that when the CBO score came out, that was probably the one thing that really broke through all the clutter and made headlines in papers all across the country. Unfortunately, it was after

the House already passed the bill that the CBO score came out. This time, you'll have a CBO score. It might not be quite as bad as the House, but it'll still be pretty bad. Like we've said before, whether it's $20 million, $15 million, or $10 million, or fucking $5 million, like, any bill that's going to take more health insurance,

that's going to remove health insurance, or take health insurance away from more Americans, is a bad fucking bill. So, whatever the CBO score is, I think the moment between when the CBO score is released and when these guys vote on it is going to be absolutely critical. I mean, we should note for a second that the process by which they are passing this bill makes the House look transparent and democratic. They have 13 dudes in a secret room hammering out a bill that would affect millions of Americans and one-sixth of the economy.

And then they are going to, through special rules, try to jam it through without a single hearing. Not one hearing. Think about that. It's unbelievable. Okay. When we come back, we will talk to Ana Marie Cox about everything that happened today. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way.

On the pod, we have the host of Crooked Media is with friends like these, Ana Marie Cox. Ana, what do you think? What do you think of the big hearing? Oh, wow. Well, you know, I've been talking about this a lot on Twitter. So and I know I know your audience is probably like totally plugged in. So this may be a repeat for them. But it is really hard to watch and listen to these hearings and not be struck by the parallels to Trump's behavior as a sexual predator and Comey behaving like someone who's been the victim or target of sexual harassment.

As we were watching the hearing this morning, Emily said the same thing to me. She turned and she's like, it really feels like there's this was like some kind of a sexual assault incident that we're recounting here in this hearing. I was like, that's what Ana said, too. Well, I mean, I think almost any woman, I mean, you may not consider yourself like a survivor of sexual assault or really maybe especially targeted sexual harassment. But unfortunately, and it happens to men, too. I want to be clear. But because the way our society is, I doubt if there's a woman in the world out there that hasn't had something like what happened with Comey and Trump happened to them. The whole like, invite you to a dinner where it turns out it's just the

two of you. You know, ask everyone to leave the room so you can have a word alone. But also just kind of like the ominous hinting, you know, like, hey, I hear you like your job a lot. Or a bit later, like, I thought we had that thing. I hear you like your job a lot. Or a bit later, like, I thought we had that thing. I thought we had that thing. And also Comey's behavior is really intelligible to women too, which is the idea that he let Trump assume that he would be getting his own way

because he didn't want to make things awkward. Right. You know, like the whole like honest loyalty thing, which in that, of course, that awkward silence is incredibly resonant to any woman, and not saying no outright, kind of being a little worried about saying no outright, and instead just hoping to kind of train him, kind of keep him on his side of the desk through hints. That kind of thing is something that unfortunately they said it happens to men and women but i think women especially common uh and it's a power thing right like yeah that's the

thing about sexual predation is it's not about sex it's about power so we i'm not surprised at all that like this is consistent behavior for him well i was gonna say and i'm not surprised at all because if you didn't know trump right like but we we do we know all the aside from just the all the instances of trump um from the billy bush tape on right of uh you know his misdeeds uh from a sexual standpoint like everything about him from his whole career has been all about power relationships and him trying to exert power over someone who's working for him or working with him or someone else like or or people who are on the debate stage with him like it seems like this is the only mode he has right like this is the only mode he operates in it is although one of the

ways that it comes into sort of it's about power but also weirdly like you see gender dynamics at play or an echo of gender dynamics at play is also in the way that people questioned, the senators questioned his testimony, which, you know, like, I mean, Rubio basically was saying the sort of like something along the lines of like, well, why didn't you show him a little leg? Like, why didn't you flirt with him? What harm would it have done? And then was it Dianne Feinstein said, you're big and strong or you're brave and strong. Like, why didn't you do something? That was sort of weird. Yeah, that was weird.

That was totally weird. I don't know. DiFi has a little thing for Comey. But one thing we know about Comey is like, he's probably like an awesome husband, by the way. Like, that was like a thing I got from him. Like, we can have our doubts about him in many other ways. But I think he's probably never forgets a birthday or anniversary well that was funny when he said like i really wish i had just gone out to dinner with my wife like i was supposed to that night you know i mean we were joking and

the other thing that happened on twitter besides the really grim analysis of this as an echo of a sexual predator's behavior is comey valentine's um was a hashtag that i was doing which is like i would be in close session with you, which is, I can sort of imagine him saying that to his wife. Like, he seems like, you know, that kind of guy. But again, so it's the, and the narratives that are coming out of it on the Republican side are also reminiscent

of the way that women get dismissed when they try to talk about being the targets of harassment, which is not just like, so there's Rubio's, well, why didn't you go along with it? What harm would it have done? It's not that bad. And then there's also, we fortunately haven't seen he was asking for it or what he, look at what he was wearing, but you are getting, it was his responsibility to do something about it. Right. And Ryan saying Trump was new to this and unfamiliar with protocol is a little bit like, boys will be boys, you know?

And it's up to women to kind of like police them and teach them what to do. And I'm trying to think of what's another one here. I actually turned off the television, believe it or not, because I need to write. Yeah, I stopped at the McCain questioning to get to the studio, but I heard McCain didn't have a shining moment there. Ooh, McCain had a senior moment there oh mccain had a senior moment that's what he had um it was actually you know i covered mccain in 08 and as you know um

and i still have i i'm gonna get angry tweets and emails about this but i still have like a shred of respect for him because i do well yeah you know you knew him at a different time and it's hard to separate that from you know what you see yeah right and he was he was like whatever like i mean we won't get into like why i have some affection for him but i do and so it was just especially disappointing it's also because he's been not terrible on trump i mean it's a low low bar on the republican party side of this but he's been better than he's issued he's issued his share of i'm troubled statements yes so many trouble so many troubling things have happened everyone's very troubled let's talk about the different reaction between republicans and democrats and the different

universes it's like we get ourselves spun up about this we watch this watch the hearing we go crazy and then you know there's like 40 of americans who are just getting their information from fox and breitbart and info wars and all that and you know they're gonna have a completely different picture of how this thing went down it's not just the 40 of america that's you know supporting trump i think that won't that's supporting Trump, I think that won't understand or sense the gravity of this situation. I think it's a lot of people who just don't watch politics that closely. They don't realize how insane this situation is. The former director of the FBI called, on multiple occasions,

called the president a liar in sworn testimony on the Hill. Like, that's crazy. Like, I don't know how to tell people other than it's just, it doesn't happen, right? But it wasn't very dramatic. We didn't really have a Matlock moment. It wasn't a House of Cards moment. You know, like, I guess we have a reality television president,

so we're expecting reality television from this testimony. And it's really, it's testimony. Like by the standards of congressional testimony, it's insane and wild. And you and I know that and get excited about it. But by reality television standards, you know, it's terrible. I mean, like I would have changed channels a long time ago. It's just like, I mean, Dan brought this up earlier in the pod, but like, you know, people have played this game before. Like if barack obama had fired jim comey and then went on nbc and told lester holt well i said to myself before i did this this whole clinton email investigation this is this is fake news and so i needed to get the pressure off right like obviously i work for for Barack Obama. I am a partisan. Right. You're a little partisan. Yeah. But if I had seen that happen, I know that I would think to myself, that's not great. He did something wrong there. You know, like, I don't know that I'd be able to get myself to the place where I thought like, yeah, no, no, no, no. That's totally understandable. And it was fake news. And the Clinton email investigation was crazy. And I totally understand that. And it's fine. Maybe I would. Maybe I just, maybe it's hard to put myself in that space. But I'd like to think that I wouldn't.

I would like to think that you would, too. I'd like to think that I would. But this just speaks to the divide, not just in, you know, sort of media consumption, but I think the siloing of ideologies, right? I mean, this is one of the things my podcast is supposed to address, which is that we just don't even talk to each other about the differences that we have. Like, even when we do know someone who's Republican or Democrat, we don't talk to them about why they think what they think. I mean, if politics comes up, sometimes we agree to disagree, which, you know, I mean, we have to do that to survive sometimes. But I think that we've kind of given up on the notion of trying to understand why someone believes what they do.

And also the notion that I could, like entering into such a conversation with enough humility to be like, okay, I'm not going to assume that I'm right here. I'm going to keep an open mind. We don't have open minds. We don't. Right. You know, what we're seeing here is people coming in with, you know, confirmation bias. That's what's happening. Like it's it's just we have different lenses, entirely different lenses.

And I was watching Fox for coverage and like the chyron's on Fox. Well, look, but we know from like certain people we're friends with that we know that we talked to that like it's not impossible to get out of that confirmation bias right like you're going to talk to rick rick i'm sure did not think does not think that trump has handled himself in an appropriate fashion like tim miller has been on the pod nicole wallace has you know like there's a bunch of republicans out there who can say yeah i'm conservative and i disagree with you on all kinds of different issues but this trump thing is awful and like this this reeks of obstruction of justice like there are republicans who can say that right and i wonder if maybe the disconnect here is that there are republicans like that they are

mostly i unfortunately i think pretty people who are pretty deeply immersed in the political you know conversation that's conversation. That's right. That's right. And so they're following things pretty closely, and they have a lot of information that they're working from. Right. They feel like they know what they're talking about and can say, I know that my party is saying X, Y, Z, but I've seen the evidence, and so I'm going to say A, B, C.

Most Republicans out there are taking their cues from the Republicans in leadership. They're taking their cues from Fox News. They're taking their cues from, you know, Rush Limbaugh. They're even not getting opportunity for confirmation bias almost. They're being given the predigested, you know, version of events. And look, we're political junkies and we follow this very closely. And look, we're political junkies and we follow this very closely. And I think as a citizen, you know, it is your responsibility to be educated and to know the issues and to pay attention to the news.

But I don't necessarily think it's your responsibility. Like, you don't have to be political junkies like we all are. Like, people are busy. They lead busy lives. They have to work for a living. They have two jobs. They can't be, like, looking at twitter all day so if they happen to turn on fox news which has told them for years that they're fair and balanced and that everyone else is liberally

biased and you watch fox news for five minutes like i don't know how much i blame people for then having the views that fox news has spit out via propaganda you know i mean i don't i agree and i don't know how to get over that except in conversation in our everyday lives right like i don't know if there's a lot that the media quote unquote can do because you know like when i talk to my in-laws and they have some misapprehension of the world and i say i would like to send you an article you know yeah they're like well as long as it's not from the new york times so i know i know you know like they're like, well, as long as it's not from the New York times, you know, like they cut off a whole like section of the, of the universe for me to draw from. Right. And I also have to say, I do think that it's one of those things that in the media, we,

we, maybe what we can do a little bit better is give, giving some more raw data. Cause I know I was watching the news with my husband last night and the coverage of the Comey letter, like he felt like he didn't have to actually read it. You know, like he was just going to judge based on what the competing side said on CNN. And I think that's a pretty natural human reaction, but it's frustrating, right? Yeah. I'm like with Ben Wittes, who's's like how can you read this and not worry about the fate of the republic and i think people who actually read it i and i do think even if you're a republican and you actually read his testimony it is disturbing like i was gonna say i do think

that you know i was just saying what's the citizen's responsibility i do think that one thing we can all do is do our best effort to like read more primary documents and sources. And like you said, data and statistics and stuff like that, because I did this yesterday. Someone's like, oh, the Comey testimony is released. And my first instinct was to like go on Twitter and see what everyone was saying about it. And I was like, no, no, put Twitter down. It's seven pages. Sit here, read the testimony without looking at anyone else's reaction

and figure out what you think from there and i pay a lot of attention to the news and it was still hard for me to do that yeah i agree and i think that that's that is also the way that if you're going to have conversations with the people in your life you don't agree with it is so much better if you can point to a primary source and not an article in the times right yeah like if you can say like look at this sentence like because i also did the same thing i also was really tempted to just not read it and i also turned off the fucking computer like printed it out hey john i printed it out wow well you know what we just got a printer in the crooked media office so it's like the first first real electronic thing we have in the office besides our laptop.

So now we can print out documents. It's really exciting. You know what? I think it was good. I had a highlighter and a pencil and I printed it out. Because I was surprised by like how amazingly thorough it was, which you don't get from coverage. Right. Right.

And then also the whole thing, like they say you hear this or see quotes on Twitter, but it doesn't have the same impact as when like he says, I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president elected a memo and goes on to talk about he didn't do that with Obama. Like for some reason reading that you're like, oh shit. I know. Something doesn't add up here and also like details like it turned out to be just the two of us seated at a small oval table in the center of the green room the guy does not miss a beat you know what i also think he would be a great writer the last line just and that that was the last time i spoke with president trump period and yes i know as a fellow writer you appreciate this and like in the testimony when he talked about feeding seagulls.

Right. Which is true. Did he practice that? Because I would have to practice that. So who else are you talking to besides Rick for the pod? Well, we have Noah Rothman, who's an editor at Commentary. Oh, yes. A Never Trump fellow.

But he is a, I don't want to call him even a maybe Trump, or he objects to trump strongly but he is probably the most optimistic never trump person we've had on meaning like he thinks trump can change i this we taped this before the testimony so okay maybe i should follow up but um we had him on to talk to a listener about a friendship of hers that's been estranged because of the election i thought i'd get an actual conservative on to try and help this woman communicate with her friend who i mean it's i mean it's a story that unfortunately we're all you know familiar with that a lot of friendships have been strained under this election so yeah try to help her out

and then i am going to be talking to rick and hopefully get some intel on how how this is going to get processed by conservatives out there in the heartland i'm not super hopeful but i will be listening to see if rick has any uh rick has any hopeful thoughts on that um okay well we will be listening for that tomorrow thanks for calling in and um i think i'm gonna go read some ads now you can read some ads and i will talk to you next week all right on it take care bye bye that's all the time we have for today thanks again to representative shift for joining us and uh to anna marie cox for joining as well and uh and we'll talk to you all again soon bye guys Thank you.