Pod Save America - “Conspiracy of Dunces.”

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

Trump wastes America’s time with his primetime address, throws a temper tantrum during shutdown negotiations, and claims not to know that his campaign chairman was sharing internal polling with Russian intelligence. Then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talks to Jon and Dan about the Democratic strategy to end the shutdown. Also - Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, we'll talk to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the latest in the shutdown. We're also going to talk about the 10 minutes of our lives that Trump stole from us on Tuesday evening, the latest on the negotiations to end this government shutdown, and how Paul Manafort's crack legal team couldn't figure out how to redact details about the potential conspiracy committed by their client in the 2016 election. Also, don't miss the first Pod Save the World episode of 2019.

Includes new artwork, a real banger of a new theme song, and an interview with Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and CIA analyst. And don't forget that Pod Save America, Love It or Leave It, and Pod Save the People are all going on tour this year. You can buy tickets for some of those shows already at crooked.com slash events. We'll be traveling all around the country again this year with the first Pod Save America stops coming up in February in New Orleans, Durham, and Charleston, South Carolina. Go

get some tickets. Okay, let's get to the news. On Tuesday night, Donald Trump wasted our time with the primetime address on immigration that was heavy on lies and completely devoid of news. He was so busy trying to scare the shit out of everyone with imaginary tales of immigrants pouring over the border to kill people that he didn't even talk about the fact that the federal government is shut down until about halfway through the speech. Dan, what did you think the White House was trying to accomplish with that speech? And did they accomplish it? I have no idea. And neither do they. Because there seemed to be no, I mean, this is, it's like the most Trump White House thing in the world, which we should just remind everyone.

The Trump White House is staffed by people who couldn't get hired on third-tier Republican campaigns and mostly just came from the backup green room at Fox News. So these are not the best people working. And they had – the idea was to give a speech without thinking about why you're giving the speech and what you're trying to say. And the whole thing felt mailed in by everyone involved, mailed in by the speechwriter, mailed in by the speech giver, mailed in by the rest of the White House staff trying to explain it. And it is because if smart people were in charge here, the way shutdowns end is one side feels political pressure to give in, to make a concession or to fold. That is how the shutdown in the 90s ended between Gingrich and Clinton. It's how the shutdown in 2013 ended between Obama and the Republicans over the Affordable Care Act. And if that is the only way it ends, then the way you do that is you make an argument to appeal to people beyond your base. Trump's base being behind him does

nothing, puts no pressure on Senate Democrats or Nancy Pelosi. Independents and some Democrats siding with Trump would put that pressure on him, but he made no argument that has any history of success in persuading those voters. He just doubled down on the same old racist talking points that he's been doing for four years that have grown, have done nothing to grow support for his immigration agenda. Yeah. Daryl from Vox calls it the immigrants are coming over the border to kill you speech. And she points out that it's literally the only speech he knows how to give. It's the one he gave when he announced his candidacy. It's the one he gave all through the 2016 campaign at the convention. It's the American carnage speech in the inaugural. It was during the 2018 midterms. There's one trick he has in his bag when his back's

up against the wall and he's not doing well politically, and that is telling people that immigrants are coming to kill them. That's that's his whole that's his whole political arsenal right there yeah i mean it the whole thing was it was an embarrassing moment for the president the white house the media the television networks it was just yeah the whole thing was a sad statement on the on the current state of affairs in america and look if you don't you know if you don't believe a couple partisan hacks like us here's what the white house thought about the speech according to a tweet from maggie haberman that reads for what it's worth inside trump's orbit advisors are feeling good about how he did during the oval office address the main point they have all emphasized is that trump who is often

described in coverage as fuming was calm and controlled in the delivery, no prompter stumbles, etc. So it seems like they're happy he was able to read the words. I mean, just so people understand, like after a speech, someone in the White House press office, all the big brains get together, they decide, how are we going to quote unquote spin this? What is the story we're going to tell reporters and our supporters about why this was a win? And so all of these small brains got together. And what they decided was, this is a win because Trump proved he can read.

That's it. It's not he gave a powerful, soaring oratory or he made a compelling case. It's he didn't trip over his own tongue. Kudos, people. Great job. No prompter stumbles, et cetera. The reviews are in. It's also worth noting, by the way, that Trump apparently didn't want to give the speech.

Here's Peter Baker writing in the New York Times, quote, Privately, Mr. Trump dismissed his own strategy as pointless In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisors. Quote, it's not going to change a damn thing, but I'm still doing it, Mr. Trump said at the border visit, according to one of the people who was in the room. The trip was merely a photo opportunity, he said. But, he said gesturing at his communications aides, Bill Shine, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Kellyanne Conway, these people behind you say it's worth it. So, like, I mean, we already talked about, you know, there didn't seem to be a strategy here,

but, like, Trump didn't want to do it in the first place. Why do you think Kellyanne Conway and Bill Shine and Sarah Huckabee Sanders wanted him to do it? Why do you choose to deliver a primetime address in the first place? Well, I think in this case, it is because they are losing, the clock is running down, and the only play in your book is the throw a Hail Mary pass, right? This is the only thing they have available to them. And there is generally very careful, at least with previous presidents, or at least our president, careful consideration about when and how you give a primetime address, because it is the biggest weapon in your communications arsenal. Even in this world of Netflix and phones and second screens, it is still the way to get the most eyeballs in an unfiltered way on the president's

message. And it matters because people watch it, right? If you were going to interrupt NCIS Omaha or whatever the fuck is on CBS at that time of night, you'll get people, right? You're capturing passive viewers. They're like, oh, I'll stay and watch this. But then you're also, secondly, sending a signal that this is an event. You are sending out the bat signal to the press to cover this. Massive coverage beforehand, massive coverage afterwards, and it becomes an event. And events are one of the few things that still bring people together or can dominate the conversation in this media age. And so it's a huge deal. But if you're going to play the card, you better play it well and play it at the right time. And that is why this was, I think,

such a fundamental mistake, which is they played their biggest card, which in part, I think, because congressional Republicans are probably on their ass a little bit about why they are losing the public opinion battles and why Trump isn't doing more to try to win it. So now they've played the card. Now the polls don't change. Now what's going to happen? Yeah. It's also probably worth mentioning how much you and I fucking hate Oval Office addresses as the particular method for a primetime address.

And certainly, like, I never thought, we never thought Obama did well in Oval Office addresses. Certainly Trump looks like he's reading a hostage statement. There is something to be said for the idea that they are an antiquated mode of communication in this day and age. Even if a primetime address in general is your biggest weapon, sitting behind that desk and just staring into the screen does seem a little, a little outdated. I mean, this is a hill I'm going to die on. And I literally did almost die on it once read my book to get the story,

but is the idea that there is some majesty to an, a national televised address delivered sitting on your posterior in your office, as opposed to standing in the palatial room next door is so fucking stupid and there's no there is zero evidence to suggest that somehow like quote unquote oval office address is more valuable or more important or more meaningful to the actual public consuming the information than any other address when obama addressed the nation after the death of bin Laden,

no one was like, well, this can't be that big a deal. He's doing it standing in the East Room as opposed to seated in the Oval. And then some people will be like, well, I really remember Reagan's challenger speech or Bush's Oval Office address at the beginning of the Iraq War. And that sort of makes the argument against these people who fetishize Oval Office addresses as somehow these incredibly valuable things. It is the context of how the speech was given and the words in the speech that make it memorable, not where it was delivered. If Obama had announced the death of bin Laden in the back of a Jack in the Box restaurant, it would still be memorable, right? It's not where it happened. It's what they say. It's definitely memorable if he did that.

Yeah, that would actually be memorable, right? It's not where it happened. It's what they say. It's definitely memorable if he did that. And yeah, that actually would be kind of a crazy idea. But it is. I think this idea that somehow he's doing it from the Oval is going to make it more compelling or more convincing to the public has no basis in fact. And it's something that political junkies and reporters have been obsessed about for a long time. And it's just frankly stupid. Very dumb. So there was a lot of debate in the lead up to the speech about whether the networks should have given trump the time in the first place uh where do you come down on this one was it the right decision no it was not the right decision i it was a tough decision i understand that because all of their rules and decision making is based on a previous model of normal presidents who aren't known liars.

But they gave their time to – for nothing new. Trump said nothing new. He just – the same – you learn nothing from that speech that you couldn't have learned by following Trump on Twitter or watching one of his rallies. And they gave 10 minutes of their very valuable time to – for pure partisan propaganda. And it was – I think it was a mistake. And the networks have a decision to make. What is a greater responsibility? The responsibility to ensure that your viewers get accurate information

in real time or appearing, quote unquote, balanced by a lot by giving your airtime to Trump. And they they chose the latter. And that was a mistake. I mean, no one is better off for having had that happen. And there was no reason that he couldn't have given the speech and they couldn't have covered it as a news story, not as an event of national importance, because that's the threshold for a primetime address. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, there was so much talk in the lead up to the speech about, you know, maybe Network shouldn't give him the time because he lies so much. And to me, that's almost I mean, it's obviously he does lie all the time. He lied a ton in the speech and it's ridiculous. And I do think that the media did a fairly good job fact-checking him, at least the television media, in the moments following the speech and in the next day.

But to me, the bigger problem with giving him the time is the lack of news value, right? Like if you're going to say, well, yeah, he's the president of the United States. Of course, he gets to address the nation if he has something important to say. To me, you have to – the White House – it's incumbent upon the White House to tell the networks, well, he's got a pretty big announcement tonight. Or he's going to make some news tonight. And so you're going to want to – please let him make that news because he has something really important to say to the country that's new and different. And, you know, clearly they didn't make that case to the networks, and the networks said yes anyway. No, the networks got bullied.

They did. They were scared. They all knew what was going to happen. Everyone knew what was going to happen. And they twisted themselves into a pretzel to justify doing this because they are more afraid of being called biased than doing the right thing. And that is a structural advantage that the right wing has had in media for a while now because right wing criticism is the tail that wags the dog at many media organizations in this country, but particularly the networks, which are owned by large corporations. Yeah. So after Trump finished, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

crowded around a single podium, stared into our souls, delivered a very memeable rebuttal. Optics aside from that, because obviously they're fun to mock, but shouldn't be taken too seriously. How do you think their message came across? The was good i mean it was the right message they responded to trump we they have the political moral factual high grounds in this issue which is the shutdown is fucking stupid and there's no reason the government can't be open while they try to figure while the two parties try to come to some sort of an agreement on border security. There's no logical reason why it has to be happening. They made that case. Look, nationally televised addresses are not easy for anyone. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are not in their jobs because

they are the best spokespeople in the party. They're in their jobs because of their leadership qualities, their strategic acumen, their ability to build coalitions within their caucuses, not because they're the best speech givers. And so even in the most ideal circumstances where you have weeks to prepare for this, being the person who responds to the president is like a graveyard of political futures, right? Marco Rubio embarrassed himself and never recovered. Bobby Jindal embarrassed himself and never recovered. People who do it usually are never heard from again. And they had one day to prepare for it. So in that sense, I think they did about as well as you could expect in that situation, even if they did spark what i thought was john lovett's funniest tweet of 2019 thus far maybe 2018 where he said coming to you live uh up next live parents who hate the groom parents of the bride who hate the groom until that was very funny i yeah my only thing

with it is you're right prime time addresses and responses in particular are like very difficult to pull off just about no one does it um Just have one person do it. Definitely don't have two people at a podium. Next time, next time they get to do this, do a little rock, scissors, paper to see, you know, who gets the, who gets the slot if they can't pick between Chuck and Nancy. I would have said maybe, you know, Pelosi's Speaker of the House. So maybe, and you know, she was just elected Speaker of the House. So maybe she gets this time. Maybe Chuck gets the next time. I don't know. I just think, talk about optics and trying to figure out the best way to deliver a speech to people at a podium. I just can't imagine any scenario where that's a good idea. Many, many years ago, when I worked for Tom Daschle, who was the Senate minority leader

at the time, so I think it was in 2004. The – Daschle and Pelosi did the response to the city union together. Oh, God. And my recollection of it was it was incredibly awkward at the time. I think they were sitting in chairs next to each other. And then I went looking for it and it's basically – because I wasn't – I was like, I'm pretty sure that happened. I'm pretty sure they did it, seated in chairs. But it's basically been erased off the internet.

It's as if it never happened. And it's just like the history of two people giving the same speech together is not – there's no history of that working. And so, yes, you're right. This is the case of not making a decision being a problem because you would have – it was hard to choose between the two of them. And so they chose not to choose. And here we are but at the end of the day this is uh really small small potatoes well the message and like i said they did what they needed to do which was i thought schumer in particular did a very good job of like painting trump into a corner you know his message over and over was like we are happy to negotiate about border security, just not with the government closed, which is almost word for word what McConnell's message was every time there's been a shutdown, specifically the one, the brief shutdown last year in 2018.

McConnell kept saying, yeah, we're happy to negotiate on immigration, just not with the government closed. Open the government and then we will negotiate. And it's a pretty strong message, you know? Yeah, it was good. So, and by the way, more people watched the response than watched Trump's speech. I don't know. How does that happen? Did people tune in thinking they were like, I'm turning this off for 10 minutes because I am not going to watch Trump or I don't want to watch politics. And they tuned back and it was just like Nancy and Chuck. And so it's great. I'm glad it happened, but it's, it is weird. Very weird. Uh, so let's talk about where we go from here on the shutdown. Uh,

the master dealmaker hosted congressional leaders on Wednesday and he apparently offered them butterfingers before slamming his hands on the table and storming out of the meeting. When Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi said the Democrats wouldn't negotiate on border security until Trump and the Republicans reopened the government. Trump tweeted, just left a meeting with Chuck and Nancy, a total waste of time. I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up. Are you going to approve border security, which includes a wall or steel barrier? Nancy said, no. I said, bye bye. Nothing else works. So that's great. what happens now dan how does this end well this morning before trump uh left on his undesired photo op on the border he basically

said if we did not have a deal where if he was unable to come to a deal with congressional democrats on the wall then he would definitely maybe declare a national emergency to build the wall. So I think he is definitely maybe going to declare a national emergency as an inelegant solution out of this mess he created. And what is the response to that going to be? I mean, we'll talk to Schumer about this in a few, but it seems like all the options are legal in nature, that there'll be a bunch of lawsuits to try to stop them from doing this, because it seems highly illegal to declare a national emergency when we're not at war, and for a whole bunch of other reasons that you can all read legal scholars talk about.

But I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I think, look, I understand in Politico playbook this morning, Jake Sherman was reporting sort of how congressional Republicans in the White House was thinking about this was, this was the only way out, right? Which is Trump will declare this, there will be a lawsuit, it will almost certainly, there will be an injunction to prevent him from doing this, and it will play out in the courts over a period of many months or even years. And they can reopen the government. So it's like Trump can claim to his base that he is fighting for them and trying to build the wall and everyone else can get on with the business of paying federal workers for the jobs they do and providing government services to Americans. And so it is sad that the only way out of a situation is to go down the path of a legally dubious authoritarian power grab that is almost certain to not work. But this is

sort of where we are these days. Yeah, it's sort of all about just making sure that Trump can get to the next episode of this terrible reality show. He needs to somehow end this by at least throwing, I mean, it's sort of like what he did when he tried to end DACA, right? He tried to end DACA. Everyone thought it was legally dubious. So there's a bunch of lawsuits. And now DACA has been held up in the courts for the last year. But to his base, who doesn't pay much attention in the media, and we all have, you know, memento memories at this point. So no one remembers what happened like two days ago. We're all moved on to the next thing, you know, and it seems like he just he's just desperate to get on to the next thing. And no negotiate. He's not going to settle for any negotiations.

He's not going to settle for any negotiations he's not going to settle for anything that looks like he lost or even conceded anything so it does and it doesn't seem like you know the other option i thought about was are these republicans who are getting wary of this you see a lot of these senators like susan collins cory gardner um all these people who are up in 2020 starting to say you know know, we want to open the government up and we don't want to do this anymore. If you have enough of those people on board, you could potentially override Trump's potential veto with a bunch of Republicans in the House and Senate joining with Democrats. It doesn't seem like any of the Republicans are willing to do this,

which is fucking bonkers. You have Lindsey Graham out there saying, oh, if we voted against the president and tried to override his veto, that would be undermining the presidency and the presidency would be over and we can't do that. And Tom Tillis of North Carolina was like, we would never ever do something like override the president's veto,

which is just, by the way, so fucking crazy that these people are a co-equal branch of government. And suddenly there's a new rule, which is we must never vote against the president united states i mean that is just fucking bizarre well john maybe you haven't read federal's paper 11 which says the roles and responsibility of congress are to provide checks and balances on the president unless congress and the president of the same party then it is

congress's job to serve as the president's legislative butler? I mean, just never, never has this happened. Like, we had to worry about Democrats in Congress all the time when Obama was president because many times they voted against him on very big issues sometimes. George Bush lost a lot of Republicans, especially in the second term of his presidency, on various things. Bill Clinton. I mean, you could go on and on and on. This really is the first president where there's been, been like just complete fealty to everything he does no

matter how fucking stupid it is which you know too because they're not even they're not even pretending no like there was a world in which they could have been like well we are of course going to do our constitutional duty and we're going to hold these hearings and look into things like the completely failed response to Puerto Rico. They wouldn't even do the bare minimum because the bare minimum would have been seen as partisan treason in this Republican Party. Yeah. And look, I think when Democrats run against a lot of these Senate Republicans in 2020, I know it's going to seem like 50 years from now, but, you know, they should make this an issue because even the ones like Gardner and Collins,

who are sort of making noise about opening up the government again, they're not pushing that hard. They're still, you know, Tom Tillis, who's going to run in North Carolina for election, is basically saying, I can never vote against the president. I could never override the president's veto. And I don't think voters are going to like a senator, especially in a swing state, who never, ever, ever votes against Donald Trump no matter what. It doesn't seem like that's a very good political position to hold. There will be a moment in about a year from now when Tom Tillis is running as declaring himself to be an independent voice for north carolina and right that democrat

should shove that quote directly up his rhetorical posterior so it does seem then if the republicans aren't going to budge because they're afraid to override trump really the only way out is this dumb fucking national emergency thing um and i guess that's the question is you know when does trump do that maybe he waits till the end of the week. I mean, it's about to be the longest shutdown in history. Today's Thursday. If it lasts till Friday, it'll tie as the longest shutdown in history. And then I guess Saturday, he wins the record. He's got a new record.

Longest shutdown in government history. Kudos to him. Yeah, it's pretty bad. So is there anything people can do? Is there anything, you know, we should have? Is there any political So is there anything people can do? Is there anything we should have? Is there any political pressure points here that we can exploit? Call your member of Congress. If you were represented by a Republican in the center of the House, call them and tell them you want them to open the government up.

And if you're represented by a Democratic senator or a Democratic House member, call them and thank them for standing strong and for fighting to reopen the government. Because the calls matter. They really do. They affect the mentality of a congressional office. They are talked about in the halls of Congress. And we often tell you to call your members and yell at them. Also call them and thank them. Because this is tough, particularly for some of these newly elected members who are in either Trump districts or districts that are very purple or are going to be targeted again in 2020. Let them know that you appreciate them doing what they said they were going to do on the campaign trail, which is serve as a check on Trump. Yeah. All right.

Let's talk about all the crimes that Trump and his goons are being investigated for. We haven't done that in a little bit. We learned this week that the president's former campaign chairman may have shared internal polling data from the campaign with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence. And we learned this because Paul Manafort's lawyers didn't successfully redact a document they filed in court the right way. Even notorious Trump sycophants like Hugh Hewitt have said this accidental release could be evidence of conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russians. Dan, how big of a deal is this? How important is internal polling? And what does it tell us that Manafort was sharing it with his, you know, once business partner, Konstantin Kilmanik, who has ties to

Russian intelligence, the same Russian intelligence that, you know, tried to hack Democrats in the 2016 campaign? This is it. This is the thing. This is what we have been waiting for. This is what the Republicans said could never happen. Democrat, even the most sort of conspiracy-laden Democrats suggested was the core of this. This is the thing. This is the Trump campaign giving internal actionable information to Russian intelligence. that is a conspiracy to defraud the election that it is something that they have lying about it's something that uh marcy wheeler pointed this out that this is such an intense secret that paul manafort is willing to was willing to spend the rest of his life in jail to lie about this fact and try to avoid it from coming to light then of course he had an idiot attorney who showed it to everyone but this is a gigantic deal. The problem is, is the Overton window of what we expect shifts every day because the things we thought could not

not happen. When this whole thing began, and we're like, huh, I wonder if there was collusion. And then if someone had told you right after the election that we were going to find out that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had a meeting with someone connected to Russian intelligence who promised them dirt on Hillary Clinton's campaign. We'd be like, that is crazy, right? Get off the grass and know you're a lunatic. Then that happened. And now you have Trump meeting with a known Russian intelligence asset and sharing internal information from the campaign.

That's a gigantic deal. Yeah. So, I mean, we're trying to figure this out. Tommy and i were talking about this yesterday because he made the point he's like look there's there's two reasons that he could have shared this information with uh kalimnik right uh one is here's the information that you and other russian intelligence agents need to help direct and guide your campaign to both hack the Democrats and sort of spread all this garbage on social media to try to influence the election,

right? To sort of target all of your social media campaign, right? So that's one. The other one is we know that Paul Manafort was, when he started the campaign, when he started working for free for Donald Trump, was deeply in debt to a number of Russian oligarchs, pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs, and that he was trying to curry favor with them and show that, hey, I'm a big deal. I'm this campaign manager now. And by the way, look at this internal polling. Even though the public polls look awful, I have some polling that shows that Donald Trump's actually going to win. So, by the way, I'm a pretty big deal. And even though I owe you a lot of money, you know, maybe I can take care of you once I'm in the White House, right? Which is still highly criminal, but seems less, you know, severe than the actual collusion over the election. Or I guess it could

be both too. But what do you think of that possible other explanation? It's both, and it doesn't matter to me at all. The motivations for why Manafort would actively work with the Russians to help win the election is – it doesn't matter. The motive for why he is the head of the Trump campaign, quote-unquote colluded or engaged in conspiracy with the Russians doesn't really matter. If it is to help ease the financial pressure on his debts or to help put Trump in the White House because he cared to alter the effect of the election. That is why Manafort gave this information. All of this, all these things pieced together paint a very clear picture of a campaign actively willing to work with an adversary of the United States to try to win an election. Whatever various reasons led to that fact, whether it is Manafort's debts, Donald Trump's junior stupidity, Jared Kushner being a dilettante, whatever the reasons that let it happen, it very clearly happened. And the question will be for the voters in Congress, what is your response to that? What accountability should be brought to bear for that? In addition to

whatever Mueller does to bring to justice to various people involved in this. But a couple of important points here. Sometimes it's so obvious that we don't focus on it. Paul Manafort is someone who has been out of Republican politics for 30 years after he horribly mismanaged Bob Dole's campaign. He is deeply in debt to Putin-aligned oligarchs. Right. And then his next move is to work for free for a candidate who just happens to have deep financial ties to the Russians, which we know this because Eric Trump bragged about Russian investment, Russian cash investment in their properties that happened right after Donald Trump who declared himself the king of debt decided to change his business plan to affect this new world where he was getting money

from people like the Russians well and I was gonna well so I was gonna add one thing I mean and then the other story that sort of we don't talk about as much which I think is gonna end up being a pretty big part of the whole conspiracy is and then after paul manafort joins this campaign um as he's in debt to all these pro-russian forces

and as he's broke and just jumps on board this campaign um his big move is in the summer of 2016 when there's the republican convention it changes the Republican party platform not in a whole bunch of different ways doesn't try to put Donald Trump's stamp on a bunch of different issues it's pretty much the same Republican platform it's been for a while one thing has changed which is um the Republican party stance towards Russia and they make it more favorable which is just like oh I wonder why they did that. I wonder why that's what they picked to change in the platform at the RNC platform. I mean, it seems pretty coincidental, huh?

Yeah. And then two other points that make it so clear that there is something very rotten here, which is everyone from Donald Trump to Donald Trump Jr. to Paul Manafort to Jared Kushner all lied repeatedly in many cases. Right. Under oath or at penalty of – at risk of criminal prosecution, lied about their contacts with Russians over and over again. and over again. And then you also have various other things like Roger Stone being in contact with WikiLeaks,

who was responsible for the distribution of the hacked information. You have all this stuff that is right there before us, including, which we can never mention enough, which is that Jared Kushner

was involved in a plan to set up a secret batch of the Russians so that he could communicate with the Russians outside of the eyes and ears of the United States law enforcement intelligence agencies. Like if you were to just like take it out of the context of American politics in this like soap opera drama of terribleness we've been living for last years and just present this set of facts to someone they would be like of course these people are

fucking guilty it is so obvious but we are unwilling to take yes for an answer because the actually once you take yes for an answer then you have to do something about it. And as you guys talked about on Monday, people are scared shitless about having to actually do something about this because it is seems politically risky and it's a giant deal. And the idea that the president of the United States and the collection of corrupt criminals that he worked with broke multiple laws to help him win the office is something that sort of breaks the brain of the body politic. But it's all right here. It is plainly obvious for everyone to see. And the question is, what are we going to do about it? Don't forget, don't forget the National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn, who's also pled guilty,

called up the Russians before they even got into office, before Trump even got into office and said, hey, don't retaliate on these Obama sanctions because we're almost there. We're going to take care of you guys. The whole thing is... Don't retaliate on these sanctions for influencing the election.

It's just, when you start to remember all of it, it really is, it's not good, Dan. It's not good. So let's talk about how this all ends. On Wednesday, news stories broke that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would soon be leaving the Justice Department. Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2017 and has been in charge of the Russia investigation because Sessions recused himself. Confirmation begins next week for the man Donald Trump has nominated to replace Sessions, William Barr.

It's still unclear what Barr's nomination and Rosenstein's potential departure could mean for the Mueller investigation. Chuck Schumer has already asked that Trump withdraw Barr from consideration because of critical things he said about the special counsel. How worried should we be about Rosenstein leaving? Worried? I mean, I don't know that there's anything we should, there aren't, there aren't anything that you're going to bring up related to Trump. I'm like, don't worry about that. It's fine. So yeah, we should be worried. I think there are some questions here about, and the reporting has been a little mixed on this, about some reporting, I think from CNN talked about how Rosenstein has said he basically wants to stay to make sure to the point in which

there's like a good he knows the Mueller investigation is in a good place or is coming to an end or something like that and so I don't really know how much to worry but there is one factor overhanging this which is it's not entirely clear that ethics officials will – at the Justice Department will allow Barr to oversee the Mueller investigation. I mean obviously he can override that recommendation, but the – we live in a world where Democrats have subpoena powers. So ethics officials at the Department of Justice will make a recommendation on whether he needs to recuse himself or not. on whether he needs to recuse himself or not. And if that is not made public, or he does not recuse, Democrats can certainly subpoena that piece of information and find out what the recommendation was. So we just don't really know enough to know. But every day, particularly as the facts get worse and worse for Trump, he has proven himself to be a particularly rash and irrational individual.

So I think every day that he does not fire Mueller is a small miracle. Yeah. I mean, look, there was a Washington Post story last night, too, that Rudy and the rest of the goons who are Trump's lawyers are already preparing to try to prevent as much of the Mueller report as possible from ever seeing light of day. They're going to try to claim executive privilege, which is basically saying, oh, well, if this report involves conversations that the president had with his advisors, those conversations are always supposed to be privileged. Otherwise, how can a president have honest conversations with his advisors? And so therefore, you know, any parts that deal with how the president spoke with his advisors should be redacted or should be

withheld. But I would suggest that everyone reads, you know, there was a thread on Twitter from Neil Katyal, who was our, was acting Solicitor General under Obama, I believe, and also wrote the special counsel regulations in the first place. And, and Neil believes that the way that the regulations are written, the way that the regulations are written, that pretty much in every scenario, Mueller can trigger a report that has to go to Congress and ultimately the public, because the way that the regulations were designed, they were designed so that an administration

couldn't cover up the results of an investigation like this. And he feels fairly confident that Giuliani or Barr or whoever will not be able to prevent this report from seeing the light of day, which I found some solace in. Yeah, I thought that was a good thread and it makes a lot of sense. And it seems even highly likely that under all scenarios, the report will find its way to the public, either through actual release, through delivery to Congress, through subpoena, through leak. I have great hope and a decent amount of confidence that it will come out. It is also funny that Rudy Giuliani, noted constitutional scholar that he is, thinks that executive privilege

would include a protection for presidents to discuss criminal conspiracies with their advisors. I know. Yeah, I'm sure that was the intention of writing it. Like, look, these conversations where the president's trying to obstruct justice with his advisors, those are privileged. It is wild. It is really wild that when you think about that and we had this conversation a few months ago about the ability to indict a president.

And I think this was this also a Neil Katyal threat about the idea that that prohibition that Justice Department policy would not necessarily apply to crimes committed before you became president, in the sense that you shouldn't be able to run for president and win as a way to, it's like the political equivalent of moving to a non-extradition country. It's like, ah, I'm president. You can't prosecute me for four years. Yeah. You can't cheat to win the presidency and then think that by winning it's a get out of jail free card like that's just this i'm fairly sure that's not what the founders intended i'm i'm not a constitutional scholar but uh i would wager no one involved in this is a constitutional scholar not rudy not not paul man of they're they're not even constitutional there are no scholars in this, this is a, I've said it before

it's a conspiracy of dunces it is a conspiracy of dunces, okay when we come back, we will talk to Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer on the pod today, we have Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, How are you today? Well, fighting the fight. It's good to be with you. Good to hear your voices. Senator, what was it like in the room yesterday before the president stormed out?

And were you able to get your hands on a Butterfinger? Yes, he brought the candies. The problem is that our workers need paychecks. Candy does not solve this problem. But he was agitated. He was all, you know, you could see when he walked in the room, he didn't want to be there. He actually admitted, he said, I don't want to be here. My staff made me be here. said, I don't want to be here. My staff made me be here. And, you know, as I've said before, negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O. He states mistruths regularly. He'll say one thing that contradicts something he said two minutes earlier. He tries to talk over people and not listen. It's a surreal experience being there with him. Senator, is there, I mean, given the way that everything has gone to date in these, you know, quote unquote negotiations with Trump, is there any possible deal that you could see that would open the government up short of the Republicans just folding? first about his $5.7 billion wall, and we're totally opposed to any wall at all, as Nancy made clear yesterday, and we've made clear over and over again. There's a lot of talk, you know, well, let's do something on border security for DACA or for immigration. The problem is,

been there, done that. Every time that we try to do this, and he initially says, well, he would be for it, the Ingraham's and the Coulter's and the Limbaugh's beat him up and call him Amnesty Donald or this Donald or that Donald, and he backs off. He's done it three times already. And so I don't think that that is a fruitful way to go. I think we're just going to have to stay firm. And, you know, you're seeing a good, a nice number of Senate Republicans realize that the government ought to open. The American people seem to be on our side quite decisively. I saw one poll that said 25 percent, only 25 percent of Americans believe that Trump should shut down the government

to get his wall. That means he's losing about a third of his base, if you assume it's about 35 percent. So I think if we hang tough, we can win this. Do you see any scenario where Republicans in Congress might override Trump's potential veto to reopen the government? Well, you know, initially McConnell put on the floor this, it was then more than 30 days. It expires February 8th, so it's about 30 days now. And it got unanimous support. My guess is if you went inside the heads of our 53 Republican senators, probably about 40 would say we ought to open up the government to negotiate. They know this is a loser for them. But as the past has shown, they're just so afraid to buck Donald Trump, given his success at backing candidates in Republican primaries, that even

though they know it's bad for the country, even though they know it's bad for their party, they sort of stick with him. But there has been an erosion. Every day you hear one or two Republicans say that we ought to open up the government and then negotiate. I think the number of who've done it publicly is five or six, and there are three or four more who have said it privately. So I think it's moving in our direction, even with the Republicans. with the Republicans. Senator, this morning, President Trump sent a pretty clear signal that he is willing to invoke a national emergency to A, get us all in B, maybe find a way out of this mess he's found himself in. What's your reaction to that idea? And also, how would Senate Democrats respond if Trump were to go that path? Okay, I'd say two things here. First, he can talk about it. I don't believe that it's legally

sustainable. There was a really good op ed, which I would commend to your readers by Professor Ackerman from Yale Law School, which I think made it pretty clear that it will, of course, be challenged in court the minute he should do it by all kinds of different people. You know, standing is an issue here. So the more suits, the better. And so I think legally it would be blocked. But, you know, Nancy and I have talked about it and we work very closely together, as you know, and we'd look at any legislative way to stop it as well. Are you committed to holding up all Senate business until the shutdown ends? Well, as you know, we held up that first bill, which was called S-1.

They're going to make us vote on it again this afternoon. I had close to every Democratic senator on the floor of the Senate at 10.30 this morning where both Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen asked that McConnell put on the floor the six bills that would open up the government, the eight cabinet departments that are not Homeland Security, and then a separate bill that would open up Homeland Security and they blocked it and we have said hey we will go forward on this bill if you let us have a vote on opening up the government which I'm sure would pass and pass overwhelmingly because then a lot of these Republicans I mentioned who are scared of Trump would be smoked out and we're gonna we're gonna look at every bill that comes forward very critically and we're going to look at every bill that comes forward very critically, and we're going to look at each bill and decide what the right course is. We're continuing to stay strong on S-1 here.

Are you surprised by Senator McConnell's essential absence from all of this, sort of deciding that he was going to abdicate all of his authority to Trump? of deciding that he was going to abdicate all of his authority to Trump? Well, you know, he sort of in the past has bragged that he's the expert at avoiding shutdowns, that he's the great negotiator to avoid shutdowns. And now he's ducking. When the House was Republican, maybe, you know, he said, well, we have to get President Trump to sign it. But two things have happened since then. The first is the House is Democratic, so they'll pass bills to open up the government, which was much harder. But second, in the Senate, we actually passed a proposal unanimously, not a single Republican dissented, that would require the government to stay open. So I think his arguments don't make much sense. And I said to him on the floor, you know, he was objecting to us bringing up the open

up the government bills. And I said, Leader McConnell, I have three words for you. Open the government. And then I said, it's in your hands. And he had nothing to say. He knows he's stuck. He's stuck because his party is divided, with more of them still sticking with Trump than the number who have come with us. I also think he's looking home at politics in Kentucky. And you may remember six years ago, he had a pretty tough primary from someone who was to the right of him and a Trump guy. So I think he knows better.

I'd say that. but I think at the same time, he's very reluctant to move forward. We need a bunch more Republican senators, and I would urge your listeners, particularly if they have a Republican senator in their home states, to email, to tweet, to call, to write. It's heartbreaking to see what he's doing. You asked about the meeting with him. One of the reasons Nancy and I go to these meetings is to speak the truth. He's in sort of this bubble. You can see it with the staff around him.

No one tells him what's going on, the truth. So he likes to brag everyone's, you know, everyone, all these workers are for shutting down the government for the wall. And I told him, I told him, I said, you know, there are states, there are counties in upstate New York that you carried in 2016 and that I carried. Let me tell you what's happening. Farmers are really angry about your shutdown, Mr. President, because they can't get their farmer loan, their farm loans. And they have to get them now because they need money for planting. I said, people, you know, veterans and others can't get mortgages.

I told him the story of a fire dispatcher, actually, who just bought a house, his wife is pregnant, they're being kicked out of their present accommodations in a month or two, but because FHA can't sign the statement, they have nowhere to go. And I said, don't be under the illusion that people like what you're doing. They don't. It's very bad for you. You should have seen his face. He doesn't hear things like that. So, you know, he's not winning this fight, and I don't think in any part of the country. So obviously the border is more secure, more militarized than at any time in history. You've said that, you know, if the president is willing to open up the government, you would be willing to negotiate on-border

security. What, if any, additional security do you believe we need on the southern border? Yeah, our position is pretty clear. We're for doing basically what we did last year, which is 1.375 for no wall, but for ways to improve border security, drones, sensors, things at the port of entry that can detect drugs and fentanyl and all these other bad, terrible things that are coming in. So we're willing to do border security, but we don't believe the wall is the way to go. And our position, which has united our caucus and the House caucus, is go with last year's proposal, which got Democratic and Republican support. And that's what we proposed. Senator Schumer, thank you for joining us. We appreciate you giving us the time.

Nice to talk to you and hope I'll see you or at least talk to you again soon. Thanks to Chuck Schumer for joining us today and we will talk to you next week. Bye everyone. Bye.