Pod Save America - “Crazy pills.”

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

Trump tries and fails to clean up his Putin mess, but Republicans in Congress make it clear that they won’t be doing anything about it. Then Crooked Contributor Tim Miller joins Jon and Dan to talk about the state of the Republican Party, and why it’s become a Trump cult.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, we'll be talking to Crooked Media's token Republican, our own Crooked contributor, Tim Miller, about the Republican Congress's pathetic response to Trump's betrayal of America during his press conference with Vladimir Putin. We'll also talk about the White House's attempt to clean up this mess, what Democrats should be saying about it.

Lots going on this week. Before we begin, The Wilderness is out. Kruger Media's first documentary podcast series about the history and future of the Democratic Party, written and directed by me. And the first four episodes are out. If you haven't already listened, go check them out. And you can, don't worry about missing it because it is not part of the news cycle, this podcast. It's sort of a broader look at the Democratic Party. Every friend of the pod out there, please download, listen, tell me what you think.

Would love everyone to hear it. I have some thoughts on this. One, it's fabulous. It's truly fabulous. And I'm just very happy. Thanks. I'm very happy it's out there. I think it's a really important thing for the party. Two, I think this is a shot across the ballot. The other Jon Favreau that you've given yourself the title director. It's an interesting project because if you listen to it,

it is very different than our usual Crooked Media pods where we sit around the table. And we partnered with a production company, 2UP, to create create this and they did such a great job it's like got music and archival sound and all kinds of interesting bells and whistles that makes for an easy listen so yeah i i can say directed since they they put it all together but i i sort of uh spent 10 months writing a lot of it and um it was a lot of work but it was fun um it's it's

important i'm glad you did it yeah and uh and the next episode is about race and politics uh and that will be out on monday so check it out and catch up with the first four episodes over the weekend um okay let's talk about the the not back, the walk not back. Donald Trump has spent the last two days attempting to clarify, but mostly confirming, the remarks he delivered at a press conference with Vladimir Putin, where he stunned the world by siding with the Russian president over our own government, which has concluded that Putin sabotaged the 2016 election in order to install Trump as president. On Tuesday, Trump asked us to believe that he misspoke,

that when he said he didn't see any reason why it would be Russia that sabotaged our election, what he really meant was he didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. You can see where he'd make that very easy mistake. Dan, shall we start to enumerate all the different ways that this explanation is a steaming pile of horseshit? I think it's very objective of you as now a journalist and a director that you use the term seemingly as opposed to an actual pile of horseshit. I mean, it is so absurd on so many levels, and it is embarrassing. I mean, it basically, I think most of the things that Trump does shows that he's an idiot,

but this explanation shows that both he's an idiot, but he thinks that everyone else is also an idiot. In particular, his supporters and his fellow members of the Republican Party, In particular, his supporters and his fellow members of the Republican Party, that this is the fig leaf that he would give them to hang on to, so that they would stop saying that Trump had sided with Putin, was a traitor to the country, put Putin's word of the intelligence services and's obvious to all of us that the walkback was pretty much bullshit. But just to go through why. In that same Helsinki presser, Trump also said that Putin offered an extremely strong and powerful denial, quote, of hacking. Asked whether he believed Putin or his own intelligence director, Trump said, quote, Asked whether he believed Putin or his own intelligence director, Trump said, quote, I have confidence in both parties, echoing many fine people on both sides from Charlottesville. Also, Trump didn't correct his alleged misstatement during either of his earlier interviews with Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson.

And then probably the most important thing, he's doubted that russia was to blame for the hacking since the 2016 campaign he's doubted it in tweets he's doubted it in interviews he's doubted it everywhere right i mean the idea that like now he's like oh yeah yeah i always believed it was uh the russia that did the hacking it just doesn't hold up. Most of the press, I think, treated this with the appropriate level of skepticism, pointing out that he, within one paragraph, said that he took the word of his intelligence community, of his intelligence agencies. But then in the next sentence said, it could be anyone. It could be China. It could be anyone else. And so within one paragraph, he both accepted – he walked back what he did and then unwalked it back.

I don't know what the reverse of walk back is. Walk forward. Either way, we could get tied up for months around this. But the point is it was completely pitiful. most revealing episodes into Trump's mentality is that he is so obsessed with, for whatever reason, right? And we can talk about the reasons, but he's so obsessed with casting doubt on Russia's involvement on his behalf that he can't even read the hostage statement without then undermining the hostage statement in the same sense. He obviously understood, to the extent that Trump can understand anything intellectually, according to the reports, Kelly and Pompeo and Pence and all these people came to him and said,

you have to fix this. So Trump, enough. And this only happened a handful of times in his presidency. He didn't do it around shithole countries. He didn't do it around the fraudulent votes. He didn't do it around the wiretapping of Obama. He really only did it around Nazis are very fine people and this statement, where he will come out and basically do a corrective. He will try to clean up the mess. So we understood that intellectually, but in the moment, he is so psychologically and emotionally twisted about this that he couldn't even do it and had to undermine the statement in the moment, which says so much about the psychology at play here that it's frankly that Putin's taking advantage of left and right. Well, so Fox and Friends showed this montage this morning that supposedly shows all the times that Trump has acknowledged Russian election sabotage.

But even Trump, of course, tweeted this. But if you actually look at the montage, it actually shows Trump saying, I think it was Russia, but maybe it was China. Maybe it was others. A lot of people could have done this. In every single clip, there is no time, there's no time where he unequivocally says it was Vladimir Putin and Russia that directed this hacking. Full stop, period. time where he unequivocally says it was Vladimir Putin and Russia that directed this hacking,

full stop, period. He always has to add a qualifier because he doesn't really believe it. Or he doesn't want people to know he believes it, or he doesn't want his Russian handler, Vladimir Putin, you know, believing that he believes it. But there was also, last night, we should talk about the New York Times story that came out last night that revealed Donald Trump learned that it was Vladimir Putin himself that directed the hack two weeks before his inauguration. And he learned it because our intelligence agencies found this out from a source close to Putin. That sourcing was incredible. First of all, I can't even believe that the... We should talk about this. Something interesting or horrible must have happened for the New York Times to publish that US intelligence agencies learned of the hacking from a source that was close to Vladimir Putin. I mean, that's pretty crazy, right?

Yeah, it's crazy that that's how they learned it. It's also crazy that the New York Times reported that. Now, Tommy and Ben Rhodes can speak to this with greater knowledge than I can. They had more experience dealing with the Times in these sorts of situations. But I'm sort of skeptical the Times would have published it if that source was still in play, right? That they would have burned the source. I mean they have published things we asked them not to do for various reasons. And sometimes maybe they were right. Sometimes we were right. But I think in this case, it probably means that source is no longer in play. But I'd be interested to hear what Tommy and our other foreign policy nerd friends think about that. But it's very, it is a very closely held source.

That you would have thought for a normal, rational-thinking human being, that would be case closed for Trump. Right. Right. And he's known this all, and so all this time that he's cast doubt on the investigation, calling it a witch hunt, doubting Russian hacking, sucking up to Vladimir Putin, this whole time he had been told, before he even became president, that we knew with confidence that Putin himself directed this attack on the United States, one of the largest cyber attacks in our

history. Do you have a theory on this? This can go a couple of ways, right? It could be he believed the intelligence community, but then doesn't want to say it publicly for what I think are two possible reasons. One, saying it publicly to him admits that he did not win fairly or furthers the idea that the Mueller investigation is legitimate. Or he just doesn't believe it. So if he believes it, it either legitimizes Mueller or angers Putin, which he's afraid to do, or refuses to believe it because he is a paranoid, crazy uncle who thinks the U.S. intelligence agencies are out to get him. I mean, with Trump, it's always a mix of everything,

but I do find many problems with the legitimacy excuse, because if he was really worried that evidence of hacking would cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election, he would try to continually say there was no hacking from anyone. Instead, he tries to say maybe it was China, or maybe it was others, or maybe it was the 400-pound guy, or maybe it was hacking from any number of people out there. And that doesn't really make much sense if his real concern is the legitimacy of the election. It also doesn't make sense why during the election he would suck up to Putin as much as he did

and say such nice things about Vladimir Putin all through the 2016 election because that was before the legitimacy of his election was in doubt. So everyone's like, what does Russia have on him? Is it the P-tape? Is it financial? Whatever else. I'm thinking that what Russia has on him is that they know they helped him win the election. And they also may know that members of his inner circle helped them help him win the election. And potentially Trump himself knows something about this so the

compromise that putin has on him is the fact that he helped him win the election that's my theory and trump doesn't and that's why trump's sucking up to putin i i i buy that theory because i just think that the whole like oh i don't want to acknowledge this because i'm wrong like i used i i sort of gave that theory legitimacy too but, but the more he's been acting the way he has, and especially after the press conference, I just don't think it's about legitimacy. I mean, the fact that the best case scenario, like when you hear what the Trump apologists and staff read out to Jonathan Swan, which is the closest thing I think we get to what the Trump team wants you to know about Trump, right? Is that he, in his mind, can't separate the idea of election hacking from the idea that he illegally colluded,

and therefore he sort of sees weakness in it. And that is their best case. And their best case is that he is dangerously unfit to be president of the United States, but not a traitor. He intellectually is incapable of the nuance to understand two separate things or to put the safety of the country over his own fragile ego. And that is their best argument, which shows just how fucked up this situation is. Also keep in mind of the inner circle, the people who are leaking to Jonathan Swan now, almost none of them were there during the campaign. And so probably none of them know that there was real, probably none of them know for sure that there was collusion. Like Jared and Ivanka were both there in the campaign. They

were members of the inner circle. But the rest of the inner circle is gone now. So it very well may be that these awful people in the Trump administration and whether they know about collusion or not, they're still awful from everything else they've done. But it very well may be that the people leaking to reporters right now like, oh, he didn't really collude. He's not really a traitor, all that kind of stuff. They just don't know. really collude he's not really a traitor all that kind of stuff they just don't know um and i mean think about everything steve bannon said to michael wolf and has said since then about how yeah that june 5th meeting that was fucking treasonous remember steve bannon called it

treasonous um yeah so you know now dan i was surprised that trump was even attempting to walk it back. That was my surprise. I thought he would just sort of plow ahead. Why do you think he walked this one back like he tried to walk back a few other awful incidents in his presidency? I think he – Trump judges everything based on TV coverage. based on TV coverage. And I think even Fox, right, not Hannity and Tucker Carlson, who were broadcasting, you know, basically from inside Trump's ego, the, but just like during the day, he was seeing more negative, more Republicans say negative things about him that he has seen

probably since, since, since the Nazi comment. And so I think that is part of it and i i you know when mcconnell and ryan and these others for the first time really like put out statements that were specifically critical of trump like even paul ryan's nazi statement was a statement against nazism not against the president who endorsed nazism and so i think he felt some pressure to try to fix it. I'm sure in his own mind, because facts are just malleable aspects of his own narrative, that he did not think he... He thought he probably was tough on Russia, and therefore he wanted to make it clear that he was in this statement. And so I think he probably felt some measure of political pressure. And I think the combination of Pence and Pompeo was probably more, carried more weight than the normal cast of clowns who asked him to do things. I think

Pence very rarely goes to Trump and says, Pence is basically absent, right? He's just doing, you know, just going to Indianapolis Colts games for five minutes at a time. Just to stir up racial grievance yeah so i think he like him asking trump to do something may have carried some weight that doesn't normally make this seem like a bigger deal i also love uh gabe sherman in vanity fair points out that uh john kelly was encouraging encouraging republican members of congress to uh criticize Trump about this. He gave them the go ahead to do that because he thought that maybe the public pressure would cause Trump to try to walk it back. Kelly is basically like the guy in office space who's

trying to get fired. Like he's not going to quit and he's just going to hang out there and do nothing and play with the hole punch until someone sends him home. I thought this was my stapler. So Trump didn't just stop at the attempted walk back, as is so often the case when he tries to do these things. He's basically fucked up like 10 more times over the last couple days as he was giving interviews to try to walk this back. I just want to go through a few of the big ones. First, this was from the Associated Press. Trump was asked at the end of a cabinet meeting Wednesday if Russia was still targeting the U.S. He answered no without elaborating. This is after his own director of intelligence just said last week that the threat of Russian election interference in 2018 is a, quote, red blinking light.

What did you think about that one? Well, originally I was concerned, but then Sarah Huckabee Sanders told me later in the day that when he was saying no repeatedly while staring at the reporter who asked the question, he was merely saying, no, I don't want to take questions this day. So now I feel much better. You know, which Cecilia Vargas, multiple other reporters who were in the room all say that Huckabee's explanation was complete bullshit. All of them said that he was looking

right at the reporter and said no to that question. Question is... Of course. Of course that's what he meant, because it's just like North Korea. We're seeing the same thing play out, which is if the answer to the question is yes, which it is actually yes, we are seeing this happen every day, then Trump has to admit failure and criticize Putin at the same time, two things he can't do. Because if he went to this big

mano a mano, super successful meeting he said he had, and Putin is actively attacking America at this moment, then he failed in the summit. And so of course he would say that. It's so obvious. And at some point we should, I guess, stop being insulted that they keep giving us this bullshit. But, you know. This is also another piece of evidence that his coziness with Putin and his weakness with regard to Putin has nothing to do with his concern about the legitimacy of his own election. and still say, but we're doing everything we can to make sure that nothing happens in 2018. And we believe they're targeting us in 2018 and we're trying to stop it. And this government is doing everything it possibly can. But he's not doing that.

He's not doing it. No, because he wants the help. He wants the help. Yes. He wants the help. We have to put this in the context of when he was losing to Hillary Clinton, he specifically and publicly asked Vladimir Putin to go hack her emails, which then they tried to do later that day. And so it is obvious they wanted Russia's help in 2016. We know that from his son.

We know that from the meeting that his son, his son-in-law, campaign manager had with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. We know that from multiple contacts that Roger Stone, his top political advisor, had with Guccifer 2.0, who turned out to be a Russian agent. And we know that from multiple political operatives who were in contact with Russians all over the place, Trump's team was meeting with Russians asking for help. So it seems to ipso facto suggest that he wants help this time as well, and he is not going to do anything to stop it. Yeah, because again, he did a CBS interview last night. And even in that interview, when he finally said, oh, yeah, I told him there shouldn't be meddling. meddling, first of all, he now calls it meddling, which is like the, you know, sort of lightest word that you can use to describe an effort to hack and steal documents from an opposing party by a foreign government in our election. He can't bring himself to be really strong about it. He's like, yeah, you know, I said no more meddling, but what can a statement do, right? It's just his heart's not in it, even when he is forced to read these hostage statements prepared by his own government to really say that he doesn't want meddling. And there are a couple other instances that should make us think there's something else going on here.

In his interview with Tucker Carlson, his safe space on Fox News, Trump complained about the very purpose of NATO, which is a mutual defense pact. He complained about having to defend tiny Montenegro and called the people of Montenegro aggressive people who might start a war with Russia. Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 after Russia plotted a coup to overthrow its government. Now, look, again, some people say, OK, Tucker asked him the question, why should our kids go defend Montenegro if there's an attack? So people say, okay, well, Tucker led him to talk about Montenegro. But no one led Trump to suddenly then say, you know, those people in Montenegro, they're strong people. They're aggressive people. They might start a war themselves.

And then suddenly we're in World War III. They might go attack Russia. No one told him to say that. No one led him to that sentence. That's just him talking about Montenegro possibly attacking Russia, which is what Vladimir Putin says. Do you also know where the very strong people of Montenegro are right now? Aren't they in Afghanistan? They're in Afghanistan helping defend the United States, which was attacked on 9-11 from Afghanistan. I mean, like, it is obvious he's parroting something that either Putin said to him or someone who is advocating, who is speaking Putin, giving Putin's talking points about

NATO. And it is fucking insane that the new, and this has been, you see some of this from some members of Congress, some Republican pundits, is the new isolationist Republican message is, why should we defend Montenegro? Right. I mean, if we just want to take a trip down memory lane, when France did not go to war in Iraq with us, the entire Republican Party shamed the Dixie Chicks out of business

and renamed French fries Freedom Fries. And so now, however many years later, we are in a world where we are trying to dismantle NATO, make a political argument against NATO, which just happens to be the top foreign policy priority of the people who want to help the Republicans win the election by interfering against the Democrats. Yeah. And by the way, Trump doesn't really have a lot of other strong opinions on foreign policy. It's not like this guy's out there

with a theory of the case, you know, with some doctrine. But suddenly he has a ton of thoughts about NATO and about trade pacts and about all the other kind of things. It's just, it's a lot. The most powerful special interest in the Republican Party right now

is not the Koch brothers. It's not pharma. It's big Russia. Yeah. And it's not even, you used to think maybe it was the NRA, but now we're learning that the NRA was funded by Russian interest during the 2016 campaign. But this example might be the worst of all this week, I think. On Wednesday, the Russian prosecutor general's office said it wanted to interview the U.S.-born Bill Browder, who exposed tax fraud in Russia. Tommy's interviewed Bill on Pod Save the World. And friend of the pod, Mike McFaul, also former U.S. ambassador to Russia. And when Sarah Sanders was asked whether Donald Trump might be considering turning over a loyal American diplomat to a hostile regime that murders dissidents, she admitted that Trump and Putin talked it over during their meeting in Helsinki, and then she declined to rule it out.

Quote, the president is going to meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that. On turning over a U.S. ambassador to Russian prosecutors for questioning and Bill Browder. That was fucking disgraceful. So Nate Silver had a tweet yesterday which said basically, I'm going to paraphrase here, the way he manages the flow of Trump news, the flow of news during this Trump era, is to focus on the things that Trump is doing and not the things Trump is considering, because most of the things he considers ends up not happening. And when you get outraged about the things he's considering, you miss a lot of the actual things that are happening. And I think there is some truth to that. When they say things like, we're going to

stop having White House briefings, or we're going to ban this newspaper, a lot of times that is just trolling to get the press worked up, right, or venting or whatever else. And then there are some times that just Sarah Huckabee Sanders is so far out of the loop and unprepared, she doesn't know what to say. So she leaves things open that aren't actually open. But I think this is different because in the context of the Russians who have been indicted, Trump said Putin had some interesting ideas. And so it is not crazy to think that Trump could be tricked into some sort of trade, right? Where Mueller – where like we would question these Russians and the Russians would get to question Mike and Bill. bill. And that he like that just you can see in Trump's mind, how like in like in the world in which he thinks he is a good dealmaker when he is actually the guy who pays full price for a used

car, that he thinks he's doing the right thing there. And then also just in general, Trump has been very, very pro Putin. So we should be very concerned about this because it sets a very development. It's not just because Bill has been on Tommy's podcast and Mike is a friend of a friend and former colleague of ours. It is very alarming that they have not cleaned this up as of the time of this podcast, because if this was something where Sarah Huckabee Sanders just didn't know what to say, and therefore she went back to her office and then someone who worked for John Bolton came in and said, this is not actually true. You can take this off the table. And then they would have put out a statement right away because there's been getting a lot, there's been a lot of fuel to fire. So it suggests that at least as of the recording of this podcast, which

I'm just, I'm jinxing us, that this is something that at least in Trump's mind, if not in other corners of the government, is an open question. Yeah. I mean, the only comfort we can take in this situation is the fact that the State Department spokesperson called the idea absolutely absurd. So at least the State Department's on a different page. But, you know, Trump also runs the entire government. He's the president of the United States all around the world in danger. The fact that, you know, diplomats are supposed to have diplomatic immunity wherever they are in countries. They're supposed to be protected. The United States is supposed to stand up for them. The United States is supposed to fucking stand up for its own citizens. a law-abiding American citizen for some fucking deal with Vladimir Putin, who's the dictator of a hostile regime, is, I don't even know what to say about it. I think there was a Democratic

member of Congress who was asked last night, like, would it be impeachable if Trump did that? And he was like, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I would say so. I would say so if the President of the United States turns over an American diplomat to Vladimir Putin for questioning. I think that would qualify as impeachable. It's crazy. Did you see? There was a clip going around of Russia state TV talking about this whole week. And this is a quote from Russian state TV host number one.

Quote, it is very bizarre. You can't bash your own country like that especially when you're president talking about trump and russian state tv host number two says quote when trump says our relations are bad because of american foolishness and stupidity he really smells like an agent of the kremlin i mean the russians are very good at trolling also that they went out and announced announced a bunch of verbal agreements that Trump and they said that we have a bunch of, we're looking forward to implementing the things that Trump and Putin agreed on. And no one in the government has any idea what those are,

including specific things around what's happening in Syria. Yeah. Pretty, pretty scary. One other question about this. So like, yes yes of course trump would do hannity and um tucker and tucker carlson right just because like small children need their blankie but the like do city he's done almost no interviews with non-fox sycophants for almost a year now. I'm curious about the thinking that put him doing a big post-meeting CBS interview. I got the sense that that's been on the books before we need to clean anything up. So were they thinking this was going to be so successful that they just wanted to tell the world about it? That's what I think.

Anyone who knows anything about Trump, right, who spent any time with him, knows that this was likely to be one of the biggest disasters in history. And so are they just so, have they drank so much orange-flavored Kool-Aid? I just can't imagine a thinking human being thinking that this was the time

that you would break out of your filter bubble. That's the only thing I thought, too, is that A, it was on the books before the press conference happened. And so they probably felt like they couldn't cancel it. But I wonder if they deluded themselves into thinking that this trip and this press conference was going to be as quote unquote successful as his North Korea summit, which they clearly thought was a big win for him. And they thought maybe they'd do another victory lap after the summit and have him talk.

I don't know, though. You're right. One thing this week has reminded us is that every time Trump does do a sit-down interview that's freewheeling, that's not with Tucker or Sean Hannity or Fox and Friends. He says all kinds of crazy shit that has pretty scary policy implications. Like we're not used to that anymore because he's been walled off for so many months and all he does is sort of tweet and say things at pool sprays once in a while and then go and do his crazy stump speech. But when he's actually confronted with questions,

it just sort of highlights his ignorance, his narcissism, his racism, all of his problems. It's pretty bad. He, I mean, you kind of have to say this, everyone's probably, but he really shouldn't be president. Like he is so, put policy aside, but he is just so dangerously emotionally, intellectually, temperamentally unfit for the job.

He is the, like, I mean, this is, you would really have to stretch to find someone who would be worse at this job than him. It's just, it's a hard job. It requires you to learn a lot of things, to hold nuanced thoughts, to sometimes put your own political needs and ambitions below a greater priority for the country, to want to reach out to people who may not like you and may even hate you. Those are all the things you need in a president. We've had presidents who were good and we've had presidents who were bad, but we have never had a president this bad. Just the absolute wrong person at any time for this job.

Yeah. And a lot of people will say, look, we've had other presidents that did more damage. George Bush took us to war in the wrong country. But again, I think that we've been in a way lucky with Trump that most of the crises that he's dealt with have been of his own making. And again, he has still not had to face a genuine outside threat and tried to make a decision that was a life or death decision for many people in this country and around the world. And when he has... With the exception of Puerto Rico. With the exception of Puerto Rico, and we saw how that turned out. And, you know, and like he created the family separation crisis.

He created the Charlottesville crisis. He created this Putin crisis. But God forbid, you know, there's some kind of foreign policy, national security emergency or some economic calamity that he has to deal with. Like, again, we could be still – the worst days of the Trump presidency could still be yet to come, which I know is not a happy thought. So let's talk about the Republican reaction. Speaking of non-happy thoughts. So there was bipartisan condemnation on Monday, even if it was mostly, you know, sad tweets and troubled statements from Republicans in Congress. But on Tuesday and Wednesday, as you noted, as Trump tried to clean up the mess, they all jumped right back on the Trump train. Rob Portman, Senator from Ohio,

said, quote, he took the president at his word. Marco Rubio, just, you know, the pillar of courage, said that he was glad Trump, quote, clarified it. Lindsey Graham said, quote, he'd been reassured unequivocally by the White House legislative team that the president's no response to shadowed questions was not intended to suggest that Trump doubts the intel community's assessment that Russia is continuing to attack our elections. Dan, why are they doing this? Why are they sticking with him yet again? I mean, let's do the important stipulation that they have been moral cowards who have been willing to coddle racism and misogyny in the search of political power and lining their own pockets for long before Donald Trump ever showed up. And it is that exact cowardice and moral ineptitude that led us to have Donald Trump as the head of the Republican Party and eventually the United States to begin with. So let's wait that. The very specific reason they are doing it this time is because they feel that they are hostage to Trump voters.

And polls out already show that people, that Republicans overwhelmingly approve of Donald Trump's summit with Putin. They believe, but like three to one, that election interference is a distraction. And that even if they do think Trump did not do a great job in the summit, it is inconsequential their support of him. And if they cannot get enthusiasm among the Trump base up, then they are going to lose the House and maybe even the Senate. And so they have to, even though they agree with us that he is dangerously unfit for the job, that he is in Vladimir Putin's pocket

for whatever reason, P-tape, money laundering, ego, need for election assistance. They believe that they're going to lie to the American people about it because they would rather win an election than help the country. Yeah. I mean, just to dig into those poll numbers you referred to, SurveyMonkey, Axios poll, question on the way Trump handled his press conference with Putin. The good news in that poll, 58% disapprove, 40% approve. With independents, that number is 62% disapprove, 33% approve. But then as you referenced, for Republicans, only 18% disapprove of the way he handled the press conference. 18% thought it was a bad idea. 79% approved. There was a CBS poll

out as well. CBS polls are a little higher quality than SurveyMonkey, actually quite a bit higher quality than SurveyMonkey. But even in that poll, 55% disapprove of Trump's handling of the press conference, 32% approve. And for Republicans in the CBS poll, 21% disapprove, 68% approve. So a little better than the SurveyMonkey poll, but not by much. I think the question I have, Dan, is does it – I mean it matters for the Republican Congress that Republicans approve of Trump no matter what because it means that they are going to do nothing to stop him or to rein him in or to hold him accountable. Bob Mueller comes out with something even bigger or, you know, sort of determines that Trump has committed a crime or the people close to him have committed a crime, that there was some kind of collusion. But I wonder if electorally how much it matters and is there an issue with focusing only on Republican voters and Trump voters and what they think when we see these numbers, we see his numbers cratering among independents. We know that the number of people who identify themselves as Republican voters has dropped since the 2016 election. What do you think about that? Yes. My answer to that is yes.

Most people in the press don't fully understand how to talk about polls. There are certainly exceptions. Dan Balls, Ron Brownstein, Jonathan Martin, who sort of get, you know, Maggie Haberman, people who get deeper into the numbers. I could give a couple others, Molly Ball, et cetera. But most people talk about it in these headline fashion. And it is, it doesn't, the big headline here is Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of how Trump has handled Russia. Like that is the headline. That should be

what should be discussed. If you wanted, the way to talk about this is, so I guess I'd say a couple things about this. One, focusing only on Trump's base being with Trump is a dumb story. Whether you do it via poll or you choose the New York Times approach, which is to forget that modern opinion research methods have been invented and just go to a bar and talk to random people wearing Trump shirts and see if they still like Trump. Either way, he doesn't – We should stop here to talk about the New York Times story just to laugh about it because I actually thought it was like a click hole piece or an onion piece because this is what the lead of the piece was yesterday. At a bar in

central Pennsylvania, voters wondered if election meddling was really so terrible. It's a witch hunt says Carol Livinggood of Indiana who says she owns enough MAGA hats and shirts to wear one every day of the week. Why are you talking to this person? What do you think the person who has enough MAGA hats and shirts to wear one every day of the week. Why are you talking to this person? What do you think the person who has enough MAGA hats to wear every day of the week is

going to say about this? Of course they're going to support him. But they're all the same. There's only one MAGA hat. They're all the same. I think she wasted her money. Maybe she needed two in case one gets messy. Are they getting dirty every day?

Why do you need so many MAGA hats? But, I mean, it is so – I try – this is a conversation that is so hard to have with most reporters about why this is a dumb story. It can be an interesting read, right? Like, oh, we talked to some people in this one place in Pennsylvania and here's what they say. And that is fine because basically anyone can post anything on the internet. If the New York Times wants to do that, and here's what they say. And that is fine, because basically, anyone can post anything on the internet, the New York Times wants to do that, they can do that as well. But what is it just a fundamentally ignorant move is to try to draw larger political lessons from that. We know how to measure public opinion in this country, we know how to track trends.

We don't always do it the best way as possible. But these tools have been invented, they've been around for more than a half century. The equivalent of what the New York Times does over and over again would be if Al Roker gave the weather on the Today Show

based on how his knee felt. I mean, like, we know how to do these things. They're not perfect, but they are better than asking random people. So it is just, I don't,

it's reached a point of self-parody. I don't really understand what is happening. This is like, well, this is, you know, for The Wilderness, for episode four, we wanted to talk to voters. And we, you know, I did this thing where I said, call in, leave a voicemail. What's wrong with the Democratic Party and how do we fix it? And we wanted to do that just because we wanted everyone to participate.

But I knew full well that the voicemails that came in were not scientifically representative of the population. And so I didn't want to use them too much in the episode, because I didn't want people to think that the opinions in those voicemails were necessarily representative of a broader spectrum of voters, which is why I did focus groups. And focus groups have science and research behind them. And we tried to talk to Obama Trump voters. We tried to talk to Obama non-voters. And political scientists, pollsters in both parties, public opinion research people, they all understand this. The New York Times could go talk to some of them and then have them go do a study for them. Trump's approval rating has gone between, you know, it's been as low as like 36, 37, 38 percent and as high as 45, 46 percent. In that range are a bunch of voters, a bunch of people who've gone back and

forth about Donald Trump since he was elected or even since before he was elected. Figuring out what those people think about Donald Trump and how those people are reacting to various news events is actually very valuable. You like Trump one day, you don't like Trump the next day. Why? You could go talk to those people. Not talking to those people, talking to a bunch of people who are just wearing MAGA hats or people who are actual Republican operatives is just lazy. And it actually skews people's perception of what's happening in politics on any given

day. Yeah. Here's the craziest thing is the New York Times actually could do this. And I think they actually might have, like... As you said, they have really smart political reporters who get this. They have some, like Maggie and J-Mart and Alex Burns, like all those people get this very well. And look, I think we should...

This story is ridiculous. The Times are most famous for doing this, and others do this all the time. It's stupid, and they shouldn't do it. We could talk about this for 10 days because it makes me so furious because it's just – it is the worst – not the worst. There is lots of really bad political journalism that is nefarious and cynical. This is just deeply ignorant in a dumb way. Look, the only reason that I harp on it is because I think it does have an impact and it makes a difference. Because when something happens in the world or Trump does something awful and we all start tweeting about it and say,

this is what Democrats should focus on. This is how Democrats should fight. This is the kind of ad a Democrat should make. This is the kind of message a Democrat should use. You inevitably get a whole bunch of people now who say, LOL, nothing matters. Trump's base is never going to desert him. That's all I see. And so we shouldn't bother doing anything because we're all screwed and nothing matters anyway. And he's never going to, 36 percent of people that call themselves Trump's base. And that is very disturbing. And it's awful that we have a population of people like that in the country who have essentially been brainwashed by Fox News and Donald Trump. But that is different from saying that the majority of people in this country or even the majority of people in states that add up to 270 electoral votes can't be persuaded to vote against Donald Trump next time.

That's just not, there's nothing in the research that says that. I would also point out that, like for 2018, this is sort of a dumb, it is an interesting conversation to track Republican enthusiasm, Democratic enthusiasm, because that is a huge determining factor, especially in midterms, right? that is a huge determining factor, especially in midterms, right? Where your difference between winning 12 seats or 30 seats can depend on how fired up Democrats who don't normally vote in midterms are. And Democratic success in these special elections up and down the ballot since Trump has been elected have been largely a measure of increased enthusiasm among Democrats and decreased enthusiasm among Republicans. So measuring that is important. It's always worth remembering it's a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell you what is

going to happen on election day. I would also note that as it relates to 2020, every single human being who voted for Trump in 2016 could do it again, and Trump could still lose by a pretty large electoral vote margin if more Democrats turned out and the Democrat gets a good – more than half of and the votes that were allocated to Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. So it's that – like Trump can keep his base and still lose. He had his base and lost by millions – got millions fewer votes. So it is not – if Trump's base were to abandon him, the bottom would fall out for him and the Republican Party. So we can look at that periodically. But it is not a good predictor of how strong his chances are. The presence of his

base only tells you a little bit about what is true in 2018. What is more interesting is what the third party voters voted for, where independents are, and where people who didn't vote are. That will tell you a lot about 18 and 20. Yeah. And again, all of this, none of this is to predict the outcome of the next election. It's to let you all know that the outcome that we hope for is possible. So one more question before we get to Tim. Dan, how do you think Democrats should respond to this? You know, everyone's been fairly outraged over this. We've gone the gamut from, you know, Democrats calling for

hearings, calling for Republicans to do something. Some Democrats have called this treasonous behavior. What do you think about all this? I'm not particularly concerned about the message or tweets from Democrats in the aftermath. I think it is largely, I'm sure they were very well thought out, very well written by very smart staffers, edited by smarter bosses. But I think they're largely inconsequential to what's going to happen in 2018. I think Democrats should, like, I think collusion in the Russia investigations, in some ways, a rabbit hole Democrats can get pulled down. Because it is not, we've been having this conversation for two years, almost two years now. It has the numbers on it have not moved.

And the people who are against Republicans and against Trump are pretty sure he colluded. People with knowledge of the facts probably think he colluded to people who like Trump either don't care if he colluded, think maybe it's a good thing he colluded because that means Hillary's not president. It's not moving votes. But it is the thing that everyone is going to talk about between now and the election. So it's unavoidable. And so I would say two things on this. I think I have been and we have been talking a lot about the message the Democrats should use.

I've always – my argument has always been that Democrats should run as being a check on the chaos and corruption of Trump's Washington. And I think you should put it in the context of that, is that Trump just went out there. For whatever reason, you can argue PTAB, you can argue money laundering, you can argue he's just a sucker. He is doing dangerous things, and we need a Congress that will check him. And Republicans will let him do whatever he wants, because they're subservient. Democrats will do this. So I would do it in that context. The other thing I would do is specificity is our friend. And we should put out specific things that a Democratic Congress would do to get to this.

I put out a list on Twitter the other day. We read it on the pod. Yes, there you go. Tommy Vitor read it a lot on the pod. And so Brian Buechler also had some additions to that list yesterday, I think. But we should have specifics because if it's just like Trump colluded, Trump didn't collude, it's a dumb conversation. But like, here are the specific things to do. And the advantage of that is we're running mostly against incumbents. And so those incumbents should be asked, will they do these things? And they're obviously going to say no. And so that gives you that, like, we should put it in a larger framework of being a check against Trump, because people are going to want that. And second, we should be specific. And I think if we do that, it's going to be better than

just sort of howling at the wind. Like, if people want to say he's treasonous, I'm not a lawyer. I don't really care. People want to say Putin has leverage on him. I don't really care about that. It's fitting into a narrative that we can sell to voters over the next several months is important. Well, an important part of that narrative too is, you know, Trump ran for president saying he was going to put America first. America first was his big slogan. In reality, he's put America last and he puts Trump first. And this goes right into the chaos and corruption message as well. I mean, I do think if you want to see a message that sort of incorporates both everything that's happened with Russia and potential collusion with Trump's family separation policy,

his response to Charlottesville, everything he's done around health care and taxes. And just read Barack Obama's speech that he delivered in South Africa this week. And when he talks about that, it's basically as close as Obama has gotten to criticizing Trump without actually directly naming him. And yet he still makes a case for strongman politics versus democracy. And I think that's sort of like the larger theory of the case here, which is with Trump, we're witnessing the rise of someone who only cares about himself, who is only cares about power, who only cares about holding power and maintaining power for his rich friends and his rich and powerful family

members and the people in the Republican Party that he knows and the leaders of the party and all that kind of stuff like that. And it is one giant story of sort of global corruption that Trump and the Republican Party are guilty of. And that is because of the rise of this demagogic strongman politics. And it's all about trump everything he does he puts his interest before america's interests on every single fucking issue yeah that's good that's you know and i don't think we have to get into like muller and collusion and you know we don't have to be talking about that on the trail all the time but i do think that this is part of a larger story about who trump is and who he looks out for since Since you brought up Barack Obama, I think we would be remiss to not mention the news about Michelle Obama yesterday.

Oh, yeah. So Michelle Obama, along with really a cast of great Americans, Tom Hanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chris Paul, Janelle Monae, Faith Hill, Tim Grawl, have got together to create a nonpartisan voter registration effort called When We All Vote that I think it's really great. And it sort of fits – we're obviously biased in every way because we like the Obamas and we like voting. But it fits very much with what the former president and former first lady have wanted to do by focusing on citizenship in their foundation. So we just want to give a shout-out to them for doing that and encourage people to check them out. Yeah, and a reminder to go help register people to vote because one way to overcome the structural disadvantage, gerrymandering, all the other shit that Democrats face heading into 2018 and 2020 is to expand the electorate by registering people to vote, especially young people who tend not to vote. OK, when we come back, we will talk to Crooked contributor Tim Miller. On the pod today, happy to welcome back friend of the pod, Crooked contributor,

Cuck Zone resident, Tim Miller. Tim, how you doing? I'm doing terrible. I'm in a lather. My blood pressure is really high this week. But before we get into that, I do feel obligated to express just how upset I was that Dan not only would not support me for the Supreme Court last week on the pod, but he would not even put out a positive tweet or statement about me. I mean, after all I've done for you guys, I was your first Republican guest. I voted for Hillary Clinton, who I loathe with the passion of 10,000 fiery sons. You know, I've got my baby in a pod save onesie. People on Twitter make fun of me and tell me you guys are my boss because I'm a contributor and I take that. And after all of this, I don't even get, I would get nothing from you on my Supreme Court nomination. We have to get you to come around and they put him here. That's why I listen to the Monday Pod more religiously. We'll see.

If you keep coming to the left, we'll see. We can revisit this in a few years. Maybe you'll be coming to me. Look, I think this statement could be glowing about your personal qualities sure but perhaps uh-huh my carpool line me in uh whatever okay whatever we can get on to business but i just i felt i felt i'd be remiss without expressing that that did sting tim do you know how much trouble we get in every day for normal i know i know I've read the comments. I know. Okay. So first question, because I know you have worked yourself up into a lather. I wanted you to come onto the pod for that reason. We've

been texting all week about this. How did you feel as a Republican watching the Trump-Putin press conference? Let's start there. Or the clips, if you didn't watch it live. I watched it live, unfortunately. You know, here's the thing. I had about as low of expectations as possible for this press conference and for this meeting. And, you know, I figured that at least, you know, Trump would be savvy enough to offer some token swipes at Putin just to give the anti-anti-Trumpers some fodder. You know, that he would just have a minimum of political instincts on that front. And I just, I have to tell you, I audibly gasped when he sided with Putin over Dan Coats explicitly. And, you know, that was obviously the

one thing that he's tried to backtrack on this week, but it wasn't the only time. He went on a series of insane conspiracy theories, talking about the DNC server and Strzok and Page. It was extremely alarming. And when somebody as radicalized against the president as me can still be surprised by the depths at which he could dive, I think that is telling. And watching it, I guess, but I think that what we can get into more is just how depressed and angry and maddened I've been in the fallout by the reaction from my former colleagues and pals in the party in D.C. Well, let's do that now, Tim. So, I mean, we're operating on a very low bar here, but McConnell, Ryan, others actually mentioned, they actually had put out statements that were specific to Trump, unlike their

previous statements around the Charlottesville, where they just decried Nazism without ever mentioning the Nazi-endorsing president. Yeah. ever mentioning the Nazi endorsing president. Do you, like, what do you think caused them to be more aggressive than their generally reticent selves here? And why weren't they more aggressive? Or what do you want to see them do? Man, you're more generous than me on being more aggressive. I don't, maybe Mitch named him critically, but it was certainly mild.

You know, and they've done this, you know, our friend Peter Hamby wrote about this in Vanity Fair about how just this cycle, you know, continues where it's actually pretty similar to Charlottesville. I mean, maybe they were mildly more critical, but, you know, immediately the pivot comes to, you know, some random person was on Ali Velshi's show and compared this to 9-11 and are crystal knocked and how that's actually more outrageous or, you know, how, you know, Trump backtracks and now you take him at his word. I mean, I was looking this morning, Lindsey Graham, I've been reassured unequivocally. Rob Portman, I take him at his word. That's a direct quote. You know, Rubio,

I can't read his intentions. You know. And, you know, within 24 hours from now, it will be all Kavanaugh all the time. And for, you know, pretty much everybody with a few exceptions. You know, I saw the lone cuck fighter left in Washington. Maybe Justin Amash was firing at him last night at length. But there just, but there isn't anything. I mean, these guys are ready to move on, and it's maddening to me. And so, you know, I made some calls before I came on this morning to folks I still talk to that are kind of either Trump-friendly or Trump-adjacent or at least less radicalized against him than I am just to see what folks were saying. And the overwhelming feedback I got is that what the consensus view among Republicans in Washington is, is that he's basically a stupid, vainglorious child who's nice to anybody that's nice to him.

You guys and the media and the resistance are crazy and you can't believe any of these claims. And even if it was real, look at what happened to Flake and Corker. You can't beat this guy. I mean, that is the consensus view. But what is interesting about that to me is that there is this undercurrent under those feelings of these nagging doubts and wonders that this week was even a little bit fucking weird for me you know even people who've

been with him and stood by him you know you don't look out on the tv shows and see as much from the match slaps of the world like you usually do um you know you you do hear the whispers to to the playbooks and to the reporters behind the scenes and i had and i heard these you know you you do hear the whispers to to the playbooks and to the reporters behind the scenes and i had and i heard these you know this uh uh directly uh said to me that it was a little weird and and and that is the part that that really gets me is that that you can have these doubts you know i mean why this is where i get really lathered up. So just hang with me for one second. But like, literally, why be a senator? What is the point of being in Congress, of being an elected official,

if you think there's even a tiny chance that something as grave as the president being a traitor who is compromised by our enemy is happening, and you're not even willing to hold a hearing on it. You're not even willing to speak out and say this is something that we need to look into, that needs to be investigated, this is something you're concerned about. And that has been just the most disheartening thing about this, is just how quick it's been to, let's move on, you know, what about the Dems, what about the media, you know, let's get on. You know, what about the Dems? What about the media? You know, let's get our, you know, Pat Roberts, let's move on to the farm bill. And this is just,

it's unbelievable that even if you would think that there was a tiny chance that he was in bed with Putin, and there's, I think, really good reason to think that there's a tiny chance, given his performance last week and his two- hour private meeting and his servile press conference that they don't want to do anything. And it's just it is baffling to me and enraging. So you have been a Republican political operative. You've given political advice to Republicans. What would you say to the Republican who argues with you, probably someone on McConnell's staff? Like, look, I don't know what you want us to do about this. We hold a bunch of hearings.

We start doing things. We start pushing the Kavanaugh nomination past the election, which means there's a possibility we don't seat Kavanaugh. That's a lifetime conservative appointment to the Supreme Court that we all care about. conservative appointment to the Supreme Court that we all care about? And also, have you looked at these polls? The Republican base, 70, 80% of them think that it was fine what he did. We're trying to win an election in November. Trump's not going to be president forever. There's bigger things to think about with the party and our agenda. You know, what is the good political argument for actually doing more than issuing a troubled statement or a sad tweet. That's exactly what they're saying to me. And that's why like my blood pressure is just rising

up into my head right now, John, because I'm like, I'm in, you know, friendship losing level with some of these people. I had to step away from Twitter for a few hours for fear of losing friends. So I'll bifurcate the question to two. The strategic answer, the political, what anybody who's running campaigns this cycle will tell you, is there is no value in challenging him on this. It's not going to make any difference anyway. We need to get Kavanaugh through. We need to get reelected. it's not going to do any good to, to put the Dems in charge. Um, and, uh, and that's exactly what's going to happen. And, and, and they inevitably will point to Corker and Flake, you know, who, who only stepped out a little bit and basically were completely neutered.

And, and my response to that, which I think I've written on your website is, is so, uh, you know, so what, uh, take a swing. You know, I mean, I think that this is what public service is about. This is why you ran for office. It isn't being in the Senate isn't that great right now. I mean, they've already passed their tax cut. Like besides Kavanaugh, they're not going to do anything else. There's not 60 votes. The Democrats are not working with them on anything. They're not going to pass anything else. There's not 60 votes. The Democrats are not working with them on anything. They're not going to pass anything else. So why? Nobody has given me a counter to the argument of why not do both? There's no rule that says you can't hold hearings on Kavanaugh and hold hearings into the president's financial dealings. You can't subpoena the

translator from the private meeting. You, Trump will be pissed about it, but what's he going to do? Withdraw Kavanaugh? You know, so, I mean, there needs to be some creative thinking here. You know, I mean, I get the response that I get when I, when I make this offer is, oh, well, you can't do that. There's no precedent for it. I mean, there's no precedent for a reality TV show idiot Russian stooge winning the presidential campaign either. You know, so like, have a little creativity. You know, there's a lot of potential options here. And there is no reason why you can't subpoena his tax returns or you can't, you know, call Cohen before Congress or a million other things and still push forth Kavanaugh. I know that, you know, your listeners will probably think, well, no, let's stop Kavanaugh, too.

He's not, you know, he's not a legitimate president, so we shouldn't have Kavanaugh. OK, I mean, they can have that argument, but obviously you're not going to win over any Republicans with that argument. But I don't see why you can't win over the Flakes and the Sasses and the Collinses and the Murkowskis of why can't we do a little from column A and a little from column B? And there's this groupthink in Washington among Republicans that, you know, I've been body snatched by the left for even suggesting this. This is a ridiculous notion. And I don't – I can't fathom why that is. And I think that there's going to be – you know, if after the Mueller report comes out, I don't know.

I've always been actually kind of bearish on the idea that there's this great secret Russian conspiracy. I think that kind of what we've seen is bad enough and is maybe what there is. But if there is, you know, I mean, I don't know how you can live with yourself after that. And because this is a very rare instance where there are people in Washington who believe that there might be something, believe that the president is in the wrong in a grave way, but aren't willing to do anything. I mean, if you look back at recent mistakes in political history, they've always at least been earnest mistakes, human mistakes, human error. And that's not what's happening here. These are people who know better and are

choosing not to do anything. Tim, beyond, so there's obviously Trump, but there, like some of the, and I understand, like I can, I don't agree with it. I agree with you on the politics of this, but like I can hear a political consultant saying, well, we need Trump voters. We got to stick with them. Or Trump put Flake and Corker basically out of the Senate.

So, you know, we got to be careful. But what about, but it wasn't just when Trump was, like before we knew how strong he was, people coddled to him in 2012. Your friend Mitt Romney begged him for his endorsement. You know, we've had many Trumps like Steve King, who should scare no one, walking around the Republican conference for a long time and who is an avowed white nationalist and everyone seems cool with that. I'm just curious about what you think in hindsight about some of the things that, whether it's Trump himself or people like Trump, that the Republican Party writ large has been tolerant of that led us to potentially having Trump. Yeah. Well, that's a

big question. We could do a kind of a whole podcast on that. But I mean, I certainly have some regrets to that regard, in that regard. And, you know, look, I think that for me, it kind of crossed this threshold with Trump because of how extreme he is and what an outlier he is just on so many levels. And then now after he won, obviously, the extreme power he had. You know, I think that going back, when I get asked this question, I kind of look back at the Republican autopsy that I worked on with Reince. And, and, you know, there's this on the right, people will say, oh, you were out of touch with the base when you were pushing for more leniency towards – on immigration and outreach to minorities.

And on the left, they would make the argument you just made, Dan. And when – what was in reality was we knew exactly what the base wanted and we knew exactly what – we thought the right was, both politically and philosophically and morally. We were wrong on the political point, obviously, as evidenced by Trump's win. But what we were trying to offer was this kind of middle way, right, where you throw some bones to the more extreme elements of the base to keep them in the tent, you know, to advance these other principles, right? And it's a moral continuum, you know, where everybody has to kind of decide for themselves where that, you know, where that ended, where you allowed it to go too far, you know, I mean, and you also can't understate, Dan, I think that there was a lot of this was an internal fight within the party. I mean, there was often primaries that were held where, you know, a lot of the people who were in power in Washington, the establishment, so-called establishment were,

you know, fighting for, you know, more center or center-right candidates against the Steve King kind of wing of the party. And so, you know, I think that in a lot of ways, the writing was on the wall in that regard, you know, though you could see this this tension between kind of the base and the more extreme elements of the party and what, you know, the John McCain's and Romney's wanted to do was obvious, you know, it was obvious when Mitt had to, you know, went to CPAC and said, I'm severely conservative, right? You know, and you can look back in retrospect and see the embers of this. But I just I don't think anybody expected then that, you know, we'd end up with a president like this, you know, separating parents from their children and, you know, you know, serve I'll suck up to Putin.

So, you know, you justify it to yourself. And I think obviously that justification was wrong, at least from my perspective. But now you fast forward and what we found is that 90% of my cohort just went to hell along with this as it got worse. And so I think the question is better kind of, you know of posed to them about whether there is any line on this stuff at all. So you worked for John Huntsman, who's now the U.S. ambassador to Russia. This is someone who's more pragmatic than most Republicans. He now is not facing any kind of election because he's a diplomat. I keep thinking about what happened this week and thinking about John Huntsman sitting there.

And it's like, you know, hometown newspaper owned by his brother calls on him to resign. Other people call him to resign. His daughter, Abby Huntsman, tweets something out like, no negotiation is worth throwing your own country under the bus. Why is this guy still ambassador to Russia? What do you think is going on in John Huntsman's head? Oh, boy.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I couldn't believe it when he took the job. I just don't I don't I don't get it now. I mean, I I think that there is this thing at play here where a lot of these Republicans, you know, have have like built this alternate reality around Trump where they kind of convince themselves like the bad parts are just a show and that we can work with him on the good parts that we can nudge him and and that there are protections around him. And I think that a lot of these folks are justifying that. And, you know, I wonder, like, I mean, I asked and have asked over and over again, how can you serve a president when he advances insane conspiracy theories over the intelligence from our intelligence agencies about an attack on our country while standing next to the perpetrator. You're standing next to the perpetrator, and you're siding with him, and you're siding with insane conspiracy theories over what your intelligence tells you. If you're in the intelligence, if you're in the State Department, how do you continue serving? And the answer that I get back is, well, it's better to have good people there. It's better to contain them. It's better to serve your country. And that is what John Huntsman thinks. And that is what

all these other folks think. But what I don't understand, guys, is like, what is the evidence of this? Right? Where's the constraint? The argument is that good people, that it's important to have John Huntsman in Russia because it's important to have somebody who's rational and who's smart and who's making reasonable arguments in this role. Then wouldn't the ambassador to Russia be able to then convince the president not to advance an insane conspiracy theory about an attack perpetrated by Putin, wouldn't he be able to convince the president to at least give some tacit verbal acknowledgement to our actual allies, like the United Kingdom, for whom that has suffered attacks, deadly attacks, not just cyber attacks, but deadly murders on their turf at the hands of Putin? And obviously, no. So if John Huntsman can't do that, if Mike Pompeo can't do that, if Dan Coats can't convince the president that the intel is true, then what good are they?

And so, you know, that is clear as day to me. I think that in Washington, if I'm like being armchair psychologist or in Moscow and Huntsman sense, they are surrounded by other people who are who are patting them on the back and telling them, oh, it's important to have good people in there. You never know who Trump could put in next. It could be it could be a lunatic. And it makes them feel good about themselves. It makes them feel like they're serving the country or doing this noble thing when actually they're just enabling, you know, a racist conspirator in the White House. I mean, last question for you is what do you think happened? You said that you were, you know, you've always been a little bearish on the idea that there has been some sort of grain of conspiracy here. It seems like the two excuses you get for Trump's behavior, at least this week, one is this legitimacy argument. He's so scared that, you know, this is going to cast doubt on

the legitimacy of his election. So that's why he doesn't want to believe or that's why he seems to believe Putin or cast doubts on the intelligence conclusions. And the other, and you mentioned this earlier, is this obsequiousness that Trump sucks up to everyone. So, of course, he's sucking up to Putin. We've talked about this in the pod. It seems like there are problems with both of these theories on the legitimacy. He was sucking up to Putin all through the 2016 election. And he doesn't seem to cast doubt on just hacking.

He seems to cast doubt on specifically Russian hacking. He likes to say maybe it was China, maybe it was other people. so he doesn't have a problem with the hacking he has a problem with saying it's russian hacking and on the obsequiousness thing he's not obsequious to almost anyone else in the world so like i don't understand like he calls everyone a liar and then the conspiracy yeah exactly it's foxhouse so i'm not i'm what do you think actually happened yeah i also there's also the third the what i the sam ste Stein theory is that like if he was a Russian stooge, wouldn't he at least be faking it a little bit better? I don't know. Look, I think that the nagging doubts that I have are more leaning towards disregard.

I've always been of the view that it was obvious that WikiLeaks was a tool of Russia and that just by Don Trump Jr. saying he would accept that meeting and just by the president cheering on the Russians, hacking private citizens in this country at the aims to affect an election, like that's small T treasonous for me. And he's guilty. And there's really nothing, you know, that he can do. That's why I reject the Republicans who say, let's call balls and strikes. You know, I don't give traitorous, racist pricks, bat packs for like, you know, because they threw one strike, right? Because they did one thing I like. Whether there's anything more than that, I just have always, you know, felt like we're deep in an investigation. This is not something that I have expertise on, but that, you know, it seems more likely that Trump is guilty of financial crimes. That's why he's hiding his tax returns. And that, you know, this like a grand conspiracy. I just don't know.

Maybe what seemed more likely was that, you know, sure, maybe Kushner held a meeting with somebody and they said, hey, Jared, you know, we're going to do this thing. And Jared said, hey, that's cool, and told the president. And then they did it. And then they're like, oh, shit. Maybe that happened. But I've always had some doubts.

But I just, I don't know. After this week, you know, I mean, his performance, if you look back at the debate stage, Trump was so confident and he was new to this. And there were 11 other politicians who had better resumes, you know, and Trump just bullied them and pushed them around and was and was very self-confident. And then Hillary, so confident, you know, standing in her space. And he was just, his body language with Putin was just so, you know, obsequious, so servile. And then the two-hour private meeting, I don't know, maybe I'm going crazy now. But this week, that's what I've just, I've been starting to think that maybe there is something more there. And I think that the financial element is where it is. The Felix Sater, the business work, Eric Trump, when he said that Russians disproportionately invested in our hotels, I think the financial is where it would be. why I just think it's such an abdication of responsibility that nobody on the Hill, no Republicans think it's even appropriate to do hearings on this to try to learn more. And we're all in the hands of Bob Mueller.

Well, and a Democratic Congress would do it, that's for sure. So, all right, Tim, well, we'll see what Mueller comes up with. And then the real fun begins once Mueller comes up with something scary and Republicans continue to do nothing. That's when we get the real constitutional crisis. Things to look forward to. All right. Well, I'm going to go to yoga to try to get balanced after this conversation. Thank you, John.

Play some video games. Go play some NBA 2K18. That sounds good. All right, man. Take care. Thanks for stopping by. Talk to y'all later. Later, buddy.

2k18 that sounds good alright man take care thanks for stopping by later buddy thanks to Tim Miller for joining us today everyone have a good weekend

and we will talk to you next week bye everyone Thank you.