Pod Save America - “Donald Trump is Deep Throat.” (LIVE from Oakland)

Episode Date: December 5, 2017

Trump hides his crimes in plain sight, Republicans embrace a child molester, and Democrats have the upper-hand in the shutdown fight. Recode’s Kara Swisher, immigration activists Katharine Gin and Eli Oh, Erin Ryan, and Tim Miller join Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan on stage live in Oakland. 

Hey Oakland! Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Erin Gloria Ryan. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We have a great show for you tonight. We'll be talking to Recode's Kara Swisher. And later we'll be talking about immigration

with local activists Catherine Jin and Eli Oh. And finally, we have Crooked contributor Tim Miller is here. We'll be taking us to the cuck zone. Tim, strange amount of applause. Tim is popular. That's exciting. We're also excited about Crooked contributor Erin Ryan and her forthcoming pod, Girls Just Want to Have Pod.

It's coming out in the next couple of months. Yeah, Brian Boylan and I were joking today that we should call it Broad Save America Broad Save America that's perfect we also announced our first set of tour dates for 2018 so please go to crooked.com

slash events and you can grab some tickets love it or leave it yeah coming back to this theater so that's something to look forward to probably okay let's start with the news

should we talk about the news? yeah I was just going to see if anyone from Antifa was here is anyone from Antifa here? love it wants to know we got one Antifa in the front very cool thank you for your service A couple Antifa fans We got one Antifa in the front Very cool Thank you for your service It's our last show

It's our last show It's loose guys So let's start with the fact that The President of the United States Of course is under federal investigation for obstructing justice. That is something to cheer about. This morning we learned from CNN and the Washington Post that Donald Trump did know that Michael Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Jim Comey to let him go. And then fired Jim Comey after he refused to do so. We also learned that John Dowd, the president's lawyer and ghost tweeter, offered a rather novel legal defense of his client in an interview with Axios.

He said, quote, the president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer and has every right to express his view of any case. Yeah, no, I know. You know, guys, we were allowed a little at a university called Berkeley today. And we had a great time talking with... Did you say Go Bears?

That's what I always say. I always say Go Bears. And, you know, when they approved, they snapped. Alright, more of a Berkeley vibe, not an Oakland vibe. And now I'm understanding a lot of differences. Anyway. So our good friend of the pod and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen responded to this story with his own legal opinion, which was, quote, doubt is serving bologna for breakfast.

Thanks, Norm. Norm. This is such a Norm. How could you say that? Very racy. You know, I know Trump says these kinds of things. Not you. But to be so offensive, to say something so vulgar.

Dan, I know you don't have a legal degree, but is it wise to declare... Dan, you clearly don't have a legal degree. Do we know that John Dowd does? Yes. Do you think it's a wise strategy to declare that the president is above the law? I mean... What do you think he was doing there? What do you think he was doing there? What do you think he was doing there?

Kind of a trump card. I think there are two elements to this. It is A, not a wise strategy, but it may be the only strategy he has. There are two things. The first is, what Dowd is saying is, he is likely guilty of obstruction of justice. We now need to argue,

not that he didn't break the law, but the law that he broke doesn't apply to him. But there's something actually more insidious about this. What John Dowd is not doing is making argument to the court. Because you normally don't do your legal strategy by interview with Axios. What he's doing is he is sending a signal to the massive pro-Trump propaganda machine about the argument they need now to take to the country and try to convince Trump voters why when Mueller does find Trump, does charge Trump with obstruction of justice, why they should not believe that. So it's a very dangerous thing from a particularly dumb lawyer, it appears. Despite the fact that we should say that

before he resigned, obstruction of justice was one of the impeachment charges brought against Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton's perjury was an obstruction of justice charge. So two other presidents in recent history who have been impeached, obstruction of justice, or almost impeached, obstruction of justice was one of the charges. Yes. You know who argued that obstruction of justice was an impeachable offense? Who's that, Tommy? Jeff Sessions, the current

Attorney General. He was dipping shortbread cookies into chocolate at the time and laying them out on a platter with two of his buddies. No, I heard it different.

I heard that he was packing up to leave Rivendell. And he made too many shoes in the night. And that's it. I am quite frankly this revelation that

Donald Trump knew that there had been lies to the FBI is really astonishing to me because it's really crazy that Donald Trump knew that there had been lies to the FBI is really astonishing to me because it's really crazy that Donald Trump knew something. Like how long did it stay up here before? Wow. He did it. You did it. You knew a thing.

Aaron, you know, my favorite part of that story is like John Dowd, the dumbest lawyer of all time, drafted a tweet. Well, Don McGahn said. What? Time drafted a tweet where he essentially... Well, Don McGahn said, what's up? One of the dumbest lawyers of all time drafted a tweet where he sort of admitted that his client committed wrongdoing and then he went and did a series of

interviews with the Washington Post, which is what I would do if I were the White House who employed the dumbest lawyer of all time. But one of the things they talked about is how when the current White House counsel learned from Sally Yates who came to warn them that Flynn had lied to the FBI and lied to them, Tom McGahn's response was, how'd he do?

Like a little kid at a soccer game. Sally Yates was like, not well. Not good. Not well. Fire his ass. Tommy, so there's a lot of focus on obstruction, but does it strike you as odd that it took the White House 18 days to fire Flynn after finding out that he committed a felony? Yeah. What are the other risks there?

He was the national security advisor in the White House. This part bothers me, John. I know it does, Tom. That's why I thought I'd ask you about it. The fucking national security advisor lies about his contacts with the Russians, which is weird. Then they can hold that over him. Then he lies to the FBI about it. And they're like, oh, let's keep this dude in the PDB

for 18 more days. Let's brief him on all the most secret covert action programs we have. Let's read him into who is spying for us, how we're getting information, what agents we have inside Russia. The most sensitive secrets in the world were getting routed through Mike Flynn's office.

Are you saying that the Trump administration was extremely careless in how they handled classified information? Well played. Either they were extremely careless and they let this lunatic who had been compromised sit in the National Security Advisor's office for 18 days. Or maybe there's another explanation, which was it took them 18 days to figure out a cover story to push Mike Flynn's ass out to cover up for all the other bullshit. They don't care. I mean, Jared Kushner either has

the memory of a goldfish and retains no information whatsoever, which, by the way, legit possibility, but more likely continues to just forgot meeting and financial interest again and again and again.

And he still has a security clearance, which is insane. Well, you know what? I want to know how Jared would act if he were in jail. Like, what would a meeting between Jared and Ivanka look like if Jared, like,

given his goldfish memory, were in jail? Alright. So we're at the glass. Yep. Hi, Jared. It's so great to be here. I had to go boom-boom in front of a Nazi who loves Dad. Ainsley? It's so great to be here. I had to go boom boom in front of a Nazi who loves dad.

Ainsley, that's a great question, and I'm so excited to share that with the Fox & Friends audience. I want to go home now. Is there anyone my dad, not our dad, can pay? My darling. My darling. Is there a dad that can help me? This is the worst thing I've ever been in that a dad didn't get me out of.

My darling. You can probably trade your boom-boom area for a pack of cigarettes. Do you like business? Do business? Do you like business? Jared, I'm feeling so empowered. Oh. There it is. Jared and Ivanka, ladies and gentlemen. I really need to work on my Ivanka. It it is. Jared and Ivanka, ladies and gentlemen. I really need to work on my Ivanka.

It's hard. You need to work on your Ivanka. What the fuck was I doing? Maybe we should switch. Maybe we should switch. Yeah, you can be Ivanka, and I can be Jared. Is that a muffin? I feel like my face is as smooth as Jared's face.

For now. And I'm as cold cold and I'm done. So our friend and editor-in-chief Brian Boitler wrote a piece on Crooked.com today that argues there's a couple of Boitler heads in the audience. I think his sister Lisa's here, too, somewhere. So Brian wrote a piece that argues there's already plenty of evidence of collusion as a monumental scandal that, you know, likely includes crimes. We know this. We know the Russian spies approached Don Jr. and George Papadopoulos offering dirt on Hillary.

They took meetings. They later tried to undermine the Obama administration's response to Russian interference. But for some reason, a lot of mainstream media outlets are still saying, they take great pains to say, no direct evidence of collusion, nothing might happen. Erin, why do you think that is? Why is it hard for sort of a lot of media outlets to sort of wrap their minds around the fact that there's a scandal in plain sight? Well, I think there's a number of reasons for that. First of all, I think that Donald Trump repeats it so fucking much that it sort of gets in your head like the counting song from Sesame Street. It just kind of shows up and you're like,

oh yeah, there's no evidence of collusion. Where did I hear that? When did I last hear that there was no evidence of collusion? Second thing is I think that a lot of times the media gets really fixated on presenting both sides when sometimes there's one situation that is very clearly the truth and in order to get the both sides aspect of that they have to find the craziest person that associates with the craziest person that they know. No, I'm serious. I think that Brian's piece lays out really well

the fact that collusion itself isn't a crime, but it's a descriptor of many things that fit the description of crimes. And it's ridiculous to take the information that we have and not think that in some way, shape, or form, Don, I love it, Trump Jr., or KT, I didn't know anything about the

Flynn contacts, but actually I did them again. There's no... You would have to go so far out of the realm of reasonableness to conclude that there was no collusion at this point. But he repeats it so much. He repeats that

there was no collusion so much, and it's become part of the both sides narrative that people included in it. This is a point Leavitt made the other night in Sacramento, which is very important, is the press is conditioned to ferreting out scandals through secrets, right? Through someone's secret emails or a leak or deep throat. But in this case, Donald Trump is deep throat and he's tweeting the secrets out right before. And they don't know how to... Episode title.

We got it. We got it. Dan is very good at naming episodes. Dan has a lot of episode titles. It's a gift he has. That's part of his genius. Donald Trump's genius is he figured out that in public life, there's no cumulative effect of lying.

People are just like, oh, Donald. He just shades the truth. So he gets a pass on lie after lie after lie that is so brazen that if it was from a cold start, it would take down any other administration. But for him, it's just par for the course. But if the tweets that Donald Trump sent to Jeff Sessions trying to bully him into dropping the Rust invocation,

firing Mueller, and rescuing Hillary, if John Kelly had emailed those to Jeff Sessions, and Jeff Sessions had failed to put on two-factor authentication, and the Russians had stolen his email, given it to WikiLeaks, then there would be a massive scandal. You know what would

actually work is if we could re-engineer reality to be like the movie Memento? Let me explain. Because reporters have basically short-term memory loss, as we all do now. We're all addled and ridiculous. So, imagine we watched all this unfold

backwards, and we start with guys like Papadopoulos and Manafort getting indicted. And you go backwards and backwards and backwards, and then you see Trump winning. You're like, oh my God, that's crazy. And you go backwards and backwards, and then you end on the moment Trump's like, hey, Russia, hack her, please. It's very good if you hack her. That would be pretty scandalous. It would be a smoking gun.

Who gets tattooed? What? Trump has written across his thing, it says, where the nearest KFC is. That's just his order. It's like, you're like... Two fish, two Whoppers

Junior, and an extra large fry. Two Don's Junior. And a Diet Coke. So, the scary scenario here is... Wait, we haven't gotten to the scary scenario? I'm sorry, the scary-esque scenario.

What happens if Mueller lays out for Congress and the public an airtight case that Trump and his associates committed, obstruction and or crimes of collusion, and the Republicans do nothing. And I think we all assume the Republicans, at least in the House, would do nothing now,

but let's say we win back the House and Mueller issues this report, the House impeaches Donald Trump, it goes to the Senate. Say even we win back the Senate, we probably have 51 votes at the most. We have to get to 66, 67 votes to actually impeach him in the Senate. Is there a universe where we get those 15 or so Republican votes in the Senate to do this if Mueller, you know, even offers the most airtight case here? Hey, you know what, John? I have something to say to you. I'm not in the prediction business. Hey, you know what, John? I have something to say to you. I'm not in the prediction business.

But no, but I think the... I actually don't... I don't think we know enough about what Mueller's going to do. I think Mueller's been pretty savvy politically. I think he's thinking through how he wants his work to be viewed through a political lens, which I think is heartening. That being said, all of this will play out over an election year. And there's nothing about removing Trump from office

that isn't made easier by us winning the House. And so it's almost all incidental. All of this impeachment stuff, whether it's an airtight case, A, it's ultimately a political crime, but B, it's ultimately a political tool for how we help take back the House. And I think the better question for us to be asking is, how much do we want what Mueller is doing

to be part of our conversation with voters over the next year? And actually, that's a harder question. Yeah, no, I totally agree, but I also think that, you know, it's really easy to get discouraged by, like, the micro-events of a day where it's just like, oh, this thing happened and it makes me feel awful. But it's really impossible to assign historical meaning to things as they're happening. That's right.

You know, here's, a bad example of like something that turned out way worse than people thought. You know, Merrick Garland not being seated ended up having this really, really awful effect quite some time later. So like there's a possibility that like a little victory or something being put in place today could a year, two years, four years down the road

actually translate to something good. So I think it's really important to not lose sight of the fact that even though things might seem bad in the last 24 hours, and who can remember before the last 24 hours? I have no idea. Even though something might seem bad in the scope of the last 24 hours, it could have some hidden meaning that's yet to develop. I wish I didn't have to go to the next topic after that hopeful answer.

That's the only hope I have. In addition to covering up an investigation into his collusion with a foreign adversary, Trump also endorsed an alleged child molester this morning. Okay, no, John. Pederast. Pederast. Is that what we're going with? Child molester. Pederast. Pederast.

Is that what we're going with? Not child molester, pederasty. So he called Roy Moore up and he said, go get him, Roy, which, you know, choice of language and words. And Roy said, yeah, but can I have your endorsement? There it is. He said, I would, but where do they hang out that isn't the mall? It wasn't just Trump.

I say anti, you say fa. Anti. I wish you hadn't done that. So, in addition to Trump, Mitch McConnell, who only a few weeks ago said that he believed Moore's accusers, and that he should step aside, reversed his position on Sunday and said that the people of Alabama should decide. And, right before we started tonight, the Republican National Committee announced that

they're going back into the race. Throwing things. Thank you. G-O-P-P. Oh, I got that. That was good. So Erin, how awesome is that? I love it.

As a former teen girl, I love it. I mean, I... Finally someone looking up for you. I see a picture of a 30-something Roy Moore and I'm like, God, if he were there when I was 15. So here's the thing that really, you know, puts a bee in my bonnet about this whole thing.

The Me Too moment has introduced this novel concept to the public that sexual misconduct is wrong and women don't like it. And it's wrong beyond winning a battle against some guy you work with. It's wrong beyond, like, I disagree with this person, so I'm going to get him by accusing him. It's wrong because it robs the workplace of the potential of the women that are intimidated out of it by sexual misconduct.

What really, again, the bee in my bonnet is the fact that we should be able to agree that it's wrong no matter who's doing it. If it's a Democrat who's doing it, if it's a Republican who's doing it. And for the most part, Democrats have, as painful as it's been to acknowledge that someone that's on your team is actually doing some fucked up shit, we've for the most part acknowledged that. What is really upsetting to me is that Republicans are still playing politics with something that, to a lot of women, is a matter of professional survival,

and it's something that's colored the entire trajectory of their lives. So here's one thing that really struck me. So Paul Ryan has condemned John Conyers, and he's my dad, guys. He's condemned John Conyers. He's called for his resignation. He has not called for the resignation of Blake Farenthold

the Texas Republican who also settled the sexual misconduct lawsuit very sexy man yeah he's great but he's also settled the lawsuit and Paul Ryan has

condemned and called for the resignation of Conyers, not condemned and called for the resignation of Farenthold. Which to me is like the exact problem with this movement. One bright spot though is that I get to tell this joke that I wrote earlier today. And I was like, I'm going to tell it to Paul in Super America.

Farenthold used to be on the Benghazi committee. And at first I was like, used to be on the Benghazi committee. And at first I was like, what does being on the Benghazi committee have to do with sexual misconduct? And I was like, oh, well, the Benghazi committee basically existed to harass a woman. Why not branch out?

I like it. I like it. Lovett, do you think the Republicans are going to do the right thing and expel Roy Moore? Should he come to the Senate? I have to say, I'm going to take it as a positive trait that I can still be so thoroughly shocked. Because I believed that they were being craven and despicable by hoping that Roy Moore would win and so that they could not seat him.

I actually thought like, oh, that's the despicable act of partisanship regardless of who is hurt, regardless of who is elevated. I believed that. I did. They went whole hog. And to see them going in behind this guy

and to know that they're going to, what is he going to be on, a committee? The aging committee? Well, CREP has already been used, Committee to Re-elect the President, but creep can be a different thing for him. He's going to be at their caucus lunches if he wins. I mean, the RNC, it is still truly, truly shocking.

I don't know, what else is there to say? The polls are all over the place. Washington Post had Jones up 50-47, but then CBS poll on Sunday had him down 43-49. In that poll, perhaps the worst number there was 71% of Alabama Republicans said they don't believe Moore's accusers. And that to me is, I mean, what you were saying, Aaron, the difference in the

Trump sexual assault allegations and the Moore sexual assault allegations in contrast with almost every other one we've heard in any industry, and even including Democrats like Al Franken, those two are the only ones who just blanket denied that it ever happened. And for them, for politically, it seems to be working, which is maybe the most upsetting part of the whole thing. I think a lot about the women who are the first to come forward with allegations against Weinstein. Rose McGowan was for years depicted like she was crazy, and she was right.

And I think part of the reason people who come forward against powerful men feel crazy is because they blanket deny it, just like Donald Trump and Roy Moore. And it contributes to this extremely toxic environment that, you know, like I said, takes away the potential of the women who could have thrived if that didn't exist. I was going to say, here's what is so disgusting about the way Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans have handled this is,

they are not in the 71% of Alabama Republicans who don't believe it. Mitch McConnell said, I believe the women. And despite that... Which makes him worse. Yes, he is the worst of them all. Full stop on everything. But they said... We are watching a horrible repeat

of what happened with the Billy Bush tape. Right. Which is, this is the Jason Chaffetz. I cannot look my wife... I will unendorse Donald Trump because I cannot look my wife and daughter in the face and support him. And then ten days later he re-endorses them. From a political perspective, there's a lot of good

Republicans who are never Trumpers. Tim Miller is here. He's one of them. Who, like, we sincerely disagree with on policy matters, but, you know, respect as human beings and our good, upstanding people who the Republican Party punched in the face by going all in for Donald Trump. Somehow, they found a way to make the party even more toxic,

even more disgusting, even more offensive to the suburban voters that I think are the keys to their long-term success. So it's this short-term gain to hold on to a fucking Alabama Senate seat that should have never been in question to just tarnish the party's reputation and perpetuity as supporting a child molester.

Right. But I would add real quick that there's a little bit of a silver lining here. So Mitch McConnell can't vote in Alabama. Donald Trump can't vote in Alabama. Roy Moore is probably going to have a tough time voting in Alabama because he's not allowed within 500 feet of an elementary school.

The fact of the matter is, it is up to the people of Alabama. There are plenty of people in Alabama who care enough to vote. I'm sure that if they're listening, they will talk to people who they know have a conscience and who they know have a conscience and who they know will stand up for what's right.

How many fucking yearbooks do you have to sign before we believe these people? This is also, I think, one of the dangerous things about the right-wing media right now. You know, if you look at the polling, Democrats believe the allegations against Weinstein, they believe the allegations against Trump, they believe the allegations against Franken,

they believe the allegations against Roy Moore. You believe the allegations against Trump. They believe the allegations against Franken. They believe the allegations against Roy Moore. You don't see that on the Republican side. There is a much more of a partisan result in those pollings around Roy Moore, around the Trump allegations. And it's yet another reminder of the way in which, you know, this is a tail wagging the dog. They have this giant apparatus that makes it hard for people to find out the truth, make them hard to find out what's going on. It's not Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate that's convincing them that it's true. It's an entire propaganda machine from Fox to Breitbart and everyone between who's gone all in on Roy Moore is great and Roy Moore is fine and we need the vote. All right, let's talk about the impending government shutdown.

So Pelosi and Schumer are going back to the White House on Thursday to negotiate with Trump and the Republicans on a bill that would keep the government open. Right now, Republicans want to pass a bill that pushes the deadline from December 8th to December 22nd, but even that would need Democratic votes in the Senate to pass because you need 60 votes in the Senate to pass. So should Democrats draw the line at the end of this week and say, we are not giving you our votes to keep the government open unless you fund the Children's Health Insurance Program, fund the Affordable Care Act, and pass the DREAM Act.

Yes. Yes. Our votes are not for free. Right? If Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Donald Trump want Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to do their jobs for them, they should pay something for that. And it should be something that's good for this country, whether it's DACA or Children's Health or all of those things. This is not a hard things. This is not a hard one. This is not a hard

one because if they were to go along with it now, they'll just be put in that position against whether it's a week or two weeks or three weeks from now. And every week that goes by, it gets harder for Democrats to draw the line. There's more and more must-pass shit that's going to come. We get closer and closer to the debt ceiling. I have not heard a single good

reason for why Democrats will have a better hand to play the further along this gets. And it's not, you know, we're not trying to shut it down for single payer. You know, we were talking about this. We're saying, give us a bill to support. You promised on DACA. They promised poor Jeff Flake, you know, that they'd give him a meeting on the DREAM Act. That's why they got his vote on the tax cut. He cast this vote and they said, we'll let you in the doors of the White House. You'll have a meeting with some low-level staffer the tax cut. Jeff Flake. He cast this vote and they said, we'll let you in the doors of the White House. You'll have a meeting with some low-level staffer. Thank you, Jeff Flake.

We'll see you later. Jeff Flake traded his vote for a fucking appointment. What happened to retiring with dignity, Jeff Flake? What kind of dignity is that? Now, McConnell's saying, we said that we would resolve the Dream Act situation and the DACA situation sometime before March, and Democrats are trying to say this is an emergency. This isn't some emergency. We can do this in March.

This is the game that McConnell's trying to play. One thing we should say is, right now there are 122 people who are protected by the DACA Act who are losing their status, their immigration status, every single day. So every day that this goes by without passing the DREAM Act or resolving the situation,

there are more people who are at risk of deportation. So I actually think we can make the case that this is an emergency, this is causing people to like, you know, they're gonna be. Mitch McConnell, a fucking high school sophomore? You need a fucking deadline? You need a teacher to be yelling at you to get it in on time?

Why do you have to wait till March? Why do you need these kids to be panicking for six more months? What kind of government is this? Why is everything done in a week at a time? These people are animals. Why do it now? It's only the lives of 800,000 young people. Why not do it five minutes before the papers do?

Right. It's not like I was maybe thinking about going to a birthday party, but then I was about to leave the house and thought, I don't like how these socks feel. It's literally thousands of people. Every day,

it's more than 100 people's lives and it's just going to get worse as time goes by. It's crazy to me that this isn't something that has any urgency, but at the same time, it is not crazy to me because it

doesn't have direct urgency to Mitch McConnell's life, personally. And he hasn't proven that he's good at acting in anything that doesn't have direct urgency in his own life. Mitch McConnell is not a good person. I mean, let's just be... Hear him out.

Tommy, did you want to say something? No, I mean, I just... He is the most craven lying political hack in the history of craven lying political hacks. He's defending a child molester. I don't know why Pelosi and Schumer would approach this conversation from a place of anything but strength.

Because these ass clowns control the entire government and they can't get it together, do their basic job and pass a funding bill. And we should extract every single thing we can get from them and we should do it in the most painful way humanly possible. There's no cost. I will try to play it out from what the Trump and the Republicans are thinking on this. I think they are trying to actually attach some of the healthcare stuff to these stopgap funding measures and split off the DREAM Act. And what they will say is, yeah, we want to help the DREAMers,

but we only want to help the DREAMers if you build the wall and you limit immigration in general, illegal immigration. And so then when the government shuts down, they'll say Democrats are shutting the government down over stopping illegal immigration in this country. That's what they want to shut the government down over,

and everything else is nothing. So they want that fight, and we're just going to have to say, no, that's fucking crazy. Well, we've had that fight. Right. That fight was in Virginia. Right.

And we won, right? And so, like, it is an argument that we can and should win because, one, comprehensive immigration reform is popular in this country. You wouldn't believe that because Trump won the election in a really weird, fucked-up way, so we got this all turned on its head.

But even within the immigration issues, the most popular one with the most bipartisan support is solving the problem and revolving the dreamers. And the Democrats' argument here is, this is not just something that Democrats want. It's something Donald Trump said he supports. It's something Paul Ryan said he supports. It's something a whole bunch of Republicans have said they support.

So we have the better side of the argument here. We just have to make it. That's the key. That's right. We just have to go out there and make it from a position of strength. Yeah, we have to go into this unafraid and not be millymouthed about this. We don't control anything. What do we have to lose? That's the other thing about this.

Democrats are not in charge of deciding whether or not the government stays open or not. We're not in charge of that decision. If Republicans ultimately decide to shut down the government, it will be because they decided that keeping the government open while giving in to certain Democratic demands wasn't as good for them as the fight. And we have to make sure that they're wrong on both counts. Yeah. Okay. When we come back, we will be talking to Recode's Kara Swisher. You know our next guest from holding aloft the severed heads of Uber executives. But when she's not doing that, when she's not warning people at the Golden Gate Bridge,

she's a journalist and co-founder of Recode. Please welcome Kara Swisher. You didn't bring any Uberheads. I didn't. I left them at home. Well, you put them on a pike as a warning. I wore your T-shirt. Hold on just a second. She wore a t-shirt. Hold on just a second. She wore a t-shirt. Wait, this isn't quite right.

Hold on. Just to narrate, she's removed a Pod Save America t-shirt. Oh, even better. Kara removed a Pod Save America t-shirt only to reveal a love it or leave it t-shirt. Oh, even better. Cara removed a Pod Save America t-shirt only to reveal a love it or leave it t-shirt only to reveal beneath it a Ricoh t-shirt. That's right. Branding. And presumably that's the last layer.

Branding, baby. And beneath that, it's just journalism. Journalism. Alright. Speaking of journalism. Something Roy Moore might have liked 40 years ago. What? What?

That's the right age. 14. I was a very comely 14-year-old. Kara. He's not saying anything. John doesn't want to make sure he doesn't sexually harass me here on stage. That's why I sat in the middle. This guy's turning red, like, by the second.

I don't know what the fuck's happening. What? This is our show. We make you uncomfortable. So get ready for that. Okay. All right, let's go. All right.

Yeah. So right now. I'd be worried if it was Ronan right now. I'm All right, let's go. All right. Yeah. So right now... I'd be worried if it was Ronan right now. I'm not at all, but go ahead. Right now... You know what, Kara? You put on this tough, hard candy lesbian shell, but you break through that,

it's soft chocolate in there, and I know it. No. It's more hard candy. Tommy, ask Kara Swisher a question before she takes over. She says, in the long war between the gay and the lesbian, do you know this, that I started a new group in the Castro? It's called the Militia Etheridge. That's...

All right. He doesn't know what to say. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. I want you to know he workshopped... No, you're done. He workshopped... He workshopped that fucking soft candy thing

for your intro and we... Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah. We went with the head on the spike. Yeah. Okay. So you cover the tech with the head on the spike. Okay. So you cover the tech companies where all these people work. Yes.

Right now, it feels like they're in the barrel a little bit. Yeah. Facebook, Twitter, they're getting the shit kicked out of them over fake news, over Russian interference. Let's not leave out Google.

Yeah, over the fact that, you know, if you're in certain groups on these platforms you're getting harassed constantly. A few years ago in 2015 it felt like they were in the barrel over a different issue which was end-to-end encryption some of the companies, Apple, WhatsApp, others. In that case they told the government essentially

go fuck yourself, we're going to do what we do we're going to encrypt these communications because privacy is more important. Do you think that the same outcome is going to happen here, where these companies essentially tell the government, you're not regulating us, nothing meaningful is going to change the United States? No, because it was different companies. That company was Apple, which actually was quite, Tim Cook was quite brave to

stand up to it. It had to do with business issues, too, because they were making the argument that if they unlocked the privacy, it would affect all their users, and so that was a business case. But I think they really had a commitment to that idea. And others were less strong than Apple. I think Apple was the principal company in the San Bernardino issue when that phone was... The terrorist attack. The terrorist attack.

In this case, I think they're going to be very quiet, get yelled at by Congress, and send their most boring people, their lawyers, which they sent, and they're hoping it goes away. And I think it probably will. Probably. Only because they're not going to, who's going to put this regulation through?

Like, who's going to push it? Who's going to make it happen? Who's not going to? But are they taking a beating this time because of, I don't know, a different issue or the way public opinion shifted? Because they deserve it? Yes, they utterly deserve it. Completely. Do you think it's going to leave a mark?

Is the shine sort of coming off some of these companies? Will they be less untouchable? I think what's become very clear to a lot of people who cover tech and people who are aware of what's happening is all these companies, they act like, you know, they do the saving the world thing. They're here to save the world.

They're here to make things better. And it turns out their platforms are toxic. Yeah, their platforms are toxic. Their platforms have problems. They don't have control of their platforms. They've let their platforms be used by malevolent actors and they didn't seem to have a clue about it or do anything about it. And so I think what they've done

is abrogated responsibility that they've had for their creations. And it's going to continue because there's things coming like automation and robotics and AI and everything else. And not to be a Luddite, but this is going to deeply affect jobs. So the question is, who's responsible for the elimination of

trucking jobs? Who's responsible for the elimination of lawyers someday, which is going to happen at some point. I think we can all welcome that. I don't know. Not the lawyers. No, really, lawyers, sure. My lawyer is in my phone now.

Anyway, yes, they deserve it. They're not going to probably, the place they're really seeing action is, I just did an interview with Marguerite Vestager, who's head of the EU Commission on Competition. She's been at this for years, has been entirely firm about it. And I think Europe is where they're going to see some real problems. So one of the things I think has been interesting about Facebook's response to the ads, the Russian troll ads, and the slowly revealing how many more people were affected by it. Yeah. And we've talked about, we've talked on the show, this sort of inherent contradiction between, oh, these ads didn't matter, and please buy ads on Facebook yeah but there's also been this other I think quality to their responses if you just only understood what we're trying to do you'd see it's not a not a problem

with what Facebook is it's a Facebook how we explain it how we use it how you use it do you see any sense that they're changing at all that there's a sense that there's a fundamental responsibility they have not just about how they explain what they do, but about what they do itself? They absolutely have a responsibility. They create things without thinking about the consequences of their creations. And then they reap all the cash. They're obscenely wealthy, these people. Let's be honest. They take money out of media. They destroy other businesses. And then they don't want the responsibility. Now, they like to say they're not a media company. That's their favorite new thing, right?

Thank you. I agree. I agree with myself. They like to say they're not a media company. What they are is a new kind of media company. And they are distributors. 60% of news comes on Facebook. They've got to have some idea of what to control.

They can't just rely on the algorithm to do this. So, thank you. So, you've got all these tech companies, a lot of them in the Bay Area. Yeah. They have incredibly progressive workforces. A lot of them are very progressive on social issues. Well, I think like the rank and file, right?

Like, your social issues are pretty progressive. Well, welcome. Hello, James Damore. I don't think he's an exception. I don't know who that is. He's not. He's not. There's a lot of young men like James Damore out there.

Let me, trust me. But so, but like a lot of companies will see them speaking out. By the way, he's an awful human being, but go ahead. Who the fuck is James Damore? Oh, he's the one that wrote the Google memo that said that women essentially can't be as good at computing because they're... Who, are you booing that women aren't good at computing? They're on the fence. Okay.

Actually, women are nervous so they can't compute as well. Something like that. Yeah, that guy's an idiot. Okay. But I do think, like, you see a lot of technology companies speaking out in terms of LGBT rights, gay marriage, progressive social issues. Yes. But at the same time, it seems like they are supporting tacitly or overtly the big tax

bill that just went through. Of course. Because it's an enormous tax cut for them in the U.S. There's these repatriation holidays. Yeah. How does that work? How do they speak to this workforce by only supporting half of the Trump agenda? How does that work?

They are greedy fucks. That's how that works. No, it does. They want their money back. Now, what's astonishing is this repatriation didn't come with any guarantees about whether they should create jobs in this country, which would have been a nice addition to the tag.

Because if that's what their goal was, or Donald Trump's goal was to have a factory work or manufacture or something else, it comes with no strings, this money. Which it should in some ways. And these companies are more than willing to do that, I think, if they were forced to. I think they like, they, well, they should.

They should be thinking about the future workforce and what it means. I think that they have progressive ideas, but when push comes to shove, they line up, and just like they did last January when I called them sheeple, and walk right into Trump Tower

and have a meeting where they're really going to be firm with him about immigration. Well, look what the Supreme Court just did. Come on. They weren't firm enough, clearly. And these are some of the most powerful just did. Come on. Like, they weren't firm enough, clearly. And these are some of the most powerful people on earth.

Richest people, most powerful people. When push comes to shove, they will do exactly what businesses will do, which is in their self-interest rather than as for any other reason. And so a lot of times when they talk about how they want to change the world, they want to change the world so it's better for them and their interest

rather than the interest they purport to support. Although there's more supportive than other industries, I guess, and I suppose we should say thank you, they're nice to gays, but I prefer not to at this point. So to that issue of how they're using this money and how they're using their power, I think we've seen this rise of Silicon Valley as a political force.

We've seen Zuckerberg use his money on immigration. Sure. And not very well. That didn't work out so well. Not very well. But it stands in contrast, I think, to a more right-wing, sort of the right-wing efforts of billionaires

like the Koch brothers and the Mercers. I mean, do you see any good coming out of this vast wealth being put towards political ends right now? Well, it's interesting because I was at an event last night. It was called the Breakthrough Prizes, which was very actually encouraging. They were giving millions, like Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg and a whole bunch of people were giving all this money to scientists,

like millions and millions of dollars. It was like sort of the Oscars for geeks, essentially. And that was great. I loved that. That was a fantastic way to spend their money on breakthroughs in all kinds of scientific areas. But I think they haven't organized themselves in quite the most...

Whatever you think about the Koch brothers, they're effective for their... Or the crazy Mercers. You can call them crazy,, they're effective for their crazy mercers. You can call them crazy, but they're real good at what they do. And there hasn't been a response like that by the left or the tech groups. Now, Reid Hoffman, we've written about him, has been trying to do this, but everyone sort of backs away from the idea of doing something like that, which I think is, I don't see anyone yet emerging thinking like that, thinking like I'm going to do the same thing,

but on the left. I always think about, I was offered jobs years ago at Google when it started. I was offered a job at Amazon when it was very young. I was offered a job at AOL back in the day. And I wish I had taken all those jobs because if I had billions of dollars, I would so fuck up the right

with my billions of dollars in the would so fuck up the right with my billions of dollars in the same way. But I didn't take it because I'm an idiot. You know what I mean? But nobody's like that. There's nobody like that. What do you make of the Tom Steyer ads? I don't know. Tom Steyer's here, but other than him, not a lot of fans. I don't like the ads. I got to say, I'm not against them. That's fine if he wants to do them. I think they're, I don't know. I find them a little odd.

I don't know. I don't know. Just me. Just me. I just, I'm like, whoa, what's going on there, dude? You know? And I don't mean, I think, I think it's great to do those ads, but I'm not sure why. I think you can do spend, if you're going to spend all that money, I'd rather not Tom

Steyer lecturing me. I'd like to have a really effective, you know, I don't think he should put himself out as a spokesperson. I see why he wants to, but, you know, they're fine. I guess it's a lot of money. I think he's running for something, right? That's why he's doing it. Yeah, why else would he put himself in the moment over again? Exactly, right, yeah.

American citizen. Yeah. Come on. Hi. We're all adults here. It's a little creepy. One more question. You have cultivated a mystique

around being very tough on people, pushing people hard. Soft candy center. Got it. Where do you think political journalists are going wrong? I feel like there aren't enough people that have that same reputation. There are some on television, there are some people that go hard,

but on the whole, I feel like it's missing that kind of bite. And why do you think that is? I don't know about that. I think some of them, I mean, I think I watch a lot of cable news. They're pretty tough. Don Lemon looked like his head was going to blow off the other night. I just, you know what I mean? He is crazy, crazy.

It's insane. I don't know how much further you could go down non-fair way. You get access and you ask them hard questions. We've seen that there are people like Jake Tapper who go really hard and then all of a sudden people stop showing up. And then there are journalistic outlets that have

a more soft glove approach to the worst people on planet Earth. And then there's the Gawkers of the world that are getting summarily executed by people like Peter Thiel, and they're not being replaced. Right. Well, it's interesting because a lot of what Gawker wrote had turned out to be entirely true on these sexual harassment stuff.

They were way ahead on that stuff, which we should give them absolute credit for. You know, I don't know if that's true. I think it's television. You're talking about television, which is a very different animal than journal, like written journal. You don't need access. Like when I was writing about Yahoo, when I was talking about the problems of a particular CEO or at Uber, I don't care if Travis Kalanick calls me back or not. I don't care if Marissa Mayer calls me back. I don't need them to do my reporting. I have other nefarious ways of crawling through the air ducts

of these buildings to get there. So I don't need them. That is a scary morning. You're sitting at your desk and all of a sudden the vent pops open. There's Kara Swisher. She repels down my top. No, but you don't need them. I think journalists think they need access. I like talking to these people. And I actually, again, I went to a part of this night i was talking to all of them and they're i'm rather friendly to them like there's no reason not to be but i think you what i think what's missing among reporting is that you actually need to be uh to be close to them to get the news i think washington's a very that's why i left washington i worked at the washington post if you remember it i I thought the press and the media was so incestuous and odd at those parties that I found it, and I go to them too, so it's here, so it's kind of interesting,

but there was something real wrong with it there. Do you know what I mean? The sort of, it was creepy. It was a creepy feeling. And I remember thinking, I really don't want to be part of this cabal of, you know, of elites. I hate to say that, but I mean that's the one thing that they've got right, that the people of this country feel like, that the fix is in, and I'm not part of it, and I think that's... The press White House Christmas party was the same night that Flynn pled guilty.

Did they all go? CNN boycotted, but everybody else just kind of watched Trump. I mean, the Christmas party is kind of a silly thing. I mean, I went to the Uber Christmas party and had an enjoyable whiskey. It was lovely. I mean, the Christmas party is kind of a silly thing. I mean, I went to the Uber Christmas party and had an enjoyable whiskey. It was lovely. I miss... Dara Dara, the new CEO, who's just... I like him a great deal.

He got up and he said, you're welcome for all the news. And he goes, and thank you for my job. And that was a really... You're welcome, Dara. Now we're going to fuck with you if you mess up. I miss how the Christmas Christmas parties under the Democrats when it was simply called a winter solstice celebration.

But we're saying Merry Christmas again. Guys, please, a round of applause. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Kara Swisher. Thank you. Give me a hug. Come on.

Come here. Look at this. Okay. Okay. I'm not even going to make a joke. Thanks, Kara. When we come back, a game. I could feel the heat radiating off you in the middle there.

Honestly, most of that heat was my brain trying to come up with a gay version of Militia Etheridge, and I didn't have one. That was good. Militia Etheridge was so funny. Warring like an air conditioner, like a fridge that's been open too long. You guys have gone two rounds now. There was South by Southwest. I feel like you won that one.

Tonight, you know what? It's a jump ball. We're going to go to overtime. That's two metaphors I used incorrectly. And I'm supposed to say, and we're back, but this is good stuff, so we're back.

Keep it in. But do a round of applause, and we're back. Keep it in. But do a round of applause. And we're back. Now for a game called the Crooked Seven. So Crooked Media and Swing Lefts have partnered to launch the Crooked Seven, and that is an effort to help throw out of Congress the seven Republicans in California who are from seats, who are from districts that Hillary Clinton won.

These are seats that we can pick up that can put us on the road to taking back the House. And so what we've been doing... You're going to take that gavel out of Paul Ryan's hand. I'm taking my lines. See, that wasn't that hard. You've got to really sell it... You're going to take that gavel out of Paul Ryan's hand. Stop taking my lines. See, that wasn't that hard. You've got to really sell it. We're going to take that gavel from Paul Ryan's hand.

I just, I imagine he'd go... He's like, here, it's fine. I don't care. Honestly, I have expected you to pull the gavel and like a robotic arm pulls out and he's like, you know, he's twitches. Anyway, we're at a live show. Here's how the game works. One of you is going to play and we're going to tell you a little bit about these candidates.

And your job will be to suss out the truth about each of these members of Congress and why he or she ought not to have their current job. Who out there would like to play the Crooked Seven? She came from Montana, so I'd like her to play. She came a very far distance. We met... Now you don't seem to want to play anymore.

I'm from Montana. That's what I said. I don't understand your expression, and I don't understand your reaction. What is your name? Well, I'm Amy, but I was born and raised in Mississippi. Oh. Amy from Mississippi via Montana. No, I live in Montana now.

No, I know. You and I are not communicating well. I love that we budgeted 10 minutes for this game. I love you. All right, we budgeted. I love you. Amy, come focus, please. All right.

Amy, here's how it works. I'm going to read you questions, and you're going to answer them in three minutes now because of our chit-chat. We're going to start with Ed Royce. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, California 39's Ed Royce slammed Obama on his foreign policy. He said, President Obama has

focused more on befriending our enemies than helping our allies. When Trump traveled to Europe, he refused to stand by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, basically thumbing his notice at our NATO allies to the benefit of Russia, while our NATO allies were literally standing there. What did Ed Royce do?

Was it A, Ed Royce said, what I said about Obama, I say about Trump. As I don't care what party you're in, I love this country. It'd hold everyone to the same standard. Was it B, quickly eat 15 Malamars and then shrug because his mouth is full and slowly back away?

Personally, that's awesome. C, suggested that Trump's rhetoric was, quote, a very successful negotiating tactic. D, Royce ran naked through the Nixon Presidential Library and Yorba Linda shouting, he's Nixon but stupid, He's Nixon but stupid. Amy, what do you think? I'm going to go with C. You got it. Thanks to everyone who helped.

Amy, question number two. This is about Dana Rohrabacher. He represents... Yeah. On his website, it's r-russia. He said of Obama, he's incompetent at the way he's handling relations with Russia. He's not representing the interests of his country. After Trump's election and the emergence of information that Russia interfered in the U.S. election, Rohrabacher said, which of the following was evidence of collusion and a cauldron of

corruption that appears to be one of the most significant national security scandals in my lifetime? Is it A, the fact that Trump's campaign chair is now facing serious federal charges for his relationship with pro-Putin interests in illicit financial dealings? Is it B, the fact that Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, plotted to kidnap a legal U.S. resident on's officials and others with ties to Putin and Russia, even as the Russian government was mounting a campaign to intercede in our election? Or was it D, the Uranium One deal, a made-up, completely fake right-wing scandal?

You have to answer, Amy. Come on, Lori! You're not even... D. No, D. D, you got it. Nice job, Amy. I mean, if there were instant replay, you'd be in trouble.

Question, but it's the National League? Which is the one... That's I'm in over my head. Tim? Stay. Good one, Amy. Question. Question.

We love Amy from Mississippi via Montana. Question. Your final question. This one is about Daryl Issa from... Amy from Mississippi, Viamontown. Question, your final question. This one is about Daryl Issa. No Daryl Issa fans. Weird. Not fans of him.

No, I don't like him. During an appearance on Rush Limbaugh's show, Daryl Issa called Obama one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times. After years of mounting investigations into Democrats as a key oversight figure in the House of Representatives. What did Issa have to say Is it A, to see a president engage so flagrantly

in what could very well be a structure of justice is heartbreaking. We are governed by laws, not men. Think about it. Is it B? Allow me to refer you to Alexander Hamilton, who said, quote, of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people,

commencing demagogues and ending tyrants. Oh, I hope he said that one. That one was good. Was it C? Nothing. He gave the middle finger. So That one was good. Was it C, nothing? He gave the middle finger. So that's another option. Was it maybe great rhetoric or maybe the finger, John? Or was it D, I am not a Republican first, I am an American first.

And I don't work for Trump, I work for the American people, and it's long past time that the House of Representatives performed its role as a co-equal branch of government and gave this president the oversight, the check that our Constitution and our citizens demand. I'm Darrell Issa, and I'm not a pathetic hack who needs to be thrown the hell out of Congress. Hey, John. John. Is that the one Lovett told you to quote-unquote sell backstage? He did.

Great job. He did. Did I sell it? That was good. So, it was either he holds everyone the same standard, Hamilton said nothing to the reporter, just gave the reporter the finger, or the wonderful speech that John just delivered. Oh, John.

Hi, Amy. Fantastic. Thank you. We need your answer, Amy. C, John. You've got it. Again, again, saved by the lack of a replay, Amy, against the odds, you have won the Crooked Seven.

Thank you. And as a reminder, to help defeat the Crooked Seven, go to crooked.com slash crooked seven. That's our game. Alright. Both tonight and on the podcast in recent weeks, we've been talking about the issue of DACA and the obstacles the Trump administration put in the place of dreamers all across this country. To discuss

that and share the personal aspects of this issue, we have two local individuals who are familiar with the program firsthand and are fighting to prevent its full repeal. Please welcome co-founder and executive director of Educators for Fair Consideration, Kathy Jin, and among one of the first to apply for DACA, he now serves as the critical care response team at Stanford University Medical Center, Eli Oh. Please welcome Kathy and Eli. Thank you guys for joining us. Thank you for having us.

If you could help start by telling both you, Eli, and Kathy your stories of how you came in contact with the program and how you got involved in this fight to begin with. I think Kathy can start us off. So I got involved in this because I didn't want to be on the wrong side of history, quite simply. I first learned about undocumented students pretty accidentally.

I was an educator and kept meeting students who seemed like they should be going off to college, and they weren't. And I wasn't looking for undocumented students, but they kept finding me. And I was totally ignorant about the issue. I didn't understand how being undocumented affected one's ability to go to college. I didn't understand how it affected someone's ability to drive or get a job or anything.

But I knew that the students that I was meeting were incredible. I knew that they belonged in this country. And I didn't want to be one of the people that was telling them no and being one of the people that was telling them to wait. So that was the beginning of all of it for me. Eli, do you want to share your story? Yeah, we were actually promoting Dream Act around 2010, and that's how I met Kathy.

And she's in charge of E4FC, and it's been a huge resource for us, actually, for a lot of students in the Bay Area who are undocumented. It's also been like our support group, so she's always been kind of our person that we go to. You know, one of the things that I think a lot of people who aren't directly, personally impacted by DACA or its repeal don't really understand is what will happen if DACA is repealed what will happen to dreamers

Eli can you can you start sure uh so for me personally I have 11 months left in my work permit so after October 2018 I legally cannot work anymore right so I can't work I won't be able to pay rent I can't pay bills I won't be able to pay rent. I can't pay bills. I won't be able to work as a nurse. And my career would be... And you're a nurse in the Stanford Medical Center. And what specifically do you work with?

Yeah, so I'm actually a rapid response nurse. So what I do is I respond to emergencies. Anytime someone's dying in the hospital, I kind of show up. So we don't need what he does. CPR. No, I think as an American, it's like, whatever, that's fine. We don't need any more of that. No, so what you do is critically important.

Yeah. So like the function of society. And if DACA is repealed, you won't be able to perform those duties anymore. Absolutely. I mean, I have friends who are engineers. I have friends who are teachers, accountants. I mean, they're like doing great jobs. I mean, we pay a lot of taxes, right? But you're also here and contributing like beyond taxes. You're part of society. You're part of your community. You have friends. You have neighbors. And you're contributing as a human being. Right. I mean, I've been here for 19 years, so it's not like... Right, right. It's not like you're coming in here and robbing banks or whatever. Kathy, your program, the program that you founded, has worked closely with DREAMers. As somebody who's an ally, what have you observed would go away if DACA was repealed?

Well, you know, I think about a student named, a former student named Dylan Pedraza. He graduated from Chico State University. He's now a middle school teacher, an English teacher in Richmond, California, where he grew up. And he called me the day after the election, November 9th, and he told me what it was like to stand in front of his classroom on the day after Trump was elected. And he told me that he broke down and cried because he didn't know what to tell his students about whether or not he would be there till the end of the year. And I think we think a lot about like what will happen to Dylan or to Eli, but actually what he was so worried about was his own students. He was worried that they would feel like he had abandoned them, that they wouldn't actually understand the politics

of the situation. They would just think that he had given up on them and left the classroom because he didn't believe in them anymore. And so what I think that we just don't, we get sort of these stories about dreamers and sort of that they'll lose their jobs and they might be deported, but we don't actually understand that this is an issue that affects everyone. In that classroom, it affects Dylan, it affects his students, it affects his school, but it also affects the parents of Dylan who trust that someone is going to be their kid's role model and going to help them get into college and to actually feel like there's a future for them in

this country. You know, one of the challenges, you know, with an issue like immigration and the issue around DACA and the Dreamers in particular is it makes perfect sense for people who know someone, right? Or they're a teacher and they have people in their class or they've met EY or Dylan or all the other people who are working, but if you were to go, but the question is for people who do not, you know, specifically

know a Dreamer. Or think they know someone. Or think that, yeah, they probably do know a Dreamer. Yeah, but they don't think they do. They just don't know they know a Dreamer. And how would you make the case, Kathy, to someone about why it is so important for America to solve this problem? Yeah, I mean, I think we have been fighting this for a long time. When we were over here, we were like, God, how are we going to make the case?

We've been fighting for this for so long. We're pretty cynical. We've learned to survive without this for a long time. But, you know, basically it's like, what are we saying about our country if we don't fight for these kids? I mean, what are we actually saying about the country that we want to be in,

about who we value in this country, about who we'll fight for, about who we actually think is made, who makes up this country? I mean, I am a sixth generation American. My family came here in the 1860s. They came here because they thought that this would be a better place for them,

because they thought their hard work and their effort would turn into something. I honestly don't know if that's the case, if we are a country that can't pass the DREAM Act. I mean, I do not know if it's been worth all the six generations of struggling to prove that I actually exist here if I can't prove that this guy exists here. Eli, I'm curious about, you know, when I worked for

President Obama, we met with, in the run-up to enacting DACA, we met with a lot of dreamers. And the thing that always came through was just the fear of deportation hanging over their head at all times. So I'm curious, you know, what it was for you when DACA first came into place, you had an opportunity to apply, and how you would think about the potential for a permanent solution if Democrats are able to win this fight in the House and Senate coming up. Yeah, so I think when DACA passed, I actually had my bachelor's in nursing, and I was working under the table as a waiter, because that's all I could do. And no offensive waiters out there,

but I didn't go to school to become a waiter, right? So I was really depressed. I couldn't legally work. My future as I knew it was just waiting tables. This was two years after college. So when that got passed, it was a life changer. I can finally prove to myself. My first job was actually in North Dakota,

and it was like negative 20 degree weather. I was getting paid like $20 an hour. And everyone's like, why are you smiling? Like, why are you smiling at work? I'm like, well, I can finally legally work. I can finally prove to myself and to others that, you know what, I can pay taxes. I can work as a nurse. And that was like a life changer for me yeah I mean I think it's really interesting that you know there are so many people that come to this country under you know through legal or not legal means who have skills that are valuable to this country

like nursing for example like we're facing an impending nursing shortage and it's insane to me that we would in any way interfere with nurses' ability to work here legally. But my last question for you, Kathy. So, you know, we've all listened to, we all understand, everybody here understands that DACA is a serious issue and everybody here wants to help. How can they help you? I think calling. I mean, calling your congresspeople and getting them to pass the DREAM Act this month. I mean, this is the chance we have. I mean, this is the chance to talk about this issue. We're on this show. We have this actually as a debate in this country right now. Yeah, there's a lot of problems to pass this. I mean, we're not naive about this, but this is our moment.

And I think it's absolutely insane if we cannot again fight for Eli and fight for all these other people. And I think this is our opportunity to stand up against Trump and stand up against everything that he represents by showing a counterexample. So Eli, as a person who has benefited from and contributed to the country thanks to DACA, how would you tell people how they can help you? I think sharing our stories. I think stories are probably the most powerful tool that we have. So if you know a dreamer, just be able to share their stories and encourage them.

And to share on social media and to really say, like, there are people here who are paying taxes, and we've actually already proven ourselves, right? We haven't broken the law, we've been paying taxes, and to be able to say, hey, these people deserve to be here. Thank you. Kathy, Eli, thank you so much for being here tonight, and thank you so much for everything you are doing.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright guys, we are taking a trip to the cuck zone with Crooked Media's favorite Republican, Tim Miller. Hey everybody. Hey, Tim. What's happening? Welcome to Oakland, which is the home of the Cug Zone. Good to be with you all. So my first rant is this tradition is about you people. And my rant about you is that I'm really sick of this concept of what I like to call the woke titty grabber.

And I don't really understand this as an outsider. But as far as I can tell, there's this kind of sliding scale where like the woker you are, the more women that you can grab their titties against their will and still like not suffer any consequences for it. And I'm happy. Yeah, here we go. I told you there'd be some hissing early. I told you there'd be some hissing early. I'm happy about the progress. There's been a little progress. Favs wants

Conyers to resign, which is good. And Aaron's been saying some good things. And Matt Iglesias, who's like a liberal prophet, as best I could tell, wrote a column about 22 years late that it was time to hold Bill Clinton responsible for diddling some interns. So there is that progress. But on the flip side, you know, we've got Al Franken out there and, you know, we're consulting the sliding

scale and we're like, well, I mean, he's just a woke butt pincher, you know, and so maybe we should keep him in there. He did support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, after all. And it's just like, no, please, people, I'm pleading you. I know this is not about me, but I'm begging you to stop with this. Because these assholes, these Trump assholes that I'm trying to defend you against, all right, they are all bad faith. They want to attack you.

And when you guys are hypocrites, it makes their attacks against you for being hypocrites work. And so I'm asking you to please stop that. And that's the end of rant number one. Tough love, Tim Miller. Rant two, you'll like a little better, probably. I wrote an article for Crooked.com

called The Republican Case for Doug Jones. Woo! Thank you. All right, now while we're excited about that, let's do it one more time. And now let's do it for corporate tax cuts. It was worth a try. Try broadening the base.

Broadening the base and lowering the rates? No. Seven brackets into three. Alright, so back on topic here the thing. Seven brackets into three. All right, all right. So back on topic here. The Republican case for Doug Jones. And look,

I looked at the candidates. This wasn't hard. One candidate was a child molester. He says gay as she'd be in jail. He tried to separate a mother from her child

because she was a lesbian. I mean, this is a sick person. He wanted to keep Muslims out of Congress for their religion. And on the other side, you had a guy named Doug

who didn't do any of those things. And so I donated to Doug and I hope you guys all donated to Doug too. But the response to this was crazy! Like exactly. You guys are acting like I was the gal in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square,

which doesn't make any sense. All I did was oppose a child molester, and the Republicans have done nothing. The RNC is now back for the child molester. And Jeff Flake, who's retiring, is the only elected official who supported Doug Jones. And so my message to those Republicans is, Roy Moore was a vile and heinous man before we learned about this. But what we learned was he took a 14-year-old girl, he took her into his home, he got down into his disgusting tighty-whities and he molested her. This is a sick man. And I'm so pissed and I'm so angry and filled with shame that I'm associated with all these people

that none of them are supporting Doug Jones so anyway that's the end that's the Cuck Zone I wanted to end in a dark place take a seat Tim Oakland you've been a great crowd we'll see you. Thank you. I'm