Pod Save America - “Donald Trump’s coffee man.”

Episode Date: February 14, 2019

The President loses his wall but keeps the issue, kicks off his re-election campaign in El Paso with a new screed against Democrats, and gets a boost from potential independent candidate Howard Schultz. Then journalist Marcy Wheeler talks to Dan about the latest Paul Manafort revelations, Andrew McCabe’s return to the spotlight, and whether we’ll see a Mueller report. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, you'll hear Dan's conversation with friend of the pod, Marcy Wheeler, about the latest in the Mueller investigation. Fascinating conversation you had with Marcy, Dan. I listened in. I can't wait for everyone to hear it. I knew you. Sometimes when we do the interviews, you drink coffee or something in the other room. But I knew it was Marcy with interesting information on the Mueller investigation. You would definitely listen. I follow all of Marcy's tweets.

She is my entry point into the Russia investigation always, so one of my favorite guests. We've got a lot of news to discuss as well, from the deal to keep the government open, to the dueling rallies that President Trump and Beto O'Rourke had on the border earlier this week, to a new analysis that shows how Howard Schultz can only help Donald Trump win re-election.

Also, check out this week's Pod Save the World, where Tommy has a really interesting, thoughtful conversation with Peter Beinart about the Ilhan Omar controversy. Really great episode. Also, check out Crooked.com slash events for our tour schedule. We just had a great swing down south, and in April we're headed to Boston and New Hampshire. So come see us. It'll be fun.

All right, let's get to the news. As we're recording this, the Senate and then the House will be voting on a budget to fund the government and avoid another shutdown. As a reminder, Trump shut down the government the first time because the Senate's budget only included $1.6 billion for fencing and border barriers when Trump wanted $5.7 billion for a wall. So then, after a 35-day shutdown and weeks of negotiations, Trump is expected to sign a budget that includes not $5.7 billion for a wall, not even the original $1.6 billion for fencing and border barriers that he rejected, but a little less than $1.4 billion for about 55 miles of fencing on the 2,000-mile border. Art of the deal.

So obviously Trump could decide last minute to veto this bill because he's a stone cold moron. But would he really have the power to stop it from passing? Or would Congress at this point just override his veto? That's a great question. And just to give you some breaking news, Trump just tweeted, reviewing the funding bill with my team at the White House, exclamation point. So maybe we'll find out during this podcast what he's going to do. House exclamation point. So maybe we'll find out during this podcast what he's going to do. I think he I mean, he certainly has it within his power to say he's not going to sign it. And he could do that. And there would be members of the Freedom Caucus who would side with him.

The bigot brigade at Fox News would back him. But you get the sense this time that the Republican senators are not likely to follow him over the cliff on this. And, you know, I never want to – it's one of our rules here at Ponce de America that we don't put a lot of stock into the courage and independence of Republican elected officials. on a limited leash here. And it would be very hard for him to get enough Republican senators to side with him to shut the government down again, for essentially no reason. Yeah, I mean, I think what the Republicans learned through the shutdown is what we all saw, they can all read polling information, they can see, you know, the protests and of, you know, federal officials, the air traffic controllers who didn't want to show up for work because they weren't getting paid, the contractors who didn't get paid. I mean, the shutdown was a political disaster for Donald Trump and the Republican Party took their polling

down to new levels. I don't think they have the appetite for that again. I mean, we'll see, but I don't, I think that's why Trump seems to be reluctantly going to sign this bill, though, as you said, he just tweeted that he's reviewing it now. Also, he's not reviewing it because reviewing it requires reading words and numbers, and neither of those are his chosen way of getting information. Yeah. I mean, the longest thing he's read in the last couple of months is a chyron on Fox News. So I guess the question now is what's next for the wall? Trump said on Wednesday, quote, the wall is very, very on its way.

It's happening as we speak. You'd have to be in extremely good shape to get over this one. They would be able to climb Mount Everest a lot easier, I think. Just like unbelievable. So the White House, the White House says he's either going to take money from other agencies to fund the wall or declare a national emergency. Will either of these options work? What are the sort of the drawbacks to each of these options? You know, it both of them have two risks, one being legal risk that particularly sort of declaring a national emergency. You cannot really do that to go around the will of Congress. And since this is a solution that would take years to implement for a fake problem that isn't happening now, as Trump claims,

happening now, as Trump claims, it seems that at least some courts, at least before we get to Brett Kavanaugh's revenge theater in Supreme Court, would strike that down. And Congress, the appropriators in Congress, even Republicans and Democrats, are pretty, they get a little irked when you start just taking money from one pot and putting it in another. So there are some risks to doing it. But ultimately, that I'm not sure matters to Trump, because he doesn't need to build the wall. He may not even really want to build the wall, because if he were to have this Mount Everest-like impenetrable barrier that would prevent him from scaring people about armies of women and children coming to America to flee violence, then it would probably

be a blow to his political strategy. But he can also lie about it. He's right now attacking Democrats for blocking the wall and patting himself on the back for building the wall. And there seems to be at least some inconsistency in the messaging, but that's sort of how Trump rolls. Yeah. I mean, Mark Meadows, who rolls with the very Trumpiest of the House Republicans, said on Wednesday, if he signed the bill based on what has been reported and suggested is in the bill and did nothing else, it would be political suicide. So, you know, is he right, right? Like Trump's central campaign promise in 2016 was that he would build a wall across our 2000 mile border with Mexico. He has built zero miles of wall. He is up for reelection next year. As you pointed out, even if he goes with the national emergency, that probably gets held up in court.

Even if he tries to reappropriate money from other agencies, you know, who may not be happy about that. And Congress may not be happy about that. Look, there's a provision in the funding bill right now that says communities along the border get to review any sort of wall or fencing or barriers that's going up on, you know, where they live for a little while before it happens. I mean, it seems like under any scenario, no matter what Trump does, he ain't getting a wall built before 2020. So what does that mean as he heads into re-election? Does he just keep lying and does the lying work? There is this school of thought that that would be some blow to Trump's re-election prospects, where he said he'd build the wall,

he didn't build the wall, therefore he failed, and therefore he would lose. I could not disagree with that more. I don't believe Trump's voters love Trump because they love the wall. I think they love the wall because they love Trump. And therefore, they're not going to – it's hard to imagine the voter who thinks the wall is the most important thing and is then going to either walk away from the person most associated with the wall because it's not yet built. The wall is like I think even voters understand the walls and is a political metaphor for racism, racism and xenophobia. And they just want someone who will speak proudly of racism and xenophobia more so than they want like actual mortar and brick being put on the border of the United States. Yeah, I think that's I think that's probably largely true. line Trump supporters, people who voted for Trump, this could feed into a larger narrative about broken promises as we head into re-election or as Trump heads into re-election, which of course,

every president running for re-election faces. I mean, in the era of pre-Trump, right, when it was just normal politics, you run for president, you make promises, you then run for president again, four years later, and you're judged by whether you kept those promises or not right that's like simple politics and i just remember you know i don't know why i was fucking watching this but like you know i saw a clip of ann coulter talking to bill maher just kill me um and she was uh and she was making this case she's like you know the argument for liberals for everyone right now is pretty easy because it's the same argument she's like I'm making against Trump right now, which is he made a bunch of promises and he didn't keep them. He said he was going to build a wall. He didn't build the wall.

And he didn't do what he said he was going to do as president. And that's a problem. And I wonder if at some point you start, you know, that case starts building, if that becomes a problem for Trump. So two points on that. One, I do believe that voters give you credit for trying. And this was true with Obama and the economy in 2012. They believed, even though he hadn't achieved everything that everyone hoped in terms of an economic recovery after the financial crisis, they believed he was trying his best, and that was worth something. And I think Trump's voters will probably believe he has tried on the wall. I do agree with you that broken promises is a very powerful message against

Trump. But I think it is largely, I think the better argument there is going to be around the fact that he ran as a populist and governed as a corporatist. He ran as a reformer and governed as a corrupt swamp creature. That seems to be the things that might have the most, governed as a swamp creature. Like that seems to be the things that might have the most, that he was not the change he promised as opposed to not a Lyndon Johnson like figure who could deliver a wall. But all of it, I think we're in agreement is that Trump has left some openings here and

that this, this is like, this will at least hang over for some period of time with the end cultures of the world. And that just creates interference in his daily life. And that makes it harder to get his message out. So another question is, did Democrats get the best deal they could? And if not, could they have gotten a better one?

We know the Democrats made some progress trying to force ICE to detain fewer immigrants in this deal, but not as much as they originally wanted. We know the Democrats wanted the deal to include back pay for federal contractors who never got the money they lost during the shutdown. But Trump rejected that idea because, you know, he's never been big on paying contractors. Could Democrats have won these fights? What would it look like if they had just passed, you know, a continuing resolution to fund the government at previous levels, were there other options here? I think with one glaring exception, this deal is fine. And that's sort of the best you can hope for if you control one half of one branch of government is a deal that is fine.

It's basically status quo of where we were before. There's some little money here for other things. Some things were addressed, but we didn't make any dramatic changes in immigration policy one way or the other. And it's as powerful and amazing as Nancy Pelosi is. There's only so much leverage she has because you still need not just a Republican Senate, you also need to keep on board a handful of moderate Democrats who are pretty uncomfortable with shutdown politics generally. And so we're sort of limited. I do think Democrats dropped the ball on contractor back pay. I think there was a moral obligation to do this. It was the right thing to do.

I think sometimes you get in these legislative negotiations, it's like you get one thing, we get the other thing, But these things are not equal. And I think if we had pushed hard on this, we could have gotten the Republicans to give. Because was Trump really going to shut down the government again or were the Republicans really going to shut down the government again over contractor back pay? It's absolutely the right thing to do. It's good policy, good politics. And I think that we didn't fight hard enough for that. And I think that's really unfortunate because the contract in an economy where more and more people are being

pushed towards contract work or part-time work or gig work, if we don't take a stand that those workers are equal to salary workers in terms of what they deserve, then it's simply the wrong thing to do and a fundamental mistake. Yeah, I agree with that. And I'm curious as to why they didn't push harder. I mean, I guess, you know, Friday is the deadline, the government gets shut down. No one wants to be the one who caused another shutdown. Obviously, Democrats don't. But it's like, I don't know. I mean, it seems like it's an issue that is incredibly politically popular to pay people, to pay workers who were stiffed Because they're for back pay for government workers. So it's sort of like we just let, this was too hard. So we decided not to do it. And I just think that's a, I know these things are hard and no one wants to shut down the government, but I think that is really unfortunate

that happened because these people were owed money and we let them, we all collectively, not just Democrats, everyone involved in this process let them. Yeah, and by all accounts, it seems like they didn't include it in the deal because Republicans said, oh, Trump said he wouldn't sign this deal. And it's like, well, fuck that. I mean, yeah. If this exact deal left the Senate with contractor back pay, Trump is not vetoing it over contractor back pay.

That is an absurd reason to not do this. Okay, well, we will see if he ends up signing this deal. By the time you listen to this, maybe it'll have already passed one house, but stay tuned. All right, let's talk about Trump's trip to El Paso earlier this week, where he held his first rally of the 2020 campaign,

gave a stump speech that's basically his same, you know, brown terrorists are invading us routine from 2016, with a few new attacks on socialism, abortion, and Beto O'Rourke, who delivered an anti-Wall speech at the same time just a few blocks away. Funny aside here, Trump bragged that his crowd count was 35,000 and Beto's was two to 300, though the truth was that Trump's was 10,000 and Beto's was 10 to 15,000. So he's just a little off on that crowd count. What, if anything, struck you about Trump's first campaign speech? What argument is he making? What proactive argument is he making for his own reelection? I mean, it's always hard to extract a quote unquote message or strategy out of anything Trump says. This one was on one level, the delusional ravings of a dishonest

moron with a cable addled brain, right? It was like conspiracy theories. It was crazy. Like all over the map. Like if you had to like read the words of it, you would, it would be exhibit a and a 25th amendment hearing against Trump.

It's a, it's very alarming, but on another level, he is making this, is that Trump knows in some way, I think down deep, that he is not likable. There are large numbers of people who don't like him, but he remains incredibly confident in his ability to make whoever he is facing off against or running against even more unlikable. And from the Trump positive message standpoint, it's all over the

map. We need a wall. We're building a wall. I have saved you from armies of migrants in MS-13. Armies of migrants in MS-13 are about to kill you. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But he is making an argument that Democrats are too radical to govern this country. And he is doing that with a measure of consistency that is very dishonest, but it is a message. Yeah. I mean, look, we, again, every incumbent president goes through this when they face reelection. And we did this too, as Obama was facing reelection in 2012. The opposition party, opposition candidate wants to make the election a referendum on the president, right? So was Trump a good president these last four years? Did you like Trump as president? Do you want four more years of this shit?

That's the question that we want to ask. As the incumbent, what you try to do is say, no, this isn't a referendum. This is a choice between me, who maybe you don't like that much. Maybe you're a little disappointed with me and my policies and my record. But look at the other guys. Look what they have to offer. Look how extreme that is. And we successfully did this in 2012 against Mitt Romney, and we did it largely around economic issues and economic vision. Look at Mitt Romney's vision for the country. He wants to give huge tax cuts to rich people and screw over working people. That was

the choice that we forced people to make, and Barack Obama is going to continue to fight for you. And I think you're right. Like in, in this reelection, that's Trump is not, Trump can't win this election, but he's going to try to make the Democrats lose this election. Um, so he can't, he can't get his approval rating up that far, right? Like they've been stuck at, they've been stuck between 38 and 44 percent since he's been in office. They probably haven't moved much at all. And so he's going to he's sitting there with 44, 45 percent. Maybe in some of these swing states, he'll be up to 46, 47 percent. That's not 50.

What he's going to try to do is whoever the Democratic nominee is, paint that person as an out of touch, extreme, you know, weirdo. Yeah. It's like you may not like me, but you're gonna fucking hate this other person. And like you hit on what is the exact dynamic of elections, which is, when someone is running for president, their strategy is to make people want change. And when you're running for reelection, your strategy is to make people fear change. And how Democrats define what that change is will determine our ability to win this election. Yeah. I mean, what do you think about the specific attacks on Democrats? You know, he basically, he called Democrats, quote, the party of socialism, late-term abortion, open borders, and crime, just to put a real fine point on it.

He said that the Green New Deal would eliminate airplanes and cars and tear down buildings. And then he called Beto a young man who's got very little going for himself, except he's got a great first name. What do you think about these attacks, at least on the issues and the socialism? And what's he trying to do there? I mean, it's exactly what we're saying is he is trying to make Democrats seem so radical that even if you're uncomfortable with Trump, you would be much more uncomfortable with what these Democrats are trying to do. And you do sort of see in here why, I don't want everyone to panic when I say this, but why usually incumbents win re-election, right? Which is the Democrats are going to spend the next 15 months having a debate among themselves about the Green New Deal, Medicare for all,

what sort of economic policies we want to put in place, all good. And it's a good and important conversation. But Trump, the RNC, the Koch brothers, the Fox News, you know, and somewhat aided and abetted by the mainstream media are going to spend the next 15 months demagoguing the Democratic position, sort of making you believe that if a Democrat is elected, we're going to take your car away and you're going to have to ride a bike to get a salad, right? I mean, that's hard, right? That is the huge advantage that incumbents have is that they get to make their argument straight for a year and a half while you're busy making your argument. You're not talking to any voters who are not Democratic primary voters. You're only arguing to your base for 15 months. And that is a challenge that Democrats have to

think, not just the Democrats running, but the Democratic progressive world writ large is going to have to think really hard about how we prevent Trump from defining what meaning a Democrat means before the day the Democratic nominee steps on stage at our convention and picks up the mantle. Yeah. And look, this is what we faced on the first campaign that I ever worked on with John Kerry was the Democratic nominee. And going into that campaign, everyone thought, oh, everyone hates George W. Bush. Everyone doesn't, you know, people don't like the war in Iraq. People, you know, and they thought that, you know, it was going to be easier to prosecute this case against George W. Bush. And yet he was able to define John Kerry before John Kerry was able to define himself with tons of money and the Swift Boat ads and all this other stuff as this sort of out of touch, aloof weirdo.

And it was effective enough to secure George W. Bush with another term. And I think, you know, it is not going to be easy. And I guess the question is, like, what can Democratic candidates do about Trump demonizing them and the party as, you know, 500 of them are running against each other? Is there anything that we can do? How should we respond to this? What do you think? Is there anything that we can do? How should we respond to this?

What do you think? I think it's really hard to tell Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker or anyone to say, hey, go try to win the Iowa caucus, but also try to win Ohio and the general at the same time. That's an impossible task. No campaign will do that. I think it's going to be – this is a responsibility that's going to be go to the rest of us to figure out how to keep Trump on his heels. It's going to be Nancy Pelosi's responsibility. It's going to be the DNC's responsibility. It's going to be whatever progressive super PAC infrastructure there is to keep Trump on his heels. I just don't know that the Democrats can do it.

Look, every time they have a national stage, they should make an argument against Trump and Trumpism. I think we've seen a lot of that. We talked about Kamala Harris's speech in Oakland was a very strong argument against Trumpism. Others have done it. So use your platform to push back. But I think others are going to have to pick up the slack because we don't live in a world... it used to be. You would think, well, you know, Trump always gets shitty press coverage. So he'll just get shitty press coverage for the next 15 months. And then Democrats can start prosecuting the case against him. And that's just not how the world works in our filter bubble information economy. And so you're going to have to like other parts of the small handful of Democrats not running for president are going to have to, like, other parts of the, the small handful

of Democrats not running for president are going to have to spend the next, you know, 12 to 15 months prosecuting the case aggressively. Yeah, I mean, we have said for a long time that it is very important for Democrats not just to oppose Trump, but to offer a positive vision and agenda of their own. And that is true, but everything is a balance. And I do think, you know, Democrats are going to be arguing over which Medicare for all plan to embrace or to pursue. And there's going to be all kinds of arguments on that, but they should also remind people, Donald Trump gets reelected. People's health insurance is going away. They are going to finish the job that they

started and repeal the Affordable Care Act and 20 million people will lose health insurance. Democrats can argue over which Green New Deal plan is the best and how far we should go and how fast we should go in decarbonizing the economy. That's fine. But let's remember, Donald Trump is reelected. It's's a party he's part of a party that doesn't believe that climate change exists and nothing will be done about climate change for another four years when we only have basically 10 years to stop it you can argue over some late-term abortion bill that applies to like you know one percent of people in the world or you can say donald trump going to be re-elected again there will be no women's right to choose it will be over

it will be ended because he will be able to appoint another justice in court probably. And that will be that. So like there are very real consequences to Donald Trump being reelected. They're far greater than any kind of little arguments we're having over which policy we're pursuing and how far it can go. And I think that that definitely has to be part of the Democratic candidates message as they're arguing with each other over these next, you know, nine, 10 months. Yeah, that's right. It's like we have to we have to keep the stakes of the election as high as possible for our voters. And that is something that yes, all you know, we can do other Democratic officials can do, but also the candidates can do out on the stump. Well, let's talk about one of those potential candidates let's talk about beto's response

can i say one thing about the green deal first sure yeah yeah like trump spent a lot of time on that and a lot of pundits have written that democrats are you know have given trump a cudgel right they're giving him a path to re-election by doing the green new deal and what there's that's like a one that's a really stupid way to think about something when the fucking planet is melting before our eyes um but it is also possible that something can be good politics for trump and good politics for the democrats at the same time yeah right like yes there are elements of the green new deal that Trump can demonize and scream about and panic some people about. But it also – it's basically, I think, table stakes for Democrats to appeal to young voters to offer a bold climate change plan that is commiserate to the threat that the country faces.

And so it doesn't have to be is this good for Democrats, good for Republicans? It could be both. And the ultimate decision, the ultimate verdict on how well it works will depend on who does a better job in the final weeks making the argument around it, right? I don't think there's a world where the Democrats could really have come out and just like offer the same, you know, circa 2009 cap and trade plan and appealed to younger voters. I did an event here in San Francisco last night with Michael Tubbs, who we had as our guest at our Sacramento show last year. Crooked contributor. For people who don't know, he's the 28-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, and one of

the most impressive public officials you'll meet. But I asked him, you're the millennial mayor. How do politicians reach millennials? What do they care about? And he said, I want to have a planet to live on when I'm 50. And he said, that's the thing he hears all the time from young people. And I think we have to recognize the way young people view climate change. And that's why the Sunrise Movement and AOC and everyone else were right to push this. And Democrats had no choice but to embrace it. It's both good policy and good policies. Well, and again, what we saw in El Paso from Trump,

you know, lying about getting rid of airplanes and bikes and all this bullshit. Trump is going to lie about and exaggerate and demonize any plan or proposal from Democratic politicians. He just spent the 2018 election saying that we wanted terrorists and criminals to overrun our country. He has talked about, you know, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton being the founders of ISIS. Like, he has gone there on every single argument and will continue to. So the idea that we should, you know, strategize about our own policy agenda based on the attacks that may or may not come from Donald Trump and the Republican Party is silly because they have gone, they have been calling us

socialists for the last 40 years. Barack Obama was a socialist, remember? Barack Obama was also like a Kenyan Muslim imposter, right? Like they will use every single argument in the book they have. Nothing will stop them from saying something crazy about Democrats. So should we. So when we construct our policies and our proposals, we should think about what is necessary and, you know, what we can sort of cobble together a majority around. It's a pass. Right. Like that. There are very real arguments that we're going to have over what kind of Medicare plan to embrace, what kind of Green New Deal to embrace, but they should be about what we can actually get done once we have power. We shouldn't trim our sails based on what the Republicans are going to say about us, because they're going to call us everything. Yes. The Affordable Care Act, a healthcare plan that originally came based on an idea from the heritage foundation based on a plan uh enacted

by republican mitt romney that did amazing things but did not go as far as we would like was called socialist the entire 2012 campaign of barack obama won so what are they going to call medicare for all like extra socialist to like supersize socialism it's like just do what we're going to do like like these are hard arguments you're we're going to have to win them but we we have to win them on our terms and not let Trump define the four corners of the argument. Right, right. And that doesn't mean there's room for people who want more moderate policies. Like, that's fine. But propose that because it's what you believe, not because you're worried about what the Republicans are going to say.

All right, let's talk about Beto's response. What did you think of his event and the speech he gave? And what hints does it give about, you know, the kind of presidential candidate he might be if he finally chooses to enter the race. Well, it was just generally interesting to see because the last time all of us, the political world, saw Beto was basically the night before the election at his last big rally, very emotional rally in El Paso.

And in that, we had spent more than a year seeing him have these very powerful rhetorical moments, these large crowds, this excitement around his candidacy. And then it's been dark for a long time. Like, he's just been sort of off the stage. He's been driving around, posting on Medium. That's received mixed responses, to say the least, from at least the political world. And just in a world in which everything happens so fast, he's been absent, right? You just haven't seen him. And so

that event was a reminder why he caught a good portion of the political world's imagination, maybe actually more the political world. He became a national figure in a long-shot-ish Senate race, and that was a reminder of what that is. What that means for him as a presidential candidate is an open question. He showed some of the strengths that we think he would bring to – we've talked about before he would bring to presidential campaign in the sense that the only successful Democratic campaigns match enthusiasm and organization. And he certainly has the ability to get a crowd. And that at least gives you the chance to make an argument in front of people, which means you have a chance to win Iowa. And that's sort of the whole thing. So I think the challenge for him is he's going to have to make an argument for why him, not the others, right? I think that's sort of going to be becoming incumbent on these

candidates to explain what they uniquely bring to the field. But you have to be almost explicit, not attack the other person, but what is the thing that the field is lacking that you offer? And I think that that is going to be a challenge for everyone who is either running or thinking – or the 7,000 people who are thinking of getting in, whether it's Biden or Bernie or Beto or Stacey Abrams or all the others, is why you, right? Like, why are you better than the others, right? It can't just be we're all equal and we'll just let the voters decide. You have to make an argument for why you are a better vehicle for winning this election and bringing the progressive, implementing the progressive policies that we care about. You know, it's interesting.

I think pundits and, you know, D.C. folks always tend to underestimate the power of enthusiasm which is often measured by very large crowds and very large sort of grassroots fundraising and they always do this because and you look they did this to us to obama uh we did this in 2016 with Trump's crowds. And with Bernie's, to be honest. And with Bernie's, that's right. And, you know, and I think people did it with Beto too. And a crowd, look, you know, one of the reasons that Kamala Harris is, you know, at the top of the field right now is because in her announcement suddenly 20,000 people showed up in Oakland that's very impressive and if you had told the DC set before her announcement that like oh she gets a huge crowd in Oakland will that matter much they probably

like rolled their eyes but when you actually see the crowd and you see the enthusiasm suddenly most of these people are like oh yeah that is a pretty big deal. And like the fact that Beto was able to get, you know, and the people of El Paso and the organizers in El Paso, because they to sort of act as a counter rally to Donald Trump, to the president coming to El Paso is very significant, I think. And, you know, as you said, talking about like, the why, right, which I think, the longer you're sort of decide to still deciding whether to get into the presidential race, like Beto is like Bernie, like Joe Biden is, it becomes an even greater challenge to look at the field that we have and say, okay, what's missing from that field that I bring? And I think Beto's argument would probably be, at least you saw a hint of this during that rally, which is, you know, he really focused on sort of like a revival of democracy and civic participation itself, right?

Like that the only way that we're going to not just beat Donald Trump, but sort of restore the America that we want to be is for people to show up at events like this, to be active, to be active, you know, to participate in our democracy again. And that's sort of what his campaign was about. So you can start to sort of see what his message might be. And I also thought it was interesting with his rally that, you know, we've been talking about how a Democrat handles Donald Trump. And we've said, you know, well, you don't want to respond to everything that Donald Trump does

and always be like, you know, he says something offensive and then you're forced to respond and then you're going down the path of Donald Trump and that doesn't really help. But I think there's something between that and sort of doing your own thing apart from Donald Trump when you know that the media attention is always going to be on Donald Trump. And Beto's rally sort of found that middle ground in El Paso because it was a response, but it wasn't a response directly to Donald Trump. It was a response to the country. And it was bigger and hopeful and positive, but he was still able to get that split screen by making sure that when Donald Trump had a rally, he had a counter rally. And I think that's an interesting option for all the Democratic

candidates that when Trump is holding an event, Trump is talking about something, you talk about that thing also, but you sort of show why you're different than Donald Trump, as opposed to just going back and forth and tit for tat with him. Yeah, that's right. I thought it was really interesting. And as you sort of look at the field, as big as it is and as big as it could be, there are lots of handling Trump, right? Like, not getting overly rattled by him, but making a broader argument against. It's easy to argue against the man Trump, right? He is a walking set of flaws and crimes.

But there is also, you have to argue about what Trump represents. Yeah. Because that's the true danger of the country. I think Beto did that a lot in his campaign. He did that the other night. I thought that was a theme of Kamala Harris's speech, of Stacey Abrams' response. I've seen Pete Buttigieg's interviews. Just talk about it from the perspective of a millennial and a person who served in the

military. But that, to me, is it like, you can get out, American people are not stupid. talk about it from the perspective of a millennial and a person who served in the military. But that to me is – you can get out – American people are not stupid. They know that Trump is a massively flawed individual. They know that he lies. They know that he has probably been involved in all kinds of criminal – at least crime-adjacent activities over the years. They know he's absurd. They know he's chaotic.

They know he sends terrible tweets. We – everyone gets that. And people voted for him despite that. But there is a broader danger to what he represents and how it diverges from the tradition of how we think of ourselves as America. The people who can make that argument, that will separate, that will be the separation between the best candidates to run against Trump and the rest of the field. Yeah. All right, let's talk about less pleasant 2020 news. On Tuesday night, CNN hosted a town hall in Texas with former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the billionaire who's deciding whether to run for president.

Why should we care about this? I see a lot of people on Twitter. Why are we giving so much attention to him? Why are we talking about him? Why are Democrats so upset? So here's why. We've learned through a new analysis provided to Crooked Media that the only person Schultz's candidacy could help become president is Donald Trump. This was an analysis by Katie Connolly and Joel Benenson of the Benenson Strategy Group. As some of you know, Joel is a friend of the pod who was Obama's chief pollster from 2008 on. Basically, here's what they did. They gave Trump every state where a Republican has won by more than 10 for four of the five last elections in a row.

And then they gave the Democratic candidate every state where a Democrat has won by more than 10 points for four of the five last elections in a row. Then they labeled the rest of the states battlegrounds. And this is a generous map full of battleground states. So like Oregon's a battleground state, even though Democrats have won Oregon in every race since like 1984. Texas is a battleground state, even though Republicans have been winning Texas nonstop. a battleground state even though republicans have been winning texas non-stop um so uh the battle so when they did all this the battlegrounds that were left after you had safe democratic and safe republican states only added up to 268 electoral votes so even if howard schultz runs the table on every single battleground in this expanded battleground map, he doesn't get the 270 votes he needs to win. And if no candidate gets the 270 votes, which would happen in that scenario, what happens is the election is thrown to the House of Representatives. Now, the House of Representatives, if they have to decide the election, it's not just a simple majority that decides it. Each state gets one vote. Each state delegation in the House gets one vote. Well, right now, Republicans control 26 state delegations

in the House. Democrats only control 22, and the rest are tied. So Trump wins in that scenario. And beyond that, there are plenty of other scenarios where even if Schultz peels off a tiny percentage of Democratic votes in battleground states, he tips the election to Trump. Dan, what did you think of this analysis? And how much of a threat do you think Schultz is to the Democratic candidate in general? I mean, the analysis is exactly right. It is impossible for Howard Schultz to become president. It is. We have a two-party system. He has an outside system. Now, that may not be great. I would be all for getting rid of the electoral college and moving to a popular vote system, which would increase the chances of independent candidates or third-party candidates to win. But just the simple fact of the matter is it cannot

happen. And then you get these fucking actualies from the Schultz team or reporters. It was like, how can you say that Donald Trump and Barack Obama one? No one said that could happen. Like politics is changing, except for the fact that politics is changing in the exact way that makes it less likely for Howard Schultz to win. The country is getting more polarized. And so it makes it harder.

Like the group of voters available to even an appealing independent candidate, of which Howard Schultz is most certainly not, is smaller. And so the only thing that Howard Schultz can accomplish is to win enough votes from people who do not like Trump, but may be unwilling to cross the line vote for Democrat if they have some other choice and tip the election to Trump. That is the only thing that can happen. I mean, Howard Schultz could run and get essentially zero votes and be it matter nothing. But there is not a world where he becomes president. And if your goal is to become president, you have to run in the primaries of one of the two parties. You do not get to opt out of it because you made a billion dollars and you used fancy names for small, medium, and large.

Like that's not, you don't get out of, like that is not how it works. He cannot become president on this current path. He is wasting all of our fucking times and giving us a lot of anxiety because he poses an existential threat to Democrats taking the White House from Trump. Yeah. And look, this this last point is very important because of all the people say, oh, Democrats are overreacting. He's you know, and look, polls show that his favorability rating is garbage. People hate him and not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans. Most of the country doesn't know who he is. So people say, what's the problem? He's not a threat. Like, even if he runs and gets the same percentage of the vote as Jill Stein did or Gary Johnson did, he could still tip the election to Trump. Remember what we were talking about earlier.

Like, Trump probably has a ceiling at like 45, 46, 47 in some of these battleground states. And Trump is not trying to get to 50. He knows he probably can't get to 50. He's going to try to do what he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, which is try to destroy the Democratic candidate and push some voters, just a tiny, all he needs is a tiny percentage of voters to be pushed away from the Democratic candidate towards one of these third party candidates, whether it's Howard Schultz or Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or someone else, and he can win those states. And look, people in the Clinton campaign will tell you that when they polled Trump versus Hillary

in a lot of these battleground states in a two-way race, Hillary Clinton was consistently winning all through the fall, even in some of these states that Trump ended up winning, like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But when you switched it to a four-way poll, when it was Trump and Hillary and Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, she was losing ground. And she was losing ground in the very battleground states that she ended up losing. This is very serious.

The man has a billion dollars at his disposal here. And this whole idea, too, like, oh, if we don't talk about him, you know, he won't get attention. Why are we talking about him? Why is the media giving him attention? If the media gave him zero attention, if we gave him zero attention, he's worth a billion dollars. He is going to run, start running ads in the next couple months. That is his team's plan. They've said that. He's going to start running ads. He's going to start buying his own media. And he's going to start, you know, it's a real threat to the Democratic nominee. It

is a very real threat. And even if he decides ultimately to not run for president, he has this moment in time where, based on this purported potential presidential campaign, he has a media platform. And he's using that media platform every single day to do Donald Trump's bidding for him. He is seeking to radicalize Democrats on core issues, saying that Medicare for all is un-American, that the plans to tax the wealthy are ridiculous or un-American. And even in this town hall, basically using NRA talking points that Democrats want to take far left Democrats want to take away everyone's guns, right? Like he both sides, it's both. I don't know how you say that word, but you know what I'm saying? Guns days from the one year anniversary of Parkland. It is, it is cynical and gross and it is stupid. And maybe the right strategic thing to do is to not

send angry tweets about Howard Schultz or to rant about it on this podcast. But that is a level of self-control I currently do not have because everything about this effort is infuriating because just the absolute how bad he is at something as important as running for president infuriates me like if you're going to do a town hall for one hour and take questions with journalists has some fucking positions have an answer to the question of what would happen to your starbucks stock where you become president have an answer about what you would do on day one have an answer about whether you release your tax returns do have answers to questions do like a modicum of fucking prep in q a beforehand it's like it like this is a serious thing and he he may be a serious business person who did a very very good job running starbucks and starbucks did a lot of very good things including making the egg bites tommy but he is not a serious person.

I can't believe the response Tommy got on Twitter for shitting on those egg bites. Those things are fucking disgusting. They are not disgusting. But here's the point. I'm glad you brought this up. People can have independent opinions of food. Tommy doesn't have to like the egg bites.

I can like the egg bites. And for all you people on Twitter, there's no right or wrong answer to that. That is your opinion. People were mad at me for liking and they were furious at tommy for for opposing such an easy low-carb breakfast on the go like you have a choice you can light like it's like there's no right answer to the egg bites like i like him tommy doesn't like him we both have that right i don't make him eat him he doesn't stop me from eating him like the rest of you

people need to like just like it's not like i even got like direct messages from people who were like way to fight on the egg bites dan don't let tommy cow you it's like who cares like we all have our breakfast like that's just it's not like uh it's not like liking elliot abrams you know we're not gonna get it well yeah there on some things there is a right and wrong answer but food choices music choices which tv shows you like, that's your opinion. You're welcome to it. Eat what you enjoy, watch what you enjoy, read what you enjoy. Don't spend time yelling at people

for enjoying different things. It's a national crisis. This is not a good use of energy. As we know, I am a very big fan of Dunkin' Donuts, specifically the Dunkin' Donuts coffee, which some people think is just gross sugar water. I want it. I want more of it. Give it to me all the time. That's what I love. But anyway, back to Howard Schultz, back to the

coffee man who's trying to ruin our democracy. I just look, if Howard Schultz ends up running and gets on the ballots, then maybe it's time to stop talking about him and not give him attention. Right now, our goal should be to try to persuade him that running is a very bad idea and that he will have no support to do so. And persuading him and persuading his advisors. And I know that a lot of people had tweeted us, yes, we did work with Bill Burton

and Bill knows exactly how we feel about this and has not been persuaded as of yet. But we should be, all of us right now, trying to persuade these people not to undertake this candidacy which could only elect donald trump and could not elect howard schultz and could only hurt the democratic nominee it is it is serious and um and i don't think it's an overreaction at all because like i said you know no one knew about fucking gary johnson didn't get any attention in

the last race or very little. Jill Stein didn't get much attention, but in critical states, they helped swing the election away from Hillary Clinton. It happens. It happens. So this, this is not a prediction, but the most likely scenario is that Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida are decided by a point. Like that is the difference. Like the last election was said by 80,000 voters over three states. It is likely to be that close again. That is just how elections operate in this polarized world.

And so every little thing matters. And if Howard Schultz polls at 1% in Wisconsin, he could be the reason that Donald Trump gets elected. This is not about whether he can get 15% or 20% or 30%. It's about whether he can get 1%. And that's how much these things matter. Good times. Okay. When we come back, we will have Dan's conversation with independent journalist Marcy Wheeler.

independent journalist, Marcy Wheeler. We are so excited to be joined once again by Marcy Wheeler, who is a journalist who covers national security and civil liberties. You can read her work at EmptyWheel.net. She is a friend of the pod and an expert in all things Russia, Mueller, general Trump-related criminal conspiracies. Marcy, thanks for being here. Great to be on, as always. Marcy, lots of news to discuss this week, but let's start with the ruling from the judge that Manafort had lied to Mueller on multiple occasions. What is the significance of that ruling for Manafort specifically, but for the Mueller investigation writ large? For Manafort in particular, it means he's probably looking at much closer to a life sentence.

The import of the ruling yesterday from Amy Berman Jackson is that the prosecutors are no longer bound by the plea agreement and they don't have to give Manafort a downward departure on his sentencing. She did leave open and say there are other factors to consider about whether or not he has taken responsibility for the things he pled guilty to before me. But the other detail about that is Andrew Weissman, who's one of Mueller's prosecutors, suggested that one of the things Manafort lied about, in particular, what happened at an August 2, 2016 meeting where Manafort and Rick Gates went and met with suspected Russian intelligence asset Konstantin Kalimnik and handed over recent, very detailed polling data from the Trump campaign and at the same meeting had a conversation about a Ukrainian peace deal, which Manafort recognized was a backdoor

sanctions relief policy discussion. Weissman suggested that the reason Manafort lied about those issues, particularly sharing the polling data, is because he believed that if it became public, if Manafort did admit to handing over that data willingly, then Trump was much less likely to pardon him. So he's still playing for a pardon. What it means for Mueller's investigation, we don't know. I laid out today some of the things we can tell about what didn't make it into that breach negotiation. And one of the things is Mueller has additional information to support the claim that Manafort willingly shared that polling data. So it's something that the judge in the case had seen, but that the defense has not

seen. So can Mueller still charge the Trump campaign for basically willingly conspiring with the Russians based on that meeting? We don't know. I guess tune in. Exactly. I saw a Twitter exchange that you had with John Weaver, who is a Republican strategist who worked for John Kasich and a number of other Republicans and is firmly in a Never Trump camp, about the significance of the detail of that polling information. Because it has been discussed previously, I know you've written about this, as if it was mainly public information or largely not actionable information for the Russians. What gives you reason to believe that it's more than just that? mainly public information or largely not actionable information for the Russians?

What gives you reason to believe that it's more than just that? Yeah, that Twitter conversation was one of my favorite ever, because Weaver also knows Manafort, right? I mean, he knows what this data is about, and he knows Manafort. So it is clear that in one of the interviews, Manafort tried to say, oh, it was just public data. And in fact, that was leaked to the New York Times last month when this first became public, that it was just public data. But there is a passage where Richard Westling, who is Manafort's attorney, he's not working for Mueller, where Westling says, well, that data wasn't very useful because it was so detailed, it's just gibberish to me. And the judge in the case, Amy Berman Jackson, is like, well, that data wasn't very useful because it was so detailed. It's just gibberish to me. And the judge in the case, Amy Berman Jackson, is like, yeah, that's the point. That's

why it's so important that you shared it. Westling went on to use language about it being recent, that they tried to explain away an email from Manafort to Gates saying, print this out, away an email from Manafort to Gates saying, print this out, by saying that was to prepare for a scheduling meeting that day, earlier that day on August 2nd. And that would suggest that it was recent, that it was very detailed. Westlink said, well, you know, Constantine Kalimnik could never use this. And then Weissman came back and said, look, you know, Kalimnik has worked with Manafort for years and years and years. So he knows how Manafort uses polling data. But also at that meeting, according to Rick Gates, at least at that meeting, Manafort walked Kal Mueller can substantiate that, that is. And by the way, there's also a redacted reference in the hearing that suggests Manafort knew this was going to Oleg Deripaska as well. The line that Manafort would like to have is that it just went to some Ukrainian oligarchs who still owed Manafort $2.4 million.

And oh, by the way, they were paying him in November for that. But there is reason to believe, not least because this meeting on August 2nd happened and then Oleg Deripaska's plane came into Newark the next day. the next day. So there's really good reason to believe this meeting was significantly about Oleg Deripaska, whom Manafort was in discussions with Klimnik about so he could get, quote, get whole on a $20 million debt that he owed to Deripaska. Those are the things that Weissman suggests made sharing this data for Manafort a win-win. So in other words, even if it didn't help Trump, then he was going to get money from his Ukrainian and Russian paymasters. And so he was willing to do it regardless of the campaign considerations. But it's damning, as John Weaver said, and I think he's right. This is Manafort giving Konstantin Kalimnik the crown jewels and giving him the crown jewels right before the Russians started doing some really detailed targeting on their social media campaign. went back and hacked Hillary's analytics from starting, I think, September 9th or something.

And they did that multiple times over the course of September. It was analytics hosted on an AWS server. And so in August, then, Kalimnick gets really detailed information from the Trump side. And in September, Russian military intelligence goes in and gets some of the most detailed information from the Hillary side. And that's really powerful data. And as Weissman and Amy Berman Jackson both know, Kalimnik has worked with Manafort long enough to know what to do with that data. And you mentioned that Manafort is still making a pardon play, potentially. Does he have reason to believe that he should get a pardon? It seems to me, just like you look at this, that Manafort has the choice to either spend some of his life in jail or all of his life in jail and to hinge that decision on Donald Trump's willingness to do something that seems risky? Is there any other reason that Manafort would not want to do this? Is there a fear of the Russians in here? Or it just seems like a strange rationale to somewhat obviously put yourself in jail for the

rest of your life. Well, I mean, I do think the pardon consideration is real. And one of the details that didn't come out but came out by its absence in this whole breach negotiation is that Manafort, in addition to the joint defense agreement, which has, you know, has gotten a lot of attention. So Kevin Downing, one of Manafort's lawyers, remained in touch with Rudy Giuliani through the entire time that he was supposedly cooperating. Manafort was also in touch with the White House. And Mueller, very interestingly, did not show their hand on that, on those communications. So there's this point where Weissman is saying, or sorry,

what Greg Andres is saying. Yeah, we think he lied and was telling the White House what questions he was being asked, but they were not relying on just the conversations that went through the lawyer. So in other words, Manafort continued to talk to people in the White House about the investigation, and that would go to the obstruction question, right? Right. But going back to does he fear the Russians? But going back to does he fear the Russians, one of the things he lied about was or two, the key, one of the key thrusts of what he lied about is what his real relationship with Konstantin Kalimnik was. And he made this claim that the reason he downplayed Konstantin Kalimnik's conspiracy with Manafort, and a lot of people don't understand this, but Manafort has already pled guilty to conspiring with Russian Konstantin Kalimnick's conspiracy with Manafort. And a lot of people don't understand this, but Manafort has already pled guilty to conspiring with Russian Konstantin Kalimnick. It just has to do with stuff he did in 2018, not 2016. But in any case, when Manafort pled guilty to conspiring with Kalimnick, Kalimnick apparently said, I don't think I really was witness tampering with you.

said, I don't think I really was witness tampering with you. And Manafort suggested that this is not very credible, I think. But Manafort suggested that Kalimnik was worried about the safety of his own family. So it's possible that the Russians are pressuring Kalimnik and Manafort to try and downplay this because otherwise their investment in helping Trump get elected will be ruined, right? But I think, as Weissman said, it's a win-win for him. I mean, I think Manafort's got a lot of issues going on. He's broke. He's got the Russians bearing down on him, Oleg Deripaska asking for his $20 million back. He needs to have a win with Trump to get out of that hole. That's a desperate situation. And so it's not surprising he did what he did back in August 2016. But it does appear that the record supports that he did do it.

And switching topics for a second here, Andrew McCabe has a 60 Minutes interview coming out this weekend, which is related to a book he has coming out as well, I believe. But the first excerpts came out, and in it, among other things, McCabe talks about discussions in the Justice Department about potentially seeing if you could recruit Pence and members of the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump after he fired Comey. You tweeted this morning suggesting that McCabe maybe should have waited until there was a new replacement for Rod Rosenstein before he did this. What's your reaction to that news? And what concerns you about McCabe's

admission given the state of the Mueller investigation in the Department of Justice? McCabe's admission given the state of the Mueller investigation in the Department of Justice? Well, I mean, this story has come out twice before, both via The New York Times, both at really inopportune times for the Mueller investigation. The first time it came out, Rod Rosenstein went to the White House and kind of held Trump's hand and got him to back down off firing him, although that was a time when Matt Whitaker seemed to be pushing to get Rod Rosenstein fired himself. We've got, you know, so by the time this podcast is done, Bill Barr will be, will have been voted attorney general, right? So once Barr is attorney general, then there's another what's called superior officer, somebody who's

been confirmed by the Senate, who's in charge of Rod Rosenstein and Mueller. And that's a really important structure for the legality of Mueller's investigation. You got to have somebody who's confirmed in that chain of command. But until Barr is in place and until Barr, you know, Rosenstein has said that he's going to stay long enough to protect the Mueller investigation. Bill Barr, you know, he's friends with Mueller. He's an institutionalist. He believes in the Department of Justice, unlike Matt Whitaker. And so I think, well, he is a lot of things. He's incredibly conservative. He's going to make Trump incredibly powerful by talking about the unitary executive. He is less, as frankly, Matt Whitaker did to some degree. And Barr will be in a position, I think, to prevent Trump from doing anything rash to end the investigation, particularly if you've got both Barr and Rosenstein.

But until that's in place, we're still at a very fragile time, right? We're still at a very fragile time, right? Until that's in place, there's still the possibility that Trump and his White House lawyers will find a way to undermine the investigation. And Mueller does for Rosenstein when he retires to air his side of what happens. That may get charged as obstruction of justice, right? Or it may get sent to the House Judiciary Committee to review for impeachment. But until we get to the point where Mueller's investigation is actually protected, I wish it were blowing up in two weeks' time rather than today. Right. You talk about Mueller getting sort of to the end of where he's going. And the understanding of everyone is that that is going to be a report of some kind, some number of reports, some different kinds of reports, whatever it is. But there is this question that was raised in both the Barr hearing and with your friend Mark Whitaker about whether

that report will ever be made public. And I'm sort of curious about what it would mean were it not to be made public. Because if the decision within the Justice Department is to abide by the protocol that a president can't be indicted, the only way that you could act on that evidence would be if Congress had a chance to see it. Would Congress get the report? And if they got the report, could they release it? It's just, it's not, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me as to what would happen. A, you know, could the report not be released?

And B, would Congress, you know, would Adam Schafer, Jerry Nadler have any recourse to subpoena the report or make it public on their own? Well, you said everyone agrees there's going to be a report. I actually don't. The report, such as it exists, is meant solely to be a declinations, a charging and declinations report to the attorney general. And so Mueller could come out next week and charge Don Jr. and Jared Kushner and who knows who else in a big conspiracy case that names Donald Trump as a co-conspirator. And that would be a prosecution, be something for which there is a ton of evidence. I mean, I'm not sure whether he's going there or not, although, you know, I've certainly heard rumblings. And C would be far more meaningful, I think, for the American public than any report

that is mandated by the special counsel regulations. And I've been arguing for a long time that Mueller has been issuing what are called speaking indictments. I mean, we know what we know largely because, for example, in Michael Cohen's plea deal in December, Mueller gave a lot of hints of where he's headed. Mueller kind of matched up the Trump Tower deal with the June 9th meeting. So, some of the stuff that didn't make it into the breach negotiation. And it makes it clear that Mueller is still at least trying to make the conspiracy case. He's got more evidence about the sharing of the polling data, and he's keeping it hidden. And the only reason for him to keep it hidden, because he could have made it public if it was all dead, you know, if it was all water under the bridge at this point, he could have made it public in that in that transcript and he chose to keep it redacted. So he still at least is trying to go there with the investigation. So, A, I think that we should not rule out another big, the big speaking indictment, which would be a conspiracy case involving probably a quid pro quo with towers for sanctions relief and help in the election. But it's not yet clear whether Mueller can get there.

The other thing is you asked whether Congress can get the report. The other thing is you asked whether Congress can get the report. The report's probably not going to be that useful. But what would be useful is the grand jury materials. And I can assure you that Jerry Nadler has been thinking about this for some time, which is where it would go. It wouldn't go to Adam Schiff. And that there was a circuit court ruling, I think yesterday, Josh Gerstein at Politico wrote about it that that said, yeah, for historic reasons, you can share grand jury material.

It's a ruling that supports what happened in Watergate. In Watergate, basically what Jaworski did was wrap up all of his evidence and then have the grand jury vote to send it to the House Judiciary Committee. Mueller obviously is aware of that precedent because he's got a Watergate prosecutor on his staff. Nadler has been aware of that precedent and thinking about it for quite some time. And therefore, one would assume that if legally possible, Mueller and Nadler have that in their back pockets. And this court decision, this circuit court decision yesterday, which is not in the D.C. Circuit, but nevertheless, it's one of two that lawyers have been looking to, it supports the legality of that happening. It supports the legality of the grand jury saying, here's impeachment wrapped up in a bow. Send me over to Jerry Nadler. So I would expect that there's good reason to believe that would happen. I'm sure Trump would fight it.

But there's legal precedent for it, including Watergate. Well, that is fascinating. Marcy, thank you so much. As always, incredibly helpful and intriguing, and we're all smarter because of it. We hope to have you back on soon. Maybe even we'll get this giant speaking indictment or whatever it is on conspiracy, and we can talk about that sooner rather than later. We'll see. Thank you so much, Marcy. Take care. We'll see. Thank you so much, Marcy.

Take care. Thanks again to Marcy Wheeler for joining us today. Thanks to all of you for listening. And Monday is a holiday, so we will not be recording on Monday. We will be recording on Tuesday. And the pod will be out late Tuesday afternoon. So check it out. Do you not call it President's Day because Donald Trump is president? Like, is that a specific boycott of your boy?

For a second, I forgot what holiday it was because I forgot what month it is because I live in Los Angeles. Is it February? Is it March? What is the three-day holiday here? That's right. It's President's Day. Enjoy your President's Day, everyone.

Bye, everyone.