Pod Save America - "Doris Trump Goodwin."

Episode Date: May 1, 2017

Zombie RyanCare won't die, Dickerson stumps Trump, the Times hires a conservative climate skeptic, the DCCC fails to invest in Montana, and Senator Amy Klobuchar joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to talk about the Democratic message in the Midwest.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the show today, we have the senior senator from the state of Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar. This is Pod Save America's first senator, guys. It's a big get. I know you had Mark Warner on Pod Save the World. Yeah, I beat your pants off in the senator booking race.

I'm sorry, what did you do to his pants? The Tommy John underwear. We saw it. We are also recording from New York City, where we will be on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah this evening. And we're going to be recording a podcast with Trevor later, too. Special bonus episode coming your way. Also, tomorrow,

Tuesday, May 2nd, is the launch of Dre McKesson's podcast, Pod Save the People. Subscribe if you haven't yet. Dre's going to have an excellent conversation with Cory Booker, maybe a few other guests. It's going to be outstanding. Pod Save the People. Can't wait.

Also, Pod Tours America, greatest tour, this weekend, Friday in Seattle and San Francisco on Saturday. Our guest in Seattle is going to be Washington Governor Jay Inslee. And the guest in San Francisco is going to be California's junior senator, Kamala Harris. I mean, can you believe it? Do you feel like we're professionalizing this operation? I hope not. We are big time. People want to reach our audience.

They come. Come up in. They come up in. There it comes. Too close to the sun. Whatever. What's, here it comes, too close to the sun. What's ever happened when somebody flew too close to the sun? Said Seb Gorka. Donald Trump's having a great time.

Love It, did you have one more announcement about Love It or Leave It? Yes. First of all, we had an awesome show with Stephen Merchant, Moshi Kosher, and Pam Brady. But we have put tickets on sale for three shows in LA. Our three May shows in LA are all on sale now at the Improv, so I'll tweet a link out to that, but you can get tickets in advance now.

You know, listen, you asked, I answered. It's fantastic. Wonderful. All right. A lot of garbage in the news this morning. Trump did a couple interviews over the weekend, which just like scrambles everything, means everyone has to write about all the stupid shit he says, you know? Yeah.

We'll get to some of it. But I want to start with what's probably most likely to affect people's lives in the near term, which is zombie Trumpcare is still around again. I know we talk about this a lot, but it's still around, so we have to talk about it. Republicans, well, the White House is saying that they're very close to a vote this week. They think they have the votes. Some people over the weekend in the House have agreed and said there's going to be votes. This morning, now that everyone's back from recess, there's a few more saying, nah, we have not scheduled a vote. We don't know if we have the votes yet.

Right now, there are 15 Republican House members who are hard no's. They are mostly Republicans from vulnerable districts. The Freedom Caucus is now on board, at least most of the Freedom Caucus, because they have added the MacArthur Amendment, which is an amendment that basically allows states to charge people with pre-existing conditions, whatever the hell they want, and eliminate essential health benefits. So by making the bill crueler, they have picked up the Freedom Caucus, but now the question is, what happens with the moderates?

So we've got 15 hard-nosed, they can only lose 22, and so the leadership is eyeing about 20 undecideds. So this isn't great. Trump was on Face the Nation on Sunday, was asked about this. By the way, John Dickerson did a great job. Awesome.

Yeah. Awesome. I had tweeted this a couple weeks ago, like, why doesn't anyone actually ask Donald Trump how his bill works or what's in the bill? And John went ahead and did this. I'm glad you referenced that in the context of your tweet. Yeah. I was right.

I'm learning from Lovett. It's a Lovett move. It's brazen. I respect the hell out of it. Trumpian Lovett. Hey, hey, hey. We don't make that comparison. Maybe we do.

First of all, to credit Tommy, Dickerson's asking Trump about the health care bill and reporting in general. And Trump says, he goes, you know, John, I love your show. I call it Deface the Nation. I hate that he stole that joke. That was an old Tommy Vitor joke. That's terrible. That's what we wanted to call this show at one point, jokingly, I love your show. I call it Deface the Nation. I hate that he stole that joke. That was an old Tommy Vitor joke. That's terrible. That's what we wanted to call this show at one point, jokingly, in your living room.

And now the president of the United States says it to John Dickerson's face repeatedly. Well, we thought it wasn't mature enough. It's like a goofy thing we joked about for an hour. Well, he said it on national television. Unbelievable. So Dickerson asked him about pre-existing conditions and, you know, the bill changes changes and Trump says pre-existing conditions are in the bill. We're going to have lower premiums, lower deductibles. This is of course not true.

There's going to be higher premiums for the sick and the elderly. There's going to be higher deductibles. That's what the CBO said. Right. That pre-existing conditions are not in the bill. Pre-existing conditions are not in the bill. What's in the bill is you can't ream your state unless you have some semblance of a high-risk pool, which doesn't work and won't be funded and will screw people with pre-existing conditions anyway. But Trump basically had it backwards.

He was like, no, no, no. There was a problem in the old version of the bill where there wasn't a guarantee of pre-existing conditions. Now there's a guarantee. 100% backwards. Which is the complete opposite. Right. So he clearly doesn't – well, the question is, is Trump lying or was Trump confused? Seems like the consensus is yes. And then in the middle, he goes – Trump goes, I'll tell you who doesn't cover preexisting conditions.

Obamacare. You know why? It's dead. Unbelievable. And then Dickerson tries to nail him down. He's like, but can you give us a guarantee? And Trump finally says, we have a specific clause that guarantees so this is all crazy but question is like does his lying or confusion does this help sell the bill do we think that like maybe some of these moderates who are wavering like

how do how do these moderates we keep calling them moderates a lot of them are pretty conservative but they're just in vulnerable districts how do they get to yes on this i do not think donald trump shining a light on the fact that he doesn't know what's in the bill. Is a good thing. Right, and trying to talk his way out of the parts that are deeply unpopular by saying stuff is in there that's not,

or saying to Dickerson, sure, there's a guarantee, whatever you need, just get me out of this fucking conversation. Like, I don't think that helps anybody because all it does is highlight the fact that this is a Paul Ryan-led clusterfuck on the Hill and Donald Trump isn't in the trench with them. He's just not with them. He is pushing for a vote on this awful piece of legislation and he's barely paying attention to it.

And the moderates actually need Trump. They need him to push for these things and he clearly is not. Yeah, he's not their best salesman here. Yeah. Is he lying or is he confused? I have no idea. I don't know that he knows. I don't know that his staff knows. I mean, I think he's just a salesman who will say whatever he thinks sounds good in the moment.

And what's frustrating and unnerving about this is there's a sense that it has worked. I mean, he's convinced, what, 40% of the country that Barack Obama did wiretap him, despite there being absolutely no evidence, despite all the reporting saying, in fact, the opposite is true, despite congressional Republicans coming out and saying he's totally wrong about this. So in some sense, his gaslighting and his propaganda efforts have been effective. And when you've got this like shrunken period of time to get this done, Republicans are pushing for a vote this week because they know they have to get this done in May or else they lose the reconciliation process as a tool. I worry that he could use that momentum to push it over the edge.

It's a terrible vote for these moderates who will get destroyed for it in their districts. But, I mean, I don't know. Stranger things have happened. I mean, look, as of Friday, they were losing people like Fred Upton, congressman from New York, who's a committee chairman. Every time you lose a committee chairman on the vote, that's a pretty big deal. But I heard from people that Pence was calling around over the weekend saying that he thinks they had the votes. But that's exactly what they have to say. They have to say that anyway. So right, exactly. But they're trying to do now individual member negotiation, like, can we give

you this to vote for us and stuff like that. It's also true that a lot of moderates or the people who might end up being no's don't want to be publicly no now because they don't want to be targeted by the White House before the vote. They just want to get to the vote and then say no. Exactly. So it could end up being an embarrassment for them, but I don't, we can't take any chances. Call, everyone has to call. Yes, this is going to be super down to the wire because they're so desperate to pass something and who knows what they're promising. Like these upstate New York guys, like they already made them a bunch of promises around exemptions and things for their own personal in-state politics to try to get their votes. So they're doing sort of these – like the Buffalo – they would call it the Buffalo kickback or whatever they were calling it. Like that's still in there, right?

Yeah, there could be more of this stuff. Certainly they screwed up big time by – screwed up bigly the first round when they pushed this effort. I mean like Steve Bannon is no longer this big scary political figure that's going to come into your district and figure out a way to savage you with Breitbart and with all the tools he has at his disposal. I mean they've completely rendered themselves impotent in the minds of some of these moderates who think they look like a joke. And when he's got his approval rating at 42%, when ACA is, what, polling at 54%, probably higher in a lot of these districts. I'm not sure where the political leverage comes beyond just Donald Trump maybe going to your district. Right, because the difference between believing Trump when he says that Obama wiretapped you, wiretapped him, that Obama wiretapped you, wiretapped him, that Obama

wiretapped him, the difference between that and healthcare is like, that's kind of a team game. Like you can just say like, I'm on Trump's team. He says that, I believe him. Healthcare, people, it's in their life. You know, it's something day to day and they're not on a team. They want, they want good healthcare. Yeah. Well, there's one more piece of leverage that Democrats have, I think. So over the weekend, we got reports that Democrats and Republicans have reached a deal to avoid a shutdown. So they reached a deal on a government funding bill that will fund the government through September. By the way, the Democrats got everything they wanted in the bill. Just about everything they want.

We're supposed to be, it was a very tough negotiation. There were some give and some take. We did do a lot of taking. We should remind people, why did the Democrats get a lot of what they wanted before we list what they got? Because a lot of members of the Freedom Caucus told Paul Ryan to go fuck himself, that they were not going to vote for a government funding bill because, of course, they probably wanted all the money stripped out for everything. of like all the money stripped out for everything. So he needed Democratic votes to pass this bill through the House, which once again, this happened during the Obama era quite a few times, Nancy Pelosi, the effective speaker of the House, not really the speaker, but she's the effective speaker because she had to provide Democratic votes for this bill to pass, which meant there was no money for

the wall. Planned Parenthood continues to be funded. there was no money for the wall. Planned Parenthood continues to be funded. Puerto Rico got its Medicaid expansion, even though Trump randomly was tweeting about that on Friday. The Obama-Biden cancer moonshot, $2 billion for the National Institute of Health,

which Trump wanted to cut completely. He wanted to cut the EPA by a third. They only got a 1% cut instead. And the administration promised to continue paying the Obamacare subsidies to insurers for now. All the stuff we got in the bill. But here's the thing. They have not voted on it yet. I wonder if Democrats would say, we are still not voting on this bill unless you promise

not to hold a health care vote this week. Brinksmanship. I don't know. It feels very edgy. I saw a few people bring this up on Twitter, but we know, because you were just saying, Tommy, that this week might be their last chance to do ACA. They're saying that, essentially. Right, because at the end of May, they lose the reconciliation bill. They said that last time, too.

I mean, maybe they'll make a third run or a fourth run or a fifth run of this thing. But yes, May is their window. I just think they could say, look, there's no CPO score yet. You're going to rush this bill through without even debating it. And we are not going to vote to fund this government. You need our votes. We're not going to vote to fund it unless you pull this vote. How long is the temporary spending?

Oh, another week. But they can continue to pass another week, another week, another week of spending. Right, right, right, right, right. We did that all the time. It's a great way. For years and years, we funded the government in just like five, six-month increments. That's how we do things these days in Congress. Like you're not sure if you're going to stay in the city.

Yeah, like I do. Month to month rent. Like a college kid paying for rent from changing his couch. Anyway, just something to consider from your friends here at Pod Save America. I'm into it. Yeah. I'm into it, John. But we should watch this.

I do think that the government funding debate shows Trump is not the master negotiator. Oh, does it? Wow. What a revelation. That we all thought. Well, and it goes to the ACA thing, too, or it goes to the Obamacare stuff because, like, these moderates, maybe they shouldn't be that worried about Trump going into their districts and yelling at them because they voted against his health care bill. Like the guy can't seem to get much of what he wants yet. Yeah, it's he's they feel quite like the Paul Ryan statement on why this was a good deal for Republicans was, I thought, pretty instructive.

He's like, let me tell you about why this is so great. And then just like a problem. You can feel that they've kind of lost the fight. They're constantly trying to get to the next fight they think they can win. And one after another, they just don't have it. They don't have the votes. They don't have a plan.

They don't have a strategy. Totally deflated. I mean, not only is he not a master dealmaker, I mean, but that is still the conventional wisdom. I mean, you pick up a lot of like the Axios, like morning tip sheets and things. And it's like, Trump is, if anything, he's a dealmaker. No, he's not. That's not what he did in real estate. That's not Trump is, if anything, he's a dealmaker. No, he's not.

That's not what he did in real estate. That's not how he made his money. He was a guy who licensed his name. He licensed his brand. He was on a shitty NBC show that people watch because people watch terrible TV during the week at night. No offense. And like, but-

Who are you saying no offense to? To you, because you had a show on NBC during the week. Oh, I forgot about that. And it was great. I didn't even think to take offense. That's how good the show was. Cold classic. Cold classic.

Cold classic. But it's like, I'm waiting for this ridiculous branding to wear off because it seeps into what voters actually think about him

and it's very frustrating because there's no basis in reality. He's graded on a curve with everything he does despite no accomplishments in 100 days. Perhaps there is a value

to having a publication that only prints every morning the exact spin from the White House about their message for that week, but I don't know. But that's what Axios does. I don't think they're ideologically or partisan biased in any way. I just think that they have figured out that their niche is that they are going to just write down every morning what the Trump White House officials are telling them about what their spin is for their message. It's kind of useful, actually. It's like if you want to morning what the Trump White House officials are telling them about what their spin is for their message. It's kind of useful, actually.

It's like if you want to know what the Trump administration is thinking, or maybe like a relatively smart person in the Trump administration who's not Donald Trump, you pick up your Axios and you find out exactly what they're thinking. That's all you're getting. You know, Reince Priebus has a morning routine. First, he gets up, he showers, he gets dressed. He wipes away the tears. You think it's him that's talking? He then goes into a closet, which he has soundproofed, and he shuts the door.

And he screams until he's in a coughing fit on the ground. Then he gets up. He brews a pot of coffee. He takes his Juicero. He did fall for the Juicero. And then he calls up Mikey Allen, tells him what's up for the week. Juicero. He fell for the Juicero. Is there any doubt that Reince Priebus wouldn't fall for the Juicero. And then he calls up Mikey Allen, tells him what's up for the week. Juicero. He fell for the Juicero. Is there any

doubt that Reince Priebus wouldn't fall for the Juicero? I was, I wanted to avoid talking about this, but everyone on Twitter was talking about this as I was preparing for this podcast this morning. Just really quickly, Trump and Selena Zito in that interview, the Civil

War comments, when he said, they started talking about Andrew Jackson somehow. Trump goes, people don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that not one – why could that one not have been worked out? If Andrew Jackson had only been alive, he might have been able to stop that, Andrew Jackson, the unrepentant slaveholder. So first of all, great stuff. It's hard not to talk about. When Trump says people don't talk about, people don't realize, people don't know, he means I never thought about it. I just learned.

I just learned. That's the first part. That's true. The second part is he's clearly did some information about Andrew Jackson did get close to him. some information about Andrew Jackson did get close to him. He was near some facts related to it, whether it's from Steve Bannon or a coffee table book or some kind of a graphic novel. Something got into his brain about Jackson and nullification,

and he's thinking about it, and then blah. The other thing that's worth watching before we close out this section is the end of the John Dickerson interview when they're in the Oval Office. I was going to bring that up. When he starts talking about Barack Obama wiretapping him. And Dickerson's like, well, what is the information? What is the evidence? Can you just tell me?

He's like – and he does the thing where he won't look them in the eye. He looks off. He looks scared. He looks lost. He's like, I think you know. I think you know. And then finally he walks away from him and walks behind the desk and sits down. He ended the interview.

Ended the interview. Because Dickerson asked him to stand by his claims, and he knew because people in the White House told him, do not go down the Obama wiretapping road again, because it is false, and we had to do all kinds of crazy things. Spend a month on this. Spend a month on this. A whole bunch of people could be indicted over this,

trying to just prove your crazy claim true, so just please don't bring that up again, Mr. President. So he has that in his mind, and yet he can't admit he's wrong of course so all he says to dickerson is he just mumbles a lot like well you've got your opinion i've got my opinion well also he brought it up trump brought it that exactly it wasn't that dickerson said let's talk about wiretapping again trump brought it up out of nowhere because he said how's your relationship with obama and he goes well he was nice at first but then of then of course there was that whole incident with the surveillance. And Dickerson's like, what are you talking about?

And he's like, you know, our side has been proven correct. Very beautifully. Oh, man. Anyway. I just don't – I read that. I read the Civil War thing. I'm like, I don't know why any of this surprises us anymore. Of course he's going to say things with no information.

Of course he's going to sound like a complete moron. The guy, he's not intellectually curious. He doesn't read things. I mean, like, no, but that's the problem. Doris Trump Goodwin. But that's the problem. These things are happening, and it's like, they're getting covered,

but it's not seen as a big deal anymore. Like, he invited the president of the Philippines, who reportedly has killed 7,000-some-odd individuals in extrajudicial killings to the White House to sit with him in the Oval Office. His staff didn't know, the State Department didn't know, no one apparently knew. And sure, it seemed like Mark Landler, like the foreign policy people are going to write about it, but it's an enormous step down the wrong path in terms of civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, and it will just be washed away in the news cycle.

And then Reitz has to, again, backtrack and try to defend the crazy thing that he didn't know about on the Sunday shows and was like, well, it's important because of North Korea. Not at all true. Did he need him to come to the White House for that? The Philippines is not going to be a key ally in dealing with North Korea, but that's just like another tick in the Sunday show lineup right after he's defending changing libel laws to arrest journalists. So like where the hell are we?

What country is this? It's a good, it's the one useful thing offered by Reince Priebus is it's a reminder that there are people who will spin and defend anything. Reince Priebus, he also, he wears on his face, he looks so miserable, which is good, right?

His insides are on his outsides. And like, he's sitting there, and he's like, well, is this something we've looked at? Oh, it's something about North Korea. And he looks like a deer in headlights, and he looks like he doesn't want to be there. But here you are, man. This is the path you've chosen.

You're part of this shameful act and you know it. I don't know what else to say about Reince Priebus except that I'm still waiting for him to leave politics in the middle of the night. If only Republicans could get as upset about that as they are about Berkeley students not liking Ann Coulter, for God's sake. Where are the snowflakes on all these issues? Great segue, Tommy. Thank you. Because now we're going to talk about Brett Stevens. My boy.

This is going to be a frustrating one. I know, I know. Okay, so the New York Times, the paper of record, all the news that fits to print, hires Brett Stevens. About emails. They hire Brett Stevens, who is a Wall Street Journal columnist, editor, something.

Anyway, they hire him to be a conservative columnist in the New York Times. Word salad generator. Right. His first column is about climate. And basically he argues that because Hillary Clinton's data analytics was wrong, perhaps we're also putting too much faith in the certainty of climate science. Just to be specific, he doesn't say because, but he does make the analogy.

Yeah, there's a little, yeah, exactly. You're right. So there's an analogy. He starts with the Hillary Clinton thing and then he's like, all right, are you with me? Now let's move on to climate science. And you're like, this is the worst way to tell me about this.

Then, to be clear, he acknowledges that the reality of global warming is, quote, indisputable, as is the human influence of that warming, but that everything else is a matter of probabilities. So, what is true is that figuring out exactly how much warming a given level of carbon dioxide will cause certainly involves probabilities and there is a level of scientific uncertainty. But that's sort of beside the point, right? Like, we know that there's global warming. We don't know how fast the oceans will rise. We don't know how manageable the damage will be or not. Will it be completely devastating or sort of devastating? Or is it already happening? And of course, the effects are already happening.

But like science has some level of uncertainty, but that's why you have probabilities. I don't know how much of my house is going to be destroyed if somebody throws a grenade through my kitchen window, but I'm still not like super into it and I would do everything I can

to like stop it. You know, it's like, yeah, you're right. There's some uncertainty. There is absolutely some uncertainty about the consequence of global warming. We're dealing with an incredibly complex system. But there's very, very little doubt on the part of scientists, the fact that

something very dangerous and something very serious and something very destructive is coming and is actually already here. So that's why it's beside the point. Like, of course, there's probabilities involved. What does that have to do with anything? Climate science and political science both include the word science, but that doesn't mean they're the same thing. Right. It's a terrible, stupid, useless, insulting analogy.

And, like, he also cites a statistic. Only 36% of Americans care a great deal about climate change. But that's because the divide is totally partisan. Because we have a president that doubts the existence of climate change. Because we have the Koch brothers and all these industry-sponsored, quote-unquote, scientific studies pushed by industries that will lose money if we curb fossil fuel use. So, like, the entire argument misses the point and is insultingly stupid. Well, he gets to the point of why he wrote this column, like, two-thirds of the way in, which he says, you know, you shouldn't just demand abrupt and expensive changes in public policy when there's uncertainty.

So that's the true purpose of why he wanted to do this. But this is conservatives' whole thing. I mean, there's a bunch of climate deniers on the right. There's also people like Stevens who are not full-out climate deniers, but they want to invoke enough uncertainty because what they're saying is they do not want to— They don't like the solutions. They don't want the regulation. They don't want the taxes that will take us from a dirty fossil fuel economy to a clean energy economy

because that will but but conservatives are afraid to say look we just don't want to spend the money and to put the burden on businesses right now because we want the future generations to deal with it and we're not and you know who knows this is our life now and we don't we want to we want to live by now we don't want to cost these businesses money because we think it's more important to save businesses money than to invest in something that will probably help us down the road, but we're not sure. Yeah. So you don't even get that far into his argument. So he makes this argument about how there's some uncertainty in climate change, and fine. But then he says, why don't people believe it?

It's like, well, maybe they don't believe it because all these scientists are acting so certain and saying, this is beyond debate, this is beyond reproach. But to Tommy's point, why exactly would scientists being desperate and trying to convince people of something go the other direction? Why would that be the cause as opposed to people like Brett Stevens introducing doubt? Because doubt about climate change makes people feel better. I mean, look, it's a really hard issue. The fact that conservatives don't like the solutions kind of goes back into why they don't want to acknowledge the problem. That makes sense. But that's how we all make decisions all the time.

It's a lot easier to embrace a solution. It's a lot easier to accept a problem when you see that there is a way out of it. I mean, that's part of Alcoholics Anonymous, right? You have to accept that you have a problem, and part of accepting you have a problem is recognizing that there's like a way forward for you that doesn't seem horrible, that does seem possible. You know, we're human beings.

We're not these perfect logic machines. Like the solution being hard makes it harder for us to accept that the problem is real and he's contributing to that. Yeah. And what, where this thing spun out of control was like one person tweeted that they were on the phone trying to cancel their New York Times times subscription and that became the discussion now let me just don't cancel your new york times subscription that your subscription funds incredible reporters in the middle east in africa across the world do what you really want i don't care no i don't want to i

don't want to and i don't even want to fight about it because i think it's silly but i also was very frustrating to watch a lot of good new york times reporters who i respect and know like circle the wagons and attack people saying they didn't read the column. No, they read the column. They found it frustrating. But like let's not act like we should blame the New York Times as an institution for the words of one columnist. Now, I have my problems with the New York Times.

I've had their problems with their political reporting. I mentioned the emails earlier. Also, their op-ed page, let's say it's not perfect. But don't cancel. I'm just going to say don't cancel New York Times. It's wrong to cancel New perfect. But don't cancel. I'm just going to say, don't cancel New York Times. I wouldn't. But I actually think it's really instructive. All these liberals getting angry about the Times

publishing it and then reacting after the fact saying, I should cancel. I'm really angry. I think we should ask ourselves, why after the fact do you believe that this is the way to fight this? I would sort of step back and ask the question, what is the sort of intellectual space that says we can have an advocate for climate skepticism in the pages of the New York Times because that's part of the conversation, but not someone, say, to the left of Paul Krugman, right? Who decides the kind of ambit of the debate, right?

And the New York Times conversation on that outpatient page is incredibly narrow. Yeah, the 40-hour list. of these main i mean msnbc um you know we like nicole wallace she was on pod save america they just gave her a show uh they also might give conservative radio host hugh hewitt a show right like why is it that all these mainstream media publications feel the need in the trump area that they must have these conservative voices or they feel like they've been pushed to have more conservative voices think about how many panels have had a bullshit artist advocating for Trump nonsense versus how many have had an advocate for single-payer. Right. What are we doing? Think about like does Fox News have any liberals hosting any of their shows?

They do, but they get squeezed into like a diamond and then they disappear. I'm cool with conservative voices wherever. Same. But like be intellectually honest. And Hugh Hewitt has not been intellectually honest in the Trump era, right? He asked him a hard question about the nuclear triad where Trump showed that he literally didn't know like anything about our nuclear defense systems at all. But somehow he's gone on to defend the guy. He's acted like Democrats will get blamed for the government shutdown.

He's not like a straight shooter respected by all sides, very far from it. And the same problem with the Stevens column. Like he might be a very smart guy. He might be someone worth reading. This was not an intelligent or honest column. It just wasn't. What I would say to liberals who want to cancel their subscription is, though, I think it is more effective to just point out why Stevens' argument is bullshit.

I don't agree with this idea that boycotting and canceling the subscription, like that's the best way to fight this. The best way to fight this is to prove to people why he's wrong, right? Like we have to be more comfortable with arguing our point and being more persuasive to people who don't agree with us, right? We also – there's plenty of liberal columnists. Maybe have our – maybe have one of the liberal columnists now respond this week to Bret Stephens and talk about why he's wrong. They'll do that thing with the New York Times. The New York Times columnists aren't allowed to reference other New York Times columnists. Which is silly.

I love it. I love it because that's when you end up with Krugman writing a whole kind of subtweet directed at Brooks. I'm sure Krugman could refute him. I'm sure Kristoff could refute him. There's plenty of smart people that could refute what Bret Stephens wrote. The other thing too is I agree with you. I'm a little more I think we need to be a little bit more cynical about like, you know, the pages of our

kind of liberal and moderate newspapers and shows are these kind of great debates on the question of the day versus left versus right. But on the other side, it's just a screaming bunch of propaganda. So like that's a tough fight but I do believe we should be better. I would come back to this, which is you can't just say there's no debate.

Declaring that the debate is over is effective when it's true, but not when it's not. And we haven't won this conversation. We just haven't. And I wish we had. Facts are on our side, but we haven't won it. And I wish that Brett Stevens wasn't rising to the top of the conservative commentary at simply because the rest of them are so much worse. But that's where we're at, right? That's where we're at. And so I don't know how you solve this problem, but I think there's too much going on. There's too much

saying this debate is over. The debate, there is no debate on climate change. I completely agree, but I don't know what you do because the second you say this is not an acceptable opinion, then all of a sudden it's there. What do you say next? Yeah. But you're next? A couple people talk about canceling their subscriptions, and a lot of New York Times columnist reporters and a lot of other people, they immediately go to like,

oh, yeah, all these liberals are just as bad as Breitbart readers. This was my great frustration when I was in government in particular, is when news outlets get attacked, they circle the wagons like they're political candidates. And it's kind of gross to watch because you're supposed to be above that.

You guys don't do that. We're the shitheads who do that. Be better than that. It's a lot of reporters who actually have liberal tendencies. And whenever they can publicly punch liberals, they feel pretty good about themselves. I respect a lot of that. Yeah. I just love that people comparing.

When you can whack liberals as being intolerant, you feel pretty good about themselves. I respect a lot of that. Yeah, I just love that people comparing. When you can whack liberals as being intolerant, you feel pretty good about yourself, even if you may be liberal. Just got to put some points on the board. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Okay, before we get to Senator Klobuchar, I just want to talk about a few things going on in the race to take back the House. We need to name it.

We need to name taking back the House. I just had Pod Save the House in my outline. Pod Save the House. Pod Save the House. Pod Save the House. Done. Okay. So over the weekend, it was announced that Representative Ileana Ross-Leighton will retire.

She represented Miami area of Florida. Hillary won her district by 20 points. It was the biggest margin of any Republican-held seat. So this has now been – it used to be likely Republican. It is now likely or lean Democrat. So we need – we don't have a Democrat running there yet, but it is probably the best pickup opportunity we have. If you want to donate to whoever the Democratic candidate may be, you can go to Swing Left. They're raising funds for whoever the general election nominee is.

And let's just say I rented an apartment in the district. That's how sure I am. Love it. It's moving to Miami. That's how sure I am. We can get that seat. Also, May 25th is the special election in Montana. We have not talked about this yet. It's to replace Ryan Zinke, who is the Interior Secretary. Rob Quist is the Democratic candidate. Thanks to grassroots enthusiasm, he has raised $2.5

million. But DCCC has only given $200,000 to the state party. They have not given him enough to go on air. They're saying, of course, it is a district. Montana only has one congressional district. So it's the whole state. It's the whole state. Trump won by 20 points. So that's why it's hard. But on the other side, Democrats have won in Montana recently.

John Tester, senator from Montana, is a Democrat. And Governor Steve Bullock is a Democrat. And also, Quist's opponent, this guy Greg Gianforte, lost to Steve Bullock for governor by four points. So a Democrat beat the same guy that Quist is running against. So the great thing about a Montana special election is that a little bit of money goes a very long way. And I think the D-Triple-T should stop giving reasons why they need to husband resources and put some skin in the game and get some points on the board and show the grassroots that they're with us. And I also think there is an interesting thing happening out there because he's having trouble managing a bunch of stories about how he invested money in Russia-focused index fund

that invested in U.S.-sanctioned Russian companies like Gazprom. Remember that Gazprom is a Russian state-controlled gas company that threatened to cut off natural gas to Ukraine. So like, these are, there are things out there that are gaining traction. There's issues at play that could, that we've seen move voters in the Trump era, that could move voters in this race. And like, I think folks should focus a little more on this election. Also, I am sick of hearing that the DCCC doesn't have money because you know who does have money? The Republican equivalent who are spent, they're spending millions of dollars on the race. So if you don't have the money to compete with republicans already when there's never been this much energy in the party what the fuck are you doing like get spend the money we'll be there to give you there's never

been this energy there's never been this much enthusiasm if you guys don't think you'll be able to raise money to win the house in 2018 with donald trump and paul ryan in charge what are you doing put the money in the fucking race have you maxed out to the d triple c i don't donate my message this is my donation i like that my message is get caught trying you know yes because here's the thing at the end of the day if if uh if this guy loses but the d triple c can say look we put in all this money we were there we did everything we could he still came up short like no one's gonna fault you for that you You tried, right? I get that there's a finite number of resources and staff time.

But, like, come on. Like, stop with the money ball arguments. Just, like, invest in the race. Let's see what we can do here. And we don't know if there's a finite number of resources at this point. Like, fucking John Ossoff's raising $8 million for a special where, you know,

Republicans won by two points. Overall, GOP groups have already spent $2.2 million attacking Quist in montana where are we if we can't compete when there's one race one race when the 2018 election isn't for a year and a half what are we doing yeah and this guy and look steve bullock the governor of the democratic governor montana beat greg gianforte by calling him like this wall street millionaire and then tommy just talked about some of the like links too. This is Montana, Democrats in Montana win with

really populist, economically populist messages, right? And that is perfect for the moment that we're in right now. I'll make a deal right now. If the DCCC goes into Montana, I will donate to the DCCC. That's my deal. $5 is coming right to you. I'm not putting an amount on it. We've got to see how Cricket Media is doing.

Let's not go crazy. Maybe $10. But I'm going to donate. I'm not putting an amount on it. We've got to see how Cricket Media is doing. Let's not go crazy. I want other people to make that pledge too, by the way. Other people could do the same thing. If the DCCC goes to Montana, we will donate to the DCCC. They have $200,000 into the state party right now, which that's all they have. If you're listening, you don't have to donate to the DCCC.

Donate directly. Give to the candidate. Go to his website. That's true. A lot of people say that too. I don't want to go to the DCC. They waste my money. Fine, don't. Go right to Rob Quist's website. Donate. But, you know, we've been playing coy with the DCCC. We've made some jokes at the expense of the DCCC. It's time to play hardball.

All right. Watch out, DCCC. The pod save America's after you. I don't really think you guys are fully appreciating what we can do from these microphones. We're going to cut off their access to Blue Apron. Rob Quist, a better way to cook. We will be back with the senior. Wait, wait, we have to say our special farewell to Seb Gorka.

Oh, my God. Who's been fired from the White House but pushed into another government agency because we care so little about being aligned with a Nazi allied group that will just send you to an agency like DHS or something. That's fine. Well, fortunately for our listeners, we have Seb Gorka in studio. Seb? Oopsie doopsie.

I was too distracting to not be indispensable. I wasn't useful enough to be kept around given all the bad stories. Oopsie doopsie. Given all the bad stories. Oopsie doopsie. One of the stories said no one knows what he did besides go on TV, give White House tours, and peel out in his Mustang. That was my favorite anecdote. You know what the other thing too is?

You know what, Zeb Gorka? I'm putting on my Nazi pin, I'm getting in my Mustang, and I'm getting the fuck out of here. Oopsie doopsie, I bought a car that was cool for a second in the 90s. No, but with Zeb Gorka, basically basically trump kept around because he was good on tv if i wanted to get a russian spy or some kind of a spy into the white house i just get a great person to go on fox news a few times a day and then apply for a job like anybody if you go on television and you defend trump for a year you can work for the national security council you may not get the clearance you may not get the clearance thankfully You may not get the clearance, thankfully. What did he do all day? I mean, he didn't have security clearance. There's literally

nothing you can do. It seems like people in the White House didn't know. There's a lot of background quotes where like, I don't know what's going on with this guy. He just walks around the White House. Sometimes he goes on Fox and then he just kind of... It is remarkable. National Security Advisor, gone. Deputy National Security Advisor, gone. Chief Counterterrorism Breitbart, whatever this weirdo did, gone. We're just crossing them off

the list here at Pod Save America. Jason Chaffetz, Seb Gorko did, gone. We're just crossing them off the list here at Pod Save America. Jason Chaffetz, Seb Gorka, Mike Flynn. Starting with the little fish. Circe Lannister. Circe, yeah. The hound. Prebys, Conway, Bannon. When we come back, we will have the senior senator

from the state of Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. Senator Klobuchar, how are you? I'm excellent. They were laughing at me because I really didn't quite understand. My idea to go on this show came from my daughter. I, for some reason, thought it was a video. So I spent a lot of time like wearing a hip outfit today. And then I found out

it was a podcast. I was so proud of myself. You're like, why am I calling into a radio show? Here's the good news, though. Here's the good news. I feel like when I put on an outfit I feel really cool in,

I sound better, I'm more confident. And I think that'll come across. Yes, Lovett's wearing sweatpants. That's a very good point. So anyway, you were here with I'm Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor is here, Jon Lovett, and thank you for coming on to Positive America. We appreciate it.

Well, I'm excited to be on. So let's start with news of the day. Trump care is still working its way through the House. We don't know for sure if it will pass the House or not, but obviously they're going to put a lot of pressure on the moderates there. People haven't talked about this a lot. If it does pass the House, does it have any chance in the Senate? What could actually pass the Senate at this point?

This is one where it's a great example of the Democrats in the Senate have been united from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin, because people understand that while we'd like to see reforms to the ACA, I myself have said it's a beginning and not an end. And I think we could do some delivery system reform, certainly farmer prices, which are completely out of hand, like if you look at EpiPens and some of the things that have happened in the last few years. But what those guys over in the House are doing is really making things so much worse for regular Americans. And so I don't think it has much chance at all in the Senate. Not only do you have Democrats united with the efforts that they're doing to bring people's

health care down, you have Democrats united, but then you have these kind of mavericky Republicans running around. Like my favorite was when Rand Paul went over to Speaker Ryan's office with his own copy machine in search of the bill, and he was kicked out by the security people in the House of Representatives. And you've had a number of Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voice concerns about Planned Parenthood funding with other bills. And there's just a lot more people in the Senate that are very doubtful about this because they look at it for the long term. And so I think the best would be if they would stop talking about scrapping the ACA and instead talking about making it stronger. And there are some good ideas, especially when it comes to farmer prices. I've got the bill with McCain to bring in

less expensive drugs from Canada, and Bernie and I did an amendment on that. And then we've also got the negotiation of Medicare. We've got all kinds of ideas, because what these guys have been doing, where they literally keep competition out of the market, is wrong. So one fear that's been raised by people is that you're right, this bill makes things worse and therefore doesn't stand much of a chance in the Senate, but that McConnell can use the fact that the House passed a bill to introduce something that's very different, that could get through the Senate just so they can get something into conference. And that's where they'll kind of work out the details that that they'll use the House passage for momentum to pass something different and still do a lot of damage to Obamacare along the way.

Are you worried about that? Well, they may try to do it in this day and age where anything could happen. But, you know, we still have 60 votes. And despite what happened after that Supreme Court vote, 61 senators, half Democrats, half Republicans, including myself, signed a letter saying we wanted to keep in the 60-vote threshold and the debate threshold. And so that would make it very difficult because they have to get to 60 votes. And that means reform and compromise.

That doesn't mean something that really takes the legs out from under the Affordable Care Act. Are you worried at all, though, what about the reconciliation process? How much damage could they do with that? Well, that is a different threshold. So they could start trying to, you know, bleed the ACA with money and take the money out of it. But again, they do so at their own risk. I mean, we've gotten to a point in the country where the ACA is more popular than the president in the polls. So, you know, they've got a steep cliff to climb here. Senator, in the wake of the Democratic election in 2016, there's been a lot of

soul-searching, infighting, whatever you want to call it, about the future of the Democratic election in 2016, there's been a lot of soul-searching, infighting, whatever you want to call it, about the future of the Democratic Party. There's some who say we should continue to tack to the left, try to energize our base, try to get young people, people of color more energized involved in the party. There's others who say, what about the forgotten white working class? What do you think about the Democratic Party's messaging going forward? What do you hear when you go across your state that you think makes for, you know, a message for Democrats that they could take nationally? OK, so first of all, I go back to the night of the election where I was in shock like everyone else. And I was going around with Frank into various speeches. And I got home at midnight and I had forgotten that my daughter, who's in college,

was actually at Hillary's headquarters in New York for that party. And I felt so guilty. And I, so, because I've remembered because she sent me a text and her text said, Mom, what should we do now? And I sent this long text back to her about how you need to go home. She's probably not going to come and speak. You've got school tomorrow. You've got a place to stay. The subway is still running. You and your roommate need to leave. And she wrote me back these words, Mom, I mean our country. And that's the question I think we've been answering since then. We've got the clear job in the Senate to be an emergency break. And it's not us alone. When you look at the resistance we've seen from all over the country with the refugee order, the women's march, you

know, by day two, we have millions of people marching. And you go through what has happened since then. I think that's an important part of what we have to do when the president is proposing things that undermine our democracy, whether it's attacking judges or the press, but there's something else that's missing if we just do that. I heard Woodrow and Bernstein say the other day at the correspondence dinner, they were talking about how journalists have to be careful not to just look in the mirror, but to look out the window. Well, politicians have to be careful about the same thing. And the Democratic Party needs to also look out the window and start talking about moving forward on our own agenda. And I say that should be a competitive agenda so that we are a country that thinks, that invents things, that exports to the world. And that means to me, across the board,

not just in urban areas, but in rural. I'm the fifth biggest ag state in the country, so I speak from experience here. We have to be a country that has a strong workforce, and that means training people for the jobs we have now. Not just the PhDs, which of course we need to do, but also blue stem, those welder jobs, the jobs that we've seen a lot of openings in across our country with trades and technology, and then immigration reform. I think that's very important as well when you've got 25% of U.S. Nobel laureates were born in other countries. We can't shut out the

world. The other piece of this is making sure we have incentives in place so that companies invest in our own country and not in other countries, and that we think forward to the gig economy, as they call it, where people aren't as beholden to one employer, and that we have ways for them to save money and ways for them to keep their benefits, which is what the Affordable Care Act was all about. them to keep their benefits, which is what the Affordable Care Act was all about. And then the third piece of this, where I think we should have some common ground with Trump, is investing in infrastructure. We put out a bill, Senate Democrats, that said, let's build up our broadband so we don't have this gap with rural areas. We have yet to see anything serious from them. So I think there are a lot of areas I'd end with reducing costs, things like

the farmer prices, which I mentioned before. Once again, the president has said he wants to do that. Then I ask him to support my bill for negotiation under Medicare Part D. So the Democratic agenda has to be more than just opposing Donald Trump. We have to be thinking about moving this country forward. So Priorities USA, which is a super PAC that works to get Democrats elected, conducted some focus groups of Obama-Trump voters recently in Wisconsin and Michigan, found that these voters said the Democrats' economic policies favor the wealthy. They believe that. And they believe they favor the wealthy by twice the percentage that said the same thing about Donald Trump's policies. Does this shock you? And how do you start turning this around? I mean, the agenda that you just mentioned, great. You

know, we're with that too. Hillary Clinton talked about that a lot. And yet, for some reason, we had a real hard time breaking through with an economic message, specifically an economic message that told voters that Democrats were on the side of working people. So how do you break through with that message? Well, that's a good point. But first of all, we have to clarify that what you just said was like that was just what people were thinking in focus groups because we don't want to be purveyors of fake news. Right. We don't want to do that on Pod Save America. Never.

Never. Okay. Never, never. Okay, never, ever, ever. You know, the best fake news story I heard was from the Norwegian prime minister. She told us that Russia's been going after them on Russian TV. They've been running stories that the Norwegian economy is tanking and they've run out of fruits and vegetables. And she said thousands of Russians have crossed the border to visit their friends and relatives armed with bags of fruits and vegetables because they believe that there's no fruits and vegetables. Okay. So that means that we do know that the Democratic policies are much better for working people,

and they are much better than what we've seen in the one-page Trump proposal, in which I said to my staff, his tax plan, this is just a summary, right? No, this was the whole tax plan. That was all of it. That's true. So I think what we need to do is to, first of all, when Hillary's message, and she had so many good policies, and you know that, was stronger together, that was actually a response to Donald Trump. That was going down the rabbit hole with him, in my mind.

I think that we need a message, and I'm not going to, you guys are the wordsmiths, so pick your words for you, but it has to be a message that shows that we're willing to stand up for people and be by their side, and that it crosses geographic boundaries and even crosses party boundaries. Because in my state, we have a lot of independent voters. And if you don't believe me, I have three words for you, Governor Jesse Ventura. And so people don't always want to just hear about, oh, this is partisan versus this partisan. And that's why I work a lot across the aisle, because I think it's important to actually get things done. But this message has to show people that we are really on their sides. And so that's why for me, when Dennis McDonough,

President Obama's former Chief of Staff, said he'd come up to the Iron Range of Minnesota to take on steel dumping, I said, yes, we want you there. And they got some stricter tariffs, and we're able to bring back a bunch of jobs. Now, when the new president is willing to continue that work to take on steel dumping, I say, okay, that's one thing I agree with you on. Let's move. Let's do it. So I think the importance for people in my state, especially in areas where they've been

really hit by some of these economic tides, is to make it clear that we don't see this as partisan, that it's the work that matters. And it's the simple act of saying, this is wrong. They can't be dumping illegal steel on our shores. And we got to make this so that we bring back American jobs, because our workers can win on any playing field, but not if it's tilted against them. I think we all long for the days where the craziest person we ever elected was Jesse Ventura. So I think that we've talked a lot about... But you know what, Jesse Ventura did

support my bill to lift the embargo on Cuba, unlike Donald Trump, let me point out. There you go. Some good things. Broken clock and all that. So we've talked a lot about messaging and needing to address the messaging, but are there places where you think Democrats have been wrong on policy, where people don't feel as though the party is fighting for them, not because they're not hearing what we're doing, but because they actually either disagree or what we're offering isn't enough? Yeah, I think that we have not done enough on this issue of our education system when it comes to being honest about where the jobs are. So right now, there's millions of jobs that are open in technology and in those trades I mentioned, like welding, and we kind of act like, hey, everyone, go get a four-year degree and it'll be fine.

Well, that's not always true. And we're not being honest about that. And so I think that we need policies that are better focused, like what you've seen in Germany and Switzerland, some of these countries, where they're actually training kids for the jobs that are available. And by the way, those are often well-paid jobs. And if you get a one-year or two-year degree, nothing stops you. You're in a much better place to get the remainder of that degree. So I think we need to be more open to that. I think as a party we need to be more open to regulatory reform and looking at not these broad-sweeping get-rid-of-all-the-rules

and clean power rules, which I strongly support because I believe we have to act on climate change. But there are always rules that can be looked at again years later to streamline things, especially for our small businesses. I don't think, you know, we had Clinton Gore reinventing government. Well, we haven't done as much on that. And I think we need to do more on that front. I think we need to be honest that a lot of the people in our party disregarded rural America. I still continue sometimes at meetings to feel like, what am I, like the farmer in the room here, advocating for some of these policies because people just focus on the states that they're from. And because we have not done as well in the rural areas, we don't have as many people like Heidi Heitkamp, my neighbor, and Tammy Baldwin, my other neighbor,

representing areas that are rural. And this idea we should have as one of our top infrastructure priorities, bridging that gap on broadband. When I've got rural doctors that have to go to a McDonald's parking lot to read x-rays for cancer patients, that's a problem. So, I mean, obviously there's been a huge focus on the Midwest, particularly since Hillary lost Wisconsin and Michigan. Minnesota, she won, but it was obviously closer than people thought. The Trump campaign made a late play there. You're a senator. You have a 72 percent approval rating in Minnesota.

Oh, my. You are very current. Are there any lessons? I mean, you're going to run again in 2018. I know you're up for reelection next time around. Are there any lessons that you can offer Democrats in other parts of the country or even in the Midwest for how to succeed? Visit those states probably is part of it. First of all, we have really strong senators running this time.

And so I feel like I don't have to tell them what to do in their states because they pretty much know their states. But I do think when it gets to the national level, yeah, there's a lot of things we need to learn. So first of all, getting out to the rural areas, I visit all 87 counties every single year. And I mean, literally, sometimes I visited the counties so many times that we run out of places to visit because some of them are really small. I thought that that was very clear to me when our staff found a new business for me to visit a few years ago in a rural county called We Kill Bedbugs With Heat. And it was actually a truck that had a big sign on it that said, We Kill Bedbugs With Heat. And then they had me go into the truck and said, and I kept thinking,

are there bedbugs in here? They put couches in there, mattresses. And they said, well, we won't turn it all the way up, just halfway up. Drive that truck to Manhattan. That's great messaging, though, by the way. That's a simple message. I know what that company does. I know how they do it. Thank you. Thank you for that. Although I will tell you, Schumer did the same thing in New York. He visited all 87 counties. And after one election, he had won every county but the smallest one. And he said to his chief of staff, that's impossible. I practically met everyone in the county. And his chief said, that was the problem, Senator. Bold staffer. Bold staffer right there.

That's risky. Exactly. So getting around to those places so you really understand them and you're not just like reading about them in the newspaper, I think is really important. I pick up some of the best ideas. I think the second thing is not being afraid to work across the aisle. Now, this means, I think, a different level of civility. Just last week, Tom Emmer, the Republican congressman who took Michelle Bachman's seat after she stepped down in Minnesota, our most conservative congressional district, he and I did an event together on opposing the Trump cuts to foreign aid because we have a famine going on in Somalia. We have so many Somalians. We understand the security need for having strong diplomacy and also having strong foreign aid and that that can go a lot farther than the money that we give away.

And so the fact that he did that with me and that we came up with that idea, it's just thinking in a different way about your colleagues and trying to have that kind of civility because people really don't want to see all the fighting all the time. And so it's this line you have to draw between taking on the Trump administration. When you have a guy that's tweeting at three in the morning, which was noted by the comedian at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he tweets at three in the morning, but doesn't respect the amendment that allows him to do it. So you have to draw the line on those things, but then find common ground where you can. And I think that's sometimes difficult for some of the messengers in our party because they spend their whole time. And I think President Obama was different on this front.

He would try to find that common ground. But a lot of times people go, in my mind, too far on this when you can draw the line, you can take on the really bad things, and then you can still work with some of your colleagues when it's going to help your state or help the country. Well, that's great. Well, Senator Klobuchar, thank you so much for listening to your daughter and coming on to our show. She sounds great. She literally sent me a text. Why haven't you gone on Pod Save America? Get

with it. Oh, well, you're with it now. We need to send her a t-shirt, so we'll be getting her from your team after this. I think so. For sure. She wants to be a stand-up comedian, though, so I don't know. Oh, great. All right. Tough road. Lovett's been trying for years. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Come back soon.

Okay, thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. That's all the time we have for today. We'll see you again on Thursday, guys. You said that very softly. Thanks again to Amy Klobuchar for joining us. Senator Amy Klobuchar, show some respect. And to the team at Digital Media for hosting us in New York City. We'll see you guys soon. Bye. Thank you.