Pod Save America - "Every state is a swing state."

Episode Date: October 31, 2018

With six days to go before Election Day, Trump floats repealing the 14th amendment via executive order, the most racist member of the Republican caucus, Steve King, faces a backlash, and we enter the home stretch with a huge number of districts in play. Plus, one of Trump’s dumbest supporters attempts to frame Robert Mueller, which goes poorly for him. And Kentucky congressional candidate and former fighter pilot Amy McGrath joins to talk about her experience and her race for the House.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. It's a Jetsons-Flintstones crossover, Dan. Happy Halloween. Celebrities are apologizing for their costumes. How you doing? I'm great. Who's apologizing for their costume? Well, I saw an athlete apologizing yesterday. It just sort of comes up in your Twitter moments. Just so-and-so is apologizing. You don't even, you have to click to find out the costume, and I don't click. Do you have a costume?

I am wearing rainbow pants, but that is the extent of it. I think my costume is wearing rainbow pants. That's because it's Wednesday. Do you have a costume? We'll look at where we stand in the fight for the House and the Senate. And because it's been a very long two years and we deserve it, we're going to take a moment to discuss a bizarre scheme to frame Robert Mueller by a real Trump wunderkind, which is it was too stupid for words yesterday, Dan. Yes, yes. You'll also hear from Amy McGrath, an exciting Democratic candidate and former fighter pilot running for Congress in Kentucky's 6th District. Also, we've got our final midterm special for HBO this Friday night in Irvine, California. So tune in for that, Dan. I'm excited. That's right. Are you excited?

I'm very excited. Our last one. We're finally getting the hang of it. So now we have to stop. We have to stop for a bit. You know, maybe there'll be more. Maybe there won't be. Who knows?

Who knows? It's a cliffhanger. Also, we just wanted to thank everybody who went to votesaveamerica.com slash donate, because we were able to raise a million dollars for 20 House candidates in some of the closest races in the country. Our friends at Civis looked at the polling, looked at where dollars would go the furthest in media markets, and they had identified the top 20 races where your dollars could make the biggest difference. And we thought we'd maybe get to $250,000. We thought we'd maybe get to $500,000. We were able to raise a million dollars for those races. And we've been hearing from the campaigns, we've been hearing from the candidates that it's making a huge difference. We were so gratified by the response that we wanted to do it again.

So if you go to votesaveamerica.com slash donate right now, we have identified the 10 races where your dollars right now can make the most difference, where the polls have narrowed, where they're in media markets, where the dollars will go the furthest. And so if you go to votesaveamerica.com slash donate, you can go donate to those 10 races. votesaveamerica.com slash donate. You can go donate to those 10 races. It's actually 10 plus one because we've also added J.D. Scholten because his race against Steve King is so important and new polling shows that he's really got a shot, which is an amazing thing

and speaks to the incredible energy and enthusiasm out there. So if you go to votesaveamerica.com slash donate, you can help these top 10 plus one incredibly competitive races where your dollars will go the furthest and we'll see how much we can raise for them in this home stretch. Also, you can go to votesaveamerica.com to check out the voter guide where you can get

an early look at what's on your ballot and even fill it out so you know what to do when you actually vote. You're not voting on votesaveamerica.com, all right? I don't think I need to say that. But just in case, you're not actually voting, you're filling out your ballot. And then once you finish your sample ballot, you can use our make a plan feature to pick a time and date that works for you. Find out your closest polling location and where you need to go if you're voting in person. And if you'd like, you can get subtle, very chill reminders by email or text so you don't forget to vote.

All right. All right. You need if you need the reminder. I hope you don't, but maybe you do. All right. So go to VoteSaveAmerica.com. Make your plan. Basically, the more people who make plans, the more people to vote. Knowing how you're going to vote, it makes it more likely for you to actually do it. So get it done. I don't know. How much can we beseech you? Honestly, go to VoteSaveAmerica.com. And one last thing, Dan, I know you have an announcement about your book and about how people can get involved in the closing days before the midterms. So the week before the election sucks, and it's very hard and stressful, as we know.

So we're going to give away 150 copies of my book, Yes, We Still Can. So to do that, you go to yeswestillcanbook.com. And also, we're calling this promo, you appreciate the poor pun here, yeswestillcanvas. And if you post a photo of yourself and your friends canvassing with the hashtag yeswestillcanvas, that would be great. And if you go to the website, you have a chance to win a free book, something to pass the time as you are looking at 538 or the upshot or whatever else in between canvassing shifts and phone bank shifts. Or the Pod Save America live stream. Or the Pod Save America live stream. That's correct. So Dan, this is it. We're in the home stretch for candidates. I'm picturing Jesse Owens racing

toward the finish line. They are throwing Axios in front of him. They're throwing a caravan in front of him. They're throwing attack ads in front of him. And like Jesse Owens, if we win the race, the Nazis will be pissed. That is your most extended sports metaphor ever. Yeah, my ability to reference sports ends around 1952. All right, so let's start with Trump's last-ditch effort to refocus the election on anything other than health care and his response, his abysmal response to national tragedy. In an interview with Jonathan Swan and Jim VandeHei of Axios, Donald Trump claimed he could end what's known as birthright citizenship with an executive order. Don't want to spend too much time on this because it's a fucking ploy,

but it's worth touching on the substance of this, how Axios handled the scoop, and then finally the political implications. Let's start with the substance. Dan, what is he talking about? What is birthright citizenship? And can the president end it with an executive order? Birthright citizenship is the idea enshrined in the 14th Amendment that if you were born in the United States, you are a citizen. And the 14th Amendment was put in to reverse the most odious Supreme Court decision in American history, Dred Scott, which ruled that slaves were not citizens, even if they were born in the United States. And so this is at the core of cleaning up some of the worst parts of American history. Legal scholars have looked at this for a long time and believe that it is very clear what

was meant by the 14th Amendment. Trump is suggesting in a very clever ploy that instead of going through the long and very hard process of changing the Constitution, which requires two thirds of Congress being ratified by the state legislatures and two thirds of the states that he would just do it with his pen, which seems challenging to me, but you know, who knows? Yeah, so so the 14th Amendment says, All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

According to virtually all serious constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum, constitutional lawyers, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, George fucking Conway, right-wing Republicans, and long-established Supreme Court president. The meaning is completely plain and uncontroversial.

If you're born here, you're a citizen. And the jurisdiction language, right, which is what they hang their head on, is there to accept the children of diplomats and the children of foreign occupiers, which thankfully we haven't had to deal with for a while. Even the Federalist, the Federalist, which is Breitbart if it went to Dartmouth, ran a piece saying ending birthright citizenship will make Republicans look like the party of Dred Scott. So this is not a complicated issue. Clearly, this is pissing Donald Trump off. Just this morning, he tweeted, Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the majority rather

than giving his opinions on birthright citizenship, something he knows nothing about. Our new Republican majority will work on this, closing the immigration loopholes and securing our border. So he is frustrated that a lot of Republicans have not rallied to his side, although he does have the support of people like Lindsey Graham, who think this is a great idea. What do you make of Lindsey Graham's fringe views on this issue? I would like to know what position Donald Trump could take in the run up to Lindsey Graham's 2020 Republican primary that Lindsey Graham would not adopt. Yeah. When Lindsey Graham goes in, he goes all in and he has decided that being a Trump sycophant is the best way to maintain political power. So he's doing that.

that being a Trump sycophant is the best way to maintain political power. So he's doing that. I had a question for you on this, which is, do you think this was intentional from Trump? Like that this was part of his closing playbook? You know, I don't know the answer to that. Actually, that brings us to the to the axios of it all. Because what's what happens in this interview is something that has happened with Trump in the past, which is, he's a question and the question didn't necessarily give him the idea. But if you go to Donald Trump and you say, hey, some people think you have the power to do this racist fucking thing your base will love, do you? He never says no. He never, ever says no to that question. to something so sad about the state of our politics, that the idea that there could be a debate as to whether or not the president can do something by fiat, which is what an

executive order is, or, and which is the lowest threshold for action, right? It's the one, there's no act of Congress. It basically just says it's rooted in the president's power, or it could require a constitutional amendment, the most onerous way to make a change in our system. So like when he's asked the question, he just says, yes, you could tell Axios was pleased that they had this scoop. Jim Vande Hei tweeted, siren exclusive Trump to terminate birthright citizenship. I think I saw Jonathan Swan basically saying this was based on reporting the fact they were going to do this. He wasn't leading Trump to this. It was based on the fact that this is

something they'd be considering, something they've been discussing. It's something Trump knows about, is willing to talk about, has talked about in the past. And of course, that's true. And yet it's not clear to me that Trump went into this to try to make the conversation about an executive order on birthright citizenship. What did you make of the Axios interview and how they made news around it? I take Jonathan Swan at his word that he was reporting this and someone had told him that this is something Trump wanted to do. So I think Trump seemed legitimately surprised that Jonathan Swan asked him about it.

And so I don't think that on some whiteboard in Stephen Miller's office, they had a list of racist cards to play before the election. And Tuesday was the day to turn over the birthright citizenship card. So I think they sort of stumbled into yet another way to stoke white anxiety before the election. they sort of stumbled into yet another way to stoke white anxiety before the election. I think the challenge with the way Axios did it is when you say like Trump to end birthright citizenship, we do this, that's not something he can do. And like the problem, like we're in this weird world of media where everyone has to condense everything to 280 characters, but everything with Trump requires context, either fact-checking or the actual reality of what he can and can't do. Trump said he would do this, but he can't,

and almost no one believes he can. And that is as important in the headline as the fact of what he said. And then both Axios and like 17 other news organizations tweeted out the things that Trump said about the US being the only country in the world that does this or whatever else, which are totally false. And they just sort of pass along what Trump says without fact checking. Axios, to their credit, fixed that. But I think that this is Trump, you know, you always use the term, he's like the Raptors testing the fence. And this is, I think this is one of those examples of, you can sort of see in his eyes as it was asked, like he can sort of do the calculation of how many white people he can scare into voting as this is happening. And he decides to leap on it full bore, even though it wasn't part of the plan.

And I think the Ryan, the Paul Ryan response to this suggests that we kind of know, like this tells us the racist line that mainstream Republicans won't cross. It's like we will run incredibly racist ads against minority candidates. We will stoke fears about disease and gang members in a caravan that's thousands of miles away, but we will not be the party of Dred Scott. Like that's the line that causes people to respond to Trump, which is, I guess, interesting, if not destructive. Yeah, it is interesting. Yeah. So on the press front, it was there was this sort of range. A lot of places did cover it. Well, they would they immediately say that this was a fringe view that most people that the vast majority of scholars and experts, Republican and Democrat disagree

that he has the power to do this. But then you also did see others pass along credulously this claim that no other country does this when 30 other countries have birthright citizenship. Many others basically have it in the sense that if you're born in the country, you can easily get citizenship. So it's just not true. And what was frustrating to me about the Axios interview is they were very invested in getting the news, but not invested enough in the subject of the news to be able to push back against him in real time. And as always, this is our critique of Axios, which is incredibly smart reporters, incredibly well-sourced reporters. They do great work. And yet at times you feel as though they don't understand the implications, the human implications for the politics and the debate around politics we have every day.

You know, even if this is a fringe idea, even if this is a silly notion that will go nowhere, when the president says it's acceptable to say if you're born here, you're not necessarily a citizen, that's really dangerous. Which brings us to the political implications. On the one hand, this was a ploy. It was Donald Trump taking advantage of a moment to make this about immigration. And yet, on the other hand, it is important when the president of the United States attacks the fundamental tenets of American citizenship, which is the basis of all of our rights and our equality and our dignity as human beings. So how do you think Democrats should respond? Are there Democrats that you think have responded well? Are there Democrats you think have responded poorly? What do you think Democrats should respond? Are there Democrats that you think have responded well? Are the Democrats you think have responded poorly? What do you think? You know, you raise a really

important point about the human implications. I was at a fundraiser last night for an organization that's raising money for all of the Obama alumni who are running for Congress. And I talked to a number of people who are affected, would be affected by this policy. And it's not that they were afraid of their citizenship since they were obviously born in this country many, many years ago. But the idea that the President of the United States, even one as odious to all of us as Donald Trump saying that you were somehow less of a citizen is just like that matters to people and we should not lose that for the ups and downs of how this affects the horse race, etc.

So now I will talk about the ups and downs and how it affects the horse race. So Dan, what are the ups and downs and how does it affect the horse race? Yes. For that moral caveat, so I feel better than the average pundit. I am not super concerned about the short-term political implications of this because I think for the most part, it's going to be a little bit of a flash in the pan for the reasons that most press covered it pretty well, which is like, he said it doesn't really matter. Nothing's happening. It's probably a net negative for Republicans in the sense that now Trump and Paul Ryan are in a fight and just divisions, you know, five or six days before the election is not great. It does

matter in the long run because you like Trump has an ability to take extreme positions that generally sort of live on the edges of, you know, Reddit sub threads and move them to the mainstream of the Republican Party. And, and so I think that we are going to be involved in a long debate over the next between now and 2020, about birthright citizenship. And Trump has the ability to rally mainstream elected Republicans like Lindsey Graham, but also Republican voters to these positions. And so I think that is the real danger of his raising this issue in such a way. The second thing is that in the short term of this election, Democrats have to be as disciplined about this as many of them have been about the caravan, which is to point out that this is the Republicans trying to distract you

from the very real fact that Republicans, if they maintain power, will jack up your premiums and cut your Medicare to pay for the massive tax cut they passed for billionaires, corporations, and Wall Street traders. Trump wants us to chase him down every single rabbit hole. And I think one of the lessons of 2016 is when you do that, you lose the narrative thread for voters. And so we have to be strong and disciplined about what are the messages that we know works and not react to every shiny object. Yeah, I think that's right.

And that doesn't mean that it's not really important and dangerous what Trump is doing. It's not saying that you're diminishing the threat of what Trump wants to be our policy to say he is doing this to rally his base. He is doing this to make this election about immigration as opposed to his failure to respond to national tragedy, his position on health care, his position on taxes. Saying that we shouldn't fall into a trap is not to say that what's in the trap isn't, I don't know, a bear. I'm not sure how the trap worked. It doesn't matter. I think the bear is the one that gets trapped. Who knows? But so that I found very frustrating because it's funny, there have been so many different racial racist appeals from Trump in even the past week and a half. I'm honestly not sure if what I'm thinking of is Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke

responding to this particular example or a previous example, but basically saying this is yet another example of Donald Trump trying to appeal to fear and division rather than our better natures is a reminder of why we need change and is a reminder of why we need a better kind of politics. And by the way,

this is an effort to keep us from focusing on what really matters to people, which is their healthcare, their jobs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that there is a way to talk about why this is dangerous without falling into the trap. Yeah, I think this is a very important point, because the wrong way to think about this is Donald Trump is trying to place this wedge issue in here. And the way to nullify a wedge issue is to accept it, right? And so, and you see, Democrats have done this in the past, right? Where you say, well, this is an interesting debate. We should have the debate, or there are strong feelings on both sides, or I would help Trump fund his wall or whatever that is, is the way to deal with a wedge issue and polarize politics is to call it out for what it

is and then pivot back to what matters, right? And I think people should point out, as I saw Beto O'Rourke did this in his town hall last night, and other Democrats have, is we should say that Trump is wrong. But you don't take my word for it. Take the word of Republicans, Democrats, Paul Ryan, constitutional scholars, Kellyanne Conway's husband. You can point out, you can isolate Trump by pointing out the wide bipartisan ideological, the wide bipartisan opposition to this idea, and then point out why he's doing it. We don't have to accept the premise that it is okay, or it is not very, very dangerous or un-American. And I've even seen some Democrats try to get around even answering the question,

right, refusing to take a position, trying to dodge it. And I don't I get that. But but come on, like where are you? That feels like a really old way of handling this. You don't need to simply evade the topic to get to the topic you want to talk about. You just have to you just have to be honest. Just be honest about the politics of this moment. And that honesty gives you the ability to talk about what you want, because everybody knows what's going on here. People aren't stupid.

Yeah. And I mean, even if you needed a poll to give you an iota of moral courage, this was poll last year, and large bipartisan majorities disagree with Trump's position on this. So there's the moral thing to do. There's the easy political thing to do. It's just cowardice is never a good strategy in politics, particularly in the Trump era. Before we leave this topic, there has been a hopeful sign. New polls have come out showing friend of the pod, J.D. Scholten, who joined Monday's episode in a very close race within striking distance of Steve King, the most openly white nationalist racist member of Congress, which was a competitive

category. Actually, the chair, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee tweeted that Steve King's recent comments, actions and retweets are completely inappropriate and that we must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all its forms. The NRCC is no longer supporting King's campaign and neither is Lando Lakes, a giant agricultural business that's backed him in the past. He lost Lando Lakes, Dan. He also lost Purina. But wait, I have a joke. Are you ready? Oh, sorry.

Go for it. Even butter has turned on Steve King. Does that work better if I say even? What's the joke? Wait, how about this? Even butter has turned sour on Steve King. How about that? There you go.

That's great. That is terrible. That is top-notch content. So Steve King hasn't changed. That's great. That is terrible. That is top-notch content. So, so Steve King hasn't changed. Steve King has been a racist conspiracy theorist for a very, very long time. It's the only way he knows how to be. What has changed? Do you believe, Dan, that it's finally happened? Have Republicans grown a conscience? No, I do not believe that.

No, Dan, come on. That's what's going on here. They're waking up. Things are changing. I would love to know more of the backstory about Steve Stivers, the NRCC chairman who did this. There's a political story about it this morning or yesterday, I guess, that said that he did this tweet without and made the decision to stop funding Steve King without telling anyone else in the leadership, not the White House, not Paul Ryan, not Kevin McCarthy. And I am very curious as to what happened. Is he facing donor pressure from all these NRCC donors

who are like, why am I writing – my corporation is writing checks to your organization and you were using our money from our public corporations to fund just a racist clown did he i mean like you would say like oh maybe he just looked in the mirror and said i can't do this but at the same time his committee is running some of the most racist ads possible against antonio del New York, Andy Kim in New Jersey, Aftab Parval in Ohio. So it's very unclear. I just think it's very fucking notable that Politico went and called the offices of Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy to ask them if they agreed with Steve Stivers and they refused to respond. They are such fucking cowards. divers and they refuse to respond. They are such fucking cowards. Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy are still 100% fine with a white nationalist in their party. And I would note that Paul Ryan made

Steve King the chairman of the subcommittee on the fucking constitution. Every time we wonder where Donald Trump came from, it's remember that every week for many years, mainstream Republicans go and eat a sandwich with Steve King and pat him on the back and court his endorsement and everything else. Also, I would note that it was four days ago that Paul Ryan was being interviewed on Face the Nation by John Dickerson and lamented the state of our politics

and posed as if it was a rhetorical question. How do we make an inclusive, inspiring politics more strategic, a better choice? How about stop supporting Steve fucking King? How about show one ounce of backbone? You are leaving Congress. You are done. You're going to Wisconsin to make money for pharma or something. Can't you just tell the fucking truth? You are leaving. You're not even running. All right, Kevin McCarthy. He wants to be Speaker of the House

if Republicans keep the chamber, or at least he wants to be in the leadership. Paul Ryan, you're leaving. You're leaving, giving exit interviews about how you lament the state of our politics. Steve King is the cause of the state of our politics, and you can't say a fucking word. It is laughable.

You said maybe Stivers looked in the mirror. cause of the state of our politics and you can't say a fucking word it is laughable it's you know you said like maybe uh stivers looked in the mirror are there no mirrors where paul ryan lives are there no mirrors at the gym is it doesn't he work out in front of a fucking mirror it's so i mean it is this sounds extreme to say but paul ryan is as responsible for Donald Trump being president as anyone else in America. Because Steve King is the most famous of the pre-Trump Republican racists. But when Donald Trump, the reality star, was pushing the birther conspiracy, I don't remember Paul Ryan standing up and telling him to pipe down. Paul Ryan has courted Steve King. Every Republican candidate courted Steve King. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, when they were the 2012 nominees, were endorsed by Donald Trump and

campaigned with Steve King. And there is a white nationalist in the mainstream of the Republican Party. And everyone just seems to think that that is the price of doing business in this Republican Party. And it is mind-boggling. And it's important that we call it out. And I would also note there are some other political implications here, which is in Iowa for Rod Blum is the one of the most endangered Republicans in the country. And Steve King has sort of been an issue in all of Iowa, including that race. And in the Iowa governor's race, Kim Reynolds, who was lieutenant governor who took over when Terry Branstad became the ambassador to China, great job choice. She has made Steve King one of her campaign chairs and has been under a lot of pressure from Fred Hubbell, who's running a very competitive race there, about that fact.

And so Steve King is becoming an issue. And that is a good thing. And we'll see if the Republicans respond to that, since morality and decencies will not cause them to respond. Yeah, I wonder also if what we've seen in just the past week of all of this violence propelled in large part by racist, xenophobic propaganda has drawn new attention to Steve King because they can no longer act as though this fringe doesn't have real world consequences and they can't totally ignore it or pretend they're

not complicit in it as well as they could in the past which brings us dan we've accidentally talked about paul ryan but which which brings us we're running out of time we only have a few more weeks left of this i know we got a lot of rants left in me yeah there's uh there's so much left to say uh i'm really i'm really sort of doing a nationwide search for who will be my new paul ryan uh come next week who will get the rose uh so so all of this is happening as we are days away from the midterms donald trump's schedule in the final week of the election has him touching down in eight states for 11 rallies bloomberg reported that trump is passing over opportunities to campaign in competitive house districts in favor of stomping in states with competitive

Senate and gubernatorial races like Florida, Missouri, and Arizona. Dan, what does that tell you about the state of the race and what people listening can do? Well, I think first off, if you are listening, and we certainly hope you are, all of this is interesting, but all that really matters is that in the final weeks, you vote, you volunteer, do everything you possibly can. If you requested a ballot, mail it in, find every friend you have and make sure they vote, double check, go to Vote Save America, all of the action items that we constantly tell you to do

because everything else is just like sports commentary to what is actually happening. But I think Trump's schedule is interesting in some ways. It does speak to this view of there are places where Trump is tremendously helpful, or at least many Republicans believe that. These are the red Trump states, the states where he has done better than previous republicans and there are states where he is such an anathema that if he even flies over them it could affect the ability the republicans ability to keep the house and so he's staying out of the states that hillary won or they're get him out of my airspace yeah that's right keep this guy out of my fucking airspace all right he's flying over suburbs get him up you keep him over the mountain west you keep him over rural areas i do not need

him over excerpts i do not need him over changing suburbs with educated republicans he like he he has to stay keep the air force one approximately 700 miles from any whole foods or panera keep the Air Force One approximately 700 miles from any Whole Foods or Panera. But so I think this is what is interesting about this is you stay near the cracker barrels. Trump is the right. You can maybe go to a Fuddruckers. I kind of like maybe go. I love Fuddruckers.

All right. I'm I'm salt of the earth. Sorry, Ben. What is interesting is that the Republicans have decided Trump has no ability to save the House because the seats that will decide 2018 are happening in states Trump can't go to and won't go to, whether it's California, New Jersey, Virginia, et cetera. What they think he can do is prevent huge losses in red states. So the difference between the Democrats winning 23, 28, 30, and Democrats winning 35 or 40, and that he can help save the Senate. And I saw several people in their analysis today say that we are headed towards a split decision where Democrats will win the House and Republicans will win the Senate. And I will say two things about that. One, don't listen to those voters. Go vote. Because these same people who said there was going to be a split decision also told us that

Hillary would win. So don't listen to them. And second, if Trump loses the House and governors races, state legislative races all across the country, but holds on to the Senate, even because he had the most favorable map in the history of Senate races. And the press covers it as a split decision. I am going to melt the fuck down because that's exactly what happened in 2010 when Barack Obama was president and no one covered it as a split decision. They covered it as a massive rebuke to President Obama. Yes. I would also say the fact that they do not necessarily believe Donald Trump

can be helpful or as helpful in the House doesn't mean winning the House is a foregone conclusion at all. It does not mean that at all. It just means they believe at this moment, given the map, given the distribution of voters, given who Trump appeals to, it makes more sense for him to go to the Senate races that they're still vying for, even though we're talking about deep red states, whether it's Montana or Missouri or elsewhere. We've also seen these competing stories. On the one hand, we've seen in the past few days this worry that the Democratic lead may be evaporating, that there's no blue wave, the Democrats overplayed their hand. And then at the same time, you saw a story in The Post saying Republicans are scrambling to save suddenly vulnerable candidates in congressional districts that President Trump

won in 2016 as Democrats have charged deeper into conservative strongholds in their bid to win the House. Dan, what does that tell you about where we're at? I would say several things about this. One, everyone who is talking to reporters is lying. They have an agenda. It is Democrats spinning something, Republicans spinning something. No one knows anything. The only poll numbers that, like internal poll numbers that the reporters writing these stories have seen are the ones that campaigns decide to show them. And they only decide to show them if they have an agenda. And Republicans have an incentive to go out and spread panic in these stories. Because one of the things that

we saw earlier this year was that Republicans sort of living in the Trump Twitter Fox News bubble thought the blue wave was a fake thing, and therefore they weren't going to turn out. So now you're trying to scare them. You have Democrats outspending Republicans because of grassroots enthusiasm from our donor base. And so you have the real incentive for Republicans to communicate with their donors through the press that we need money fast, because they'd be like, oh my God, all this Democratic money is coming, help us. So they can get those big corporate checks in the last week. And so no one who is saying anything knows anything. And so we just have to go into this knowing that all that matters is what we do over the next six days. And if you have any confidence in winning the

House, or you're getting tired, and you don't want to sign up for that last canvas shift this weekend, or phone bank tonight after work, or whatever it is, I would think about this. You look at all these rosy predictions about Democrats taking the House from 538, upshot, every place that now has some sort of needle or something. The Democrats' chances of taking the House are less good than what we thought Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the White House were. And I don't know if you remember how that turned out, John Lovett, but it wasn't great. So all we can do is just run through the tape here and do everything we possibly can in these last few days to make sure

that we win the most important midterm election in our fucking lifetimes. Absolutely. I do remember, Dan. It is seared into my memory because I was doing a live stream. What are we doing on election night? because I was doing a live stream. What are we doing on election night? We're going to touch that same hot stuff. So yeah, I would also say polling does have value, right? In the sense that it has helped us figure out where should we put resources?

Who should we donate to in the home stretch? I mean, we started the show by talking about how we raised a million dollars for candidates based on the polling and other information saying that these races were the places where your dollars would go the furthest. At the same time, if we knew how elections would turn out, election night wouldn't be suspenseful. No matter what happens, win, lose, or draw, there will be surprises.

There will be house races that we didn't know we could win that will win. There will be house races that we thought were a layup that we're going to lose. The same may well be true of the Senate. Wherever you are right now, there is a House race that you can make a difference in. And that House race may be the race that surprises people in letting us take back the House. We really don't know. I mean, one of the things about this map for the House is that there are so many races in play. The fact that there are so many races in play doesn't make it more likely that we win, but it does make it more likely that you can help in a way that makes the difference. I mean, that to me is what I take away from these stories about

the widening map. Not that somehow this has gotten easier, but that we can't know where the House will be won or lost because there's too many districts in play, because the politics of this moment are transitional, because we have learned in the past two years that we are at an inflection point in this country and is inflection point about who will turn out. Will it be this electorate, this older, whiter, more rural electorate that sees its power in some sense slipping away, that feels the appeal of racism, that feels an anxiety about what is happening to this country, that has been stoked and prodded and made frightful and angry by Donald Trump and Fox News and the Republicans in Congress? Or will a growing electorate, a younger, more educated, more diverse, more urban electorate that we believed when Barack

Obama won two elections was the powerful future of who will determine the outcomes of elections in this country? Will it show up in the midterm in a way that it hasn't before? And will they be joined by the kind of people who may have either stayed home in 2016 or decided that politics was so broken that they couldn't support someone like Hillary Clinton and that they voted for Donald Trump? Will they have been so turned off by Donald Trump that they'll come out and vote to rebuke him and vote for a check? And to me, we just don't know the answer. I don't care what the polls say. I don't care what the data says. We just don't know because there's never been a midterm election before where Donald Trump was president and we were

facing such a headwind with gerrymandering with voter suppression and a massive propaganda apparatus from Fox news to the Adelson to Adelson and all the money being dumped on these candidates. So nobody knows fucking anything and everybody has to do their part. Yeah. Everyone do everything. And I, the last thing I'd say on this is to just put a finer point on what you were saying about the map getting bigger is it's not just that the house map is getting bigger, which it is, which is very important,

which means more people in the country will have an opportunity to determine whether Democrats take the House back, right? Like, if you live in Kansas, you have an opportunity to deliver not one, but two seats to that Democratic majority, which is not something you would say very often. But it's also, for the first time in recent memory, you have Democrats running for everything up and down the ballot all across the country. So even if you were in the reddest state, you have the opportunity to send a Democrat to your state legislature, send a Democrat to your school board. I've been in politics for a while now, and these elections where there is a potential for a wave don't come around very

often. And they have consequences that extend long after the election itself. And so this is a generational opportunity for Democrats to put in place people at all levels of power all throughout the country. And we know from the special elections we've seen thus far, Democrats can win everywhere. They can win in North Dakota. They can win in Oklahoma. They can win in California. And so no matter what state you live in, your vote may never matter more than it has, than it will on Tuesday.

And I'd even add on top of that, that we have these ballot measures in places like Utah and Idaho for expanding Medicaid. We have minimum wage ballot measures in Missouri and Arkansas. And we have Stacey Abrams in an incredibly close race in for the governorship in Georgia. We have Beto O'Rourke in Texas. Every state is a swing state in this midterm. And California, the House may hinge on what happens in California. You cannot point to a state in this country. Montana, John Tester. I mean, we could go through the entire map of this country. Every state is a swing state. No matter where you are in this country, you are part of this election.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Last but not least, Dan. All right. So that's our midterm appeal. I think we've bludgeoned people enough. I swear to God, Dan, if people are listening to this, I'm assuming everyone listening to this is going to vote or has already voted or has their ballot in their hands and is going to mail it back. Even though, Dan, we have seen numbers that across the country, there are a lot of people with mail-in ballots and there are more Republicans sending them back so far than Democrats, which is shameful. I'm not going to blame the people listening because I'm assuming you're voting. You have to do more. If you're listening to this and you're

not planning to canvas or phone bank this weekend, get it together. That's right. I just built my ballot back literally an hour ago. Yeah, because you knew I'd get like this. I wanted to make sure that I had that box checked before I got on this podcast and you yelled at me. And as a reward for all of you who have voted, plan to vote, will mail in your ballot, have mailed in your ballot, will be canvassing this weekend, I do want to take one very brief moment to talk about one of the stupidest and yet also most frightening stories we have seen in quite some time, which is an effort to frame Robert Mueller by one of the dumbest human beings ever to attempt a scheme like this. Brian and Priyanka did a great job summarizing this scandal in the What A Day newsletter. Notorious pro-Trump grifter Jacob Wall got caught organizing a fraudulent scheme to falsely accuse special counsel Robert Mueller of sexual assault. The plan involved approaching multiple women who have since told reporters they were offered money to publicly accuse Mueller of misconduct. The problem, Mueller got wind of

the ploy and immediately referred it to the Justice Department for criminal investigation because it may constitute wire fraud and obstruction of justice. It is honestly too dumb to go through all the details of this. It may have been an attempt to frame Mueller. It may have been an attempt to frame journalists. But similarly to Devin Nunes, you cannot be this dumb and try to do schemes at the national level. This was a high school level scheme, maybe a middle school level scheme. My favorite part of this is as Jacob Wall, who drummed up this story and denied involvement, was facing blowback. They looked into the company involved and its phone number went to Jacob Wall's mother's voicemail.

It's just so good. It's so good. I have always thought that when this period in our politics is over, and HBO does their limited series on the Russia plot, just the group of laughable criminals around Trump, it should be titled conspiracy of dunces. Jacob wall is like the fourth. How many Trump siblings are there? He's like the fifth Trump sibling. He like, he really his in his, he really could just be there with Don and Eric. He really

is the third stooge of that group. And you know what? Honestly, that's a compliment to him. I'm sure Donald Trump Jr. is his idol. Look, this was a very silly story. Pope Hat, because we live in a world where we know people like Pope Hat on Twitter, replied to him and basically said, I'm going to do a good deed for you. Shut up and do whatever your lawyer says. Just shut the fuck up and do what your lawyer says. And I don't know why I'm trying to help you. But I love that.

Yeah. I love that Popat tweeted at him. And I read South Paul's analysis of this. We live in a weird, weird world. Honestly, we're and those are the good guys. The serious Jacob. Jacob Wall could have used an alias in this process. Yeah.

Yeah. And also just all the all the photos from the fake company trying to do this. It's just, man, you bit off more than you can chew. It's all that. You got to also make a friend. Get off the internet. The internet is, there are some people whose brains who just can't handle being on the internet. Go outside.

Throw a frisbee. Make a friend. Live amongst the internet. Go outside, throw a Frisbee, make a friend, live amongst the people. Your brain is broken. All right. But before we move off of this, because it's obviously very silly, but there is a serious implication here. Brian Boitler wrote a great piece about this a while back. It was very prescient for Cricket.com where he basically talked about the fact that Republicans and Republican operatives will at some point weaponize MeToo, that they will see what Democrats, liberals, what the culture has said is a reckoning around believing women and recognizing the prevalence of sexual assault, sexual harassment,

sexism in the workplace. And they will take that as permission to turn it into a political weapon and turning the fact that we believe in believing women into a political tool. And this example may have been too stupid to stand on its own two feet, but that won't be true in the future. We saw during the Kavanaugh, so many conservatives either believed or decided it was in their interest to believe that Democrats were framing or decided it was in their interest to believe that Democrats were framing Kavanaugh by drumming up these stories, by getting people to make things up. And what it felt like at the time was projection because they recognized that this could happen on their side. So I do think that as much as this is silly, it's also a bit of a warning shot, don't you think? Oh, absolutely. And I think what we saw with – you saw sort of how this could work with how the Republicans handled Kavanaugh, right, which is one, to disbelieve women on its face. all of the craziest calls that came into their tip line and put these crazy accusations out

there as a way to dilute the attention and the credibility of the very credible accusations. And so I look, I think this is where we have seen that there is almost no line that Republicans won't cross, and particularly the Trump grifters like boy genius Jacob Wall. And so I think that this is a, we're going to see some very dangerous things going forward. And it's also a warning sign, not to bring this back to the importance of the 2018 election, but I'm sure Trump is not particularly, he probably applauds the go-gettiveness of Jacob Wall for doing this. And that if we don't win these elections, it will not be some Trump grifter who tries to get rid of Mueller, it will be Trump himself. And let's not forget that

one of the things that's at stake in this election is whether Mueller is going to get to finish his investigation or not. Yeah, I mean, if reporters hadn't caught wind of this, and kind of preempted the smear by saying that this was out there, if it had been handled with even a little bit more sophistication, then the right wing sites that originally had put up the allegation wouldn't necessarily have had to take it down. And if it had stayed up there, it would have absolutely done what these kinds of smears are meant to do, which is to go from the swamp to the shore to the more mainstream Republican sites, to Fox News, to the president's Twitter. Until, you know, because this was so thoroughly debunked so quickly, or at the very least,

so thoroughly mocked and exposed so quickly, it didn't make it into Donald Trump's Twitter feed this morning. But that was a close call and way closer than I think it's being treated as because it was so silly. Yeah, just someone who was slightly less stupid than Jacob Wall. And we would this would be a massive story in this election that the entire right wing propaganda apparatus and the White House press office would be jumping on. And and that's no crazier than what Devin Nunez has tried to do to various members of the Justice Department.

Absolutely. And it's a reminder that if this were to happen again, it really fucking matters who holds the gavel in the House. It really matters who's in charge of the Intelligence Committee. It really matters who's in charge of the Judiciary Committee. It really matters who's in a position to call hearings, issue subpoenas on the Hill, because our ability to fight back requires some power. And that's the power we can get if we win the fucking house.

Great, great close. Great close. Thanks, Dan. I was trying to build to a finish. When we come back, we'll have our interview with Kentucky congressional candidate Amy McGrath. She's also somebody who released one of the best ads of the cycle. She's one of the best candidates running.

So stay tuned for that. We've been sharing stories of candidates in the run-up to the midterm elections. So today we're going to hear from the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps. She's a Democrat. She's a woman. And she's a military veteran. This is an extreme liberal named Amy McGrath. So the question is not who Donald Trump is, America knows who he is. The question is who are we? Hey folks, I'll tell you who we are. We're Amy McGrath.

Hey, here we are. We're Amy McGrath. When I was a United States Marine, my oath was to the United States Constitution. It was not to a president. It was not to a political party. That's the same attitude I will bring to Congress. It's time. Amy McGrath is a Democratic congressional nominee for Kentucky's 6th District. She's running against Republican incumbent Andy Barr. Kentucky's 6th is central Kentucky. It's Lexington and the surrounding 18 counties.

It's very much an urban core of Lexington, but then 60% of the population is more rural. It goes out as far east as Wolf County, which is closer to eastern Kentucky. It's a district that has a lot of agriculture. It's horse country, lots of bourbon, and UK Wildcats. But I was a tomboy. Growing up, I was the youngest of three kids and I loved sports. I used to beat the boys in pretty much every sport imaginable. But you can only win competitions when you're allowed to enter. When she was 11 years old, she saw a documentary on the History Channel. Which had these fighter jets, these jets flying onto the backs of aircraft carriers. And I basically fell in love. I mean, I looked at that documentary and I said,

you know, that is cool. That's what I want to do. I'm going to do that. As I started to look at, well, how do you become a naval aviator? How do you fly jets onto backs of aircraft carriers in combat? Well, those were all men. And there was actually a federal law prohibiting women called the Combat Exclusion Law.

We're talking the 80s here. Back then, women weren't allowed to become fighter pilots. But even at the age of 12, Amy was no pushover. She decided that if the law wasn't right, she was going to try and change it. I remember going to my mom and saying, hey, mom, let's just change the law. I mean, how hard can it be, right? I can do this. I'm beating all the boys in basketball and it be, right? I can do this. I'm beating all the boys

in basketball and soccer and everything else. I can do this. And she was the one who taught me, well, Amy, you have to advocate for change. You have to write your member of Congress. Well, what's Congress? And that's how I had to learn about government. So I wrote my member of Congress. He was a pretty conservative guy by the name of Jim Bunning. And he wrote me back a fairly condescending letter, which basically said, you're a girl, go do something else. Now, that was an awful letter to send to anyone, let alone a child. But Amy didn't let it stop her. And then I wrote my senators. Of course, Mitch McConnell never wrote me back. But I didn't give

up. I wrote every member of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. And by that point, I didn't give up. I wrote every member of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. And by that point, I was 12 or 13 years old. And I got several letters back. Many of them were just like Jim Bunnings that said, you know, go do something else. Women shouldn't be doing these things in our military. Fortunately, not all of the letters were so discouraging. That was my first understanding of the difference between Democrats and Republicans at that time, because all of the Republicans said, no, go do something else. And the Democrats that wrote me back never said to me, you're a woman, you deserve that place in the cockpit.

They never said that. What they said was, you ought to be able to compete. And if you're good enough, if you can qualify, if you can meet the standards, you should be able to do that job whether you're a man or a woman. And that made a huge impression on me at the age of 13. And it's maybe why I'm a Democrat today. Amy still wanted to be a fighter pilot, and she stayed committed to changing the combat exclusion law throughout her childhood. I was a one-issue voter before I was even a voter. And in 1993, the year Amy turned 18, she got some good news. I didn't have to fight it as an adult because we had a new administration, a new Congress.

They rescinded the law. They changed the policy and opened doors for women in the military that had never been opened before, combat ships, combat aircraft. And it literally changed my life because I went into the U.S. Naval Academy two months later, raised my right hand to swear and defend the Constitution of the United States, and all the doors were open to me. After I graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, I was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer because the Marines were the best, the toughest, and that's what I wanted. And you could also fly fighter jets in the Marine Corps. So to me, that was a win-win.

Because Amy didn't have 20-20 vision, she started as a backseater, which is a weapons system officer. She did combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9-11, and then got vision correction surgery and eventually got her dream job. And then I went back to that same squadron as a fighter pilot, deployed again to Japan and the Far East, and then again to Afghanistan in 2010. During her career, Amy was on 85 combat missions. And after spending 12 years doing the most dangerous job imaginable, Amy found her next battlefield. She got into politics.

I went to Capitol Hill. I was a congressional fellow. I had just gotten back from Afghanistan and I worked for a member of Congress for a year and then went into the Pentagon for a two-year tour as the Marine Corps' liaison to all other federal government agencies. After a few years in D.C., Amy began teaching at the Naval Academy. It was this experience that ultimately inspired her to run for office. One of the courses I'm teaching them is basic U.S. government, and what I found was that my students had lost faith in their political leadership, ideas like character, integrity, honor. These things my students didn't see in the political leadership.

And the 2016 elections were what fundamentally changed me as a Marine Corps officer, but also as an American. And I realized that, you know, we have an entire generation now that's losing faith in their political leadership, and this isn't, you know, who we are. I took a step back after the results of those elections in 2016 and said, oh my gosh, you know, this comes down to leadership. And that's something that the Naval Academy taught me. It's something the Marine Corps taught me. And we need better leaders in this country and we need them now. And, you know, I'm not perfect and I don't know everything, but I know leadership. And that's when I decided, you know,

we need to step up. I'm a Marine. I'm somebody that runs toward the fight, not away from it. And the fight right now is for our country. And the fight right now is to win back this Congress. Amy started running towards the fight by announcing her campaign with a video that tells her story. The video went viral, getting a million views and helping her raise $300,000 in just two days. When I was 12 years old, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to fly fighter jets and land on aircraft carriers, because that's the toughest flying you can do.

Now I'm running for Congress against any bar in my home state of Kentucky. And we didn't know that it was going to, but I think it tapped into what a lot of America is feeling. You know, we love our country. Many of us fought for our country, and we're proud of that. I always say I don't stand for liberal values or conservative values. My husband's a Republican. I'm a Democrat. You know, that's America.

I stand for American values. And that, you know, manifests itself in let's having leaders that, you know, care about not kicking people off of health care. I mean, it is as basic as that. So I think that's what that video really just sort of fired people up. But Amy's campaign has also fired up the opposition and they've been going negative. I mean, people warn me about the problems with politics in America today. And I knew it. I watched it. Being the person that's in it with, you know, 20 attack ads and $3 million been spent to attack me, just getting my haircut this morning and I look up at the TV, you know, and I look up and the moment, you know, there's, there's another attack ad. Amy's campaign hasn't spent a cent on attack ads. I'm going to keep my message strong. I, I've decided from the very beginning, you know, that I wanted to run a, a substantive campaign. Um, and I want to be positive because that's what our country needs right now. People are tired of attack ads. They're tired of the lies.

Many people don't trust government. That's why they check out and why they don't vote. They don't know what to believe. And I'm somebody that, you know, the basic core of good leadership, what I learned in the United States military is the basic core is trust. It's trust. It's telling the truth. It's honesty. And so we've got to get back to that. And that's why I don't want to, you know, attack back in the same manner. Instead of slinging mud, Amy chose to stay focused on the issues. women to graduate from the University of Kentucky Medical School. I have had my entire adult life with mom talking to me about health care in America, mental health care in America. And so I have some idea of that. My mother's also a breast cancer survivor. My father dealt with cancer for 14 years as well. So, I mean, it's very, very personal to me. I understand at a very basic level that if

you don't have your health, you don't have anything. And so it's also personal, and this is the reason why it's the number one issue, to the voters here in the 6th District. I mean, people are seeing their premiums rise. They're seeing the incumbent in the seat and an administration that wants votes continually to try to take health care away from people. So, you know, that's why it's the number one issue in my race. One health care topic that really bugs Amy is the idea that a male-dominated Congress is making health care decisions about female reproductive health. Part of why she's running is to advocate for her constituents, but she's also running because she's a woman. You can't change things unless you're in the room. You have to be there. We have to have a voice. So I think women are starting to see that. The studies show that women win at the same rate as

men. But the reason we have such a lower percentage of women in places like Congress is that we don't run, okay, at the same rate. And so I think that is coming to light too, and a lot of women around the country and certainly here in Kentucky. I mean, we are seeing record number of women in Kentucky running at the state level. That's how you change that. You got to run. Amy's gotten the attention of a lot of voters, but she's also earned the support of one of the Democratic Party's biggest names. I was fortunate enough to have former Vice President Biden come to help me with my campaign, which was amazing and awesome. And we went out to Bath County, a more rural county here in the district. We had an amazing rally. And, you know, I'm really proud of that. We fired a lot of people up.

This is America. So get up. Take it back. It's time. I think that the lesson that we have to learn as Democrats from 2016 is we have to compete everywhere. You can't just focus on the cities. and that's what I'm trying to do. I want to go out. I want to make sure that everybody in this district knows that I want to represent everybody,

that there isn't a county that I'm not going to compete in, that I want to be the representative for all 19 counties, no matter how rural you are. That was Amy McGrath, the Democratic nominee for Kentucky's sixth congressional district. She's an amazing candidate, and the full version of that campaign video is pretty awesome. Check out votesaveamerica.com, where you can learn about other exciting candidates and competitive races near you, and you can even see a sample ballot so that you're ready to vote on election day. That's our show. Dan, it's yet another successful Flintstones Jetsons episode of Pod Save America

with the two of us. We've never met, but... That's right. It's actually, we alternate holograms at the HBO shows. Bye, everyone. Talk to everyone next week