Pod Save America - “Exquisite presidential leadership.”

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

Speaker of the House/Dan’s Favorite Politician Paul Ryan announces his retirement, Donald Trump has a televised meltdown over Mueller, and the Republican media goes all in on a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Then Stoneman Douglas students Delaney Tarr and Diego Pfeiffer talk to Dan and Tommy about the next steps in their efforts to prevent gun violence. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, our interview in Miami with Stoneman Douglas students Delaney Tarr and Diego Pfeiffer. Also out today, a new Pod Save the World. Big get for Tommy. He sat down with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to talk about the alarming rise of fascism around the world and even in our own White House. Then they talked about how Trump should respond to Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria and her trip to North Korea in 2000 to meet with Kim Jong Il. You know, very light banter between the two of them.

Dan, you have a few announcements yourself. I do. I have some announcements. In May, I will be going on what I'm referring to as pod-trinity leave. This is not new news to you and to a lot of people out there, but we have not ever talked about it on the pod. But Holly and I are expecting a baby girl in May. So when the baby comes, we're going to take – I'll take a few weeks off the pod,

and I will be sitting out the Radio City Music Hall Boston tour you guys are doing. I will be back in June. And we are, of course, incredibly excited to be bringing the first baby of the pod on board. We are very excited here. Obviously, we've known this for a while, but still very excited. That's great, man. Well, we will miss you during your pod tourney leave. But we know that you will hurry back since you record the pod from your apartment. That's exactly right.

Okay, second announcement. Much less important, but quasi-related, is we are now just about two months out from the release of my book. Yes, we still can. I know I've barely mentioned it on this pod, so you guys have no idea what I'm talking about. But I've been getting a bunch of questions from folks about all the various ways in which you can buy it. If you go to the website, yeswestillcanbook.com, there will be links to buy it in all the various ways. Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Amazon, IndieBound, which is a site that lets you buy books from your local independent bookstore. It is also now available for pre-order on Audible. So if you go to the website, you can

find the various ways to buy the book. If you buy the book and you feel so inclined, tweet at me your proof of purchase because every one of those provides me with one additional minute of good night's sleep every night. So thank you guys so much and check out the website. All right, Dan, this is a huge day for you on the pod, not just because you announced that you and Holly are going to become parents for the first time, not just because you announced your upcoming book, but because yesterday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced that he will not seek re-election in November. The obituaries have all been written.

The takes have all been taken. But friends of the pod all over the world have been waiting patiently to hear from their favorite Paul Ryan hater. Dan, give us your reaction. Well, many people have been calling for a rant, but I'm not going to rant today. Don't give in to the rant. Yes, don't act like you,

like when you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before. Look, it is, Paul Ryan is as responsible for Donald Trump being president as any person walking the planet today, with the possible exceptions of Vladimir Putin and Jim Comey. And because it's important to remember that, you know, there are all these, there have been all these takes which say, you know, Paul

Ryan's Republican Party is gone. It's been replaced by Donald Trump's. That's not what happened. What happened was people like Paul Ryan were willing to cater to and coddle the racist sentiment within the Republican Party in order to try to win votes. And they did that for so long that before they knew it, Donald Trump became president. And when Donald Trump was running around spouting racist birther conspiracies against Barack Obama, did Paul Ryan stand up and tell him to stop? Nope. controversies against Barack Obama. Did Paul Ryan stand up and tell him to stop? Nope. Paul Ryan quietly averted his sad eyes and hoped for votes that would come from that. And so Paul Ryan leaving is great. It makes me happy. I'm glad he's leaving with his tail between his legs and being exposed by most people as the absolute fraud that he is. But he is not a victim of what happened to the Republican Party.

He is the cause of what happened to the Republican Party. And that should not be forgotten as we spend the next many months bidding him a long, joyful farewell. And I would also note many people have said, boy, this is going to be so boring. We're going to miss these Paul Ryan rants. As far as we know, Paul Ryan is going to be here until January, and he is going to continue to protect, kiss up to protect Trump, to obstruct justice, to enable corruption. He's got all the things that piss you off about Paul Ryan over the last year and a half are still going to be there for another nine months.

So it's not over yet yeah i am i found myself too angry about uh trump and muller and rosenstein and like the republican party you know just protecting and protecting him and obstructing justice yesterday to really have a lot of feelings about the Paul Ryan thing. Like, it's great that he's gone. It's great that he's leaving. But like, I don't know. He's just, he's just, it's, I guess I would have been more upset if a lot of the takes yesterday, a lot of the pieces yesterday were saying, you know, oh, poor Paul Ryan, and he was a victim, stuff like that. I actually think people, people handled this pretty well. The media handled this pretty well yesterday. Like, Paul Ryan, history will not be kind to Paul Ryan. And from everything that I read yesterday,

from maybe like 90% of the things I read yesterday, history's already not being very kind to Paul Ryan. And so, I think that everyone, most people in the media have this exactly right, what his role has been in this entire Trump presidency, which is to enable the man at every step. Because, not because, like I have come to believe, I don't think that it's because Paul Ryan is some coward. It's because Paul Ryan, since he entered public life, cares about one thing above everything else. He wants to empty the federal treasury and give it to rich people

so that, and then as a result, make sure that healthcare and education programs are cut for everyone else. I mean, he's told us this a million times. He talked about how in college, when they were around the keg, they were dreaming of cutting Medicare. He famously divided the country into makers and takers, people who make money, make a living, and people who just take from the government,

something that he later apologized for, but only because he felt like he had to. He really believes in the makers takers thing. And he was willing to enable Donald Trump and protect Donald Trump so that he could achieve his goal of drastically cutting the size of government, cutting Medicare, which he didn't end up doing, cutting Medicaid, but also passing a huge tax cut for rich people. This is what gets him up in the morning. This is what he wanted to do. And he decided early on that he would tolerate the racism. He would tolerate the corruption. He would tolerate the attacks on the rule of law. He would tolerate this awful president and the sexual harassment

and the assault and all this bullshit because he thought if he pissed trump off maybe he wouldn't get this tax cut passed if he pissed trump off that maybe it would be harder for him to achieve his legislative goals and his legislative goals which are what he believes is most important for the country he genuinely believes that giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and cutting medicare Social Security and healthcare is the best thing for the country. That's what Paul Ryan believes. And so he was like, I will withstand anything to get this done.

And that is the story of Paul Ryan's speakership and Paul Ryan's time in public life. Here's what I'd say to that. That is not a particularly generous take on Paul Ryan, but I think it's an particularly generous take on Paul Ryan, but I think it's an overly generous take on Paul Ryan. Because here would be the one place where I differ with you, which is, Paul Ryan believes, Paul Ryan theoretically has beliefs, theoretically. But those beliefs are in service of the party, not the country. And when Barack Obama was president,

Paul Ryan was standing on the wall screaming about a potential Greek-like debt crisis that would crush generations. And then he gets in power and Republicans control all the levers of government for the first time. And the first thing he does is pass a tax cut that would add a trillion dollars to the deficit.

And so there was a way in which paul ryan if he was sincere about his ann randy and jack kempion keg party beliefs where he could have oh but he's not worked to pat he's not serious about the deficit part no that's oh that was all a lie um this whole idea that he's seriously worried about debts and deficit is a complete fucking lie. What he used that, again, as an excuse to cut government down to its bare bones. I mean, the famous quote from Grover Norquist, like, we need to shrink government down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. Like, that's what Paul Ryan believes in.

He doesn't give a fuck about deficits and debt and all that kind of shit. He just put that out there during the Obama presidency because what he really wants is to just give huge tax cuts to rich people, to cut government down to its bare bones, and just have it get out of the way. He doesn't believe that government

should be helping everyone. He believes that people should be helping themselves. He is a survival of the fittest Darwinian believer to his core. That's what he believes. I think that's right. But the other point I would make is there was a way to be for starving government to bathtub drowning size and still stand up for the rule of law and fight back against corruption or even express some measure of concern about Trump's behavior. Paul Ryan's natural instinct is he's basically RNC chairman, not Speaker of the House. And so he could very easily have said more strongly, I don't think he should fire Bob Mueller, but he's incapable of saying that because that feels disloyal to the party. And so what I, like over the last like 15 or so years, and maybe before, but as long as I've been paying super close attention to politics and butting heads

with Republicans, is what defines the Republican Party is loyalty to party over country. And Paul Ryan is the absolute embodiment of that. He was born in a college Republican's test tube hatched by Karl Rove and has been put in place to try to push the Republican Party forward. And he decided to be loyal to Trump instead of loyal to the country. And that will be his legacy. Yeah. I found something interesting that Tim Alberta wrote in Politico. He told the story about how on election night in 2016, Ryan was expecting a Trump defeat, and he planned to deliver a speech that night if Trump lost, where he denounced Trump's racially

polarizing agenda as a political dead end and a betrayal of conservatism's ideals. And instead, when Trump won, Ryan just folded the speech back into his jacket pocket. And that was that. And he just made it. He did. He made a decision there that when Trump won, the only way... See, if Trump had lost and he was facing a president hillary clinton ryan would have been able to say yeah we don't want trump's racism that was just a stain on our party and we're past that now we need to get back to cutting taxes for rich people and cutting medicare and social security we need to get back to that but with trump winning the presidency instead he said shit if i now i actually have a chance to get these things done.

And my only chance to get them done is to make sure I kiss this guy's ass every single day and protect him at all costs. And make sure that I don't criticize him because then people in my own caucus in the House will kick me out of the speakership. And so, fuck it. I don't care about any of this shit. I need to get my legislative agenda passed. He's like an ideological zealot. I mean, it's just the ideology is the tiniest government possible. People have asked why I hate Paul Ryan more than I hate Mitch McConnell. And you could make a real argument for him. Mitch McConnell is bad.

He is incredibly effective at times. I mean, there would probably be no more consequential thing that a Senate leader has done other than block Merrick Garland's Supreme Court seat and steal a Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama and give it to a Supreme Court appointment, not a seat, steal a Supreme Court appointment from Barack Obama and give it to Donald Trump. That was amazingly consequential. But what bothers me so much about Ryan is Ryan thinks he's the good guy in what's happening here. He does. McConnell knows he's McConnell has one ideology and that is accumulation of

power at any and all costs. And he is, he is comfortable with that. Most of his staffers are comfortable with that. They have decided that they are the night King in this play. Paul Ryan thinks he's a good guy. And he has made so many moral compromises in order to justify his ideological means that he has completely lost track of who he is or why he's doing what he's doing.

And he knows Donald Trump is an absolute clown who should not be president of the United States. He is just too afraid to say that. And that is the mark of ultimate cowardice in my view. Exquisite presidential leadership. That's how he described Donald Trump. Never forget that quote. Exquisite presidential leadership. Look at the Trump presidency this week. Look at the headlines and think to yourself how someone can bring themselves to call this exquisite presidential leadership.

That's Paul Ryan's legacy right there. Why did he do this? Why did he do it now, Dan? Do you have any thoughts on that? I think he, I mean, this has been a, everyone has known this is coming. Matt Fuller of the Huffington Post wrote a story think this was a little just of giving some voice to what people already knew was true. And I think it was getting incredibly awkward within the Republican caucus because Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy, the two people who want this job, were already starting to organize their campaigns behind his back. And this is essentially what Senator Harry Reid did on the Democratic side,

which was he announced he was retiring but stayed on as leader until he retired. And that worked very well for the Democrats because he was a very good leader. And I think Paul Ryan, who looks in the mirror and sees a good leader when he should be seeing an incompetent fuckstick. Try to follow that model. It is much less likely to work in the Republican caucus because there was a clear – everyone had agreed essentially on who Harry Reid's replacement was going to be, Chuck Schumer, and there was no such agreement in the Republican party over who's going to replace Ryan. the Republican party over who's going to replace Ryan. Yeah, apparently Ryan has sort of stepped into this this morning and said that he doesn't expect that Scalise will run against McCarthy for leader, which is sort of a signal to Scalise that maybe he shouldn't, which I thought was interesting. So you don't think that Ryan's just doing this to spend more time with his kids?

Look, I'm not going to quit. I'm sure he wants to spend more time with his kids. Oh, I'm sure that's true. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not trying to say that. Who sure he wants to spend more time with his kids. Oh, I'm sure that's true. I am not... Yeah, I'm not trying to say that. Who doesn't want to spend more time with their kids when they're flying back and forth from D.C.? I expect to spend a lot of time with my kid, right. Yeah.

But I also think if Donald Trump wasn't president, if he was Speaker of the House with a president who was more ideologically in tune with Paul Ryan without any of the craziness of Donald Trump, and he had a chance to get entitlement reform done, and it didn't look like Republicans were going to lose the House, maybe he would have stuck around a couple more years and then went home to spend more time with his kids. Oh, completely. This is about the fact that Republicans are,

he thinks that there's a very, very good chance Republicans are gonna lose the House. And he does not wanna be minority leader with Trump as president, in part because as speaker, he can somehow convince himself that he's able to sleep at night by saying he's trying to pass

these conservative principles. The job of the minority leader, while Trump is president, if the Republicans are in the minority, will be to obstruct justice every single day. It will be to block investigations. It will be to cover up for him. And I presume he doesn't want that job.

Although he'd probably be pretty good at it because it's not that different than what he's doing right now. No, but it's back to what I said at the beginning. You're right. He doesn't want that job because there is no chance in that job of actually getting his agenda passed um i love that he told politico he hinted he quote he hinted at continuing his work on curing poverty how's that going has that been going well for you curing poverty cool that's some crazy ideas

on curing poverty from paul ryan i didn't know i didn't know that uh giving a trillion dollars to the largest corporations in the united states was going to cure poverty but who knows uh he also ruled out he's a real out of the box thinker out of the box thinker yeah that that is true uh he ruled out running for office again. And yeah, no, like you said, look, 46 Republican House members have announced they're not running again. That is a huge number of retirements. Someone asked the chair of the Republican Congressional Committee if there'd be more retirements, and he said, no, no, no, no more than 10. No more than 10 additional retirements.

And if there were 10 additional retirements, that would be 20% of all House Republicans retiring. So they don't feel too good about 2018, I don't think. Yeah, I mean, I guess that tax cut was a huge political winner. You see Dennis Ross, who's a member of Congress from a lean Republican district in Florida, resigned yesterday. And he must have really been kind of pissed he missed his day in the sun because he was all teed up to go to announce his resignation. And then Paul Ryan decides to upend the whole news cycle on him. Yeah, not great for him.

And he's from a seat in Florida that's fairly conservative. But, you know, in a big wave election uh we would have a chance at his seat and then ryan's seat um was moved from you know safe or likely republican to toss up or lean republican and all the different predictions so um you know good news for our friend iron stash randy bryce um of course he does have a primary challenger, Kathy Myers. Yeah, exactly. But good news for any Democrat trying to run for Paul Ryan's seat. And yeah, so we'll see. Do you see the rumor that Reince Priebus may enter that primary? Because the problem is it's Paul Nealon, a man who is too much of a white supremacist that breitbart had to get rid of him is the current republican candidate in that seat do you know that news and that rumor was uh that was broken here on the pod save america live stream yesterday by paul ryan's daughter erin ryan

oh well i assume she would know i do think it was completely messed up that paul ryan did that whole announcement and never ever thanked aaron and i recognize it's i recognize it's complicated because of our relationship with us but it just seemed weird to spill that family business out in the street like that okay we're gonna move on from paul ryan because uh we could be talking about that all day if we wanted. But there is a looming constitutional crisis in our country. Here's how it all started. On Monday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York executed search warrants at the office and hotel room of Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen,

where they seized business records, emails, and documents related to several topics, payments to Stormy Daniels and another woman Trump had an affair with, Karen McDougal, communications around the Access Hollywood tape, evidence that they tried to suppress damaging information about Trump during the 2016 election, and so much more. The reports are that the United States Attorney's Office is pursuing charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations against Cohen. That means the bank fraud violation would be if Cohen took out a loan from a bank in order to pay Stormy Daniels, but lied to the bank about what the loan was for, that would be bank fraud. Trump's Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, signed

off on the raid. In order to get a search warrant, though, prosecutors had to convince a federal judge. So you had a judge that signed off on the search warrant. You had a Trump's deputy attorney general that he appointed, Rod Rosenstein, and a whole bunch of other people approved this. And in order to do this this they needed to have overwhelming evidence um that there was criminal conduct by michael cohen here um donald trump reacted to the news like any innocent man would by having a complete meltdown on national television during a national security meeting about a potential strike on syria he called the criminal investigation into r Russian election interference

an attack on our country. When asked if he plans on firing special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump said, we'll see what happens. Many people have said you should fire him. Trump also attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. It was the first time he mentioned Mueller's name, and ever since Monday night, he's been attacking Mueller and Rosenstein on Twitter.

Multiple reports say that Trump is considering firing one or both men in order to stop the criminal investigation into his own conduct. Dan, what was your reaction to watching that meeting on television? We joke a lot. And we joke in part to avoid crying. We joke a lot, and we very complicated part of the world that involves the nexus of the Syrian government, ISIS, Iran, and Russia. And on that meeting, for the entire world to see, being watched by the people who are by Syria, Russia, Iran, and everyone else in the world, had an absolute temper temper tantrum where he accused the FBI of breaking into his attorney's office, said it was an attack on this country.

Basically, he made Sean Hannity look like Edward R. Murrow. I mean, it was a temper tantrum while discussing a man who can, with one phone call, order a military strike was having an absolute temper tantrum on national TV. And that was scary. And we have become numb as a country to – like we know it's bad, but I don't think we know anymore how bad it is. And this was an incredibly, this is an incredibly scary moment for this country because we have someone who is dangerously unfit to be president having some sort of breakdown before our eyes while making some of the most consequential decisions the president makes. It's fucking scary. Yeah, I was scared too. It was, I think we've become numb, especially to his Twitter feed. And he tweets all these crazy things. And much of what he said in that meeting, you've seen on Twitter before, but we've never, it's as if he said all the worst tweets out loud, because he's never said, talked about Mueller like that publicly, like hearing him say it, watching how angry he was, like you said, in a meeting with the military was fucking, it was frightening.

And I don't know, I mean, we'll talk about what we can all do about it, but it's getting pretty bad. Now, the question is, why did Trump pick this moment to really lose it? Why did Cohen cross the line? this moment to really lose it? Why did Cohen cross the line? And Adam Davidson, who writes for The New Yorker and has been a great reporter on all this, he has a theory. He said on Twitter, and he also wrote a piece about this, Michael Cohen is the most important non-Trump in the Trump business world. So besides Ivanka or Don Jr. He made all the international business deals.

And we know that the Trump organization did business with corrupt politicians, people who violated sanctions, money launderers, all the worst people. We know this for a fact. The only question is how much the Trump organization knew about their partner's activity cohen knows he's the one who knows this he worked on also he also worked on the trump russia deals the potential trump tower and moscow deal um he also never acted as a regular attorney for trump he was always like the fixer and the deal maker so his move and david singh suggests his move to the new private firm seemed solely designed to provide attorney-client privilege, to basically hide the documents and hide the truth about all the deals that were made by the Trump organization,

either during the campaign or before the campaign, with some very shady bad people all over the world. And a long time ago now, Trump said that if Mueller started searching and investigating his business deals, that would be a quote red line for him. And it seems like every time Mueller goes near his business deals, that that's when Trump really loses it. And that suggests that the reason he loses it is because Trump knows he has done something very wrong in his business. And I go back to, you know, Adam Schiff has said this many times when we've interviewed Schiff, that at the heart of the scandal could very well be money laundering, and some very shady business deals

on behalf of that Donald Trump and his organization were involved in. So it seems like we're getting close to something big. Yeah, I think that's 100% right. And because I think in Trump's mind, he believes he did not collude with Russia. Right. And that could that is also could very possibly be true. It's very possible that Roger Stone colluded with an array of Russian intelligence actors and people acting on behalf of Russian intelligence. That's very possible. But it's also potentially even likely that Trump was maybe just collusion adjacent, but did not actually collude. So there are parts of the investigation that are, those parts are less concerning to him. What he knows is that he has a long history of shady shit. I think it's the business stuff.

It's why we haven't seen his tax returns. Right. And Michael Cohen is also, whether it's Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal or this new story from Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker Today about a doorman being paid by American Media Incorporated. Which runs the National Enquirer. Exactly, yes.

And they, that Michael Cohen knows where all the bodies are buried. And there are a lot of bodies out there. And that scares the shit out of him. Yeah, I mean, and we should say, too, there are now two criminal investigations going on. There's one related to Russia, and there is also one related now to these payments to Stormy Daniels, which, you know, I don't know if people understand this, but you can't. These could be in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign, which is a campaign finance violation.

You cannot be paying people off to help your campaign, which paying off Stormy Daniels ostensibly would have helped the Trump campaign because it would have buried that information, kept it quiet without reporting it as a reporting it as a campaign finance expenditure. And so there are now two criminal investigations going on. And it seems like the second one and the raid on Cohen's office came from, it was referred by Mueller and Rosenstein to the Southern District of New York. So they didn't do it themselves. So now there's two parallel investigations going on about Donald Trump. Great stuff.

So the question now is, how real do we think this threat to fire Mueller, Rosenstein, Sessions, some combination of them, all of them. How real do we think this is? I think it's very real. I think Trump definitely wants to do it. And there's an entire apparatus of propagandists, conservative activists, white nationalists who are encouraging him to do so and trying to create a context where that you can sell that proposition to Republican voters, Republican members of Congress. Now, immediately afterwards, sort of in the immediate aftermath of this temper tantrum in this news, some Republicans came out and encouraged Trump not to fire Mueller. I think Orrin Hatch sent a tweet out. There were, you know, McConnell said something, I think Orrin Hatch sent a tweet out.

There were, you know, McConnell said something. Paul Ryan most notably did not. And Lindsey Graham said stuff. And so you thought, well, maybe enough Republicans will be – like you can understand why Republicans may be scared. I don't agree with it. You can understand why they might be scared to – they might prefer not to say it publicly and rather just say it privately to Trump. to, they might prefer not to say it publicly and rather just say it privately to Trump. But then the entire Republican leadership went to dinner at the White House last night. They took an amazing photo, all standing together doing the thumbs up.

When you arrive at the White House at dinner with Trump, you have to show your license, hand over your phone, and immediately check your dignity at the door. And so they did the thumbs up. But then John Cornyn told reporters that they never discussed the Russia investigation. We are staring down the barrel of a constitutional crisis. The Republican leadership went to the White House and did not even find a way to work it into the conversation, which tells me they're too afraid of Trump to take real action in the near term to prevent this from happening, which makes it all the more likely that Trump will do it. If they had gone there and said, don't do this, that would have sent a message that there would have been consequences for doing it.

He now must think there are no consequences for doing this. Yeah, it's pretty amazing that Orrin Hatch, who's been one of the grossest Trump ass kissers in congress um actually tweeted this morning you know anyone who's advising the president publicly or privately to fire um muller or rosenstein is not acting in the best interest of this country he was able to he was able to tweet that but fucking paul ryan who just announced his retirement still couldn couldn't say anything. Mitch McConnell still hasn't promised to take up this bipartisan bill to protect Mueller that is now sponsored by Lindsey Graham, Tom Tillis, and then supported by people like Chuck Grassley, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, all these people, all these Republicans. So there is a bipartisan bill in the Senate now.

And Grassley says this bill will clear his panel in two weeks, clear his committee in two weeks, but McConnell still hasn't agreed to bring it to the floor. The fact that the leaders of the Republican Party still refuse to even protect the special counsel is fucking garbage. did you read the washington post story about fucking steve bannon's plan here which is to fire rosenstein fire ty cobb the president's lawyer and then have trump exert retroactive executive privilege to bury all the interviews that muller has done with white house aides i don't even know if there's such a thing as retroactive executive privilege, by the way. Like, what the fuck is he talking about? Yeah, I would think I want to butcher a description that someone once used of Newt Gingrich to describe Steve Bannon,

which is Steve Bannon is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like. And the idea is insane. It makes no sense. It is, I don't know why we still care what Steve Bannon says. I mean, like his one ability, in addition to getting fired from all his jobs, is to get the press to care about the things he says. And this is the ramblings of a man who was fired from his racist blog about what he thinks Trump should do. Now, I guess in defense of The Washington Post who wrote this story, Trump has been known to listen to the people of the caliber of the kind who get fired from the racist blogs. So maybe Trump will do this.

It's an insanely stupid plan, which also seems to be part of the criteria for Trump signing on a plan. So who knows? But I am not an attorney. Pretty sure retroactive executive privilege is not a thing. Well, also, at some point, if Trump fires Rosenstein, if he fires Mueller, if he tries to exert the imaginary retroactive executive privilege, this whole thing immediately immediately pretty immediately ends up at the supreme court and i do not know if i was donald trump or steve bannon or any of those

fucking lunatics if i would be betting that the supreme court of the united states would come down on my side on this one um because i realize they've got you know clarence thomas and gorsuch and those characters up there, but I do not know if I would bet that John Roberts would come down on the side of Trump being able to fire Republican Bob Mueller, Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump-appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, when they have five guilty pleas and 19 indictments in this investigation so far that have all been uh made possible by the work of like an entire you know law enforcement community and judges and signed off by multiple judges all over the country i mean it's so

ridiculous this can this whole conspiracy now that that this is some kind of attack on Trump when you have judges and law enforcement people all over the country, Republicans, Democrats, nonpartisan people, all signing off on this shit. I would just note across the board that, and we've said this before, but it's worth remembering, Bob Mueller is a Republican. He was appointed FBI director by George W. Bush. At the end of his term, which overlapped into Obama's presidency, because the FBI director has a 10-year term, the Senate unanimously, I believe, passed a bill to extend his term for an additional two years because they thought he was so good at his job and so full of integrity. And Rod Rosenstein was Trump's appointee, someone he chose to be the Deputy Attorney General of the United States of America. These are not deep state actors. These are not

Obama appointees burrowed into the bureaucracy. These are the people that, these are Republicans that Trump hired. So it's just – it is nuts. I would note to you I have some live breaking news here. Donald Trump has tweeted. Oh, no. That part is not breaking news. I have agreed with the historically cooperative, disciplined approach that we have engaged in with Robert Mueller.

Parentheses, unlike the Clintons, exclamation point. I have full confidence in Ty Cobb, my special counsel, and have been fully advised throughout each phase of this process. Interesting. That doesn't sound like a tweet that he wrote. No, it does not. It does not. The Clinton part seems like he might have, that might have been a presidential edit. Yeah, the Clinton part is weird.

So who knows? I mean, he's clearly getting all kinds of advice. Some people are telling him, don't do anything. You're going to screw yourself. Some people are egging him on. Let's talk about the people who are egging him on, which are basically, with the exception of, you know, a bunch of Republican senators, good for them.

Maybe there's a few House members still. And maybe a few White House staffers who are worried about this. But aside from that crew, it's every Washington Republican, Republican pundit, conservative right-wing media pundit on Fox that are out there right now. You have Devin Nunes and other Republicans threatening to impeach Rosenstein and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, who Trump also appointed. You have the fucking Republican National Committee has created a website called Lion Comey to attack the former FBI director in advance of the release of his new book. new book yet sean hannity last night putting up insane flow charts about the muller crime family the comey crime family the clinton crime family fucking a fox news guest former trump lawyer joe degenova says muller is surrounding himself with quote legal terrorists legal terrorists newt gingrich compared the raid of cohen's office which was conducted with search warrants approved by a federal judge,

to fucking Stalin's Gestapo. That was Newt Gingrich last night on Fox News. These people are sick. I mean, it is so fucking crazy that if you and I, in the Keep Me in 1600 Days, we had suggested one iota of these things happening people would have thought we had lost our mind because it

seems great like the republican party has become so much more insane than the most insane caricature democrats could have made of it and i mean the like you have the tannity stuff is amazing it is The Hannity stuff is amazing. It is like a Saturday Night Live skit about Hannity. He's got the Mueller crime family, the Clinton crime family, the Comey crime family. In the Mueller crime family, they put Whitey Bulger, the Boston gangster, Boston-based gangster, I think because Mueller at some point investigated him. It's just so fucking – it's so nuts. Mueller at some point investigated him. It's just so fucking – it's so nuts. And this is why Trump believes he probably can fire Mueller because he has a massive, well-funded, essentially state-run propaganda operation at his disposal.

And he has a Republican Party that believes what that massive, well-funded, state-run propaganda operation says and so he can create a context to at least keep a significant number of his base on board to be with him if he chooses to put america in the crosshairs of a constitutional crisis yeah like i don't want to hear about echo chambers and silos on both sides like fox news is a cancer if you work there you should be ashamed a fucking billionaire should buy it and shut the whole thing down. Like, the Republican Party

is now using a very powerful propaganda network to tell the world that American law enforcement is corrupt and that Donald Trump, who's the President

of the United States, is above the law. And that is very dangerous. I mean, it's like, it's funny to watch for us to watch these clips once in a while, but it is really dangerous. I mean, it's like, it's funny to watch for us to watch these clips once in a while, but it is really dangerous because if Trump gets away with this, he will be able to get away with anything. And future Trumps will believe that they can also get away with anything. And that's how you lose a democracy. This is the president of the United

States saying, I am above the law. And this is a whole propaganda network saying, yeah, he is above the law. And we're just going propaganda network saying, yeah, he is above the law. And we're just going to make up this conspiracy. And we're going to tell you that law enforcement in this country is corrupt. And we don't fucking care because we're going to protect this guy at all costs. It's really, really bad. It's really bad. Yeah, I wrote an entire chapter in my book on this

because Fox is one of the most dangerous forces facing American democracy. And you're right. If you work there, and there are people there who do journalism, and they go to work thinking they're doing journalism. Yeah, they should quit. It's time for them to leave. Look, I'm even sympathetic that it's hard to get jobs in media, and sometimes you've got to do what's best for your family.

But be aware of what you are a part of. They have journalists there. We take the interview that we did as an okay stop on one of our trips on the Florida tour where Ed Henry, one of the Fox political correspondents, went after Scott Pruitt and really sort of nailed him to the wall on all the various terrible things Scott Pruitt has done. to the wall on all the various terrible things Scott Pruitt has done. And then people look at that and they say, look, Fox does do journalism. They came after Trump's guy. But what you have to understand, and Gabe Sherman, who is a Vanity Fair reporter, who's an expert on this, said this in a Crooked Conversation with Tommy months ago, is that that's the point, is they do things like that every once in a while so they can say, look, we're not really propaganda.

We went after Scott Pruitt this one time. And you're like, well, Shep Smith or Chris Wallace worked there, and they sometimes go after Republicans. And it's like, yes, they are propaganda beards. They pay them a shitload of money to go there and stumble into journalism periodically so that when we yell about propaganda, they can point to that. And it creates a content, a permission structure for people to treat them like a media organization and not an arm of the Republican National Committee or the White House, which is what they are. And

they've been doing this for decades. And it is, it has been so damaging to the, to democracy or two-party system, civic life in america i mean i mean this sounds dramatic but they're they're really terrible yeah so the question now is what what what do we do about it um when or if or when trump fires rosenstein or muller or or takes his next step to obstruct justice um into the investigation about him obstructing justice. It's really just keeps going in circles here. I do think that people need to take to the streets, protest. MoveOn.org and a bunch of other organizations have been organizing this.

So if you go to MoveOn.org, you can sign up and find out, you know, where in your community you can go to protest if this happens. I think that people should tell their members of Congress, call their members of Congress and tell them to support the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, which is the bill that would protect Mueller by making sure that if he is fired, he can appeal to a judge. And the judge has 10 days then and can decide whether the firing was warranted or not. So tell your members of Congress to support that. Look, this thing even passes Congress, which is a tall order because I don't know how it gets through the House because they're all insane. which is a tall order because I don't know how it gets through the House because they're all insane. You could still see, obviously, Trump vetoes the bill, but we should still support it anyway.

We should still try to put everyone on record. I also think it's time for Democrats to say that if he does this, that if he fires these people, that he should be impeached. I would not dance around the impeachment question any longer if he fires Mueller or Rosenstein. I would not dance around the impeachment question any longer if he fires Mueller or Rosenstein. I saw in the Washington Post story, they said that, you know, Department of Justice officials might all resign en masse. Good. They should if it happens. And I almost think like if this happens, if he does fire them, I think it's probably time at that point for like President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton, President Carter to like speak out, say something. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think everyone needs to speak out. I think people need to march in the streets.

They need to call their members of Congress. They need to protest. of Congress. They need to protest. But then also channel that anger and channel that energy into winning every fucking seat in 2018. Because I'll tell you what, if they do this and they do not

pay a price at the ballot box, then all bets are off for the future. This is how the system as we know it collapses. Not to be dramatic about it, but because the thing we have to understand is, the President has huge powers, whether it's Republican or Democrat, what checks those powers are the laws passed by Congress and Congress's responsibility to provide checks and balances through passing of laws and oversight. This Republican Party has decided to not do that.

And so they have given Trump a very wide berth. And so we need to put pressure on this Republican Party to try to get them to do the bare minimum, which is all we can hope for from them. And then we need to wipe them out electorally. Yes, they have to learn that there is a huge political price to pay for this. And that means winning every seat. The ones we're supposed to win, the ones that lean Democratic, ones they never even thought we'd have a chance to win. It means taking the House. It means taking the Senate up and down the ballot. So march in the streets, call your member of Congress, then march down to your local campaign or party office, volunteer for a campaign, give $5 if you can afford that, knock on doors, everything we possibly can to win every single race.

And if there are races up and down the ballot that do not yet have candidates, filing deadlines have not passed in some states, run for those offices. Because we are facing an existential crisis for our country right now. an existential crisis. We are facing an existential crisis for our country right now. Yeah. It turns out the most important election of our lifetime may not be a presidential election, but the midterm elections of 2018. Because if he makes this move between now and November, it's going to be imperative that we win. Because like you said, if we don't, then this continues indefinitely And it gets even worse. Just think about everything that has happened in the year and a half, I guess now, or 14 months since Trump became president.

Whether it is the corruption, the racism, the attacks on the rule of law. And then you do all of that and Republicans stay stay in control of government what will that teach them and how much worse will the next two years of this country be for this country not great dan not just not to not to be yeah not to be overly dark here but i mean this is serious shit and we republicans are not going to solve our problem and frankly bob muller is not going to solve our problem the And frankly, Bob Mueller is not going to solve our problem. The only people who can save America right now are the people who are going to go elect Democrats up and down the ballot. That is the fact.

Yeah. These people who are running for office for the first time in their lives, average citizens, those are the people who are going to, those are the people who are going to save us now. So everyone should go get to work. When we come back,

we will talk to two of those people trying to save us now so um everyone should go get to work when we come back we will talk to two of those people trying to uh save our democracy stoneman douglas students delaney tar and diego pfeiffer seniors at marjorie stoneman douglas high school and part of the team that helped organize March for Our Lives, please welcome to the stage the truly heroic Delaney Tarr and Diego Pfeiffer. Guys, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for giving us reasons to be hopeful. Thank you for having us. It's been two weeks to the day since the march for our lives um that was such a powerful moment

both for activism in the in the movement to um improve our gun laws in this country what's been like since then and how are you guys holding up i mean we're very much in a transitional period right now which is kind of a scary thing to have to confront because after such a high adrenaline event like the march you don't really know where to go from there however we we do know what we're doing we're moving into that phase two but this is much more of an organizational period in which we need to gather everything together organize what we're doing in the future and just also be normal students because we did have to go back to school, because we had spring break, but then it was back into fourth quarter, and then we're doing class, we're doing homework, we're doing projects, and it's

like, oh yeah, I'm still high school, I forgot about that, like it's just crazy. Yes, it's absolutely definitely crazy, and you sure it's been two weeks weeks because every single week kind of feels like at least a month yeah but throughout everything we've been organizing we've been structuring we've got new projects in the works it's all phase two and it's all coming big and strong um delaney when you spoke at the, you said that you and your classmates were going to, quote, take action every day and in every way until they can't ignore us anymore. What does taking action like that mean,

and how do you keep people focused on the things you guys are marching for? I mean, right now we're focusing a lot on the mobilization of young voters. We've been pushing strongly... We've been pushing strongly the method of registering, educating and eventually voting because we have had unfortunately very low turnouts for young voters because a lot of the time they feel apathetic and they don't feel like they can make a change

I've felt that way at some times but ultimately we've realized how much power we do have. Beyond that, not everyone in our age group can vote, and that's okay because they can organize town halls. They can set up activism clubs. They can do so many things within their own communities that they don't necessarily, they didn't realize that they could do before, but now they're knowing their own power more,

which is really amazing. That's cool. Diego, Stoneman Douglas, as was mentioned, you guys have had to go back to school and be students again. And your school has new security rules, including the use of the famous clear backpacks. Could you tell us just about how you feel about the new rule, how they feel safer, how you feel about having a clear backpack? And what would you say to school officials about the steps they've put in place? Well, I feel absolutely great

that everybody hates the clear backpack. Honestly, it's been kind of fun watching all the different protests that have been happening at our school. Specifically for those, I see different memes that are heading to the backpacks. Tons of great poms. This is clearly a bad idea, guys. Mine is a display case for my tampons, so that's fun.

But everybody's on the same side because nobody feels safer because of it. A little factoid for you here. Clear backpacks were originally made so that officials would be able to see drugs into your bag. And if you look at all of the different events that have happened in our school, literally none of them have even included a backpack. You just feel like it's a gimmick. It's a cosmetic fix on a much deeper issue.

I mean, every single teacher that I've spoken to, they think it's hilarious, first of all, but it wouldn't have changed the fact that he was able to bring that AR-15 into the school campus because he had that AR-15. And he didn't put it in a backpack. He wasn't a student. There was a girl who brought a knife onto our campus.

And that is part of the reason why they implemented the clear backpacks. But she put it in her bra. So are we going to ban bras? Is that the next step? Okay, you guys mentioned phase two earlier. What is phase two? Phase two, it's definitely a lot more of that legislative push because while the march was big for mobilization

and gaining that awareness and basically just giving us that national platform where people care about gun control, we need to push specific legislation and policy so that people know what to vote on. And we need to hold our politicians accountable so that when the election time does come when midterms come up they know what the stances are of each elected official each incumbent every person that is running for the first time so that they can vote appropriately on the issue of gun control and of course many

other issues but gun control is kind of the one that we're focusing on here. I'd like to say that the march was essentially like a giant wake-up call, hopefully to America and most specifically to our generation, the next generation, the ones that are going to be holding power in a couple of years. You guys have been calling on politicians to hold town halls across the country. Your representative, Ted Deutch, held one in your district a couple days ago. What are you hoping to get out of these town halls,

and what do you want lawmakers to hear there? Well, first of all, it's literally their jobs to listen to us. It's literally their jobs to listen to us. So hopefully after these town halls and these specific places that we can go and actually talk to our politicians, hopefully A, politicians are going to be more mindful of what we have to say, and B, people are going to realize that we are literally employing these people to do these things for us. It's literally their job. And if they're not going to do them, we're just going to fire them. Speaking of people who should be fired, a lot of folks went to the march wearing price tags that said $1.05. You guys very cleverly

calculated what each of your lives were worth to Marco Rubio by dividing the money he received from the NRA for his campaigns by the number of students in Florida. What does Marco Rubio need to know from students who want him to do more on this issue? I mean, Diego

did say he works for us. He's a public servant and that's something that he needs to realize. It's something that a lot of politicians need to realize because while there may be a lot of money coming from the NRA, you are being employed by the people. We are the people that you need to be listening to. And that's just, that's a clear fact because his incumbency is going to be threatened if he doesn't take the action that he needs to take. The same with every other politician out there because it's not just Rubio who's receiving money from the

NRA. We are starting a price for our lives initiative in which there will be price tags made in every state so that students will know how much they're worth. How did you guys feel about the experience working with lawmakers in Florida and on the bill Rick Scott eventually signed? What do you think about the law that got put on the books? You know, did it get an A, B, C? How was that whole process for you guys?

I mean, there was a lot of compromise there and that was a very messy time because uh that day that we went up to tallahassee to speak directly to our legislators just before that they had shot down the the uh the attempt to even discuss a ban on assault weapons um which was it was it was disappointing of course but then he did pass that legislation and i believe that it was cameron and of course but then he did pass that legislation and i believe that it was cameron and i who agreed on like a solid like c c minus maybe because it is a step gentlemen but it's a small step yeah he's not marco's used to that yeah yeah he should know by now um but the the the arming of teachers, it's just ridiculous.

So many people agree with us on that. Even those who don't necessarily agree with all of our policies agree that arming teachers is ridiculous. And while it was nice to have that waiting period and to have the age risen, those are small steps. We're taking the small steps. We're not fighting them, but we're obviously going to keep fighting for more because we can't stop at that, and that's something that we've made very clear up until now.

We'll continue on. Jacob, do you have thoughts on this? Do you have any additional thoughts? Oh, sure. So, our politicians, they're essentially towing the line. They're seeing how little they can give us without looking horrible. Right. But now we're here to say that change is obviously coming because everybody here is in agreement.

As your movement goes forward, and this is a point Emma Gonzalez made at the march a few weeks ago, is that society focuses oftentimes on shootings like what happened in your high school or what happened in Vegas, but there is a daily monotony of gun violence deaths across this country in whether it's suicides or police shootings or domestic violence assaults or accidental gun deaths. So there are a lot of stories out there that are different than yours. How do you, how in your movement do you want to incorporate all the various parts of the larger tragedy of gun violence in America?

Our movement has definitely, we've been focused a lot on inclusivity because we know that we are in a place of privilege where we're being given a platform that other people, people in Chicago and inner cities don't have. Which is why we tried to bring as many people onto that stage that day as possible that had different stories than ours because we

had to experience this one day but they are experiencing it every day. And that's something've we've had to take into consideration but it's also it's fueled us to become even more specific in our policy to know what we want to do about those domestic violence red flags about um mental health uh care in in collaboration with uh gun control it's a lot of interesting things to consider and it's a lot of important things to consider, and we've been factoring it into every single policy push that we've been focusing on. With our giant spotlight that we've gained

because of the shooting A, but then because of the freaking march that we got so many people to come out to, it's been really, really easy to turn that spotlight onto the things that people don't want to see. All of this gun violence that are in inner cities, all of these horrible, horrible things that are happening. And with our movement, what we really, really want to do is pass that mic. Because we are not the only survivors of gun violence here.

of gun violence here. We were in D.C. for the march, and I was walking around, and I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that this whole thing wouldn't have existed a month earlier, that high school students put together this extraordinary, massive, meaningful march and movement for change. And I was just, I was trying to imagine

what it was like for you guys that day seeing this happening across the country, seeing people that were not there with you that day with you in solidarity. What was that like? What was that day like? All right. So right before the march, they didn't actually give us like organizer passes for some reason. We got guest ones, but we were able to talk ourselves anywhere we wanted to. So right before the march, I just kind of flashed my guest pass with a friend of mine and we got onto the stage like an hour beforehand.

I got a nice video. I said, everybody make some noise. And the best part about it was that you looked out, and you could not see the end. There were so many. It was just a wave of signs. It was just so beautiful. Like, that's the only word that I can really use to describe it because there are times after experiencing a tragedy like that and to have to deal with that trauma that you, you do feel alone. Even if you aren't and you have a lot of support, you do,

there are times when you feel just so alone because not, it just happens. That's part of dealing with trauma. But when you're with all of these people that are supporting you, even if they didn't necessarily have that experience, they are your peers and they are your people. And they're standing with you. And that's just the most empowering possible thing. I mean, I had so much adrenaline that day from speaking. I ran off the stage after I gave my speech

and I almost knocked over Jennifer Hudson. Didn't even know. I literally was running and like screaming because I was just so excited because I couldn't see the end. Like Diego said, it was just forever. It looked like it went on forever and I just kind of blacked out there.

In the past couple weeks, a Fox television host named Laura Voldemort bullied one of your classmates on Twitter for not getting into a college. Since then, a number of advertisers have pulled Lord Voldemort's ads. In part because you guys laid the smack down on social media. In part because you guys laid the smack down on social media. What do the rest of us need to know about how you guys got so good at pushing back on people like Laura Ingram or the NRA?

What can we learn from you guys about how to deal with trolls and bullies and people who are acting in bad faith? and bullies and people who are acting in bad faith? Well, we have always been kind of raised on social media, and that is something that's played into this. I mean, I memed on Twitter a lot, but also, not to name names, but there's a certain administration that's kind of mobilized people

to become more active on social media. I'm not naming names, but there's a particular person to become more active on social media. I'm not naming names, but there's a particular person that was very active on social media, and I think that showed a lot of us how to strike back against that because you're seeing all of these arguments from public figures on social media,

and you're like, oh, so that's how that's done, but we just did it better because we're better at social media. Like, no offense, but we are. But we just did it better because we're better at social media. Like, no offense, but we are. The best advice that I could give is really to work together with your peers. Because David essentially went to us and said, hey, guys, this isn't good.

What can we do? And we eventually came up with the idea, wait, maybe not attack her. Because as Martin Luther King says, you should fight forces of evil not those doing it so attack the advertisers you know we we've had a chance to talk to you guys we've had david and others on the podcast these guys were at the march in dc as the march in san San Francisco and we were sitting backstage after you guys came in our dressing room John Lovett said this might be the best high school in the history of America because

how can there be so many incredible people to come out of one high school and so before we let you go we just want to say thank you. Because it has been, there will be a day, and it may not be tomorrow, but there will be a day when the gun laws in this country fundamentally change.

And it will be because of what you and so many others have done. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks again to Delaney Tarr and Diego Pfeiffer for joining us in Miami. And, oh, again, we are now shifting Monday, Pod Save America

to first thing Tuesday morning. So we will record Monday evening, and it'll be in your phones at, you know, 6. when you wake up on Tuesday. So count on that, and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.