Pod Save America - “First Rule Package of Fight Club.”

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Kevin McCarthy gives away the House to become speaker. Joe Biden takes his first presidential trip to the US-Mexico border. And the first Gen Z member of Congress Maxwell Alejandro Frost stops by the pod. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm still Tommy Vitor, although I'm just about to turn into an Eldon Ring. We just have to listen to 10 minutes of Lovett and Elijah and Milo talk about video games. I'm saying I use the triangle to go to the pouch where I keep my lantern, my horse, my horse food, and my health. On today's show, Kevin McCarthy gives away the House to become Speaker. Joe Biden takes his first presidential trip to the u.s mexico border and later will be joined by the first gen z member of congress 25 year old maxwell alejandro frost freeze up my square button for my wondrous physic but first we were so inspired by all the work that our vote save america volunteers did in the last midterm that we made new merch

to celebrate you fresh vsa crewnecks in classic colors are available now at the Crooked store. No v-neck? I don't know. I'll go check for myself. Yeah, go check it out. Head to crooked.com slash store to shop. Get yourself one of those classic crewnecks.

We're around town or in Limgrave. Jesus. Alright, let's get to the news. That was so real. Kevin McCarthy finally won the race for speaker by giving the job to matt gates and the most mega members of congress after five days 15 votes and a midnight fight on the house floor that nearly led to violence mccarthy got the votes of every republican except for the six original never Kevins who he persuaded to just vote present with a little last minute help from the MAGA King himself Donald Trump here's a clip from late Friday night when shit got real look at somebody's holding somebody back

look at that oh somebody just held somebody back Stephanie just look at that it looks like a fight breaking out on the floor right on the back. Pull him back. Right on the face. Somebody grabbed him. It's physical? Wait a minute. Hold on. Let's follow the camera. Kevin McCarthy looks pretty upset. Stay civil. Stay civil. Who said that? First question. Who stopped Alabama Congressman Mike rogers from punching matt gates in the face

and should that person be impeached well we knew we do know it is uh uh north carolina uh north carolina's richard hudson uh no flair for drama yeah you know look we i was in full i was watching it friday night as we all were. You weren't playing Elden Ring. I literally moved, I switched. I could have done a two-screen experience. And I was in full Ken Watanabe mode. Just let them fight. I think it was cool, too, that because C-SPAN cameras aren't yet locked down,

because the speaker wasn't chosen, they got the moment where Matt Gaetz put his hand on Kevin McCarthy's cheek and said, do you feel in charge uh wouldn't you be mad it's one thing to break up a fight good for you but to grip you over your mouth you almost got like a fish hook thing we were talking about this with uh with congressman frost grubby hands out of my mouth yeah don't put it putting your hands sir we don't know these are not hand sanitizer people uh but so what i i my my i also what i my my breakdown of what happened and why the hand went over the mouth is he was trying to pull him back in an act of friendship saying you don't want this i'm i'm

trying to help you stop yourself from being in a bad position and then mike rogers started fucking talking yeah and then the other guy was like i gotta get this guy to be quiet and then it was just hand on the mouth and the interesting backstory there on rogers is that he so he's uh slated to become chair of the armed services committee sure is uh where gates also serves but and reportedly got an offer from mccarthy or leadership to chair a subcommittee in armed services if he agreed to vote present for McCarthy. And Rogers didn't like that concession very much because Rogers thinks there are other people who deserved to be chair of that subcommittee, whatever it is, over Matt Gaetz, which is probably all the people. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I think they both are currently on the

committee. And the closer you get to Matt Gaetz, the more you understand how far he should be from chairing a committee. There is a moment where you can see Matt Gaetz mouthing the word committee at either McCarthy or one of his goons. So that's why there's been this speculation. Although then McCarthy says nothing was promised. But two things. One, he's a liar. That's important. And two, a lot of this is a wink and a nod, even as we're recording this.

We know some of the kind of changes to McCarthy's positions he took between Thursday and Friday, but we don't totally understand what those final few concessions were to get those six goobers to the present votes. Yeah. We should all try to be a little more present. But Richard Hudson, the Congressman, John, UNC grad, elected student body president, president of the College Republicans, staffer for elected student body president president of the college republican staffer for uh elected officials and his wife was kelly ann conway's chief of staff i took when you said in the in the prep uh what do we know about this guy i took you literally you know what that was that was educational i literally had never heard of his name before i knew there i was hoping

he's like a wrestler or something fun no what do we well love it you said we don't know exactly what happened like when we recorded thursday's pod mccarthy had already made just about every concession possible and still didn't have the votes what changed between thursday and friday night what do we know about what changed i don't think we know i think you're i don't think we know everything i don't think we know everything i believe it is between thursday and friday that he finally conceded and went from five to one votes to get the yeah to get the um no confidence vote yeah we didn't know that but we we didn't know that it did we know that it switched from five to one before you recorded it was like yeah it was here's what we knew we knew that all these concessions were floated we knew that chip roy and about 14 of the 21 holdouts might move based on these concessions, but they hadn't yet. Right.

And then I said to Dan during the recording, oh, Matt Gaetz just said either Kevin McCarthy is going to have to withdraw from the race or live the entirety of his speakership in a straitjacket based on the rules we're working on right now, which was a that maybe matt gates was coming around and then kevin mccarthy just went running up to matt gates is like tie me up baby i'm in i want i want i want this name i want this title here's what we know kevin mccarthy he's the new lbj he's the master of the congress i mean i what i think happened is we started to read thanks to all the leaks all these rule changes that were going to be put in place. And then Thursday night, I think they went through them all night and they probably got them on paper and locked everybody down. Because the next day, Friday is when he flipped those 14 Republican votes. And then he went after those are the people like really wanted substantive changes. The Roy chips, the chip Roy.

Yeah, your chips, right? The yeah. So the moving away from the other ones are Chip's a Roy. They don't want to do anymore. It's great. Keep going. They don't want to do the omnibus. These Republicans hate these big omnibus bills. They feel like they have to vote for it, so they want individual

spending bills from each of the committees. They want the debt ceiling tied to spending cuts. Those are some of the big ones. Yeah. And then once he got the 14, that put a lot of and this was McCarthy's plan, which worked out. This put a lot of pressure on the six original never Kevins because now you had all these switches. And so now what are they going to do? And apparently they had worked out a plan or they had discussed a plan, the six never Kevins, because none of them wanted to actually vote for McCarthy because they've all gone on. Like Gates said, I'd rather be waterboarded than vote for McCarthy.

They went way too far. They went all the way. So they said, all right, we're none of us are going to vote for him. If we all vote present, then we won't have to vote for him. But he can still get it and whatever. But apparently that plan hadn't been like firmed up when they did the 14th ballot so gates was like suddenly needed they needed a yes vote from gates and not a present vote to actually get mccarthy speaker because of some absences and gates is like fuck no i'm not going to be that one

to do it he goes president and everybody claps and cheers thinking it's over but none of them know how to count votes except for mccarthy he was sprinting over to matt gates is like what's your problem man but i mean matt gates he's such a smug prick. He said on the record, I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for, which is obnoxious, but also true. And I think they were all looking for a way to just climb down.

Yeah, no, I mean, he was effusive towards the end there. He could never vote yes, because he said he was never Kevin, and he stuck with that. But there was that moment where basically they realized they need one of these six to flip to yes. And they all just gathered around lauren bobert and matt gates just just like just the whole apparatus of the fucking congress gathered around two of the most disgusting human beings in public life mtg's got donald trump on the phone just throwing it at people

because he's a is a messy bitch who loves drama yeah donald trump was involved he's watching he's a messy bitch who loves drama, Donald Trump was involved. He's watching. He's watching. Also, by the way, do you know how fucked up and stupid and deranged you are that MTG is rebranding as a sane person based on your misadventures? She's walking around being like, guys, I think this has gotten out of hand. Isn't it a shame we can't come together and govern? I've got Donald Trump on the phone.

He'd love to help. I think she's bummed. I think she wanted to be part of the insurrection and she kind of missed out. Yeah. Lauren Morbert was like, I'm taking that spotlight now. Yeah, no, there's a great picture of MTG holding her phone that says DT on it.

And she's trying to give the phone to Matt Rosendale, who's one of the never Kevins. And he basically was like, get away, get away. Don't put me in that position. I can't talk to him. Don't do that to me. Didn't he say, like, don't do me like that? I think he did. him don't do so did he say like don't do me like that i think he did so she instead so the only he trump i guess talked to uh to biggs andy biggs from arizona who originally ran against mccarthy

and talked to gates and told them to knock the shit off said basically you're making me look bad the thing is there's a lot of like there's a lot of uh you know uh uh victory has a thousand parents but uh in the days leading up to it, you know, McCarthy is now going on television and be like, I want to thank my friend Donald Trump who helped get me all the way there. Donald Trump knows how to support somebody if he really wants to. He was going on true social saying like, hey, guys, maybe Kevin will be good. I don't know. I say give him a shot, but I'm not not crazy about it. He couldn't have been more predictable in all this. It was perfect. He did just enough to get himself in the stories. I mean, at first he refused to come out in support of Kevin. Then

the vote happened. Then he did this sort of tepid true thing. But you even had reps like Ralph Norman saying like, I disagree with Trump. This is not his fight. This is our fight with McCarthy. Like they were not scared of Trump. Boebert said that too. Which was impressive. And then as soon as it became clear McCarthy was going to win, Trump gets into gear. He starts calling people, right? But like Hakeem Jeffries becomes speaker. Trump's going to find a way to take credit. I mean, this is laughable, laughable nonsense. I did love his tweet, though. Sorry, it's truth. I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of speaker of the House. I did our country a big favor. Yeah, you did. So now that the House has a speaker, they also are voting any minute now, as we record on Monday afternoon, on a new set of rules for the chamber that will empower the most extreme Republicans. Love it. You mentioned a few. What are some of the most consequential here that we're all going to have to live with. The most important is the debt ceiling that they have. They have secured a promise that there won't be a vote on lifting the debt ceiling without spending cuts. Those are a nonstarter for the White House and for the Democratic Senate. So that sets off some kind of standoff over the debt ceiling. That is by far the biggest issue to come. Beyond that, the fact

that there are three Republicans on the Rules Committee, which is a freedom, three, three, three Freedom Caucus members as part of the Republican majority on the Rules Committee means those three members have veto over what comes out of that committee. That's going to be a very big deal. We should say why. I mean, the Rules Committee in the House sets the terms and conditions of debate on any bill that goes forward. I think the normal process is like the judiciary committee votes on a bill and then it goes to the rules committee and then they structure how it's handled on the open floor. So that's just like enormous power. It used to be

called the speaker's committee because that was how the speaker controlled the floor. Kevin has just handed over the keys now. And basically because they have, there's nine members in the rules committee, freedom caucus gets three, Democrats have four. So now there's only two non-Freedom Caucus members that are Republicans on the committee. So basically, the Freedom Caucus, by joining with the Democrats, who are going to probably oppose most things that Republicans want to do in that Rules Committee anyway, can effectively stop any bill or any amendment from coming to the floor that they do not like. They can't necessarily put anything on the floor they like because they would need a majority on the committee and Democrats might not want to give them that, but they can kill just about everything. And by the same token, by the same token,

if the non-Freedom Caucus members want to get something onto the floor that the Freedom Caucus does not want, they will need Democrats and And Democrats will play ball, as we always do. We love playing ball. So process-wise, it sounds really complicated, maybe boring, but it is extremely consequential. And then I think that sort of dovetails with the debt ceiling promise, too, because you can make a promise, whatever. But now, the only way to pass a clean debt ceiling hike is by either mccarthy agreeing to it which now he uh will not do well he now he is as of today says he will not do the one criticism that is correct by these freedom caucus members is that mccarthy says things that aren't true and changes his mind and changes position all the time well and now they

have a mechanism to hold him accountable because if he chooses to try to do this, they can immediately try to remove him with just one person calling for a vote. So McCarthy's sort of hamstrung there. There is, we've talked about this briefly before, there's a discharge petition, which basically every Democrat, if a bill has been stuck in the rules committee for more than 30 days, you can file a discharge petition with a majority of the members of the House, meaning like every Democrat and now just four Republicans could file a discharge petition. And then after 30 days would get that out of the committee if it's been stuck there. So they can do that, but that's a very long and complicated process that doesn't necessarily always work just because it requires a lot of coordination. And as we said before, those House Republicans that agree to join the Democrats on that could very well face primary challenges, though already Brian Fitzpatrick was a more moderate Republican. A House member from

Pennsylvania has said he will do that if it comes to that. Right. So you basically have a situation where Republicans try to do brinksmanship of the debt ceiling. Democrats have already said in the Senate, Democrats and the Biden administration said that's a nonstarter. That fails. Then you try to get a clean bill through. That fails. Then barring that, you have to go to this discharge position. It is high risk, not just because it is a difficult thing to coordinate. If it fails, you don't get to do it again. Like you get one shot at this discharge position on this issue. The whole house has to vote.

Sort of like the Armageddon movie. Well, right. And so basically. So who's drilling and who's inserting? You just get one shot and then that's. This got a little sexual, the way it sounded to me. Well, it's a discharge position. And so, just how it's sounding.

But so uh because what could happen is you could end up no matter how you start it matters how we finish kevin that was in the words of kevin mccarthy it's terrible how you finish for the american people and i'm scared where this is going go back to your substance nerd the point is the point is you a discharge position is two votes the first is one say, let's vote on this on the floor. The second is to actually pass it. If the second one fails, you've lost your ability to have a vote, a clean vote in the House. And so now then you go to, I think, some really, really untested fail safes.

One is, and it's back, the Treasury Department making a trillion dollar coin, which the Biden administration has already said they won't do. And then there's the other the other outside the outside move, which is saying the 14th Amendment says we have to pay all these bills. So we're just going to pay them. He also agreed to unlimited amendments on spending bills, which means you could basically filibuster House spending bills now just sort of de facto by putting random amendments on them. And also that McCarthy said that any increase in debt ceiling will be accompanied by cuts to federal spending and that discretionary spending will be capped at FY 2022 level. So this year's level, which is like $130 billion cut, which is not really doable. So they'll probably get into defense spending cuts too, if they actually go through with this. So in a sense, Kevin McCarthy handed his caucus a whole bunch of really, really bad votes coming down the pike. Well, I was going to say, yeah, all of this is going to be horrific for the country, particularly if we breach the debt ceiling uh it could cause a you know economic catastrophe uh that's that's uh much worse than just a regular recession but just to talk about the politics for a second because the uh what what the freedom caucus demanded was so extreme right

which is not just like some cuts accompanying the debt ceiling height like they want to vote on a balanced budget amendment it's just impossible in 10 years. Which means that anything you would do, any kind of vote you would take to get the necessary cuts to abide by their craziness would gut Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid. So basically, these people are going to go in the next year, Republicans are going to say, if you don't let us gut Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid, we will blow up the global economy. That's going to be their position. Not popular. And I'll tell you, it's not popular. And it's why you're already seeing I will not ever call them moderate Republicans. They're not moderate Republicans, but they're Republicans that have

been around longer than these people are starting to say things like we have ways around this. And also, wait, isn't the debt ceiling just cashing checks we've already written? It is. And so I do think a lot of this is going to be about how much are these Freedom Caucus members daring Republicans from swing districts or Biden districts to just say, I'm sorry, but I'm voting with the Democrats to get things done. Yeah. But there will be a confrontation over this. And I do think the discharge petition could work for the debt ceiling because it's just a clean bill. It seems like to avoid a government shutdown, it can't work because a lot of those bills to fund the government don't come up and they're not finished until like right before

the government's about to shut down and the discharge petition takes 30 days. So on that one, like we're headed towards a shutdown. Oh, I was, Yeah, that's as I was sort of looking through the deal. What I found myself thinking is, all right, there are some exit ramps on the debt ceiling. Let's hope we use one. Let's hope that works. But man, are we hurtling towards some kind of government shutdown, partial government shutdowns. That's going to be the cycle. It's going to be people's social security.

I mean, it's going to be it's the mess. Bad shit. House Republicans can't really pass any legislation because the Senate Democrats can like kill all their, any crazy shit that they send over. The only power they have is to do three things, two of which we talked about, blow up the global economy by breaching the debt ceiling, shutting down the government if they refuse to fund it. And then the third thing is they're really excited about their investigations that they got teed up. Super pumped. So New York Times reports that incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has that. That's fun.

And he was also going to chair a special subcommittee to investigate the Department of Justice, the FBI, the intelligence agencies, and will demand access to open investigations by the Justice Department and classified intelligence. What do you do about this if you're the White House or Democrats in Congress and you start and you're the DOJ and you get asked for information about an ongoing investigation? They're going to say no, absolutely not. And they're going to cite precedent going back decades. And I don't know that they will yield on that. And I'm not really sure what Jim Jordan thinks he can do about it. You know, there is a judiciary committee. They do oversight over the Department of Justice. There is an intelligence committee that does intel oversight.

This is just sort of a special, they're calling it a church committee 2.0, the church committee, uh, investigated real abuses by the intelligence community, things like MK ultra where Americans were given a acid to see if it was a truth serum, like the surveillance of Martin Luther King jr, et cetera. Uh, it led to the creation of the intelligence oversight committees. This proposal is just pay back for people investigating Donald Trump. That's all it is. It's also the House rules package doesn't fundamentally alter the relationship between Congress and the administration. It's not a law. It's not a it's a it's a sop to Jim Jordan. It's their internal rules. It's a it's

something that McCarthy has promised Jim Jordan. It doesn their internal rules. It's a it's something that McCarthy has promised Jim Jordan. It doesn't suddenly require the DOJ to behave in a different way. And the Biden people have signaled like we will go along with legitimate oversight and we will not go along with stuff like this. And they're basically saying that they're going to take all this. This is all going to be fought out in court. And I think that the Biden administration probably feels very confident that they'll prevail. And by the way, I think that Kevin McCarthy administration probably feels very confident that they'll prevail. And by the way, I think that Kevin McCarthy, when he gave Jordan the concession, probably probably wasn't didn't think it was much of a concession. It's like, you know what? He wants to go tell the base that he did this. He wants to go on TV, make a bunch of noise.

And then when the Biden administration rejects the subpoenas, they can call them lawless and you can go on Fox and yeah, have a great time. And I'd also point out that Jim Jordan has in the past shown that he doesn't actually believe congressional subpoenas carry much weight because he is currently, or he just was in defiance of one. The one thing that I did appreciate that the White House did was basically, so, you know, Jordan and some other Republicans put in a bunch of requests last year and basically like new congress clock starts again which really i think pissed them off yeah uh but those were also requests from individual members not like through the committee so i think they're they're going to slow roll them and they're going to push them back and they're going to participate in legitimate inquiry while

at the same time trying to but recognizing even even though they may have the the power of the gavel these are not going to be on the level investigation yeah that's fun no i think what you're you're selling is that the the jordan the jim. These are not going to be on the level investigation. Yeah, that's fun. No, I think what you're saying is that the Jordan, the Jim Jordan types put in their oversight requests too early and the Biden folks like, oh, sorry, counting you guys haven't ended yet. Yeah. Come back. Call us next year.

I mean, look, it's going to be a circus, but and I think they'll will they find a Trump judge or two who's like, you know, Eileen Cannon in the in the Trump investigation matter who just like goes with them? Yeah, maybe. But like, I think even the more conservative appeals courts in the Supreme Court have shown that on some of these requests by Trump or Trumpy people, they're like, no, you're not going to do this. And they all lean towards the executive branch having unchecked power. That's Sort of there. That's their safe space. All right. So one of the big investigations Republicans have promised is into Joe Biden's handling

of immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, which he just visited in El Paso on Sunday for the first time as president. In the last year, more migrants have been apprehended trying to cross the border illegally than at any time since 1960. The White House just laid out a new enforcement plan. It would, on one hand, allow more migrants from more countries to apply for a two-year work permit in the U.S., but it would also require asylum seekers to book an appointment for their claim to be heard before they arrive here, which means they will no longer be able to just show up

at the border and apply or stay in the U.S. while they wait for a court date. Republicans attacked the plan and the visit is too little too late. No surprise there. But some immigration activists called it a humanitarian disgrace. So win-win for Joe Biden. Tommy, what do you think of the trip and the plan, which seemed to have hit the sweet spot of satisfying no one? No one. Let's do the trip first. I mean, I think the debate

around whether Joe Biden should go like himself, look at the border really reminded me of when Republicans used to say, Barack Obama won't say radical Islamic terrorism. That became their one stop sort of catch all attack on him for dealing with terrorism. And it was it made a complicated problem sound simple and rhetorical. Eventually, we used those words to try to move the debate forward. Spoiler alert, it did not. But I do think, I think Biden is in a similar spot where he knows just visiting the border changes nothing. Maybe though, this will change the conversation, take away a Republican talking point. We'll see. Already, it seems like what is happening is Republicans are saying, you went to the border, but you didn't actually see actual

migrants. Yeah, you don't go to the border, you're refusing to go to the border, you go to the border, it's a photo op. I mean, under what circumstance would Joe Biden have gone to the border and Republicans would have said, bravo, Mr. President, you did it. Never, never. So what do you think about the plan, since that's more substantive than just the border visit i mean i think like there is a real challenge at the border uh more and more people are coming um it's left border communities on both sides of the u.s and mexico border overwhelmed and unable to provide food and housing and services for the people who need them it also has left our immigration system overwhelmed. Immigration courts have backlogs that are years and years long. So Biden is trying to address this big, multifaceted, complicated problem piece by piece. And a lot of the recent migration is migrants from Venezuela,

Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. So these are countries where there's a really challenging humanitarian situation and a political asylum case to be made because there's a really challenging humanitarian situation and a political asylum case to be made because there's repressive leaders. They're saying like, okay, we're creating this humanitarian parole program where 30,000 migrants from each of these countries can come. If you have a sponsor, you can buy a plane ticket, pass a background check, et cetera. But at the same time, they're increasing penalties for people who go try to seek asylum from those countries

through Mexico. So the idea is address this very legitimate asylum need, but also do so in a way that disincentivize people paying smugglers to get to the border or just going through Mexico on your own. I think it's a flawed approach in a lot of different ways, but I think that the Biden team's position is basically this is a decade old problem. Congress will not do anything to solve it. This is what we can do. So we're going to try to like bite at this piece by piece by going after these countries first. Longer term, like the only way to stop migration from Venezuela is to help the humanitarian situation in Venezuela. But we have a, there's a lot we can do to help there, but we obviously can't fix it as a country. So I think, you know, it's a start. I don't love the use of Title 42. I don't love the way

remain in Mexico has gone from a Trump policy to a Biden policy. I don't love sort of how asylum has gotten completely changed over the last five or six years. Yeah. I think that the contradiction, I think at the core of this is that the Biden administration is using Title 42 to implement a policy in part to deter people from doing something extremely dangerous, which is seeking something they're allowed to seek, which is asylum. But at the same time as they're using Title 42, they're also in court trying to get rid of Title 42, which I think highlights the kind of Catch-22 that they're in. Because the current policy is not humane. People sleeping on the streets in El Paso, these years-long backlogs, the lack of resources, the border being overwhelmed,

we're in an inhumane situation. So the advocates, I think, are right when they point out that like people have a right to seek asylum. They shouldn't need to be able to afford a plane ticket and have somewhere to go. But then the Biden administration says, hey, we put something like this in place for Venezuela. And it did stop the number of people by 70 percent trying to get in the country in a dangerous way without permission. Yeah. The Venezuela piece of this was basically a pilot program back in October. And now they're extending it to Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua. And one of the reasons they're extending it is because it worked, the pilot program, in the sense that it has been an effective deterrent and that it reduced illegal border crossing by 70% from Venezuela. No, but

the problem is, and the humanitarian advocates aren't just correct from a humanitarian perspective on about asylum, but potentially from a legal perspective as well. Yes, that's a big problem. And obviously it's international law that we have agreed to abide by, but it's also Congress has made it fairly clear that you can come and apply for asylum whether you show up at a port of entry or anywhere else, right? or anywhere else, right? And so the Biden administration saying that you can only do it from home is for sure intended to make the process more orderly and fair.

But if the law is you can show up and do it anyway, like, I don't know. And the Ninth Circuit basically said to the Trump administration, like, yeah, you can't force people to apply somewhere else. Like they can apply for asylum if they get here.

So I don't know that this new plan would actually will survive survive court challenges plan may not survive in court title 42 won't survive uh may not survive for that much longer there's also a piece of this which is the biden administration saying that if you've moved through another country where you did not seek asylum you can't seek asylum here yeah which the yeah the idea there is if you leave v through another country where you did not seek asylum, you can't seek asylum here. Yeah. Which the, yeah, the idea there is if you leave Venezuela, you go through Mexico, why didn't you apply for asylum in Mexico? Why did you come all the way to the United States? Right. Is the question there. And look, all of this is, it's what you said, Tommy, like this is maybe the best of a lot of bad options facing the Biden administration, because the only

way this gets fixed is with new laws. Those are off the table because we just talked about how Republicans aren't going to let the government stay open and may breach the debt ceiling. Right. So they can't even get that done. They're not going to get immigration done. So barring that, if you're the Biden administration, you only have so many options and so many resources. And I think another piece of this, though, for Biden, especially with Venezuela and Cuba is more in like the classical foreign policy bucket, which is our policy towards Venezuela has been to sanction the shit out of them and recognize a guy who is an opposition leader as the president for the last six years.

That has completely failed. We need to rethink these sanctions regimes we have in place that are crippling the economies of these countries and then wondering why people are leaving them and trying to seek safety elsewhere. Now, I'm not saying like the United States is the entire reason that the Venezuelan economy has collapsed. Like Maduro is very much in charge and responsible for governance of his own country, but U.S. sanctions have failed. The policy of recognizing Juan Guaido, this opposition leader as the president, has failed. And we need to move on from that and just rethink these policies, I think, whole cloth. There are all these larger structural problems that contribute to

the migration challenges that we face. There are past and present foreign policies. There is climate change is going to create more refugees all over the world than ever before and is continuing to do so. There's violence in all these countries, right? So you got to solve all that. In the immediate term, there's people showing up in El Paso, and they have converted their convention center to a shelter. And you have these cities all along the border and increasingly cities all throughout the United States that just don't have the resources to care for migrants who show up in a humane way, even when they want to. And that's a real challenge for cities, for border communities, for states, like all over the place. And you've got to do something about it.

I do think that's where, similar to that moment when the speaker vote was failing and you had Biden with McConnell on a bridge showing the success of bipartisanship into this kind of thorny, very difficult, impossible to win issue with a lot of incredible pain and immiseration. Like Biden says that extreme Republicans are going to use it as an issue, but they have a choice. They can keep using immigration to try to score political points or they can help solve the problem and come together to fix the broken system. So he's going down there and he's putting himself on the side of I would like to work on this issue with Congress. Comprehensive immigration reform is obviously almost certainly off the table given the makeup of this Congress. As you said, do I think it is inconceivable they can't find ways to address this in a smaller way in some way through Congress?

I don't I don't think it is impossible. I think he has to put himself on the side of trying and then leave it to these extreme Republicans to kill it. And I don't know. Politically, I don't know what else he would be able to. I think they'll try. But, you know, you have the acute near term problem. You have the long term structural problems. And I think you have a Republican Party that doesn't want the problem solved.

That's why we focus on the wall. That's why we focus on the border visit and frankly we have a country that's a lot less welcoming to immigration than i think all of us would would want it to be well even yes and to your point cinema and uh kirsten cinema and cornyn tried something narrow uh to add it to the omnibus at the end of at the end of last year. And Republicans killed it because you're right. Like Tommy said, there's a Republican Party that doesn't want this problem. Any part of it wouldn't get through DACA when they had Donald Trump telling them they wanted it. And just, you know, the last major immigration reform is 1986. George W. Bush tried this. It got through the House.

Republicans killed it in the Senate. Obama tried to get something through. Republicans blocked it in the House. Republicans killed it in the Senate. Obama tried to get something through. Republicans blocked it in the House. We have been kind of in this debate. And what happened in both the Bush administration and the Obama administration is Democrats and both administrations compromised and pushed forward a ton of enforcement provisions, a ton of security procedures. And then the hardliners dismiss it as amnesty and things just keep getting worse and worse and worse. But to your point, Tommy, about attitudes in the country, we haven't talked about the politics really yet. The percentage of people who say that increasing security along the U.S.-Mexico border to reduce illegal crossings, quote, should be an important goal, has risen to 73 percent from 68 percent three years ago this is according to a recent pew poll um this was cited in the new york times the increase is largely driven by democrats 59 percent today versus 49 percent then now lest everyone think that like suddenly all democrats

and americans became very resistant to immigration in general when you ask questions about like should people who are here undocumented people here be given a path to citizenship? Or you ask about DACA, you ask about children who are here, the percentage of people who want to welcome those people and want to give people, immigrants a path to citizenship is quite high, in fact, a majority. But there is a difference in politics in how we should handle people who are already here, who are undocumented, and what we should do about people who are coming over the border now. And part of that difference, the disparity is people thinking, and a lot of immigrants who are here, people who came here and have since been naturalized

think this too. They think, okay, I came here, I stood in line, I did everything right. Or I know people who have been here for years and still don't have citizenship, even though they're doing everything right. And yet someone comes over the border and right now and then and they get to stay here. Right. And so there's this feeling of this fairness where the attitudes in general in the country become more generous to people who are here, who are working, you know, who want to be here and then and more worried about border security and people coming over here now. And I do think that sort of ties together a kind of political necessity and a practical necessity. And it is why I think the Democratic high level messaging on this issue has not changed in basically 20 years, which is we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of laws. We need to secure the border and have border enforcement while at the same time welcoming and opening our doors to people seeking a better life in America. Like you could, that message has been the same for a very long time, both because I think politically, the only way you get to that generous and welcoming and progressive solution is by

reassuring people that once you've created that more generous and progressive set of immigration policies, that the border and the laws will be enforced because you have created incentive for people who want to come here. Yeah. And it's political, but it's also just like a practical thing. Yes. Right. Which is, you know, you can we can we can allow a lot more migrants and refugees and asylum seekers into this country, but we can't do it if we're not going to have an orderly process for it. We can't just have people streaming through here because then

it puts too much of a burden on cities. And it turns people against the openness and the progressive outcomes that we want. And it's not humane to the migrants. It's not. Yeah. The one area I do think that the Biden administration has not sort of hit its goals is refugee policy. They've set caps for allowing refugees in, I think, like well over 100,000. I think we, you know, last year we maybe got to 17,000 people actually got refugees in, I think like well over a hundred thousand. I think we, you know, last year we maybe got to 17,000 people actually got in. So I think it could be a little more work done there. Uh, obviously this all got very complicated with the war in Ukraine. I think there's a lot that could be said about, uh, the way Ukrainian refugees were welcomed compared to

refugees from other countries who are black and Brown in many cases, the way Afghan refugees were, were not, uh, welcomed in a lot of cases. So like it's still not being welcomed. Yeah. Yes. That's a whole other conversation. And just the fact that like, even with, you know, Joe Biden is going to Texas, he's greeting governor Abbott when he arrives and has handed in the letter. And then Abbott goes intelligent and doesn't just say that Joe Biden has failed, that Joe Biden can't succeed. He will never succeed because of the point you made. They is an annuity to them. When they can't talk about inflation, when it's not working to talk about critical race theory to fund the police, this is their political fund. This is what they go back to again and again and again. The migrant caravan

coverage will start as we head into the fall and it will continue. And look, there's a right wing media ecosystem and infrastructure that wants to talk about only this. I tuned into my guy, Ben Shapiro today on the way into the office. He skipped over the speaker debate, said he didn't care. It didn't matter who got the speaker job. He skipped some other big hot button news story and went right to immigration because that's all the conservatives want to talk about. Yeah, this is a great episode, Ben. We will we will hear this quite a bit over the next two years as we as we head into 2024 here about immigration. Okay, when we come back, Lovett and I talk to Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost.

Joining us now is the new representative from Florida's 10th District in Orlando, the first Gen Z member of Congress, Maxwell Alejandro Frost. Congressman, welcome to Pod Save America. Hey, thanks for having me on. You called your first week in Congress a shit show, which seems like a fair and even charitable description. What was going through your mind during all those votes for speaker? Well, you know, it changed every day. But like when we were in the chamber at like midnight doing those votes, it was a little bit more exciting, obviously.

And also depressing when you think about, you know, this is the body making decisions for our country and there's a physical altercation going on on the other side of the aisle. I was just thinking about this the other day that I would get a lot of calls from family and friends saying, what's with the chaos? It must be crazy. And it is right. What was going on? But for me, I would like give my I'd say Jeffries when they'd say for us and then I'd be free for that. That's why other people said, you know, you know, voted. So there wasn't a lot of like physical chaos per se, but but it was also chaotic. So it was interesting kind of squaring the two, you know. How close? What kind of what kind of angle did you get in the moment when somebody...

Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers. Well, no, but when somebody put their face... It's tough when someone uses their hand on your mouth to pull you away from an altercation. Could you see it? How close were you? I did see it. I was on the other side of the aisle.

I was sitting with a bunch of freshmen. We were all sitting together, and I did see it happen. I'm surprised they didn't get in a fight because if someone puts their finger in my mouth on the house floor, I don't know. It's not good. I saw what happened. It was wild. I was getting a lot of

texts, people saying... I had one of my friends say, go over there. I was like, I'm not going over there. I'm going to sit right here. But just pretty wild. Go over there. Who's side are you on?, you know, but just pretty wild. It's a go over there. Who are you on? I think that was the wise move. Did you have any fun or weird or terrifying conversations while you're on the floor? Like a lot of people talked about there was AOC talking to

Paul Gosar at one point. Did you have anything like that? Not necessarily. You know, I kind of I kind of, you know, did my vote and I took the opportunity to speak with a lot of other members and make some good relationships. But I did not really go and have some interesting, wild conversations with people on the other side. I thought about going over and saying hi to some of the Republican members from Florida who were kind of part of that group at the beginning and just kind of seeing what's up. and just kind of seeing what's up. But I decided to kind of let the process play out and maybe introduce myself at another time. The funny thing is a lot of people in Florida have been asking for a freshman photo, like a bipartisan photo.

And I was talking with Jared Mosfowitz that night, like midnight. I was like, maybe tonight's the night to pull everybody together. But there was a fight anyways, so we didn't do it. All right, so you've gotten quite a bit of coverage as the first Gen Z member of Congress. I've seen a bunch of profiles. How are you handling all the attention? Well, you know, it's been a lot. It's been different for me. I'm used to being on the

staff side and, you know, working on campaigns and everything. But I've really taken this opportunity to talk about like what's going on in Florida, what's going on locally, talk about the anxieties and hopes and dreams of young people and at least young folks who agree with me on a lot of issues and really think about it that way. But I think it's important to really stay grounded in the district, in home, right? Because those are the folks that sent me here. And so I'm always careful to not

appear at like, you know, celebrity culture is real and celebrity culture in our politics is also real. And sometimes it's okay to admire people, but it gets to a point where we feel like there's this one politician that's going to save us all. And this is how our system works, right? It's not meant for one person to be able to do it all. We need a movement inside and outside the halls of Congress. So it's always exciting, but I always like to tell people it's going to take all of us. It's not the Maxwell Frost show. It really is going to take a lot more folks who think alike so we can pass real legislation that's going to have transformational change for people across the country. Pretty tough shot at Chris Coons.

pretty tough shot at Chris Coons. What do you think older generations misunderstand most when it comes to your generation's view of politics? Yeah, you know, a message I get a lot, and this is no flight to anyone who has sent this message to me or said it because it really means a lot and I get where people are coming from.

But something we hear a lot of is the young people will save us. And I get where that comes from. But I think young folk, we're not looking to save everyone. We just want to be a part of it. We want to be a part of it. We want to be heard. And it shouldn't just be up to young people to save everyone. We need a multiracial, multigenerational movement, all of us working together for a better world, seven generations in the future. And so that's something I think that's sometimes misunderstood. We want to be a part of the conversation. We want to be centered at points, but we don't want to be the lone people working to, you know, fix these problems that have been around for generations. So I'd say that that's something

I'd say. And again, it's not to offend anyone who said that, because I understand where people are coming from. But I think it's important that we all see ourselves as a part of the solution and not just like young people. So you are Gen Z, we are millennials. Now, a lot of people had hoped that the turnout that we would that we would learn from the turnout that Gen Z had really helped make the difference. And Gen Z did turn out, but actually not to the same extent that millennials turned out to help prevent there from being a red wave. What can you do to learn from us as millennials, as your elders, as the previous generation? How do we inspire you? How do we help you succeed?

How do we inspire you? It's such a great question. How do we inspire you? This is a great question. Thank you. Thank you. Unbelievable. I've been looking a lot at the numbers,

and I think a lot of times folks are expecting because of what we see on the news, first Gen Z member of Congress, March for Lives, et cetera, Gen Z to come out and outvote everybody. And what we know to be true is since the beginning of our country, the youth vote, especially the younger people, 18 through 25, have always been really the smallest piece of the pie, right? And that's for many different reasons. There's a lot of institutional barriers to voting. Voting is seen as an extracurricular for a lot of young people. It's not built into schooling the way it should be. It comes at a time when you're 18 years old, where you're applying to college, you're falling in love,

all this stuff is happening, which is a great argument for lowering the voting age for a lot of municipal elections. So it's more of a habit. But all that being said, Gen Z can make up a portion of the vote that can really tip of these elections, right? It's not always the biggest voting block that is, you know, if the normal people turn out normally, right? You're looking for these blocks that you can turn out that might not be the biggest slice, but in these neck and neck races can mean the difference.

That's what happened in Georgia with Senator Warnock both times. We've seen this happen in different races across the country. So and when you look at the numbers, Gen Z at our current age, we're voting at higher numbers than any other generation has ever done at this current age right now. And I think it's important to look at that because it gives me a lot of hope. I'm not trying to pit generations against each other. I am. Yeah, he is. It shows me we're going in the right direction. And hey, half of Gen Z can't even vote yet. The youngest Gen Z is like 12 years old. So I think we have a good opportunity here. I think we're trending in the right direction.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but people shouldn't say, oh, young people aren't voting. We should have paid attention to them. We're voting at the highest numbers proportionately than we ever have. And I think we got to keep building on that. You made some news in December when you talked about how you hadn't been able to get an apartment in D.C. because you have bad credit after spending a lot of money on your campaign. Why did you want to share that story? Well, two reasons. There's two reasons. Number one, I think it was important to make a point. I think vulnerability from our electeds is really important because it goes to show that we're people too.

But not just that, it's that a lot of these issues will continue with folks even when they get to a seat of power, position of power. So I think that was really important. And I just wanted to be vulnerable with folks. The other thing is I was just kind of pissed off because I had just gotten the message that I was denied from the apartment. And so I was also a bit frustrated. And so, you know, as in typical Gen Z fashion, I was taking the Twitter to air out a little bit of my frustration. But I'm glad that it ended up, you know, creating a, you know, they asked in a White House briefing about it. And so I'm glad that like the tweet led to a lot of broader conversations around housing and equity around housing, because it's something we don't talk

about a lot, especially these barriers to even running for office. We've got to talk about that. Well, I was going to ask you about that because I talked to a bunch of voters during the midterms and the number one issue I heard about was cost of housing. And that was especially true with the group of young voters I spoke to. What do you think Congress and the White House should do about that? There's a lot that needs to be done. The biggest levers on housing are pulled at the municipal and countywide level. But what the federal government can do is two things. Number one, bring money home, bring money to these municipalities and countywide governments so they have the resources they need to actually act on getting more housing and not just more

housing, affordable housing near opportunity. Like Orlando right now, central Florida has one of the worst affordable housing crisis in the country per capita. But the problem isn't just affordable. I can go two hours north of Florida and find great housing that's really cheap, but then that's two hours from the city center, right? It's not near opportunity. So we need money to come back to these communities and it needs to bypass the state and go directly to the local governments. Like Florida's preempting everything right now. So it's important that global governments have resources. The second thing is pass laws that are number one, going to protect renters and tenants and number two, give renters and tenants more power in the marketplace. COVID showed a lot of things, inequities in healthcare,

et cetera. It also lessened the amount of power that tenants and renters have in the marketplace right now because a lot of these huge conglomerates and these leasing companies, management companies were able to buy up all this inventory. And now they own most of the inventory, especially in Central Florida. So you have a hard time finding a place that's affordable. And we know that when you move into a place, it's not just, oh, you pay first month's rent. You're paying first, you're paying last, you're paying your deposit, you got to furnish the place. That's a lot of money to have in your bank account to be able to move into a place in

the first place. So there's a lot of needs to be, I think the federal government can do a lot to protect renters. We've talked about things like rent stabilization. We've talked about things like, you know, rent control. I think there's great opportunity here, but we have to talk about it because people are being evicted left and right, and they're having a hard time finding a place to live. You've been an activist and an organizer. You ran partly because you were frustrated with lack of progress on issues like housing and guns and health care. You're now in the minority party in a divided

government. What are your realistic goals for the next two years? Well, the three issues we're going to focus on right out the gate are housing, gun violence, and we're also going to focus on music and arts funding, which is a huge thing in Orlando and Central Florida. We're a very culture-based city. And I think every one of those we can work on in a bipartisan way. We might not get the North Star I believe in in these next two years. We've seen the dysfunction over the past week. So it seems like things even Republicans are for, they're going to have a hard time passing a lot of the things that I believe in. But I think there's ways that we can sneak in and get in good amendments or appropriations that are going to help fund a lot of these programs that are for.

And when we talk about gun violence, I know I say gun violence and everyone's like, they just passed the first piece of legislation in generations last year in the Democrat side of Congress. Well, there's a lot of other things we can talk about in gun violence that's beyond or different than gun regulation, which is the most controversial part. We need more gun regulation, but we also need money to go to fund community violence intervention programs, which are evidence-based programs that help end gun violence before it even happens. This is a lot of the work that a lot of people were protesting for during Black Lives Matter. We need money in our communities. We need money in our communities. This money goes to these community-based programs that help get kids off the streets and do a ton of different work to help end gun violence before it happens. A proactive solution. And I think we can get that type of money passed in a bipartisan way. At least I hope we can. So during the speaker fiasco, C-SPAN cameras were off the off their lockdown position. They were catching every moment. We all loved it. You loved it. How do we is there any hope

given how that we can stop the Republican majority in the speaker's office from forcing C-SPAN to lock down the cameras? Can we keep the angles? We're going to do everything we can to try. There's already some emails going around and people organizing. When we talk about bipartisan things, I saw Chip Roy talking about this too, and he's actually for freeing the C-SPAN cameras as well. We probably won't agree on almost anything this next Congress, but we agree on this. So I think there's appetite for it. There's obviously a public appetite for it. I've offered my own help on ways we can organize around it. So we'll see. I think we're going to learn in the next couple of days here. But I think there's an opportunity to keep the C-SPAN cameras free. I think it's important. It makes democracy,

number one, more exciting, obviously, but it also gives people an opportunity to have real accountability and accessibility in the house. I think a lot of us will read an article and think, oh, this set of members, they never talk with anyone besides themselves. But when you're on the House floor, you see that kind of everybody talks with everybody. And those kind of conversations, I think it's important for the public to see. So you were arrested in 2020 in a protest. You were sworn into Congress this week. You posted both your mugshot and your official portrait, but you said it wasn't a glow up.

Is that a substantive representation of the values in those photos? Or do you just really like your mugshot? I don't like my mugshot. I was during the Black Lives Matter protests, the height of COVID. I had to got my hair cut in a long time. I think you look good in that picture. My friends call that buckshot my liking haircut because I just got so much hair. But either way, I think it was important for me to post that.

And the reason I posted the glow up thing is because I knew there'd be a lot of folks who, if I didn't put that, who would quote tweet and say, look at this glow up, look at this glow up. And that's not the point of that, of that, you know, it's not that, oh, he was in jail and now he's a member of Congress. No, that's not it. We're not trying to demonize people who are incarcerated a lot of times because of bogus laws and because of racism, et cetera.

So that's, that's why I posted that. It's not about a glow up. I'm the same person. I have the same values. I'm just now in a position here where I'm able, hopefully, to be able to uplift a lot of our arguments and what we believe in. And so I'm glad it's got a good reception and people are able to look at that kind of honesty and vulnerability. And some of my opponents used my mugshot during the campaign. And I want to post it too, because I'm proud of the work that we did. I'm proud of the fact that, you know, we took to the streets in nonviolent form to advocate for black lives and for our communities. And so I'll gladly post it. Last question, we'll let you go. A lot of people your age are ready to give up on politics for a lot of understandable reasons. You're in the fight now. You're a new member of Congress. You are, of course, going to have two years where, like you said, hopefully you can get some bipartisan accomplishments here and there. But it's going to be tough. A lot of people likely at the end of the next two years are going to say, oh, Washington still seems broken. And then why should I be involved? What do you want them to know about

why you still feel politics is worthwhile? Yeah, I was just talking about this this morning. I think there's a few few things real quick. The first one is we've been lied to for generations about how things work up here in order for people to get elected to office. So we have politicians who will say, vote for me, vote for me, and this will happen tomorrow. This will happen next year. We all know that that's not how this process works. And what that does is sow in a lot of doubt into our voters who will vote for someone, not see the change in that two years, and then think, wow, my vote doesn't mean anything. And I don't blame people for feeling that way if the two years is

the span that they're thinking it. And so I've been honest with people both in my district and in interviews. I'm honest. I say, here's what I believe in. I cannot promise it will pass this year or next year because I'm one of 435 people. This is how the system works. But what I can promise you is what I believe in, how hard I'm going to fight for it, and what I'm going to do back at home. And we're all part of this together, right? Not probably myself as some savior, because that's not how this works, but all of us together. It's not just me working for my community, it's me working with my community. And I think when people see themselves as a part of that struggle with you,

they're more likely to kind of understand the realistic approach, right? And they're less likely after two years to say, wow, we don't have Medicare for all. Not everyone has health care. This is worthless. It's a broader struggle. The second thing is we have to be honest about a timetable here. And again, it has to do with these like two years, right? It goes beyond two years, right?

This struggle is a generational thing for health care, for climate justice and gun violence, et cetera. And I think it's important to be honest with people about that, not to discourage them, right? But to make sure they're really bought into the current landscape. So that way everyone has the same expectations. We're not going to be able to get everyone on board with this, but every time I talk with people, anybody, I'm very honest about the fact that we're not going to see bold transformational change in the next two years out of the United States Congress. And I'll tell them why. We have a majority that doesn't believe in it. And it seems like even the things they do believe in, they're not even going to be able to get past. But guess what? There's light at the end of the

tunnel. In two years, we're going to be able to get back a democratic majority and we'll be able to fight for what we believe in, in a better way and be set up to actually pass things. And so I think when you're honest with people, I think we should give people the benefit of the doubt, especially in our communities and not be lying to them all the time about the powers of this office, because a lot of the power of this office comes from the people themselves and they need to see themselves integrated in the process an organizer at heart i love it it's refreshing uh congressman frost thank you so much for joining pod save america and uh and good luck to you thanks for having me on have a good day all right thanks to congressman frost for joining us today

and uh we'll talk to you on thursday bye everyone All right. Thanks to Congressman Frost for joining us today. And we'll talk to you on Thursday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.