Pod Save America - “Fox News-addled automatons.”

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

Congress launches investigations into Donald Trump that could lay the groundwork for impeachment, Democrats decide against allowing Fox News to host a primary debate, and five potential Democratic contenders decide against running for president in 2020. Then John Legend joins Jon Lovett in studio to talk about his new song and mini-documentary series that features the stories of activists and community leaders. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, Jon Lovett interviews Jon Legend, who's releasing a mini-documentary series around his new song that features the stories of activists and community leaders. Jon was just in the office. He was wearing a suit, which is the first suit that's ever been worn in crooked media. It's a great interview. Check it out.

That was my real test for Mayor Pete, was whether he was going to show up with a tie-on. And the fact that he didn't means he's got a real shot in this election. That is a good test. So we get a lot of news to cover from the latest investigations into the president and his goons to the DNC's rejection of Fox News's offer to host a debate to the announcement of several Democrats that they won't be running for president. Also, Alyssa's book is out. So here's the thing. It's on sale. Go buy it. It is is fantastic you will not be

disappointed yes we are asking you as friends of the pod to do yourself a favor and buy this book it's really good Alyssa is great we should support people like Alyssa who put themselves out there the most authentic way possible it's full of great advice you will

laugh your ass off you will be smarter it basically like, for those of you who aren't fortunate enough to be very close friends with Lyssa like we are, you get to experience that through the pages of this book. That's right. That's right. That's well put. Also, your weekly reminder that this content can also be a video experience. Lucky you. Check us out and subscribe at youtube.com slash crooked media. Make Elijah happy. All right. Let's get to the news. This week, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler launched a massive investigation into Donald Trump by requesting documents from more than 80 people or entities in Trump's orbit, including the Trump Organization and Foundation, Trump's Inaugural Committee, the Kushner Company's Trump's 2016 campaign and transition teams,

his cabinet, his legal team, and his family. They've also laid the groundwork to obtain Trump's tax returns. In the letters seeking documents from these people and organizations, Nadler wrote that his committee is looking into, quote, a number of actions that threaten our nation's longstanding commitment to the rule of law, a number of actions that threaten our nation's longstanding commitment to the rule of law, including allegations of obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power. Trump tweeted this week that the Democrats investigating him and his administration are, quote,

stone-cold crazy. 81 letters sent to innocent people to harass them. They won't get anything done for our country, end quote. Dan, which areas of these investigations are most interesting to you? And do you think, as some have suggested, that Nadler is building a case for impeachment here? Is all of them a sufficient answer? Like, do I have to pick among my favorite Trump crimes? You do not have to pick, but for the purposes of conversation.

It would be helpful if I were to do so. You do not have to pick, but for the purposes of conversation. It would be helpful if I were to do so. I am personally most interested in the inauguration because there is this amazing fact that Trump spent a massive amount of money and an incredible amount of money was spent at his own hotel at absurdly overpriced rates for an inauguration that was attended by, as you may remember, not as many people as Sean Spicer would like us to believe. So we've spent a lot of time and there's been a lot of, basically every investigative reporter in America and the world has been digging into a lot of these other areas of inquiry. But it feels like the inauguration is one where there is a lot for us to learn and a lot for Congress to learn through these requests. Yeah, I would say the political staffer in me, the former communications staffer,

is most interested in all of the areas that involve potential corruption by Donald Trump, his family, his businesses, et cetera, because I do think one of the most powerful arguments against Trump in 2020 will be, this man enriched himself in office while your wages didn't move, while you couldn't afford your health care. And yet Donald Trump just kept making himself richer and richer

by breaking the law. So I think that is very fruitful territory for the Democrats to explore. The part of me that's just honestly curious about what the fuck has happened in the 2016 election and uh and after that is interested in you know they've tried to um subpoena or they're trying to look into the conversations between trump and putin uh remember there were no u.s interpreters and some of them uh and there was no nsc staffers there's no white house, there was no NSC staffers. There was no White House staff. There was just Trump and Putin chatting it up. And I think there's like one interpreter on the U.S. side for some of the conversations. So trying to get those conversations is very interesting.

And the money laundering, too, as well. Adam Schiff keeps saying that he thinks that there's a potential that Russia was laundering money through the Trump organization. And that's sort of been a rumor that we've heard from the very beginning. You think it's possible that when all of a sudden a guy who called himself the king of debt because he would always borrow to buy buildings was all of a sudden taking large cash payments from oligarchs in Russia, that there might be something suspicious about that? Perhaps. Perhaps, Dan. So, yeah, those are the ones, you know, I don't know if those move the needle electorally, but I'm certainly curious to find out what the hell happened there. What do you think about the impeachment question you asked? I think the people who say he's laying the groundwork for impeachment have a good point.

When you look at the language that Nadler used, he talks, he's focusing on abuse of power, obstruction. on abuse of power, obstruction. These are the same areas that caused Congress to drop articles of impeachment for both Nixon and Bill Clinton. So there's a precedent there of Congress attempting to impeach a president over these high crimes and misdemeanors. And so it does seem like by lumping them all together, now they're sort of laying out, you know, what he's looking into. He's also said that he believes the president has committed obstruction of justice, that he believes the president has been implicated in crimes. You know, at the same time, Nadler has also said, I want to do this carefully. I think that in order to make the case for impeachment and bring charges of impeachment in the House, we have to convince not only our own side, but some Republicans that this is a worthwhile endeavor, which seems like fucking wishful thinking to me.

But, you know, I guess that's what you have to say. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it also says a lot about where we are two plus years into the Trump administration that the mere fact that Congress is doing its most basic constitutional duty of oversight is framed in the question of guess it was a series of conversations with reporters where they sort of summed this up as to be basically everything that Trump has been involved in, all the things that Nadler has asked for, documents about what the Judiciary Committee and other committees are looking at represents one of the three greatest political scandals in American history along with Nixon and Watergate and then the Teapot Dome scandal. So it sort of shows the gravity of this, that it seems very much like Trump has committed offenses that fall into the political definition of impeachment. But you need to prove those things. You need to be able to make a case. But they're also just doing their basic duty to ask questions and hold hearings on what the administration is doing. It just happens to be one of the primary activities of this administration is crime-adjacent activities. And so, therefore, oversight tends to dip into the impeachment conversation. Yeah, well, that leads to my next question. I mean,

what do you think of Nadler's approach here? You know, there's been some concern, criticism, that sending so many requests on so many different issues at once could feed into Trump's witch hunt bullshit. Do you have any concern about this? No. And like, yeah, like, could you sit around and do theater criticism for weeks on end about like, would it be smarter to do them one at a time and do a drip, drip, drip? Or what if you requested documents about crimes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays? And ultimately, I don't think any of that matters for two reasons. trip? Or what if you requested documents about crimes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?

And ultimately, I don't think any of that matters for two reasons. We are both over-assuming how closely the American public who's going to side this election pays attention to the correspondence habits of Jared Nadler. And we are also somehow thinking that if Nadler were to approach this differently, Trump would take a different response. And that is simply not the case. Trump has been calling this a witch hunt before there was any oversight. He's going to call it presidential harassment under all scenarios. And so this is fine. I don't know that it's better than another approach, but it's totally fine. And if we're worrying about the cadence of correspondence related to potential presidential crimes, we're worrying about the wrong thing. of correspondence related to potential presidential crimes were worrying about the wrong thing.

I mean, also, Nadler's initial request is for material that was already provided to other congressional committees or federal investigators. He's not doing a ton of real digging just yet. So the idea that he sent out, you know, 80 letters or letters to 80 people and entities just for information that's already been handed over is not like he's bringing out the subpoena cannon just yet. And also, like you said, there have been a lot of fucking crimes and potential crimes. This has been the most corrupt administration potentially in history. And the only reason it's odd to people that suddenly Congress is doing so much oversight is because Republicans not only did zero oversight over the last two years, they did everything they can. They used their positions to protect Trump at all costs.

So, yeah, of course he's doing some oversight now. about the scope of this, which is why it requires a response like this, which is that Trump's business, his foundation, his campaign, his inauguration, his transition, and his administration are all under criminal investigation from multiple entities. And so there was a lot of work to do. And also, I think would make one other point, there's no time like the present. It is the first week of March. There are only so many days in a Congress. And let's get going here. I will also say it is not like Democrats are just picking controversies at random here. Like this is not some partisan witch hunt when all of these investigations are happening because federal prosecutors, nonpartisan, independent, some of them probably fairly conservative in the FBI. Prosecutors and FBI agents have found potential wrongdoing and potential criminality

in all of these areas. The inaugural committee, the Trump business, Kushner's companies, all of it. All of it started because of law enforcement. None of it happened because Democrats said, oh, we're going to go on a fishing expedition, right? Like, it didn't start in any kind of partisan way whatsoever. There's just this problem of viewing the job of getting to the bottom of presidential abuse of power, presidential corruption, and presidential criminality through this political lens of how does this affect a subset of voters in the suburbs outside of Cleveland, right? It's just a dumb way of looking at it, but it's the only filter by which the press can do it.

But if we are going to apply a political filter to this, what is the greater risk for Democrats? Put aside responsibilities to the Constitution, responsibilities to the American democracy, just general congressional oversight. What is the bigger political risk for Democrats? Is it overreach in investigating Trump too hard or underreach in not investigating him enough? It is almost certainly the latter. If Democrats were to run campaigns all up and down the ballot, all across the country, arguing that they were going to be a check on the corruption of the Trump administration in Washington, and they were going to be a co-equal branch who did investigation, and then they did not do that, that would have massive political effects, much more so than how many people Jerry Nadler requests

correspondence from on a single day. Right. And just from a political perspective, too, we know from the last two years that when the news is about Donald Trump, when it's about what Donald Trump has done wrong, potential crimes, whatever in the news more than Trump and the Republicans can keep Democrats in the news. That's what this is about for the next two years. And so these investigations, because Trump actually has committed wrongdoing, according to federal prosecutors, you know, that's what this is about. So one person who wasn't included in the document request is Ivanka Trump. And then we found out from CNN this week that her father personally pressured former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn to grant

her a top secret security clearance against their recommendations and the recommendations of other White House and national security officials. When they refused Trump's request, Trump granted the security clearance himself. This comes only a week after the New York Times reported that Trump did the same exact thing for Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner. Dan, based on our experience with security clearances in the White House, how big of a deal is this?

It's a giant deal. It is a huge deal. Now, I mean, let's stipulate for the purposes of fairness, which we try to aspire to here, but is that Donald Trump clearly has the power to do that. Like that is a presidential power to grant, to classify things, unclassify things, to grant security clearances, not grant security clearances. But it is, I can't tell you how unusual it is, not only just for the president of the United States themselves to get involved, but for political folks at the White House to come anywhere

near a conversation that happens with career officials in the White House Security Office and in the Intelligence Committee, depending on the level of security clearance. You would never touch it just for the very appearance sake. Now, it also suggests that there is something, I don't know what it could be, but something that is very alarming in Ivanka Trump's background investigation that would cause them to recommend no on this question. And that is a very worthy field of inquiry for Congress to find out what that was. Like, what was it that said, we are not going to give a senior advisor to the president and the presidential daughter security clearance? That person is too big a risk to have access to the nation's most important

and most closely held secrets. Like, so what is that? Is it that she lied on some of her forms, like we know Jared Kushner did on multiple occasions? Are there ties to foreigners that she did not disclose? Are there relationships that are with security risks that we need to be aware of? What was it? It is a huge question. I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to it, but I'm willing to bet that someone in Congress probably on Adam Schiff's committee is trying hard as hell to find out.

Yeah. And the other thing we know is that she lied about this, right? I mean, she was asked in an interview, you know, I think a year ago or a long time ago, did you, did your father have anything to do with you getting a security clearance? And she said, absolutely not. So as usual, there was something done wrong by someone in the Trump orbit or Trump, and then they lied about it, which has basically been the pattern Since the very beginning Politico reported last night that House Democrats Are wary of targeting Trump's Children in these investigations They're worried about the quote optics

Of going after Ivanka Don Jr. And Eric I mean Should they be? The worst part Of the piece is like if you read Through the piece sort of at the bottom, it's like basically they're they're OK, potentially investigating Ivanka because she does work in the White House. But so that but they're a little more wary about the children who aren't working in the White House. So it's like no one's going after Eric because Eric doesn't really matter.

No one's going after Tiffany. No one's going after Barron. So are they, do Democrats think that people are going to be worried about them going after universally sympathetic figure Don Jr.? Like what?

All right, let's, people, what are we doing? First, let's separate Tiffany and Barron from the adult children. Who run the business. Who run his business. In Ivanka's case, decided to work in the White House.

That was a choice she made. And once you decide that, then you are as open to all the responsibilities, the risks of being a high-level government staffer as anyone else. And so there's no presidential daughter exemption to government oversight or criminal investigation. I'm sorry, this is not how it works. Second, Don Jr. and Eric, frankly, are running a business that Trump has refused to divest from, a business that is very clearly profiting at an absurdly high and most likely unconstitutional level from the president, from Donald Trump's position as president of the United States, the fact that foreign governments who want to influence Trump are going up and renting blocks of rooms at his hotel. The fact that when T-Mobile was about to be involved in a very important merger discussion, they all of a sudden started spending a lot of money at the Trump hotel.

Of course, if they were to have separated them, if Trump had separated himself from his business, if they'd gone off and done other things, then yeah, maybe there'd be an optics issue. But they are running a business that seems to, at least from the outside in, looking to be part of a major presidential corruption scandal. So yes, they should be investigated. No, we should not worry about it. That is an absurd thing to worry about. Don Jr. is ensnared in multiple federal investigations. What are we doing? repeatedly. Like, it is one, like, you can't. If you were to decide you're not going to investigate Don Jr. and Ivanka, then you might as well pack up, go home, you're not really doing anything. And it's just, sometimes I think we, politicians generally, Democrats most particularly,

exist in some world of, like, pundit concern mad libs. Like, yes, when we're talking about Jenna and Barbara Bush, or Sasha and Malia Obama or Chelsea Clinton, or I think in this case, Barron or Tiffany Trump, who have no involved, who are children, Barron a child, Tiffany older, but has no involvement in what's happening. Yes, presidential children should be protected from public scrutiny and congressional investigations, et cetera. But once you decide to work in the White House or run a business that profits from the presidency, you are not immune to that and there is not a political risk to it.

It is, I mean, it's like, let's just think about this for two fucking seconds, people, before we decide to spout off our concerns to Politico. Think, like we said this last week about Democratic strategists, have an inner monologue. Just like think twice, talk to a Democrat before you call up a Politico reporter

and just express a stupid fear in the back of your mind. What is going on in the Hill? I guess it's been going on for the last fucking three decades. But it's like, don't open your mouths when the Politico reporter and the Washington Post reporter and the New York Times reporter call you. Stop. Communications directors, stop your bosses from saying this shit to reporters in the hallways. Just stop. You can still be nice to them.

You can still answer their questions. I think it's great that lots of members of Congress answer questions. You should do that. But you don't have to just ruminate a stream of consciousness about your fears and anxieties. Let me tell you. It also gets you no brownie points with reporters. You're not like this much closer to making some sort of political power list because you decided to express some deep-seated concern about potential political blowback to investigating the senior advisor to the president. Come on, people. I have an optics concern.

Who should I talk to? Should I talk to my staff? Should I talk to my colleagues? Should I? No, you know what? I'll dial up Politico. That's a great way to express my optic concerns about politics what the fuck people um so in response to the announcement of these new congressional

investigations trump called nadler's request quote the greatest overreach in the history of our country instead of doing infrastructure instead of doing health care they want to play games how effective do you think the Trump Republican response about presidential harassment is? And do you think there's any risk of Democratic overreach here? I know that we are not that worried about the concerns expressed about, you know, Nadler's approach here to sending all the letters. But is there anything the Democrats could do that we would be worried about in terms of overreach? We shouldn't be too dismissive of there being at least some power in Trump's message that Democrats are so focused on investigating Trump that they're not doing the things that the American people care about. so obsessed with Trump, then maybe we would have an infrastructure bill, or we could pass another tax cut for the middle class, or I don't know, something else that Trump cares about that the American people like, which is a very, that's a very small slice of the Venn diagram. But that is an argument that has worked in the past. It's the argument that Bill Clinton used in 1996. It's what he used to fight back against Ken Starr and impeachment in the late 90s. So there is, I mean,

there's precedent for this working. But I don't think that should change what Democrats do, right? We have to engage the argument, we shouldn't just run away from it. And like, as long as we stay focused on very legitimate lines of inquiry around criminality and corruption and abuse of power, then we'll be fine. If we start doing – which I can't imagine would ever happen, the sort of crazy stuff that Republicans did in the 90s where they were convinced that a – Vince Foster, who was a Clinton administration attorney who killed himself, had been killed in some sort of plot to cover up the Whitewater scandal and where you had the person who currently has Elijah Cummings job as the head of the oversight committee, fire a gun into a watermelon to try to prove that it was not a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Like if we start doing that crazy shit, which is not going to happen. So it's sort of like worrying about snow in the summer. It's not a real concern,

but as long as we stay focused on the things that matter to people and the things that are obviously legitimate lines of inquiry that I, I, we should not be worried about this. Yeah. I mean, I think that Democrats have to take great care to always connect these investigations to people's lives. Why, why is this investigation matter to your life? Right. So it's like, we can talk all about security clearances and it seems very distant to people, but the reason that this is a problem is because Trump is jeopardizing our national security. He's allowing potentially and his staff are allowing potentially foreign's not doing anything for you, but he's making off okay. Right. So like, I do think that we have to really make sure we are drawing direct lines from these investigations to people's lives and what matters to people. So I think, and there's a danger of, it's not overreach, right? There's just a danger of sort of looking like you're focused on getting Trump and not looking like you're focused on, you know, defending, protecting and advocating on behalf of the American people. So I do think there's like a messaging challenge, but I don't think, I think you're right. Like that doesn't, that shouldn't stop democrats from doing their responsibility uh to

you know conduct oversight which is what they promised to do in the 2018 elections and won because of it at least in part that's a good point so on that note the new york times ran a story on wednesday that talks about quote a month of stumbles for democratic leaders and it basically talks about how the house democrats have had a hard time breaking through lately. Last week, they passed a gun control bill. No one really noticed. This week, they're passing a voting rights and ethics reform bill. No one's really talking about it. They almost sent a resolution to the Senate to end our military involvement in Yemen. But the Republicans turned it into an anti-Semitism resolution. Everyone is arguing with each other today still about Ilhan Omar's comments. There's supposed to be a vote on the floor of the House

today for another resolution condemning anti-Semitism and hate and bigotry in all its forms. It's been quite a mess this week. What can Democrats do to not only get back on message, but to stay on message in the future, break through the news cycle with their message and stick together, at least in public? This is not a problem that is unique to the Trump era or even this particular month. It is almost always impossible to get extensive coverage for legislation passed by one body of Congress in the minority. I mean, the Republicans in Congress, from 2011 to 2015, had the House but not the Senate. Obama was president. They passed shit all the time. They were just constantly passing terrible bills. And we actually wanted them to get more attention because they were so odious and unpopular. But no one noticed. No one cared. The press really only will cover things

that they think have a chance of becoming law in that way. And so it's not surprising that even though this passage of gun safety legislation for the first time in a very long time was a very big deal and showed how far the ball has moved on the politics of gun control laws. But the fact that it hasn't moved far enough means it's going to get a little attention, not enough. And so we're just – this is not a – it's not a particularly solvable problem. So I do kind of want to disentangle like sort of a couple different things. Like there's three questions in there. Like how can we get more attention for the things that we did?

Right. How can we stay on message? And then how do we stop fighting with each other? So on the first one, like I laid out the problem there. I do think that we can be more creative, right? The New York Times, the cable TV stations, the Washington Post are not going to give sufficient,

the coverage we need to the stuff that the Democratic House is doing, other than Russia investigation oversight stuff. So just the passage of legislation. So we have to think that there are better, more extensive ways to communicate than simply just holding a press conference with the Capitol Hill Press Corps and then expecting them to carry that

message to the voters that care. So that means local press from members of Congress, which I'm sure many of them are doing. It means thinking about alternative media methods to do it, where can you reach people who you know care about this issue and are interested in, and you don't have go through a cynical press filter. What are specific ways to do it? Who are the voices on social media who are influencers, who have a following that you can get them to amplify this? You just have to think creative because you have to think more creatively and work harder than you've ever had before in the past to get this message out. And even then, it's very, very hard. The second,

how do we get on message is related to your third question of how do we stop fighting with each other. And I think the big thing there is there's gonna be disagreements in our caucus, as there should be, because, and I think we're healthier, because we don't all believe the same thing. It's not a bunch of, you know, Fox News, adult automatons who are funded by the Koch brothers. Like there's, we are a party that has AOC and, you know, more conservative members who won in very red districts. Like that's who we are. And if we're going to have majorities, then we're going to have to have diversity of opinion. That's a fact. But I think we should try to have our disagreements not allow the resolution of our disagreements to be dictated by bad faith criticism from Republicans, right? So this dispute between Ilhan Omar and a number of

other members in the caucus has spilled out and getting a ton of attention. And in part, the response the Democrats have put forward is the way that they're approaching this, I think, is based on this naive belief that if they are to pass this congressional resolution 24 hours before they're supposed to pass their most important signature piece of legislation, the H.R. 1, the electoral reform and democracy bill, that somehow if they do that, then the right in Trump will stop accusing all Democrats of anti-Semitism. And that is naive and wrongheaded. And we have to think, instead of trying to satisfy a group of bad faith critics and cynical

pundits and reporters, we should think about how to turn the subject back to Trump. Yeah, watching this play out, and Ben andy talked about this on potsy of the world and they really uh dug into it so i encourage everyone to go listen to that episode and we're not going to sort of rehash everything here but watching this episode unfold um this week and just sort of last day after day after day made me think like we are going to be dealing with more of these episodes um between now and 2020 a lot more. I mean, yeah, I saw Josh Barrow tweeted this morning, like, because the government's going to get nothing done, Trump's not going to get anything done, it's divided government, like,

these controversies will take up a disproportionate share of the media coverage between now and the 2020 election. And I think that is exactly right. And I don't know that Democrats have figured out a way to sort of handle these controversies or at least like downplay them or move past them in sort of an efficient way, right? Like, I don't see why everyone could have just like, you're right. Republicans are always going to launch bad faith attacks. Like we should not respond based on what they say, but we should respond based on what we believe. And I feel like every member can do that on their own without then also attacking every other member or talking about it i mean there's there was this story in the washington post is basically the same as the new york times story about like you know it's a democrats and disarray story

and at one point um they have reporting from inside the caucus meeting and jan jacoski just yelled to everyone she's a congresswoman fromkowsky just yelled to everyone, she's a congresswoman from Illinois, she just yelled to everyone, stop tweeting! Everyone stop tweeting! Which is, you know, that's the answer, never tweet. But it does seem like once these controversies erupt, then everyone feels like they need to have their takes, like everyone's a pundit now, whether you're an actual pundit or a voter or a member of Congress. Everyone's just going to like take take opinion opinion. And suddenly we're like drowning in takes and opinions on this controversy about anti-Semitism, you an unbelievable amount of ammo, weapons, and had a kill list of prominent Democrats, prominent media figures. And like there wasn't a day's worth of discussion about that.

I didn't see any statements from any of the presidential candidates. I didn't see it talked about a lot on the news. I didn't see anything about it. This person was going to commit mass murder on an unfathomable scale, okay? And we didn't talk about it. And it's just one person out of many when there's been like a rise of right-wing, anti-Semitic, you know, white nationalist groups over the last couple years, something we're not talking about. But these controversies, controversies, Ilhan Omar makes a statement and suddenly it's like we're on day six, day seven of this. And every presidential candidate is releasing a statement now. Everyone's weighing in. We got resolutions on the floor. What are we doing?

It's really important not to be dismissive of, like there's a lot of bad faith critique here from trump from you know trump very nazis are very fine people from jim jordan who tweeted tom steyer's name with a dollar sign like six minutes ago kevin mccarthy who accused bloomberg and soros of trying to buy the election at the end but there are you know there are people who are concerned about what was said um in good faith who have legitimate concerns about it and like we're not trying to be dismissive of those, and those should be dealt with. But the problem is when you're trying to satisfy the bad faith arguments. And I thought Brian's piece on Crooked this morning that I think we both tweeted out is really worth a read about how you handle these things, where you can handle business within your own house and family without conceding the argument to the other side,

who have been amplifying anti-Semitic voices for a very long time and trying to benefit politically from anti-Semitic sentiment in this country in very explicit and very dangerous ways. Yeah, I mean, to me, this is all about proportion, right? ways. Yeah, I mean, to me, this is all about proportion, right? Like, you know, Ilhan Omar is a member of Congress, and she should be more careful in how she phrases her critique of Israel, which is entirely legitimate if she wants to critique Israel, if she wants to critique AIPAC, if she wants to critique our policy towards Israel, how policy works. That is all very legitimate. She didn't get attacked for it. But you have to be careful when you um when you're a member of congress to make sure that you are not um you know saying things that could be construed as anti-semitic by you know people operating in good faith not the bad faith people right like but that is that that should be viewed as an ice for what it is which is an isolated

incident of someone saying something they shouldn't have said, you know, and then we can all move on. Like the fact that it has reached the point we're putting resolutions on the House floor and we're talking about for seven days is absurd. And there has got to be a way for us to handle controversies in a good faith way and move past them as a party and remind people that in, you know, less than two years now, we are going to be facing an election where Donald Trump is on the ballot. And the only way that he can win again is if his opposition isn't unified. That is it. If the opposition is unified, if we're all there together, if we're all standing there together and we all get to the polls, he is going to lose. If not, if we are divided, if we are arguing with each other if we are focusing

on these mini controversies every day between now and november he is going to have another four years in office that is what we're dealing with right now and i think it's like it would be worthwhile for everyone to sort of take a step back and focus on that i think there's one other other takeaway from this that applies to 2020, which is, this is certainly the fault of what was originally said and then how it's been handled within the Democratic caucus over the last six days, six days slash 10 years, which is how long it's felt. But it also speaks to a larger challenge for our Democratic nominee, which is in a social media, digital ad-powered press world, these are the things – the stories and the content that generates outrage on both sides are the most financially valuable to news organizations. So there is an economic bias towards stories like this. Even if the Democrats had handled this perfectly, this would have been a disproportionately large story because it generates outrage and engagement, and therefore it generates more traffic, generates more ad dollars, so it gets doubled and tripled down upon.

And so we've talked about this before, but this speaks to the need of whoever our Democratic nominee is to have the capacity to communicate to the American people outside of the traditional media ecosystem. Which doesn't mean that person should not do – engage with traditional media. They should, but should be able to find other ways to talk to the public, whether it's through social media, through digital advertising, through other means. But if the only way in which you're going to get your message out is through cable TV, the New York Times, Politico, et cetera, we are going to be having the conversation that Trump wants us to have because he benefits. There is a structural advantage to Trump's message in the outrage-fueled online press system. And so if we can move outside of that, we will be able to tell a story to the American people that is told on our terms, not on the terms dictated by Trump tweets. All right, speaking of the outrage machine, let's move on to one of our favorite topics, Fox News. This week, Jane Mayer wrote a blockbuster story in The New Yorker about the symbiotic relationship between the network and Donald Trump.

The article laid out in detail how Fox has evolved into a propaganda arm of the White House to the point where former Fox president Bill Shine is now the White House deputy chief of staff, while still making literally millions of dollars in severance payments from his former employer where he was accused of covering up sexual harassment. from his former employer where he was accused of covering up sexual harassment. Among the newsier parts in Mayer's piece, Trump was tipped off to questions in one of Fox's presidential debates in 2015 by Fox executives. A Fox reporter had the Stormy Daniels story before the 2016 election, but executives killed it and then demoted her. Trump ordered his former economic advisor, Gary Cohn,

to push the Justice Department to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger to punish CNN and benefit Fox. And Trump has told people that he assigns loyalty scores to Fox's on-air personalities on a scale from 1 to 10. Sean Hannity, of course, gets a 10. Brett Baer gets a 6. And Steve Doocy, host of Fox & Friends, he gets a 10. Brett Baer gets a 6. And Steve Doocy, host of Fox and Friends, he gets a 12, Dan. He gets

a 12 out of 10. Dan, what did you think of the story and will it change the way anyone thinks of Fox News? Well, I thought the story was incredible. None of it, like the general

thrust of the story is not surprising. We have known this for a very long time, that Fox is a Republican propaganda machine masquerading as a news organization to get access to our airwaves. But Jane Mayer, who is an American

media treasure, who is one of our best reporters, found the proof points that proved this. And after reading that story on Monday, I thought to myself, well, this is it. This isn't just like a bunch of Democratic hacks like ourselves, for instance, tweeting about how bad Fox is. This isn't Barack Obama complaining about it. It's not Media Matters presenting actual facts and proof to people. But because they're funded from the left, it will be dismissed. This is Jane Mayer, one of the most respected reporters in all of the world, showing that journalism is not done at Fox, as it is commonly thought of. They sat on a major scoop to help their chosen candidate.

That's not Sean Hannity. That's not Tucker Carlson. That's not Laura Ingraham. That's not the White National's Variety Hour, as John Lovett calls it. That's not Sean Hannity. That's not Tucker Carlson. That's not Laura Ingraham. That's not the White Nationals Variety Hour, as John Lovett calls it. That's the news division. Brett Baer, who is held up for some fucking unknown reason by all these reporters, I think because he's an affable guy who goes to cocktail parties, is some hallmark of journalism, gets a six on a loyalty scale from the praise of the United States.

And I thought to myself, well, this is it. It's finally happened. It's been, you know, we've been seeing that a transition in how people, how the broader world thinks about Fox for a while. And Jane Mara has cinched it. Oh no.

But John, I was wrong. I was very wrong. Oh no. This, this piece comes out Monday. Uh, on Wednesday,

uh, the democratic national Committee announces That Fox News will not be one of the media outlets Hosting a 2020 Democratic primary debate Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement to the Washington Post That quote Recent reporting in the New Yorker On the inappropriate relationship between President Trump

His administration and Fox News Has led me to conclude that the network Is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate For our candidates No shit Trump is already in response threatened to not appear in debates in the general election that are held on other networks which hey dipshit uh at the general election uh no one network hosts the debates

they're broadcast everywhere so your only option is to uh drop out of the debates if you want um so anyway i see Tom's statement. I see the Democratic National Committee's decision. I'm like, yeah, obviously. Obviously, we're not going to have Fox News host a primary debate for the Democratic Party. They haven't hosted one in like 10 years or something. I think it was 2004, if then. Yeah, more.

It didn't happen in 2016. Okay, so almost 15 years has gone by now since Fox News has hosted a primary debate. I don't know why the Democratic Party was considering offering them to host one in the first place if we hadn't for the last 15 years. whose business model is based on spreading disinformation and whipping up outrage and xenophobia and racism among Donald Trump's base, I thought it was pretty common sense that we wouldn't say, well, we only have so many debates to offer hosts for. And yeah, we're not going to have Fox be one of those hosts because there's a ton of other media organizations out there and activist organizations and different groups who could ask our candidates very tough but fair and illuminating questions so that our voters can decide who they want as their nominee it seems pretty normal that fox news wouldn't be one of

those places but dan i would have been mistaken because then we see journalists jonathan allen we saw it from zeke miller the AP. Saw it from all kinds of other reporters. Jack Schaefer in Politico saying, what are Democrats so afraid of? Why are they afraid of tough questions from Fox News? This seems like a huge mistake for Democrats. This is going to play into Trump's worst instincts and he's going to attack the press more because of this. He's going to attack the good outlets more and all this bullshit. And I am just, I don't know, Trump's worst instincts, and he's going to attack the press more because of this. He's going to attack the good outlets more, and all this bullshit. And I am just, I don't know, man. I thought that this far into the Trump administration, this far after 2016, this far into Fox News transforming from a conservative outlet to one that is basically just pumping disinformation into the

ether and really hurting our democracy as a result i would have thought that journalists good journalists who do good work would have understood what this is all about and i am clearly mistaken and i don't know why it is mind-boggling i have been raging like a lunatic for two days now. And let's just like let's separate or Gayle King or some of these other people are not going to ask Democrats tough questions. That's insane. That is a stupid fucking way to think about it. And if you would think before you tweet, you would understand that in defending Fox, you're insulting the rest of the journalists by using that argument. Second, there's this argument that somehow this is in doing so Democrats are hurting journalism and we are giving aid and comfort to Trump's argument that there is fake news. OK, that is stupid.

Democrats are not stopping Fox from doing their job. Fox reporters are going to be invited to cover the debates. I'm willing to bet that Fox will even get to set up their camera positions, and they'll probably can have their set there and do all the other things they get to do. They get to report on the debate. The Democratic Party decided it was not going to allow Fox News to make a lot of money off of their debate. And since, I don't know, maybe Fox read the incredibly offensive conspiracy theory about Seth Rich, a slain DNC staffer in the 2016 election, that Roger Ailes gave the questions to Trump, that Fox News executives work at the White House, that Trump advisors work at Fox,

that they decided they were not going to reward that behavior. Democrats are also not giving a debate to Breitbart. Is that somehow offensive? And for all of you people who are just screaming about what a problem this is, I don't hear one single one of you, not you, John Allen, not you, anyone else, complaining when the Republicans held nine debates in 2016 and did not give a single one to MSNBC. Were they afraid to take the questions of Rachel Maddow? No one says, well, oh, that this is bad for journalism that Republicans don't look to MSNBC. It is so fucking stupid. And what these reporters are doing is first tweeting without thinking and two, trying to virtue signal to their Republican sources that they're somehow both sides friendly journalists.

Like it is just it is embarrassing because Fox does more damage to the profession of journalism than it does to Democrats. They are the you turn on Fox. All they do is take legitimate reporting from serious news organizations in the middle, but also on the left and the right, and dismiss it and call it fake news. And they have perpetuated this myth that mainstream news organizations are in cahoots with Democrats. They have done this. And to defend them is to have just a lack of self-preservation for your industry. It is so frustrating. And I could scream about this for hours. And may, frankly. Well, and it's it's like honestly don't just ask us you know we're a bunch of liberal democratic activists like it's not just democrats that understand um what is wrong with

fox news like ask john weaver former you know he's a republican staffer jennifer rubin was in john mayer's piece talking about this she was a conservative commentator Greta Van Susteren who was on Fox News was talking about it in Jane Mayer's like everyone on both sides pretty much gets what's going on at Fox News I think reporters view Fox News as like oh that's the conservative media outlet and there may have been a time when Fox News first started that it was in fact a conservative media outlet that had conservative viewpoints on it. That time has long passed. There's no conservative ideology coming out of Fox News. What it is, is it's disinformation. Every day, Fox News, through the opinion part of the network, and by the way, a lot of the news part of the

network, including some of the guests they have on, will say that Hillary Clinton is a criminal, that Robert Mueller and the so-called deep state are engaged in a coup against the president, that we shouldn't trust that, you know, the American law enforcement officials are after Donald Trump, that there's a fucking invasion at our southern border. Lie after lie after lie that are designed to scare people, that are designed to make people angry, incites hate, it could incite violence. It is a very dangerous institution right now. And they are doing this eyes wide open. This is what they want to do. They're covering up stories for Donald Trump. They are only saying the good things about Donald Trump. They're covering up bad news for him. I mean, like, this is not, this is not a conservative news organization. This is a propaganda arm of the White House. This is the closest thing we've, as Jane Mayer says like this is not this is not a conservative news organization. This is a propaganda arm of the White House.

This is the closest thing we've as Jane Mayer says, this is the closest thing we've ever had in this country to state run television. I mean, and it is degrading democracy every single day that it's on the air by spreading disinformation. who are trying to uphold the values of a free press and get at the truth should be particularly concerned that there's a network out there that's spreading disinformation when they're trying to do their jobs. They should be mad about it. I don't understand. It's really mind-boggling. I'd like to take another shot at another part of the argument of stupidity we've heard the last two days. One is, how are Democrats ever going to win over Fox viewers if they don't go on Fox? Oh, right. Yeah. OK.

Now, a couple of things. One, as far as I know, there is nothing that prohibits Fox viewers from having remote control that would enable them to change the channel to watch debates on other channels. Republicans decided not to go on MSNBC after having lost the popular vote in five of the last seven elections, I don't remember a bunch of political wags saying, well, how are the Republicans going to get the MSNBC viewer? Like, what does that mean? Why are they scared of taking questions from Rachel Maddow? Like, no one said that. And here's the other thing.

Sean Hannity, who has the most watched program on that network, gets 3 million viewers. There were 128 million voters in the 2016 election. Do you think the 3 million Sean Hannity voters are the people who are going to make a difference? Do we have to reach voters who live in the towns where Fox is the number one watch station? Absolutely. Do we have to reach people who have the same profile as the 3 million people who watch Sean Hannity? Yes. Do we have to broaden the reach of the party to reach into more rural and ex-urban areas? Yes. But the idea that the only way to do that is to offer Fox a television debate during the Democratic primary is so simple-minded that it blows the mind. Like there are ways to reach the voters we need without putting a imprimatur of legitimacy on Fox News and giving them more money to then use to try to destroy democracy in this country.

Because that is what a debate is. It is a profit-making enterprise for a news network. And the Democratic National Committee made the exact right decision. And frankly, this whole conversation is stupid. Because even if they had given them a debate, it wouldn't have happened because a number of Democrats would have decided not to go to a debate because they didn't want to do exactly what we just said. And we know this because that's what happened in 2008 when the Democratic National Committee gave Fox a debate. Then it was reported that Roger Ailes would refer

to Barack Obama as Obama bin Laden. And we decided to cancel the, a couple of Democrats decided to cancel the debate and the debate did not happen. So we've had, we have wasted all of our time and decided to, the many reporters have decided to reveal to the country just how inside the bubble and simple-minded they are. It is very frustrating. If you are a voter who only gets your news from Fox News, it's your only source of news, you are not voting Democrat. If you are one of the voters who gets your news from Fox, but also many other outlets, then you are potentially a Democratic voter. But in that case, you can find the debate on any of the other news channels that you watch. It's really that simple.

There are Democrats and independents who watch Fox News, for sure. But those people who are watching Fox News are also exposed to a whole bunch of other media if they are actually up for grabs voters. When you are ensconced in the Fox News bubble and that is the only thing that you watch, we're probably not getting your vote. And we all have relatives. We have friends. We have family members who have fallen into this trap. And we've and like and that's why a lot of people are outraged. I have seen what Fox News has done to people in my life that have changed their political persuasion because of the disinformation that is pumped out of that network. It is a cancer on democracy. All right.

Let's talk about 2020. This was the week where a bunch of people decided not to run for president. Former Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Monday that he'll remain focused on his work to fight partisan gerrymandering. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who's quite progressive, announced on Tuesday that he'll focus on running for reelection to the Senate. And former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week that she won't be a candidate in 2020 paving the way for a nasty trump tweet and a clinton response tweet that included a mean girls gif because we're all living in 2016 forever and also as we were recording breaking news sherrod brown senator sherrod brown from ohio has also decided that he will not be

running for president oh really so yeah that yeah. That's news to me. I know. When we lost you for a second and we had to call you back, Michael let me know. And of course, my wife was texting me too because she used to work for Sherrod. What's your take on all these announcements

that they're not running for president? It's so funny because that's the normal thing that happens. Usually there's a large group of potential candidates, people who are thinking about it, possibly who've thought they would do it one day in their life or who are sort of talked about as good candidates. And most of them end up not running. And if you do, we've just had the opposite problem where everyone who anyone thought might ever possibly run was getting in the race. And in some ways, not running is a harder decision than deciding to run. Because you really are sort of, in some ways, closing off a path to yourself. And it takes a lot of self-awareness, both of your political situation, maybe your family situation, et cetera, to decide that the odds are too long, the sacrifice too great for, uh, to do it. And I think, so, you know, actually, you know, I mean, kudos to these people for making the decision. I am a

little disappointed. I will say that, uh, Sherrod Brown is not running. I, we, you know, we obviously shared a lot on this podcast to, uh, you know, you obviously know him for a very long time. I thought he would have added an interesting, I thought he was someone who like, there was people who have a very, very low likelihood of winning and people who have a shot. I thought he would have added an interesting... I thought he was someone who... There was a difference between people who have a very, very low likelihood of winning and people who have a shot. I think Sherrod would have had more of a shot than potentially the other folks we discussed. Yeah. No, I think... Look, Sherrod Brown has near impeccable progressive credentials. And as a very progressive senator, won Ohio multiple times, a state that has been slipping away from Democrats. And, you know, we got crushed in Ohio in 2018 and Sherrod still won. And he won not by just,

you know, emphasizing populist economics only and sort of ignoring social and cultural issues. He won as a proud progressive across the spectrum. And I think there's a lesson in how Sherrod won for other Democrats and Sherrod was someone on the trail as he was on his Dignity of Work tour who, you know, he's like, here's my view of Medicare for all. I think we should lower the age to 55 and we should take it one step at a time. And I think that's what can get passed. And I'm not going to just take a position because I think that's the position you're supposed to take to appease, you know, certain activists. I'm going to do what I think is right because I'm focused on trying to, you know, help improve people's lives. And that's what it is.

If you like that, great. If you don't like that, that's fine. And whether you agree with that or not, like, good for him for saying something like that, you know, and for standing strong on what he believes. Yeah. I mean, the race is probably a little bit lesser for not having Sherrod's perspective in there. But as soon as we have a nominee, I'm pretty positive that Sherrod is going to be at the top of most people's potential vice presidential nominee list. Yeah. How big of a deal do you think it is that Bloomberg is going all in to beat Trump since he's a man of means? Is that a Howard Schultz illusion?

It was not. It was not. Yeah, I think that's what Howard Schultz wanted to call people who, when he bristled at being called a billionaire, was people of means. But either way, it's still good. Look, Bloomberg has become one of the most important players in progressive and democratic politics. He played a very important role in helping Democrats have great success in 2018. helping Democrats have great success in 2018. He has done tremendous amount on climate and on pushing gun safety legislation, both trying to elect candidates who fight for gun safety legislation and pushing things at the state and local level. And he's surrounded by a lot of smart people. And if he's, I think what he has talked about doing is potential to have a real impact and helps.

Like, I would love to live in a world where all campaigns were either publicly financed or funded at the grassroots with contributions under like $500 or something, but we don't live that way. And in this election, different from 2016, which we forget, is that all the Republican billionaires sat out the presidential election last time. And now, flush with giant tax cuts from Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, they are going to be massive players. And so the Democrat is going to get swamped in money. Now, it doesn't mean they're going to lose. Money is not everything, but they're going to get swamped. And if Bloomberg is out there strategically deploying resources

in smart ways, it is going to be very helpful. And so I am grateful that he, that even though he decided not to run, he's not sitting on the sidelines. Yeah. I mean, a hundred million dollars in 2018 is not nothing. That's what he spent to help elect Democrats. So good for Bloomberg for doing that. And again, not just politics too, like, you know, he, his beyond coal campaign helped retire like half the coal fired power plants in this country. He wants to get rid of all of them. In the next couple of years, he wants to make sure that we are 100% renewable energy, clean energy economy.

So good for him. I'm glad he's still in the fight. Finally, you and I have talked in the past about how the concept of electability has basically lost all its meaning. Well, there's a excellent BuzzFeed piece this week by Molly Hensley Clancy titled Democratic Voters Want Electability, but that doesn't mean they want a centrist for president. In the piece, she writes, quote, The vast majority of Democratic voters aren't thinking about electability in terms of ideology, geography or electoral margin, according to interviews with more than 50 Democratic voters in early primary states. Far from tying electability to centrism or moderation, voters said they cared about rhetoric, personality, energy, and momentum

when deciding if a candidate could win. Many others said they were looking primarily for someone who spoke specifically to the concerns of working class people. Some wanted a fighter who could parry Trump's rhetoric. Just two out of the 50 said they were looking for a political moderate. So Dan, these voters are largely separating electability from ideology, which is something that no political pundit has ever done. Do you think that's representative of how most voters think? I think, like as you point, electability is this term that means nothing because no one knows what it means. And you only – a candidate is only electable if they win. And so it's like a reverse engineered thing where John Kerry was not electable but Barack Obama was.

Hillary Clinton was not electable but Donald Trump was. But we have no idea what exactly that means. And it does not take into consideration context. It does not take into consideration the larger electoral forces or the economy or anything else. We will say this 1,000 times between now and 2020, is that most voters are not ideological. The most electable Democrat and one of the most electable people in modern American history is Barack Hussein Obama, an anti-war Democrat from the South Side of Chicago via Hawaii and Indonesia with a father from Kenya. There is no model where that suggests that's the most electable candidate. And so the ability to inspire people while at the same time seeming inclusive and honest

and decent is how you win elections. And that's what our most electable candidate will be. win elections. And that's what our most electable candidate will be. It will not necessarily be where they fall on some sort of ideological spectrum as dictated by a group of people with blue check marks on Twitter. And it's not to say that each of these candidates doesn't need to come up with an argument for why they are the most electable candidate against Donald Trump. And Obama did that. He had an electability argument in 2008. Remember, you know, he would say, like, my opponent in the general election won't be able to say that I was for the war in Iraq, right? Like, I will have that difference. So he basically said he was

electable because he would offer a contrast between himself and the Republican nominee by saying he was the only Democrat who was against the war. He also said, like, you know, my opponent won't be able to say that I took lobbyist money or PAC money, because Obama was unique and swearing off lobbyist money back in 2008. And so there's different ways to present your argument for being the most electable candidate that's not like, oh, you know, I can go after moderate centrist voters, which is sort of the stereotype, you know? Right. Electability is not a reason in of itself to run for president.

Like the candidates who view themselves as the most electable lose. Because if you don't stand for anything other than winning, then you're going to be a terrible candidate because you have to stand for something. And look, if you are people, I am not arguing that voters should pick, try to pick the most electable candidate. They should pick the candidate that inspires them, that they inspire them through their life story, their personality, their policy positions, their speeches, whatever it is. The candidate you feel the most strongly about is the one you should do. And the hope is that we will pick – I mean,

like the candidate who comes out will be the most electable Democrat. Whether that person will be electable enough to beat Trump is a question that remains open. But if you can't go through the very long and complicated process of winning the nomination, then you're not the most electable candidate, right? Like just – you didn't run a good enough campaign to win and therefore you're not – just if you didn't run a good enough campaign to win the primary, you're not going to run a good enough campaign to win the general. And so I think the lesson from this is, one, we have to stop putting DC pundit-based or Twitter-based views on the voters who will decide the election. Twitter is not a poll. Twitter is not the Democratic primary. Twitter is not America. And the things that the Democratic voters care about are going to be different than the things that make up the conversations in DC or make up the conversations on Twitter. And we should allow research in what voters tell us to

guide that conversation, not what we want that conversation to say based on our previous experience or where we hang out in our lives. Yeah. I mean, here's an interesting question. You know, given the predictions about electability are often wrong and they're almost always freighted with, you know, racial and gender stereotypes, right? Like, oh, a white man is going to be more electable, right? Like there's all this bullshit out there about electability. But how should Democratic voters think about picking the right person to run against Trump, knowing that when you interview a lot of these voters, they say, I just want someone who can beat Trump. But also what that means to each individual voter is quite different.

Right. And it's also like I always find that poll question. I think I've read about this before that poll question to be stupid you know which is obviously you want someone who can beat trump like that's table stakes like what's the point of like no one picks someone who can't be trump because then what the fuck are we doing but you're right how people interpret what that means is gonna be different for everyone and so it it is not particularly instructive of how voters will choose, right? Just because they want the most electable candidates doesn't mean there's a certain model of candidate based on policy positions or appearance or background or whatever else that will dictate that. It just means that they want to win the election. Right. I mean, it's interesting.

Like in this piece, there was someone, there's a guy interviewed who said that, you know, he's leaning towards Kamala Harris. And he said, she represents someone who can win. I think her ethnicity and the fact that she's a woman is a great contrast to the fellow we have in the office. For lack of a better way of saying it, I think seeing her across the debate stage from him will make him pee his pants. And I'm okay with that. Which I thought was funny.

But it's like that man is approaching the race with electability in mind, but his notion of electability is Kamala Harris offers the best contrast to Donald Trump. So I do think it's interesting that electability can be important to voters, but what they decide is electable is vastly different across different kind of people. And I do think if you're concerned about who can actually beat Trump, you should think about like, who do I want on the debate stage with him? Right? Who when Trump attacks and says something horrible about the person, how are they going to react? How is that person going to handle adversity on the campaign trail, right? The first time something, something bad happens, whether it's from Donald Trump or something else. I mean,

for Barack Obama, sort of a defining moment in the 08 race was after the Reverend Wright tapes came out. How did he respond to that? Right. That was a real crisis in our campaign. And do you respond to that by, you know, doing a few interviews and trying to ignore the issue and move on and being afraid of it? Or do you do what he did, which is like, you know, write an entire speech about race relations in America and then deliver that, which is a very honest, sort of gritty speech that he delivered. And I think figuring out as you're looking at the candidates, like who can really, who has that extra gear when the going gets tough and Donald Trump attacks and the Republican super PACs attack or something in their

past comes up or, you know, whatever might happen, who can really stand up in a way that is authentic and real and honest with people and can, you know, and can stand up that way. Like, I think that's, that's probably an important consideration. Yeah. I think, look, we know what it takes mathematically to win the White House based on the Electoral College, which is you have to, at the same time, excite the Democratic base and turn out new voters, people who've sat out the process before, inspired them to get involved, and persuade a number of voters who are in the middle. And I don't say mean they're in the middle ideologically. I mean that they were Obama voters in 12 and became Trump voters in 16 or were Romney voters in 12 and became Clinton voters in 16. You have to be able to inspire and persuade. Either or, you lose. That's right. It's just that is the math electoral college where you need Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and some combination of states to get to 270. If this were a popular vote election, you could actually choose between those two, but it's not.

And so I do not know who the candidate is who will be able to do that best, but you want to find someone who has the most broadly appearing, inspiring message. Yeah. I mean, when I asked our friend David Plouffe this way back when, when I was doing the wilderness, he said, you know, you need a candidate who is going to inspire young kids, um, to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because they're so inspired by this person. And that person can still compete anywhere, talk to anyone, go to places that, you know, Democrats might not usually go. And you need someone who can do both of those things. Um, and that's what he said way back when and you know we'll see uh we'll see who can who can measure up okay when we come back we will have john lovett's interview with john legend

he is an emmy grammy oscar and tony Tony Award winning musician and the founder of Free America, a campaign to transform America's criminal justice system. His new song is Preach, and he's also releasing a documentary series on YouTube called Can't Just Preach that shares the stories of community leaders and activists. The first episode out now features Sabrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, John Legend. Hello, John. Welcome back to Pod Save America. It's good to be back. So let's start with this.

You won an Academy Award for Glory. Yeah. Lady Gaga just won an Academy Award for the song Shallow. Yes. Have you considered combining forces, capturing that magic, and doing a duet with Bradley Cooper? A song called Shallow Glory? Shallow Glory.

That could be cool. That'd be fun. You and called Shallow Glory. Shallow Glory. That could be cool. That'd be fun. You and Brad at the piano. I was so impressed with Brad's turn as a singer. Yeah. We were at a party together, and he was telling me that he was going to do this film. And I was like, oh, you're going to have someone sing for you? And he looked at me like, of course not.

How dare you? How dare you? dare you there is um there is impressive there's few things you can rely on more than how many actors just want to be singers and how many singers want to be actors i think there's more actors that want to be singers than vice versa but i think most actors do sing because you know there's musical theater obviously and if you're in you know drama club or whatever in high school you're probably going to sing some and um so most actors really do sing comedians too a lot of comedians sing john uh i do not sing sing I hit puberty

and cried on stage during a performance of The Wizard of Oz and that was it alright so in your new song Preach you talk about turning off your phone because it hurts your chest not literally it's all metaphor but I think a lot of people feel addicted to their phones right now and not sure whether they're getting a lot out of it

do you feel that way? well I think it's back and forth sometimes you're like really into it and you want to catch up on the news. You want to listen to Pod Save America or Love It or Leave It. And, you know, there's all this information and entertainment on your phone. And then also it's like sometimes you want to shut it off because there's so much bad news. And if all the news is being aggregated on these sites and on social media, it can feel like a barrage. It's probably not more bad news than it was before, but we just have a place where we can concentrate it all. And, you know, it just makes you feel like everything's bad all the time.

So you've actually gotten involved in a pretty significant way around issues like Amendment 4, which was just a big victory in Florida. Huge victory. To restore voting rights to people convicted of crimes. Yes. And our next video in our series features Desmond Meade. And Desmond Meade was the leader of that organization, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. That was the main driver behind that amendment happening. It's such a huge victory. I think we shouldn't underestimate how important that might be for 2020, having 1.4 million more eligible voters in the electorate in Florida. And they should have always been there,

but I'm glad we made it so that they're able to be there now. What did you learn from that victory as you're continuing to do works around, say, you know, prosecutors and local district offices? Well, I think the bottom line, I think you guys learned it as you were doing your work here in California, trying to flip the house. And I think all of us learned that, you know, we're in a moment right now where we can take advantage of the enthusiasm that we have. We can take advantage of the backlash to Trump's awfulness. We can take advantage of all these things and really mobilize the electorate to make some real change happen. And as frustrating as the news can be,

we have reason for optimism because a lot of these things that we fought for in the last few years have actually won. And we see the differences. We see the differences when we watch these hearings on television and we have a House that will actually hold the White House accountable. That is a huge difference. And that's because of organizing. That's because of people running for office that previously might not have. That's because of young people voting at higher rates than they had in the past. All these things happened because we put in the work. And that makes me optimistic. So as much as we get frustrated by the news, as much as we get frustrated by, you know, what seems like a complete shit show in Washington, we have to realize that this work we're putting in is actually paying off. So what are you watching right now? You know, you've been trying to get people to pay attention to district attorney races.

Are there any individual state or local prosecutor races that you're really paying attention to? Well, I just did a fundraiser for Kim Fox, who's running for reelection in Chicago. She's running for state's attorney in Chicago, and she's been doing a lot of work to hold the office more accountable, doing a lot more work when it comes to data collection and data analysis, been really interacting with activists in the community to make sure they're being held accountable. So I think she's great and we're going to support her again. And then one of the things we're looking at that's not a district attorney's race but is important on a state and local level is the criminal justice bill in New York.

We've been speaking with lawmakers there trying to make sure they do the right thing when it comes to bail Paul Robeson. I think that musicians, actors, celebrities who get involved in activism, sometimes they get a bad rap. Sometimes they deserve a bad rap for not taking it seriously. somebody who is first primarily known as a performer, trying to sort of prove that you're not just doing this on a lark, that you're actually trying to get involved and use your platform to actually make change? Well, I think we have to be humble about what we know and what we don't know. And I think we have to be really good at listening to activists, really good at listening to people who are really affected by these issues. So I speak a lot with people who were formerly incarcerated. I speak a lot with people who've been working in the criminal justice reform area for a long time. And so I'm humble about what I know and what I don't know. And I'm also really good about making sure we uplift the people that are really out there

doing the work on the ground. And so I feel like my position as someone who has fame and has a platform where a lot of people see what I post or listen to what I sing or listen to what I say, I try to make sure I lift up other people's voices when I have the opportunity to do so. So I think humility is key when celebrities get involved in these things. As much as we are stars, we're famous, we are heard by a lot of people, I think we have to make sure we use our platform, especially in these issues where we're not experts. We have to use our platform to uplift the experts. So I want to talk about something that's in the news right now. You know, you've said you have no reason not to believe Michael Jackson's accusers in the

documentary that just came out. We've grappled with the work of living artists yeah like woody allen like r kelly you've been outspoken about r kelly and questions around working with artists like that enriching artists uh credibly accused of serious crimes you know we're not talking about michael jackson who's gone right and i think it now becomes a question about the art itself and the music itself yeah and it's hard i think especially with michael because his music is irreplaceable. It's not like there's, you know, some other, something like that from that moment that captures that moment in a way that Michael's music does. But I think every individual is probably going to have to grapple with it as a listener, as a consumer, as someone who can decide whether or not to play a certain song in

their house or at parties or whatever it is. I think everybody's going to have to decide on their own what's too much for them. And it's hard after you watch that documentary. It gave me a nightmare the first night I watched it. It was just like a really tough thing to watch. And hearing the graphic details of what they were alleging, it was just really difficult. And, you know, I think everybody's going to have to decide whether that's too much for them. You know, this art exists and it was amazing and beautiful and it still is. Music doesn't stop being amazing. But, you know, people have to decide whether they can separate them. You know, I think that the consequences

of rewarding artists who have done bad things gets swallowed up in this conversation about the music itself, but Michael Jackson is gone. Yeah, exactly, so he won't profit from you streaming his songs now. Right. I mean, his family will, but it's not their fault, he did what he was alleged to do. And so, you know, people have to decide

just how do you feel? How does it make you feel to listen to someone if you think they might have done the things that they're accused of? How does it make you feel? And if it's still okay with you, then, you know, I think that's an acceptable thing to think. But, you know, it's going to be tough for some people, I think.

At a certain point, long from now, the music will just be the music. People won't know about Michael Jackson. I read a good article that said part of the reason why people feel the need to cancel these artists and mute these artists is because they've gotten away with it in the justice system. Right. Faced any consequences in the justice system. I think we wouldn't feel the need as much to punish them on our own because You know we would felt like they'd had some accountability for their actions and so the reason why People feel the need to mute people and cancel people and all this stuff is because they feel like this their only

Recourse because the justice system has failed to hold them accountable. But it's also a practical thing too, right? You don't want to give money to someone who will turn around and use that money to silence people and hurt people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you're giving them money, you're giving them more power to, like you said, silence people and to evade justice. Let's talk about 2020. We try to not be totally distracted by it. We're focusing on local district attorney races. We're focusing on making sure we win the Senate. We're doing all of that good work. Presupposed. Who do you like?

I really haven't decided. I'm open. I'm really going to pay attention to what people are saying. I genuinely care about how people perform on the stage. I want to see people are saying. And I genuinely care about how people perform on the stage. I want to see them in debates. I want to see them deal with controversies. I want to see them deal with their past record and how they answer questions about that. And I'm not really

going to predict how that'll turn out because I really don't know. I've supported some of these folks for Senate before, like Kamala and Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand and, you know, several other folks. Obviously, I supported Obama and Biden. And if Biden runs, you know, I will have supported him in the past. But, you know, I want to see how these folks perform. And I want someone to be progressive, but I want them to be a progressive that can win and that can make an inspiring appeal to the people and can capture the public imagination and all those things that great candidates do. And so we'll see. do. And so we'll see. So a lot of these candidates have been grappling with parts of their past that are more conservative than where the party is right now. That's been true of Gillibrand on issues like guns and immigration. It's been true of Booker around Wall Street and pharmaceutical companies. It's true of Kamala on issues around criminal justice reform. It seems to me a lot of

what we're seeing right now are candidates trying to prove they're actually as progressive as their platforms. Yeah. And I think my advice to all of them would be, if you've done some things in the past that you don't agree with now, just explain why. Explain why you were there then and explain how you've evolved. And I think people just want you to be honest and they want you to be reflective and they want you to be inspiring and they want you to say what you're going to do now. What are you going to do now? What will you fight for now? And I think there's no reason to obfuscate or try to, you know, kind of lie about, you know, what happened before. Just be honest about where you were and be honest about your progression since then. It's fine. People change.

But we want you to be authentic in kind of discussing what led you to change. Yeah. So before we let you go, can you tell us a little about the documentaries that are coming out now and why people should be interested in them? So I think, like we were talking about before,

there's a reason for us to be optimistic, and there are people out there doing great work that, you know, as much as we get frustrated with the news, we can be happy about some of these things and see that change can really happen. And so we've been making videos trying to highlight examples of people out there making a difference so that we can inspire more people to do it.

And so the series is called Can't Just Preach. And we include several community leaders who all of them have really responded to tragedy. Sabrina Fulton, of course, responded to Trayvon Martin being shot. Desmond Meade responding to his own incarceration and the pain he went through during that time and addiction and all the other things he was dealing with by creating this Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and making amazing change happen in Florida. And we highlight several other people doing the same thing. And then we also connect our viewers and our listeners to opportunities for them to

volunteer. So we partnered with Volunteer Match to help people say, you know, if I care about this issue and want to get involved in my community, here's a way for me to do so. Cool. Last question. We took a photo together. Yes. At a fancy party. Yes, we did. And I was repeatedly cropped out by the fake news media at Vanity Fair. When you saw that I had been cropped out of that photo, how did you feel? Well, part of me felt your pain because all you saw of me was the back of my head. And I felt bad that both of us,

two JLs who are respected on both sides. Absolutely. And we were both really omitted from the core of the photo. And we both deserve better than that. And it didn't reflect the joy of the conversation that we had. That's what I thought. That was the worst part of it. It didn't reflect the joy.

Yes. That's the whole point of a photo to capture the joy. It was our favorite conversation of the night. It was, you know, me, you, DeRay, Ronan, and Chrissy. And we had such a great conversation, and it was just a shame that such tragedy had to come out of that joy. Yeah, no, it's true. And it's a reminder that, like, two steps forward, one step back,

on all of these issues. John Legend, thank you so much for being here. The song is Preach. The documentary series is Can't Just Preach. Check both out. They're both fantastic. Great to have you. Thank you, John Legend, for joining us today. And we will see you next week. Bye, everyone. And buy Alyssa's book. Buy the book.

So here's the thing. Go get it. Bye. I'm in love when all I see is pain. Falling to my knees, and though I do believe, I can't just preach, baby, preach. Oh, oh, I can't just preach, baby, preach.