Pod Save America - “Fred Trump’s bootstraps.”

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

The President mocks and lies about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a political rally, Republicans energize their base by attacking #MeToo, and Trump is exposed as a tax cheat by the New York Times. Then Democratic candidate Katie Hill talks to Dan and Alyssa Mastromonaco about her race to become the next Congresswoman for California’s 25th district.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, our interview with Katie Hill, a congressional candidate running for a flippable seat right here in California. She joined Dan and Alyssa on stage at our HBO dress rehearsal in Glendale last week. We're also going to talk about how Donald Trump mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and apparently got rich by committing tax fraud. Cool president.

What's going on with him? On this week's Pod Save the World, Tommy talked with the Washington Post's David Ignatius about Donald Trump's adventures at the UN General Assembly and the love affair Trump says he's having with Kim Jong-un. He said they fell in love. There's been so much news that we haven't even talked about that on Pod Save America, that he declared that he had fallen in love with Kim Jong-un because of their love letters with each other. It's a sweet story.

It's a romantic comedy that ends in nuclear annihilation. On this week's episode of Keep It, Kara, Ira, and Louis chatted with Kristen Bell about all kinds of things. She was a wonderful guest. She came here to the office, hung out with Leo. It was great to have kristen bell here she was fun it's a tough life you live in crooked media hq i hear that she was one of the best guests on keep it i'm halfway through the episode i have to listen to the rest when i drive home on hysteria uh aaron and the gang talked to senator horono from hawaii hawaii has some

good senators senator shots and a great senator Hirona. Great senators from Hawaii. Great state. We love Hawaii. Birthplace of my mother-in-law. It's everything you would love about Hawaii. I didn't know Holly's mother was born there. Vote Save America. Register.

Register to vote. VoteSaveAmerica.com. Just go get some friends. Ask them to get their friends. Check if you're registered convince people who you think might vote but are you know sort of lazy or maybe forgetful to go register just go do it it's really important okay one more housekeeping thing there is going to be a schedule change for pod save america because of the hbo specials that start next week. Oh my god. So we are now going to have Pod Save America on Monday and Wednesday, just in time for your commute. So

we will record them in the morning and they'll be out by late afternoon. And we will be splitting up the pods. It'll be depending on which of us is around since we're all going to be traveling all over the place. So it'll be some combination of the four of us. We'll do pods two and two. Dan, you and I will start on Monday. We will record this Monday morning and then you'll have a pod Monday night and then next week, Lovett and Tommy

will do Wednesday morning and that pod will be out Wednesday evening. And then on Friday, you can watch us on HBO, 11 p.m we will be in miami for the first of our four midterm specials um it'll be the four of us and aaron ryan in miami very exciting it's super weird it's super weird i mean god bless hbo who was like we're not gonna have game of thrones in 2018 so let's get those pod save america people to do it well that you know you just raised the, we're not going to have Game of Thrones in 2018, so let's get those Pod Save America people to do it. Well, now you just raised the bar. We're not going to have any dragons on the show. No one took that seriously. Not a single human being took that seriously.

We tried to get dragons, and they said no. Okay, let's get to the news. On Tuesday evening, as the FBI was in the middle of investigating allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted multiple women, of investigating allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted multiple women, Donald Trump held a political rally where he openly mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and lied about the testimony she delivered to the Senate. Trump also said this week that it's a quote, scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of. This is a very, very difficult time. What's happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.

Okay, before we get into all of this, first, let's just play the clip of Trump from the rally last night, because you really got to hear it to believe it. 36 years ago, this happened. I had one beer. Right? I had one beer. Well, do you think it was? Nope, it was one beer. Oh, good. How did you get home? I don't remember. How'd you get there? I had one beer. Well, do you think it was? Nope, it was one beer. Oh good. How did you get home? I don't remember.

How'd you get there? I don't remember. Where is the place? I don't remember. How many years ago was it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. What neighborhood was it in? I don't know. Where's the house? I don't know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don't know. But I had one beer. That's the only thing I remember. And a man's life is in tatters. A man's life is shattered. His wife is shattered. His daughters, who are beautiful, incredible young kids they destroy people they want to destroy people these are really evil people dan a few weeks ago the white house got a bunch of stories placed about how trump was handling these allegations with remarkable restraint what do you think

changed his mind and and what was your reaction in general to that awful clip every part of that was awful so my non-ser Every part of that was awful. So my non-serious reaction is that was the worst one-man play in American history. Second, this is yet another reminder that Trump is a troglodyte with the empathy of a surgical sponge. I mean, he is just a horrible human being. a horrible human being. And to the point, we've been doing this for four years, basically, since Trump started running for president. God help us. And every time someone goes out and praises Trump's restraint, they end up with egg on their face. This was bound to happen. It was just a matter of time, and he managed to do it. Really, even for him, an absolutely disgusting way to do it.

As I sort of watched the reaction to this today in some of the news reports, I sort of had flashbacks to 2016 because usually the pattern was Trump would say something horribly offensive, and then most of the reaction would be something horribly offensive and then the most most of the reaction would be about how offensive it was now this of course was one of the more offensive things he's ever said but it was also a lie and a lot of people have just skipped over the fact that he's he's just lying up there too and you know I saw Lindsey Graham I saw some other Republicans say well the president Sarah Huckabee Sanders well the president was just stating the facts. Well, no, he wasn't. He claimed that she didn't know how many years ago it was, didn't know what neighborhood it was, didn't know whether it

happened upstairs or downstairs. And he said the only thing she remembers is having a beer. None of that is true. None of that is true. She remembered all of those things. The only thing she said she didn't remember is how she got to and from the party and the exact address. Everything else she said she remembered. And when she was asked, to what degree of certainty do you believe that Brett Kavanaugh was the one who attempted to sexually assault you? She said 100%. 100%. I also, by the way, thought it was ridiculous that, what, just a few weeks ago, Trump said, oh, I found her not last week, I guess.

Trump said, oh, I found her very credible. So I guess I guess he doesn't find her credible anymore. I guess that just got thrown out the window. It was just it was gross, man. It was gross. I mean, he's a terrible human being. I mean, we know that and we gloss over it. And it's also, yes, like Lindsey Graham and others today, they didn't really try to defend it. Most of them said that he shouldn't have said it. But we've just come to accept, as a political culture, such a level of terribleness in the present United States, that he was attacking a victim of sexual assault that he found credible seven days ago. And today he stands up in front of a

angry partisan crowd frothing at the mouth and attacks her in just the most vile way possible. And when we talk about, you know, one day Trump won't be president, hopefully we're all still living and we haven't died in some sort of nuclear attack, and maybe Kavanaugh will be on the corner, maybe he won't. But the damage that is being done to sort of the moral fabric of this country from the fact that people see this and a good portion of the country find it acceptable because Trump is doing it, that damage is going to be really hard to undo. I mean, this is a woman who has been getting death threats. Her family's been getting death threats. She had to move out of her home. She's been doxxed. Her email was hacked. I mean, this is someone who's had to go through quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, in addition to sitting in front of the Senate and recounting to the world the worst

experience of her life. And the President of the United States is leading a crowd full of people who are just laughing, laughing about this. It is pretty gross. We should talk about the response from the Senate swing vote. Susan Collins said the president's remarks were, quote, just plain wrong. Jeff Flake said on the Today Show that they were, quote, kind of appalling and that there's no time and place for remarks like this. Lisa Murkowski said Trump's comments were, quote, inappropriate and unacceptable. Dan, do you think this will affect their votes?

Or is it just, in their minds, a very unhelpful thing that they have to sort of deal with? Well, I think they think it's an unhelpful thing they have to deal with. And I'm not even sure it should affect their votes. Yeah. Generally. Maybe that's an unpopular take. I mean, look, I want them all to vote no, and I want them to vote no for a multitude of reasons. Yeah. It doesn't seem like Trump's

comments at a rally is the thing that should put them over the edge. They should already be there. So as we mentioned at the top, Trump's comments on Tuesday night weren't some random outburst. This is from Bloomberg News on Wednesday. Quote, Trump's attack on Ford was deliberate. White House officials said they believe they can harness the controversy to energize the president's core supporters who regard the allegations against Kavanaugh as a democratic plot and part of a broader cultural war against white males, in effect the inverse of the Me Too movement to hold powerful men accountable for sexual abuses. Dan, what do you think about this? There's definitely a bit of a

split trend in recent polling. On one hand, a number of polls that have come out since the testimony last week show overall support for Kavanaugh is plummeting. It has declined among Democrats. It has declined among independents. But on the other hand, Republican support for Kavanaugh is rising. I just saw a poll today that Republican support for Kavanaugh is now greater than Republican support for Neil Gorsuch was. So apparently, if you are accused of sexual assault, even if you believe a person is falsely accused of sexual assault. Even if you believe a person is falsely accused of sexual assault, I don't quite understand why that would make you more supportive of that nominee than the nominee that was already confirmed who was not accused of sexual assault, but so be it. And the other thing

we're seeing in polling is the percentage of Republicans who say they're excited to vote in the midterms is rising. And we've seen a few polls where the overall generic ballot is tightening, though that could be some noise because, you know, polls are polls. So what do you think about all this? So I think there's a couple of things we ought to separate. So first is I've been waiting for this moment since the launch of the Me Too movement last year. moment since the launch of the Me Too movement last year. And I'm surprised it's taken this long for Republicans to be this overt about it. Because it really is a natural extension of modern republicanism, which is, they believe politics is a zero-sum equation. And if society identifies a group of people who have been treated unjustly, helping them in the Republican mindset means that there must be

some group who is victimized. And Republicans look at that and have looked at that as political opportunity. So you look, their best example is when the passage of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, where Republicans took, they saw an opportunity in the passage of civil rights legislation to go get Southern whites to join their party and build a majority. And we've seen this with immigration using sort of a growing elite consensus around immigration to gin up white people. I mean, it's backlash politics, pure and simple. It is what Republicans do. And the question is, is this a good short-term strategy? Is it a good medium-term strategy? Is it a good long-term strategy? So I look at short-term is 18, medium-term is 20, and long-term is a longer arc of the next generation to a politics. I think there is some evidence that it is a good short-term strategy. I think there is – it is a – no idea whether it's a good medium-term strategy, and it is definitely a bad long-term strategy. And it is definitely a bad long term strategy. Because if you were staking your ground on white men, you have decided that you are going to put all of your forces in

defend the smallest, most rapidly eroding hill in American politics. Yeah. And it is white men. It's also, there's a big education split here too, maybe even bigger than gender. In the Quinnipiac poll, the college versus non-college number was pretty intense. 60% of college-educated white women oppose Kavanaugh. A majority of non-college-educated white women support him. And of course, the numbers on men are even starker with the non-college numbers way, way up. It's similar to the sort of the same divides that we saw in the 2016 election as well. It's the same sort of divides you see on issues like immigration, on issues like terrorism, that the only demographic groups that vote heavily Republican now, like you said,

are men and non-college educated white men and women. And those are their groups. And so you're right, they're staking. And the funny thing is, they're not, the Republican plan, the Republican strategy is to not propose policies that might help those demographic groups. They've long stopped doing that. They don't have an economic plan for non-college educated white men who are struggling or white women who are struggling. They don't have any of that. All they have is immigrants are going to come take your jobs and immigrants are going to commit crime. And, you know, and terrorists are going to come and attack you.

And so only Republicans can keep you safe. And now you're going to be falsely accused of sexual assault. That's the other thing. That's the new thing you have to worry about. So everything they do is around this. There is a threat. There is an existential threat to white men and especially non-college-educated white men and women

from liberals, Democrats, immigrants, feminists. This is it. It's a culture war. And they're the ones starting the culture war. And it's, I mean, this has also been, the flames of this have been fanned. Like this just didn't happen out of the blue during this Kavanaugh nomination.

This happened because like all these right-wing radio hosts and everyone on Fox decided to, and Trump decided to go all in and tell people that, you know, our entire society now is beset by false accusations of sexual assault, which again, is not true. can, because we have become such a partisan polarized country, and particularly on the right, where the idea really is here that, look, America is changing faster than you want it to change. All these liberals and elites and immigrants and black presidents with a middle name Hussein and women presidents are all going to try to ruin what America used to be. And if a bunch of captains of the football team like Brett Bart Kavanaugh and Squee and Mark

Judge can't get together and have a few beers and not be risked being accused of sexual assault, then what is America? And it's just, it is victimization wrapped in nostalgia. And that is sort of the core of Trumpism. Right. And that's why they, and Trump said this in his own remarks,

he said, oh, it's bigger than the Supreme Court. Their strategy is to make this about more than Brett Kavanaugh. They don't want to focus on just Brett Kavanaugh's case.

They want to say, this is an attack on all white men. Right? And Democrats, what we're all saying is like no no no we are just trying to find the truth in this one case that's before us right now and even though we may never know exactly what happened and even though we might not have evidence to charge brett kavanaugh with the crime what we're saying is this is a job interview for the highest court on the land. And should this person have a lifetime appointment and have incredible power over the interpretation of the laws in this country,

over millions of people's lives? Does this person have the character and temperament to do that? And all we're saying is you should weigh the evidence in favor of voting for him or opposing him and then make a decision like we're trying to make this narrow they're trying to make this a gigantic culture war and that should tell you something about what their true goals are here they don't care about brett kavanaugh himself brett kavanaugh is like a fucking Bush administration person who Donald Trump was afraid of that at the beginning when he picked him. And now he loves him because he's this martyr stand-in for everything that's gone wrong with white guys apparently.

There is nothing that will get you faster into Donald Trump's good graces than being credibly accused of sexual assault. Who's this Rob Porter? Whatever. Oh, he seems like he might have abused some women. Can't lose Rob Porter. Let's try to give him another job in the administration. Brett Kavanaugh, random Federalist Society robot who will vote the way we want. Oh, Brett Kavanaugh accused, credibly accused of sexual assault.

Better fight for Brett Kavanaugh because Trump, like it's everything to Trump is a mirror. And so he sees in himself this. If he can win this for Brett Kavanaugh, it will somehow prove his innocence. Yeah. And even within the Republican Party, this isn't as clear cut as it is within the Democratic Party. There's a poll on Wednesday that had an interesting question that made it not about Brett Kavanaugh specifically. The question was, if a political candidate has been accused of sexual assault by multiple people, would you still consider voting for them if you agreed with them on the issues or would you definitely not vote for them? 56 percent of Republicans said they would consider voting for a candidate

who had been accused by multiple people. Only 34% said they would not. By contrast, 81% of Democrats said they would not vote for such a candidate and only 16% said that they'd consider it. So like so much else in our politics, this is asymmetric between the two parties. It is not that all Democrats would vote against such a person, all Republicans vote for. It is all Democrats are mostly on the same page.

Most Democrats are on the same page. And even within the Republican Party, there's a split partly because those numbers among Republican women are not that high. More Republican women would think twice about voting for a candidate who's been accused of sexual assault. So really it's Republican men that are holding it up here. That poll is fucking bananas. Do you know why? Because I have news for all of those Republicans

who told the pollster they would not vote for a candidate. They did. His name is Donald Trump. He's president. Eight in 10 of you voted for him. He is on tape bragging about sexual assault. What are you people talking about that is a good point that is a good well i mean the other thing that i've been thinking about this last week is how just like everything else this whole episode like everything goes down the memory hole and we all forget about it five years five days later like i'm trying to think back to the moment where dr christine blasey for Ford finished her testimony and you turn to Fox News and Chris Wallace is there saying her testimony is a disaster for Republicans. She was absolutely

believable. And Republican strategists are texting reporters left and right and White House officials texting reporters left and right and saying, oh man, we're screwed now. I don't think he's going to survive this nomination. That was so credible from Dr. Ford. And then here we are a week later and it's suddenly Donald Trump's mocking her at a rally. How do we get this far this fast? It is just unbelievable what people forget these days. It was six days ago that you and I were sitting in your office watching this on TV with Aaron. And I mean, it feels like 100 years ago. Yeah. What if anything can Democrats do about

this? Or should Democrats do about this? You know, is it is it possible to support survivors and women in the Me Too movement without alienating, you know, male voters. It's I mean, it's certainly possible within the Democratic Party when you look at the numbers, the gender split with men and women, because men and women in the Democrat who are Democrats are basically on the same page when all these polls. But I don't when you start talking about an independence or Republicans, I don't know. I don't know what you think. I'm not sure that any of the voters who were not going to turn out because they had other things to do on election day in the fall of 2018, but are now going to turn out in solidarity with Brett Kavanaugh because he had to fight back against a fusillade of false accusations against men in this country, are voters who are ever attainable for Democrats in any race, in any state.

And I think we just have to spend more time thinking about the things that excite our voters and less time worrying about the things that excite their voters, because we really have no control over the latter. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. We cannot bet on depressed turnout from the Republican side. We can't bet on it. We can't do anything about it. We can't worry about it. And look, I think we saw in polls over the last few months that there's certain periods where you get polls that where they say a lot of Republicans aren't as excited to vote in this election. And, you know, it's great when you see those polls, but there's nothing we can do about that. That number changing. All we can do is worry about getting our voters to the polls and getting new voters to the polls those are the two things that we can worry about and that we should worry about um because i

know you know we've already got this narrative now and there's going to be all these fucking think pieces in the next week that's like did democrats make a mistake and and fighting so hard to oppose the nomination of kavanaugh it's like no, no, like we're trying to, I mean, you've got to do what you believe is right. And then let the chips fall where they may, when it comes to the politics of it, you know, like there is no universe where we could not have been, where we should not have been as supportive of Dr. Blasey Ford and these women who have come forward, or that we should not have been as intense about, um, calling for an FBI investigation, which not only Democrats did, but Jeff Flake and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski did. Republicans did, too.

So I do think, like, yes, we might see some more energy among the Republican base. But I don't know that there's anything we could have done about that. Do you? No, we did. We had to do the right thing. And I just think from a purely political point of view, and I don't believe this is why Democrats did this, but not fighting would have been worse. Because if fighting excites their base, not fighting depresses ours. And like I said, we should be much more concerned about our base than their base. Yeah. The other possible explanation for some of the polls recently, at least this is one of my theories, we have seen, you know, since Trump took office, every time he recedes from the headlines and there's a fight that's not specifically about Donald Trump or something that Donald Trump did, the generic ballot does get a little bit tighter. And he certainly inserted himself back into the headlines last night at that rally when he started mocking Dr. Ford. But before that, this really was a fight about, you know, the way this was framed in the media,

it was a fight of Democrats versus Republicans, women versus men, you know, because it was all about Kavanaugh. And I think sometimes when we fade, when Trump sort of fades from the headlines, you know, more Republicans come home and you sort of get that tightening in the generic ballot. I don't know, maybe that's crazy, but what do you think about that? I think that's very possible. And the generic ballot also gets, And the generic ballot also gets – when the focus is on healthcare, taxes, or the news is quiet enough in Trump-adjusted terms that Democratic candidates can go out and make the case on those issues, the generic ballot generally widens. And when it is around something like Kavanaugh, which does unite the Republican Party, right? This is the time when we lose touch with all of our never-Trumper friends, because they hung out with Brett Kavanaugh at federal society gatherings. They want someone like Kavanaugh on the court. He is one of theirs. And so I'm sure this has had a rallying effect with Republicans. We just don't know,

one way or the other, whether that Kavanaugh effect, if you will, will still is fueling Republican enthusiasm across the country. Who knows what people will be saying a month from now? We just really have no idea. And when we talked about this last week, the idea that there was sort of a Kavanaugh rallying effect was based mostly on tweets and people calling in to talk radio. Now we have some data that suggests that it may have an impact right now. And so what can we do about that? a fetal position, get under our desk and grab a bottle of whiskey, or we could go knock doors, make phone calls, find your dumbest, laziest friend in your crew, because everyone has one, and make sure that person is registered to vote. There are things we can do here other than just panic. Yeah, just go into November expecting that the Republican base is going to be as energized as ever, and that makes sure that our base is energized even more and that we're pulling non-voters, independents, voters who don't go to the polls all the time,

bringing those people to the polls as well. That's all we can do. Just focus on our stuff, focus on our work and just assume that their side's going to be very energized. And if they aren't, that's great, but we should assume that they will be. And that's going to make our job tougher, but we've got to be very energized. And if they aren't, that's great. But we should assume that they will be. And that's going to make our job tougher. But we've got to do the work.

Let's talk about the latest in the FBI investigation, which is apparently done by the time you listen to this. The report probably will have leaked in some way. They're going to send it first to the White House and then to the Senate. McConnell has rejected Schumer's request to hold a briefing for the full Senate, though apparently every senator will get to see a copy of the report at some point, which, you know, I assume means it will leak because everything on Capitol Hill leaks all the time. The FBI has not interviewed Kavanaugh, Ford, or many other potential witnesses as part of the investigation, but they have spoken to Mark Judge, Leland Kaiser, PJ Smith, Timothy Gaudet, and Chris Garrett,

all of whom were at the July 1st gathering that was on Kavanaugh's calendar, and some of whom Ford identified from the gathering where she said she was assaulted. Dan, what do you think about how extensive this investigation has been? Dan, what do you think about how extensive this investigation has been? It seems odd, to say the least. And I will stipulate that what I know of criminal investigations is entirely attributable to the television shows I've watched. But it seems odd that you could do this investigation without talking to either Kavanaugh or Ford. That's just bizarre.

I think it's more about Kavanaugh than it is about Ford. Because I think if they interviewed Ford, they know they have to interview Kavanaugh. They don't want to interview Kavanaugh because, or at least the White House doesn't want Kavanaugh to be interviewed by the FBI. Because if we remember from last week, Ford had to go through questioning from Rachel Mischel, that prosecutor who asked, you know, a number of tough questions of her throughout the hearing. And Kavanaugh, he got to get questions from the Republican senators who just yelled and screamed a lot. And, you know, a couple of questions from Democrats. So Kavanaugh has not had to sit and really go through an FBI investigation that happens with all the knowledge and information that we've had over the past

month. Obviously, he went through a background check initially, but he has not had to face tough FBI questions since all of this came out. And I think they're probably worried about that. They are. But if you are Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and you believed an FBI investigation needed to be done, how could you possibly believe that this was a thorough investigation? Like, maybe you could convince yourself if they didn't talk to Squee or some other member of the Georgetown Prep Ralph Club or whatever it was, you know, all the attendees at Beach Week. But when you say, well, that would be crazy. But to not talk to Kavanaugh, to not have Kavanaugh have to sit before the FBI and have trained criminal investigators ask him questions about this alleged crime, how can you think that is a serious enough investigation? And that would take one more day, two more hours, three more hours.

The idea that we're on some sort of crazy clock, that if Kavanaugh is not confirmed by midnight, Friday night, he's going to turn into a pumpkin is just completely illogical. And so you would hope, although I don't have high hopes, but you would hope that the Republican senators with leverage here would use it to ensure this was a real investigation. How do you think Democrats have handled this? Our pal Matt Miller, who was a longtime spokesperson at Department of Justice, tweeted the Democrats were making a mistake by not pushing the FBI hard enough on this point. He said that the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Democrat Jerry Nadler, could make it clear that he'll subpoena every document from this investigation

and hold hearings if Democrats win the House to put pressure on the FBI to sort of be more thorough. Matt also said that we could push for full transparency, make the report public, make all the 302s public, all that kind of stuff. Do you think Democrats should have gone a little harder here on this? I'm torn about this because Republicans have definitely set this up that it's heads they win, tails we lose. And where if the FBI doesn't find anything, then the tried and true law enforcement professionals of the FBI discover nothing. And then if they do find something, it's the co-workers of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who, you know, and Jim Comey protégés who did this. So they've definitely set it up in a way that is problematic. They can do whatever they want, whatever the results are.

And I agree that if we have the house, and this turns out to be a shame investigation, we should investigate the investigation. I think that is the right thing to do. But then it's like, are we going to start berating the FBI publicly while we are berating Trump for berating the FBI publicly? I'm torn about it. And the fact that Matt, publicly. I'm torn about it. And the fact that Matt, who had worked in the Justice Department, knows these people said that made me really think about it. Yeah. I mean, my view is I think we're going to hear more from, if it turns out that, like has been reported, that the investigation was severely curtailed by the Trump administration, was severely curtailed by the Trump administration,

then I think you'll hear FBI officials probably leak that that was the case. I mean, already current and former FBI officials confirmed to NBC that dozens of witnesses have come forward to FBI field offices who say they have information on Kavanaugh, but the agents haven't been permitted to talk to them. Dozens of witnesses. Think about that. I'm curious. I just don't know enough about sort of the hierarchical structure here. Yeah. But what is preventing the FBI from just investigating?

Like, why do they have to listen to Don McGahn here? Right. I don't know. I mean, like one constraint that they have is the time limit, right? Like they have to be have this done by Friday. So there are, you know, plenty of FBI agents running around the country. But, you know, there's only so many days to interview this many people and you've got to follow leads and you got to see if the leads are credible and all that kind of stuff. So I think that the only thing that's really preventing them from not really listening to Don McGahn is time. The time thing is bullshit too.

Oh, the time thing is completely bullshit. I mean it's bullshit that – it's a bullshit false deadline set up by McConnell in the White House, but it's also bullshit that the FBI has to abide by that timeline. I know this because I worked on many nominations, and the FBI would give us the report. They would do it as fast as they could. And we would certainly push them to get that background check in time so the president can make a decision or an announcement about someone. But if it wasn't done, it wasn't done. Right. Like they they're much more concerned about doing it right than meeting some deadline set by the White House communications director, I'll tell you that. So there's no reason that Christopher Wray, other than fear of being fired or tweeted about, couldn't just call Don McGahn and say, we're going to need a couple more days to do this right. Yeah. It doesn't seem like it's on the up and up, to say the least. And that's why everything about this is so short-sighted. They could have done this to begin with. They could have just agreed to this three weeks ago when these allegations came out, had it done.

And if the allegations – if the report were to find nothing conclusive, they probably could have just had this vote and just jammed it through on party lines last week. But so now they've done this investigation. They've made it the point of sort of leverage for everyone. And then they try to jam it through and do a half-assed version. And maybe, I mean, McConnell's view of politics is like the opposite of Barack Obama's. If Barack Obama's was, yes, we can, McConnell's is because we can. And so maybe he's just like, we're just going to confirm them because we can right just because i have the votes and i'll make people do it and like and jeff flake can tell people he got an fbi investigation but that's right we don't really i don't give a shit about jeff flake yeah and look i mean they're because they're also doing

this knowing that this isn't the end of the story even if it gets confirmed like those dozens of witnesses are going to find their way to reporters. And, you know, we're, we have some really great reporters in this country and they're going to find the truth. We might not know exactly with a hundred percent certainty what happened in that summer of 1982, but if people have things to say about Brett Kavanaugh, if there's other allegations to be made, if they're credible, if reporters can chase down leads on this, they're going to do it, and we're going to find out. And if he's on the court, and more of this comes out, look, it is going to be very hard to impeach him from the court, because it's for the same reason that it's hard to impeach Donald Trump. You need two-thirds in the Senate, and we can barely get 51 Republicans

to oppose Brett Kavanaugh in the first place. So I think impeachment is going to be hard, but I don't know, there could be investigations, and the truth about Brett Kavanaugh in the first place. So I think impeachment is going to be hard, but I don't know. There could be investigations and the truth about Brett Kavanaugh will ultimately come out. I mean, the New York Times was able to get its hands on the letter Brett Kavanaugh wrote to his fellow attendees of his beach week house about their forthcoming drunken behavior. So there will be more information out there. I think we have to all recognize that even if this is a real FBI investigation, a sham FBI investigation, if all the best reporters work on this, we will never know exactly what happened.

There will never be proof. There will never be a smoking gun, a piece of DNA evidence that will say this is what happened. It'll just simply be an account from one woman and a denial from a man. must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Ford, or he automatically gets elevated to the court. That's not what this is, right? As you point out, this is a job interview. And so senators have to make a decision about who is more believable, right? It is their responsibility to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are not putting someone guilty of sexual assault on the court. And so you have two choices. You can believe Christine Ford, as we all did, including Donald Trump, supposedly, the White House, the personalities at Fox News. This is not

just us in our liberal bubble. In our liberal bubble, we turned on Fox and we watched it, just us in our liberal bubble. In our liberal bubble, we turned on Fox and we watched it, and they all said that. Or Brett Kavanaugh, who, as we know, does not tell the truth when confronted with uncomfortable facts. Now, I am not saying that these are lies that would be measure up to perjury, and that there's now's now this debate online like did he perjure himself and you are all these like doesn't matter legal because conservative legal scholars like looking down their nose at us like no one would ever bring a perjury case on this that's not the fucking point we're not looking for a perjury charge no we're just looking for a supreme court justice who doesn't feel a need to lie about whether he threw up at beach week

is that so much to ask? Give us someone who tells us the truth about Beach Week, please. You know, I went to Beach Week. Oh, God. Yeah, in 1994. My Beach Week was probably not as exciting. We had one at Holy Cross, too. We had a Beach Week at Cape Cod.

I won't talk about that until I'm up for a nomination at the Supreme Court, which will often never happen. Yes. If my non-law school attending ass is ever before the Supreme Court, before the Senate for a confirmation of the Supreme Court, I will answer most Beach Week questions. All right. Let's switch to the rampant criminality of our president. The New York Times published a massive investigative story on Tuesday that Donald Trump became rich through his inheritance and various types of fraud. It's a very long story, but fortunately all the good stuff is right in the lead. Here's the quote.

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents apparently reporters dug through over a hundred thousand pages of documents to report this story outstanding reporting by the new york times dan what were your takeaways here from the story well john the president is a criminal he's already implicated in a felony, which we've all seemed to have forgotten. I guess that happened four years ago. Something like last month. He's implicated in a felony by Michael Cohen, by his own lawyer implicated him in a felony.

And now we have this. He is a criminal, guilty of fraud, but he is also a fraud himself because the other part of the story, which goes into great detail about the completely and patently obviously illegal schemes that Trump went through in order to reduce his tax burden, it also shows that the story he has been telling for decades about how he lifted himself up from his bootstraps of his $1 million gift from his dad to turn himself into a billionaire is complete and total bullshit. And that he received nearly half a billion dollars over the years from his parents in one way or another. And the thing that is fascinating about this story, in addition to all the truth in it, is does anyone care?

story in addition to all the truth in it is does anyone care i mean hey i know well look i think i mean you know when it's when it's a lot of words in the new york times it's really tough for all of us because it's not something we can see on the tv in our faces you know but it is it is worth talking about like the different parts of this story. I mean, the first thing, as you alluded to, is that his entire story about himself and how he made it has been proven to be a complete lie and a complete sham. As you said, the story is, I only received a million dollar loan from my father and I did the rest. Thanks to this story, we know definitively that this is not true. By age three, he was earning $200,000 a year in today's dollars from his father's empire. $200,000 a year at age three. He was a millionaire by age eight. Age eight, he was a millionaire. And then in his 40s and 50s, as a grown man who's working age, he was receiving more than $5 million a year from his father. Fred Trump also lent his son at least $60.7 million. $60 million. Much of it was never

repaid. Every time Trump began a new project project his father lent him the money to start the new project need a new hotel dad's got the money for you and every time one of his projects failed oh your atlantic your atlantic city casino is failing fred trump also stepped in to bail him out just safety net from beginning to end here's some money don't worry if you fuck things up there's more where that came from that's the donald trump story yet no one cares when i say no one cares i don't even mean no voters care right because there is this always this yelling into the void from liberals like ourselves as i'm literally yelling into a void right now that you know it's like all this information voters don't care nothing matters teflon don blah blah blah blah blah but also like whether that's true or not we don't know the story

came out 24 hours ago but this is a massively consequential piece of reporting that were the new york times who has been known to, I don't know, sand themselves around the edges for fear of being accused by conservatives of bias, accuses the president of outright criminal fraud in the lead of the story. You would have to dig deep into Twitter to see people talking about this, other than people like us yelling about why no one's talking about it. It's not leading the news. It's not the topic it's not leading it's not the topic of cable news not the topic of network news it's not that it's not trending on facebook it is just it is like just a giant paper airplane being thrown out the window well let's look it's one thing if you

you know what i just said about all the money he inherited, you could look at that and say, okay, well, I guess he's not a self-made man, but, you know, how can you blame him for his father being incredibly wealthy and passing on that wealth? Okay, fine. But the heart of the story and where the fraud comes from is that Donald Trump used all kinds of tricks to avoid paying taxes on the money that his father was giving him. Some of the tricks were legal and just sketchy and laws and loopholes that we should change. But some of them, the New York Times believes, and all the tax experts they talk to believe, was fraud. So Donald Trump and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more.

He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents' real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on his tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. And the tax experts said that many of these strategies were illegal. Basically, the Trumps paid an estimated 5% tax rate on an inheritance that they should have paid a 55% tax rate on. That's how much money they saved. Saved, stole, whatever you want to say. John, did Marco Rubio have a reaction to this?

You know what, Dan? It's right here. I have it just in case you asked. Marco Rubio said, quote, it's obviously, I think it's a testament to how crazy and complicated the tax code is in general. Oh my God, the tax code is so crazy. you can just like walk away with 400 million dollars and pay five percent taxes on it how nuts is that oh the armed robbery laws are so confusing how did this person people could just wander into a bank with a gun and take all the money like what are we talking about their laws he broke them he set up shell corporations to break the laws people don't generally set up shell corporations to do legal things. Here's the part of the story that is really offensive. And I think that this is one thing the Democrats should hit on, too.

Not only did he just create this shell company, this sham company, to act sort of as a pass-through so he could avoid all kinds of taxes. act sort of as a pass-through so he could avoid all kinds of taxes. The company was then used to justify rent hikes in Fred Trump's rent-regulated building. So here's how this works in New York and a lot of other places. If you have a rent-stabilized building, if you own one, you can spend a few thousand dollars on renovations and then you can report it as much more expensive renovations. So you can put like $20,000 in for renovations and say then you can report it as much more expensive renovation. So you can put like $20,000 in for renovations and say, oh, it made the apartment, you know, $50,000 or $100,000 more valuable. And then that new value can push the apartment above the rent stabilization cutoff. So then you can start jacking up the rent. So they created a sham company to avoid inheritance taxes and then

used it to justify rent hikes on their tenants. These people are fucking awful. They're so bad. I mean, the fact that the populist working class champion, President of the United States, has made himself rich through illegal means used to scrimp every penny from working class people is something that just seems like it is very obvious that we should be able to convince voters of. We have yet been able to do that, or at least have enough voters. I mean, what do you think Democrats should do about this story? I saw one of the first reactions, do about this story? I saw one of the first reactions, which fits well, is from Elizabeth Warren. And she said, look, I have a bill where that it would force every presidential candidate to release their tax returns so we could see stuff like this. And also, we should close all

these tax loopholes. Do you think that's the route here? What else do you think Democrats should do? I think we have to understand that the public, and Trump supporters in particular, view Trump differently than they would other people. They have very low expectations of him. He is more like, they sort of know they elected Trump, the host of Celebrity Apprentice, Yeah. A basically fictional television character as opposed to a real human being with real morals, real values, real experience, et cetera. And so there's certain things

that are not going to matter to his supporters. And it's sort of priced into the baseline that he's a crook. And they seem fine with that. Weird, but they do. I think we should do a couple things. One, if the Democrats take the House, that they should immediately, when Nancy Pelosi gets that gavel, she should, in one hand,

so one hand she has the gavel, in the right hand she should be signing the order for the subpoenas for Trump's tax returns, because that is what's going to happen, and that's very important. Second, I agree with Elizabeth Warren's bill. We should do that. Forget Donald Trump. Presidents should release their tax returns for all the obvious reasons and it's the reason that presidents have released their tax returns voluntarily for years until we ended up with an obstinate crook

as the president who has not done it. But we also know that Donald Trump's not gonna sign that bill between now and 2020. Right. What I would encourage, hopefully, God willing, starting in January of 2019, there are going to be states that now have Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures. And those states should pass laws that require the release of tax returns for access to the ballot. Oh, interesting.

So you want to be on the Colorado ballot, Trump, to pick a state where we might have both of those things. Every person who wants to be on that ballot, Democratic presidential nominee, and I would say anyone from federal office must release tax returns, statewide and federal office, and do that. And if you can do that in a couple states that Trump needs to get to 270, that becomes very consequential, like Pennsylvania, for instance. And even if you can't pass it because you only have one of the two houses, get every Republican in the state legislature or the Republican governor on record opposing such a bill. It's not clear to me why this has not happened previously.

It's not clear to me why this has not yet happened in our home state of California. I understand Trump would just not be on the ballot here, and that would be – that won't matter to him to get in 270, but Trump not being on the ballot would be very problematic for Republicans in swing districts and Republicans running for other offices if the presidential candidate is not on the ballot. So you can made a lot of money or didn't make a lot of money or had all these schemes and cheated and committed fraud and all this kind of stuff. You sort of want to paint a picture of Trump and all of his rich friends as people who get to play by their own set of rules, because that pisses people off. That pisses off again like you said it's never going to piss off the fucking trump voters and the republican base voters and

all the you know the trump fans but the obama trump voters um working class democrats uh most of the democrat party a lot of independents those people are going to be really pissed off by the idea that donald trump his billionaire cabinet and all the other rich people in this country, they get to hire fancy accountants to make sure that they don't have to pay a lot of taxes. And most people in this country, they can't afford the fancy accountant who's going to tell them how to, you know, do all these tax schemes and take advantage of all these loopholes and all the shit that Donald Trump and Fred Trump did. They can't afford that shit. And they're paying a lot of taxes and they're barely getting by. And meanwhile, Donald Trump and all his friends get to hire a fancy accountant and commit fraud and take advantage of the tax

code and do whatever the hell they want because they're rich. And that's how rich people get richer in this country. They get to play by their own set of rules. And that I think is a very powerful message for Democrats, not just in 2018, but in 2020. Yeah. The other takeaway from this is there is an element where Trump has sort of won the media war, which is the fact that this is the New York Times, which is America's leading newspaper, the most serious paper we have with the most best funded, most serious journalists. And this is, I mean, this is a massive story. They have required, they have received, this wasn't just through public documents. They've received a giant tranche of private tax records from some leak in the Trump family somewhere, Trump accountants,

lawyers, whatever it is. And this can be dismissed to a significant portion of the country as the liberal New York Times. And that is a world in which Trump and the right has succeeded in nullifying the power of some of our most important referees in American life. Yes, that's a bummer. But anyway, I think, look, I think Democrats running in 2018 and certainly as we look to 2020 should make this a bigger issue because this is the kind of stuff that pisses people off and pisses people off who are, you know, maybe like you said, maybe not

Trump's most loyal supporters who are watching Fox News all the time. But most people in this country would look at that and say, yeah, that doesn't seem that doesn't seem right. Crime not good in our community. All right. Let's talk about candidate of the day. Today, we're talking about Lauren Underwood, who is the Democratic candidate for Illinois' 14th congressional district, which covers the outer suburbs of Chicago. Underwood is a 31-year-old registered nurse and health policy expert. She was appointed by Barack Obama to serve as a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She's running against four-time incumbent Republican Randy Holtgren.

Illinois' 14th district is considered by the Cook Political Report as leaning Republican. However, in 2016, Trump only won the district by four percentage points. Dan, what do you think of this race? What do you think of Lauren? I, appointed by Barack Obama, nurse, I'm sold. She would be the first African American and the first woman to represent

the district. Holtgren also hasn't had a challenger since 2010. So this is a classic case of what's happening all over the country in 2018, is that in these districts where Republicans have run unopposed, the Democrats have not fielded a really strong candidate before, you have someone who is not your typical candidate in this district, first woman, first African-American, and she decided she was going to run for this race

after Holtgren held a town hall meeting where he said he would vote to protect health care coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and then turned around and supported the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would gut pre-existing conditions. And because she's a nurse. She has also someone with a manageable heart condition. She said that she saw that town hall meeting and said, you know what?

It's on. I'm running, which is a really cool story. And that has happened to so many people all over the country who are running for office for the very first time. So it's inspiring. That is all great. Another thing that I really love about Lauren Underwood, so she's an African-American candidate and she's running to represent an overwhelmingly white district. And in some interview somewhere, she was asked, well, you're an African-American

candidate. This is a white district. Are you a good fit for the district? Are you a good fit for this race? And she said, this is my home. And the idea that I might not be a good fit is an idea I never gave a lot of consideration to. Which is the right way to think about this. It's the right way to think about it, which is it is your home. And that is how normal people think of things. And instead of trying to slice and dice this as some sort of amateur political consultant, she is a constituent who wants to become a congressperson so that she can make life better for the people of her home. And that is what this is supposed to be all about. And can be about. And can be about. And if you live in the Illinois 14th, you should know that your current congressman, Randy Hultgren, votes with Trump 96.8% of the time.

I mean, most of these folks have been in the 90s. 96.8, that's one of the highest ones we have. Supports the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, because, of course, that should protect the 14th District of Illinois. Voted for the ACA repeal bill that would have taken health insurance away from 33,000 people in the Illinois 14th. have taken health insurance away from 33,000 people in the Illinois 14th, voted for the tax bill rated F by the National Education Association, and supports concealed carry reciprocity.

Let people carry guns over state lines, even in states where they have tough gun control laws. So that is her opponent. So anyway, I guess we should make our endorsement. What do you think, Dan? I think I'm going to vote yes on this one. Okay. Yeah, no, me too.

Me too. This was a tough one, but I come down on the side of Lauren Underwood. Also, it's her birthday today. Today is Thursday and you're listening to it. So happy birthday, Lauren Underwood. Oh, that's exciting. Isn't that exciting? And for a birthday present, maybe go to her website and donate to her campaign because it is a Trump district.

It is one he won by a couple of points. So it's an uphill climb. But it is absolutely one that Democrats can win. Absolutely. We can win this race. So help Lauren out. If you go to VoteSaveAmerica.com, she's also one of the candidates who sent in a video about why she's running. So check that out.

And yeah, Lauren Underwood for the Illinois 14th. When we come back, we'll have the interview that Dan and Alyssa did with Katie Hill, who's running in the 25th, California's 25th. All right. Well, next up is our guest. Our guest tonight has spent her career trying to solve the homelessness epidemic in California and is currently running for Congress in her hometown district, California's 25.

Please welcome to the stage, Katie Hill. So, Katie, we're just going to like dip back to Brett Kavanaugh for a hot minute. Perfect. How did you feel yesterday as a woman watching Dr. Blasey Ford testify and just Brett Kavanaugh's performance? Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, we had to turn it off. It was pretty upsetting, not only for me, but for a lot of the women on my team. We've talked about sexual assault quite a bit on this campaign, and some of you might have seen, but I've talked a great deal about my own experience with it. I've been a victim myself. And when you really talk to people, most women have.

The sad truth is that most women have. And several of the women on my team have. And it's, I think this entire experience over the last couple of weeks has been honestly re-traumatizing for so many people. And what is so hard for us is to realize that we have so far that we still have to go. And that's completely unacceptable. And I'll say, you know, when I started this campaign, it was important to me that I was running to represent women and to represent young women. But as we've gone on,

that imperative has become so much more of a big deal. And, you know, I'm sure you've talked about this before, but less than 20 percent of the seats in Congress are held by women. And there is no way that we get to true equality unless we get to equal representation. Absolutely. representation. Absolutely. Yesterday was obviously a cultural moment. We had 20 million people watch it. What do you feel that debate, the debate over Brett Kavanaugh says about the politics of the moment and how they need to get better? Well, I think it says a few things. First of all, I think the fact that we, it shows that we've come a long way in some regards. I mean, we now have you know, if you if you compare to Anita Hill, where Democrats were on were in many ways on the wrong side. At least we've got our side that is pretty unified on on where we should be.

Progress. Yes, it's it progress uh one step at a time but um but i think it also shows that you have you know the republican party is overwhelmingly held by old white men and that is that is not until that changes then the republican party is is literally incapable of changing and what i was noticing throughout all of it and i you know i i don't know if there's any way around this but i think that when you see reactions like l Graham's or some of the other senators, you can't help but wonder, what are you afraid of? And what you know, there's a transference of, you know, who's who's going to say something about you and the people who are angry at women who are who are trying to shame victims or blame them or, you know, accuse them of lying or anything like that, then I can't help but wonder, like, what's in your past? So that's. You always have to wonder. You have said that you're running as a woman,

not as a woman trying to be a man. Tell us about that. Well, I like to wear high heels. No, I think for a long time, I'm able to run in the way that I do because in a lot of ways of the progress that's been made by women before me. And for a lot of time, I think it was very difficult for people to conceptualize a woman in power to that extent. And so you saw women wearing pantsuits that looked off an awful lot like men's pantsuits. And you saw, I think, the way that female candidates, you know, even leading up through Hillary Clinton, the way that they talked wasn't necessarily as emotional or vulnerable because you weren't allowed to be that way. You felt like you couldn't

show that kind of quote-unquote weakness because it's, you know, it's something that makes you seem like a weaker person. And if you're already seen as weaker because you're a woman, then you're, you know, that's something that you shouldn't do, right? And it's valid, but it's also, it's a valid concern, I will say, because one of the things that we're dealing with now are completely gendered attacks. For example, one of the, some of you might have even seen this on TV, but the biggest attack that they're running against me is calling me immature and showing a video of me laughing. How dare you? Imagine you having joy.

But you just like, you would never see that attack on a man, especially if the thing that they were using to prove that was that he was laughing. There's just no way. So I think that we have to step up and fight against that every step of the way and say, yes, I am a woman. Yes, I have experienced these things. I'm running to be a voice for women, for young women, and for future generations so that we can chip away at that glass ceiling that has been harder to break than any of us could have ever imagined. Katie, Vice News covered your primary as the, quote, most millennial campaign ever.

During the last midterms of 2014, that was a compliment, last midterms of 2014, only about one in five young people came out to vote. What's the case you're making to the young people to come out this November? The case is that the future of our country and of our planet and of our democracy depend on it. And if we stay home, there's no one else to clean up the mess. That's going to be, we are the generation that is going to be stuck with it. And that's from everything from whether or not we're going to have a planet to pass on to the next generation.

We're seeing the consequences of climate change right now in our own communities. The vast majority of wildfires that happen in LA County happen in our district. So that is incredibly real and you cannot deny that. communities. The vast majority of wildfires that happen in L.A. County happen in our district, so that is incredibly real, and you cannot deny that. We have, you know, the affordable housing crisis. People in my generation don't even think that they can buy a home, ever, in many cases. Healthcare, the student loan crisis, and the fact that people are saddled with debt for, you know, their entire lifetime, and that's keeping them from being able to be successful in so many ways. Or that they've gone to college and still come back and can't, you know, can't even find a $15 an hour job. So I think that there's so many things that we took for granted in a lot of ways. And, you know, I think me and a lot of my friends, I voted, but

beyond that, I was not very politically active except for in issues that I really cared about. And so I think, though, that the Trump election was one that made it so clear that we can't sit on the sidelines anymore. This is too important. And if it's our time and if no one else is fixing this, then we have to. Katie, thank you so much. If you want to help out Katie Hill flip the house, check out katiehillforcongress.com or votesaveamerica.com. One more time, please give it up for Katie Hill. Thanks to Katie Hill for chatting with us. And the two of us will talk to you on Monday. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you.