Pod Save America - "Government by sucker punch."

Episode Date: May 15, 2017

In the aftermath of Comey's firing, what can Democrats do to hold Trump accountable? The Vice Chair of the Intel Committee, Senator Mark Warner, joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to discuss the latest on the investigation. Plus DeRay on Sessions, Snowden, and more.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the pod today, we have the Vice Chair of the Senate Intel Committee, Senator Mark Warner. And later, we'll also be talking to the host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. How's it going, guys? Everyone good? Pretty good. We should just say that we already recorded the Mark Warner part, and it's a very good

interview. If we do say so ourselves. Behind the curtain. John Lovett. We do say so ourselves. Everyone also should listen, speaking of Lovett self-promoting, Love It or Leave It this Friday. We had an awesome Love It or Leave It with Kumail Nanjiani, Gareth Reynolds, and Lauren

Lapkus that you guys should listen to right now. I'm a big fan of the show, but I think this was the funniest one. I loved it. And we introduced some new segments. The show became president today. This Wednesday at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, we're going to be doing a live show with Mayor Eric Garcetti.

And you'll all be able to listen to it because it will be our Thursday pod. So just everyone, if you can come, great. If not, you'll hear it Thursday. They can come. It's sold out. You can't come. It's sold out. Maybe they already have tickets. All right, let's talk about Jim Comey.

They already have tickets, they know. Let's talk about Jim Comey because that's the world we're stuck in. It's amazing. Two weeks ago, we were like, guys, we just have to talk about Comey a little bit more. We know we're all kind of sick of the topic. And now here we are. So last week, where we last left off the story. Our hero.

Basically, last week, Trump told his staff to lie. He threatened Comey by suggesting he might release a secret tape of their conversation. And he basically admitted to obstruction of justice by telling Lester Holt that he fired Comey because he didn't like that his O campaign was under investigation. So the first question is, a week out from this now, almost a week out, is Trump going to get away with this? Is this just what we're going to deal with now? I mean, because how many different things can we do here to hold him accountable at this stage in the game, at this point, with the power that Democrats have?

I don't think it's an either or. I don't think it's a hold him accountable or not hold him accountable i think that obviously the lack of you know fortitude on the part of the republican leadership means that he's not going to be uh held to a standard that he should be held to but slowly but surely you see that like you know he's not getting backed up by people like lindsey graham right there's going to be you know there's going to be a movement to have some kind of investigation, whether there'll be a push for a special prosecutor, an independent commission, we don't know. So I think it's a another kind of weakening of Trump's ability to do this without accountability. Yeah, I mean, I think it was a significant strategic error. It showed him to be as

petulant and short sighted and unprincipled as we all suspected he would be. Then going on to tweet a threat at the FBI director that led everyone in the world to believe that he's secretly tape recording conversations in the White House is another huge strategic error because it gives Democrats something to seize on that's very simple. Are there tapes? Yes or no? If so, release the tapes. And I don't think that should be the entire Democratic message. I think it's interesting if you look at polling, that actually it's healthcare that people are far more upset about and worried about, and that's resonating in states. But to the degree that Democrats are trying to stop him from doing anything in Washington, it's a great distraction for the

press corps because they can't focus on anything else and rightly so well so yeah there's an effort on behalf of some republicans or a lot of republicans and especially some um you know in the media and the right-wing media to say oh democrats are hyperventilating the media is hyperventilating about this it's and just make it sort of a team thing but like we have seen people that are non-partisan like James Clapper said that the FBI firing amounted to an assault on the country's checks and balances. David Ignatius said he talked to a reporter at The Washington Post that he talked to various Republicans this week. And quotes were, this guy scares me. Quote, there are no guardrails on this presidency.

And quote, this is Richard Nixon on steroids. Right. So these are like Republican senators and congressmen that he was talking to, though none of them will speak out. Very, very, very brave under the cloak of anonymity. These Republicans. I wonder if one of them is Rubio. It's like from day one, it has been very clear to me that you cannot possibly underestimate the degree to which this is going to distract his entire White House staff and team as they're trying to do other things. In a political level, that's a good thing for us as Democrats. As a country, it's a really bad thing because we need

these people to do their jobs. But instead, they wake up every day and read about how because Trump lied to them and made them spin one thing one day and the opposite the next day, now he's going to fire them. And they pick up Politico and there's an entire story written from Clinton aides telling them they all need to lawyer up. And, you know, like that is scary as hell if you're sitting in those jobs. And, you know, these people are not going to be able to do anything else. And like the culture of infighting and Game of Thrones bullshit and leaking is is it seems like it's all consuming. Yeah. I mean, well, the other thing, thing too is it's obviously consuming for the white house. The,

the head of the FBI, his job is not just to investigate Trump, his universe. The world doesn't revolve around Donald Trump. He's one of the nation's top counterterrorism officials. The FBI director is a real fucking job that you need a good person in there doing. Sure do.

Well, so let's talk about that. So talk about some of the ways that Democrats are thinking about trying to hold Trump accountable here, trying to bring some accountability to this shit show. Trump, by the end of the week, is supposed to appoint the next or says he's going to appoint the next FBI director. Quick turnaround, by the way, for appointing someone with a 10 year term that's going to run the nation's top law enforcement agency. Well, one thing that I was just sort of, you know, you look at what they've learned in like the last couple of weeks. And the one thing they learned is when you have a slow process around a health care bill, people find out what's in it.

They don't like it. So when you kind of it's sort of like government by sucker punch, they throw something out there, quickly get it through before anyone has the ability to kind of raise the alarm and stop it. And that's something they could definitely try to do with this. Well, I know I noticed that with obviously John Cornyn's name has been floated. He's the number two Republican in the Senate, longtime Trump supporter, huge party hack, right? Just an absolute shill. Absolute shill. It's unfair to Chuck Schumer to say that this would be like Barack Obama appointing Chuck Schumer, but it is similar.

It's exactly, oh, just imagine, right? It's an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, and Barack Obama tells Lester Holt, well, when I fired the FBI director, I did think to myself, I don't like this email investigation. And my new FBI director is going to be Chuck Schumer. But reporters, right when they floated Cornyn's name, a lot of them started saying, well, if it's Cornyn, he's just going to sail through confirmation in the Senate, because Senate courtesy and blah, blah, blah. Lindsey Graham

has taken a little bit of a journey over the last week because he started by, apparently, according to news sources, he was the one on the phone with Trump saying like, fine, if you want to start fresh as the FBI, go for it. And now he's saying, I don't think Cornyn should be the pick. Funny to see old Senator Graham, you know, drifting in the winds here on the, on a tough issue. I know. I guess the question is, do you think we'll need, again, like we need for everything in the Senate,

we'd need three Republicans to say no to a Trump appointee for them to block it. And I don't know. I mean, with Cornyn, maybe Graham. I don't know. Does Graham vote against Cornyn? I think the problem is it's hard for these guys to vote against him, but maybe not as hard for them to signal that they don't want this to be picked, so they don't have to vote for him.

I don't know. I mean, you saw Rubio say, Cornyn and Trey Gowdy, those would be wonderful picks, which is fucking despicable. Yeah, it's terrible. Marco Rubio, man. This is supposed to be a position that's viewed as nonpartisan. I mean, it's not a lifetime appointment. It's not a judgeship. It's not immune to partisan politics. The president can fire Comey, as we just saw. That said, I mean, you want a technocratic individual. You want someone that comes with background in law enforcement, that someone who understands like what's going on in the bureau on day one. And John Cornyn is not that person. It seems like a simple message from Democrats should just be no politicians and no FBI director until a special prosecutor is named.

Yeah. And until you want to do either one of those two things, you take care. I agree. Release the tapes. It's so – it's also just like, look, put what we should do or shouldn't. put what we should do or shouldn't. It's also heartbreaking, the idea that you could pick someone like John Cornyn, because it just shows such a lack of respect, regard for like half the country. Like, it's the FBI. You actually, you know, Republicans in the Senate don't gain anything from having a partisan FBI, right? Maybe Trump does personally because he's a criminal.

But like, Republican senators, this guy's gonna be around for 10 years. Like, this is one, this is a place where it's easy to care about your country more. I know. And even if you're going for a win, you don't care at all about Democrats. You don't think they matter at all. You don't think these people in your district matter at all. And they don't. They don't care.

Because the name they're floating is Merrick Garland. Because they want to get him out of a very important judgeship and into a job where Donald Trump could fire him the next day. It is the most cynical, ridiculous, plotting nonsense. Hey, Merrick Garland, do you want to give up your lifetime appointment for a job where Trump's going to probably fire you in two days? That sounds like a great trade, Merrick Garland. So Politico just reported today

that Democrats might force procedural votes, Tommy, you were alluding to this, that require Trump to either give up his quote unquote taped conversations with Comey or admit that he doesn't have them and made the whole thing up. This raises a broader question. Should Democrats grind all Senate business to a halt until, you know, they get him to admit this on the tapes, they get the special prosecutor, they get an FBI director who's not a politician and non-partisan i mean how how far should democrats go or can democrats go to you know hold them accountable here far i i don't know i i'm i'm usually a weenie about this

i am now in as do everything possible by any means possible We are in a totally different reality here. People need, we need to make this a big deal and push them in every way possible to try to get some sort of answers in terms of the tapes at the bare minimum. I guess that like, I have no idea and no way of knowing, no confidence in this, but like that felt like a classic Trump empty threat,

which is why going to bat to find out that there are no tapes makes me feel like well i don't know maybe we should be talking about health care but i don't know but he'll go to war over the dumbest things possible you know i mean either you're a pathetic liar again check or you're taping people secretly and it sounds like there's a lot of history and evidence of him secretly taping people it's an interesting i'm not torn about it because um i think oh we can't be obstructionist like them no fuck it we should be obstructionist just like I'm not torn about it because I think, oh, we can't be obstructionists like them. No, fuck it. We should be obstructionists

just like them. I'm torn about it because what you were just alluding to, which is the message, right? Like, if we go, if we grind all business to a halt,

then it is, we make the story for the next however many weeks as the Senate's ground to a halt, this investigation, investigation, to the detriment of

talking about healthcare, talking about tax reform, talking about all the other things that people probably care about more in the country than they care about this investigation investigation to the detriment of talking about health care talking about tax reform talking about all the other things that people probably care about more in the country than they care about this investigation but at the same time he fucking fired the fbi director because he was investigating him like to it is it seems like such an obvious abuse of power that if we let this go i don't know how we move on from here like you know i just think there's something i know that people might not care about it a ton. Right. But I think that sometimes that might not matter. See, but this drives me crazy because these these these stories you saw like one day, two days, three days later, they'd say Washington cares deeply about Comey being fired.

But the country shrugs. I mean, I hate that kind of reporting because people form opinions over time. And it is also a fact that we have an entire right-wing apparatus that literally will not report on the fact that Donald Trump's explanation, timeline, everything about why he fired Comey has changed completely. Doesn't exist in their world. Doesn't exist in their world. It's just liberal hysteria. Well, yeah. So the NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Which is our thing. So NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Which is our thing.

So NBC Wall Street Journal had a poll out about this over the weekend. 29% approve of Trump firing Comey. 38% disapprove. 32% had no opinion. Well, one of the people was Hillary, who they called. Although

93% have heard about the Comey news. So this, contrary to what some have some have reported, many people have heard about this thing. Now what was interesting, what you were just saying, Tommy, is if you had heard a lot about Comey, you were way more likely to disapprove of the firing than if you had heard just a little bit about Comey. So it is an information thing here. If you pay attention to the news and pay attention to the reporting, you think it's awful. If you probably watch Fox News, which is barely reported on it, or just reported on Democrats' hysteria over Comey, or you don't pay attention to the news at all, you don't think it matters as much.

But if that's the case, that shouldn't stop people in Washington from pushing as hard as they can on this, just because some people aren't paying attention to the news. Right. Somebody made this point, like, oh, only Washington cares about this. Well, that's where they make the loss right for better for worse guys we're playing a long game here okay and trump's approval rating is like 38 39 he's got 80 approval from republicans but independents are moving you're still seven percent of democrats who seem to be cool with him so like we have time to slowly erode and chip away at people's views on him by just talking about the crazy stuff he's doing.

I don't think we should miss an opportunity this clear-cut. I've also thought some – Will Jordan started tweeting out poll numbers from the Watergate era this weekend, which is really interesting. So should Nixon resign a couple days before he resigned? Fifty-nine percent of Republicans still said no. Another question asked right before he resigned, is the media covering this issue of Watergate too much? 51% said yes. So even back then, right before presidential resignation, he had the base with him,

and he had a bunch of people thinking the media was hyping this too much. Things change very quickly. Well, they change very slowly, and then they change very quickly. So we just don't know. And I do agree, yeah, we should. I guess it's just a hard question, because even as we should make this central to what we're doing, you have 13 guys somewhere in the Senate writing this health care bill. You know, that's an ongoing issue that really does have a day to day impact on people's lives. And it will be more central to the midterm elections. So it's hard. It's hard. And you know what? You could also make the case that the more this Russia investigation

and the Comey stuff hurts Trump politically, the easier it is for Senate Republicans to break with him on things like health care. That's true. Right? And so it might actually help these things. Yeah, the New York Times reported essentially what you just said, that Republicans were beginning to break from Trump. It feels a little premature, but I do think Democrats can walk and chew gum here.

I think we can, Indivisible and all these groups doing great work, sending people to town halls should continue to do that, and they should continue to talk about healthcare. It is the primary economic challenge we face, but we also shouldn't let this go because it's simple, and you find a couple courageous senators, which, look, I'm not hopeful here, but a couple of people. There have been senators that come out and said if there are tapes, they need to be released. And that's simple. Yeah. And also, by the way, it's not just about hoping that they be courageous. It's about it requiring less courage to do the right thing. And that's about Trump being less popular. It's about the sort of dynamics around this issue changing.

You know, you know, John, I were talking this right before we started that, like, you know, Trump said this crazy quote to Lester Holt. And, you know, SNL did their thing where they're like, did I get him? Is it over? Right. Which I think captures the feeling like, did he say it? Did he say it? And like, because this is a political question and not a legal question, it really is about how it feels and how it sounds. And the further we push, the further we push, like every it seems impossible that this was the craziest week we've had so far.

But it is. And things are changing and getting worse for Trump day by day. He's his own worst enemy. Well, so, and Lovett, I know you love talking about this, but there's been a lot of impeachment talk about this, right? You mean holding him accountable? But the question is, impeachment talk, I ask. Still premature?

The time is right? Or who the hell cares? It's not going to happen anyway until a long time. What do you think? So the whole issue with impeachment, the time is right, or who the hell cares? It's not going to happen anyway until a long time. What do you think? So the whole issue with impeachment, right, is so now you have Trump possibly committing obstruction of justice, right? On one hand, that is a legal, you know, there's a legal characterization of whether it was obstruction of justice or not. But impeachment doesn't rest solely on some legal judgment, right? It is actually the political judgment of members of the House of Representatives who have to decide on judgment, right? It is actually the political judgment of members of

the House of Representatives who have to decide on this, right? And they decided back in 1998 that Bill Clinton had committed obstruction of justice and they impeached him. Some legal scholars and lawyers probably said Bill Clinton had not done that, right? But the House decides. So it really does. I don't want to say it's beside the point, but it does seem like, look, until you get a House that would plausibly vote on impeachment, it seems very premature. And also we should just let everyone know because a lot of people are like, oh, impeachment, impeachment. It's like even if the House, even if we won the House back in 2018 and the House voted to impeach Donald Trump, the Senate, you would need 66 votes in the Senate. Right. Because you need two thirds of the Senate, you would need 66 votes in the Senate, right? Because you need two thirds of the Senate. 67, sorry, 67 votes. So you need two thirds of the Senate. Otherwise,

he's acquitted. So like, we're sitting here talking about how to get like 53 votes for things. And, you know, 60 is the threshold for filibuster. And now you're going up to 67. It's like, the question is, what more, what crazier could happen after this week that would convince 67 senators? Yeah, yeah. This guy's got to get up. Who knows? We don't know. I do think, though, it's like it's like it's like a little bit like you have like a snowball. Yeah. And it has to roll downhill and you don't know how big it's going to get. I agree. You know, this is a political question. But I agree. You know, this is a political question. And there's only there's only two ways a political question like that can be answered in favor of impeachment in the House. Either things, the dynamic gets so bad for Trump that House Republicans tell him basically that they would vote for it or the dynamic gets so bad for Trump that we win the House and then we can impeach him. It's so far away to start talking about the Senate. But like, man, if we're at the point where we're at the high crimes and misdemeanors place, we're not talking about we don't need 67 votes. We need, what, 13 Republicans to change their minds.

And that starts to become a different thing. I just think that, like, in a world where Donald Trump is being impeached, it's a different world than the one we're living in right now. The other thing, the last thing to remember is if the Democrats win the House back before you even get to impeachment, winning the House gives you subpoena power and it gives you more power in this investigation, right? Which Democrats more power in this investigation, which we have not had up until now. There's no like hoping that your Republican counterpart plays nice. If the Democrats win the House back, they will be able to find a lot of these answers. Yeah. I mean, I guess what I would say is I don't know about impeachment talk. I think it feels quite fanciful at this moment. I want to know how talking about impeachment helps us or hurts us in winning the House back, because that's all that matters to me. Because if you want to fantasize about impeachment, that's fine. What I think about is the consequences of winning the House. And I think about Donald Trump. I think about how do you stymie Donald Trump from continuing to be a menace to this country? And I think about two years of Donald Trump being investigated in the House, whether he's being impeached or not, while while fending off some kind of primary challenge throughout 2019 and 2020. And that, to me, is a very exciting possibility.

And it does really hinge on doing everything we can to win the House. I agree with that. And also, I mean, it begs the question, too, like I think I used that wrong. I agree with that. And also, it begs the question, too, I think I used that wrong. Is it an easy way out, hoping for, this is back to the Lester Holt thing from SNL,

that one story's going to hit, or one answer he's going to give that ends it all, and we don't have to worry about working hard and registering voters and winning back the House and stuff like that, that this is the mensch fever here. Yeah. There's going to be something that just drops and that's going to be it. And we're all going to be able to go home. You know,

we're not going to find a square cash transfer from like Vlad to Jared, you know, a better way to bribe. But you know, even in cases where there was clear wrongdoing, you're far more likely to get someone who lies about their role in it or cover something up or, you know, like that's how these things unravel and they turn. It's the cover up.

It's the cover up. So we, yes, we are hoping, I think a lot of progressives are hoping for way too much out of the Russia investigation. We should get to the bottom of it, period. It's absolutely critical that we do so. But I don't think that there's going to be, I mean, I hope there is.

I doubt there's going to be a silver bullet that leads Trump out of office in handcuffs. I mean, we shouldn't dream about it. It's like there's a thing called the quadrennial defense review where they kind of look at our ability to fight. Whoa. I haven't heard that term in a while. Bear with me, bud. Bear with me. We're bearing.

And basically it's about making sure our military is up to the challenge of what we set, which is basically we have to be able to win one war while holding back another adversary. And I feel like we need to keep in our mind a quadrennial Trump review. And we need to be able to fight on the Russia front, but we don't, but we just need to hold him there. We need to be able to win on the other front, which is the policy and political front while doing everything we can to win on the Russia front. And right. And we don't want to ignore a lot of other extremely important issues that are also possibly politically potent. Last week, you know, we didn't talk about much Jeff Sessions sort of rolling back a lot of the sentencing reforms that Eric Holder and the Obama administration did. So now he's, you know, on Friday he ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest penalties possible for those convicted of possessing even the smallest amounts of marijuana.

We should just double stamp on how this is such bad policy. prosecutors to pursue the toughest penalties possible for those convicted of possessing even the smallest amounts of marijuana. We should just double stamp on how this is such bad policy. The Koch brothers think this is terrible policy. Barack Obama thinks it's terrible policy because you're locking up for life nonviolent drug offenders. And we send these people to places like Rikers Island and they come out destroyed. They're not human beings anymore. destroyed they're not human beings anymore it's also so out far like it's so outside a consensus that extends from freedom works to like the center for american progress that most republicans in the senate are in favor of criminal justice reform all democrats are in favor of criminal justice reform actually the only reason we didn't pass a law on criminal justice reform is that mitch

mcconnell pulled it because people like jeff sessions and tom cotton another villain in the story we're like we don't have an over-incarceration problem. We have an under-incarceration problem, which is fucking nuts. Talk about bipartisanship. You had Chuck Grassley, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, all wanting bipartisan criminal justice reform. And now the Trump administration has overturned that. And also, there was a report over the weekend that Trump was sort of pissed at Sessions because one person in the White House that was working on criminal justice reform was Jared Kushner.

And Sessions just went out and did his own thing because Sessions is the worst thing that Trump has done to this country yet, is appoint Jeff Sessions to this. Jeff Sessions, by the way, we didn't talk about this, who is interviewing the FBI directors, even though he recused himself from the Russia investigation. God, getting Jeff Sessions out of there would be a big step forward. That's going to be tough, because Jeff Sessions is smart, and he is wily, and he is careful. And those Keebler elves can hide. It's like, which oak tree is he in today? Which nut. Where is he drizzling fudge over delicious treats today?

While pursuing racist fucking criminal justice policies criminal injustice yeah and in addition to the Republicans continuing to try to rip away health care for millions of Americans there's also a report over the weekend that they're planning massive cuts to programs

for the poor, food stamps welfare, veterans benefits because there's nowhere left to cut in the budget, and they need to pay for this huge tax cut, and they're not going to touch non-discretionary programs like Medicare and Social Security. So Donald Trump

made a promise, which was, I won't cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid. And then he decided to reverse on the one that affects tens of millions of black people and poor people. So the other thing that's part of this, too, is they're desperately trying to balance their budget in 10 years. Of course, that's not possible without huge, huge spending cuts or tax increases. Now, if you remember, there was this whole talk about how the Republicans want to do Obamacare first because that's where they'll get the revenue. That's where they get the revenue

tax reform for their budget. But one thing that this article notes is the Republican health care bill cuts a trillion dollars from the budget, but there's only 150 billion left to make up budget shortfalls. Why? Because it includes massive tax cuts for the rich already. This is a thing that has annoyed me for a long time. Stop calling Trump's rhetoric and policy populist. Stop calling Steve Bannon some populist hero. This is the opposite of populism. When you're cutting Medicaid, when you're cutting income assistance for the disabled, when you're cutting veterans benefits, you are sticking it to working people to help people who don't want the estate tax. Billionaires. Plutocrats drunk with power. That's what we have here.

When we come back, we will talk to Senator Mark Warner. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we have the ranking member of the Senate Intel Committee, Virginia Senator Mark Warner, friend of the pod. This is his second appearance on a Crooked Media pod. Virginia is a commonwealth. Thanks for having me on.

Although, guys, you know, I'm actually vice chair. Vice chair. Oh, that's the official title. Which I think, yeah, which I think is probably bigger than ranking member, but I'm not sure. I think like most people don't know what ranking member means. So vice chair sounds great. You said you were ranking member and from a state when you are the vice chair and from a commonwealth we're over to right get it right guys no fake no no fake news on the pod i heard

tommy say state of virginia on pod save the world and i was like come on man we're from a common because we're both from massachusetts and i just did the same thing they cut deep um okay let's get right into it um so obviously we do not know what's in president's trump mind president's trump's mind which is a good thing but um but fortunately we don't have to guess because he told lester holt that when he fired comey he was thinking about how this quote russia thing is a made-up story so do you believe it was an abuse of power to fire Comey? I believe that it was beyond bizarre. Here you had, beginning of last week, Sally Yates, former acting attorney general, saying she had notified the White House, and then they waited 17 days to fire or get rid of General Flynn. We had Director Comey was supposed to be coming in and talk to us on Thursday.

On Tuesday night, he gets fired. And then they come up originally with this wild excuse that the reason they were firing him was because the deputy attorney general had written a memo saying that Comey didn't treat Hillary Clinton fair. Now, who would really think that this White House would say that? Aha! Nine months after the fact, now we've got a reason to go after Comey. And so that lasted. I'd met with the deputy attorney general. I said, honestly, your memo doesn't pass the laugh test. And why did you write it? How is it written? Was that the real

reason? And luckily, or maybe not luckily, but within a few hours of that meeting, the president said no. It had nothing to do with what the deputy attorney general was going to recommend or not. It was because of this involvement with the Russia thing. And candidly, the involvement with the Russia thing, this White House may be the only group of people in America that don't accept the fact that Russia massively interfered in our elections, have used tools from disinformation and fake news and manipulation of the Internet in ways that are unprecedented, and that you've now got the President of the United States

firing the head of the FBI who's in charge of the investigation. You can't make this stuff up. So, Senator, do you think that when he appoints a new FBI director that Democrats should make a confirmation contingent on some sort of clarity on whether or not there are taped conversations of his meeting dinner with Comey and pledged to block it unless that happens? Well, I'd already suggested that we not confirm whoever the president appoints until we get a special prosecutor. Now, because candidly,

I voted for the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Rodstein, Rosenstein, but I told him I was really disappointed with this memo that was not believable. He needed to regain credibility, and the best way he could regain credibility is to appoint a special prosecutor to appoint it, which he can't appoint. The deputy attorney general can appoint that individual, which wouldn't slow down the investigation, which would still mean that most of the lawyers working out of the Eastern District of Virginia would still be the prosecutors looking into this. But it would mean that there was at least another indication of independence. Then, that was all before, of course, you got to stay with this story every day because new things happen. That was even before the president made this allusion to the potential of tapes. And as we've known, any student of history

knows, presidents with secret tapes usually don't end up in a good spot. So I do think it's going to be important. And I think the president will be forced to say whether the tapes exist or they don't exist or whether he was just making this stuff up. Can I ask you a question? What exactly does a special prosecutor give you in this process? Because I know that after the whole Kenna Star thing, there was a law that lapsed. Beyond just sort of the norm of this guy being, you know, treated independently. This gets really complicated and probably only your listening audience will be interested in kind of actually getting the distinctions. There used to be an independent counsel law. That was an individual lawyer that kind of set up their own shop.

He or she would be appointed by a three-judge panel. That was the genesis of Whitewater and a series of other independent counsel activities. The Democrats, ironically, let that law expire at the end of the 90s. So independent commission, independent council, short of a whole new law being passed and signed by this president, is kind of off the table. That's the same to a degree as I know a lot of your listeners really want an independent commission. And I'm – listen, I got no problem with an independent commission. I only say that an independent commission, which would be the idea that somehow the House and the Senate would again pass a law, the president would sign it. And my fear for folks who are concerned about this president is any independent commission would end up having a lot of appointments made by this president.

And do you really believe this president's going to appoint truly independent people? And that would put the whole investigation off six to nine months before the law could be stood up. And for Democrats, you would have the president making appointments, the majority making appointments, the minority making appointments. And I think the ratio would be dramatically less in the Democrats' favor on an independent commission. I know we're getting confusing but again, your audience follows. And then on the special prosecutor, the special prosecutor is someone that would be appointed by the deputy attorney general since the attorney general sessions has already had to recuse himself and the deputy attorney general could appoint a special prosecutor that in a sense gets some independence from having to get every approval along the investigation approved by the normal channels in the Justice Department.

That special prosecutor, if they actually want to bring charges, would still have to go and get approval from the Deputy Attorney General, but it at least gives one more layer of independence. Now, if that was not totally confusing to your audience, I apologize, but there really are three separate buckets, special prosecutor, independent counsel, and independent commission. Well, first of all, you don't have to worry about our audience keeping up because they are the best. I know, they're calling my office every day and texting me every day. They are focused. They're the tip of the spear. They are the tip of the spear. And I'm feeling that prod. I'm feeling that prod on a regular basis. Excellent. So you've kind of thrown a little bit of water here on the independent

commission. We've had the head of the FBI is fired. The attorney general is Jeff Sessions, who, to use a sort of technical legal term, is terrible. You have Devin Nunes in the House having to step aside because that investigation was compromised by his own sort of going to the White House and being ridiculous. Adam Schiff is doing great work. You are helping to lead the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, kind of what is hopefully a kind of bastion of independence here. James Comey has said he wants to testify publicly. You said you wanted to testify publicly. Do you feel as though the Republicans on your committee are committed to an independent investigation? Are they putting the country first? I believe many of them are. I

mean, remember, the Senate Intelligence Committee is one, the ratio is eight to seven, eight Republicans to seven Democrats. so it's a closer ratio than most committees second it's got a history of being bipartisan third you know the chairman richard burr i mean he last week when the comey resigned or comey got fired sorry not resigned fired uh did one of the strongest statements of any republican and i tell you we've had some bumps along this has not not been a smooth course. I'll be the first to acknowledge, but every time there's been a bump because the Republicans on, some of the Republicans on the committee, like Susan Collins from Maine and James Lankford from

Oklahoma and Marco Rubio from Florida and Roy Blunt from Missouri, they have really weighed in when there's been some, you know, jostling that says, hey, no, we're going to follow the intel wherever it leads. And we've got also Chairman Burr last week, I tell you, even after the Comey investigation saying, we're going to, saying to the staff, both of us saying to the staff, we're going to follow this no matter where it leads. We're going to get this done. We're going to do it in a way that we can be proud of the product. So, you know, maybe some of the folks, some of you guys or some of the folks in the audience say, no, that's not the perfect solution. But this is the best option we have to get to the bottom and get to the truth.

Have you talked to Burr yet about Comey testifying publicly? And do you think he'll agree that Comey can testify publicly? I think the fact that Chairman Burr was very supportive of bringing in Comey to testify, I think, you know, I'll talk with him more today, but I cannot imagine that Chairman Breaux wouldn't be supportive of him testifying before our committee or some other committee. I think the Intel Committee would be the appropriate venue. And, you know, I heard back from Director Comey that he wasn't going to make it tomorrow, the day that we initially invited him. I get that. This is kind of a jolt to his life.

And I imagine he wanted to take a little bit of time to collect himself and sort through. But I know Jim Comey deserves a chance to tell his side of the story. And I think the American people are going to want to hear it. I do, too. Senator, one thing I've heard about the focus of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the Russian hacking is that the sophistication and preciseness of the targeting is something that's being looked at closely, specifically that Russian bots were targeting Clinton voters at the precinct level to suppress their votes with fake news, and that that level of expertise would require data from a targeting firm like Cambridge Analytica, for example. Is that true? And can

you tell us anything about the nature of these Russian hacks that I'm hearing about? Well, when you see some of the explanation and some of the fact that it appears that, for example, women and African Americans were targeted in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, where the Democrats were too brain dead to realize those states were even in play. We don't say that here, except all the time. Well, you know, it was interesting that those states seem to be targeted, where the bots where they could create a lot of these fake Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts could in fact, overwhelm the targeted search engines that would end up saying on your news feed you suddenly got stuff that said, oh, Hillary Clinton's sick or Hillary Clinton's stealing money from the State Department.

I get the fact that the Russian intel services could figure out how to manipulate the bots and use the bots. whether they could know how to target states and levels of voters that the Democrats weren't even aware, really raises some questions. And I think that's a worthwhile area of inquiry. How did they know to go to that level of detail in those kind of jurisdictions? I wonder if they just asked Jared like Trump does with all these questions. We'll find out. We'll find out. We'll find out.

More to come on that. Well, so obviously you can't talk a lot with a lot of specificity about the investigation itself. But back in March, your counterpart in the House, Adam Schiff, said he has now seen, quote, more than circumstantial evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Do you agree with his characterization? You know, I really like that setup. I know you can't say anything, but here. But here. Here's somebody who has said there's a whole bunch of stuff. You know, I'll throw you an Adam Schiff quote and respond.

Not my first rodeo, boys. It is ours. If you can't tell, it is our first rodeo. And listen, while you're collecting your thoughts, we're doing a great job here. You're doing a great job. You guys are the tip of the spear. We're like Lester Holt on Saturday Night Live. Do we get him yet?

Do we get him? Do we get him yet? I'm not going to comment on Mr. Schiff's comments. I am going to say, you know, I've been using more of the smoke analogy that this White House who keeps saying there's no there there, you'd think they'd want

to cooperate if there's no there there. And it feels like each week there's more and more smoke. How's that for an analogy? We'll take it. We'll take it.

We'll take it. I mean, in addition to smoke, a national security expert named Clint Watts testified that there have been more dead Russians. Clint Watts,

who, by the way, testified before the Senate Intel Committee listening audience. That's where I first heard his name. And he testified that there have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation. They are dropping dead even in Western countries. And he's referring to the fact that eight Russian politicians, activists, ambassadors, and former Intel officials have died since the U.S. election. Politicians, activists, ambassadors, and former intel officials have died since the U.S. election. General Clapper's response to a question about this coincidental series of deaths, I think, raised a lot of eyebrows last weekend. Do you think this is something that we should focus on? Should it be part of the investigation?

Refresh my memory on what Clapper's response was. be part of the investigation refresh my memory on what clapper's response was um he seemed to think that you know more broadly that we are under assault from uh i believe that we i believe that the russians have been successful at both interfering in our election and so in chaos and they also obviously got the candidate that they preferred to be president. And one of the remarkable things is if you add up all the money that the Russians spent in the United States, if you add up all the money they spent in the Netherlands where the Dutch hand-counted their ballots rather than machine-counted because they were afraid of interference, if you add up what the Russians spent in the French elections where they dumped all those emails on Macron right before the final weekend. And if you presumptuously add up the money they'll spend trying to interfere in the German elections, you add that all together, let alone maybe the loss of life on some of these officials, you're talking about, what, 2% to 3% of the cost of a new aircraft carrier.

cost of a new aircraft carrier. So I worry at times that we're seeing this new type of warfare from the Russians, that they can spend pennies on the dollar compared to what the United States is spending in more of a traditional sense. Now, again, I support our aircraft carrier fleet, we build them in Virginia. But this is a new type of assault. And I think you'd have to, from an objective standpoint, say the Russians, at least in terms of their overall view, Putin's overall view of, let's try to make American liberal democracy look bad, has been pretty successful and a pretty good return on the ruble. So one thing Clapper also said is not only are institutions under assault from without, they're also under assault from within right now. So you have Russia doing this kind of international campaign against democracies and will obviously be threatened again in future elections. And then you have Donald Trump seeming to try to stymie any kind of investigation at any turn. At what point do we have to press a different button and raise a different kind of response?

You know, you're doing work leading in the Senate Intel Committee, but Senate business is continuing. Two things. Let me make two comments on that. First, one of the really disappointing points, and I made this both in the, particularly in the open hearing, when I asked the leadership of the intel community, all right, guys, you know, we've seen all these actions the Russians have done. What are we doing on a government-wide standpoint to prevent this from happening in 2018 with congressional elections in 2020? And because this is kind of a whole new area and doesn't fit neatly into Department of Homeland Security or the intel community or DOD, the response I got was very unsatisfying. So we need a whole of government approach on how we're going to prevent this from happening in 2018. Or the Russians are

going to say, aha, you know, we got a great return on the ruble for doing this in 2016. We can ramp it up even more in 2018. Number one. Number two, in terms of the president, I know the pace from your audience that we're going about is not as fast as they'd like. Frankly, as somebody who's pretty impatient, it's not always the pace that I'd like to see. pace that I'd like to see. But to do this right and do this meticulously, do this in a bipartisan fashion at the end of the day, to have confidence that your audience and even some of the folks who support the president would come to, hey, this is a legitimate consensus. That's really important. And then in terms of the activities of the Senate, I've said we should not be appointing an FBI director until we get that special prosecutor. I believe we desperately need to find out whether these tapes exist, number one. Two, make sure that they're preserved.

And three, even my Republican colleagues this past Sunday, Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee, said if there are tapes, Congress is going to get a look at them so i think we're seeing movement um you know kind of across the whole country from all parts of the the kind of of the political landscape they're saying hey this kind of behavior cannot be countenance and we've got to follow and get all the facts out and comey will be part of that i think frankly the uh the letters we sent to the Treasury Financial Center, what's called FinCEN department, to kind of follow the money issues, a whole new area of the investigation, that may provide some valuable input. So we're looking at this in multiple areas. And then the Senate investigation itself is, we've kind of gone through and looked at the raw intelligence. We've

got some more follow-up to do there, confirming what we already know about Russian interference. We're now starting to get to some of the people that were affiliated with the Trump campaign. We've sent out one subpoena. If we don't get all the information we've requested, we will be sending out more subpoenas to more individuals. I hope the first subpoena that went to Flynn will, to more individuals. I hope the first subpoena that went to Flynn will, let me say the word, convince the other witnesses they ought to go ahead and cooperate with us. But we've shown we're going to use our tools that we've got. Carter Page is lost on an MSNBC set somewhere.

Hopefully you'll hear this. Saying things that are incriminating. I'm not sure Mr. Page will be necessarily the final truth revealer of all of these. I guess the question is what levers of power we have to get some of this stuff done like you know the special prosecutor is dependent on whether rosenstein decides to appoint a special prosecutor it's ultimately um his decision uh trying to block a new fbi director you know we obviously would need republican votes for that because with 51 votes they they can appoint a new FBI director without any Democrats. So at what point did Democrat, I mean, are we left with either hoping that we get a few sensible Republicans in the Senate to come along to sort of demand some of this accountability?

Or, you know, some Democrats have talked about just halting all Senate business until some of this stuff happens. Like, what's our choice here? just halting all Senate business until some of this stuff happens? What's our choice here? Well, listen, there are many of my Democratic colleagues who I think would be in the bucket of, let's just bring everything to a screeching halt. My fear on that would be that that gives the Republicans who I think will work with us, want to work with us, may not be fully there yet.

That gives them an ability to kind of rally as a team because if we look like we're simply obstructionists, I remember how frustrated we all were with the constant obstruction we saw against Merrick Garland and against – during the last couple of years and frankly most of the years of the Obama administration. So – and that unified the Democrats. I'm fearful that if we simply try to gum up the works on everything, at this point, Republicans who are working with us already and many others who I think will continue to work or will work with us, if you continue to see things like tapes and this Tacoma firing and other activities, they'll go back into a, hey, this is team sports,

when actually this is much more important than team sports. This is just this is much more important, actually, than even this president. This is about whether our democratic existence can be maintained in the 21st century, after we've been the assaulted by a country that at least when I grew up, was our leading adversary. So I guess what I don't understand about that is why would democratic unity, in defense of what you're talking about, cause people like Lindsey Graham or Susan Collins or Rand Paul or any of the other people or Ben Sasse or any of the other people who have shown some sort of semblance of courage throughout this process? Why would they turn against the idea

of an independent FBI? Why would that cause them to turn against? No, I don't think that they will turn against an independent FBI. I don't think they will even turn against our efforts to say, hey, we're not going to confirm a new FBI director until we get a special prosecutor or until we get existence of the tapes because those are all things that are still – there's a nexus and a connection. If we say, as I know you guys and parts of the resistance would want us to do, we're just going to bring everything to a grinding halt. Then those Republican senators who have been working with us or might be inclined to work with us are going to say, aha, the Democrats are simply overreaching at this point. It's much easier for them to go back into a foxhole approach.

And this is too important than who's going to score short-term political points when we're talking about the fundamental characteristic of our democracy. I mean I've said this repeatedly and I know it's sounding a little hackneyed at this point, but, you know, this is the most important thing I've ever taken on in my public life. I got to do it right. I got to look back at the end of the day and say this product is as close to possible as being bipartisan and that we got to the truth if we can do this with some collaboration and cooperation with our Republicans because, frankly, the ability to get at all the information improves if we've got a bipartisan approach. Will you come back on and tell us when it's time to pull the fire alarm and you no longer have confidence that this thing is proceeding in a bipartisan way? Yeah, I've said from the beginning, if at some point this avenue is not working, I'll be the first to sign up for another avenue. But recognizing another avenue is going to require passing a law and then

require this president to make appointments to a commission that I'm not sure would be truly independent. But we're starting to pick up the pace right now. And we're starting to see, obviously, reactions. Remember, we're having this conversation today less than a week after the president fired the head of the FBI. I mean, this is amazing. I mean, no FBI head has ever been dismissed without cause because I would not call the fact that he's doing an investigation into the president legitimate cause to fire the FBI director. Yeah, I don't think we would either. So last question, Senator, thank you so much for your time. It's easy with through all the craziness of Trump to forget about the real, even more dangerous challenges happening out there in the world. Over the weekend, the North Koreans tested

a medium range ballistic rocket that can carry a nuclear warhead, which is viewed as a major technological leap forward in their program. Have you been briefed on this advancement? And are you as concerned as these news reports would lead me to believe we all should be? One, I'm concerned. Two, I'll get a full brief this week. Three, short of military strikes, the only way that we can rain in North Korea is with active involvement of China, Russia actually uniquely enough and South Korea and Japan. And that's where we need a full fledged strategy rather than simply relying on the president saying he's had a great dinner with President Xi. So I would put the North Korea incident.

But the other incident I would put up there, if the audience wants to stay up at night and fret, which I spent a lot of nights doing that, was the massive cyber attack that took place on Friday that showed what ability to kind of extract ransom and across the whole UK healthcare system in a series mostly of European and Russian computer networks, the asymmetrical nature of cyber threats is something that I believe kind of writ large, definitely ranks top three

in terms of overall threats to our country. And we so rely upon technology that in many ways that could be our Achilles heel. Well, on that journey... Other than that, let's stay tuned this week. Stay tuned this week. Before we talk next time, we'll maybe have a chance to look at those tapes. Awesome. Well, Senator Warner, Vice Chair of the Intel Committee from the great Commonwealth of Virginia,

thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, sir. Thanks, guys. Take care. Keep up the fight. You too. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way.

On the pod, in studio, we have the host of Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. It's great to be here, guys. It's so much nicer when someone's in studio. I just saw Tommy the other day in public. We saw on Twitter. It's great. At the Grove. We're going to talk about branding and whether you should be taking photos at the Grove,

but otherwise, it's fine. Believe me. Love it. I haven't seen you since... Since another party that would be bad for branding. Yes, that's fine. Believe me. Love it. I haven't seen you since... Since another party that would be bad for branding. Yes, for sure. And I saw you at a live taping of somebody else's podcast. That's right.

And it was at the Ace Hotel where we're going to be on Wednesday night. Oh, dope. I might be back on Wednesday. Seamless. So maybe I'll sneak. Stop by. We have the mayor of Los Angeles on stage with us. I love it.

So how's the podcast going? How are you feeling? It's good. It's good. You had a big interview last week with Edward Snow of energy. So trying to get back up and get back on a regular cycle. That's good, though. So one of the things you mentioned you might talk about this week and we were just talking about on the pod was the Jeff Sessions decision from last week to roll back the Obama administration reforms on sentencing. What was your reaction to

that? Yeah, it is. Like I said on the pod, I think that there's something about Trump where there's like a confetti of crises, right? There's just so much going on that people don't know where to look. This is one that we think will have far-reaching implications in communities of color

because of the way that mandatory minimums and things like that have just functioned. So I'm hoping that on the pod this week, we actually talked to some people from the DOJ or the former DOJ about this and some voting rights people. But this could be really damaging. I think we don't know what the consequences are yet because, like, it just happened. So we'll see.

But it's important that prosecutors, even Holder, came out with a statement that was like, this doesn't seem like a good idea. And you're like, it isn't. Well, just so outside of the consensus on the issue, too, right now, like there is a movement of both parties to take down the crazy level of sentences and Jeff Sessions is outside of that completely. For me, I look at what Jeff Sessions does and either he doesn't care about the implications for people and the unfair way in which it's going to be executed

or he views it as a feature, not a bug. Yep. Rosenstein too, the Deputy Attorney General, had such a great record of being like this sort of like impartial good guy. And then the first thing he does is that piece about Comey. You're just like, what happened Rosenstein? Like you are now a part of an awful legacy that is building at the DOJ. It is true that like anyone who comes in contact with Trump somehow who decides to work for him ends up losing their integrity,

being made to lie, being made to look like a fool, being embarrassed somehow. You know, like at the beginning of the administration, the big question was like, if you are a very smart, talented professional, do you and you are asked to serve somehow in the administration, do you do it because you're trying to make sure there are good people in there and the country doesn't fall apart and you can watch what's happening? Or do you just say no because you end up looking like a fool? It seems now like you say no. Even like Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley over the weekend who said... He's a CEO. Yeah, he's a CEO. He can fire whoever he wants. You're like, yeah, that's the government. Not really how it works. Yeah. The interesting thing, too, about the Sessions decision is it calls into question this notion

of who gets to decide what's fair, right? And when you deliver this edict that is essentially like you have to pursue the harshest sentence, it's like, well, what about a judge and a jury, right? They are the people that are supposed to decide what the fairest consequence is. And he is stripping that away.

It's exactly what mandatory minimums do to people, too. I guess the question is, what are the pressure points on this? Like, DOJ makes this decision, Sessions makes this decision, and then, like, what can we do about it, right? Like, do we have to hope for another push for bipartisan criminal justice reform and sort of a legislation that takes care of this? Or is there things that people on the ground can do? Or what do you think? Yeah, so there's always, you know, one of the things that we're mindful of in the activist community is that if it's not illegal then you can't be charged for it right so it's like how can we roll back some of the things that are just considered crimes that actually shouldn't be crimes or like they should you think about minneapolis when the movement first began in minneapolis it was illegal it was

affinable to spit right so like spitting was one of these sort of lifestyle crimes that was disproportionately impacting people of color it's like only black people were being like charged with spitting and you're like this is nuts right so they were really thoughtful and got spitting like taken off the books is like a crime you're like that makes sense so that is actually one of the easiest ways to do it it's like if you just decriminalize some things it just shouldn't be criminal and decriminalize what the maximums can be like that actually goes a long way that interview you did with uh with snowden was fascinating and everybody should listen to it. If you're,

when you're done with this, download the Snowden episode, I'd say to people, how did that come to be? How did you get to know him and, and tee up this conversation? It seems like it was a long time coming. Yeah.

Don't get mad. You know, I don't, Snowden is not like my best friend. Right, right, right. How long did you know Edward Snowden?

Um, we had, uh, I tweeted about Citizen Four about a year ago two years ago and then we got in touch after that and we communicated and went back and forth and we said that we were

going to do a public conversation and we just hadn't gotten around to it and then I had scheduled this before Comey and then we like did it and you know he you heard it so he has this whole thing about being on the phone and da da da but I was really shocked at how his praise of Obama was interesting like I didn't expect that you know, he, you heard it. So he has this whole thing about being on the phone and da, da, da. But I was really shocked at how his praise of Obama was interesting. Like, I didn't expect that, you know. I also didn't expect when I asked him if he thought he was going to come back.

And he was like, yeah. I was like, okay. When I talked to him before, what was interesting is I said, do you miss it? And he was like, I've always lived on the internet. And I live on the internet now. I lived on the internet before. You know, like, that's fascinating. That is very interesting.

Maybe kind of sad for him. Yeah. What did you think about him? You were a national security guy. You've been on the other side of that debate. Yeah, I've evolved over time a lot about this. I thought he's such a smart person. He's so reasonable sounding.

The thing that I've always struggled with is the amount of information he took. There are some very clear overreaches that needed to be fixed like that involve surveillance of american citizens i always just wondered why he needed that many documents and i don't feel confident that you know we are able to protect these things from the russians from the chinese from other intelligences but him as an individual like i've found him to be very impressive the more i've learned one thing i want to talk to you about, over the weekend in Charlottesville,

a torch-wielding mob protested the removal of Robert E. Lee. They were chanting things like, Russia is our friend, and you will not replace us. They also said, we're not white supremacists, we're just white people

that love our heritage. What do you do? What's the response? Classic white people. Classic white people. What's the response to that? Some people say, oh, you don't give them more coverage. You don't give them more attention by

talking about it. Some people say, no, we have to organize against them. What's the best response to clearly racist garbage like this? I think that what's important to note about Charlottesville is that there were counter-protesters who had candles out there being like, this is not the city we know. And this is what we don't believe in. So that is important that they were just not allowed to be out there alone with their tiki torches. And I love the tiki torches. You're just like,

what? Were they on sale at the Walmart? Right? You're like, so hateful. You need to be like a stylish bigot and racist. You like okay um you know the biggest thing for me is like remembering that racism is not too long gone right some people think that like slavery and lynching is like really what racism is as opposed to like people showing up with torches today which is still happening i think the best way to counter is like keep moving forward with the progressive agenda and like don't like back down is that like part of what fear does is it's supposed to make you too afraid to come outside, right? You're supposed to feel like you can't make an impact

and you can't do anything, and that's what those people wanted. I think that it is helpful that people push back, but it's still a reminder, this stuff is happening today. This is not a 30-year-ago, a 50-year-ago problem. This is a today problem. Last question for you. We've been talking about this today. Are you worried that this Comey story and this Russia story sort of ends up dominating the news cycle and all of us on the left sort of focus on this, hoping that it will, you know, provide the fodder for like Trump to finally resign or get impeached or get in trouble or whatever. Are you worried that we are focusing on that to the

detriment of all these other issues that are both important and, you know, may actually move voters more than the Russia investigation will? I think that this might actually be the thing that gets him out of office quicker than everything else. So like, let's focus on this as long as it can like get him out of there. It's good and practical. You know, I asked Snowden that. I was like, do you think this is like too much energy? He he was like no right like i think that this is like we should be looking at this like the way he fired him is wrong i think that for any of you who watch scandal did you watch scandal yeah this is like b613 like i feel like tommy it's like it's amazing and i love that he was like shonda was on it yeah i love that i know it's like shonda

was a prophet i think that it'll be fascinating to see his public hearing. I cannot wait to tune in to him and Sally Yates who just sit at the table together and just go back and forth. I love the idea that Trump thinks you can intimidate Kony by saying that you recorded him, as if James Comey is the most careful person on the planet. And that you're sitting next to Donald Trump and you're like, yeah, Donald Trump made sure he sounded good on this tape.

Give me a break. I called him a human word toilet on the show over the weekend. I mean, Comey has nothing to lose, right? What is Comey's incentive to hold back at this point in public testimony? Anything?

Like, what does he, what can he, what does he need to? He'll never be the FBI director again, so it's like, he's so tall. He's so tall. When I saw that picture of him

at like the, it was like a shelter or something, or like a, it was, it made me think of B613. It's like he's getting his ducks in a row. We think he's a good family guy. And then he does this testimony that shatters the American government. I can't wait. Well, he takes off the trench coat and he's two small people.

I do think that the Gorsuch appointment is probably the least talked about and most damaging thing that has happened. Yeah. That's going to be many, many years of bad decisions. It's like, he just, he's like on the Supreme Court. You're like, okay. Well, and there's a lot of these Republicans lately who've been saying, oh, don't worry, there's going to be another one that he gets to fill too. I guess shadow foreshadowing that maybe Kennedy, you know, retires or something like that.

Ruth has to stay until she blows away in the dust. Look, we send her vitamins here every week. We got her some green juice. We got her a trainer. We bubble her. And we're very, very worried that she has a step-in tub. I want to know that there's no lip she has to step over when she's showering in the morning. I want that to be just a clean surface.

She didn't love the Juicero, though. A lot of those... Those pads. Those pads that kind of create grip so you don't slip when you get in and out of the tub. I want the whole house covered in those things. Okay, so everyone out there, go subscribe if you haven't already to DeRay's pod, Podsave the People, and listen on Tuesdays. Yeah, yeah.

See y'all later. Take care, guys. Thanks again to Senator Mark Warner and DeRay McKesson for joining us today, and we'll talk to you guys later. Very good show today, guys. I'm very pleased with it. We started with self-congratulation

and that's where we're ending. I'm just saying, you know, difficult times but I feel like we covered a lot of bases. I enjoyed our conversation with DeRay who's still here and looking at me.

I feel very good about the whole thing. That's our brand. I like to keep the end going because there's music and it's nice. And this is for the true fans. Bye!

Pistachio.