Pod Save America - “Have fun at Davos!”

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

The Shithole Shutdown ends as McConnell promises a vote on a bill to protect the DREAMers, and Democrats vote for another short-term funding bill. Then medical student and immigration activist New Latthivongskorn joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to discuss the challenges he’s faced as an undocumented American.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the pod today, we will be talking to Harvard medical student and DACA recipient, Nhu Larivangskorn. Are we going to interview that deflating balloon, or fully deflated? All right, we have a few pods to promo before we get into it. Love it or leave it, How was the show Friday?

We had a great Love It or Leave It on Friday. It took place during the shutdown, so we covered it live. We did a pretty good rundown of what led to the shutdown. We had Louis Vertel, Paola Mendoza, and Moshe Kosher. It was a great episode, and you should check it out. Love It or Leave It's back. Season two. Better than ever.

Are we in season two of Pod Save America? to Leave It's Back, season two. It's better than ever. Are we in season two of Pod Save America? Yeah, this is season two. Keep It also released another episode last week. It was so good. So funny. Ira Madison,

Louis Vertel, and Carol Brown. Check it out, guys. Son never sleeps on Louis Vertel on our network here. Son never sets. Son never sleeps.

Yeah, interesting. Also, Pod Save the People this week. De is talking to wendy copp from teach for all and kat calvin from spread the vote and there's still tickets also to our las vegas and phoenix shows which will be in february in a couple weeks i should probably have dates what are the dates february 9th 10th 11th go to crooked.com slash events there's also some love it or leave it's on there too. So, you know, buy them all. Buy everything at crooked.com slash events. Okay, let's talk about the shithole shutdown. There was a vote today

to reopen the government with a new offer from Mitch McConnell. Instead of funding the government until February 15th, they have just passed a bill that funds the government until February 8th. Victory. The Children's Health Insurance Program will be renewed for six years.

So that's some good news. And Mitch McConnell said that if there is no deal to protect the Dreamers by February 8th, quote, it would be my intention to proceed to legislation that would address DACA, which is the Deferred

Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, border security and related issues. And McConnell has promised he will do that under regular order, which means it would go through the committee process and then come to the floor for an up or down vote. That was enough for Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and a whole slew of Democrats to change their votes to yes today. The government is reopened and we all fight again until February 8th when the next vote on some kind of short-term or long-term funding is. Guys, what do we think of the deal? Big win. I mean, they just caved caved i mean that's just the truth you know we pushed hard for

this because we believe that without leverage it would be very difficult to get republicans to take action on daca it turns out it's so difficult to get them to do anything with leverage. We have now three weeks to see if they can come up with a deal. And there's two possibilities here. Either we end up with a deal for the Dreamers, in which case we got insurance out of Mitch McConnell today. We took the other issues and the other bargaining chips away from them like Chip. He can't he can't Mitch McConnell can't say they're holding Chip hostage anymore. And we get to have the actual debate we're supposed to have over just how much border security and other enforcement mechanisms we need to get the deal on Dreamers they all claim they want. And either we will get that deal or we won't. If we get it, great.

They shut down, drew a line in the sand, got a commitment and helped get it done. If we don't, it means that Democrats caved early, took Mitch McConnell for his word, which is a mistake nine times out of ten. And they gave in. They gave up. And they gave up on the Dreamers. And we just don't know now which way it's going to go. I hope we're wrong. It would be so awesome to be wrong and that this was the right move today.

I would love it. It will be the happiest I've ever been to be wrong. Yeah. The coolest part about what we've been doing, Pate America, is we go on the road all the time and we meet with Democrats all over the country, red states, blue states, swing states. Everyone wants kids to have health insurance. Everyone wants a fix to keep the dreamers in the country so they don't get deported. Moreover, more importantly, I think they all want Democrats to fight and stand for something and stick to their guns. And so the easiest way, the fastest way to lose a fight is to stop fighting. It feels like this is what happened here. We should be clear that maybe we

will come to a resolution that will get the fix we want for the Dreamers that will get chip funded. And there will be a happy ending. I'm going to hold that hope for that. And I'm going to try to think through ways that we can help be a positive force to push for that. But the problem for Democrats is we are only in control of ourselves. We are only in control of our own actions and our own positions because we have a president who literally doesn't know what he wants or believes. Don't take my word for it. Trust Mitch McConnell, who said at a press conference that we don't, he doesn't know what the president's position is. Paul Ryan on the House side is not in control of his own caucus either. He's got to

deal with the Freedom Caucus. He's got to deal with a bunch of anti-immigrant, racist, right-wing crazies that could make him no longer Speaker tomorrow. He'd just be another schlub from Wisconsin like Reince Priebus or so many other. Just another Kenosha operative. Kenosha operatives. And then you have Mitch McConnell, who is so cynical that he stole a Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama, right? So, like, these are the people we're dealing with.

These are the factors at play. You're saying they're not good faith actors? These are not good faith actors. These are people who have proven themselves time and time again to be cynical. And so it's frustrating as hell to feel like we took this fight, we put our chips on the table, and then we walked away quickly without sort of seeing how it could play out. Not because I want to shut down.

Not because I don't think it's a significant thing to shut down the government. But because these are key priorities and this is the tiny sliver of leverage we had was this fight. So, yeah, Tommy, what you were saying about us going out there, talking to activists, talking to Democrats, talking to people who are not Democrats or Republicans but are involved in politics for the first time because of Trump. Ezra Levin, executive director of Indivisible, he tweeted last night, he heard from this battleground state Indivisible leader, battleground state, purple state, who said to him, before Democrats started fighting on the CR, I wondered why I should canvas for them every weekend. Now that they're fighting, I want to fight harder. So these are the kind of people that by not fighting, we're risking, not maybe just losing

their vote, but losing their work that they're putting in, you know, and the passion. And like, I think the sort of DC press corps keeps talking about this, some sort of like narrow base issue. It is not like, I bet there's like four people in the country who don't want kids to have health insurance, right? So like, that is like, everyone everyone wants that it's a bipartisan issue or in hatch supports everyone supports it daca polls at like 80 yeah so like these are issues that are broadly bipartisan there's literally bipartisan legislation that could push these

issues forward and solve the problem they don't want to solve it i'm so sick of being called extremist or radical or the Democrats have moved left. It's a fucking issue that 64% of Republicans agree with. Including the president. Including the president. So I want to talk about, we should get to all this. For our listeners, I want to talk about the pros and cons of the deal. We know where we stand, but I want to just sort of lay it out. Let's make the case for the deal and a case against the deal.

So pros. McConnell has now moved off of his original position, which was that McConnell would not move any legislation in the Senate that had to do with DACA unless he knew that Trump and the White House would support it. His new position is it'll be a neutral process. Whatever bill can get now more than 50 votes, not even 60 votes, because he said he'd hold an up or down vote. Whatever gets more than 50 votes will pass in the Senate. So we know that Graham and Durbin's legislation has 56 votes already. It's going to go through an amendment process, a committee process, which means everyone in the Senate gets to add their stuff. They get to negotiate. But theoretically, if McConnell keeps his word, I know, big if, we're going to

get to this, then no Republican senator could filibuster this legislation. Okay, so that's number one. You could say that it is now more difficult for McConnell to break his promise because this was such a high-profile debate. And that the whole reason that the government shut down and then reopened again hinged on McConnell's promise. The whole reason that the government shut down and then reopened again hinged on McConnell's promise. So all these people who and all these reporters, because Democrats are clearly playing not just to the polls in this decision, but to about 30 pundits in D.C. who told them this was a bad strategy. So they balked. But now if the Senate. So the idea would be in the next couple of weeks, we keep fighting this.

Democrats have not done when we originally started our you know get to work.cricket.com and we did our tally the original language was you know no democrat should vote for a long-term budget deal unless the dreamers are protected so that hasn't happened yet so what you could say is democrats could say okay we're going to work on a immigration bill over the next couple weeks and the next vote to fund the government is on february 8th and what they should say then is unless we get this vote on dreamers unless we start moving unless we know donald trump's on board the republicans let them pass it in the senate then we get it through the house then we're still not voting for a long-term budget deal, and we will withhold our votes and let the government shut down again unless we get this

taken care of. So they could do that, but how hard is that to do after we've just done it this time? So that would be why this is an okay deal, is that Democrats live to fight again, and now, if the government shuts down in early February, it will be obvious that it is because Mitch McConnell broke a promise that the whole world just watched him make. And then there will be no doubt about who has closed the government down. That would be the case for which I don't agree with. But that's the case. So let's talk about the cons. When we went along, Democrats went along with a short term bill in December. We did it because there was this notion that they need a

little bit more time to do a deal. They need a little bit more time to do a deal. The talks are ongoing. You know, Durbin and Lindsey Graham, they're having drinks late at night. It's the real deal. But now what we saw is actually the fundamental underlying dynamics inside the Republican Party are a lot stronger than whatever process everyone's pretending is going on because Donald Trump is all over the place. And actually, Paul Ryan is just as all over the place as Donald Trump. He just is a little bit more graceful about it because Donald Trump is a fucking buffoon. So Donald Trump says, I'll accept any deal you want. I want to protect the dreamers. And then he says, shithole in the meeting.

And then his White House puts out a fucking ad that says Democrats are trying to murder people in the streets. Paul Ryan says he has so much compassion for these people. They break his heart. It was 53 weeks ago that he was in a town hall with the mother of a dreamer and said, I will work to fix this legislation. I will work on a fix to do this. And then, by the way, in October, because the Republicans' whole argument is this is a separate issue. This is separate from a spending deal. We shouldn't even be talking about immigration in a spending deal.

Well, in October, he told his caucus, as reported by HuffPo, and a bunch of them were on the record the record that Ryan said we will have a DACA fix in a long-term spending deal and so that was what we went along with that is what we went along with but we drew the line here because what was clear is no amount of time would change that internal dynamic for all the talk from Paul Ryan for all the talk from Mitch McConnell for all the talk from Donald Trump they just have to decide if they want to protect the dreamers or not because they have the deal deal is there. The contours of the deal have been true for six months. Do some border, do some additional reforms to legal immigration and protect the Dreamers. And if they want it, they could pass it right now, but they don't. And so we said enough is enough. And it's time to draw the line in the sand. If you won't do it now,

we're just gonna keep getting closer and closer to deadline. And Democrats stuck together. The base got engaged and we did the right thing. And then four days later, they saw some bad headlines. No polling. No polling. No information that tells us anything beyond what we suspect, which is the American people will blame Donald Trump for saying shithole and being all over the place. They gave in.

And so if what they're taking now is an assurance and that we can maybe shut the government down again, Mitch McConnell is looking at a bunch of Democrats that caved in four fucking days. And we shouldn't forget that Mitch McConnell assured Jeff Flake that he'd get a vote on immigration reform in January. Didn't happen. That did not happen. We should also point out that McConnell's most recent argument is that DACA is not an urgent issue because, you know, the process doesn't really come to a head until March. Well, that's easy for his old, white,

rich ass to say from his, you know, powerful seat in Washington, D.C. But if you're a kid who's about to be deported, if you're someone who's deciding, should I spend $500 to reapply for deferred action? Life is really scary right now and unsettled and uncertain. And, you know, it's just like it's it's been very frustrating this whole process to watch the things that spin out in Washington and sort of become a part of the argument. Like a big thing yesterday on Twitter was that U.S. service members in Afghanistan and serving abroad couldn't watch some of the NFL games because Armed Forces Network shuts down. I agree that sucks. If I were those guys, I would be rip shit pissed that my government can't get it together to figure out a way for me to watch football because that's the only

fun thing I get to do because I'm living in this awful place fighting a war. What didn't get a lot more attention is that the US Army is writing plans to send another 1000 US troops to Afghanistan to increase that number to 14,000. Right. Like that came out today. No one's talking about it. No one's talking about the fact that Donald Trump, you know, has promised to wind down all these wars. So the president of the United States doesn't keep a single promise. You know, he walks into these immigration meetings and his staff puts down a whole list of conservative right wing priorities on immigration that he says I've never seen before, blows up these talks. And like the fact that this process has been so horribly mismanaged from the

White House on down doesn't really get fully baked into the discussion about what's happening in the blame game because it's kind of just understood to be how it's going to go. Yeah. And so I want, I want to talk about the sort of the stakes of this debate and why we did it because i think one of the problems here is that a lot of democrats have been afraid to be honest that this whole argument is about immigration and i will here's the thing they've looked at polls they looked at what happened in 2016 they looked at a lot of these red states and i'll be honest like DACA is a huge win. It is a hugely popular issue. Like I said, polls at 70, 80 percent.

Majority of Republicans in the country want it to. Republicans aren't going to let us get away with only talking about the Dreamers. We've seen over this weekend. They're already calling them illegal immigrants. They call illegal immigrants. They say amnesty. They say Democrats are complicit in any murder made by any immigrant anywhere, right? So they're doing all this kind of stuff.

So they look at polls and they say this is not the kind of easy win that it would be if we were fighting on stopping the repeal of health care or stopping tax cuts for the rich. And I understand that. But this is a unique and scary and dangerous situation. Never in the history of this country have we deported an entire generation of immigrants who came here through no fault of their own, who have lived here since they were little children, who work here, who pay taxes, who study. They are American in every single way. 20,000 teachers.

20,000 teachers. They are in the military. They are cops. They are firefighters. And what Donald Trump did, what his administration did in early September was said that in a couple months, 800,000 people in this country, they will lose their legal status and right to be here. They've been here their whole lives. And they will begin to be deported. And the whole idea and the Secretary of Homeland Security was like, oh, you know, dreamers won't be a priority for ICE.

That is bullshit. ICE is everywhere right now. There was over the weekend, there was a Michigan doctor who's been living in America for nearly 40 years who was deported to Poland. He doesn't speak Polish because he came here when he was a child because his parents were escaping communism in Poland. And now, and co-workers describe him as a model physician. He's got a permanent green card. He was arrested for a misdemeanor at 17 and now 40 years later they've got him and they deport him this is what ice is doing so the idea that ice is not going to go after the 800 000 dreamers whose information they have because to apply for daca you had to give all

your information to the federal government under the promise that you would be protected these people are now vulnerable and so like yeah is it unusual what democrats are doing fuck yes it's unusual you know what's more unusual the fact that there is a piece of legislation that would get a majority in the house and 60 votes in the senate and republicans won't allow a vote on it that's fucking unusual yep and also i just want to talk about this the the Trump ad for a second, which if you haven't seen it, take a minute. It is basically shows pictures of a scary Latino man in a courtroom. And it says that, you know, if illegal immigrants kill people, Democrats will be complicit in that. So I just want to be, again, clear about what this is. Right. After the civil rights movement and after Jim Crow, racial discrimination in politics went from overt

to coded. That's what this is. This is a continuation of that. Next up, the Southern strategy. Reagan talked about welfare queens. This is images of scary minorities committing crimes, right? That's why he talked about fucking American carnage in his inaugural address. That's what this ad is about. This tough on crime language is coded racism against these groups, and they are drumming up fear. They're transitioning language about the Dreamers and DACA to calling them illegals. You're seeing it from like McConnell on the Senate floor to foment this kind of anger and hatred towards a group of people. And it is like it is as crass politics as we have in this country. Here's the thing. The deal that Graham and Durbin were working on, it had protections for the Dreamers, it had border security, and had modifications to legal immigration. And so what Trump, what McConnell, what they're trying to do is make it about illegal immigration, because they don't want to talk about the Dreamers, because the Dreamers are people that have huge support among the American people. They are a group of people that everyone is sympathetic

to. And that once you hear the stories, once you understand what happened, once you understand the issue, there's no, there aren't two sides. It actually reminds me in a way of gay rights in that nobody ever comes the other way. There's no argument that brings somebody back. Once you hear the story,

you're on the side of protecting these people because you understand that they're innocent. And I don't think we've told the stories enough. No. And so, you know, there were too many Senate Democrats throughout this process who wanted to say, oh, I'm not, I'm worried about immigration, And I don't think we've told the stories enough. this over immigration i'm doing this over nih funding in the out years bullshit this was a fight over immigration that's what mitch mcconnell knew that's what donald trump knew that's what paul ryan knew that's why mitch mcconnell put out that fucking evil graphic that said uh you got eight million children over here 800 000 dreamers over there be ashamed if something were to happen

to him also can i just say like if you're claire mccaskill or joe Joe Donnelly or Heidi Heitkamp or any of these people who are up in 2018, do you think that your vote to keep the government open is going to cause Donald Trump and his campaign and the Republicans and your Senate colleagues that in 2018 they're going to say, so we got all these MS-13 ads and we're going to run them against all the people who shut down the government. But you know what? Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly, they voted the right way. We're going to skip them. We're going to skip their states. It's all coming.

They're not getting the MS-13 ad. We're going to play it straight. Draw the MS-13 wall around Missouri. We must protect it from our horrible ads. The other thing, too, is, by the way, so look, this shutdown is a blip. It's not going to be a big part of the – you know, no one's going to be running ads saying that – No one's going to remember the shutdown. No one's going to remember it big part of the you know no one's going to be running ads saying that uh no one's going to remember this no one's going to remember it but maybe next week but you know who will uh

you know who will remember are the democratic activists and engaged base are paying attention you know we know that because you know who voted no on this three-week deal it's feinstein who's facing a challenge gillibrand harris murphy the people you'd expect right now who are paying very close attention to what democrat the democratic base. The other piece of this is just to your point about this being of an immigration. It's about immigration now, and you can't decide it's the wrong issue. You have to figure out a way to fight it on the right issue. And to me, it seems pretty fucking clear. You make the case for it's the right thing to do for the Dreamers.

And then you say what is obviously true. We have given you what you want. We are now saying it openly. We were saying it the whole time. You know, you wanted border security. You wanted to call it a wall. We weren't going to call it a wall, but we were going to give you everything you want on the border. Now we're just saying it.

Build your fucking wall, Donald Trump. Build it. Plexiglass, clear aluminum from Star Trek, whatever the fuck you want. You can put a guard tower on it. You can put laser beams around it. Whatever you saw on a movie in James Bond in 1974 that's stuck in your head because it was the last time your brain could make memories. You can fucking have it. Just do what you said for the Dreamers.

God damn it. Well, do what you said for the Dreamers reminds me too. So Chris Hayes is making this point this morning on Twitter and Brian Boitler made it in his piece, which is a lot of Republicans are like, how is this any different than the shutdown in 2013? Oh, it's plenty different. So, in 2013, we're going to have a government fundamental. Everyone was agreed. Everything was going great.

And then Ted Cruz decided to go to a couple Tea Party members in the House and he said, let's shut down the whole fucking government over defunding Obamacare. From the beginning of that debate, Barack Obama said, you have to be out of your fucking mind if you think that I'm going to defund my signature

legislative accomplishment. You guys named it after me! You guys named it after me. And then kicked 20 million people out of their healthcare. It's never going to happen. Ted Cruz did not have the whole support of even the Republican Party. McConnell said he was an idiot. McConnell said he was an idiot. John Boehner wasn't with it. John Boehner wasn't with it. John Boehner had to deal with the Tea Party caucus or whatever.

None of them wanted Ted Cruz to do it. So when Obama said, I'm not going to negotiate with Ted Cruz, yeah, of course he's not going to. He's not going to negotiate with the faction of one party. This is different because from Donald Trump to Paul Ryan to Mitch McConnell to a whole bunch of other Republicans, they've all gone on record and they've all said, we want to help the Dreamers. If you are lying about that, tell us now.

And then, you know what I'm saying? Like, if this was a shutdown over Dreamers, when every Republican leader and the Republican president said, there is no way in a million years we will ever legalize the Dreamers, then it actually would have been a stupid shutdown for Democrats because there was no hope of winning. But we're trying to get them to do what they fucking said they're going to do. And what's and when you put shut down, oh, oh, Democrats caved and they caved.

We're not saying they didn't cave. And all these people, you know, there's always the reporter saying, oh, you know, Republicans are looking happier than Democrats right now. And you know what? Maybe that's true, too. The dynamic here is the same as it has been for a decade. The Senate can produce a bipartisan compromise. And the question is going to go to Paul Ryan. Will you try to find some way to lay it at the feet of Donald Trump or Chuck Schumer?

Or will you bring a bill to the vote on the floor of the House that will get a super majority, but not with a majority of your own caucus. And what so far Paul Ryan has been able to do is take that divide and put it inside of Donald Trump's mind. Is that the proudly named Hastert bill? Yes, it is. It's the fucking Hastert rule. One of the greatest leaders of a generation,

Danny Hastert. So just so you know, the Hastert rule, let me explain what the Hastert rule is. Who cares? People should know. No, but it's a rule that says, I don't bring a bill to the floor unless the majority of

my own caucus supports it, even if it could pass. The other thing that's just worth noting, I think, the mood music around this is they could have fixed Chip months and months ago, right? Remember Orrin Hatch getting all in a dander when someone suggested at a committee hearing that we bring it forward and just get it done? Like, this could have been done months ago. Also, Republicans have not been able to do the basic appropriations process or put forward a budget despite being in control of literally everything. Right. So that's how we got to the brink.

That's why we're at this point today. Let's move on to basically what are the possible ways to get out of this and have a good solution because it is worth talking about the dynamic that lovett was talking about because that dynamic in the house which has been undercovered much to paul ryan and his staff's amusement is the central dynamic to the whole thing which is as much as we don't like the republicans in the senate and don't agree with them and a lot of them are bad faith actors um it is possible on certain issues to get bills out of the senate to have at least bipartisan agreement in the senate the problem is as it has been throughout the obama years and now throughout the trump years the dynamic in the house which is

i mean you talk about government shutdowns as dysfunctional what is dysfunctional is the fucking haster rule in the house that the house of representatives and i was i talked to my dad about this yesterday because he was like i don't understand the dynamics and i explained it he was like oh my god like the house of the u.s house of representatives does not work on a majority basis it doesn't even work on like a 60 vote senate majority basis now the house of representatives only works if a majority of republicans are for something basically saying that we won't even work on like a 60 vote Senate majority basis. Now the house of representatives only works if a majority of Republicans are for something basically saying that we won't even, it doesn't matter if Democrats are for something. We will only put legislation on the floor if a majority of Republicans are for it.

That is so dynamic. Even precedes Obama. This is the same dynamic that was at play when Hank fucking Paulson got down on his knees and begged Nancy Pelosi for votes to save the financial system. Right. They do not have control over the majority of the House Republican caucus. They have no idea. These are the people that came out of the Fox News machine.

They are loyal to the Tea Party. They are loyal to Fox News. They are loyal to Breitbart. They are not loyal to Paul Ryan. And Paul Ryan knows it, which is why that he's been walking around pretending that he's not doing something because trump is is all over the place when that is pretend mitch mcconnell and paul ryan have been pretending that what they're doing is waiting for a guidance from trump they know that trump will sign what they send him or he won't but it's pretend to wait for him because really what they're doing is avoiding the wrath of a hundred goons

in the house. Well, Paul Ryan is, you know, legitimately so afraid that if he puts a bill on the floor that passes with the majority, meaning Democrats and some Republicans, then the Freedom Caucus Tea Party assholes will oust him as speaker and they might. And then Paul Ryan's argument to all of us would be, you think I'm bad, wait till you see the next speaker. But that's been their argument forever. That's been their argument forever.

You know what else? Hey, Paul, you know what? It's hard to tell the fucking humans from the pigs at this point. You're as bad as the person that will replace you because you're doing everything that your replacement would do,

but just acting sad about it behind closed doors. So the question is, though, now that we've identified this dynamic, what is the path to possibly getting a fix on DACA and protecting the Dreamers if we now know that the ultimate obstacle is the House? So I think best case scenario here, a scenario in which we were wrong, Chuck Schumer made the right and the Democrats made the right move today. That scenario would be that in February sometime or before February, you do get a bill much like the Graham Durbin bill that has 56 votes out of the Senate. Now the Senate, the United States Senate has passed a piece of bipartisan legislation to protect the dreamers, increase border security, do whatever else. increase border security do whatever else somehow you get donald trump in one of his fits of wanting a deal wanting to be liked whatever else to say i like that senate deal it's a good deal

you know stephen miller's locked in a closet somewhere he can't get out and stop donald trump from saying it he tweets or whatever maybe maybe february is when when stephen miller falls in love that could all happen but like i don't know how any of us could have any faith in oh no we don't i'm just i'm just trying to play it out i'm just trying to play it out so what happens is then so then trump so then it goes out of the senate trump approves it and then paul ryan is legitimately fucked because then at that point paul ryan has so much pressure that there is a bill that's passed the senate that Donald Trump is for. And now if we have another shutdown, now it's on Paul Ryan. Now it's Paul Ryan shutdown because he is the only thing standing between

the dreamers being protected, you know, so that that would be the scenario. That's but that's the only scenario. So I don't know. I don't know that it's the only scenario. So I think there's two possibilities. I think this Senate process will unfold. Now, if nothing comes out of that Senate process, then there was no hope to begin with, right? If we can't get anything. So let's say

there's an agreement that comes out of the Senate and Mitch McConnell wants to get it to the Senate and send it to the House. There's two possibilities. There's three possibilities, really. Trump gets behind it, in which case it'll be incumbent upon Paul Ryan to give it a vote. Trump doesn't get behind it, in which case we will see if Mitch McConnell meant what he said. And we will see if they either continue to pretend that what Donald Trump says matters or not. Right. If Trump doesn't get behind it, then it just dies. Right.

Then we just have a Senate bill that passed and then Trump doesn't get behind it. Well, he's going to say he's not behind it. Right. Right. But we still, again, it's supposed to be co-equal branches. There was a time in which things used to get vetoed and they would pass it, pass it to the House and send it to him. In all likelihood, he would have no choice but to sign it. He wants to sign it.

He said he would do it. Well, in that scenario, Paul Ryan says, oh, I'm not putting this up for a vote because the president's not for it. Right. In which case he's doing exactly what he's doing right now already. And none of this will have mattered. And we should have held the line now. But the third possibility, which is the most likely, is that Donald Trump continues to be all over the map. And we will see whether or not Mitch McConnell meant what he said and whether or not he pushes it over to Paul Ryan, whether he passes it and sends it to the

president's desk. And, you know, that's it. The other question is then, in another scenario where the government stayed shut down, would the pressure of a shutdown after days and weeks eventually change this dynamic in the House? No, probably not. But it's the only card we had to play. Right. So here we are. Right. This is another thing, too. This is different from the 2013 shutdown, in that we were advocating for a position that everybody supports. But one thing it does have

in common is that Democrats are in the minority. We are doing the best we can with very little leverage. Our one piece of leverage is over a cloture in the Senate. That is where we can hold the line. We shut the government down and got a commitment out of McConnell. We believe you could have pushed harder. There are Senate Democrats who will argue vociferously that this was the best move to get a deal. We will see how that plays out. But we, as we did with healthcare, as we have tried on taxes and failed, we are playing with very shitty cards right now yeah and gotta win and uh you know we're gonna win some fights that we should lose and we're

gonna lose some fights that we had no business winning in the first place but you always lose when you don't fight that's true right or if you fight for uh 48 hours i mean this this is the frustration with all these political fights like mccon next movie. McConnell can make a million promises to Jeff Flake or promises to the Senate Democrats, whatever he wants. What's been happening lately in Washington is they construct a rationale for why they were mistreated or how something changed or whatever dynamic. And that becomes a talking point. And when you refuse to stray from that talking point, the press moves on. So that is the scenario i see playing out now that is deeply cynical and depressing and no one wants to hear it but i can't imagine

mcconnell is going to do something that's going to erupt his base over on the house side well because they don't the difference is tommy that they don't give a shit what the press says they want these kids they want these kids out of here they don't care what the press says so here's what democrats should know this. Senate Democrats. Big went wobbly after 48 hours because an AP headline they didn't like, a New York Times headline that said Democrats' fault. The reporters were all emailing around this weekend. We know because we saw it too.

Is this the right strategy? Was this ill-conceived? Blah, blah, blah. And they folded like this. Well, guess what? Now, all those reporters and all those pundits who told you this was a bad strategy for the next couple days they're going to kick your ass they're not going to say it was a smart strategy to cave they're going to say you caved and you lost so now all the people's whose favor you were trying to carry and the headlines you were trying to get you're not going to get them very very zero sum so there's a bunch of polls by the way a bunch of

polls are about to come out showing that 60% of the country blamed Donald Trump just got canceled because they're useless now. So the answer is to not listen to the fucking people in Washington, to not listen to the reporters and pundits, to ignore them, and to instead listen to the, I don't know, million-something people that turned out to march on Saturday. Politico did a piece that was like 17 pundits we emailed for their take on who wins. It was the perfect encapsulation of the dumbest reporting that happens. It's like some idiot who happened to be on a CNN panel who responded to the mass email of political reporters. And it becomes a story. Meanwhile, there were millions of people marching yesterday and on Saturday as well. Millions of people took to the streets in a continuation of a movement that is now a year old.

The big question for on everyone's mind was how can we maintain this pressure? Well, it was in the streets. And like that got so much shorter shrift than idiocy in Washington. You guys gave in. They gave in to reporters in Washington so fast. The blame game didn't even happen yet. No. It was before the conversation could even begin.

It was a Friday night. We had a love it or leave it. That was still working its way through the body politic. And now it's Monday and it's back open. And you caved. We literally had reporters emailing us being like, boy, some senior aides in the house are saying they really wished you guys had waited to pick this fight at Pod Save America until February. It's like, well,

A, that solution didn't exist when the fight was picked. B, we initially waited. We pushed the fight off from December until January because there were assurances that now was the time to fight. Yes. A note on that. A note on that. Back in December, when there was another fight over the CR and a bunch of Democrats decided to just vote for the CR and activists were very upset, we agreed with the activists but we defended those elected Democrats to a lot of the activists by saying, you know what, we live

to fight another day in January. And then a lot of people in the Democratic Caucus told us, January is the big fight. We will have the votes in January. January, we are going to take a stand. And that is one reason that we all said, okay, guys, we're going to January. Everyone call your senators in January.

Make the positions public because we were told that January is the big fight. And then we get to the big fight. And actually, February is the big fight. Yeah, you know what? You know what? February is the big fight. These guys, it's like they never want to finish their term paper.

You know, it was in December. If you remember, if you're listeners to the show, we, the three of us, have said over and over again, we don't really get it. We don't get what happens when you delay the fight. We don't know why January is better than December. But maybe the talks are ongoing. Maybe it makes sense. Well, here we are.

And the dynamic is the same because it has nothing to do with Senate Democrats. The dynamic is internal to the Republican Party and that has been true for the better part of a year. Just one note. If you're a strategist, a Democratic strategist and the Choose Your Own Adventure book is A. Fight. B. Cave. C. Blame a podcast.

C is not a choice. It is a position of strength. Okay guys, let's listen to what voters fucking care about and do the right thing on the merits how about that it is yeah that is right and also going forward everyone should know like we do get and it's it's tough to avoid the weeds on this because the senate process is arcane and it's difficult to figure this out but like we have to talk more about the stakes of this debate we cannot we cannot have the fight unless we make the argument about what the fight is fucking about.

And the fight is about 800,000 people who are living and working in this country, who are our friends and neighbors and family members who could be deported from this country and their families could be torn up forever. Forever. And that is the fight that we're having. And if we lose that fight, we lose that fight. Then we tried our hardest. But that is the fight that we're having and if we lose that fight we lose that fight then we tried our hardest but that's the fight that we're having and i think one thing that has come out of this moment out of this deal that now takes chip off the table that pushes everything into this immigration debate is mitch mcconnell is not going to be able to say it's about chip and democrats especially squishy ones are not going to be able to say it's not about

immigration so this is now not about changing the subject. We've focused the fight. If you're worried about immigration not being a good issue, well, guess what? That's been a problem for 15 years. 15 years we failed these dreamers. 15 years we failed to pass an immigration bill. And so if you want to figure out how to talk about this, now is the time. And to your point, in 2001, Durbin and Hatch introduced the DREAM Act, which created this pathway for these kids.

The politics have moved on the Republican side. They have not moved on the Democratic side. This is still a bipartisan issue. 80% of the country supports it. Find a way. It's the lunatic Fox News right-wing Bannonites who have moved us way to the right. That is exactly right. Because it's fucking racist.

It's racist. It's racist. It's good politics. The other piece of this too is, you know, it's an 80% issue for the country, but that 20%, you can be damn sure, are a majority of Trump's superfan base. And that's part of this too, that the 20% of the country

are the people that Donald Trump pays attention to more than anyone else. And so, you know, Stephen Miller, these guys, they don't just represent the base. They also represent what Donald Trump has been saying, what he keeps coming back to over and over again. So anyway. Last point here is I just,

there's going to be a lot of disappointed people out there today. A lot of activists were disappointed. A lot of people who've been knocking on doors and making calls were disappointed. I the one my one piece of advice is do not give up and a lot of people say how can i even how can i even support the democrats anymore they screwed up they caved i'm done with them i think we have to stop thinking about democratic politicians as people that were either like totally in support of or totally against or

give up on or stick with something like that. It's not about them as people. It's about like their votes and how they vote on different issues. You know, and I think like we are not out of the fight yet. Again, at the beginning of this whole thing was our leverage is not voting for a long term budget deal unless the dreamers are taken care of. That remains true. The Democrats can still do the right thing. So if we all give up up now then i'll tell you in a couple weeks they're definitely going to cave again what we do we have to kick the shit out of that right because clearly these people are persuadable when they feel the pressure they stand up and when they don't feel the pressure because when they when they listen to you know reporters and republicans and other

people in dc they cave they cave. So we have to keep the pressure on. The worst thing we could do, the thing that assures a loss is to just give up and go home and say these people are hopeless. That's the worst thing we could do. That guarantees that we won't win. I would rather fight for our base and get out the groups

that did not turn out in the numbers that were sufficient in 2016, like the Latino community or millennials, and win that way, then weave some middle ground that is milquetoast and doesn't stand for anything. And as we head into this negotiation over a bill, this will be a fight, even before we get to whether or not there's a vote, it'll be a fight over just how many immigration restrictions Democrats are going to accede to, just how much border security, what we'll do for the Dreamers, what we'll do for the Dreamers' families. All of that will require Democrats standing up to Republicans and saying, I can't go along with this unless.

And the Democratic base, the people holding this minority in line in the Senate, is what is going to give Democrats the leverage they need right now to fight for a better deal. So we need to be clear that the same energy and enthusiasm that pushed Democrats to be afraid of their voters enough to hold the line on the Dreamers this time is there again, and maybe even stronger next time, because we may need them to do the exact same thing. And this time, it can't be 48 hours until they panic. Yeah, because if Mitch moves this bill and he actually feels enough pressure, no one should trust Mitch,

but if he moves the bill, we're going to all need to be there fighting to make sure it's a bill that we like out of the Senate. I mean, that's my big worry is that they're going to attach a bunch of things onto it that fundamentally change the immigration process. I mean, this was a fortuitous moment in time

because you had graham and mccain who wanted a whole bunch more defense spending and they're also pretty progressive on immigration reform and it came together in this in this helpful way i worry what happens when you have tom cotton and these nut jobs amending this bill as it goes through me too and that's why we're just gonna we're gonna have to be in this fight and we're gonna have to take you know not everything is the end of the world or the greatest thing that ever happened. You know, like a shitty hand. We just we just got to keep going. You know, and so the Graham Durbin bill. Right.

So there was the border security piece where we gave Trump everything he wanted. And there was the dreamer piece where we legalized the dreamers. And the question now is, what's this third part of this? It can be nothing. And we just take care of the dreamers and we do the bill on the wall and it's small and it passes and that's possible. But the Cottons and the Millers are now are going to try to use these 700,000 people as a bargaining chip to try to fundamentally change the immigration system. You know, the Graham Durbin bill actually did some more legalization in part because they knew if the House was rational, that would go through an amendment process and it would get more conservative. But Tom Cotton and all those guys said, this is a nonstarter.

This is amnesty. And they shut the whole thing down. And that dynamic is what Democrats are going to be fighting right now, because there is still a possibility that what Mitch McConnell can do, because he's crafty, is put a bill that is a complete nonstarter, that does protect the dreamers and does border security, but is so restrictive on legal immigration no democrats and most republicans would be against it but it'll never get a vote and they'll blame schumer and we'll be right back where we started yeah also we have the donald trump state of the union to look forward to oh my god oh where he will have a bully pulpit to talk about this for an hour so that's something sure it'll be uplifting yeah so we have a lot of uh we have a lot of fight left here.

Dems caved so hard, I just saw some Chilean miners trying to escape. We're shopping this for a while, guys. Here we go. Dems caved in harder than the Jacksonville Jaguars in the fourth quarter, which is a real cave-in, I understand. Not a surprising one. Love it. Just learned where the Jacksonville Jaguars are today. Caved in harder than a mine owned by

a union buster who in 15 years will pay a small fine because the system is broken. Caved in harder than a souffle that you weren't patient enough to wait for. When we come back, we'll be talking to Harvard medical student and DACA recipient

Nu Latavangskorn. On the pod today, we have Harvard medical student and DACA recipient and immigration activist Nu Latavangskorn. Nu, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Did I pronounce your last name right?

Did I come even close? You did, actually. All right. You did a great job. Are you being nice? Because over here, we were blown away. And I just, we want to know if we were, how we, you know. No, it's how I would say it, Lativanskorn.

All right. Thank you. Okay, great. New, tell us your personal story. How did you come to the United States? And how old were you, and under had a new start here. And like many other immigrants, we're in search of the American dream, sort of a new start for many opportunities that we otherwise would not have staying back in Thailand for our case. And when did you first realize that your status was

undocumented? And what were some of the challenges that you faced growing up, realizing you were an undocumented American? Right. So for my case, my parents sat us down a few months after we got here to the United States, and we had a family meeting, and they told us that we are actually not going back to Thailand. And as a nine-year-old, I remember thinking, what about my friends, my toys, the things I was going to try to do. Next year, I was just finishing third grade, and my parents, I don't think that they quite understood or knew the implications of becoming undocumented, but it was clear to all of us that this is what we needed to do as a family to start over. There had been a big economic crash in Southeast Asia and many other

factors contributing to us moving here to America. And so growing up, I would say that there were different buckets I would characterize the challenges that I faced being an undocumented person, one of which is just fundamentally, it was very difficult to live with so much uncertainty with the risks of deportation, being detained, immigration consequences, and not sure, you know, what we could do, what we couldn't do. And so sort of having to grow up with that, I think there were many times when, you know, stress, anxiety, all these other things that I wouldn't even have the language to describe until much later on manifested in different ways. But it wouldn't be until towards

the end of high school where some of the institutional challenges and barriers were becoming very clear. And so not being able to have a driver's license or work these summer jobs towards the end of high school as sort of the rites of passage, as all of my peers and everybody would be going through them. And the big one is trying to access higher education. So I actually was fortunate enough to have had, you know, these opportunities to have done well in academics through the high school because I felt like, you know, seeing my parents who have moved here

and worked as a waiter and waitress day in, day out in Thai restaurants, I remember they were coming home and hugging them, the smells of the food on their, their aprons and remembering asking, what can I do to help? And they would always say, focus on your job. And we really believe, you know, what they meant was to focus on education. And this is, you know, one of the big reasons that we moved here to this country. And so I really looked to education as the key to success. And as I mentioned, lucky to have done well. But it wasn't until I was accepted to many colleges, including a few of the UCs in California,

and I was offered a basically full tuition scholarship. And, you know, I thought everything was great. This is what the promise of the American dream. And a few months before school would have started, I, you know, we were going through logistics and talked to the financial aid office in school and pretty much said they were asking if I had a social security number, a green card, and I didn't and told them so. And I remember them telling me, sorry, you can't have the scholarship. Come back when your status changes.

So this was like two months before college started. You know, so this is like two months before college started. So it took a lot, but I was able to reorganize and get back on my feet. Definitely have to thank my support systems for that. And, but, you know, that was one of the first, first times I realized that what being undocumented in America meant. New, one of the things you're hearing out of Republicans in Congress, like Mitch McConnell, is that this isn't an urgent matter that they can wait and take up the cause of the dreamers later on. Can you talk about the stress and anxiety and uncertain that this process is causing you and hundreds of thousands of others? Like, what steps do you have to take to be a part of the DACA program? And like, how are you feeling as you watch this debate unfold in Washington? I do have to say that, you know, as a current undocumented person who have benefited from DACA, it can be quite frustrating to hear, you know, comments about

the lack of an urgency, because as far as I'm concerned, for my friends, family, and community members, all the urgency is there. From the beginning, when DACA came into existence, there was quite a bit of caution in terms of what this program could mean, offering our information to the government and so forth. But I think pretty soon it became clear that this was a great opportunity. It was a game changer on many levels. As I mentioned, a lot of the day-to-day living now we could drive.

I mean, now we can work and pursue many different careers. And personally, it's allowed myself to enter medical school. So it took two years for me to enter medical school. It had its own challenges along the way, you know, but I'm now a fourth-year medical student at UC San Francisco, but also there are now a hundred other undocumented medical students. And, you know, in no small part, thanks to DACA. And over the past year, whether it's, you know, after election, inauguration, but most definitely since September 5th, when the program was announced to be rescinded, you know, every day is a new challenge.

And every day something unexpected happens. And, you know, if you were to ask me back in October, November, how hopeful I was that we would actually come to a legislative solution like the DREAM Act, I would have told you I was very hopeful. like the DREAM Act, I would have told you I was very hopeful. I felt like, you know, I mean, the vast majority of American people are in support, also vast majority of Congress members, and, you know, definitely everybody felt, or it felt like everybody wanted to mobilize to get something done. But now, you know, seeing that we're in January and there's now talks of obviously at first extending the discussions and it led to shutdown,

you know, it's frustrating because DACA is already gone. And, you know, the minute that my DACA expires, for example, I mean, I'm able to be detained, be deported, you know, for other of my peers and community members, it's the same. So the urgency is definitely there, you know, and it's staring at us every day that we're living this. So Democrats agreed to reopen the government on the assurance that down the road, we're going to get another shot at a vote on DACA. You know, we as Democratic voters led by activists like you, push Democratic senators hard to get them to hold the line. What are you thinking now for how to get them to hold the line again? What are you hearing from

other activists that are gearing up to push for this next shot at the DREAM Act? I mean, I certainly want to acknowledge the situation that we're in. You know, I think I would agree with everybody that a shutdown, a government shutdown hurts everybody and doesn't help anyone, but also would like to acknowledge, you know, the Democratic elected officials who have really, as you mentioned, held the line and listened to the communities and what people want, not only immigrant communities, but what everyone has been saying. And I think that that's the best that we can hope for in terms of what we can do is to continue to show up at offices, to continue to write to and call in and communicate with, you know,

congressional members, that at the end of the day, you know, the needs haven't changed or what we want in terms of a Dream Act is not going to change. And it's just a matter of, in my mind, both political sides coming together and being willing to compromise, you know, and hopefully this extension that we are in now, something good that can come out of it is, you know, that compromise in a legislative process. So, you know, there were Democrats who held the line, but there were a number of Senate Democrats who were worried that they didn't want to have this fight over immigration. They didn't want to seem like they were shutting the government down.

They were not as invested in this fight. What would you say to them when they say that they're in tough elections in swing states? They don't want to have this fight. They don't think it's worth it. You know, what's your message to them? They don't think it's worth it. You know, what's your message to them? Well, I think my message would be that, you know, ever since really the announcement and now we're faced with this, well, they are faced with this decision.

I think that the only way that we are going to come out of this successfully, you know, for many or all different sides, it's that we stand united. And so in terms of sticking together and being on the same page about passing a Dream Act, Dream Act-like provisions, that that is a priority. I think that that is what the people are saying, you know, including, I mean, their constituents. And so I think in the short term, if it feels like, I can imagine, in their positions, they have a tough decision to make, I feel like in the long term, as a reminder, you know, this could have huge implications because what we're seeing is, you know, after the

September announcement honestly I've seen nothing like it before in terms of how activated people are and and just the general American public you know and the other day I was just sitting in an uber and listening to the radio that was on and and had a realization of where we are today, which is DACA is being discussed as the piece of news. And that tells me that the only reason we're here and faced with these decisions is because of DACA and the momentum that has been built.

And it was a really great show of what good policy that's also the right thing to do kind of leads to. And so I think if congressional members continue to listen to that, I think we can have even more positive, you know, long-term results in terms of how much people are willing to continue to support them and elect them. So I think reminding about the bigger picture and that this is what the vast majority of people want. Well, we will be doing that here, Nu, and we'll keep this fight up, and we appreciate you joining us today.

And best of luck. I know you've got a lawsuit against the Trump administration with five other DREAMers who have sued, so we hope that that's another avenue to get this solved, too. So we're wishing you best of luck there, too. You've got a lawsuit against the Trump administration with five other dreamers who have sued. So we hope that that's another avenue to get this solved, too. So we're wishing you best of luck there, too. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. Okay, take care. Take care. Bye. Thank you to New Lotta Vangsorn for joining us today. Anyone got anything else? I want to say, President Trump, have fun in Davos. It shows how attached you are to your base and in touch with the american people that you will go to a random economic forum globalist cuck we couldn't

even stop around with a bunch of idiots one golf game you know how much he'd want to capitulate next saturday when he's just sitting around the house the last time donald trump couldn't golf he literally committed obstruction of justice it's a good point too like today before the vote a bunch of headlines because we know that democrats that pay attention to the headlines they were like donald trump missing negotiator where was donald trump this week but it was definitely it was turning towards why hasn't trump negotiated and if trump ended up going to davos or wanting to golf like you said love it then like there would have conceivably there would

have been a little pressure on Trump to do something. He was washing clips of himself attack Obama in 2013. Right. Like I.

The saddest man in the world. I understand. I just don't get it. His unpredictability is awful. There's a chance it could have helped us

here. We don't know. Who knows? We don't know because this ended too quickly. Just we're done. We're in the outro. There's probably music playing.

Nothing about the assurances we got from Mitch McConnell weren't gettable in three fucking days. When we could have seen just a little bit longer what could have happened with the conversations, how Trump's inanity would have played out, his failure to get a deal would have played out, the ramifications of his meeting about shithole shithouse played out. This thing was cut off at the pass, John. And again, no one wants a shutdown. Shutdowns aren't great. But you have to decide what's worse.

A temporary government shutdown or the permanent deportation of 800,000 Americans. But anyway, hope this all works out. Hope there is a deal. And I think there is still a chance, but don't know if today was a great one. We just got to keep the pressure on.

Got to keep the pressure on. Have fun in Davos. Have fun in Davos. Have fun in Davos.