Pod Save America - “High crimes and weather map misdemeanors.”

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

The House's impeachment inquiry ambles on as Trump’s crimes pile up, a North Carolina special election looms, and the Democratic presidential candidates talk about the climate crisis for seven hours on CNN.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we're going to talk about new developments on impeachment, next week's special election in North Carolina, and this week's marathon climate change forum with the Democratic presidential candidates. We were also supposed to talk to Adi Barkin today, but he had to go back to the hospital for some breathing issues. It's been a really tough week for Adi, but he's been incredibly brave. And the good news is that he'll be home soon and will be with us on Monday's pod to talk about two things.

First, his video series, Uncovered, where he interviews the Democratic presidential candidates about health care. You can check that out on our website at crooked.com slash be a hero. And he's going to talk to us about his new book, Eyes to the Wind, which you should absolutely order. Be a Hero Fund. The book comes out on Tuesday the 10th, next Tuesday. I read it a few months ago, Dan, and it is fantastic. Like I expected a book about political activism because that's always what we talk to Artie about. And it is about political activism and it's very inspiring in that way. But it's also a book about, you know, what it means to really live in the face of death. And it is, you know, I cried through the book. I also laughed.

It's beautifully written. It's poignant. It's just, it's an incredible, incredible book. I'm very much looking forward to reading it. Adi is always so inspiring to us and to so many other people. Like you, I encourage everyone to get it. Yeah, he's just a fantastic writer. And it's definitely worth checking out. Also, check out this week's episode of pod save the world

where tommy and ben talk about all the recent brexit madness the protests in hong kong north korea's missile tests general mattis's refusal to criticize presidents not named obama and donald trump's very special message for the people of Poland. Finally, Lovett has announced the guest for his Radio City Lovett or Leave It show next Friday, September 13th. Lovett will be joined on stage by Stacey Abrams, Wyatt Sinek, Dulce Sloan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Desus and Mero. If you're in New York, you will not want to miss it. That is a star-studded lineup. Go to crooked.com slash events and get your tickets. All right, let's get to miss it. That is a star-studded lineup. Go to crooked.com slash events and get your tickets. All right, let's get to the news. It appears as though the president may have piled up

a few more impeachable offenses last week. He's using your tax dollars to build his wall, to help his businesses. He's falsifying weather maps with Sharpies. We're all going to get to all of this in a little bit. But first, we wanted to talk about the latest developments in the impeachment inquiry that is now taking place in the House of Representatives. Is it, John? Is it taking place? You know, in court filings, it says that it's an official inquiry. That's what Jerry Nadler is telling us, who's the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. That's what some other Democrats are saying. So apparently we're in an impeachment inquiry. That's what Jerry Nadler is telling us, who's the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. That's what some other Democrats are saying. So apparently we're in an impeachment

inquiry. Since the beginning of August recess, more than 30 Democrats have come out in favor of the inquiry, bringing the number of House Democrats who support impeachment to 137, which is now more than half the House Democratic Caucus. But Dan, the question is, are we any closer to the House voting on articles of impeachment than we were at the beginning of the summer? John, I don't know. Does anyone know? I don't know. This is a very strange situation we're in, which is the Judiciary Committee says it is conducting an impeachment inquiry.

The Speaker of the House doesn't seem to agree with that fact or acknowledge that fact. And it is being mentioned in court filings, but not really in public anywhere else. And so, yes, I think we are 30 more members. So, Tech, to answer your direct question, I guess we are 30 more members is a lot of members. It moves us closer. And it is not just a bunch of people in blue districts. It's people from some good process or not, but is do the investigation kind of sort of under the cover of darkness and then use the fruits of that investigation to write impeachment articles at some point later this year. And I guess we will know more as some of these court cases that are preventing the committee from getting access to things like the underlying grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation and access to noted obstruction of justice enabler Don McGahn to get him to testify, like maybe that will serve as the basis for it. But it's just, it's very, I think, odd to go down the path of a major constitutional action like impeachment, but sort of amble down that path as opposed to storm down it. Yeah, it feels like a compromise that will not really help anyone. Because you're still technically an impeachment, but you're not getting the benefits of conducting a very public impeachment, a set of impeachment hearings,

which would attract media attention, which is in a world where the Senate's going to exonerate Donald Trump. The point of conducting, or at least a big point of conducting impeachment hearings is to focus the public's attention on the president's crimes and abuses of power. That is the whole reason that we've been for this, aside from the fact that it is simply the right thing to do, because if this president isn't impeached, what is worthy of impeachment? But yeah, so I mean, as you mentioned, the timetable here, and part of this is, you know, there's democratic strategy. And then part of it is that the

timetable is being at least partially dictated by these legal fights, you know, chief among them, the legal fight to force Mueller's key witness, former White House counsel Don McGahn, as you were just saying, to testify about Trump's obstruction of justice. And we learned this week that the court fight over that won't be resolved at least until the end of October, though Nadler said that his committee could make its decision about whether to recommend articles of impeachment before the House winds down in mid-December and everyone goes home for the holidays. So, I mean, that's an odd timeline, too, because, you know, say the McGahn thing is resolved at the end of October or early November, and then what, he testifies sometime in November,

earliest, hopefully, and then you have a couple weeks to turn around articles of impeachment in the middle of December, and then suddenly, you know, people come back, and now it's January of 2020, we're in an election year, the Iowa caucuses are early February, like, what's going on here? You know, I think in some of the original conversations we had about this, the idea was you should, like, they should get, we were having this conversation three months ago, they should get going so that you could deal with impeachment you could you could have the hearings you could have the vote and get it all of it done before the democratic presidential primary really kicks off and i think that's still basically the right timing but i think it would be a epic strategic error to vote on something like impeachment and then go on vacation for two weeks. You think?

Because, well, it's, and I'm like, oftentimes we say like Congress is on vacation, but they're really home, right? That's actually, you kind of want to vote on it and go home and meet with your constituents and talk to them about it and sell your decision to the public. But that Christmas break is for Congress, like for a lot of people, you know, it's a dead period, right? Where there's Christmas, there's New Year's, there's not lot of people, you know, it's a dead period, right? Where there's Christmas, there's New Year's, there's not an ability to, you know, people aren't having town halls on December 27th to sell, to explain why they impeached President Trump. So I would actually think you should roll it over into the next year. And I think there's a second added strategic

benefit of that, which is I think you want Donald Trump to deliver his last State of the Union before reelection as a recently impeached president. Yeah, because that would be all the coverage of the State of the Union. And he'd also flip the fuck out. Yeah, it prevents him from having sort of a credible general election-y message about working together. I don't know whether that would ever be credible from Trump or not, it's an open question. But it just hangs over and forces a big moment for him to be also about the crimes he committed as opposed to the bullshit proposals he's going to blab about. I mean, I do think,

you know, to go back to, we said there's obviously there's a legal strategy or there's sort of legal issues that are dictating the timeline here, but there's also a strategy or a political strategy on behalf of the Democrats. And I sort of think they're caught in a catch-22 here. Like, there's this New York Times story a couple weeks ago about how all of these moderate Democrats, or at least Democrats who find themselves in more conservative districts, are not there yet on impeachment. And they say, you know, they're getting some pressure from constituents. They were getting some pressure in town halls over during the August recess. But, you know, they're all saying, I haven't heard enough evidence yet to put me there. And the problem is, you're not going to get these people on board if no one is making a constant persuasive public case

for impeachment. But there's not enough people who want to make that case and so these democrats everyone's like afraid of talking about impeachment and because they're afraid of talking about impeachment and they don't talk about it that much of course all of these members who aren't there yet aren't going to ever get there like people have to step up at some point and make a consistent daily case for what and start connecting the dots for between all of these different impeachable offenses, crimes, abuses of power that the president is committing, so that there's a drumbeat so that that they can move the debate so that they can get more of the members on board to vote for it. Otherwise, we're just sort of ambling through this. We used to say in the White House a lot that no decision is worse than a bad decision.

And I think that's a little bit where the Democrats are here. We don't know whether impeachment is going to end up being good politics or bad politics, but I do know that the current path they are on is the worst of both worlds. It is you're going to get whatever downsides may exist from doing impeachment, giving your Republican opponents ability to say Democrats are impeaching Trump. And none of the upside of yanking the microphone from Trump's hand and having a nationally televised trial of Trump's crimes and corruption. And so we're sort of, it's, we're like in a world of, it almost feels like they're trying to check the impeachment box. Like, look, stop bothering us about it. We're doing this thing.

And then for the people who don't want us to do it, you can just tell them we're not doing it. And it just doesn't work that way. Pick a side. Pick a position. Defend your position and do it proudly. And that's not what's happening right now. That could change. They're coming back on Monday. And so we should see where we are a week from now. But the early signs are concerning to me, I would say the least.

But again, like, you know, I see impeachment proceedings as a frame in which to fit all of these daily outrages by the president that we have seen pile up over the last couple of weeks. the president that we have seen pile up over the last couple of weeks that, you know, if they're not in sort of set in one frame, they just kind of, you know, they come and they go. Right. And they sort of just like disappear. But I think like ask yourself if, you know, over the last month, right, like has the political environment felt better for Democrats when we've been focused on Donald Trump and all the crazy, horrible shit he's been doing? Or was it better when, you know, Democrats were arguing with each other in the last primary debate on stage or when we were having debates about, you know, a border funding bill or the squad or all this kind of stuff? the squad or all this kind of stuff like like you just this has felt like a better political environment over the last couple weeks because we have been focused on donald trump and all the crazy shit he's done and that's what impeachment hearings would provide and they would provide that at a critical time as people are starting to pay attention to uh you know the democratic primary

and the presidential race and you know i just it's to me it's just a it's not just the you know, the Democratic primary and the presidential race. And, you know, I just it's to me, it's just a it's not just the morally right thing to do, but it's sort of an opportunity we're missing here. That's right. I agree. But just hopefully. Right. But that's not what we're doing right now. No, we need to do it. So one other development on this front. It was reported this week that the Judiciary Committee is going to be holding hearings into the president's alleged involvement in a scheme to make hush money payments to women who say they had affairs with him, a crime that Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, is currently in jail for. Dan, what's the significance of this development? And is it a good move politically for the Democrats to do this? Very good move. I think it's, we've always thought it was very important that anything that was in the neighborhood of an impeachment inquiry or the quasi-impeachment inquiry we're currently in be more broad-based than just the Mueller report.

Yeah. And this – the Constitution refers to high crimes and misdemeanors. And this is a crime. This is not just like resistance Twitter saying what Trump is doing is a crime. And this is a crime. This is not just like resistance Twitter saying what Trump is doing is a crime. This is a crime for which if Trump were not president of the United States, he would have been indicted and possibly in jail for. Yeah.

This is he broke the law. He broke the law on the service of becoming president. And that is something that the Judiciary Committee should look at. greatly because it is a crime committed before he got into office. His ability to use executive privilege to prevent people from testifying is limited to zero, right? So Michael Cohen is an option. David Pecker from American Media Incorporated, National Enquirer, who was involved in this. These are people who could be subpoenaed and there's nothing Trump can do about it to stop them. And so I think it's very smart and I'm glad they're doing it. Yeah. Again, I will say the I mean, this only works as an investigation. It's great that they're doing this, but this only works as an investigation. If at the end of this investigation that the House Democrats are conducting into this impeachment is an option or impeachment happens.

Right. Because this like you just said, this is a crime that the president committed. We know that because his former lawyer is in jail for it. And there's mountains of evidence that Donald Trump directed his former lawyer to commit this crime, which makes it a crime for him as well. But unless Democrats are willing to say, yeah, we're going to do this investigation and we're going to televise these hearings about this. But then, you know, if if it's true, all the evidence that the SDNY that SDNY collected is true, then, you know, impeachment is going to be an option here. But they have to leave that open. Otherwise, why are we doing this hearing? Now, in the meantime, the president's corruption and lawlessness continues apace.

This week, the administration was forced to defend a travel schedule that sent Vice President Mike Pence hours out of his way so he could stay at a Trump-owned property during an official visit to Ireland. Pence had meetings in Dublin, but stayed on the other side of the country at a Trump golf course in Doonbeg. Pence Chief of Staff Mark Short said the president suggested he stay in Doonbeg, where Pence has distant family uh like it's an ancestral home for the pences apparently um later the white house said that trump never told pence to stay there dan what do you think about this one how unusual is all of this for uh the vice president to stay across a country across across the country of Ireland from where he was having official meetings. Well, John, I don't know if you've talked to the staff, but for our San Jose show, we're going to stay in Seattle. It makes zero sense. of a massive corruption scheme that has been going on where Republican politicians,

Republican political committees, Republican campaigns, lobbyists, foreign governments funnel money into Trump's pockets via his hotels. And I think we understand this is not just like Mike Pence is going to get a room. When the vice president goes, all of the staff who travel with the vice president have to go, which includes the Secret Service. It includes the military staff who have to staff the vice president. It includes the vice president's staff, the press people, the advanced people, the foreign policy people. It includes the White House communications. They're going to fill up an entire wing of this Trump golf club paid for with taxpayer dollars, which will make Trump's family richer. it is massive corruption

that is happening right before our eyes yeah i mean and they often have to just rent out for security reasons floors and floors of these hotels uh even if they're empty rooms i mean it's it is a it is a lot of money that the trump organization got because mike pence um decided to pick that location at trump's suggestion and it it is your money. It is tax dollars that are now making Donald Trump richer. He gets to be rich from his job as the president of the United States. That's what we're talking about here. The president of the United States is getting richer personally because of his public office and your tax dollars are going towards that. That's what's happening.

Plain and simple. Never happened before. Never happened before with any other president, Republican or Democrat. And look, this isn't just like something to yell about and complain about. We tested this message about Donald Trump personally profiting from his public office in our poll in Wisconsin. from his public office in our poll in Wisconsin, a state where the same poll came out and, you know, he had a pretty good approval rating in that poll. And yet this message about Donald Trump was one of the most effective messages against Donald Trump that we tested. And so, you know, it seems like Democrats should talk about this quite a bit, don't you think? Yeah, I think it is a very tangible, easy to understand example of corruption that's happening in Trump's Washington, that he is abusing his office to enrich himself.

People can see that as a believable thing about Trump. But it's a thing that Mike Pence, being America's worst bag man, made it so that this one got attention. But this is happening 24-7. Every time Trump vacations at his hotels, this happens. Every time the Department of whatever hosts a party at one of Trump's hotels, he is getting rich off of it in his taxpayer dollars. It just happens. Like this one's getting more attention because it crossed a level of incredible absurdity.

And so it's getting attention, but it's an opportunity to take this and use it to drill this message home in the minds of voters. The Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr, the nation's chief law enforcement officer, paid $30,000 out of his own pocket

to host a party at the Trump Hotel, to host a holiday party. Picked the Trump Hotel. I wonder why he picked the Trump Hotel. So the attorney general has just paid the president $30,000 at his private company. Like, no one sees the problem there? What the fuck? But like no one sees the problem there. What the fuck?

And Republican – the RNC hosts all of their events at the Trump Hotel. Over the last five years, it's been like $20 donating $5 online or whatever else to help elect Trump and defeat Democrats are also having that money ripped off and put in Trump's pocket. Like he is, he is getting richer coming and going off of this whole corruption scheme. And I hope that if, and when we transition from a zombie impeachment inquiry into a real one, this will be a huge part of it because under an impeachment inquiry, there are emails within this White House about this decision. We want to see what those emails say. Trump obviously told Pence to do this, but there could be contemporaneous emails or notes that tell us that. various emails or notes that tell us that. And we will only get that information in the context of an actual impeachment inquiry, not through the general traditional oversight where they'll just assert executive privilege. It'll be bottled up in the courts forever and we won't find out.

So this is yet another argument for impeachment. And I hope that the Trump Hotel-based corruption scheme is a big part of said impeachment inquiry. Yeah, I mean, this is just, this is like such a softball for Democrats, you know, like, and Democratic candidates too. You go out there, especially, you know, if the economy starts softening, it's like, oh, how have you done under Trump's presidency? Trump has done great. Trump's gotten richer off your tax dollars. But how have you done? Have your wages gone up? Are you

still paying too much for healthcare? Are you working two or three jobs? Because Trump's doing great. He actually used this office to make himself and his family richer. And you paid for it. I don't know. I mean, that's I'm new to politics, Dan, but it seems like that's a pretty effective message.

It wouldn't hurt to try it I'll say that all right let's talk about the special election that will be held in North Carolina's ninth congressional district next week are we gonna to gloss over the other crime trump committed yesterday i forgot yeah let's back this train up because we yes we have one more we have one more scandal to talk about here so here's what we're dealing with in the united states this week um the president united states uh decided to spread false information about a hurricane and say that Hurricane Dorian could potentially affect the state of Alabama when that was never the case.

Official models never really had Alabama in its path. So did the president say, oh, you know what? Mistake on my part. I'm sorry about that. I messed up. No, no, he know what? Mistake on my part. I'm sorry about that. I messed up. No, no, he didn't. He didn't, Dan. He has basically been tweeting about it for the last several days.

And then yesterday at the White House in the Oval Office, where presidents do the nation's business, House in the Oval Office, where presidents do the nation's business, the president sat there on camera, held up the National Weather Forecast Map, which had the path of the hurricane. And on the path of the hurricane, someone took a Sharpie and extended the path of the hurricane so that it covered Alabama, and then so that the president could say that he was right all along. And that happens to be illegal to falsify a national government weather report. And, you know, the president's still yelling about it this morning on Twitter. That's the USA this week, Dan. That's the presidency. I definitely think taking a Sharpie to a weather map is more in the misdemeanors and the high crimes part of the Constitution.

Yeah, sure. But it would be like Exhibit A in a 25th Amendment proceeding. Because just think about what is the conversation that's happening? Trump is getting ready to go out to do this hurricane briefing thing in the Oval Office and someone shows him the map that he's going to show. And he looks at it and realizes that Alabama is not on that map. And so you have two options at that point. One is take a Sharpie and doodle on the map to make it look like you were right. The other one would be don't bring a map. And he opted for the former.

And no one on his staff could tell him that that was a bad idea. It's also an important piece of evidence here because now there is the who drew it. Who wrote on the map is a big question that no one will answer. Trump only uses a Sharpie. That's how he signs notes. It's how he does things, which is also sort of funny because a Sharpie is like an adult crayon. So it sort of makes sense that it is Trump's pain of choice. I just, you know, Pete Buttigieg was asked about this on CNN today. And, you know, he, I saw like headlines that he said, you know, I feel sad for the president.

I really pity him. And, you know, my first reaction when I just saw the headlines was, I mean, come on. I don't feel sad for him. Let's actually make fun of him here. This is a joke. But I listened to Mary Pete's full answer. And it's a really good answer. You should check it out because it really is like we can laugh about it.

But it's also it is quite sad and disturbing that someone who is so deranged, I mean, he has serious problems. Like, we know this, of course, but, like, taken out of, with all that's going on in the country right now, everything that's happening, a hurricane that has already caused deaths that is still threatening the East Coast, all the other shit that's going on, and this is what he's fucking focused on you know i mean it goes it it goes back to you know i talked to axelrod about this this week you know axelrod's theory of the case here on trump which is there's an exhaustion factor and um whether you think trump's done a good job or a bad job whether you're republican democrat independent at some point you wake up and think like with all the problems we're facing in the country right

now do we need to deal with this shit every day don't we want to have someone who at least will focus on the problems we're facing and not be fucking taking out sharpies and drawing on a map also seems like an effective message well it if you think like we've worked in white houses and you you have there's a lot to do. It's a, these are busy jobs. And so over the last like 72 hours, think of the amount of time and energy that has been wasted by the white house staff,

the administration, the people whose actual jobs it is to help prepare the parts of the country where the hurricane is actually going. Think of all the time and energy they have spent retconning his stupidity, right? The White House press secretary is tweeting out like old water maps that are like weeks old that show Alabama possibly in the path. I mean, it is just like there are real things to do. And everything is about trying to make Trump's idiocy seem less idiotic, which isn't a possible task. They are pushing a boulder up Idiot Hill, essentially.

Yeah, and it also steals attention. I mean, we're all talking about it. Reporters are talking about it. Everyone's been talking about it the last couple of days. It steals attention from other issues, other abuses of power. There's an AP report out yesterday about how, you know, all of these these children that were separated from their parents by the Trump administration have, you know, emotional and mental trauma that may last a lifetime. I mean, it's a heartbreaking story to read it. moves the Trump administration has made on immigration over the last several weeks, including, you know, kicking sick migrants out of the country, people who were asked to come here by U.S. doctors to participate in medical trials. And as a result of their participation,

the doctors were able to find cures or, you know, for various diseases. And then they get a letter from the United States government saying you have 30 days to leave the country because, by the way, we don't want to have immigrants here anymore who aren't American citizens, even if they're here, to be in medical trials that we asked them to come do. That was something that happened this week, too. Just goes right away because all of us, every single fucking day, have to be focused on Donald Trump's's latest bullshit antics it's crazy or or donald trump stealing money from military

daycare centers to pay for all his yeah that we don't need that's one that's one too which start to tie this in a bow is the argument for an impeachment inquiry because we're just living in this cheesecake factory menu worth of crimes and you need some way to organize it that makes sense and an impeachment inquiry would be the opportunity to do that you could like segment it out where you should probably do it over a long period of time like we're going to do like x, like three hearings over a week on obstruction of justice. And we're going to do three hearings a week on emoluments and corruption via the Trump hotels. We're going to do three days a week on unconstitutional uses of executive authority and do it that way. And tell everyone the order it's going to be in, how it's going to work, preview it, do it like a, essentially like a crime novel and present it to American people that way, space out your high profile witnesses.

And I think it has the opportunity to be quite powerful. Yeah. And again, and make sure that it's not just focused on Trump's wrongdoing, but the impacts of Trump's wrongdoing on and abuses of power on everyday people. Again, we always have to keep connecting those dots that this isn't just about Trump breaking the law and abusing his power. It's the effects that that has on the country, on our security, on people's lives, and all of that. And I think that's almost just as important here. All right. Let's talk about the special election that. And I think that's almost just as important here. All right. Let's talk about the special election that will be held in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District next week on Tuesday, September 10th. This is essentially a do-over of the 2018 election for the seat that was ordered by state officials after it was revealed that

Republican Mark Harris, who was initially ahead of Democrat Dan McCready by what appeared to be 905 votes, had hired a political operative who stole ballots. It is a batshit crazy story that you can hear more about on our August Crooked miniseries, Rigging North Carolina, hosted by Shaniqua McClendon, our political director and a North Carolina native. So check that out for the full story of what happened. But anyway fast forward now uh dan mccready and his new challenger uh trump loving state senator dan bishop are neck and neck in the polls ahead of this special election on tuesday uh and president donald trump will be holding a rally in north carolina right before election night dan what's your take on this race how close

is this thing it seems very close the polling that has leaked out shows it essentially tied, which is good news for the Democrats in the sense that this is a district that Trump won by nearly 12% in 2016. So it is very winnable. And that is a positive sign for Democrats. We will see how this ends up. Polling in special elections is always iffy, to say the least. But the fact that it's competitive, I think, is something that is at this point worrisome to Republicans, which is why they've been pouring money into this district like there was no tomorrow. Yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, it looks like that Dan McCready outraised his Republican opponent. But as is often the case, when you factor in outside money,

Republicans and Republican groups have just been pouring money into this race. It's an extremely expensive special election. And so I do think, and I think they said something like, you know, two thirds of all the outside money is in favor of the Republican opponent. So that's not great. And they're doing that. Like, obviously, they want to win the seat. They would like one more vote that gets them one vote closer to taking the House back at some point in the future. But what is driving the Republican investment in this race is there are all these Republicans who are thinking of retiring. We've had a bunch over the last few days, but there are a whole bunch who are sitting out there who the leadership is very worried may retire because

serving in the minority with a criminal doofus as president is not an enjoyable way to serve your country. And that minds a lot of these Republicans. And if the Democrat were to win this race, the fear is this will push a lot of Republicans over the line because it would be a sign that it's going to be a very tough 2020 for the House. I don't know that it actually will mean that, but typically the impact of these specials is as much in the sort of emotional well-being of the caucus that comes up short than it is as an actual predictor of what's going to come in American politics. Yeah, I mean, I think obviously, this this race matters sort of beyond just the additional seat in the house. It's it's a test of, you know, has the energy and enthusiasm from 2018 continued, even though in 2018, you know, McCready was down by about 900 votes. even though in 2018, you know, McCready was down by about 900 votes. You know, it's a question of that. It's in a pivotal state for 2020 because North Carolina will be competitive in the

presidential race. It also there, you know, Tom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, Republican senator, is up for reelection and is one of the potentially flippable seats for Democrats. So, you know, it'll be a test there. I also think it's a test of sort of both sides dueling messages ahead of 2020. I mean, a lot of the outside money that's been pouring into this race on the Republican side has been doing everything the Republicans and Trump have said they're going to do when it comes to taking on Democrats in 2020, which is call them socialists, call them radicals, all of their xenophobia on anti-immigrant stuff. You know, they've got ads there with, you know, the squad's faces on them, all everything they're going to throw at the sort of Democratic candidates in 2020.

They're trying to test here. And McCready, who is a more moderate Democrat, he's a Marine veteran and he's a little more moderate, has been focused sort of exclusively on a health care message. He's not for Medicare for all, but he's been talking about, you know, sort of protecting the Affordable Care Act. So it is sort of a test of messages, too. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, I think both messages and then also turnout strategies and models for the state of North Carolina in 2020. There's a lot to learn from these special elections. So I think that's very important. And that's true Like in some ways that can help because it's a more Republican than Democratic district. So drawing attention to it could increase turnout, which should theoretically

help the Republican. But there are two ways in which it hurts. One, who knows what Trump could say or do that could cast it in controversy. He could still be... Yes, who knows?

He could still be engaged in his two-front war against the National Weather Service and Deborah Messing. But the more serious reason as to why I think it's a bad idea is presidential visits suck up all the logistical abilities of campaigns. It's a massive undertaking to put a rally together for a president. And I've never worked on a campaign that would ever want the president there the night before a house race. You would rather have your team getting ready for GOTV than making sure that you have the right number of red hats behind Trump at the event. And so I do think that is potentially challenging logistical timing for them because the Democrats will be working their ass off preparing for GOTV on election day. And the Republican staff will be making sure that Trump

has a good picture, which is very limited in its value in an election that's going to start 12 hours later so what do you think 60 chance in his rally speech there he mentions the weather map and maybe like a 30 chance he mentions deborah messing i would flip it i think it's uh i think there's a higher percentage he goes after deborah messing oh you think so yeah maybe he's maybe he's still in the war with uh war against deborah messing on uh on it's also like five days from now so who knows where right we could be like we'll be on we could be in a dark new place um so you do not have to live in uh the north carolina ninth to get involved uh to learn more about the race you can go to votesaveamerica.com slash states and you can go to directly to danmCready.com to donate or find ways to volunteer your time.

All hands on deck effort here. Let's help Dan McCready pull out the win on Tuesday. Okay, let's talk about the Democratic primary and the 10 candidates who participated Wednesday in a series of CNN town halls on the climate crisis. An event that lasted for seven hours, Dan. Seven hours. How many hours of the seven did you watch? So we had it on in the office, sort of in the background, during the day yesterday. And Tommy and I were kind of, we had it on mute, and then we would like turn it on once in a while.

So we sort of caught parts of it. And then I went home at like six or seven Pacific time. And so I watched a couple of the candidates. I saw some of Buttigieg, I saw Beto, I saw a little bit of Booker. I caught some of Warrens, but I caught some of Harris's during theer. I caught some of Warren's, but I caught some of Harris's during the day. I caught some of Biden's too.

So I caught a good number of them. What about you? I'm on the East Coast right now. And I had another thing to do last night. So I've done the red zone version of the Climate Town Hall. I think I've seen all of the highlights and all of the bloopers,

but I didn't sit in front of the TV for seven hours. I mean, so, you know, it wasn't the formal climate debate that many activists have pushed for, but I thought that most of the questions and the answers were incredibly thoughtful and detailed. What did you think? Was this a decent substitute for a climate debate or no? Yes, I think so. I mean, I still think having a climate debate would be better than having no climate debate. But I think we should applaud CNN for doing this. I do too. Giving seven hours for a substantive climate discussion is a big deal. And I thought the questions were good and they were about solutions that like just the science of climate change was appropriately accepted as fact. And the questions were less about politics as they too often are when climate change comes up in debates.

Like how are you going to explain higher utility bills or how are you going to convince this coal worker about this? It was about how are we going to solve the melting of the planet and so i thought that was very good i think someone who watched the seven hours or however many hours someone watched is better off and knows more about the positions of the candidates than they would in a debate right like a town hall is a better format to learn things um because it's not, no one's answering in 30 seconds or 90 seconds or whatever absurdly short timeframe is being imposed on them. But the problem is a debate will have more viewers, right? If a debate would

probably have 10 million viewers, like some of these other debates. And I don't know what the viewership of the climate town halls were, but I'm sure it was not 10 million people. No. I mean, I think that the weakness of it is, and I just want to say too, CNN does get a ton of credit for this and it's not just the sheer amount of time they devoted to it, but it was not long ago that CNN and a lot of other news channels were, every time that someone who was dedicated to climate change was on television, they had to have like a climate denier to balance it out, you know. And there was the, like you said, the acceptance of the science as sort of the starting point for the CNN town hall. And, you know, they called it climate crisis. That was like a, you know, big phrase up that was in the background the whole time.

The thoughtfulness of the questions, like we said, it was just, it was very, very well done. That said, I think in some ways it made the case for why a climate debate, a formal climate debate would have been better because the most people in this country can't watch anything for seven hours. Everyone's busy. We, we cover this for a living. This is our job and we didn't watch all seven hours. Right. So I do think, and we did start to see, even though a lot of these candidates running have very similar climate plans and are on the same page. You know, we started to see some differences between the candidates that I think could have been better elucidated during a debate. And that would have done. And also it made me think, look, I know that the DNC's problem here was if you do one debate on climate, then do you have to do one debate on guns? Then do you have to do one debate on this?

And I think maybe that's not such a bad idea to do single issue debates. I think you learn a lot. I don't know about the ratings, but I think diving into a single issue and maybe it's not a single issue debate. Maybe it's a debate that's just about two issues, and then another debate about another two issues, I don't know, but I think it's, it helps you learn a lot, and I don't think it's anything to be afraid of, and I also think climate is one of those issues that, look, we heard the economy come up, we heard transportation come up, we heard the environment come up up we had like all kinds

of different issues you know climate sort of involves and so i still think a climate debate would be a great idea but i thought last night was yesterday and last night was pretty good yeah i agree we can have both we can have a climate town hall and a climate debate yeah and it is a credit to the sunrise movement and all of the climate activists that that happened last night um i was reading you know we're going to talk about um mike grunwald's piece but in the piece he noted that in the past climate change has been such an unsexy campaign issue that there has never even been a question about it in a general election debate i couldn't believe that in 2012 apparently candy crowley said she considered including one for, quote, you climate change people, but decided it would have distracted from the focus on the economy.

Like, I didn't even know that. And so to go from that in 2012, and I think there was one question in the 2016 debates to seven hours on a Wednesday is a testament to all of these climate activists pushing really hard for this to happen. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a step in the right direction for sure. Any reactions to any of the specific candidates? What did you think? How significant are the differences between them two? I mean, there are very real differences in their plans, with the important caveat that all of them are so much more aggressive than anything we've talked about in the past. So the Overton window has shifted so far in the right direction on what is a appropriate, serious response to climate change.

We have finally, sort of in the context of campaign proposals, acknowledged the crisis and demanded that candidates put forth plans commiserate with that crisis. Now, they run the gamut from Joe Biden's plan and Amy Klobuchar's plan to Bernie Sanders' plan that cost, I think, $16 trillion. But I would say that the people who I thought did the best last night in the parts that I saw was I thought Elizabeth Warren did very, very strong. I thought Bernie did a very passionate defense of his plan. I thought in terms of moments, Kamala Harris saying that she would push to remove the filibuster to pass that's the green new deal was a very notable moment and i love i would say one hat hat tip to couple heiress's campaign is they are very good at making news at these things yeah and that was a good piece of news that over that uh sort of drove

discussion of her debate i thought that was smart yeah i thought um i i thought warren's moment that you know everyone's talking about is worth talking about. You know, she was asked, you know, there were some of these questions, which is in the flavor of like, well, you know, what are you going to make individual people do? What kind of sacrifices can we all make for this? And, you know, they talked about sort of, you know, should the government tell you which light bulbs to use? And, you know, they talked about sort of, you know, should the government tell you which light bulbs to use? And, you know, instead of just answering it straight on, she sort of stops and she like goes right at the context of the question, you know, and she said, this is exactly what fossil fuel companies want us to be talking about. Your light bulbs, your hamburgers, all of this kind of stuff.

They want to stir up a lot of controversy around your straws. And she's like, but we need to remember that even though all of us have a role to play in, you know, climate change and fixing this, it's still three industries we're talking about that contribute over 70 percent of the carbon emissions. And they want us all to be arguing about straws and hamburgers. And they're the ones who are actually contributing the most. And they're the ones who have to contribute to the solution the most. And let's not forget that. And I thought it was just, it's absolutely right.

And we're going to talk about the politics of climate change in a bit. But to me, it was an effective example of cutting through the bullshit of politics to talk about what's really going on. And I think any time a candidate can do that, you know, Beto O'Rourke's been doing that on guns. Elizabeth Warren did that on the climate town hall. Sometimes you hear Pete Buttigieg do that by reframing a question. It's just a really effective way of breaking through the noise.

The best politicians call out the game yeah they don't play the game and that's what warren did last night it's something that obama did very well over the years and that's the game we're going to is transit take the issue from uh the literal survival of the planet to the price of a hamburger and there And there's a, there's a motive in it. And as Elizabeth Warren put it on an economic interest behind the people trying to take the conversation from the serious to the trivial. Yeah. What did you think of,

what did you think of Biden had a moment there where he was asked by a Bernie Sanders supporter in the audience about the fact that he was going to a fundraiser afterwards that was being hosted by a fossil fuel executive. Now, Biden seemed confused about that because he said, you know, I didn't know that we, I don't think that's true. So it turns out that this guy who had been a Biden advisor for years, even before he became vice president, was a co-founder of a company that works on natural gas exporting facilities. But the no no money from fossil fuel executive pledge that they all signed basically says you're not allowed to take money from any sec identified executive for fossil fuel companies so this guy andrew goldman is not in fact an sec identified executive of fossil fuel companies um but you know he co-founded this natural gas uh

company so biden gets a bit confused on stage about this says he didn't know that his staff told him this whatever blah blah blah, blah, blah. And then Anderson Cooper later says, actually, you're right. He's not involved in day to day operations of this. But of course, you know, he's a he's a he's a founder of a natural gas firm nonetheless. What did you make of that whole thing? I think it's sort of impossible to expect a presidential candidate, whether it's Vice President Biden or anyone else who's running, to know off the top of their head who is hosting their next fundraiser. And so he was caught off. He clearly didn't know what was going on.

And then once he knew who the person was, he tried to respond to it. It was bad luck in a lot of ways. He got nailed in a gotcha question. I think, I guess the only thing I would say is it probably, like, yes, as I understand it, this does not technically violate the pledge. Right. But knowing that this had been a point of controversy for the campaign previously scheduling this fundraiser the day whatever it is the day after or whatever the climate forum was a risky move and they paid for taking that

risk i guess yeah like i was trying to walk through it as you know what it would have been like for us being staffers on a presidential campaign. Right. So like the first thing you do is you say, OK, we're going to make sure we're going to go through every single donor and make sure that none of the donors are identified by the SEC as fossil fuel executives, because that's the pledge we signed. So you get researchers do that. The staff does that. They go through, they do it and it checks out. And on that, the Biden campaign is correct. The guy was not identified by the SEC. And on that, the Biden campaign is correct. The guy was not identified by the SEC. But then someone, many people know that there's a fundraiser, that Andrew Goldman is one of the hosts of the fundraiser. They think about him as an old time Biden advisor, which he is.

But, you know, then you have the research team sort of look at the host of the fundraiser and be like, let's just make sure. Let's look at all the connections that everyone has hosting the fundraisers since we're doing this tomorrow, since it's a potential political exposure for us. And usually when you do that, it comes up, it's pretty easy when you Google Andrew Goldman to find out that, yeah, he's this hedge fund guy, but he did have this connection with a natural gas company and you just take care of it. They did not do that. So that is a little curious. Campaigns are enterprises where you have too few people doing too much work and things fall through the cracks. And sometimes those things fall through the cracks and nothing ever happens. There are no consequences from it.

And this is one time where something fell through the cracks and they got nailed. The long-term consequences of this, I doubt they're significant, but this was an opportunity for Biden, who has taken criticism for not being progressive enough generally, and specifically on climate change, even though by any previous definition, his plan is quite aggressive, just not anywhere near as aggressive as some of the folks on the other end of the spectrum, like Sanders and Warren and Harris and others. But it's a missed opportunity. So now instead of saying Biden make a strong case for why he would be the right person to lead us on climate change, we're talking about this. And I think we should also just like his goal, I think, was to make the point that climate change is an international issue. It requires mobilizing the countries of the world together and that he is the person best suited in the field to do that because of the relationships he has and the experience he has.

And instead of talking about that, we're talking about this. So there's a measure of bad luck mixed with an error from the campaign. Yeah, I also think stepping back from it, it sort of highlights an opportunity that Warren and Sanders both have by sort of swearing off any of these high dollar fundraisers, which is sort of the major difference, one major difference between the two of them and most of the other candidates running, because it's not just Biden, And most of the other candidates running, because it's not just Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, they also do a lot of these sort of high dollar fundraisers, which are, you know, the usual. It's what happens in campaigns. money and politics, people like Warren and Sanders have decided to swear off these fundraisers, which involves, which comes at a risk for them and is not cost free. But if it's not cost free on one side, you want to have sort of a political advantage on the other side. And this is the political advantage to be able for both of them to be able to go out there and say, well, we don't

have to worry about who we're like palling around with after a climate debate because we don't hold those kinds of fundraisers. So a few of the candidates, Warren, Kamala Booker, Bernie, Pete announced their climate plans in the last week or so. Warren basically adopted Jay Inslee's plan while adding a few provisions of her own. Do you think that was smart of Warren to adopt Inslee's plan? I am in awe of how clever it is. It is so fucking smart. Yeah. Because for the following reasons, one, Jay Inslee, although his campaign did not take off, he successfully branded himself as the climate candidate. Two, he had a really good plan, just praised by most people as being very substantive. And when he got out of the race, all the other candidates praised him for being Mr. Climate with a very good climate plan. Elizabeth Warren, who has enough plans of her own that she can just adopt this, and it makes it very hard for people to critique it. It was just so smart. Yeah. Because it comes with this imprimatur of legitimacy from the quote-unquote climate candidate that all the other candidates have praised as the climate candidate. It's just so smart. Yeah, it was very smart. And Jay Inslee

has said too, basically, it's an open source document and anyone who wants to use it can use it. And I think one of the great things about Inslee's campaign, he was still, on the day he announced he was getting out of the race, I think earlier in that day, he announced another plank of his climate plan. Like it's so thorough and detailed, his plan that basically he just kept churning out policy on his climate plan throughout the his whole campaign. And so I think it's going to no matter who, you know, which Democrat wins, it's going to serve sort of as a blueprint and potentially the gold standard on what the next Democratic president should do on climate change. Now, the question is, will they be able to achieve all that? So we should talk about the politics of climate change. You know, Mike Grunwald over at Politico, who's one of the best climate reporters around, published a big story where he argued that climate change could pose a political problem for

Democrats. He wrote that even though progressive and moderate voters see climate change as a problem and want it to be a priority, there is a deep divide on how they want to approach it with progressive supporting aggressive plans like the Green New Deal and moderate supporting more targeted piecemeal solutions. And meanwhile, you've got Trump and the conservative propaganda machine, you know, spending all their time telling Americans that Democrats are radical socialists who want to ban cows and planes. What did you think of Grunwald's piece? And do you have any fears in general about the politics of the climate debate for Democrats? I saw the headline on Twitter and I almost threw my laptop across the room.

I was like, what a fucking typical Politico headline, which is that's like not even fair to current Politico. That's like what we know. We sort of thought Politico was like like 10 years ago. Then I clicked on the link, which, you know, good for me. we sort of thought Politico was like 10 years ago. Then I clicked on the link, which, good for me. And I saw it was Grunwald, who has more than enough credibility as someone who is taking climate seriously

to have this, to raise this discussion. And he's not wrong. Yes, I worry about climate. I also worry about healthcare and I worry about Russian interference. I worry about everything, right? That's our motto, worry about everything, panic about nothing. And so, yes, we worry about climate. I also worry about healthcare and I worry about Russian interference. I worry about everything, right? That's our motto, worry about everything, panic about nothing. And so, yes, we worry about it. I think a couple of points on that is, one, I worry more about the

planet than I worry about the politics of climate change. And so we should be urgent and aggressive in making climate change an issue in this campaign, because if we want to do something when we get to office, you have to campaign on it now. You can't pretend, like you can't run on like small bore solutions and then get to office and support the Green New Deal. That is not, that is a political disaster. You have to try to change people's minds and convince them in the campaign trail. So I think that where we are right now on the politics of climate could be very different from where we are in November of 2020 if Democrats aggressively make the argument about why this is urgent and why these are the right solutions. So I'm worried but not panicked, I think would be the way I'm saying it. Yeah. I mean, look, he notes in the piece, you know, that he says the most prominent democratic

dispute about climate policy is whether it should focus exclusively on climate or whether it should take on broader issues of economic justice, which is what the green new deal does. And, you know, I've heard, um, some good progressives and, and, and good, you know, very smart climate folks say, yeah, well, this is like a liberal wish list, right, that's attached to climate policy and the Green New Deal. And if we really think that the climate is an existential threat, shouldn't we focus exclusively on climate and carbon pollution and not have a larger plan that also talks about, you know,

job guarantees and health care and all that kind of stuff. And I completely disagree with this. And it's not like, look, I think the Green New Deal is the right thing to do. But I also think just from a raw political calculus, it is a smarter way to frame this issue than to talk about it as what do we all have to do and give up and sacrifice to save the planet and eliminate carbon pollution and make sure that we're you know we keep warming under two degrees celsius like i think if you only focus on that um basically it is a message to people that uh yeah you, we have this existential threat to humanity and here's all the things you have to do and give up and sacrifice to fix it.

And I don't think that's as powerful a message as, yes, this is an existential threat and yes, there's going to be sacrifice and cost involved, but this is also an incredible opportunity to build a more just society and to also bring people along in this who have not been there with us, right? A lot of people in old energy industries are, as we transition, going to have to find new jobs. And if we're not willing to take care of those people, if we're not willing to make these people whole and these people who are in these industries whole, then we're not going to be able to build the political coalition necessary to get this done. This is still about politics and persuading people to join us in this effort. And the people who are

on the front lines of climate change, the people who are getting devastated by these storms, who are living in coastal areas, people who are working in the coal industry, people who are working in the oil industry, like we have to be able to say to all these people, we can do this together and it can be a win-win for everyone. And that's sort of the theory behind the Green New Deal. And I think it's a politically smart theory. theory behind the Green New Deal. And I think it's a politically smart theory. Someone who chooses a more moderate approach to climate change is going to have 80% of the political liability of the candidate who is for the Green New Deal. Right. Right. It's not like this is not on the level, right? Like this is going to, regardless of what your position is, this is going to be about higher utility bills, hamburgers, your constitutional right to have a plastic straw, and all this other bullshit.

Regardless of what your position is. So you might as well go big. You might as well try to push the debate in a bigger, bolder direction because substantively that's where we have to go. that's where we have to go. And when you get down to the brass tacks of trying to pass legislation in a Senate with an eliminated filibuster, God willing, it may be different. You may only be able to get some portion of it. But if you don't, whatever the actual law that passes is going to be somewhere closer to the middle than the law you campaign on. So you might as well campaign on the biggest, boldest solution possible. It's like Biden's plan is 1.5 trillion or something

and Bernie's plan is 16 trillion. Bernie's plan is not 16 times more politically risky than Biden's. It's like 10% more politically risky than Biden's. You also have to paint a picture of the future that is inspiring enough that you can build a movement, right? I mean,

that's just, this is just basic. If your entire climate message is only about staving off disaster, you're only doing half the work there. Because the truth is, it's not just about staving off disaster. It's about like building a new economy for the future that is going to produce high paying jobs in, you know, whether it's retrofitting buildings or solar panel construction or all the other kind of things that we haven't even thought about yet that are going to happen. Industries that are going to be created, jobs that are going to be created by transitioning to a clean energy economy. There's a lot of opportunity here for the United States.

There's a lot of opportunity to create jobs, to create good jobs for people. And by talking about that and making that part of your climate plan, you're going to be able to build a bigger coalition. And when you even pull sort of like individual parts of the Green New Deal, things like federal job guarantees and training and investing in education and investing in benefits for people and all that kind of stuff they pull quite well because a lot of you know you have to speak to people's day-to-day concerns about their lives and i think one of the i mean we saw this challenge back in in 2008 when we were and when we were on the obama campaign one of the challenges with climate is if you only talk about climate and the environment, you're going to get some people who are committed to this.

But if you make it a message about jobs and the economy as well, it's going to be more popular, and you're going to build a bigger coalition, and you're going to be able to get it done. Last thing I'll say on this is think about how far we have come on the politics of climate in just such a short period of time, from, as you pointed out, no questions to a seven-hour town hall to worrying about even supporting cap and trade to the Green New Deal. And so there's nothing to say that this is not heading in the right direction if we keep pushing it, and that the politics can become an unalloyed benefit going forward.

But the only way to do that is to keep organizing, keep arguing, keep pushing. And there's no other option. Simply, there is not another option. This is the only planet we have. Yeah, I mean, the plans are all very radical, but the science right now is pretty fucking radical too. You know?

And so you have to have policies and a movement that's commensurate with the size of the challenge right now and it is an existential challenge that is just the facts so we can either face that and and push as hard as we can for it or we can accept uh the present course we're on um which is you know know, devastation. And we don't want to do that. So it's dark, dark, dark. Don't want to do that. But that but you know what? I'm hopeful after yesterday.

It was everyone has a great plan. I mean, you know, data for progress. Our friends over there, it's a, you know, very progressive, very, very liberal think tank. They rated all of the plans of all the people who were on stage yesterday, with the exception of Amy Klobuchar, as either very thorough or thorough. So they thought they gave everyone

a clean bill of health there. They have great plans. The questions were great. The answers were great. And so I'm definitely more hopeful about the future around climate after watching that yesterday. So that's good. Alright, anything else?

Any other stupid fucking controversies we didn't cover? No, I just checked Twitter and we seemed to... There's some of the same old stupidity has continued to be stupid since we started this podcast but there's no new stupid that I can find. No new stupid. We'll take that

as a good sign. Alright, Dan, I'll talk to you next week and we'll see you later, everyone. No new stupid. We'll take that as a good sign. All right, Dan, I'll talk to you next week, and we'll see you later, everyone. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support, and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed and Milo Kim who film and upload these episodes as a video every week