Pod Save America - “I’m gonna regret this speech.”

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

Trump is off-script and unhinged at CPAC, the 2020 race starts as a toss-up, Bernie Sanders kicks off his campaign in Brooklyn, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper join the Democratic field. Then Daily Beast reporter Asawin Suebsaeng talks to Tommy about the right-wing craziness that is CPAC. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. Jon Lovett is flying back to Los Angeles from Milwaukee, I believe. Allegedly. After his stellar tour of the Midwest. All right. Yeah. Later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's interview with Asawen Soobsang from The Daily Beast.

He's a White House reporter who covered CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, conference this week. Sounded fun. Yeah. Good times. We're also going to spend some time talking about Donald Trump's bonkers speech from that conference. Conservative Political Action Committee conference this week. Sounded fun. Yeah, good times. We're also going to spend some time talking about Donald Trump's bonkers speech from that conference. A new poll that shows his approval rating has ticked up to 46%. And the latest news about the field of Democrats who are fighting for the chance to replace him. Also, check out Friday's Pod Save the World bonus pod, which includes an incredible rant from Ben Rhodes.

Very emotional Ben Rhodes. About Jared Kushner. Yeah, Ben hadn't seen the report that Trump actually intervened to get Jared his top secret clearance, so I read it to him in real time and he flipped out. But really it was an episode about the North Korea summit and why it failed. We also talked about India, Pakistan, some developments out of Israel. Netanyahu might go to jail. Spoiler alert.

Fun bonus. It's a great pod. Also check out Friday's Pod Save America bonus pod. That's an interview with Pete Buttigieg by Dan Pfeiffer. Mayor Pete. Great guy. And a brand new Love It or Leave It that was recorded in Chicago last week is currently out as well. Finally, check out OrganizingCore2020.com This is a brand new program

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Check it out. All right. Let's start with Donald Trump, who had himself quite a weekend. After the collapse of his nuclear summit with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam, which the president tweeted was partly the fault of Michael Cohen's testimony. That seemed questionable. Trump said he walked away. So is he blaming Cohen's testimony for why he walked away?

I know logic is irrelevant here. There's no logic. Yeah, he got upset by the testimony and then decided to leave the summit. Like Kim Jong-un was like, I was going to give him more in terms of nuclear programs. I will shut down. But, you know, cohen really steered me away yeah i'm worried he's implicated in a crime now and this isn't the straight shooter i was hoping to negotiate with fucking baby um so trump then delivered a speech to right-wing

activists at the conservative political action conference a speech that lasted two hours it was the longest speech of his presidency or maybe any presidency it's's like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez at the UN length speaking. So, we do have a clip from the speech that our pals at Saturday Night Live put together. It was on Weekend Update, and I thought that's probably the best

highlight reel, so we're going to play that for you right now. It's the appropriate context, yeah. Our country's in big trouble, folks, because we have to get it back. Darling, is the wind blowing today? I'd like to watch television, darling. The attorney general says, I'm going to recuse myself. And I'm in the White House and I was lonely. I said, let's go to Iraq. So I met generals. I didn't know. General one, general two, general three. I said, what's your name? Sir, my name is Raisin. What the hell kind of a name?

I said, Raisin, like the fruit? Seven trillion dollars and we have to fly in with no lights. Please get us the emails. Please. I'm going to regret this speech. What a great kicker. Wow. Man.

So I know that you're going to talk to Swin about this later, but what else did we miss here from the speech? I know that you were a masochist like I was, and I think you watched even more of the speech than I did, but we were texting about it on Saturday. I mean, like, the truest thing he said is, you know, I'm totally off script, right? This is how I got elected, by being off script. I mean, the speech was wildly entertaining. Yeah. to me at home, to the people in the room. He was ranting. He was raving. He was saying crazy things.

They had one piece of news they were trying to make, which was some executive order they're pretending they're going to offer that will help protect conservatives on campus. And they actually brought up a kid who'd gotten punched in the face at Berkeley, which is obviously terrible. But there's nothing that these big Republican audiences love more than like an aggrieved college Republican. So that was presumably the message of the day. But I mean, the guy starts 45 minutes late. He goes for two hours plus. I mean, like, darling, is the wind blowing today? I'd like to watch television. That's him ranting about wind energy, apparently not understanding that a thing called batteries

exists that can store power. I mean, like the whole thing was just wild. And then, I mean, he's just, everything he does is counterintuitive in terms of all the old rules of politics. Like going out and just ranting about Bob Mueller for 20 minutes. He called the Mueller investigation bullshit. Yeah, he called it bullshit twice. They're trying to take me out with bullshit. And then he's repeatedly denied that he ever made fun of Jeff Sessions or his accent and then he just did it from the stage just mocked his accent you know so like the people in the room loved it imagine if a democratic president mocked

the accent of a southerner it would be treated as a career ending slight uh he also so he called them investigation bullshit he said the new green new deal would eliminate cars planes buildings and cows there's a lot of cow talk at cpac the whole fucking weekend uh he attacked the federal reserve chairman that he appointed uh he mocked the washington post dave weigel for not flying private um he accused democrats of executing babies and hating our country one really interesting and probably very stupid thing he did was in recounting how he fired Jim Comey, he talked about how he had a conversation with Melania, the First Lady, about why it might be a good or bad decision,

which probably implicates her in all of these investigations. Melania's going to go down on the obstruction charge. They just made her a witness. It's so stupid. I will say, it's one of those speeches that it's like, you're watching it and you are laughing, but it's also absolutely terrifying. I mean, some of the shit, even that, like,

yeah, the news they were trying to make was some executive order that mandates the protection of free speech on college campuses and takes away federal funding from colleges that somehow doesn't protect free speech. But like, there's no definition of that. There's no way. How would you enforce that?

It's, like, such a thing. He literally also hugged the American flag. He dry humped it. I mean, it was real. I mean, go watch the clip. It was really fucking weird. The man is unwell. Yeah.

I mean, we know that's obvious, but you watch that for terrorists and you're like, and especially we've been watching all of these democrats do their announcement speeches and it's like no matter how you feel about any of these candidates they're just like normal people delivering speeches like it's happened in politics forever and then there's donald trump out there just fucking saying crazy yeah i mean well i watched bernie's announcement speech immediately after i watched trump because c-span just rolled one to the other and that was how bored i was on saturday and you know it, it was frankly hard to focus on a normal speech about policy after the two hour Trump show. And like, I don't like that I feel that way.

I'm embarrassed when I think back of how entertaining the debates were in 2016, but like, this is what we're running up against this time. Well, do you think there was a message buried somewhere in the madness? And did the speech tell you anything about how he's going to campaign in 2020? Yes. I mean, I think that what it tells us about how he's going to campaign in 2020 is that he will be just as loose and undisciplined as he was last time. He's going to say all this wild, bizarre stuff, and he's going to try to entertain

his audience and keep his base and keep media attention on him at all times. I mean, the reason that could be an effective strategy is because ultimately he has Fox News and the right-wing press there to be his communications director, to filter out all the best messaging, the best polling stuff, and then air that.

And the rest of the press corps is like, how the hell do we even begin to fact-check this? And even when you do, no one cares. I mean, swin and i talked about this like trump was saying in the speech literally no one has left the speech the whole time it's amazing not one of you has walked out i've been going for two hours and you could see people streaming out i mean it reminds you of michael his conversation with michael cohen where he's like yeah there was no russia uh business being done during the campaign you know we weren't investing in Russia. He just lies to your face. Just lies.

Doesn't matter. I thought it was interesting in a few ways. Like he had the immigrants are invading us and coming to kill you argument, which was basically the centerpiece of his 2018 midterm campaign. That's all he talked about. Immigrants invading, caravans invading, all that kind of stuff. It didn't work for him in 2018 largely. He had one of the worst midterm defeats in history. So he had that in there. He's also added accusing Democrats of infanticide, executing babies based on this complete lie about late-term abortions. They're really going hard on that. He's going

hard on that. They're going to go hard on that in 20 because that's how they're going to keep the evangelicals, get them excited. So he's got the xenophobia going for the folks who are interested in that. He's got the infanticide going for the evangelical conservatives. The other thing I thought he'd been missing so far was in 16, he really was anti-establishment, had this sort of populism going, right? He went after the establishment. He went after corruption in Washington. He talked about the swamp. He talked about jobs going overseas, outsourcing.

He didn't have any of that in 18. And I think what he did here is all the talk about socialism and the Green New Deal and all that kind of stuff, what he's trying there is, I mean, it's interesting. It's not, he doesn't talk about socialism like it's going to cost too much money, it's government's too big, it's, you know, like Republicans have traditionally talked about it. He said socialism is about only one thing.

It's called power for the ruling class. And it is very like, he's trying to get that 2016 sort of anti-establishment message back by saying that socialism basically is all the libs and democrats that you hate consolidating all this power in the government so it's like the people that you don't like the most are going to be running the country if you don't elect me i mean they they probably know just as well as we do that what was in the nb NBC poll over the weekend that socialism does not pull very well among the general population. Like in terms of how Democrats should deal with this. I mean, I'd love to see some polling on the best attack on Trump.

But like here's one option. Right. So if I'm Elizabeth Warren on the stump today, I say, did you see Donald Trump at CPAC this weekend? He gave a bizarre, rambling, profane two-hour speech at a conservative conference. But you know what was the most offensive thing about that conference? It's run by a shady lobbyist. And that shady lobbyist has a wife who's a White House communications director. The swamp is not drained, folks. Therefore, I propose the following lobbying reforms, right? Like, you need to talk about what he did, but use it to pivot to your message

so you actually get covered because this rambling two hour nonsense did drown out partially the North Korea news, drowned out the Cohen hearing, right? It's a new big shiny object that everyone has to cover because it's nuts. Yeah. And I think, I think that that's exactly right. I think you could also say like in two hours, did Donald Trump say one thing about people who can't pay their medical bills? Did he say one thing about people whose wages aren't enough to actually pay the rent or pay their bills or anything like that? Did he say anything about the challenges that you're facing in your life right now? No.

No. He just, it was all, it was, I mean, Kamala Harris does this well when she talks about the wall as his vanity project, right? It was, it's always about Donald Trump. It's always about him. It's about his power, enriching himself, enriching his friends, and basically dancing with the people that brought him, which are the right-wing activists in CPAC and had very little for anyone else. Yeah, what a weird conference. All right, well, you brought up the NBC Wall Street Journal poll.

Let's talk about Trump's standing heading into 2020. This poll that was out this weekend found that 41% of voters would reelect Donald Trump today, and 48% would vote for a generic Democrat. Trump's approval has ticked up to 46% in the poll, which is roughly the same as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at this point in their first terms. He's got the approval of 90 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Republicans don't think that another Republican should challenge Trump in the primary. Tommy, what do those numbers tell you about the president's strength as a candidate in 2020?

I mean, it's a good reminder, and we all need to hear these reminders frequently, that this is a 50-50 re-election, and that most incumbents get re-elected, and we should approach this as an uphill battle. I mean, his approval rating has been remarkably stable since he took office in January 2017. It's like the NBC Journal poll has had in between 43% and 47% approval that That's a whole time. And we should say that is very unlike almost any president in recent history. Like Obama, Bush, Bill Clinton have all had much bigger swings than that. It is very, very stable.

Yeah. And look, I mean, another important data point is that a majority of Americans are confident in this economy. And so I think we also need to remember that that's a pretty significant ballast for any president and people are going to, you know, give him credit for that and probably understandable. And I think, I mean, Republicans are going to stick by him and the, uh, his poll numbers in January and December when they were lower during the shutdown, a lot of this was Republicans sort of drifting away from him, particularly non-college white men. But those people are going to get angry with him from time to time. They're always going to be back. You cannot count on those voters. And I think, you know,

it's news this week that enough Republican senators are going to vote against the emergency declaration so that he can build his wall on the border. And, you know, it's great that Republicans are joining Democrats in the Senate to vote against his declaration. They don't have the votes to override his veto on it. But that's going to be the exception rather than the rule, that kind of thing. Because when you have 90 percent of Republicans sticking with you, like you also it tells you something about why these Republican politicians in Congress are acting the way they act and sticking by him because their voters are with him. And, you know, the ones in the House are in gerrymandered districts, so they only have to answer to Republican voters mostly.

And a lot of the Republican senators are in these sparsely populated rural states where there's all Republican voters, too. So the polarization is such that the reason that these people, we all say, oh, they all act cowardly. They do. But that's because their electorates want this. Yeah. I mean, look at Lindsey Graham, right? Like he's the best example of someone who pretended to be a maverick when John McCain was around and that was his brand. And now that he's worried about a primary, he's all in for Trump. And in part, you know, look, you look at these numbers, some bad news for Trump, four in 10 say they'd reelect him, but 58% do not think he's been honest and truthful regarding the Russia probe. 60% disapprove of the recent national emergency. So maybe that's why you're finding some guys, some senators who are up in 2020, opposing him finally on this issue and potentially voting for a resolution that would block his ability to do this emergency declaration. But I wouldn't anticipate any courage among Republican elected officials anytime soon.

We need to get every Democrat to turn out. We need to get independents to turn out overwhelmingly for us. It's going to be tough. Yeah. I mean, the other sort of warning sign, too, he leads a generic Democrat 46-40 in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Now, I don't know why they picked those five states. Like if I had been trying to sort of correlate these poll numbers, I don't think I would have thrown Indiana in there, which we don't have a chance in. So, you know, that's just something to keep in mind. But he also trails a generic Democrat 50- 39 in arizona florida georgia north carolina and texas which is almost more surprising that the democrat has to lead by that

much in those states it was baffling to me to be honest that georgia and texas yeah the generic democrat is winning well look and this is what we're going to talk about next but i think uh what you were just saying is we have to we have to win michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania in 2020 yes uh some combination of, but at least we have to win Pennsylvania, we have to win Michigan, Wisconsin. If you've got some of those southern states, you could probably do without it. But regardless, those three states are very, very important. You have to get all the Democrats in those states. You also have to get a lot of the independents in those states and the people who have voted Democrat in the past, but are up for

grabs and people who haven't voted. And so it's not easy to get that. So as we're talking about how a Democrat can put together a coalition, if you're not figuring out how you can win Pennsylvania, how you can win Michigan, Wisconsin, then you're going to be in some trouble. So let's talk about the Democrats. The NBC Wall Street Journal poll asked Democratic voters about their preferences in a 2020 nominee. Wall Street Journal poll asked Democratic voters about their preferences in a 2020 nominee.

Poll found that by a 15-point margin, Democrats would rather vote for a nominee whose views on issues are in line with theirs than vote for one who gives the party the best chance of beating Trump next year. 55% said they want a candidate whose policies would bring about major change, but cost more, while 42% prefer a candidate whose policies would bring about less change, but cost less. And yet only 45% of people who intend to vote in the Democratic primary said they'd be comfortable with a socialist candidate. 33% said they'd be comfortable with a candidate 75 or older, which is another warning sign. And more than 90% of Democratic respondents would be comfortable

or enthusiastic with an African-American, a woman, or a white man. About 80% said same about an LGBT candidate. Tommy, what do those numbers tell you? And was there anything else that jumped out at you about Democrats in that poll? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, so socialism polled poorly with the entire data set. I think it was 18% favorable, 50% unfavorable. Vol voters, yeah.

Yeah, vol voters. Capitalism was 50% favorable, 90% unfavorable. And then the numbers you mentioned, I mean, a very low percentage of people in this poll said they would vote for a socialist or someone over age 75. So I think a lot of people rightly pointed between how we label policies and the policies themselves. Because most voters want, 55% want the government to do more to solve problems and meet their needs compared to 41% who say the government is doing too much already. And by the way, just on that number, we should know that I was looking up sort of past years on how that question polled. In 2013, that was more people wanted government to do less than do more when Obama was president in 2013. So it does tell you something, the fact that we are at now 55 percent of people who want government to do more. Right.

I mean, Democrats say four to one, the government should do more. Independents side with the Democratic view by 54 percent to 44 percent. So Democrats and independents do want the government to do more. Independents side with the Democratic view by 54% to 44%. So Democrats and independents do want the government to do more. Of course, Republicans think the government is too big and does too much by a two-to-one margin, but of course they do because they've been demagoguing big government forever.

So I don't know that we should overlearn from the results of this poll, but I do think like what this says to me is the Elizabeth Warren approach of embracing a lot of big, important, bold democratic policies while rejecting the label of a socialist might be a very smart strategy. We won't know for a long time, but that's what I read from it. I do think socialism is hard to define and sort of poorly defined. Totally.

Probably even by democratic socialists themselves right now. Also, we all grew up in America, and we were taught as Americans that democracy and markets and capitalism are good, and communism and socialism is bad, and we all watch Rocky IV, and it's all tied up in cultural bullshit. Well, yeah, and today's DSA and Bernie Sanders, they're not proposing Soviet-style socialism. Not at all.

That's what they'll be accused of. Right, of course. Venezuelan-style, currently. You can't even really call Bernie Sanders policy socialist. He's not nationalizing a single industry, right? Even Medicare for All, and Pete Buttigieg says this all the time, the real socialist position there would be to have all the doctors and hospitals work for the government, right? That's not part of the plan. the doctors and hospitals work for the government, right? That's not part of the plan. The plan is to just get rid of the middleman insurance executives there and to actually have doctors

and hospitals and providers be reimbursed by the government. So even that's like the most far left policy and that's not nationalizing things like socialism. So I would bet that Bernie Sanders himself outpaces socialism. Oh, I do too. It does better than socialism. But it's a warning sign. It's a warning sign. It's worth noting. It's relevant. But I do think people have learned

who Bernie is. He's pretty popular. He has big, good ideas. He can fight it out. Yeah. I also thought that only 33% of Democrats saying they'd be comfortable

with a candidate 75 or older is interesting too because the two leaders so far in all of the polls, the primary polls are two candidates over 75. I know. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And that's sometimes what I think we get too specific in polling questions. People don't really know what they want. They're just kind of guessing.

Yeah. It is. What it does is point out that they are warning signs and potential weaknesses for both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. That if you dig in there, people could have that issue. So on that note, the New York Times and the Washington Post both ran stories this weekend about centrists and center-left folks who are worried that Trump might get reelected if the Democratic Party is pushed too far to the left. The Times piece focused on Pennsylvania, as we said, a state the Democrats have to win back in order to win the White House. Pennsylvania, as we said, a state that Democrats have to win back in order to win the White House. And it quotes former Democratic Governor Ed Randell saying, quote, the more we have Democrats talking about the Green New Deal, Medicare for all, socialism, the more that plays into Trump's

hands. Reparations, what are we talking about? Tommy, is this something for us to worry about? I mean, so I read the story and it annoyed me because, you know, you juxtapose quotes from Ed Rendell, who is very easy to get on the phone if you're a reporter, who was last governor of Pennsylvania in 2011. And more recently. And is now the governor of the Morning Joe Green Room. Well, exactly. He spends a lot more time in D.C. and in green rooms. Right. You juxtapose those quotes from Ed Rendell with Coleman Lamb, who is Conor Lamb's brother, who was recently elected to Congress, who said that personal qualities mattered more to voters than ideology. And he said, quote,

I don't think the only way to win is someone who's proactively goes to the middle. I think it's more important to have someone who's authentic, who says what they actually believe and thinks. So, you know, the framing tends to be, oh, we're too liberal for the party. But like, what really bothers me about these stories i really think the undercurrent here is race and they just don't say it because in the times story this pennsylvania story one woman says democrats only want to help people on welfare one guy says he doesn't think a woman could run the country a retired sheriff says none of the 2020 democrats could get his vote because quote the democrat party let their people down they were going so

far and into the different extremes that they forgot to put them in office, the middle class white male. So it's like so many of these articles about what states we should focus on or what candidates should be there are about race and gender in this country. And it would be, I think, better serve the reader if they were a little more overt about it. Yeah. So there's that. That's going to be a huge problem. overt about it. Yeah, so there's that. That's going to be a huge problem. And look,

if there are people who are uncomfortable with women candidates, uncomfortable with black candidates, or think that the Democratic Party favors black Americans and women or any other minorities too much, then we're not going to get those people

back. Those people are probably lost to us. And they're a very small minority, which we just learned from the NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Right. On the other hand, there are people like in this New York Times story, a longtime Democrat who voted for Trump, but then voted for Conor Lamb in 18, and now says his vote is up for grabs.

And you think, okay, Trump voter, voted for Conor Lamb. Who's this guy wanting to vote for? Like a Joe Biden type? And he goes, probably Kamala. Yeah, right. Exactly. So it's not always about race, right? And some of these, and I think, you know,

Sean McElwee and the folks at Data for Progress did like a real great deep dive into vote switchers, right? So people who voted for Trump in 16, but voted Democrat in 18. And one of the most interesting things that they found was that some of the vote switchers were more populist than either loyal Democrats or loyal Republicans. And they define populism as like, you know, I trust in the wisdom of ordinary people more than experts. The system is stacked against people like me, right? And so those voters are possibly right for the Democrats to win back. And I think figuring out, now, that doesn't mean to get those voters back that we should ever abandon our values when it comes

to race, when it comes to gender, when it comes to anything else. But framing our argument in economically populist terms and trying to persuade those voters is incredibly important. And it's the only way to win Pennsylvania. Yeah. And I guess this is what annoys me about these stories is Barack Obama was elected two times in a lot of these same states with a populist economic message. Right. And it sometimes seems like we've forgotten that when I read these pieces. Yeah, it is.

But he was also very careful and thoughtful about what his message was. And he was also a person that people just liked as an individual. Yeah. And look, he approached voters and he approached politics by saying, like, I should not assume that these people believe what I believe necessarily. And my job is to persuade them of my agenda. And we shouldn't forget that because sometimes, you know, on Twitter people do. And we shouldn't forget that because sometimes, you know, on Twitter people do. So meanwhile, the Post story talked about tension on Capitol Hill within the Democratic caucus,

specifically over gimmicky show votes that Republicans have forced House members to take, like an amendment to last week's gun control bill that passed the House. But the Republicans were able to get an amendment in there that would require undocumented immigrants who try to buy guns to get reported to ICE. And a few of the newer, more moderate Democrats voted for the amendment. Then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that by doing so, they were making themselves targets for both Republicans trying to unseat them and progressive activists. And then there was a bunch of back and forth on this. Tommy, what do Democrats do here? Is it good for these debates to play out in public or is this a problem? So, I mean, the debate is about something called a motion to recommit, which basically gives a minority party a chance to amend

a bill going to the House floor. They almost always lose these motion to recommits because they're in minority. But with respect to this gun control bill, as you described, it was a report. It's like, do you think that we should report undocumented immigrants to ICE if they try to buy a firearm? So that's a tough vote. That's a very tough vote. And, you know, the background bill itself still passed, but liberals who want to abolish ICE had to vote for a measure that was seen as empowering ICE. So that's hard for them. I tend to believe that members should be allowed to vote however they need to vote for their districts and what they believe. And I think that the harm this vote politically causes someone who wants to abolish ICE is less than the harm voting against it could cause a Democrat in a

safe district like a Conor Lamb. You know, so like, I am totally fine with Democrats voting their conscience on these bills. I don't think we need to show unity on every vote in the House. I'm not sure why this is such a big deal, other than everyone's constantly seeking for a Democrats in disarray story. I'm also fine with Democrats primarying other Democrats who are in safe seats, but we should not be doing it in toss-up districts. Right. Here's the thing to understand. one of the major consequences of the Republican Party moving so far to the right and sort of marginalizing themselves in the political sphere is that the Democratic Party now has a very, very big, diverse coalition. And part of that diversity is ideological, right? And we don't have the House in 2018. We do not win the House if there are not a bunch of moderate Democrats in purple and reddish districts who were able to win their seats.

And guess what? A lot of them didn't win their seats by being bold progressives. That's right. A lot of them won their seats by being—there's exceptions, right? One of our favorite new members of Congress, Katie Porter, an Elizabeth Warren protege, ran in a very Republican district here in Orange County, and ran a bold progressive campaign, and she still won. But mainly, she was the exception. That's right. I think what goes unstated in this piece and what frustrates a lot of the activists on the left is how much institutional inertia they're fighting against. There's corporate interests, there's lobbyists, there's the establishment media and the consultants and the pollsters who will all default toward the status

quo or the so-called like moderate middle ground. And that doesn't always align with general public opinion or certainly not with public opinion among Democrats. So Senator Michael Bennett is quoted in this piece, a senator who I really like and respect and I think is incredibly smart and thoughtful. He says, we don't want to be like the Freedom Caucus, who are like the far right members in the House. But I think that's a false comparison. Don't worry, buddy. We're a long way away from that. Yeah. Like the Freedom Caucus is a bunch of arsonists and political nihilists who are happy to burn the city down if it cuts government and makes it ineffective. So like, take for example,

you know, you used to Katie Porter. Take for example, Congressman Harley Ruda, who won a seat in the 48th district. He was not out there talking about abolishing ICE. I don't believe he's a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal legislation, but he defeated Dana Rohrabacher, who is a climate denier and a Russian stooge. So obviously we are so much better off having Harley Ruda in the house and primarying him would be idiotic. Yeah, of course. I mean, look, I think here's what we've learned over the last few years, right? When you're crafting your policy and you're a Democrat, you put the politics aside, right? You put out a policy proposal that meets the challenges of the moment, right? Right now,

we have a climate crisis. We have an economic crisis in both wage stagnation and inequality. We have a political crisis. So you come up with a series of proposals that are actually going to meet those challenges. That's why you get things like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All. But you do what you think you want to do. in your district. It's okay if they're big and bold and progressive, even if you have a moderate district. But people are going to ask you, how much does it cost? How much will it cost me? What will it change about my life?

Will it change anything? And the thing we can't do is wave away those questions by being like, oh, fuck deficits. Deficits don't matter. If we believe that we've cared too much about deficits, which I happen to believe, you've got to tell people why. You've got to persuade them. If you think like, oh, people

will take a tax increase for Medicare for all. Well, you've got to make that case to people. Also, whether or not you support eliminating private insurers, you damn sure should be ready for the Republicans to say you do. I mean, they went around saying that Obama wanted to kill grandma. We should assume the worst case scenario is going to come. It was death panels for us. It'll be killing all the farting cows if you swore the Green New Deal.

So that's, yeah, get ready. That's the part that is liberating for Democrats, right? Like they're going to call you a socialist no matter what. So you might as well put out a policy that you believe is going to meet the moment, right? So that's a little thing.

But what we can't do is then be lazy about persuading people who might not necessarily agree with us. And I'm not talking about Republicans. We're not getting them. But I'm talking about these independents, these democratically independents. Like, we've got a job to do persuading these people that our policies are correct, and we have to answer all of their questions. Look, I agree it's liberating in one sense.

In another sense, it should be sobering, because voting your conscience when the Koch brothers dump $10 million worth of bags on you can be a tough way to go. Last thing I'd say, there's one member of Congress who's quoted saying, alleging that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is putting people on a Nixonian list.

That wasn't really my read of what she said. I think she was trying to say, if you vote with the republicans on these bills progressive groups are going to notice and and could target you she said that and she said she said that then republicans will know that you're one of the their targets to beat because you're a moderate in 2020 point out the lie right no that's all she was assessing the political situation like we can't get these stories framed as these silly extremes. I think the solution is fairly obvious.

Well, that's another piece of advice to Democrats too is the reporters are always going to look for a good Democrats and disarray story. It's the best. And it's not because they're out to get us, right? That's their job. Reporters aren't on our team. And that's not their job to be. But they are going to look for conflict at any moment at any chance they get within the Democratic caucus. And, you know, I think Dan said this like last week on the pod to like just stop.

If you were stop being an anonymous Democrat, stop being an anonymous strategist. Like if you have problems with the party, if you have problem with the strategy, resist the fucking urge to pick up the phone when The new york times and the washington post call you and just lay it out there in the press because even the tiniest disagreements are going to be magnified times a hundred when they get in the press they sure are i don't get why you pick up the phone speaking of horribly annoying people that are going to magnify i know anything you say so howard schultz venti sized asshole howard schultz, venti-sized asshole, Howard Schultz, we drink Dunkin' Donuts and Pete's coffee here, and I won't hear anything

else. Okay, here's what Howard Schultz tweeted. From the sad spectacle of the Cohen hearing and the craven defense of the president by Republicans to the reports of fights inside the Democratic caucus between the ascendant left wing and more moderate wing of the party, this was another sad week in American politics. So, he's comparing

a president who is knowingly committing crimes from the Oval Office with Democrats debating policy in a closed-door meeting? Having a small argument about a motion to recommit. What is wrong with you, man? But here's the thing with fucking Howard Schultz, right? His campaign liked to say, you know, Howard Schultz is sick of the conventional wisdom in Washington. There is no one in the 2020

field right now that is more conventional that represents the fucking Morning Joe, Green Room, Acela Corridor view of politics than Howard Schultz. He is it. Molded from clay by the conventional wisdom. that's what you know

that that's like the false equivalence hall of fame there and but now here's the problem going back to that nbc wall street journal poll 38 of americans said the two-party system is broken and it's time for a third party and that is the highest number since 1995 so again you know everyone's like oh don't worry about Howard Schultz. Like, everyone's panicking too much. No, worry about Howard Schultz. Yeah,

worry about Howard Schultz because that number should be a warning sign to people and even if the guy gets one, two, three percent in some of these states,

it could be enough to tip it. He also doesn't care that he's full of shit because he's making all these wild accusations about the Democratic Party drifting left when he knows

that if Biden jumps in, he is the front runner. Yeah. So your candidate could be right there, Howard. You don't need to run around attacking the Democratic Party for a couple of months. Well, and also he could have run as a Democrat and tried to push the party to the center in that way. But he's decided that he's too rich and he doesn't have to compete in primary. Coffee sucks. So there's also a lot of 2020 candidate news to cover. Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced his presidential candidacy on Friday.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper announced his candidacy this Monday morning. Former Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he won't be running for president. And Bernie Sanders officially kicked off his presidential campaign over the weekend with big events in Chicago and Brooklyn, where his announcement speech drew a crowd of about 13,000 people, according to his campaign. Let's start there. Tommy, what did you think of Bernie's speech? So as I said earlier, I mean, it was hard to watch Trump directly into Bernie because Bernie is a thoughtful, reasonable human being. That said, I mean, I do think it was smart of Bernie to include new points about his biography, who he is, where he's from. I think it's critical to tell voters, like,

what informs your values. And it was a good, he drew a good contrast with Trump growing up middle class, not thinking it was cool to fire people. I'll be honest, I still think Warren is doing the bio into values, into platform, the best out of anyone, but it was good progress. You know, a lot of the speech sounded like a greatest hits from the best out of anyone, but it was good progress. A lot of the speech sounded like a greatest hits from the last cycle of Bernie's policies.

That's not a criticism. He's a big base of support. He's moved the party to his positions in a lot of ways. So maybe that's all he needs to do to win this party, and he's going to lean into that strategy. I don't know. I wasn't blown away by the speech. It didn't stir emotion in me,

but honestly, none of the speeches have so far. What I want to see Bernie do is I'm curious for when he gets to Iowa, because he wasn't great in Iowa at the personal politics, sign your supporter card, take a selfie, shake every hand, kiss every baby. I understand why it feels artificial, probably does to him, but that's going to be key. Well, look, you hear this from a lot of DSA folks, socialist people on the left. They're like, you know, you neolibs and everyone else spend way too much time on personality, character, stuff like that. Like, what really matters is issues, right? Like, we spend too much time focusing on candidates. And they have a point. We do focus too much on personality. But when you ask voters, like voters don't spend a lot of time thinking about ideology. They want someone who believes what they believe. They want someone who

shares their values. They do care a lot about issues. But just like normal human beings, they also care about the person's character. They want to know about the person's personality. And you see that Bernie's advisors, they were in their piece this weekend saying, we know that people want to know more about Bernie himself. And that's why they put that in. And basically the speech was his stump speech from 2016 and 2018,

except for the personal stuff and the contrast with Donald Trump, which I agree I thought was the most effective part. Yeah, it was well done. And look, I think it might be a criticism because is that stump speech, which was very powerful and very effective in 2016 enough to broaden his coalition in 2020 that remains to be seen yeah but it was interesting the trump thing made me think and again we've been saying this for a long time now like democratic candidates

shouldn't focus all their energy on Trump. But as we're having all these debates within the party, and so much of the coverage lately has been about, are the Democrats moving too far to the left on the Green New Deal or Medicare for All? It's funny that it was Bernie Sanders, of all people, who laid out in a speech the difference between the Democratic candidates agenda and Donald Trump's. And I do think that's probably going to be important going forward because, you know, we can argue about Green New Deal or no Green New Deal, but Donald Trump becomes president, it's over. He's a climate denier. We will not fix anything. We can argue about Medicare for all and

what's the best way to get to Medicare for all. Donald Trump becomes president again, we're losing the affordable care, 20 million people lose their health insurance. Like, we have to remember the contrast here. I agree. Look, also, obviously issues are important. They're the most important part of electing any candidate. But we're all human beings. And we communicate and we learn things by telling stories,

not by sending around fact sheets. We just remember that. And the media sure as hell doesn't focus most of its time on issues and fact sheets. They focus on fighting and stories. and so drawing that contrast was smart and it allowed him to tell a story about himself as juxtaposed with donald trump that got into all the things he believes and why he'd be a better president yeah um you can complain that that's reality but it's reality it's how we elect people in this country um it was i've been thinking about i mean 538 did a piece on this of like what percentage of bernie's coalition was just sort of never hillary voters um and whether he can win in an

election this sprawling uh primary this sprawling with just his original base maybe he can't i mean look maybe the whole strategy is these are the people who voted for me last time. This is why they love me. Let's run it back. In a big field, maybe my 25% is enough in Iowa and he's leading in New Hampshire and maybe that can be it. It's very possible.

But look, these primaries, they have a way of humbling you. Stupid things will become the focus of every single news cycle for months. Look at Hillary's emails. Bernie Sanders has never faced an attack ad. That's, yeah. Which is, you know, that says a lot.

And I don't know who, you know, I'm hoping that none of the Democratic candidates start attacking each other. But as this thing goes on, you can see that, you know, elbows can get sharp. Also, but that said, like, look, I hope the primary stays as positive and optimistic as possible, but I'm really glad that Reverend Wright came out during the primary for Obama, and we got to vet all those issues before we got the general election. Yeah, that's true.

It's good to kick the shit out of each other a little bit and vet and go through records, and that makes you a better candidate. Right. All right, let's talk about Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who's promised to make climate change the defining issue of his candidacy. Inslee served as Washington's governor since 2013. He served in the House before that. During Inslee's time as governor, Washington has legalized marijuana, ended the death penalty, raised its minimum wage. Last year, Washington voters rejected a proposal he backed pushing for a carbon tax. It would have been the first of its

kind in the country. He's also said he wants to get rid of the Senate filibuster because it's an, quote, antebellum rule in the internet age. Tommy, what's Inslee's path to the nomination here? I have no idea. I really like Jay Inslee. He was on one of our very first live shows. We went up to Seattle and hung out with Jay Inslee. And I don't like him just because he was nice to us, but we spent a lot of time with him. We did. We stayed on stage with him for like an hour as he answered detailed questions about light rail projects in the state and like all these sort of things. Like he's very smart. He's had a lot of success. He was a governor, which I think shows you actually can run a budget and lead a state.

The thing I'm not sure about is I don't think that voters view the presidency as a one issue job. And so I wonder about the strategy of just saying, I'm going to be the climate candidate. I just don't know that that is going to fly. You know who's really thought about this a lot is the people who put together the Green New Deal. And the critics of the Green New Deal will say, if climate is such a national emergency or an international emergency,

if it's the most urgent issue of our time, why you get all this economic stuff in there? Why are you talking about health care and job guarantees and, you know, training opportunities and all that kind of shit? And the reason is because, you know, before 2018, Gallup found climate change is the fifth most important issue to Democratic voters behind health care and wealth inequality. So we have this issue where climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and we probably only have 10 years to really do something about it. And yet, a lot of people don't believe that in the country. We have, you know, Republicans are all climate deniers, but even our people, even Democrats are thinking like, you know, I think about my job, I think about my paycheck,

I think about my health care, and they put that ahead of climate. And so the question is, how do you get people to care about this national emergency? And like, you're right, like will people look at Jay Inslee and say this is the climate change guy and he should be president? I don't know, but good for him at least for saying,

I'm going to make this part of the debate in 2020 and I'm going to do it by being the one candidate in the field who talks about it all the fucking time. Yeah, I mean, look, good for him. Maybe it is a really smart strategy. Maybe it will be the reason he broke through and he's defining himself in a way that no other candidate will be.

I'm with you. Look, I schedule dinners in two weeks that I don't want to do tomorrow because I like to punish my future self. So I have no idea how voters are going to react in this situation. But that's what the primary is for. Yeah. Finally, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper announces presidential campaign today.

The 67-year-old is a former brewpub owner who served as mayor of Denver and then two terms as governor during an economic expansion in Colorado where the state expanded Medicaid, legalized marijuana, and enacted gun control. Hickenlooper calls himself, quote, an extreme moderate and said in his announcement video, quote, where does this stuff come from? He said it is an announcement video, quote, I'm running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we also need to get things done. He told George Stephanopoulos this morning that he'd be able to bridge our political divides by sitting down with Republicans, quote, I would go to Mitch McConnell to his office, and I would sit down with him and say, now what is the issue again? And we would talk. Sounds silly, right? But this works. Does it work, Tommy?

I started twitching when I saw that. I mean, come on, man. Look, again, I like Hickenlooper. I think he's been great. He's been a great governor. He's done a lot in Colorado. He's done a lot of good things. But it really bothers me when I see people say things like, look, we just need to have a dialogue and bring people together.

I used to naively believe that. In the 2007 and 2008 race, I believed that. And then Mitch McConnell made it his life's work to deny Obama re-election and blocked everything we did. So, no, going to conservative mayors across Colorado and trying to get them to work with you is not remotely the same as going into Mitch McConnell's office and getting him to work with you. Because Mitch McConnell doesn't give a shit about working with you. He wants you to lose and he wants power. That's all he cares about. This is maybe the biggest challenge that all of these Democratic candidates face, right?

right is when you talk to voters like their big concern maybe their overriding concern is this sort of political crisis we've had in washington for a long long time and they look at washington they say nothing gets done and they've said this for more than a decade now right and as you said when obama was running his response was that's right that nothing's getting done in washington partly it's because there's too much influence from money and lobbyists that was part of the message but partly it's because everyone's fighting we're refighting the fights of the 1990s and we got to sit and sit together and get stuff done we got to washington and realized that wasn't going to happen because mitch mcconnell said i'm making him a one-term president i'm going to obstruct everything and the republicans all fell in love obama didn't play golf with them enough was yeah

you have a fucking beer with them, right? So it's like, I don't know how you look at that at the Obama years and say, you know what? Obama just didn't sit down with Republicans enough. That was the problem. After everything we've seen, after Merrick Garland, after Mitch McConnell

and what he did with the Russia investigation, after fucking Donald Trump, after Paul Ryan, how do you look at that and say like if only democrats in washington reached out to their colleagues we could get stuff done you don't need a robert carroll book you're not calling up michael beschloss to tell you that this was like a couple years ago the same people are there they're actually they're way worse right they're worse than they were before they're worse than speaker boehner and the reason it's a

problem is because the other thing that voters think is I don't like the fact that there is constant political war in this country. Right. Like I don't want this country to be so divided. So and that's also a real feeling out there. And that's why people like Joe Biden still. And that's why people are like looking for some moderate candidates as well, because it's a real feeling out there. But as a Democrat, what do you do with the knowledge that voters are tired of division in this country, but at the same time, you know that it is impossible to sit down with Mitch McConnell and some of these Republican leaders and get anything done? Yeah, like I've watched a lot of events and I've seen enough polling to

understand why a lot of these Democratic candidates aren't going to early states and just hammering Donald Trump for 40 minutes. People do reject the politics of division. They're sick of it. They hate the acrimony. I think that's kind of a perennial concern. But when I see a comment like that from Hickenlooper, I sort of have two choices. One, that it's naive, or two, that you're just telling voters that that's how you're accomplishing things. And either way is going to leave you unhappy because it's not going to work that way. And we should actually have a real plan to get things done. We should target Mitch McConnell and take him out in the voting booth next time, or we should figure out another way forward. But it's not going to be a kumbaya meeting in his

office. I don't think that voters look at Washington and say, you know, what would really make me happy is if, you know, the Democrats and Republicans got together and had a beer, right, and got along. What they're looking for is for Washington to pass policies that are going to improve their lives. That's what they're, they're sick of the gridlock, right? So there's other ways to get around gridlock than just trying to ask Mitch McConnell over, right? And that, that, that's why we've spent so much time talking about filibuster reform, right? Like there, there's only so've spent so much time talking about filibuster reform right like there there's only so many ways we can get things done in washington we have one party

that is obstructionist that has gone off the fucking deep end and one of those ways is to eliminate the filibuster which jay hensley was talking about you know there's a whole bunch of other ways with a lot of elections with a lot of elections right and not just focus on the presidency focus on the senate focus on the just focus on the presidency, focus on the Senate, focus on the House, focus on down ballot elections, focus on redistricting. You know, there's a million things we can do to get voter access. And I think it is incredibly important for every Democratic candidate running to talk about not just a bold progressive agenda, but how they are going to get that agenda passed. And Hickenlooper's theory is, you know, that he's going to sit down with Mitch McConnell and good luck to him selling that theory.

And I think, you know, we're going to hear a lot of that from Joe Biden, too. But I do, I think every candidate, whether you believe in bipartisanship, whether you believe in getting rid of the filibuster, you need to talk about your plan to actually get your agenda passed. Yes. Because there is a lot of cynicism right there, out there right now. You know, well-earned cynicism from people that someone's going to tell me something during election and they're going to go to Washington and nothing's going to get done. Yes. And I don't mean to pick on Hickenlooper, but I will be even more cynical and skeptical if Biden goes out and tries to say he can sit down with Mitch McConnell because he tried for eight years. Right. It's not going to work.

And he and you can and Biden tried for eight years and Biden also had a pretty good relationship with Mitch McConnell and those people, and it didn't help. Barack Obama had a pretty good relationship with John Boehner. John Boehner, and he would talk all the time. John Boehner was like, you know what? I would like to pass immigration reform with you, comprehensive immigration reform. I have guys in districts who have no Latinos to speak of, no immigrants to speak of. It's all white districts, and they're saying, we're not going to pass immigration reform, so I can't get it done. That's what John Boehner said to Barack Obama.

So it's like, the relationships are fine to have, but they're obviously not doing anything. They don't hurt. They don't hurt, but they're not the answer to getting stuff done. And I think the Democrats have to really dig deep to find out what the answer is to get stuff done. Yeah, because it's a mess. Alright, when we come back, we will have

Tommy's interview with Aswin Subhsang. On the line is Aswin Subhsang, who's a fantastic White House reporter for the Daily Beast, who had the distinct pleasure of covering CPAC this weekend. Swin, thank you for joining the show. I hope you got

some hazard pay. Another week and weekend in paradise. But no, I do this pro bono. Okay, so for listeners who don't know what CPAC is, can you give us like the 101 on this conference? Sure, absolutely. The annual CPAC conference that used to be held in Washington, D.C., is now held just outside of it in National Harbor, Maryland, basically bordering the relatively new MGM Casino there, which, you know, can be incredibly useful for blowing off steam when work is said and done. annual affair that is hosted by the American Conservative Union, which is headed by lobbyist Matt Schlapp, who is also an official White House surrogate and Trump ally. And his wife is Mercedes Schlapp, who just so happens to work as a senior official in Donald Trump's White House. Now, for many years, this has been an annual gathering of grassroots conservative activists, roots, conservative activists, business interests, politicians, and other heavy hitters in the conservative movement and right-wing spheres of influence in American politics to give big speeches, have breakout panels, sort of whip up the crowd and get as much media attention

as they can, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, in the years since the advent of Trumpism, and particularly since Donald Trump rose to power as leader of the free world in 2017, it's very much become quite simply just the Donald Trump show. It's a multi-day festival of not so much ideas beyond Trumpism is good, President Donald Trump is bae, college campus political correctness is terrible, and once again, we love Donald Trump and everything his administration is doing. The reason I point that out, and why I think it's relevant when your listeners and viewers are thinking about CPAC, is my formative experience as a political reporter covering CPAC during the middle of the Obama era. I got to say, it was way more fun than it is now,

because there were the Ron Paulites, there was the Breitbart insurgency that was really getting underway before basically anybody knew what Steve Bannon's name even meant. There were all these different factions, Even in 2016, it was basically Ted Cruz country, even though Donald Trump was well ahead of Ted Cruz and everybody else as the 2016 frontrunner during the presidential election. So there were all these frictions and tensions that bled into not just the day-to-day programming, but the nightlife that made CPAC so vibrant and exciting that had this foil and encapsulation of Obama as this big, bad socialist who we have to defeat

and is ruining America and religion and everything else. So it was this abhorrently dazzling shitshow, particularly when a Democrat is president. And ever since post-2016 election um the friction is gone yeah factions are gone everybody is united under the umbrella of donald trump is great that is and if as long as you believe that and aren't someone who openly identifies as a white nationalist they don't really see a reason to um um um make a big deal of kicking you to the curb necessarily. Yeah. Okay. That is a fantastic overview. And so let's start with the main event, the headliner of the Trump show, Donald Trump himself. So I watched because I have a big and

fulfilling life where I sit on my couch on Saturdays and watch CPAC. I was on the couch. I was messing around on Twitter. I got a couple snacks like I was playing with my dog. The thing went on for two plus hours. What the hell was it like having to sit there in the hall and pay attention to Trump's full two hour speech? Well, it was very much like a Trump rally or Trump political event during whether it was the midterm elections, where he was jumping around the country, or 2015 and 2016, up until election night. Basically, he was there to do a very stereotypically, or I should say characteristically Trumpian

stream of conscious rambling. And it was an airing of every grievance, and not just grievance, but praise that bubbled to the top of his head, which is very much his style when he's there to basically be a sort of perverse rendering of a wedding emcee, except for a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of his Trump-adulating political allies, donors, and or supporters. regulating uh political allies donors and or supporters so um it was sort of funny because one of uh things that happened to me uh towards i think the middle or the end of the afternoon at cpac on that day when trump spoke uh this past saturday was uh he he he went over uh he was originally slayed for like 50 minutes he ended ended up talking for, I believe, upwards of two hours and also hitting the stage about 45 minutes late. Perfect. So if you looked at the schedule, there was still a good amount to be done for the rest of that Saturday,

which was the final official day of CPAC for this year, including Representative Matt Gaetz, who was supposed to speak later that afternoon. He, of course, is a Trump-loving congressman representing a district in Florida and has not been shy about throwing himself on any number of Trump-related grenades, including basically threatening Michael Cohen and going after his personal life the day before Cohen last week was set to testify on Capitol Hill. Now, as I was heading back into the hotel and convention center, I think an hour or two or something like that after Trump's rambling, long-winded speech, I happened to bump into

Matt Gaetz and his chief of staff. And I just asked him if he was still speaking, and he simply said, nope, I was a quote-unquote willing volunteer to surrender and forego my time in the service of Trump's mega-speaker. Of course he was. It sort of served, I don't know why I'm going on about this, I guess just to say that served as sort of a perfect metaphoric encapsulation for the kind of person that Matt Gaetz is in the Trump era. And you wrote a great profile of him for the Middle East. He is a willing foot soldier, he is for the Trump era. And you wrote a great profile of him for the East. He's a foot soldier.

He is for Donald Trump. But anyway, sorry, I cut you off. No, no, no. I was just going to say, you wrote a great profile of my least favorite congressman that's on the Daily Beast site that people should check out. It's really well done. Oh, why? It's so cool.

Why do you hate him so much? But anyway, to get back to the content of Trump's speech, it jumped everywhere from federal prosecutors and capital Democrats trying to nail you with bullshit. The term bullshit is a direct quote from his speech. He kept going after Democrats, including John Podesta, for getting their ass kicked in the 2016 election. in the 2016 election. He talked about why his administration policy, draconian policies on things like immigration or policies on trade

and how he is handling or failing to handle the Korean Peninsula is absolutely perfect and he doesn't get the credit he deserves. He talked about how there are several people in military personnel, he's at the pleasure of meeting overseas, who look like they were straight out central casting and he talked multiple times about how there are several people in military personnel. He's at the pleasure of meeting overseas who look like they were straight out central casting. And he talked multiple times about how handsome he thought they were and how they could basically be Hollywood stars. And he went out of his way to praise the TiVo box, which is, I believe, a portable White House special TiVo box.

He uses both the Border Force One and in the White House, and I think also other places, to catch up on his shows. He also pointed out how useless his TV set would be without it. So like I mentioned earlier, there was really no through line between point A and point B in a Trump speech. There's no direct narrative to it other than what bubbles up to the forefront of Donald Trump's mind. other than what bubbles up to the forefront of Donald Trump's mind. And you know what? Whatever else can be said about that form of oratory in Trump's America, his supporters at CPACs, at political rallies, those who watch Fox News,

everybody like that, absolutely love it. If you're at any event like that or any Donald Trump speech and you just look around, you just notice, and I'm sorry to say this to your listeners, but it's immediately viscerally clear how much more fun these attendees are having at events like this than compared to even, say, like Hillary Clinton speaking in a gigantic rally during the 2016 race. I mean, they're just gobbling it up. It's like they're watching their favorite reality TV show, except with lace with significantly more xenophobia than you might typically expect. And it's just a show for them.

And a perfect example of that was towards the end of his speech. He went out of his way to say that he was monitoring the doors in the CPAC ballroom and emphasized that, you know what, we have so much fun here. We love each other so much. Nobody is left early. Not one person is left early. And literally while he's saying this, there is a very conspicuous procession of students

and attendees who have been filing out early because they can tell he's about to wrap up. So I think they want to beat the foot traffic or something like that. And while I was sitting in the press pen, there was also a standing room area of Trump supporters and CPAC attendings standing behind me. And you could hear them audibly laughing and gossiping about the complete juxtaposition, the jarring juxtaposition between what Trump was saying about his supporters and what was actually happening directly in front of him and the clash between Trump and reality that was playing out before their eyes. So you could even hear his supporters sniggering in the room about how funny and disconnected from reality he was at

the time. Now, they probably thought it was more awesome than you or I do and less comically dark. But there are numerous moments like that when you actually go to a Trump rally that sort of underscore in a pornographic way how his absolute tarnishing of what it means to see what is right in front of your eyes just does not matter to his supporters totally having too much fun they love what he's doing too much with policy and rhetoric and owning the libs and it just it just it just doesn't matter it just doesn't matter to point out the truth-o-meter about donald trump as often as you can to his like base of supporters and as we've seen with paul after paul after paul over the past two years you what damn difference does it make? The whole thing is Russell Crowe and Gladiator, right? It's like, are you not entertained? I mean, the speech starts with him dry humping

an American flag. I guess the news the White House wanted to make was them announcing that he'd released some executive order that would help guarantee free speech at colleges and universities by putting their federal aid at risk if they don't protect the political speech, I guess, for conservatives. It's not clear if the White House can actually take this kind of step through executive action, but, you know, details, details. Why do you think you kind of alluded to this? Like, why do you think these big conservative crowds love nothing more than an aggrieved college Republican? Because it's a perfect foil and a long bit at these types of gathering uh... including but certainly not limited uh... feedback

to uh... i i mean they've been through the decade old uh... uh... uh... play like it is nothing new it's it's basically tell us all the as uh... time in terms of american conservative doctrine deploy college campuses uh... corrupt left-wing professors wh whiny, protesting college kids, and tell you that these are the people, both young and old, who are coming for the America and the vast middle of America in particular

that you know and love. So Donald Trump and other people speaking at CPAC this year weren't doing anything new. They were just playing the same old vinyl that has been collecting dust on the shelf for many decades. And it works just as well, if not better, than ranting about socialism or alleged socialism on the conservative conference stage. on the conservative conference stage. People who were decrying this new democratic socialism or whatever, starting to enrapture certain chunks of the progressive movement and Democratic Party and Capitol Hill, and saying that Donald Trump is the one man in the 2020 race who is standing between you and Stalinism or whatever. We're really trying to make it seem like the Democratic Party has never done anything like this before. And this is a unique, clear and present danger, which was sort of jarring and flabbergasting,

at least to me, although not at all surprising, to hear that basically within the same hour or so of Matt Schlapp saying from the CPAC stage that we suffered through eight years of socialism under Obama. Yeah. Like, and I mean, I don't know, maybe they'll be able to scare Republican voters enough with this sort of new Bernie and AOC branded democratic socialism. But when I hear a democratic lawmaker, a politician getting parred by conservative activists or figures, or Donald Trump as being a socialist agitator, I mean,

doesn't no matter what you do, you can be Mike Bloomberg. And if he ran as a Democrat, he'd still be called a socialist. So like, what the hell's the difference? That's right. At least rhetorically. Agreed. You've mentioned him a couple of times. The CPAC chairman is this DC fixture named Matt Schlapp. He's one of the most annoying people on Twitter that you'll ever come across. That's the man at my wedding, Matt Schlapp. His wife, Mercedes, works for Trump. She famously stormed out of the White House Correspondents Dinner when Michelle Wolf was too mean to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. So did the Schlapp family get really upset about Trump using profanity or when multiple panelists attacked the ghost of John McCain literally from the stage? Did they storm

out of their own conference because they're big moral crusaders? No, of course not. I mean, of course not. Like, look, like so much of CPAC was dedicated to how much Ilhan Omar, about how much of a raving, destructive, corrosive anti-Semite he is. Okay, we can get into discussions about her tweets and her rhetoric. Fine. There are plenty of people willing to have good faith discussion about that, both on the right and left in terms of political discourse. I just have zero interest whatsoever of hearing how much they don't like the alleged anti-Semitism coming from her when Donald Trump is president and he can say things like Nazis at Charlottesville. I know I'm dusting off a chestnut from 2017, but it still stands making the point that he can say something like Nazis at Charlottesville are very fine people and all of these people who clamor each and every day to defend him will not say peep about that and just sort of brush it off. Whereas literally anything else that Ilhan Omar says, they deem as immediately, destructively anti-Semitic. There is no good faith to be had in terms of argument with these people.

That is dramatically underscored whenever they start accusing anybody in the Democratic Party or Congress on the liberal side or left wing side of being a raving bigot. Like, I mean, it's almost too darkly humorous to entertain as an argument when Donald Trump is president. That's right. But hey, I guess that means I'm throwing out a what about it. Hey, it's what we do here. Um, so like, let me just talk about what it's like to cover these things for a minute

because it's like journalists, I think increasingly and understandably feel a little bit threatened or under siege at Trump events. CPAC is like the craziest of the crazy Trump people. I mean, you got members of the proud boys hanging who are a white supremacist group. You have like the wildest conspiracy theorists who've been kicked off Twitter, chasing elected officials around, demanding to get replatformed. How are you treated as a journalist?

And what's the bar scene like when the speeches are all over? all over um you mean how am i how have i typically been treated as a political reporter who's very open about not liking donald trump and being i mean i'm obviously a leftist anybody who could follow me on social media knows that it's a secret um but do you mean how am i treated like after hours at places like cpac or or even um like when cpac isn't going on like when i'm dealing with administration officials. Well, I just mean like more when you're walking around the conference at CPAC and there's like literally, you know, members of the Proud Boys there who, you know, recently beat the shit out of a bunch of leftists in Brooklyn.

You know, I think there's people that are pretty overtly threatening to journalists at these events. I'm just wondering, like, does it feel like you're in hostile territory? What is that like? I mean, yeah, I got to be honest with you. I tweeted a good amount about this. So here's my position. Yes, they're always going to be like assholes at Trump rallies or these types of conservative

political events who are spoiling for a fight or at least to throw one flabby punch, whether that's at a member of the enemy of the people press or a liberal protester, whatever. There's always going to be people like that. But the vast majority of my experience at Trump rallies or places like CPAC is, yes, the entire audience will immediately be activated and whipped up into a fervor. The second Donald Trump starts saying, boo, yell at the press over there, the enemy of the people, fake news, boo. But so much of it is like pro wrestling. Right.

Because the second Donald Trump is done doing that, and I've done this many times at Trump events and Trump speeches, you walk up to the exact same people who you've seen like 15 seconds ago booing you in your face. And if you ask them, yo, I'm a reporter at the Daily Beast or whatever, and I want to talk, a lot of them will suddenly smile and say, yes, I would. Sure. Why not? And just and just talk start talking you like a random human being so yes there are people who will be total fucking dipshits and like drag their thumb across their throat to simulate slitting your throat or actually want to do you physical harm those people are really few and far between vast majority people there are are, you can deal with them pretty respectably. They may not necessarily have the courage to be rude to you, to your face, or when speaking to you one-on-one. And yeah, like I said, it's fucking pro-wrestling. It's like, oh, Donald Trump needs a heel, if I'm using the wrestling term correctly. And so oftentimes it's the people typing in the press pen. as violent, whether verbally or physically, to you directly, one on one, as they seem like they

would be on Twitter or while Donald Trump is telling them to boo you. So if that makes sense. Yeah, no, it makes total sense. I mean, it does feel like everyone's in on the joke. Everyone's acting. Last question for you. During his speech, Donald Trump took a shot at Dave Weigel, who's a Washington Post journalist who's been on the show a couple times, for not flying on private jets. Would you like to roast Dave for being in Southwest, like B or C? Like, let's take this guy down. Yeah. Very simple answer.

Yeah. So let's roast him all you want on this show. But I made a joke earlier when you were interviewing me about Matt Slatt being the best man in my life. My thing is, full disclosure, Dave Weigel actually was a groomsman at my wedding last year. He's one of my dearest and nearest closest friends. So full disclosure, just to get that throat clearing out of the way. But one of the funnier things about covering Trump for the past year or so is how he has slowly but surely started to work Dave Weigel, David Weigel, more and more into his stump speech grievance spewing. He started to mention Weigel more and more and more in terms of topics that just come to his mind that he clearly has not let go over the past couple of years.

Weigel, a while back, tweeted a screenshot of a Trump event that had yet to fill up yet and mocked Trump for saying it was, quote unquote, filled to the rafters. And he later deleted the tweet because he, it was sort of misleading because Dave was just trying to snark at the president on Twitter, but the place hadn't filled up yet. And the arena ended up being pretty much filled to the brim with Trump supporters. So someone on the president's team saw this tweet. Donald Trump himself, and he said this during his CPAC speech, didn't see it himself personally because, I quote, don't follow the guy on Twitter. And they showed it to him.

had them draft up a tweet to, like, own Dave Weigel on Twitter by tagging him, like, at Dave Weigel, fake news, Washington Post is lying about, like, the size of my rally crowd. And that should have been bad. But the president, after all these many months, has just not let it go. It's just amazing. He keeps bringing it up at rallies. And I don't get it. It's just that any normal-brained person would have let this go ages ago. Who the hell cares?

But he won't stop trying to own Dave Weigel online and in real life about it. It's amazing. It's a perfect vision into the rank pettiness of Donald Trump's mind. Quite frankly, he applies to foreign affairs and major issues of the global and domestic stage that he applies to going after Dave Weigel during a rally speech. I mean, it's fascinating. It is. It's absolutely mind-boggling. I can't wait to see how this is written about in the Donald Trump presidential library.

He definitely speaks to the shallowness of him, his character, who he is as a human being, but also like, hey, Jeff Bezos, get your boy a private jet. Let's solve this problem and end this roasting once and for all. I know. I want to fly on the Dave Weigel private jet. Me too. That sounds amazing. Until then, we're going to roast away. Swin, thank you so much for doing the show.

I know it's a crazy day with all these announcements about people being subpoenaed and everything else, so I really appreciate it, and thank you for wearing your combat boots into the CPAC conference and reporting on it for us because it was a very entertaining piece you wrote for The Beast. Anytime, man. CPAC week, every week it

rolls around annually. It's like Christmas for me. See you there next year. Cheers. Alright. Thank you, Swin, for coming on, telling us all about CPAC. Good times. And we'll see you guys on Thursday.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.