Pod Save America - “Impeach ‘em if you got ‘em.”

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Congress debates whether to begin impeachment proceedings against the President, Elizabeth Warren proposes free college and student debt relief, and Seth Moulton enters the field. Then Jessica Yellin, author of Savage News, joins to talk about political media coverage in the Trump Era. 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 Jon Lovett. I'm Tom Evitor. Later in the pod, we'll talk to Jessica Yellen, CNN's former chief White House correspondent, who's written a new novel about the news media in D.C. Before that, we're going to talk about the debate over impeachment, Elizabeth Warren's new plan to eliminate student debt and provide free college, and Seth Moulton's announcement that he's joining the other few dozen Democrats already running for president. And he's not the last one.

Love it. How was Love It or Leave It? We had a great episode of Love It or Leave It. Chairman Adam Schiff. Chairman shit? Shit. Remember? Yeah, I forgot that he did that.

Oh, my God. What a shitty culture. No, Congressman Schiff came by very graciously to the improv on a Thursday night, the day of the Mueller report, to talk to us about it. We had a great conversation about the actual report and the congressional response. And we discussed impeachment and whether it's worth pursuing. Very much worth listening. Also, Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed, who's done reporting on this, came by to talk about it. We also had Mitra Juhari and Paul Downs.

It was a fantastic episode. Also, I think you have some tickets you might want to sell. Oh, my God. Are you heading back out on the road soon? Austin, Dallas, Houston, our next swing. Coming up the first week of May, we have some very fun. Is that next week? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. I've got to go next week to fucking Texas. But it's going to be great. We're going to have a great time. You should come check out those shows. There are some tickets left for all three shows. I've been joking about Houston not selling, but guess what sort of picked up to get tickets crooked.com slash events also congratulations to our friends at pod save the people who just won two webby awards double

webby bookends for their fantastic podcast congrats to deray britney sam and clint yeah there's probably a lot of new listeners to the show who haven't checked out Pod Save the People. Go now. Smash the subscribe button. You will not regret it. It's fantastic. All right, let's get to the news. We've now had a few days to fully digest the redacted version of Robert Mueller's report, a 400-plus page document that details the Russian government's attempt to sabotage our presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump, sabotage that Trump and his campaign knew of, sought out, welcomed, and lied about. The report then details 10 different instances where the president obstructed justice in

an attempt to impede the investigation into that Russian sabotage, in addition to his own wrongdoing. As a result, there is now a debate about whether impeachment proceedings should begin. Guys, before we get to impeachment, I wanted to get your biggest takeaways from the Mueller report, since this is your first pod to talk about it. Dan and I talked about it on Thursday. Tommy, what's your what were some of your biggest takeaways? You know, I think we always need to step back as far as possible.

And just remember that the report confirmed that the Russian interference efforts were sweeping and systematic because this was debated early on. Right. The Clinton people were treated like they were crazy for suggesting so. And the incredibly frustrating thing about the Mueller report is that there's probably no recourse for that, right? There doesn't seem like there will be a way to punish the Trump campaign for its part in this. So that would require the Trump administration to undertake some sanctions or some sort of covert action or something additional to what we've already done to punish the Russians for this election interference. So they will likely do it again. And that sucks. And it's a huge, huge win for Putin. And you already have people like Jared Kushner, who today tried to downplay it by suggesting it was just a few Facebook ads. No, I mean, this was a massive

effort. The Russians were able to create real life protests and get people out on both sides of the protests in the United States during our election to be involved. And by the way, and that's the social media part of the sabotage. It's not just that. Never mind the hack. It was a theft of documents. Again, if you don't think that matters, go publish your inbox. Yeah. See how that feels. It also speaks to the use of the word leak was very prevalent during this period of time. Even the Sony emails.

Remember when Sony was hacked? They were called leaks. The emails are leaking. They were never leaked. They were stolen and released. They were stolen documents. Anyway, Tommy, go ahead. No, no.

And also the laying out of all the efforts to obstruct the investigation is so striking and it's so egregious and it's so transparently illegal and unethical. And I'm deeply frustrated by the argument that somehow Trump was saved by his own staff. I hate ordination or or that, you know, just because we couldn't prove the underlying criminal conspiracy crime that he can get away with obstructing something. That's just not true, right? We know that there was a campaign finance violation in terms of the payments Trump made to Stormy Daniels to silence her and keep her from telling her story before the election. It stands to reason that any obstruction effort might have been to prevent that from coming out. Right. So like just he did a lot of bad stuff and it's very frustrating. But, you know, I guess the thing I keep telling myself is it's very hard to digest a 448 page report quickly. We're going to we're going to keep going through it over and over again in the weeks and months to follow.

So take a deep breath. I guess I'm talking to myself right now. But it's also, you know, it's an interesting example of where really dogged investigative reporting clearly added to the Mueller report and helped him along the way. But it also lessened the explosive impact of all these revelations coming out at one time because reporters have been doing great work. I was stunned by the number of very good journalists and outlets who went with the Trump staff saved him from himself because they didn't carry out his orders to obstruct justice. Like, the legal definition of obstruction of justice

includes attempts to obstruct justice. Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice. The reason his staff wasn't charged with obstruction of justice is because they ignored his orders. But just because they ignored his orders doesn't mean that he didn't obstruct justice. There's no such thing as that. Right. It's actually backwards. The fact that, first of all, Donald Trump did, it's also,

it's not either or. He very clearly successfully obstructed justice on many occasions, succeeded in intimidating witnesses, succeeded in tampering with the investigation on many occasions. The fact that on several other occasions he was thwarted by staff who out of either self-preservation or cowardice refused to carry out those orders is an argument for impeachment, is an argument for calling it obstruction, not an argument against it. Love it. What were your big takeaways? You know, I talked about this with Schiff. Uh, I talked, I actually talked about it at the top of it or leave it and then cut it. Cause it was just me kind of being sad

for a while. And, uh, and you know, what I've been thinking about more and more is, you know, we've been talked about this since the beginning of the Trump administration, this vice grip between those of us seeking to preserve institutions and upholding their character against the president who has no interest in them. And I, and I do feel right now that we are paying for that in a lot of ways, because what you take from the Mueller report is someone so committed to faithfully executing the duty of special counsel, so faithful to the idea of an impartial adjudication of the law,

a careful prosecutor, that he errs so many times on the side of caution and how he describes things. He errs so many times with caution in whether or not to call something a conspiracy, whether to call something a collusion, whether to call something a crime. And I believe that that is in part what has guided Robert Mueller in his investigation and maybe his career, which is a faith in our system, a faith in the political process, a faith that once outed, the information itself will do the job he needs it to do. And I come away from the way we've responded this weekend, the way the media has responded, the way Trump has responded, the way Republicans responded, saying, you know what, in this case, that really may not be so. That ultimately

the reason the investigation didn't leak for so long, ultimately the reason we were in a position where we're seeing this report is because Robert Mueller thought the information would be enough to galvanize the public. And my fear, I think all this debate about impeachment as part of that, is my fear is it just won't happen. And I think it's worth taking a moment to say where we are as a culture and where we are as a culture is a place in which we all collectively do not believe Republicans would ever do the right thing. And it informs every aspect of what we decide to do. The fact that we know that there are a group of Republicans, no matter what the truth holds, that they are they are inured, that they are immunized against a morally responsible path. Well, I want to talk a little bit more about Robert Mueller's intentions with this report.

Yoni Applebaum writes in The Atlantic that, quote, the Mueller report, in short, is an impeachment referral. It says that, quote, Mueller spelled out a concern with alleging a crime against a sitting president. And that concern was the risk that it would preempt, quote, from the report, constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Is that what it read like to you guys, an impeachment referral? addressing presidential misconduct. Is that what it read like to you guys, an impeachment referral? You know, I don't know what, you know, I don't know the difference. I don't know what it's, what is an impeachment referral? This would be the first one I've read, you know,

at least in some time. So. Well, just for some background, just so we can talk about it. Under the old independent counsel statute, when Ken Starr was independent counsel, the independent counsel was allowed at the end of investigation to make a formal impeachment referral. Under the new regulations, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was not allowed to make an explicit impeachment referral. And yet, by saying that, you know, charging the president with a crime, which Mueller did not think you could do because a sitting president can't be indicted under DOJ guidelines, and then also saying, well, I think it would preempt the constitutional processes for dealing with presidential misconduct, which is impeachment.

It seemed like he was signaling that this was perhaps an impeachment. Well, there's also a fairness question, right? If you accuse someone of a crime and then they're not able to go through the process of a speedy trial to adjudicate it, I think he really, that weighed on him as well. Yeah. It's also, he also makes, there's another caveat inside of the report, right? Inside of this argument that here, you know, this roadmap toward impeachment. There's also a point where he makes it clear, despite these constitutional questions, despite these restrictions, even take those aside, there would still be reasons to debate whether or not to pursue charges. He makes that point explicit as well. So, but ultimately, yes, I mean, I think this is...

But he also says, he also says explicitly, if there were facts that could exonerate him, we would. There are not. Right. Or something like that. This is, again, what I mean, though, right? He was so careful in his language that he left outs for everybody. But yes, I mean, it's... But that's what – because you said that, I was wondering.

Like, I don't think – he was not allowed to say, yes, Donald Trump should be impeached and Congress should impeach him. And he also believed he was not allowed to say, because of DOJ guidelines, that I want to indict a sitting president. want to indict a sitting president. So I don't even know if it was just Robert Mueller's own caution or what he imagined the political implications would be or how he thought he was going to galvanize the country. I thought he was more like, well, I'm going to do this by the book and by the letter of the law and the regulations at DOJ. But knowing that I'm going to go pretty fucking far in letting you know that I think this misconduct was pretty, was, was possibly impeachable. Right. I do think the argument for that is just the careful laying out of the legal defense of why obstruction of justice is a crime without the constitutional implications that Barr

recommends. It really is an argument against Barr. And there really is a, it's very legal, but it is the end of the, the end of the, the obstruction section has this beautiful language about why if a president were to commit obstruction of justice, it is important that Congress have the power to investigate it and to impeach a president over it. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president's corrupt exercise of the powers of the office, accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law. And I think there's no- Again, why add that language if you don't have a message to send about impeachment?

And in a very careful way, right? Because he's laying out—he introduces this idea that if the president is using his powers in a corrupt way, it's a high threshold for it to be corrupt. But if it is, it's actually important for Congress to make sure that the president is faithfully executing the laws. Yeah. What has the Trump Republican strategy been since the Barr letter? And has the Mueller report changed that strategy at all? I mean, you know, this is the premature victory lap

to end all victory laps. And the rest of the thing came out and they're just still doing loops around that track. They're just going to make this a political fight and they're going to say, no collusion, no obstruction. We win. Time to move on. The key point that everyone needs to watch for is time to move on, time to move on, time to move on. That's where they want to get the American people. Ironically, the organization

Move On, named for censure and move on when they were trying to get Bill Clinton out of an obstruction case. Yeah, we've tried this before. Well, it's move on and nothing to see here. No obstruction, no collusion. But it's also, as we're seeing from Trump and all of his tweets over the weekend and everyone from the White House, now it's time to investigate the investigators. The Democrats committed a crime by starting this investigation, which makes no sense. The Democrats didn't start anything. They never do.

And it wasn't a crime. I mean, the best part of the Mueller report is at the very beginning, it totally obliterates, obliterates the bullshit talking point on the right that somehow the FISA warrant on Carter Page is what started this and the FISA warrant wasn't right. When it was like, no, actually, George Papadopoulos. Right. Fucking sitting with, you know. Yeah, with a bunch of Australians. So we didn't learn that much that we didn't already know about Donald Trump. We learned a whole lot about the Attorney General William Barr in a very short period of time. He is a total hack. He was willing to lie and spin and misrepresent this report. And he was willing to entertain the notion that the Obama administration was spying on the Trump campaign and maybe that was the genesis of these things. So these punitive steps that Trump has been out there talking about for a very long time, he now has some serious top cover and some allies within the Department of Justice, a

supposedly independent entity who might execute on him. Yeah, that seems to me there was a category error around Barr where he was sorted into serious, maybe shifty Republican, but where he has now actually behaved more like a completely unserious Trump goon. That is, I think, something that even surprised Robert Mueller, because I do I do believe, based on what we now know, that Robert Mueller seems to have been caught off guard by the way in which Barr took that report, wrote that four page memo, basically tried to get Trump out of the possibility of being charged in the future, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, to me, I think we see the kind of the range of Republicans' responses. They run from what Tom is describing and what you're

describing, the kind of total exonerated, let's investigate the investigators, all the way to the Romneys, which have decided to land on something along the lines of... He said he's sickened by the administration's dishonesty. That's what he promised. That it is sickening, unpatriotic, terrible, reprehensible, not a crime. Right. That's where they're landing on. And thank God. Oh, what a relief to discover that the sickening, unpatriotic, reprehensible president did not commit a crime. We need to we need to. You know, it's it's shameful. It's deserves to be held accountable, but it's not a crime. And that to me is where the Republican range is. Yeah. And there's there's two other categories of reactions that I want to mention because they matter going forward.

One is Rudy Giuliani on CNN telling Jake Tapper, there's nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians. Who says it's even illegal? Well, it's clearly a campaign finance violation to take something of value from a foreign individual or entity. Right. So he's wrong on the most basic facts. That's true. Okay. And let's say even because clearly in the case of the Trump Tower meeting, Mueller thought that Don Jr. was too stupid to know that taking something of value from a foreign entity was illegal. And in the case of the ban on foreign contributions to an election, ignorance of the law is OK, apparently, in that instance, because campaign finance law is quite complicated, I guess. That is just outrageous. Which is outrageous.

But set aside, which is crazy to say, set aside the legal issues here. I mean, that's basically Giuliani saying in the future, 2020 comes around and the Russians or the Chinese or any foreign power offers us information about our opponent, we think it's now okay to do that. Well, it's also such a fundamental thing. I mean, we are a country founded with certain rules and restrictions to try to prevent the foreign influence on our democracy, right? It's like it's so central to who we are that foreign – Something the founders were worried about. We know that. That foreign power should not be able to come in here and take over our elections, meddle in our elections,

choose our leader for us, right? That is partially why the president needs to be born in the United States, right? This is all goes into our sort of our fundamental tenets of who we are, which they don't give a shit about. I do think, though, there is this problem, which is Rudy's been saying that kind of thing before. Remember, we've been watching him slowly evolve even before the Mueller report came out, too. It was like no collusion, maybe collusion from some other people, but not from Trump. What's the problem with collusion? That was a joke for a long time. But it's interesting when it seems to matter when it doesn't.

Rudy says that it doesn't seem to get everybody kind of amped. But what happens when Donald Trump stands next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and behaves like a supplicant, that does sort of shake people to attention. and behaves like a supplicant, that does sort of shake people to attention. So I think one of the challenges here is this question about foreign influence does seem to have a real kind of subjective and emotional quality. And people clearly react in a stronger way, depending on literally how it feels to see it play out. There is a whataboutism argument that you'll hear a lot that is valid, which is to say the U.S. has intervened or interfered in foreign elections time and time again throughout our history. And that is true. But I don't think it then excuses what the Russians did or excuses the Giuliani argument. Maybe it should make us step back and

think, hmm, maybe we shouldn't do that shit. Maybe in the past when we've had these stupid, covert actions that get cooked up by a bunch of unaccountable CIA agents that, you know, they don't end that well. It's also like that. We're supposed to be for values and transparency and democracy and rule of law. Let's keep pushing ourselves in that direction and not excuse it. It's also, yeah, it's like, I don't think anybody's faithfully making the argument like, I don't care if China intercedes in our election. Remember what we did to the Shah? Well, no, you see that on Twitter all the time from some very well-known, well-respected

leftists, and it is not the point. The other reaction that I think bears upon what Democrats should do now is over the last couple days, we've seen two different stories. Trump and his businesses are suing House Democrats to hide their financial records

to avoid all the subpoenas for Trump's financial records, and then today waspoenas for Trump's financial records. And then today was the deadline that Trump was supposed to hand over his taxes or the IRS was supposed to hand over Trump's taxes to Congress. And they have just blown through that deadline and said they're not going to do it. So by saying nothing's here, this was a sham, this was a witch hunt, they're now saying whatever other investigations you got, we're going to ignore subpoenas, we're going to ignore regulations, we're going to ignore subpoenas we're going to ignore regulations we know this because this is all a witch hunt right so these are all

the reactions and this all leads us to the democratic reaction um on thursday when this whole thing broke house majority leader steny hoyer initially said that impeachment quote wasn't worthwhile and that there would be an election coming up where the american people could make a judgment he since walked that comment back and said, quote, Congress must have the full report and all underlying evidence in order to determine what actions may be necessary. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said over the weekend that he wouldn't rule impeachment out, but that he needs to hear from both Mueller and William Barr and read the full report first. On Monday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw cold water on the move to start impeachment proceedings immediately, releasing a letter to her colleagues that says, quote,

While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth. All right. So I think this one is not an easy call. So let's go let's go through all the different arguments one by one. What is the argument for taking impeachment off the table and just moving on? I mean, so here's how I'm trying to think about it, which is I believe all the moral arguments. I'm swayed that it is an obligation that this is what Congress was set up to do. This is why we have impeachment. But I just don't care about them.

All I want to hear is the most crass political argument about how this may benefit us or not. And so what I want to know is two things. What can we learn via impeachment that we can't learn through other investigative means through committees? And how will it impact public opinion? And I think, you know, what we will learn basically boils down to like, what information and people do we get access to during an impeachment proceeding that we wouldn't get during a subpoena process? If they're ignoring subpoenas now, they might again later, we'll probably need a court to compel them in either direction. So, you know, I'm mindful that impeachment and the process started in the House is why we ultimately got the Nixon tapes that proved to be the smoking gun to take him down. But, you know, so there's a track record of success there.

But the second half is going to be a big PR fight. And so will impeachment hearings fundamentally change hardened public opinion or coverage of Trump in a way that is strategically important or that just subpoenaing Don McGahn might not. And this is where I really struggle because I think the impeachment timeline will be what, like three, four, five months from start to finish. Will that focused attention be enough to change public opinion so that even when we get to the end of it and the House does what it's likely to do, which is to not vote to impeach him, that he doesn't walk away with an even bigger benefit, which is to say Mueller and the Senate found me innocent. Let's move on. And I think the answer to your question, Tommy, is like, what is, you know, what are the politics of impeachment? You know, does public opinion move?

We don't know. We don't know. We can't answer it. And so, look, I think it's the morally, you know, you could talk about the moral dimension of this, you know, or the constitutional obligation of this. And I understand that, like, that doesn't have a lot of, doesn't feel real world and practical and political. I also think there's a precedent that it sets, right? Like, by not taking action, which, okay, Robert Mueller, who, as Lovett just said, has been very conservative, not ideologically conservative, but conservative by nature, very careful in how he laid this out, basically lays out 10 instances where the President of the United States obstructs justice and goes all the way up to the line of basically saying, this is an impeachment referral for

Congress. And so if we take the special counsel who found all this evidence that the President committed a crime, and it wasn't, by the way, just – this is, I think, qualitatively different than what Bill Clinton was impeached for. Bill Clinton, it was obstruction of justice. It was perjury for an underlying – it was an affair, right? He lied about an affair. This is the president obstructing an investigation into foreign sabotage of our elections. And I think that is a very, very big deal for a couple reasons. One, future presidents then, if you don't impeach, future presidents can say, as long as my party has enough votes in Congress to make sure that

I'm not convicted, I can commit whatever crime I want because Donald Trump got away with it. That's number one. Number two, we have an election. But what if you do impeach and he gets away with it? Future presidents will draw the same lesson of partis it. That's number one. Number two, we have an election. But what if you do impeach and he gets away with it? Future presidents will draw the same lesson of partisanship. It's possible, but we don't know. Exactly. But we're at the stage right now where we don't know what the consequences of impeachment are. I'm presuming the outcome, right?

I'm presuming that the super majority of the Senate will not vote. And what I'm saying is whatever the outcome may be, if we go through an impeachment proceeding that does actually change the public perception of Donald Trump because we don't know that it won't yet and it does lead to more information, if more information is uncovered, if more crimes are uncovered throughout the course of the impeachment proceeding, then maybe other presidents will think twice. Well, they did do that to Donald Trump and he didn't get reelected. Again, we don't know. The other big thing is we have an election coming up in 2020. If I was the Russian government, why wouldn't I try to interfere again? Why wouldn't I? And highlighting the fact that there's a foreign power that interfered in our election

and that we took action to make sure they didn't get away with it by going through the impeachment proceedings because we knew that the president committed a crime, that may have an effect too. It may not. I don't think it will have any deterrent effect on them personally. This is why I think the conversation is, I think, a bit frustrating. And it's actually why the further we get from what Sani Hoyer said, the more furious I am for him having said it because he introduced this binary of should we impeach or should we not impeach.

And that's become sort of the core of the debate among Democrats. But to me, you know, everything we're discussing, it is a hypothetical. It's a hypothetical about what impeachment will do. And there are different, we're all dancing around it, right? Like the facts are obvious, right? He's morally, intellectually unfit to be president. He's obviously committed to obstruction of justice, unless you're paid by a network to pretend otherwise, it's clear. You know, impeachment also exists for a president just like this. So then why wouldn't we, right? And to me, it very much boils down to what you're saying. How malleable is public opinion, right? That's really what we're talking about. You know, we can, we can ban, you know, shift on love it or leave it, talk, well, there's other avenues we could explore. There's the counterintelligence

dimensions or financial dimensions, other things that, that were outside of the scope of Robert Mueller's investigation. And again, this always comes back to this same problem, which is we just right now are not sure how to move public opinion. There is this question. At root, the fear is that even though Trump deserves to be impeached, even though impeachment power exists for this purpose, we don't believe Democrats have the moral authority or political acumen or reach inside of the media to make that case, that Fox News immunizes Republicans to impeachment. And we're in this place where that very well may be true. It simply may be true that we are right now facing a 30-year problem of an onslaught of conservative propaganda that makes Donald Trump immune to the effects of impeachment. It is horrifying. It is terrible. But ultimately, I think I wish we could be more honest about that because the fact that Donald Trump deserves to be impeached to me is unassailable. It is hard to argue with.

And when you say he shouldn't be impeached, what you're really saying is this system is so fundamentally broken that we can't remove an unfit criminal president. Look, I also think if we just want to put everything else aside and talk pure politics and polling about this, I think there has been a problem where certain public polling has been baked into the narrative around impeachment, where if you go out to voters and ask them, what do you care about in this election? Impeachment never shows up, right? Which is absolutely true. But when you ask voters, do you believe that Donald Trump should be impeached or not? It is much, much closer. It is pretty split. And if you look at independents, the numbers are pretty close, right? There were a

few polls that had a plurality opposed, a few polls that had a plurality support right so again you're the the people who watch fox news are again are lost to public opinion right they can't agree on just like their fox news is convincing them that basic facts aren't correct right but we're thinking about democrats and independents right uh when we're talking about moving public opinion and it is very unknown, right? Like, it is very possible that most people in this country do not want all their 2020 candidates and all of their politicians to be talking about impeachment all the time, for sure. But if Democrats make a case, the case that Robert Mueller, Independent Special Counsel Robert Mueller made, that the president has obstructed justice, made that the president has obstructed justice and when everyone turns their televisions on cable news is covering that for a couple months and all the crimes that donald trump committed

are uh being shown on tv and talked about everything and potentially other crimes are out there what does that do to public opinion we don't know and there's also and and also one more point brian boitler brought this up there is in his piece there is what happens if democrats move on and what republicans do and what republicans do what we've seen already, is they don't just move on. They start the counter investigation. They start saying the Democrats committed a crime by starting this investigation. And now because the Democrats have clearly moved on anyway because they know it's a loser for them. So now we're going to start going after the Democrats.

Now we're going to start investigating. So here's the problem, I think, with that argument. I think everything you're saying is true. And you're saying there might be a political benefit in a 2020 election to having this period of time where we're focused on this issue. And it is true that those Fox News people aren't gettable. But if what we want to do is have a successful impeachment in which Donald Trump isn't acquitted and declares another layer of exoneration, right?

He declares himself exonerated by the Mueller report. We take the Mueller report. We impeach him based on it. That is sent to the Senate. The Senate acquits him. He's exonerated yet again. To me, for impeachment to be successful, it requires piercing that Fox News bubble. And I think right now we just don't feel as though we have the capacity to do that. Let me make it. So I don't think this is binary. I don't think moving on is the option. I don't think anyone's suggesting that. I also think that they're going to start a counter investigation, no matter what we do. I think they're especially likely to start a counter investigation in the

Senate if we start an impeachment in the House. So just to game it out for a minute, like for Bill Clinton, the timeline was the House authorized impeachment in October of 98. The House proposed articles December of 1998. The trial began January 99. The Senate acquitted him in February 12. So that's like five months. I believe they bombed Iraq in the middle, so maybe shrink. So we start this thing in two, three months. It's sort of done by the end of the year, super focused attention. I'm trying to understand how that's more politically beneficial than one blockbuster hearing per month with a Don McGahn or another really key individual that gets us all the

way through the election. So I think you could make an argument that the media coverage of individual investigations and hearings would not be as significant as the media coverage for a full-blown impeachment. I think that's reasonable. And another argument for impeachment is kind of crass, but it's just running out the clock. Like this would be all-consuming for them for six months. They wouldn't be able to do much more damage in terms of policy and legislation and getting stuff through the House. I'm sorry, not the House, but the Senate.

So that's another interesting element of this. And the other point you're talking about in Clinton's impeachment is everyone looks back at that and says, OK, the House Republicans impeached Bill Clinton. And then the 1998 midterms, Bill Clinton's party, the Democrats, actually gained slightly a few seats in the House. by the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, while his job approval was at 60% because the economy was one of the best economies of all time, his personal approval was 30% with 66% opposed to Bill Clinton personally. And he was so toxic as a political figure that Al Gore did not want him to campaign with him the entire time. And both Al Gore and George W. Bush were campaigning on restoring integrity and honesty to the White House. So it did not do much for Bill Clinton's personal ratings being impeached by the House. I guess I just come back to this problem, right? What we're then talking about is the pure political calculus about the benefits of impeachment. And

then the moral argument kind of fades away to me, right? Well, we can make that. I was just, we were putting it aside because as Tommy said, like, we can make the moral, but let's just talk about. No, I agree. I agree. But I'm just saying so. So if I guess what I I guess what I what I'm saying is if in order for the moral argument for impeachment to make sense, right, that we must that to Tommy's point, if impeachment is doomed to fail in the Senate. Right. Then the moral argument is kind of iffy because it's like, wait, how would we serve the constitutional question if a president committed crimes? He's impeached and then exonerated? So for there to be a moral case for impeachment to me, it involves having faith in our ability to pierce,

finally pierce through that right-wing bubble and have it carry over and change the way Republicans are behaving. But I mean, like, I also think if you start an impeachment proceeding, the expectations that Donald Trump will be convicted in the Senate are zero. Right. I don't, does any of us believe that he'll be convicted in the Senate? No. Does anyone believe he'll be convicted in the Senate? No. And Dan makes this point all the time that when Donald Trump is exonerated by the Senate

because Republicans don't vote for his conviction, he's going to run around saying total exoneration. But we know that's going to happen now. Right. And Elizabeth Warren, to me, made the best argument last night at the CNN town hall going to run around saying total exoneration. But we know that's going to happen now. Right. Right? And Elizabeth Warren, to me, made the best argument last night at the CNN Town Hall where she's like, she fully realizes he's not going to be convicted by the Senate, but she's like, I want every single member of the United States Congress to take the vote. Do you believe what he did was okay or not okay?

And if you think it was okay, you take that vote and you live with it for the rest of your life. Okay or not okay? And if you think it was okay, you take that vote and you live with it for the rest of your life. Because my thing is this. If we make this a debate where it's the moral case here is that we should impeach him, but the political case is that it's dangerous and so we shouldn't. But we don't know that the political case is.

Basically, what we think is the moral case is, yes, he should be impeached, and the political consequences of when we impeach him, we don't know. They're unknown. So if that's the case, then maybe go with what's morally correct. Look, it's a reasonable argument. I don't know the answer and that's why I'm debating both sides of it. I'm just, you know, I keep thinking back to a really, really bad loss we had on my football team in high school and my friend losing his mind screaming, I'm sick and fucking tired of moral victories. And that's how I feel right now. Like I want to win and I want to be as crass and political about this. And I'm trying to game it out and I don't know the answer, but I, I, the hesitancy we already have and the numbers we already have about impeachment going into it

makes me concerned. And I'd love to see these committees just dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and find more information and evidence and find more information evidence and rolling well I keep thinking about your argument Tommy that you just made about running out the clock, too We know from the past however many years he's been in office now that when the news is focused on Donald Trump doing something wrong Donald Trump acting badly Donald Trump then his approval ratings are lower and Democrats do better Yeah, he's back to 39 when notable he's but yeah his rating has already dropped since the Mueller report came out. And the more the focus is, if Congress is focused on impeaching Donald Trump, and the news is about that, and the

2020 candidates are out there on the trail, talking about healthcare, talking about jobs, talking about all these issues. That to me is a news narrative and a news environment that I don't find particularly problematic or detrimental to the prospects for Democrats in 2020. That's just my sheer, that's my crass political guess on this. This is why I come back to my frustration with how the debate has unfolded, because I do feel as though Democrats in Congress weren't on the same page at all. all. And turning it into a binary of is impeachment worthwhile was not a smart decision. Because I do believe that there's a version of how we're talking about this right now, which is something along the lines of Robert Mueller has exposed gross criminality on the part of Donald Trump. It demands to be investigated and it could lead to impeachment. And every Democrat in Congress

is committed to that investigation. And if it leads to impeachment, so be it. We will go where the facts take us and do what we believe is morally right. And instead, we're in this debate whether now we've they've managed to turn investigating the president for his crimes in a way that could lead to impeachment into some half measure. Well, yeah, I mean, look, I also think in some ways this is all a moot point, because if we don't if if not all the Democrats are on board with moving forward with impeachment, then this whole thing becomes a story about the Democratic Party divided over impeachment. And I think politically, that certainly doesn't redound to our benefit. Yeah, that's the thing.

That I'll agree with. And that's where we started, right? Because between Steny coming out against it and then AOC leaning in, I mean, the divide was readily apparent. And to your point about other investigations, to me, this is why it's very similar, actually. It's similar to our argument about the filibuster. It's similar to the argument about adding just judges to the Supreme Court. Whether or not you believe that that's ultimately where we'll land, when you say we're going to add more judges, it tells something to the judges that are currently there. When you say you might get rid of the filibuster, it is a lever of power to those who want to preserve the filibuster and keep

some power. When you say that impeachment is not worthwhile, you send a message to everyone that says we don't have the stomach to go all the way for an investigation. And to me, that's to me the most dangerous thing, because we could be in a place, we could be in the exact same position we are right now without this idea of us taking impeachment off the table. And I think we'd have a much stronger position. Yeah. And the other non-political argument about the investigations is what are these congressional committees going to learn that Robert Mueller and all his FBI investigations and everyone else didn't already tell us in her 400-page report? But I don't think that's how anyone should be thinking about this. No one read and internalized and went through the whole 448-page report.

You pluck out pieces and you hold blockbuster TV hearings at a regular basis. You're saying this is purely a political show then on that? I believe this is a purely political PR fight, and we need to win it and then win the election. That's my take. But that's saying the reason that we need to do that is because the word impeachment itself has some sort of political trigger in voters' heads that they're going to say somehow the impeachment isn't fair,

but the investigations are. I'm just trying to say that I think you could get the same outcome, which is massive news stories, TV coverage, witnesses on camera speaking under oath for the record through standard issue committee hearings with someone like a Don McGahn testifying over two days for several hours. And you don't necessarily need to label it impeachment, where at the end, there is almost undoubtedly going to be an outcome that is seen as exonerating the president. I also would add just one other thing. There are things that Congress could uncover. And this is actually to Schiff's point. There are other things that Congress could uncover that didn't come out of the Mueller report because Mueller's report was scoped, right? They did not look into the counterintelligence portion of the investigation was almost entirely hidden in the report. And we also know that this report is not called, the report is not a look at Donald Trump's history of criminality across his

businesses over the past 30 years. It's a Russian interference in his efforts to obstruct it. There are also huge avenues to explore around corruption, around the emoluments clause, around his financial dealings in Russia, around other criminal acts that he has taken as a real estate investor, money laundering, all the other shit that we've been kind of dancing around while waiting for the Mueller report. So that is, you know, do I believe that there's still out there something that could learn that would change the fundamental dynamics of our politics where Donald Trump's popularity hovers between 35 and 45 percent and the Republicans are on board no matter what? I don't know. I doubt it. But still, I do think that there are places to go that Robert Mueller didn't go. Yeah. And I guess, yeah. And my only concern, and we'll see what happens since it seems like

they're going to go down the investigations route, is let's see how much coverage these individual investigations spread over a bunch of different committees actually get and how much we're talking about them over the next 12 months. Let's talk about how the 2020 candidates responded. At least three Democratic candidates for president feel that impeachment is an appropriate process to consider in the wake of the Mueller report. Former San Antonio mayor and former HUD secretary Julian Castro

said in a television interview on Friday that starting impeachment proceedings would be perfectly reasonable. Elizabeth Warren also tweeted her support for impeachment on Friday and on Monday night defended her position in a CNN town hall saying, quote, there's no political inconvenience exception in the Constitution, which I thought was a fantastic quote about this. Kamala Harris also said in her CNN town hall that she believes Congress should take steps toward impeachment. Bernie Sanders, however, aligned himself with Pelosi's strategy and said, quote, if for the next year all the Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump, what I worry about is does that work to Trump's

advantage? What do you guys make of sort of the different dynamics at play here with the different candidates? It's so fascinating. I do think it's interesting they're having the same. I think Bernie is sincerely having the same debate because Bernie doesn't feel like he needs to prove his bona fides on being progressive on being tough so he can be honest about his current reservations i think i think elizabeth warren is very sincere in her argument and she clearly like i mean i take her at her word i think she read the report came to this conclusion i think there are others who will look at this and see like where do i fall in this group of 3 000 candidates how do i distinguish myself but it's interesting that bernie's, I think, a sincere one.

I don't know that this is a good idea for us. To me, it was just very pundit. It was, again, Bernie guessing the political consequences of impeachment without really knowing. I also just, you know, look, so the Congress is going to spend the next year passing a bunch of bills through the House that are dead or unrivaled in the Senate.

I mean, I guess there's... Which will get zero coverage. I guess there's some messaging benefit, kind of, but not really. Because it doesn't get covered. It doesn't get covered at all. How many messaging bills have they passed through the House that we haven't heard about? Most. Most of the bills.

I, like, I am totally open with people saying they need to spend more time reading this. I'm open to people being on either side. The only response that kind of bothered me was Mayor Pete saying, sort of passing the buck and saying, Congress should make that decision. And that I'm not a part of Congress. So I'm sort of not going to weigh in. That's not how this works, buddy. You got to take a position on this. People are going to be waiting to hear it. Yeah, you got to say yes or no. And to be in fairness, Mayor Pete did say, I think he deserves impeachment, but I'll let Congress do it. But I do think you got to, you know, one way or the other.

One last question about the 2020 candidates. How, if at all, do you think they should incorporate the Mueller report, the findings of the Mueller report into their larger messaging as they go out on the trail? It's interesting. I think that's actually a really good way to put the question because, you know, in one way, I'm also sympathetic to Mayor Pete because, again, if any, this is about choosing who could be the next president. And if they are the next president, they can't impeach Donald Trump. You know, they're not they're not part of that decision at all. But I but it is this fundamental question. I think it's what Bernie is ultimately

getting at, too, by the question of is this a distraction? Like, how should Mueller factor into what we talk about? And, you know, I think we've had that conversation a million times. And I think it always boils down to finding a way to make Donald Trump's criminality, corruption, misbehavior fit into a larger story about the failure of his presidency. I suspect that the 2020 Democratic primary is not going to be won based on who is the hardest on meanest to nastiest to Donald Trump, right? It's going to be based on how well you can set yourself out, show your vision for the country, and then make an argument about why you were the best person to beat him in an election. So I would focus on that. I think once you win the nomination,

that the Mueller report findings will feature heavily in all of your messaging, all of your negative ads. It will be an enormous gift to the next candidate. Just like that's another phase. So I completely agree with that on the general too. And I do think right now, again, the debate is, do you talk about Mueller in impeachment or do you not? I think if the Democratic nominee is out there saying, he should have been impeached, obstruction of justice gets down in the weeds on Mueller, it's not really helpful.

I think like you were saying, Levitt, if you step back, and I don't know why Democrats aren't saying this already, Donald Trump betrayed his country in order to win an election and enrich himself. That's what he did. That's what the Mueller report tells you to do, right? He wanted to cheat. He tried to cheat. He welcomed the help, right? Also, he

could win an election. He lied to us about the fact that he was going to get $300 million from a deal with putin with the trump tower moscow thing completely lied about it he had a financial advantage to being nice to putin and and having favorable policy towards russia and i think when the democratic nominee is making their case against donald trump part of that case is he is in this for him he is not in this for you everything he has done since before he took office, since he was running this campaign,

has been for his benefit. He wanted power. He wanted wealth. That's why he cheated. He tried to cheat to win this election and then tried to cover it up. And I think that's actually an important part of the message. So I think it's useful for candidates. Yeah, it's also, it's worth, you know, it's funny, just like here we are.

That's exactly what we would have said three days before the Mueller report came out. And it's what we can say three days after. Yeah, because it's all been, because it was all reported. That's the other thing too. You know, you step back from this thing and again, it comes down to this vice grip. Part of the reason this report did not land as hard as it should have is because there was so much excellent journalism for the last year and a half that has exposed us to a lot of this criminality before. If that report had landed. Well, because every, you know, because every fucking day is memento and we forget what happened yesterday. So I know, but I, but it is worth,

but like, this is the moment, right? This is it, right? This report lands. It is a catalog of gross malfeasance and abuse of power and misbehavior and a lack of patriotism and cowardice and, and, and evil on the part of a great many people to benefit Donald Trump and to hurt the country. And yet, because so much of it is something we kind of knew before, because it really elucidated a larger story we were already telling, it didn't land as hard as if we had just gotten this report all at once. And I don't know how you deal with that. I don't know how you've changed that. But it's worth noting that if we learned all this all at once, there would be no question about what we'd be talking about.

It would be an emergency to remove this man from office as soon as humanly possible. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, Democrats, as they make this case right now in the media, it's Democrats and are being pushed to the left by their base for impeachment. Republicans aren't George Conway, very, very conservative lawyer who was part of the in clinton impeachment process alexandra ocasio-conway married to a white house advisor kelly and conway wrote a very good piece in the washington post about how the president should be impeached just this morning a uh staffer on trump's transition team who worked on marco rubio's campaign said that he should be impeached like there are conservatives out there not electeds because you know electeds are beholden to their fox news base but there are conservatives out there who believe the president should be impeached. Like, there are conservatives out there, not electeds, because, you know, electeds are beholden to their Fox News base, but there are conservatives out there

who believe the president should be impeached. This is not a Democratic-based thing. All right, let's talk about 2020. On Monday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the most comprehensive higher education policy of the campaign, universal free public college, and the cancellation of student loan debt.

The plan would cancel up to $50,000 worth of debt for people with household incomes under $100,000. It would eliminate tuition and fees for two- and four-year public colleges. It would end federal funding for for-profit schools and set up a $50 billion fund for historically black colleges and universities. historically black colleges and universities. The plan would be fully paid for by Warren's ultra-millionaire tax, which is a 2% annual tax on the 75,000 families whose net worth is valued at $50 million or more. What do we think? Obviously, Warren has introduced a lot of ambitious plans, but on the spending investment side, this is probably her most ambitious and specific yet. Why do you think she chose the cost of higher education to tackle? Good question. I mean, I don't know. It's a great idea. I think that

long term, the idea that the U.S. would invest in education to invest in its people and its workforce is obvious. It makes a lot of sense. I also think that student loan debt is particularly crippling. And she knows that because, you know, we can't seem to get a handle on it as a country. And you see, you know, millennials in particular, young people not buying houses for decades and years because they're paying eight or nine percent on their student loans. And it's crazy. So I think it's a smart policy. It will play well politically. It will provide an economic boost. And then I do think, again, she has been very smart about focusing on reducing racial inequality since African-Americans are 20 percent more likely to need federal student loans. It's something we need to fix.

What do you think? Yeah, I think it's, you know, she is running through America's thorniest and biggest structural problems and saying what she would do to fix them if she were president and could pass things through through a congress that was democratic it is holding a generation back i think is also a chance that this unleashes a wave of support from young people who could knock on doors for her and uh campaign for her and galvanize uh support for her i think um for all those reasons you know it's that's that to me makes sense i do think it's interesting to compare her plan to other candidates as well. Because Bernie Sanders' supporters and staffers, rightfully so, were saying, well, Bernie was for free college in 2016, and he was. His free college plan actually doesn't go quite as far as Warren's.

He was focused on tuition. She's focused on tuition, fees, housing, transportation, books. But I think the big difference is the student debt forgiveness. And that is very Elizabeth Warren, right? Because remember how she started her career focused on bankruptcy, right? And there are a lot of people who think that the next big economic crisis in this country or one of the next big economic crisis in this country is going to be the fact that not just kids out of college now, but 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, people are walking around with all of this student loan debt, six figures student loan debt, that is not just holding back a lot of middle class families in this economy, but it's holding back the entire economy because we have all this debt out there.

And this is definitely, in terms of forgiving student debt, the most ambitious plan in the field. And there are other candidates who have been, who are on record for debt-free college. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand all signed on to a plan in the Senate. Castro said he supports debt-free college. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg recently rejected free college plans. And then I'm not sure where everyone else is yet. So anyway, that's sort of how it compares with the rest of the field. Yeah, it's interesting. Debt forgiveness on student loans. Again, another way that it's quite,

it fits with what Elizabeth Warren has done as a candidate and as a person is, it's one of those issues where, well, you can't be for that. Yeah, yeah, you should be for free college, but we can't go back and cancel all this debt. I mean, they took the loans. You know, that's not fair. They took on these loans. They should need to pay their fair share. It's not fair. It's wrong.

It's wrong. It's a very, like, you feel there's like a third-way argument against it. There's a conservative argument against it. This is now getting at kind of some of the deeper structural barriers to progressive policy in America, which is, yeah, maybe in the future we can fix it for the people that are coming, but there's nothing we can do for the people who came before. She's also a uniquely credible messenger on this point, right? She was 19, she had a scholarship to college, and then she got married and dropped out and basically thought her dream of getting a job was finished until she found a cheap commuter college close by. So a lot of the policies she talks about are anchored in who she is. And I don't think that is probably understood

by the broader electorate nearly enough. And it's not for lack of trying on her part. It's just, I guess it hasn't broken through because the words used to describe her are Harvard professor or senator. It's not this middle-class upbringing that leads you to understand why she would be so sympathetic to kids

dealing with crushing debt from school. Love it. To your point on the politics of free college versus the politics of forgiving debt. Yesterday everyone on Twitter was like piling on all the conservatives who said, you know, it's

people's fault for taking, you know, what about all the people who paid off their debt? But it's not just conservatives. So when you look at the conservatives who said, you know, it's people's fault for taking, you know, what about all the people who paid off their debt? Of course. But it's not just conservatives. So when you look at the polls on this, a recent Fox News poll from last week, Fox News, providing free college tuition for all, 57% support, 40% oppose. Free college, very popular, which is maybe one of the reasons we are seeing so many Democrats for it. which is maybe one of the reasons we are seeing so many Democrats for it.

Data for Progress and Civis, which is a, you know, lefty liberal organization, they pulled this in October. Would you support reversing the recent Trump tax cuts and using the proceeds to cancel outstanding student debt? Only 41 percent in favor, 35 percent opposed. So still a plurality in favor with Democrats. Sixty six percent in favor, 13 percent opposed. So still a plurality in favor. With Democrats, 66% in favor, 13% opposed. Great with Democrats. But overall, among independents and Republicans and everyone else, it is a more controversial proposal. Yeah, it's a controversial proposal. I mean, also, it's very clear. If you have student loan debt, it will help you. If you don't, it won't. Right. And you're looking at this like, wait a second, you're just going to give money to all these people. I think about this political moment in a larger way.

And I think Democrats have been in this debate and it comes like, how do we wake up the American people? Right. That's what this impeachment debate's like. How do we wake them up? Like, we feel like we're yelling and we're yelling. We blame the media. We blame Fox News. We blame a lot of things. And they're all deserving. But ultimately, it's how do we get people in this fight with us? This fight that we believe is so existential that so many people are protesting and knocking on doors every single day, even though there are millions and millions of Americans who aren't so engaged. And to me, what I find so attractive about this is it's saying that for people that feel trapped

in our current system, that feel as though they're under the yoke of a process that has let them loaded with debt that they can't get out of, that there's even the best policies that came before would not have helped them, that it says, I'm going to do this and your life's going to be better. It's just going to be fucking better. Like, you need a president who's going to make your life, you, you someone with debt, you someone who did everything they were supposed to do, your life gets better when I become president. And I think there's something so powerful and important about that for people that try to do the right thing and worry that they feel trapped forever by a mistake they didn't know they were making, that there's someone out there who's going to do something for them. And I think

that's so, it's just, it's brave because it is ultimately not necessarily a popular policy, but it's clearly something she believes is the right thing to do. Yeah. Okay. Finally, on Monday, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton announced that he too will be running for the Democratic nomination for president this election cycle. Moulton is a Marine veteran who was first elected to Congress in 2014. He turned up in the press a fair amount last November as part of a group of House Democrats who pushed back on Nancy Pelosi returning to her previous role as speaker. In his first day in the race, Moulton also made a point of saying, quote, I'm not a socialist. I'm a Democrat.

He also said that as a person who receives his medical care through the government, for him it's the VA because he's a veteran, single-payer systems aren't perfect and that as president he wouldn't force people off their private health care plans. Guys, what are Seth Moulton's strengths and challenges? So he's been a congressman since 2014. He's a Marine who graduated from Harvard, I believe, and then decided to join the Marines and ended up serving four tours in Iraq. He was awarded the Bronze Star, something he refused to talk about until

actually the Boston Globe figured it out and disclosed it. So, you know, the video he released talks about service and being compelled to service and the honor and reasons behind it in a way that I think is incredibly admirable. I know Seth a little bit. I think he's going to struggle with the fact that most Democrats know of him via the anti-Pelosi efforts, which I think probably will look worse in hindsight than they even did at the time. But, you know, he wants to mount a national security argument against Donald Trump. I'm always interested to see that. In some ways, it's the thing the president can actually do versus talk a big game about a bunch of policies that might never get through Congress.

But it's going to be tough. It's going to be an uphill climb to get in the slate with this many candidates and to make an argument that is a little more moderate in nature. Love it. You know, he he did an interview with George Stephanopoulos. George Stephanopoulos said, you know, you're the 19th person to get in. Why you? And he said, I'm getting in because we need a candidate who's going to talk about patriotism, service, and security.

I don't find that a particularly compelling rationale. I am very open to that turning into a more compelling rationale. But saying you're basically for a public option and that you want to talk about national security, it may be valuable and maybe there's a place for you to kind of bring that to the table are also brought to the table by several other candidates, I think it's hard to justify. And it shouldn't matter that you're 19th versus first, right? Like if you're the person who should win, you're the person who should win. But at this point, when we have 18 people who are in the race, when you're getting in as number 19, it has to be because you believe these other 18 aren't up to it and you're the one. And so far, I have not heard an argument in favor of that. And because this election is so important and because we need to have these debates and these conversations to find that exact right person to represent us in the fight against Donald Trump, if you're getting in now, you need to button up that rationale and you need to and there's so much time left. But I do think his main challenge is it's going to be the challenge of anyone who doesn't have significant name recognition

in a field of what's going to be 20 candidates when Joe Biden went to the news today that he's going to announce on Thursday. 20 plus candidates in the field. And finding media attention in the field of 20 candidates is going to be paramount. And a lot of these candidates think, well, as soon as I get to the debate stage, then I'll make my mark and I'll get noticed.

But two nights of a Democratic debate with 10 people on a stage each night is still going to be really hard to break through. Right. I mean, we don't know what's going to be the big issue in December, right? So that's why we can never count somebody out now. I do think losing all these months really hurts you in terms of organizing and infrastructure, fundraising and staff. But let's say there's a major national security incident that occurs in the next several months. God help us that that does not happen. But you know, we invade Venezuela, there's a terrorist attack. Seth Moulton standing up on that stage and saying, I served four tours in Iraq, I know

what it's like to command men and women in battle, see people you love die. That could become the single most compelling issue on that stage. It's something Pete Buttigieg could make too. It's not something that the other candidates necessarily could, Tulsi Gabbard could make it as well, but the others might not. And then Biden could say, I was in the situation room, right? Yeah. Right. And then, you know, a couple of them served on armed service and stuff like that. But beyond that, it becomes a little trickier. Moulton's also, we should just say, he's argued for automatic voter registration, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing the electoral college, still in the process,

democratic reform stuff. That's where he is. What do we make of his criticism of single payer? Other candidates have not been for, you know, Bernie's Medicare for all version. The specific criticism that, hey, I'm on single payer at the VA. It's not everything it's cracked up to be. So I don't want to push people on that. What did you guys make of that? I think it's a interesting way in to land at a Democratic position that is also pretty mainstream, right? Like that position does still aligns him with, say, Medicare for America, right? The cap plan, right? So it puts him very much in the mainstream. I think I think it's I think the question is, does this even in this field of 20 or 50, whatever, is there still room for one person to stand on that stage and say, I'm going to represent this argument for moderation? You know, will that have value? Right. This was, I think, the debate that Mike Bloomberg had. Should I represent that voice? Howard Schultz decided he was going to represent that voice by setting himself on fire on the Morning Joe set.

Schultz decided he was going to represent that voice by setting himself on fire on the Morning Joe set. But for the Democratic nomination, right, there is seems to be a competition to be progressive, either to represent the actual progressivism you've shown your entire career, or to prove your bona fides to people who might be skeptical. He's saying, I'm going to do something a little bit different. And maybe that is a place for him. And again, it's all how we talk about moderation, too. We just talked about how very, very popular free college is. And I thought about Moulton's comment on single payer because Morning Consult just had a new survey of 6,000 plus adults, which is quite a big survey. Medicare for all defined as everyone enrolled in one federal plan. The numbers are now 47 in favor, 34 opposed.

Medicare buy-in or public option is now 62 to 17. 47 in favor, 34 opposed. Medicare buy-in or public option is now 62 to 17. That is very, very popular. And then they asked, would you be more likely to support Medicare for All if it means Americans could keep their hospital and doctor? 62% said they'd be more in favor of it. And would you be more in favor if it's voluntary enrollment? 60% said more in favor.

So it is a very interesting way. And these Medicare for All numbers, the more it's been, and we Yeah, these Medicare for all numbers the more it's been and we knew this Was gonna happen the more it's been out there talked about and the more that Republicans have started beating up on it You can start to see how the numbers go down a little bit agree or disagree with the policy It's a pretty powerful rejoinder and it's one drawn from experience and it's one that could probably be backed up by a whole lot of other veterans who have been in the VA system and have not always been thrilled with the outcomes of the care they've gotten or the timelines or the treatment. So I don't know. I would like to hear more about it from him. But it's certainly the most

least political sounding, most novel argument I've heard against eliminating private insurance so far. Yeah. And again, it is a testament to every activist who has pushed for Medicare for all that a massive expansion of Medicare where you can voluntarily enroll or you can buy in, depending on the plan, is the quote unquote moderate position, because basically all of these Democratic candidates are now on record for a massive expansion of Medicare. I also think it's also unclear to me, is Seth Moulton criticizing single payers? Is he criticizing a national health service, right? Like, it's a bit unclear.

Okay, when we come back, we will talk to Jessica Yellen. Joining us today in studio, the founder of News Not Noise and the author of the new book, Savage News, our friend Jessica Yellen. Hi. Hello. Yellen, Jessica Yellen, someone that I drove entirely crazy for years and years as a flack when you were a fantastic dogged correspondent at CNN. And then you were still kind enough to do stuff with us when Crooked Media didn't even exist yet. The pre-Crooked Media phase.

Yes. You were helping, you were working with us on how to be better at talking about the news, figuring this stuff out. Original friend of the pod. Oh. From before there even was a pod. Yeah. Now you guys are crushing it.

It's awesome. You know, there's a lot to talk about. Yeah? That's true. Mostly's awesome. You know, there's a lot to talk about. Yeah? Mostly this book. Starting with your book, you used to be the chief White House correspondent for CNN. What made you channel the experiences you had in the news business into a fictional novel? Maybe you'd write like a tell-all. I know.

I know. It would have been more fun in some ways, I guess, for insiders. I guess one, I always wanted to write a novel. Yeah. And so when I left, I figured let's do it, which might have been an epic mistake for my life. It took three and a half years to write. But it's satisfying now that it's out. I also thought that I could get another audience engaged in the news with a novel in a way that I couldn't if I wrote nonfiction. If I wrote nonfiction, it would be for all of us and the insiders. And everyone would be looking for like, oh, this dishy story about that person. My goal was to really give people who are news viewers and outside the system a window in. And I think you do that better with

a story. What is the main point or a couple of the main points you wanted to make about the news business with the novel? So first, it's about a young woman reporter who's always wanted to cover the White House, and she gets the opportunity just as the First Lady disappears. And so she's chasing the scandal of the missing First Lady. And her management sets her up in a competition to get the White House gig. She has to compete against a former reality TV star turned journalist. And whoever gets the highest ratings wins. So it's a commentary a little bit about operating inside an industry that's so focused on ratings. And also what it's like to be a woman in this world.

And that's easy. So easy. It's a really easy thing. It's way in this world. And that's easy. So easy. It's a really easy thing. It's way better than being a dude. Yeah. It seems easy. You know, there's like weird things. So I started writing it in 2014.

I mean, you guys knew I was, you know, when you were first out here, I was starting the book. And then I was still writing the book. Finally, the book's out. But I started, there was Me Too. I call it light Me Too in the early version. And I gave it to early readers and they were all like, oh my God, take that out. Nobody wants to hear that. You can call it pre-too.

Pre-too. That's good. That's good. That's good branding. I think you should TM that. Okay. And then after Weinstein happened, all those people called me back and they're like, put it back in. Put it back in.

Oh, God, of course. So, you know, some of that. And it's like a lot about her. I never knew how important hair was to White House coverage, like how perfect your hair has to look and all the things women have to go through when you're on camera. And these are all drawn from, I assume, specific experiences at CNN. It's not only my experiences. It's not only CNN. There are stories that happened to me,

to my friends, or known in the industry in general. But people could read this book and say, oh, I bet this is based on someone. And then there are people who will read this book and say, I know exactly what this is about. This is about that person. I'm getting a lot of those messages.

I mean, this is the fun part. Are you trying to be coy? Are you trying to avoid telling us that this is a, what's the word? What was that primary? What's it called? What's a Romana clef? Romana clef. Is it a Romana clef?

Is there a version of that? A Romana light? I don't know. I don't speak French. You know what I'm trying to go? Yeah. So I am getting people messaging me going, I know exactly who this is. But people will say three different people.

Like, so I have this one mean woman boss. And they're like, oh, I know exactly who this is. But everybody's got a different mean woman boss. Or a really satisfying thing for me is, like, there's this story about how Natalie, the main character is Natalie Savage. She gets the scoop. And she runs to the assignment desk to say, I got this. Can we get it on air? And they're like, I don't see anyone else reporting it. So how do we know it's true? And you're like, no, no, no, no one else has it because it's a scoop. I got it first.

That's the deal with reporting. Except all the time you come up against this where they're like, no, we can't be first. How do we know? So I'm getting all this response from other reporters going, oh my God, that happens to you too. That happens to me all the time. What do you think? We've talked about this before. But what do you think is the core problem with the way that the media covers politics today? So I think the meta challenge is they work inside these corporations that are geared toward profit and shareholder value as the bottom line. And so they have to orient their editorial choices

to maximize ratings. And how do you, I mean, because people say this a lot, how does it actually filter down from CEOs, executives running these media companies down to reporters in terms of like, we're trying to make money and profit, and so you should cover the news this way? How, how does that actually work? The way it works is that the next step of that is there's this thesis on how news should be done. That everybody in the news business, or most of the companies I think have adopted, which is that it needs to be a bit like ESPN. Competition, jargon, outrage, who's up, who's down, who's winning, who's losing.

So everybody believes news succeeds when it's conflict-based. And so they're all trying to find the stories that do that the most and then tell you, how do we tell that story in the way that's most conflict-driven? So you never have a focus on consensus. You never have common ground. And it's a lot- Right? You never have substance.

Actual information. Yeah. I mean, you do, but you don't have enough. And I also don't think there's a lot. Substance. Right? You never have substance. Actual information. Yeah. I mean, you do, but you don't have enough. And I also don't think there's enough explaining. Like, what do we mean by that term? Redacted. How hard is it to say redacted, which means parts edited out? Do you know how many more people you gain just by saying that?

Yeah. Yeah. That's awful. And then the outrage piece. There's this notion that, like, emotion and screaming is going to trigger the most engagement. So, I mean, we're all sort of out of the D.C. news bubble. You've been out as well for a couple of years. So I think it's interesting now to observe it go on as a sort of perpetual motion machine doing the same things over and over again while the media landscape is drastically changing.

I mean, 100 million people are on Instagram, many more on Facebook, on Twitter. Do you think they're watching that happen and evolving at an appropriate rate? Or do you worry about your former colleagues and offices sort of working themselves out of the business? That's such a nice setup. Thank you, Tommy. Sure. I think that they're missing a huge audience. There's a huge audience that wants information. They just want it told with information and a little calm. Like I can't tell you how many times I'm in rooms of especially women but millennials or people who are under 35 going, stop screaming. Like I don't want the yelling.

I just want to know what's happening and I don't want to watch for 12 hours. Well, so that brings up a good question that I've always wondered. Why do you think there are these panels of 15 people on CNN? And look, there's a few who are, you know, trying their best offering analysis. But there does tend to be a bit of yelling because they'll have some Republican strategist who's a Trumper next to some Democratic strategist or a never Trumper strategist. And, you know, I've been on these sets once or twice, too. They actually sort of encourage you to speak up and argue with people. Right. So here's the big picture. Before Trump, all that stuff worked. They think it worked, right? It got your attention. When things were calm and there was like stability, yelling and all this was an emotional grab.

The problem is now everybody's living at a much higher level anxiety to begin with. So I think it's just triggering people and putting them over. And so they have this old model they were committed to forever. They think it's the thing that works. And so they keep doubling down on it. And they're getting viewers because people are interested in Trump. But I think there's another way to do it to get a bigger audience. There's also the point that panels are a lot cheaper than sending a crew out into the field. And, you know, you want to know how is health care actually functioning on the ground right now? Well,

that's an expensive story to go out and cover. If you have two people on a set yelling about it, it's a lot cheaper. How much of this is not strategy? How much of this is just inertia and not knowing a better way? Like, you know, okay, eight people yelling at each other about the news, a frenetic pace to the way we cover the news, covering Trump constantly, sensationalizing it, turning it into sport. All right, that's what we do now. How much of it is just not knowing an alternative way to cover the news in a way that they believe will attract people who will watch it? I think that's it. I think that they believe this is the way to make people watch the news.

And it's not like deeply well thought through. It's just what they've always done. And now they're doing it more. And it's making money because people are so fascinated with Trump. So I stop. The one thing I'll say is we're simultaneously seeing more remarkable reporting than we've seen for a long time. Yeah. Like my former colleagues who are on the beat every day are crushing it. Right. Like there's real journalism happening.

crushing it, right? Like there's real journalism happening. It's just a bummer that they're operating inside systems that aren't prioritizing that more instead of the yell fest. What makes me feel really bad for investigative journalists is to open up the New York Times, what am I saying? Open up, I read it online. To read the New York Times, the Washington Post, and see some deep dive that clearly has taken months for investigative reporters to report out. And the coverage it gets on CNN is the same amount as Trump's latest tweet. I'm like, this piece is so well done. It is so smart. It is so in-depth.

And it's just going to be a fucking blip on the radar. It's like a chef in Marie Antie antoinette's court like spent six months figuring out the perfect ratios to build this beautiful pie big meat pie comes out it's 300 pounds everybody looks at it and marie antoinette comes up and goes eats a little bit of crust and says not to my liking honestly i couldn't have thought of a more the other thing i just wonder about yelling is like the redundancy is just astounding the news is never on in my home when i get home but every once in a while we'll turn on the tv you don't happen to be on the same channel it was on three

months ago and it's one of these prime time shows on the various networks uh cable shows and it's it feels like the same stuff it's the same anchors talking to the same pundits or the same, you know, Rudy Giuliani about the same topics. And that always it seems discordant to me that there is nothing new about the news most of the time when you watch it. Does that is that a deliberate decision as well? I think that they do that because it's I mean, they think that they have families, right? Like you're part of the conversation in this family. And so you want to keep tuning in to see what the people have to say. But I also think it's just sort of it's what Lovett said. It's inertia to some extent.

It's just how it's done. I mean, the challenge is I also think it's making some people disengaged. While you have more people paying attention to the news because they're fascinated by Trump, the data shows that there's a huge audience that's tuning the news out. And it's not because they don't want to hear the challenging information. It's because they feel less informed after they watch it. They have more questions than answers and their anxiety is very high. And they want information. It's just not doing the trick.

And they want information. It's just not doing the trick. And the danger of that is people then actually disengage from like our politics, civic society, voting. So you've been trying to offer this audience something different. Tell us about News Not Noise, which is what you've been working on on Instagram. So I came out to L.A. when you guys were just starting up and I started pitching this idea, like, what if we do calm news? Or what if we do like, I call it news without a panic attack. And everyone's like, oh, no, that's not a thing. I was told that there will be no news in the future, or that news will only come from comedians. There will be no news. So I was thinking,

maybe I'm insane. Maybe I'm completely wrong. And also how would I do calm news? Maybe they're right. No one wants it told in a placid way. So I just did it on Instagram to challenge myself and see if I could do this. And so I started reporting stories on Instagram and it took off. And the idea is I tell you, here's the news landscape. This part is noise, meaning they're molehills. Everyone's turning them into mountains. You can pay attention to them if you want, but it's like the Us magazine of politics, right? You know, you don't need it. What's a recent example of that? What's a recent molehill? So there is a day Donald Trump went to the briefing room and he didn't take questions.

And for 12 hours, everybody was shouting that Donald Trump went to the briefing and didn't take questions. Therefore, it's not a briefing. It's an address. Or you can call it something. And you're like, who cares? No one cares. Obama did that all the time. Obama.

Yeah, he did that. We would go and make a statement and head out. Yeah, that's true. It's also like, I don't care if you call it a briefing or you call it a statement. Who cares? Like, let's get to news. The other one is the amount of time that was spent anticipating when Mueller would come out. A friend of mine called it a news crime.

Like, the amount of news that wasn't covered because that's all they talked about is, like, criminal. News crime. We have found you guilty of news crime. You must stay in the green room with David Gergen for two hours. You're sentenced to two hours of Gergen green room time. What's the response been to News Night Noise? So it's taken off. I have, you know, a really engaged audience.

I do it on my handle, which is at Jessica Yellen. And I do a story every day, which is a video. And I do an explainer. And the idea is to just break down the jargon so that you know what it means and tell you like one story that really matters in a way you're going to get and then be done. And I promise you, I'm not going to panic you. Like, even if it's a horrible thing, it's told in a way that's not designed to maximize your anxiety. And, and so the response is like I have, I mean, Amy Schumer announced her pregnancy on the Instagram feed.

So that kind of helped me out. Like it blew things up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can I issue a challenge? That is not a molehill. That is a serious story. She was like, this is noise, but it was noise.

Can I issue you a challenge? Please. Can you please tell us that a meteor is heading towards Earth, but do it in a way that is the appropriate amount of panic? We've gotten word that...

Okay, wait, no. How do I do that? Okay, guys, I want to bring you a story that's a little upsetting. Happening now! There's a meteor. Science tells us that there's a meteor.

Science tells us that there's a meteor heading toward Earth. John Leavitt informs us this is happening. Time of impact could be X and such, but we have to keep in mind that we've had warnings of this nature in the past, and it hasn't actually come to pass. Mole Hill. President Trump is really upset the speed is reported in kilometers and not miles per hour. He thinks that's super Euro. He's tweeting. Move past it. At an outrageous level. The idea is to kind of

inject sort of the full lens, like the complexity. You know what I mean? That news happens in the gray zone. And we cover it in black and white. And how can I bring more gray to it and still keep it interesting? 2020, do you think the media is doing better job than in 2016 a worse job or just more the same shit so I think that um the reporting is amazing like the actual people getting information or do the practice of journalism is happening. The frame is really anxiety inducing,

like the outrage is a problem, like all the emotion. Also, the fact that the candidates, the Democrats keep coming on air and they're asked about Donald Trump. Yeah, that's going to be the thing people should watch for. The candidates need to come on air and be asked about their policies, where they stand, you know, challenges within the primary. But every time somebody is on and all they're asked is to react to Trump's tweets, it's the story is Trump again. And I think there's a chance that the media reelects him because he's just so good for the bottom line. You lose sight of the fact that the one thing we know for certain

is that if any of these Democrats become president, Donald Trump won't be an issue. Right. Yeah. Jessica, the opinion of news or trust in news took a big hit in 16, I think it's bounced back considerably. But a friend of mine who you actually know asked me over the weekend, like, what is the point of an editorial page in a paper?

And it made me think that we have in our minds that there is this firewall between opinion and news on newspapers and on cable TV, right? Where we know that once you hit 6 p.m., it's crazy opinion time on both sides and let's freak out and scream. Do you think that that's a construct that's ultimately problematic and leads to this belief that maybe news is inherently biased or fake news is real? It was Peter Hamby. You wouldn't be surprised. I love this conversation. I actually think that, listen, Or fake news is real? It was Peter Hamby. You wouldn't be surprised. Shout out, Peter. Rock on, Peter. I love this conversation.

I actually think that, listen, you guys do opinion, but you do news too. And so there is a place for opinion and news. It's just about being transparent about it. You get into this philosophical conversation, which is, is there any such thing as objectivity anyway? If you think about Joseph Pulitzer, who is the standard bearer for like the highest achievement in journalism now, was an opinion, he ran an opinion newspaper. So opinion has been part of our news landscape forever. The goal, though,

is to be upfront about it and say, this is my come from, but you know, I'm giving you the facts as they are. Like people read my Insta and they're like, oh, it's neutral. I'm like, it's not neutral. I have a point of view. Like I'll tell you this is a molehill. That's a point of view. But I'm giving you fact-based information you can use to make your own decision too. So my call would be for people to be a little bit more.

Transparent. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I always wonder about is you see a lot of reporters who when their stories appear in the New York Times in the Washington Post on CNN they are objective non-partisan when they're on Twitter yeah they're much more likely to offer their opinion not like liberal versus conservative not in an ideological plane but they're snarkier right they'll make fun of stuff yeah and I just wonder if that that seems to be the worst of both worlds

because you're like you're like when I'm in the New York Times I'm gonna have to be it's all straight news but when I'm on Twitter I'm gonna just make fun of shit that's actually really smart

one of the reasons I think social media is working for news or can as the future is because you can be your real self while giving the news and I think the more

so the pressure on all those reporters is to stop tweeting with those opinions. Like on the one hand, you have to tweet to have a brand and build your following. On the other hand, you have to not show yourself too much. Like I felt this pressure all the time when I was on air. I have to like triple censor what I might say for anybody to take it the wrong way on Twitter. What if people actually leaned into it more and were allowed to just be yourself a bit and also tell the information? I think it's very hard when you work for these traditional organizations, but I think that's why you guys are doing well. I think that's why new voices in this space do well, because people feel the authenticity of your point of view, but also the information.

I do think it's weird when you're like one persona on the page and another persona on Twitter. Yeah, I just like it to be consistent. Either also be yourself in the news outlet when you're doing that or – Be straight-laced. Be straight-laced on Twitter. Just pick one though. Yeah.

I don't think it's like how are they going to do it. You can't be real in these organizations. There's like a format for how – I mean that's part of the book actually. Like she's – the girl when she's because she's color woman becomes the news reporter, literally, like has to go to the same salon that every woman goes to to have her hair like a chemical straightener put on it so that everybody looks the same. Everyone in the news looks the same. It's like you go through a conveyor belt. And it's like a factory that produces the news look. And I do think there's like a stripping out of your voice and your tone with that, too, which we can debate whether that's going to be the news of the future or not.

Yeah. Why is the tone stripped out? It's so weird. Literally, the accents are gone. I mean, you could listen to any regional newscaster and they could be from Boston or California and you aren't supposed to know. I think it's because we have this false notion of objectivity and like, there's like this news authority that no, no, no.

I think it's, I think it's a really hard question. I think it's, it's like, what does it mean to be objective and is it adding something or is it taking something away? And I think so often I think the, the goal of being objective can be quite good,

but then occasionally what it means is a kind of forced false obtuseness, like a kind of imitation, an imitation of someone who is serious. But the way you'd be serious is by pretending you don't see things for what they are. That is really well put. Right. When some brilliant New York Times reporter has to call a political science professor to get them to say that Trump blatantly breaking the law is a political problem. Right. Like one can't assert that one needs an expert to state it. Can we skip that step? Right. Like, one can't assert that. One needs an expert to state it. Can we skip that step? Right.

That'd be cool. No, that is that, like, it's not me saying it. I'm quoting the people saying it. It's just, it's kind of the posture of how you have to be. I do think it's extra challenging right now because we should acknowledge in this conversation we have a White House that's trying to delegitimize the press and has played this rope-a-dope game where he wants an opponent and he's doing this WWE with the media. And they're in an especially challenging position because you can't ignore it. But also, if you

take the bait, you're playing his game. So do you see any hope for major media organizations to change from within? Or do you think that all of the change has to come from new organizations from outside the traditional news business? I mean, what do you guys think? I haven't been in one of those big organizations, so I don't know how much people can push against it. Or are they just sort of a lagging indicator and they have to wait to be disrupted? I think they have to wait to be disrupted. I mean you do see sort of CBS this morning. They have a calm, substantive approach.

They do. Yeah, they do a good job. Right? There are spots. And so there's awareness that there's another way. I just think they're making so much money doing it the current way that there's going to be no motivation to experiment. But that just means there's opportunity for other people. within them. I mean, the 1972, the book, Boys on the Bus was literally true. It was all young men covering presidential campaigns. I think there were some incredible, I mean, there's obviously amazing journalists anchoring shows. Margaret Brennan is doing, what the hell is it called?

Face the Nation. You know, there's amazing women out there, but like, has it gone far enough yet? No, I think sexism was a problem 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 and today. Listen, I've tried not to call out any news organizations in particular, but last night CNN had five hours of moderated town halls. There were three presidential candidates in those town halls who were female. They had not one female moderator in five hours of television. You don't have a one woman on that stage. It's striking to me. It's like, do they not see it? Do they not care?

Which is also crazy because I've seen Poppy Harlow do one of the CNN town halls with presidential candidates. And she's one of the best moderators there. Poppy's great. Dana's great. Yeah, Dana Batts. She's done one too. She's fantastic. I mean, there's a long list of exceptional reporting talent that's female.

It's not just a quota thing. I've been steeped in the social science. The social science shows, first of all, women are the majority of news viewers. You get a larger female audience when you have women shaping questions too and women at the front. It's not because I relate to the woman. It's because women tend to come at politics with less of the rhetorical back and forth and more of the how does it impact me as a human? What is that kitchen table payoff on this? And that's what women viewers prefer. So you actually engage more women in politics when you

have women making these decisions or participating. And so they're losing a whole audience by not doing that. It just confounds me. And on the other end of this, how do you see sexism shaping the way the media covers the Democratic presidential candidates right now? Because there's been this sort of long running debate since the beginning of the primary, you know, every other day. And we were just talking about this. Elizabeth Warren releases a new, very substantive policy. And yet the men in the field are getting, you know, far more coverage. I mean, to me, it's sort of two bad habits of the news media sort of converging in one, and it's hard to separate them both. One is sexism that's been there for a long time. The

other is the reluctance to cover substance over style. I think, I mean, the Elizabeth Warren challenge is, it's unique. I don't know what the resistance is, if it's purely sexism or if it's also like anti-elitism because she sounds Harvard-y. I don't know. She clearly has the most thought-out substantive policy positions of anyone and she's doing well on the ground. So what up? The other thing is – so it's super you know, it's super interesting. Like they know now not to use certain words. You can't call women shrill, right? Candidate shrill. You

can't say they're unlikable. Can't talk about their clothes. But like, so they're finding new ways to not like them. You know, and I wonder the Klobuchar story on abusing her staff. Does that have a gendered valence? Like, was LBJ awesome to his staff? Was Bill Clinton? I don't know. You know, yes and no. Right.

So I do think that I think that they're mindful of doing it better. Yeah. And yet can't help themselves. So to me, it seems like a lot of that conversation around sexism is the things that the bad things ascribed to women that are not ascribed to men. Do you see the opposite of that as well, that there are good qualities, that it's easier for a man to seem interesting to the media? Is it easier for someone to seem like a leader? Yeah. Well, I think that there's a natural inclination to see a man as an authority figure. Like, I mean, you keep hearing this conversation right now, which is Democrats must defeat Donald Trump. Therefore, they can't take a risk on a woman or a person of color.

It must be the traditional thing, which is a white guy, which is a legitimate debate on one hand, but it also reveals our biases. I think that, again, it goes back to this thing about how women approach politics differently, which is like less about the rhetoric and more or the combat or the polls like that fixation. Can I curse like that fixation on polls like women voters? I think shit about polls. Stop telling me this one's doing two points better. I don't care. I want to know this person saying this on health care.

Will that be pre-existing condition coverage or not? Right. Like tell me Medicare for all, right? Yeah. And I think that's the difference. It's like when the women candidates come at it from the substantive point of view, the media is like, okay, okay, okay. But like, what's your attack line? Yes. And so we're like oriented in a different, I know I sound super gender essentialist, but I do think it's, do I sound super gender? Not at all. I so we're like oriented in a different, I know I sound super gender essentialist, but I do think it's, do I sound super gender essentialist? Not at all. I think you're hitting on a huge problem, which is the conversation about issues and substance is very specific and we all understand what we're talking about. The

conversation around electability is all coded and we're not really saying what voters think, which is male, a white male looks like a president to them, so therefore they somehow think they're more electable. I think so much of these poll respondents and the questions that are being debated on cable news are about race and gender, and we don't say it specifically. And I think it has a worse conversation. It's also coded on ideology as well. It's race, gender, and electable is a moderate. Totally. Sure. Well, that's for sure. I mean, in the media, it's immediately like, are you concerned about this left fringe of your party or totally sure well that's for sure i mean in the media it's immediately like are you concerned about this left fringe of your party i mean that's their orientation

because it's all centrism centrism um i don't know how you have that other conversation that you're talking about tommy with like talking openly about gender and race because they're so nervous about it but i also think so we I go back to after 2008, people would talk about there's less faith in government than ever before, right? There was a poll on that. And the media started telling the public that so frequently, I think it made it true. Like you have less faith in government than ever before. You don't believe in government. And then suddenly the numbers are rising. So I wonder if constantly repeating that only a white guy is electable makes that more true. I was going to say that because I do think if you if you take polls and you ask people in the in the electorate, right, you will find that some of this coded language we use on electability is the perception that a lot of voters have.

They will say, I want someone who's electable because and they'll just naturally gravitate to white male centrist. But the media not only – it reinforces it. It propagates it. And so like at some point, you know, it's a vicious cycle. But the people who have the power to change it are the ones reporting the news. Right. Because the media will say, well, that's what people actually believe. It's like, well, why do they believe it?

Because their information source tells them that all the time. 100%. If you ask the question in a certain way, you find the soundbite that says that, you seek it out, and then you find it. Well, we're going to fix everything. Yay! That's so good. And you certainly are.

The book is Savage News by Jessica Yellen, and also check her out on Instagram, at Jessica Yellen, and it is news, not noise. It's fantastic, so go check it out. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for coming on. It's great to be with you. Thanks, Jess. See you soon.

Thanks, Jessica Yellen, for joining us. And we'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye. Thank you.