Pod Save America - “Impeachment: we’re in it.”

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Trump says he’s open to background check legislation, House Democrats announce they’re in the middle of an impeachment inquiry, Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is investigated, and the media focuses on Joe Biden’s latest gaffes. Then Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell talks to Jon L. about impeachment, immigration, and more. 

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. From Iowa, Tommy Vitor. Hey, guys. Loving the Instagram stories, Tommy. Thank you. I'm trying out a new medium, at Tommy Vitor. All right.

You know, little vignettes from the state fair, a little slice of Americana that you just can't get in L.A. with you elites. There you go. There you go. Great. All right. Later in the pod, we have Lovett's interview with Florida Congresswoman Debbie Mugersel-Powell, who dropped by Cricket headquarters on Friday to talk about impeachment, immigration and lots of other things. But first, we have a lot of news to talk about, from the possibility that Congress may finally pass gun safety legislation to the formal impeachment inquiry launched by the House to the mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein. We'll also get an update from the 2020 campaign trail

and on what's been happening in Iowa, where Tommy is right now. Love It, how was Love It or Leave It this weekend? We had a blockbuster episode of Love It or Leave It with Larry Wilmore, Paul Scheer, Alice Wetterlin, Veronica Osorio. She stopped by to do a rant. We talked about the hard news of the week. We had some fun. It is a truly great episode.

Also, Paul Scheer worked at the Syosset Blockbuster that I also went to when I was a teen. Wow, burying the lead there. That's why I called it a Blockbuster episode. Oh. You see? See what you did there. Finally, our show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles is this Saturday, August 17th. It's finally almost here.

Some tickets are still available at crooked.com slash the Greek. And if you need any extra motivation, it's going to be Lovett's birthday. Finally. Lovett's birthday. The celebration I deserve. This is why we did it. The Greek Theater. Happy 40th birthday, Lovett.

Yeah. Listen. Big 4-0. People can see this on the stream. They know that that's not possible. 42. Okay. Let see this on the stream. They know that that's not plausible. 42. Okay, let's get to the news. Over the last few days, Donald Trump has said multiple times that he's in favor of, quote,

meaningful background checks to reduce gun violence. And he also said that Mitch McConnell was, quote, on board. The New York Times reports that the president also told donors in the Hamptons over the weekend that he's confident he'll get a deal on guns and that, quote, the Senate doesn't need to return early because the congressional leadership in both parties would agree on something that members could vote on when they return in the fall. So, Tommy, we have no idea what will happen here, but we do know a few things. McConnell hasn't endorsed anything yet. Trump is a liar. And Trump said something similar to this after Parkland and then sort of backed off once the NRA got involved.

All that said, what are the political dynamics that could potentially make this time different? I do think that the NRA is severely weakened because it was essentially an organization that stopped caring about gun rights and gun safety and was primarily focused on getting Wayne LaPierre to and from his new mansions on a private jet. So those guys have atrophied. There have been some amazing groups that have popped up on the left, like Moms Demand Action. Mayor Bloomberg deserves a ton of credit for everything he's funded with Everytown that have built a grassroots movement for change in favor of gun control measures. Now, I don't believe for a second that Republicans will support the policies we're talking about because Mitch McConnell or Trump or the NRA had a change of heart. I think they're only going to decide to support gun

control measures if they think that there's a political benefit for them or if they're scared of losing elections. What I fear might happen is McConnell supporting some sort of half measure that sounds meaningful, but actually is insufficient. Democrats block it to push for a bigger reform. And this allows the press to return to a both sides are playing politics narrative. The reason I'm worried about this is because you see people like John Cornyn and John Barrasso, who you've probably never thought about in your life, but is actually the number three in charge in the Senate, already throwing cold water on reform. So hope springs eternal. We should all fight like hell

to get good gun safety laws passed. But, you know, Trump owes the NRA about $30 million for all the ads they ran for him in this last cycle. And they're going to remind him of that every single day. Yeah. I mean, love it. McConnell said that background checks and red flag measures will be front and center when the Senate reconvenes. There's a piece in The Atlantic saying how, you know, it was significant that he acknowledged the overwhelming support in public polling for stronger background checks. What do you think McConnell's up to here since it's always more than meets the eye? Yeah, it's it's hard to say. So it's worth stepping back and realizing the last time we were this close to passing something was 2013 when background checks failed due to a filibuster in the Senate due to Republican intransigence led by Mitch McConnell. Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. It wasn't until Democrats retook the House in 2018 that there were, again, hearings on this issue in the House for the first time in years.

The issue has changed in that span of time. It has been six years. In those six years, there has been no let up in gun violence. There's been no let up in mass shootings. And slowly but surely, the hump of this issue for fear of introducing a measure that divides his caucus and unites the Democrats. We just honestly don't know. One other thing I would note about this is Trump has been very, very wishy-washy on this issue. He has a gut political sense that being for gun control is good for him. He wants to be for it. It is why again and again, not just after this shooting, but also after Parkland, as John points out, but several times in the intervening years, he has said, I don't see why we can't do some form of gun control,

only to discover in a private phone call or meeting behind the scenes why he can't because of the political opposition arrayed against Republicans who might be for this issue. So I really think we don't know, but these are more hopeful signs than we have seen in years. Yeah, I think if these were smart people, if Donald, if it was a smart White House, you would want to pursue some kind of gun safety legislation because, you know, one thing in the back of some of the smarter Republican strategist minds is that they are hemorrhaging voters, Republican voters in the suburbs. That was the story of the 2018 election, where because of these mass shootings, and not just one of them, but because they happen over

and over and over again, there's a lot of people there who are, you know, the politics of gun control have shifted. And there's a lot of more moderate, more traditionally Republican independent voters who do want to see gun safety legislation passed. I mean, Tommy, remember when we were knocking on doors with Joe Biden in Orange County, the heavily Republican Orange County, like how many people when we knocked on the doors were actually talking about Parkland and gun safety is one of the reasons that they were really excited to come out and vote. Yeah, there were nearly 40,000 gun deaths in the United States in 2017. 60% of those were suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But yeah, I mean, it's not just that there is an epidemic of gun violence in this country. It's there been these constant high profile mass shootings that have driven it to the forefront of the political conversation and in the news. And like, you know, back to what you guys were saying about Trump, I mean, it would be incredibly smart for him

to make a deal and put forward a, you know, common sense gun safety proposal that would actually, if you pulled it, would probably be supported by 60 or 70% of the country. The problem has been that when he's presented a choice between being a dealmaker, which he says he wants to be, and his base, he always chooses his base. And then on top of that, the NRA has a no retreat, no surrender approach to all gun control policy. They treat every gun control proposal like it's a slippery slope argument that could one day lead to eradicating the Second Amendment. So even when we were talking about just banning bump stocks, which turned a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun, that took 19 months for that ban to go in place. So, you know, he's got to want to fight for this. And sadly, like his own staff was

backgrounding the Washington Post saying that, you know, he kind of lost interest in the issue after a few weeks. I was just going to say, I think like there's a couple of big obstacles here to getting this done. You know, the NRA is still an obstacle. They've already come out and said that they don't want background checks. They don't want anything. And that, you know, Trump supporters would be disappointed if he supported this. So that's that's an obstacle. As you mentioned, there's a lot of Republicans in the Senate who are have not been moved by this by the recent mass shootings at all and are still maintaining their same position, which is no gun control whatsoever, no background checks, no nothing. But I do think the other big obstacle here is time. And as you were saying, Tommy, like he lost, Trump lost

interest after Parkland because the news cycle moved on. And I think what McConnell could be betting is that by not calling the Congress back right now and waiting till the fall, Trump will have lost interest and maybe the country will have lost interest and they can move on. So I think for Democrats, 100 percent for Democrats, the question is, what can we do to make sure that this time isn't like all the other times? there's supporting organizations like Everytown on Moms Demand Action and continuing to build the grassroots momentum behind this and to continue to pressure vulnerable Republican senators and potentially more moderate Republican senators. Again, the ones that are up in 2020, like Cory Gardner is probably the most vulnerable Republican senator. He's in a state that has very strict gun laws in Colorado. Susan Collins, people like that. Tom Tillis in North Carolina.

Right. Like I think we have it's up to us to keep the pressure on Trump and the Republicans through the next few weeks into September so that we're not sitting here in mid-September when McConnell and McConnell says, you know what? We had a couple hours debate on on on gun measures, and the votes just weren't there, so we're moving on. And because there's a whole other set of fucking crazy Trump tweets, we turn away, and that's that. Yeah, it's also, I mean, there will be more mass shootings. This topic's not going anywhere. The news cycle will return to this, because there will be more mass shootings across the country

on a pretty regular basis until we make a bunch of very significant changes to our laws and our culture. So they can try to run from this issue. I mean, it's worth also remembering, too, that what we're talking about, background checks and red flag laws, right, that's basically as far as Trump and McConnell have been willing to go, is the bare minimum of what we can do. Even banning assault weapons now has a above 50% approval among Republicans. The country has moved so fast on this issue because of the steady tempo of these mass shootings that have made people feel as though there is nothing they can do to protect their kids, that there's no safe place, there's no safe part of the country, there's

nowhere to move, there's nowhere to hide. There's nothing that they can do personally to avoid the random chance of violence that has really terrified people. So whether or not the news cycle moves on really isn't up to them because we have this crisis and it's not going anywhere. Tommy, do you think that Democrats should be pushing for more than red flag laws and background checks and potentially come back and try to pass an assault weapons ban in the House so then the compromise position laws and background checks and potentially come back and try to pass an assault weapons ban in the House. So then the compromise position can be background checks and red flag laws. Yes, I absolutely do. I think they should push for as much as they can get, in part because it's the right thing to do, but also because, as Lovett said, there's a whole lot of public polling that shows that the public supports those positions. The challenge has always been for Democrats that when you get to election time

and the NRA messages, you know, sort of common sense gun control measures as take your guns away, gun grab, like whatever it is they say, it gets harder to win the fight. And they're able to pick off a whole bunch of, you know, sort of moderate gun rights supporters in the middle who might actually support the positions if they weren't lied to about what they're voting on. But yes, I think we should fight for this. The problem is, you know, we're talking about two or three things today. One is impeachment. One is gun control.

In a strange way, they're related because Democrats are still terrified and scarred by votes on those issues from the 90s. And we need to move on from political failures of the past and have some courage and fight for things that could prevent the death of tens of thousands of people in a year in the country. Yeah. And look, I think that the Democrats in Congress should, you know, find some courage from what the Democratic presidential candidates have been doing. You know, they were at a forum in Des Moines this weekend. Elizabeth Warren released a plan that she said would reduce gun violence by 80 percent that includes background checks and assault weapons ban and national licensing. Beto came out for national licensing and an

assault weapons buyback program on Positive America last week. Cory Booker has been, you know, he was the first one for a national licensing program from the beginning. It does seem like the Democratic presidential candidates taking those political positions should instill some courage in the House and Senate Democrats on this issue, you know? Yeah. It's also worth remembering that the House has already passed background checks and it's currently dead in the Senate. Which is also, yeah, which is notable. I mean, the House bill on background checks is the most sweeping legislation passed on guns by the House of Representatives since 1994, since the last assault weapons ban. So it's a stronger background check bill than even Manchin-Toomey.

You know, I wasn't at that forum on Saturday. I got here a day later. But I mean, you know, I watched some of the coverage. I mean, it's interesting that Senator Warren put forward this sweeping plan that she says could reduce gun deaths by 80 percent. And that's incredibly important and admirable. And we should talk about it. But it's also interesting seeing Andrew Yang get up there and just respond to a woman telling him a story about a stray bullet killing her four-year-old kid as a human being, right? I mean, he's the most recent politician on that stage. He's not even a politician. He's just running for president. And he was like, broke down and was crying. So yeah, I mean, these candidates are taking courageous positions.

They're they're, you know, pushing with with all their political will to try to get something done. And also, interestingly, in 2016, Bernie took some heat for his record on guns. I haven't seen much criticism of him this time around. It seems like everybody's more aligned this year than in the past. Yeah. And I think I think that's a credit to the activists. Right. The reason the presidential candidates, I think, are more responsive is that the act, you know, they're they're more in contact with activists on the ground, whether it's in Iowa, New Hampshire, the early states or all over the country who are really pushing them. You see moms demand action show up at almost every event in the primary. And they're they're making sure that this is an issue

people vote on because, you know, one problem with gun safety has always been the folks that are anti-gun control, the NRA folks, they make this an issue that people vote on. And even though polling shows the majority of people want background checks and assault weapons ban and all the other stuff, the intensity around the issue hasn't been as great as it has been on the other side. It doesn't it's the intensity around the issue hasn't been as great as it has been on the other side. And I think what shifted over the last couple of years is the intensity on the left has started matching the intensity on the right. And in many cases, surpassing it. All right. Let's talk about the other big development in Congress. Late last week, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler slipped this little nugget of news into a CNN interview about his investigation of the president. Quote, this is formal impeachment proceedings. We are investigating all the evidence. We gather the evidence and we will, at the conclusion of this, hopefully by the end of the year, vote articles of impeachment to the floor or we won't. The committee also put in writing in a lawsuit last week that they are, quote, now determining whether to recommend articles of

impeachment against the president based on the obstructive conduct described by the special counsel. About 120 House Democrats have already come out publicly in favor of launching an impeachment inquiry, a number that's been growing steadily since Mueller testified last month. Tommy, did we miss the impeachment eagle take flight? What's going on here? No, look, this was the rollout that we've all always hoped for we've all always wanted you gotta you gotta get it in in the b block uh on aaron burnett uh is out front or whatever the hell the name of the show is that is when you want to want to slip this thing in there like mid-august a thursday night that's when you announce an impeachment

proceeding i mean love it what what does this mean? And how is it? How is it different than what we've been in up until now? Would impeachment by any other name smell as sweet? You know, look, I do believe the worst way we could end up in an impeachment inquiry is via logic, you know, as via the logical conclusion of what we've already done. I understand why he's saying it. You know, the truth is what he's saying is, look, when I made the request for the grand jury testimony, I had to say that basically what we are doing is impeachment. So we're doing impeachment when we're looking at crimes that may lead to an impeachment inquiry. That is an impeachment inquiry. He's basically he's basically using the term impeachment proceedings to describe what he's already been up

to. I mean, I think definitionally what he's saying is nothing has changed. I'm just I'm just following what you're asking me to its logical end. That said, I do think it's a big deal that they're acknowledging it and actually talking specifically about the path to ultimately impeachment possibly being on the floor. I think it's also it's a strategy to paper over the differences that remain in the caucus. Right. Jerry Nadler, you've been able we've all been able to tell for quite a while now is in favor of impeachment. And he has been holding back partly because of Pelosi and Pelosi has been holding back partly because of there's a lot of House Democrats who don't want to do this in a lot of swing districts. The thing everyone should know is Pelosi specifically blessed this language.

It was not an accident that Jerry Nadler said, yeah, we're in formal impeachment hearings now. And then people have been parroting that. Maybe they did not expect to actually just do it on a Friday afternoon at CNN. But Pelosi has blessed the language. Nadler has said it. And I think here's the strategy. A formal impeachment inquiry through the House Judiciary Committee does not require a full vote in the House. And so members who are nervous of getting on board right now did not have to take a vote. At the same time, they can show people that they're taking this seriously and they're actually moving forward and they're not dragging their feet on impeachment. So they're trying to basically have it both ways and continue to avoid the fight within the party where there's a whole bunch of House Democrats who are still sort of shaky about this. Yeah, it's interesting, right? So what is the purpose

of that? And I suppose what it gives you the space to do is provide more information, more supporting facts and arguments, so that if we ultimately do have a vote on the House floor, it's one big vote that everyone is sort of behind, while not hamstringing their ability to kind of get to that place, because they would require the votes of all these vulnerable members who aren't there yet. Right. Pelosi is sincerely worried and has told reporters this her team has on background that impeachment could tear the party apart. It could lead to our political ruin and would just be terrible. So it does seem like Nadler has done a lot of work to get her to where we are.

My concern is that having it both ways could lead to us not really understanding what impeachment means in 2019. I saw a quote from Hillary Clinton who said, you know, her advice on impeachment was restrain yourself from grandstanding and holding news conferences and playing to your base. I just think that's the worst advice imaginable. Our whole goal here is to win a public argument about the president of the United States and his unfitness for office. We are not going to actually win an impeachment vote in the Senate unless something changes massively. This is a PR campaign. So you got to be holding news conferences. You have to be fighting this out on cable TV and in the news and every single day

going up against a series of Trump tweets that will call it rigged and a witch hunt and getting his cult to follow him and parrot that language. So, you know, I just hope that if we go through with this, the worst of both worlds is like a sort of half-hearted attempt that either fizzles or doesn't, you know, educate voters on his crimes. Right. If you're afraid to actually afraid to if you're afraid to actually full throatedly say we're doing impeachment, you've defeated yourself before you've even began. Right. It can't be a long twilight impeachment. Yeah. No, I mean, you're Tommy. You're exactly right. Like the reason to do this is to grab the microphone away from Donald Trump and to make the public case against him. That is the reason to do impeachment, because as we know, the Senate's not going to convict him. And, you know, as you've

said many times, like this is not about just feeling good that we've done the morally right thing here. I mean, from a political strategy standpoint, the idea is to parade a bunch of witnesses in front of live television and talk about all of Donald Trump's crimes. Now, there is some evidence that that is what Jerry Nadler has in mind. For one, he's not just sticking to the Mueller report. He's going to go broad. He's going to talk about emoluments. He's going to talk about a whole bunch of other abuses of power. They're going to go to court to make sure that Don McGahn testifies, the president's former counsel. They believe that Don McGahn is their star witness. He was Mueller's star witness. We heard

from people, you know, close to Mueller, even before Mueller testified, you know, Mueller's going to disappoint you people because he's not going to go beyond the report. He's not the one you want. The one you want is Don McGahn, since Don McGahn was there and the star witness for a lot of the actual obstruction. So it does seem like, you know, Nadler knows what he's doing here. But the only way this works is if Democrats stop whining about impeachment and worrying about impeachment, the Democrats who may be opposed to it, and the party as a whole makes the case for impeachment, you got to start talking about less about the process of impeachment and more about why he deserves it. Yeah, it just it can't it can't just be that, you know, I'm gonna use a sports metaphor.

But in my mind, I'm picturing, like, Jerry Nadler with a football kind of, like, making his way down the field, right? Like, he needs to... Okay, I see it. He can't, like, he can't be having to avoid Democratic football players and Republican football players.

I don't know. You know what I mean? He needs blockers on his team. We need a team. You need the flying V. We need a flying V. That's exactly right, Tommy. Got it. Okay, so what can people do to hold Democrats?

To get it to the end zone. What can people do to hold Democrats' feet to the fire here? Because for a while we've had this sort of impeachment count, who's for it, who's against. But if I'm a member who's either against impeachment or not quite there yet, and someone asks me, you know, what's your position? Now I say, well, there's a formal impeachment inquiry being launched by the House Judiciary Committee, so I'm just going to wait. I guess the danger is all these Democrats can just sort of wait this out and hope that we get to the election and nothing happens. So what can people do to sort of hold people's feet to the fire here? I would bet you a lot of money that nearly every house, nearly every front

desk person in Congress is sending a report up to the chief of staff every night about the number of phone calls that come in in favor of impeachment or not in favor of impeachment. So now would be a good time to dust off that phone and start making some calls. That's right. That's right. All right. Let's move on to the news over the weekend that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell from what officials are saying is an apparent suicide by hanging himself. Epstein was found dead as he was awaiting trial for running a child sex trafficking ring. And shortly after, thousands of documents from civil suit against him were released on Friday. Almost immediately, a number of questions and online conspiracies were spread about the circumstances of Epstein's death by people like the president of the United States, who shared a conspiracy that his predecessor, Bill Clinton, had Epstein murdered. Guys, first of all, what do we know about how this

happened or how this could have happened? Let's start with the facts and then we can move on to the awful people pushing the conspiracy. Yeah, I mean, here's what we know. We know that this is a person who should not have been in a position to commit suicide, that this is a person who should have been watched and monitored because the case was so important and because there was already so much speculation and concern around it. And had been on suicide watch at one point. Now, after that, look, it wasn't just, by the way, it wasn't just Trump. The internet exploded. It was like every person was Hercule Poirot.

Poirot? Who's that? Agatha Christie's famed detective. Oh, okay. Continue. Didn't get into the Agatha Christie novels. But it really was just, when I saw the news come over the transom, this happened, it was really, it was like, it was seeing a future of 48 hours of every single person being a conspiracy theorist. And that's exactly what happened. Trump is the nation's leading conspiracy theorist, but very serious people joined in the fun too. Tommy, what did you think? Yeah, I mean, everyone who works at that facility should be fired. And I know that

treating criminals with basic decency isn't the most politically popular position, but I do think we should ask ourselves how it is possible that the U.S. government manages institutions where American citizens are routinely beaten, raped, killed, tortured. I mean, it is such a profound failure, an utter indictment of the prison system, our criminal justice system, that I hope that will lead us to do some soul searching. Because there's a whole bunch of victims who are hoping for justice, who wanted to see him tried and sent to jail. There may be other people who are part of this criminal conspiracy that Epstein set up who, you know, we would have needed his testimony to, you know, definitively try and put behind bars. I mean, I just I cannot believe it happened.

And you know what? Like, obviously, I'm not trafficking conspiracy theories. I'm not retweeting this madness. But I can totally understand why people hear about someone like Jeffrey Epstein being left alone with no one in his room, no roommate, no guard checks on him. He's able to kill himself. And it sounds fishy and weird and awful. And it is absolutely infuriating. Yeah, and part of the reason that we have all these conspiracies is Jeffrey Epstein was a guy who was connected to a lot of very rich and powerful people who, from the reporting and the evidence we know so far, seem to get away with really horrible crimes, partly because of his position of power and wealth. And I think that's what fuels a lot of these conspiracies but

yeah you're right i mean attorney general uh bill barr this morning said there were serious irregularities in the prison where epstein was that he's in looking into so there's going to be an fbi investigation there's going to be an inspector general investigation on behalf of the department of justice but it's like bill barr being appalled that this could have happened. Like it goes. Bill Barr's the one in charge of the prisons. You manage the Bureau of Prisons, buddy. Right.

That's his fix it. That's his failure. And how were they like he tried to kill himself previously. How are you not watching this guy 24 hours a day? It is outrageous. And it does seem like a quite a coincidence that we just learned a whole bunch of information about Donald Trump and a whole bunch of other important people being on the plane with him. Again, like I'm not suggesting anyone killed him or this is set up, but like it's unconscionable that they would allow this

to happen. And thus this will fester for the rest of time. So the question is what can still be done right now to make sure that the victims see justice and also that the rest of us know exactly who helped Jeffrey Epstein, the extent of his crimes, all the rest. Yeah. So I will say one other facet of this that was frustrating when the, you know, the when the sleuths put on their their their detective hats is there was this sense that like, oh, they that that clearly Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and he was murdered so that he could take his secrets with him. And, you know, there is a there there is much that Jeffrey Epstein may have known that we'll never know. But his crimes had victims. Those victims can speak. His crimes had accomplices and other perpetrators and other people involved. So there will be further investigations. There are ongoing civil cases. There are others who may be prosecuted in connection to what happened with Jeffrey Epstein.

So the hope to me has to be that despite the fact that this injustice was allowed to occur, that we are able to get a fulsome understanding of the scale of his organization and that prosecutors and attorneys that are part of these suits against Jeffrey Epstein's estate now are able to get enough information out so that for those who are suspicious, for those who want to see this as a conspiracy, that enough is done to undo the harm of allowing Jeffrey Epstein to be in a position to die in federal custody. Yeah, so there's two important points here. One is the U.S. attorney in charge alluded to or said specifically that there's a conspiracy charge involved in the Epstein case. Conspiracy means there was multiple people involved in the crime, and so hopefully there's co-conspirators and they can shed light on this as well. And there's also the ability for the victims to sue jeffrey epstein's estate and that's a more that's a civil case but that would also bring to light a lot of the information

that might be sealed right now so there's there's sort of a couple different avenues where people can still find out the truth and hopefully get some kind of justice here uh one more thing before we move off off this like how does fucking Donald Trump, president of the United States, get away with, like, we've all moved on from the fact that he just casually retweets a conspiracy that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton may have had something to do with Epstein's death. I mean, it's worth remembering. Any other president, could you imagine? But that's the thing. Can you fucking imagine any other president? That's what you go to, though. You go to, if any other president did that, wow, it would be serious. It is because we don't have a president no one takes his words seriously because he's a liar and because he's

a conspiracy theorist because he has so fundamentally damaged his own reputation and word that when he does something like this it does not rise to the level of what would happen if literally any other american president or even top american official american American governor, American senator did the same. I think that's letting him off the hook a little bit because you say no one truly believes that his words doesn't mean anything. It does to like 40 percent of the country. I mean, like when he does that, he is continuing to fuel the conspiracy theories that keep him as president. You know, there is before Jeffrey Epstein, a conspiracy theory called QAnon that suggests that the Mueller investigation was a covert campaign to root out an elite child sex trafficking ring and that JFK Jr. is still alive. And he's going to reveal that he's been alive all along so that he can take Pence's place on the 2020 ticket. And like, it's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life.

But there are multiple deaths and murders associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. And for Donald Trump to retweet a video that suggests Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton have a body count and just had this Epstein guy murdered as a way to cover up their crimes and cover up for sex offenders is putting their lives at risk. And it's like it's there are some crazy people out there who will take action in circumstances like this. And it is actually, you know, I do think we should pause and reflect on how just unbelievably dangerous that is. The president and his words and his actions between that is a threat to national security. We just had we just saw a terrorist attack in El Paso by a terrorist, a white nationalist terrorist who used in his manifesto the same language as Donald Trump.

And that happened to be targeting the Latino community and immigrants. But the president also, when we, when, when something bad happens and everyone goes back and says, oh, it's not Donald Trump's fault. How can you, how can you tie this to Donald Trump retweets like that or why it's Donald Trump's fault? That is the exact shit that has the potential to incite violence. And this is again, though, it's this is what he has been doing. This is not, to me, a new low for him. He accused Ted Cruz's father of killing JFK. He is the lead birther conspiracy theorist. He has been part of the conspiracy theory around vaccines, which has killed children in this country. He has been saying for years now with no evidence that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in California, which is why he

lost the popular vote. There is no kind of conspiracy theory. There is no there is no story he's not willing to tell if he if it uh if he views it as something that will help him politically no matter how destructive and man yeah i am i am doing a little soul searching about buying a uh ted cruz is the zodiac killer uh t-shirt maybe um maybe we all shouldn't have laughed at all the crazy shit trump was saying about ted cruz back in the day because it is uh real bad not going there with you tommy no yeah the only the reason you can feel good about that is because ted cruz likes to tweet about that himself and so he's he's in on the joke too yeah and he did it at least it was a clear joke he did it a man i mean here's the thing one more point

on this a man who in court last week said he was directly inspired by donald trump's rhetoric sent a pipe bomb to bill and hillary clinton And to have that, that just happened in October of 2018. And Donald Trump retweeted that yesterday, what he tweeted about a Clinton body count. After Bill and Hillary Clinton were sent a fucking pipe bomb. I mean, the QAnon thing is just shockingly close and similar to the Jeffrey Epstein thing. So it makes the whole conversation just really weird and unnerving.

But, you know, the FBI recently identified the QAnon conspiracy theory as a domestic terrorist threat. So these little online communities and conspiracy theories that have been cooked up and that are festering in places like 4chan or 8chan have become dangerous and people are taking action in real life based on all this crazy stuff they read online. It's also worth it's also worth noting, too, that Trump is not just fanning conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy theory about a story in which he has a connection. And so it is someone who is using a deeper, broader conspiracy theory, fanning the flames of it online so that his connection to the story seems as part of this muddle of hard-to-parse information. That's his rubber glue strategy. You know, he's been doing that since 2016. Yeah. It's not me. That's the problem. You're the

problem. You did the thing that people accuse me of. No puppet. No puppet. Also, one thing we should just say too, is that a lot of this was covered. And a lot of this story became public because of reporting by Julie K. Brown in the Miami Herald that I think brought a lot of this to the national attention in a way it otherwise wouldn't have. And brought a lot of this to the national attention in a way it otherwise wouldn't have. And so a lot of what will help us understand what happened in the story will not just be because of the justice system, but will be because of reporting. That's all. All right. Let's talk about the 2020 primary. The Washington Post was just one of many media outlets that published a piece over the weekend about how Joe Biden's recent string of verbal

gaffes are making Democrats nervous. Matt Visor, who wrote the story, gave us a list. Quote, on Saturday, Biden said he met with Parkland students while he was vice president, even though the Florida shooting took place a year after he left office. In his speech Thursday at the state fair, Biden bungled the line and said, quote, we choose truth over facts. He initially referred to former British Prime Minister Theresa May as one of her predecessors, Margaret Thatcher. And speaking before a Latino and Asian group, he argued for challenging students in underserved areas, but said, quote, poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids. He caught himself and quickly added wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids. No, I really mean it. But

think about how we think about it. Tommy, how much should these gaffes matter? Is this narrative warranted or is it overblown? I mean, Biden as gaffe machine is not a new narrative, right? I mean, we dealt with this on the Obama campaign. Many of his previous presidential campaigns have been either upended or ended by Biden gaffes. So I was not surprised by it. It was odd to see all of the national media tip sheets sort of shove the narrative down our throats in one place like a global assignment editor on the same day. And what would worry me about that from if I were on Biden's team is I haven't been in Iowa long, but I talked to a lot of people yesterday at the fair, including a bunch of people who work on campaigns. And one thing that they've been telling me is that the national narrative this time around is more

important than it ever was before. You can have an Iowa caucus goer who had some candidate in his or her living room, and it still might matter more to them what he or she said on MADO last night than that conversation. So this could turn out to be a pretty big problem for Biden. Like, I hate to be, you know, just a pundit and viewing this, but, you know, it's a challenge. Now, of course, the whataboutism argument is quite strong. If you compare Biden's sort of misstatements or misspeaking to the things Donald Trump says or does all day, every day on purpose, it's not a question, but I do think everyone is looking for the most electable Democrat. They want someone who will

get up there and win and won't cause any problems for him or herself. And like Biden has got to overcome this narrative if he wants to convince people that he's the guy to take on Trump. Love it. What's your opinion on this one? I find it interesting the way everyone has just put everything that a candidate does that isn't good into the basket marked gaffes, because I think it's not really that helpful to understanding what's happening right now. So it's true. Biden has had, you know, is famous for his gaffes. Right. But, you know, there's I would say I'd put these into three baskets. One is just inappropriate comments. All right. plagiarism allegation years ago. There have been some insensitive jokes and remarks and sentences, things he's had to apologize before in, right? That's a very minor mistake that I don't

care about at all. That's not offending anyone. No. And by the way, honestly, also him having a brief moment of thinking that he was vice president when he talked to the survivors of a particular mass shooting, I don't find particularly instructive because we live in a fucking murder scape in which he has met with many, many survivors of mass shootings over the years. So I don't find that particularly interesting and I don't care about it. I do think what we're all dancing around, Donald Trump is now saying Joe Biden is not the old Joe Biden. Joe Biden is not playing with a full deck. That is what this conversation is ultimately about. There's this question not of,

oh, is the old Joe Biden gaffe machine, is it going to be a problem in 2020? The question people are really asking is, has Joe Biden slowed down a bit? And is that producing a greater preponderance of gaffes? And that is, to me, a simple question he has to prove or disprove on the campaign trail. Yeah. And I think I think what's unfair about that to Biden is, you know, he gave a speech in Iowa last Wednesday about, you know, in the wake of El Paso and Dayton. And, you know, most most pundits, most people who watched the speech said it was maybe the strongest speech Joe Biden has ever given. And he was very forceful. And he definitely looked like a candidate who can take on Donald Trump. The problem for him is, you know, the coverage around that lasts a day. If that it gets mentioned in with Cory Booker's speech and a bunch of other candidates.

And the gaffes end up getting outsized coverage. And I get it from the Biden campaign's perspective. You know, Tommy, you mentioned this, but the Washington Post just this morning said that Trump has averaged 13 false or misleading statements per day since being president. He's also a white nationalist and a criminal. So, you know, the comparison, the comparison isn't very favorable to Donald Trump when you compare him and Biden, but we are in a primary, right? And the tough part for Biden is there's a little bit of live by electability, die by electability, right? So saying that his gaffes will hurt him with voters, basically, you know,

you're not saying a lot of these gaffes actually offend you or that he meant them or he was bad or something like that. What you're thinking is, oh, well, if he's not up to the task, maybe when he runs against Trump, other people might not vote for him because they're worried that he's that he's not as sharp as he used to be. It's almost the flip side of saying, oh, people will vote for him because moderate white guys in the Midwest like him. That's exactly right. I mean, this is this is particularly acute in the moment because everyone is concerned about electability. It's the first, second, third issue on people's minds. These media narratives get constructed during the course of a campaign, and they almost always have nothing to do with the job of being president. I mean, it was seen as a hit on Obama that he was aloof and professorial because somehow that has a downside that none of us understood.

I mean, it was stupid then. Biden misspeaking is not necessarily relevant unless you're trying to suggest that he's in some kind of cognitive decline and then that would actually be relevant. But I don't hear people making that assertion. So, yeah, it's frustrating. Biden needs to fight his way through this narrative. He needs to prove to people that he's sharp, and he's tough, and he can kick ass at a debate. And I think like he can put this thing to bed, if he just, you know, performs really well at the third debate or the fourth or, you know, whatever the next opportunity is. Yeah, I think that's right. The speech he gave, by the way, was great. It was a great speech. And it was, to me, the first moment in the Biden campaign for presidency in 2020, where I saw an affirmative case for Joe Biden that wasn't just about electability. He made an argument. It was passionate. It was it was just an excellent speech that I think spoke to the moment really, really well. So it's like, it's this, it's a, it's, it's not hard what he has to do to dispel this, this narrative. He has to campaign,

campaign aggressively and show people that it's bullshit. And he has to be at the level he was on during that speech all the time, you know, like almost all the time. And it's, look, it's harder for him, but this is what happens when a narrative takes hold about you. And then different candidates have different problems that they're grappling with. Each of them has, like, you know, a different issue. But this is Biden's really. And like you said, Tommy, I think that the danger to Biden is the Trump hit. Right. Which is not, oh, he is, you know, Uncle Joe. And sometimes he says things that are, you know, his verbal gaffes. It's more, oh, you know, he's not fully there or he's not as sharp as he used to be. That's the danger to him. And look, I really do believe,

and this isn't just an electability thing, I think whoever our nominee is has to be incredibly nimble to run against Donald Trump. You have to be nimble as a candidate. You have to get the media environment in 2019. You have to be quick on your feet. And I'm not saying that's even an age thing either, because, you know, Bernie Sanders is pretty quick on his feet. And Elizabeth Warren is very quick on her feet. She's not as old as those two guys. Well, it's hard to be as old as those two guys. Right. Well, you're saying like she and her campaign probably understand how the media works better than almost any other campaign. So it's not just an age thing, but you have to be nimble to go against Donald Trump. You have to be.

Yeah. And it's also notable, like Donald Trump is scared of running against Joe Biden. I mean, he is tweeting about him constantly. He is trying to drive this narrative that Joe has lost a step, that he's in decline, that he is, you know, fill in whatever sort of pejorative attack. So like, I mean, what I would take away from this, if I were just observing the Trump's response from the Biden campaign, is that Trump doesn't want to run against me. And I would make that part of my message. Yeah. Tommy, how commanding is Biden's frontrunner status right now? And what does it say that the race is a lot closer in Iowa and the other early states than it is nationally when you look at all

this polling? I think that it's a couple of things. I mean, Biden has a pretty commanding lead among African American voters and in Iowa is, I believe, 93 percent white. So you wouldn't see that strength reflected as much here. I also think that Iowa voters are likely to be pretty well informed, watching the race closely, more likely to know that Elizabeth Warren had a great debate or Kamala Harris had a great debate and to sort of move around and have a chance to actually see candidates in person and switch sides and make moves. All that said, polling today doesn't matter. It only matters insofar as it's not just about winning or losing these states.

It's about outperforming expectations and getting one of three tickets out of Iowa or whatever early state we're talking about. So I wouldn't sweat it too much. But, you know, you do need to perform on caucus day or else the media narrative around your campaign is going to be that you underperformed, that you're flagging, you're not going to raise money and it will be a problem. Yeah. And I think I think in terms of national polling, and just so people know, the RealClearPolitics average in the national polling, Biden is at 30.8, Warren's at 18.3, and Sanders is at 16.5. So Biden has a lead of 12.5 points. In Iowa, Biden's at 25.3, Warren is at 16.3, Harris is at 14.3. So Biden has a nine point lead. So it's definitely, It's about three and a half points lower in Iowa. National polling from now almost until the Iowa caucuses the early states vote, is what's happening in the early states, what's happening in Iowa, New Hampshire.

So Iowa polling is really important. And while it is still early, right, we have a couple months to go between before people start voting in Iowa. It's getting it's getting on the later side of early at this point. it's getting on the later side of early at this point. You know, Harry Enten had a piece at CNN over the weekend about Biden's standing. And he said, Jeb Bush in 2016, Rudy Giuliani in 2008, and Joe Lieberman in 2004 were all losing at this point in Iowa and polling at or less than 15%. They had all been the frontrunners at the time that ended up losing. Biden has led in every CNN-approved Iowa poll this cycle. So basically,

you know, Harry's conclusion is Biden's definitely not your traditional, really strong frontrunner like Hillary was, but he's not quite as weak right now at this time in the race as the Jebs, the Rudys, the other people. And, you know, at the beginning of this primary, a lot of people said, oh, Biden's going to be like a Jeb, a Rudy, a Joe Lieberman and just falter. And he hasn't yet. So he's stuck in the sort of middle place where he was not as strong as Hillary was against Bernie at this point in 2016, but stronger than some of the other frontrunners who went down. It's funny that you say that, too, because what I was thinking is like, you know, he's not a frontrunner the way Hillary was in 2016, but there's a chance he is a frontrunner the way Hillary was in 2008. There's a there's a I think that, I think that the polling has been very stable.

And I think surprisingly so. I think there's a lot of people who expected after Warren or Harris had great debates that there would be this change. But really what you've seen is kind of bumps, then it kind of goes back to this sort of stable place that it's been in with Elizabeth Warren slowly but surely kind of gaining a few points here and there. And so the question is now, between now and January, what's going to upend that dynamic? So very much a lot of time for something to do that. But the race has been very stable. Tommy, it is not in that super early mode where everyone says, calm down, relax, don't worry about it.

But I will just, I think I've said this before on the show. sitting in Paul Tews' office in August in Iowa, listening to a polling call where I heard we were losing to Bill Richardson in the Des Moines media market. So, you know, things can turn around. Tommy, any observations from Iowa about who's running a strong campaign out there? Let's give us some anecdotes. Give us some purely anecdotal evidence. Yes. Well, I mean, listen, the thing about the national narrative,

I've heard that from a bunch of people being more important this time. I'm going to go check out a bunch of candidates offices and things while I'm here. I mean, the conventional wisdom is that Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker are building really great organizations. Biden is sort of right after them. Mayor Pete as well. But I got to go see it for myself before I know. It is interesting that Kamala Harris, you know, it seemed like she was floating with maybe skipping Iowa or having a different set of priorities in terms of the state she was focused on. She just did a five-day bus tour, or is maybe in the middle of it right now, across Iowa. So, you know, as we all expected, the election is coming to Iowa, and you know, fight it out here. All right. Well, we will see what happens when we come back.

We will have Lovett's interview with Florida Congresswoman Debbie McCarcel-Powell. She's a newly elected Democrat who represents Florida's 26th congressional district. Welcome, Congresswoman Debbie Mucursel-Powell. Hi, John. How you doing? I'm great. So this has been a tough week. We've seen two issues roiling the country, gun violence, anti-immigrant sentiment,

come together in this gruesome attack in El Paso. You're an immigrant. You're someone who lost her father to gun violence in Ecuador. How has that experience shaped your response to what we've seen unfold? You know, it's, there are two very personal issues for me. I did not have the privilege of being born in the United States. I came here when I was 14. My mother brought my sisters and I, really looking for opportunities that she knew she was never going to have in Ecuador and for us as well. And seeing so many kids being separated from their families and knowing how scary it is to come to a new country, I never was separated from my mother.

And hearing the rhetoric from this president, hearing the same rhetoric from the Republicans in Washington, D.C., constantly criminalizing immigrants, it was devastating to hear about the shooting in El Paso. But unfortunately, it didn't completely surprise me. I've been hearing the same words being used over and over again for the past two years, even before the president started campaigning, before Trump started campaigning, calling immigrants criminals, you know, saying that they're rapists. Well, I am an immigrant and I am a congressmember and it has to stop. And on top of all of that, every time there's a shooting, it's a trigger for me and for so many families that have lost loved ones. So it's been an emotional week. So the House has passed legislation on background checks that stalled in the Senate. that pressure seems to be getting to them to the point where they are signaling their openness to possibly being willing to maybe take up legislation, not bring the Senate back early,

not commit to anything. Do you believe that that is a sincere openness or a desire to get past the issue? I'm usually an idealist and I'm a positive person and an optimist. And I'm hoping that at any moment we're going to see some common sense and some will from Trump, from Mitch McConnell and the Republicans. But unfortunately, I don't trust what Trump says. He says a lot of things, but what we need to see is action. And I know for a fact that we sent this bill in February. It was one of our top priorities. It was one of the most important days for me because when I was in the Judiciary Committee, John, we were 11 hours trying to pass this bill through the Judiciary Committee. And the Republicans used every trick on the book to try to delay the process. We had moms demand action and students demand action sitting there for 11 hours. We finally got it for a vote on the House floor. The Republicans, most of them voted against it. Mitch McConnell has had this bill since February. So what are we waiting for? Why can't he go back to D.C. and do it? I don't want to hear words. I want to see

action. Is there anything else you think you and your colleagues in the House should be doing? What do you think of moving an assault weapons ban to the Senate? I am ready to do that. I've been very vocal about that from the very beginning when I was campaigning. There's no reason why we should have AR-15s in our communities. We had a call in the Judiciary Committee just this week, and we all agreed that we were ready to come back to D.C. to mark up that bill and send it to the House floor. And for those listening, do you think there's anything people who want to help on this issue can do? You know, I think there's a hope on the part of some who don't want to see any action that this dies down over the August recess. What do you think?

I don't think, I think that this is going to be an issue that will not go away because unfortunately we see shootings every single day happening in our communities. In Chicago, in my area, in South Miami-Dade County, we have some of the highest rates of gun violence for kids under the age of 18. So it's something that we experience, unfortunately, way too often. So it's not going to go away. I am certainly not going to stop working on this issue. And I know many of my colleagues feel the exact same way. So we are ready in the House to bring more bills to the floor. And I want to see what McConnell and the Senate Republicans and this president is going to do to take on these bills.

It's interesting. It does seem as though, you know, Trump is without any kind of ideology here. You know, he does seem to occasionally say, oh, we should do something like background checks or we should do some form of gun control. And then he quickly walks it back because he receives pushback behind the scenes. It seems as though Trump recognizes that there's a political problem for Republicans. And it's starting to seem as though this issue is changing enough that even people like Mitch McConnell, who is not one to show his cards, has even in the past few days said more than he has in years, including when he stopped the bill in 2013, to show a willingness to address this issue. Do you believe there is a shift happening in the country? I think that we have had incredible courage from so many parents that have lost their children in Parkland and in other schools, the Sandy Hook elementary shooting. The parents have not stopped working on pieces of legislation that are

bipartisan, that are common sense. That's the bill that we sent to the Senate. I think that because of the public action, our voices being lifted up, ours, I mean, because in my community, that's all I see. People marching, calling their senators, calling their representatives, talking about the issue in a relentless fashion, John, not just because of what we've experienced in the past week, but this has been going on now for years. I think that we sometimes underestimate the power that we have in this country. And we are seeing it just by what you're saying, that they're at least recognizing that they have to talk about possible legislation that

is going to be common sense. For me, the most important thing is going to be what action they're going to take. So let's talk about investigating Donald Trump. You're among the House Democrats who signed on to launching an impeachment inquiry. You didn't do this without risk. You flipped your district. You'll have to defend your seat. Can you walk us through how you got to the point of supporting an impeachment inquiry? When I got elected, and the reason why I ran was actually to fight for gun reform laws because of what we just talked about, to fight to protect our environment. I represent an area that's very high risk for the effects of climate change and also to lower health care costs. I worked at the FIU Medical School as an associate dean there. So those were the reasons why I ran for office. When I received, when we

finally received in the Judiciary Committee, the Mueller report, the redacted version of the Mueller report. I read the entire report within two days, front to back. And I immediately felt a sense of duty that we had to investigate further, that we needed to get more answers, that what I was reading in that report clearly stated that this president has committed obstruction of justice. But I wanted to wait to get the unredacted version. I wanted to hear from some of the fact witnesses, including Don McGahn. And when Don McGahn, when we asked him to come forth in front of the Judiciary Committee and he didn't show up, that was another moment for me that I felt the sense that if we are not going to get answers, if this president continues to obstruct an investigation by telling his former White House counsel to

not show up to the Judiciary Committee, then we have a serious problem. And after several hearings, after having Hope Hicks come and have that private interview with her, I left that day thinking, we have to start an impeachment inquiry. We need to get all the information and we have to allow the American public to be a part of this process to understand everything that has been going on. I tried as best as I could to not make it a partisan issue at all. I was trying to look at it in an objective way. But being from Latin America, having left a country where I've seen what happens

when a man grabs onto power and is full of corruption and starts to circumvent other branches of government to get his way, I have seen those qualities in this president. And I can tell you, for those of you that have never lived in another country or that have been born here, this country can change and it can change very quickly by someone like this president. So let's talk about what the other side has been doing, because I do think what we've seen is I think a lot of Democrats in some of these hearings, whether it was Michael Cohen or Robert Mueller, that we've

seen, I think Democrats try to get some answers out of these hearings. And there's some, you know, I think we'd all recognize some performative partisanship there on both sides. But what I found fascinating in watching some of these sort of blockbuster hearings is very few Republicans publicly on these committees seem interested in using them as an opportunity to gather facts. I think in one hearing, you saw someone like Justin Amash actually do something as an exception that proved the rule before he switched parties, legitimately trying to suss out some information. Will Hurd in the hearings with Mueller, I think, tried to do the same.

Behind closed doors, is that partisan divide as obvious? Do you believe your Republican colleagues recognize the obvious conclusions of the Mueller report when nobody's watching? You would think that there are some that would see what we're all seeing after reading that report. I can honestly tell you that I've had conversations with some of my Republican colleagues, and you hear the same talking points that you hear from this president, that there's no obstruction, there's no collusion, that this is just a political witch hunt. And I hate repeating it, but that's what they say. And I, at this moment, under the Republican leadership in the House, Kevin McCarthy, and his style, and the words that I hear from my colleagues in the Judiciary Committee, unfortunately, I have seen absolutely no courage from any of my colleagues

to stand up to this president, or just to have the basic hunger to understand the facts of what exactly happened and to protect our country from further interference or protect our country from a president that is using the White House and the seat to enrich himself, to work only for himself. And he's not doing it for the betterment of our country or for the people that he's supposedly representing. So, you know, I don't want to dwell on it too much because I think, you know, we come back to this place, well, they're simply not willing to see or not willing to admit what we all see as being obvious. But I do find it, I mean, you deal with these people behind closed doors. I mean, what we've seen on the Intelligence Committee, on the Judiciary Committee, is a feeling as though that the kind of comedy that used to exist has broken down, that there's not, you know, we've seen blistering speeches directed at the Republicans toward you and your Democratic colleagues for even conducting

these hearings. And it sounds like what you're saying is even behind closed doors, that that partisanship is not less. It's not just for the cameras. There really is a refusal to acknowledge what's going on. That's the fact. And I have spoken with the ranking member, Collins, I have spoken with the ranking member, Collins, Representative Collins, after some of the hearings. And there was a moment that I actually went to him to compliment him on a couple of things that he said, that there's all this work that we need to do, that we keep having these hearings, but that we should be working on bills. And I went to him and I said, I agree with you. I want you to know that I agree with what you were saying. There's a lot of work to be done, but we can't get to our work

if the witnesses are not appearing before us. If we're not getting the facts that we need, don't you agree that we need to have these witnesses? And he did agree with me on that. But then he went back to, you know, this is all theater, but he makes it theater. I don't know if you've seen the hearings. They make it theater. They start saying things that, I mean, it's incredible the things that

they come up with. And I sit next to my really good friend, Veronica Escobar, and there are so many moments that we have to just support each other because they use every opportunity. We can have Mueller right in front of us, and they'll go back to criminalizing immigrants. They'll go back to, you know, all Democrats are socialists, which is not true, and to distract from the fact that we have a president that has committed obstruction of justice. So your colleague, Chairman Nadler, said on CNN that what the committee is currently engaged in is formal impeachment proceedings. I believe that's the first time he's acknowledged that or suggested that. Do you agree with him?

I think that we have been going through the impeachment inquiry process, and we haven't formally called it that. But I do agree with him. The court documents state that. The subpoena enforcement that we brought to the courts a couple of days ago state that this is part of our impeachment proceedings. And at this point, with all the evidence that we have seen and the information that we've gotten from the special counsel, I agree with him. Yes. So we're in it. look this is no laughing matter i don't i don't mean to diminish the fact that this is a very serious situation and i really hope that the people all over the country start paying close attention to the facts that maybe they shouldn't be watching all these 24-hour news channels and maybe they should start reading and getting information from PBS or... Podcast. Yeah, your podcast. They should be listening to you, John, more often. But it's important for people to start paying attention. This is our country

and we need to take it back. Now, there's been, I think, a question about sort of the timeline here, because on the one hand, I think you've seen some members pushing for an impeachment inquiry to move faster, others, including the speaker, saying, you know, I want to wait till we have the strongest hand possible. I want to wait till we have missed the opportunity that that that if we are for our democracy, that we need to go through whatever steps we have to take to get all the information and then take action, whatever that may be, whether it's recommending a vote on the House floor or not. I mean, the fact that we're going through an impeachment inquiry right now doesn't necessarily mean we're going to recommend a vote on the floor. But I think that we have to follow those steps. We can't be bound only by the political timing of the 2020 election. Of course, it's important. Of course, we all think about that. I'm not saying that we don't. But the most important thing here

is the future of our democracy. And I personally believe that we have to take a sense and we have to do what is right, regardless of the timing, regardless of what month in the calendar year we are at, we have to follow those steps. So there are a lot of Democrats from districts like yours who are worried that saying you're for impeachment will make it harder to win reelection. Are you worried about that? And what do you say to colleagues that have that fear? It's a conversation that I've had with many of my friends in the new freshman class. Personally, well, first of all, everybody has to make their own decision for their district. They got elected by their community and there's a reason why they're representing their community. So they have to make those decisions on their own. I personally feel that if my community understands

why I'm making those decisions, if they know that I have the best intentions, that it's not a purely political game that I'm playing, that I will earn their trust and I will earn their support. I have a very diverse district. It's a majority Hispanic district. Most of the people in my district, more than half of them, were born in a different country. I was born in Ecuador. I have these conversations with them all the time when I'm in my community, and I explain to them that what we're seeing in this president

is the same thing that we've seen in Latin America and Central America and why we've come to the United States and why we have to be so vigilant in guarding our democracy. obligation that Democrats have, regardless of the political calendar, regardless of questions about what would happen in swing districts, that because of the risk to our democracy, we have a moral obligation to at least use our power to conduct an impeachment inquiry, even if it may not lead to conviction in the Senate. It's the right thing to do. And yet you have colleagues that don't see it that way, that aren't yet responding to the moral challenge in the same way. Does that frustrate you? Yes, but I keep in mind the fact that they're not in the Judiciary Committee. If you look at everyone in our committee, we're all on the same page,

but it's because we've spent multiple hours in hearings and reading and talking to the attorneys and understanding the facts. So I think that that's part of it. Right. I mean, I'm right in the middle of it. And many of my colleagues are not dealing with the information that I'm dealing with on on a day to day basis. It is frustrating in the sense that this is my first term. So I was not a politician before I got elected. Of course, now I can't say that I'm not because I am a member of Congress. But I try to see everything that I'm doing for the best interests of my community, not really thinking always about the political consequence. Of course, I have to be careful and think of everyone that I'm representing in Florida's 26. I have Republicans, I have independents, but I hope

that my community trusts the fact that I will do my best to do the best thing for Florida's 26 districts. And if you explain yourself in that manner, which is what I've said to some of my colleagues, then people will know that that's why you're there. And it's not just for political reasons. So let's talk about, let's talk about winning in Florida. What do you, what do you see as, what would be the advice you'd be giving right now to Democrats campaigning for what they should be saying to appeal to win Florida in 2020? The first thing that, that I have to say is So the first thing that I have to say is they have to pay close attention to the issues that affect us the most. And I've seen a disregard for the issues affecting Venezuela.

We have a huge crisis in Venezuela. It's a narco regime. It's a dictatorial narco, illegitimate. Maduro was elected in an illegitimate, I can't say the word, you see the Ecuadorian coming out, election. And we have to take a strong stance against that because it's affecting the entire hemisphere. We've seen now close to 4 million Venezuelans flee the country. That number has surpassed the Syrian refugee crisis that we saw in Syria. And I would like personally to hear the Democratic presidential candidates address that issue. A lot of the immigration issues that we have now in this country also is because we've ignored so many problems that we've seen in Central and in South America. And as someone being from that area, I wish that this country would pay attention to their neighbors and the issues affecting them because we're interconnected. When we talk about

trade with Mexico and Canada, we need to talk about issues that affect the region as well. So that's one of them. But another issue that I think is extremely important that I haven't heard enough of as well, and that's important in Florida is the effects of climate change. What are the plans to address climate change immediately on day one, when you get into the White House, we have to have a plan. And I want to hear more of that instead of, you know, I think that what happens is the media starts directing the narrative in a way, right? And it's always the far right and the far left issues. Well, there are a lot of issues that we need to talk about that everyday Americans worry about, but I'm not hearing a whole lot about that. Yeah, it seems that in both the debates,

we've seen a lot of the questions have been framed, not around sort of the larger challenge, but on some of the kind of places with the greatest likelihood to lead Democrats to take a very difficult position, whether it's on 1325 or climate mitigation and costs associated with that. On immigration, you know, I think we've seen some candidates, Julian Castro has led with his plan around looking at this in a broader way, looking at the challenges facing Central and South America. But the debate is largely focused on stopping the worst actions of the Trump administration. Do you think that we're having enough of a larger conversation, not just about what will stop on immigration, but on what we actually believe in terms of our broader policies on immigration.

Are you talking about specific policy issues for immigration reform, or are you talking about what we've been seeing in the border? I'm talking about immigration reform, whether it's a pathway to citizenship or what our border policy actually is. Yeah, it's such a complicated issue, and we've had the problem of a broken immigration system for decades, which is why we have so many undocumented immigrants living in the United States today, because you wait, you apply, you go through all the steps and you wait for years to

get a green card or legal status or a permit or citizenship. So we have to address those issues right now. We have to also address the crisis that we're seeing at the border. We do have a crisis. And part of the problem is that people are fleeing violence. They're fleeing the effects of climate change. You know, in Guatemala, they can't farm their land. So a lot of the people that we're seeing, they're literally starving because they can't get access to basic necessities. And it's not going to go away. So

these problems are not going away anytime soon. So we have to find a compassionate and humane policy to deal with the people that are coming for us to you know, asking for help. We cannot at this moment now end all the asylum laws that we've had in this country for decades. We can't turn back people that are asking for a refugee status. That's not the right way to address this issue. That's making it much worse. Separating families is definitely not a good idea, and it's the most hypocritical policy sense that I have heard from this administration, from these conservatives that are so worried about family

values, but yet they have absolutely no regard for the fact that there are children that right now are crying. This gets me every time. I've met many, many kids in Homestead in my community that have been separated from their families. I'm a mom. It's unacceptable. What did you think when you saw that ICE in the wake of El Paso, conducted a raid and, you know, basically rounded up 600 people, sometimes leaving children behind without anyone to take care of them. This is a calculated response by this administration. I don't want anyone to think that they didn't know exactly what was about to happen in these farms. happen in these farms, that it takes a lot of resources for these rates to occur, to actually go in and take hardworking people, 600 of them, without any information on whether they had kids, there were some single moms that the kids didn't know where to go. What is it that we're doing?

And what are we becoming? And my concern is that if this country doesn't start standing up to basic human rights and this president is elected once again in 2020, we are going to enter a very dark, dark road in the future of America. So, you know, these are difficult issues and this has been a really hard period of time. You know, when we first spoke, it was when you were running and you were trying to kind of win this seat against the odds. You won. You're now representing your district. What has been the most surprising part about coming to Congress for the first time? What don't people understand? There are a few things. First of all, it's a very, you work seven days a week. You never disconnect. It's very difficult to have any sort of balance. And I have a family and I'm constantly

trying to find a way to have that balance with my kids and my husband. And so you have to have a good support group. And I've become very good friends with so many amazing colleagues that I have. But I think one of the most surprising things, and I'm going to be very honest with you, John, has been seeing some of those colleagues that I call my friends vote sometimes against immigrants. And I've seen it. And it's been heartbreaking, really. I've taken it personally because of me, because of my community. And so I wonder, the question that you asked before, are we doing this for political reasons or are we going to stand up for what is right?

And I think that's been the most surprising part for me. Congresswoman Mugur Sel Powell, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, John. Thanks to the congresswoman for joining us today. Tommy, have a good week in Iowa. And we'll all talk to you on Thursday. We'll see you at the Greek. Thanks, guys.

See you soon. See you at the Greek. Follow me on Instagram at Tommy Vitor. Oh, my goodness. and we'll all talk to you on Thursday. We'll see you at the Greek. Thanks, guys. See you soon. See you at the Greek. Follow me on Instagram, at Tommy Vitor. Oh, my goodness. I'm learning a new medium, Lovett. Support me. Oh, yeah. Lovett's Instagram is private.

I don't know why. Oh, no. They're trying to have me take it public. Oh, no. Wouldn't want to see some boring dog pictures that are not on Twitter. He says. Bye. He says the guy who only posts dog pictures.

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