Pod Save America - “Jerry Nadler’s Revenge!” (LIVE from Salt Lake City)

Episode Date: July 19, 2019

The House inches closer to impeachment after Trump’s racist week, CNN selects the Democratic debate lineups with an NBA lottery-style drawing, and Stacy Stanford from the Utah Health Policy Project joins Jon, Jon, Tommy, Dan, and Erin Ryan on stage in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Salt Lake! I want you to know something. I had a feeling you'd be like this. I love Utah. That's great. It's great. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Erin Ryan. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tag Romney. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. You could be a Romney. Don't say that shit. Tag Romney. You could be Rofalka. Later in the show, we'll talk to Stacey Stanford from the Utah Health Policy Project.

But first, let's get to the news. Yeah. What did you think was going to happen? What did you think was going to happen? In a week where Trump was formally condemned by the House for telling four congresswomen of color to leave America, support for impeachment is growing. On Wednesday... On Wednesday, a record 95 Democrats voted to move forward

on an impeachment resolution introduced by Representative Al Green of Texas. The House also voted to hold Trump's Attorney General and the Commerce Secretary in criminal contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas about Trump's attempt to rig the census. On top of all this, new court documents released today offered more evidence of the president's role as an unindicted co-conspirator in the illegal hush money scheme that landed Michael Cohen in jail. And Robert Mueller is testifying next week.

That's a lot of crimes, guys. That's a lot of crimes, guys. That's a lot of crime. Let's start with Al Green's impeachment resolution, which says that Trump's racist statements have sown discord among the American people and proved him unfit to be president. Dan, what do you think of both the substance and the strategy behind that resolution? Well, the substance is definitely true. What he said was racist. Fact check true, yeah. It has sown discord, so fact check correct. and the strategy behind that resolution? Well, the substance is definitely true.

What he said was racist. Fact check true, yeah. It has some discord, so fact check correct. The timing of it, I think, is unfortunate, because this was a day where the Democratic House was standing united against Trump's racist comments and standing united against the efforts of Trump's cabinet in William Barr and Wilbur Ross by censoring them for refusing to abide by congressional oversight.

So this was supposed to be a day of unity. And then this was sort of a publicity stunt that sort of stepped on that and sowed disunity on that day. I think ultimately it doesn't matter that much. I don't think it's going to make us more or less likely to have about whether Trump's going to be impeached or not. But I think it certainly was an unfortunate distraction on a day that was supposed to send a powerful signal, not just to the country, but also to the Democratic voters who sent Congress there for accountability. What do you think about Trump basically used it to, you know, vindicate himself? Tommy, you were talking about this yesterday. I mean, it was annoying. It was a real data point he could point to.

Do you think he knew it wasn't the impeachment resolution, but a impeachment resolution? This is the key question, John. Because there were a bunch of Trump officials talking to reporters on background saying they weren't sure if Trump realized it didn't mean that he was out of the woods. His own staff thought he might think that impeachment is now off the table. Now, I'm sure, I'm sure they clarified it after the fact, but whatever. I mean, whatever. Trump is, like, the king of latching on to whatever it will take to get him through the next 15 seconds of the news cycle. He actually said as much at that racist pseudo-Nuremberg rally that he held the other day, where he was was like, you know, he said, like, if I had said what some of these members of the squad had said,

you know, they would have come for me. It would have been over. But he's like, we get through it. We always do. But, you know, I think that the green impeachment measure going down won't ultimately matter at all. So, Aaron, a few other members of Congress came out today for impeachment. Congressman Bill Pascrell of New Jersey said,

and he had an interesting reasoning when he released his statement. He said that Trump's abuses of power, quote, have not abated but accelerated because of our failure to constrain him. What do you think of that argument? And do you think the politics of impeachment have changed over recent weeks?

So first of all, let's take a moment to recognize that Bill Pascrell is now a part of the squad. Because of an Onion article that was a satirical tweet that he tweeted at the members of the squad. And they were like, sure. And now he's doing it. He's like sitting at their lunch table now. And they're like, I don't know. I think they're like, yeah, it it's Bill he can hang out with us there's always like one weird member

of a clique of five people and he's the one that it's like oh yeah that's like so is that your dad no no he just he hangs out he's cool he stands up for impeachment like we stand up for impeachment we're all in one squad we're going to going to have to change the squad merch by adding it. But I think that in terms of the politics of impeachment, this is something that seems to be

tricky and frustrating to watch because it seems like Congress is very responsive on this topic to polling. But the fact of the matter is polling doesn't determine that their job is to uphold their duty as prescribed in the Constitution, whether or not people like it. That is their job. And so it's nice to see public, I think public sentiment and the sentiment of actual representatives is moving more toward impeachment, but it's a shame that it's so beholden to polling because it doesn't it shouldn't be well i think i think on a week like this is when it really hits you because for him to stand up there and tell you know uh four women of color

who are elected members of congress to leave amer. They actually won their popular votes, by the way. All of them did. Yeah, right. No shit. But it's like, for him to tell them to leave America, to see that rally where they are chanting, send her home, you know, like, it is, you realize, like, okay, Democrats don't have a ton of power right now.

We can't pass legislation because we only have the House. But they do have the power to impeach him. And what Pascual is saying here is that like his abuses have not abated, but accelerated is really interesting because he's basically saying by not doing anything, by just sitting back and watching, Donald Trump is basically saying, okay, well now I can do whatever the fuck I want because they're too afraid to impeach me. Yeah. I mean, it's not only that Democrats seem as though they're afraid to impeach, if we're following this logic, but it's also the Republicans are afraid to do any fucking thing at all. Anything at all. Like, I'm imagining them all, like, going into their bathrooms, closing the door, and whispering into the mirror, racism is bad. Like, that's the extent of what

they're doing. Nobody hears it. Nobody sees it. They're, like, talking into a paper bag and sealing it up and throwing it in the garbage when nobody's looking at them. And so let's not forget this whole series of scenarios, Tommy, I will go through with you after the show. I love it. But I think that there's a general lack of courage in general, and it's good to see more people standing up.

Love it. There was a story in Politico that said that the... I like where this is going. You would love that. That the Democrats are moving so slow and carefully because they are trying

to collect the evidence so they can win a court battle to try to get some of these documents. And that's why they're moving so slow that they want to be careful. Others have said

they're doing this because they're just trying to run out the clock on impeachment. They're trying to wait for the moment where they can say, well, now we're in the heat of a presidential campaign. Obviously, we're not going to impeach him now. And that's that.

So what do you think it is? And, you know, what should happen? So both things can be true. It can be true that there are important procedures playing out in the courts. It can also be true that many people are playing this out because they want to see impeachment go away. I think what I come down on, what I come, when you start looking at this, okay, you know, Dan's made this point that, that now Mueller is going to testify right before they all go home, and they're about to, Democrats are about to hear from a lot of members, their constituents, that they're angry and that they want impeachment.

We're running out of time. We're running out of time to actually do this. To me, they will start saying, if we don't start impeachment in the fall, why do it now? There's an election coming up. And if we don't start impeachment, the process in September,

it means it can't happen before we start voting in primaries. And there's something about the image of Democrats voting to choose the person they want to face Trump running up against Democrats trying to impeach Trump that feels confusing to me. We have one shot to make the case against Donald Trump in impeachment. I'm starting to view the fall as a great compromise. I'm starting to view the fall as a great compromise. If you're a skittish moderate Democrat from a suburban district constantly jumping at shadows, very antsy. Go on. You know there were those experiments where they would shine a light and then shock a

rat and those rats learned resilience. They knew when the shock was coming. They knew when to hide. And then there were the rats where the light and the shock were random. And those rats just lie down and take the shocks. The compromise is, if you don't want to be talking about impeachment in 2020, guess what? The fall is the chance to do it. If you believe impeachment is the moral responsibility of Democrats, and you fear for the country that fails to impeach a president as evil as this, then the fall is the moment to do impeachment. And so my view is, I don't care about the courts anymore.

I wish we had time. I wish we had time. And so it's going to be incumbent on Democrats who believe we have a moral and even political responsibility to impeach this president to talk to their members this summer and put pressure on them in August so that when we come back in September, it is clear that it is now or never and we cannot play this clock game anymore. Yeah. clock game anymore.

Yeah. So Mueller's going to testify next week. Dan, what do you want to hear? What would you ask Mueller? What do you want to hear from him? And where should our expectations be, also, I should ask? Whenever there's a lowering expectation question, it comes to me. Yeah, I know.

I know you'll be dark for us. I mean, Mueller has told us, he's been pretty clear, that there's going to be no news here, right? Everything he has to say, he put it in the report. And I think it's important for the members of Congress who are doing this to not try to be like the lawyer from A Few Good Men and try to get a code red moment out of it. What is really really effective is just getting muller to in a coordinated way i should have charged him say say it out loud say

out loud on camera for the nation to see exactly what he wrote in that report yeah they could just say like could you please read the executive summary for the next two hours like i like we like he's not going to say bad stuff about bill barr he's not going to say bad stuff about Bill Barr. He's not going to say that Trump should be indicted. He's going to be super careful. Let's just get him to say what he knows because more people see the movie than read the book. So if you can get him to do a live reading of the Mueller report out there,

I think that would have real value in explaining to the country just what the president did. And as is often the case, there are those pedants who say that the book was better. Oh, wow, yes. But Jurassic Park, the book, now that's a story. Honestly, if that were an audio book, like a file, I would walk down the aisle to that.

Robert Mueller reading the Mueller report. I mean, even if you just asked Robert Mueller, was there substantial evidence that the president obstructed justice? He's going to say yes, because he said so in the report. Just those moments on television will be a big deal. Did you exonerate the president, yes or no?

The president says you said there was no collusion. Is that true, yes or no? There's very easy factual things that get him on the record that will look incredibly damning for Donald Trump. Yeah, why not? Hopefully, now, all of us should lower our expectations. Get those expectations lowered. Because Jim Comey issues a report

about a president or presidential candidate. That motherfucker sprints to the microphones. Bobby Mueller, he's hanging back. Bobby 3-6. I just hope that all of the Democrats on the committee That motherfucker sprints to the microphones. Bobby Mueller. He's hanging back. Bobby three six. I just hope that all of the Democrats on the committee coordinate their fucking questions. They will not. The biggest problem with congressional hearings is members of Congress. I just think like in general, the fewer words in Mueller's answers, the better.

Because there can't be any wishy-washy-ness. There can't be any slipperiness on this. Like, if we have a video of Mueller saying yes or no, that's more powerful than him saying, like, kind of wavering. Square jaw, one word. Exactly. Cut in and out. I guess one more tactical thing that would be important for Democrats to get out is to have Mueller, once again, like he did in his press conference, elucidate the threat to our elections in 2020. Because we still need to put pressure on Congress and the administration to actually do something to protect us, or at least have the American people know that Donald Trump is leaving the door open for Putin to walk through.

Yeah, that's a good point. The Republicans... That's a good one. What are the Republicans going to ask him? They're like, why are Diamond and Silk being silenced? Dirty dossier, you know, wasn't there a deep state coup? Let's talk about the lovers, you know, and their texts. All of that bullshit.

All of it's going to come up. I'm eager to see that because Robert Mueller's just magnificent square jaw is going to cut through that stuff like butter. Like, that guy is unruffleable. Unruffleable. Cannot be ruffled. So, Lovett, you started talking about this, but we have Mueller's testimony will be next week,

and then they are going to all leave for August recess. And you know what? They deserve it, too. They have worked for nearly two weeks straight. Well earned. Well earned. What does that do to the momentum behind impeachment that has been growing with both this week and presumably with Mueller's testimony? Well, I think the good news is I do not believe the momentum has been growing because of what's actually taking place day to day in Congress. Right. I think the recalcitrance and the obstinance of the Trump administration has been actually doing a lot of the work,

as has been activism and Trump just getting worse. So what I said before is true. The momentum will be up to voters. It will be up to ordinary people to make clear that they are watching and that they care about this issue. I think that there's a lot of Democrats based on punditry who have convinced themselves that there are the real issues people care about, and then there's process and holding Trump accountable.

And making clear that those are one and the same for a lot of people, that they're really paying attention, is important. That there's a real political price for Democrats to pay if they fail to understand how passionate the voters who elected them are about this issue. I think that's especially true for if you have a moderate member or a member who was just elected in 2018. You know, those members are going to respond to their constituents, right? Like Katie Porter came out for impeachment a couple weeks ago.

She flipped a pretty Republican district in Orange County that had never sent a Democrat to Congress, you know, in decades. And Kirkpatrick in Arizona, she's from an R plus one district. You know, she came out for impeachment this week. Like if those representatives know that more people in their district are calling and saying you should open an impeachment inquiry

they're going to do it like they're going to respond to that and so when these members go home in august if you're a democrat and you're in one or an independent or whatever and you're in one of these districts and your member is still on the fence you should go to those town halls and tell them that they should do this because what they say right now is oh none of, none of my constituents care about this. They care about health care. They care about other issues. But they don't really mind about impeachment. So I'm not doing anything. Pressure will work on these Democrats. There was a Greg Sargent looked at the polling, and it was actually really, I think, an important piece of this, which is the new Democrats, the Democrats that helped give us

the House majority, tend to be from more conservative districts than a lot of the Democrats who have been in the House for a long time. So a lot of these people that we need to convince, they are the new House majority that act, that Democrats, young Democrats, passionate people that knocked on doors and got out, that helped elect, these are the people that are actually in the most, that view themselves as being in the most difficult position. That's all. And I think like, there's two ways to think about it. It's like we're at 88, I think,

or whatever else was you said. And we got to get to half of the 200 and some Democrats we have. That seems like a long way to go. But there's a shortcut here. And if I was advising people on how to think about pressuring Democrats to move an impeachment is,

you only need a majority of the Judiciary Committee. Right. And we are right now, six votes away from a majority of the Judiciary Committee. Right. And we are right now six votes away from majority of the House Judiciary Committee. And so if you're like as deserve it or cathartic as it may be to just tweet anger at Nancy Pelosi, the more effective way to do this is to organize in the districts but also focus

on this member's Judiciary Committee. Cause you, that will be the pressure where it will be almost impossible, I think, for Nancy Pelosi to say no. The majority of the committee of jurisdiction is for opening the impeachment inquiry. This is incredibly important because Jerry Nadler,

who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, it would be his committee that opens the impeachment inquiry. He has been noncommittal on impeachment up until now, partly because he's in Democratic leadership. He doesn't want to piss off Nancy Pelosi. During the Al Green vote, Jerry Nadler was one of the ones who voted to move forward on the impeachment resolution,

which was a big deal. So if you asked him today, he'd probably still say, oh, I still want the investigations to continue. But, like, I think Jerry Nadler wants to do this. Jerry Nadler absolutely wants to do this because Donald Trump used to call him Fat Jerry. Donald Trump was super mean to him for a really long time, and I don't blame him for holding a grudge. Jerry's revenge. Yeah, I think Jerry's revenge. Jerry strikes back. You're going to call a Jew from Manhattan fat, and he's not going to remember?

Let's go, Jerry. The other thing, too, I'd say, too, like getting to a majority is hard, but if this starts to look like it's going to happen, they will all fall in line. This will be like a waterfall. I just want to say one more thing about the politics that's important. When listening to your opening here talking about the rally and Trump being involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the voting public essentially, and you hear all the things that happen every day and just in the idea that Trump can say these things about these congressmen and his

Party's only fine with it and we're having these Nuremberg rallies in North Carolina it like it kind of it makes me very worried that our Democratic leaders are numb to the scale of the stakes in this election, right? And that you think, like, that we are, we're at an actual crossroads for who we want to be as a country. And the way to defeat what is happening here is not running poll-tested, calculated campaigns. It's a grassroots movement of millions of Americans.

And you do that not by being small and cautious you know being big and brave and if what happens it and that I think is really important is everyone talks about The lessons of 2018 it's like we ignored Trump and we talked about healthcare We do this the true lesson is that after the election? millions of people started knocking on doors the next day and showing up at marches and they and if we don't match that enthusiasm in 2020 we will lose yeah no it's like you have instead of you have to put down the poll and ask yourself like what you feel in your gut about this and it's like does this feel like normal politics or does this feel like something different and scary and i think after this week

you look at it and say you know we could be headed in a pretty in a to a pretty dark place i'm swayed by that moral argument but i've been a hack about this and i am now fully convinced that the politics of impeachment are better than the politics of whatever the hell has been happening because i like i don't we talked about this the other night but i was very nervous about the democratic party being completely divided and this thing's going south and impeachment inquiry and the utter lack of oversight and accountability from the house when we control congress is leading a bunch of people who voted to think why did i care why did i try so hard and if we don't let people know that there is a reward

that comes from working your ass off to vote for people and get them to elected office, then why will they do it again? Well, it's just from a pure political calculus, too. Like, the House of Representatives voted to condemn Donald Trump's racism this week with a resolution. Like, what is a resolution? It has no teeth, right? It's just a past resolution. Does anyone think that Donald Trump had a this week with the resolution. Like, what is a resolution? It has no teeth, right? It's just a past resolution. Does anyone think that Donald Trump had a good week this week?

No, he goes crazy every time something happens. Donald Trump thinks that Donald Trump had a good week. Yeah, he just knocked it out of the park again today, Donald. Does anyone think the politics of what happened this week? They were not good. The fact that Republicans today had to send a message to Trump to stop saying some of the things he's been saying, I think are not good for him. The fact that four Republicans did join in the resolution, it's not nothing, it's not zero. And so I think that

does matter. And also just, I do think it's worth remembering too, and this is the darkest argument to me for impeachment. I don't want to look back at having not done it, of not having used this power at this critical juncture, and wondering if we should have done more. We have to do everything we can now, win or lose. I agree with that. Now it's time for OK Stop. We'll roll a clip and the panel can say OK Stop at any point to comment. High school debate. It's shaped some of America's sharpest minds

to use logic and reason and unleash it on the world's problems. Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth Warren, Ben Shapiro. Anyway, Ben took a break from cosplaying as America's little brother in his rebellious conservative phase because his mom left his dad for a guy she met canvassing for Obama to share his thoughts on Bond, James Bond.

Let's watch. Say that there's a beautiful woman who is playing James Bond, like Lashana Lynch, let's say, and now she wants to seduce the most handsome man. Is that in any way difficult? Bond is about the guns and the girls. When it comes to the seduction of women, there is a very, very large difference. Okay, stop. It's hard to hear and to watch. Remember that guy, the pickup artist Mysterio, who had the hat and the big earrings and he was all about negging women and making them feel bad and that's how you got a date this entire analysis is derived from reading that guy's book yeah also like I'm really confused

about him being upset that he has to look at a beautiful woman on screen? Like, as a person who claims to be a heterosexual man, wouldn't that be something that you would prefer to watch? Like, when you watch porn, do you just, like, zoom in on the one corner where, like, the guy's chest is? Tommy, she was actually directing it at you.

That's such a red question to you, Tommy. Answer the question, Tommy. Roll the clip. And a man. I'm not even going to get into the lesbian aspect of this because

Okay, stop. What? What is he talking about? Where did the lesbian aspect of this because Okay, stop. What? What is he talking about? Where did the lesbian aspect of this come in? Let's take a part of this seriously which is the idea that part of what is central to James Bond's character

is that he is a man whose charisma, handsomeness and spy ability gives him incredible seduction abilities over women, and that that is part of his appeal, but that a beautiful woman

would not have to work as hard to seduce a man, so barring a female 007 being a lesbian, using logic, she will not have to show as much prowess and as much ability

to seduce men, and therefore will have lost some of what is central to the character of James Bond. Yeah, that's it. In the serious part here, things must be going pretty fucking well for you if the greatest threat that you can find is losing James Bond

as your male idol. ...character is going to be a lesbian. Let's assume that she's not for a second. Let's assume that she's not for a second. Let's assume that she is just black female James Bond, which means that she's bedding the most handsome men. That is not in any way a wish fulfillment fantasy for the men who typically watch the Bond films. Okay, stop.

Stop. Stop. What? Maybe a wish fulfillment fantasy for women who watch Bond films is to see a black female James Bond. Maybe men don't all watch James Bond for wish fulfillment fantasies. Take it back, John. What do you think I'm watching? If you think I'm watching? If you think I'm

watching Daniel Craig at James Bond because I'm in love with Daniel Craig, truly, deeply, actually, for real, in love with him, shame on you. I want to see if the

guy he thinks is his friend is not really his friend, but his enemy. That's what I'm there for, the plot twists. I'm there for Q. Q and the gadgets. That's all I want. I watch James Bond

for the articles. ...the chair of the Bond audience is male. The challenge for James Bond to be completely sexist about this. Okay, stop. What? You're going to be sexist about it about here comes the sex oh my god well let me gird my loins for ben shapiro being a sexist little elf

screaming into a microphone at 1.5 speed somehow all the time conquest right that's obviously been part of the trope of the series, is this conquest-driven mentality by James Bond. Now they're trying to make it as though he has to be in a relationship every movie because they're trying to make it as though he is not the user of it. Okay, stop.

Like, if this is what he thinks, like, he's denigrating relationships because he wants James Bond to have more, it's more aspirational to have... Why doesn't James Bond get to fuck around? Why doesn't James Bond have more mental sense? Why doesn't James Bond have more mental assault? Why doesn't James Bond have more mental assault? Um, what?

Understood. Okay, but that was always the appeal of Bond, is in every movie he was going to somehow seduce the most beautiful woman in the movie into bed with him. And this is what made him an idol to millions of men, who, of course, would like to seduce beautiful women, but are incapable of doing so, because there's an actual challenge to it.

Okay, stop. A lot of projection there. A lot of projection there. This is great when they tell on themselves at the very end like that. That was better than I thought. I was interested in this clip. You know, the actual substantive important thing to me about this conversation about whether 007 can be a black woman is like the qualities that we view as irreducible in a character, right? Like nobody was bothered when Daniel Craig went up, sorry, on the mind, when James Bond went from being a brunette to a blonde, right?

That's obviously not essential to the character. And people, you know, in America, we certainly didn't care that James Bond had been Scottish and then went to, I don't know, Welsh or whoever the fuck. It doesn't matter to us. It's all just a bunch of people we beat in a war once, so it doesn't matter. But he's actually, I think, revealing something important, which is there are a lot of men who might have trouble

seeing a woman as a character through which they could have a fantasy, that they could put themselves in her shoes and experience the world through her eyes and live vicariously through a female character. And I don't think that that's... I think it's wrong to be angry that you don't get to do that automatically, but I do think it's worth remembering that, like,

that is the salience of gender that is so important for so many people that actually making a Bond character female would do a lot to help fix. I also wanted to add Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is from Fleabag, is writing the new James Bond. And if she sees this, my prayer to the gods is that she opens James Bond with a scene of a little tiny right-wing pundit yelling about a black female superhero getting his ass kicked. That's a great idea. And that's okay, stop. All right, let's talk about 2020. Just minutes ago, CNN conducted a live NBA lottery-style drawing to determine the candidate lineup for the second set of Democratic primary debates

to be moderated by Anderson Cooper in Detroit on July 30th and 31st. On the first night, we have Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg. Okay, we're not going to be able to do this for all the candidates. Just let me say the names. We know you have favorites. On the first night,

we have Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Ryan, John Hickenlooper, Marianne Williamson, John Delaney, and Steve Bullock. On the second night, we have Joe Biden, Kamala Harris,

Julian Castro, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Jay Inslee, Kirsten, Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bennett, and Bill de Blasio. Clap for Bill de Blasio. There you go. There you go. CNN also announced some new rules for this next debate. There will be no show of hands or one word down the line questions. There you go.

And a candidate who consistently interrupts will have his or her time reduced. Watch out. Eat shit, John Delaney. All right, let's start with the drawing itself since we had a great time backstage watching the drawing. How do we think CNN handled the process this time? Improvement over NBC? Tommy, we'll start with you.

No. I think that ultimately the result was good, but if you guys didn't watch this, you probably didn't because you were getting nagged in line. They drew one group, then they went to break. Then they drew the second tier, and then they went to break. And then they came back and subjected us to 15 minutes of punditry about what was going to happen next when they controlled our ability to know what was going to happen next. It was like it was peak cable TV making it about themselves and reminding us all the things that are wrong about cable TV. Now ultimately I think this will

be an interesting debate especially the second night. There was multiple camera angles on the boxes that they drew the names out of, including an overhead cam down into the box, to which the three different people they had drawn from the box said, I can't see into the box right now, but you can from the overhead cam. I just thought the most surreal aspect of it was like what Tommy mentioned, where they had control about what was going to happen next, and they were trying to analyze their future decision.

It's like if I woke up in the morning and like sat and looked at my closet and I was like, what is she going to wear? Well, if she picks this and then instead of just like picking out my outfit. Aaron versus the romper. Yeah. Just pick your fucking outfit. They were treating it like it was fucking like they were waiting for the returns from Palm Beach. But they controlled the returns. They had the returns.

They're in charge. They got their... With nine pundits on stage. Nine. I mean, there are sort of two ways to look at this. One is like, who gives a shit, right? Like, cable now in this day and age is micro-targeted to a group of mostly older political junkies.

Like, that's who they're... They're not trying to inform the public per se other than in big news moments they're just doing narrating politics for a group of political junkies. And so that's that you don't care but on the sense of it like there was another level where I do think it does sort of matter which is we've been on this arc for a while now where it's about the trivialization of politics right right? We cover it like sports. And now we're doing basically the NBA draft lottery. And there is a connection, not a direct connection, but there is at least, I guess, a relationship

between treating politics this way and having a reality TV star who has no business doing the job as president. Those things are not unrelated. No. There was a good intention underlying some of this, which was to be radically transparent about how the various people ended up on stage,

but they milked that good intention for an hour of catheter ads or whatever else they could throw on TV. Can I make a serious point about it too? Which is, this is it. This is what cable news will be like for the next year and a half. We can't really change it.

We can work the roughs, and there's some value in doing that, though I think trying to badger the New York Times and changing headlines has diminishing value. Part of this is it's incumbent upon our candidates to choose where they play the game and choose where they call out the game. You know, Chuck Todd,

I'm going to repeat this forever, but Chuck Todd telling everybody to raise their hand, I don't think that that was a good way to elucidate the most important issues facing the country. But they all went along with it. And one thing I would like to see the candidates do more is pick fights with the refs. Like, I think that that was a moment for a candidate to say, hold on a second, Chuck, this is no way to run a milk stand or what have you. Like, the Democratic Party, I think, is a little bit too comfortable with handing over this control to the networks.

But the candidates don't have to go along with it. They can make moments by not just fighting with each other, by calling out the moments where the media is treating it too much like a sport. Mary Lou Williamson tackled John King in the States. She would hug him. She would hug him. You want a little more enemy of the people vibe? Give me 3%. Listen, give me 3%. No, I don't want enemy of the people vibe? Give me 3%. Listen, give me...

No, I don't want enemy of the people, but hey, this is fucking dumb, and having the audience applaud is not bad for any of those candidates. I mean, I think part of the reason why it's dangerous is that I think public interest in elections and in democracy is so fragile and fleeting, especially given what we

have right now. Like it's so hard to get people excited. It's so hard to get people to participate and to have CNN just milk it into an hour that is a waste of time for everybody is a really, it's a, it's a dereliction of duty. Corporate greed. And it's, and it's gross. The media shouldn't be doing that. Well, that's the, I mean, that is the ultimate point, which is And it's gross. The media shouldn't be doing that. Well, that's the, I mean, that is the ultimate point, which is our media is run by corporations. They are businesses with payrolls

and bottom lines and investors. And they, so like you, we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that they are in it only for the democracy, right? They have, they are a business and we have to understand their motives that way. And this is good business for CNN. CNN was in the shitter before the 2016 election.

They were struggling mightily, and they benefit. All cable has benefited. Cable was going like this, and then Trump happened. And that doesn't mean that I think they are for Trump. I don't actually think that. But Trump made politics interesting, and that is keeping cable afloat. And we just have to understand that.

One important distinction. The journalists who had to do that drawing today are doing their jobs. I bet they found it embarrassing. We respect them. We like them. They got a bunch of bosses who work for some publicly traded company that are telling them to do this stupid shit. And it's also worth remembering, too, that there's some nuance here in that CNN, along with doing this NBA draft,

which, again, this is the first NBA draft I've seen, and I can't believe this is the first NBA draft I've seen, and I can't believe this is what all the fuss is about. CNN has done some of the most substantive and serious town halls and debates. I thought when they had Ted Cruz debating Bernie Sanders about really important issues, the anchors at CNN have had some of the most compelling confrontations with Trump officials. They've run these incredibly valuable town halls that allowed Pete Buttigieg to become a serious candidate.

So I do think that there's... That was Dan's interview. What? Yeah. That was Dan's interview. And Dan's interview, obviously. Obviously, Dan gave him the Buddha bump. But all that's a way of saying is that, you know, CNN contains multitudes.

You get it. Yeah. I think this is an important point, to be totally fair, is that stuff pays for the town halls, right? Because CNN, to their credit, and MSNBC is doing some other thing, is, yes, giving a town hall to Kamala Harris and getting a lot of viewers, that's good for everyone, right?

Giving a town hall to Steve Bullock or John Hickenlooper, that's not good TV, it's not good ratings, but they gave it to everyone, and you gotta pay for that somehow, right? So this is a good time to mention that during the final tier draw, when they selected the four top candidates and which nights they'd be in,

everyone on this stage was literally cheering backstage, glued to the television. It was good TV. It was great TV. It was great. So let's actually talk about the substance of that. Every principle we had was out the window. It was the end of Animal Farm.

We were pigs at that fucking table. Levin was like, I'm gonna go out on that stage and give CNN a piece of my, yes, Joe Biden! Wednesday, Wednesday. So what campaigns of the top campaigns, we don't have to go through all 30,000 people running for president, the top campaigns, who do you think was happy with the drawing and where they ended up and who do you think's unhappy? Dan, you want to?

I think Joe Biden is probably not happy. Because it's a rematch with Kamala Harris. It's a rematch with Kamala, which every media outlet is happy about. But he's also on there with Cory Booker, who has been fighting with Biden about, I think, rightly criticizing Biden about his comments about segregationists. Julian Castro, who has proven to be very aggressive in the last debate, I think has been coming after Biden. On Biden's stage, Biden and Warren are the only two who have qualified for the last debate, I think, as we're coming after Biden. On Biden's stage, Biden and Warren are the only two who have qualified for the September debate. So all these other people are in a do or die situation where they have to have a moment to repel their

candidacy or will be over for all intents and purposes in a month. Biden and Harris. Biden and Harris, the only two. Yes, Biden and Harris are the only two who have done that. So there are going to be a lot of desperate people there taking swings, and the person they're going to take a swing at is going to be Biden. But, Dan, can I ask you a question? Why is it that it seems as though there are candidates for whom there is a cost to go after, and there's candidates where it seems like there's lower costs? It seems like in the first debate there was low cost to attacking Beto.

We have this instinct that there will be low cost to going after Biden. Why is it less seen as sort of low risk to attack joe biden i think if you were trying to get from zero percent to two percent there is low cost going after biden if you were trying to generate enough online attention to raise more donors there's zero cost for after biden but for all of the shit that biden gets among the online left some of which is very deserved he is the most popular person on that stage by far. There's a massive amount of goodwill among Democratic voters for him.

So if you're trying to go from 15 to 20, there may be a cost of going after Biden. And there may end up over time, if Kamala Harris and Biden go after each other repeatedly, there may be cost to Kamala for doing that over time. But if you're going from zero to two, you have nothing to lose, right? That's where the money is.

Yeah. Aaron, what do you think about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren being together? Oh, man. I feel like a lot of white college professor couples will have a difficult night. I think that, I mean, I was going to say on a serious note, but I am very serious about that. There's going to be an English Lit and History are going to be... The Middlebury Campus. They're going to be in separate caftans that night. I think that...

Why don't you fucking make the quinoa? that night. I think that like seeing Why don't you fucking make the quinoa? I think that seeing Warren and Sanders on this stage will be interesting but I do not think that Sanders is going to go after Warren. He might ask her to clarify some things, but I think that to me, Warren, and maybe this is just because as a candidate, I really like her. She seems sort of, she cares so much as she seems

kind of bulletproof to me because no matter what it is that she says and what she believes, she's, she's done the research. She knows what she's talking about. There's no way for her to get tripped up on duplicity. I think Sanders will probably not really know what to do with her. And I don't think that Warren is going to go after Sanders either. So I think it'll be at the end of the night that professor couple will be getting along again. Yeah. Well, so the interesting thing is, and this was one of the funny parts of the CNN coverage, is before they pick Sanders and Warren for for that night they have the rest of the candidates and they spend five minutes being like well this first night is the moderate candidate night because they're all very moderate candidates and it's going to be this debate about the center of the party and then they were like elizabeth

warren bernie sanders and they're like oh i guess not um all right you hadn't picked them all yeah exactly so i sort of wonder but I do think that first night could be a more congenial affair because you have Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who I agree with you

don't really have incentives to go after each other and then you have Pete Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke and all these other people who I don't see them all trying to mix it up

with each other as much because... They sort of divided the debate among the confrontational people and the non-confrontational people. Right, yeah, they all seem to be sort of non-confrontational. You could see, like, Tim Ryan or John Delaney

thinking now is the time to, you know, attack Medicare for All as unreasonable or, you know, trying to really make an electability argument against Bernie Sanders, for example. Like, you never know what some of these lower-tier candidates are going to do. I mean, Marianne Williamson might just learn how to juggle right there on stage.

And that would probably... She could move objects with her mind. That would be pretty cool. So, you know, and then like Tulsi in Night 2, like, you know, that, she has an interesting opportunity. You know, she kind of took Tim Ryan down a peg on foreign policy. It would be interesting to see if she goes after Joe Biden on Iraq. How many pegs was Tim Ryan up?

That's for others to answer. But I think Joe Biden is still in a tough place. His answer on why he's for the Iraq war is basically that, well, once I got to the White House, Barack Obama put me in charge of winding that war down. Tulsi Gabbard, having served in the military, could make a compelling case for why that lack of judgment maybe means he isn't electable. So, you know, you never know what these lower tier candidates are going to do, is basically my point. Last question on this. After the last debate, most of the analysis was about how maybe the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left because a lot of the candidates

on stage took positions on health care and immigration moving too far to the left because a lot of the candidates on stage took positions on health care and immigration that were further to the left. Yesterday, Rahm Emanuel, our old boss in the White House, wrote a Washington Post op-ed arguing for more moderation and wrote, quote, the only two Democratic presidents to win re-election since FDR won the White House by reaching out to the center.

Dan, do we think that's true of Obama? And do we think it's still true today? It is true about Obama in the sense that he won independence in 2008 by a lot. There are a lot of people who voted for Obama in 2012 who voted for Trump in 2016. Quote-unquote swing voters supported Obama. That's why he won by very large margins both times. But I think what is important to remember is Obama persuaded middle-of-the-road voters to support his agenda. He did not allow the whims of middle-of-the-road voters to change his agenda. And that is, I think, the problem that's where we get wrapped around the axle in this conversation is, yeah, the math is very clear. To win a 270-vote electoral college count, you have to do

both. You have to excite the base and you're going to have to persuade some people who either supported Trump in 2016 or supported an independent candidate that year. So you're going to have to persuade people, but you don't have to change what you stand for. If you have a compelling message about why your agenda is good for people, you can persuade them.

It doesn't mean... Persuading people in the middle does not mean moving to mushy middle centrism. Yeah, it's worth remembering something that we pointed out before, that the debate about what it means to moderate

that Rahm is articulating feels very old to me, especially when there's so much polling that shows that the so called, you know, the positions that are defined against moderation, whether it's a wealth tax or a higher marginal tax rate or a Green New Deal, you know, you go through these actual issues with voters and they're quite popular, not just amongst Democrats, but among independents and even some Republicans. So, you know, the country is telling us what the center is. The D.C. has a

weird and incorrect notion of what the center is. The center of the country is further to the left than a lot of pundits would like to admit. That's all. Yeah. It's just the pundits in the press can only interpret politics through the frame of ideology, which is how it's discussed in Washington, because you have liberal think tanks, conservative think tanks, and people who have named themselves moderates. But that's just not how voters think about it. If that was the case, you wouldn't have had people who elected Barack Obama

and Donald Trump in four years apart. Or like we just look at the 2018 elections, right? Like, you know, Sherrod Brown wins in Ohio. Tammy Baldwin wins in Wisconsin. Two states that Trump won. They're both very progressive senators. And then Kyrsten Sinema wins in Arizona and flips that for the first time. And she's a very moderate candidate, right? Like there's, you can't actually sort of connect ideology of candidates to the states and the, and the, where they won necessarily.

Right. I've found that a lot of times when people write columns that are like, why don't Democrats reach out to the center? It is that are like, why don't Democrats reach out to the center? It is kind of coded for why don't Democrats reach out to my personal views. And that is, I mean, that's kind of been a pattern. And on the other hand, you know, Republicans are rarely asked to reach out to the center. You know, Donald Trump, I mean, there was kind of a satirical column in the Times today that was like, Donald Trump, why don't you reach out toward the center? there was kind of a satirical column in the Times today that was like, Donald Trump, why don't you reach out toward the center? But the reality is

the right is so far to the right I can't reach it if I lean all the way this way. The left has the center just by embodying goals that normal people have. It's hilarious that we're at a

I will end by saying, it's hilarious that we're at a place where a column about how Donald Trump should reach out to the center to win re-election is seen as satirical only. David Brooks is like, why don't you call me at home? You have my cell. You have my fax. Okay. Time to play a game. You guys want to play a game? Utah.

My name is John. We come from Los Angeles. We know our customs must seem strange to you. With jeans that cling to our legs. And shorts that end before the knee. We come in peace and we have brought gifts from east and west, a New Yorker tote bag, a rentable e-scooter, and acai bowls from a restaurant one quarter owned by Jessica Biel. We have traveled great distances on Delta where we have status to this foreign land of Republicans and Mormons and friggin' gnarly powder.

For we bring a message of unity and hope. Yes, we love films that end with Emma Stone wondering if her devotion to Olivia Colman was worth the cost set against 17th century Britain. And you love films that end with Chris Hemsworth covered in dirt and baby oil pummeling an alien robot army set against Chris Evans also doing that. We're so divided.

Blue America and Red America, Oscar and Felix, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, George and Kellyanne. But are we as different as it seems? Yes, red states may reject Democratic politicians faster than you can reject a call from a friend who texted you about helping him move three days ago, and you were avoiding it slash trying to think of how to get out of it, and boom, your phone rings, and it's like, ooh, Democrat, reject it.

But there has been a strange phenomenon in recent years, the reddest of red states embracing the bluest of blue policies, hating the sinner, but loving the sin. To explore this trend, it's time to play Democrats. Can't win with them. Actually, maybe can win without them. Weird. Why? Seems like we should figure this out. Would someone out there like to play the game? You're standing up, but there's no merch on your shirt.

Oh, wait. She had it in her bag, and she put it on. She wins. She gets to do it. That was impressive. That was great. That was impressive. Hi, what's your name? Christina.

And where are you from, Christina? Salt Lake City, Utah. Are you ready to play? Yes. Question one. In 2018, voters here in Utah passed a ballot measure that would expand Medicaid to 150,000 people in the state. How did the Republican legislature react? Is it A?

By slow rolling the expansion. One legislator said, hey, Rome wasn't built in a day, and it didn't fall in a day. Rome gradually unraveled as a result of inequality, neglect of vital infrastructure, imperial overreach, corruption, and decadence. Point is, we're fine. Or is it B? With grace and humility, accepting the will of the voters. This is the right answer. No need for other clues.

Or is it C? That ballot measure passed in November. The legislature meets in January. If you think I'm going to stay inside some capital when that mountain is calling my name, bro, nah. I didn't buy my ex-sister-in-law's high boy and drive all the way to Utah to expand Medicaid. I came here to legislate that gnarly fucking pow-pow.

Or is it D? Republicans in the legislature immediately broke faith with the state's voters, watered down the ballot measure, implemented a much weaker expansion in its place. D. Which one did you think? Dan. D. D, yeah, okay. I knew where your heart was at.

Question two. In 2018, Senator Claire McCaskill lost a close and hotly contested Senate race. But on that same night, Missouri also passed which three ballot measures? Is it A? They passed a resolution declaring both Kansas City-style and St. Louis City-style barbecue to be the official barbecues of the state. They established regulations to ensure only high-quality corncob pipes could bear the name Missouri. And they passed a law requiring elected officials to pronounce it Missouri. It was a big day for fans of classic Missouri

stereotypes. Or is it B? Legalizing medical marijuana, establishing independent commissions to draw congressional districts, and raising the minimum wage. Or is it C? Okay, it was pretty intense. The first ballot measure said that Sandra had to admit that the divorce was mutual. The second measure said that it was illegal for Sandra to say their mutual friend to the club that Daryl blubbered for a solid two hours. And finally, if Sandra is going to gallivant around town with Ricardo, she can at least not go to Jerry's Fish Fry at a restaurant Daryl introduced her to. It was his place first.

So is it that or is it D? Mandatory biannual fire extinguisher checks in schools, a restructuring of retirement benefits for full-time government employees, and revised summer hours for public parks. Yeah, that's right. Sometimes good government is boring. What do you think? B.

B. You got it. B. B. You got it. B. Christina, you're doing so, so well. Next question. Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are calling for new rules to reign in Wall Street. Despite these candidates being called extreme by Republican politicians

and many pundits, what percentage of likely voters support stronger rules and enforcement on the financial industry? Is it A? Almost 30%, which is also the percentage of a bill you'd tip if you weren't sure if there was actually something between you and your waiter, a connection. And you're afraid to write your number because that's what a douche would do.

But you want to make clear you felt something if it was real, and it may not have been. Or is it B? Almost 50%, which is roughly the percent of the voting age population currently running for president in the Democratic primary. Or is it C? Almost 70%, which is also what many economists believe to be the optimal tax rate for the wealthy. Not a joke, I guess, but still, fuck you, fat cats. Or is it D? Almost 80%, which is also the percent chance you're going to hear them play a Bruno Mars song when you're at TJ Maxx. What do you think?

I'll say C, but I love Bruno Mars. And TJ Maxx. Listen, we all love TJ Maxx. Which was the right answer. You got it wrong. You know what? Don't follow some people sometimes. Listen in here.

Christina, trust this. Question four. All of the following policy positions are considered too extreme for most Republicans. Which of those positions is at over 50% approval amongst voters? Is it A? All gun buyers must pass a background check, as opposed to our current system where gun buyers are exempt if they know a guy. Or is it B?

Wealthy people should pay more in taxes, which is weird because I'd have thought that more than half of the population would be wealthy by now. Don't they keep telling us the economy's good? Or is it C? Citizens United was a bad core decision for the country, but to be fair, some people were excluded

from the opinion polls, namely corporations. Or is it D? Economic inequality is a big problem in America. Even billionaires agree. A conclusion they've reached over dinner at that resort where you hunt teachers who get to cancel their student debt Or is it D, economic inequality is a big problem in America. Even billionaires agree. A conclusion they've reached over dinner at that resort where you hunt teachers who get to cancel their student debt if they survive the weekend. I don't think it should be allowed. But it was in the Republican tax bill, so.

A. It's all of the above. You didn't give me that choice! I didn't give you the choice. It was sort of a trick. All of the above. Okay, you got it. Christina, you've won the game.

And a parachute gift card. Thank you for playing. Democrats can't win with them. Actually, maybe can win without them. Weird. Why? Seems like we should figure this out. When we come back, our interview with Stacey Stanford. She's an activist who's working to expand Medicaid in Utah.

Currently, she's a health policy analyst for the Utah Health Policy Project, which advocates on behalf of the uninsured and underserved. Please welcome Stacey Sanford. Stacey, thank you so much for being here with us tonight. Thank you for having me. I want to start with your personal story because it's what got you deeply involved in the issue of health care. In 2010, you were in a car accident and you couldn't go to work anymore. You lost your insurance.

What happened? Yeah, I mean, right when I needed health care the most is when I didn't have access to it. I had a barrage of new scary symptoms that were disorienting and painful. And I lost my job. I lost my health insurance, and realized very quickly I was not the only one in that situation. And so you thought you'd be eligible for Medicaid? Yeah. You know, I knew that down the road, I was looking forward to the ACA 2014,

that expansion would be implemented, and I would finally have access. And then the Supreme Court in 2012 said that it was optional, and it became a real partisan dividing line. And Utah opted year after year after year against it. And how many people in Utah were in your situation who fell in that Medicaid insurance gap? It depends on the numbers that you look at, but between 150,000 is the number that we campaigned on. And so there's a lot of people in that situation. What, I mean, to give people some context here, the federal government was giving, as part of the Affordable Care Act,

free money to states like Utah to cover, to provide health insurance for the uninsured in the state. And Utah, like many states with Republican governments, refused that free money, which is a first in the history of politics. And what reasons did the politicians in Utah give for doing that? There was a lot of excuses that the funding would go away down the road, that the administration, a future administration, would just decide that they would no longer fund it and Utah would be left holding the bag

and worried about a lot of runaway costs, about people signing up that wouldn't need it or too many. It was politics. But it was ideological. I mean, it comes down to an ideological divide, not a financial divide. Let's flash forward to 2018. By this time, you're working for the Utah Health Policy Project to pass the Medicaid expansion through ballot initiative.

Tell us about what Prop 3 does and who it impacts. Yeah. Proposition 3 was a simple, clean Medicaid expansion as called for under the Affordable Care Act. So it covers up to, they use the federal poverty line as a marker. So it's 138% of the poverty line. But in reality, that's an individual earning only up to $1,400 a month. It's not much. And so we would expand coverage to people in that low-income bracket. And then we also provided a funding mechanism, which is so key that Utahns are so compassionate. They wanted to provide health care for their neighbors, but they also voted to pay for that healthcare. And...

So Utah isn't really a ballot initiative state, right? I think the last time you passed one was 2007, and it's a red state, as we've discussed here, so it's a huge uphill battle. As you were campaigning for this, how did you go about convincing Republicans you know, Republicans in Utah to support your initiative? I think that it comes down to a real simple moral argument where it was an extra penny on a movie ticket is how much we were increasing the non-food sales tax. Just a minuscule increase out of the pocketbook of most Utahns to provide health care to people who desperately need it. So elevating those personal

stories, people like myself that were disabled in everyday life using a wheelchair, bedridden, but the government didn't consider me disabled enough to earn and deserve that health care. Everybody in that income bracket has a health care need and a health care story. And we tapped into that. How did you become involved with the Utah Health Palsy? How did you become an activist on this issue? I was really excited about the ACA. I read the whole 900-page Boloax. Which puts you ahead of a lot of members of Congress. Yeah, most of them, most of them. And it started selfishly. You know, it started that I needed healthcare and I couldn't

get it. And it did not take long to realize that there were so many other people with chronic illness and disability and kids and horrible situations that couldn't get the health care that they needed. And so I started hearing those stories. I started going to rallies. I started organizing rallies and meeting people. And I climbed my way up at the Utah Health Policy Project. I started as a volunteer and then an intern and part-time.

And now they can't get rid of me. So... That seems like a good thing. Yes. a volunteer and then an intern and part-time, and now they can't get rid of me. That seems like a good thing. Yes. Thanks to your work and many activists like yourself and groups like the Utah Health Policy Project, your proposition passed. But now, there's a plot twist. Yeah, we got to applaud for about that long.

Yes. We got about five seconds to celebrate. So talk to me about what your state legislature and your government is doing. Oh yeah. So Proposition 3 was a bridge across the coverage gap. That's what we call the people that don't have access without Medicaid expansion is the coverage gap. So Proposition 3 was a nice, beautiful, shiny bridge across the gap. The legislature tore that down and built a shitty, rickety bridge that has a bunch of broken, missing planks that are leaving people out. And how have they structured it? How did they specifically weaken your proposal?

Yeah, so they cut it down the eligibility level. So instead of being able to earn $1,400 a month, the cutoff is about $1,000 a month, which leaves out about half the people who would have been eligible. So they can go on the Affordable Care Act, but there's a limited enrollment period. They're locked out. And then once they get on, they still have to pay for co-pays and things like that. They also added a couple different caps. So a cap on enrollment, a limit on the number of people who can sign up that they can decide to implement whenever they decide it's no longer practicable to provide the care. They put added a cap on the money we receive from the federal government,

again, turning down free money, but it doesn't limit the state's responsibility. So in exchange, they're allowed to cut program, to cut services, and do a bunch of dangerous things. It's called a per capita cap. For you following along at home, that might sound familiar, because they tried that in 2017 as part of the ACA repeal. They failed through Congress, and now Utah is trying to lead the charge to do this on a state-by-state basis. And then they're adding red tape barriers like a work reporting requirement, which, among other things, requires somebody to fill out 48 job applications to get and keep their Medicaid.

So we have seen Republican state governments take a similar response to progressive ballot initiatives that passed. You had the governor of Maine refusing to implement a similar Medicaid expansion. You have state legislature in Florida rolling back the a ballot proposition that expanded voting rights to ex felons how how are the state how like what is the reaction among the people of Utah who voted for this initiative to see this very explicit and cynical undermining of democracy it's been really hard I mean people came out and they voted and they campaigned and they sold their Republican neighbors and moms on this. And it's really hard. But because of the wonky process we're in, we actually have the ball back in our court now. And we're going through

this waiver process. And so they stole our ball in January and now we have it back and everybody can submit public comment to speak out against these changes. And we've seen changes overturned in court in Arkansas and Kentucky through legal challenge. So y'all are Utahns in the crowd, You at home, it doesn't matter where you are. You can go to healthpolicyproject.org and check three boxes. That goes to the federal government. And we can use that in court to get back to where we need to be with a full Medicaid expansion. And for our listeners at home who are not Utahns, is that how you say that?

Utahns, yes. Utahns. I saw that word, and I thought that was a bit too hard to pronounce, so thank you for that. But so for our listeners at home, are there ways in which they can help, you know, either by volunteering or financially supporting your organization, your effort? I mean, yeah, healthpolicyproject.org, there's a donation thing there. But honestly, you don't have to be in Utah to comment. It's a federal issue because Utah is the first knocking on the door. This is coming to a state near you if Utah gets approval.

This is just starting these harmful changes nationwide. It doesn't end here so last question for you your story for what you've done here and your path to an activist is so inspiring what advice would you give to people out there who want to become involved in their communities as activists to try to affect change you've got to demand a seat at the table. I mean, they don't, they didn't want to listen to, I called myself the sad sick girl for so long because it felt like it was such a pity thing. Okay, we'll listen to Stacey. She's sad and pathetic. But any kind of effective health policy, it has to begin, end and center around sick people and disabled people and people who have healthcare needs.

And any other issue, immigration has to center on immigrants and racial issues need to focus on people of color and we need to make sure that you get yourself a seat at the table so that your voice can be heard on these important issues. Well that was perfectly said. Stacey, thank you so much. Please give it up for Stacy. Thank you so much, Salt Lake City. You guys were fantastic. Thank you, Stacy Stanford, for joining us.

We'll come back to Utah soon. We love you guys. Thank you, Stacy Stanford, for joining us. We'll come back to Utah soon. We love you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. guitar solo I'm out.