Pod Save America - “Kevin’s Gavel In A Vice.”

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene says she would’ve organized a more successful coup, Kevin McCarthy still cant find 218 votes for speaker, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema leaves the Democratic Party. Then, Sen. Brian Schatz stops by to talk about democracy, the debt ceiling, Twitter, and Hanukkah. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. On today's show, Marjorie Taylor Greene says she would have organized a more successful coup. Kevin McCarthy still can't find 218 votes for Speaker, and Kyrsten Sinema leaves the Democratic Party. Then-Democratic Senator Brian Schatz joins to talk about democracy, the debt ceiling, Twitter, and Hanukkah. He did talk about Hanukkah. He did talk about Hanukkah. But first, Tommy is out today

for the very best reason. He and Hannah are home with their new baby girl, Lizette Louise Vitor. And the happiest surprise imaginable, Hannah got pregnant a few months after their daughter Margo was stillborn. And after a very long year, Lizzie arrived on tuesday she is beautiful uh and after a few scary days in the nicu she is home and doing well and it is just the absolute best feeling uh seeing hannah and tommy just radiate joy yeah i'm really happy with them yeah really happy uh so best news ever so happy and excited and uh tommy will some time. Hopefully. We don't know how long. Until then, for us, it's takes for two. Takes for two.

Takes for two. Takes for two. That's what we're calling this episode. All right, let's get to the news. In case anyone's still wondering where the Republican Party is headed after running a bunch of election deniers and then refusing to ditch their 2024 front runner for dining with Nazis. We got another hint at the Young Republicans event in New York City over the weekend. I couldn't attend. Did you? I assume you didn't attend either. No, no, no. I decided to. I'm going to go to the one in L.A. The one in L.A. Right. Of course. So after the organization's president said, quote, we want total war, and quote, must be prepared to do battle in the streets, Marjorie Taylor Greene took the

stage and said this. Then January 6th happens, and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing along with Steve Bannon here. And I gotta tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been armed. They say that whole thing was planned and I'm like, are you kidding me? A bunch of conservatives, second amendment supporters winning the Capitol without guns and they think that we organized that? I don't think so. First of all, I think she's overestimating her organizational prowess. Yeah, there's no evidence that she could put together an insurrection. But I also think she tells on herself a bit when she

says we would have won. You're supposed to. What? Okay. So wild applause from the crowd which included don jr steve bannon rudy giuliani the publishers of a white nationalist website v dare so then the white house called on republicans to condemn the violent dangerous remarks in response green put out a statement she said her comments were a sarcastic joke sarcastic joke uh and she went on in the statement to attack drag queen celebrities and a former twitter employee fired by elon musk as one does yeah sure what do you think of it was just sarcasm defense so it's just a joke didn't it sound like it was just sounded like a joke first of all she said a lot of things and she meant she meant it all and the other guy saying you know we want to be prepared to do battle in

every arena the media the courtroom the ballot box in the streets he means it too she obviously she means it what she's saying is we could do this with guns and we could be more successful the next time you know also by the way she's ignoring the fact that uh they were armed many of them were armed yes several people died several people died many of them were armed anyway we should assume they mean this and not just in the sense that like that that guy wants like cosplay as a brown shirt when he says like we need we'll do battle in the streets he doesn't mean he's gonna do battle in the streets he wants to he wants like vulnerable and broken angry young men to do battle in the streets on his behalf that and you know so that enough people take this kind of rhetoric seriously

that like they'll be part of protests at a drag show they'll be part of bomb threats at a children's hospital they will chase librarians out of their jobs they will firebomb a donut shop that hosted a drag show so that's what they that's what they want they're very excited about that when they say in the streets they're very they're they're they're proud and excited about the intimidation that they can at least maybe they'll want a bit of of, they'll create some ironic distance from the actual outcomes of what they're calling for. But they want us to be intimidated. They want people to be afraid. Yeah. And look, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene and a bunch of other Republican entertainers, pundits like this,

they can say that they're just joking or trolling, you know, but Philip Bump at the Washington Post can say that they're just joking or trolling, you know. But Philip Bump at The Washington Post pointed out that there's an enormous amount of polling now that shows there's more sympathy for the use of violence as a political response by the right. It's been increasing. Most recently, a nonpartisan poll found that one in three Republicans agreed with the statement, because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country. That's one in three. So she can say that she's joking. She can say that it's sarcasm, but she is speaking in the context of an environment where a third of the party that she's part of actually believes that violence could be a solution at

some point. And, you know, like I was thinking about this and there's this problem we have now where the conversation, when someone says something like this, even when there's an insurrection at the Capitol, we even saw it after Dobbs, that immediately the conversation is, what could happen next? They could do contraception.

They could do gay rights. They could come after gay marriage or even interracial marriage. And it's like our political press is always taking laxatives. And so it just runs through things really, really fast. It processes it way too quickly. And like, hey, things are pretty bad right now.

We don't need to worry about what's next. And like, there's this problem with always going to the next thing. And it's two problems. One, it does ignore how bad things are already, but also it kind of makes everything, this conversation about one big question, which is like, will America be a free and inclusive democracy where people are safe? And then everything goes into that one question.

If Republican election deniers are defeated, it's seen as a rebuke to Marjorie Taylor Greene, which in some sense it is. But maybe there are two questions we're answering. And one is, will people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz and some of these right wing kooks, will they have power enough in the Republican Party to win elections? Maybe, maybe not. But they don't need that power to answer a different question, which is, can they make life in America demonstrably worse and scarier for people that don't look and think like them? And they are already successfully doing that. That is happening all the time. So there's always this tension between wanting to highlight

and condemn violent rhetoric like this and not wanting to amplify it and elevate someone like Greene. We've talked about this a million times. This is the second time in two weeks that the White House has put out a statement not only condemning this, but then

calling on every Republican leader, every leader everywhere to also condemn this dangerous rhetoric. Why do you think they've decided to go this route? Yeah, well, I think first of all, just politically, we did just go through a midterm election where Democrats overperformed in part because of Republican embrace of extreme people and policies. And we should force every one of these Republicans to answer for people like MTG every day, in part because when we do force them to answer for it, we find that they're terrified to do so, that they try to avoid it as much as they can because of their own political weaknesses. Also, eight in 10 Americans right now are concerned about political violence. As much as you're right, there is a rise of violence acceptance on the part of Republicans. But at the same time, the country itself is turning against it. One reason it is important for the White House to call this out is because

it's one of the biggest threats we face in this country. And that's not coming from the administration. That's coming from law enforcement officials. You start to look at the list of what has been unfolding. You have five people murdered at the Colorado Springs massacre a few weeks ago at a gay bar called Club Q, the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. That inspired the Poway shooter, who also tried to burn down a mosque, the El Paso massacre, the Buffalo massacre, the Highland Park massacre, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the insurrection. You have far-right goons-quants menacing a drag show in Ohio. GLAAD counted 124 protests and attacks. Hard to differentiate between protests and attacks now because they're

really harassment campaigns that run the gamut from thugs chasing drag queens down the street to broken windows and storefronts to people being forced to quit their jobs because they're terrified of being attacked. And so you have like Elon Musk on Twitter claiming that like, right, free speech is under attack because they took Hunter Biden's dick pics off the internet while there's like actual violence, actual threats of violence, curtailing actual speech every day and like changing the way people live because they're afraid of the right wing in this country. Yeah. And there's been it's a noticeable increase, right? Like just this year, right wing extremists have taken part in at least 55 actions targeting the gay community an increase of 340 percent from

just the year before in 2021 wasn't great yeah uh it's there's no it's never been great and you know the department of homeland security uh not a bunch of uh woke liberals at the department of homeland security just issued a terrorism advisory bulletin uh in the last couple weeks that warned about violent extremists targeting LGBTQ Jewish and migrant communities. It's happening all across the spectrum. It's targeting vulnerable communities and marginalized communities all over the country. And then, you know, at a higher level, it's Republicans just saying that like anyone who doesn't think like them or look like them is is not worthy of of of being safe, feeling safe in this country.

And, you know, when people like Marjorie Taylor Greene say, oh, it was sarcastic when they say they're doing it with a wink and a nod. That is not new. That is very, very, very old. Using irony, treating it like you're being clownish, treating it like a joke, treating it like you're just trying to freak the libs. Like this is an old strategy for laundering hateful ideas. The people that know what they mean, know what they mean. And the most broken, the most dangerous, the most isolated are the people that are going to take these kinds of ideas to their logical conclusions. And these people think they can have plausible deniability by claiming it's a joke, by claiming they never actually directly encourage violence.

But that's what they're stoking every day. They're just raising the temperature every single day. And on the flip side, you know, back to the question of like why the Biden folks, why the White House was so quick to put out a statement. Obviously, there's a political reason. Obviously, it's just like the right thing to do. But I also think there's a practical effect here. Like we know that when leaders condemn this kind of rhetoric, they make it more difficult for their supporters to embrace it and to potentially incite that. Just as Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, by, you know, joking around, are more likely to incite this kind of violence, you can prevent this kind of violence when people in positions of authority, people who a lot of people in this country look up to or take cues from say enough is enough. There's a it can be a vicious circle or a virtuous circle between the base of a party

and the leaders of that party. And Democrats, I think, were not paying enough attention to what has been happening, not just over the last six years, but the last 30, 40 years as that conversation got more and more heated as right right-wing radio and right-wing extremism found more and more quarter. And it got to the point in the Trump years where these leaders and officials felt they were no longer in charge. They no longer had the power to denounce it, that the Trump movement was not just like politically potent, it was electorally successful. And they became afraid. When you see little cracks in that, when you see election deniers start to lose, when you see Republicans, a few of them anyway,

even if they're too afraid to actually denounce Trump by name, when you see just little bits of space, we have to get into that space and push them and try to make that space bigger, not just because it's going to help us defeat Republican extremists, but because that's how over the next so many years we can begin to go in a better direction. There has to be a way out of this. Yeah. So a decent number of Republicans in Congress responded to Trump's latest bullshit by saying, oh, he's unlikely to win. You know, we were talking about that's a an understandable strategy and maybe even an effective one within the context of a Republican primary. It doesn't really apply to green. No. And most of the Republicans in Congress, most Republican politicians, they've been pretty quiet today.

What do you think that is? I don't think they feel like they have to respond. I think they get away with being quiet. They're probably right. Oh, she's just a kook. You know, she's doing her kooky thing. We're kind of all it's all it's all sort of baked into like the stock price of her. And nobody's pushing them.

Nobody's asking them. They don't have to. They don't have to account for it. I also think that Kevin McCarthy needs her to be speaker be speaker well that's why he specifically can't say anything right kevin mccarthy needs every vote i mean first of all yeah this week he wants to be speaker he's always wanted to be speaker kevin mccarthy promised to put paul gosar and marley children marjorie taylor green back on their committees long before he knew he was going to be in a four-seat fight to become speaker the house. He capitulated to these people long ago. But and it's like, but because

he needs her to be speaker, she knows that she now gets to say and do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah. Not like she was holding back before. Yeah, contained. But now she knows that she has real power in the Republican Party and no one's really going to punish her because Kevin McCarthy wants to keep his job. And like, by the way, Mitch McConnell has a growing problem in the Senate, too. Like he used to just have Ted Cruz. Now he's got a whole bunch of Ted Cruz's in his caucus. And so he's going to worry about that shit, too. Yeah, not good. Well, let's talk more about Kevin McCarthy, who seems to be the most miserable person in Washington right now. That is the that's the silver lining. He needs 218 votes to become speaker.

Six House Republicans known as the Never Kevin movement. Yeah, I love that. Have already said they won't vote for him, which leaves him with 216 votes at most. And that's a lot of Republicans, especially new members, still haven't said how they'll vote. So it could be more than five or six. I think there's like four who said like no matter what, they'll never, ever vote for him. And then the fifth and sixth are sort of like one said, like in an extreme circumstance. They're wobbly. They're wobbly enough that he could just get the votes he needs. Yeah. But so far he doesn't have them. And but we should also say McCarthy's opponent, Andy Biggs, also doesn't have anywhere near 218 votes. So here's what pro McCarthy Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska said the other day, quote, If this small group

refuses to play ball, we'll work across the aisle to find an agreeable Republican. You think that's possible? Well, I think first of all, you know, Don, don't threaten us with a good time here. That is that is that that is a threat. That is a threat to to these Republicans. That's all that is. You you and Aaron Sorkin aren't right in this episode. If Kevin McCarthy, the only plausible person. Bring us Cheney. Bring us Liz. You get Cheney.

You get Cheney. Did I hear Speaker Gottheimer? Is it the Problem Solvers Caucus Day to Rule? Pretty straightforward from here. Speaker Sinema. Co-speakers. Co-speakers co-speakers uh speaker Lieberman come on it's you know you know there's nowhere in the rule book that says a dog can't play basketball uh yeah so first of all this is just a threat but even if it's not like you just

look at this if the only plausible person who is Kevin McCarthy can't be speaker you do get to some pretty implausible people we will see but right now this seems to be something you're saying to uh remind the caucus that the alternative to kevin mccarthy isn't uh jim jordan it's somebody that is uh palatable to uh a group of democrats yeah some of the people floating being floated were like like you said liz cheney or or justin amash or know, there's or some like more moderate Republican. But then again, you would need every single House Democrat to vote for this Republican, plus the handful of Republican moderates in the House to get to 18. Whatever number of whatever. Well, whatever number of Republicans were agreeing to go along with this deal. to 218. Whatever number of whatever, well, whatever number of Republicans were agreeing to go along with this deal. Right. Right. Plus whatever Democrats, which means you have a bunch

of Democrats standing up and saying, hi, I, a Democrat elected with Democratic votes in this district hereby would like to make this Republican member Fred Upton. Yeah, it's a tough it's tough in practice. It's tough in practice. I think it does seem like these people will see what happens in the next couple of weeks. It does seem like this group of Republicans wants to embarrass Kevin McCarthy. There is little penalty for making sure that McCarthy loses the first vote. Right. Right. Like what's that going to do? It's going to embarrass Kevin McCarthy. It's not going to hurt Republicans. Otherwise, everyone listening, obviously every single person listening to this podcast remembers in great detail the moment John Boehner lost his first vote. Don't you? Yeah, literally something I forgot

about until these stories that he did. And then I remembered it. So yeah, you could see that. Look, I could see a scenario where just to get him, McCarthy loses, can't get to 218. And then like Steve Scalise ends up being the consensus job for speaker just so that the the never kevin movement can uh can get their guy yeah look i look i look i don't i don't presume to understand the minds of the never kevin movement but i don't think they understand their minds two points they don't either but two points about this one uh regardless of who the person is like let's not just it's not just about personalities it is about the structure here and whoever this person is they, let's not just it's not just about personalities. It is about the structure here. And whoever this person is, they will be beholden to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar.

They will face the same problem. They're all Kevin McCarthy. Whoever speaker of the House will be Kevin McCarthy in some way or another. And then the question is, will these Republicans rather get Kevin McCarthy's head or get some concessions for relenting to him. And to me, it seems like that's, we don't know, but that's the most likely direction we're heading in. Well, let's talk about that. So seven incoming House Republicans who are still undecided. These are not the same people as the Never Kevin movement. Yeah, these are the maybe Kevins. They're maybe Kevins. All right, so the seven maybe Kevins just issued-

Kevin if you're nasty. Just issued a series of demands to McCarthy. What are some of them and what happens if he accepts them? Alright, here they are. They make it possible for any member to force a vote on removing the Speaker. Yeah, put a pin in that one. We're coming back to that one. That's what Mark Meadows did once to fuck with Boehner. Require at least

three days to review the final bill texted for a vote. Yeah, we've tried that one before. Okay, great. What are you going to do, read it? That'll fix it. Bar Republican leaders and PACs from getting involved in primaries. So basically trying to stop the party from trying to save the Republican primary voter from themselves, which they've been trying to do. Basically, this is for Trumpy wackos. Give the Freedom Caucus members more power on committees. Use the debt ceiling as a hostage, which they want to do anyhow. And go ham on investigations of the Biden administration, basically, which again,

every Republican wants to do anyhow. So it really is the more positions on key committees, like the rules committee and more chair jobs is a big one and the biggest one, which is basically a little ejector seat for Kevin McCarthy. Basically, this group of Republicans is saying to Kevin McCarthy, we'll let you be speaker, but we're going to have your little gavel and a vice. Well, and like all the shit that McCarthy is doing. Just going to roll by. You're going to roll right past that, huh?

I'm talking about Kevin's little gavel and a vice. I get the reference. Kevin's gavel and a vice. Yeah, yeah. Episode title, perhaps. Olivia's nodding. I think that demand and the debt ceiling demand are the two most consequential demands. The first one means that all the shit that Kevin McCarthy is doing right now to get the votes that he needs, not saying anything about Marjorie Taylor, all this bullshit. He's going to be doing that in perpetuity if they can vacate him at any moment.

At any time, any member can call for a vote. At any time, any member can call for a vote. He'll never really have the job. He'll never sleep again. He's always trying out for the job every single day. He'll never sleep again. It's no contract. It's no contract.

It's week to week. He just cannot give in to that. That, I imagine, there'll be some compromise there where they can call a vote to a motion to vacate but like you're going to need x percentage of the caucus to do so you just can't have any wacko in the caucus call i mean if we'll see if they do then the the consensus speaker thing could actually become a reality at some point and then the no debt ceiling increase unless they get spending cuts in a balanced budget, quote, quote, balanced budget in 10 years. That's nuts. That's just setting it up. I mean, I guess you could say he agrees to that. There's a plan and then he backs down. Well, that's what I just think it's like, whatever that says,

that's a policy pronouncement. If he doesn't have the votes, he doesn't have the votes. He could put up their version of a debt ceiling increase, which has all these cuts if he doesn't have the votes he doesn't have the votes he could put up their version of a debt ceiling increase which has all these cuts it doesn't pass and then he says it didn't pass i did what you asked me to do now i'm gonna have to go over to hakeem jeffries and get the votes together and then you know what happens if they get the ejector seat button bring a scaly kevin's through the sky through the sunroof you get scaly's i'm telling this is this is speaker trump pretty straightforward from here it is going to be chaos that is the only safe prediction that i have and just it's going to be you know we didn't we talked about this a little bit with senator brian schatz later and it's you

know clearly like he is frustrated that they don't have the votes to fix the debt ceiling once and for all but just remember how fucking stupid it is that we that there aren't 51 Democratic votes to get rid of the debt ceiling to take the bullets out of this gun that the worst people in Congress are using to threaten the eighth worst people in Congress. Yeah. And look, this is I mean, the way this goes down, is there probably a majority in the House in this house, to want to make sure that we lift the debt ceiling and don't hold the economy hostage for massive cuts? Yeah, probably.

Like your Don Bacons and a couple other moderate Republicans. But Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, whoever is the speaker, is going to be in control here. I mean, it's just going to be chaos. Let's talk about a huge pain in the ass on the other side of the aisle. Kirsten Sinema, who announced on Friday that she has changed her party affiliation to independent right after I attempted fate on Thursday's pod by saying that at least we won't have to talk about Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema for the next two years. So much for that.

Sinema also said she won't caucus with the Republicans, which means the Democrats will maintain their majority and control of all Senate committees. Why'd she do it, Lovett? Why'd she do it? First of all, let's just that's the most important point, by the way. She will caucus with the Democrats, which means but for the fact that we know how much of a pain in the ass she has been on policy on paper, she is she is doing what Angus King and Bernie Sanders are doing. It's just that she's doing in a way that will make it harder for us to pass our agenda. She did it because she can't win a primary in 2024. She has made herself toxic to too many Democratic voters because of how she tried to stymie Joe Biden's agenda. basically kind of go full, go full maverick in her mind, declare herself an independent and basically do what she's doing anyway, which is sometimes going along with Democrats, sometimes not claiming to be an independent, claiming to want to work with both sides, whatever, kind of getting to build her brand. So it's just sort of, in a lot of ways, it's just sort of

putting the right name on the way she's been behaving for the last couple of years anyway. I just think that's such a cynical view of the situation i mean i mean she you're gonna play i just want she gave a quote you're right to cnn and she said or politico or whatever she said i know this is probably disappointing to folks but i'm actually not even thinking about electoral politics or talking about that at all right now i mean she is so full of shit here's the thing she she like fancies herself the next john mccain if john mccain did something like this you know you'd probably say i couldn't win a primary so i couldn't win a primary so i uh i'm doing this for you know it's like you might not like it but i'm just gonna tell you she is so full of shit yes

she's so full of shit she has but you're right she has a horrible approval rating among democrats she's underwater by a lot she's at like 34 35 among democrats has been for a year now she's got like a a decent approval rating among independents and republicans in arizona overall her favorability rating is still slightly underwater. So it's not like she's very popular in the state. It really is. It's not even like it's the best. It's the it's the only option she has, really, because I think that she would start as a significant underdog in in a primary. Yeah. She just went from the underdog in her own primary to putting herself in a position to dare Democrats to risk the seat to challenge her.

And it's... Let's talk about that risk. How difficult do you think it will be for a Democrat to win Sinema's seat in 2024? I do think you should just... A lot does depend on how she votes and acts. Behaves. Behaves over the next... Like what she does over the next two years. Just where she decides to draw her dumb lines in the sand.

You know, the last time it was about taxing hedge funds and corporations. So like, who knows what positions she takes that are kind of anathema to Democrats. So it really does depend on what she does over the next two years and what she stands in the way of. But if the status quo anti is what it is, then it's really, really hard because any Democrat that runs against somebody who votes for Democratic judges and voted for the Inflation Reduction Act and voted for a host of really important Democratic priorities is going to be someone who splits the anti-MAGA vote. And it's a very difficult position for the Democratic Party to be in. That said, you do see Democrats saying, great, now the primary is open, you know, which is a little bit of a bluff, but it's very, very hard.

And the reason why it's so difficult is because of Arizona's electorate. So these are the voter registration statistics as of November of 22 is from the Secretary of State website. two is from the secretary of state website. 35% of voters identify as Republican or registered as Republican. 31% are registered as Democrats and 34% are registered as other. So, you know, I saw some people saying, oh, well, if all Democrats stuck together in Arizona, if all Democratic voters stuck together and voted for the Democratic candidate, like would be okay. Not true at all. You'd need a significant number of the non-affiliated voters, independent voters. You probably need some Republicans. That's certainly, Mark Kelly just won the seat with 9, 10% of Republicans, and he

won independents by like, I think it was like 55 to 40, a significant margin. So you need those independent Republican voters. Now, does that mean a Democrat like a Mark Kelly or someone like that couldn't capture a significant number of independents and Republicans? No, but you're right. She splits the vote a little bit if it's two of them going for that, because Republican voters in Arizona. And by the way, the Republican Party in Arizona continues to nominate the most extreme candidates. It's not like they're nominating Doug Ducey anymore. Yeah. And they would. And if we are heading towards a Democrat versus Kyrsten Sinema versus Republican, you'll be damn sure they're going to nominate whoever the fuck they want, because they'll be pretty sure that person is going to be a senator.

And like, you know, Kerry Lake got something like 91, 92 percent of Republican voters. Blake Masters, like probably the the least popular candidate in arizona in a long long time he'd be a senator he got like 89 90 percent of republicans he would in this he would he would have won so three-way race so if you get some of the republican candidate getting 89 90 percent of the republican vote and then you have two other candidates splitting democrat and independent vote that's really really tough. It's really tough. And the numbers I just said were the voter registration statistics in the midterm in terms of who came out to vote in 2022. The midterms in Arizona were 27 percent Democratic, 33 percent Republican and 40 percent independent. That is. And by the way, like,

let's not talk about this as if the Democrats are spoiler in that scenario. The spoiler is a person in Kyrsten Sinema. Oh, yeah, yeah. And as we've seen, no one is a better team player than Kyrsten Sinema. Imagine all of us sitting around the table trying to figure out how to convince Kyrsten Sinema to drop out of the race because she's drawing 13% against Ruben Gallego. Right. And costing us the Senate seat.

Like, there is some, like, ugly, fucking terrible outcomes. And that's why it's a very very fresh it was a very frustrating weekend and look i don't i mean ruben gallego's out there saying what i think he should be saying which is like i'm not going to make my decision based on of course her threat or her bluff or whatever the hell she's trying to do i'm going to make it based on what i think is right it's also interesting that he is already focusing in his statements and the Arizona Democrats did this as well. They're focusing their statements like not on her betraying the party for Republicans or for whatever, but her betraying the people who elected her by, you know, voting with wealthy donors. Right. She helped a killed, carried interest for the hedge fund assholes. She made the prescription drug provision uh weaker for the drug companies

right because as much as we are frustrated by her kind of bullshit rhetoric around i'll work with anybody and you know i'm just looking out for whatever i don't believe in either part a good idea can come from anywhere all the stuff people say it's a really good message it really appeals to people i'll work with anybody we got to turn down the temperature i'm independent i do what's best for arizona Like these things do well. Yeah. And it's just annoying because it's all vibes, right? Like she came out and said, look, here's here's three issues where I just am totally different from my party. Just don't just don't believe them. And then here's the issues where I align with the Republicans.

Here's where I align with the Democrats. And I just I have no it was not about issues. It was no substance in any of her announcement it was all just uh it's all vibes and by the way like the way in which she like stood in the way of uh uh build back better was around like a like a few tax issues which are extremely unpopular rich people shit real like just her refusal to raise taxes on the biggest corporations and the richest people in her state. Like she took extremely unpopular position positions, especially unpopular with independents to stymie some of the Democratic proposals. Yeah. But again, next two years, she's still going to be the same pain in the ass she was for the last two years. Yeah. At least when in terms of governing, we'll, you know, we'll figure it out when we get to 2024.

But hey, at least, listen, we still increased our majority by one. Yeah. So now we don't need both Manchin and Sinema every time. Yeah. And, you know, in terms of how she'll behave over the next two years and how she'll vote, the other issue here is, like, there's not going to be a ton of legislation over the next two years. It's going to be confirming judges and administration officials. That's going to be mainly.

And then whatever happens with the debt ceiling. And whatever happens with the debt ceiling. Who knows? Who knows? All right. We will talk about the debt ceiling and more with our next guest, Senator Brian Schatz, right after this. On the pod today, Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz. Welcome back to the pod. Great to be here. Nice to see you both. Schatz. Schatz. Schatz.

You said we were going to do it. I don't know. I thought someone was going to do it. We have a whole staff. We're going to play that song. Can't you do that in post, as they say? We know what we can do that in post. Thanks for letting us know that. We're going to run a podcast company.

We'll do it in post. All right. us know that. We run a podcast company. We'll do it in post. All right. There's a lot on Congress's plate between now and the end of the year. Not much time. What are you pushing hardest to get done? What can you live without? Well, let me start with, I mean, look, we need an omnibus spending package because, you know, I don't want to immediately jump into Kevin McCarthy's travails, but he's going to have a tremendously difficult time passing any budget. So whatever budget we pass is likely to be the budget for the next two years. And so while we still have a democratic control of both chambers, it's really important to move forward with an omnibus spending package in the next two weeks. And then for me, I'm working on making sure that a number of bills for Indian tribes, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians pass as part of that package. Is the Electoral Count Reform Act going to get done? I think so. But we're sort of like it all depends on whether or

not we have a big bill. If we don't have a big bill, then none of these other things are going to pass. And I like the Electoral Count Act. And I've sort of had some internal disagreements with some of my colleagues about it, because it's good. It's fine. But you can't outlaw insurrection. Insurrection is already illegal. And so I really do worry that, especially for Republicans, but even Democrats, they want to sort of, you know, when all you have is a hammer, everything feels like a nail, everything looks like a nail. And so I do feel like everyone's thinking, wow, that was really terrible. We should make a law against it. And my own view is that they're going to have better white shoe law firms. They're going to be very clever about it. And there is I don't know how successful they will be. And I don't

know how big the movement will be. But the people who want to overthrow the government are going to try to do it in a way that has the veneer of lawfulness. So the Electoral Count Act doesn't really push back against that. So let's get that done. But let's stay vigilant because insurrectionists are going to do what they're going to do. Yeah, I mean, look, that's something we've talked about on this part a fair amount, which is, yeah, pass the laws to do what you can to strengthen the system. But understand that this is about power. Like when you say stay vigilant, you know, they will bend the laws, whoever they wish. They've already been doing that, right? They already, I mean, the fact that even we're having this conversation is because they made

up something about what the vice president can do. What does staying vigilant mean to you? Well, I just think that, I mean, first of all, I think it was the most important thing that happened was in the midterm elections when election denialism, insurrectionism proved to be unpopular, right? Because there's no amount of shaming of the other side that actually is going to do the trick. What they have to figure out is that this is a loser. And it's proven to be a loser for them. And so that, to me, was the most important thing. But to the extent that anybody puts their name on the ballot in 2024, for the U.S. Senate, for Secretary of State, for the legislature or for president, that should be immediately disqualifying and not just like one of the considerations.

Right. It is the one thing you can't do is vote for someone who says, well, if I don't win, then it's probably rigged and we're going to have to take other measures. That's not OK. And we have to stay vigilant on that level. And I think there's just a lot of people on Twitter who like to sort of scold people who worry about democracy, because it allows them to feel like they're clever, and they're really in touch with what people really think. But I think that proved to be bullshit. People actually care about insurrectionism. They don't want American style democracy to be destroyed, whatever their view is of tax rates or whatever. Do you think Republicans have learned any lessons from their losses in this midterm, from the fact that election denialism was a loser? We got, you know, Trump's dining with the Nazi and, you know, a lot of your Republican colleagues in the Senate.

and, you know, a lot of your Republican colleagues in the Senate, you know, there was some there was some chiding of him, but there wasn't any like like no one was ruling out voting for him or supporting him for president, except, I think, Mitt Romney. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene over the weekend saying, like, if me and Steve Bannon had planned the insurrection, it would have been successful. Now we're going to have another round of Republicans trying to dodge, uh, these questions from reporters. Like what, what do they learn any lessons? Have you, have you, have you seen this in, at least from your perspective with your colleagues? I'm going to be cautious not to characterize it as, um, you know, people learning lessons, right. But I will say that increasingly some of my Republican colleagues just feel like Donald Trump is not good for them and they're not afraid to say it. And that is a directional change from everything I've seen

before. They feel that they can win a primary as incumbent United States senators and still be considered conservatives in good standing and just sort of observe that, hey, we've kind of gotten our ass kicked over the last several cycles and maybe it's time to move on. So I don't know if it's like internalizing a lesson so much as reading how the public responded. And that's where I think the activism and the success of the midterms, you know, can't be overstated because it was the voters that sent the right message to the Republicans who want to stay in office that this isn't good for business anymore. So let's talk about Democrats for a second. You know, you mentioned the omnibus. You didn't mention the debt ceiling is have Manchin and Sinema just made that impossible? Well, former Democrats have Manchin and Sinema made that impossible? What happened to the debt ceiling? I don't think it's necessarily Manchin and Sinema. And I'm not giving up. I have a bill. There's lots of clever ways to do this where you sort of make it subject to congressional disapproval. And my bill is even simpler than that. It just

repeals the goddamn thing. It's stupid and is dangerous to the country. But if I had to guess, I don't think we're getting 60 votes on an omnibus bill that includes the repeal of the debt ceiling or even some sort of more convoluted way to land there. So I'm going to keep pushing. But, you know, I think it's important that your listeners hear what's actually happening and not just what we wish would happen. And over the next two weeks, likelihood of getting debt ceiling into a bill is, you know, not zero, but not super high. We have kind of high degree of difficulty over the next two to three weeks just to get our work done. And yes, it is true that this leaves a ticking time bomb, you know, for next summer, fiscally and for the country. So I'm not happy about that, but that is the state of play. But this is what I can't understand is like what,

obviously you could attach it to a budget reconciliation bill. I realize that takes a lot of time and is very complicated. But I felt like I feel like if every Senate Democrat felt like you, that we have this ticking time bomb, that now we're going to trust Kevin McCarthy and his gang of yahoos to diffuse next year. We might as well, like, figure out how to do this now while we still can, if we could do it with 51 votes. Yeah, I mean, so I haven't done the whip count on what would happen in reconciliation. I will say reconciliation takes two weeks and we have to get an omnibus and a defense bill done in the next two weeks. So like logistically, it's going to be hard. view is we should be very clear-eyed about the consequences of not fulfilling our obligations,

not standing by the full faith and credit of the United States. But we should not run around scared of the Republicans on the debt ceiling. My view on debt ceiling since I got to the Senate now just over 10 years ago is in exchange for lifting the debt limit, you get nothing. And I think you guys learned, and I'm not to bring up old shit, but you guys learned that what you ended up with when you negotiated over the debt ceiling was something called sequestration, which were these stupid, draconian, mindless cuts to domestic discretionary spending. And everybody hated it until we finally repealed it. And so after that, Obama and then even Trump and certainly Schumer and Pelosi and now Biden ought to have the view, you get nothing for lifting the debt ceiling. That's what you get. And you can make all the noise you want and all

of the politicos and the axios and the hills and the Washington Post will come to me and put a microphone in my face and say, hey, but aren't you scared about the global economy? And I will say, yes, but I am more scared. I am more scared of allowing these people to do this to us episodically whenever they want to extract crazy concessions and hold the whole country hostage. And the last, I guess, probably six times that we've gone through this and our position has been, you get nothing for this. They have gotten nothing for this. It's always very scary. And it's like making my palms sweat just thinking about it. But yeah, nothing. But yeah, but you're already pitching your. So look, just what just happened to me at this

and this table is you just pitched forward. You were just, you just moved on to the conversation we're going to have when we don't do it right now. You're just already having that conversation. We're onto the next thing. But the,

so you just think we're going to have another situation where the Republicans are going to put a gun to their own head and threaten to shoot. That's what's happening next year. I think that's going to happen like every six weeks. Yeah, it's not great. But I get what you get. You get nothing.

I know why that needs to be the position because otherwise they don't have the votes. I know they don't have the votes, but we have a majority. Do they not hear this argument? What is the argument you're hearing back about why not to do this right now? They're afraid of the ads in two years?

Like, I don't understand. It is so fucking stupid. Why aren't we fixing this? Why aren't there 50 votes to fix this? I can't tell you why there aren't 50 votes. I'm just in the business of counting. And I don't think we have the votes to do that right now. Yeah, yeah.

Kyrsten Sinema, how are you feeling about the party switch? You know, neutral, right? Like I think Murph said it exactly right the other day, which is like not that much changes. She has been very explicit that she's not going to interfere with the subpoena authority or the ability for the majority to be the majority, right? We're not going to be in the old power sharing arrangement

as if it were 50-50. And my view is like, Kirsten votes how she wants to vote. She behaves how she wants to behave. And that's not going to change very much because all this does is like commemorates her actual political position, which is that she leans left on some issues and right on some issues. And she keeps her own counsel and sometimes works with us and sometimes doesn't. You think the DSCC should recruit a candidate for Arizona in 2024? I don't, you listen. Oh, wow.

That was a hard one. We talked about it beforehand. We tried to come up with the hardest one. Yeah. Look, I think the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has an obligation to elect Democrats. But it is a little different when you're talking about, say, Angus King, who's an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. You know, we respectful discussion and negotiation.

That's above my pay grade. But, you know, I get along very well with Kirsten, believe it or not. We've worked together on a number of things. And so, you know, I'm hoping this lands well. Everybody's being so nice. I mean, yeah. What are you's he gonna do i don't know uh yeah on twitter you have a new gig as uh as deputy conference secretary what's what's that all about well i think it's a job look i think um uh chuck schumer um and i have had conversations over the last two or three weeks about how i can just be more helpful and really what that means is i'm in the sort of official leadership which which has a Monday meeting where they kind of set the course for the week.

My buddy back home who's not in politics texted me and said, what does this mean? I said, think of me as a very low ranking person in the room where it happens. Last year, as chief deputy whip, I was like junior varsity leadership. And now I'm on the vars, but not a starter. Do you think it's going to be a problem culturally that you don't remember the Bay of Pigs? Like personally? Yeah. You don't remember unfolding and being like, I hope it works.

It's like, well, just so we're clear, Cory Booker is in the leadership. Yes, yes. You and Cory Booker, neither one. I'm not claiming that Cory Booker remembers the Bay of Pigs. Here's a policy question. You're one of the biggest climate hawks in Congress. What do you make of this news that the Department of Energy plans to announce that they've made a fusion energy breakthrough that could create zero carbon power? Yeah, it's a huge deal. It's a big technological breakthrough. create zero carbon power? Yeah, it's a huge deal. It's a big technological breakthrough. But remember, there are a lot of ready to go technologies. So and the question is deployment. This is a big tech technical breakthrough. It's unclear what it will mean for energy markets over the next 10 to 20 years. And I do worry that like just because climate change is so terrifying,

that there's a little bit of moral hazard of kind of like you know hitching your wagon to whatever the latest technological breakthrough is and say well great that way we don't have to make any of the investments or transitions that we were fearing and there's this new magical energy source the truth is there's an old magical energy source called the sun and there's and and and we still have wind energy both of which are now coming in cheaper than coal and in some instances, natural gas. So I just want us to be excited about this technological development, but understand that there's no silver bullet

on the climate side. There's just a lot of things that we have to do at once. And this is one of the incredible opportunities in front of us. We should think of it that way, but as a part of a strategy, not as something that obviates the need to take other actions. Makes sense. Here's something I know you might have some thoughts on. It's a New York Times

headline. Critics say Musk has revealed himself as a conservative. It's not so simple. Yeah. I mean, look, first of all, lots of CEOs, most CEOs are conservative. So like that doesn't bother me on its face. And I'm not going to get into the platform itself, but I just do think really smart people who work for the New York Times are intentionally obtuse, are intentionally hazy and gauzy with their language. And I know Lovett's talked about this for a long time, that somehow that is sort of a substitute for being actually savvy or real analysis that their favorite thing to say is, well, it's not quite as simple as all those people on the Internet say. And it's sort of like you have to work so goddamn hard to to read all these tweets and look at all this behavior and think, well, it's really impossible to decipher his his politics. And like I said, I don't really care about this, except that you still have the most powerful media platform, mainstream media platform on the planet being

intentionally dumb about things. And that's a little maddening, especially given its history and our history over the last seven years. It's pretty it's pretty frustrating because Elon Musk has now tweeted like, prosecute Fauci, vote DeSantis, vote Republicans. The woke virus destroy humanity. And it's like, but but what does it mean? Speaking of Twitter reports that basically the White House's view on Twitter is that it really just has kind of two functions. basically, the White House's view on Twitter is that it really just has kind of two functions.

One is to influence elite opinion and elite journalists. And the other is to convince progressives on Twitter to bully those people. Two important and valuable uses in our society. And so they're not hooked on to the Elon is a national emergency train. Where are you at on this? I don't think it's a national emergency. I think there are there are, you know, for instance, Ro Khanna's email. I got asked by a reporter, what do you think about Ro Khanna's email being disclosed? And I thought, well, look, if if a congressman is emailing a company, that congressman does not actually have a reasonable expectation of privacy. I think the threshold would Rubicon would be would be would be crossed if a member's DMS were were disclosed. And those

were not to the company, right? But an official correspondence from a member of Congress to a company is like, to me, that's reasonably fair game. Question becomes when Musk feels, you know, under siege, does he then weaponize the data that he's in possession of? I don't know the answer to that, but I want to be very, very precise with our language, because in case that ever does happen, I don't want to have cried wolf just because a congressman wrote a letter to a company. I mean, if I write a letter to a company, I fully expect that that's going to be, you know, public communication. But you're sticking around on Twitter still. You're staying.

Yeah. I'm not trying to advertise for the platform, but my own personal user experience has not changed hardly at all, except that the main topic on Twitter seems to be its owner, which is a little bit of a bummer, but something that I feel like over time will work itself out. It is brutal. Are you not tooting on Mastodon? By the way, I'm too stupid to figure out Mastodon. That's how I feel. I just, I don't know how to do this.

I don't know how to do that. People talked about post, but I'm just like, I'm lazy to set up myself on another platform. That's how I feel. What do you think when an office has massive Christmas decorations, including a huge tree, and then there's just like one tiny shitty little menorah off to the side i think it's anti-semitic i do okay thank you i should say at this point that in our office there is a menorah that is so large there's like a machine that's like keeping it inflated yeah that makes noise down the hall so it's very we large number. So now John's worried about a big Jewish machine.

Interesting. See, this is how it happens. I just wanted everyone to be clear that that's not our office he's talking about. You don't need a Balenciaga jacket and a ski mask to be part of the problem. I did not see that coming, John. Last question. Speaking of Twitter, I saw on Twitter

you tweeted that you're going to look into these fucking scam texts that we all keep getting. Are you are you looking into this? What's going on there? Actually, I tweeted it and then I was just like I didn't text my legislative staff to see who would follow up, who tweets and makes the things that I tweet true. I did get a couple of texts from my staff, but apparently the FCC actually has already started the rulemaking process on sound text. So I'm going to follow up with Jessica Rosenworcel, who's the chair of the FCC, who is only there because we have a Democratic Senate and who is working on a rule to crack down on these things. That is fantastic. That might be one of the most popular things the government does in a while.

Yeah, it's great. Brian Schatz, it's wonderful as always to have you on Pod Save America. Great to see you guys. Thanks for the time. Happy Hanukkah. And we're saying Merry Christmas again. Take care. See you guys. Thanks to Brian Schatz for joining us today, and we'll talk to you later. Thanks, Senator Schatz. Schatz, Schatz, Schatz. This is where we play it. Yeah, play it right now. Should I tell the people that I'm getting rid of my Tesla? I can't do it anymore.

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