Pod Save America - “Legislative cosplay.”

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

William Barr lies to Congress and angers Bob Mueller, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer decide to play along with the latest Infrastructure Week, and Democrats are in need of Senate candidates for 2020. Then Senator Bernie Sanders talks to Tommy about the Senate vote to end America's support for the war in Yemen, and activist Ady Barkan talks to Jon about his appearance at the first-ever Congressional hearing on Medicare for All. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, Tommy did a quick interview today with Bernie Sanders about the Senate vote that just happened to end our support for the war in Yemen. He also talked to him about Venezuela, so check that out. And then after that, you'll hear my interview with friend of the pod, Adi Barkin, who traveled to D.C. this week to testify at the very first congressional hearing on Medicare for All. But first, we've got a lot of news to talk about, from William Barr's Senate testimony to a thrilling new bipartisan infrastructure plan to the Democrats' prospects of taking back the Senate in 2020.

Also, be sure to check out a very lively episode of Pod Save the World, where Tommy and Ben talked about the escalating situation in Venezuela, the Trump administration's designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and whether the Russians are using beluga whales as spies. What? Cool. Seems plausible. I have to say, Ben and Tommy walked out of the studio yesterday after Pod Save the World,

and Rhodes looks at me and he's like, you know, I don't say this often, but it was a really good episode. Very, very proud of himself. That is so funny on 100 levels. I know. a very cool new episode of With Friends Like These last week, where Anna Marie Cox talked with author Stephanie Land about her experiences as a maid and how those myths affect policy and perceptions of low-income people. It's a great episode of With Friends Like These, so definitely check that out. All right, let's get to the news, Dan. On Tuesday, we learned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller wasn't too happy with Attorney General William Barr's

characterization of Mueller's report in his now infamous four-page letter. On March 27th, the special counsel wrote to the Attorney General that Barr's letter, quote, did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of Mueller's work, and that as a result, there is, quote, public confusion that threatens to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the investigation. Mueller urged Barr to immediately release the summaries his team had prepared and followed up with a phone call to the attorney general. On Wednesday, in front of the Senate, Barr called the letter, quote, a little bit snitty during his testimony to the Judiciary Committee.

Dan, how significant is it that Mueller wrote this letter in the first place? Why did he write it? Well, I think it's very significant because I was listening to Garrett Graff, who's a reporter who has covered Mueller as closely as anyone over the years. And Garrett was on CNN last night, and he said he has read every public utterance that Mueller has made, written, spoken, speeches, etc. And with one exception, this is the most sternly worded, angriest letter that Mueller has written. The other one was about the release of a suspect in the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing, which was sort of the signature case that Mueller had worked on, the one he cared most passionately about. So the fact that he put this in writing

is a huge deal. Bill Barr is someone who weirdly, I guess, once was a friend of Mueller's. He could have easily called him, but he put it in writing for a reason, which is so that he could document in real time, essentially with a date and timestamp on it, his concerns about what was happening. So as so we could get to a moment like today where people could look back and say, this isn't is this isn't like three months later, he does an interview or testifies in front of Congress, if anyone could ever get their shit together to make that happen, and says it it's we now know that in the immediate aftermath, when we were all concerned about

this, Bob Mueller was also concerned about it, validating our concerns with both Barr's behavior and the way in which the media acted as a stenographer for Barr's cover-up of what Mueller actually found. letter have come out sooner was was muller played by bar and like what could he have done to prevent bar's mischaracterization of his report because you know i heard a lot of people yesterday say muller's gotten played and i think there's some truth to that but i'm i was trying to think all right what steps could muller have taken knowing that his perspective at the time that he delivers the report to bar is, I sort of respect this guy. This guy is a friend of mine. Now, of course, at that point, Mueller should have also known that Barr wrote this, you know, 20 something page memo before he got the job about why the president can't obstruct justice. So maybe there are a few flags in Mueller's mind here. But what steps could

he have taken to avoid this, do you think? He could have released this letter when it happened. He could have spoken publicly when it happened. He shouldn't have waited weeks for it to come out. It has been two weeks since this report came out. It has been over a month since the original Barr letter. And one of the reasons that as people like us and others were screaming about the media coverage, which took everything Barr said as fact, we were saying this like, wait for the report, wait for the report, wait for the report. And what a lot of people were saying was if Mueller did not agree with what Barr was saying, we would know. But point in fact, he didn't agree with what Barr was saying, we would know. But point in fact, he didn't agree with what Barr was saying, but we didn't know. So Mueller's silence was taken as validation of Barr's approach. And I think Mueller's approach here bespeaks a larger problem that – I don't want to say

Democrats because Mueller is not a Democrat. He is a Republican. But even more than that, he is a nonpartisan public servant. But if you sort of divide the world from the people who will do whatever what Trump wants and the people who think Trump is a real danger to the country, our side is getting played left and right because we refuse to acknowledge that they break all the rules. They stomp over all the norms. They will do anything and everything to win. And we are playing by these Marquis of Queensberry rules, and we're getting our ass kicked left and right. The way Mueller handled this is the way you handle it in a normal situation. But we are well

beyond fucking normal here. And this was a loss. He did get played. We all got played. And as we'll talk about soon, the Democrats in the House are in the process of getting played right before our eyes. Yeah. Mueller is an institutionalist who is confronting people who do not believe in institutions and believe that they can trample them at any moment. And that is sort of the fundamental mismatch here. And you have people like Mueller and law enforcement who are, like you said, nonpartisan, who are sort of losing this battle to preserve and defend our institutions. And then you have Democrats who are also seemingly unwilling to play hardball. And then you have Donald Trump and a bunch of Republican lackeys and Trump loyalists who are willing to do anything. And part of the reason they do this is because they know no matter what they do, they will still get their side

covered fairly in the news. And it will be, well, not fairly, but they'll still get, they'll still get a both sides out of it, right? Democrats will do this and Republicans will do this. And so they're like, well, we can do whatever we want because, you know, people still get a both sides out of it right democrats will do this and republicans will do this and so they're like well we can do whatever we want because um you know people will still find fault with the democrats it's so frustrating if you've ever been involved in any sort of competitive enterprise you know you can't win if you adhere to the rules. The other side doesn't. And then there is no referee or umpire to penalize the other side for not adhering to the rules. Now, I am not arguing we should be like Trump, we should be like Barr, but we have to adjust our strategies to recognize who Trump and Barr are.

We have to stop fucking pretending that these are normal times. They are not. We are in a incredibly high stakes, apocalyptic moment for American democracy. And I have been screaming mostly silently into the void all morning. And by that, I mean tweeting. So when Barr appeared in front of the Senate on April 10th, Senator Chris Van Hollen asked, did Bob Mueller support your conclusion? Barr said, I don't know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion. During a hearing on April 9th, Charlie Crist, representative from Florida, asked Barr about reports that some members of Mueller's team were, quote, frustrated that Barr's letter, quote, does not adequately or accurately portray the report's findings and asked him if he knew what they were referencing. Barr said, no, I don't. I suspect they probably wanted more put out. I suspect they probably

wanted more put out. Dan, did William Barr lie to Congress on multiple occasions? Yes, he did. I think that, and we now know Nancy Pelosi thinks that, because according to reports today, she said in an internal Democratic meeting that Barr committed a crime. Yeah, and then... The Attorney General lied to Congress in order to help provide political protection

to the President of the United States. That is a serious fucking deal, and it should be treated as such. So let's talk about yesterday's hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee where the Attorney General offered no apologies, no real explanations to any of the questions raised by Mueller's letter and pretty much acted like he was Donald Trump's personal lawyer, suggesting that the White House, quote,

fully cooperated with Mueller's investigation, even though Mueller specifically documents that the president obstructed justice by trying to end that investigation. That's not full cooperation. That's the opposite of full cooperation. How many times did you yell at the television screen during Barr's testimony? Because Tommy and I were actually yesterday in the office just screaming. I was yelling at Barr. I was yelling at the Democrats.

I was yelling at the Republicans. I mean, it was a thoroughly exhausting experience. And were it not, as I'm sure we'll discuss, for Kamala Harris at the end, I might have just driven off into wilderness and stayed there forever. That's a great segue. One moment that stood out to me as well was when Kamala Harris got Barr to admit that he didn't review all the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before he concluded in his letter that, quote, the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense didn't look at the evidence but the evidence is not sufficient um dan what what other moments what other moments besides that one stood

out to you during the course of the testimony i mean the whole thing was mind-boggling the things that bar said were just truly mind boggling that someone would actually say these things in public. And we can talk about how Bill Barr establishment lion that he is became this way at some point. But the most astounding to me was Bill Barr, the attorney general of the United States, believes that a president can take steps to stop an investigation into that president if he or she believes that they are being falsely accused. Now, let's just play with this logic puzzle for one second.

If the president ends the investigation, no one will ever know whether the accusations were false. Therefore, the president can end any investigation they want, whether they're real or not, because there can be no consequences. We can never know whether the actual crime was committed. It is a wild position to take. And it is one that I would wager, John, just bear with me for a second here. I would wager that if and when a Democrat is president, presuming that ever happens again, Barr and the Republicans will not hold that position. Yeah, you think? I mean, here's the thing. It is obviously absurd for the Attorney

General of the United States to have a legal theory that he talks about publicly that the President of the United States is allowed to shut any investigation down based on his own personal belief, just a leap of faith on what he feels about the investigation. That's fucking nuts. But Barr also repeatedly says there is no underlying crime. There was no underlying crime. Now, of course, the president who ends the investigation doesn't know whether there's an underlying crime committed by any of the other people that were being investigated, like Michael Flynn, like Paul Manafort, like any of the other people. But even putting that aside, there was a fucking underlying crime and no one is talking about this. The president of the United States was ultimately implicated in a federal crime.

He committed a campaign felony with Michael Cohen, directed him to commit a campaign felony. That's not Democrats saying that. with Michael Cohen, directed him to commit a campaign felony. That's not Democrats saying that. That's fucking federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have said that he's individual one and that he was an unindicted co-conspirator in that crime. So, yes, there was a motive for Donald Trump to shut down the investigation because he was worried that the investigation would uncover a crime.

It was the crime he helped Michael Cohen commit right before the election that helped him cheat in order to win the election by covering up the stormy daniel story i don't understand this i feel like i'm fucking crazy it's like i mean and it's as as we've pointed out before bob muller says this in his report he anticipates this argument from people from bill barr and the trump world and says that even if he was innocent of quote-unquote collusion even though we know collusion is not a crime now let's not even say innocent it's not the right word he is not fucking innocent of anything even if you could not mother could not prove an active conspiracy between trump's dipshit son his dilettante son-in-law and the russian government he is can still be guilty of obstruction because the president was very clearly worried about other crimes and other embarrassments.

And you can be guilty of obstruction of justice if you try to obstruct an investigation, prevent them from uncovering other things, even if those other things aren't crimes. that the idea that we already know that were Trump not president of the United States, he would have been indicted in the campaign finance crimes committed that he committed with Michael Cohen. Even you put that aside, if you pretend like that didn't happen, which seems like everyone has fucking done, then even if you do that, then it is still a crime to try to stop the investigation if you're worthy. Investigation will uncover non-criminal but ultimately embarrassing details about yourself. it is still a crime to try to stop the investigation if you're worthy investigation will uncover non-criminal but ultimately embarrassing details about yourself people

have done this to and gotten in trouble legally over time by to try to prevent investigations that uncover adultery or family secrets or other types of embarrassing information you don't want in the public and so yes he can very well be guilty of obstruction of justice even without a crime we like this is like ask martha fucking stewart who went to jail for this very thing if only there was a high profile example of a celebrity from television who went down for something like this someone who was on the celebrity print and apprentice in fact yes yes multiple celebrity apprenticed uh stars accused of obstruction of justice committed obstruction of justice um so this is all looking back right about the the crimes the crimes that that trump has committed

in the past and being held accountable for but there was also something that Barr said in this hearing that affects the future. Barr did not deny, did not deny that Trump continues to pressure the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies. And now we know why he did not deny that, because last night in the New York Times, we found out that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has suggested to the attorney general that he investigate Joe Biden. So we are now already, we are already seeing that Trump has decided, because he is getting away with all of the shit that he has done in the past, the things he did to win the election, the things he did to cover up what he did to win the election. Now he's saying, fuck it. I can use the attorney general. I can use the Justice Department.

I can use law enforcement to do whatever I want. And I'm going to investigate my potential 2020 political opponent. And basically, Barr didn't deny that that was happening yesterday when he was under oath. No, he just drooled on himself under the withering questioning of Kamala Harris. I mean, how do you think that the Democrats on the committee did? Obviously, Kamala Harris was outstanding. I mean, this is I know that she has done this for a living and she's a prosecutor. But still, it was even knowing all that, it was an outstanding performance watching her. And I urge everyone to go watch the video of Senator Harris drilling Barr for a couple of minutes because it was quite impressive. What do you think about the rest of the Democrats? I mean, this isn't even really the fault of individual Democrats.

It's just it was not great. Like, can there not be a meeting where they all get in a room and they said, here are subject areas that we would like to get to the bottom of why don't you each take some i don't understand do that like let's coordinate like i just like that the fact the absence of that i'm sure that meaning probably did happen but like what happened after that meeting i'm curious about. I am just frustrated by the, like, you have five minutes or whatever it is to question the Attorney General about his efforts to cover up obstruction of justice crimes from the President of the United States, one of the most serious things ever. No one wants your opening statement. Why would you waste one second of your five minutes speaking? That is not going to be on the news. It is not like no one's going to print out the congressional record and frame

it and send it to voters. It just makes zero sense. This is true of Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate, but particularly the Senate. They're in love with hearing themselves talk. And that is a mistake. It's not just that Kamala Harris is better at this than all of them. And some people did better than others. Some were very bad. Some were fine. Some were good. But Kamala Harrison gave an opening statement.

She basically said hello to Attorney General Barr and asked him a fucking killer question. And when he was babbling and trying to delay and doing this relatively clever trick he does of pretending to not understand the question or to buy himself – to eat clock and buy himself time to come up with a – what he thinks to be a legally okay but ultimately misleading answer. He wants to find himself in that ultimate gray area between truth and crime. He – she just pushed him and she was like, I have another question you. And she maximized her time. That is what we should do. That's the way to do it. We have been operating by the same flawed model of hearings for as long as I've been in politics, and I'm sure longer than that. Just ask good questions, maximize your time, don't give speeches. I totally agree. And it's not just the opening statements either it's like don't ask questions that you're asking just for like a messaging purpose you know

like there they'll be riffs like mr attorney general do you think it's okay that the president committed all these crimes you know it's like you're not you're not trying to like have a performance here you're actually trying to get him to answer tough questions, and there's plenty of tough questions to ask. I mean, Kamala only had five minutes, but she probably could have gone on for 30 and elicited other damning responses from William Barr during that time. And I don't know that anyone else really did that. Yeah, it wasn't great. It wasn't great and hopefully we folks can i'm not i say hopefully but i'm not optimistic that people can learn the lessons before bob muller comes to the next hearing

although lindsey graham did suggest that bob muller may never come to the senate so who the fuck knows yeah well we're getting to that um well we should we should note first that republicans on the committee spent their time and questioning on your standard Fox News conspiracies about Hillary Clinton, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, all their favorite deep state all-stars. Their strategy has been to argue that Mueller's investigation was actually a treasonous crime perpetrated by Democrats. What do you think of that strategy? It's smart. And like this is this is how Trump won, which is feed conspiracy theories to the base and just throw so much shit around that the folks in the middle say, well, it's all confusing. I don't know who's right. I don't have any really way of finding out.

Certainly the media isn't capable of telling me. So I'm going to default to my natural expectations, which is both sides are corrupt liars. And when the public thinks that both sides are corrupt liars, that inures to the advantage of the corrupt liar in the race, which happens to be Trump and the Republicans in this case. So this was effective yesterday, it was effective in 2016, and it is what they're going to do in 2020. And we're going to have to figure out how to fight it. Yeah, I mean, they all know that they don't really want to waste their time trying to defend Trump, Trump's actions, Trump's crimes, Trump's abuses of power. Why would they defend that when they can just go on the offensive

and accuse the other side of what they're being accused of? It's that simple, you know? It's just, that's sort of how they roll. So, as you mentioned, after the hearing was over, Lindsey Graham told reporters he will not be calling on Mueller to testify, saying, quote, I'm not going to do anymore. Enough already. It's over. A few hours later, William Barr canceled his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee that was supposed to be held today, Thursday, because he didn't want to be questioned by lawyers. Barr also missed a deadline to deliver the full unredacted Mueller report to the committee.

So Dan, what's your reaction to this? And what should Democrats do next? Where do we all go from here, knowing that the Trump administration has decided to obstruct the congressional investigation into the president's obstruction of justice and other potential crimes. Basically, they're trying to obstruct all investigation. They're stonewalling. They don't want witnesses to testify. They're not turning over documents. What do Democrats do from here? I think we should endeavor to find a nonpolitical bipartisan deal we can all work on together to heal the wounds of division in this country. I mean, does this change your view on impeachment? I mean, I know your view has not been hard and fast on impeachment, but has your view evolved at all or what are you thinking in terms of the impeachment process?

Well, let me just sort of back up and give you a non-depressingly sarcastic answer to your question. Sure. Which is we have to recognize this situation for what it is. It is a national crisis. It is a crisis of our democracy. It is a constitutional crisis. There is no two ways about it. The president has co-opted every element of his government and his party to cover up crimes, very serious crimes, and we have to respond to such. Because we've said this before, that if this Republican Party was in charge of the House and the Senate when Watergate happened, then Nixon would not have been forced to resign from office. He would have served out his term, and people in Washington, D.C. would be flying out of Nixon Airport right now.

We have to recognize the danger, the clear and present danger that Trump and this Republican Party present to America. And so how do we respond to that? We have limited tools. We have to use all of them. This idea that the House is going to spend another two days negotiating with Bill Barr over both the release of the full – providing access to the full Mueller report and his own testimony is fucking absurd. They are trying to burn clock in order to hope the country and the voting public turns

their mind and turns their eyes in another direction. And so the second Barr sent his letter last night saying he wasn't coming, they should have sent a subpoena. The second the clock ticked past the deadline for release of the Mueller report, they should have filed a contempt citation. We have to do all the things. I think the next step for Democrats is to open impeachment inquiry into Barr for two reasons. One, we cannot – we absolutely cannot let this sort of behavior stand because, as you mentioned, as it relates to Joe Biden, Barr has refused to recuse himself from the other investigations. So he is the person who will decide whether the U.S. Department of Justice charges Trump

associates in Trump's inauguration, in Trump's businesses, et cetera. All of those, every one of those decisions, all the work done by the Southern District of New York goes through Bill Barr. And I don't know about you, but I get a sense that he may not be on the level. goes through Bill Barr. And I don't know about you, but I get a sense that he may not be on the level. And we know that the president, the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr are having conversations about launching investigations into Trump's political opponents for the purpose of helping him win the election. Like this, this cannot stand. We have to do something about it. Doing it in the context of an impeachment inquiry would give the Democrats more leverage to put pressure on the Republicans and find out more – use legal means to find out more about what is happening there.

And so I think that is a good first step. For as much as we know Trump has committed impeachable offenses, it would make us great to impeach him. And we can have the debate that basically you and me and Tommy and John and Brian have all day long about when and why to impeach. It's a moot point as long as Democrats are divided on that issue, which they are both divided on publicly and they're divided on the Congress. on the Congress. So I think that you're going to get more consensus around an impeachment into Barr while you continue to do the other investigations and try to figure out whether you can build a unified front within the House of Representatives, Democratic Caucus and the House of Representatives to impeach Trump. I am all for impeaching William Barr, for sure. I would like to see joint impeachment proceedings that attempt to impeach both William Barr and Donald Trump. Look, whether the impeachment of Donald Trump happens this month, next month, four months from now, I think there is no way out of this at this point.

Like, we now know that Donald Trump believes it is okay to abuse his office in the following ways. He will shut down investigations, criminal investigations, into his own conduct. He will open criminal investigations into his political opponents who try to challenge him. He abuses his power all the time. He uses his office to enrich himself. his power all the time. He uses his office to enrich himself. He tells border patrol agents down at the border that they should break the law and that if judges try to stop them, they should just ignore judges because they're under Donald Trump's command. He is basically promising that if he is given four more years, he will act even more as an authoritarian as he is right now. This is going to happen whether we impeach him or not, right? And I also realize that we're not going to get

the votes in the Senate from the Republicans because they're going to stand by him. But I do think impeachment proceedings, at the very least, will focus the country's attention on not just what he's done that was laid out in the Mueller report, but all of Donald Trump's abuses of power. And then we can message this going into the impeachment proceedings by saying, like, we don't expect that Senate Republicans are actually going to do the right thing, put country before party, and vote to convict Donald Trump. But we at least want to put them on record before 2020 as to whether they think this behavior is acceptable or not.

And then for however many months, the eyes of the nation will be on a series of impeachment proceedings that will highlight all the crimes that Donald Trump has committed. And then once he is impeached by the House and expectedly exonerated by the Senate, he will go into the election being a president who was impeached for the following behavior. And everyone will know what that behavior and conduct is because it'll have been all over the country. And voters will have that much more information before they go to the poll. For me, it's like impeachment may not work. I mean, it's not going to result in him getting removed from office before 2020. But like you just said, we have to use every tool we have. Because if we fully believe, and if Democrats fully believe this, who've been elected, who are in Congress right now, if they believe that this is a national emergency, that Trump represents a national

emergency, then we have to start fucking acting like it. If you don't believe he's a national emergency, then stop the rhetoric, stop the hyperbole, and go about doing other things. But if you actually believe that he has committed crimes and this is a national emergency, then stop the rhetoric, stop the hyperbole, and go about doing other things. But if you actually believe that he has committed crimes and this is a national emergency, you have to do everything in your power to act like it and do something. I mean, it's... I mean, the only thing I would say to that is, like, yes, you're all right. The challenge we have is you go into impeachment with the democratic caucus that you oh i know not the democratic caucus that you want but i think i think you have to put pressure on that

caucus division within within democrats which there appears to be then it is you can't you can't go to war with divided troops right like i mean there's no fucking lesson of game of thrones that this is it uh that if you're – and currently they're divided. So there has to be a – to get where you want to go, there has to be a process to get Democrats united to it, right? You can't rush that, which is I think – if I know anything about Nancy Pelosi's strategy over the years is that she gets – she has a process to get people where she wants to go and make them think they got there on their own, and you can't beat them into it. And so I think that is what I see to be the underlying strategy behind her approach, which is we can't do it now because large numbers of our caucus, large numbers, think this is a bad idea. Now, we can discuss whether we've elected all the wrong people or all of that, but if that is the facts on the ground, that has to be addressed before you can get where you're going. Otherwise, we will only read stories about Democrats divided over impeachment for a number of months until the resolution fails.

So I totally agree with that. I guess what I'm saying is one of the reasons that a lot of these House members are not on board with impeachment yet is they think it is not that important to the people who elected them. And so if, you know, if you're out there and you believe it's important to not just hold the president accountable for his crimes, but prevent potential abuses of power that could affect the 2020 election because he's dead set on investigating his political opponent during an election so he can win a second election. If you want to prevent that, if you think that's important, then it's time to reach out to your members of Congress and tell them that it's important because, you know, it's nearly impossible to change the minds of most

elected Republicans. It is not impossible to change the minds of most elected Democrats. These are largely reasonable people who listen to the people who elected them, who listen to activists. And now is the time to make your voice heard. Because if, as you say, Dan, Nancy Pelosi is trying to get them to that better place so that they're all on board together, which I believe they should be, then, you know, you're going to help Nancy Pelosi do her job by reaching out to her and to every other Democrat in Congress and let them know that this is important. It's bad. Did you this is sort of a side of this every week until Trump cancels the 2020 election?

Yeah, probably. Did you I sent this? I know I sent this around last night as I was preparing for the pod. I was just texting everyone as I was catching up on the news. Did you see Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow? I saw the clips of it afterwards. Hillary Clinton, it was amazing. She goes through this whole scenario and she's like,

basically what we're saying is in the Mueller report, it says Trump invited a foreign power to interfere in the election when he asked Russia for my emails, right? She's like, so now we're saying that even though that's not a crime, technically a crime, that it's okay like, so now we're saying that even though that's not a crime, technically a crime, that it's okay, that it's okay to do that. She's like, so imagine, imagine if a Democratic candidate for president came on TV just like this and said, China, it would be very interesting if you went after Donald Trump's tax returns and publicized them.

Imagine if that happened. And it was funny because she's basically doing the the hypothetical situation that she's talking about. And you're like, oh, God, what if what if China responds to Hillary Clinton doing that? But it very smartly points out the absurdity of the situation right now where we've now crossed a Rubicon into presidential candidates of either party can openly invite foreign powers to interfere in our election to help other candidates win. I mean, it's crazy. We just can't let this stand.

I mean, back in more normal times of politics, people would be like, which show is more realistic about life in the White House, life in politics? Which show is more realistic about life in the White House, life in politics? And the smart answer is Veep because it at least highlights at an absurd level the absurdities of politics. But we've reached a new level where this is actually a plot line on Veep. This is exactly what is happening on Veep right now. Yeah. Well, Dan, fortunately, all this consternation over whether or not to impeach our criminally implicated president hasn't prevented Democrats from finding ways to work with him. Isn't that nice? It's one of the most tired jokes on Twitter. Twitter, but this week was actually infrastructure week at the White House, where Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met with Donald Trump and agreed to work on a $2 trillion legislative package for

bridges, highways, broadband, water, and power grid infrastructure. Dan, why did this meeting happen? What was the Democratic strategy in seeking a deal on infrastructure with Donald Trump the year before his reelection. This is one of the most bananas things that I have ever seen happen in my life. We just watched the bar hearing yesterday. If this meeting happened in the midst of the efforts to pass the tax cut or repeal the Affordable Care Act, I would have thought it was fucking crazy. Like, just like, why are we rewarding Trump with this? But doing it at a time in

which we were there is an internal debate within the democratic party and a lot of in in the country about whether this president's committed impeachable offenses to then drive to the white house sit down with him not talk about his crimes do legislative cosplay around a infrastructure deal that has zero chance of passing and then heading out to the microphones to announce this deal and talk about how excited you are to work with him is fucking insane it is insane it is a stick in the eye of the base it is like it makes zero sense to me i will offer the caveat that n that Nancy Pelosi very rarely does things that I think that turn out to be this as stupid as I think this is. So it is possible that there is some hidden strategy here that is so deviously and secretly brilliant that we cannot see it. So I

will hold out that possibility. But absent that, this is nuts. Just nuts. So I completely agree with that. But I will offer the most generous interpretation of a potential strategy from Nancy Pelosi just for the sake of our listeners. So Donald Trump says that he's interested in infrastructure. And Pelosi and Schumer say, okay, we're going to go present our plan. And it's going to be a plan. Basically, they laid out what they want in the plan, what the plan has to have, right?

And they say, okay, it has to be paid for with tax increases. You have to find tax increases somewhere. And Democrats want them on wealthy people in order to pay for infrastructure. It has to include strong labor protections has to include investments in renewable energy so that the infrastructure actually helps fight climate change so we're gonna have all these demands on infrastructure and then donald trump is like i like the infrastructure deal and look i had an infrastructure deal that i hated gary cone came up with it and it was bullshit and he's right it was um because it relied mostly on sort of like private investment that was

going to materialize out of nowhere when you actually need real government spending to build roads and bridges and the like. So Donald Trump in the meeting says, sure, yeah, I like your infrastructure plan. So Pelosi is probably thinking to herself, OK, there's no way in hell this ever passes the Republican Senate, that a bunch of Republican senators are going to go for tax increases to pay for infrastructure. Mitch McConnell's never going to let that fly. So then once it fails, we can say, well, Democrats tried to work with this president on a $2 trillion infrastructure package because we're actually focused not just on impeachment, but on creating jobs. And this president and the

Republican Party, because they only care about their wealthy donors and they only care about the rich, they let it fail. We're trying. They're not. So that to me I guess is the most generous interpretation of what her strategy might be. Yeah. Like I know – I can intuit based on years of watching Schumer what his strategy is, which is let's make the Republicans in the Senate kill this and we're running against a bunch of Republicans' incumbents. Like last cycle – It's a Senate strategy.

Democrats had to protect their incumbents. This time Republicans have to. So if you can say that Republican Jody Ernst or Tom Tillis or Cory Gardner oppose an infrastructure deal in order to protect tax cuts, then great. Then somehow that would be some sort of silver bullet. But I think that is not clever enough by half. That's one of those ideas that masquerades as clever, but just is truly unclever. Don't do this now. This is the wrong time to do this. Never when Trump was elected, at any time, anyone did anything, even use the words president, half of Twitter would yell at you and say, you're normalizing Trump. And it was kind of dumb. It was a dumb argument.

But this is actually Democrats normalizing Trump. We've just been delivered a four-page report that lays out an exquisite detail in effort to commit multiple crimes to obstruct justice, to abuse power. And your next stop before you even decide that you're going to subpoena the actual report is to have a meeting about cutting a legislative deal. That to me is – it's just a mistake. deal. That to me is, it's just a mistake. Like if you're, like there is an element of you have to pay tribute and manage relations with the base. And because the base is what got you elected, the base helped deliver this Democratic majority. And part of the reason they did that was you provide a check on Trump. Now, this doesn't mean that you should never work with Trump, you should never do anything. But the timing of this makes zero sense, especially around something that's not going to happen. It cannot happen.

Mitch McConnell has said it's not going to happen. I mean, it's just there's nothing that we have seen in the last two years. Fuck the last two years. The last 25 years of Republican politics has suggested that this can happen. So I don't know. It makes no sense to me. It really doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I look at this infrastructure legislative cosplay like I look at the

worry over impeachment, which is like, sometimes you just have to get your head out of the polling data and just do what's right. And also do what seems like common sense. Like the president has committed obstruction of justice, says the special counsel. He is now trying to obstruct an investigation into that. He is abusing his power left and right. We are in a national emergency. We just have to act like that. It is not time to sit and have meetings about infrastructure. It's not time to sit and worry about whether we hold this one in contempt or wait three days for this subpoena or wait to do this or wait to do that. Like it is all happening before our eyes. And we either have to act like that or just, I don't know, give up.

Because trying to like game out everything in a political, well, people care about jobs and they care about health care. So we have to do this. And this is a messaging bill and we have to hold senate republicans on this vote and that like it you can it's good to have a strategy it is good to pay attention to public opinion i'm not saying that but you can easily overthink this stuff and i think the democrats have clearly gone in the direction of overthinking it at this point i mean i think the problem is a lot of people are like, you have to walk and chew gum. And so like, yes, investigate the president, but also do legislative stuff. But what that means is doing things like having the Medicare for all hearing or passing bills

to strengthen the ACA or passing bills to repeal parts of the tax cut or the HR1, the bill to do political and electoral reform like that. That's the chewing gum part. one, the bill to do political and electoral reform like that. That's the chewing gum part of this. Right. The chewing gum part is not go to the White House. And I don't even know. Like, I don't know how to extend the gum chewing metaphor anymore. But don't do that. All right. Let's talk about 2020. But let's talk about the Senate for once. So Democrats currently hold 47 Senate seats, and we'll have to defend Doug Jones's seat in ultra-conservative Alabama, which means that we probably need to flip four Republican Senate seats in order to hold a majority if we also hold the presidency. The top targets are Colorado,

Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Texas, and Georgia Georgia in roughly that order though you may disagree but the party needs candidates first and some of the biggest potential recruits are sitting this one out Stacey Abrams announced this week that she'd be taking a pass on a run for the Senate in Georgia against David Perdue saying quote my responsibility is not simply to run because the job is available I need to run because I want to do the job. Dan, before we even get to Stacey Abrams, how difficult do you think taking back the Senate will be? It is possible that we can take back the Senate,

but it's going to take a lot of luck, a lot of good work. It's hard. We're going to have to pick up Senate seats in states that Trump is almost certainly going to win. And that is hard. Our path to have a good year is much harder than the Republicans' path last year, where they had enough seats in the states that Trump won by double digits in some cases. And we have to win either very purple states or likely red states. And that is hard. It's possible, but it is hard. Yeah, because that list I just read, you think, okay, Colorado, Arizona, and Maine are three states. Arizona is a state that Donald Trump won in 2016. But of course, Kyrsten Sinema won statewide Senate race in 2018. So potentially, the Democrat in 2020 could win Arizona. And you think, okay, that gets you three.

But also, by the way, Susan Collins, extremely popular in Maine, despite what Twitter and all the rest of us think. And so that's going to be a tough one, too. But then even if you get those three, probably you need the fourth. And then you're looking at North Carolina, where it's going to be an uphill climb. Obviously, Barack Obama won that state in 2008, but Democrats haven't really done that well since. Iowa, another state that we lost by double digits in 2016. Texas, you know, another one that's maybe close. Obviously, Beto came close in 2018. But, you know, in a presidential year, all the conservatives and all the grassroots Republicans are coming out in that state.

That's going to be hard, too. And same thing with Georgia. So it's tough. It's a very tough map. So what do you make of Stacey Abrams' decision not to run? make of Stacey Abrams' decision not to run? There are few politicians that all of us at Pod Save America love more than Stacey Abrams. I think she is just unbelievable. She is exactly who should have been governor of Georgia. She would have made a great senator from Georgia. She would make a great presidential candidate. She should be at the top of every vice presidential list.

She is wonderful. I – it's very important that none of us – we cannot, we should not, we will not hold her to a different standard than we held Beto or Julian Castro or anyone else, any of these other people who chose to run for president or do something else instead of run for the Senate. It is her choice. out any of these other people who chose to run for president or do something else instead of run for the Senate. It is her choice. And if she is reluctant to do it, that is wise not to do it because reluctant Senate candidates are losing Senate candidates 100% of the time. Totally. Totally agree with that. I mean, I think her explanation is perfect on this. I need to run because I want to do the job, not just because the job is available. Like, I have to say I'm a little tired of people on Twitter acting like they are Senate strategists and they can just move around candidates like they're pieces on a chessboard and just, like, put them in races and that they're suddenly going to win. You know, like, because, look, in 2018, was Beto O'Rourke at the top of the list of the national party trying to recruit Senate candidates?

No, he was barely on the radar and suddenly comes out of nowhere to almost win this race. There are probably other Beto O'Rourkes out there and Stacey Abrams is out there in Georgia and Texas and some of these states. And am I worried about recruitment? Yeah, abso-fucking-lutely. and am I worried about recruitment? Yeah, abso-fucking-lutely. But I do think in this day and age when suddenly you can build up a Twitter following, you can raise money online much easier,

the idea that the only recruitment strategy is Chuck Schumer going around and reading resumes and trying to get big names is sort of silly to me. And I saw Chris Murphy made this point in a Politico story about this. He said, we sometimes are way too obsessive about getting big, big name recruits. Our big name recruits in previous cycles haven't done so hot, a.k.a. Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, right?

That was supposed to be the big name recruit. We got Bredesen. We got him to do it. We're going to win Tennessee. And he was not a great candidate and lost by more than way more than better O'Rourke and more than most of the other candidates I think it is important that we have good candidates and I think it's very important you point out that big name candidates and good candidates are not the same thing and are oftentimes very different things um and Chris Murphy's exactly right big

name candidates and it's not just this past cycle mean, I'm not sure another candidate was winning Tennessee this cycle. So this is like Phil Bredesen probably did better than a generic Democrat would. times and they have not done well. And it's in part because it's hard to be the candidate of change if you're the famous longtime politician of a state. And usually to – in Seton and Cumber, you have to be the candidate of change, not just the candidate of the establishment of a different era. So I think the other important thing to recognize here is that the most important factor that will determine whether we take the Senate or not is not which candidates we recruit. Although it's important not to have bad candidates, right? Like a bad candidate can lose. But it is how well our presidential candidate does. In 2008, when Democrats won – when Barack Obama won, all of the close Senate races tipped in the Democrats' favor.

won, all of the close Senate races tipped in the Democrats' favor. In 2012, when Barack Obama won reelection, all of the Senate races, including in states Obama did not win like North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri tipped in Democrats' favor. In 2016, we lost the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Senate races that we very much should have won and we wouldn't be in this fucking mess right now had we won because Hillary Clinton lost those states. And so this is also sort of gets to the absurdity of the infrastructure strategy, which is the best way to keep the House or expand our House majority, the best way to get the Senate majority is to run the best campaign we can against Trump, is to make him as weak as possible now so that we can defeat him later. And that is the only way to do it. And so, yes, we want good candidates. Yes, I think it's disappointing that some of these candidates have decided not to run.

But more important than anything else is how Trump does, how a Democratic nominee does, that will determine not just the White House, but the other branches of government as well. Yeah, I agree with that. Now, To go through the different states and the different candidates we have, it looks like in Colorado there are a number of potential challenges to Cory Gardner. So it seems like we are heading to a good place in Colorado. There'll probably be a primary because it seems like there's going to be a couple of Democrats that might challenge each other to challenge Gardner. In Arizona, we have a very good recruit in Mark Kelly. So Arizona looks good. In Maine, you know, we need some good recruits

against Susan Collins. It seems like Hannah Pingree, who was a former Speaker of the House in Maine, and also the current house speaker in Maine Sarah Gideon might challenge Susan Collins so you know and then maybe there'll be others as well I think North Carolina is sort of worrisome I haven't heard any names come out of North Carolina in Iowa we don't have a recruit for Joni Ernst yet though J.D. Scholten has made some noise who ran against Steve King as a potential candidate in Texas we do have a candidate now M.J. Scholten has made some noise, who ran against Steve King as a potential candidate. In Texas, we do have a candidate now, MJ Hager, who had one of the best ads of the 2018 cycle and almost knocked off an incumbent there, is now going to run against John Cornyn. And it doesn't look like she's going to have a primary because Joaquin Castro decided against running.

So now we have a good candidate in Texas. And then in Georgia, we need a candidate. Any thoughts on that? Did I miss any? I wanted to add Kentucky to the list. Oh, yeah. Now, I am 100% acknowledging that winning Kentucky in a presidential year is challenging. But there was a poll out last week that shows McConnell has an 18% approval rating. He is less popular than Ponscombe. I don't know who the best candidate is. I know there were some efforts to talk about Amy McGrath running. I don't know where that stands. There might be other people. Matt Jones, who's a very interesting sports radio host there, has talked about running in the past and is sort of really

proudly and bravely taken on McConnell a lot over the last couple of years. Whoever it is, I promise you this. You have a shot. It's a long shot, but it's a shot. But the world is made up of people who have taken long shots. And I promise you, you will be very well funded because there will be a real appetite for the person who runs against Mitch McConnell. We will help.

And he shouldn't get a free fucking pass either. Like his conduct is both pre-Trump, during Trump. Like Mitch McConnell is the – He's an asshole for all seasons. He's terrible about America. And there should be a debate about that. That should be held to account. He should not get to run around the country free and clear in in a re-elect yeah no he's i agree with that uh some people are worried about like

timing um just for perspective uh jackie rosen who's now senator in nevada and uh kirsten cinema in arizona um they announced their candidacies in uh july for rosen and september for cinema the year before the election so um yeah it's getting close to the time where we want candidates to announce that they're running in the senate but they probably have a few more ones to really firm things up and uh yeah i sort of think schumer's working on it where the panic should set in because you just want time to raise the money build name id build the organization um i, if we get people in now, that was great. Even though Beto did not win, being in that race for essentially two years was to his great advantage because that's how he was able to build the organization that he built in that race.

Yeah. Finally, Colorado Senator Michael Bennett announced on Thursday that he's running for president. He's the 21st candidate to join the race and the seventh member of the Senate. Just a few weeks ago, he shared that he'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer and then he'd get in the race if surgery went well and he was healthy enough to do it. Now he is healthy and fully in the race. Bennett's a former school superintendent who's been in the Senate for the past 10 years. He's got a moderate legislative record and he was part of a bipartisan group that tried to forge a compromise on immigration. He acknowledged in an announcement video today that, quote, you probably don't know me because I don't do cable news every night, which is a line

that I love. Dan, what do you think of Michael Bennett and 21 candidates being in the race? I find the Bennett decision to be very interesting because unlike some of the other people who are running these much obviously longer shot races, Bennett is someone who has not proven to be overly ambitious in his time. He's not proven to be in a hurry to get somewhere else. He's not someone, as he points out, who is thirsty for retweets and cable news hits. He is an incredibly thoughtful, incredibly serious senator. I would bet that if you polled – you did a secret poll of Obama's inner circle senior staff of the last decade about who their favorite senator is, Harry Reid would be first, and Michael Bannon would be second. He's just a very thoughtful, interesting guy.

So he is not someone that I would believe would just simply jump into this race just for shits and giggles, right? He's thought about this, and It's not clear to me what his path is. It's not clear to me what his case is. But he's thoughtful about politics. So I'm actually interested in this just because of my experience with Michael Bennett. He's a serious person. And so I'm surprised by this, but I'm curious about it. Yeah. Tommy and I sat down with him during the healthcare battle when we were in D. Yeah. Tommy and I sat down with him during the health care battle when we were in D.C. and we were interviewing a bunch of folks around the first time that they tried to repeal the ACA.

And I find him like very thoughtful, very smart. You know, we had a disagreement because he is talking about people who don't want to get rid of the filibuster. Michael Bennett does not want to get rid of the filibuster. And I remember when we talked to him, he was making a case to us that we have to be better than Republicans. We have to protect institutions. You know, we shouldn't be acting, you know, towards Supreme Court justices like the Republicans have done to Merrick Garland. So I think I probably have a lot of substantive disagreements with him about institutions and process and how to strategize against a party that's become radicalized but um he makes good arguments he's thoughtful he's fair and so you know we'll see it's also by the way another interesting part about this choice is um he's

running against his former boss who was just here at pod save america the other day john hickenlooper he was john hickenlooper's chief of staff and then went on to go be superintendent of schools and then, of course, U.S. senator for the last 10 years. But talk about all the different overlap in this primary among these 21 candidates. We now have two candidates running who are both from Colorado, and one worked for the other one. I would say one thing just about the 21 candidates running, which is when you say, not you, Jon Favreau, but you, the royal you, I guess, say there are 21 candidates running. It suggests it treats them all sort of equally, right? And I think it's very important to separate the people who have announced they're running for president and the people who are actually running for president.

And that is not to – this is not suggesting that someized, well-funded efforts in the first four primary states. Yeah. Anything else is just a – you're not – you can have a business card that says presidential candidate, but you're not actually someone who is going to be president. And I do think in how we think about this and discuss it, at some point, there's going to be a line where we're going to know who is actually doing the real thing and who is not. And it's not fair that money impacts. I think it's a real flaw in our system. But especially in our grassroots online donation world, there is a relationship between political support and financial support that is at least closer than it used to be. So right now there's – of that 21, less than half have shown any indication of the ability to run a serious presidential candidate, to actually have a plan to accumulate the delegates you need to be the Democratic nominee for president. And I just think that's important to emphasize that and use that as sort of a dividing line as we think about the different candidates.

There are candidates who are running serious campaigns. There are candidates who are not yet running serious campaigns but maybe have shown some potential to do so. And then there are candidates who have been in the race for a while who showed none. Now, it's early, but it ain't that early. Yeah, and I won't make you name names. We'll hold off on that for a while. But I will ask, like, do you think in the minds of some of these candidates who maybe don't have real organizations in those early states right now that they're thinking, well, Trump didn't have a big organization in these early states he was sort of this gadfly when he first got into the race um albeit one with almost universal name id because everyone in the country knows who

donald trump is so that's a huge difference between him and some of these other candidates but you know he didn't start with a big organization he didn't have this like real serious campaign staff he didn't have like a real strategy at first and then because he caught on via media attention then he sort of backfilled the campaign as he went on. Do you think that's what a lot of these candidates are thinking? Like, I could end up like Donald Trump too? Yes. I think there is this theory that if Donald Trump can win the presidency, anyone can win the presidency. And that fuels some of this. And there is some truth to the idea that in the internet social media age, you could be one viral moment away from leaping up to a top tier. Right?

One viral moment fundamentally changed at least the financial status of Beto O'Rourke's Senate campaign and changed his life. Absent that Colin Kaepernick clip, it's not clear that he would be running for president right now, right? Absent a very clever and aggressive media strategy, it would be absurd that the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is in that top tier or top tier-ish, or has shown the ability to raise the money, at least, to put together a serious campaign. And I do think some people also look at Pete Buttigieg, and they say, if he can find a way to hack the system to get to the top tier, then why can't Eric Swalwell, or Tim Ryan, or Michael Bennett, or Andrew Yang, who has found

a way to get into the debates while others have not yet. Right. So I think there is some of that. I think the Trump example displays an ignorance of how the Democratic nomination process differs from the Republican process in the Democratic process. And we can have a debate about whether the first state should be a caucus and whether that state should be as white as Iowa is. That is a very fair debate and should be had. But as it currently

stands, that is the first state. And the Democratic caucus process is a massive organizational challenge because there is a viability threshold where if a candidate doesn't get to 15% in an individual site, then you have to be able to get in a capacity to not just know your first choice voters, but to have your second choice. The accumulation of delegates post the caucus at the county convention, it is a huge effort. The Republican caucus does not operate that way. The Democratic nomination process proceeds through proportional allocation of delegates and votes, which means you have to be much more sophisticated in how you run your race. It takes longer. Republicans have winner take all, which is how someone like Trump can win. So yes, there is this meta truth that Trump won.

He's a fucking moron. Therefore, any fucking moron could be president. Or you could sit there and look at him and say, I'm a lot smarter than Trump. Why can't I be president? But it's just that both ignores the incredibly unique circumstances of Trump and who he is because he wasn't some unknown person. He was a person with universal name ID. He was incredibly popular with the Republican base. In the 2012 election, in the midst of his birther crusade, he floated himself as a presidential a potential presidential candidate and was polling at the top of the polls. So this is not the story of a political Horatio Alger story of someone who came from nowhere. It's someone who was at the top and then won. And so it's a bad example to guide your own political strategy because it's ignorant of how Trump won and it's ignorant about how the democratic process works. End of rant. No, I agree. And I think if you're wondering

who the democratic candidates are, who are actually running real serious races, sort of like, look at who has a serious Iowa staff, a serious New Hampshire staff, who's hired a lot of field organizers and real staff in those early states and you'll get a hint of even if they're down in the polls or up in the polls or whatever they at least have the potential to really capitalize on whatever media momentum they may get along the way because they actually have an organization on the ground that can uh carry them to victory okay when we come back you'll hear to hear Tommy's interview with Senator Bernie Sanders. As a special surprise, we're bringing a little pod save the world to this Thursday,

Pod Save America. Download and subscribe now. So joining us is Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. So Senator Sanders, the Senate just voted to override the president's veto of a resolution that would have forced President Trump to pull U.S. support for the Saudi-led civil war in Yemen. Unfortunately, that vote failed. But I think it's interesting that opposition to Trump's Yemen policy is now bipartisan. Basically, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree that Trump's Yemen policy is bad, and that his Fed nominees are basically assholes. Why do you think that Yemen has become this bipartisan issue? Well, first thought, what happened when we passed both in the House and

the Senate bipartisan resolutions for the first time in 45 years using the War Powers Act, this is an enormous step forward in having the Congress reclaim its constitutional responsibility for war making. We have ceded that on the Democratic administrations and Republican administrations. So this is, while I am saddened, although not surprised that we couldn't override Trump's veto, let's not underestimate that we're making tremendous progress in getting Congress now to accept its constitutional responsibilities. I think in terms of Yemen, I wish that I could tell you that the primary reason for support was that 85,000 children have already died in that war, and that the UN

estimates that hundreds of thousands more are going to die, and that millions are facing famine. I wish I could tell you that was the reason, but that is only the partial reason. The other reason, of course, was the murder in cold blood of Jamal Khashoggi in the Turkish, in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. And to see a guy, a leader, Mohammed bin Salman, commit an atrocious murder and dismember this guy because he was a modest critic of the regime. I think a lot of people said, you know what, maybe we should distance ourselves a little bit from this regime. Yeah, that's right. And I agree. It's an enormous step forward for Congress. And thank you for your leadership on this issue. It really has been important.

So is there a next step that you think Congress can take to choke off funds for these operations or otherwise force Trump out of Yemen? The answer is yes. And what I think is exciting, and it's the point that you made this was intruder a bipartisan effort while all the democrats voted for it and we only had seven republicans i do want to say that people like senator mike lee of utah conservative republican uh... played a very uh... consistent and strong role on this and uh... he is in part responsible for our success.

And I think there are more Republicans who are prepared to come on board under the argument that a president does not have war making, a president cannot on his own put our troops in danger or board. That is the Congress's responsibility. president cannot on his own put our troops uh... in danger board that is a couple of the the congresses our responsibility so to answer your question you know this is the beginning of the op the end and i think you can see people like uh... mike lee iran paul chris murphy and myself and others work together

ought to be where we go from here and certainly uh... amendments as part of the Defense Authorization Act are one vehicle. Continuing to use the War Powers Act is another vehicle. As you know, the United States is now involved. We have troops fighting in seven different countries. And, you know, there are troops in many other countries around the world, and all fighting under a dubious authority. Yeah. You mentioned the Khashoggi murder. I think Democrats this week have been very frustrated by Attorney General Barr's refusal to really work with Congress and testify and allow for oversight.

I mean, by law, the White House was obligated to submit a report to Congress in February about who was responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder, but they simply refused. Do you see any recourse for that kind of illegal stonewalling? Look, you have, and I think, you know, most of us understand, you have a president now with very strong authoritarian tendencies who I think sees Congress as more of a hindrance, not as an equal branch of government, who thinks that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants it. He can lie his way through it, stonewall his way through it, but not work with congress in a way that the constitution mandate uh... and you know uh... i think we don't like them every step of the way i think you know you can see members committees uh... subpoenaing and fighting in the courts to make sure that they get the people to testify and look at the information that they need

uh... but at the end of the day uh... you have a lawless president. And I think he has to be defeated. And that's the most effective way I think of addressing that. Agreed. So Senator, on top of the Khashoggi murder, Saudi Arabia recently announced that they've executed 105 people this year. There were at least three minors at the time of their alleged crimes. They were reportedly tortured into making confessions. I mean, I ask this with humility because my former boss, President Obama, did a lot of business with Saudi Arabia. But do you think it's time to fundamentally rethink whether the Saudis are an ally? I have thought that for a long, long time. And I think if you remember my

campaign against Clinton, that was one of the areas where we disagreed. Look, let's be clear about what Saudi Arabia is. You have a leader there, Mohammed bin Salman, who most people think was actively involved in the cold-blooded murder of Khashoggi. You have a guy who led, when he was the defense minister, the same guy of Saudi Arabia. He was the one who created this war, the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And I don't know if you've seen the recent UN report. They're estimating that if this war continues, by the end of 2019, several hundred thousand people are going to be dead. Civilians are going to be dead. hundred thousand people are going to be dead. Civilians are going to be dead. And there's fear of widespread starvation and cholera epidemic. I mean, this is the greatest humanitarian disaster on the face of the planet, which was created by Mohammed bin Salman. You've got a government there that doesn't treat women as second-class citizens. They treat

them as third-class citizens. You've described the execution of over 30 people at the same time, people who are tortured. This is a country that does not accept for one second the idea that people have a right to dissent. Now, why are we allied with them? And this is a country that is fomenting problems all over that region. And, you know, for whatever reason, and, and you know we can go on and talk about this for a long time some years ago many years ago way before trump way before obama it was decided that saudi arabia was a wonderful ally

and iran was our intractable enemy and that was the way it was and i think it's time to rethink that iran has enormous problems you know that better than i do uh... but I think it is time for us to play a level-handed approach, have a level-handed approach, bring these people together. But certainly, to answer your question, yes, the time is long overdue to understand that a despotic, treacherous regime in Saudi Arabia should not be an unquestioned ally of the United States of America.

Yeah. Final question for you. It is, it is, the violence in Venezuela is really frightening. And, you know, the Trump administration seems all in on a coup. They are openly talking about military options and intervention. How worried are you about this White House going to war in Venezuela? And is there anything Congress can do to stop them? Well, you know, when you're dealing with a guy like Trump, you have a right to be worried about anything and everything. The idea, I mean, given our history of intervention in country after country in Latin America, the overthrow of Alguente, the overthrow of the government of Brazilzil guatemala other countries the idea that we would intervened militarily in venezuela

uh... is literally unbelievable it's beyond you know it's absurd so yes i will do everything that i can and again this is an issue getting back to the willpower on that show where in the constitution of the president of the united states have the right to send troops uh... to venezuela or anybody else i'd like to help without the approval of the united states congress and we have got to

be very different you look you know and i know that it's so easy to send in troops with the piracy or anyplace else then you have all of the unintended consequences which take place so i think our job in Venezuela is to demand international supervision of a free and fair election to do everything we can to prevent a horrific civil war in that country, not provoke one. So I will do everything I can to see the U.S. troops not get involved in a civil war in Venezuela. to see the U.S. troops not get involved in a civil war in Venezuela. Hopefully we can tie Elliott Abrams down and not let him on an airplane anytime soon, because I don't want to see that guy down there.

Senator Sanders, thank you so much for all the work you've done on Yemen, and thanks for talking with me today. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you very much. Keep up the good work. So many of you have heard us talk to our friend, activist Adi Barkin, many times before on this pod. This will be the first time that he's on the pod speaking through a computer, which he did during his testimony yesterday. And he's doing now because his ALS has progressed, and so he can no longer use his voice. He has some great technology set up where he can actually look at a screen and type out with his eyes basically what he wants to say, and then a computer will say it.

So that's what you'll be hearing next, and this is my interview with Adi Barkin. Adi, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you making the time. I know you just came back from a very long trip. You testified this week in the first hearing the House has ever held on Medicare for All. What did it mean to you that this hearing took place, first of all, and why was it so important for you to be there? I know it wasn't easy for you to get to Washington, D.C. from California. Thanks for having me on the show, John. Yes, it wasn't an easy trip, but I wanted to do it because I have experienced firsthand how broken our country's health care system is, and I want to

do what I can to help fix it, in the hope that someday soon, nobody will be in this position again. Right now, I pay $9,000 out of pocket for full-time care, because insurance doesn't cover home care. That's absurd. No one should have to do that, I hoped my testimony would wake the conscience of some lawmakers, particularly moderate Democrats, and get them to support Medicare for All. But even more importantly,

I wanted to help galvanize the movement and encourage folks around the country to join this righteous struggle. So Adi, when you ask people what they think about Medicare for All, the good news is you typically get a healthy majority of Americans who say they're supportive. And then a number of polls have done this. When you tell people that it will eliminate private health insurance or require tax increases or potentially lead to delays in some tests and treatments for some people, you see the support drop quite dramatically. people, you see the support drop quite dramatically. How do we overcome these concerns, which will obviously be amplified by millions of dollars of advertising from Republicans and insurance companies and people like that? How do we overcome those concerns? You know this as well as anyone, John. Republicans and insurance companies will

call our plan socialist. they'll say it's the end of the world no matter what's in it. Even if it's a plan drafted by a Republican governor, like with the Affordable Care Act. So I've come to look at the question this way forget what they'll say about us. Let's help people understand exactly how broken our health care system is today, one in which we spend more per capita than any other industrialized nation on earth, but our health outcomes rank towards the bottom. Let's ask ourselves what will actually solve those problems. Let's ask ourselves what policy will actually bring down the cost of prescription drugs. What policy will ensure

every single American is covered and has medical care? What policy will cut the exorbitant administrative costs out of our current health care system and cut out the middleman insurance companies that are raking in record profits while 30 million Americans remain uninsured? And when you look at it that way, Medicare for all is clearly the right approach. As for how to pass it, we'll do it the way we pass everything. We'll mobilize a grassroots army that scares politicians more than the insurance companies scare them. So some Democrats have suggested that one way to overcome the potential concerns that people have with Medicare for All is with either a Medicare buy-in, which allows people to buy into a Medicare program or a public option, or others have suggested there's a plan that would, you know, Medicare for America, that would automatically enroll every

newborn, every uninsured American, everyone who gets their insurance through the ACA exchanges into a single payer Medicare program, and then give every other American in every business the choice to enroll in that program. Why, in your view, would that be, would those other programs that sort of rely on public options or a slower transition to Medicare for all, why would those be insufficient? Great question. I think there are three reasons to prefer Medicare for All, why would those be insufficient? Great question. I think there are three reasons to prefer Medicare for All over the incremental approaches. First, only Medicare for All will get everyone the care they need. Under the alternate plan you

mentioned, many people will still be denied care by their for-profit insurance company or will avoid getting needed care because of high copays and deductibles. Second, only Medicare for All will drive down costs. It will save us hundreds of billions of dollars per year in administrative and billing costs and it will make life dramatically easier for health care providers by allowing them to focus on delivering care, not getting reimbursed. In addition, shifting to global billing from fee-for-service will give providers the freedom to focus on prevention and holistic

medicine rather than running tests and procedures. None of that will happen under a public option. Finally, there is the political reality. There is no way any of these proposals will pass without a huge grassroots movement behind them. And that only exists for Medicare for all. Nobody is gonna march or engage in civil disobedience in support of a public option. I know it's popular among the centrist Democrats and think tank said, but they are just genetically predisposed to compromise with themselves. You remember how well that worked out during the Obamacare fight, don't you, John? The reason those Democrats prefer that approach to Medicare for All is because they think it has a better chance of passing.

They think Medicare for All is just too ambitious to do all at once. But remember, the creation of Medicare itself was a huge, tectonic shift in healthcare policy in this country. We've got to remember we've done big and ambitious things before. And we need to stop looking at things like pundits calculating odds of passage, instead of asking ourselves what we really believe. Let's not assume Medicare for all can't pass. Let's instead ask ourselves, do we believe healthcare should be a right for everybody in this country or not? So obviously insurance companies will be opposed to this. That we know. How do we get hospitals,

doctors, and other healthcare providers on on board or do we need to a lot of doctors are already in favor of medicare for all one group physicians for a national health program has been leading this fight for decades and they have fantastic resources for all your wonky listeners out there small businesses too doctors got into their profession because they wanted to care for people and save lives. Under our current system, too many of them have to deny care to people they can cure, simply because something isn't covered by insurance. A doctor who was sitting at the hearing this week said as much, and said that in his experience, there's nothing worse than watching a patient walk out of a

hospital sick with something he could have cured simply because of coverage gaps. Medicare for all has become immensely popular with the majority of the American people because it's good for just about everyone in our society, except for insurance company and pharmaceutical executives who are making immense, obscene profits at the expense of public health. Adi, what are your early impressions of how the 2020 candidates are handling not only this issue, but other issues as well? Who's impressing you right now? I'm heartened to see that Medicare for All is quickly becoming the Democratic Party's standard position on health care policy. All of the senators running

have co-sponsored Bernie's Medicare for All bill. Obviously, Senator Sanders has been a leader on this issue for decades and helped make it as popular as it is today. And I want to continue the conversation with some of the candidates who aren't quite there yet, because my experience has led me to believe firmly that Medicare for All is the only way to ensure high-quality, universal health care coverage in this country. So I hope to be having those conversations, and doing everything I can to push the party to be better on this issue. For so many of us, this is a life and death issue, which is why I want us to get it right.

More generally, I think Elizabeth Warren has been phenomenal. She is putting out such visionary policy. On housing, monopoly power, and the tech industry, bank regulation, taxes, anti-corruption and democracy, student debt, and free college, Just fantastic stuff. And she is showing a willingness to actually fight the corporations that are causing these problems. I agree. She's been very impressive on the policy front and also connecting all those policies into a larger story about the economy. Are there any issues that aren't a part of the presidential conversation right now that you think should be or that candidates should be talking more about? I would love to hear more from candidates about foreign policy and things like global development and intellectual property law. But otherwise, I'm impressed by the breadth of the discourse. Adi, you wrote for The Nation last fall that the cure for what ails American

democracy is more American democracy, and that voting is not nearly enough. What does this moment from now until next November 2020 really call for in your opinion? I really believe we are at a crossroads in this moment. We will either become a society that works exclusively for the rich and powerful, or we will enact large-scale structural reforms that restore fairness to our economy and political system? Each of us is called to do everything we can to ensure our society winds up in the right place. Yes, vote, but we need to do more than just that. March, if you still can. Show up to community meetings. Run for office, especially if the thought of that really scares you. The wealthy and the powerful in this country want nothing

more than for us to tune out, they're investing heavily in cracking down on our right to vote, on our ability to run for office without them, even on our ability to protest. They want us to get cynical and lose hope because that only solidifies their grip on all of this. We need to fight that instinct, hold on to hope, and keep fighting for a better future. That's the only way out of this. Adi, you've got a memoir coming out in the fall,

which I'm very excited about. I can't wait to read. When you went about writing your own story that people could read years from now, that your son, that Carl could read years from now, what did you want that story to say? Yes, the memoir is called Eyes to the Wind and people can pre-order it now. It's about a lot of things, life and death, hope and activism, and my personal journey through all of this. I want people to know that however bleak things look, and believe me when I say I understand

the meaning of the word bleak, that there is still truly hope. When I rolled out of the Capitol this week, I genuinely felt hopeful, because I feel our society tilting in the direction of justice. This is an uphill fight, no doubt, but I'm inspired by all the activism I've seen over the past few years, especially from people who have never before been part of the political process joining up and saying they believe in health care as a human right. I want people to know they need to hold on to hope and keep fighting for the better world we all know is possible. Adi, thank you so much for joining Positive America, as always. I'm so glad that we got a chance to talk today, and I hope we can talk again soon. And thank you so much for all that you're doing to fight for justice and opportunity. We really appreciate it. Thanks, John.

Yes, it's been great to connect. Talk soon. Thanks to Adi Barkin and Bernie Sanders for joining us today. And everyone have a great weekend and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone. everyone Bye.