Pod Save America - “Legislative looting.”

Episode Date: November 30, 2017

Republicans do whatever it takes to pass their Donor Relief Act, and Trump reminds us why he’s unstable and unfit to hold office. Then White House photographer Pete Souza joins Jon and Dan in studio to talk about his bestselling new book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, and Ana Marie Cox calls in to discuss the latest sexual assault revelations.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Here in studio. The Crooked Media HQ. Dan, this is your first time here. It's amazing. It's amazing what you guys have built. So we have Dan in studio. We also are going to talk to the former chief official White House photographer for Barack Obama, Pete Souza, also in studio.

He's going to be here as well. It's a party today. Nothing like an audio interview about a visual book. We'll have some of that up on video at some point, by the way. We'll also be talking to the host of Crooked Media with friends like these, Anna Marie Cox. Somehow she couldn't make it to LA. I don't know why.

And also, we're going on tour again. Back on the road. We're going on tour this weekend, but we're also announcing a whole bunch of new cities for 2018. You'll be able to get tickets Friday morning, December 1st. We'll have more details on that. And some of the cities, Phoenix, Denver,

Vegas, Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Miami, Orlando, Clearwater, and New York. And there will be other cities that we're announcing in 2018 as the days go on. There's just, we can't announce them all today. But we'll start with those. So we're going to be busy in 2018.

What John is saying is that if your hometown is not on this list. Don't freak out. Just chill. Just wait. Just be patient. Just be patient. It's, you know, we're not on Twitter time here. Okay.

Let's start with the Donor Relief Act of 2017, which is now speeding towards passage because, in fact, by the time you listen to it, the Senate may have voted for it. Yesterday, Wednesday, all 52 Republican senators voted to start debate on this bill, which is one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation they've ever considered. bill, which is one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation they've ever considered. Just so everyone knows, by 2027, this bill will make sure that people earning more than a million dollars a year get in total $5.8 billion in tax cuts. That's a lot of money for people who are millionaires. While 87 million families making under $200,000 would face a tax increase.

So I guess my first question is the bill is so incredibly unpopular. It is so incredibly tilted towards the wealthy, not just at the expense of the middle class, but by asking the middle class to pay more in their taxes, which is different than some of these other tax cut bills. So why are Republicans doing this? Why aren't some of our favorite moderates, quote unquote moderates, our heroes of the resistance, why haven't they stepped up or even like, you know, had any real concerns that would lead them to say they're maybe

not voting for it. Well, I was ranting about this to Hallie this morning, and she said to me, obviously, this was going to pass. It was always going to pass for the same reason that conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin and others voted to pass the Affordable Care Act and give health care to people. Giving health care to people is why Democrats run for office. Giving tax cuts to people, primarily to rich people, is why Democrats run for office. Giving tax cuts to people, primarily to rich people, is why Republicans run for office.

It is who they are. Now, if we refer to them, they have a philosophy. It is a philosophy of smaller government, so they want to starve the government of tax revenue and trickle down economics, where if you give more money to rich people and corporations, that that money will trickle down and raise in new jobs, investment, and higher-wage people.

That philosophy is wrong. There's no evidence it works. There's a lot of evidence that it hasn't worked. Yes. And in fact, every time it's happened. Yes, they have tried it several times. And every time it's failed and Democrats have had to come in and clean up the mess. So but that is who they are.

Second thing is the Republican Party is primarily funded and led by billionaires. The Republican Party is primarily funded and led by billionaires, the Kochs, the Adelsons, hedge fund managers like Peter Singer on Wall Street who provide – if you want to run for president of the Republican Party, you need to get your own billionaire to fund your super PAC. And those billionaires are not particularly happy with the way things are going because they have access to the internet and they have not been contributing to Republican campaigns at the rate in which Republicans had hoped. And so one way to get more campaign donations is to give more money to your largest campaign donors. So there they go. And this is not just us liberal podcast hosts just making this accusation about the donors.

Lindsey Graham said, we need to pass this bill for our donors so that our donors can respond. Two Republican members of Congress, I think Chris Collins and someone else, also said the same thing. So we have multiple Republican politicians on the record saying that they need to pass this bill

to please their donors. This is why we call it the donor relief act. It's an actual, I can't even believe that they actually said that, but they said it. I mean, points for transparency, I guess? Yeah, points for transparency. No, but I guess my question is why was the bill or did the bill have to be designed this poorly? And by that I mean neither you or I were big fans of the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000s.

They were a disaster. They increased the deficit by a trillion dollars. They didn't do anything that they were promised to do. They didn't create a bunch of jobs. We lost jobs throughout the 2000s when Bush was president. It was sluggish job growth, sluggish wage growth. So the tax cuts didn't work. But when they were passed, the Bush tax cuts were more popular than unpopular

and bush administration and republicans then could credibly say yes we're cutting taxes for the wealthy but we're also cutting taxes for everyone else and that's that this bill this is like you know huge tax cut for corporations and they'd get an even bigger tax cut for moving their profits overseas to foreign countries because— Many people have been calling for that. America first, right? Repeal of the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, which could increase the number of uninsured by $13 million and raise premiums 10%. Higher taxes for graduate students.

Higher costs for college students. $1.5 trillion to the deficit. More expensive than the Bush tax cuts. students higher costs for college students one and a half trillion to the deficit more expensive than the bush tax cuts and then you know marco rubio sort of gave up the game yesterday when he said that uh tax cuts that add to the deficit of the first step and then the second step is to close that deficit by cutting social security and medicare and by the way you know it's thursday they're debating the bill today they're hoping to vote on it by the end of the day none of the details of what's in this bill or a lot of the details of what's in this bill are still missing yeah so like why why is it this bad oh and there's also the new york times

had a great story on this you sent it to me last night basically i think it's the call that started as a tax cut now it's going to reshape american life which just shows how how far beyond just simple economics this goes. There's a provision in there that gives legal rights to fetuses from the house. There's oil drilling in Alaska is in this bill to buy off Lisa Murkowski. Just does. So what happened here? We'll send that New York Times story out.

I was reading it on the flight here last night, and I was kind of visibly irritated by it and kind of huffing and puffing. I'm like furiously texting. Yeah. And I look over at the guy next to me, and he's watching interviews of Marco Rubio on CNBC on his iPhone. Not live, just like YouTube clips of it. Was it a Marco Rubio staff member? I can't even imagine.

Was it Lovett making fun of him? We found Marco Rubio's one delegate. Look, this happened for a couple of reasons. One, the Republicans have no fucking idea how to govern. They just don't. They have been arsonists for eight years, and now they're in charge of the firehouse. They don't know how to do this. So that's one.

Two, they don't give a fuck about what they do as long as they do something that has been clear throughout this process and then that has been more clear by the way because some a lot of people are asking why isn't this like health care with health care they they thought they needed to do something but they weren't feeling the heat just yet yeah it feels like on this one it's like you don't pass this tax cut and you also didn't pass health care what are you here for yeah and it is taking health care away from people is a core belief of paul ryan's right but it is not a core belief of all republicans they don't run they they didn't run for office because too many people have health care right and which is why they were so afraid about the formal care act passing because they don't agree with that way of providing health

care they don't actually have an alternative to that way, but that is the philosophical concept. They did all run for smaller government and more tax cuts. And the reason- No Republican runs for office to increase taxes. Yes. They all run for office to tax, since the beginning of time. Yes. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.

But what is interesting about this is, and the Bush tax cut is an interesting example because the Bush tax cut was just a tax cut. There was no reform. It was a temporary tax cut, which at the time was also a budget trick to – like they're doing here to stay, to be able to pretend like it will have less of an impact on deficit than it did. And the argument at the time was the United States had a surplus. The argument at the time was the United States had a surplus. I mean this is hard to imagine but the economy was so good in the 90s with a democratic president that we had more money. We were bringing in more money than we were spending as a country. And Bush ran on the idea that it is your money, right?

The government should have the money. You should have your money. So we're going to give that money back to you. That idea was a disaster because it ballooned the deficit that Barack Obama had to spend eight years getting us out of. But what they've done here is the other – so you can give a big tax cut. You can give a tax cut to people, just lower taxes, or you can reform the tax code where you go in there. You take out the loopholes that don't make sense. Simplify it. You simplify it.

Which is a good – that is the right thing to do. Which is a good – that is the right thing to do. We actually had a corporate tax reform plan that was deficit neutral, that lowered the rate only to 28 percent and paid for itself by getting rid of loopholes, right? This is neither tax reform nor a tax cut. It is a mix of the two so that they can say they did tax reform. So they carve out some things they don't like to push conservative policies. They lower the corporate rate, but they don't – they're unwilling to take on things like the carried interest loophole, which benefits hedge fund managers. They don't want to take that political heat to pay for it. So you're cutting corporate taxes and you're trying to pay for some of it by eliminating things that help individuals who are mostly Democrats. And so the whole thing is this Frankenstein amalgamation of terribleness. And it makes no policy sense. And it makes no political

sense other than the idea that we just have to do something. I was going to say, I think so many of the worst parts of this bill came to be because they're just they're so desperate to get to yes, and to pass something. And someone in the New York Times piece said this, I think it was some lobbyist, that there's like a Christmas tree-like aspect of this bill where you just keep adding things onto it. So oil drilling in Alaska? Yeah, absolutely. We need Lisa Murkowski's vote. A couple crazy things on abortion in the House?

Yeah, absolutely. we need a bunch of house conservatives to say yes to this and so they just keep adding bad shit onto this bill so they can get to yes and the difference with health care was this sort of puzzle where you know if you gave on one thing to get a vote then you'd lose some other votes on something else here you can just keep adding on and spending more money and adding to the deficit and if you go past 1.5 trillion dollars which is the magic number where you can't go past because then you need 60 votes in the Senate, then you just add a bunch of accounting gimmicks on paper so that 10, 15 years from now, it looks like it balances out. But right now, it doesn't. So between the accounting gimmicks and between adding anything necessary to get the votes that you need, it's going to look like a pretty awful

bill. And you raise a really important point comparing it to the Affordable Care Act, because no one will believe this, but the Affordable Care Act was paid for. It did not add to the deficit. So if some senator came and said, I need an extra $10 million for community health centers, which benefit my state. If we were to give that to them, we got to go find $10 million to cut somewhere else to keep it at zero. So we had $0 to play with. The Republicans have $1.5 trillion to play with. And so they can give stuff to people all the time. And it doesn't... Very responsible. Yeah, it's very responsible. I mean, it is the absolute worst possible way to govern. There was a story in The New York Times today about how Steve Mnookin, producer of such films as Suicide Squad.

Husband of Louise Clinton. Yes. King of photo ops. He has been telling everyone that the Treasury is working on an analysis that is going to show that not only will this not add 1.5 – oh, Mr. Deficit Hawk, are you concerned about $1.5 trillion deficit? Don't worry. We're working on this. And we actually think it's going to reduce the deficit by up to $1 trillion, which no one possibly believes. But so the New York Times finally contacted the people at the Treasury Department who do this analysis, and they're like, we have no idea what you're talking about. Like they will lie, borrow, steal, and do anything to pass this bill.

Yeah. And look, again, Republicans like tax cuts. And so if that's what they want to pass, that's what they want to pass. But we should at least expect out of these Republicans adhering to the principles that they lay out. So with McCain and Corker and Flake, three people who will not be running for reelection again, who do not have to face voters, who do not have to face Breitbart or any of that, they don't have to worry about their donors and all that stuff. They're all going to vote for this thing. And, you know, they've all complained about the fact that it might increase the deficit. And yet, and it's going to increase the deficit by a lot. And yet here they are all voting for it. I'm not sure I understand why Flake and Corker and McCain went down this road,

unless it's just pure tribalism, pure like, these are my colleagues. And I've, you know, I don't want to piss them off too much. And I sort of do like tax cuts. And yeah, it's going to increase the deficit, but maybe it'll pay for itself. And who cares? That's all I can get out of it. Yeah, that's all I can think about it. And I can't really tell what the motivating factor is because there are sort of two schools of thought on this for all of these – for all the Republicans. Because on paper, unpopular Congress passing an unpopular piece of legislation that raises taxes to the middle class that will be signed by an incredibly unpopular president is not – that's not a formula for electoral success and so there's sort of there's two theories one is they have convinced themselves that if they do not pass something this is the end of the republican party as we know like this is yeah i would disagree with that analysis but that is one

and the other one is the republican party is ending anyway so we're doing legislative looting everything we possibly can boiler's point it's just grab grab it on the way up so we're doing legislative looting. Everything we possibly can. This is Brian Boitler's point. Grab it on the way out. We're all going to lose, and just take what you can on the way out the door. Billionaires running down the street with flat screens, TV, right out the homes of the middle class. So the question is what do we do? What happens next?

A lot of people are saying, is there time? Can I do something? It looks like, and by the time you hear this podcast, that I think this will pass the Senate so what happens then there's the house bill is different than the senate bill so there needs to be a conference committee the conference committee is made up of members of the house and the senate all republicans and they'll work out the differences but then both chambers have to vote for the bill again have to pass the bill again. So, you know, we should still put pressure on all these members of Congress, particularly in the House, the members of the

California delegation, the New Jersey delegation, the New York delegation, who, because of the repeal of the state and local property tax deduction, the state income and local income tax deduction will be hit especially hard by the tax increases in this bill. And so I do think it's worth, you know, Ben Wickler emailed us this morning from MoveOn, if you're in D.C., if you're near D.C., there's going to be protests at the Capitol today, and they're going to keep protesting until this vote is passed. And then from now until, you know, Donald Trump trump signs this bill people should be making a lot of noise about the effects on states like california and new york and new jersey because if all the republicans in in california new york and new jersey and a lot of the republicans who

voted against the affordable care act in the house and a lot of the republicans in the house who didn't vote for this tax bill in the first place all vote no, you know, you could still see it stopping. I don't think the chances are great, to be completely honest, but we might as well keep the pressure on. And we should keep the pressure on not just to stop this bill, but if it passes, I think we need to be incredibly noisy about this bill and let people know what's at stake here because I think this could be the kiss of death for them in 2018. What do you think about that? That's exactly right. I mean, to your point, there will likely be two more votes after this. So it'll go to a conference

committee. The House and Senate will have to vote again. And we should put pressure on those votes. And there are significant differences between the House and the Senate bill, which could cause trouble. And putting this sort of Rubik's Cube together is going to be hard and so you know we don't have a great shot we also didn't have a great shot at defeating the affordable care act on several occasions and we did right so if you make noise it can make a difference and we have to make sure people know this happened and what's in it because a lot of the impact has to be our whole i think it has to be our entire message yes from now until 2018 what happened in this tax bill if it passes and what they tried to do to the affordable care act i mean i think this it is incredible to me that the road to a democratic house majority and possibly a Democratic Senate majority runs through some

of the very districts that will be hit hardest by these tax increases. Suburban swing districts with a lot of like middle to upper middle class taxpayers. These are not like Trump-based voters who watch Fox all the time and no matter what happens, they're never going to change their mind. These are people like the people in Virginia who won the election for Ralph Northam and defeated Ed Gillespie. Suburbanites and people who own homes were going to pay more taxes than this. And so, like, I think it's crazy that they're doing this because, like, all these Republicans that represent districts in California with people who are going to be hurt by this state and local property tax stuff. Like, it's crazy. With people who are going to be hurt by this state and local property tax stuff?

Like, it's crazy. You know, we've all tweeted and talked about on this podcast the political ramifications of doing this because it seems insane to us. And that, of course, requires some of the worst people on Twitter to respond and be like, well, you also thought Hillary was going to win. Right. And it's like, yeah, that did not happen. Hillary did not win. You got me. But just because Trump won the Electoral College with the help of the Russians and Jim Comey and a bunch of other things does not mean that all the old rules of politics are gone.

Look at Virginia. Exactly. Look at Virginia. about what's going to happen, but there is reason to believe that, very strong reason to believe that an aggressive case about the Republicans who are literally taking healthcare away from people, charging students more and raising tax on middle class to pay for tax cuts for corporations and billionaires will be a winning message. Virginia proves unequivocally that the rules of politics still apply. And if you look at the exit polls in Virginia, for all the discussion leading up until that election about MS-13 and immigration and Confederate statues, the number one issue for people who voted in Virginia was health care.

And those voters went to Ralph Northam by even a larger margin than he won. And that was health care. And those voters went to Ralph Northam by even a larger margin than he won. And that was health care. So you combine health care with higher taxes on middle class people, you could have a lot. Deep red places, maybe not. But purple places, places that Hillary Clinton won

where there's a Republican sitting in the House and in the district, places like Arizona and Nevada where we have senators, where we could flip Senate seats. This is, you know, we've got to keep fighting. And so I think, you know, if we lose this, this is not, you know, people should not sit back and say,

oh, we lost one, nothing's good. And same thing if, you know, if Doug Jones loses too. Like, you know, it could be a very tough December. That doesn't mean that we're down and out. There's going to be a lot of, you know, wins and losses on the way to a bigger win in 2018. We've already lost the war on Christmas, I heard. We've lost the war on Christmas. All right, let's talk about the deeply disturbed individual

running our country. Donald Trump has been, I think, hitting the crazy pills pretty hard recently. I think maybe he's not hitting the anti-crazy pills to to recap this week i'm gonna leave some out but i'm gonna try to remember time uh he endorsed a child molester who hates gays and muslims for the u.s senate yesterday he shared fake racist anti-muslim videos from a right-wing british bigot who's been charged with religious harassment and said the police should be able to shoot Muslims. That was something where the prime minister of the United Kingdom had to condemn Trump and then Trump attacked her on Twitter. There's the scene in the British parliament yesterday was, I mean, all these parliament members were just talking about like the racist, crazy president of the United States. I can't imagine anything more fucking embarrassing.

He, yesterday he accused various NBC hosts and producers of sexual harassment and murder. He told people to boycott CNN. He attacked his own Justice Department

and the FBI because of a Fox News story about how they're not participating in disgraced Congressman Devin Nunes' plan to obstruct their investigations of Donald Trump.

There's a New York Times story this week about how he still believes that Barack Obama was not born in this country he still believes that Barack Obama was not born in this country. He believes that the Access Hollywood tape with his voice on it isn't real. What the fuck?

I am not a medical professional. So I am not. I know. Totally. Yeah. Stipulated with all this. We know we're not supposed to diagnose Donald Trump. I'm not diagnosing him of any sort of psychosis.

So I'm not diagnosing him of any sort of psychosis so i'm not doing that but what i will say is if someone who was not the president united states said these things to behave like this you would be deeply concerned for that person's mental and emotional well-being yeah and like it's like kind of funny in a gallows humor sort of way. But it is fucking scary because we have been there. We know how much power and influence the president has. We know the gravity of the decisions that they are supposed to make on a daily basis that affect people's lives, that affect national security. And like there is no question, none at all, that Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for office. Like if he believes – Which by the way, you know, some of his base voters wouldn't say that.

But I would say the vast majority of elected Republicans who are in Washington and a good portion who work in his administration would probably agree with that. Yeah. I mean – Tremendous. If he – like people read that New York Times story about Trump thinking the – claiming the Access Hollywood tape is fake and saying that Barack Obama's birth certificate is forged. And the people – there are two ways of that Barack Obama's birth certificate is forged and the people there are two ways of that he's just lying you know when you guys start on some Monday Lovett was saying that Trump's kind of like trying that out and you guys were responding to the previous story right

the story that came out since then is much more evident that he kind of probably believes it yeah and that's really fucking scary like that is like there's no chance that Steve Mnookin and Scott Pruitt and Betsy DeVos are getting the cabinet together to the 25th Amendment. But they absolutely fucking should. Like it is dangerous. Things have not yet happened. I always think about that. And if this person is in charge of making those decisions, it's fucking scary. Put aside the decades-long damage that Trump is doing to America standing in the world, to just the idea of decency in this country, to governing norms and rules.

Put that aside just – and that has happened. Like we are going to spend the rest of – much of the rest of our adult lives digging out of this. It's fucking scary. It just really is. You were bringing up a point that that Brian Boitler made yesterday. I think he's writing a piece about this, which, you know, he sort of tried to answer the question. Is Trump a pathological liar? Does he do this on purpose?

Does he believe these things? And he was saying, you know, I'm sympathetic to the view and concerned that Trump might be delusional. Clearly he's in decline, but Trump used to lie to everyone until he was put under oath. Talking about, you know,

way back when during his, one of his many lawsuits around his business, he was put under oath and did tell the truth. So the question is, does Trump just tell these lies because he knows he can get away with it? And if he were to sit down with Mueller and faced with the choice between lying and prison or impeachment,

maybe then he'd start telling the truth. Does he have the capacity to know what's going on and tell the truth and he's just realizing that he can get away with it, which is why he's lying every day and believing in crazy conspiracies there when i worked in a campaign a long time ago in south dakota there was a radio personality and he was sort of a prominent radio personality in south dakota and he and i had breakfast with him once because it was a little press secretary out like it's been media outreach and he spoke to me at prefix exactly like he was on the air like he his i think at one point in time there was a donald trump the person yeah and donald

trump the persona and he understood the value of donald trump the persona in terms of his celebrity his fame and his business i think over time those two things have merged into one will he be is he smart enough to listen to his attorneys and be in dance around questions from bob muller hurry the fuck up bob muller under oath maybe but i think he is he is he has a capacity to create and live in an alternative reality yeah he does i mean did you you see the Washington Post piece from last night about why – or it was yesterday, right? Who knows? Yeah.

The longest 96 hours of our lives. Basically, it's a bunch of people in the administration, outside the administration, saying that he does these things because he feels that he is impervious to the consequences. So he lies. He says these crazy things. He shares these tweets that are bigoted and racist. Sexually assaults women.

Sexually assaults women. And he does this because he has an entire array of propaganda outlets that defend him. His base applauds him because of the propaganda outlets, because of how they get their information. Republican leaders stand by and say nothing. They're all trying to get their tax cut done. So yesterday, heroes of the resistance, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker and all these people were like, yeah, those tweets were bad, probably shouldn't have done those.

But anyway, got to go past the tax cuts. And his aides aren't trying to control him. So I thought yesterday I was tweeting the, I i keep think i always think back to that axios piece when they talk about the committee to save america which is and look we give axios a hard time it's it's not necessarily their fault these people told them this in the white house but the idea that these republican leaders and gary cone and dina powell and mcmaster and all these people they are stopping trump from doing the worst and they're all together trying to make sure that he doesn't do any damage not doing a great job

guys not doing a great job john kelly i'm not in charge of the tweets that's not my that is the thing right and i'm so it's so annoying to hear the the tweets as if it's just like some silly social media thing like he's dog their presidential state that's like i'm not in control of the statements the president makes to represent the united states of america to the rest of the world when our that's what he's saying when our closest ally in the world has to criticize our closest ally in the world led by a fairly conservative prime minister now, not some liberal Democrat. They should be friends. Right.

Yeah. I mean, then you have to pay attention to the tweets. Like, it's not – that is 80% of John Kelly's job. Like, great. I'm glad you even put in place a better paper process and Omarosa can't do bridal shoots in the White House anymore. But get in charge of the fucking phone, buddy. In that Washington Post piece, Roger Stone, who is a disgraceful human being, did have an interesting comment where he said,

Trump doesn't necessarily have a strategy. His instincts on the news cycle and how to tweak his enemies are extraordinary. And he believes that the only thing worse than being wrong is being boring. And that's what's driving him. And I thought to myself, I agree with everything rogers don't just say i mean it's so he does have because everyone's like oh well you can't call him

dumb whatever no no he's dumb on a whole bunch of shit he does have instincts on how to troll people yeah he's a very good troll and he he he thinks that being boring is the worst thing i mean it's some insight into why he does what he does like he knows that if he's not in the news, that if he's not saying anything, that if he's just sort of hanging around and being a normal president, then people might not tune into the show. If you wanted to...

But that is a strategy that gets you from news cycle to news cycle. The idea that he's got this long-term strategy, that he's playing chess, is absurd. But he does have a strategy to get him through day by day yeah it is if you were to design the perfect person to maliciously and cynically gamify our current media environment you would take someone who had deep experience with the New York tabloids and understood the power of reality television. Right. That is Trump.

And the power of right-wing propaganda. Yeah. And who happens to be a famous billionaire. Yeah. And so Trump always knew, pre-being president, when he was just a famous guy in New York, that his power and his money was related to his fame. And so he had to be in the paper. And if he wasn't in the gossip columns, if he wasn't being covered, then he was losing money. And so he said outrageous things, did outrageous things, went on Howard Stern and said horribly offensive things in order to keep himself in the news.

And that is so ingrained in his head. And that is his strategy. He wants to drive the conversation. And that was a good political strategy to at least beat almost two dozen qualified Republican presidential candidates and Ben Carson. Yeah, and Hillary Clinton. Sort of. The other cool one is it's a little iffy because she won the popular vote. Right, I was going to say sort of. Yeah, with Russia. Big caveat there.

won the popular vote right i was gonna say sort of the russia so i big caveat there so the other thing they said in that piece was that mar-a-lago stirs him up that he gets craziest when he goes to mar-a-lago because he's free to roam around the club and just hear from the rich patrons there about um you know whatever crazy thing they're hearing and he watches more tv and so he just starts tweeting which just goes to like the to get this guy to even be somewhat normal. You have to have how many generals and officials around him staring over his shoulder. You have to have cameras like once you let him go. Who knows what he'll do? This is the person who's president of the United States.

We know the first experience how busy the job of the president is. Yeah. Meetings all day long. Phone calls with leaders late into the night, briefings to read. I'm not saying Trump does all these things, but even if just coasting through the presidency is a really busy, stressful job.

And so you finally get some time off. World events are cooperating. You get out of Washington. You get with your family in the warm weather. And could you imagine your life choice being sweet? I get to catch the five live. Finally, I get to watch all that Fox News I've been seeing. My day is planned out.

I got Fox and friends in the morning. I got 18 holes of golf. I come back. It's time for the five. I have some dinner. Water's world. I'll talk to some rich, crazy people at my club. And then at 9pm I got Hannity and I'm going to bed.

I gotta be up early next day to do the tweets. Football's on. Basketball's on. Binge watch Stranger Things. Do some normal shit. He's nuts. So the other people he attacked this week were Chuck and Nancy. Remember that?

Yeah, that was a whole thing. So he tweets at Pelosi and Schumer. They were supposed to meet to negotiate how to avoid a government shutdown. And he basically said in the tweet, there's, I don't see a deal because they're weak on immigration and crime. And it's just a crazy tweet. And so Pelosi and Schumer decide not to go to the meeting since Trump said he didn't see a deal. And so now we're in shutdown territory here. The government runs out of money on December 8th.

They need to pass a bill to fund the government past December 8th. So the latest on this is Ryan McConnell and Trump are trying to put together a bill that would fund the government. Actually, yesterday, the strategy was fund the government through january this morning i saw uh they're going to fund it through december 22nd basically just so they can get their tax cuts passed and not have a shutdown through christmas and then they will have another bill that funds it through january and then another bill so they're doing this in increments question is if ryan can get paul ryan can get a bill through the House passed with only Republican votes for short term, a short term funding bill, then it goes, which he can't get a long term funding bill to keep the government open passed through the House because a lot of House conservatives would say, fuck you. I want deeper spending cuts. Go find Democratic votes, which is their whole problem.

But say that Ryan can tell these conservatives, hey, just give me a month. So then he gets the bill passed, goes to the Senate. Now the only way the bill can pass the Senate is if McConnell finds Democratic votes because you do need 60 votes in the Senate. So what do Democrats do here? What demands do they make? What do they say? My view is no Democrat should vote for a funding bill until we have passed the DREAM Act, stabilization money for healthcare, and have set in place some process to talk about how we're going to have a bipartisan process

to fund the government going forward. One more thing in there. I would say the children's health insurance program. Yes, yes, yes, yes, 100%. And no votes. Because I've been involved in a shutdown when the Republicans shut down the government when President Obama was president. Was I there?

You were gone. It was right when I left. This was in the fall of 2013. That's right. Because I remember I found myself, one of my first television appearances, I found myself on Jake Tapper's show with Bill Kristol yelling about monuments

and closed parks. And it was awful. Yeah. And I said, maybe cable's not for me. Fuck it, I'll start my own media company. Yelling at Bill Kristol about a fucking monument. Now Bill Kristol's practically a friend of the pod. There you go.

But the politics of shutdowns are about blame. Yelling at Bill Kristol about a fucking monument. And now Bill Kristol is practically a friend of the pod. There you go. There you go. But the politics of shutdowns are about blame. Who's going to get blamed for it? And the Republicans got blamed overwhelmingly for it because they're the ones who shut the government down. This is a unique situation. There have been a handful of government shutdowns in our history. And every time it's happened, there has been a president of one party and a congress of another the republicans control all of government it seems like democrats should be able to ensure that republicans get the blame it also helps that donald trump is deeply unpopular the republican congress and its leaders are even more so they

are more unpopular than trump paul ryan and m Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are so unpopular. It is like possibly hard to understand. So this is a battle we can win, but they are in charge of the government. It is their job to fund it. And because they cannot muster enough votes on their own, they need Democrats and Democrats should not be giving their votes away for free. This is a battle we can and should win. should not be giving their votes away for free. This is a battle we can and should win. Yeah, and I think Democrats should say, funding the government means keeping the promises that the government has made. And it means funding all of the government's promises. That means funding the Children's Health Insurance Program that makes sure that 9 million children in this country

have health insurance. It means disaster relief for places that have been hit by a hurricane. It means that when Donald places that have been hit by a hurricane. It means that when Donald Trump and the Republican leaders said that they would not deport 800,000 young American immigrants,

that you keep that promise. And so, no, we're not going to fund the government unless we fund the entire government and all the promises. And I think that they should, I mean, we've already had Durbin. Durbin said he's ready to,

you know, he's not going to vote for any government funding bill unless they pass the DREAM Act. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders are there. I would imagine that most of the Democrats end up getting there. What do you think about some of the Democrats who are up in 2018 in these tough states? Like McCaskill, Donnelly, Heidi, Heitkamp. Like, look, these people know their states better than i do but one strategy i know that does not work is trying to split the difference between

being with the republicans and being with the democrats yeah it never does and so fight hard fight together and win the battle yeah i agree i think it's time and look democrats have leverage now whether they give into two weeks of funding the government and then have the fight or three weeks or four weeks, I don't think democrats should fuck around with the debt ceiling because i think that i think that you know that's when the global economy collapses once you breach the debt ceiling but i do think that like democrats need to have this fight we have leverage and we should use it we should have the debt ceiling discussion in a later pod i agree with you but i'm not sure the normal rules apply in abnormal times yeah although i just i mean we just talked about the crazy person who's running the government. And, you know, some Republicans might have believed that no matter how much they push Barack Obama, he would not let us default on our debt and cause a global economic collapse.

Donald Trump? Yeah, maybe. There's no question. I just think we got to think about how to apply it. Yeah, we should think about it. Okay. When we come back, we will talk to our old friend, Pete Souza, Obama's White House photographer. All right.

We are very lucky today to have in studio the former chief official White House photographer and our good pal, Pete Souza. Pete, how's it going? Pretty good, man. I'm seeing a lot of friends of the pod out there. Really? Are they behaving or what? They're pretty much behaving. There's some hissing going on, but for the most part, yeah. He's lost that war. Pete, you have a fantastic new book out, Obama, An Intimate Portrait, which I'll be buying for all my relatives this Christmas. If you start with some questions, because everyone doesn't know you as well as we do.

You were a photographer for Ronald Reagan as well as Obama. How are both presidents different and what has changed over time about being a White House photographer from when you were there in the Reagan years to the Obama years? I mean, the role of the White House photographer hasn't really changed. Your still primary mission is to document the president for history. I mean, I did that with Reagan. I did that with President Obama. But, of course, back in the 80s, there was no such thing as digital cameras. There was no such thing as the Internet.

And the pictures didn't get out there like they did with President Obama, where we had Flickr and Instagram and the WhiteHouse.gov and so on and so forth. One thing that's interesting, the similarities between the two presidents is they're both fairly even, had that even keel disposition. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. With President Obama. Well, President Reagan was pretty much like that too right pete tell us you've been with you're with president obama all eight years in the white house but you your relationship with him goes back before that tell the listeners how you got to know president obama and how that led to you being the

white house photographer so uh he was elected in to the senate 2004, and I happened to be working for the Chicago Tribune based in their Washington bureau. So Jeff Zeleny, who was then a correspondent in the bureau, came up with the idea of kind of trying to follow the new senator for his first year. In that process, I got to know him pretty well, you know, professionally. I got to know him pretty well, you know, professionally. Somewhere I have a picture of Jon Favreau. Shaved head. Shaved head in his little cubbyhole office there. And Senator Obama standing over him dictating a speech.

I remember that picture. Yeah. Yeah, from the tribute. That was in the tribute. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. So you became one of Obama's closest friends in the White House. Do you think that this is the type of job, being a White House photographer,

where a close relationship with the subject that you're photographing is important? I wouldn't say I was one of his closest friends. He might. Yeah. I was in his space every day. He enjoyed you being there, though. Most of the time it was as observer and photographer.

Occasionally there was some interaction between us. I actually think it's valuable to have I don't think it has to be a friendship, but I think you've got to have the mutual respect for each other. To be able to photograph in

these very intimate situations, including the non-official situations. I did a lot of family photos in essentially private situations, and you really have to have the confidence of the president to be able to get those kinds of moments. Yeah. And, you know, to be able to get those kinds of moments. Yeah. Do you go into events with a certain shot in mind that you want to get?

Or do you go into an event, take everything that you can, and then look later to figure out, you know, what you want to. I wish it was that simple, John. Someone who knows nothing about photography. So there are some occasions when you're definitely going after a certain shot. So, for instance, the 50th anniversary, the march from Selma, where you're trying to get that bridge in the photo, right? And you're thinking about that ahead of time. Yeah, you're thinking about that ahead of time. Or let me think of another example is leaving the Oval Office for the last time.

I knew which story was going to leave. So I really thought about trying to make that a really good picture. And you brought out a ladder. I brought in a ladder because I wanted to get as wide a shot as I could from above to kind of show as much of the Oval Office as I possibly could. So occasionally it's like that, but most of the time it's taking in what's taking place and trying to figure out what's what kind of mood what kind of emotion what's the best way to tell the story of what's going on it's not a lot of like hit or miss things it's really trying to get a lot of hits and the one advantage of being a you know seasoned uh photographer is I've been in a lot of different situations.

So intuitively, I sort of know what to look for. You took one of the most famous photos, I think, at least recent American history, which is the photo of the president's national security team on the night bin Laden was killed. Can you tell a little bit about the story of how you got that photo and how that day played out sure so i wasn't privy to uh the raid itself beforehand but about a week before uh cindy chang who worked for john brennan and her office was next door to mine came to me and said you need to be available next weekend and I said okay and she said it's either going to be Saturday or Sunday and when she said that I knew what it meant it meant there was some mission that was dependent on weather right that's she didn't say that to me but I figured that out smart so I knew something

was going down big i just didn't know exactly what it was that was a lot more uh intuitive and perceptive than us which uh when we were working on the correspondence speech and he was like take out that joke with osama bin laden and we're like why that's stupid no exactly that was on friday or saturday saturday yeah so you know it turned out that it was sunday and Cindy had given me a heads-up later in the week. It's going to be Sunday, she said. And that's when I really knew, okay, this is a special ops mission. And it wasn't until the first meeting that day, it was on a Sunday around 1 o'clock, where the team gathered together.

This is about three hours before the raid when i learned what it was so then around i i forget the exact time but sometime in the late afternoon like around four is when the raid took place and they set up in this small conference room across from the big situation room to monitor as it was happening and everybody was jammed into this room it was probably against the fire code to have that many people in the room and i got stuck in a corner and i couldn't really move because i had like five people basically around me and then for 40 minutes as they were watching this raid i was photographing was there any moment you wish you could have captured but didn't or you know i've had several people ask me that.

Including me on Wednesday night. Yeah. And I was like, I could never come up with a good answer to that. But a couple weeks ago, Reggie Love was in the audience. And when I said I couldn't really think of a case. Did he just yell out? He yelled out. Of course he did. And he yelled out that I didn't get the picture when Coach K of Duke came to the White House

because Duke had won a national championship and Reggie used to play for Coach K, that I didn't get the picture of Coach K, Reggie, and the president together. That's a very un-Reggie response there. It's also worth noting, for those who don't know, that Reggie wrote a book largely about his relationship with three men, his father, Coach K, and Barack Obama. And I feel like he really missed the cover shot to that book. Exactly. I think that's what it was. This is about Reggie.

So it was a question about Reggie's book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Reggie never lets me forget this. I know it's also probably annoying to hear, you know, I heard the question, what's your favorite picture? Because you probably have a bunch. What are some of your all-time favorites? Well, I mean, if you go to the back cover of the book,

I mean, that's probably one of my favorites. It's Little Jacob Philadelphia. I think he was four. Touching the head of the President of the United States because he had asked a question that his friends had told him that his haircut looked like the president's. And when he said that, the president bent over and Jacob touched his head. And I think it resonated with a lot of people. I mean, part of it is you've got this four-year-old kid who's touching the president of the United

States who looks like him. Yeah. But it also tells you something about Barack Obama that, like, at the behest of a four-year-old, he would bend over and let this kid touch his head. I mean, you know, I think... I think so for those two reasons, that's kind of one of my favorites.

And that was... I think that was hung up in the White House... The whole time. The whole time, right? It was one of the only... It was up for a long time, and Jackie Combs of the New York Times noticed that all these other pictures

were being rotated out, and this one stayed up, and she decided to write a story about the photo, and that's when it really got a lot of attention. Yeah. And then sometime in 2014, I was just like, all right, this has got to come down.

So I took it down, and the next day I had three staff people individually come into my office pleading with me to put it back up. Because when they were giving West Wing tours to their family and friends at night, they'd love to stop in that photo and tell them the story. Did you put it back up? I put it back up. Yeah. I mean, people don't know this. tell them the story.

So did you put it back up? I put it back up. Yeah. That's, I mean, people don't know this. One of my favorite parts about working in the white house is all of your pictures are turned into what we call jumbos, bigger,

bigger size pictures. And they're hung up all over the white house. And then you rotated them. What? Once every, it was a month or a couple of weeks, every couple of weeks we'd put in maybe 10 or 15 new ones. It was so cool.

You'd come to work and all these new pictures would be up all over the White House. Everyone would look and see if they made a jumbo for that rotation. Yeah, you'd count them up. Oh, I'm still powerful. I used to do that. Was Lovett ever in a jumbo?

He was in a jumbo. We'll post it again on Twitter. There's a great jumbo of Lovett and Reggie Love. Yeah, we made that a jumbo. Sitting in like a little mini train squished in on the National Park store back in 2010 or 11. So since leaving the White House,

you've been posting pictures of Obama on Instagram that often correspond with news about Donald Trump. For example, yesterday when Trump attacked Muslims, you posted a picture of Obama shaking hands at a mosque. What are you hoping people will take away from your Instagram feed post-White House life?

You know, I think I'm kind of a funny guy. It's like, you know, I take great pride in trying to find just the right line to accompany my photograph. Yeah. And my wife the other day said to me, I didn't know you were this funny. And I was like, you just haven't paid attention. Have you enjoyed being called like you're an expert Trump troll now?

You know, for the first six or seven months that I was doing this, I had all these people wanting to interview me. And I just didn't do any interviews because I thought letting it stand for itself was more effective. Yeah. Now, one thing that happens when you're promoting a book is that everybody asks you about it. So, like, you know, I'm trying to figure out the best way to answer and still sort of not say anything. Yeah. That was pretty good.

Yeah, I think so. So Pete, you flew on Air Force One with Barack Obama more than any other civilian, right? So you did almost every trip. I think the only time I ever flew on Air Force One and you were not on the plane was on a return trip from Boston when the Red Sox were playing in the World Series and you dropped off to go to the game, which is an excused absence, I believe. Do you have a favorite trip in the probably millions of miles you've flown Air Force One? That's a good question.

Probably when we had a really cool cultural stop. So, for instance, I forget if you guys were there. We went to Petra Jordan. I was there for that. That was amazing. A place that I probably would never have thought to go, and it was just, it was amazing. Climbing inside the pyramids.

Oh, that was cool. Climbing up those rickety stairs. That was pretty cool. Going to Stonehenge. So it was those kind of things. I mean, as you know, Dan and John, a lot of these foreign trips, you're stuck inside some conference center

for some summit meeting. For hours, days. Or you're going to a presidential palace. And you don't really get to see the city that you're in. But a few times on on the like the places that i mentioned you do get to see some really cool things so those are the those are the ones that stick in my mind pete souza thank you so much for uh for joining the pod the book is obama an intimate portrait uh everyone go get a copy it is uh excellent

christmas present and just uh excellent uh nostalgia of the obama administration thanks for having me on john absolutely on the pod we have the host of with friends like these anna mar Marie Cox. Anna, how are you? I am good, but well, I've been thinking about how to answer that question because as you know, usually I'm fine in Trump-adjusted terms. Today, I am furious in Trump-adjusted terms, which I feel like is like extra furious. We had a pretty angry pod today too, actually. So far, we've covered the tax cut fight. Obviously, that made us angry. We did sort of a general area of discussion on Trump in decline, perhaps.

Mental decline? No, we don't, because we don't diagnose anyone here. No diagnoses. No diagnoses, but clearly there's something amiss. Right. And clearly he is a pathological liar and dangerously unfit for office, which he has reminded us of many, many, many times this week. So those are the two things we've had time to cover. What's on your mind?

Let's keep going. Well, I don't know if you guys have been following the news. We tried this morning. Try not to. the news uh but uh try try not to but uh there have been some uh men in positions of power who turn out to have been assholes um i was gonna have to i unfortunately have to ask which ones you're talking about yeah i know there's there's a lot of them i mean there's a range of what kind of asshole they've been some of them appear to have been actual rapists. Matt Lauer, for instance, alleged the alleged actions he took include something that I don't know why it's not being described as rape in the headlines.

Like he had forcible sex with a woman in his office. So that's on one end of the spectrum. And then, you know, we have these allegations about my senator, Al Franken, that have come out as well. And, you know, we're all talking about these things in the same breath. And I do want to acknowledge that these are different scales of awfulness, but there's awfulness out there and we're finally talking about it. And I guess I want to ask you guys,

as guys, what do you think? I think it's horrendous. I think it's disgusting. I don't, it's funny. I'm hesitating to say I'm surprised because I've, you know, obviously I follow all this on Twitter and when a lot of men say they're surprised, a lot of women say, why are you surprised? Like, we're not surprised. We've been noticing this for years. And I guess I would say I've been very aware that there's obviously a culture of toxic masculinity out there and that a lot of men are pigs and do pretty awful things.

But, you know, I've never, as far as I know, I've never worked with anyone who did what Matt Lauer did, who even did what Al Franken did, you know? And so it is sort of, I just, every new headline about this is revolting, but it's also just, it is, I have to be honest, it is shocking to me. Yeah. Dan, do you want to? Yeah, sure. I'm taking this in and I actually, one of the reasons I'm asking you is I want to allow

some space for you to express surprise. I don't think that women should be scolding men for expressing surprise. So, Dan. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you I, not naive about the idea of that sexual harassment takes place in the office, that there is just a general institutional level of sexism that affects the workplace and society writ large. But, you know, some of the things we are hearing about people we know, right. And people we have worked with, not closely in the same office,

but who have covered White Houses or campaigns we've worked on or have been on the shows that they host. And the thing I've been wrestling with is why I am surprised by this, right? Because I have spent much of my time since we started having this conversation a few weeks ago thinking back to the workplaces that I've worked in. That I either did not – was too naive to see, did not just missed because I was dumb or took to be – thought things were how things were done at work. And I obviously can't think of anything along the lines of what Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein, some of the people are accused of. But it obviously is

happening. It's not just the hosts of morning shows and Hollywood executives. This is obviously happening in workplaces across the country at all levels, whether it's Congress to sports teams, to Wall Street, to a local insurance office somewhere. And service industries are actually particularly rife with this. The hotel industry, the restaurant industry, I mean, you can imagine the kinds of abuses that go on there. And we're finding these things out about Matt Lauer and others because they are journalists and there are other journalists looking at them

because they were powerful people and that's the story. Who are the people who are going – what are we going to do about the places you're talking about where there's no one looking to see what's happening at a local restaurant somewhere or a bar somewhere or like the insurance office? What – the solution to this problem can't be entirely investigative. Investigative journalists are not going to root out all of the bad men. That's not. Yeah.

You know, and then once you see it, hopefully you can't unsee it. That I believe is true. I don't know how many people it will be true for. I hope the vast majority. people it will be true for. I hope the vast majority. It is certainly something that I think, you know, like I was complaining yesterday that our collective memory is now, you know, about two minutes as a country. I think that this has now been going on long enough, just since the Weinstein story. Well, I mean, it didn't really start with Weinstein, it started with Trump and then Ailes and O'Reilly and then the Weinstein story. Well, I mean, it didn't really start with Weinstein, it started with Trump, and then Ailes and O'Reilly, and then the Weinstein story and everything that's happened.

And it's happened at such high levels of so many different industries. It is my hope that this is something that we cannot unsee and that we do not unsee or turn away from. It does feel different this time. Yeah. And I think what is happening for a lot of men who feel surprised, I want to be, I feel like I need to be careful on this, how to phrase it is that you guys probably knew the statistics about rape and assault, right? Like, which is like one in five women are raped in their lifetime. One in four experienced sexual assault, but those probably didn't have like an emotional truth for you. Right. Well, I'll tell you, I read your excellent Esquire piece about Franken. And you talk about an incident that you had, not with Franken, but with someone else who is well

known. And I don't know if you remember, but you told me that story when we first met like years ago, when we even knew each other. And I remember, I remember it because it stuck with me. And it stuck with me because I had not heard many stories like that before. And it was interesting because you said in the piece, you know, at the time you laughed it off and you tell that story almost laughingly as what a creep. And when you told me that story, that's sort of what I thought too, like what a creep that guy is. And it is interesting since this has happened, I look back on that and I've looked back on that story too and think like, well, I know you told it to me

in sort of a laughing manner, but I was like, I wish I had taken that more seriously then. Well, I think that women are re-examining their experiences too. I think actually those numbers, one in five, a woman being raped and one in four for being assaulted are actually greater. The assault especially. The technical definition of assault is unwanted touching, right? Unwanted sexual touching. I honestly believe there's not a woman alive that hasn't experienced some level of it.

that hasn't experienced some level of it. And I guess one of the things that I want to encourage people, you guys specifically and just men, is like just you got to both talk to the women in your life and talk to each other about this, right? Yeah. Like if you start asking, hopefully you'll start to understand like the threat of sexual violence shapes every woman's life.

It is something we think about almost every day. I went for a run yesterday and I had to think about, well, is it going to be dusk when I go under that overpass or not? Right. Yeah. And I know you men also worry about like being robbed, but that's a different fear. Yeah. And it's also not a fear that's constantly reinforced by like this unwanted touching. Cause that what, what that unwanted touching and groping is is a reminder that you could be a victim of mine that is what that means it is a show of power a show of power that is ultimately expressed in rape even if it's never actually expressed to that woman that way i want to tell a story like i remember the first time i

realized that my life was going to be different and my life was going to be governed by avoiding getting raped, which sounds crazy to you guys, maybe. But I was in high school. I read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and like all good rebellious high school students. I was like totally inspired and I wanted to be out there and do that thing and the freedom of being on the road. And I realized, oh, I can't do that. I can't travel. being on the road and i realized oh i can't do that i can't travel i can't i can't go hitchhike across the country because i'll get raped i remember crying about that and that's just a truth and i i'm tearing up now like i want to just i hope this is starting to stink in for for, for men. I hope that it is.

I know that there's a subset of men also that have experienced this themselves, experienced sexual assault and rape themselves. And obviously I think that for them, this moment is really important too, you know, because their lives have been shaped by it. Well, it's certainly sunken in with me. And I know, you know, I have been talking to both women and men in my life about this. And I think it's true for a lot of people. You know, it's something that's, you know, I have been talking to both women and men in my life about this, and I think it's true for a lot of people. You know, it's something that's, you know,

when we talk about issues in politics, sometimes the challenge is it's a small world of people who pay attention to politics, but I think because this has happened throughout the entertainment industry, throughout the media industry, to so many recognizable people, I think this is a much larger conversation that people are having, at least I certainly hope so. I also want to tie it actually into everything else you've talked about today,

which is that one of the reasons why we're having this conversation, one of the reasons why it's a hot topic, is that sexual violence against women is being minimized in order to pass a tax bill. That is a thing that is happening. Like I can't think of a better example for, for our politics right now, you know?

And then of course there is the fact that we have someone who is a admitted sexual predator in office. And I say it to you guys all the time. I, I will never get tired of saying it. That's a daily reminder that women have less power. and if we want to end like on a positive note like this is the moment like we can't let this slip by and i also believe that we as democrats need to call this out on our own side and you know i think conyers should not be in office. I think, especially after the stories today, that Franken shouldn't be in office.

I do. I just think it's crazy that in every industry where this has happened, the accused immediately resign, except for politics so far. And as people who care about politics and want people to believe in public service and believe in the possibilities of politics, we can't just sit here and have no accountability for these things.

I mean, it's a sad statement on American life today that this issue is being filtered through partisan and tribal filters, right? Yeah. And where it's like the revelations about Al Franken are an opportunity for Republicans and right-wing media types to say, to attack Democrats. It's an opportunity to bring back up the allegations against Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton's very inappropriate behavior.

And when the victims of what has happened and what's happened across the country, it's not Republican or Democrat, right? And it's just, it's minimizing what should be the biggest, most important story in America by saying, when you read the pieces in Washington publications that say, bad day for the Democrat sexual assault problem. It's like, no, it's America's sexual assault. I know. Yeah. You know, Donald Trump is a Republican. You know, these are liberal media figures, you know, are donors to Democrats like Harvey Weinstein. That's not the point. And the fact that we can't even take something that affects society in this way outside of the realm of politics is one of the reasons why we're

struggling so much in the country right now. I agree. And I worry about this moment a lot. I've said to you guys offline, I worry about a repeat of what happened with the Anita Hill experience, which is that there was a similar kind of awakening about the reality of sexual harassment in the workplace that was kindled actually by another big failure, right? If you consider Clarence Thomas being appointed to the Supreme Court a failure, what kind of do? There was this moment where a woman tried to get heard and wasn't heard, and that created an awakening among women. it was the year of the woman 1992 and then bill clinton's you know issues came forward and a lot of you know a lot of feminists

found themselves defending him and we kind of lost the thread a little bit and i worry that's going to happen all over again and i don't know like i mean you guys are already prepared for your twitter mentions to blow up right like when you, when you say Al Franken should resign, that's going to happen. Well, look, I just, it's bothered me especially because I, you know, of course I look at the Twitter mentions all the time and I look at the tweets all the time. I've never seen mine. If some people wanted to argue where they at least admit the facts of the case in the Franken situation and then say, no, he shouldn't resign. Yes, he should. Like, I can deal with that argument. I have unfortunately seen too many people who are doing what so many Trump supporters do, which is say, like, she made it up or the photo's not real or it was roger stone or this and i'm

like guys do not buy into the fucking conspiracies that they do like just we can't do this if you want to argue that that these are the facts of the case but then you don't believe he should step down that's fine we can disagree about that and we can have an argument about that but at least accept the facts of the case here, you know? Or as we say, like, at least believe the women's stories. Right. Right? Like, it's not so much the facts of the case. Because also, I mean, we can have a whole other conversation about whether the language we use around this and how sometimes I think we are overly legalistic about it.

Like, this isn't a case. You know, it's not that Al Franken is guilty or innocent. It's is he going to be accountable to his actions? And is he going to uphold the idea that women's experiences matter? Like I'm of the opinion that Al Franken, if I think he should resign, but I also don't think he needs to disappear from public life. Yeah. Which is what you said in the story. Yeah. Yeah.

I think he could do a great service to men and women of this country by being someone who stays in in in public life and talks about this and talks about this as the experience of someone who used to think this was funny and now realizes it's not. We need that person. We need people. We need men who are going to go ahead and take that role because other than because because if it's just about shaming someone out of public life. You know, this moment will also not end well. No, I totally agree with that. And that's what Dan was saying, too, which is like, you know, investigate. This is not like the role of investigative journalists to just root out every single one. Everyone publicly shamed them and then we move on. That's not really the point of this.

Yeah. So, okay. Well, who's on the show this week? Let's do that transition. Right. Well, the transition is actually I'm going to have Lizzie O'Leary, who's. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She, okay. Well, who's, uh, who's on the show this week? Let's do that transition. Right. Well, the transition is actually, I'm going to have Lizzie O'Leary who's, um, yeah, she's awesome. She's a, I think she's still in DC, right? Like, so she and I are about the same age and kind of, uh, came up through DC journalism and on parallel paths. And she wrote a great piece for the New York magazine, the headline of which is, you know, what I used to

shrug off horrifies me today, which I think is an experience that a lot of women are having right now. In the same way that men are looking back on their behavior and wondering about the things that they may have thought were innocent that weren't. A lot of women are like, wow, that thing that happened to me, like my story to you. Like, wow, that was sexual assault. And I need to call it that. That is important that I call it that. So I'm going to talk to her about that. And then also talk to Adam Serwer. I actually don't know how to pronounce his last name, but he wrote that great piece about the nationalist delusion for the Atlantic, which I hope you guys read. So I'm going to talk about

that. That'll do it. That's an episode. episode yeah that's an episode that's a grappling with some of the some of the biggest things that we talk about on the show uh so yeah everyone tune in everyone tune in and also everyone should go check out your uh the bonus episode you did where you went to a hillary clinton book signing and you talked to hillary supporters waiting in line i thought that was uh that was a good listen for yeah i think that's really actually i'm really proud of that and i want everyone to know that the the episode description is a joke because i describe it in the same language that people are using to talk to trump voters like i went to the i went out to investigate what they're really like and if they're ever you know how strong is their loyalty but it is i think actually a p it's allowing these people who do represent a majority of americans to speak

for themselves excellent well everyone go check that out thanks for joining us i think this is the outro then all right love it must be sleeping still because he's not in the studio those are only two forms of existence all righty we will uh we'll see you guys next week take care bye guys here