Pod Save America - “MAGA hats and perjury traps.”

Episode Date: February 26, 2018

The Stoneman Douglas students start to move the needle on gun control, the Schiff memo obliterates the Nunes memo, Trump’s lawyers are worried he’ll lie to Mueller, and Democrats have a few primary problems. Then Ana Marie Cox joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to talk about what she saw and heard at CPAC. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the show today, we'll be talking to the host of With Friends Like These, Anna-Marie Cox, about her trip to the conservative political action conference known as CPAC. She thought it was just a dream, Jon, but then when she woke up, there was sand in her bed. Guys, don't forget to sign up for What A Day. What A Day.

We've been getting the drafts. It's a great newsletter. So it's our newsletter that we think and hope is launching next week. It's out of beta. It's releasing on time. Bunch of betas reading it right now. No big deal. But we're very excited about this.

So sign up for the newsletter, guys, if you haven't already. Everyone else is doing it. It's just must like the cash app. The numbers are pretty big. Jesus. It's a fact. Anyway, we hope you enjoy it. Speaking of Love It, how was Love It or Leave It? We had a fantastic Love It or Leave It in Sacramento

with Mayor Michael Tubbs, front of the pod, Jenny Yang, comedian, and Alicia Garza, who is one of the co-creators of Black Lives Matter. It was a surprisingly uplifting show, even though we're covering some dark stuff. And look, we talked about Black Panther. We talked about the need for a gay superhero. And there's a bit of a dispute as to whether or not people like James Baldwin and everyday heroes count.

And they don't because James Baldwin might have been great, but he didn't shoot laser beams out of his eyes. You know what I mean? So we had some of that discussion come here on a saleable point tommy you know one of the things i love about pod safe the world the fantastic show i host on a weekly basis is that there's some stuff i know about already and then sometimes i have to dig into an issue that i knew nothing about and i learn a ton and it blows my mind this is one of those examples it's about jeans it's about denim it's about types of denim it's about the raft of corruption scandals that bb netanyahu that guy is in trouble from bribes to stuff involving

submarines it is unfathomable how much trouble he's in his family is in and what it could mean politically unfortunately there's not a great silver lining for what it could mean politically the israeli government continues to sort of move to the right in a way that is uh i don't think good for israel i don't think it's good for U.S. interests. It's certainly not good for the peace process. But listen to the episode. Natan Gutman fills us in on everything happening over there. And it's funny about it.

So check it out. Man, the bribing of the press to try to get the good press coverage. No one told me that was an option, John. I was a spokesperson. Trump's like, this recipe is pretty cool. I learned a lot from this episode, and I also was listening to it thinking, like, if there wasn't a President Trump, this might be one of the bigger stories in the world in international politics right now. And the parallels between Bibi's response and his party's response and the way it broke down on partisan lines in Israel is so similar to the U.S. So there's a lot we can learn.

Yeah. Okay, let's get to the news. I want to talk about the student movement for gun safety. And let's start with some brand new poll numbers from CNN. Back in October, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, 52% of the American people said they supported stricter gun laws. That number is now 70%. It is the highest level since December of 1993, after the gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill was signed into law by Bill Clinton. After the gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill was signed into law by Bill Clinton,

among people in gun-owning households, I thought this was an interesting number, 57% want stricter gun laws. Amazing. 63% support a ban on high-capacity ammo magazines. That's up from 54% in October. And 57% support a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15. That is up from 49% in October. Guys, we did not see these numbers move after Vegas. We haven't seen them this high in 25 years. What is going on here? Everyone wants to say that this time is different because you want it to be because you see these

high school kids on TV in agony begging the adults to do something. But these numbers bear out the fact that something is different. We have a chance here. And, you know, six in 10 Americans in the ABC poll think Congress and the president aren't doing enough to prevent mass shootings. 77% want more effective mental health screening. So like, there is a lot of political support that could get behind something smart that Congress puts forward. So we have to get the pressure on right now. It's important to remember, right, the NRA talks about their 5 million members or their 7 million members or whatever the number is. It's inflated.

But regardless, that's still a tiny subset of the whatever, 70 to 80 million gun owning households in the country. And the vast majority of those people who are not signed up for what the NRA is or is becoming aren't on board for the kind of extremist maximalist position that the NRA has taken. So I think that's a reason for hope. I think the debate is changing. I don't know why, you know, other, the only thing you can point to is the kids because they've kept it in the news.

They've kept it in the news. They kept about issues. Poll numbers jump all over the place no one should get like overly excited about this but what it goes to show is the poll numbers haven't moved after other mass shootings as much they moved a little bit after sandy hook and then faded away but they move poll numbers move and public opinion moves when people go out there and make the argument and keep things in the news and people protest and people go to the streets and people you know boycott things like sometimes and i think this is a good lesson for democratic politicians too is because sometimes when you believe that nothing can happen legislatively or that the

politics are too tough you're just like well i might as well not talk about this because if i talk about it it's like pushing a boulder up a hill anyway well these kids don't give a fuck about that they also have something that democratic politicians have not been able to rest the microphone away from Donald Trump. Only protests have, right? If you look at what has been effective over the past two years, it's been the women's marches.

It has been protests at the airport. It has been these kids. So one lesson here is in a presidency defined by television, protest is an effective way to make your point over the long haul, which is why I think kids have been more effective in making this argument than even people that are committed to

this issue, like Chris Murphy and other senators, because they don't have the ability to keep the attention of the media. They don't. And you know what? The NRA knows that they're losing. And you know how you know that? Because they're sending out Dana Loesch and Wayne LaPierre to try to make the argument about the media. They're saying the mainstream media loves mass shootings. They're doing what Trump does, which is try to make it about elites and fake news and liberalism. It's a garbage, disgusting, disgraceful thing to say about the press, but we shouldn't get chased down that rabbit hole. We should keep talking about the need for common sense gun safety laws because the data shows that if there are fewer guns out there, fewer people get shot.

It sounds pretty simple, but people dispute this all the time. Yeah, let's go to that point. The other enemy they have now is Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. Blue Lives Matter, John. Whose department had received multiple calls about the shooter. And his deputy, Scott Peterson, resigned after the revelation that he chose not to enter the school while the shooter was inside. Our president this morning said he'd have run in there even without a gun. It just seems like it would have been difficult with the bone spurs.

Hey, Kindergarten Cop was a movie, okay? There was an actual cop there with a gun who didn't do anything because it's hard and scary and terrifying these situations. The idea that we should arm teachers now as a panacea is so... I can't believe we're debating it. The Republicans, they want to both sides this thing and they want to say democrats are being so soft on this sheriff now and but like no there should be a full investigation of what the fuck happened in that sheriff's office and anyone who was responsible who didn't do their job what they were supposed to be doing obviously should be

punished and they should be asking themselves instead of just figuring out exactly who to blame they should figure what the fuck do we need to do in the Broward County Sheriff's Office so that next time you get multiple calls about someone, this never happens again. Yeah, of course. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about fucking gun laws too. Because if the kid had a knife, we wouldn't have had that many lives lost. If the kid had maybe just a handgun, we wouldn't

have had that many lives lost. So like, give me a fucking break. This isn't some issue we're now going to have to make it about, you know, all about the Broward County Sheriff. We should just be confident in our position. Yeah. It seems like there were way too many red flags. It seems like they screwed up a bunch.

That guy didn't go in. It seems like the law enforcement screwed up in stopping this at every single step of the way. Yeah, absolutely. It seems pretty clear that that happened. that have to do with having millions and millions of ar-15s in in circulation in reach of troubled kids that exist in 100 of places in america every day how many armed security guards there were in the mandalay bay in las vegas and nothing happened and they were all trying to respond to it that's bullshit the the hypocrisy of every time there is an unarmed african-american shot uh we we chant blue lives matter and in this

instance because this guy came out and the sheriff came out opposed the nra's position they are now pounding him it is notable yeah that said yes we should figure out what the hell went wrong and figured out but we should at a federal level and even at a state level we should focus on building the movement infrastructure needed to pass gun control it's also it's like the nra can make their point that we need better mental health screening, even though they've never supported the background checks and what have you.

They can make the point that this should have been stopped by this sheriff's department. Okay, how high do we want those stakes to be, right? It's now, we have now said, okay, it is now on local law enforcement to find these kids. If they don't, they don't make a bomb threat anymore. They don't show up at school with a knife. No, no, no. They can kill dozens of people.

That is the stakes we are putting on every single police department in the country. Yeah. And it's completely unnecessary. So it's not just poll numbers that are moving. More than a dozen companies, most of the rental car companies, Delta, United, have now cut ties with the NRA, saying they would end the partnership programs where they offered certain discounts to NRA members. Conservatives are very upset about this, guys. Republicans are very upset. They say, what if companies started boycotting Planned Parenthood?

What would you do? And also, some analysts, reporters have questioned this. I saw Andrew Kaczynski, who's an excellent reporter on CNN, say, I don't know if this will have the intended effect those on the left want. The campaign is to make the NRA toxic to corporations, but it will also probably harden the views of millions of law abiding gun owners who see the NRA as their voice. I see pretty hardened those views. Yeah, right. I mean, like, it's a reflection of the fact that in 2016, people care about corporate values. And I personally think that that's a good thing. Corporations as

soulless money vacuums hasn't necessarily worked out for us over time. There may be instances where there's a boycott that I don't love, but like this is a reflection of where consumers are. And it's also, I think it's useful to show the NRA isn't all powerful and to be able to pick these corporations off one by one and get them to walk away from it. And funny to watch, you know, huffy conservatives who mock Democrats for being snowflakes get upset that they have to switch from United to Delta and give it a break.

Also, it's about what the NRA has turned into, too. It is not a gun fellowship group, as Dana Loesch called it on Twitter. Right. It is, look at their fucking ads. Go to NRA TV. They're racist. They are the most,

it's not even good to call them partisan. They're trying to incite violence. They are trying to make one half of America hate the other half of America and say to people, because those people hate you so much and are coming after you, Hollywood, liberals, Barack Obama, all the rest of them, you should probably buy some guns because, by the way, the gun manufacturers are who we really work for. And that's what we want to do. That's what they are.

Let's be honest about it. Why would you want to be associated with that if you're a company? It's also about separating the facts and substance of the debate over gun control from gun control measures. If the debate is about the facts and substance of gun ownership and gun control, there's quite reasonable compromises you can reach that people can have arsenals in their homes and continue to enjoy hunting and shooting and all the ways in which they enjoy using guns while putting in some common sense reforms. That wouldn't be seen as a defeat for them. But they need to make every single act of gun control a partisan defeat.

That's something that attacks their kind of token. That's why they need to make sure AR-15s are kept in circulation because now it's not just about sort of the balance between freedom and responsibility. It's about this thing as a symbol of freedom. That's the first thing. The second thing is those even those conservatives that didn't really articulate why they were bothered by the fact that the NRA was losing these discounts, right? Basically the equivalent of like AAA discounts. It's not that big a deal.

They don't really matter. I also love these guys, these conservatives on Twitter, like just columnists in D.C. who have the same capacity for firing guns as like I do for bobsledding. Right. They don't have any connection to this, but they want to be mad about it because it's basically saying the NRA isn't a normal group anymore. That there's a certain point at which I don't mind if, you know, this is about, you know, Planned Parenthood and has partnerships with airlines. Some conservatives groups have partnerships with with corporations. I don't have if, you know, this is about, you know, Planned Parenthood and has partnerships with airlines. Some conservatives groups have partnerships with with corporations. I don't have a problem with that. What this is saying is the NRA no longer deserves to be treated like a respectable organization that can have discounts and and little promotions with with restaurants and what have you, because their behavior now crosses a line into something that is completely unacceptable to our society.

And that is the part that they can't accept. They go out there. They say that the media loves mass shootings. They say, you know, that it's absurd. They're not even a lobbying organization anymore. And their solution to the problem of 17 kids getting shot is one designed to have hundreds of thousands of more guns purchased to armed teachers. It's the maximalist cynical position. And we should just call for what is.

And also, by the way, this is also one of those dumb debates. Half the people railing about this had no idea that there were NRA discounts. Nobody knew there were NRA discounts at Hertz Rent-A-Car, and then half the NRA members had no idea there was a discount at Hertz Rent-A-Car.

And now these guys are on Twitter being like, well, I guess I'll have to go to Enterprise now. So I will never... Oh, you know what? I want to also ask these conservatives about these boycotts that they've declared on Twitter being like, well, I guess I'll have to go to Enterprise now. So I will never. Oh, you know what? I want to also ask these conservatives about these boycotts that they've declared on Twitter. What do you keep a list? Bull fucking shit. Two years from now, you're going to remember that you tweeted during this thing.

Give me a break. Nobody's gonna remember any of this. If people were boycotting to the extent they claim to be boycotting on Twitter, the economy would grind to a halt. We'd be trading in oranges. Sean Hannity throwing the Keurig out the window. So where else can we apply pressure? People are trying to pressure Amazon, Apple TV, and other video streaming sources and platforms

to stop carrying NRE TV. Great. Great, keep doing it. Again, go watch the fucking ads with Dana Loesch and some of the other ones. They're scary as hell. And where else can we apply pressure? Some people have talked about banks.

Bank of America has said that they're going to look at their relationships with some gun manufacturers. They said it in the most careful corporate PR way, so who knows what will happen there. And gun manufacturers, you know, Dan talked about this on Thursday's pod, gun manufacturers themselves. I mean, the big enemy here is not, because the NRA ultimately is not representing gun owners.

They are representing gun manufacturers. They want to try to sell more guns. And it is gun manufacturers that we should be putting pressure on and that we should try to cut off their sources of funding and all the other stuff. That's the big goal. Quick shout out to Think Progress and Sleeping Giants who have done incredible work

calling out these companies and starting movements to get people to pressure them. Keep it up. Let's talk about legislation. So in Florida, Rick Scott wants to pass a law raising the minimum age to buy any firearm from 18 to 21, strengthen rules to keep weapons away from people with mental health problems, domestic abusers, and stalkers. Prospects of this, he is disagreeing with the legislature in Florida over a few things. Scott doesn't want a three-day waiting period. The legislature does. Scott doesn't want to arm

teachers. Broke from Trump on this. The legislature does. Scott doesn't want to arm teachers. Broke from Trump on this. The legislature does. So the plan isn't enough, but it breaks from the NRA and Trump. Trump and the Republican Congress, meanwhile, are most likely to consider the Corn and Murphy bill that we've talked about that gives states incentives to submit criminal conviction records

to the federal background check system. Will any of this get done, guys? You know, I don't think we know. I think the future isn't written. I hope so. I think it is possible. I just want to make one point on the arming teachers thing. I don't think there's been an issue like this in a very long time where it's

one of those things where everybody stops in their tracks and goes, wait, this is crazy. What are you talking about? What do you mean armed teachers? Because it's like one of those things I think that can shake even hardened partisans out of their kind of whatever, their foxholes. People are just, what do you mean?

My kid's teacher's gonna have a gun in the classroom? I think that clicks for people. Is a little disconcerting. I am done. I am very skeptical. At this point, we have to be so skeptical about policy polling because I really believe that the number of people answering the phones are the kind of people that are going to take their side, too. So I just that was the one thing. The other thing just is one sign of hope is Marco Rubio in that town hall changing his mind on the fly because Marco Rubio doesn't do anything unless Marco Rubio believes it's in his political interest.

Marco Rubio doesn't do anything unless Marco Rubio believes it's in his political interest. So I think Marco Rubio has his finger in the wind and he hears high capacity magazines. He thinks about raising the age. He thinks about background checks. And I think his shift represents where Republicans are going to be. You know, it's interesting that Florida is taking some of these steps because there's an amazing piece in the New Yorker this week about the NRA's chief lobbyist in Florida. And this person is one of the most powerful individuals in the entire state of Florida, literally writing legislation for

lawmakers, pushing massive contributions towards independent expenditures. And Florida has become a petri dish where concealed carry or stand your ground laws are first passed, and then they're moved to different states on a state level, which is a lot easier than creating new federal laws. So if we can, you know, show that the NRA is not invincible in Florida, of all places where there's a crazy Republican legislature, I think that could benefit in ways and ripple out over time in ways that aren't totally apparent right now. Yeah, no, I am for all of these sort of like half measures, incremental measures passing, we should push for them because, you know, you build off small victories. I do think we should be, like the gun safety movement should be clear on a few of the big goals that we want, you know, or Democrats running for office, right?

It's ban semi-automatic weapons, bring back the assault weapons ban, universal background checks, if not a gun license. Some states have, you have to get a gun license, which is an even more extensive background check, and it's more stringent. And then a ban on high-capacity ammo. Three things. Assault weapons ban, high-capacity ammo, gun licenses. And those are big, significant gun measures. And maybe we don't get those for 10 years, but maybe we start in the states.

Like you said, maybe the states become laboratories for if we win back some of these governorships in 2018, and we win back some state legislatures and we start passing them there. So I think we need to keep these like a big three, big couple policy initiatives as a North Star here that we keep pushing for. Also, everywhere you pass them, they save lives. Right. Every time. And then you have that evidence. Yeah, every single time.

That's what's happened in Connecticut after Sandy Hook. We see the evidence. You know, they always point to Chicago, the violence in Chicago, the toughest gun laws. Well, no one intellectually honest takes that seriously because the guns come from across state lines in Indiana where they don't have strict gun laws. We know what's going on here. We know that gun control works because we're the only country with our economic success that deals with this problem. We are alone in the world facing this. Yeah. And the NRA is not invincible. In 2016, they won 73% of the time. In 2008,

they won 44% of the time when Barack Obama was elected president because they rise and fall with the general political wins too. And with the trends we're seeing in these suburban areas with the views on guns really dovetail nicely with places where Democrats could pick up key wins. So we should kick the shit out of them this cycle, and that's the best way we get the gun laws we want. Democrats should not be afraid of this issue. Fight it. Look at that number of gun-owning households and the number of people who want stricter gun laws. Okay.

Guys, do you remember the memo that was going to change the world? I mean... The one that was going to reveal crimes worse than Watergate? I remember things before it. Worse than what led to the American Revolution, in the words of our friend Seb Gorka. Of course you don't. Of course you don't remember that. That was like 10 episodes ago.

Adam Schiff's counter-memo was out, guys, and it is a doozy. It proves without a doubt that Devin Nunes is an even dumber liar than we thought. So, just to set the scene, remember, in October of 2016, the FBI requested surveillance

on Carter Page. And Devin Nunes' central argument is that the FBI and DOJ misled the federal judge who granted the surveillance because they didn't tell the judge that the Steele dossier, some of which was used as evidence to justify the surveillance, was paid for by Democrats in the Clinton campaign.

Schiff's memo produces the actual surveillance application, which explicitly notes the following, quote, the FBI speculates that Steele had been hired to find information that could be used to discredit the Trump campaign. In response to this revelation, Republicans argued, not making this up, that the line was in a footnote, which proved that the FBI was trying to conceal it. Devin Nunes doesn't read footnotes. Someone go ahead and take this.

Could you imagine if the FBI was aware of a serious counterintelligence threat about an individual advising one of the two people who's going to be president of the United States and did nothing to act on it. Like what's frustrating about this is like as terrible as Devin Nunes is as stupid as he is, as blatantly dishonest as he is time and time again. The memo has been effective because now the committee is not actually investigating Russian interference. Instead, we are down these crazy rabbit holes alleging political motives for the FISA warrant and misconduct. crazy rabbit holes alleging political motives for the FISA warrant and misconduct. And Schiff has to rebut these things constantly using information that he has to wait weeks to get declassified.

It is like, it is so frustrating. The Schiff memo does not prove the fundamental point about collusion, but it shows that Devin Nunes is another arm of the Trump administration. Lied, that he lies. He's a liar. He just lies. It's been fascinating to watch all the conservatives who kind of walked out onto the ice talking about you nunez kim strassel come on hugh hewitt all

these guys they walked out with devin nunez's don't worry come with me it's just a big flat open field come with devin nunez come with devin nunez walk with devin nunez on the snow of this big open field and then devin nunez Devin Nunes, stay here for a second. I'm going to go back and get something from the truck. And he walks back to the truck and all of a sudden Hugh and all these guys look down and they realize they're on an inch of ice. So first of all, yes, obviously Devin Nunes is a liar. Obviously the whole theory of the memo, which was mostly rebutted by the memo itself. I know.

rebutted by the memo itself. I know. Because the Devin Nunes memo itself pointed out that the FISA warrant wasn't granted because of the Steele information alone. There was also Papadopoulos. That's one. So it was already kind of,

the memo itself proved the memo as to being stupid. But now we have the actual information from the actual application that makes it perfectly clear that there was nothing here to begin with. But even that is too stupid because this is all predicated on the notion that this was a witch hunt

or a partisan exercise or something that led to nothing. There have been more than a dozen indictments. 19 indictments. Five guilty pleas. 19 witches have been indicted. We found 19 witches. Five of them have pled guilty really dumb move pleading guilty to a hoax it's uh that's a you need some better lawyers so here

we are and what have we learned we have learned that the application was totally reasonable and by the way we also don't know what was said out loud as part of all this right so the application was totally reasonable and pretty fucking smart because it led to one of the biggest and most important political crimes in our history right exposed with guilty pleas all leading back to the trump campaign which they were claiming was being targeted for partisan purposes so the trump campaign by the way who hired carter page the same month that the fbi first investigated him and sat down and interviewed with him about his connections with Russia. Great vetting. And just one other thing about Carter Page.

We still don't know what the actual evidence is against Carter Page. We don't know exactly what they found. We don't know anything. But I'll tell you. Neither does Carter Page. He's just smiling through life. Carter Page, man, he thinks that you can hide under the covers and that the police can't find you there. He's playing peekaboo.

The police can't find you there. He's playing peekaboo. But every time you hear about what the people who looked at Carter Page saw, the people that actually saw the evidence, they are so adamant and so angry at the way this is being covered because they are looking at the actual evidence, and they're like, this guy is is so dirty and it is so obvious how fucking dare you follow people to defend another way another way that you know this whole thing was never on the level is that the republican response to the schiff memo

from donald trump on down is basically the exact opposite of what the memo says like trump tweets the memo proves that crimes were committed against me. The memo said that the FBI didn't disclose the political nature of the dossier. Fox News just said that Schiff omitted key facts. They actually didn't. None of that was true. It was the opposite. He tweeted the opposite of what was true. And then Devin sat on it until the middle of CPAC on a Saturday to dump it out so he could immediately rebut it and say the Democrats are colluding with part of the government to cover up FBI abuses. I mean, he's an idiot. We should treat him like the joke that

he is. But that's a really serious charge. And people in that room, as Ana will explain to you later, believe it. Yeah. It's also just like now they just like Devin Nunes just using the word collusion. Right. Like what do you what do you mean he's colluding with you? You mean he did the due diligence to investigate this as part of the committee? I mean, it is ironic, right? Because own chairman is funneling information back and forth to the White House where he is kind of undermining the committee itself. So he is now basically, I mean, this is a memo about investigating his own committee and his own committee's behavior. So the actual collaboration, the actual collusion that's on toward has been what Devin Nunes and the White House have been doing for a year. And Devin

never read the warrant on which his memo was based. Of course. That's all you need to know. Why not? Trey Gowdy did. Why wouldn't you? I mean, Devin Nunes. Because one person was allowed and he was too stupid to understand it. Out of sources of Trey. Back in the real world where the Trump

administration is under investigation for obstruction of justice and defrauding the United States. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's lawyers are still trying to avoid granting Mueller an interview with Trump because they're worried the president will commit a federal crime during the interview. I love this story so much. This is their argument. Go ahead. Can I just tell you guys my favorite part of the story? Whoever backgrounded this little Wall Street Journal message to Mueller said it would be a travesty to waste his Mr. Trump's time instead of a precedent which would cripple a future president. The precedent issues about what documents are protected in the White House are always an issue. Trump's time. A man who gets into the office at 11am after spending hours a day live tweeting Fox and Friends and watching fucking T-vote

episodes of Sean Hannity is so hilariously stupid I couldn't even take it. Woodrow Wilson worked harder after the stroke. I'm just... It's just a bit ridiculous. It's also... Can you get him during one of the commercial breaks like like while the gold commercials happen on the cables out yeah like just sit him down with muller for five he's gonna it's only gonna take five or ten minutes for him to incriminate himself he's not gonna need that

law we're good the idea that donald trump is worried about the precedent he's gonna set he doesn't know anything about the fact that they're all, and Fox News does this too now, they're all using perjury trap like it's a real thing. A perjury trap is that someone asks you a question and you lie. We don't lie. We cannot. The special counsel is going to trick the president into telling a lie. Did you guys listen? I don't think he needs to be tricked into doing that.

He does it every day. He does it every day. Do you guys watch the Trump-Jean Perrault phone interview? No, I saw the tweets. He basically went ahead and skipped it. Yeah, fair. He basically calls her and just speaks for 26 straight minutes. And she interjects some words like,

your approval rating is soaring. That was the form of a question. How did you get all this done on the economy in just one year? It's like he is living in the ultimate safe space on Fox News. And the fact that he phoned it in to rebut the news memo on her show of all places is amazing. Yeah. He really is in the most safest of safe spaces. I saw the other day that he, like, Brett Baer on Fox can't even get an interview with him.

Like, he's now just down to, like, Puro and Hannity. Yeah, there's nothing left. Yeah, he's going to be doing it. He's going to sit down with an interview with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I actually think that's like not a total. No, it's probably going to happen. They would try that, right? To have Sarah Huckabee Sanders interview him.

The other thing too is just two things. One, yes, they are worried about him lying, but they are also worried about him telling the truth. I've made that point before. And two, just all of us should always keep in mind this notion, should trump sit down with muller shouldn't you sit down with muller donald trump is a citizen of the united states he does not have some special right or special prerogative to not participate in an fbi

investigation that is not how the world works uh clinton participated in the investigation and sat down george w bush sat down and the val Valerie Plame affair and Scooter Libby thing. Like, this has happened. They negotiate. They use the powers of the president and the threat that they might not have him

go to negotiate ground rules, fine. That's the world. That's fine. But the most dangerous precedent we could possibly set is that the president is above the law

and he is not. So he will talk to Mueller. That will happen. And we have to all... One thing I... Or we'll go to the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court will say that he should and then we'll have a constitutional

crisis. It'll be great. But the point is Democrats position here can't be, oh, he'll never do it. He must. He's doing it. It is the law and he will do it. It's got to happen. Speaking of Democrats, let's talk about the Democratic Party. We had a Democratic convention in California this weekend. I spoke at it. You know, I had, like, John, you were there, right?

I had the question, but I didn't even need to get there. I wasn't sure if you had the question. No, but that was just a non sequitur. What were you going to say? How was it? Oh, it was good. You had a good time? It was nice to be amongst, you know, the California Dems.

I had to die Pepsi and, you know, hit the stage. Tell us about that. Railed against Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Got the crowd pretty fired up over it. Played the hits. Yeah. So for the first time, the convention did not endorse Dianne Feinstein for Senate. She lost the vote to state Senate Democratic leader Kevin de Leon.

54% to 37%. You needed 60% to get an endorsement so neither of them got the endorsement feinstein is way ahead in the public polls however guess not a huge hit with the activists what do we think's going on with this race i don't have impressions about this i mean the truth is that diane feinstein and uh kevin de leon are not that far apart on many issues she's pretty liberal he is for single payer she is not that far apart on many issues. She's pretty liberal. He is for single payer. She is not. That is very notable.

She has obviously been much more of a sort of surveillance state Democrat. She voted for the Iraq war. She's on the Intel committee. So there's that. But on issues, I guess on immigration, there's a few things. But, you know, she was responsible for the assault weapons ban. You know, she's been very liberal on a lot of things. But also, on the other hand, she's been around a long long time and people are sort of hungry for change so yeah i think three

things i think one uh there are some key issues where she is not where the party is right now immigration is one of them i think that people although it's funny i'm sorry health single single-payer health care is what i meant to say i also think that the legacy of her positions on national security make people uncomfortable yeah so that So that's policy. On Trump, there have been a few key moments where she could have gone harder and where I think she drew really strong criticism saying, you're one of the senior Democrats in the Senate. You are from California. Why are you not?

What are you doing? And it's really frustrating. And then three, I think that there is a sense in the party that she has taken the party and the activists for granted. You know, you saw criticism of saying, of course, she shows up now when she feels as though there's a primary threat. I mean, I don't think any of this will really ultimately matter. First of all, it is almost certainly the case that she and her primary opponent will be the two people that end up in the general election. So it's very interesting that he's going to basically have a whole general

election to continue to make his case. Absolutely. But we should tell people why that is, by the way. Yeah. So basically, in California, they have this system where the top two vote getters of either party go on to the general. So the primary is sort of open. So basically, so if Dianne Feinstein gets 31 percent and Kevin DeLeon gets 15 percent, but then a couple of Republicans get 10 and 9 and 8 percent, the two top vote getters are who go on to the general.

So the two Democrats would go on. I think Democrats look at a state like Texas that's been reliably Republican for a long time. And they see Ted Cruz and John Cornyn who are like far right of the party. And they look at a state like California that's been reliably liberal for a long time. Or we're going to talk about Dan Lipinski later, who's a congressman from part of Chicago. And they look at those districts or a state like California and think, why do we have a moderate Democrat? Like they want to push the party further to the left, especially among the activist base who are going to go to San Diego for a convention on a Saturday. And I totally get that. And it's well within their right.

I think, you know, the danger is ultimately not coming together and allowing a Republican to win. But I don't think that's going to happen here in California. So I'm fine with everybody fighting it out. Yeah, absolutely. You know what? Ultimately, even if she wins, this is probably going to push her to the left. Yeah. What I don't understand is if Dianne Feinstein actually has a policy objection to Medicare for all, we need to hear it.

Yeah. Right. And if she actually has a response to the base that says she's too far to the right on national security and she has a defense of her positions, we need to hear more about it. She needs to fight that argument or move her position. I think my view is I would like to see Dianne Feinstein move to the left

and have that be the outcome of this race. And on national security things too and on healthcare. I also think there's a generational element to this. The people in the crowd chanted times up at her because of something she said in the end of her remarks and like that's shitty given the context of me too and everything that's happened in the times of defense fund but you know she's 84 years old i think there's a lot of people who are looking for that next generation of leaders who are more progressive

and young and dynamic and you know i don't say that as a criticism of her but i do think that's clearly coming through i say that as a criticism of most of the senate yeah right you know and like there's a lot like 70 a lot of 70 and 80 year olds running around the senate we're being governed by it's a gerontocracy all right i mean it's so frustrating some of the thorniest issues we face is how we safeguard our election against international hackers what the fuck does oran hatch know about any of this how's oran hatch gonna get to the bottom i don't know what he knows about anything at this point. So one place where the top two primary system is a problem. This is a hard one.

Are in the California congressional races. So we have a particular problem in the 39th and 49th districts. 49th is replacing Daryl Issa. It's now an open seat because he's retiring. And the 39th is Ed Royce. So there were too many Democrats running in both of these districts. And so at least two DCCC polls, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, show that in the 39th and 49th districts, it's entirely possible for two Republicans to be the top two vote getters because there's five or six or seven Democrats

and they're all splitting the rest of the vote. So just to make sure we understand what that means. That means you can have a situation where more Democrats turn out to vote in the primaries and Democratic candidates do well and get more votes than all the Republicans combined. And still, the only people that would be on the ballot in November are Republicans,

which means we will have lost the seat before the candidates were even determined. So the question is, what do we do? How do you force people out of a race? A lot of people have been trying to talk to some of these candidates. They've been showing them polls, some of the ones that aren't doing so well to say, look at your polling, like try to drop out, flip the 49th, which is one organization that's focused on ISIS district, has been like holding candidate forms. All of these people have taken the same positions. None of them are really further to the left than the other ones. So they're all sort of the same.

I don't really know what you do here, but people have to step up for the good of the party at some point. Right. And it can't be the DCCC because there's a lot of people that are mad at them for a variety of reasons. I think it's got to come from these candidates themselves. All the Democrats running need to get together and make a pledge that says a week out. If you're down X amount, you're dropping out.

Something like that. These guys got to come together and show some political courage and do it for the good of the party because they are going to screw us so badly if they allow egos to get in the way. March is the deadline, by the way, for them to do that, because if you don't drop out by March, you'll appear on the ballot. So this is fucking real. It's a series. Yeah, it's hard. It is hard to tell people that are down. You're talking about, let's say, sometimes you'll have the difference from the first place Democrat to the fourth place Democrat.

You don't want eight, nine points, right? Things that people would, their advisors, their friends are telling them, that's surmountable. You're the best candidate. You should stay in the fight. So I don't know how you saw this before March. I don't know how much harm it does by some people staying on the ballot if they then turn around and endorse somebody else. That being said, yeah, these are people that need to get together. I don't think it can be dictated from on high.

But basically, if you're running fourth, if you're running fifth, running third, by the time you're getting close to the end of this thing, you need to make a decision. But you have to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with your supporters. You got to get out. You got to get out. And look, you can tell these things in a race race it's not like we're saying they should all drop out and there should just be one left there's always like two top people in a race right that are the first and second place that you can tell right and then maybe sometimes there's a

third who could jump up to first but you're right if you're fourth or fifth in the polling and it's getting to be middle like come on and and i think you don't want to cost the party a seat here you don't want to cause the party seat and i think come back and run for something else it's incumbent on all everyone in california that is me participating in this election all the democrats listening you need to also make clear to these candidates that i think a lot of people view running for congress even if you lose this has an opportunity to get my name out maybe i can run for a local office after things like that if you are a democrat who stays in the race and you come in fifth and you make it

impossible for democrats to take back some of these crooked seven seats you will not be celebrated in this party you'll be viewed as somebody that may have cost us the house yeah it's also shitty and i just because that sounds harsh at the same time it sucks that we're in this position in part because one of the reasons this is a hard issue is it's exciting how many people are getting involved and how many people are participating because the energy is so high. So this is not a good bad problem to have. Yes. Yeah, but you know what I mean. No, I know.

I don't want to seem like we're saying is wrong for these people to have run. These people are taking a chance. Unique circumstance. Yeah. Speaking of the DCCC, they certainly don't mind trying to force people out of races. So I'm talking about the DCCC in Texas. Texas, last week they decided to dump a bunch of opposition research, public opposition research, much of it misleading, on candidate Laura Moser, who's one of seven candidates running for Congress in the Texas 7th, and potentially the frontrunner. I have no idea what they were thinking here.

And we should say, so Laura Moser is also the wife of Iran Chaudhry. He worked in the Obama White House as a videographer. So we've all worked with Ron. So the opposition research is basically two things. One, it's a quote from her. She grew up in Houston. Then she moved away. And it's a quote from her saying, oh, I would never want to live in Paris, Texas, which is like 100 miles.

Two hours outside of Houston in a rural area. Like she loves Houston. She grew up there. So that's one, saying, oh, she's made fun of Texas. Well, took her out of context, acting like she was talking about Houston, not about Paris, which is nowhere near Houston. Yeah, that's the other thing. They actually took her out of context in the research, which is pretty bullshit. And then they said she was funneling money to her husband's firm.

So obviously she hired her husband's firm as a consultant. She has to pay them because otherwise it's an in-kind contribution. Well, also, the way this, these morons, the way this works is when you pay an advertising firm, half of that money then goes back out to the TV stations or the digital ad buyers who then place your ads. So, of course, the numbers look bigger. This pisses me off on two levels. One, Laura, Arun, like Democrats, I'm fine with the DCCC picking sides and supporting people, but like, don't go after the Democratic family like that with negative ads that are this brazenly dishonest to are you guys really so bad at your jobs at thinking a terrible, out of context, ridiculous attack like this is going to be effective. It is clearly rallying people around her candidacy.

It is so personally and professionally stupid and offensive. And I really think they should walk it back and try to fix this before everyone completely loses faith in the organization. We actually need Democrats to support, to donate to, to look to for help as candidates. You and I were doing the live stream last week and someone was like, you know, I've been supporting swing left and indivisible. And should I support the DCCC too? And what about them? And we're trying to make the case that, yeah, you know what? They have the voter file. That's really important to candidates. We need the DCCC too and what about them and we're trying to make the case that yeah you know what they have the voter file

that's really important to candidates we need the DCCC to be strong and I want to be saying these things but like what they're doing

in Texas look if you don't believe she can win a general election you can even say you don't believe she can win

a general election dumping a bunch of opposition research out there is not something you do unless the person is seriously

seriously problematic. What did they think their reason for, what was their goal of doing this? They think she can't win a general. They are telling people that she's too liberal to win a general election. Now, there's other candidates in the race who are about as liberal, or come in the same positions that Laura has, but she has been up in the polls and she's getting close to the frontrunner. The frontrunner is supported by the DCCC.

And Emily's List also seems like a perfectly fine Democrat, but they just don't think Laura can win. But to say, we don't think she can win, and here's why, and then to just make these two ridiculous arguments, that's the real problem. If there's other research out there, if there's other things you know, then be honest about that, but don't go do this.

It's also right, like, there is such a, there's an expectation on the part of a lot of activists that DCCC is beholden to a notion about what it means to be electable. You know, that is that is as 25 or 30 years old and can't be trusted to get behind the people that the base wants. Can't be trusted to think that the enthusiasm that we see across the country is enough to harness to win elections, even if these are candidates that are maybe more to the left than those in the past. And they're just ready to pounce on that and just get into that. But meanwhile, in Illinois, they have not made a decision on whether or not to not endorse Dan Lipinski,

who's a congressman who's probably the most conservative Democratic congressman out there, voted against Obamacare, pro-life, voted the wrong way on immigration, has voted like the wrong way on Democratic issue after Democratic issue. Not small stuff. Not like I'm personally pro-life, but I'm not. No, he is super, super conservative for a Democrat. He refused to endorse Obama's reelection in 2012. Dan Lipinski sucks. Let's be clear. Dan Lipinski is terrible. What's annoying is like Politico got this so wrong because they wrote up like the DCCC declined to endorse Dan Lipinski, the type of blue dog they need in this election. Well, not in this district you don't need like a

suburban chicago district that's one-third latino you don't need a dan lapinski who just barely has said he's going to vote for the dream act if it comes to the floor but he won't co-sponsor it like we don't need dan lapinski's in the party it's okay to push it we're going to try to beat peter roskam in the chicago suburbs we're going to we have a couple republicans we're picking off there we don't need him by the way just on dan lapinski like his dad served in the party. It's okay to push him. We're going to try to beat Peter Roskam in the Chicago suburbs. We have a couple Republicans we're picking off there. We don't need him there. By the way, just on Dan Lipinski, his dad served in the House for 20 years. He won his primary and then retired so that he could hand the nomination to his kid, who's since won primaries in general elections.

But this was pretty much the least Democratic way to get a nomination there is. And Dan Lipinski's primary opponent, Marie Newman. She was endorsed by Kirsten Gillibrand. She's great. so we have a good challenger there and jane chukoski remember the d triple c hey maybe this district will have a rep that's not fucking terrible hey d triple c get your shit together get your shit together do you remember when i gave you a hundred dollars for that montana thing whatever happened with that feels like a long time ago get your shit together and i don't want to get annoying emails from the d triple c be like oh here's what really happened no tell everyone together. And I don't want to get annoying emails from the DCCC and be like, oh, here's what really happened.

No, tell everyone what really happened. Be public about it. We're sick of getting the best arguments in our emails. Come on. Okay, when we come back,

we will be talking to Ana Marie Cox about CPAC. On the pod today, we have the host of With Friends Like These, Anna Marie Cox. Anna, welcome. Hello, it is good to be back. You have returned from CPAC. Yes. Now, I know you've gone many years to CPAC to report on that event.

Anything different this year? Anything notable? What were your first impressions of this esteemed gathering? It is a lot more white supremacy than it used to be. You know, I've been going since 2004, and I would say for the most part, it actually has been somewhat fun to cover. not because of the orgies and young conservative hookups, but because it tended to be really earnest, young libertarians for the most part. And I have a libertarian streak,

and they might say stuff I disagree with, but for the most part, 80% of the people there were in college, and even if they're wrong, they kind of mean well. It was really hard to find a lot of cynicism and they tended to be pretty socially liberal for the most part it's always had like a log cabin republican contingent and you know very pro-legalizing marijuana at the very least sometimes actually the libertarian side is pro-legalization of every drug yeah so for the most part like i've found it to be while there is like a there's always been a fringe there

and there's always been an nra presence there and there's always been you know some kind of people who would say things that are coded as racist you would have to look for those people and this year you didn't have to look for them. This year, they felt they felt pretty comfortable. I talked to two people who I interviewed for the show that, you know, the complete interviews at some point, they were just like straight up racist. I mean, one of them was a Pepe pin wearing guy who argued that white people founded America, why shouldn't they run it? Another was a young woman who told me that she thinks we need to be realistic about race.

And I said, does that mean she's for ethno state solution? And she said, no, that she didn't think that would work practically, but she did want a white super majority. In previous years, those people would have had the good sense to be embarrassed and they weren't,

they weren't this year. Yeah. They certainly feel empowered. I mean, the one of the more egregious examples on it was this guy, I forget his last name, Ian something who said on stage essentially that Michael Steele was chosen as the RNC chair because he was African American. And as deplorable as that comment was, what was shocking to me is that Michael Steele then went on to an interview with a guy named Matt Schlapp, who's a big conservative leader who essentially said to him what he said was wrong. But you upset a lot of people with the way you've talked about Trump, as if to say that somehow justified that racist comment. What was your take on that? I know you know all these people. that racist comment what was your take on that i know you know all these people yeah i i know michael steel he's been on the show my show um matt schlapp actually runs uh the american conservative union which is the group that puts on cpac so he's not just a big conservative

he's the guy in charge of cpac exactly exactly and from what i gather he didn't just say you upset people with the way that you talked about trump but he said and your leadership of the rnc was bad right too so he like doubled see he actually kind of turned it around and was like, yeah. Yeah, he told him to show some grace, which was cute. Right. And again, I don't think that would have happened in previous years. God bless Michael Steele. Last time I talked to him, he said he still considered himself a Republican. I'll be, you know, I think I'm going to have to have him on the show again. Yeah.

Because those were the people that were there that, you know, it was a crowd that booed someone talking about the beauty of a naturalization ceremony. It was a crowd. The only boos that I heard that were booing against the speaker was when Mona Charan said that Republicans were hypocrites for protecting Trump. Oh, yeah. Well, she had the audacity to criticize a child molester. So, yeah, I heard the Roy Moore thing got booed, too. Boo! We don't want to hear things we know are true.

We know, we know, but boo, boo, please boo. Oh, there was actually a chant of not true that went up when she was talking about Roy Moore. This is the complete Trumpification of CPAC, which is something I'll be honest, like when we were talking before I went, I was defending CPAC to some of the staffers here, because I have found it to be mostly kind of idealistic and earnest. And yeah, there's a sideshow. But, you know, these are actually the kids that might be able to do something about the Republican Party. And I was profoundly disturbed. Some people are gonna be like, oh, well, you know, like CPAC's always that way. And you, but it was different. It

was really different. For as someone who's covered the Republican movement for 15 years, I've never seen it take over this, what used to be kind of one of the pillars of the movement. Not the mainstream, I would say. Like CPAC's never been mainstream. But it was definitely like a place where you went to talk about ideas and it was definitely a place where you went to talk about the future of the party.

And I did not expect a Trump rally and it was a Trump rally. Aside from Mona Charan, like were there any speakers or any attendees who were critical of Trump, critical of the Republican Party, critical of what the conservative movement has become? Did you find any of that?

Yeah, yeah, I did. And those people were not that hard to find either. I talked to a young woman who was from actually University of Alabama, and she told me that she considered Trump a sexual harasser and that she was a never Trump person and that she thought the Republican Party had lost a lot of ground in being hypocritical on these issues. She actually said some of the things that Mona Charon said. And then I said, well, what should the Republican Party do about Trump? And she said, oh, well, he is our president.

Yeah, that's sort of like the problem in a nutshell there. Like there was criticism of trump but even mona charon i think wouldn't go so far as to say we should somehow you know impeach him or get rid of him or change the party or not vote republican what was the reception to uh wayne lapierre and all of the uh gun stuff oh it's worshipful. I mean, absolutely worshipful. One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my time covering politics, including the Trump era, including all Trump rallies, including all CPACs, was actually when Trump did a Insta poll of the crowd about whether or not they'd prefer their tax cuts or their gun rights. And they were pretty vocal about

their gun rights. I think it pretty vocal about their gun rights. I think it surprised even him. Well, they know they're not multinational corporations. Oh, man. I hope someone tells Paul Ryan that. It'll be so disappointing. Yeah, I know. I also love, Donna, how Trump was tweeting some of the instant polls out of CPAC, where he has a 93% approval rating among the farthest right wing of the entire country, but only half of them think he should be tweeting as much as he is. And he thought that was hilarious. He said, LOL from Donald Trump. It's from his friends, you know, his buddies are like, half of us think maybe you should chill out with this, but you know, take it how you will. Are there people there at CPAC who, like if Trump exits the scene, they're going to be other

leaders? Like who are the leaders of this movement now, since clearly the conservative movement has undergone quite a transformation over the last couple of years? Well, I think it's really interesting. Another thing that changed at CPAC this year, it used to be a regular stop for presidential aspirants, and none of the traditional aspirants were there. I actually, one of the saddest things I saw at CPAC was Ted Cruz, former CPAC straw poll winner, walked through the one of the saddest things I saw at CPAC was Ted Cruz, former CPAC straw poll winner, walked through the lobby of the hotel, followed by literally ones of people. I love that. That's the best news of the whole day.

I hope you got footage of that. I did take a picture. Beautiful. So he's someone that in an alternate universe would probably have gotten, would probably have won the straw poll, perhaps. You know, at least been a contender and would have been speaking on the main stage to a rapt audience um as it was if you ask the young people there who the leaders of the conservative movement where i i have terrible news or i don't know maybe it depends ben shapiro

oh boy you know i mean the bad news is i think he's not a particularly inspirational person uh he tends to just he's kind of a performance artist along the lines of ann coulter and that's maybe the good news too is i don't think there's a lot there there but then again we've now learned there doesn't need to be right you know he did say like one sentence critical of trump though so i guess that's a good sign i don't know i mean yeah he still feels like he needs to do that once in a while yeah he knows his crowd basically oh man any other good stories any other funny stories i was so taken aback i mean i guess i spent you know my first response like talking about that but cpac used to be something that I at least found a lot of energy at, for better or for worse.

And I also compared, so the last CPAC I went to was in 2016, where Trump didn't speak, and he was presumed to be going to lose, right? And that was probably the most energetic CPAC I'd been to in a while. Like, I talked to a lot of people at that event who were perversely optimistic. They felt like this is going to be our chance to take back the conservative movement. Trump's going to lose. Hillary's going to win. She's a great foil. And we're going to rebuild our intellectual foundations. And this is going to be, I know, right? For almost a moment, I felt bad for them. But that's so true.

How much more fun would CPAC could have been if Hillary had been president? My God, the lock her up. They did that anyway, though. There were lock her up chants anyway. Yeah, but it doesn't feel that same. Which they don't even seem to understand is just nonsensical. And there's so much lack. There's the lack of self-awareness, which I guess I'd say another thing that I used to appreciate about CPAC is that because it's like young college students,

and again, used to be kind of libertarian sort of leaning, there was like a sort of a sense of humor and some self-awareness. And this is like, these are just, you know, MAGA hat wearing. Snowflakes, really? Yeah, you know, Trump bots. And it was disturbing as to someone who, you know, I was kind of a little like riot girl punk rocker teen. And to see like the uniforms of blue blazers and red hats, and like, I call the girls wearing kind of church but slutty outfits. You know, there's always a sort of uniformity there. But to see it kind of like in such mass form and the thinking to be so uniform, I guess that's actually, I shouldn't

make fun of how people look. The thinking was pretty uniform too. And I think CPAC in the past, I was, you could rely on a kind of hardy booing section from the Rand Paul people, the Ron Paul people, who they would boo anything that was anti-immigration. They would boo anything that was like, you know, drug law related. And this year it was just the group think that is disturbing, not just because you hate to see young people all thinking alike, but because it makes you think, oh, so this is never going to end. Man.

This is it. Well, it's almost as if subset of our population has given in to an authoritarian impulse and found it quite satisfying to give in to that current together and just stop trying to sail in the other direction. And instead of bucking it, the D.C. establishment, the Matt Schlapps and the Ben Shapirs of the world who build their business and their political influence and get paid off of this conservative organization, Trump has helped them identify their base and better cater to it rather than reject a goddamn word they say or be the intellectuals they claim to be.

It is ugly. Yeah. And it's also, it just goes to show too that they don't need to be out of power to still have an enemy and to whip up the populist furor, whether it's the NRA or Trump or Matchlap or any of these people there's always an elite coming after you there's always some you know powerful group of people on the left who are trying to like squash your freedom like it doesn't change whether you whether you're winning and you're in power or not it's a fucking con you know yeah the whole

thing's i mean it always is a little bit of a con c-pack like it always was kind of a little bit it's literally also like i think where the acu like gets all of its money is from putting this on it doesn't exist to do much else right and this just felt like a group of people who were i guess you know you can't fool an honest man these are the group people are happily being conned right it's entertaining like entertaining. Like, they loved it. They ate up every minute of it. And the crowd is just, it's the loudest sound is them clapping themselves on the back. You know, like they invent an enemy

and then defeat it in their mind. Right, right. That is exactly it. There's sort of good news here, which is that they are not prepared for an actual people's resistance to what they're doing. They do not understand what they are up against. They clearly think it's like a Soros-funded scam on our part.

They don't understand that it's like everyday people that cannot stand what's happening. That it's not like just people who are being paid to think however they do. It's not just protesters. Again, I'm looking for my check if you guys know where it is. It's not an invention. That this is actually a grassroots phenomenon. That people are pissed about what's happening to their country. And I think that can serve us.

I really do. I think so, too. No, I was going to say, that's the best news out of the whole conference, I think. Ana, thank you for giving us this dispatch from CPAC. And I can't wait for your episode where you're going to have all the audio. Throw one more book on the fire for us. All right. All right.

Thanks for calling in. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, guys. Bye. All right, guys. That's our show for today. Sign up for What A Day. Sign up for the newsletter, cricket.com.

Oh, and send in your portraits, your Trump portraits. And also, Dan's off this week, so you get us again on Thursday. That's right. I wanted that to be a surprise. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's a surprise for the people who didn't listen all the way to the outro. All right.

Have fun, Dan. It'd be more of a surprise, except we have incredible commitment to the full episode from our listeners. It's true. We do. People listen all the way to the end. Pat ourselves on the back, just like the CP our listeners. It's true. We do. People listen all the way to the end. Pat ourselves on the back just like the CPAC people.

Bye everyone.