Pod Save America - “Mooch saves America.”

Episode Date: July 24, 2017

Republicans have no idea what health care bill they’re voting on, the Mooch lets Trump be Trump, and the Democrats unveil a new slogan and agenda. Then CBS News' Margaret Brennan joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to talk about the Administration’s foreign policy challenges.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I am the beleaguered Jon Favreau. We're beleaguered? I'm Jon Lovett. I'm the mooch. On the pod today we have CBS News White House and Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan. Yeah, and that's it. I was going to say something else. That's all we have. Yelling at this one. That's enough, though. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and before we begin,

Love It or Leave It Friday. We had a great Love It or Leave It. Fantastic show. Sarah Silverman, DeRay of Pod Save the People, and Guy Branum, one of my favorite shows we've ever done. We also gave Sean Spicer

the farewell treatment he deserves. It was hilarious. Wonderful Spicer montage that you're not to miss. Check it out. Download. Speaking of DeRay, his latest episode of Pod Save the People drops tomorrow. On Tuesday, he's talking with Tracy Ellis Ross and the current mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges. Okay.

There's a lot going on today. We had the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, confirm his four meetings with Russians, but deny campaign collusion in an interview with the Senate Intel Committee. I didn't collude. I just went to a meeting about collusion. Totally fair. How hard is that to get? The president called on the Department of Justice to investigate his former political opponent while referring to his own attorney general as beleaguered. So we're going to get to all that kind of stuff. it while referring to his own attorney general as beleaguered so we're going to get to all that kind of stuff but first the president's party is hurtling towards a vote tomorrow on a health care

proposal which health care proposal the only problem is if if you're listening out there and you're not sure what's going on with health care that makes you just like republican senators because no one knows what the fuck proposal they are voting on tomorrow. All we do know is that it's going to be a proposal that probably takes away health insurance from at least 20 million people, probably more. It's like a range from 20 to 30, depending on which proposal they go with. So what's McConnell's strategy here? Can I ask you a question? Sure. None of us know the answer to that one. Great. I'll answer. I'm seeing people like Topher Shapiro and Ben Wickler say like they're getting these ominous feelings that they think the right might be circling a solution.

Is there any sense of why they feel nervous now? Okay. Okay. So they do feel like they have an ominous feeling, but it's not because the right is circling a solution. It's because the pressure from the right has finally ramped up. Right. So basically what happened is like all the activism from the left and center and everywhere else, experts sort of push this thing to fail a couple of times.

Right. Like, that's why we didn't have a vote. Once McConnell failed, suddenly the right, the Koch brothers, Steve Wins of the world, all like the, you know, grifter right wing groups in D.C. I love their billionaire names. There's one named Vandersloot. Vandersloot. Exactly. Don't go on vacation with that guy.

So Trump, the billionaires, McConnell, these people, suddenly they put tremendous pressure on these Republican senators, started threatening primaries and said, you failed to repeal Obamacare, blah, blah, blah. So now all the pressure's on the right. And we heard from Topher and some of these people that the calls going into some of the offices, like Capito's office and Heller's office, have gone from anti-repeal to pro-repeal. So that's what's making everyone nervous, right?

It's effective to not know what they're going to vote on because it makes a little bit more true the idea that they're just voting yes on a motion to proceed to a debate on what they'll actually end up voting on. And so this case that McConnell's making to Capito and Heller is, just give me yes on the motion to proceed. Just get us into the debate, and then we'll see what happens. Which is so crazy politically, because you could be in a scenario, if you're Heller, where you vote yes on the motion to proceed, and Democrats will destroy you with that vote, even if you ultimately vote no on the bill. So you vote the on the bill. So you vote the motion to proceed. That begins 20 hours of debate. So the vote is probably going to be sometime tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday afternoon. And then in the ensuing 20 hours of debate,

people can start offering up amendments, right? They can start changing the bill. And then what happens is there's tremendous pressure at that point on Republicans to just get something done. The problem is, at the end, on Thursday, when the whole thing ends, McConnell can introduce an amendment that wipes away all the other amendments and replace it with whatever version of the bill he

wants. And then it's like four in the morning, and he's saying, you're going to be the only Republican, or the only two Republicans, to stop after 20 hours when we negotiated and we got all these deals. They locked Dean Heller in a room and Sheldon Adelson gives him a titty twist. And the problem is there's no CBO score for the final bill. There's nothing.

There's nothing. So McConnell can tell people, oh, well, this Medicaid thing fixed your problem and we had this provision and this compromise and it fixed everything and they'll all feel good about themselves because they've all been locked in a room for 20 hours. But no one's going to know what the impact is. So this is why we have to, our best hope here is to stop them from getting to yes on the motion to proceed. So what's the vote count?

Susan Collins is strong. She is a no. She is not voting on a motion to proceed. Not only is she a no, she's been tearing the bill to pieces on the Sunday shows to interviews in Portland. She's saying, this is a crazy way to pass legislation that affects one-sixth of the

economy. It's been great. The process attacks seem to have grown. Everyone now feels comfortable attacking the process, which is, I think, positive. So, Collins is a hard no. There's no indication yet that McCain will be back for this vote tomorrow. That means he can only lose one more. But like you said... Rand Paul still is a hard no.

So here's Rand Paul's deal. Rand Paul said, if McConnell promises me that one of the votes we take during debate will be a vote on straight repeal, I'll say yes to the motion to proceed. But not saying yes to any underlying replacement. Yeah, Paul is still a no on any other bill but a straight repeal so far. But I don't know why Rand Paul wants to vote to motion to proceed just to get a vote that he knows he's going to lose on straight repeal, which is the case right now. It's so hard to understand. I'm so afraid to be positive. So McCain's out, which means they can only lose two. They've already lost Collins.

They get a motion to proceed. If it's anything other than straight repeal, it seems like Rand Paul's a no, or is what we're thinking is Rand Paul is quietly telling McConnell. If I get my repeal vote and it goes down, then I can say I tried to vote for repeal, but instead I voted for a bill that's imperfect. But better than Obamacare. And McCain has deferred his opinion to his governor. That's very key. That's a good point. So yeah, McCain tweeted over the weekend, or Friday, I think, I will do whatever Ducey

says, who's the governor of Arizona. Not Steve Ducey. Not Steve Ducey, no. Thank God. Who is a historic idiot. Trump tweeted, I will do whatever Ducey said. That's a Trump thing. Trump thought it was good news. He was like, oh, Steve. Love that guy. do whatever Ducey said. That's a Trump thing. Trump thought it was good news.

He was like, oh, Steve. Love that guy. Love Steve Ducey. No, and Ducey, he hasn't said much in the last month, but back in June or early July, he said that he did not like the Medicaid cuts in the bill. So I don't know. Maybe that's a hopeful sign for McCain, but who knows? The other part of this is, put the politics aside, it's a fifth of the U.S. economy.

It's the health care for every American. And they're going to whirl themselves up into a frenzy. There'll be a crazy amount of activity and then a bill will pass. And then we'll find out what it is. And perhaps the markets will crash. You know, who knows what happens? That's a good point, too, because another thing that happened on Friday was the parliamentarian ruled on which parts of the bill could pass under the reconciliation process. Under the reconciliation process, only stuff that affects the actual budget can pass. So they have regulations, everything else that doesn't actually impact the federal budget.

And one of the provisions that they struck down was basically, I won't go into it, but it's the whole provision that keeps the insurance markets together. It's basically the Republicans' replacement for the individual mandate. So a bunch of stuff came out. So their ability to defund Planned Parenthood came out, their ability- No, they think they can fix that with some new language. That's what the Republicans think. No one thinks they can fix the six-month waiting period that would screw up the insurance markets. And no one is talking about it. So they could vote on a bill right now where the parliamentarians struck provisions that keep the whole insurance markets together.

To say nothing of the Cruz Amendment, which hasn't been, it hasn't been scored by the CBO. It hasn't been ruled on by the parliamentarian. And the Cruz Amendment is also something that could melt down the insurance markets. I want you guys to know that you can tell how excited we are about a subject by the amount of hand gesturing and today it looks like john is leading a plane into a gate it's so crazy it is we are a day away from a vote that's about health care we don't know what it is we don't know the strategy the senators involved don't know what it is. There has never been anything like this. Not in our lifetime.

Here's the test. I would like to hear one Republican senator defend their policy on the merits. You can't say Obamacare fails. You can't say it's better than passing nothing. You have to actually say the positive effects of your policy without lying. Here is why we want to keep Obamacare. I challenge a Republican senator or anyone to try to give that answer. It would be great to somebody who's just sort of like fully throatedly defend this thing

and be like, so I looked at these policies and I figured out the best thing to do for the American healthcare system. It's basically to keep Obamacare, but make it much, much, much less generous so that people don't have as much insurance and more people go bankrupt. Like I was looking at it and I go, that's what I wanted. Right. And some, some of them, one of them will say, well, eventually premiums will go down. And I'll say, well, why will premiums go down?

Well, because all of these sick people and the elderly people would have given up their insurance because they can't afford it anymore. And so the only people paying for insurance are young, healthy people. So premiums will go down. And so the only people paying for insurance are young, healthy people. So premiums will go down. Because that is literally the only argument you can make for this bill about why premiums would ultimately go down 10 years down the road. Because parents waving flaming torches in front of hospitals trying to get medical treatment is actually not a pre-existing condition under this bill. You will recall that one of the major gripes about Obamacare is that too many plans had high deductibles, right? Which was true. Deductibles for many plans in Obamacare were pretty high.

It's one of my personal gripes. Deductibles here will go up by thousands of percent. Like $13,000 deductible for someone who's making $25,000 a year. Which is just no insurance. There's no insurance. $13,000 deductible. And $22 million lose their health care. And now we're just hurtling towards this right now.

And not like a small government solution. It's not like they're like, but, you know, we'll put power back. It's the same thing. They're keeping Obamacare. They're just making every single part of it worse. So anyway, you all know the drill here. Keep up the call. Wherever you are in the country right now, you can participate in this.

You can either make calls or if you're in D.C., if you're anywhere near D.C., protests. Like, follow Ben Wickler on Twitter. He's got a whole bunch of places you can go and events that are happening and numbers you can call and stuff like that. But I do think today and tomorrow and then Wednesday and Thursday, this is the week to ramp up the pressure. We're not going to say if the vote fails, we're all in the clear because we can never say that until Donald Trump stops being president, Republicans stop controlling Congress. But if the vote fails this week, it is going to be very hard to keep it going. You know, I think it also is important to just step back and just, this is a terrible process. And it really is hurting just the way they're doing this, like it is not necessary for Republicans to turn health care into occasional secret meetings followed by frenzied activity that makes half the country panic.

Like that hurts the country. That will leave a mark. We are going to be paying for this kind of legislating for a long time. I think it's nice seeing the backlash because McConnell's like, well, there's a suggestion box in my office that you could come by and talk about. Everyone's like, no, because he's going back. He's having these meetings with these all male groups. And then he's going back to his office with his aides and writing it completely alone. And it's backfired so thoroughly on him.

And you know what? Don't tell me that Dean Heller's politics are any more difficult than Susan Collins politics, because like Hillary Clinton won both of their states. Both of them have possible like right wing primary challengers that could unseat them. Like Susan Collins faces the same pressures Dean Heller faces. But she decided to actually not break the Senate. And she wants a deliberative process working with the other party holding maybe one hearing. So like I don't feel bad for Dean Heller. No, we do not feel bad for it.

The other thing, too, is like it's still just politics and republicans in nevada are also able to see the news and a more competent and decent and effective political person like a dean heller but with some fucking moral backbone would say i'm not going to vote for this thing if you want a primary go for it but i'm the only person who can win there are things you can do if you have some kind of whatever principle and fortitude to demonstrate to your people that you're someone worth sticking with. Ridiculous, guys. We're on the fence on the bill. What about Capito?

Because she's putting out statements saying she's always been against Obamacare that seems like she's leaving herself the ability to vote against this thing. I don't know. Trump's with Capito today in West Virginia. So they're chilling out. They're chilling out. They're going to the jamboree.

They are. They're at a Boy Scout jamboree. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Anyway, let's talk about Mooch Saves America.

Yikes. It's so funny. It's like, just now have we gone through the whole healthcare conversation. It's like, okay now have we gone through the whole healthcare conversation? It's like, okay, great. Let's talk about this asshole. Right.

Well, you know, the cable news has been talking about it for fucking four days straight. Tommy? I think it's instructive, though, because, you know, Spicer and Priebus are seen as these institutionalists and sort of Washington figures that could maybe pull him back towards what's normal. And Spicer, as much as he sucked, and as much as we're now learning that the briefings went off camera, so Sean could literally hide from his boss and wouldn't get critiqued by him. I mean, if ever a reporter needed a reason

to live stream that thing or break their bullshit rules, that's it, guys. You're not in the Sean Spicer protection business, right? We're trying to get information for people. But, you know, just like looking at the mooch, it's a reminder that Trump now has a half dozen former Goldman Sachs guys working for him, despite attacking Ted Cruz and Hillary as bought and sold and controlled by Goldman. You know, it'll be interesting to see what Sean does here, because there's the Corey Lewandowski path of not attacking the boss, staying in good graces, or he could actually tell the truth and be useful to the nation he's got a choice to make sean spicer if you're listening you can still be a hero step up but the mooch already screwed up yeah the mooch said on tv that he discussed pardons with trump in the oval office after trump's lawyer said that it had not been discussed so mooch also said pants mooch also said he was not sure if Trump would sign the Russia sanctions bill. And then a couple hours later,

Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, yeah, sure, he's going to sign it. I think that... Now then Mooch said, my bad. So everyone said, oh, well, he admitted that he said something wrong. And so we all love Mooch and Mooch is going to save the world.

I think Scaramucci, the Mooch, is what Donald Trump thinks he looks and sounds like. Yeah, that's right. I think that Donald Trump looks in the mirror and he's like, that's what I want to see. I want to see the mooch. Every campaign deals with someone like the mooch, who is this outsider who comes in

and offers garbage advice like, look, we just got to let Trump be Trump and tells the boss what he wants to hear. And he is a total chameleon. He gave money to Obama in 2010. He supported Jeb. He supported every other candidate. He attacked Trump on TV.

And when it suited his personal purposes, he got on the Trump train. Let Trump be nuts. That's the strategy. That's the new strategy. Look, that is what Donald Trump is. He is, we've talked about this. He is an empty vessel for the ambition of terrible men.

Did you guys see the clip that was going around of Mooch asking Barack Obama a question during a town hall in 2010? And he's like, Mr. President, you know, we went to Harvard Law School together and blah, blah, blah. Just all this small talk. And then he goes, I just, Wall Street is feeling so beat up by your administration. We're feeling so beat up right now. And we just want to know when it's going to stop. Two years after the financial crisis. He's one of those. Drain the

swamp. Drain the swamp with the mooch. But the question, like Tommy, will the mooch make any difference whatsoever? You have Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going to remain the press secretary. Her hallmark is saying even less than Sean, a little bit nicer. So that

won't change. The mooch wants to have good relations with the press, but he's also talking about his idea to like put a desk on the lawn and do state-run TV. I mean, this is not a thing he's joking about. So maybe they'll have better interpersonal relations. But again, every president blames his comms teams and says he's a communications problem. He has a policy problem.

We have a Trump tweets crazy things problem. He's trump problem we have a trump problem trump doesn't have a message problem he has a trump problem and also look the mooch is out for the mooch so that's one thing that we can count on right that this guy's not going down with this ship he doesn't care he seems to be yet another kind of valueless person i mean there are the kind of two kinds of people that have been along for the ride with trump and And it is it's not just D.C. versus New York or what have you. It's it's people that got into deep overtime because they thought they were doing the right thing, like to protect their party or whatever for the country. That's like your, you know, your Reintz's and your Spicer's who never imagined they would get this far. But here they are.

The kind of person that's getting in now, these are empty, morally bankrupt people who will turn on a dime. The interesting thing about the Mooch is that he's seen by some as a possible heir to the chief of staff job once they knife Priebus. So that's kind of a big thing. One other thing about all this, which is all this talk about how Trump says you're fired. Trump cannot fire anybody. He cannot do it. about all this, which is all this talk about how, you know, Trump says you're fired. Trump cannot fire anybody. He cannot do it. He wants to fire Sessions, but he's afraid to do it. He

clearly wants to get rid of Reince, but he's afraid to do it. So the way he does it is he makes their lives miserable until they quit. He subtweets them or he just tweets about them. I mean, the Sessions thing this morning, my God, he called Sessions beleaguered. Ridiculous. He's beleaguered because Trump is attacking him. Can I tell you guys my favorite Mooch anecdote? And then we should probably move on. You're right. Screw that guy. Apparently he used to host a 100 points wine only wine tasting at Davos. So this is what he's best known for with his fund of funds. So this is the populist hero. This is how we're awarding the white working class voters who came out for Donnie. The thing that's so crazy too about Sessions is now Sessions is

like he has to stay because Trump wants him to leave. And it's like this crazy thing where once Trump turns on them, you kind of need to hope they stay because if he leaves, what comes next is even worse. And Sessions is the worst attorney general in our lifetimes. Yeah, but like a Rudy does. I don't know that a Rudy could get confirmed. I don't think he doesn't. But I think it would scare me a lot to have Sessions leave. And suddenly Rudy would never name a special counsel.

But think about how crazy this is. I know. Sessions, one of the diehard Trump stone called a stone cold racist who has recused him like now we're at the point where because trump wants him out we're like oh we hope session stays i don't think so i i don't know i don't want him to stay i think he's awful i think all the things he's doing separate and apart from the the special counsel issue are way worse but it just someone who is even more bendable to Trump's will frightens me in abstraction. Again, though, to take a step back from all of this, and I realized it as we watched

CNN cover Spicer, like it was the Iraq invasion for like four hours, you know, when we had the TV on in the office on Friday forever. Like, the media in Washington likes to focus on a good shakeup story, on personalities. There's a lot of drama in this. Whether it's Spicer or Sessions or any of this stuff or Mooch, it's like, at the end of the day, Trump has a Trump problem. And even all the questions about the pardons and all sorts like that. Like, either Trump makes a lot of crazy policy moves, personnel moves, fires Sessions, fires Mueller, whatever else. Like, either Congress holds Trump accountable or they don't. And then either we do by voting for a new Congress in 2018 or voting for a new president in 2020 or we don't.

Right? And all of, like, the machinations of who's coming in and out of the White House and who's fixing it, like, nothing's really going to change until there's an election or there's an impeachment. That's about it. So good luck. Good luck, Anthony Scaramucci and your new job. We're all we're all by. It's only been six months. It's only been six months. We are roughly 13 percent of the way through. By the way, Dan Pfeiffer just sent me a Fox News story. The headline is former Obama staffers called Trump This Asshole in the White House on Chelsea's Netflix show. Oh, that was me. I said that.

I think, well, do they not listen to the podcast? Yeah, I was going to say, that's because he's an asshole. I called him an asshole because he isn't... He's the worst person. Fact check me on that one. There was a reporter from Newsbuster, so take it with your hands. Someone please make the argument that he's not an asshole to me. Even to his own family. Anyone.

Anyone make the argument. he's not an asshole to me. Even to his own family. Anyone. Anyone make the argument. Asshole. All right. All right. Speaking of good slogans. Oh, good, good, good, good, good, good. We're going to talk about the Democrats now. Today, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Party unveiled their new agenda.

It is called Better Deal, better jobs better wages better future what do we think guys so what do we think it's trying to be calm approach this rationally look at it see let it let it sink in you know sometimes slogan takes a minute to sink in my initial reaction to it when it first started leaking out was that it was trash uh i will say that having seen the layout of the full agenda you know there was a pelosi op-ed and then there are a few other pieces out there it's fine i think it's fine. Yeah. So I was very critical of this on Twitter. I was responding to some reports that it turned out to be inaccurate. Let's just set the context.

The Democratic leadership keeps hearing on the Sunday shows and from each other, the echo chamber, that we have no message. The Democratic Party is very unpopular in polling. So there's a purpose that's real behind this. We do have brand problems. People don't know what we stand for, what our agenda is. I'm also very sympathetic to how hard it is to get an entire party degree on anything, to get members involved. But I think the big mistake we often make is confusing a message and a slogan. They're very different things. This happened in 2006 when John and I were working in the Senate for Obama. The Democratic Party decided to go with, we can do better and ask members to repeat it. We refused. We said we refused to put in any Barack Obama's remarks or press releases because we were arrogant then and we are arrogant now.

him and make America great again. And it was visceral and it spoke to emotion. And I don't think anything in this slogan does that. I also think that these are good policies, but they're by no means new to say prescription drugs make mergers and acquisitions harder, give a tax credit to businesses for job training. Those are important things. But when we talk about big challenges we face going forward as a nation, we're talking about automation. And that's not in there no we're also talking about this big health care debate that we're having right now that's not in there so i think the consolidation part is big that is actually a new and interesting thing that i hope it becomes that's that is big the rest of it is retread stuff but the part about monopolies and going after mergers and that part is i'm not criticizing anything that was in it i'm saying that the thing you talk about as a Democrat, every show, we talk about constantly, is automation.

And I didn't see that as a part of this. That's because no one has the answers to that. No one has the answers. Which is fair. Yeah, like, so, right. Automation, consolidation, and then, like, trade and globalization. Like, this at least looks at one of the big things. But, yeah, they have no answer for automation.

And then they look at stagnant wages and inequality, and they find a tax credit. Like, that's okay. For businesses, too. For businesses businesses, which is again, again, we're back to, and maybe this is a good policy for the campaign trail, but we're back to the kind of policies that are tax credit based and hard to follow. And that individuals wouldn't necessarily know they were benefiting from in their own lives. Like, so $15 minimum wage. That's good. That's good. Look, I think the problem, first of all, on the slogan thing, like I'm down on slogans in general. I think that they don't matter that much. I think that they all sound like retreads.

I do think the exception sometimes is presidential campaign slogans that evoke something bigger than policy. Right. They have a cult that have a cultural connection. Right. So make America great Again fits with that. Yes, We Can fits with that. I'll even say with Obama, right, like people associate Yes, We Can with him. But our other slogan that was the official slogan of the campaign, Change We Can Believe

In, I remember when the campaign was coming up with that slogan and there were 50,000 emails and meetings and phone calls and polls and stuff like that. And it went back and forth and maybe it was going to be change we can trust, right? Because it was supposed to be about Hillary. Well, so was change you can believe in. It was against Hillary. But I remember writing the Iowa Jefferson Jackson speech and everyone was like, well, we're coming up with a new slogan and stuff like that. When they finally came up with it, I'm like, do whatever you want with the slogan. I'm going to try to find like one line in the speech to slip it in so we can say we did but I don't care about it for the

rest of the speech because it just it's you have to tell a bigger story than just something that a slogan can provide so my my thing about this is like better deal like you know we can do better better way like these may these are the kind of phrases that may be good enough and like serviceable serviceable fine but I think about this moment moment and maybe it isn't right for house candidates to be out there collectively with some bigger moral message. I don't know. Right. So I'm just trying to not feel, say that like we have the answers, but like you think of great society and even new deal, like these were things that evoked like big changes and big problems and like big emotional moral arguments. And we're at a time which Donald Trump, the worst president, the worst person we've ever put in the job is like laying waste to institutions.

Mitch McConnell is about to have a secret health care vote. And the best we can offer is better. And maybe that's what our candidates should be saying. But I just wish that that the better deal fit into a larger case for who we are and our vision for the future and maybe that's something that we need a presidential candidate to do maybe that's something we need to do as collectively together and figure that out and we haven't done it yet i don't know but just a better deal is small and maybe it's enough to win but it's small i guarantee you that these guys heard polling presentations and focus groups where people said we don't we don't believe your big promises anymore. So we sort of,

you know, wound it down to better. But I also sort of, I, again, we're criticizing them for trying and I'm glad they're trying. And this is an iterative process. They're going to roll out more policy.

They'll like refine this thing over time. No one's expected to repeat it whole cloth. But if I were going to plan a rollout for this thing, I would have had some of the leadership go out and like do a bunch of town halls and meet with a bunch of people. Could be in New York, could be in any state you wanted hear their stories, try to incorporate that, like incorporate the struggles of working people. But, you know, instead it's sort of in the format of an op-ed and stuff. And it just feels like language that was in Obama's Osawatomie speech that could have been in any Clinton speech.

I said the same thing to love it this morning. I like, the op-eds from both Pelosi and Schumer, a lot of the language in there, it's just like, it was Obama language, and then it was Hillary language, and it's like, it probably was Bill Clinton language. Almost verbatim. I'm guilty of this, having written for Obama. I wrote it a million times, and now that I'm out of the White House, you look back and you're like, yeah, we could freshen up. Just the term wages.

Like, who talks about, yeah, we could freshen up. We need to. So just the term wages, like who talks about my wages? I'm really frustrated with the fact that my wages are stagnant. No one says that. The other thing is the we should lead with telling a story about each of the individual policies that really breaks through. Right. So not not in a wonky way, because we think Democrats are too wonky with their policies. But like if you think about Trump's campaign, right? Everyone knew he wanted to build a wall,

and they knew about the ban, right? We now have a very, what we just said, good policy, interesting policy on breaking up corporate mergers, right? So go tell a story that is about breaking up merger, or trust busting, and stuff like that. Busting Comcast. Yeah, and have something easy so people know now that they associate Democrats with that antitrust policy that they don't want merger. I read all the different pieces that the Democrats have rolled out today about explaining what the agenda is. And they all organize them into different baskets.

They're all first, second and third. And they're sorted differently because there's no coherent notion behind them. Like basically, it's like there's infrastructure, there's a tax credit, there's prescription drugs, there's minimum wage, there's mergers. What does it add up to? It's better. And it is better. It is better. Yeah. And sort of the cultural nod that you are pining for, I think we all are, is they're sort of saying, well, it's sort of a nod to the New Deal. And it's a nod to a critique of Trump's claim to be a dealmaker. And I don't think either of those are remotely culturally relevant. I also didn't make that connection. I didn't make that connection. I read it. Democrats are a better way to govern. We're getting there. Hey,

good news, guys. Apparently, Eric Trump has been meeting with the head of the RNC to talk about 2018 messaging and campaigning. He'll probably nail it. Hey, thank God we have that wall between their finances and government. Dad told me I should come talk to you. I want to figure out win times. Eric Trump, I'm the worst one. The one other thing I'll say about the Democratic platform now is... Hey, you guys. is the set of policies.

I'm Eric Trump. It's from Goonies. It does show that Democrats have absorbed sort of the Bernie Sanders set of messages and policies a bit more than people probably would have expected. It is a $15

minimum wage when Hillary and Bernie were fighting between $12 and $15. Schumer said he was open that Medicare for all is on the table now. Single pay. He said single payers on the table. The trillion dollar infrastructure proposal, you know, the merger thing like this, you know, so it's a pretty progressive populist agenda. I was really excited to see the mergers and consolidation of Monopoly stuff because I personally view that as like the next big thing. Yeah, like I hate paying more for my fucking airline ticket too. I just don't think that's going to get me to the polls. I don't know. I disagree. I don't agree with you. I think this is one of the biggest things. We'll see. See you

in 2018. But this is part of the problem because it's especially disagree with you because they wouldn't have put it in here if it didn't pull so well. Well, of course it pulls well. Like all this pulls and well and. No, no, no. It's an abstraction. But no, but like this is the thing. Like it's in these sort of plans because I think it's a kind of collection of disparate policies. Like a billion dollar infrastructure is put next to prescription drugs, which is put next to the minimum wage, which is put next to this plan.

And they're all kind of given equal footing. But you've got to let them all breathe. Yeah. But like that one piece of it, it i think could be like one of the central tenets of what democrats talk about you got to go tell stories about this right you got to go talk about airlines screwing people over and uh cable companies companies railroads no and you gotta make it you gotta make it real for people and you gotta tell them like how you're gonna benefit if we stop these mergers from happening right and like really be you know

get into the make it visionary this is this is why i think part of it is like these decisions being made on polls is so difficult because a lot of this is about things that are hard to measure and then don't reveal themselves in data people feel kind of under siege and from a lot of different places and one of the things that's happened is partly because of consolidation because we're sort of all in a daily basis dealing with giant companies that don't have our interests at heart, that make us sign crazy agreements and that treat us poorly and that make us wait to get on the phone. Like we are all feeling on a daily basis like our dignity is being sapped. And Donald Trump is in part a response to that, the sense that like everyone's making you feel like a sucker, but you're not a sucker if you if you stick with me.

And like I, I feel like there are these bigger forces at play, which is why I was excited about that part of it. Do you feel like your dignity's been sapped today, Tommy? Well, probably later on. Maybe at lunch. Make fun of me all you want. See? What we're going to do is we're going to make fun of messages, and then we're going to propose them, and then we're going to make fun of... Oh, I have a message.

I have a message. What's that? I can tell you. I do, though. Excellent going to make fun of them. Oh, I have a message. I have a message. What's that? I can tell you. I do that. Excellent. Okay. All right. Lovett's got a message. He's going to keep it for... You want me to tell you what it is? I'm going to tell you after the break. Okay, great. When we come back, we will be talking to CBS News' White House correspondent, Margaret Brennan. Hey, don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. covering the mooch, not the Spicer show, right now. Thank you for joining us. Sure. It's as luxurious as you described.

Yeah, it's lovely down there. Margaret, we're going to start with substance, which is crazy, because you are a foreign policy expert on top of being a White House correspondent. There's a big piece in the New York Times today about how there's been an Afghanistan strategy presented to the Trump administration repeatedly. You have McMaster, I assume Mattis, some of the old bulls, like trying to run a troop increase at him, and he's rejecting it over and over again with the backing from campaign aides. What are you hearing about this effort to get him to sign

off on a troop increase? And what should we expect in terms of some sort of strategy from them or a timeframe for it? It's totally unclear when we're going to get a answer from the president as to what kind of decision he's going to make. This has been an incredibly long and painful policy review for this White House. It's had starts and stops. And in many ways, it's kind of hitting some of the key national security officials within the administration who are, in many ways, you know, people jokingly refer to them as the adults in the room because they are so experienced in an administration that's full of people who are kind of new to these positions. And even the national security officials are sort of at odds with each other on this. And what I mean by that is it was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who really hit the brakes hard back

in May on what was a ready-to-go proposal from the National Security Advisor on what to do about Afghanistan from a counterterrorism point of view in terms of what the U.S. involvement in America's longest war should be. And the Secretary of State wasn't okay with what was presented to him. He didn't think he could sell it. From sources I speak to, some of this had to do with the fact that this was not including necessarily dollar signs and numbers on troops and costs. And it was more sort of what's our strategic view of America's involvement in Afghanistan. So then I went back to the drawing board, came back to the table just last week, presented the president with another proposal.

And that even, it seems to have the National Security Advisor to the president, who's typically sort of the last person in the ear of the president, giving them the strategy and proposals that the administration moves forward with. Instead, sort of having the Defense Secretary, James Mattis, and the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, teaming up with their own proposal. And really, it brings us back to an unclear place. President Trump really didn't talk about how he saw Afghanistan when he was on the campaign trail. I don't even remember him mentioning it, really, despite a lot of his discussion about support for U.S. troops. And that is where we have the most boots on the ground,

even if it is just in an advised and assist role. It is no less dangerous for American troops. So we're really waiting on what could be a really politically important decision for the president to put his name on a war that has bedeviled the past. Well, now he'll be the third president, but also a key part of what is the U.S. counterterrorism strategy, But also a key part of what is the U.S. counterterrorism strategy, given that it's not just the Taliban and its support for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but now the growth of ISIS there. And we have to see, is President Trump going to allow for Defense Secretary Mattis to put more than the 3,900 boots on the ground he's been authorized to be able to send out? Or is he going to pull back from that? Maybe look at the use of contractors, an idea that's been floated by Steve Bannon, one of the political advisors to the president. There's still a lot floating. Yeah, this feels a lot like Groundhog Day, the 2009 Obama Afghan review, where he was accused

of dilly-dallying and then faced all the exact same questions and same challenges. And fundamentally, the problem is no different. Just a quick follow-up on that. I mean, you have Tillerson apparently blocking this. There's also rumors of what they're calling a Brexit, that he might resign early in less than a year. Are you hearing anything about that? Look, this administration is rife with those rumors all the time about virtually everyone in the administration.

And I'm not joking when I say that. If anything, right now, while there is that buzz over how long will Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, be willing to be in a position where the department he oversees is getting gutted in terms of funding, is being sidelined in terms of many decisions, and he's fighting for influence, in terms of sidelined, in terms of many decisions, and he's fighting for influence, someone who really was a captain of industry before he took this job. It's a totally new ballgame for him, and he's admitted that, that he's used to being the decision maker,

and this is kind of a strange position for him to be in. It's not clear how long he will last, but so far he seems to be continuing to fight, to represent, at least in the Afghanistan context, a broader strategy, he was pushing forward more diplomats. And he was saying, wait, let's look at what's happening in Pakistan, too. Let's not just talk about boots and numbers. Let's put this together in a bigger picture point of view. But what I am hearing is a lot of pressure on the National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster. There are a lot of people gunning for him right now. There's a lot of rumor mongering out there. And in terms of pressure on key national security figures, he's got a lot on him. Well, now I think we've gotten through the fluff of the interview. Let's talk about substance. Have you seen Sean Spicer? Is he able to make eye contact

with the press corps? I have not seen Sean Spister today that the lights in the press secretary's office were off when i walked in there um around 6 15 this morning also have not seen anthony scaramucci the new white house comms director today but sarah sanders who stepped into the role that sean feister is um stepping away from been, very responsive, as she has been throughout the past few months of this administration. She's been pretty steady in this comm shop. She's been on the job, but have not seen Sean Spicer, though I'm told he was smiling on Friday when he walked out. Did he have a mini fridge in his hand? So you used to cover sort of the new york finance world what what do you know about uh the mooch what uh and do you expect anything to change with the white house briefing such a bad

nickname how can you let that stand it's not great i think it's cool yeah it's funny because like you said i i covered wall street for a decade i was at cnbc i was at bloomberg and so anthony scaramucci is someone who has been on my TV screen or, you know, coming on the networks I've worked on for years now. So I'm used to seeing him in that context. I mean, he's not, he's a, he was a fund of funds guy. He was a guy who bundled together hedge funds and sort of packaged that product so that investors could get a piece of what was promised to be a sort of high-flying investor. Margaret, can we just pause on what bullshit a fund of funds is?

How many times do you get to pay fees if you're investing in a fund of funds? Multiple times because you've got multiple funds within that. For people at home, it's sort of like imperfect, but it's sort of like a mutual fund where it's not just an individual stock. You're owning like a bucket of them through this one fund you buy into. The fund to fund is kind of similar. Sorry for interrupting. But it's a lower entry fee than buying into a hedge fund directly, which often requires a lot of money to even walk in the door with and a lot of percentages paid to the managers.

Right. You're right. It's marketing. It's a lot of sales. It's a lot of marketing. And Anthony Scaramucci is very good at that. He's kind of like the Donald Trump of finance in terms of being totally TV ready, totally confident, quick on his feet. But now he's got this real challenge of sorting out a communication strategy that isn't just about sales. It's also got to be about getting

everyone pulling in the same direction, which is something you don't often see within this White House. We've gone back and forth with a bunch of different reporters on this question, but are you in the White House briefings are still useful camp or the, you know, they've sort of outlived their usefulness at this point? Look, I have always gotten viewer emails or tweets like, what are you doing on your Blackberry or your iPhone? Why aren't you paying attention? You sort of forget in the front row of the White House sometimes when you're, that so many people watch these around the world

to try to get any kind of sense of where the administration's going. And the reason that we're constantly, you know, writing down notes and on our devices is because we're, in this administration, trying to cross-check with what's true, what's not, what's the latest thing this other individual in the administration is saying. So in terms of going to the White House briefing and expecting to get one encapsulating view of the White House position, you don't often walk away with that. It has become, it's always been a bit of political grandstanding on both sides. I will say, even as a member of television, you know, I sort of

roll my eyes when you have the same question asked over and over. But it is important to have the administration to be able to be on the record about key issues. And it's really going to come down to whether Sarah Sanders or anyone else out there can actually answer those questions. And that's often the challenge these days, particularly on foreign policy or anything that's not really in crisis and of the moment, it's hard to get a straight answer. So, you know, I'm geeking out with you because I get to talk foreign policy very often on the show. Another big thing that Trump promised during the campaign was repealing the Iran deal or getting rid of it, tearing it up, whatever. They just recertified it. But apparently it was every single advisor Trump has.

All the serious people in the room said they wanted to get rid of the they want to keep the Iran deal because it's working. And then Trump wants to get rid of it. Who do you think is going to win there? What should we expect to see going forward in terms of the future for this deal? I think it's going to be really hard if every 90 days, as the deal requires, this thing has to be recertified because, like you said, it was down to the wire. I mean, I know foreign diplomats, U.S. diplomats are like, yep, we're going to recertify Iran's living you know, living to the letter of what we signed.

They're not great actors. This isn't a friendship deal, but they're living up to what they promised to do. And it's like, you know what? Nothing's done with the administration, particularly this one, until the president says it. And that's exactly what happened. It was shortly before midnight that Congress was notified that the deal was going to be recertified, in part because there was this last-minute scramble that you're talking about and disagreement. And I think it's going to be really hard if this question is so frequent that it won't

be impacted by, you know, blowups like we're having now. I mean, we have another American that's been detained and sentenced to 10 years as a Princeton scholar. Tomorrow on Capitol Hill, you're going to have the families of Iranian Americans and other Americans detained there testifying. And this kind of constant headline or pressure from Iran, I think, won't stay siloed like it did during the Obama administration, where the deal was sort of sacred and everything else Iran did to misbehave was in another category, I think it's going to be very difficult for President Trump to buy into that, that they're promising taking this holistic view, which means even if Iran lives up to the deal, if we don't like what they're doing elsewhere, this deal's in peril.

And when I spoke to Iran's top diplomat, Shavad Zarif, just last week, top diplomat, Shavad Zarif, just last week, he was essentially saying that, which is, you know, it feels like we're under pressure and you're testing how far you can go for us to, you know, agree to stay in this deal. So related, you just got back from the Aspen Security Forum. It was remarkable in a number of ways. First of all, you had Trump's new comms director going out on TV on Sunday and saying that, you know, he doesn't know whether Russia hacked us. There's not unanimity of opinion and that Trump's unsure. And at the same time, you had the head of Trump's intelligence team saying absolutely Russia interfered in our election. You also had John Brennan and General Clapper, former CIA head, the former head of DNI, criticizing the Trump team in as tough of terms as I've ever heard out of them.

And I've known John a very long time. What was the sense at the forum about those comments? And did you get a chance to sort of talk with Trump's team about why there is this daylight between him and his top foreign policy team? team? Well, on the daylight question, I mean, you just heard Anthony Scaramucci on the airwaves on Sunday shows saying, yeah, the president still doubts that Russia meddled. I don't know that the president will ever be totally persuaded because I think this calls into question in his own mind. He can't help but see it through the political lens that someone is questioning the reason and what the validity of his win of the White House. He sees it in that context.

From the national intelligence folks, just like you said, out at Aspen, I mean, it was unanimous. You had counterterrorism advisor Tom Bossert. You had the head of intelligence, Dan Coats. You had the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, all saying yes. The data, the information, the intelligence shows that Russia has meddled and interfered, and that's unacceptable, and we're going to do something about it. But in the same context, probably because they know their boss has these, you know, personal views, gave themselves some

wiggle room, because all of them added in, but this kind of thing has happened before. You know, when they were pressed during some of these interviews, they did acknowledge, look, this was a new level of interference, and this is only something that the Russians are getting better at doing. So they acknowledged it's a threat, but it's a weird thing because you have what is becoming politicized intelligence in that context. And of course, on the other side of it, you had Brennan and Clapper, the formers who looked so relaxed, all of a sudden the weight of the world off their shoulders to be out at a summit where they're not in those positions anymore and able to reflect. They're not in those positions anymore and able to reflect.

And they were just fired up, really defending the intelligence community, angry at President Trump for questioning them and questioning basically their patriotism, they said, and really saying this is something that needs to be taken seriously. And Director Clapper, who is always so buttoned up, I don't think I've ever seen him that fiery, ever. I would say anyone who knows John Brennan, too, you do not see John Brennan get riled up like that. But when you do, it's fucking scary. The Irish temper comes through. Those things are going to club you. That's for sure.

And really, I asked Director Clapper, you know, the Trump administration right now is talking to Russian diplomats about these seized properties that the Obama administration took these dashes after the, at the end of December, after the cyber hacking was confirmed. And he was like, what are we even talking to them for? This is ridiculous. These were intelligence collection facilities on U.S. soil. No, they shouldn't get them back. And yet those talks are happening. Bizarre. Margaret, thank you for taking time between Sean Spicer's goodbye party and Sarah Huffabee Sanders' latest round of lies to talk with us.

Take lots of pictures of the briefing room in your office before they kick you out forever. You guys miss yelling at journalists? No. But we still do. Haven't you seen our Twitter feeds? Yeah. We just subtweet them. Keep up the great work.

Thanks, Margaret. You guys are doing a great job. Thanks. Take care. Bye. Bye. All right, everyone. We're done?

I want to keep doing. More show. Tommy, do you have final words over there? Let's do some more show. No, I'm just going to go. More show. I'm going to nurse my grievances. We have another half an hour in this room if we want.

Bill told us that we have to be out. We have a hard out at 1045. Bill, talk in the mic. We want to hear from you. Where's Bill? I'm here. Guys, that's Bill, our producer. Bill Nesbitt. Bill Nesbitt, and he is the man. And I've been staring at him. He is my rock. He's my touchdown. You just want more studio time.

First news program in history where it's just like, well, we have so much time. Let's use it all. That's the advice. People love this part. This is for the true fans. This is the banter. Guys, go see Dunkirk.

Do you want to do a Game of Thrones recap too? Cersei going Maga. The foreign horde, says Cersei Lannister. It's probably going to work. That was my first thought. Oh no. Cersei didn't even win the popular vote. Bye, Bill.

Make Westeros great again. End of show. End of show.