Pod Save America - “Mueller purgatory.”

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

Barr’s summary hasn’t moved public opinion, Democrats haul out the subpoena cannon, Trump returns to demagoguing immigrants, Mulvaney’s political instincts are awful, and all the latest 2020 news. Then Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen talks to Jon Lovett about the latest legal assault on women’s health.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later on the pod, you'll hear Lovett's interview with Planned Parenthood President Dr. Lena Nguyen about the latest legal assaults on women's health. We're also going to talk about Trump's post-collusion presidency and all the latest 2020 Democratic primary news. That hurts to hear. We're in a post-collusion universe.

Colors are brighter. Lovett, how was the show this week? We had a... Emergency show. We had a surprise Lovett or Leave It to cover the Mueller news with Emily Heller, Jameel Smith, and Mitra Juhari. We had a great time. We had breaking down the Bar book report.

Check it out. Really, really great episode. Tommy, you got anything to say about Pod Save the World? We talked about Brexit. We talked about the fighting in Gaza. We talked about the claim that ISIS has been defeated. And then a longer conversation about the need to get rid of a nuclear weapon. So tune in.

It's a lot. Pod Save the World. Chalk a block with policy. Brexit, that's still happening? Brexit. Through the gift shop. It's a rolling disaster. Sounds like it.

Also, there's a few tickets left to our New England shows. Come see us. Pod Save America. Go to us. Pod Save America. Go to cricket.com slash events, and you can scoop up those last few tickets to Boston and Concord. Boston's going. Concord's going. They're almost gone.

All right, let's get to the news. We have been told that the clouds have lifted over Donald Trump's White House, that his presidency has been reset due to the fact that he hasn't been charged as a Russian co-conspirator. So let's see what the American people are saying. According to a new NBC News Wall Street Journal poll, 40% say they do not believe Trump has been cleared, and a third of Americans say they're not sure if Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing. Only 29% say that he's been totally cleared. That includes nearly half of independents who aren't sure if he's been cleared of wrongdoing and about a quarter of both Democrats and Republicans. A Washington Post poll found that only 32% say Trump has been exonerated on obstruction,

while the public is evenly split on whether Trump committed wrongdoing in terms of Russian interference. In a CNN poll last week, a majority, 56%, says the president and his campaign have not been exonerated of collusion, but that what they've heard or read about the report shows collusion cannot be proven. Also, the 43% who say the president has been exonerated is about the same as the 42% who said that in an earlier CNN poll that Trump's campaign didn't collude with Russians, suggesting that the summary letter released last Sunday did little, if anything, to move public opinion on this matter. Trump's approval rating also has not really moved. Guys, what do these numbers tell you?

So I think there's a reason to be cautious. One thing that is also true about polls like this is it does take time. Polls are lagging indicators. It takes time for the information to move through the first level of people paying attention very closely all the way to people that aren't paying attention at all. That said, I think it does reflect the way the coverage played out because of the Barr letter. the coverage, the way the coverage played out because of the bar letter, right? There was a, the coverage was really about, you know, was the president vindicated on collusion? Maybe. Was the president vindicated on obstruction? Absolutely not, right? I think that it's a fair reading of the kind of 30,000 foot view of the coverage. But I mean, it's, I thought it was

most interesting that the public opinion is accurate according to the information out there. Right, right. And the other thing about it too is that like these are polls taken at a very strange moment that will only exist for between two and three weeks between the bar, between finding out that Mueller is done and seeing some actual text by Mueller. And we don't know exactly what we'll see or when we'll see it, but we are in a kind of liminal phase of the Mueller report. So I think it's interesting. I think it speaks to the importance of the fight we're having right now about keeping the focus on getting the actual document. And it speaks to the fact that as of right now,

it's playing out as you'd expect. Mueller purgatory. Yeah. I think the most important part of the poll. I think the most important number in these polls is that 80% of the country wants the full report to be released. That's the key here. So we need to just keep hammering on that.

It's also a reminder of how hard it is to get something to break through, like, across the country. This is still mostly a D.C. story. There's a bunch of people who really aren't sure. So the Barr book blurb, the news of it broke along partisan lines. And, like, that should no longer surprise us on literally any issue. And it's going to take a lot for Democrats to break Trump's stranglehold on his basis, understanding of any issue because he has a,

uh, right wing media apparatus at his disposal all day, every day called Fox news. And then all the shit that's worse to the right of it. Um, and so our goal has to be to get full access to the Mueller report, uh, and then continue with additional oversight to figure out like what salient details are in there, what things we should be talking about in general.

Because the numbers, they're going to move. It's a lagging indicator. It's going to take some time. But it's good to know that the early panic that the shitty, shitty first reports that said he was exonerated didn't totally penetrate. Yeah. said he was exonerated, didn't totally penetrate. Yeah, I mean, if you watched Fox News, if that's how you get your information or you get your information from right-wing media,

you think he's exonerated and everything's wonderful. If you watch CNN, MSNBC, the networks, if you read the New York Times, the Washington Post, you probably come away with a more nuanced view. Or these numbers also say that since there's a lot of Americans who aren't sure, that this isn't an issue that is really breaking through yet. So maybe they watch this in the background, but this is not what people are thinking about every day of their lives.

Yeah, I mean, it's worth remembering, right? Like people who pay attention closely like us were awaiting not only the Mueller report, but aware of someone named Bill Barr and his involvement, his previous views, right? Like there are a lot of people who never heard of Bill Barr, right? You don't necessarily know who the attorney general of the United States is. It's not someone, he's not someone that's been very prominent. He was just confirmed. He's not a star yet. He's not, listen, that he's a, let's call Bill Barr what he is, a rising star. A star has been around since Reagan. Not until he does his duet with Trump on stage at the big event will he finally get his due.

So someone you've never heard of has a report that's a mixed bag. Like, I don't know what you take away from that, but it certainly makes sense that you wouldn't be totally sure. Yeah, I think Tommy's point is important here, which is like, and that what these numbers should tell Democrats is forge ahead with doing whatever's necessary to get this report. And there's a report this morning, Monday morning, that Democrats are preparing to subpoena the full report, the evidence, the underlying evidence, and trying to get all the goods. So they have wheeled out the subpoena cannon.

The subpoena cannon. Yeah. They've lit the fuse. Well, I'll say like Nadler's hand with a little spark above the fuse waiting to light it. Yeah. I mean, one of the other polls, I think it was ABC, Wall Street Journal, 50, or sorry, ABC, Washington Post, 51% said the findings made no difference in their vote. That's significant. But also interestingly, 54% say Congress should not begin impeachment hearings. So I'm clearly Pelosi has known this for a long time. A lot of more

moderate members have known this. So, you know, all data points to be aware of, but not necessarily let us drive our actions. Yeah. You got to wonder who the voters are out there who are thinking to themselves like, you know, I was so, so on Trump. I'm not sure if I'm going to vote in 2020, sort of waiting to see how deep this collusion or obstruction really is. Well, you know, it actually, that's a good point too, because like, I think as we get further away from the weekend of insanity, temp title, you sort of start to say, OK, what actually happened? And I think what actually happened is the Mueller report didn't fundamentally change the dynamic in the country. Now, it could have, right? Had he produced something?

It still may. Still may, right? Depending on what's in the actual report. But the fact that as of right now, like we haven't seen, there weren't new indictments. There wasn't any new revelation, at least in the Barr memo. It kind of means that where we are is at a status quo ante. What's the status quo ante? Most Americans don't like Donald Trump. Most Americans aren't planning to reelect Donald Trump. Most Americans are very suspicious of Donald Trump and his criminality. Right. Like sort of we're kind of left where we were before this, where we started, right? It didn't help us too much. But as of right now, based on these polls and what we've seen so far, it didn't hurt us either. And didn't Republicans have not broken ranks in any way, shape or form? Nor would you expect them to based on what we've read so far. But I mean, a lot of people have drawn the comparison between this report and the broader issue with Iran-Contra and the way Republicans just hunkered down

and battled it out and didn't give a shit about bad headlines until they ultimately pardoned all the wrongdoers. I thought that was an interesting piece by Jamel Bowie, I think. Yeah. And yet, as we look ahead towards 2020, we remember that in 2016,

a significant chunk of Americans voted for Donald Trump, even though they highly disapproved of him. Yeah, there was a poll. That's a good point. That's a warning sign. There was a poll that I think that Meet the Press put out that said basically like above 50 percent of Americans are very uncomfortable voting to reelect Donald Trump. And I wanted to just quote and be like, but they're going to do it anyway. You know, it's like there is still that that that possibility that's always worth keeping in mind. So now that Trump's presidency has been reset, he's trying something brand new, demagoguing immigrants.

After mocking asylum seekers as part of a, quote, big fat con job during a speech last week, the president is now threatening to deal with increased border crossings by closing the U.S.-Mexico border completely and cutting off assistance to three Central American countries where the migrants and asylum seekers are coming from. What would it mean to completely close the border? Well, Mexico is our third largest trading partner. So it would be incredibly disruptive. A half a million people, half a million people legally cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day via Texas ports of entry alone. There's $611 billion, with a B, in cross-border trade last year. So, I mean- And that's just the Coke. Okay. So, the economic impact would be massive. I mean, like if a thousand trucks worth of produce and meats just rot and go bad, you don't get that back. It also, again, with all things Trump,

it completely misses the problem, which is an increased number of asylum seekers. Right. Well, that's the key there, right? I mean, what he's talking about is shutting down ports of entry where people and goods come in legally. And that doesn't stop migrants because what's happening is the migrants are turning themselves in to border patrol agents, many of them, as soon as they cross the border. two border patrol agents, many of them, as soon as they cross the border. And even where there's fencing and wall, the fencing happens a little bit inland from the actual border. So all they have to do is step across the border, talk to the border patrol agent and say, I'm seeking asylum.

And by law, they can apply for asylum. And Trump has tried to overturn that or say that they can't do that. And the courts have already told him he can't do that. So this would not do anything but create an economic crisis. I mean, trade specialists say that the economic consequences of a complete shutdown would be immediate and severe with automakers and American farmers among the first to feel the pain. Great. So like, I mean, every everyone thinks this is crazy. But again, like, you know, people thought that like sending American troops to the border was he's again, he's a raptor and he's testing the fences. But with the, it's worth stopping on this idea of him saying these asylum seekers are faking it. It's all a con job, right? Because obviously it's inhumane and despicable, but it's, but why is he doing that? And it's about sending a signal to his people to say, don't feel compassionate,

like fight that urge to feel compassion. And it speaks to, I think, what has made his immigration policy not just, you know, vicious, but also unpopular and unworkable. That like he's fighting against not only practical matters like trade, he's also fighting against the compassion even of his own people. He's trying to convince millions of people that follow him closely that are his base. Like when you see these images, you don't have to feel like don't feel don't worry. And you know, the White House pointed to a Washington Post piece where they said some asylum seekers have been coached, right? Or some some migrants have been coached to pretend to be asylum seekers, right? But what he does to his base is say, this is all of them, right? Of course.

When the vast, vast majority are escaping violence, are escaping brutality, are trying to get here because, you know. I mean, in 2015, Doctors Without Borders did a survey. This was when Donald Trump was still a little Fox and Friends fever dream, right? And they found then that 39% of Northern Triangle migrants, so Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, left home because of threats of physical harm. So that's an enormous reason why there's migration. And now the other piece of the puzzle here is he wants to cut off all assistance to those countries. So money designed to improve the situation on the ground, create job training, community policing, like basic infrastructure to

keep people safe. And there is evidence that these programs actually reduce violence, which reduces immigration. So like, I think you have to step back and say, okay, why are we doing two things that are either self-defeating or just stupid? One, he's an idiot and he's cruel. I think that's always an option. Or two, he wants the crisis to get worse. He wants to run on this crisis. He wants press attention to focus on drastic actions, no matter how dumb or self-defeating it might be. And that's what is going to be his campaign in perpetuity. And we saw it with the caravan. We saw it in 2018.

We saw it in 2016. So I think we need to go on offense as soon as humanly possible. And the press needs to figure out how to cover stupid shit like this that we all know is not actually going to improve the problem. Well, as you point out, I mean, this is obviously the issue that Trump keeps coming back to. It's the issue he spends the most time on in his stump. There's going to be a new caravan or two every month between now and the election. How much should Democrats engage on this and what should they say? Tommy, you made a point the other day when we were talking about this, that one thing Democrats could start saying is that, you

know, Trump just, he hasn't fixed the problem. Like's a broken immigration system, and he's made it worse. He acts like he got elected yesterday. And at some point we need to say, you've been president for two plus years, and you have failed. You have failed to deal with the immigration problem. Things have gotten worse. You can't control the border.

The one thing you promised you would do to build a wall, to stop illegal immigration, you have failed that. You are a failure as a president on this matter and on all others. So we need a new approach. And I think that this will probably be a tough sell, but you lay out a program where you work with countries to stop undocumented migration before it starts by making them more safe. So some of the funding and assistance we talked about. We stopped talking with the stupid wall, but we actually used technology and other smart border

fencing to deal with the problem. And then, you know, you probably make a big values point about family separation and leading with our values and being a nation of immigrants. And like, I don't know that that would work. Foreign aid is not an easy sell. It's not a popular program. But if you're telling people we're either going to spend half a billion dollars on a wall in the middle of the desert that you can get over with a ladder or half a billion dollars in countries to try to make it so people don't want to leave them. Maybe you can make that argument. I don't know. Some people are trying. I know Beto O'Rourke's trying. Castro is trying. So, but we need to go on offense about this. Like you can't sit back and just say no wall, no fence and let him hammer us until election day. Yeah. I think the point

that Democrats don't make enough is we always say that his immigration policy is cruel, which it is, but it's also dumb. Right. It doesn't work, you know? Right. Like, what's your inhumanity gotten us?

Right? You know, you rip children from their parents to try to dissuade people from coming. They're still coming. You pretend you're building a wall, but you don't.

Yeah, you act as though you're changing the rules and making it harder to be here. You've unleashed ICE to make life miserable, to introduce even greater kind of mercurial threats, like just sort of unrelenting, unpredictable threats into the lives of undocumented people

who we told to come here to get the jobs that were waiting for them. And yet border crossings are up. Asylum claims are, they're down. They're not at a record level that they once were, but they're up. Like these are, you claim, they're down, they're not at a record level that they once were, but they're up. Like these are the, you know, you claim that our humanity was, we couldn't, we had too much humanity at the border. And what has inhumanity gotten us? It's made everything worse.

So even though Trump won as an immigration demagogue in 2016, part of his appeal was also this faux populism where he pretended that he was going to break with the Republican Party on economics. He did do that on trade. He didn't do it anywhere else. He gave rich people a tax cut. He tried to take away people's health care. And it went very badly for his party in the 2018 midterms. And yet, over the last few weeks, Trump's administration has renewed their assault on the Affordable Care Act, which they want to eliminate, and they have released a budget that proposes massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, disability insurance, Meals on Wheels,

and famously last week, the Special Olympics. Republican strategists and some Republican politicians are reportedly very nervous about this strategy. Should they be? And what does it say that Trump ended up backtracking on the Special Olympics cuts and the cuts to Great Lakes restoration and also saying that now he wants to be the party of health care? He loves deep lakes. How much money do you make as a Republican consultant to tell Republican politicians that you're nervous about cutting the Special Olympics?

What is that, five grand a month? What do you get to tell people not to cut the Special Olympics? I think Special Olympics plus health care plus all the other stuff, Mike Murphy looked at all of it, who's a Republican consultant, and said, we are diving into the wood chipper. I mean, like, this is the message we used against Mitt Romney. This is the Paul Ryan Freedom Caucus Tea Party vision of the Republican Party. Mick Mulvaney is in there doing whatever the hell he wants because Trump doesn't know anything about budgets or policy beyond what he sees on Fox & Friends. And so I do think, like, they have handed us a gift with these crazy, crazy proposals. One, just stepping back for a minute, like not to dump on the press today, but I also

don't get how Trump gets away with telling reporters that he's contradicting his own staff. Like Betsy DeVos works for you. You run the Department of Education. You don't you own this shit, man. You don't get to blame her, especially when she's out there backgrounding the press saying that actually Mulvaney in the White

House pushed to zero out the Special Olympics for the third year in a row. Right. First of all, it's funny. Obviously, I had no idea. I'm very much not connected to the running of my own government. I've handed off basically everything except TV appearances to Mick Mulvaney, a noted straight-up right-wing nut, who I put in charge of basically three branches of my

administration. But this is like a baseline now that we give him. It's like, oh, well, obviously he's not connected to the running of his government. He doesn't read budgets. He doesn't know that. As if that's okay. Can you imagine if one of the departments, I mean, this always just happened in the White House. Obama used to say like – actually, I remember he said that Bob Gates once gave him advice and said, as president, if there is someone anywhere in the federal government in any agency and they fuck up, it's your fault. Of course. That's just the way it is. And the idea that because it's like Betsy DeVos over in the Department of Education, which as you point out, it wasn't even because it was fucking Mick Mulvaney in his own White House pressing for it, is crazy.

But I think, like, this is – Democrats should be talking about these cuts every single day. Every presidential candidate, it should be part of their message. They should all be saying it. We should be running fucking ads about this. We should be running digital ads. We should be all over Facebook about this. Where have you gone, liberal superpacks? I mean, our nation turns its...

Where's Dan on that superpack of his? I got a lot of eggs in the Dan Pfeiffer superpack basket. Yelling at the Thursday pod. And look, we were saying this on Thursday, too. Bring us answers, Dan. We have been telling everyone, like, you know, Democrats need to propose what they're for and not just run against Trump and stuff like that. Yes.

To a point. But these budget cuts, I am telling you, are politically deadly for the Republican Party and for Donald Trump. It is, as you said, Tommy, it is how we won an election against Mitt Romney when Barack Obama's approval rating was in the mid-40s and the economy wasn't back yet in 2012. We talked about his plan to cut Medicare. We talked about his tax cuts. We talked about the fact that he was a rich guy who wanted to keep cutting taxes for rich people and not everyone else. It is the way that Democrats can win elections, and we have to start talking about it. Another little hobby horse on this. Like over the weekend, Mulvaney was out on a lot of shows, and they were again getting asked about their efforts to completely do away with the Affordable Care Act and what it would mean for people with preexisting conditions.

And on one show, Jake Tapper pressed Mulvaney on this point and really went after him. But on ABC, he was allowed to say, oh, no, no, we're going to take care of people with pre-existing conditions and that there was no rebuttal to that. I mean, the point is not, we're not arguing that somewhere along the way they won't put in writing, oh, yes, we'll be great. Everyone with pre-existing conditions will be taken care of. The point is that you will be allowed to jack up rates to completely unaffordable levels if you have a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies will be allowed to. And so, like, my guess, I'm just getting at the press needs to get more sophisticated about these really important policy points and not let Mick Mulvaney spew propaganda on ABC News this week. Well, it's also, you know, this is what they

tried to do in 2018, and I think mostly not effective, although I think Claire McCaskill should still be a senator, if not for the fact that I think Hawley had some success in sort of muddying the waters here. Like, they come out for lawsuits

that would just get rid of the Affordable Care Act. There's no replace, right? Just a lawsuit, it would get rid of it. So the pre-existing condition protections are gone. 20 million people lose their care. All the problems, right? And then they say, but I'm not for getting rid of pre-existing conditions. I'm for this policy, a policy not in any bill, no possibility of it being passed recently. And the Republicans have played that game for a long

time. I mean, it's part of the reason why they weren't able to pass something when John McCain gave his famous thumbs down. They were all for repeal. They could not rally behind a replacement, but don't worry. That replacement will be magic. It will manage to get all the Republican votes you need while doing nothing bad and everything good. Yeah. It's not great. But it's an issue that Democrats should be talking about every day.

It's shocking that Donald Trump is making – like I'm sitting here like Donald Trump's going around – like how many different times can you touch this part of the stove? You know, I think it's hard to get in Donald Trump's head, but I think he saw what happened in 2018. He saw how health care has bedeviled him. And much like we talk about immigration and say Democrats can't just avoid this issue because it's a tough issue. He's looking at health care and saying, I've actually just got to I've got to engage because they're going to talk about it all the time. I guess, but that wouldn't lead me to then change my position on defending the lawsuit and making it as easy as possible

for us to attack him on this. No, I mean, well, what he's betting on is what Lovett was just saying, is that he's going to go around offering a magical plan that is an alternative without being able to give any details about the plan whatsoever because it doesn't fucking exist.

Yeah, of course. But he made that harder for himself through this DOJ decision. The order is crazy, right? You would presumably say we're working on a plan. It's going to be a really great plan before. Exactly. Well, I mean, imagine this. Imagine Donald Trump saying the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, but it doesn't go far enough and what I want to do is improve it.

Right. Like then that's like and what I want to do is improve it. Right. Like, then that's like a politically smart thing to do. But you can't, because the fucking Republican Party doesn't want to do that. Well, of course the Republican Party doesn't want to do that. You look at, like, Graham-Cassidy, right, which was one of the Obamacare alternatives, right? And, like, Graham-Cassidy,

there is no overlapping, there's no overlapping the Venn diagram between practical Republican proposals that wouldn't make things worse and votes for a Republican proposal. So the only kind of version you can get is a Graham Cassidy that is kind of devolving health care to the states while also doing draconian cuts to public health spending. They can't seem to find a way to pass something Republican that doesn't make life worse for millions of Americans. Yeah, it's because they don't really believe the government should be involved in health care. All right, let's talk about 2020. On Friday, former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores said that before an event during her 2014 campaign for Lieutenant Governor,

Vice President Joe Biden came up behind her, touched her and planted a, quote, big, slow kiss on the back of her head. In a written statement on Sunday, Biden said that even though he's made, quote, expressions of affection over the years, he didn't believe he acted inappropriately. But, quote, we have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences and men should pay attention and I will. In response, here's what Flores said to MSNBC's Casey Hunt on Sunday, quote, for the record, I don't believe it was a bad intention. I'm not in any way suggesting that I felt sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. I felt invaded. I felt there was a violation of my personal space

and it's dismissed as if it's just Biden being Biden. No big deal. It is a big deal. Um, so is it a big deal and how should Biden handle this? Yeah. I mean, it's, I think the answer should have been, I'm sorry. Yeah. Start with that. I mean, you know, it's, if someone came up to me and kissed my head or sniffed my hair, I would feel like that was creepy, too. And I would want to know why that happened and would prefer an apology to that statement that was kind of tortured. So, yeah, it's it's uncomfortable. But it's also the power dynamics, the biggest piece of this. I mean, if the vice president of the United States makes you

feel uncomfortable in any way, you're in a really awful position because what are you going to do? You feel like you make a scene in the moment. Are you going to rebuke him? Because obviously, you know, people are already attacking her for just saying what happened. So yeah, I think if I were Biden, I would have been more apologetic. I would have tried to call her and reach out and apologize sincerely. But, you know, it's a tough story to read. Yeah, you know, first of all, I think the way Flores has laid this out, like I just have a lot of respect for her honesty and her integrity and her care and saying, here is why I'm doing this. Here is why I think it's really important. And I think she's right.

And, you know, she was made to feel uncomfortable. And I think for Joe Biden, who is a touchy guy, right, with men and with women, I think he would look back and say, I was affectionate with people my entire career and no one said anything. I didn't know I was making people uncomfortable. I never thought there was anything wrong with it. But one of the things we're doing now is realizing that actually people didn't know they could say something and maybe they couldn't because you were more powerful, because you were famous and you learned a bad lesson over a long period of time in which you treated people in a way that made them feel uncomfortable, not with bad intentions, as even Flora says, but with a lack of an

understanding about the boundaries that weren't drawn for you, that you didn't know you were supposed to draw, that you should have drawn and that we're drawing now. And I think a deeper issue here, it is about the way powerful men treated women and invaded their space and treated them differently than they treated men. That is a generational divide. That is something we're grappling with right now. It is a big question for him to grapple with as he embarks as a presidential campaign. And I think it's probably this conversation was inevitable. And I think that the way Flores has laid this out puts a really important question to Joe Biden and he has to answer it.

Yeah. I mean, I think two things can be completely true. One is that he is an affectionate guy who is unusually touchy to both men and women and has been over the years and had no bad intentions. And like you said, never thought he'd anything wrong. That can completely be true. It can also be very true. And it is that Lucy Flores felt uncomfortable and invaded because of that power dynamic and because he did that. And, like, I don't see how hard it is if you're Joe Biden to, like you said, if someone came up and told me that, I would just call her, apologize to her, apologize publicly. Don't issue a written statement. Go do an interview. You know, speak about it yourself. And that's it. That's all you can do. And say that you're learning, but then give a full-throated apology. I don't quite get the statements that sort of elide the actual apology and edge right up to it, but don't actually say it. People do things that are wrong. You say you're sorry.

Just, you know, people do things that are wrong. You say you're sorry. Yeah, and I assume that part of it is that he has to get there. And I think he has to learn and understand this. And it's probably quite difficult, right? He's been in public life for a very, very long time. And now he's being confronted with this question about the way he's behaved for a very long time and not just with Lucy Flores, right? This is a quality that I think not something – forget thinking that there was something wrong with it. That he took pride in, that he made people feel welcome, that he was affectionate, that he was

loving toward people. And learning that that may have been making people uncomfortable and you didn't know is probably a really difficult thing. That doesn't mean he doesn't owe an explanation, certainly if he wants to be president of the United States. And I do think there's this, we are in a period of transition as I think everybody would recognize. And it really is about, as I think everybody would recognize. And, and it really is about, it's about seeing, it's about seeing women as equal. And I think part of that is by, is recognizing that even being affectionate with a woman who you don't know, and in a way that you think is being nice is treating someone differently than you would treat a man. And, and, and I do think that that is part of it and something we have to grapple with.

And it does come with the fact that he is an older person who is from an older generation. I was gonna say, the other thing we're dealing with here is the culture has changed very rapidly in a very short period of time. And if you are younger, if you pay closer attention to these stories, if you follow politics, if you follow this sort of cultural change, you are more likely to empathize with it, to understand it, to change your views.

I know there's a lot of people in our party, not just, you know, in our party, and older people, too, who probably look at this and say, I don't get it. I don't understand what's wrong here, you know? probably look at this and say, I don't get it. I don't understand what's wrong here, you know? And I see people already online being like, oh, this is like a political attack and what about Trump and stuff like that. It's like, no, no, no. Let's just, it's okay if you, you know, if you don't understand this, but like be open to the fact that this is a cultural change that we're having with that women like Lucy Flores do not come forward easily to talk about this stuff. And that when they do, it is because it was real and it bothered them. And if there was a power dynamic at play and just, you know, and people like Joe Biden can learn and they can grow from this.

It is possible. Right. And, you know, we've I've talked about this before, but, you know across, there's this question like, oh, do we need a new generation? Is it okay that older people, like people that have been around for a very long time, like Joe Biden, like Bernie Sanders, uh, that are, uh, that have been in politics for a long time? Is it, do we need a new voice? And to me, what I've always come back to is it's that the age itself, the amount of time they've been around doesn't matter. What matters is, uh, do they sound like someone that's been around forever? Do they sound like somebody who doesn't understand what a new generation wants to hear? And I think somebody... Can you grow and learn from your mistakes? Right, right. That's the test. So all this comes after a series of stories about how Biden didn't do enough to protect or back up Anita

Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings that he chaired, meaning he didn't speak up when the Republicans on the committee were attacking and insulting her, and he didn't allow three witnesses to testify who she says could have backed up her claims of sexual harassment. There were also stories the last few weeks about Biden's evolution on abortion. He's now a strong supporter, though as a Catholic, he wasn't always in the 70s and 80s. How much should all of this matter if he decides to run? So, I mean, there's, I think what's sort of become conventional wisdom that Biden is just not where the party is on a lot of issues and that he will be harmed by increased scrutiny of past policy positions on abortion rights, the crime bill, probably Iraq. And you could probably name a whole bunch more issues. You are starting to see some good reporting digging into all these areas.

And there's probably some truth to the conventional wisdom that this is going to be raised. He's going to have to deal with it. He's going to have to contextualize it. There's also the reality that Biden is still leading almost every poll. And not all of these policy positions are secret. So it's hard for me to tell now how much of this is driven by actual voter sentiment versus, you know, the thought in Washington as we wait for him to announce. To the broader point you made earlier, I mean, there's also a question of how much forgiveness you get from voters for evolving over time. I don't think we know that answer yet. Twitter is not forgiving. News reports are not often forgiving, but voters can be. So Biden is in this period where he is trying to decide if he's going to

get into the race. Clearly, a rival, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, is landing some punches on him in advance of that decision to try to prevent him from running. And I'm not saying that about the Flores piece in any way, shape, or form. I'm talking about these deep dives into his policy that feel very research-driven and, frankly, are important pieces. This is what the vetting process is. This is what it means to run for president. Yeah, I mean, just to understand the dynamic that's happening in the party right now is there is a lot of people, again, these are voters who,

they might be older voters, they might be more moderate voters, there might be voters who don't pay as close attention to politics as we all do. And they are seeing Joe Biden as the very popular vice president who was vice president for eight years and they liked him a lot and they still like him a lot and then they see these stories and it's sort of like well wait a minute he was like beloved for eight years I don't understand you know and so they don't it's not computing with a lot of people yet and I'm not to say not to say that this is right or wrong or whatever but I'm saying that's just the dynamic at play right now in the party.

And the question is whether that dynamic changes once he gets into the race and more people raise these questions about his record or whether people's views of him are sort of set because they have known him so well for eight years. I mean, like you said, Lovett, you talked about the poll, about people being comfortable electing Trump, whatever. If you look at the Democrats, people are most comfortable and excited of all the candidates about Joe Biden. It's not just name ID at this point. Yeah, I think that's right. That can change. Of course it can change. The primary is about choosing the person you want to be president based on your beliefs about who could beat Trump and what they'll do once they're in office.

As all candidates have to do, they have to explain how their record comports with what they plan to do when they're president. He has to explain his evolution on these issues. He has to explain what he's learned since the Anita Hill hearings. By the way, he can also put that in the context of having passed the Violence Against Women Act, having elevated women throughout his time in public life. So I think he has to tell a story about his career and about why it leads to him being the right choice for this moment. And that involves the good he's done in the past, that involves the mistakes he's done in the past, and that involves convincing people that where he is right now is where the party is and that he understands this moment and the kind of energy and enthusiasm and hunger for a different kind of politics from

Democratic voters. I also think just brass tacks. People are voting right now on electability, right? Like that is the thing you hear over and over again. I want someone who's going to be Trump. So there's a very good chance that people are going to look at his past record and think if you're the candidate who can be Trump, they will give you a pass on having evolved on an issue that may be very important to them even over time. Well, and the tricky thing there is so many voters are defining electability in so many different ways, right? Totally. Which we don't know. All right, let's talk about Beto O'Rourke, who formally kicked off his presidential campaign on Saturday,

holding rallies in El Paso, Houston, and Austin that turned out about 30,000 people across the three events. Here's the lead of Politico. Quote, O'Rourke cast himself as a crusader against moneyed interests that he said have corrupted America's democracy Here's the lead of Politico. a $15 minimum wage, ending cash bail, legalizing weed and expunging criminal records, a new Voting Rights Act, and automatic voter registration. Guys, what did you think of the kickoff? And what is Beto's strategy here? What is his bet in this race? I mean, I think it was good for him, for his campaign, it was good to have an announcement that was fundamentally about policy

and the contrast between him and Trump. That is much better than the early stories that were all spinning out of whatever Vanity Fair reported or whatnot. I thought the El Paso event looked cool. The three events in one day shows how frenetic the pace of his campaign is. It shows that he can get a big crowd. It shows that he can fire people up. His style to me comes off as a guy who just sprinted to catch a train. He's always like kind of out of breath. He's kind of intense and a bit yelly. I think he would be served well to slow down a bit, talk more, yell less. But I mean, that's a middling criticism.

You know, like I think that this was a pretty good weekend for him. And the message of going after concentrated wealth and power and lobbyists who are distorting D.C. is one you've heard from a lot of people. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie have been way out in front on this. But clearly, you know, this is something he has a record on as well. Yeah, I just want to, it is a small criticism, but I just want to, as a speechwriter and someone who's gone through people with speech delivery, I want to make this point. You know, Hillary Clinton dealt with a ton of sexism in 2016.

But there was a time where a lot of people were saying she shouted too much. And people were saying that that was a sexist criticism. Beto O'Rourke shouts too much too. And you know whose delivery is really, really strong? Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. For different reasons. Kamala Harris projects a lot of strength in her delivery. Elizabeth Warren projects a lot of warmth because she tells stories.

And I do think, just a speech writing thing, when you're delivering a speech, there is value in modulating your tone between yelling all the time and getting intense and quieter stories. Charlie Pierce, who's a really funny reporter, described it as a long run on sentences. Well, which was now that was and that was an Obama thing. Obama would do like paragraphs that were like one sentence long. But again, he was another one who learned to sort of you quiet down sometimes and then you go up. So speech delivery is a thing. Yeah.

That was just an aside. No, I do think it's good that I think it was a recognition of the need to be specific on policy. I still think, you know, these are, you know, he's sort of laying out a set of proposals, right? He's laying out a set of policy positions that say, okay, here's where I'm at, right? But it isn't sort of an agenda that he's setting, which is fine, right? He's at the beginning of his campaign. But, you know, look, we've said this about every, like launches matter, but they also don't matter.

Like now he goes and he campaigns and the, you know, the launch gets him some attention. That attention fades, the memory of the launch fades and now he hits the ground. So we've run out, like we've done through so many of these announcements and it kind of, you get to the same place at the end of every single one,

which is I liked it, we're Democrats and it was a well put together announcement. I felt, as I said, like I've loved every announcement video and I'm for every candidate for five minutes. And now they go and they hit the ground, they hit the gun running and they see what happens when they talk to people. Well, look, and I think this announcement versus how he kicked off, which was, you know, going, just going to Iowa, not really giving a set speech and having that Vanity Fair piece out is a lesson, is a political lesson on controlling your own narrative. Yeah.

There's a reason that you do a set piece and you have a message and control a narrative because you want to get your message out and you don't want to let the press. This was a lot. This was also a lot stronger than the video. Like this is for sure. This is much stronger. His secret weapon in this campaign is being unemployed. He can go to Iowa for seven days at a time and never leave.

And there is some real power and value in that. Like, that guy's going to get to all 99 counties in Iowa before July. But, you know, I saw that he was doing, I think, a six-county day or six-town hall day. It's okay to do five. Like, you're going to get burned out, and you're going to make mistakes when you're fatigued. And also, stop driving the fucking car, Beto. Oh, my God. No more driving the car.

Everyone who's in that car is unsafe. If you're exhausted, drive in the car. Stop driving the car. It's not just because he's exhausted. He's, like, distracted. He's on the phone. He's eating shit. Don't do that.

Make some fundraising calls. It's not good. All right, finally, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar called for breaking up big agriculture monopolies through stronger antitrust laws and enforcement during a multi-candidate forum on rural issues in Iowa on Saturday. Warren rolled out her agriculture policy last week, and Klobuchar made her first policy announcement of the campaign last Thursday, a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that she said would be her top legislative priority as president. Tommy, since you spent a lot of time in Iowa as press secretary, president. Tommy, since you spent a lot of time in Iowa as press secretary, how important are these agricultural policy proposals to Iowa voters? And what do you think about Warren and Klobuchar's

plans and what you've heard in the past from voters? I think that this is very smart from Warren to target corporate consolidation and the Monsantos of the world, these big agro businesses. J.D. Scholten, who is the guy who took on Steve King, the neo-Nazi white supremacist guy in Iowa, the congressman, he thinks, he told us this when we were hanging out, that the best way to reach rural voters is to talk about these issues because despite being a farm state, there are like miles and miles of counties where you can't find fresh produce. So he thinks that this is a real bridge issue to, you know, reach people. I think it's interesting that Klobuchar did this big infrastructure plan. It's something we desperately need. She would know that better than anyone from Minnesota,

where there was a literal bridge that collapsed like a decade ago and nothing has changed since. So I like these are both very smart policies. I'm also always fascinated, and we've been asking candidates about this, to hear what their first, what they'll do as president first, knowing that you only get one or two shots in that first term to do something big. And Klobuchar is really the first one who's basically put a jobs plan at the center. I guess if someone, I haven't heard anyone yet say the Green New Deal is their first thing, that would obviously count as a jobs plan too. But it is interesting. And it's not, look, the infrastructure plan she put together is along the lines of what Obama proposed. You've got the infrastructure bank.

You've got some public funding. You're leveraging some private funding, all that kind of stuff. But it is – yeah, it's interesting that that's her first big move there. Yeah. Elizabeth Warren talking about breaking up Big Ag. That is my ice cream sundae. That's your sweet spot. That is just – I could just eat that all day.

It's interesting, though. I think it's also interesting that Klobuchar went there, too, because she's a more moderate candidate. But on this issue, you know, she was in lockstep with Warren. Yeah, I also think it's also worth keeping in mind, too, that, like, even in, in part because of corporate consolidation, even in a state like Iowa, even in a farming state, the actual benefits of breaking up Big Ag don't accrue to that many people. But to me, it also is a signal about your willingness to take on the powers that be in the parts of the country where people see it every day, even if it may not directly impact their lives. So I think it's really important. And I'm, you know, look, it's something that I see as something that should be

more central to Democratic politics generally. And I just have been really heartened by the fact that Elizabeth Warren has been willing over and over again to get to be first to saying we need to take on consolidation. It's happening to take on consolidation in agriculture. And I'm I'm glad she's doing it. I think it's really important. Warren's just running a really smart Iowa strategy. It is. Yeah, that's another reminder.

Right. Like, sorry to interrupt. You know, like she's taking every selfie. She's taking every question, but she's going to rural counties and rolling out ag policies. And that's the physical location where you're actually going to get questions

about this from the media while the, you know, the national media that's following you day to day is going to ask about fundraising numbers. Well, that is a perfect segue. My last question on all of this, there's been a lot of debate over the last few weeks about how

the volume of media coverage doesn't always match up with the volume of policy proposals some of these candidates are putting out, particularly Elizabeth Warren. You know, we've all been on campaigns and now we sort of cover this stuff too. What do you guys think of that dynamic? What are some of the explanations? So first of all, I don't think it's that clear cut. I would argue that one of the strengths Elizabeth Warren has had in the early parts of this campaign is her ability to drive the conversation and draw attention because of policy. You know, her conversation, policies on tech, policies on ag, her wealth tax. These are all things to me that have managed to break through. And it is a reminder that even now, basically there have been two ways for Democrats

to wrest control of the microphone away from Republicans and Donald Trump. One has been massive protest in the event of inhumane policies, and the other has been bold policy, has managed to break through. So that's, I think, exciting. At the same time, it is one of the great challenges

that political coverage is so personality-based and politics-based, and that means in order to bake through on policy, you do have to go big and be bold and find creative and innovative ways to reach people. I'd also say it is quite likely that her conversations around policy during her events are doing her a lot of good,

even if there may not be as many write-ups of it, because ultimately she is going to try to touch as many human beings in Iowa as possible and having a full arsenal of bold, interesting policies that people will rally behind that shows what she cares about. Wears very well over time. Yes. Yeah. I mean, look, it's very hard to get covered on policy. Barack Obama, I remember we held this rural issue forum at a farm in Iowa, and it was supposed to be at all these ag issues,

and he said something like, have you seen the price of arugula lately? And it was the only thing that was played on Fox. No one cared about his detailed policy plan. You always get hammered on some silly thing by the national news, and it sucks. It's incredibly frustrating. But I think, like Lovett was saying,

Warren has done a very impressive job of forcing them to cover her substance because she's disciplined, she's smart, and she's rolling it out in this vacuum when no one else is. I think it will pay a dividend to her. It might not show up in the poll tomorrow or the next day, but long-term, the conventional wisdom about Warren is that she has the best policy. That's a good place to be. I would say this is a dynamic that is specific to the early part of the race. And you were just saying this, Lovett,

when we were talking about Beto. Like, so far, everyone has gotten press attention when they do their sort of announcement, whether it's exploratory or their videos or whatever.

And then they have all smartly followed up with an official announcement and then they get the second bite at the apple. And we've basically done that with every candidate. We've talked about their rollout

and then their official kickoff. It's working on us. And then the other way you get press attention is with announcing policies. And every time Elizabeth Warren has announced policies, there's some coverage. There's more print coverage than there is TV because TV is even more focused on personalities and bullshit.

And then when you're in a campaign, so after you've done your kickoff and after you've put out your policies, then you all sit around and you're like, fuck, how else are we going to get covered? Yep. And what the media covers is conflict, which is unfortunate.

And in a primary, most candidates stay away from conflict until the end when they start beating each other up a little bit. They cover controversy. So if something bad happens to you, then they'll cover that. Yeah, honestly, the best thing you could do is announce a new policy

while falling off a stage flipping a pancake. Just be like, well, we'll go double the inheritance tax and then you fall backwards. Yeah, and they cover things like, you know, fundraising numbers and new polls and stuff. I mean, we know how this is. And so it's now incumbent upon campaigns to find creative, interesting ways

to break through the clutter. And I think both of you made this point that's really smart. Some of that people will never see who are just paying attention to national media, because all of these candidates now are running individual campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina for right now, where they are trying to break through locally with as many voters as possible. And the strength they have in breaking through may not be apparent in the national media or the national polls for quite some time. It certainly wasn't in 08. And we're talking about the substance of Klobuchar and Warren's announcements in Iowa now. And I know like the local APY and the local news did, but the soundbites I saw on cable coming out of it

was them getting asked about Biden. And that is a perfectly legitimate question. Yeah. They should be asked about that, but that's what broke through. And that's, and that's, and that is a dynamic that has existed forever. It is arguably worse now and it gets worse every year, but that's, that's the way it can't just, I could just, cause I think there's a lot of people who are paying attention to politics really closely for the very first time. And if you see someone like Elizabeth Warren throwing out a whole bunch of policy proposals,

and then you see the media covering, you know, Trump's latest gaffe and, you know, asking everyone at the forum about Biden, you're like, what the fuck? But this is a dynamic that has existed in media coverage for quite some time. And it's shitty. I would also, though, I would argue, too, though, that like the media seeking conflict maybe – is not rooted in a noble motive. But actually if it provides an opportunity to draw contrast with each other in a way that are fair and sort of intellectually honest, then I think that that can be a good thing too. Like conflict and media is trying to stir up contrast to me isn't inherently bad. It's often bad because it tends to be about surface issues or about going after Trump or what have you. Personality.

Personality driven. But, you know, some of the worst moments in 2008, I think, were driven by personality-based disputes. And part of it, too, is, you know, it's like part of the reason they get personal as they get to the end is because they're looking ways to break through. Part of it is because they're tired and they're sick of each other. And part of it is because a lot of their policies become pretty similar. Yeah. And the policy differences between these candidates end up being somewhat small. And so therefore you have to magnify those differences.

And the media helps magnify them when you actually get into a debate with each other. And that is coming. Right. I mean, one of the biggest debates in 2008 between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was over the individual mandate, a policy that became a kind of central part of the healthcare debate, a policy he ultimately adopted. It was then thrown out. I was going to say, it turns out she was substantively right and he was politically right. Right.

But it was elevated to this big dispute in part because John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama's healthcare plans looked very similar because there was a broad-based democratic consensus. Okay. When we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with Planned Parenthood's Dr. Lena Wen. Our guest today is the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

She is the first physician in 50 years to lead the organization. Dr. Lena Wen, welcome. Thank you very much. It's nice to join you. So you're leading Planned Parenthood at a time when anti-abortion politicians seemed emboldened. Women's reproductive freedom seems newly threatened. This year, Trump announced a domestic gag rule in effort to ban funding for any organization that provides abortion or even provides information about abortion services. This past Friday, the administration announced their Title 10 grant recipients for 2019. Has the gag rule impacted

Planned Parenthood? Very much. The Trump administration's Title 10 gag rule will hurt the ability of 4 million people to get basic health care, to get cancer screenings, affordable birth control. And we're talking about low-income women and families, people who already face the greatest barriers when it comes to health care. And what the Trump administration is doing is to put a gag on doctors, which is unethical and illegal. It's preventing us from telling our patients full, honest, and accurate information and forcing us to compromise the oath that

I, as a physician, took when I became a doctor. And so this is why we, as Planned Parenthood, for us, this is the fight of our time. We will not accept gag funds. We will never force our doctors and nurses to censor themselves. funds. We will never force our doctors and nurses to censor themselves. We are fighting against the Trump administration through every avenue, including by suing them together with the American Medical Association because of this unethical and illegal rule. And we need everyone's help to join us in this effort. So just so for people that may be following this story, but don't totally understand what it means for there to be a gag rule.

So in order, according to this rule, in order to get funding to provide women's health care, doctors would not be allowed to even discuss abortion with their patients. So this would be the government coming in and telling doctors what they can and cannot say inside of their relationship with their patients. That's exactly right. It is a direct attack on the practice of medicine. It is politicians telling physicians what it is that we can and cannot say. It's not even clear what we would do if a patient came in and it were medically necessary for that patient to receive abortion care. came in and were medically necessary for that patient to receive abortion care. This is just not compatible with medicine, which is the reason why provider organizations representing 4.3 million doctors, nurses, public health leaders have come out strongly against this GAG rule, because it is we, as physicians, we trust our patients and we trust women.

And the majority of the services that Planned Parenthood provides are not related to abortion. So this would be a rule that would say if a doctor, so a doctor could not discuss abortion so that Planned Parenthood could continue to provide cancer screening and other kinds of services. Abortion care is part of the full spectrum of reproductive health care, along with birth control, along with breast and cervical cancer screenings, STI, and HIV tests. And we need to speak the truth about what it is that we in medicine know, which is that abortion care is reproductive health care, reproductive health care is health care, and should be treated no differently from all other aspects of medicine.

So this is only one flank of the assault we're seeing right now on reproductive freedom, on women's health. On Friday, Georgia passed, passed by one vote, a bill that the governor signed, the heartbeat bill, which is a ban on abortions after six weeks, because that's when you can supposedly hear the heartbeat of a fetus. That's often before women know they're pregnant, effectively banning abortion. There's been a spike in these kinds of bills and bans like this, including recently in Kentucky and Mississippi. Why now? Why have politicians taken this moment to attempt to pass laws like this? Well, there have already been over 420 laws passed in the last eight years that directly restrict abortion access. But now we're seeing an escalation in the number of bills introduced that are anti-women's health, anti-healthcare.

And the reason is these politicians know this is the time to be bringing up cases that could reach the Supreme Court. With Brett Kavanaugh on the court, there are already 16 cases as of last count that are one step away from the Supreme Court. And if any of them are heard, then we face the real situation of Roe versus Wade being further eroded or even overturned, which means that one in three women of reproductive age, which is 25 million women, would be living in states where abortion is banned and criminalized. And that means that for us who are here to protect women's health care and lives, the battleground is the states. States are the critical backstop. And that's why we are working with our champions across all of our states to introduce proactive policies that would

protect and expand reproductive rights. This is the will of the people. We saw in the last elections that women, particularly women of color, rose up and voted for the most female, most diverse, and most pro-reproductive health majority ever in the House of Representatives. We now have 25 governors and 19 state legislatures, including D.C., that are strongly in favor of reproductive health and rights. And we know that the American people want more health care and not less. That's why it's so important that we see this as the fight of our time, that reproductive health care must be treated no differently than what it is, which is health care. I want to go back to this Georgia bill for a second, just because

it is such an extreme measure. So obviously, it's an attempt to criminalize abortion. But could it also lead to investigations and other sort of threats to women in the event of even a miscarriage, right? How draconian do you see the outcome of the passage of a bill like this being? This is a major attack on women's rights. At six weeks, most women don't even know that they're pregnant. And we know the consequence of bills like this. The consequence is that we're going to go back to a time as we did pre-Rome. One of my mentors, who is an emergency physician, talked about how he worked in the ERs before Rome in the 1960s, and how there was an entire area of the hospital called the sepsis ward, where women went who had to seek unsafe abortions. And they were dying from kidney failures. They were dying from

blood infections. And at that time, thousands of women died because they did not have access to safe legal abortions. The idea that we could be returning to that time is truly terrifying. And we know that this is not what the American people want. And this is why with the ban on abortions early in pregnancy in Georgia, we saw that hundreds of business leaders and dozens of Hollywood celebrities sent a letter to the Georgia House Speaker and Georgia Governor saying that they will push for TV and film production companies to abandon Georgia if this bill is signed into law, because they understand that we're talking about the health of women, and the health of women is instrumental to determining the health of families and the future of communities. So you've talked about how important this issue is and how motivating it is for women across the

country. Do you believe a pro-choice position should be a litmus test for the viability of a Democratic candidate in the 2020 race? And what about Democrats running down ballot in redder states? Do you think Democrats should withhold support if they are anti-choice? Look, this is not about a party. This is about our core values. And our core value has to be that women's health care, reproductive health care is health care. That keeping people unhealthy is a tool of oppression. And that when we stigmatize reproductive healthcare, that becomes a tool of misogyny. What Planned Parenthood does is standard healthcare. We provide care for one in five women in America.

I was a patient in Planned Parenthood. So was my mother. So was my sister. We care for men. We care for non-binary people. Over 160 of our health centers now provide hormone therapy, and our goal is to provide gender-affirming care in every health center. What we do is health care. We are not the ones that made health care political. Getting vaccinations, medications, cancer screenings,

vaccinations, medications, cancer screenings, none of that should be political. But when there are politicians who have made access to the fundamental right to healthcare political, that's why we all have to fight back with everything we have. And I would urge for all of our elected officials to keep in mind that it's not what we're fighting about, but who we're fighting for. And who we're fighting for is all the millions of patients who come to Planned Parenthood to seek care. And we know that when health centers are forced to close, we know the consequences, that people simply go without care. The rates of STIs and unintended pregnancies increase and health outcomes suffer around the country. These are the battles that

we fight, and it is the fight of our time. So how would you advise Democrats to discuss sort of this fight with voters who are pro-life or unsure about how to feel about abortion rights? What have you found to be the most effective message in reaching more people about the importance of this issue, given how much partisanship there is around this issue now, given how emboldened anti-choice politicians currently feel? I would urge three things. One is talk about the will of the people. Support for Roe versus Wade as the law of the land has never been higher. It's at 73 percent. Sevent%. 73% of Americans support the right to safe legal abortion. Second is to frame our discussion around healthcare, because that's what it is. Access

to healthcare is the number one issue that motivates voters, and reproductive healthcare, women's healthcare, must be seen as the healthcare issue that it is. And the third is to talk about what we in medicine and public health know to be true, which is that we are at a record low when it comes to teen pregnancies. We are at a 30-year low when it comes to unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions. We know what works when it comes to improving health, for improving women's health. We know that it takes access to comprehensive sex ed. It takes access to birth control. We also know that legalizing abortions did not create the need for it, but actually it's something that's necessary in order to preserve the health and well-being of women.

We also have to talk about this Trump administration's pattern of taking away our health and our rights. We've seen that it's 2019, and the Trump administration is issuing rules to allow employers and universities to deny workers and students of birth control. And it's 2019, and we're still arguing about birth control, which is wildly popular. The Trump administration is cutting comprehensive sex education, which in my last role as the health commissioner of Baltimore, we filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for this, and we won restoring comprehensive sex ed in our middle schools and high schools.

And, of course, in appointing Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in the Title 10 gag rule, in additional efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration has further taken away health and rights. Healthcare and the right to bodily autonomy, these are winning issues for not only Democrats, but I believe for all politicians. And this is something that we hope that every one of our elected officials will embrace because this is the will of the people. It sounds like there's sort of two facets to that when trying to sort of reach beyond voters who consider themselves to be pro-life. On the one hand, it's the Republican attacks on access to health and the bodily autonomy of women. But it sounds like you're also talking about this idea that

by increasing access to comprehensive sex education, by increasing access to health care, by increasing access to information, you actually successfully reduce the number of abortions. Is that part of the case you believe politicians should be making? Look, over 90% of the work done at Planned Parenthood is prevention. We do more than any other organization when it comes to preventing unintended pregnancies. This is what we know from medicine and public health to be true. So if what politicians want to do is to reduce unintended pregnancies and the need for abortion, they should be investing in Planned Parenthood, investing in sex education, investing in comprehensive birth control,

investing in programs like Title X. If what President Trump really wants to do, as he said in his State of the Union, is to reduce HIV transmission, he should look to Planned Parenthood. Last year, we provided over 740,000 HIV tests. We have PrEP and PEP in over 40 states in this country. This is the work that we do. It's prevention. It's keeping people healthy. And keeping women healthy is also improving the health of communities.

We're at a time now when the rate of maternal mortality is higher than it was 30 years ago. now when the rate of maternal mortality is higher than it was 30 years ago. An African-American woman is three to four times more likely to die in childbirth than a white woman. A woman in Georgia is 10 times more likely to die than a woman in California in childbirth. There are huge disparities in our health care. What Planned Parenthood is doing every single day is to provide care to everyone, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. And if our elected officials are truly committed to improving health care, they should be investing in us because we are the ones who are delivering care through over 600 health centers all across the country. So for anyone listening who wants to help in this fight against Trump's encroachment on reproductive freedom, what can people do? What's the most effective way right now for listeners who want to do something to protect Roe v. Wade to fight against these anti-women bills?

How can they help? Well, thank you for asking that, John. We need everyone's help in this fight. The Title 10 gag rule fight is our number one priority, and we urge you to join us by texting PROTECT10, which is PROTECTX, PROTECT10 to 22422. So text PROTECTX or PROTECT10 to 22422. Also, we would love to have you join our ever-growing number of supporters. We have 12 million supporters and strong and growing who are dedicated to the idea of protecting bodily

autonomy, to protecting our health, our rights, and our futures. So we hope that you can join us. And it's at this time when we cannot look to anyone else. We have to look to us. The cavalry is not coming. We are the ones that we've been waiting for. Dr. Alina Nguyen, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks to Dr. Alina Nguyen for joining us today.

And we'll talk to you guys later. Thank you.