Pod Save America - “Our American Apology Tour.”

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

Trump reveals the racism at the heart of his immigration policy, cancels a trip to London to avoid protests, and buys a porn star’s silence. Pod Tours the World wraps up with a live show in London where Jon, Jon, and Tommy breakdown a shithole of a week. 

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🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 What a nice reception. Lovett didn't even have to yell at you. No. I was going to call this a shithole. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Jon Vitor. All right. A few coming attractions for those of you listening at home. Tommy's got his very first Pod Save the World show, live show on Wednesday, January 17th in Los Angeles. It'll be a conversation with Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, and the director of a new documentary about Obama's final year in office. Check that out if you happen to be in Los Angeles.

DeRay McKesson and the Pod Save the People crew will host a live show at the Lincoln Theater in D.C. on February 18th. Tickets are on sale now. Kruger Media has a brand new podcast that's number four on the iTunes charts. It's Ira Madison's Keep It. Please check it out. Subscribe.

Hey, you know what's better than number four? Subscribe to it. And find out. Maybe you'll find out. Lastly, we want to thank Democrats Abroad for being here tonight. Yes, let's hear it for Democrats Abroad. Thank you for being here. Thank you for registering voters outside.

And if you're an American living overseas, please go to votefromabroad.org. Please make sure you're registered to vote. There's a very small percentage of people, of Americans who are living abroad who actually vote. Americans abroad are not voting. And it's shameful.

I don't know how to find a stamp. Stamps.com. That's one way to do it. Okay. I can't vote. I'm in Dusseldorf. Yes, you can. Dusseldorf?

Who's that? All right. Okay, so this is the final stop on our American Apology Tour. We've been traveling throughout Europe trying to clean up the mess left behind by our shithole president. On Thursday, Trump announced that he won't be attending the dedication of the new American Embassy here in London. Wow. Thought we were thinking. Wow.

Popular opinion. So he came in his place. They're obviously applauding because they too believe that the price tag on the new embassy is too high. Yes, as Lovett alluded to, his official excuse was that the Obama administration sold the old embassy for peanuts. Of course, nothing about that statement is true.

And we know that because Trump's own ambassador, Woody Johnson, told us so. Of course, the embassy move was planned long before Obama was president. The new embassy is more secure, it's more high-tech, and it didn't cost American taxpayers a dime. Tell me, what's the real reason that Trump canceled this trip, if you were to guess? My guess, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, believes...

Sadiq Khan believes it is because you guys were all going to protest, to which Boris Johnson replied Boris Johnson called Svikan a puffed up pompous poppin' jay. Do people really talk like that? I don't know what that means. We had two embassies bombed in 1998, which mandated a whole bunch of new standards for where embassies can be located. One of them is that you have to be set back 100 feet from a road, so that's very difficult in downtown London,

so we had to move the embassy. The location was found by Bush's ambassador to the UK. Lou Sussman, Obama's first ambassador, did all the construction and whatnot. But, yeah, it didn't cost anything. So it's a ludicrous... It's one of those things he tweets and argues that is so blatantly factually false

that it should sort of be career-ending in a way, but it just never seems to matter. Well, it stems from his greatest insecurity, which is that people don't like him and don't want him here. Which is also, like, I mean, when is the last time that, like, a U.S. president felt like they couldn't go to the U.K. because there would be protests? I mean, what fucking bizarre world are we living in now?

I guess, like, one and a half back. So. But. Yeah. It's just so frustrating to see these things happening. And to think back to 2009 when we were sitting in the White House and story after story was written about whether or not Barack Obama had moved the Churchill bus to his private restroom or the basement or wherever it was alleged to be

and all the bullshit about how the special relationship was being severed. And then you have the US president attacking the mayor of London after a terrorist attack and declining to come visit for an embassy opening. Sharing phony videos of Islamophobic racists.

Yeah, like ISIS snuff videos, tweeting them out. I mean, are you guys still upset about the Churchill bus? Is that a big thing? Is everyone very upset about that? The White House went from having two Churchill bus to one? That's half the number of bus,

John. We dared to put Martin Luther King in the Oval Office. Tell me, what do you think this means for US-UK relations? I think as a practical matter, not a ton. Tell me, what do you think this means for US-UK relations? I think as a practical matter, not a ton. I mean, you have like a really tight working relationship on law enforcement, counterterrorism levels. I think both systems in both populations are smart enough to know that politicians come and go and that the relationship will be there and enduring. But, you know,

like meanwhile, Trump just decided, luckily, to not tear up the Iran deal quite yet. But part of what he's holding out is that he can work with Europeans to get even more sanctions on the Iranians to toughen the deal. And for that, he's going to need to do a whole lot of diplomatic

work. And it's very hard to do that kind of work when you're gutting the State Department and when you're pissing off your closest ally for absolutely no reason. So it's very hard to do that kind of work when you're gutting the State Department and when you're pissing off your closest ally for absolutely no reason. So it's just like needlessly offensive on this point. I think that Sadiq Khan should have said

yes to the opportunity to be on this show. You know, I believe there was a show after this called Love It or Leave It. I don't know if... There's still time. There's still time. Let's put another feeler out to the mayor's office. Yeah, you know, it's embarrassing that Trump is president. He finds new and interesting and peculiar ways to embarrass us on a daily basis.

And now he's got this new thing he's doing. So it used to be his embarrassments were diffuse, that what we were doing was something, that America was going through something shameful and embarrassing because we've elevated this bad person. And now he's got this new thing where he's like, I want to create specific bad press about America in countries around the world one at a time.

So he's like, I want to bring up Norway stuff, embarrass myself there. I want to come up with some specific London stuff. I want to tailor my insults and offenses to specific parts of the globe. Right. So that brings us to how Trump has been celebrating his first Martin Luther

King Day weekend as president. On Friday, it was reported that in a meeting with members of Congress about immigration, Donald Trump said that he'd rather the United States accept more immigrants from rich, white countries like Norway and fewer immigrants from poor countries like Haiti

or the quote shithole countries of Africa where people are predominantly black. Now this was a meeting where both parties came to Trump with a compromise on immigration that included more funding for border security, protection from imminent deportation for 800,000 American immigrants who were brought to the US's children and protection for immigrants from places like Haiti and El Salvador who came to the United States after fleeing natural disasters and civil wars and have raised their family here. So we know that Trump's comments are true because a number of senators who were...

You said that it's true that he said them. You mean accurate. That he said... I'm sorry. John got brainwashed in Norway. I've become convinced. He's persuaded me. Yeah, he's got you.

I'm no longer on the fence. We know the reports are true because there's a bunch of senators in the meeting, Democrats and Republicans, and Dick Durbin, the Democratic senator, he confirmed it, and a couple of the Republican senators sort of confirmed it, and a couple of the Republican senators sort of confirmed it, and no one

has explicitly denied it. Awful Tom Cotton came closest by saying, I don't specifically remember him saying those comments. Right, like, yeah, maybe Durbin had a comma off. I also just... Trump definitely said it. Like, it's the least surprising thing Donald Trump has ever said.

If, like, Dick Durbin came out of that meeting and said, Donald Trump said that we should increase the number of people coming to the United States from Haiti, we'd be like, that's a lie. You're making that shit up. So we've been traveling. It's not like we've been following the debate in the America media super closely, but I've seen a lot of discussion

centered around the offensiveness of the word shithole. Whether it's bad the president used that particular world, whether various media outlets should repeat it for their viewers. This was a debate. We had a very long Crooked Media editorial meeting about whether or not

we could use the word shithole on our air. Forgive us. I saw a Reuters headline just before we walked out here. It said, Trump's profanity delights supporters, horrifies etiquette experts. At which point we all threw our phones and walked out on stage. I got to tell you, I don't know.

I mean, if Emily Post was alive, is she alive? She's dead now. She did not make it this far. Was Emily Post a real person? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Does she live?

They don't know either. So my first question is, the whole conversation about profanity seems pretty beside the fucking point, no? What about the comments made them racist? Couldn't be more beside the point. It's so frustrating. We always get here.

You know, I think it's actually it's such a, so many different kinds of ways in which it's wrong coming at you all at once. Like saying, we want high skilled immigration, so we want high-skilled immigration, so we want people from Norway, not the shithole countries. Like the layers of stupidity and racism and generalization

that are sort of tied up in that, the ways in which it's wrong sort of overlap. First of all, I mean, it should go without saying, even before you get to the racism, people aren't the countries from which they come, and people aren't just the average per capita GDP of a country. Every country on earth has palaces and shitholes in it, and every country has people that are trying to escape destitution and want and hardship and

unfairness and injustice and what have you, and those people are not the cause of the crisis and misery they're trying to escape. So even before you get to the way in which he sees the world, which is racialized and rooted in assumptions he made as a racist white guy in Queens in 1960 and never changed, even before you get to that, the way he thinks about immigration is so just reprehensible and a thot. Yeah, I mean, it is the best spin they had was basically, no, no, no, no, he didn't call Haiti a shithole. He called 50 other countries. The entire continent of Africa was what he was referring to. That's the shithole.

It's absurd, right? To your point, it's like, I think all of us have been places or maybe live places that you call a shithole. It doesn't mean you then prevent everyone who lived in that place from coming to your country. In the U.S. media, obviously this is built around race. It's so self-evident, but there's this weird reluctance to call racism

racism, as if the sin of calling someone a racist is worse than being a racist. The Statue of Liberty practically says from whatever shithole you came from, welcome. My great-grandparents came from a shithole.

It's so funny because, and the media has helped with this, but the conservative media, Trump's allies, they've gone to the, they've gone back to like the Access Hollywood locker room talk defense, which is so Trump didn't use the wrong word. He shouldn't have said the word shithole. But obviously he's talking about places that are poor and trouble.

No, no, no. It's not what he called the places. It's not the profanity. It's that he wants to keep people out of our country, out of the United States, because of where they were born, what they look like, and how they pray. That's what's offensive about this. In this chapter, he said that everyone from Haiti has AIDS. He said that people from Nigeria, if they came here,

they wouldn't want to go back to their huts. By the way, statistics that show Nigerian immigrants in the United States are more likely to have a college degree, more likely to be successful. African immigrants generally are more likely to have a college degree than an average American. Which also, I mean, this gets to the bigger point, which is like everyone's focused on the shithole comment, but it is the Trump immigration policy has been exposed as all about race and nothing else. And Stephen Miller and people in the White House and Tom Cotton and

all those assholes, they've been trying to say, no, no, no, what we want is merit-based immigration. We want immigration based on skills, based on people who can contribute to America, people who educate themselves, people who want to work. But that's clearly not the case. It's not the case when you actually look at the statistics. How long do you have to go to school to become Norwegian? Actually, they did a study between Norwegwegians who come to the united states

versus like nigerians and the nigerians end up doing better and they end up having higher skills when are we going to get rid of all these loafing norwegians i mean the truth of the matter is american journalists at least fully calculated this since trump took office he has proposed policies that would be responsible for the displacement of nearly a million people of color from this country. And to me, it's so embarrassing and so shameful that we don't freak out about this, and the media doesn't freak out about this,

until Trump uses the word shithole, because that's like a vulgar word. But the idea that this immigration policy has been based on anything but race this entire time is bullshit. And by the way, absolutely. This was a bipartisan meeting of senators trying to come

to an immigration agreement, the contours of which we've all known for a while, some balance of legalizing and protecting the young people who came to this country by no fault of their own, plus some additional border security. And Trump, Trump in his addled racist mind in decline is like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is too lenient. Why are we... The adjustment they made to say that actually he wasn't referring to Haiti as a shithole, he was referring to Africa as a

shithole. It was him saying, why are we letting all these Haitians in? He was trying to change the deal on the fly. And so, by the way, the other piece of this is, Africa as a shithole. It was him saying, why are we letting all these Haitians in? He was trying to change the deal on the fly. And so, by the way, the other piece of this is, oh, that's just Trump. This is how he talks. This was a meeting where Donald Trump's racism, his specific kind of racism, he as a person, his personality disorder is scuttling a deal, making it less generous, maybe will cause the government to shut down. So all these people are like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's uncouth, he says the wrong thing, but ultimately, you know, there's good

people around and what have you. Donald Trump's racism is having an impact on policy every single day. I also think, like so much racism, it is racism, Donald Trump's racism is the kind that's based in this deep, deep

ignorance. It is the kind of racism where all you know about the world and about other races and about other cultures comes from the stereotypes that he sees flipping through the New York tabloids or watching Fox News or any of the casual

ways he gets his information as opposed to actually learning. You know what I'm saying? It's the sort of Stephen Miller view of America and Steve Bannon view of America as a bunch of descendants of European immigrants. And that he, Donald Trump, in this era is not getting a shake,

a fair shake as a white man because of minority groups. Look back at the election when he said a Mexican judge couldn't rule against him because of what he had said about immigration policy or the wall. It's all a piece of minority groups. I mean, look back at the election when he said a Mexican judge couldn't rule against him because of what he had said about immigration policy or the wall. It's all a piece of a puzzle. It's all been knowable the whole fucking time,

and yet no one's said a thing. And in case, so you get all these conservatives being like, no, no, no, it's not about race. It's not about this. And then in the New York Times, decides to quote a white supremacist leader who I don't want to name his name to give him more publicity, but he said Trump's defender should stop saying it's

about economics and security and legal systems he said quote it's obviously all about race and to their credit liberals point out the obvious so there you go it's rare you say I don't agree with that guy. It's rare you'd say this, but listen to the racists. I mean, the Daily Stormer, like the Klan website, said this showed that his views are closer to ours. Yeah. But that brings a question, like, why after Donald Trump, early in his career,

sued by the Justice Department for trying to keep African Americans out of his buildings, right up through the campaign, Mexico's not sending their best, sending rapists. The Mexican judge, Charlottesville, when he said that people who marched at a white supremacist rally were some good people. I mean, like, what else do we need to be able to call him a racist without some people being like, you know, some say he has racially provocative views.

Yeah. The New York Times had a sentence. It was something like the rough edges of race in America. Fraying the edges. Fraying the edges of race in America. Yeah, look, he is a racist. It's his natural instinct. It's been true his entire career,

from the Central Park Five to his building practices. This week, he was in a meeting about Pakistan, and he turns to the woman who's giving him information and says, where are you from? And she says, New York. And he says, where are you from? And she says, well, Manhattan. He says, no, no, no, where are your people from? And she says, oh, from Korea. And he says, then why isn't this woman... Why isn't the pretty Korean lady negotiating with North Korea? lady negotiating with North Korea. So, that's who he is. He doesn't know that saying that is

wrong, because it's what he thinks. It's how he, his, it's the way he's framed the world his entire life, and all these Republicans acting surprised by it, it's like, it's just a show. So, yeah, go ahead, Tom. No, I mean, to the answer to your question, though, is Paul Ryan, during the campaign, when Trump

said a Mexican judge couldn't rule fairly on his case because he was Mexican, said that's a textbook example of racism. Paul Ryan today, like, throws his blankie over his head and hides or, like, does whatever he does. So now that he's in power, they're all afraid of him. Yeah, so there's one other thing about this, which is that all these stories, like, is Trump a racist, question mark. They write those stories because they don't believe that they're able to tell the truth without a question mark. And we should think about why that is, why the institutions that the conservatives derive as liberal and biased and on our side of helping us every day,

why do they not feel as they have the editorial independence to just tell the truth on this? And I think that speaks to the white supremacy that allowed Donald Trump to succeed in the first place, which there is a big pool of American voters. I don't think there's a majority anymore, but there's a pool of American voters that we're not allowed to tell the truth about. And Donald Trump is one of those people.

He's one of those viewers. He's one of those people. And I think a question should be, how do we get that question mark off the end of those headlines? I don't know the answer. I mean, I think some of it is, like, we have to do a better job educating. Like, when we talk about immigration and we talk about the kind of immigration we believe in,

we have to do a better job of educating people and educating the country about the real truth behind immigration, right? You know, what we were just saying about the value that people, immigrants from all kinds of different countries in Africa bring to the United States when they come here. The education levels, the skills that they have, you know, why it's not...

I think, like, some of it is us doing a better job talking about it as opposed to just saying we're right. And now the media would need to report that too, but I also think that we have to pierce the ignorance in a way. So many nations have, a ton of nations have condemned Trump's remarks. All 55 African countries have demanded a retraction and an apology. Spokesman for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights called it racist. What kind of effect, Tommy, do these statements and policies have on our relationship with the rest of the world? There's sort of like a couple ways to think about it. I mean,

one is just sort of personal diplomacy. You know, like when we, when Barack Obama would go to a foreign country, we'd always think about like what cultural thing he could do, how he could get with students or regular people to try to build up the perception of America in that country as a good force in the world, just to build general support. And then there's the relationships on a bilateral level with all these various countries. And then there's organizations where we need countries to work with us internationally, like the UN or the UN Security Council. This hurts us in every instance. It's hard to quantify exactly how

much or what the real impact will be. But we ask a lot of countries to go along with things that are in our interests that are not necessarily in ours. When you have a population that doesn't like you, it's a lot easier for leaders to say fuck the United States. We're not going along with that. It's a demagogue at the other direction.

Also, these are personal relationships. You know, he's got a, there's going to be a moment in his presidency where he's going to have to call up the leader of an African nation and say, I need your help. I've got people stuck somewhere or I want to work with you on this problem. And there's going to be a big thing between them. It's no different than if, that if like

I turned to John and said, careful, this guy Tommy, this guy Tommy, is a piece of shit. Shithole car. And then I'm like, asking to borrow your car. Yeah, like a lot of our requests,

I mean, we do a lot of really important, We're doing a lot of really important counterterrorism work, for example, that is not popular. We're asking people to allow military hardware and bases and operations to be allowed. And this is not going to help with that. Yeah. And again, it's not just telling those leaders like, oh, I'm sorry, like you shouldn't have

been so offended by my vulgar remark. It was him saying, I don't want people from your country in my country because I believe they're lesser. That's what this is. And also, Donald Trump has never been're lesser. That's what this is. And also, Donald Trump has never been fucking anywhere. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't know anything about Haiti. He doesn't know anything about Africa. Everything he learned about Africa from coming to America. He doesn't know fucking shit. He hangs out with the same 150 other old white shitheads in Mar-a-Lago.

The detritus of capitalism aging out. He doesn't know anything. Now for a segment we call OK Stop. Here's how it works. We roll a clip. When we feel like it, we say OK Stop and we talk about it. Today on OK Stop, we have a series of conservatives, Republican leaders, and others reacting to to massaging dealing with trump's comments let's roll the clip now i would not have called these countries what the president did

but they are rank with corruption repression and of course it's obvious isn't it that they offer their citizens little hope of a better life. Okay, stop. This is a good example. There's a whole genre of Trump defender that they don't ever say, here's what he really meant. But they try to smart up what he did. Obviously, what Donald Trump was talking about was the political conditions inside the government, whether or not they're providing opportunities for their people. Yes, yes.

He was talking about how corrupt the countries were, which is why he doesn't want them to leave and come here. Yeah. Also, what she meant was, I would never say what he said in public. In private, I'm cool with it. Right. Words, they're hellholes.

Okay, stop. He goes, they're hellholes. Oh, okay. That's Laura In ingram's line thank you laura i'll never say s sh star t hole but hell hole the problem here was the word shit that is the the whole last 24 hours the root of the problem was the word shit. She's the person that they do. She's the reason that on, like, TBS, at the end of Die Hard, it's, um, you know, yippee-ki-yay, mother truckers.

It's for her. It's for Laura. It's in their media allies, who are forever feigning an affinity for the third world. Okay, stop. What? What is that? What are you talking about?

What is their affinity feigning hour? Feigning an affinity for the third world. Like... So fucking stupid. I would love to say, what do you mean? What do you mean you have an hour? Tell us what you mean. Does it matter?

After all, race baiting the president is so much more fun. Okay, stop. Every time, without fail, someone calls out Donald Trump's racism, the response from them is, oh yeah, you're the racist. Only a racist would call the president racist. You race baiting racist playing the race card. Who is baiting him? Did Dick Durbin have some African country's flag like a bullfighter? What happened

in this meeting? The fuck are you talking about? Nobody baited him. Race-baiting him is a private meeting. It leaked. God, it's so annoying. Yeah, you're catching me relatively flat-footed. I just flew down from D.C. and we were busy with the FISA vote

this morning. And so, you know, it is what it is. Okay, stop. It is what it is. Mark Sanford, he's thought about it for a while. He was very busy with the FISA vote that happened 24 hours before the story broke. Mark Sanford is about to go on. He called this break and he called Marco Rubio.

He's like, what do I say? There have been some crazy tweets and some crazy quotes, and I just stack it up, and it is what it is. Why can't citizens stay in their country and fix their country? Okay, stop. What? Who? What the fuck? What? Who? What the fuck?

Greg Gutfield's argument is, no immigration anywhere. Everyone stay where you are. Stay in your own fucking country. You're not allowed to leave anywhere until it's perfect. You cannot come out of your room until it is clean. Can't do that. How do you describe a country where it's impossible for you to fix it?

Maybe you don't call it that, but there's something about a country in which maybe you want to stay, but there's no way to fix it. I've lived in apartments like that. Oh, okay, stop. You've kind of created... Okay, stop.

Great stop. Great free-for-all. We know what it's like to feel like you live in a country that's fucked up and you can't fix it right now. We're dealing with this every day, you angry psychopath. Right, it's like, how do you deal with a corrupt government that

doesn't listen to the will of the people? His argument is, what else are you supposed to call it? Shithole is the only word. I don't know what else you call a country where people are leaving to go emigrate somewhere else. What do you call it? A shithole. Does he live two blocks from where he was born? Greg Gutfield?

I should have Googled it first I've called them that word everybody has lived in an asshole it's difficult I know it's difficult for the president because in many times you want to say what you're thinking yeah but in the end I know a lot of times he's saying what people are thinking. So, look, I always say judge the president. Guys, I don't know if you know this, but the rule is you can say anything out loud as long as some subset of humans might also think it. That's our standard for the president now. The president said something yesterday. He said a lot of things yesterday.

Which one are you talking about? That's a word I can't mention. Yeah, I read those comments later last night. said something yesterday? He said a lot of things yesterday. Which one are you talking about? That's a word I can't mention. Yeah, I read those comments later last night. So, first thing that came to my mind was very unfortunate, unhelpful. Okay, stop. Unhelpful. That was Paul Ryan, for all of you

listening at home. Unhelpful is such a perfect word for Paul Ryan to use to describe something so heinous. Like, I don't like him. He's just so browbeat. He's literally staring down at his sneakers like it puts the lotion on the skin.

He's like, step up, man. You're the fucking speaker of the house. Show some capacity for moral leadership. Take a stand. Mark Sanford beat whatever that was. Paul Ryan gets so offended and everyone who works for him gets so offended when we all attack Paul Ryan

because they're like, you don't understand the position he's in. Donald Trump just made the most racist comment imaginable and Paul Ryan, like you said, during the campaign, called him out for it. And now all he can say is, unhelpful. Quietly. So meek, that Paul Ryan.

Okay, so aside from Republican responses that weren't great, I do want to talk about the general media reaction. Washington Post is one of the best newspapers in our country. They have done fantastic reporting. Love the Washington Post. We'll continue to subscribe to the Washington Post. A lot of caveats what are you just doing this yeah because they have they have just written one of the worst stories i've ever read yeah the headline trump's vulgarity overt racism or a president who says what many think

here's a couple quotes we're just going to go quote by quote. Each side reacted more or less according to script. Ever more frustrated expressions of outrage from those who believe that the president had confirmed his racism and ever more fervent defenses from those who supported Trump because he says what many Americans think. So I really like that because it implies that simply because we've kind of gone through a few cycles of this, that somehow that it's become rote makes it less of a crisis and not more of one. Right. The fact that we repeatedly deal with the fact that the president is unfit for office and despicable and racist, and we cry bloody murder and then he's defended by a group of charlatans in congress again and again and again makes this too boring to be news so

so they go on to talk about the global condemnation they quote someone in the new yorker saying trump quote has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage and then the Washington Post writes, again, this is an analysis piece, this is not an opinion piece, but did he really? Is Trump's latest comment a showstopper or just another scene in a long-running production

that wins audiences through pugnacious behavior, profane language, and all manner of provocation? That is gibberish. That's actually meaningless drivel. What does win audiences mean? Like people heard it because it was so stupid? It's not a... And then, of course, they do...

It's not a production. It's not an off-Broadway production that's finally getting its chance at the Richard Rogers. Will the Trump show work in front of a bigger crowd? And then they go interview a bunch of Trump supporters of course who say that it's fine because that's what you do because if someone says

it's fine it's okay what would Donald Trump have to say for them to not go interview a Trump supporter and ask them if it was okay what happens if Donald Trump actually uses the n-word someday are they going to go find a trump supporter to say that's okay yeah maybe i think that's something to look forward to yeah it's just like it's why do they do this why do you think that the media feels the need

to continue both sides in this i think everyone's sort of stuck in this cycle we all failed so miserably present company included in terms of predicting the outcome of the election. And there is a sense that there was this unlistened-to larger swath of America that came out for Trump and that we need to find them, focus on them, figure out what they're thinking, and get at the heart of Trump's appeal.

The mistake that they make, and we talk about this a lot, I think, is the Trump fans, the people with the MAGA hats, the people throwing up the build-the-wall Snapchat filter, those are one subset of people. Then there's the Trump-Obama voters, there are the independents, there are the people that sort of hated both sides

and didn't turn out to vote. Those are the people that are going to move the election in 2020, and we should really be focused on. I also think it stems from this, you know, the mainstream media is one of the biggest fears that drive them is they feel like they must try to be balanced. It's not about truth. It's about balance.

And that if Trump says something racist and then because of that, a bunch of liberals and Democrats attack him as racist, if they agree, if the media reports it and says, yes, this is racist, then they have sided with the media reports it and says, yes, this is racist, then they have sided with the opposition. They have sided with the resistance. And then they give quarter to some of these Trump supporters and Republicans and other people who say that the mainstream media is biased. And as Laura Ingram showed us, they'll be accused of that anyway. So it's sort of like a silly thing to worry about. But it does seem to drive a lot of this reporting. Another question, like what does this mean for the actual immigration negotiations?

I mean, we lost sight of this, but the whole purpose of this meeting was, incredibly, Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed on this compromise, which they need to do by January 19th when our government would shut down because it would run out of money because that's how we roll in America. And now... Don't laugh at us you people have a have a queen um and now we have uh there you go a couple is that his for a love it or the queen are we gonna have an interregnum what's gonna happen very nervous to have an interregnum? What's going to happen? Very nervous. What was the interregnum? So now Trump has rejected the bipartisan compromise. He has set off this firestorm by being racist. And now we have, you know, four working days left next week before the government shuts down. There was a debate as to whether or not Democrats

should push hard on this issue. We came down very hard on the side that Democrats should push hard for the undocumented young people. We should push hard for this issue. We came down very hard on the side that Democrats should push hard for the undocumented young people. We should push hard for children's health insurance, even if that means that Republicans would end up shutting the government down because they didn't come to us for votes. This has gotten simpler now because Democrats and Republicans

came to Donald Trump with a deal and said, here's a deal that both congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats can get together on and pass and send to your desk a sign. It will meet our priorities. It will keep the government open. And he said, basically, fuck you.

Get out of here. And so if what happens four days from now, that they can't come to some agreement, if the government does shut down, you know, there will of course be the people that will try to find a way to blame Democrats for it. But the presidents are in the process of rejecting a bipartisan deal. That is what this

shithole storm was all about. It was interesting, the meeting, the previous meeting on immigration that was lauded because he didn't collapse in the midst of it, was largely Republicans and Democrats who had been working on the issue, brought this bipartisan package to him. This

one, his staff, that is full of real hardcore nativists like Stephen Miller, got stacked with really conservative members to make sure he didn't lose the thread and go along with the Democrats. And so in some ways, their efforts to manage him worked out. They're trying to push him to blow this up. So it seems like everyone's further backed into their corners and it's going to be hard to find a way forward here, which means shutdown. Yeah. And I do think it's just become a lot easier for Democrats to say absolutely no to any long-term funding bill that doesn't offer citizenship to the dreamers.

Because what the Democrats can now say is, we brought a bipartisan deal to the President of the United States to fix this problem. And he turned down that deal because he wants to build his wall and he wants only white people to come to this country. And the whole world just saw that. And so that's their position now, and they should stick by it. And if he wants to shut down the government for that, then he can shut down the government for that.

And that's Trump shutting down the government because he's shutting it down after a bipartisan deal was brought down. Yeah, I mean, that is ultimately, I think, why Paul Ryan says it's unhelpful. Yeah. Because it did one of two things. That was true.

Paul Ryan told the truth. It was unhelpful for him. Nailed it, Paul. Because there's now one of two possibilities. Either Donald Trump is going to cause a shutdown, which everyone will lay at his feet, or if there is a compromise, he gave some more leverage to Democrats

because if the government shuts down, it will be laid at Donald Trump's feet. Master dealmaker strikes again. Good work. One more story, and it is completely bizarre that this is number four on the outline uh the wall street journal yesterday reported that trump's lawyer michael cohen paid porn star stephanie clifford

whose stage name is stormy daniels 130 000 before the election in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter with donald trump that took place in 2006. Of course, he was married to the First Lady in 2005. Will this have any impact at all, this story? Or is this one going to go right down the memory hole in 24 hours? I don't know what to do. It's like, I try to think about a time before Trump that if it came out

that, like, Barack Obama paid off a porn star for a... to keep a secret, an extramarital affair while Michelle was pregnant with Malia. Do you think if that happened, someone interviewed Nancy Pelosi about it, she would just say,

unhelpful. Yeah. Unhelpful. Steve Bannon basically confirmed that this happened frequently in the Michael Wolff book he talked about how Trump's lawyer kind of dealt with or managed or paid off dozens of women who had various allegations against him so it shouldn't really surprise us it is appalling and then you know the most reliable defenders of Trump's agenda are like the Jerry Falwell Jr.'s hard right, utterly bankrupt

religious right, you know, conservatives. And I'm sure they won't give a shit, which is the only people who really should. Right. I mean, that's right. That is the hypocrisy of the evangelicals that have lined up over that spiritual advisor that's always on Fox News saying that, like, Donald Trump is the most Jesus-loving person I've ever seen. He washed my feet right before I came out here. People are full of shit. That is one thing that you take away from 2016, which they can't undo,

which is that the charlatans in the Christian right, those people were a cheaper date than anybody realized. Like Mike, yeah. Mike Pence. Mike Pence. Mike Pence. In between writing op-eds about Mulan. I will say one of the best jokes about this came from Patton Oswalt who said,

finally, Donald Trump paid one of his subcontractors. Believe it or not. Okay. When we come back, we'll have a little game. And we're back. Now for a game we call Trump's Travel Guide. I insisted that the bell be replaced by Big Ben. So that you would feel comfortable.

So Donald Trump has many opinions about places all over the world, some of which we've heard this week. He's a pretty harsh reviewer. It's like a racist Zagat. He is a cruel mistress on TripAdvisor. So someone in the audience would play, and it would be your job to determine how he describes various cities, countries, places all over this earth.

Would anyone like to play Trump's travel guide? Tanya's in the house. She's going to pick somebody. Somebody in merch. Ideally. Hi. Hi. What's your name?

Ben. Ben? Yeah. And you're wearing a repeal and go fuck yourself shirt. Yes, I am. Where are your name? Ben. Ben? Yeah. And you're wearing a repeal and go fuck yourself shirt? Yes, I am. Where are you from? London. All right. What do you do in London? Shamefully, I'm a lawyer. I'm very boring. The boring lawyer. Ben the boring lawyer. Are you familiar with some of the things that our president has said about people and places all over the world?

A few. All right, let's see how you do. Question number one. In a conversation over immigration, how did Donald Trump describe Brussels, Belgium? Was it A. In good hands under the steady leadership of Prime Minister Jean-Claude Van Damme. Was it B? A disgusting vegetable.

No amount of ketchup can save you, believe me. Was it C? I don't trust a Belgian. Are you French? Are you Dutch? Shifty. Pick a side. Or was it D, Ben? It's like living in a hellhole. Think probably D.

You got it. He said that he'd been there 20 years ago back when Brussels was beautiful. But now it's a hellhole. Question number two. Donald Trump also had choice words for South Africa. What did he say about that country? Was it A? Very bad shape. Should have never split with North Africa. Was it B?

Huge, huge disaster. That villain from Lethal Weapon 2 had some smart ideas. That's a thinker. How many of you are with me on the Lethal Weapon 2 had some smart ideas. That's a thinker. How many of you are with me on the Lethal Weapon 2 thing? All right. Was it C? A total mess. Or was it D? Nelson Mandela.

What a complainer. Ben? Glad I got to voice that one. C. Two, four, two. Glad I got to voice that one. C. Two. Four. Two. Question number three. Trump once described this beleaguered place as, quote,

a dumping ground for the rest of the world. Was it A? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in a speech about the importance of conservation. Isn't it sad that that's funny? Was it B? China on the health impact of discarded Western computers and phones. Was it C? The United States, which is a very cool way to describe your own country.

Or was it D? Epcot Center World Showcase believing the character Mexican Donald Duck had stolen the job from an American. I think it was probably America. That's true. He did describe the United States as the dumping ground for the rest of the world. Question four.

Trump claimed that Afghanistan is safer than this major world city. Was it A? London, because he kept looking the wrong way when he was crossing the street. Was it B? Paris, because the McDonald's is similar, but not the same.

Was it C? Chicago, because it plays into the stereotypes of his base. Or was it D? Never Never Land, because these kids and Indians are unacceptable danger to the pirate community then Donald Trump sides with the pirates in Peter Pan I don't think you make these questions as hard as you think you do

I'm sorry, that's incorrect. The correct answer was Chicago. But there is a bonus question. Trump also described Chicago as out of control, not good, and he used this recurrent Trump phrase. There's no clues for you now, Ben. You fucking arrogant British douche. What was it, Ben? So smart.

I'm a lawyer. My name is Ben. I'm named after a big, dumb clock. Special relationship. There name is Ben. I'm named after a big dumb clock. Special relationship. There it is. I'll give you a hint. Very bad? Close. It starts with total.

Shit hole? No. Total disaster. You guys were right in the crowd. It's funny that you made that. That was the only hard question in weeks. Tough timing. I get what I just said. What were you saying about Big Ben?

It's a bell? It's not a clock? The clock is just the parliament clock, right? Where's the Big Ben bell? Inside the clock. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Maybe if you guys

weren't so persnickety, you'd still have an empire. You ever think about that? Oh, my. Ben named after the bell inside the clock. Unbelievable. Question five. Final question. Disappointed during an inhospitable visit,

what locale was described as, quote, run down and not on par with what you'd expect, I wouldn't come back here? Was it A? Geneva, after a NATO summit. Was it B? The White House, after his well-done steak arrived with a hint of pink in the middle. He eats his steak burnt all the way through.

It is disgusting. Was it C? London, because Mayor Sadiq Khan hurt Trump's feelings. Was it D? Don Jr.'s elementary school production of Guys and Dolls. Run down, not on par with what you'd expect.

I wouldn't come back here. Geneva. Incorrect. Ben, it was a trick question. That was a Yelp review of Trump Tower. Ben, you have won. Trump's travel guide. That's the famous bell inside of a clock

that is not Big Ben. What does he win? We don't know. I'm not sure I can buy anything with a parachute gift card in this country. Well, you're not getting one. So don't worry, we did not getting one. So don't worry. We did not bring them.

But your prize is forthcoming. Guys, give it up for Ben. Thank you, Ben, for playing. You guys have been great. Thank you guys for coming. You guys have been outstanding. Thank you. Bye.