Pod Save America - “Paul Ryan’s shit sandwich.”

Episode Date: January 25, 2018

Democrats plot their next move on immigration after the shutdown, Mueller closes in on Trump, and Republicans go full whack job in pushing their latest Deep State conspiracy. Then Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego joins Jon and Dan to talk immigration, shutdowns, and how Democrats should campaign in 2018.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we'll be talking to Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego about the next steps on immigration in Congress. Also, on Wednesday, we have a brand new episode of Keep It is out. Ira and the crew talk about the Oscar nominations. It is hilarious, as always. John Lovett is not in the office today. He's left for his tour. He's going to Seattle and Portland.

Very exciting. Tomorrow we have a new episode of Pod Save the World. Tommy's talking to Evan Osnos of The New Yorker about Jared Kushner and China. China seeing Jared Kushner as their useful idiot. How could they not? So that should be

an exciting episode. At least someone can get some use out of that idiot. Perfect. See, we did the whole episode. There are still tickets available. There's some tickets available to Phoenix for our show in Phoenix in February, but that's going fast. And then there are plenty of tickets available for Las Vegas

for the show in Vegas. So it's one of the ones that hasn't sold out yet. So go buy your tickets to see us in Vegas, and then you can go do other things in Vegas. I don't even get that. Like, what is there to do at night in Vegas if you're not at a political podcast show? Yeah, we're going to – yeah, exactly. I don't know. We'll promise to be somewhat exciting, you know? Okay, so let's start with what comes next on immigration and the government

funding battles dan i don't know if you heard but there was some ranting on monday's pod about the deal that opened the government we've now had a few days to marinate on this what are your thoughts we haven't heard the dan pfeiffer take on all of this well i would say first i didn't think you guys ranted i thought it was actually okay good uh it was a really great conversation both thoughtful fair, and you had to do it like four minutes after they cut the deal. So – and I think I agree with just about everything you guys said. My takeaways would be that the Democrats made a strategic mistake, right? Or they had the right strategy, they just executed it

poorly, I guess would be a better way to say it. And what I mean by that is, if it was from the beginning, that they could not hold the red state Democrats, and that was never going to happen, then they should have made that clear that that was not a viable strategic option months ago. But that's not what they did, right? Part of – we knew this when we had – when Obama was in the White House is a lot of it is expectations managing, right? And Democrats had a bad hand from the beginning. There's no doubt about that. who his natural instincts is white nationalism, but on some days he is pro-immigration and can cut a deal with Schumer

and then have John Kelly uncut the deal for him. You have Paul Ryan, who is trying to continue to court the votes of avowed racists like Steve King. And you have Mitch McConnell, who for all of his innumerous flaws can hold his people pretty well and so it was a tough deal yeah but the thing is we don't know whether it would have worked or not because they quit too soon and if you ramp everyone up to fight and then you wave the

white flag of surrender before breakfast on Saturday and open it up again before lunchtime on Monday. And that's not enough to know. And that just is a mistake because what you end up in this sweet spot of you have made no one happy. You've angered both sides. And then that is a mistake. Now, having said that, I'd say three things. One, the consequences of that are not as cataclysmic as people would say.

The consequences of that are not as cataclysmic as people would say. No one is going to remember this in November in part because it was so brief that if you went for a walk, you could have missed it. To the spin from some Democrats about how this was a win overstates the case. But it is true that taking Chip off the table is helpful and getting six-year full funding for Chip is a win that we – Absent DACA, we would have – if DACA was not on the table, that would have been seen as a real progressive win for Democrats. And the third thing is we – you said this yesterday, John, I thought very well in the Monday pod, was we cannot be all or nothing with Democratic leaders.

Right. The Democrats in Congress, we are not in politics because we love the people who are in office. We may love them, but that's not the reason they're there. They are instruments to put in place the policies that we want. And when they fail. And they're bendable instruments. Yes, exactly. And we have to put pressure on them.

Right. Right. Right. And so, yes, the base has every reason to be disappointed in how this played out. But we also need to reelect a lot of these people. And if people stay home, then there will be no solution to any of the problems we care about. The other thing I'll say is I am sympathetic to Senator Schumer in the sense that it's really hard. I mean, he was in a very tough spot. I wish they would have stayed out longer.

But ultimately, he can't make Heidi Heitkamp or Joe Manchin vote the way he wants them to do. It's not the House, right? And so he was in a tough position. Bad hand. Wish he played it better. in a tough position, bad hand, wish he played it better. But all we can do now is wake up and fight and put pressure on Republicans and Democrats to solve this problem because the clock is ticking. Yeah. So I've had a few days to think about this too. One point is no matter whose fault it is or who people end up blaming, even if they all blame Trump and the Republicans. It is true that the Democratic Party and Democrats cannot really allow the government to be shut down indefinitely

because people that we care about won't get the services they need. And that's a tough thing. You know, like you could have all these polls say that Trump's at fault for the shutdown, Republicans are at fault, stuff like that. But this thing goes on for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and the Republicans don't budge. Suddenly we're dealing with, you know, the very people that we care about, you know, not get seniors, not getting meals on wheels, all these government services. So that's a tough thing to keep in mind. So my belief had always been, of course, it doesn't last that long, that at some point, Donald Trump feels like he must get a deal. And so do the Republicans in Congress, and they cave,

or at least we ring out concessions from them. This can never be a shutdown indefinitely. The question is, how long do you need it to go for Republicans to feel the pressure? Now, on that point, I do think it just it didn't go long enough. And I think one of the big problems for Democrats was, I've always believed you can't win an argument without making it. And Democrats never made the shutdown about what the shutdown was about, which is immigration. Someone said to me, a Republican friend of ours, as soon as I saw the Democrats coming out with statements that they were voting against the CR, not because of DACA,

but because they didn't like short-term CRs, or they had this problem or that unrelated problem, he's like, I knew they were going to cave. Because a lot of them were very afraid to make this fight about the Dreamers. And it's sort of what you just said. If they were afraid at the outset to make this fight about the Dreamers, then it's sort of what you just said, like, if they were afraid at the outset to make this fight about the dreamers, then they shouldn't have picked the fight. Because their heart wasn't in it. But you have to make the argument one of two ways. If you don't

believe in government shutdowns, if you believe the government shutdowns are just bad, no matter whose fault they are, then go make that argument to people and say, that's why you're not voting for one. If you do want to have this fight and you do believe that a temporary shutdown is worth the cost that comes with it, if you secure protection for the dreamers, then go make that fight. Go make that argument and then go pick the fight. But you got to pick one. You can't just vote and then suddenly like listen to all the pundits in D.C. and get scared. I do also think there are reasons to believe the Democrats could have succeeded if they held out a little longer. Over the weekend, we saw that White House aides were saying that Trump was getting itchy to make a deal, that he felt pressure, that he was worried, that he didn't like all the attacks he was getting for, you know,

having the government shut down. Right before they voted, Jeff Flake was telling reporters that McConnell should make a more ironclad promise to Democrats before he said yes. So even Jeff Flake was there. Even if they held out another day, maybe McConnell would have had a stronger promise. And then, of course, there's this other line of argument that if they held out longer, the issue of Dreamers would have become more polarized and Dreamers would have become less popular. But no evidence bears that out and no polling evidence bears that out. Quinnipiac polls said that, you know, 49 percent of people blame Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown. Only 32 percent Democrats.

It was 48-28 in PPP, 52-43 in Politico Morning Consult. And then the interesting number there was asked whether the DACA fight was worth a government shutdown. There was a 42-42 split at the very beginning. After the government shut down, that went to 47-38 who said it was worth shutting down over DACA. And of course, in that same poll, 75% said they'd support a plan to let the Dreamers remain here legally. Only 18% don't. So the polling was on the Democrats' side too. And like I said, I don't think they should have, that you can't hold out forever. But who knows what would have happened if we got to the end

of the week, Trump wanted to go to Davos and play golf, and we still didn't have a deal. Who knows what we might've got. And I would say one thing on the polling is you did something that most reporters and apparently some Democratic senators did not do, which is so they would do these polls. It asked three questions. Who do you blame? President Trump, congressional Republicans, congressional Democrats. And the polls would come in something like 31 percent would blame congressional Democrats, which is basically the Trump base. And then it would say 20 percent would blame congressional Republicans and 30 percent would blame Trump.

Democrats are winning that fight. That is not Democrats are taking blame for it. They're actually winning the fight. You have to combine the two numbers of the two Republicans. And there are a bunch of headlines that came up. Public blames Republicans and Democrats. Well, A, that's a stupid headline, but it's apparently many reporters, not all, many, and some number of Democratic senators can't add two numbers together and you end up in this situation. Well, because we saw this over the weekend. All the reporters in D.C. or most many of the reporters in D.C., they bought the Republican spin that this was like all the Democrats' fault and, you know, Democrats should cave. They all bought it. so their headlines reflected that well it's it's also that one of the problems is don't you

don't necessarily have to shy away from it right right you did you were making a choice right it it is true and should be reflected in the reporting that democrats and republicans shut the government down together yes and that some Democrats voted against that, right? It was, it is actually a man bites dog story when Democrats and Republicans vote together on a major issue like this. And that should have been a fight story. But if you decide as a party

that you were going to temporarily shut the government down to fight for something, just say that. And don't panic, Like it, that, that was the mistake is the, like the great hashtag war of early 2018 between hashtag Schumer shutdown, hashtag Trump shutdown. Democrats, a majority of Democrats were willing to temporarily shut down the government to fight for something they care about. Now you may not win that fight in the short term, but you're like but if you were to rank the scenarios, fighting and winning is best.

Fighting and losing is probably second best. Third would be making a decision to fight another day. The worst choice would be to fake fight for a weekend and go away. And that was the choice they made. And that was unfortunate. But we got to dust ourselves off, get back in the game,

and we'll know whether this was the right decision, the wrong decision, or it didn't really matter in the end based on what comes of the discussions around DACA. And if we get a legislative solution, which I think is a long shot, but if we do, then they made the right decision and it all worked out. And if we don't, we'll have to address that at some point. Yeah. No, and I have heard reports that it's not that, and some Democratic senators have said this, that they don't trust Mitch McConnell at all. They think Mitch McConnell is a liar, but they do trust some of the Republicans in the Senate who have been more moderate on immigration and who are tired of not getting anything done in the Senate

because Donald Trump is president and Paul Ryan and his crazy caucus are holding everyone hostage in the House. And so that there is some genuine feeling on behalf of some of these senators that they support protecting the Dreamers and they want to get something out of the Senate. Now, that could be bullshit. All these Republicans could be bullshitting them. So you got to wait and see. But, you know, there does seem to be some hope that you might get something out of the Senate. So let's talk about what's next. Yesterday, Donald Trump said he's open to a path to citizenship after 10 to 12 years for the Dreamers, which, oddly enough, is exactly the provision in the Graham-Durbin bill that he originally embraced and then rejected,

and now I guess he's back to it. The White House also announced that on Monday they'd be releasing a framework of what Trump wants in a deal that includes letting the Dreamers stay and then a path to citizenship, as he just mentioned, $25 billion for a border wall, eliminating the diversity lottery, and curbing family-based immigration, all of which are also in the Graham-Durbin bill in some way, probably not as extreme as the White House will want. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Chuck Schumer rescinded his offer to help fund Trump's wall, and the Senate Democrats have said they are willing to first negotiate a long-term budget deal by the next funding deadline on February 8th and then move on to protecting the dreamers and immigration like McConnell promised.

So, Dan, what did the shutdown teach us about what our strategy should be in the coming weeks? This is a really tough question because there are a couple of elements to this, which is one, the White House has already said, like moments, like Heidi Heitkamp had not left the floor of the Senate by the time the White House put out a statement saying it wasn't going to sign Durbin Graham. It's not clear that the you could get any bill through that does not include something that can be called funding for the wall. And I'm a little concerned about Schumer's approach here because he put that on the table in his Friday negotiations with Trump. And he took heat from the base on that. He did.

And now he's undone that, which makes it going to be that much harder to put funding for the wall back on the table if that is part of a deal. And why do you think Schumer did that? Why do you think he the wall back on the table if that is part of a deal and why do you think schumer did that why do you think he took it back off the table i still haven't been able to figure this out schumer's very smart so he may have a plan like he probably has a plan here it's not evident to me what that plan is yet but i hope it wasn't just responsive to criticism from the left because once you've taken like if schumer Schumer has decided, as he did on Friday, that the only, that he is willing to give Trump funding for the wall in order to help the dreamers and solve some other immigration issues, then stick to that position and then go make the case to the base as to why that's the right decision to do. And what you expect in demand in return

for that. It seems like it's a step backwards. And by taking it off, putting it on the table, taking it off the table, it just makes, I think it makes things harder. My personal view is I wish there was no wall. I understand why people hate the wall. I also would be totally willing to put money, some money in for the wall in order to prevent these 800,000 people from being deported from this country in the coming weeks. And then I don't want to tell our Republican friends, and hopefully Tim Miller keeps this to himself, but take the house back and defund that motherfucker. It's just like give them a win now and then take it away. They can't build the wall overnight, right?

Well, and they seem to know that. I mean I think John Cornyn yesterday was saying something like they want to put the money in some trust because I think they know full well that if the money is – whether it's authorized, whatever it is, it is appropriated or authorized. If the Democrats take the Congress back, there's going to be no wall. And they're not going to be able to build – they're going to build it by November 2018. So they know that it could be – well, so my guess on Schumer, and it could be totally wrong, it's just me guessing, is he knows that what Donald Trump wants more than anything in this whole deal is the wall. Schumer took it off the table, Trump tweeted, he should know that without a wall, there's no DACA. Well, the opposite of that is true, which is with no DACA, there's no wall. And so I think in Schumer's mind, he's thinking the least bad of all the things that Trump wants is the wall. Like, I think that the most dangerous thing that Trump and Stephen Miller and the White House are asking for are these curbs on

family immigration, family reunification, because now we're not talking about illegal immigration anymore. We're not talking about keeping undocumented people out of this country. We're not talking about what to do about the undocumented people who are here in this country. Family migration is saying that people who are here, immigrants who have become citizens, can sponsor their families to also come over here legally and become citizens legally. And the White House and Stephen Miller and all their white nationalist friends, they want to curb this kind of immigration. And that to me is much different than taking on illegal immigration. That's, you know, and so Schumer, I'm wondering

if Schumer's thinking like, if he can just make this, in Trump's mind, a one-for-one deal, you know, we get protecting the Dreamers and you get border security funding and we don't have other things involved in this, then maybe it's a win. I don't know. I think it might be a little bit has to do with, like, Trump psychology or something, but I don't know. Yeah, that may be right. think there is a, I think, potential strategic error to heading down this Durbin-Graham path. Yeah. Which is, do you remember in 2012 when all of the Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of that year? Yes.

And there was a big debate about it. And we took the position that we should immediately extend the tax cuts for the middle class right now, because that was the one thing everyone agreed on. Republicans and Democrats agreed on that. Democrats and Republicans disagreed on extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And I think Democrats should be making the argument. We all agree on the dreamers. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, everyone agrees we should help the DREAMers. And there is a looming deadline there. Why can't we just come up with an agreement for that?

And maybe the trade ends up being that if you give us that, we'll give you wall money so you can feel better about it. But that should be the argument we make. It's the most popular part of any immigration discussion. And comprehensive immigration reform is very hard. It hasn't happened for almost two decades. We've been working on it for two decades. We've been noodling around the same ideas since George Bush was president. And trying to solve that in a time in which you have white nationalists in leadership positions in the White House, a president who does not have the attention span or the intellectual curiosity to understand what goes in the bill, and you're staring down the barrel of an election makes it very hard. So if the only way to help the dreamers is to try to, quote unquote, solve most of the problems from immigration that both parties see and disagree on, then we're not going to solve that problem by March.

It's just – it is not going to happen. If the Republicans in 2013, you know, we, there is a bipartisan immigration bill that got 68 votes out of the Senate. Would have helped the Dreamers, would have solved a lot of the issues that are being talked about here. And at that point in time, John Boehner was supportive of that approach. Paul Ryan used to call Barack Obama all the time and try to get him to work with them on a bipartisan compromise, but they were too scared to put that bipartisan bill on the floor of the House. And that was back when Republicans tried to pretend they weren't racist. Now that they've embraced their inner racist, it gets even harder. I mean, yeah. So what scenario do you think Paul Ryan puts a compromise bill on the floor? Because

it seems like that's what we should be focused on. And that's the crux of this whole problem right now, that you could see a path where a bipartisan immigration bill gets out of the Senate with 60 plus votes. That's pretty favorable that we might have to, you know, compromise on some things, but pretty much it's gonna be a good bill. And then the question is, you know, do you get Trump to sign off on that? And then what happens with Ryan? It seems to me that the only hope of passing something is if you pass it out of the Senate, Trump signs on, and then the only person standing between, you know, the dreamers and being able to be here legally is Paul Ryan. And then that's enormous pressure on him. And then maybe he

caves or puts it on the floor or whatever. But I don't know. That seems to me the only path. I think that is why the Democrats potentially agreeing to a long-term funding bill, separate and apart from helping the Dreamers, it's almost impossible to see Paul Ryan doing that for two reasons. One, he is a man of zero courage. Right. He's a spineless human being. And so he is not going – even though he is likely to quit his job, he's either going to lose or quit his job at the end of the next – in a year. But he will not be fired from his job in order of helping people because his job security

is more important than the family security of 8,000 Americans in his view. And the other reason is that is just is a long, long held historic dispute between the House and the Senate. You know, there's that old saying, that old story about a new congressman coming to town and saying to the speaker, this is like an old Joe Biden story, I'm pretty sure. town and saying to the speaker this is like an old joe biden story i'm pretty sure um it's a and referring to the the other party as uh the other adversaries and the speaker saying they're not our adversaries they're the other party our true adversaries are in the senate so something that had what a joe biden yarn that you've just spun there that's great i know it's it's like a

like there are going to be some people who are even older than i who are going to actually the shit out of me on Twitter over this because there are real names attached to the story. So exciting. I look forward to that. But the point is, is like Paul Ryan will say that bill – he will be forced to say this bill, Durbin-Graham, whatever form it takes, is dead in the House. Right. And therefore, we're going to, through regular order, write this bill. And that's going to take longer than till march so if you don't have the the carrots and the sticks of the shutdown and the military funding that defense funding that the appropriators in the house want it gets very hard which is why we should be trying to carve daca off of all the

other stuff and maybe if you had an appropriations, that's where you can put the wall funding in. And so I think a strategy that depends on the Senate passing a bipartisan quasi-comprehensive immigration reform bill is not a solution to the challenge anywhere along, unless Trump is willing to, as part of that process, delay implementation of his DACA order. Right. But even then, that doesn't help the people whose DACA status is expiring in the interim

because then they are now without status and in fear of deportation. Also, we should say that further complicating this whole issue is the fact that a court has issued a stay on the DACA order and the federal government is actually accepting DACA renewals right now so if your work permit has expired you can now apply for another work permit again even though it was temporarily you know eliminated so and also this whole March 5th deadline is just like an imaginary deadline that Trump made up because a whole bunch of people's work permits have already expired and they're already have lost their protection. So it's very complicated. Like some people could

be replying for permits right now. It's unclear what happens in March. It's unclear if Trump is legally able to extend this himself, right? Because his own administration said that Congress needs to fix it themselves. So it's a real fucking mess. But I'll tell you, the stakes remain very high. And I think one of the biggest lies told recently was by the Secretary of Homeland Security, who said, oh, you know, DREAMers won't be a priority for deportation for ICE. Well, ICE isn't acting like that. The deportation forces out there are not acting like, they're not just saying, oh, we're only deporting criminals. They're deporting all kinds of people who've never done anything wrong.

And just yesterday we saw the Justice Department is threatening to subpoena officials in cities that refuse to turn their police forces into deportation forces known as sanctuary cities. But that's actually what it is. It's asking the police in a local city to become deportation forces. That's actually what it is. It's asking the police in a local city to become deportation forces. And we also saw that ICE is detaining and deporting immigration activists. So the very people who are speaking out on behalf of DREAMers, the people who are fighting for immigration reform, if they happen to be undocumented, ICE is looking up lists and finding them and deporting them, which is unbelievable. So the idea that they're not going to go after DREAMers, whose information they have, it seems crazy. So what do you think that for people who are like, how can I help right now?

Who do I call? What do I do? You know, my Democratic senator voted to reopen the government. You know, is all hope lost? What do you think? Where should people apply pressure in the next couple of weeks? Both Democratic leaders and senators. I mean, it doesn't have to be angry.

Our leaders, our senators are not traitors. There is a disagreement on approach here because they want to help the dreamers. But we should, people should let them know how important this is and that this is something that is going to impact not just whether they're going to vote in the fall, but how activated they're going to be. Are they going to knock on doors? Are they going to register voters? Are they going to make calls?

And we should let people know that. And also Republicans, both members of Congress, House members and senators who are in tough races. There are a lot of Republicans, the remaining five of the crooked seven. This is a huge issue for them. We should put pressure on them and get them to put pressure on Paul Ryan and put pressure on Jeff Flake and Dean Heller and people like that in states that where this could be on the ballot. Well, this will matter to voters in the fall. It's like all we can do is double down on efforts here. We have a shitty hand. We're playing with a very shitty hand. We are in the minority and there's only so much you can do.

And we are now reaching for the most unusual of tactics to try to fight for this thing. And it's a long shot because we're not in power. And the best solution is to win in 2018. But for now, all we can do is exert pressure on our Congress people and our representatives and try to push them to do the right thing. And we should continue to do that for the next several weeks and not let up. And if we win, that's great. And if we don't, then at least we can say we fought as hard as we did. So one small thing that happened during this whole shit show is that Joe Manchin, senator from West Virginia, almost didn't file for reelection, apparently.

He told the New York Times that the Senate sucks. And he also expressed frustration to Schumer over the shutdown. Some people have been saying, you know, did Democrats cave because Manchin threatened not to run? I don't quite know if the reporting bears that out, but it certainly seems like he was pretty annoyed. But I think it raises a question. What's the challenge of having a party where Democrats need senators from West Virginia? What does that do to some of the calculations and strategies that Democrats pursue? I mean, so the response to this was a lot of progressive outrage at Joe Manchin about this. And that's fair, right?

I mean, whether the report is true or not, but just outrage that he voted a way you didn't want. Right. But we have to remember that every state, whether you're California, New York or Wyoming, you get two senators. Every state, whether you're California, New York or Wyoming, you get two senators. And if Democrats want to have not just 51 senators, but if we ever want to get to the to the days of 60, we need senators from states that are much more conservative than California and New York. When we had 60 senators in briefly in 2009, 2010, we had senators in North Dakota, Indiana, West Virginia. We had two senators from West Virginia back then. We had two senators from North Dakota. And with that comes the need to have people with slightly different viewpoints. But we have to look, before we decide to drum these people out of the party, we have to look at their full body of work.

Like Joe Manchin may be closer to Susan Collins than he is to me on a whole host of issues. Yeah. But he also voted to save the ACA. He voted against Betsy DeVos and a whole host of Trump nominees. Voted against the tax cuts? Yeah, voted against tax cuts. And so when senators, whether they be progressive or moderate or conservative by nature,

do something that upsets you, let them know that. But we can't live in a world where we will not have 51 senators if we, at least not in the, anytime in the near future, if our view is, if you vote one time the wrong way,

we're going to drum you out of the party. And if he, if Joe Manchin had voted for the tax cuts, for repealing ACA, and voted to reopen the government in this situation, yeah, maybe it's not worth having him and we're going to have to go figure something else out. But his body of work, also worth remembering, also worth remembering that Joe Manchin was the lead sponsor of the universal background check bill in 2013 after Newtown, which was a sign of great political courage on his part from West Virginia. Especially after that ad he ran where he shut the climate change bill. That's just like – if you're upset with Joe Manchin, you live in West Virginia, let him know that for sure. But we also can't drum people out of the party when they do one thing wrong. Because it's Joe Manchin or a Republican. That is where we're living in right now. That may not be true if we can organize and build up the movement, a progressive

movement in West Virginia over years. But right now, when the fight's for 51 votes in January of 2019, Joe Manchin is going to be one of those 51 votes or we're probably not going to get there. Well, the point you just made is what I was going to say. If there are a bunch of progressives in West Virginia who want a more progressive alternative to Joe Manchin, go for it. Organize on the ground. Get people to agree with you. Find a candidate who can win a general election, who can beat Joe Manchin,, do what people do on the ground. You organize, you get your candidate, you try to convince your neighbors, you get into the polls and you oust the incumbent and you win a good race. Like this whole idea that like you kick Joe Manchin out of

the party, like no one in Washington is keeping Joe Manchin in the party or kicking him out of the party. Like it's up to voters on the ground and activists on the ground to figure out who they want to represent them and who they believe uh who can win they can also represent them you know and so it's sort of like yeah until until we get that great progressive movement in west virginia this is who we have and he's with us on more issues than not and the most important vote i was saying this yesterday the most important vote any Democratic senator can cast is for the majority leader. And if Joe Manchin is going to vote for Chuck Schumer as majority leader, if the Democrats take back the Senate in 2018, that gives Schumer and the Democrats a whole lot more power than they have right now to do a lot of good. And to not have to use tactics like we've been using over the last couple weeks because now we're in power because Chuck Schumer earned the votes of people like Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp and all these much more conservative senators than the caucus as a whole.

So that's important, too. Okay, let's talk about the Mueller investigation and the conspiracy to undermine the Mueller investigation. Two twin stories here. Yesterday, Trump said he would love to talk to, quote, would love to talk under oath to Bob Mueller. A few minutes later, Trump's lawyer said that the president was, quote, speaking hurriedly before departing for Davos and only intended to emphasize that he's willing to meet with Mueller. No arrangements have been worked out yet. Can I make an announcement here today? Please do. I, too, am enthusiastically willing to pay my taxes this year. Ew, man.

Trump said he was willing to do something that Mueller can compel him to do legally. Right. So welcome to the party. Also, I would say the under oath thing is, I don't think they did this intentionally, but it is sort of smart because Trump gets in just as much trouble, basically, if he lies to Mueller under oath or not under oath. Right. It's sort of, yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah. It's like a fake give. Lovett was saying yesterday, which that was a good point. It seems like the White House lawyers

and some of Trump's advisors are more concerned about Trump actually telling the truth under oath to Mueller than they are to him lying. Because, you know, if we've seen Trump in past depositions, he's much, you know, and Lovell was pointing this out, he's much different than he is on Twitter or in public. Like he does, he does sort of have the mental capacity still to know that he should be more guarded and careful when he's under oath and testifying. But then that raises the questions, what will he say when he's telling the truth, or at least trying to tell the truth? And how much trouble could that get him in? Of course, the public agrees. CNN did a poll, 79% of the American people say that Trump should

testify. That includes 41% of Republicans. Some other stories here, NBC and the Washington Post, they've all reported that Mueller is narrowing in on obstruction of justice. That's why he wants to talk to Trump. Trump may have obstructed justice both in his dealings with Michael Flynn and his Comey firing and, of course, telling Comey to please let Flynn go. We have Sally Yates and a bunch of other DOJ officials and other intelligence and government officials who are cooperating with Mueller now on this case. We have Rick Gates, Paul Manafort's partner, is possibly negotiating a plea deal,

so he also may be cooperating. We have more evidence of Trump's potential obstruction or obstruction-like activity. Apparently, after firing Jim Comey for not being loyal and not dropping the Russia investigation, Trump asked the new acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe, who he voted for in 2016. That doesn't seem great. Yeah, before naming him acting director. So it was a litmus test. It was a litmus test.

It was another loyalty test. And then we learn from Axios that FBI director, the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, threatened to resign when Jeff Sessions pushed him to fire Andrew McCabe. My God. What's going on here? Is this coming to an end? Is this coming to a conclusion here? What do you think, Dan?

It does feel we're running out of people for Mueller to interview. Yes. Like Trump comes at the end. Some of our friends who are like Kathy Rumler and others who are former White House counsel, Kathy Rumler, who are former federal prosecutors can probably tell us otherwise because my sense of these things comes entirely from television. But it feels like you would come to Trump at the end of the process or near the end of the process. Yeah, when you've got everyone else. Like you have interviewed everyone else, right? And be able to test those things.

Now, Trump could say things in that interview that leads to, opens up further avenues of investigation for sure. But we're probably closer to the end than to the beginning at this point. Yeah. Probably closer to the end than to the beginning at this point. Yeah. And it raises the question that where this could possibly or maybe even likely end is some sort of finding – and it's not – I don't know that Mueller has said how he will dispense with the results of his investigation. Ken Starr did – the independent counsel invested in Clinton did a report to Congress, his goal being to give them the foundation for an impeachment charge. I don't know what Mueller would do, but let's say he follows the Ken Starr path where he could come forward with a report that does not prove beyond the shadow of a doubt or beyond reasonable doubt collusion as we understand it.

Like you got a bunch of willing idiots who were both in Donald Trump's family and on the fringes of their campaign who were communicating with people, but not direct, like smoking gun evidence of conclusion, but a very strong recommendation on obstruction of justice. So you'd be obstructing an investigation into a crime that is not yet proven. And the question is, what is the political and legal reaction to that scenario? Because thinking through that is probably important because that may be what we're facing. Well, so I'll tell you what the political reaction would be, at least from Trump's side. They're already starting to make the argument. If it's obstruction of justice, and Trump said this briefly yesterday, he said it's not obstructing, it's fighting back. And what he means by fighting back is all he was doing to try to quash this investigation and to stop Comey was because there was a deep state plot to help Hillary Clinton and tilt the election to her and undermine Donald Trump during the campaign and during his presidency.

And this is the case that Trump is building, the White House is building, and all of his very willing allies in the republican congress and the republican media are building as well so that brings us to hashtag release the memo which is every time there's another conspiracy coming from republicans about this investigation i think to myself no fucking way the last conspiracy was the dumbest fucking conspiracy i've ever heard how can this one top it again? But they've done it again, Dan. They've done it again. So, for those who don't know, Trump henchman Devin Nunes has conjured up a memo that reveals, apparently,

a conspiracy by the Obama administration and the FBI to elect Hillary, a conspiracy that culminated a few weeks before the election when the FBI director released a letter that announced he was reopening an investigation into Hillary's emails. That's the conspiracy? The FBI was a secret society trying to elect Trump, but they failed. What? What the fuck? Like, I don't even know if you need to know any more details of this conspiracy Fuck. Like, I don't even know if you need to know any more details of this conspiracy other than it is predicated on the fact that the FBI tried to elect Donald Trump as president and collected evidence and conspired for months and months and months and then let him win and did nothing. It is important to remember that we are dealing with a bottomless pit of idiocy.

Yeah, bad faith and idiocy. Yeah, let's take Ron Johnson, for example. Let's take Ron Johnson. Supposedly, common sense senator, rock rib conservative from Wisconsin. Yeah, no, and he's, all of our Republican friends like him. He's just another Republican businessman who loves tax cuts for the rich and hates subsidized health care.

That's Ron Johnson. Just straight shooter otherwise. What did Ron Johnson do recently, John? Ron Johnson decided to – it's so hard to even tell this story. He goes on Fox News. He has an interview with Bret Baier. And he starts talking about the text messages. The text messages between two FBI agents who used to be on Mueller's team.

They're not anymore. They were having an extramarital affair with each other. And so they texted each other about their lives and the investigation and blah, blah, blah. And one of the texts, Ron Johnson claims, says that they were part of a secret society that were meeting off-site at the FBI to plot against Trump. So he basically tells Bret Baier that there is some secret society of FBI agents, part of the deep state, that wants to overthrow Donald Trump and undermine his presidency and all that kind of stuff.

So finally, ABC gets the text message message and it's a standalone text message that this fbi agent page sent and basically it says it's the day after trump wins and it says are you even going to give out your calendars seems kind of depressing maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society it seems to me that the first rule of having a secret society in the FBI is not to call it the secret society. But I don't know how you feel about that. It's like, that's terrible OPSEC. They needed a different name,

like the lunch club or something like that. A coffee clash. A coffee clash to depose the president. It's like the first rule of Fight Club, you know? Like we laugh about it because Fox is ridiculous. Ron Johnson is a seemingly ridiculous human being. But we should put a very fine point on this. This is a United States senator who goes on national television in claims based on a, quote, informant that there are elements within the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are trying to overthrow the president of the United States.

That is about as dangerous an allegation as you can possibly make. And when confronted with the absurdity of – Just casually tossed out on cable now. You're right. Like an allegation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to overthrow the president of the United States. Just casually toss it off to Brett Baier just on Fox. That's where you announce your – that's where you announce that charge. And then when confronted with the absurdity of that charge based on the evidence when presented ron johnson just immediately transformed

into the shrug emoji and was like oh i don't know that's fine i mean it's it is so you know when you watched him say it like sometimes you watch that guy matt gates or matt that yeah that awful republican congressman yeah he has recognized that he is a loser and has been a loser much of his life and the only way he's going to get on television is to accuse members of the fbi of various crimes right he's a fucking clown he's been he's been a clown forever he's a clown he'll always be a clown but ron johnson clear like he said this with it's not even in his personality to say crazy things just to be on tv like that is not has been his approach in senate i don't know his personality but at least his record in the senate

like he's he's terrible on a whole host of levels and has the policy has a policy knowledge that makes donald trump potentially look like the head of the brookings institute but he but he seemed to believe this when he said it. Yeah. He seemed alarmed, like he was some sort of Paul Revere riding through telling us about this. And the fact that he believes it is dangerous. It shows the power of the Fox News Breitbart Trump media bubble that even someone like Ron Johnson can fall prey to believing this absurdity. It's like none of them know the fix is in, right? They now actually believe this, and it is actually very dangerous. The FBI is not perfect. They have done many things wrong

over time, and there's a lot of critique. But you really can't allege that elements of our government are trying to overthrow other elements of our government without evidence if you want to be taken as a serious public figure in America. I mean, and also, this is a problem for us because everything goes down the memory hole the next day and like everyone's going to forget about Ron Johnson. Like we shouldn't. Ron Johnson just made a what should be a career ending mistake on Fox News for which he has not apologized for. But like you said, just sort of shrugged off and moved on. Like, I don't care what else Ron Johnson has done in his career that might be good. Like you go on television and you say that the FBI is trying to overthrow the president of the United States based on no evidence, based on a text message that has no context to it,

that's clearly a joke, then you don't deserve to be in the United States Senate anymore. You just don't. These people are both too dangerous and too dumb to be representing the American people. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's really, really bad. And the thing is, all these conspiracies, they don't take a lot to unpack here.

They're so easily punctured. Like, Devin Nunes, back to his memo, Devin Nunes' fucking memo that he wrote, he only will let other House Republicans, Sean Hannity and Alex Jones, see the memo. Democrats aren't allowed to see it. The FBI asked and is not allowed to see it. Trump's Department of Justice isn't allowed to see it. The FBI asked and is not allowed to see it. Trump's Department of Justice isn't allowed to see it. He won't even let the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee, his counterpart, Richard Burr, see it. And the most important thing here is he won't let anyone, people who have the clearance to see it, see the original classified source

material that are supposedly the basis for the memo. We should say that Mark Warner, who's the Democratic ranking member on the Intel Committee in the Senate, he has now seen the source material and says, of course, this memo is going to be bullshit because everything I saw in the source material did not worry me at all, even though I haven't seen the memo yet. But one of the most interesting things from this is the Assistant Attorney General of the United States. This is someone in the Trump administration. This is someone who's been appointed by Donald Trump. He wrote a letter to Devin Nunes yesterday that said releasing the memo would be, quote, extraordinarily reckless based on, quote, classified source materials that neither you nor most of the committee have seen.

that neither you nor most of the committee have seen. And he said that it would violate an agreement that the Department of Justice and the FBI struck with Paul Ryan about what kind of information should be released that's classified. This is now, now we have the Department of Justice, Trump's Department of Justice saying like, hold on, Devin Nunes, you're sort of fucking crazy.

And the thing that's important to remember here is one of the people who has been tweeting hashtag release the memo on multiple occasions is donald trump's son donald trump jr yeah and a bunch of russian bots too and here well i mean just really uh just in case yeah he's just so dumb but that you know who could uh quote unquote hashtag release the memo donald trump yeah he is the person who could do it. And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out because if Trump gets desperate, I could see him doing this because it has the benefit of providing fodder to the nuts on Fox News and also annoying Jeff Sessions.

So you could see double benefit. They're going to release the memo. They're going to release some redacted version. And they're going to be all these text messages that are way out of context that, you know, somehow suggest that the FBI is part of this fucking plot. And then we're going to take two or three weeks to have real reporters go and do real reporting to try to unpack all of this and show why it's a conspiracy, but it won't matter because it will whip up the base of the Republican Party again because Fox will talk about it for four weeks, every night, every show, like it's the most important development since Watergate. And that's how this goes. Which brings us back to the Mueller investigation and how this concludes. You can imagine a scenario where, and we've said

this before, he says that Donald Trump has obstructed justice and Republicans in Congress say there's no fucking way we impeach this guy because the fix was in from the beginning. And this was all a plot by Jim Comey and all of his underlings and all the people in the Department of Justice who we didn't appoint to elect Hillary Clinton and to undermine Donald Trump. So then where are we? Here's where we are. We are winning the fucking 2018 election. Yeah, no, that's right. We should support Mueller's investigation. Whatever he finds, he finds.

And if he doesn't find what we hope he finds, we do not need to become the bizarre version of the right wing conspiracists. No, exactly. need to become the bizarro version of the right wing conspiracists. No, exactly. And maybe that Donald Trump is just too dumb to commit the crimes we think he's committed. That is possible. But at the end of the day, the best and only way to get Trump to circumscribe his power is to take back Congress.

Right. And then to get rid of him is to beat him in 2020. I would also say to the people who are asking, well, then why do we care about this Russia story if at the end of the day, the Congress isn't going to act on Mueller's recommendations because they're all in the tank for Donald Trump? What do we care?

I do think we want to know the truth. We want to know what happened. We want to know what happened with Russia. We want to know who helped them. We want to know what Donald Trump did when he fired Comey and he tried to protect Mike Flynn. And we want to know why. And we should all push for this truth to come out. And that's all we can do. We can't, you know, we can't fix Republicans' crazy conspiracy theories. We can debunk them, but they're going to find another one, you know, after one is debunked. So all we can do is to push and push for Mueller to finish his investigation and come up with

the truth. And if it is a truth that points to Donald Trump having committed some crimes, then it's what a lot of us thought. If it's not, then like you said, we don't need to be conspiracy theorists either. We should just take the results and move on. And you know the D.C. and a bunch of reporters are going to be like, was this a win for Mueller or a loss for Mueller? Like, it's neither. Mueller's report is Mueller's report.

He is just trying to find the truth. He's not out to get Donald Trump or not out to get Donald Trump. There are some people working to try to bring about justice and offer us the truth, believe it or not. And we should just support those people and see what happens. Okay, when we come back, we will be talking to Congressman Ruben Gallego from Arizona. On the pod today, we are very fortunate to have Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego. Congressman, welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me.

Ruben Gallego. Congressman, welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. So from where you sit in the House, what do you think is the best way forward after the shutdown ended on Monday on immigration? And how does it square with what you think is possible in the Senate? The most important thing is we can't blink again. And number two, we cannot let them use dreamers as an opportunity and the fact that they're holding these dreamers hostage as an opportunity for them to like to do wholesale immigration policy changes it just you cannot do that they are trying and this is what i say they the trump administration and a lot of their their allies including what you know people i keep saying this all the time, white nationalists that have been trying for years to change immigration policy are trying to use the Dreamers as a hostage tool so

they could change what they've been trying to do for decades now, right? And what they're trying to do is get rid of family reunification, and they call it, quote unquote, shame migration. I don't use those words because they want to make it sound as bad, and family reunification is an American value, so that's why they don't like using that word. They want to make it sound as bad, and family education is an American value, so that's why they don't like using that word. They want to change our diversity lottery visas, and they want to change our visas in general and our green card processing permit. So what we cannot allow them to do is use these young men and women, they're not kids, but young men and women, as a way for them to get their end result, because they know that this is it.

Everyone's confused. Like, why are the Republicans going whole hog into this? Because they know that that this is going to be their last chance to ever do this. They're not going to ever have unified government again, probably after this year. And if they want to do, you know, go do this wholesale change, which is entirely based on pure racism, this is going to be the only time they're going to do it. And that's why they're holding hostage. That's why Paul Ryan's complicit in this. No one at any point should ever believe that Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, is on our side. He's 100% just as bad as Donald Trump. The only difference is that he speaks a little nicer

and has maybe a better smile, and the press just lets him get away with murder. But they're not here to help us. So we, and I say we, me as a member of Congress, as a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as well as the Progressive Caucus, we need to make sure that we are here in the fight all the way, and we're willing to fight all the way for the Dreamers. But we are not here to compromise decades and decades of immigration policy, especially when we know its only aim is to essentially make happy these xenophobes that essentially have been helping out Donald Trump. And it's difficult. Don't get me wrong.

It's difficult. It's like trying to land the best landing during figure skating for us in terms of getting a good DREAM Act and at the same time not compromising when it comes to wholesale immigration policy. It's difficult. But that's the only option we have. And we have to fight all the way. We cannot give in. And look, once you're in the fight, you got to go all the way in. And for a little time, I was in the Marines. The one thing they taught us is that when you're in combat, the thing that kills you is hesitancy. The thing that keeps you alive is momentum. So when we start down this road again, we have to get momentum and keep momentum. So when we start down this road again,

we have to get momentum and keep momentum. And when we do that, we will survive the day. Democrats will pick up the House and we will win the DREAM Act for these 800,000 Americans. Congressman, I agree with you on everything about Paul Ryan. But if Paul Ryan is Speaker of the House and controls what comes to the floor and is complicit with Donald Trump on all these things. What levers can be pulled to actually get him to put something that would help the Dreamers on the floor of the House? I think we have to accept that we are not in normal times, right? This is not a normal speaker. This man has essentially allowed Donald Trump to erode all the norms, constitutional checks and balances.

Donald Trump to erode all the norms, constitutional checks and balances. And so we think that we're going to be able to deal with Paul Ryan in a normal way, we are going to fail. What we need is people to join us, join Democrats, join progressives. And we need to come out onto the streets, much like what the Women's March has done, but specifically aimed at getting the DREAM Act done. And it will get to a point where, you know, I think Paul Ryan's going to try to give us some kind of, you know, beep sandwich. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on podcast. Oh, absolutely. Oh, he's going to give us a shit sandwich then. And he's going to expect us to eat it and smile. And at that point, we as Democrats can just have to say no. And we're going to need everyone to come down to the congressional offices to D.C. and basically make this the issue that people have

to fight about. We want this to be the conversation every day until the DREAM Act is passed. Not about budget cabs or Medicare or CHIP. No, we are here. We are fighting for these 800,000 families to stay in the United States. And Paul Ryan and his cronies are just trying to find a way to do it. We have to make this more than just the legislative process. We have to point out that the reason right now, something that is pulling 80% is being stopped is because Paul Ryan is using the Hastert rule, aptly named after a child molester, mind you, that is going to separate children from America. And we need to make that clear. And we cannot let the press off the hook. They are part of the problem here too. Congressman, are you saying that the

ingredients in Paul Ryan's shit sandwich would mean that you would be unwilling to accept funding for the wall as part of a deal for the Dreamers? What I'm saying right now is if you come to me and say, give us X amount for border security. I'm willing to talk about that. But if you come and tell me some ridiculous amount for a border wall, I'm not here to feed your xenophobic base. And furthermore, it's a campaign promise. When the hell did we go from who's going to build a wall in Mexico, who's going to pay for it in Mexico,

to who's going to build a wall in the United States, and where's it going to come from, debt financing? When did that happen? So if you want a deal, let's going to build a wall? It's going to United States and where's it going to come from? Debt financing. When did that happen? Right. So like, if you want to deal, let's be serious about dealing, but I'm not necessarily just going to vote or help you build a stupid wall. When I know for a fact, the only thing you're doing is just to make sure that somebody in some state who listens to Rush Limbaugh feels happy that you actually built something.

Right. I'm from the actual Southwest. I go to the border from the actual Southwest. I go to the border all the damn time. I lived in Mexico for five, six years growing up. I know border laws don't do anything. The only thing it does is it reinforces the viewpoint of somebody who lives in like, you know, momfuck Egypt, that somehow a wall is actually good immigration policy. So, Congressman, how did Monday's deal affect your perspective about Democratic leadership on the Hill? You know, we've been debating this here.

We know they're in a tough spot at the same time. You know, I think a lot of us wanted them to fight. So what's your perspective on all this? I mean, my perspective is, look, I'm not in the Senate. I know the Senate is entirely different from the House. I know it is hard for some of these senators, especially the ones that represent states that Trump won. The way I think about it, though, is this. And I think every individual senator has to figure out what they're doing. And Chuck Schumer is basically just kind of aggregating the opinion of all his caucus members and is kind of a pass-through. the opinion of all his caucus members and is a kind of a pass through. But if I was one of these senators, the way I think about this,

the people that care about this kind of stuff are never going to vote for you. They're never going to vote for you. If you think that, you know, they're not going to run these MS-13, I hate, you know, you love immigrants too much commercials because you voted to end the shutdown three days later after you voted to start the shutdown three days later after you voted to start to shut down, you're crazy. You're not only losing everybody, but more importantly, you're losing your progressive base that is really fired up and they're fired up for a fight. So if I was a senator in a red state, and for example, John Tester is a good example. He stuck. He realized that once you're in, you're all the way in. I think that's what individually they need to know.

And I think if you have individual senators understanding this, and more importantly, their staff, I think you'd have leadership being able to stay in the fight. And the other thing is you really have to ignore what I call the real seriously minded press in D.C. minded press in DC, because they only care about the checkmarks, like whether or not who's winning today, who's winning tomorrow, versus what you really have to care about, I think, is the base of the Democratic Party. If you focus on who you're trying to serve and not necessarily what's going to be the headlines of Politico, I think at the end of the day, we would have stuck together and we would have, who knows how long the shutdown would have gone, but I think we would have ended up being on the upside of this and we would have, you know, who knows how long the shutdown would have gone. But I think we would have ended up being on the upside of this and we would have had better outcomes. So it seems like Senator Durbin told Politico yesterday that, you know, that Dreamer negotiations

and immigration negotiations are now on a separate path from budget negotiations. It seems like what they're trying to do is get a budget agreement by February 8th, so then they can move on immediately to immigration. And then I guess the hope is they get some sort of bipartisan agreement out of the Senate sometime in February. They somehow get Donald Trump to agree to it, and then they try to jam Ryan in the House and force Ryan to hold a vote. What do you think of that strategy, and what would you do? I've been in the Arizona Statehouse for four years. I negotiated for Medicaid expansion with a Republican-held Senate,

Republican-held Statehouse, and Republican governor, freaking Governor Jan Brewer, for God's sakes. And the one thing I know is that when you're dealing with Republicans, the most important rule is you never, ever, ever trust them. There is nothing that says we can trust any of those people. What has Trump done, if anything, that could prove to us that we can trust him? What has McConnell done? He's already lied to Flake.

He lied to Jesus. I can't remember how many other senators that he was going to do certain types of legislative actions for the tax bill. And then you got Paul Ryan, who's one of the most amoral persons in this country that's ever served in the House of Representatives. So the most important thing we have to first establish is that we cannot trust them. And the more you negotiate away any points of leverage, the less likely you are to get your probable outcome or the outcome you want. And if that's the case, and you're willing to do that, if you want to get rid of budget caps first, you want to deal with all these other things first, when it gets to the point of the DREAM Act, everyone better stiffen their spine because instead of the shit sandwich,

I'm from the Southwest, right? So the shit taco they're going to try to make us eat, sandwiched the i'm from the southwest right so the shit taco they're going to try to make us eat it's going to be worse so this is not the right way to do it unless we are willing to go toe-to-toe and truly fight when it comes to the last minute of the negotiation i know at least the democrats that i'm surrounded by in the house given them we are willing to do go all the way if we have to i'm not sure how other Democrats are, how other members of Congress are when it comes to that type of scenario. Congressman, pivoting away from the specifics of this fight, I'm curious as you and your colleagues begin the efforts to take the House back in 2018, I think we know the contours of

what the argument against Trump, the Republicans are. Do you have a view on what should be some of the core elements of, of the democratic platform? Like if Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker in January of 2019, we should do X, right? Do you have a view of what X should be? So my personal opinion is I think we have to be realistic about what we're dealing with. We're going to have – maybe we're lucky we take over the Senate, right? Maybe. But you're still going to have some Republicans are going to be using the filibuster to block anything that comes out of the House.

And then you're still going to have Trump at the end vetoing almost everything, right? So I think what we actually need to do is we need to show America who the real Donald Trump is. to do is we need to show America who the real Donald Trump is. And what I mean to that is that we should take his campaign promises and make him veto those campaign promises, right? For example, he talked a great game during the campaign about closing something that's really arcane, but the carry interest loophole, right? Which is what hedge fund managers and Wall Street bankers usually use to basically pay their salaries and pay less than what a waitress or a construction worker gets in terms of their actual tax. We should actually pass that through reconciliation and make them veto it, right? So then we could go to everybody that, or not everybody, but all the

people that voted for him and be like, look, this guy lied to you. He's not in it for you. He's not in it for America. He's in it for himself. We should pass laws dealing with the fact that he has not deconflicted himself from his personal business. We should pass laws to actually look at his freaking taxes because I guarantee you everything that he's doing is only helping him out. And then we should start really pushing in areas that I think could really get consensus, right? Look, we're starting to have a true shift in the progressive movement where people understand that our politicians are now accountable to them. We should pass drug pricing competition. There's no way on God's green earth

that we would lose that fight. If we make the prescription companies have to negotiate with the federal government, we save billions per year. And then we push over the Senate and let somebody filibuster that. Let somebody filibuster that with the year 2020 elections coming up. And then even let the president try to veto that. I think when we start doing stuff like that, it shows that one, we're working for everyday Americans. But number two, it shows the hypocrisy of modern

day republicanism because they talk a big game and in the end, they're still going to end up having to pay up to their most major donors, which ends up coincidentally being a lot of people within the prescription drug companies. That's the kind of thing we have to, we really have to show a line that where the Democrats are and who the Democrats are versus what Trump and the Republicans are. That sounds good to us. Representative Gallego, this was really fun. Thanks for coming on PSA.

No, my pleasure. You guys are going to love Phoenix. Please enjoy it. We will make sure we have really nice weather. I put in an order for you for 75 and sunny. Excellent. And usually members of Congress get their way when it comes to weather orders here in Phoenix. We like to hear that. We'll see you out there.

Alright, see you soon. Take care. Thank you guys. Thank you to Congressman Ruben Gallego for joining us today and we will see you again on Monday. Bye everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye.