Pod Save America - “PizzaGaetz.”

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

New testimony from the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine all but assures the president will be impeached, while House Republicans stage a pizza sit-in to disrupt the ongoing impeachment inquiry. Jon F. and Dan also examine why some Democratic donors are freaking out about the party's current slate of potential presidential nominees, the importance of digital advertising to the race, and Elizabeth Warren's next moves on Medicare for All.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Piper. We have lots to talk about today, from Bill Taylor's testimony to the brave Republican freedom fighters who tried to disrupt the impeachment inquiry. We're also going to talk about why Democrats who like talking to reporters are freaking out about our candidates and all the latest 2020 news. We apologize today for the delayed pod and the sound on Dan's side, but we've had quite a day trying to get this to work because Dan's on vacation and I'm traveling as well. Yeah, we have been to two studios, we've tried several phone lines, and here we are. But, you know, this is not a long-term problem, it's just today,

so you all know when you all tweeted us about it. All right, a few housekeeping notes before we start. On this week's Pod Save the World, Tommy and Ben cover the latest with Syria, Brexit, and explain how Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pulled out a narrow victory up in Canada. And you can watch the rest of their interview with former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, which was featured last night on Sean Hannity's show. Like all of the other content we produce here at Crooked Media. Finally, Crooked Media is starting a brand new daily podcast, What A Day. It's a daily news podcast starting on Monday, October 28th. You'll be able to hear What A Day every morning, Monday through Friday,

with new episodes available at 5 a.m. Eastern. Our new hosts, Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick, will cut through the chaos and crimes to break down the biggest news of the day, help you understand what matters and how you can fix it all in 15 minutes or less. The trailer is live now. So do us a favor, as you're listening to this pod or right after, go to crooked.com slash whataday and subscribe to Whataday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen to your podcasts. We need everyone subscribing because we want this thing to hit number one when it launches on Monday. So do us a favor. Help us out. Go subscribe. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. Subscribe to What Today and unsubscribe from The Daily. Dan! I'm kidding. The Daily is great. Such a love it thing to say. All right. All right.

All right, let's get to the news. On Tuesday, we learned about testimony that I think almost guarantees that Donald Trump will be impeached by the House of Representatives. The testimony came from Bill Taylor, an Army veteran and career diplomat who's been appointed to serve in every administration since Reagan's, including this one, where he is currently Trump's top diplomat in Ukraine. For those of you who don't remember, Bill Taylor is the guy who texted European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, quote, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign, end quote. Well, in a 15-page opening statement that leaked to the press, Taylor testified that the president himself was in fact withholding taxpayer-funded assistance from a U.S. ally in exchange for help with his reelection campaign. Here's the money quote from the testimony. Quote, Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. And when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check. Dan,

two questions for you. One, is that how business works? And two, why are Democrats saying that Bill Taylor's testimony is the most significant they've heard in the entire impeachment inquiry? Well, it is how business works unless you're Donald Trump, who is famous, of course, for not paying people for goods received and services provided. Right. But I guess in the case of foreign policy blackmail, that's when he really adheres to the common rules of business.

Look, this testimony is incredibly significant. In a normal world, Taylor is an unimpeachable source. He lays out in great detail that there is a quid pro quo. Even some of the other people we've heard from have had also very damning things to say about how Trump and his minions inside and outside the government-conducted business left open some vagueness around the specificity of a quid pro quo, that it was just pressure or there was a disconnect between those quo, that it was just pressure, or there was a disconnect between those two things. There was just a coincidence that Trump was demanding something absurd from a foreign country. At the same time, he was resisting

Congress's legal will for said money to be provided. But here you have the full criminal conspiracy laid out by a career diplomat who is a firsthand witness to all of this and spoke to all of the parties. And so in a world of smoking guns, this is a smoking. Smoking this gun. So, look, I think it's also, you know, he hears this, you know, Taylor's testimony is based on what he hears directly from Gordon Sondland, who had been a little squishy during his testimony. There was a lot of I do not recalls. We now have reports in the days after Bill Taylor's testimony that Gordon Sondland is thinking about coming back to revise his testimony.

But so and so, you know, this is Gordon Sondland telling Bill Taylor, this is what President Trump has told me. We also found out that, you know, Bill Taylor said that the Ukrainians eventually in early September knew that the aid was withheld as well. Trump and Giuliani and Sondland and all these goobers, what they wanted Zelensky to do, the president of Ukraine. It's not like, you know, these folks really cared about corruptions and wanted some investigations into corruption. And, you know, Burisma just happened to be one of the companies that they picked. They wanted President Zelensky to go on CNN and announce on CNN the Ukrainian government would be investigating Burisma, the firm that Joe Biden's son was on. So it just goes to show you that it's like it doesn't have anything to do with an investigation.

It was just wanting a foreign government to smear a potential political opponent. That's what he wanted. I rarely use the term savvy and Trump in the same sentence, but this is a very savvy understanding of how the modern political media works. Trump knows from 2016 that all he has to do is get someone to say that Biden, Hunter Biden, the Biden family is under investigation. And that will be in every story written about Joe Biden for the rest of time. It is what was so devastating to Hillary Clinton. And so he doesn't want an actual investigation. He just wants some finery to hang the accusations of corruption on, and he

knows the press will run with it. And I mean, this is Trump, this is Giuliani, they know what they're doing here. It is very specific. And that's why they wanted him to say it on CNN. And I think in part because they think that that is influential in the Democratic primary which I don't know if it's savvy or not but it's very clear what Trump was trying to do here and it was get Ukraine to be involved in the American election full stop yeah I think the other thing worth pointing out is part of the one other reason this was you know fairly compelling testimony is Taylor who is this career diplomat been a diplomat his whole life, talks about going to Ukraine and, you know, visiting with some of the people in Ukraine fighting Russian aggression who are on the front lines and was talking about how, you know, people

in Ukraine are going to die because they didn't get this assistance, this military assistance. And it was all held up because of Donald Trump and for political reasons. And it's like there are real-world consequences to withholding congressionally appropriated aid like that. Yeah, it's illegal and immoral. Dan, let's talk about the various responses to Taylor's incriminating testimony from the president and Republicans in Congress. So Trump's first reaction was to tweet a quote

from some idiot Republican congressman who was on Fox that said, quote, neither Taylor or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. Dan, what's wrong with that defense? It's wrong. Journalistic hero Ken Vogel published a story in the New York Times which said they, of course, were aware of it. How could they not possibly be aware of it? And there is documents that prove that they knew about it.

So this is part of the risks, I would say, of forming your anti-impeachment messaging strategy around things random people say on Fox News? Well, I will say before the Vogel story was even published, Bill Taylor himself testified that the Ukrainians knew. He said President Trump did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say he's opening investigations of Biden, that President Zelensky himself had to, quote, clear things up and do it in public. President Trump said it was not a quid pro quo. Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelensky and his aide, Mr. Yermak, and told him that, although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate.

Look, it's not a quid pro quo, but if you don't provide the quo, we're not providing the quid as an FYI. So Taylor testifies that Sondland told him they did know that the aid was being withheld for political purposes on September 1st. And then Vogel has a story that runs in The New York Times that says it was actually much earlier this summer that the Ukrainians knew. And The New York Times has documents to prove that. And then the AP reports a couple hours after that yesterday that Zelensky had been worried since before he took office as president that he would be asked by Trump to investigate the Bidens. And he was already worried that he would get drawn into U.S. domestic politics and be pressured to investigate the Bidens. And that if he didn't do that, his very fragile relationship with his most important ally, the United States, as he's facing aggression from Russia, would be in jeopardy.

So it was all right there. It was all right there. So the next the next Trump excuse is that Bill Taylor is a deep state never Trumper. The White House released a statement the night of Taylor's testimony calling him a, quote, radical unelected bureaucrat who was part of a, quote, coordinated smear campaign. And then Trump himself tweeted the next day, never Trumper Republican John Bellinger represents never Trumper diplomat Bill Taylor, in parentheses, who I don't know, in testimony before Congress, exclamation point. So what's the problem with this defense? Well, it's obviously not true. You went through at the beginning of this podcast, which, frankly, for us who've been dealing with this feels like 10 years ago,

but went through Taylor's very long resume. He is someone who has worked for Republicans and Democrats. He is a public servant through and through. There is nothing to suggest that he is a partisan hack, a member of the deep state or anything like that. I will say there is a factual problem with this for sure. But I think as Democrats and people who care about the rule of law and facts and things like that. We should be at least we should recognize that Trump had some measure of success taking Bob Mueller, who was someone who had unimpeachable bipartisan public servant credentials as well, and turned him into a bogeyman for just

enough Republicans to ensure that the report was not taken seriously by his base or by any of the members, Republican members of Congress. And so this is an absurd strategy on its face, but absurdity has some success when amplified by a right-wing propaganda network. Yeah, I do think it will be harder this time, and it will be harder because Bill Taylor does not stand alone here. You know, Fiona Hill, who was on Trump's National Security Council, you know, and she was a Russia specialist. She testified. Gordon Sondland testified. And even though he's a Trump loyalist, seems to be maybe changing Marie Yovanovitch, testified. So there's a number of, you know, a Defense Department official. There's a number of Trump-appointed officials. I mean, Bill Taylor was appointed by fucking Mike Pompeo.

No one is— Like three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. No one is a bigger Trump kiss-ass in the entire federal government than Mike Pompeo. Or at least he's like top three or four, at least. We don't want to give him the award yet. Stephen Miller has some things to say about that. Stephen Miller's up there.

Bill Barr's up there. But they're all, he's close. So Mike Pompeo thought that they should give this guy, this never Trump, never Trumper, unelected bureaucrat a job in the administration. So I do think you're right. Like Trump and Fox and everyone else will be trying their hardest to show that Bill Taylor is biased, that every single person who testified against Trump is biased. That's their strategy. If you testify, whatever you say, whether it's

the truth or not the truth, if you testify and it hurts Donald Trump, you are a deep state elected bureaucrat or you're working with the Democrats. That's it. That's what they got. So a number of Republicans have already made the transition from embarrassing excuses to deeply embarrassing stunts. The day after Bill Taylor testified, Trump reportedly encouraged a group of House Republicans to obstruct the impeachment inquiry by physically storming the secure office where a Defense Department official was testifying. These Republican freedom fighters were led by human frat paddle Matt Gaetz, who chanted, let us in, let us in, before quietly sitting at a conference table to eat the pizza that they ordered. Dan, what prompted this brave protest? Any problems you see with the basic logic behind it?

I would say, just Adam Schiff, if you're listening, that I think there may be a flaw in your strategy to run these secret partisan hearings to keep Republicans in the dark. So the advice I give you is maybe stop inviting all the Republican members of the committee to all the depositions. It's like, what are we doing? It's just so it's like, it's not a secret process. There are Republicans in the room, no people not in the room, where people, the Republican leadership decided not to put on the committees that are holding the hearings. And it, it is, it it is it really like human frat paddle is these brilliant way and i don't was that tommy or love it who i can't remember which one of them did um let's just

let's go with tommy um it's a perfect way to describe matt gates obviously because he's just this absurd creature of the trump era but there there is this frat, like low rent frat house atmosphere that is the modern Republican Party that the only response here cannot be some sort of intellectual argument or a fact based response or looking at the law. It has to be a stunt has to be an absurd stunt of a bunch of grown men. I think there are almost entirely men and that's just based on the fact that there are republicans in the house which is almost all white men and who went stormed a room and ordered pizza and begged to be arrested yeah they want they can be heroes of what i don't know it's so stupid it's just so dumb there's so many problems with their argument here. It's it's hard to know where to begin. But I think we should with the fact that, you know, yes, these are these

hearings that are being conducted right now. And they're more interviews than they are like full blown hearings. They are being conducted behind closed doors. But what you wouldn't know from listening to Trump or the Republicans or any fucking person on Fox is that they're being conducted by Democrats and Republicans. Like you said, Republicans who are on the Intelligence Committee, who are on the Oversight Committee and who are on the Judiciary Committee are all in the room. And Democrats who are on those three committees are all in the room. Democrats who are not on those committees aren't allowed in, just like Republicans who aren't on those committees aren't allowed in. It's that fucking simple. In fact, a quarter of the Republicans who were part of the protest,

who stormed the meeting, were already allowed in. They were already allowed into the meeting if they just wanted to. They did it as a stunt to get press attention. It was un-fucking-believable. Do you think it was smart or stupid? I think it was... As a stunt. I think as stunts go... I mean, I don't know.

I think it's pretty fucking stupid. But did they get a day's worth of headlines about how they stormed into a meeting? Yeah. Although I have to say, you know, we criticize the media often. Like, every single nonpartisan reporter and outlet reported that it was a stunt, that it was ridiculous, and explained what was really true. Even on Fox, I saw, you know, Andrew Napolitano, Judge Napolitano on Fox and Friends this morning talking about how like, this is what happens. You don't want witnesses to coordinate testimony. So you do these initial interviews in a closed session privately. And

then Adam Schiff has already said, we're going to hold public hearings and we're going to make all of this testimony public. He has already said that. So the crazy thing is that all these Republicans and Trump are like the Democrats and their socialist closed door Soviet style hearings. What are they doing? Like as if we're afraid of public hearings. I can't fucking wait for the public hearings. Like it might be a short term tactic to get them through right now to try to get a few good headlines, but it's going to blow up in their face as soon as there are public hearings. Right. Yeah. The idea that they want this to happen in public is insane. Like just the like this has been the problem. This is why this has been hard for Democrats.

I understand the process they're going through. It's the right process to come to a measured reason, fully investigated decision. But we live in a online video world and print stories are not going to drive a conversation. So just a bunch of headlines about what Bill Taylor said, it's not the same as an event where Bill Taylor is delivering testimony. People are tuning in on their television or watching the clips online like that it'll be so much more powerful and it like this is i when we were in the white house and the republicans would constantly do stupid shit i always used to try to explain to people that the republican congressional republican strategy is not this is not a chess checkers conversation because that's insulting to checkers it's basically they want to do whatever gets them through the next caucus

meeting right it's like whatever just makes the next lunch they're going to have to have with the crazies less uncomfortable. And now it's basically like, how do you get to the next Trump tweet? Right? Like how, like, what are we going to do for the next five minutes without any thought of what happens in minutes six through 1 million? And that's what that is. Now, the way in which this is somewhat, there is some logic to this is Republicans have understood since the beginning of Obama's presidency that stunts like this work because what they do is they surf the natural cynicism of the American public. And so people don't have, most people who are not news obsessive like us and many of the people listening, they just are, they're just looking at

the headlines either on the chyron about on the TV or as they're scrolling through Facebook or whatever social media they use. And all you hear is a bunch of people yelling at each other. And then they immediately default to both sides are bad. It's like, oh, there's a big mess here. It must be something. And so throwing a bunch of mud around can dirty up the process for a lot of people who are naturally cynical about politics. And these are the people that we need to turn out, right? And so when you, you know, same thing happened with healthcare people, they didn't pay attention to healthcare in 2010 when we were trying to pass it into the, what the actual specifics of the bill were. It was just a bunch of people yelling at each other

at town halls and a bunch of people were yelling at each other. It seems like it might be problematic. And so I think that is the underlying logic to the idiocy of yesterday is just make the whole thing seem so messy that people will tune out while ensuring that Trump's base turns out. That's sort of, there's a political process here that I think is something we should keep our eyes on. Well, and I will say, even people who aren't cynical about politics and who do pay attention to the news, the logic here is to try to confuse them as much as possible. I mean, my dad, who pays a lot of attention to the news, I was talking to him last night about this whole thing. And he's like, I didn't know that Republicans were allowed in some of these

meetings. He's like, I thought that he's like, Schiff should make that clear. I don't know. I've been paying attention to the news all day. I didn't know they were allowed in some of these meetings. He's like, I thought that he's like, shift should make that clear. I don't know. I've been paying attention to the news all day. I didn't know they were allowed in some of the hearings. Like, so there is, they are just trying to confuse people, even people who pay a lot of attention to this stuff. And it's easy.

And I mean, I don't think I knew until two days ago, three days ago that, um, three committees worth of Republicans were in the fucking room, you know? So, uh,

you know, you can see why they're doing this. And I, I will say also when there are public hearings, I think the public hearings will be very strong. I think they'll be able to be choreographed at that point because Schiff and Pelosi and all the Democrats will have all the testimony they need

and they'll be able to figure out, like, who should we hear from in what order to make sure the most compelling story is possible. But Republicans will try to make those hearings a fucking circus because they're going to get time to speak and they're going to say crazy shit and they're going to yell and they're going to try to do what they did in that Corey Lewandowski hearing

and try to make it seem like it's so much of a circus that everyone's like, why is everyone yelling at each other during these impeachment hearings? So there is going to be a similar challenge even when these hearings are public. Yeah, for sure. I will say, we forgot to mention one more thing about how fucking stupid that stunt was is the interviews were being held in what's known as a secure compartment information facility, known as a SCIF is the acronym there. And they have some of these in the White House, in the Situation Room.

They have some in Congress. Basically, they're places you can go and have meetings where you don't bring any cell phones in, any laptops, anything else, because you want to be as secure as possible. And so if people are hacking, if there's listening devices, whatever else,

you can make sure that this is, you know, that this is clear of all that. And you can basically discuss classified information, right? And these fucking goobers charge in there with their cell phones into a skiff, which you are never supposed to do. Never. These same Republicans who are, you know, they care a lot about operational security when it comes to private emails

and email servers and all that bullshit. But they'll just barge into a fucking skiff which you're never supposed to do with their cell phones john i don't want to seem cynical here but i don't think they really care about the use of private email servers i don't think that was i don't think that was i don't think that was sincere no that's the other part about this that was funny was i know i know i'm sorry i always feel bad when i burst the last bubble the last bubbles of optimism and hope um the other part about this it's sort of funny is kevin mccarthy this is they violated house rules like you're not allowed to do that the The parliamentarian ruled on that today. But yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, who is really a doofus and just truly a doofus, went out and explained that it's not these members faults.

They don't know these rules because they're not on the intelligence committee, which is the whole point. The reason they're not in the room is because they're not on the intelligence committee. Thank you, Kevin McCarthy. I'm sure that sounded smart in the mirror when you're practicing it while combing your hair. So I guess Lindsey Graham today, as we're recording this, Lindsey Graham is also going to introduce a resolution in the Senate that is an official, you know, disapproval of the House's impeachment process and how it's a closed door secret process. Like, do you think he's going to get all the Republican votes for this? Do you think I mean, this it's clearly not just Matt Gates in his in his frat buddies storming, storming a skiff here. But this is it seems like this is a

broader Republican strategy now. Is it is it smart? Do you think Graham's going to succeed? I know McConnell's backing Graham in this resolution. Well, I mean, I'm interested to see if McConnell will actually bring this to the floor and force Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Susan Collins, et cetera, to vote on this, because it seems like a lose-lose, because if those, if any Republicans vote against it, like either the vulnerable Republicans I mentioned, or someone like Elisa Murkowski, who, you know, has been known to buck the party at times, if any of them vote against it, that's a giant blow to Trump and would put this bipartisan, basically able to show some bipartisan support, including Republican senators for it. And if he passes it on a party line vote and forces all of these Republicans running in blue and purple states of presidential election year to say that they disapprove of looking into presidential crimes.

Right. Which is different than saying I've looked at this. It's troubling. It doesn't reach the level of conviction. Yeah, that's a that's a much worse position for people. And so I would I am surprised. I would be surprised if McConnell brought this to the floor. It seems, I understand why Graham did it because he knows Trump's mad at him. And this is the legislative equivalent of John Cusack standing outside holding up a boom box. So he's just trying to send a message to Trump. And the, but I think the long-term play here seems not helpful for the Republican Party. So we're talking about Lindsey Graham and the Senate resolution. Not all of the Republican senators have gone with, you know, Trump and Matt Gaetz and Lindsey Graham and, you know, fully defending everything already. Here's a quote from one Republican senator about Bill Taylor's testimony.

Quote, the picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we've seen, I would say is not a good one. But I would say also that until we have a process that allows for everybody to see this in full transparency, it's pretty hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions. That was John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate, second ranking Senate Republican. There were similar wait and see comments from senators like Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, Pierre Delecto. And this week, the Daily Caller contacted the offices of all 53 Republican senators and found only seven who said that they definitively opposed the impeachment inquiry into Trump.

So, you know, we can't really predict anything here. But do you think the chances of 20 Republicans voting to convict Trump have increased this week with Taylor's testimony? Have the politics changed at all? What do you think? I don't think the chances of Trump being removed from office have increased. I do not. Even though the impeachment number, polling numbers have moved, what drives Republican fealty to Trump is the Republican base. And that has not moved. And I don't, and I have no reason to believe it is going to move because it's, it is, it's at 38%, right? Because a lot of these people are in these very, who would make these decisions in these very Republican states,

and they're definitely afraid of a primary. The filing deadlines have not passed in a lot of states. So this process will end before those filing deadlines do pass. So I think that's very unlikely. I think we should be clear-eyed about that and not get anyone's hopes up. And certainly allow the media to move what is success from a inquiry that tells a story to the country with a trial and where that reveals information

to whether Trump is removed or not, because that is a game we are destined to lose. I do think the Republicans are finding all of their previous defenses to be much and much harder to sustain. So I suspect we're going to see a strategic retreat of sorts where you are not adamantly opposed to the inquiry itself, but you become adamantly opposed that what is discovered in the inquiry reaches a level worthy of removal. Yeah. And that's where they end up, right? That's the final excuse from all the Republicans, even someone like Collins. And honestly, it mirrors their final excuse in the Kavanaugh confirmation, right? Which was, you know, Susan Collins said something like, yeah, maybe there's wronging, but we can't really be sure. And it doesn't rise to the level of stopping this appointment and all that kind of bullshit.

You can see them and you can see even the ones who are up in 2020 ultimately saying, well, look, I supported the inquiry because I think it was important to get to the bottom of this. But I don't believe it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. So knowing that that's where they're going to end up and knowing that one of our big political goals here has never been like, yeah, we really think that 20 Republicans are going to have the courage to fucking remove this guy from office. But we want to make sure we want to make life as hard on some of these Senate Republicans who are up in purple states. We want to make it as hard as possible for them to vote to protect Trump. How should Democrats respond to that argument that it just doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense? I think it is to make the case in as clear and dramatic terms as possible that it does, right? This is like, you have to explain simply and clearly how this is an abuse of power.

And I mean, we really are where you have a quid pro quo around military aid for a vulnerable ally in exchange for a politically motivated investigation to interfere in an upcoming election, that is an A-plus answer to a poli-sci question of what is an impeachable offense. It is that that is exactly what they were thinking about. And you have to make that case. You have to do it clearly and succinctly. And I do think we've been involved in this, we, the world, and then even some of us internally at Positive American Committee, discussing should it be just Ukraine? Should it be other things? Should it be broader?

I'm generally for broader. do think the talk, you know, some of the things we've heard about how focusing this around abuse of power from this president, with that being the framing concept with what's happened in Ukraine as the centerpiece of that is a very powerful argument. And you have to show why these Republicans who are trying to have it both ways are full of shit. And that means making the case simply, clearly and every day between now and whatever day this trial comes to a conclusion. So I like focusing it on abuse of power. But I do think that proving that Donald Trump's behavior towards Ukraine is part of a larger pattern and that he has done this kind of thing, that he has abused his power time and time again, helps make it more difficult for Republicans in Congress to vote to acquit.

And I think if you can say it wasn't just Ukraine, he tried to he asked China to investigate the Bidens. And today, Trump's trade representative, Peter Navarro, was asked if investigating the Bidens has ever come up during the trade talks with China. And he said he wouldn't answer. So there's another possibility. Like, I think you need to show that, look, this guy is using the power of the presidency and abusing the power of the presidency to do whatever it takes to win reelection. And we cannot have free and fair elections in 2020 if this man remains in office because he has already proven time and again he will stop at nothing, at nothing, to try to get foreign help to win this election on his behalf. And I think the way we need to frame it ultimately is a vote to acquit is a vote to greenlight foreign interference in the 2020 election. It's not about Trump. It's not about defending Trump or opposing Trump. If you are Susan Collins

and you vote to acquit, you just voted to give the green light for foreign interference in the 2020 election. That's what your vote is about. And if Democrats run those ads, they will be completely fucking fair in Maine, in Arizona, all the places where Republicans are out. And even if they weren't fair, you could still run on one Facebook without any problems. That is right. Yeah, everyone go check out AOC's questioning of Mark Zuckerberg yesterday and Katie Porter's and everyone's. It was fantastic. But yeah, look, I'm not for widening the inquiry in a way that will confuse the storyline, because I think we have a good, understandable, accessible storyline right now. But I am for proving that Donald Trump's abuse of power with regard to Ukraine is part of a larger pattern and making sure that the American people know what that pattern is and making sure that the senators who are voting on this know what that pattern is and feel the pressure. And I think the way we can bring in

all the various strains of this in a one story is something along the lines of Donald Trump has abused his office to enrich himself, reward his friends and punish his enemies. And so that gets you corruption, which is I think whether it's Doonbeck or the G7 or any of that, it gets the things he's done to, you know, reward donors and it gets to the foreign election interference. Yeah. And I think just and put our and put free and fair elections at risk, you know, put our democracy at risk. I think I think getting into people's heads that we might not have a fair election because Donald Trump has, you know, whether it's Bill Barr or President Zelensky, he's using all of the using all the powers of his presidency to make sure he wins. And we can't be sure. We know about the Ukraine one because of a brave whistleblower. I mean, even Bill Taylor, who's like a good guy in all this because he came forward and is, you know, speaking out. Bill Taylor, if not for the

whistleblower, wouldn't have said anything. And we would never have known about all this. So think about all of the other abuses of power that are going on in the administration if this is the only one that we know about right now. All right. Let's talk about 2020. talk about 2020. It is apparently that time of the campaign season where Democratic donors and strategists and people who love taking calls from reporters freak out over the field of Democratic candidates. Here's Jonathan Martin in the New York Times, quote, Democratic leaders are engaging in a familiar right, fretting about who is in the race and longing for a white knight to enter the contest at the last minute. And here's the Washington Post, quote, in conversations with 17 state and national party

leaders, nearly all expressed some level of unease with where the field stands and a deepening concern that the leading contenders would struggle mightily against Trump. These party leaders are reportedly kicking around the idea of trying to get a variety of candidates to enter the race, from Michael Bloomberg and Bob Iger to John Kerry and Deval Patrick to Sherrod Brown and even Hillary Clinton. Dan, where have we seen these pieces before? Every election. Every election.

Happens every single time. It's a democratic tradition. I mean, frankly, it's a bipartisan tradition like no other because that's how we got Rick Perry in the race in 2012 and Fred Thompson in 2004. There is something about the primary process that is very diminishing of candidates. You go a year of tremendous scrutiny, debates, getting in debate exchanges with fourth-tier candidates, reporters coming after you, making gaffes. And so you would do all of that before you ever get a single vote so every like it is a all

of every candidate's flaws are on full display and you don't have without actual elections you don't have any validation of whether there was reason for your anxiety and so we we've seen this every single time it's not surprising what is interesting about it to me this time is two things. One, there's more anxiety this time because Trump is bad. And this is the scariest election we're ever going to have. And it feels like a lot of what this country is about and democracy is about is on the ballot this time. And second is that these party leaders who are quoted in these stories have never had less influence. Right? And second is that these party leaders who are quoted in these stories have never had less influence. Right. They just there's there's not there's no there's no it's been a long time, but there's no smoke filled room somewhere where a bunch of donors and state party chairs can put a candidate on the ballot.

Like the all of the power has been pushed down to the grassroots. And you can see that by the fact that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are at the top of this race with Joe Biden, two people who do not have a ton of establishment support. And the other person who is lurking in the backgrounds is the 38-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who couldn't even win the DNC chairmanship two years ago. And so these are not candidates the party leaders are picking. So I wouldn't sweat this one too much. So I wouldn't sweat this one too much. Yeah, I should say the other reason everyone's so scared is not only that Trump's awful and, you know, would be a catastrophe if he got a second term, but that we lost to him in the first place. And we all got it wrong. Right. And so it is like everyone is so much more nervous this time about who we're going to choose as a nominee. And I think that's getting

there, too. Now, the issue here, though, is the worry among the party leaders and donors is not necessarily reflected in the Democratic electorate. According to a poll of Democratic and Democratic leaning voters conducted by YouGov after the last debate, 83% described themselves as satisfied with the field and 45% described themselves as enthusiastic. So yeah, we'd like the enthusiastic number to be out there, but 83% of people being satisfied. And you look at approval ratings for some of these candidates. Elizabeth Warren's approval ratings among Democrats is incredibly high. Pete Buttigieg's approval rating among Democrats is incredibly high. Joe Biden's is pretty high. Bernie Sanders is pretty high.

There's four candidates right there who have very, very high approval ratings with the Democratic electorate. The other thing here is, let's just hypothetically say you as a donor or a party leader or just a random voter are nervous or have some reason to not be in love with the top three or top four, the people you just listened yeah there are plenty of other great candidates in the race that you could support you could support cory booker amy klobuchar or kamala harris or better like lack of candidates is not our problem right so we don't need to go dragging people out of retirement to get into

race it's it's just it's an absurd proposition. Well, especially people, look, look, you and I, and we've done this, right? You and I could make a case why each one of these candidates in the field, at least the leading candidates, and some of the ones in the second tier could beat Donald Trump in a case why they could lose to Donald Trump, right? And with some candidates, there are different reasons for each. But I also all the candidates that have been mentioned in the piece who aren't running and people want to jump in. I could do the same thing with them about strengths they have and weaknesses they have. The truth is, every single one of these candidates has strengths and they have weaknesses. No one is perfect. We are not going to nominate the perfect Democratic candidate. We never have. We never have. Like we can go back and look at all the stories about party leaders.

And I'm sure there's a fucking whole bunch of Ed Rendell quotes about why Barack Obama is a weak general election nominee. Why Barack Obama can't win against John McCain, especially John McCain, who at the time was this maverick independent hero. Like, oh, no. Like, you know, Barack Obama up against John McCain. That's going to be horrible. So, like, I do think there is, look, I understand. I get the concern that people have right now that we're not going to win. I have it every fucking day. But I think, you know, as I go down the list of candidates, like I said,

I can give you a case why each one of them wins, and I can give you a case why they lose. And all that we can do is work our fucking asses off for whoever the Democratic nominee is to make sure that they do win. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's up to us. If you have anxiety, go to a phone bank and call an undecided voter. Don't call Jonathan Martin. Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest. Don't call Jonathan Martin. Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest. So, you know, so the piece says, you know, they're worried about Biden because of his campaign. He's sort of, you know, even though, you know, his poll numbers are fairly steady, but he's slipping a lot in Iowa. So they're worried about Biden for all that. And then they say they're worried about Warren because, you know, she's taken positions that are too liberal. Right. And what they really mean here is her position on Medicare for all. So we should stop to talk about that just because partly in response to these concerns about her position on Medicare for all, which she was challenged on during the last debate, the senator

announced on Sunday that in a few weeks she'll release her plan on how to pay for it. So first of all, you know, how concerning is her embrace of Bernie Sanders Medicare for all legislation? Do you think it's a smart move that she is finally going to release specifics on how to pay for it? And also, did she really have a choice? I think what was smart, like there is plenty of evidence and plenty of reason for political concern around medicare for all right it can be like just the polling is is clear that there are risks there there are risks in every policy and the question isn't what the policy is it's how do you sell that policy and what i think was smart was elizabeth Warren, unlike all the other candidates not named Bernie Sanders, backed Bernie Sanders's bill back in 2017.

And when she did that, she knew she was making a decision that that was going to be her approach in the presidential campaign, that she wouldn't back that bill to get liberal excitement as you were thinking about running for president and then have a different approach the being for that bill and then being for a different bill has been problematic for a bunch of other candidates who senators who had done that but elizabeth warren has run an excellent campaigns thus far the only place where i think she has made real mistakes since she actually got in the race has been around the question of the pay for and it's been in it it's been a topic of every debate it has been and even though i know what she is trying to do there it hasn't come off well and it's and it seems very typical politician to someone who is brennan themselves as an atypical politician and so she needs an answer i am frankly very fascinated to see what you say, because I think the better answer would have been to just follow Bernie's lead and just say what Bernie was saying, both in the primary and the general, because now she's going to have this new plan that's going to get attacked from 13 different directions, depending on how many candidates you think are still in the race, as opposed to siding yourself with Bernie and with where she originally was.

Well, and let's look at what Bernie has done, right? Bernie has a list of potential pay-fors in his legislation, potential pay-fors. One of those is some percentage on a payroll tax, which would hit, of course, working and middle class families. Bernie Sanders has been open about the fact that, yes, taxes might go up on some working middle class families, but your premiums will go down to zero along with your co-pays and deductibles. So you'll be fine in the end. So that's where Bernie is. Elizabeth Warren, by saying your costs will go down and not saying anything about taxes, but promising, pledging she will not sign a piece of

legislation that has costs go up for middle class families. By saying that, yes, she doesn't want to give the Republicans a talking point of her saying taxes will go up, but it's clear she just doesn't agree with that pay for, which is why she's finding her own. Right. She doesn't want that payroll tax increase or else she probably would have just figured out a way to say it in a different way. Right. Like she's she's looking at other funding options. So what she's trying to do is solve this puzzle of how to fund this very, very expensive program. Like, yes, we know that Medicare for All is going to ultimately bring health care costs down because right now we have so much waste in health care. And part of that waste is overhead and unnecessary tests and all the bullshit that insurance companies do and hospitals do and all this kind of stuff that we don't need to get into.

But there's a lot of waste. But still, to get the program off the ground, it does need financing. But still, to get the program off the ground, it does need financing. And, you know, I do. I agree that for someone who's come out with so many plans and so many details, including like, you know, I think it would have been a mistake and it would have just been, it's core to who she is, right? To talk about plans and details. And so I don't think she had an option. I don't think she had another option. Now, the question is when she comes out with a plan, how do you come up with a plan to pay for this that doesn't either get attacked by Bernie Sanders on the left by saying, oh, you're actually a sellout. You didn't

stick with my Medicare for all plan or get attacked by, you know, folks in the center and the center left and the right saying, oh, this is crazy. It's going to raise taxes on people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it's a it's a tough needle to thread. I'll say that. Yeah. I mean, I think it was this problem could have been like she made this an issue by not answering it or trying to reframe the question. And I think maybe thinking that her reframing could hold. But once you're doing a debate every month and you're taking questions from reporters all the time and questions from people at town halls, that becomes less sustainable. And it certainly becomes less sustainable as you get near the top. And it gives an incentive to people like Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden or some others to make a point, a very fair point about that. And the question that

I always sort of wondered is, A, why not just say I'm open, like, is there a way you could say I'm open to a number of ways of paying for it? But my principle is no one who makes less than X will see their taxes raised. Right. Like that, like, like, does that pass some green eye shade budget test? No,

but the Republicans just passed a trillion dollar tax cut for wall street and told everyone's going to be paid for. And it's added a trillion dollars of deficit, like six, seven minutes. So I think there was like, there was probably a way to stake out a principle here and then leave the details for later. Now, I'd be interested to see, is this going to be a super

detailed, like all the columns and numbers add up and how that plays politically both right now in a moment where I think she is going to be the focus of attacks. And I assume the deadline for this is the November 20th. Yes. Debate, right? Like she has to have that answer by then. Yeah. There was a story that Jeff Stein at the Washington Post ran today just before we started recording about some of the advisors, her economic advisors, outside advisors trying to help her with this. And the campaign did say they're going to have it out by the next debate. They also said, you know, one of the things they're looking at, which seems like a good place to go, is some kind of employer tax

so that, you know, employers right now, you know, spend money to cover their employees. Under Medicare for All, employers won't be spending any money on covering their employees ever again because the government is paying for that. So do you say to employers who are right now covering their employees, all right, the money that you spend on your employees right now for coverage, you're going to pay in taxes. Now, it's still a tax increase, but is it more politically palatable to say I'm going to raise taxes on employers than employees and middle class families? Yeah, probably. Now, does that get you all the way there? I don't think it does. I think you still need a couple more pay-fors, but that's one place I could see her going.

All right. Let's end by discussing something that we do think is worth freaking out over, which is the Democrats' information warfare strategy for 2020. Times published a very well-reported piece that lays out how the Trump campaign has spent three years building a, quote, sophisticated digital marketing effort that includes targeted ads, tested content and data collection. Democrats, according to the story, are quite far behind and not nearly as focused on digital ad spending, message testing or data collection. So everyone who listens knows that we're concerned about this at Pod Save America. But do you want to explain just how concerned we are and why? We're quite concerned. We're quite concerned. And it falls on, I think, a couple of different reasons. One is simply, this is a product of Trump's immense incumbency advantage. Barack Obama started his reelection campaign in April of 2011,

which gave him a little over a year and a half to build infrastructure, test messages, build tech, accumulate data. Trump formed his reelection committee five hours after he was sworn into office in January of 2017. And they have been raising and spending money in an incredible clip. And what that allows you to do is accumulate a ton of data about who to target and how to target them so that you will be incredibly efficient and effective in your advertising spend

in the general election once you know who your opponent is. In addition to just building up your supporters, defining the conversation with the money you're spending right now, you're going to know so much more about the electorate than the Democrat is going to be because the Democrats are focused, rightfully, the Democratic candidates are focused, rightly, on primarily winning four states, two of which are highly unlikely to vote for the Democrat in the fall. And within those states, they're not targeting swing voters. They're mostly targeting traditional primary voters, certain Democratic voters. And they're spending their money not on learning how to persuade voters, but on building up their email list and building up their fundraising databases.

That's where they're spending their money. You can't even compare the money the Democrats are spending and the money Trump is spending because they're two different things. The money Democrats are spending has very limited, if any, utility for how you're actually going to wage it in the general election. The second problem is, and this is very well revealed in the story, which is there's just a fundamental, continues to be this fundamental disconnect between how a lot of Democrats, not all of them, but a lot of Democrats view political communications. I've said this before, but Democrats view political communications as public relations when it is really in this day and age, modern information warfare, which means it is using data, it is targeting,

is trying to shift the online conversation in your way, in your direction, to understand how you persuade, not by telling the New York Times or CNN or even Pond Save America things. It's how you take content and information and put it in front of the voters who need to hear it. It is almost hand-to-hand persuasion through digital advertising, through organic content, et cetera. And too much of the structures around democratic communications continues to be set up around how you communicate to the press. And there's a lot of incentives within a primary to do that because democratic primary voters pay attention to the press. And the third thing that is very concerning is that Facebook is the primary engine for all of this. And Facebook provides conservatives with a structural advantage. There is an algorithmic reward for outrage, and outrage is the coin of the realm in Republican politics. And so Republican messages, which

drive outrage, go further on Facebook. Republican ads that drive outrage reach more people more efficiently than Democratic ads. And so in order to figure out how to match them, we need to be spending money and working on it right now. And with a couple of exceptions that we can talk about, there's just been this giant vacuum on the Democratic side for a long time. So, yes. How's that? That scare you? No, that's great. I mean, look, I'm there. So because there's something wrong with me, I got into it with Nate Silver over the story on Sunday because he spent most of Sunday tweeting about how wrong and overblown it was at one point saying, quote, there's nothing magic about digital ad spending. who works for one of the 19 Democratic campaigns is an idiot, far more likely is that they've studied this stuff with some empirical rigor rather than buying into the largely evidence-free media mythology about the effectiveness of digital campaign ads. Dan, so what is Nate right about and what is he wrong about?

What Nate is right about is the Trump campaign, they are not geniuses, right? The Trump campaign are not geniuses. They were more lucky than good in 2016. But they stumbled on something that was incredibly effective, which was they ran a modern digital marketing campaign where they beta tested thousands of different messages to see which one worked best and then doubled downs on the ones on the ones that worked. And they did that out of necessity, not out of genius. But it did work. It's very hard to pull apart Nate's argument because there are elements of it that are right. The Trump campaign are not geniuses. And they spent the last few years telling everyone they are geniuses and basically lying about what they did in 2016. Like that is true. Yeah, it's not that the Democrats have studied this figure out doesn't work because they have no incentive right now to be doing the things that Trump is doing because they're trying to get Democratic primary voters. So I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that digital ads are magical, mythical, like all other things. They have to be done right to work.

What I do know is that we are being massively outspent in an area that matters. And in order to do it well in the fall, you have to be learning how to do it well now. Yeah, where I really where I fundamentally disagree with Nate. I mean, obviously, digital ads aren't magic. No one is arguing that like the Trump campaign found some secret sauce with digital ads. And, you know, they have this magic recipe that, you know, they can hack into our brains and figure it out and win the election that way. And Democrats, it's not that. It goes back to how do you communicate with voters, right? This is the

decision that every campaign has to make is what do you say to voters and how do you say it to them? Where do you reach them? Where do you find them? And it used to be that you found a lot of voters, most voters, on television. And there was three news channels and everyone watched the nightly news. And then if you ran a political ad, that's how you got your message across. In addition to getting stories on the nightly news about your campaign that day. That world is gone. It has been gone for a very long time. And it is increasingly harder to find the voters who we need to win the election. Not very engaged partisans on both sides, but the folks that we were talking about earlier when the impeachment hearing stuff,

who are either cynical about politics or who are disengaged from politics, who casually pay attention to the news. Where do you find those people? You find them on their phones. They are not watching television anymore. They're not watching the news anymore. Even older people who are the most reliable television watchers are now on Facebook more than ever. Young people are on their phones. They're on Instagram. They're on Snapchat, right? And the question is, are Democratic campaigns reaching people where they are? How do you figure out a way to reach people where they are? And the Trump campaign, like you said, not through genius but by necessity because they were so far behind in the Republican primary for so long

and didn't think they would beat Hillary Clinton and think they were going to get outspent by Hillary Clinton, they had to, out of necessity, figure out ways to reach people in hard-to-reach places on Facebook and test ads and do all this kind of shit. And the Trump campaign will, you know, Plouffe was talking about this. David Plouffe was talking about this, that like Brad Parscale basically admitted it, that it was out of necessity that they did these things. They were able to take risks and be creative because they didn't have any other shot. Democratic campaigns aren't as willing to take those risks. And like you said,

we are at a moment right now where all of these candidates are focusing on winning the primary as they should be. But that means that there's only one side that is reaching voters where a lot of them are, which is on Facebook or some of the other platforms where, I mean, they're also running stuff on YouTube, on cable, right? The Trump campaign is spending money everywhere. And they are reaching people where they are with messages that they are testing in real time to see if they work in real time, not some like focus group and poll, and then they go into the field afterwards. They're sending out messages, they're testing them, and then they're getting the feedback,

and they're changing their ads. And on our side, you know, I know Priorities USA, which is the big Democratic super PAC on our side said that they're actually now outspending Trump in some of the battleground states on digital, the six battleground states that are the closest, which is great, good for priorities. We've talked a lot about ACRONYM, Tara McGowan's organization that David Plouffe is now sitting on. They're about to launch an entire effort to go fund digital advertising that's as creative and interesting as what the Trump campaign has been doing. So that's great, too. But like, you don't have to believe in magic to think that digital advertising is effective. It's just about communicating with voters and where you

do it and how. Right. Like, and it's just his view is like, let's leave no stone unturned. Right. Like that. Like how it works, how effective it is, like that's all going to matter in the execution. But what I do fundamentally believe is it's not like the thing we just can't do again is the digital advertising is happening over here and the press department's happening over here. It's all of a piece. It's all of a strategy of persuasion and pushback and shaping the conversation in American politics, because Trump has all the wind in his back in doing this. He is a giant bully pulpit. He has a state run propaganda organization. The economics of digital ads on media outlets push towards Trump content. Facebook's algorithm push for Trump content.

So we need an all hands on deck, holistic effort to push back on it. I'm very I was very excited to see the news about priorities. I'm very excited to see what Acronym does. The more the merrier. Let's get in there and get this done. Good. Okay. On that note, we will see you guys next week.

And because everyone is still traveling to different places, I believe that you and Lovett are doing the Monday pod next week. We are. And then Tommy and I are doing the Thursday pod next week because we'll both be on the road too. So that is the schedule for next week because we'll both be on the road too. So that is the schedule for next week. And everyone have a great weekend.

One day people will write books about the effort to record this pod today. Bye, everyone. I will not be writing that book. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.