Pod Save America - “Pollercoaster.”

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

With 15 days to go, Jon and Dan give a midterm update, Trump uses caravans and voter fraud to scare people, Democrats try to flip state legislatures, and the Trump Administration wants to define transgender Americans out of existence. Then Democratic Congressional candidate Aftab Pureval talks to Jon about his race to flip the Ohio 1st, and why we need a new generation of leaders in Washington.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today we'll be talking to the Democrat who's running a very tight race in Ohio's first congressional district, my friend Aftab Perival. And when we're in Philadelphia on Friday for the next episode of our HBO series, you'll be hearing from another congressional candidate who's running in Pennsylvania's 6th district, Chrissy Houlihan. And if you haven't watched our show from last Friday with Beto O'Rourke, take a look. Watch it.

You can stream it. I think you'll really like it. It was a good show. What are you doing if you haven't watched it? I hope the answer is you're out all weekend canvassing. That is the only excuse for that. Perfectly acceptable excuse, by the way. But, you know, stream it while you walk around.

That's what people do on their phones these days, right? Seems dangerous. Yeah, it does. I've seen love it while you walk around. That's what people do on their phones these days, right? Seems dangerous. Yeah, it does. I've seen love it do it. Okay. Dan, it is 15 days until the election. That time when you wake up every morning with a knot in your stomach and freak out about everything. Maybe that's just me.

It's a wonderful few weeks for our country. So let's start with where the race stands today. Obviously, all of you know how we feel about the danger of hopping on the polar coaster. But polling does tend to shape the media narrative. And so here we have yesterday's NBC Wall Street Journal poll. I'll give you the headline or I'll give you the lead. Quote, Fueled by increased enthusiasm from women, Latinos, and young voters for the upcoming midterm election,

Democrats hold a nine-point lead among likely voters over Republicans in congressional preference. Few things of note here, and then I want to hear your thoughts. Among the wider pool of registered voters, the Democratic advantage is only seven points, 48 to 41. And the reason that the likely voter margin is larger, which doesn't tend to happen to Democrats in midterms, usually when you go in the midterms from the registered voter pool to the likely voter pool, Republicans gain, not Democrats. So that's unusual. And the reason that's happened is because in the, at least in this poll, they're detecting that Democrats are more enthusiastic to vote. 72% of Democrats say they have high interest in the upcoming election versus 68% of Republicans, not too big of a gap,

not too big of a gap. And among all registered voters of both parties, 65% have high interest, the largest for a midterm electorate dating back to 2006. There's also some good numbers for Trump in here too, but I want to start with sort of the top line numbers. Dan, what did you make of those? Do you know what those numbers are worth to me? Shit. Nothing. They mean nothing. nothing they're they mean they mean nothing they mean absolutely nothing they are interesting and we know and i don't blame people for being people who look at the polls and you know we can't we we tell you that they don't matter but we should practice what we preach because let me read you a text i received from someone you know very well this morning. I regret to inform you all that I've again reached that point where I refresh FiveThirtyEight every 10 seconds to look for

new polls, and I'm not proud of it. Did you notice that text, Jon Favreau? That was love it. No, it was me, guys. Look, it's a sickness. I have it. I'm not gonna be able to fix it. I don't care how many elections happen. I'm just gonna do it. But what I think everyone should know is you should put these things in perspective. I think everyone is like we went from the polls mean everything and data means everything last time to polls are worthless and don't mean anything this time. And I don't think either are really true. Polls are a snapshot in time. They help showing broad trends.

They can give you some little bit of information here and there. They are not a great predictive tool. And you should not live and die by them. That is 100% correct. Because they are informative, not instructive. And what I take from these polls are there was a world that seemed possible after Democrats won the Alabama Senate seat or Virginia where we weren't going to have to work that hard for this, where Republicans were going to stay home, Democrats were going to turn out, and we would win that way. That is not what is happening now. Democrats are very, very fired up. So we have tremendous opportunity to, a generational opportunity to take the House and maybe the

Senate and win races up and down the ballot that will have policy and political consequences for decades to come. But we have to turn out to do it because Republicans, they are not sleeping here. They're awake. They're going to turn out. And so the message from these polls are get off your ass. What do you think about the fact, the one weird thing in this poll, among likely voters, Trump's approval is 45-52. And among all registered voters, it's 47-49, which is the highest of his presidency in the NBC Wall Street Journal polls. And of course, in the most competitive House battlegrounds in this poll, many of which take place on Republican turf,

congressional preference is tied. So in case you wanted to feel good about the headline of this poll, here's something to make you feel bad. It is weird that Trump's, I mean, just comparing polls, right? Not polls as a predictive tool of what might happen, but sort of comparing across polls. It was weird to me that Trump's approval has crept up. Yes. I mean, I don't know. I don't either. I don't know.

I don't either. The NBC Wall Street Journal poll is probably the gold standard of media polls, which is not saying a ton, but it's usually pretty good. So I'm not trying to dismiss it or un-skew the polls. So I don't really know. There are different ways to look at it. There is – it could be some noise. Like two points here or there in a poll is very well within the margin of error. That makes a gigantic difference in the headline. Yeah. And the headline writers rarely take margin of error into consideration. And in the polling average, Trump is at 43, 47. So this could be a leading indicator

that his numbers are getting better. It could be noise. None of it matters. It is interesting how Trump's poll numbers in the generic ballot interact, which is Trump's numbers get a little bit better as the electorate gets larger, but the Democrats' chances also get better, which suggests that there are some Trump voters, people who like Trump, who are voting for Democrats for Congress, which I think is very interesting. No, look, and the other thing is, and look, Nate Silver will say this, all the sort of poll watchers will say this, we are at a point in this race where um a normal um poll miss which is usually in the range of two to three points could mean the whole election right like

if we've under if the polls are underestimating republican support by just two or three points republicans take the senate and they may hold on to the house if polls underestimate democratic vote by two to three points, which is a normal polling miss too, suddenly it's a huge wave election for Democrats. So everything's all within the margin of error and we won't fucking know. Won't stop me from checking

them, but something I'm going to tell all of you. Let's go ahead. Now, I don't recommend streaming television content as you walk around, but you can look at the polls in between doors as you canvas over the next few weeks. Yeah, if that's something that makes you feel good. We should also say that at this point, people are already voting. Early vote has now begun in almost every state that has early voting.

Check out all of your state's info on votesaveamerica.com. I know one place early voting has started today is in Texas. If you want to help our friend Beto get out the early vote, go to betofortexas.com slash vote. They could use your help. Saw some big lines in Houston and other places this morning on Twitter. Now, Dan, as we start to get the early vote in, do you want to warn everyone about the dangers of reading too much into the early vote in addition to reading too much into

polls? Yes, I want to do that. Before I want to do that, I also would like to say that today, October 22nd, is voter registration deadline in California, our home state in the state that will likely decide control the House, because we have to win the crooked seven slash eight districts if we want to have any chance seven slash eight districts if we want to have any chance to take in the house. So if you have not, I am positive that everyone listening to this podcast who lives in California is registered, but I know you have friends who don't. So go find them and get their S's registered by the end of the day today. Yes.

Okay. Early vote. There was a time many years ago, eons ago, like 2012, when early vote was a very predictive indicator of what was going to happen. But what has happened since then is it tells us very little, because Democrats have gotten very good at early vote in a lot of places. And so we get see these huge numbers. And we think, well, if we have overperformed 2012 early vote by X amount, then we're going to do X amount better in the election. And what that doesn't take into account, the fact that because we've gotten better at it as a party and people have learned more about it, they've learned it's an option that makes voting much easier, more people do it. And so what you're doing a lot of the times is cannibalizing your election day vote. So you're not adding new voters in early vote,

you're just simply moving election day voters to early vote. Now, that is still a very, very good thing. And I still encourage everyone to early vote because A, it's more convenient. B, you never know what's going to happen on election day. And C, every voter that a campaign can bank early means they don't have to worry about those voters for GOTV on Election Day, so they can focus on lower propensity voters. So early voting is very good. You're just going to see all kinds of things. They're going to say, oh, Democrats are down in Florida in early vote versus 2014, or Democrats are up in Clark County. I would ignore all of it and just use it as an opportunity to remind yourself to early vote and get your friends early vote.

If you are fortunate enough to live in a state that has early vote, if you live in a state that doesn't have early vote, I hope you get a new governor, new legislature who will give you early vote because it is the simplest, most basic thing a democracy should offer its citizens. Yeah. And look, in different states have different patterns on this. Like there's some states where Democrats always tend to do better in the early vote. There's some states where the mail-in ballots and the absentee ballots that come in early tend to favor Republicans. Florida is one of those states. And Florida is just starting their actual in-person early voting today. So you're right. I always find with early vote now that it always seems lose-lose for Democrats because when it's like a great early vote and they're like, oh, crushing, long lines, so many Democrats early voted, you can't get that excited for all the reasons you just listed.

And yet if the early vote's not going well for Democrats, then I think people feel bad. So it seems like it's always – it's never really fun to dig into the early vote. But again, people will keep doing it. It's never really fun to dig into the early vote. But again, people will keep doing it. It is fairly – I know that John Ralston in Nevada used the early vote in 2016 to closely predict that Hillary would win that state. But again, that's one year. Yeah, and she did.

And he also used it to predict Harry Reid winning in a very tough year for Democrats in 2010, and Obama winning in 2012, and Obama winning in 2008. So there is a history there. Most reporters who look at poll numbers and early vote numbers know less about the history of those states and turnout patterns and precinct makeups than anyone listening to this podcast, but John Ralston, that is not the case. He knows a lot. I am just very curious to see whether the trends that he sees of huge, huge Democratic surge continue or whether they're just people who have been waiting to vote since the moment the networks called it for Trump and did it on the first couple of days. So we'll see. It's encouraging to say the least, but it doesn't tell us very much about what's going to happen the next 15 days. No, and we'll have to wait and see about that. All right, let's talk about how Democratic candidates in some of these redder states and districts are trying to win this thing.

Politico published a piece this weekend about how Mitch McConnell's comments about repealing the Affordable Care Act and cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have been a real gift to Democrats. Democrats. Quote, endangered Senate Democrats are trying to turn the election away from Kavanaugh and the mob that the president says their party incited and toward bread and butter government programs that are popular with swing voters in conservative states. Peace goes on to say it's working quite well for Joe Manchin in West Virginia and some of these other red state Democrats. Dan, what do you think of this as a strategy and how is it going? How do we keep up the healthcare message here? Well, before we say that, I would note that we are treating Mitch McConnell telling the truth like it's in a total eclipse of the sun, something that happens once every hundred years. They're like, how did he make this error of telling us the thing his party will do if they win the election? thing his party will do if they win the election. It's just like, it says a lot to me about how it is sort of baked into the assumptions of McConnell, in particular, the Republican Party

in general, that they're just going to lie all the time. So if they tell the, like, the telling the truth is the man bites dog story, and lying is just par for the course. And so it's just a very interesting window into how the Republicans have managed to debase their image to the point the press gives them a political advantage for it. So that's cool. Well, we saw it again this morning, I think. John Tester's opponent in Montana

also just said out loud, told the truth. He's like, yeah, I'm against coverage for pre-existing conditions. I'm against the Affordable Care Act requiring that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, is what he said. And it was treated as this big deal that he was all honest. I'm like, yeah, there's one Republican candidate who's honest about his position on pre-existing conditions. The rest of them are just fucking lying. It's really wild.

This is the right message, and this has been the message all along. Like we have gotten wrapped around the axle in elite political Twitter circles about Kavanaugh, which is obviously one of the most important stories that's happened in a generation. But it has never been the primary message for Democrats on the campaign trail. It was probably a conversation they had to navigate. It was for sure. But they have been advertising on health care from the very beginning. They've been talking about health care on the campaign trail. And what this is, is this is Mitch McConnell has given them a critical piece data point, a critical validation of their argument that Republicans will not just take away health care to, as if that wasn't terrible enough, cut your Medicare. So this has to be every single thing, every word that comes out of a Senate Democrat's mouth between now and the election has to be this. Republicans will take away your health care and cut your Medicare to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. When someone asks Joe Manchin or Heidi Heitkamp what they want for breakfast, that's their answer. When they ask him about Trump's left-wing mob, that's their answer.

When they ask him about the caravan coming to the United States, that's their answer. There are 15 days left as we are recording this. There are no minutes you can get back. Every word, tweet, ad is a zero-sum game. And so you have to do it all on this. We know what works and everything else is a distraction. And look, I mean, we have a ton of money behind ads that are saying all this and the candidates have been saying this on the stump, like you mentioned. It is an uphill climb to make sure that this message sort of breaks through the very uh clouded media narrative that is all over the place and and you've said this before it doesn't necessarily have to but

i mean when you step back every single poll for the last year has all all of them have agreed on one thing that health care is the top issue for voters, that's driving voters in this election. That we've seen for sure. Democrats have been putting all of their money, all of their ads, all of their time and resources behind talking about health care in this race. Republicans have now been lying about the votes that they took to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to gut pre-existing conditions, the budgets they've passed to gut Medicare, to gut Medicaid, to gut Social Security. They've been lying about all their positions on this. And actually, they're now running ads saying, we love pre-existing conditions. So it's no exaggeration to say that this is the biggest issue of this election in voters' minds, in the minds of the Democratic Party. And now it's clearly important to Republicans because they feel like they need to put money behind lies

pretending that they too support universal health care and support pre-existing conditions. So it's a bit crazy that it's not a bigger media story, that it's not coming on CNN and MSNBC and Fox and your local news all the time. But, you know, I guess Democrats just have to keep hammering it anyway and look for opportunities like when Mitch McConnell accidentally tells the truth to find a news hook to get this covered. Yeah, it's like Haley's comment.

We have to take advantage of this one time. Mitch McConnell told the truth because it's not going to happen for 75 years. The other point I make about what is critical about McConnell's point, which is when he has added the cutting of Medicare to the equation. And that is super critical because for a lot of Trump voters, just demographically, a majority of seniors, particularly white seniors, are Republicans and Trump voters, and they are not affected by protections for people with pre-existing conditions because they have Medicare. They have guaranteed universal health care.

Wouldn't that be cool for everyone else? This is an issue that goes right at potentially dividing the – and I've said this before in the context of my imaginary super PAC, dividing the Republicans in Congress from some number of Trump voters. I'm not saying they'll vote for Democrats, and they might in some of these red states with these more moderate Democrats, but they may not vote at all, or they may not vote for these Republicans. And so that is a critical piece to add to the equation going forward. We have to be very smart about how we use the limited campaign dollars we have to target those voters. So in some of these redder states or maybe purpler states, it does look like the Republicans aren't doing as well as some of the other red states, some of the other Senate states. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times published a piece on Sunday about how the trouble-facing Republican candidates for statewide office in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, could spill

over into down ballot races for the House. He also writes that the coattails of the Democrats at the top of the state tickets this year could dramatically affect American politics beyond 2018. Dan, why do you think these states that Trump won, talking Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, why do you think they're different than some of the other states where Republicans are doing better? That is a great question. I think part of it is we just believe, we were all so surprised that Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, that we have sort of treated them as if they were inexorably moving in Republican direction and it would be this way forever. The blue wall had been knocked down forevermore.

And it's worth noting Trump barely won most of those states. Barely. Just a handful of things here or there changed it. 80,000 votes over Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Hillary Clinton as president. That would have been sweet. And so this was always very close. And Trump sort of barely snuck these out. So these are going to be jump balls under all scenarios. Now, in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, you are coming, Iowa, you're coming on the end of eight years of Republican rule and pretty messy Republican rule, particularly in Michigan, because of things like Flint and these other issues. Republican rule and pretty messy Republican rule, particularly in Michigan because of things like Flint and these other issues. And Trump's economic policies, not the populist campaign platform he ran on, but the economic policies that he and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have put in place

since he left are very unpopular in those states. Barack Obama was able to win those states against Mitt Romney by running directly against the very tax cut the Republicans passed. And so Democrats have an advantage. These are populous states, and the Republicans have passed a corporatist agenda. And so finding the division between those two points allows Democrats to have a chance. Yeah, well, I think that's a very good point. And I would advise Democratic candidates as well, and I'm sure're most of them are doing this at least from what i've seen you know you you start with health care but the message goes beyond health care um you know trump every chance he gets and the republicans like to trumpet the economy and of course we've talked about this before the top line numbers of the

economy look pretty good but so much of this is oh look at the stock market's doing great and economic growth overall is great but for a lot of people a lot of working people especially in these states they don't necessarily feel that their health care costs are rising their the cost of education is rising their wages haven't really moved and when they look to washington they see a party that tried to rip away their health insurance um to pay for a tax cut that didn't really go to them, that they're not seeing in their pockets anymore, despite all the promises from fucking Paul Ryan that their paychecks were going to get fatter.

It didn't happen. It went to a bunch of rich companies who were already sitting on a bunch of profits who now have more profits. And then on top of all that, Trump starts a trade war that hurts a lot of people who work in some of these states. So I think economically, if you ask people in a lot of people who work in some of these states. So I think economically, if you ask people in a lot of these Midwestern states individually, how are you feeling about the economy? Has the economy gotten better for you? They'd have a different answer than what do you

think about the economy overall, which if you look at the headlines in the financial press and you listen to Trump, everything seems like it's going wonderful. But I don't think that's true for most people's lives. The other point here that is hinted at in the Jonathan Martin excerpt that you read is that the governors elected in these states, the state legislators elected in these states, will be the ones in power when redistricting is done after the 2020 census. And that is really important. And Democrats suffered mightily because we lost all of those governorships after the 2010 election. And so this is very critical. We have a generational opportunity to improve the political climate in these states, improve the policy climates in these states, put in place progressive policies in the states, and we have to seize it. And I just think, I mean, it is very fortunate we are benefiting from some wind at our backs from

bad Republican candidates, bad Trump policies, just sort of a hangover of eight years of Republicanism. But we have to take advantage of it because there have been states like Florida in the past where we have not taken advantage of that and suffered mightily because of it. Yeah. And now, you know, speaking of some of these governor's races, we talked about how important races for governor are this year on the last pod. But the races for a lot of state legislative seats are just as important. Right now, Republicans control both the House and Senate in 31 states. Democrats have that same kind of unified control in just 13 states, but there are very real chances the Democrats can flip state houses and state senates in several

states this fall, which in some circumstances could lead to Democratic trifectas if Democratic governors are in place as well. Dan, why are these so important? Well, let's think about it on, it's the same reasons that governors were important, but if you have a trifecta, right, you will, if it is a state that does redistricting written by the governor and the state legislature, then we will control redistricting. We can ensure it does not turn into partisan gerrymandering like the Republicans did. We can put in place progressive policies, which would be fucking awesome. You could do Medicaid expansion like they did in Virginia. You can put in place minimum wage. You can protect women's reproductive freedom, particularly as we're looking down the barrel of potential reversal of Roe versus Wade on the Kavanaugh court. You can do things that

like Colorado and the state of Washington had done on background checks and gun safety laws. All the things that if we had control, had a single lever of power in Washington, D.C., we can do, we can do at the state level. It's not the same as giving healthcare to everyone, but every person we can help is a net benefit. And then third, it makes the, you can improve the political climate for Democrats, because what is wonderful about being a Democrat is what is good for democracy, small d, is also good for Democrats, capital D. And so you can put in place same-day registration, vote by mail, a large number of early vote days, more polling places, all of these things that will ensure that more people vote, which will be a critical part of Democratic success. Since we win when people vote, Republicans win when people don't vote, which I think says as much as you ever want to know about the differences between the two

parties. Yeah. Well, and just to note some of the states where democratic control is possible, in Colorado, we are one state Senate seat away and a governor's race win from full democratic control. Right now, Jared Polos is the Democratic candidate for governor and he's in the lead. And if we flip one state Senate seat, then that's full control in Colorado, where one Senate seat in a governorship in Maine away from flipping, one Senate seat away in New York State from Democrats controlling the New York State Senate. In Minnesota, one Senate seat away from Senate control, 12 seats away from House control. In Wisconsin, Democrats could take the governorship and two Senate seats to flip control. The House is a little harder there. We could flip the Arizona

Senate with three seats. We could flip the Florida Senate with five seats. And we could flip the Michigan House with nine seats and, of course, have a chance to have a Democratic governor there in Gretchen Whitmer. So lots of state legislative seats at play. And as you said, every single one of these seats, down-balance seats, matters immensely, if not immediately, then when we get to redistricting and down the line. So play the long game there. Now, you just mentioned, you know, we do better when people vote and Republicans do better when people don't vote. Let's talk about sort of Trump's homestretch message here. Over the weekend, Trump issued threats about America's nonexistent voter fraud problem.

He tweeted, quote, All levels of government and law enforcement are watching carefully for voter fraud, including during early voting. Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal. So that's one message on a parallel track. He's also on this caravan kick. Here's his tweet from this morning. Quote, sadly, it looks like Mexico's police and military are unable to stop the caravan heading to the southern border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and military that this is a national emergency. Must change laws.

Dan, what do we fucking do about this guy? Well, I'm glad you brought this up. It's so funny when you're like, Trump's closing message. And I know you're echoing what all the reporters are saying, or how are Democrats dealing with Trump's closing argument? This is not a message. This is not an argument. This is the projectile vomiting of Fox News talking points, just all over the electorate. It is just there. It's just it is like he is grabbing conspiracy theories out of the air. And by out of the air, I mean out of the mouth of Steve Doocy and just putting them out on Twitter. And so we can take these one by one. Right. Because they are somewhat connected in a weird in the like, if you can put yourself inside Trump's cable addled brain, then you can sort of see how they're connected. I mean, it basically is like, like, what is the

Republican message, which is non-white people are coming for you, white people. They're coming for your jobs. They're coming in caravans. They're coming as terrorists and all the things, and they're coming to steal your elections and the fact that he has managed to as we pointed out on our friday show combine undocumented people coming to take your jobs and then vote in your elections is really an incredible feat of mental gymnastics um the first point is he's trying to scare people from voting like that is what he was trying to do he wants fewer people to vote and he wants people to be by saying that law enforcement will be at polling places looking at people he's trying to make

people be afraid to vote and that is a fucking disgusting thing for an american politician to do yeah it is and it's and it's it's like no president has ever done something like that. I mean, Republicans have engaged in voter suppression for a long time, but it has never been out loud like cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum. I mean, just fucking imagine if another president had tweeted that. And it's like one tweet yesterday just buried in the news. No one's talking about it. Un-fucking-real. Yeah. We've decided that, as a political media culture,

we've decided that Trump can... We have no expectations for him, right? I tweeted the other day, and you and I were going back and forth on Twitter, I tweeted the soft bigotry of low expectations, which is a George W. Bush line about the education system. And someone put, someone responded, actually it's low expectations for a soft bigot. That's good. And let's talk about this caravan.

Just so people know, because I don't think that the media is doing, at least most of the media, is doing a great job with this either. This, we've seen this before, these are thousands of people who are fleeing violence in places like Honduras and Guatemala. Many of them are with children. First of all, the idea that they're about to invade the country is fucking absurd. They're about a thousand miles away, at least,

absurd. They're about a thousand miles away, at least, from the border with Mexico and the U.S., and they are walking, so there's not an imminent invasion of people coming. Last time they came to this country, by the time they all got through Mexico, and by the time some people did reach the U.S. border, it was a few hundred people they stopped at the ports of entry they applied for asylum like you're supposed to um because it was trump many of them got rejected um it was very orderly by the time we got to the border there was no there was no invasion of the country this whole thing is fucking made up this idea that he said criminals and unknown middle easterners are mixed in there is zero evidence of that that is not fucking true just common sense would tell you that that's not how fucking middle easterners would get into our country by flying to fucking guatemala and then walking up to the u.s border are you fucking out of your mind

but here's the problem like obviously you know that this is on fox all the time but like the ap has headlines uh that they were tweeting, an army of migrants heading towards the United States. It's all over CNN. It's all over everywhere else. Like, this is, we can laugh about this, that Trump's crazy for doing this, but I think this is extremely potent, at least among his base, this message of fear.

And the media is helping him do his job right now. They are helping sort of promote this propaganda by not educating people about what this caravan actually is. And it's making me very angry in these last few weeks. I'm getting that sense. I sense some anger in you. Look, I'm not laughing about it. I mean, it is like the levels of which this is disgusting are multiple, right?

of which this is disgusting, are multiple. One, these are, as you point out, people fleeing violence in their country looking for refuge in a country like the United States. It was once a beacon for freedom that opened its arms to people, the poor and huddled masses of the world. It's bad enough that you would just turn those people away without trying to help them. Second, it is trying to turn them into some sort of army. Three, it's just being racist towards Hispanic people wasn't enough. You are also just going to throw in some Middle Easterners too, so it's going to be a double whopper of racism. And I guess my takeaway of this is it is terrible. Trump is terrible. It fires up his base.

The press, with some exceptions, is just incapable in a social media age of telling a somewhat complicated story in a way that people will understand on a hot-button issue like this. And so our view is we should definitely get angry about it because that's who we are. But there's nothing we can do about it.

Like we cannot wrap ourselves around the ax about the things that Trump says to his base that fires them up. Because there's nothing we can say to not fire his base up. Yeah. Right? Like we have no control over them. Yeah, no, well, and I'll tell you, though, part of my frustration on this is the next step in this is not like, like the first reaction is not, what a liar, you know, he's a fear mongerer, he's racist, all this kind of stuff. The reaction is like, what are Democrats going to do about this? Trump has this message to his base and he's going to fire them up right before the election.

What are Democrats doing? And it's like, I mean, we're talking about healthcare and the economy and people's wages, things that really matter to the lives of people. And we're saying that this is disgusting. I don't know what else Democrats really can do besides call this out as racist bullshit and expose the lies and then also stay on our message. That's pretty much all we can do, right? Yeah. I'm worried about the caravan of Republicans coming from Washington to take my health care. How's that? Does that work? I like that, Dan. I like that.

Okay, so you and I haven't had a chance to talk about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi yet. On Friday night, the Saudis said that Khashoggi had been accidentally killed during a fist fight with 18 Saudi operatives in Istanbul. Yeah, you know that happens all the time. When Donald Trump was asked whether he found that credible, he said, I do. But by Sunday, Trump said in an interview with the Washington Post that he doubts the Saudi account of Khashoggi's death and that, quote, obviously there's been deception, there's been lies. But he stopped short of saying that the Saudi crown prince was responsible for

ordering the murder. Dan, why can't Trump just admit what American intelligence is telling him, which is that the Saudis were involved in this? And because Trump's not willing to admit this, does this mean that Saudi Arabia is just going to get away with this? So to answer the first part of your question, I think there are three reasons why Trump cannot appropriately assign the obvious blame here and then consequently hold Saudi Arabia accountable. The first is Trump has an amoral, if not immoral, view of politics, which is there is no right and wrong. They are indistinguished from each other. All that matters is winning or the accumulation of power. So he views, from a policy perspective, Saudi Arabia critical to large portions of his agenda,

and it doesn't matter to him. It is just merely an annoyance to him or an inconvenience to him that he has to deal with the story because the right or wrong of it, the outrage, the tragedy doesn't matter to him. His brain isn't capable of computing that. And that's actually been the philosophy of the Republican Party for a long time. Second, he and Jared Kushner, who's been the point person here, have incredibly close financial ties to the Saudis. And they're probably even closer than we know because we haven't seen Trump's tax

returns. But if you just follow what Trump has said about the Saudis in the past, they have given him a lot of money. And third, Trump truly believes that wealthy, very powerful people are unfairly tarred with accusations. And so his natural instinct is always to defend them. And because everything is a mirror to Trump. And so he sees accusations against Saudi Arabia, he hears similar accusations against him. And it's like Roy Moore and Bill O'Reilly and Brett Kavanaugh and Rob Porter and everyone else all over again. This is just how Trump reacts. Presumption of guilt for everyone else, presumption of innocence, despite the evidence, for his rich and powerful friends.

Do you think there's going to be any political consequences for Trump for deciding to stand with the Saudis as they murder a journalist who was an American resident who worked for the Washington post? No, I think it's very, very, very sad thing to say. I think there will be like, I don't know that this is going to be something that's going to affect his poll numbers or affect electoral prospects. I do think that it is going to be a huge problem for his administration if the Democrats take at least one House of Congress back because they will use their powers under the Magnitsky Act, which Tommy has explained on previous podcasts and can do much better than I can.

But they will use their powers to investigate and hold Saudi Arabia accountable. And Trump is going to be forced to either go along with that or expend massive amounts of political capital trying to veto it and then hold the veto override. And so there can be accountability for Saudi Arabia here, but it is going to require Democrats to control Congress. I do not believe Republicans will buck Trump on this. This is now the second time, or at least the second major time, that Trump has decided to believe the denials of a brutal regime, an autocrat, a dictator, over the conclusions of American intelligence. He stood before the world in Helsinki next to Vladimir Putin and said that he believed Putin's denial that they did not sabotage our election. to Vladimir Putin and said that he believed Putin's denial that they did not sabotage our election. Now he's standing by the Saudi government against all evidence to the contrary that they murdered a journalist who was an American resident. And like, you want to feel safe in this country? You feel secure with this president of the United States who will take the words of autocrats and

dictators over our own intelligence america's own intelligence the men and women who serve in the intelligence community um that does that make you feel safe as an american because i think whether you're a democrat or independent or even some soft republicans like that seems pretty scary to me that that our our president is aligned more closely with dictators and autocrats and thugs around the world than he is with our allies or our own intelligence services that's good that's i mean it's exactly right it is very you know i mean i would try look if i was if i was running campaigns i would at least try that message out especially like among some you know

college educated white men who are sort of the swing voters in this election who are, you know, not necessarily all pro-Trump or all pro-Democrat. They're sort of the ones in the middle, but, and especially women too. Like, I just think it's a secure, we have to start making this a security argument. Like we, again, we've avoided a national security crisis by sheer luck over the last two years but trump in a national security crisis um that is beyond his control that just comes out of the blue is uh not something that i want to see or would feel or would feel safe in any sort of way yeah he probably shouldn't be president is my general takeaway from all of this yeah yeah let's that's good conclusion all right so

one last story here before we go that I just want to talk about. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the Trump administration is looking to expand its culture war by literally, quote, defining transgender out of existence. Considering narrowly defining gender as a biological immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law. In a statement, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, our friend Chad Griffin, said, quote, The Trump Pence administration intends to erase LGBTQ people from federal civil rights protections and eviscerate enforcement of non-discrimination laws. Dan, what would this mean and what would the consequences be for transgender Americans? Tremendous. Tremendous. What I am struck by is the cruelty and the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. This is not just Trump. This is not some MAGA hat-wearing Alex Jones follower that we got burrowed into some department. This is what the Republican Party was going to do

no matter who won. And the cruelty of it is to try to deny people the opportunity to live their lives the way they see fit. And the hypocrisy is the Republicans run around claiming to be the party of freedom. Hashtag freedom. They all have fucking bald eagles in their Twitter avatar. But they don't mean freedom for everyone. They mean freedom for a select group of people. It is just a reminder that progress does not move entirely in one direction and that elections have tremendous and really terrible consequences for a lot of people. And that's why voting is so goddamn important. And it's a cynical ploy, too, that they roll out right before the election to, again, I mean, people talk about culture wars in this country. The Republican Party starts them. They're the ones who play. Fuck identity politics. We talk about Democrats. They're the ones who play identity politics. They want to divide people up.

And so what can be done about this? Parker Malloy was tweeting about this last night and has been tweeting about it. There is a bill in Congress called the Equality Act. It would amend the Civil Rights Act to include gender identity and sexual orientation alongside race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, and citizenship. This bill would simply give LGBTQ Americans the same rights and legal protections that everybody else has. It's got 198 co-sponsors in the House right now, only two Republicans and the rest Democrats. And you elect more Democrats, there's a better chance that we can pass that bill into law. Otherwise, we're hoping for judges to rule the right way. So far in this area, they have, but Trump has appointed a lot of judges

that are just like Trump, and we know what the Supreme Court's like right now, so it is not good to bet on the judiciary here. We should be passing legislation to fix this, and it's a very big deal. It is a huge, huge fucking deal to millions of Americans who identify as transgender. Can I say one more thing? Yeah. Sorry, there's actually one more thing Democrats could do. And this is a, yes, we should try to pass this piece of legislation. It's sort of hard to imagine that President Trump is going to sign it, but we should pass it every fucking day

so the country knows about it and build political will for it. But if the Democrats take the House, Trump will never again get a bill to fund the government that Nancy Pelosi does not sign off on. So she will have tremendous leverage here. And one of the things that she can insist on in exchange for whatever to get a bill funded or whatever, these are called riders, is that this policy be reversed, that there is great precedent for that. And it is when you think on the, we sometimes think like, oh, Democrats will take the House and they'll be able to subpoena stuff and that'll be cool. But obviously they can't pass

legislation because even if the Democrats take the Senate, we won't have 60 votes and Trump will still veto things. But we can actually influence policy in a tremendous way because Donald Trump will have to ask Nancy Pelosi's permission to pass a budget, to pass an appropriations bill, to pass a single piece of legislation. And with that comes leverage and the ability to roll back some of the things that have been most odious to us over the last two years. Very good point to keep in mind. Okay. When we come back, we'll have my conversation with Democratic candidate Aftab Parival. On the pod today, the Democratic congressional candidate in Ohio's 1st District, Aftab Parival. How's it going, Aftab?

Hey, man. Thank you so much for having me, for shining your light on our campaign. I genuinely appreciate it, Favreau. Thanks a lot, man. Of course. Everyone should know that you and I go way back. We share a wedding officiant, my father-in-law, Judge Tim Black. He's also the one who introduced us a few years ago.

And at the time, you had recently become the first Democrat in a century to win the race for Hamilton County Clerk of Courts. And that was a year where both Donald Trump and Steve Chabot won your congressional district by a good margin. What made you decide to run? And what perspective did that give you for how Democrats can be running and winning in places like the Ohio First. Yeah, I mean, what made me decide to run was, frankly, looking into the future. And when my kids and grandkids read about this time in our politics, in this time in our country, they're going to look me in the eyes and they're going to ask me, what did you do? What did you do to stand up to what's going on right now? And I want to say I did everything I possibly could,

particularly as a young, diverse candidate, that I felt that it was critically important that I stand up to the misogyny and the xenophobia that has unfortunately infected our national politics. The other reason that I decided to run was because of what Bobby Kennedy called this critical and perilous time, particularly as a person of half Indian and half Tibetan descent. My mom is a refugee from Tibet. My father is from Punjab, India. As a result, I vaguely look Hawaiian, but I'm all from Ohio.

And when I started running for the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts, as you mentioned, a very glamorous start to politics, I must say, people, Democrats, told me that I couldn't win, that I shouldn't run because a brown dude named Aftab just can't succeed in politics. So it was incredibly important for me then and for me now to show young brown boys and girls that no matter their name or their ethnicity or where they're from, that if they're passionate about public service, about lifting up those around them, that they can too succeed in this arena. And that's exactly what we tried to do in the clerk of courts race. So to your question, the number one lesson I learned in that race that we're applying to this congressional race now, and you're right, it was drawn to elect a Republican. Mr. Shabbat, my opponent, won two years ago by 20 points.

But the reason why it's so competitive, that it's tied with just 15 days left, is because we're campaigning everywhere. We're campaigning in the progressive parts, in the conservative parts. We're showing up to where the voters are. And number one, we're listening. We're listening to their insecurities and to their challenges. We're listening to what keeps them up at night. And overwhelmingly, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, whether they live in Mason or in Cheviot, the number one issue is access to affordable health care. And unfortunately, my opponent has just been overwhelmingly wrong on this issue time and time again. And that's why so many folks are looking for change.

Is he one of the Republican candidates who's pretending that he was always for pre-existing conditions? Is that happening in your race, too? It is. It's ridiculous. This man voted repeatedly to strip protections for those of pre-existing conditions affecting 305,000 people in our district. And now he's saying he hoped he could have voted for something else. He wished he could have voted for something else. Well, you know, unfortunately for him and frankly, unfortunately, most importantly for the people of the first congressional district, his voting record speaks for itself. And it shows that he voted to take health care away from 35,000 people in our district. And he voted repeatedly to strip those protections for preexisting conditions. And, John, we talk so much about health care, about premiums, about access to affordable health care,

that we sometimes forget that these issues affect human beings, that these personal stories are what drives and inspires us. I met a woman on the campaign trail named Jamie, and Jamie was one of our most committed volunteers. She would show up with her newborn to the office making phone calls, knocking on doors, doing everything she could. She'd never been involved in politics before, but felt the fierce urgency of now to get involved. And unfortunately, Jamie's nine-month-old passed away.

And she, after grieving for a time, she showed back up into the office. And she continued making phone calls and continued knocking on doors. And my team and I, we were obviously surprised and said, you know, Jamie, please take time for yourself. Please take care of yourself and your family. And she said, this is too important. These issues are too important. Because if I had comprehensive paid family leave, I could have spent more time with my child instead of having to rush back to work. If I had better health care when Jamie's child needed emergency procedures, I wouldn't have had to take a moment to think about whether this was going to bankrupt my family or whether I should move forward with the life-saving procedure.

And yet she came back and continued her activism. I mean, that kind of bravery, that commitment to others despite being in the depths of tragedy, it's hard not to be inspired by that. And there's story after story across my district and across the country of normal, regular people saying that what is going on in D.C. right now is not okay and we have to mobilize for change. Yeah, well, it's funny. Dan and I were just saying on the pod earlier that health care, you know, health care is an issue in this election. It's so powerful. It's probably that every poll shows it's the top issue on the minds of voters. It's funny, because when you look at the press, you look at the national media, it's not quite reflective of what's going on on the ground, at least in terms of what people

are talking about. You've been talking to voters constantly. What is breaking through to voters in this mess of headlines, narratives, Trump conspiracies? Like, what are you hearing from people every day? Obviously, I'm sure health care is a huge issue. And you just said that you were hearing that a lot. But are there other things that are breaking through? What are voters saying to you? What voters care about isn't, isn't, you know, who's who's winning and losing in these political tribal battles. What voters care about isn't who's winning and losing in these political tribal battles. What they care about is getting access to health care, being able to put food on their table, having a job, keeping their kids safe and educated. And another issue that's particularly bubbling up to the top now is the economy and wages.

The middle class has been literally running in place while the rich in our country get richer and richer. And instead of doing anything about it, we've got a Republican Congress that voted for this tax bill, 83% of the benefit going to the richest 1%. But what I'm hearing, particularly now, is the hole in the deficit, $1.9 trillion, which Mitch McConnell just this past week said he's going to fill by cutting Social Security and Medicare, calling Social Security an entitlement. Senior citizens have worked their tails off for that earned benefit. A line item in their paycheck every pay period, and to demean it as an entitlement, first of all, is offensive. demean it as an entitlement, first of all, is offensive. But second of all, on the backs of senior citizens paying for a tax break for billionaires and millionaires, that's not political. That's just irresponsible. It's not fair. And I think sometimes we just we focus so much on who's winning or who's losing the argument that we lose sight of the fact that people just

want government that shows up and stands up for them. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you've got to be going to Congress, first and foremost, to make people's lives better, not hurt them. And going to Congress to cut Social Security and Medicare does exactly that. It hurts the people you're trying to serve. And there's no better example of why we desperately need change in DC than that. So Paul Ryan Super PAC that's supporting Steve Shabbat has been running some pretty disgusting and dishonest ads all across the country, including in your race. What have you

learned about responding to this kind of fear mongering? You just got to call it out. You know, fear-mongering. You just got to call it out. Unfortunately, Paul Ryan's Super PAC ran an ad tying me to a Libyan terrorist act that occurred when I think I was five years old. It's utterly ridiculous. They don't even do it well. It's just sloppy. Exactly. And it's emblematic of a politics that is tearing us apart rather than building us back up. It's emblematic of a politics that appeals to our worst instincts rather than reaching for our better angels. And, you know, I think, thankfully, it was called out by national and local press as dog whistle politics. I don't think that it works. But it is a sign that my opponent, after two decades in Congress, doesn't have a positive message to run on.

Because he has no excuse for voting to take health care away from people. He has no excuse for doing nothing for middle class families and only taking votes that benefit his deep-pocketed special interest donors. We need a new brand and a new generation of politics, which is why I'm proud that I'm not taking and have not taken any corporate PAC money. The people of the First District can be confident that when I'm in Congress, I'm representing their interests and not the interests of Paul Ryan, Super PAC, or big drug companies or big lobbyists. That's what I've learned, that they have no compulsion about just saying the most vile and hateful things.

But I genuinely believe people are sick of it, that they can see through it, and they're looking for something better, something more optimistic, something more substantive. And that's what we're trying to offer. Now, speaking of a new generation of politics, you know, at 36 years old, you're one of the many young candidates running for office this year. And it does seem like Democrats' chances of a big election night hinge to some extent on boosting turnout among young people, at least in comparison with previous midterms. Are you finding young people in Ohio's 1st District more engaged and excited? How much of a challenge is it getting them out to vote? It's like nothing I've ever seen. John, we had 60 college and high school

aged interns working on our campaign this summer. Many of those college age interns decided not to go back to school to see the campaign through until election day. Now that the Asian mom in me told them that was a bad idea, but they thankfully ignored me. So we have young people organizing young people on the ground in the dozens of high schools in the district, on the ground organizing the two large universities in the district. Just at the University of Cincinnati, between the day they moved in and before the voter registration deadline passed, we registered nearly 4,000 new voters. And what they're all encouraged by and activated by, to a large degree, is gun violence.

The gun violence that has just, is just an epidemic across our country. And we're left with the question, is there anything we can do to at least mitigate, if not end gun violence in our schools, in our communities, on our streets? And young people and I and a majority of Americans, frankly, believe the answer is yes. We need to ban bump stocks. We need to ban high-capacity magazines.

We need real universal background checks. And yes, we need to ban military style assault weapons. They're not used for self-defense or for hunting. They're used for killing people. But after Columbine, after Parkland, after Sandy Hook, after the shooting most recently here in our own city of Cincinnati, our leaders in D.C. have done nothing. And so young people are frustrated by that. They're activated by that. They're activated by that. They're energized by that. And they're optimistic that if we start electing folks who aren't lackeys to the NRA, we can do something substantive about gun violence in our community. So like any other

group of voters, you have to go to where they are and you have to talk about the issues that they're passionate about. And by and large, I find that young folks are passionate about sensible gun reform. 15 days left, very tight race. What's keeping you up at night? 15 days left. It's time to put up or shut up, right? It's go time. And I'm often reminded, what keeps me up is just making sure that our supporters turn out. And what I'm often reminded by is something that was said on your own podcast when you asked President Obama what he wanted his paragraph to read, what he wanted his legacy to be. And he didn't talk about the Affordable Care Act. He didn't talk about his incredible work on the environment. He talked about a new generation of leaders, young and old, no matter who they were,

where they came from, what their name was, who were committed to making a difference in their community, making real people's lives better. And that legacy, protecting that legacy, it's on me, it's on you, it's on your listeners. President Obama's legacy is on the ballot. Healthcare, the economy, fighting for our environment, fighting for sensible gun reform, it's all on the ballot. And we have this incredible opportunity in 15 days to stand up with one clear voice and say that what is happening in D.C. is not okay, that what is happening in D.C. has to change, that we don't stand for this. And I'm incredibly inspired by young people, by people who have never been involved in politics before,

by Jamie, who suffered an unspeakable tragedy, because everyone is out there working their tails off to make sure that their voice is heard. Well, Aftab, I'm glad that you're one of those people who answered the call and stepped up this year. So good luck to you, my friend, in these final days. And thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. Take care. All righty. Thanks to Aftab Perval for joining us today. And John and Tommy will be doing the pod on Wednesday morning. And then we'll see you all in Philadelphia on Friday.

Bye, everyone. Vote. Thank you.