Pod Save America - “President for life.”

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

White House staffers are concerned about Trump’s stability but only on background, Trump escalates the world’s first Twitter-based trade war, West Virginia’s teachers have had enough, and Conor Lamb has a chance in a deep red Pennsylvania district. Then former Obama Ethics Czar Norm Eisen talks about the corruption roiling Trump’s White House, and Ira Madison joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy in studio to talk about the Oscars.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. As I told Francis McDormand last night, I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Ketor. We are recording the pod today with C-list celebrity Jon Lovett, who's wearing sunglasses because he's inside. On the pod today, we'll talk to former White House ethics czar and friend of the pod, Norm Eisen. And we'll also talk Oscars with the host of the hit podcast, Keep It, Ira Madison.

It's a hit, John. It's a hit. It's a verifiable hit. Sign up for What A Day. Today is the day we launch the newsletter, What A Day. It has been anticipated for a year. you can still get your hands on a copy of what a day but you're running out of time act fast act while supplies last while supplies last our newsletter get your hands on that fresh fresh content that's coming out tonight love it or leave

it how was it friday oh it was very good was it it was who was on it what'd you talk about we had an awesome love it or leave it with patty harrison trevelle anderson and amanda hess of the new york times darcy carden and darcy carden came to do a very funny scene where she played there was this poll that came out where one republican from the midwest had never heard of trump and so we had her play that character it was a delightful episode one of Trump. And so we had her play that character. It was a delightful episode. One of my favorites to record. I see the character is so funny. The Good Place is so great.

I love The Good Place. I love The Good Place. So love it or leave it, it's a hit. Tommy, how was Pod Save the World? I know because I listen. Fantastic as always, John. I listen too. You said it like I didn't listen.

I listen. I mean, I don't listen. I can't listen to every pod all the time. Can this be about me? I want it to you about you. I had my guests were Ben Rhodes and Jake Sullivan, two friends of the pod. They've recently stood up a new organization that's designed to combat Trump on foreign policy and help Democrats figure out how to talk about the things we believe in in a compelling way. We can actually win elections.

We talked about that for a while. And then we talked about the fact that the head of the NSA is literally screaming at public hearings for Trump to do something to stop Russian meddling in our elections. We talked about the Iran deal. We talked about what it means in practice for Jared to lose security clearance from two people who were in the PDB who actually negotiated the kinds of peace agreements that Jared pretends he's going to do. So check it out. One point of personal privilege before we go on. My brother, my better-looking brother, Andy Favreau, is going to star on a new NBC show called Champions that is airing this Thursday on NBC. Billboard on Sunset.

Billboard on Sunset. Did you see the sponsorship come through for that? I didn't see it. I don't know if this was a good way to add to me. This was Tommy's idea. Tommy encouraged it. It's going to be a good show. I'm excited.

Let's do free ads for NBC now. That's great. National Broadcast Company. Let's do those guys a favor. We're excited for you, Andy. We are excited for Andy. Anyway, check it out. All right.

Let's start with the news from over the weekend. Here's the headline from Saturday's Washington Post. Pure madness. Dark days inside the White House as Trump shocks and rages very cool also cnn the great unraveling trump's allies are worried about him politico demoralized west wing stokes fears of trump's capacity to handle a crisis and usa today just went with king chaos guys happy monday who thinks we're all gonna die die? Not good. It's not good. So I felt like this. There was a quote in the Politico story that I thought was instructive about this moment.

It says administration officials and outsiders with windows into decision making describe a growing sense of despair within Trump's ranks, driven by the mounting realization that the president's brand of politics, guided by intuition and improvisation, is incompatible with a competently functioning executive branch. Most alarming by these lights is mounting evidence that Trump lacks an attribute possessed by most previous presidents and certainly by all most successful ones, a capacity for self-critique and self-correction. Fuck that. That has been true for a year and a half.

Who is learning that this week? Okay, so let's start. So I had that quote towards the end of this section. But let's start there because I my question was going to be, should we do one more round of why doesn't anyone else fucking quit in protest? What this is similar to Republicans learning things from this most recent mass shooting, as if there's something to learn from the 40th of something. Not only have we known these qualities of Trump, we went through a Mad King cycle like six months ago. I know. Well, what's different about this time? It does seem like all these reporters who talk to all these liars in the White House, so even though their reporting is good, who knows if it's true or not because these people lie to them all the time.

All these reporters are like, it is worse than we've ever seen pete the morale is low it's demoralized like what's new about this time i don't understand sure i mean there's the constant game of thrones stuff with his staff and like yeah gary cone is apparently so upset he might now leave because trump siding with the white supremacists and nazis in charlottesville didn't do it but tariffs might so like that's how that's what's getting him upset. If you want to know what the line is for Gary Cohn and Paul Ryan, it's not good people on both sides. It's tariffs.

It's not obstructing of justice on NBC. Right, it's tariffs. And so he's lost two close aides. So he lost Keith Schiller, who was his bodyguard, and no one knows what the guy actually did. He lost Hope Hicks, who is basically an enabler slash communications director who tells him what the guy actually did. He lost Hope Hicks, who is basically an enabler slash communications director who tells him what he needs to hear.

So, okay, maybe he's lost some friends in the building and he's more sad. But, you know, my fear about his mental capacity is unchanged based on these machinations internally. And I always think about how they haven't faced a real crisis yet. I mean, the Obama years, there was a few off the top of my head. Ebola, the oil spill, there's a few off the top of my head, Ebola, the oil spill, like the Christmas Day bomber. And then there's all these crises that are happening that they just don't care about, like a genocide in Burma. Normally, a US government would actually care about that or slaughter in Syria. So 800,000 DACA recipients getting kicked out of crisis they

created. So I mean, certainly, we know that he has no capacity for self-reflection. He doesn't seem to actually care about the job. He cares about cable news hits and how he looks vis-a-vis Fox News. But, yeah, I don't really get what's new here either. I just can't believe we can't find one person in that fucking administration, except for Omarosa leaving and talking about it on Big Brother, who will leave that White House and not on background publicly say, things are really fucked up in there and it's pretty dangerous.

And Congress, you better fucking do something. I remember this person, Dina Powell. Isn't Dina free now? Where's Dina? Oh, she's back at Goldman Sachs. Never said a fucking word. Dina, you didn't say a fucking word. You sold out your country and you didn't say a fucking word you sold out your country and you didn't say

a fucking glowing glowing profiles as she walked out the door though i'm sure gary cone will get the same thing we look forward in the same category as her we look forward to you telling people to tell us that this bothers you and ryan talk about what happened inside the building dina ryan's too like he sort of flirts with talking about how difficult and challenging it was but he doesn't have the guts to actually say anything. Bannon is clearly a source in a ton of these stories, right? He's one of eight or nine people on a witness list that are getting subpoenaed all these documents from Mueller. And lo and behold, that leaks to Axios.

What a surprise. So, I mean, look, I'm speculating on sourcing here. But Bannon is pushing his own agenda in the guise of truth-telling. But you're right. There's no act like no one's lighting themselves on fire. One other thing in that Washington Post story that was just hilarious was Trump says he thinks the American people are finally starting to conclude that the Democrats, as opposed to his campaign, colluded with the Russians. Keep thinking, buddy.

I don't think that is true. But that is a result of just being in the Fox News cocoon, right? I guess if you only watched Fox and Friends, you would, of course, conclude that the American people now believe that it was Democrats who colluded with Russia. I mean, it's such a ridiculous thing for anyone to think, let alone the president of the United States. Maybe he really doesn't know. All these times we think, oh, he's doing this because he's worried that Mueller's closing in. Well, maybe he doesn't really know how much trouble he's in. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's possible. He's lied to himself.

You know, look, undergirding all these stories, these Mad King stories is the real dark fear of Trump doing something catastrophic. Trump doing something catastrophic. You know, the result of this episode of him being in a funk is these self-destructive steel and aluminum tariffs. Right. Survivable. You know, there are even some Democrats who say it's not a bad idea. Whatever. It's whatever the obviously it's a terribly made policy and the process is terrible, but it's survivable. And I guess the question I always come back to when I read these stories is, you know, the president isn't like, you know, sitting at the center of the earth, pulling various levers, everything he wants to do. He activates through the people that are around him.

And implicit in all these stories is this guy's going to do something so dangerous and we don't know we can stop it. And I just again, it comes down to the people that are around Donald Trump, the Kellys, the McMasters, the cones, all of them. What are you trying to tell us? Will you stop it? Are you going to protect us from this guy? Or are you just trying to cover your own asses?

The scandals of the moment cover up these massive problems he's created. He created a rupture with Mexico by adhering to this promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, a promise that only he believed. And in polling, people don't really care about it. Even his supporters didn't believe it. The Trump supporters don't care that much about the wall they don't really think mexico is going to pay for it but there's this massive cost in terms of our economic and security relationship with one of our biggest trading partners and allies like on our border and it's

just exploded it's exploded that relationship i wanted to ask you tommy because like how unusual is because i think that the process of what happened with the steel and aluminum tariffs, even if it's a survivable policy, the process of how he made that decision was so incredibly fucked up. And I don't think people realize how screwed up is like for something that's that involves tariffs like this. It's got to be a national security process and an economic process. It probably involves state. It probably involves Defense Department It probably involves Defense Department. It probably involves Treasury. Like, what's a normal process like for coming to a big decision like that?

Yeah, I mean, this is one of those issues that cuts across national security and economic lines. So it would generally be run through the NSC, I think, with economic team input because they invoked what's called Section 232, which is a trade law that says you can restrict imports if those imports pose a threat to national security. The first challenge here is that it's rarely used provision. In this instance, it's completely ridiculous and imperfect. Like he wants to rail against China and hit them for dumping a bunch of steel into the market. But the people he's actually hurting, like the top importers of steel are Canada, Germany, Turkey, a bunch of nato allies

so he's hurting all these allies and friends who we'd actually we should be working with to put more pressure on china in the guise of hurting china so he's completely fucked this up the process was so it was apparently just like wilbur ross and this guy peter navarro barking at trump in the oval office two people and run around the rest of the national security establishment because mattis is opposed to it. It sounds like the whole economic team is opposed to it. And I can't imagine making a decision that momentous, talking to two people in the federal government,

ignoring everyone else, not telling everyone else, not informing the rest of the federal government. They didn't even get to give our allies a heads up that this was coming. I mean, this is just like... And also, sorry, and landing on the numbers because they're they're round and sound good which he always loves a round number because they sell so yeah it's a 25 tariff on imported steel a 10 tariff on imported aluminum question on is this a good policy we should talk about this so we want to have a strong american steel and aluminum industry and too much cheap foreign steel and aluminum mostly from china

is hurting our industry i think this is what some people are responding to, some of these Democrats too. But this tariff that Trump is planning on imposing hits every country, including our allies, and it will basically do little to nothing to stop China from producing so much steel and dumping it. But it's going to cause all these countries to retaliate. And so now you have European countries saying, we're going to start taxing bourbon and jeans and Harley Davidsons. And then in response to Europe saying that, Trump starts tweeting, well, then we'll start taxing foreign cars that come into the country from Europe. Taxing Harley Davidsons. What are these midlife crisis 55-year-old guys going to get in Germany? In Germany, yeah. What are they going to

do? What are they going to do? What are they going to do? They're not going to wear their jeans. They're not going to drink their bourbon. You've got to hand it to the Europeans. That is a pretty impressive little thing to have in your back pocket. Okay. Harley Davidson's Paul Ryan. Bourbon Mitch McConnell.

They stuck it to exactly the right people in the Republican Congress. And you heard the head of the EU say this. He's like, fine. He's going to do this. If he was going to act stupid, we can act stupid too. We're all going to act stupid now because that's what trade wars are. Trump tweeted this weekend, trade wars are good. They can be easily won.

They've actually never been won. What ends up happening in a trade war is eventually all the countries figure out how to de-escalate so it all goes back to normal. No one actually wins this. Or World War I or something. But generally more companies in the U.S. use steel to make stuff than make steel itself. So it's likely this will hurt a bunch of U.S. industries. And you're seeing it reflected in the stock market. You're seeing CEOs express concern they're going to have to raise the price on household objects like cans for soda or whatever.

And you have Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce, this 81-year-old billionaire billionaire schmo going on TV and holding up Coke cans and Budweiser cans, talking about how little it will hurt people. And it's the worst messaging, the worst policy, the worst optics I could possibly imagine from these guys. And it's so half-assed. Yeah. I mean, this is like I think one of the beer companies said this. They're like, look, we first buy as much American aluminum as possible, but demand is so great that there's not enough made in America. So we have to buy foreign aluminum.

And now we're just going to have to, there's going to be higher costs where it's going to be passed on to the consumer. And people are just going to pay a little bit more. And the Trump administration, their basic argument is, yeah, people are going to have to pay more. But like, not too much more. We don't care. Like, not too much more. So it's probably fine. Now, the question is, like, what do we do about China, like dumping too much foreign steel in the probably fine now the question is like what do we do about china

like dumping too much foreign steel in the country because it is a problem you see like sherrod brown was supportive of this bob casey um but i think you you work with our allies through the world trade organization sort of bring a case against china i mean you don't piss off the whole world is step one step two you go to the wto and work with our allies there you could have conversations a secretary of state that works with the europeans or the brazilians or others one. You can go to the WTO and work with our allies there. You could have conversations, a secretary of state that works with the Europeans or the Brazilians or others who might actually align with us here, who would like to actually blunt the impact from China. We brought cases against China at the WTO and the Trump administration has not followed through on those cases that were designed to deal with these specific issues. Yeah. And that's the key. It's

like, we need to work with the rest of the world to isolate China as a bad actor on steel. And now we are isolated from the rest of the world because we have just imposed tariffs on everyone. Yeah. And there's a larger problem, I think, even inside of democratic politics around how we talk about trade and what our views on trade are. You know, international trade, open economies are policies that have diffuse benefits and acute harms, right? That when you allow for, you know, importation of whatever products, the places that made it in the US may suffer, but on the whole, the economy does better. And I think that is a source of tension in democratic politics that we actually have not resolved. I don't know what the democratic position on trade is when you get from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party

to the more free trade wing of the party. And I think even in our language about how we talk about it, how we talk about domestic manufacturing, how we talk about supporting US industry versus other countries in free trade, I actually don't think we have a good language for it. Bush tried this in 2002. He imposed tariffs of up to 30%. And they didn't last because they were worried about retaliation. But then there was a study that found that the steel prices cost more jobs than the number of people employed in the industry at the time. This is according to the New York Times, I believe. So, you know, it doesn't feel like there's a good argument for this. I know Sherrod Brown is out in support because they have steel manufacturers in his district.

And so there's going to be some nimbyism on all these issues. But I think writ large, folks think this was a bad policy poorly implemented. Well, that, yeah, certainly in this case. That's because it was made and implemented in a Fox News rage. But also, but it is being made in the context of Donald Trump tapping into something about trade. You know, the trade and immigration were the two places where he found an opening. And it was an opening not just in the Republican Party. It was an opening in both parties because, you know, if you're on trade, on immigration, where the both parties were before Donald Trump got in the race were quite similar.

But again, it's such typical Donald Trump. It's like the easy part is identifying that globalization and trade has hollowed out the middle class and a lot of our industries the hard part is figuring out what the fuck to do about it and that's why you have until you bring people together and have policy you know his favorite thing is to identify a real source of political anger and outrage and then make it worse that's what he does well so speaking of china he was trump was on a real roll this weekend apparently he also joked about how great it was that chinese president xi jinping has made himself president for life quote president for life no he's great and look he was able to do

that i think it's great maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday um you listen to the audio it's clear he was joking but it's like he does like it. He does like the idea for sure. Oh, he thinks it's really cool. He definitely is joking. And it's what Al Franken would have called kidding on the square. Yeah, he's joking. I won't get exercise about it. But like the Atlantic has a piece of nine times

he's praised various dictators. I mean, he loves. Yeah, that part's true. She loved Putin. Places where you can control the media, control public opinion, control every walk of life, lock up dissent. He thinks that sounds pretty great. So then the funny man Trump continued on to the gridiron dinner, which is like the correspondence dinner, but no celebrities and half as funny. And closed press.

And closed press. But a lot of people report on it. The reporters of the president goes. There's no video. I'm sorry. There's no video. Yeah. So he actually had a few good jokes.

One of his best was about North Korea. He said, I won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong-un. I just won't. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his problem, not mine. Let's just face it. There were some good jokes. But then he presumably ad-libbed this. By the way, a couple of days ago, they said we would like to talk.

And I said, so would we, but you have to denuke. You have to denuke, so let's see what happens. Tell me, does that mean anything? What did you make of that Trump comment? It's just this constant, like it sounds like you're saying there's a precondition for having talks, which is you'll denuclearize and then we'll talk to you, which is not going to work because they're so far down the road and, you know, we're not there. I mean, I don't know.

It's a fine joke, but like you've got Lindsey Graham out there saying it would be worth it to go to war. And that if we do go to war, like thousands will die over there and not back home because Trump told him that to his face. So funny about that. Lindsey Graham is supposed to be one of the serious people in Washington. He's clearly not learned a single lesson from the Iraq war. You're talking about a potential conflict that could kill hundreds of thousands, if not a million people. It is so insane and devastating to consider a war, a preventative war in North Korea, or even to joke about it seems to me to be a little glib. If I was a South Korean or Japanese or one of 28,000 U.S. troops in Korea, I probably wouldn't laugh. Yeah. And again, this is like the big fear here, right? What we're talking about is Trump goes nuts, gets upset about something,

levies some tariffs, starts a trade war. What happens when it's a real war in North Korea? What happens when that comes to a head? Someone tells him to look strong or, God forbid, H.R. McMaster gets pushed out and John Bolton gets installed as national security advisor. You'd have real voices in the room telling him that war is the smart policy and political choice. And people like Lindsey Graham who are supposed to know better, right? But they don't.

They don't. Because, you know, it's a party with plenty of warmongers and look back at how we got into Iraq. Yeah, this is, as always, all of what's going on with Trump, the drama. It's a sideshow from two things. One, the fundamental nature of Trump and the policymaking apparatus around him and Congress has been unchanged from the beginning. And two, it's all fun and games compared to the actual power he holds and his ability to use it at any time. And that risk is hard to deal with. It's hard to even talk about. I think it's actually quietly because it's so frightening. It's the to even talk about. I think it's actually quietly, because

it's so frightening, it's the deeper fear we are all walking around with all the time. And it's really hard to process it because you want to solve it. You want to solve it, but there's no solving it as long as Donald Trump is in the White House. Got to wait till November at the least. All right, I want to talk about a big story that hasn't been getting a ton of attention. For the last week, thousands of public school teachers in West Virginia have been on strike because they get shitty benefits and their salaries rank 48th in the nation, an average of $44,000 a year. They also are striking because they have so many vacant teaching positions

that some schools are putting teachers in positions they're not qualified for, showing how little the state gives a shit about education. A lot of these teachers have told the press they're living paycheck to paycheck. Another big thing is their health insurance costs are rising because the public health insurance program they're on. The costs keep rising for health insurance, and then they keep making cuts to this program in West Virginia. So they started striking. And now kids haven't been going to – students haven't been going to school for the last week. And they're trying to strike a deal with the governor.

The governor is Jim Justice. He's a billionaire, Republican, was a Democrat, is a Republican, whatever. He basically promised them a 5% pay increase after they've been striking for a while. But then the state senate didn't pass that. And so now they're still striking because they basically – they're not going home until this thing is done. They're not going back to school until this thing is done until they actually they don't want promises from these politicians. What do you guys think about this? It's so awful. I mean, you see, it's being reported as these teachers asking for a raise. That's not really true. They're trying to keep up with the cost of living. I mean,

yeah, 5% is roughly $2,000 a year for teachers, and then it's another 5% for school service personnel, which is roughly $1,100 a year. So the total for teachers is supposed to be $67.4 million. These are imperfect, unfair comparisons, but the cost of Trump's travel for last year was $13 million. The federal government spends $1.7 billion a year to maintain empty buildings. There's a lot of money that could go towards educating kids. Specifically in West Virginia, they charge a very, very low tax for extracting coal and natural gas. If they increase that just a tiny bit, they could pay for all of this. So thank God for unions because when you're not going to pay a teacher a remotely livable wage,

you're not going to get good teachers, and things are going to get worse. remotely livable wage, you're not going to get good teachers and things are going to get worse. Yeah. And we haven't, look, we're talking about this now. We have not talked about unions and the labor movement, maybe the whole time we've been doing this podcast. Well, there's a major case in the Supreme Court right now that could change the face of unions forever. Because they haven't been in the news. And I do think that in the Trump era, you know, we have seen the Women's March. We've seen the Me Too movement. We've now seen these students in Florida. We've seen, you know, people protesting the Muslim ban.

The one thing we haven't seen is working people sort of rise up in whether it's the labor movement or just on their own. And I think it's fascinating that it's happening now. Also, what was fascinating is the walkout. The final walkout was actually the result of all of this grassroots organizing on Facebook that the teachers did with each other. And they actually jumped ahead of the unions. So like the unions were ready to do this, but the teachers, the rank and file were just, they ready to do it because they started organizing. And now we're, now we might see the same thing in Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma teachers are thinking about doing the same thing. Yeah. I mean, look, we've seen in a bunch of states across the country this push towards cutting taxes that has in Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, other tons of states to make themselves more attractive to business, sort of conservative case

about what the government should be doing. And then, of course, what happens? Well, there's not enough money for teachers and there's not enough money for basic services. And all of a sudden,

these resources that used to be there that were the fundamental responsibilities of government, it becomes impossible. We can't afford this. We can miners have done this in the past too. It's also a state that, you know, voted for Trump by more than any other state in the country. And it used to be a reliably Democratic state. Now it is a deeply, deeply Republican state. But when you see something like this,

you see this strike, you think to yourself, like, these should be Democratic voters. And if they are not, what is the national party, what is the state party in West Virginia doing to tell these people we're here for you we're fighting for you right like what one of the interesting things was a decade ago the Democratic majority in West Virginia led by then governor Joe Manchin enacted a 220 million dollar a year corporate tax cut would have been enough to give every public employee

in the state a 12 percent raise so there was going to create all these jobs didn't create all these jobs in west virginia so it's also like this idea that like democrats you know get off the corporate tax cut bullshit and it is actually this is important too because i think this also goes to not just obviously we should be paying our teachers more to pay our teachers more everywhere but it also goes to a what we've learned about what people want in their cities, in their towns, what makes a place attractive. And obviously, nobody, you know, lower taxes are more attractive to people than higher taxes. But people want good services. They want good schools for their kids. They want thriving downtowns, not, you know, not corporate stadiums that tax cuts pay for, that are these

big alien spaceships that land in the middle of downtowns. People want thriving places, communities that attract talented, smart people. And gutting services to pay for lower and lower taxes does not redound to the benefit of these communities. The challenge here is the sequencing is always how this goes. They pass a massive corporate tax cut, like we just saw our Congress do. And then the services get gutted later. And you end up in these positions where there's brinksmanship with these teachers having to strike. And I guarantee you that the strike is very unpopular among parents who are

now dealing with their kids who can't go to work, who are wondering why their kid's not in school for eight days. And it sucks. And it's hard that we put them in this position. But like these people deserve money and we need to support them. And I think that Democrats need to connect the dots for people on all these things that like the reason that there there's cuts to the health care program and there's rising health care costs is because we have not done enough to bring down the cost of health care. And we've just seen a Congress try to make the cost rise even more and are sabotaging the Affordable Care Act right now to make health care costs rise even faster.

The reason that there are education cuts is because we keep passing these tax cuts for the rich, for corporations, and there's not enough money for services. And this needs to be the message. It's not just the tax cut's bad because the tax cut's bad Like you have to start connecting the dots to all the things that the tax cuts means, which is cuts to education, cuts to transportation, cuts to health care, you know? Yeah, there was a, been this fund, the Philando Castile Fund to pay for the lunch debts for kids in that district. And people were able to raise enough money to make up for the debt that these

kids have. But even as we've been cutting taxes in states and at the federal level, we have been putting more and more onus on parents. We have a system in which children have to keep track of the debts for the lunch they have at school. All because we can't afford things. We're told over and over again we can't afford things. We can't afford things. We can't afford things. Well, why not? It's because we have put these tax cuts in place over and over again and teachers are buying like pencils

and you know donors choose this fantastic charity but it's fucked up that it even exists because teachers desperately need like one ipad for a classroom with 50 kids it's crazy meanwhile 800 billion dollars in stock buybacks yes the biggest corporations because of the tax cut going right to their profits and their wealthiest investors. That's what we have here. I want to talk about something that's going on in another pretty conservative place that's rather interesting. A week from tomorrow on March 13th, there is a special election in Pennsylvania's 18th district. First-time candidate Conor Lamb, a former U.S. Marine, is taking on Republican State Rep Rick Ciccone. This is a heavily white working class district that Trump carried by 20 points.

Polls are showing a dead heat. Here's something interesting. This is from the National Journal. GOP outside groups have dramatically scaled back their ads promoting the party's tax cut with the messaging barely moving the needle in the district's working class confines. The latest round of ads focuses on, surprise, surprise, law and order issues like immigration and crime. Ciccone, meanwhile, is running as Trump's wingman and more than $9 million has been spent in outside money from GOP aligned groups.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and all the Republican pundits on Twitter and everywhere else told us that the Trump tax cuts would save Congress, that they would save the Republican majority. They were going to campaign on them all year. What's happening? What's going on there? These guys are going to flip out if they lose the seat. I mean, we should all know how difficult this is. And he's also Republican groups, outside groups, that is, are outspending Democratic outside groups 10 to 1. The DCCC hasn't really gone into this race. But, you know, Biden's there on Tuesday. I mean, Lamb looks like he has an actual chance. And so this could be a blueprint to fight every single contested seat everywhere in the country and actually use their policies against

them because the voters don't like them. And it will be, even if he comes up short, even if Conor Lamb comes up a few points short in this because it was a trump plus 20 district the fact that they have backed off the tax cut ads that they're going to they're playing the old hits ms 13 crime all the other stuff paul ryan still believes or wishes that his base was motivated by fucking tax cuts for rich people and corporations and it's not they're motivated by fucking tax cuts for rich people and corporations, and it's not. They're motivated by all the bullshit that made Donald Trump president, railing against immigration, xenophobia, all that stuff. That is a really good point because I do think that for all the ways in which Donald Trump appealed to this kind of animus,

both on trade and on immigration, their answers are terrible. Two things. One, Lamb can literally run again because his district is getting redrawn. So he's going to gain all this name ID and he can run again in another district that's actually better for him. The other thing that I thought was interesting is that Saccone's latest ad is all about infrastructure. He actually wants infrastructure week to be a real thing, but the plan they've put forward is not popular because it's shitty. It's only $200 billion from the federal government.

It sticks the tab to states and municipalities. So if Trump actually ran a competent administration, he might be helpful in this district, but he's not. It doesn't stop him from going there. He's going to go there on, what, Tuesday, Wednesday or something. So we'll see. It's one to watch. That is for sure. Paul Ryan says this is what the Republican Party really is. The Republican Party really is about deregulation and cutting

taxes and smaller government. This stuff that Trump says, the stuff that Trump does, that's not really what the party is. That's not really who we are. But then it gets time to try to get people to vote for you. And nobody wants Paul Ryan's agenda. Nobody wants anything to do with it. We've known this for a long time now. We certainly know this since the end of the 2016 election. The constituency for Paul Ryan's agenda and Mitch McConnell's agenda is so small. There's a big constituency for the Democratic agenda, and there is a constituency for the Trump agenda.

But the constituency for Paul Ryan's, and the only people who haven't realized this yet are a lot of these conservatives that still live in D.C. and New York. The rest of the country, they don't want it. There's this big set of problems that are really hard that have caused a lot of economic dislocation and uncertainty. And Democratic policies, the criticism has to be they don't go far enough. They aren't big enough. They aren't exciting enough. But the Republican answers make them all worse.

That's why Trump made up new answers. That's why he made up a bunch of new ones. He did. It was like xenophobia. That was his new answer. Okay. When we come back, we will talk to former Obama ethics czar Norm Eisen. We are very lucky today on Pod Save America to have back to the program Ambassador Norm Eisen, former Obama ethics czar, friend of the pod.

Norm, how are you doing? Great, Fab. Thanks for having me back. Of course. So, Norm, you were one of our first guests here at Pod Save America, one of our favorite guests, rave reviews from the fans. You tried to give the Trump administration all kinds of ethical advice, which it does not seem they have taken. So my first question is, of all the headlines we keep reading about potential wrongdoing,

which do you think spell the most trouble for Donald Trump and his gang of bozos? Well, it's the same for the driver and the rest of the clown car. And that is the obstruction of justice. Probably the most serious thing that Trump has done, although it exemplifies the complete contempt for rule of law, so it's emblematic, too, is the pattern of trying to cut off the Justice Department investigation of the Russian attack on our democracy and the possible involvement of the Trump campaign. And we're still asking ourselves the question, John, why? Why did Donald Trump demand Jim Comey's loyalty when Comey wouldn't give it? Why did Trump say, can you see your way clear to letting Michael Flynn go? And then when Comey couldn't see his way clear, why did Trump

fire Comey and all the other stuff that's happened after that? What is he trying to hide? That's not just about Donald Trump. He's surrounded by enablers and they may very well be caught up in this conspiracy, too. So that's the most that's where the greatest peril lies for Trump. The answer to the question, of course, may be Russian business ties. So that leads us back to the thing we talked about when I was so pleased to be one of the first guests of the pod, which is Trump's financial entanglements that he refused to give up on. That may be the motivator or maybe something else. I was going to say, what do you make of Mueller zeroing in on conspiracy to defraud the United States as his indictment of choice? He used it with the Russians. He used it with Manafort.

He used it with Gates. Do you think this is potentially a backbone for an even larger case? And could this possibly involve Trump and other associates? Well, the president often says no collusion. In one half-hour interview with the New York Times, he said it about 15 times in just a half an hour. It's like his mantra. times in just a half an hour. It's like his mantra. And what conspiracy to defraud the United States is, it's legalese for a collusion. You have the aspect of cooperating together. That's the conspiracy. And then the object of the conspiracy is harming the United States, which perhaps the Trump campaign, maybe even the Trump organization, Don Jr., Jared. You know, we're looking for right now for the evidence to emerge

that others aided and abetted this Russian scheme to attack our democracy. Boy, it sure is starting to feel like that evidence is out there. I'll give you one example. Flynn. Why did Bob Mueller, who I know, I've worked against him when I was in private practice, I cut a plea deal for a client with his U.S. attorney's office and worked with him when I was in the government. Why would he give such a sweet plea deal to the former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn? It can only be, this is classic in the prosecutor's playbook, it can only be if Flynn gives up somebody higher up the chain, there aren't that many. So that's got to be Jared Don Jr., the president himself. So I think, you know, there's going to be other large shoes to drop. So let's talk about our friend Jared Kushner. A lot of news in the past

week about Jared, starting with his security clearance being stripped away. The Washington Post reported that at least four governments saw him as a mark for potential blackmail. The New York Times reported about loans Kushner's family business received after White House visits with Apollo and Citigroup. Where does the conversation about Kushner go from here? How much trouble is he in, do you think? Well, you know, there's a reason that we have anti-nepotism laws. And it's not just to protect the reputation of the White House from the kind of damage it's suffered with all of Kushner's problems last week. Not just to protect the United States from being ripped off by the likes of Kushner and his father-in-law. It's to protect the recipients of the nepotism. It's to protect Jared Kushner from the exposure that he's received.

Because when you get into the White House, you know this because you've worked there. I mean, there's an awesome amount of power that the people there have to change the world for good or for ill. And it can go to your head. And when you combine that with the blood ties of a family member, you get impunity. And that's what the story of last week was for Jared Kushner. He acted with impunity, and now he's paying the price. I think he is in very serious legal jeopardy. Number one, we know that he left really an unprecedented amount of information off of forms that he signed and certified under penalty of perjury, his financial disclosure forms and his security clearance forms, omitting dozens of separate episodes. I've never seen anything like it, Favs.

You know, I cleared all those forms for all y'all when you were my clients in the White House. And this is totally unprecedented. So that's the source of the trouble. Then there's the question of why he's hiding it. Now we see he got half a billion dollars in loans from companies that he was meeting with in the White House, from banks that he was meeting in the White House loans that benefited his properties. I mean, how can you not look at that with a skeptical eye? So then there's the involvement of foreign governments who we now have evidence want to cultivate him. Did they succeed in doing so? What a colossal mess, all because of that nepotistic choice that he and his father-in-law made over a year ago.

Norm, don't you feel lucky that we didn't keep you working harder than you did? I mean, I think my financial disclosure form was like a checking account with not much money in it. I think that was about it. Yes, it was like a collective vow of poverty for the people who came into the Obama administration. Look, we had, and it really started with President Obama, our approach was the exact opposite of this. As you know, John, the president came in, he says, I'm going to have tough rules. I had the honor of helping him figure out what the compliance program would be. He applied them to himself. He was the first one that I explained the rules to. Then my next

meeting was with the first lady and her staff, and everybody lived by those rules. And, you know, we erred on the side of caution. Why? We wanted to avoid the appearance of conflict so we'd never get into an actual conflict. And the result is, people say this whether they agree or disagree with any of Obama's other policies, bipartisan consensus, the only White House in modern history that didn't have an ethics scandal, no scandals in the White House. Do you know how angry my fellow veterans of the white-collar bar in Washington were with me? They had no business, Babs, for eight years. So we took a very, very tough approach in Obama, and we had the results to show for it.

This gang in the White House is doing the exact opposite, and you're seeing the chaos that is resulting. We've never seen anything like it. It's so early in an administration. The only thing that's comparable is Watergate. But that happened in the second term of Nixon. Do you think that some of these ethics rules that we put in place, that we live by ourselves in the Obama White House, need to be enshrined in laws in the future? Because it does seem like, I mean, we're all paying attention to the Russia stuff. That's like the big thing looming out there. But in the background, we're starting to see the corruption. It's like an everyday thing. It's all over the cabinet. It's all these cabinet secretaries, you know, all this wrongdoing, taxpayer money on first class flights, what have you. You've got Jared Kushner.

Are you worried at all that next administration that comes into the White House, they're going to think, you know what, the Trump administration got away with a lot of that shit. We might as well have loose ethics rules too. It doesn't seem like the public perception was damaged all that much. What do you think about that? Well, that chapter in the book of Trump has yes to be written. That's true. And depending on the size of the hemorrhaging and the explosion, I think whoever succeeds him may feel they better go back to the Obama zero tolerance approach.

You know, I think that the question is a good one. I do think there are things that need to be enshrined into law. Nobody ever imagined that we'd have a president who wouldn't release his tax returns so we could understand his financial posture and his conflict, that we'd have a president who that was a norm. We didn't think we needed a law. We didn't imagine we'd have a president who would hang on to his businesses. Every president in the modern era, since the passage of the Ethics in Government Act after Watergate, has gotten rid of their businesses with far less cause than Trump because they didn't want this miasma, this stink, the swamp gas that is now staining the White House.

So I think those two things, to the extent the Constitution allows, we should require the release of presidential tax returns. There's no constitutional issue with that. And with some regard for separation of powers, And with some regard for separation of powers, we need to find a way to make sure that presidents do not hang on to their businesses that cause conflicts. That's not unrelated. The conflicts issues that you and I were talking about when I first came on the pod a year ago are not unrelated to the criminal issues that Trump is getting into today, because what happened was he started by violating the norms. Then he started breaking the laws, the Constitution, and now he's gone from civil violations into criminal violations. So

he's launched himself down a slippery slope, and it's had terrible consequences. And of course, Favs, we often talked about this when we were in the White House together, tone at the top. He set a bad tone at the top. So now Kushner, his nepotistic son-in-law, his daughter Ivanka, there was a story last week, there's an FBI counterintel investigation about a property she's involved in in Vancouver. And the cabinet members, Price is gone for excessive air travel privileges. Carson, Shulkin, Pruitt, Zinke, all of the IG investigations, the $31,000 table. It's a cancer that's spread throughout the administration, all stemming from Donald Trump's lousy tone that he set by refusing to release his tax returns and keeping his businesses.

So, yes, we've got to fix that in the future by putting it into law. It seems like they've made real progress in going from just, you know, your average grifters to real criminals in a short time. average grifters to real criminals in a short time. What's the latest on the emoluments lawsuit that the state attorney's general filed against the administration? I know we talked about that last time you were here. Well, the emoluments litigation has been filed around the country. There's a case that is on appeal in New York where I'm co-counsel. We've just filed a notice of appeal. And according to media reports in the state attorney's general case, which is pending in federal district court in Maryland, we had a hearing. And the media who attended all agreed that the judge seemed inclined to allow the case to proceed to discovery.

There have already been document preservation subpoenas issued in that Maryland AG case. I'm co-counsel and my watchdog group crew is co-counsel with the Maryland AG and the DCAG in that Maryland case. So the press at least felt that the hearing was promising. And Donald Trump is being added. There's a motion now to add him in his personal capacity in that case. So that case seems to be moving along, according to the papers. And there's a third case in the District of Columbia as well brought by members of Congress. So those emoluments walls are closing in on Trump. And remember, emoluments simply refer to cash or benefits from foreign or domestic governments. Trump can't take them under the Constitution.

And they are pouring in from the foreign governments, from the United States, from the states, starting with his Trump Hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue. So this is a big legal problem for him. And I'm confident, not the fastest moving thing, but the arc of the litigation is bending towards justice. I'm confident he's going to be held accountable. He is violating the Constitution every minute of every day by collecting these foreign and domestic governmental payments. And if this case is one of these cases or multiple cases move to the discovery phase, what kind of documents are you going to get here? Like Trump business records? Could you get his tax returns? What are some of the things that you could learn in discovery?

returns? What are some of the things that you could learn in discovery? Well, the core of these cases is going to be to demonstrate the extent of the foreign and domestic government payments that he has collected since being elected. So it actually doesn't have to be a, once we get to discovery, doesn't have to be a protracted years-long discovery process. We're going to prove that. We believe that it is a lay-down case once you get past the threshold issues, the procedural issues. For example, the New York case didn't say Donald Trump can take a monument. The New York case raised some standing issues. Now, the state AGs in the Maryland case, totally different standing questions. Standing is a threshold that doctrine you have to prove harm in order to cognizable harm in order to get to

discovery. So this is not a close case on the underlying liability, John. The guy is violating the Constitution constantly. It's just a question, who has the power to bring that up? So you establish those violations, and then we will want to move as quickly as we can to get a declaration or a ruling of another kind from the court saying he's in violation of the Constitution. or a ruling of another kind from the court saying he's in violation of the Constitution. I'm sure once the court holds that, he is going to stop doing this. You can't imagine a president openly violating the Constitution once a court has held that he's doing that.

So we want to get there as quick as possible. So, yeah, final question. You said a year ago that the system was resilient enough to push back against Trump, that our courts and our justice system wouldn't let him get away with what he's doing. Do you feel good a year later that the justice system is working as it should? I know you had an op-ed last week about just praising Jeff Sessions, actually, for keeping his job and not resigning or under the pressure of Trump attacking him. How do you feel like the justice system from the Department of Justice to the courts is holding up under Trump? I think the system is holding up surprisingly well. You know, there's kind of an untold story.

We lose track in the day-to-day, the scandal of the day, and the shock and outrage at what Trump has done every day of the past 14 months since taking office. We both lose track sometimes of how bad it is, how shocking his behavior is. There's a lot of stuff that you never see behind the scenes. But then we also lose track of how strong the pushback has been. And there are a lot of unknown heroes who every day in the legislative branch, in the courts, among the state AGs, and in Trump's own executive branch, who are pushing back on him for his illegal behavior. I never imagined that, you know, I'd be writing an op-ed in the New York Times with a former Sessions aide, senior lawyer to Sessions, celebrating Sessions' defense of the rule of law. But when the president tweeted that Sessions was disgraceful

for not investigating, sticking prosecutors on the president tweeted that Sessions was disgraceful for not investigating, sticking prosecutors on the president's political enemies, Sessions stood up to him with great dignity and said, I will always act with integrity and so will the Justice Department. We're going to follow the law. And then there was the picture that night. And to me, Favs, that picture is a photograph of the empire of law striking back, the picture of the Saturday night massacre victims, the potential victims of a Trump Saturday night massacre uh you had the attorney general you had the deputy attorney general uh rod rosenstein and you had the solicitor general the three of them top three officials having to dinner together that was seen by trump he apparently went into a rage yeah he

was not happy about that at all but he understood that that was the system standing up. Yeah. So there's a thousand stories like that of ways often it's done very quietly, ways the system has pushed back on him. And Trump is in a terrible box fab because he cannot fire these men and fire Mueller, which he would love to do without creating a firestorm. But if he stays where he is, he is in a bullseye as well, because Mueller is looking at his, where we started, looking at Trump's obstruction of justice for frustrating the Russia investigation by trying to block Comey and then firing Comey, that pattern. So there's a, Trump is really checkmated, and we're just going to have to see what happens next.

The big denouement is going to be when Mueller interviews Trump. That's coming. Sooner or later, that's coming. And that is going to be the climax of this drama. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Norm Eisen, thank you for stopping by. Come on anytime. We love having you. How many times do I need to come on before I get the free t-shirt? We'll send you that, Norm. Oh, my God.

Yeah, we'll send you a t-shirt right today. How's that sound? All right. That's the kind of gift solicitation that I never would have allowed. We couldn't do that. This is a new world now. But I'll take it now. Okay, Norm. I'll take it now. Thanks, John. I'll take it now. Thanks, John. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye now.

In studio today, we have the host of Crooked Media's Keep It, Ira Madison. Ira, what's going on, man? Hi, John. Ira, are you is keep it ira madison ira what's going on man hi john ira are you as tired as love it is i'm a little hungover i'm a little hungover but probably not as much as john this is funny this is 50 50 oscars people and then don't give a shit about oscars people with me fevra so shape of water justice is, the best movie of the year, won Best Picture.

Was that your takeaway? I knew it was going to win, actually. It seemed like it. I'm just happy Three Billboards didn't win. Why did you know it was going to win? Is it because it's all about the magic of cinema and self-referential? Yeah, and everyone just seemed like they were sort of pushing towards it. I shouldn't mock what I haven't seen, but like the clips they kept showing of that fish interacting with people looked like a joke.

It was also a joke that they included clips from that movie during the Time's Up montage. You know, that was so strange because it's like this is about representation and change. And like Hollywood has many problems. But like it's not like fish people sitting at home feeling like, I don't see myself. I don't see myself in Hollywood's movies until The Shape of Water. Mermen and women. Were you surprised by anything?

Not really, actually. No surprises? It was pretty much a boring ceremony, only on the fact that there were no upsets. Can we talk about the Kobe thing for a minute? It was jarring seeing kobe bryant walk up there i mean that case was you know they're pretty significant allegations of sexual assault that were you know resolved in a way that i don't know that would pass muster these days i mean his apology to the written one at the time was like wild yeah i mean he pretty much said he did it,

but he thought it was fine. Yeah. Consensual, I guess. And he got it plotted up there. Yeah. I mean, but Gary Oldman was up there too. And, you know. You would have picked on that.

No, there was even a Hollywood, because the Hollywood Reporter always does their quote unquote brutally honest ballots where they interview some old Academy voter who you know just loves to trash everything but one person said that they didn't care if gary oldman maybe or maybe didn't hit their ex-wife with a phone he was really good as winston churchill and it's also weird like celebrating winston churchill that was another the shape of water clips and the gary oldman as winston churchill clips like it was funny i think that looks like a like a made-up

fake oscar movie he looked like the penguin from batman and all the clips were just him like rattling chairs it reminds me of like yeah it just seems like he might as well shout out i'm winston churchill that's who i am and that's why I'm doing this. Cigar war. Being tough like we used to be. I'm Winston Churchill. Look at how fat my mouth is. Look at my fat face.

I'm Gary Oldman under here. That's amazing. Look how good I am. And I never finished the movie, but if that's all the movie is, I don't know how you do a movie. Isn't it just the sequel to Dunkirk? Yeah. Isn't it what happens after Dunkirk? It's the exact same thing as Dunkirk. And Gary Oldman is also like, he wants to do another Winston Churchill movie.

He's not done. What else is there? There's more depth to plumb of that mask. I thought Frances McDormand had a nice moment there. I actually truly loved Frances McDormcdormand in she was excellent three billboards i love her as an actress i've always loved her i loved her moment actually was pretty unexpected i did not expect her to inclusion writer yeah have all of the women stand up well so inclusion writer sounded random in the moment a lot of people googled yeah but it's actually

like a pretty cool thing yeah that actors can add a writer to their contracts to ensure that their projects reflect the real world stacy smith had this ted talk where she said that you have your leads in a movie and then you have a bunch of characters who, some of them don't even have lines, or they have like one scene, and it just makes sense to make sure that those people in a movie are diverse. So that's the inclusion writer.

And it's also the production staff too, right? Yeah. I guess Frances McDormand said afterwards that she'd only learned about this herself a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And then she thought, how do we not know about this for so long? I wonder if this will have an effect on people. Matt Damon's keeping it hidden away, probably.

Okay. All right. I'm not going to have this. I'm not going to have you badmouth Matt Damon. He's made mistakes. He's not perfect. You know how I feel about Matt Damon. Strong defense of Matt Damon this morning from John Lennon. He's made mistakes. He's not perfect. You know how I feel about Matt Damon. Strong defense of Matt Damon

this morning from John Lennon. I don't know. My name is Inigo Montoya and he killed my father. No, it's a very important thing that people can add to their contracts. It's a way for actors to start doing more. Especially actors who can, you know, sort of affect change

in Hollywood so I thought that was very nice and then someone stole her Oscar so I stole her Oscar yeah yeah someone stole Francis's Oscar but luckily Wolfgang Puck has his own photographers for like the after party and his photographer caught the guy on camera and then he was arrested how do you would it feel good they just snatched her oscar and ran was like a coat check like where did she put it just down well yeah we were we were splitting it in an out burger we were putting so she had to put it down so that we could split the burger love it once you know he was at a party

last night i was at a party ira the thing that's interesting to me about the inclusion writer is I think that giving actors, especially like directors and actors and high profile people who can make demands before they say yes to something. I think these are people that are told yes and of course and of course a lot and don't have the words. I don't know what to ask for. So it's cool to give them give these people that do have some say in this process, like here's specifically what I want because now that they have something to ask for, there's

no one to tell them it's not possible. Of course, because, you know, we've talked about it on Keep It Before, but one of the hardest things is the fact that when you talk about, you know, trying to make change happen in Hollywood, it's different from politics because you can tell people to go and vote and make their voices heard. And how do you really do that in Hollywood? It's the people like Frances and other actors who have that power and you sort of have to inform them of things that they can do and ways that they can help. And I'm sure other actors now will be excited to be you know i'm sure

someone's really excited to give an interview where they're like i put an inclusion writer on my new film and so it's things like that that will help but not just acting like john said the behind the scenes people too yeah you know like rachel morrison was the first woman nominated for cinematography last night she didn't win win, but there should be more women. And that's also one of the hardest things for women to break into, actually, because it's hard to become a cinematographer unless you've already done camera work on a film,

and cameras are heavy, and people just assume only men can carry them. And there's been no pressure men can carry those around. And there's been no pressure to diversify those roles. As little as there's been a bit higher up the food chain, those early jobs, production assistants, camera operators, those sort of low-level jobs, it's easy to not even ask the question about the diversity or gender of those jobs. Of course. Most people just assume they're men on a set yeah and then and then but i also thought interest it was interesting too that just beyond inclusion writers it was also interesting to see like annabella sciorra

and other actors sort of like you see uh amir sorvino in the the montage because these are people whose careers were hurt by not just specific actors like Harvey Weinstein, but also a system that doesn't create roles for women beyond, you know, whatever heartthrob or, or sort of ingenue or what have you. So hopefully I thought what was interesting too, it was hopeful to see the idea of better representation of women beyond just the movie stars.

Actually. Yeah. I think that was the thing about Shape of Water. Just the fact that it's so rare that a Best Actress nominee, you know, their film is also nominated for Best Picture. Yeah. I feel like because the industry just sort of tends to celebrate like Winston Churchill roles, you know, or movies like that. And you often see the best actor category sort of represent, you know, the best pictures.

But women often get nominated in films that the Academy doesn't really consider, quote unquote, Oscar movies. But they're like, we really loved her performance. Yeah. So many Oscar movies are the story of difficult interesting fascinating men right that's like that's phantom i love phantom thread but that's phantom thread that's darkest hour like that's sort of the classic of the genre um and you don't see those roles existing in the same way for women at all like there's no you

it's hard to think of an equivalent of a phantomread that surrounds a Frances McDormand or a Meryl Streep or what have you. Yeah. I mean, Sally Hawkins was nominated and Frances won for three billboards. But other than that, you had those hot races between Alice and Janie. She was in I, Tonya. I, Tonya wasn't nominated. That was a good movie. The Florida Project wasn't nominated.

Don't. You know how I feel about the Florida Project. I movie. You know, the Florida Project wasn't nominated. Don't, you know how I feel about the Florida Project. I know how you feel about the Florida Project. We all know. I love the Florida Project and it was robbed

and it was one of the top movies of the year and everybody should see it. Yeah, you know, it's just that films starring women

and about, quote unquote, women's issues never seem to do well. Um, but hopefully that's changing. Can we make fun of the conservative Twitter reaction to the Oscars for one minute? Because like,

I didn't even look at it. No one is triggered faster than like the sort of mediocre writer on the national review that watches 45 seconds of the Oscars and sees some diversity celebrated in some way and declares, this is why Trump won. It is so tiring and stupid. It's like, shut the fuck up.

The worst one this morning I saw was Ben Shapiro. He wrote a whole piece on this, which I have not read. Of course he did. Jimmy Kimmel, we make films to upset Mike Pence. And then Shapiro says,

that's true and it's an important admission. Yeah. No, no. The films are made Mike Pence. And Shapiro says, that's true, and it's an important admission. Yeah, no, the films are made in Hollywood to specifically upset people's political beliefs. That's what they think about. This is the year that Hollywood stops hiding the ball

on its liberalism, on its Hollywood liberalism. It happened one night was made to upset Mike Pence. Mulan was made to upset mike pence you know mulan was made to upset mike pence find a movie that doesn't upset mike pence he thought of the iron lady he's like oh those are it's a man and a woman in a room and there's i only see three feet on the floor i made a conscious decision not to look at them i I know that Taffeta Lauren had a tweet last night where she was like, can't wait for the Oscars to see everyone's favorite pastime bashing Trump. And it's like, I know you can't wait for the Oscars.

You literally can't wait. You are actually excited to watch it. The NRA made a video to be a part of the culture war conversation because that's all they have they look forward to ruining national cultural moments the Oscars the Emmys the NFL the poor Fox News octogenarians sitting at home just like I don't like anything anymore nothing nothing that the whole country watches together. Sports, culture, music. Ruin it all. Change the channel.

What's funny is they do love it, though, because I remember when there is a show where someone just ignores Trump. They all love to tweet, love this show that didn't put politics into anything. It's like they look forward to this every year. They've probably all seen Shape of Water or some of these films. It's just very weird. I think Mike Pence, I'll call me by his name. I think he got that screener. It's just very weird how they all operate in this space where they are watching these movies and watching these TV shows, listening to these albums, and yet they can't just enjoy the damn show.

Like they're always upset at the Grammys and hip hop, and that's what they listen to in their cars. Yeah, it's ironic too, because it's all under the guise of saying, look at what they're politicizing, look at what they're politicizing, but my goodness, the way they look at things is so political. It's always just ready to pounce on like, they mentioned the troops but not the way I would have mentioned the troops

and that's why they hate the troops. Good times. Ira, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, thanks for having me. And you'll be doing a full recap, I'm imagining, on this week's Keep It. No, we're going to ignore that. You guys are going to do something else? Yeah.

Yeah, no, they're talking education policy. I'm just going to have a whole hour about Hope Hicks' past. Perfect. Everyone tune in to Keep It this week. Thanks, Ira. Bye, Ira. All right.

Thanks, Norm Eisen, for joining us today. Thanks, Ira Madison. I'm still here. And that's all the time we have for today. Sorry your favorite movie. Three Billboards did not win Best Picture. I love Three Billboards. Can't wait for Fourth Billboard.

We'll see you all in Texas. Texas! There's still some tickets. Remember, there's no Thursday pod. It's going to be a Friday morning pod and it'll be our Thursday night show in Houston. We'll see you then. Bye.