Pod Save America - "Pulling out of the War on Christmas.” (Holiday mailbag episode!)

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

Donald Trump's government shutdown doesn’t stop Jon F. and Dan from answering listener questions in this special holiday mailbag edition of the pod. Then Katie Porter joins Jon to talk about turning California’s 45th district blue and the work waiting for her once she’s sworn in to Congress.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And this is our Holiday Mailbag episode. You're listening to this on December 24th. So happy birthday, Dan. I know it's your birthday. I'm so old, I can't stand it. Does it really suck having a birthday that is Christmas Eve? You know, I get this question all the time, and I would say two things about it.

I'm sure you do. Up until the day I went to work for Barack Obama in 2007, I had never worked or gone to school on my birthday. And then, thanks to Barack Obama, I worked on my birthday for like five consecutive years. But generally, it's good because you always have a day off. But two, I don't know whether my parents did a very good job of equaling the presents out or my brother also got screwed. But within the confines of my house, present distribution was fair. So I can't complain. It was fair for you.

So your brother did get screwed. I don't know. Maybe my parents just did a good job of making sure I got the appropriate amount of presents. I don't know whether I got the appropriate amount or he did not get the appropriate amount. But it seemed fair at the time. That's good. All right. Later on the pod, you will hear my interview with Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter from California's 45th District.

We'll talk about her heading to Congress and what her priorities are when she gets there. But first, we have a whole bunch of mailbag questions. Thank you for all your questions. You sent them in on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, a couple other places. I don't know. Some of you just shouted them at Elijah. So we'll take some of your questions and yeah, we'll go from there. How do you get the left to care about the courts as much as the right? It's a good question to think about in light of, you know, the recent Texas ruling trying to rule the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Of course, we went through Kavanaugh this year. So, Dan, how do we get our folks to care as much about the courts as the right has for many, many years? Billboards of Brett Kavanaugh's shit-eating grin all across America. All right. I do like that. Do you want a serious answer to that question?

Because that was pretty serious. I think the thing here is, I think one, I will be interested to see when we get to the 2020 election cycle, how much, whether Democrats seem to care more than they have in the past. Yeah. So that's because I think we have seen through what has happened with Gorsuch and Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh, like in very real terms, what not caring and how not caring enough can have lasting decades long damage on this country. So that's one. Two, I think it's also progressive activists who care about this have not only just voters to convince. I think we also have to convince our elected officials that we care because, you know, we're going to have to keep an eye on Senate Democrats for two years to make sure that they are not doing anything to make it easier to put Trump judges on the court. Now, they have limited levers they can pull here because of they don't have the majority.

they can pull here because they don't have the majority. But I think we got to look with great suspicion at any of these sort of deals that let senators go home early and make it easier for McConnell to confirm Trump's judges. Yeah. And already I was happy to see that there were some rumors that Schumer was going to do another one of these deals before the holidays to make sure that a bunch of judges went through in order to get the funding passed and everyone go home. And that did not happen. At least in this recording, it did not happen. But so that's good. And, you know, and it's happened before. So maybe our elected officials are starting to get the message. But no, I think you're right. And I think all these candidates in 2020 need to talk about like the court and judges should be part of your stump speech. And I think, you know, one way to

get people to care about it is to talk about the issues at stake here. And not just the Supreme Court either, but a lot of these lower courts. And I think that's also going to make a huge difference, not just in the presidential race in 2020, in case there are additional Supreme Court openings, but look, it is going to matter for retaking the Senate in 2020, which is something that I don't want people to just forget about here as we focus on the presidential because it is going to be, I think it's almost as important, not quite as important, but almost as important for Democrats to take the Senate in 2020 as to taking the presidency, because if we have a Senate the way it is right now, I don't think

we're getting anything done with the Democratic president and Democratic House. Yeah. Do you think Mitch McConnell is confirming President Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, even if that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg resigned at 1201 on January 21st, the thought will at least cross Mitch McConnell's mind that he should not confirm that person. He should wait four years to confirm that person. Absolutely. And that will be the position of the right for sure. And so the Senate is very important.

Yes. I would say one other thing about this because this is – of all the questions we'll take, this is maybe the most important. But is – I think one messaging point is to connect people's frustration with the money in politics to change in the balance of the court. Because I think that's what people don't really understand, that the only way you're going to be able to get corporations and billionaires out of politics is to get a different ruling on Citizens United. The only way to get a different ruling from a conservative is Clarence Thomas, who is, you know, early 70s right now. So we could be waiting a long time. But should that vacancy occur, we're going to need a Democratic president in there, because if there are other vacancies, whether it's Ginsburg, whether it's other justices, you know, if we get that vacancy from Thomas and there's a Democratic president in there, suddenly we have a 5-4 court again and we have the majority in the court. So that's how fast it can change. And so that's why it's so important to both have a Democratic Senate in place at the time

and have a Democratic president. Okay. Sarah F.G. Smith asks, why isn't anyone talking about the six-week abortion ban that ohio is on the verge of adopting it is a horrifying violation of women's constitutional right to access an abortion since most don't even know they're pregnant until uh eight weeks um can we discuss please yes we can uh and i think this sort of goes to the first question about the courts. And just so people know, this ban, this would be a ban on all abortions after six weeks. And there would be exceptions for the life and health of the mother, but no other exceptions, no exceptions for rape, no exceptions for incest. And it has passed the Ohio House, it has passed the Ohio Senate. John Kasich, who is still the governor now, has said he would veto it. But the incoming Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, has said that he would sign

the bill. So that's where we are right now. Dan, what do you think about this? I think this is such an important question, such an important issue, because when, going back to the Supreme Court again, when the Supreme Court refused to take out these cases about Planned Parenthood a few weeks ago, some people breathed a sigh of relief and said, well, maybe they were telling the truth and they don't really want to take on abortion. But if you believe sort of what legal, what the right-wing legal scholars and activists say, is they are waiting for this case. This is the case that will come before the Supreme Court that could be the opportunity for them to overturn Roe v. Wade. And we need to scream from the rooftops about this, and I feel negligent

that we haven't done it yet. But as we round the bend from the new year and mike dewine takes over we have to do everything we can to put to raise awareness of this and because it's not this is not just about ohio this has become a mod this is not some you know far right southern state this is a purple state that has taken this path and it's become a model for republicans across the country so this has to be a centerpiece of activism heading into 2019. Yeah. And I will say, and I did some research on this and it looks like there's a lot of legal scholars as well as women's reproductive groups who believe that there is a small chance that the Supreme Court takes this particular case up. They think that it is such a direct hit to Roe and so contradicts the ruling in Roe v. Wade that, you know, that lower courts will likely find it unconstitutional. And then maybe the Supreme Court won't take it, not because the Supreme Court has, you know, the Kricting a woman's right to choose that might be easier for them to take and then rule as a way to chip away

at women's right to choose and access to abortion, that they might take those instead. But of course, you know, we can't be sure of anything anymore. And this is all in the courts. And like you said, this is just something that we have to be aware of and fight like hell over because these are the very real threats now that Brett K have a law on the books which preserves the right to reproductive freedom in that state, they need to pass that law. So that you have the potential, depending on a Supreme Court ruling, to protect the right to choose within your state if the Supreme Court essentially makes it a states' rights issue. And so getting it on the book is incredibly important. So it should be a priority for along with a lot of other things, but it should be at the top of the list for these new democratic governors. Another question from name I can't pronounce T. Kusil. I don't know. Will there be a Jeff Flake of 2019, 2020? I don't know that.

This is the most obvious answer in the entire world. I think I know. Can i take a shot at it absolutely yes it is uh his name is willard mitt romney you are correct sir i've been calling him new jeff flake look i don't want to prejudge maybe maybe mitt romney is suddenly going to have a change of heart and everything we saw from him in the presidential campaign. And, you know, maybe he'll, he'll turn out to be a real hero, but I'm not going to happen. I'm not going to place any money on that. I know we don't make predictions, but this is, this is even prediction. This is like me predicting the sun is coming up tomorrow. It is 100% guaranteed to happen. Mitt Romney is

someone who to his great credit went all in on being against Trump, unlike most of the spineless weasels of the Republican Party. All in gave the centerpiece, never Trump, speech in the campaign. When Trump won, I think he even continued in a lot of ways to be strong, putting out statements when it was appropriate, speaking out more aggressively on things like when the president, I don't know, sided with Nazis and things like that. Then he started running for Senate in Utah. And then I saw one bad poll and then tried to tell reporters he was never actually never Trump. So I didn't take that to be an encouraging sign that he would be a vessel for the courageous never Trump movement all across this country. I actually thought when I first read that question, they were wondering if there's going to be,

like, if Jeff Flake or someone like that's going to challenge Trump in the primary, which I'd be interested for your thoughts on, too. I think that just reading the tea leaves of the Twitter accounts of John Kasich and John Weaver, The Twitter accounts of John Kasich and John Weaver, who is John Kasich's longtime political strategist and sort of helped with the Engineer McCain's challenge to George W. Bush in 2000. I get the sense that John Kasich is very much thinking about running against Trump in 2020. The problem is there is basically running against Trump in the Republican primaries to Trump's left seems like an impossible task. But it is notable that the Republicans are not super confident because they have proposed canceling the South Carolina primary as a way to protect Trump in this upcoming election, which is something that apparently has happened many

times in the past. So this is not totally unique, but it is at least a sign that they have some fears of a primary challenge. Yeah, no, my view on this is if for some reason a candidate came along and decided to challenge Trump from the right, said that Trump has, you know, ignored his MAGA base and, you know, didn't build the wall. And look, he signed into law this bipartisan criminal justice reform and he's a cuck now. And look, he signed into law this bipartisan criminal justice reform and he's a cuck now. Like, I guess that would just be like, you know, a fucking human version of Infowars or something. Challenged by Alex Jones. Yeah, that's the only, to me, that's the only potential threat to Trump because most of the Republican Party, what's left of it, the constituency of the Republican Party, I'd say at least, I don't know, 70, 80% of it, they're Trump fans. They're behind him all the way. And so, yeah, there's a small constituency for John Kasich, I'm sure, out there, Republicans who are disappointed with Trump, Republicans who may have voted Democrat in this 2018 election. I'm sure they're

out there, but I don't think they represent anywhere near a majority of the party. Yeah, or even, they're not even a distinct minority. It's just like a handful of people. I'm sad to say. Taylor Nelson Haney asks how to engage voters in districts suffering from voter suppression living in Georgia. The morale feels low, even though Democrats won overall. What's the message for Democrats in these tough places? This is a really hard one. And I hearken back to Latasha Brown of Black Voters Matter, who is an activist who works across the South, particularly in African American communities, who was our guest on the final of the four HBO specials, who really talked both in our interview and then in a New York Times

op-ed piece she wrote this fall very powerfully about how you engage these communities. And it's really about talking to them about their power, the power they have despite these laws, and they try to take that power away. And talking to them about – it's like an education process, right, about what their power is and then how you can put yourself in a position where you can overcome the laws being put in place by people like Brian Kemp in Georgia. model is very interesting and compelling. And I think we could all learn a lot from the work that she did in Alabama during the Doug Jones race and all across the South in 2018. Yeah. I mean, voter suppression is real. It's insidious. It's probably the worst it's been since the Jim Crow era. We know that. But at the same time, we should remember, Stacey Abrams received more votes than any Democrat in Georgia's history. And I think the only way to stop voter suppression is to keep fighting it, keep organizing. It remains true

that there are still more voters who don't turn out because they don't think it's important than voters who don't turn out because Republicans have made it hard for them, which I think is sometimes lost in the conversation around voter suppression, which again is very real and a real threat. And I think that the only way that we're going, I mean, it's, it's, it's tough because it's a, you know, it's a catch 22 here. Like the only way we're going to change the laws is to win and winning is made that much tougher because voter suppression is in place, but it's not impossible. There's ways to organize and there's, you know, there's,

there's work on the ground to be done. So I would tell those people, you know, don't lose heart. And I know it's disappointing and you have every right to be angry about the result in Georgia. I sure am. But you got to keep fighting. And there are there are plenty of voters out there who are willing to vote, who are willing to jump through the hoops and jump and, you know, overcome the obstacles they've put in your way to go out there and vote. Yeah. It's really about organizing, organizing now and not...

And this is two other points Latasha made in our conversation that were really important. One is the work has to continue long after the election, right? It can't be this traditional two-year cycle where you show up three months before the election and do some organizing and then pack up the first Wednesday in November. This has to be sustained organizing that goes on for years. And that's how you do it. The other thing she said that I thought was fascinating, which is slightly apart from the question about voter suppression, but it goes right at your point that there are more voters who just choose not to turn out. And LaTosha said to me during that HBO show that most non-voters are not apathetic. They're

actually quite passionate about their decision not to vote. And I think that's a very important thing for democratic politicians to learn, which is people are making a choice not to vote. They are choosing not to do it in many cases because they don't feel like that vote matters, that you as a politician have not made a case about why it matters. And that we have to move some of the agents, instead of just yelling at voters to stop being lazy, we have to put some of the burden on politicians to make that vote matter. Not just make a compelling case in the run-up to election day, but once you get into office, your job is to make it so that the person who waited in line three hours, who took time off work or carried their kids and stood in the rain while they could vote, that they feel like that was worth it. Because if you just go there and once you have that, you pocket that vote and go on and sort of do what you would normally do in Washington, then you have failed that person. Yeah. And again, those of us who pay close attention to politics, people who are listening to this podcast, we get why it's important to vote. We get, you know,

Trump is president. Of course you got to vote like this is you know the most important election of our lifetime like we get all that but you have to understand that there are people out there who do not pay close attention to politics and they feel like no one is listening to them and they feel like the system is broken and they feel like the game is rigged and yes everyone has a responsibility to educate themselves about the news and politics, of course. But if we want to build a winning coalition, if we want to build a majority in this country to pass progressive policies, it's also incumbent upon all of us who want that to

go out and talk to the people who don't necessarily think that politics is for them or that politics actually responds to their lives. That's on us. So I do think you're right that we have to continue to have those conversations with people who don't vote and find out what they are passionate about and tell them, you know, here's how to fix that problem that you're having. Okay. It may, it me, oh, it me, asks, this is all in one word here. Where should our priorities be as a party right now? Focus on 2020 stop the border wall green new deal income inequality health care something else what do you think dan yes all of the above yeah i mean i think our primary responsibility has to be

put a check on trump put a check on the corruption Put a check on the corruption, put a check on the criminality, put a check on the incompetence. There is mountains of undue work digging into what this government's been doing for the last few years. And that has to be our first priority, more so than cutting some fucking infrastructure deal with Trump or passing some message bill. We should pass all the bills we can. I really like the idea the Democrats have had about electoral reform and voting reform as one of the first bills they're going to do. That's great. I think having a committee to dig into the Green New Deal is great. We should do all those things. Your job for the next two years is to stop Trump. That is why people elected you. That's what we

want you to do. Anything that compromises that, I think, needs to be looked at very hard before we go down the road. I agree with that. I think that on a parallel track, we also need to start offering our alternative vision for the country based on what people care about. Their jobs, their wages, the cost of living, what kind of country we want to live in. And I think the presidential candidates are probably going to handle that. And, you know, as you pointed out, the Democrats in the House, as they pass some of these, as people call them, messaging bills, and they say that because obviously they're not going to pass the Senate, but at least it lets the American people know what the Democrats' priorities are and what the priorities would be if Democrats had full control over Washington. So I do think that's important to start laying out what our vision is, what a world, what a post-Trump world might look like if Democrats had control. Because I think, you know, obviously this, I think first and foremost, this election is going to be a referendum on Trump. But there's going to be a lot of people wondering, okay, well, I know I don't like Trump and I don't want him in there. But what are Democrats going to do? What would the country look like under Democratic control? And so I think that's it's useful to at least start telling that story.

Yeah, I agree with that. Walk and chew gum, people. Yeah, you can do both. Thea Dirty asks, do you believe the Democrats run the risk of going into the 2020 election too complacent? For example, do you think there's a possibility that they may think there is no way Trump could win? I mean, that's going to obviously keep me up at night every night from now until 2020. But I don't think that will happen. But who knows? I don't know. What do you think? I think, yeah, I'm worried about that.

I'm worried about everything. That is the lesson of 2016. Worry about everything.'m worried about that. I'm worried about everything. That is the lesson of 2016. Worry about everything. Panic about nothing. I think we have to be very honest with ourselves. And sometimes when we like, you know, we talk to groups or we see people, people are shocked by this point that I often make, which is right now Trump is the favorite to be reelected. If you were just going to put money on what is the most sure case, it would be that Trump would get reelected. And I say that before everyone fucking drives their car off a road or throws their phone in the sewer,

because incumbent presidents usually get reelected. There are two factors that have stopped incumbents from getting reelected in the last couple decades. And both of these factors have had to be in place for it to happen because there's only been two presidents who were not reelected in recent history, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Both of these two factors were a primary challenge from their ideological flank, Ted Kennedy in 80 and Pat Buchanan in 88, and a third-party candidate, John Anderson in 80, Ross Perot in 88. One of those factors is almost certainly not happening, and the other one may or may not happen. So given that, you would say Trump has a very good chance to be reelected. But there are some mitigating factors. He's incredibly unpopular. He's incredibly stupid. He is under every aspect of his life from grade school

till he got to the White House, is under criminal investigation. And there are more Democratic voters and Republican voters in this country. And so anyone who is complacent has been fucking napping for two years and should not be around. But this is going to be a very tough race to win. And we're going to have to be very smart and have a very good candidate who has a very good campaign and take advantage of every opportunity to win. Yeah. And the Trump voters, they showed up in 2016. They showed up again in 2018. In 2016, they showed up again in 2018.

We won in 2018 because we had astronomical turnout among Democratic voters, and we pulled over some Republicans as well. But a lot of those Trump voters that voted in 2016, they didn't stay home in 2018, and there's a good chance they're not staying home in 2020. So we are going to have to do everything right. This brings me to the next question from L Vanderbilt. As we gear up for 2020, how can we avoid the democratic infighting that dragged on beyond the primaries like we saw in 2016? Great question. I wish, I hope, does anyone have an answer? Tweet at us because I don't have a fucking clue. This, this is the thing that keeps me up the most right now because, you know, we're already seeing this and it's like i don't know how we can avoid it i

know how every person out there can contribute to avoiding it which is you know talk about why you like your chosen candidate right uh if you prefer one can't talk about the positive uh parts of that candidate's policy agenda or their record or whatever you may like about them like don't go around talking, especially this early, about why you can't stand the other candidates. I've already seen on Twitter some people, hashtag never Bernie, hashtag never Beto, hashtag never Biden, hashtag never, like, never nothing. Stop. Don't do that. Stop it. And the other thing, don't get in dumb Twitter fights with the people who love getting into dumb Twitter fights on both sides.

Because there's still some small percentage on each side, very small. But they're out there, they're on Twitter, and they're still fighting with each other. And I don't pay attention to them anymore. Maybe I'll see it when I scroll by. I'm not responding anymore. I'm not dealing with it. Because you know what happens? Those fights start on Twitter now.

And then journalists who spend their time on Twitter as well, they start writing about those fights. So they're not reflective of what's actually happening out in the country. Because if you start looking at some of these polls, these early polls right now, the approval rating for almost all of these candidates is quite good. Most Democrats like all of these candidates in the real world. They like all of these candidates in Twitter world. It's a fucking mess. But in the real world, most people in this party would be very happy and have warm feelings to just about all of these candidates that have been mentioned to be running. So, you know, I would just tell everyone, keep an open mind yourself about all the candidates. Tell your friends to keep an open mind about all the candidates and when you're talking about them talk about what you like about

certain candidates and don't start attacking all the rest of the field when you said a few minutes ago that you had made a decision to not pay attention to the primary related twitter battles on the internet were you you made, when did you make that pledge? Five minutes ago? I'm sorry, I'm going to- Your text messages from today suggest that- Allow me to rephrase. I'm not, I'm not engaging in them, is what I'm going to do.

Okay. I'm going to, I can't ignore them unless I get off to, I mean, there'll be another resolution that you'll hear in our resolutions episode on Thursday about one of my big resolutions, which is how to use Twitter better. So that's a resolution that's starting now. But yeah, it's bad already. It's bad. Well, I'd say just two points about this. We should not be so pessimistic just yet because Twitter is not real life. That right it just isn't that's my new mantra for the new year by the way twitter's not real yeah it is a fun house mirror version of

politics in a particularly unfun fun house that sadly becomes reflected in uh across broader press coverage because it's reporters basically. Like the new man on the street interview is to just read tweets and have that affect your worldview, which is pretty fucking stupid and really damning for the current state of journalism.

And two, this is going to be, at least for a long time, it appears, a many, many, many candidate field. The problem we had in 16 and for some of 08, was it was two candidates. And so it's either if you're for Bernie, you're against Hillary.

If you are for Hillary, you're against Bernie. Or you could finally replace Bernie with Barack if you want to do 08. You saw this and you worked in the 2004 presidential campaign. When there are many candidates, you can be for John Kerry and you're not necessarily vehemently against John Edwards or against Dick Gephardt. You know what I mean? Your hatred can be diluted around a number of people. And hopefully that happens here the other thing is hopefully people recognize like if there was a question about whether it mattered whether hillary or trump was the winner well i think we know the fucking answer that question and it matters a hell of a lot yeah and look again like even the 2016 divisions were are overblown um you know most the vast vast majority something like

70 80 80 i think of bernie supporters ended up voting for hillary most hillary voters have a um you know bernie has a good approval rating among most hillary voters as well so like again it's overblown in the end i do think in in 2004 the dynamic was um it was howard dean versus the rest of the field because dean was the insurgent and so there was this like anger between dean supporters and everyone else but again this was back in 2004 and there wasn't twitter or other social media to sort of amplify the divisions as we have now but i do you you are right that in a in a big field it becomes less likely that you get the sort of battle royale between two candidates.

Yeah. Twitter has basically become a world where all reporters are forced to do made-on-the-street interviews, but they have to go to the dumbest, angriest street in all of America to do them. That is very apt. All right, some fun questions.

Aang Tricario, what are your favorite holiday traditions? What do you got, Dan? I don't play games. Do you also play games after Christmas dinner? We do play games. Yeah, we do play some games as well. Okay. You and Emily seem to have very fun families. This is going to be like cheesy new dad tradition thing. But when I

was a kid, like young kid, my family would always get together and we would read the night before Christmas on Christmas Eve, which was the day you're listening to this podcast and also my birthday. And that was sort of our last thing we did before we went to bed and waited for Santa. So now, obviously, we haven't done that for many, many years in my family. But now that my daughter is here, we're going to go visit my parents. We're going to restart that tradition this year. That's great. We used to do that, too.

Somewhere there is an audio tape of me as a two-year-old reciting twas the night before christmas with my mom helping me along that i've heard before yeah we used to do all the time we um we just did christmas with my parents since we're going to cincinnati this week and we always do like i'll play christmas carols on the piano and my mom will sing and everyone else will have a little sing-along. And then now with Emily's family, we have a tradition that they've had for a long time, which is they play an audio version of the Christmas carol, Dickens' The Christmas Carol. And everyone sits around and has like hot chocolate or whatever. And no one, everyone has to put their phones away. No one can speak.

It's just all silence listening to the Christmas carol through the whole thing, which is, I've phones away. No one can speak. It's just all silence, listening to the Christmas carol through the whole thing, which is, I've done it for a few years now. It's really nice not to look at your phone. It sounds like bliss. I love that. It's very great, yeah. The black family, they're a good time.

Okay. Don't Boo Vote asks, what types of media do you consume when not obsessively refreshing Twitter, reading the news? Is there a specific book, movie, episode of television that was favorite in 2018? I have so many. I have like a whole list of them. Go.

So television. The Good Place. One of my favorite shows. My favorite show on network television. Homecoming. Great British Bake Off. Wild Wild Country. BoJack Horseman. good place one of my favorite my favorite show on network television uh homecoming great british bake-off uh wild wild country bojack horseman succession nanette trying to think of any others that's that's my initial list movies favorite movies of the year black panther amazing blockers my favorite comedy won't you be my neighbor my favorite documentary about mr rogers um took me

back and then uh as you know i don't really read but um i read uh the last campaign by thurston clark about bobby kennedy's campaign in 68 is fantastic michelle obama's book becoming excellent just read that and the novel less um i think it won the pulitzer prize last year is uh very well worth a read those are my those are my recommendations okay my tv would be um not counting the pod safe america hbo special but would be i'm not going to redo the Below Deck thing, but I really do enjoy Below Deck. Succession, Atlanta, and Top Chef are three shows that I greatly enjoy. My wife and I have also gotten very into Outlander, which is a very unique niche of the internet show, but I thoroughly enjoy. Books. The best non-Obama-related books I read this year, yes, Ben Rhodes,

yes, Alyssa Mastromonaco, yes. Yes, we can. I forgot yes, we can on my list. I read that book. Yes, we still can. Sorry. I wasn't offended. It's in parentheses. Because I almost exclusively read books either written by my friends or fiction. Because if you're going to basically for a living consume politics all day long, it's nice to do something totally different. So the three best books I read this year, maybe like best is not the right word, but three most favorite books I've read this year were The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner, They're There by Tommy Orange, and The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. Coincidentally, all three of them take place in the Bay Area in the past, but they were just all three phenomenal books. And then one other book is The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem, who is probably my favorite

author of the last decade or so. He had he had a new book that just came out. Great. I'm going to take your recommendations. Since we had a baby, I've seen almost no movies. I can't remember the last time I went to the movie theater, but obviously Black Panther, which I saw on an airplane,

but was great. And then like the movie that I weirdly enjoyed the most, because I had super low expectations, but it just blew me away was The Quiet Place with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. I don't even really watch horror movies, but it was phenomenal. It's also a good metaphor for our life once we put our daughter down for a nap because the premise of the movie is if you make noise, monsters come. And so it's like we're very quiet in our house. And so I think about that movie a lot.

There's no chance I was ever watching that movie. But the other, like, I'll give you two albums that I really enjoyed this year, which were, I listen almost exclusively to hip hop, so take that for what it will. No Name, who is this female rapper from chicago that is amazing and smino uh has an album called noir that just came out that is i just randomly stumbled onto it on spotify and it's phenomenal all right that's good all right emily primo asks how did john john tommy and dan all meet do they remember their first interactions? All right, let's see. I met Tommy first in 2004. I was on the Kerry campaign. It was the beginning of the general election. Tommy had been on the Edwards campaign in the primary. They just lost. And Tommy's cousin,

They just lost. And Tommy's cousin, Wendy Button, was a speechwriter with me on Kerry. And Tommy was looking for a job. And so he stopped by our office and he was interviewing at the Kerry campaign for a job, which he smartly decided not to take. So he could then go work on the campaign of state Senator Barack Obama. And that worked out pretty well for him. And then I met Tommy again in the Senate office, uh, during our first week on the job, I met you. I believe this was in 2006 when I was in the Obama Senate office and you came in right after,

or while you were about to take the job for the campaign. Is that right? That's basically right. Yeah. And then we went out and then you and me and tommy and bill burton who had just taken the job as press secretary all went out for dinner that night at fogo to chow i was just gonna say we went to fogo to chow you're so classy yeah we're very classy that was 2006 and then love it i met because he applied for a job in um

in the obama administration and he had been a Hillary Clinton speechwriter, and it was between him and someone else, and I interviewed him at a Starbucks near the transition office in D.C., and he was hilarious, as he always is. And I said, oh, this guy's funny. I mean, I think he writes pretty well, but he's really funny, so he should definitely be on the team since we need some humor. And that was Love It. What about you? How did you meet, I guess, Tommy and Love It? So Tommy, I first met when he moved to DC after

working on the Obama Senate election. So this was 2005. And we had a friend of mine who had been a – who's from Chicago who had been a supporter of Obama's, sort of had a dinner to welcome Tommy to DC. And he described Tommy as this young hotshot who had worked for a friend of mine on the Edwards campaign when Tommy worked for Edwards in 2004 before Obama. So Tommy and I went to dinner together when he first moved to DC. I don't even think he had an apartment yet. I was trying to remember the first time I met Lovett, and it was either in the transition office after you hired him. I can't remember what order these things happened in, but I think I met him briefly in the transition office. And then during the transition, I was shopping at the mall because I had to buy like suits and things because we had real jobs now.

And I ran into Lovett in the department store who reintroduced himself to me at like Bloomingdale's or something. I can't believe he introduced himself to you and didn't just sort of like walk away because it was like that's a very forward social interaction from Lovett. Yeah, it was incredibly awkward. And then we probably didn't speak again for six months. I thought you guys first met on the first episode of pod save america that was gonna be my joke but people read way too much into that i was gonna say we still haven't met yet um okay so that's us that's first that's first meetings all right melissa thompson from instagram this is a great question.

You are kidnapped by a mischievous but well-meaning elf who transports you to an enchanted room where visitors are compelled to speak only the truth. The elf says you can have one hour in the truth-telling room with anyone other than Donald Trump. Who do you pick and why? I have my answer. Okay, I have a question. Sure.

What are the Miranda rights about what happens in this room? The Miranda rights? Like, I mean, can it be used against you in a court of law? Do you have immunity? Oh, like if someone tells you something? Yeah, so here's my point. If I can use this magic elf room to get Donald Trump Jr. in jail, I'm certainly doing that. Oh, wow.

That is happening. That is some devious shit, Dan. Good thinking. I like where your head is. Yes, you can. Absolutely. This is our magical elf room. Yeah.

So if I could do that, I would use Donald Trump Jr. probably. If you really wanted to get the bomb of the Russia thing, maybe Putin would be your first choice. You'd find out about the P-Tape, all these other things? Mueller, man. Robert Mueller is my choice. I would sit there with Mueller and I have so many questions. I would just find it all out and then I would be able to, I'd probably be more productive with my life because then I would know what was going on and I wouldn't be reading all

these stories and trying to follow all these leads and connecting all this red string on the board. I just get get bobby three sticks in there and uh and i'll just i'll just start firing away that's that's my uh that's my choice if it could be someone who was dead i would pick jack ruby jack ruby like if you could find out about the kennedy assassination that seems like an interesting use of that room or the other Jack Ruby. that it was part of a gambling investigation from the NBA. And so I would have NBA commissioner David Stern in that room because I want to know the truth about what made Michael Jordan retire mysteriously for 18 months. Those are all of my various choices.

If you asked a million people this question, I don't know if any would pick David Stern. I bet you our former boss, Bill Simmons, would have picked David Stern on his list. Because my obsession with this is partially fueled by him bringing it up on his podcast about once every six months. I would love to hear Bill's answers to this because I bet he'd have some good ones, especially in the world of sports. Okay, final question from Heather Liv. Dan's thoughts on Paul Ryan's legacy. Now, before you answer, here at Crooked Media, we have a little something for you to listen to, Dan, that we'd like you to just. Oh, exciting.

This is for you. Paul Ryan is the phoniest fucking person in America. Paul Ryan is as responsible for Donald Trump being president as any person walking the planet today, with the possible exceptions of Vladimir Putin and Jim Comey. Trump could murder someone and Paul Ryan would be fine with it. Dan definitely wins the Paul Ryan. Oh, God, he hates Paul Ryan. He hates him. He was born in a college Republican's test tube hatched by Karl Rove.

I know he'd like to think the first line of his Wikipedia page will be the tax cut, but it won't be. It will be the shame that comes from his conduct with Trump in office. And that is just a fact and it is unchangeable at this point, no matter how many times he puts out lukewarm statements so he can sleep at least five minutes a night. We have a statement from noted Ryan hater Dan Pfeiffer. Dan sent in the statement he couldn't be here today.

Paul Ryan may leave Congress, but the stain of his cowardice and complicity will remain. Paul Ryan will do nothing to save us. Yeah, I think we've all realized that. But I don't like Paul Ryan. No, I... If that wasn't clear. I have to say

I'm mildly embarrassed by that. Are you? We were so proud. Elijah and Michael put that together and they are very proud of it. And we have been laughing. As they should be. It's really great. But it's like I – like there is a certain – I find myself – I generally believe myself to at least be a pretty even-keeled person.

Yeah, no no you are there is something about paul ryan that sends me into a fit of rage and like i don't even remember the things i say like they're not planned i don't write them down in advance i have no there are no rant notes they just come it is an organic anger and i think there's also like a hormone that makes me forget the things i said immediately afterwards. So this is just me being reminded of them, which I am both proud and slightly embarrassed, I guess, would be the way of my reaction to that. Well, I'm proud of you for hearing them. I mean, I think it was a fantastic sendoff. You know, look, we figured Paul Ryan has a six-part video series sending himself off by his own legacy that he's been putting.

He gave a speech and everything the least we could do is put together a little dan pfeiffer on paul ryan compilation which um you know i think i think people will enjoy it very much do you have any other thoughts you'd like to add final words about paul ryan yes please do please do so i have spent some time in anticipation of this moment trying to understand what it is about Paul Ryan that makes me so mad. Because I, like, trust me, Marco Rubio, I find upsetting.

Mitch McConnell, one of the worst things that has ever happened to American politics, also makes me mad. Jeff Flake's impotence makes me mad. Donald Trump, I obviously do not like. Donald Trump Jr., terrible. There are people – like lots of people bother me. But Paul Ryan in particular bothers me.

It's not because of who Paul Ryan is because he's basically – he's not a – he's no one. He is like a – he is an empty vessel for people to pour their hopes and dreams into. hopes and dreams into. And the thing that I think makes me – that focuses my anger on Ryan is that he represents both the worst in Republican politicians, the worst in what everyone hates about politicians generally, and the glorification of Paul Ryan represents the worst of American journalism and punditry. All of those things together in one human being who made a choice. He actually chose this path that he was in. I did not watch his speech today, but I want to thank the 10,000 people on Twitter who sent it to me. the 10,000 people on Twitter who sent it to me.

But like everything in these final interviews has been like, and even from all of the Ryan apologists in conservative media or right-wing think tanks is boy, you know, what a tough deal for this wonky Jack Kempion Republican to be forced to be speaker while Donald Trump is president. back Kempian Republican to be forced to be speaker while Donald Trump is president. And it's like he didn't have to just fold and supplicate himself to Donald Trump. That was a choice he made. It was a political choice, a choice born of political expediency and cowardice that has proven to be the disastrous politically, disastrous morally.

the disastrous politically disastrous morally and and the his one um point of pride based on the six-part taxpayer-funded video his office sent out about passing this tax bill has also proven to be a policy disaster the economy has gotten worse yeah since that bill passed significantly worse the stock market is way down. You have to be a special kind of stupid to pass a corporate tax cut and have the stock market tank. So that's my take. I mean, the good news for you and for all of us, really, is at least from what I've seen, and I'm sure you follow this even more closely than I do, I have not seen many glowing pieces about Paul Ryan or his legacy as he leaves. Like, I feel like the journalism punditry aspect of what has always concerned you about Paul Ryan, which has been true for a very, very long time,

has finally come to terms with who Paul Ryan really is and who he isn't. And I thought emblematic of this was that Washington Post piece from yesterday that started quoting Paul Ryan's close friends on background, saying, like, Paul doesn't really understand how bad everything is and how bad he fucked this up. And I thought, to me, I was like, you know what, when you've got a close friend on background saying that, I don't need to put any more spin on the ball. I'm just going to leave it as it is. Take it easy, buddy. Have a nice retirement.

Enjoy your lobbying. Here's an important point. Paul Ryan's not going away. Like we're going to, those of us on the Paul Ryan beat are going to have to stay vigilant because six months from now, he's going to go to the Heritage Foundation. He's going to be welcomed with open arms by even some of our never-Trumper allies in the battle against Trump. He's going to give a speech about pushing back against the alt-right and returning the party to the roots of Reagan. The press will cheer. Centrist pundits will swoon, and then six months, 12 months, 18 months, I don't know,

Paul Ryan will run for Senate from Wisconsin. Oh, boy. I was actually thinking maybe he runs for governor of Wisconsin. He could do that. I think, I mean, he wants to be as close to Tortilla Coast as possible at all times,

so it seems like he has to return to Washington. But he's not done. He is taking a break to try to cleanse the stench of Trumpian failure off of his body and he's going to return to politics. 100%. Like the idea that he's just going to drift off and never be heard from again is impossible for me to imagine. So yeah, I'll probably direct some rage at Rubio or I don't know. I'm going to have a lot to say about Mitt Romney, I think. I think he's going to be a great disappointment to me. But Paul Ryan, we're going to keep an eye on

you at all times. On that note, we will now go to our interview with someone in Congress who makes us inspired and happy and hopeful, Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter from the 45th District of California. My interview with her right after this. On the pod today, we have in studio Congresswoman-elect from the 45th district of california katie porter thank you for having me thanks for joining uh congratulations well thank you we were all so excited yeah no we were thrilled too and so were all of our volunteers and supporters and it took a couple weeks to get a final answer you had uh fantastic volunteers and supporters as someone who had been down been down to the district a little bit.

So I think you pulled off one of the most difficult wins in the country, because not only were you running in a district that has voted Republican since it's been created, but you ran as a proud progressive. Medicare for All, assault weapons ban, Elizabeth Warren protege. You obviously got quite a few Romney Republicans to vote for you, probably got a few Trump Republicans to vote for you as well. What was your pitch to those voters? And what did you hear from those voters when you were trying to get their votes? When we talked to voters who maybe had voted Republican historically in the past, maybe they even voted for President Trump. We would talk with them about the issues that mattered to them. And so there were a lot of folks who voted for the

president and thought, well, you know, maybe it'll work out. And it's not really working out. And so there were people who just felt like a course correction was needed. I think we were also really careful to emphasize that I spent my career studying issues, that I'm thoughtful, that I'm willing to listen. And we're really working on making that come true in terms of how we're setting up our district office and creating ways to engage with constituents. Because my most important audience right now is not those who voted for me, it's those who didn't vote for me. And so this next couple of months, really trying to think about how to reach out to those people, invite them to come listen to me or to meet me.

Did you notice, I talked to a lot of voters over the course of the campaign, did some focus groups for another pod that I did. And I noticed that even with the Obama Trump voters, on issues, they tend to be open to more progressive ideas. to be open to more progressive ideas. Then when you talk to them about sort of Washington, the tone in Washington, they were much more like people should cooperate more. There's too much yelling. And these would be people who voted for Trump who were saying, I think I want Medicare for all. Did you notice that when you were talking to folks? Yeah, look, I'm in Orange County and the part of Orange County that I'm going to be representing, it's a place that really values civility. It's a really educated population. And so these are people who are interested in ideas.

They're interested in debate. And so when we talk about things like an assault weapon ban, I'll get people who will tell me about the definition of an assault weapon. I'll get people who will explain that it's really about gun death by suicide that we ought to be tackling. And so what they want is someone who's really thinking with them and engaging with them. And I think that when you talk about ideas, people are quite progressive. I think when you ask them about their kind of party politics, that's where historically in Orange County, that's just a question you don't ask. Asking someone, what party are you or how do you vote? Are you a Democrat?

That's like asking, is that a car a lease? I mean, how much money do you make? These are just not questions that we ask in polite company. And so I think in this election, one of the things we tried to do was to make space for people to start talking about their issues and their values, and then to slowly begin to translate that into political action. So last time we spoke, you told me that you were most excited about the prospect of becoming a congresswoman because you really want to write laws and dig into policies. And I saw a report that some progressives think you should get a seat on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees banks, lenders, and insurance companies. What specifically would you like to dig into when

the new Congress starts? Yeah, so the first priority for me, as it is for so many of my new freshman colleagues, is campaign finance reform. And that's in part because without taking some steps to solve that, it's going to be really difficult to do work on healthcare or on the environment or on financial services. But look, I've spent 20 years being a financial services nerd. I've testified before that committee. I've been at the wrath of Congressman Jeb Hensarling. I'm looking forward to being on the committee. I've testified before Senate banking. This is my life's work is trying to think about how can we make our economy successful? How can we make sure our economy is providing opportunities for regular American families to prosper and for businesses to grow and create jobs?

Obviously, this is really tough with a Republican Senate and Donald Trump in the White House. But do you see any areas where there's a possibility for compromise and getting something done? I mean, we just, you know, criminal justice reform looks like it's on the path to getting passed. Are there any issues like that that you care about that you think there might be a possibility to get something done? Well, I think we've heard a lot about the possibility of infrastructure and bipartisan cooperation on that. I think for me personally, thinking about housing affordability and about what we're going to do to stabilize our housing markets, it's a hugely important issue in coastal Orange County and in Southern California generally, the cost of housing and how it's a hugely important issue in coastal Orange County and in Southern

California generally, the cost of housing and how it's rising. And so I think that's an issue where groups like the realtors, groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association, these groups typically do work across the aisle. And so whether it's working on stabilizing FHA or coming up with a plan to get our Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac out of conservatorship, where they've been lingering for years. I mean, if they were a kid, they'd be almost 18 and an adult now. And so I think those are some issues that are maybe seem more technical to people, but really are long-term very important to our economy. So as you mentioned, you've been working on these issues your whole life. You did a lot of research for Elizabeth Warren on what families go through when they go through bankruptcy.

For her book, you've written books on your own. Kamala Harris, when she was attorney general, appointed you to monitor the banks and the post-crisis mortgage settlement. how we make rules that are more fair than are in place right now when it comes to how people deal with banks, creditors, financial institutions. So two kind of overarching observations. One of them has to do with complexity and the way in which complexity in the law is not an accident. It's not just a byproduct that has to exist, but it's actually something that gets baked into a lot of laws as a way of making it difficult for people to make use of them. And so every time we make a law incredibly complex, and there's 16 different programs and 42 different acronyms, and by the way, you have to fax your paperwork in because we all have a

fax machine right there, so handy. I saw that with the foreclosure crisis, the programs that were rolled out were really well-intentioned, but the complexity made it impossible for people to navigate. I'm dealing with this right now with healthcare. So I'm on the DC based affordable care act, small business plan. This is what Congress members get. And we get a partial subsidy on the premiums, which is a real benefit. We also get a choice of 69 plans. And so I've been trying to wade through these. I've called 1-800-HELP-ME like a million times. So I think that thinking about balancing, trying to create laws that are fair for everybody and every little individual circumstance with the fact that then things get so complex that nobody can get help, that nobody even tries to navigate through that process. And then I think the other thing I would say from all of the work

I've done with bankruptcy and with the foreclosure stuff is just how important it is when people in this country want help from their government or need help from their government that we be ready to answer. So it's been interesting as a congressperson, you get to pick one of these correspondence management systems. Doesn't that sound like warm and friendly? And a lot of the pitches that they make are sort of like, seamlessly make your constituents disappear.

And I don't want to make my constituents disappear. This is like answering letters and calls. Answering letters and recording information from phone calls. And my goal is to actually capture that information, but to do so in a way that promotes further conversation. So if someone writes me on an issue, the letter I send back to them should invite them deeper into conversation. It shouldn't cause them to not write back again. Thank you for writing. I'm working very hard on this. Right.

I really appreciate knowing your opinion. Right. So I think that's a mindset switch in government that we need to work on is how do we engage people kind of not just at election time, but day in, day out, as we do the work of government and make policy choices. If you had been on Obama's economic team during those first years of the crisis, what would you have advised him to do differently than we did? Yeah, great question. So the answer is the idea that the industry itself could self-administer all of these programs and that they would be communicating with consumers, that was never going to work. And ultimately, it took years and years, and these programs took a very long time to get ramped up. And it was the nature of the mortgage industry that they weren't set up to deal with these problems.

They were set up to take your check for the correct amount delivered before the due date out of the envelope and deposit the check. At best, that's what they know how to do. And so to kind of engage in human conversations with people about complex situations. So what I would have said is I think we needed to deliver some kind of simpler, more rough justice, but that got to people much more quickly. So one of the things we did in the National Mortgage Settlement, part of the program that I really liked was we wrote down, just eliminated, zeroed out, lots and lots and lots of second mortgages here in California and people who were deeply underwater. And literally the bank sent you a one-page letter and it said, hi, we're forgiving your second mortgage. That's a different kind of letter to get from a bank. If you don't want it, call us. And I remember asking a Bank of America executive, who calls you? Who doesn't want this? Because he said the take-up rate was only 98%.

And I said, who calls you? And he said, oh, you know, people with tinfoil on their heads or whatever. But that kind of putting the burden off the consumer, instead of here's a packet of 72 forms. And by the way, we need your tax returns. And by the way, we need you to fax this. And by the way, it's, you know, your forms got outdated while we waited to make a decision. Now you have to start back over again. That structure was set up to fail. So it wasn't the level of help we gave Main Street that I had a problem with. to make a decision and now you have to start back over again. That structure was set up to fail. So it wasn't the level of help we gave Main Street that I had a problem with. It was how we delivered

that help. And you contrast that to the big banks. They went in some conference room in the dark of night, a bunch of people, and they cut a deal and they walked out. And the next day they just made it happen. Having been there and my job as a speechwriter was to try to help explain what we were doing around the financial crisis to people. And because I am, I did not have a background in economics. I learned a lot from, or I had to sit with Geithner and Summers and all the rest. And I just remember like one situation where I'm, it was the AIG bonuses and we weren't going to claw back the AIG bonuses. And I was like, well, we're going to have to explain this to people because we're going to have people with pitchforks come into the White House. And Larry Summers says to me, well, it has to do with contract law.

And, you know, so because you can't claw out the bonuses because that's against the law. And even though and keep in mind, Larry Summers, non-lawyer, not a lawyer. because that's against the law. Keep in mind, Larry Summers, non-lawyer. Not a lawyer, right. But in my experience, it was a lot of people who were well-intentioned and wanted to help. But there's always these cautions. There's always a reason not to do something in government.

I heard Geithner talk about how in some of the housing relief programs, the inspector general at Treasury made it more complicated because they were worried about fraud. So there's always something that they're worried about. Do you think that Democrats and the next Democratic president have to have like less technocratic people in government, less people, less caution in general? Like, how do you get through that? So there's actually some really interesting research around this, including work done by Elder Shafir, whose book Scarcity I highly recommend. And essentially what happens is he's done some studies that show when you try to crack down on

fraud, say in a TANF food stamp program or a welfare program, and so you ask more questions and you add some paperwork and you create a couple layers of checks, what actually happens is fraud goes up a little bit and the very poorest, most needy people don't apply at all because it gets too complex. So it turns out, listen, and I saw this with the mortgage crisis, cheaters, they're willing to fill out a lot of paperwork in order to cheat. I mean, they're trying to get their home scot-free even though they don't deserve it. They're wheeling and dealing. They'll lie to you.

They'll put a lot of effort into cheating. But the everyday working class person, especially someone who's doing shift work, who maybe faces a language or education barrier, they're not trying to cheat. They're just trying to get help. And so I think we have to understand that we all want the system to be fair. And that's a core impulse. And it's a good one. But when we try to too hard to prevent cheaters, what we actually do is push out the most needy and the most vulnerable from these systems. Yeah, I think there's also this public sentiment. And we wrestled with this too, which is like, yes, people believe that banks trick people into these mortgages that they couldn't afford and that the banks were bad actors in all of this.

But there was another sentiment that we saw, and we saw this in public opinion as well, where people said, well, you know, some people shouldn't have bought homes that they couldn't afford. And you see this now in conversations about, you know, free college, right, or even debt forgiveness around college, right? And people say, well, I paid my college loans. Like, why shouldn't someone else? How do you start changing this sentiment and sort of our general ideas around debt and personal debt and household debt? Right. So I think part of it is when we start to think about these as collective problems. And so we have this tendency in America that everything is very individual and very meritocratic and we all

kind of get what we deserve. And I talked about this, one of my powerful childhood experiences was watching the entire kind of upper Midwest get decimated by the farm crisis. And that had nothing to do with who was a good farmer and who was a bad farmer. That had to do with economic forces and crop prices and interest rates. And so I think I come at it from a slightly different perspective. But I do think we have to start realizing that just because we suffered doesn't mean that it's beneficial to us to have the next generation suffer. And that's not actually helpful. So when people say to me, well, I paid off all of my college debt, I sometimes say, did you enjoy that experience?

Was it helpful? Did it help you save for retirement? Like, if you hadn't had to pay off every single dollar of that, wouldn't you be in a better place now? And so I think it's thinking about things, kind of how the pieces affect each other. And we often do a really poor job of that. And I think that's something that we as Democrats and we as progressives have to do a better job at talking about is we're in this collectively. And so you can tell I'm a professor because I keep referencing books. But another book that made a powerful impact on me is called Our Kids by Robert Putnam, who wrote, sociologist who wrote Bowling Alone.

And he talks about like back in his generation when people said we have to do something to help our kids. We have to build a playground to help our kids. They meant the children in this country or in this state or in their town or in their neighborhood. And so often now when people say we have to do something about our kids, they mean theirs. Right. And so that's the kind of mindset that I think we've seen grow. And I think it's a problem for us ultimately. Do you worry that that mindset, like, we seem to have this need that we need to sort of stitch together this collective ideal of what it means to be Americans, and that our politics right now

gets in the way of that. And, you know, and some people might be like, well, it's both sides. It's not both sides. But there is this notion that I wonder that if our economic ideal here, which is to have people understand that what happens to you and your finances and your own economic matters to the rest of the country. Do you think that's, you know, do you think our politics handles that well? No, I don't. But I think some of this is that it goes back to something that Elizabeth Warren, I think, really famously talked about, which was, you know, she said, nobody gets rich alone, right?

That we all rely on the collective infrastructure. And even if I individually have a great idea and I stay up late and I work really hard and work myself to the bone for that idea. Boy, when I go to grow that company and I have to hire some employees, I'm really glad there's some people with good public educations. So that they can I can have smart employees. No business is going to run its own K through 12 education system. Right. And so, you know, no business funds its own airport. And so there's ways in which we all contribute to the system through taxes and through the ways that we use the system and draw on it. How do you think we should get Medicare for all passed?

What is your favorite approach to this transition? So with regard to Medicare for all, I think one of the things we have to acknowledge is that Medicare as it currently exists isn't a perfect system. And I think that helps people realize that you're a realist when you're talking about it. So I often point out to people, there are some things with Medicare we'd have to change and improve as we begin to expand it. And the two examples I give are the way that the prohibition on negotiating prescription drug prices in Medicare, which if we're going to make Medicare sustainable and cost sustainable, we have to address that. And then the other is that Medicare, like pretty much every health insurance plan I've ever seen or had, does a really lousy job of how it covers and reimburses mental health care. And so I think

when we talk about making sure that we're making changes to Medicare to improve that system, we shouldn't have any programs in this country that have things called donut holes in them. That's just like you've already lost when you've got something called a donut hole. And so somebody said the other day, well, we should call it Medicare Part E. And I thought, oh, geez, like that rolls off the tongue. That just rolls off the tongue, right? Medicare Part E, like, please don't. And so I think it's understanding that we have to do some changing to Medicare to make it work. And then also thinking about some different phase-in concepts.

So a lot of the talk has been around reducing the age, right, from 65 to 60 or from 60 to 55. I actually think we might want to go the other direction. And so putting people on as newborns, putting people on at 26 when they fall off the ACA and they're stuck, but putting younger people onto the system because the support for them is very strong. They're very interested in this system and in trying it. And so I think it's going to be a multiple year process to get there. So you're close to Elizabeth Warren. You've worked for Kamala Harris. Both of them are thinking about running for president. I'm not going to

ask you to pick sides here. But in general, what kind of candidate do you think the Democratic Party should nominate in 2020? And how do you run a campaign against Donald Trump? Oh, so I have no idea how to run a campaign against Donald Trump. I mean, that I think it's, it's, that is not that challenging of a task, I think, in some ways, because there's just so many different kinds of concerns about our presidency. And so I think we'll see different candidates lean into different aspects of Trump's leadership and lack thereof. I think, you know, this to me, I think this election is going to be a lot like 08. I lived in Iowa in 08, was a faculty member there. And so I just remember it

was a horrible winter. And they kept coming by and offering us yard signs. And so the quickest way for listeners out there, if someone knocks on your door, and they offer you a yard sign, like the fastest way to get someone to go away is to say, yes, we love a yard sign. And so we just kept adding yard signs and it kept snowing and then you couldn't see what happened. And then by the time the snow melted in March, well after the Iowa caucus, we had probably 15 yard signs. Apparently we had supported Richardson and Obama and Hillary and John Edwards and fill in the blank. And so I think we're going to have a big primary process. And I think somebody who can communicate about some of these areas where I hear people say, well, that's just pretty complicated. I'm not looking for that.

I'm looking for someone who says that's complicated, but here's how I think we get started thinking about it. Or that's complicated, but let's try to sort it out together. And somebody who really invites the public into those conversations. And I think that's going to be really important. How do you draw people who maybe support Trump into at least dialogue, productive dialogue with you? Yeah. You've said that Congress wasn't built for members like you. What did you mean by that? Well, what I meant is I'm a single mom of three kids. While we've been recording this, I'm pretty sure I hear my children screaming

out in your lobby. It may be pundit barking, or it may be your kids. I can't tell, but yeah. So it's stuff like this. It's things like, you know, my kids are coming with me to inauguration, swearing-in day, I should say swearing-in day. And people are like, you know,

could you have a photograph, like just you, no children? Well, where would they be? Where would I put them if not in the photograph with me? And so I think there's some aspects about this that not only, by the way, are built around a two-parent family, around your kids being older, but also, frankly, around people having personal wealth that are really challenging. And so I've been negotiating a lease for my district office, and they keep saying, we want a security deposit. And that, I can't access congressional funds until after I'm sworn in on January 3rd. And so I keep explaining, like, I can't afford a security deposit. It's Christmas time. I'm sworn in on January 3rd. And so I keep explaining, like, I can't afford a security deposit. It's Christmastime.

I'm trying to buy Christmas gifts. I have a lot of expenses right now coming off the campaign. You know, I just, sorry, like, I don't have the money for a security deposit. And so I think there are things like that that I keep wondering, how do other people make this work? Yeah. And the answer seems to be that they're rich. And I'm not.

I'm driving a 2008 minivan, and I'm glad to have it, right? And so I think there are just some things that are baked into the system that make assumptions about kind of who goes to Congress that I think this class is going to push back at in a big way. How do your three children feel about all this? My kids were troopers on the campaign trail. I mean, I, people said, well, are you going to, you know, kind of hide them? And I felt like, how? Like, do you want to hide them? Like, please, like, let me know. Um, we really didn't have a choice, but to, to have them be part of the process and we actually tweeted the campaign as

something we did as a family. And so my kids came to a lot of events. You know, my son telling me at one point, like, mom, kids at school are making fun of me. They're saying my mom is liberal Katie Porter. That was the big TV ad was, you know, liberal Katie Porter. And I guess it could have been worse. I said to Luke, you know, well, hon, maybe don't wear your campaign t-shirt every day to school because I'm washing it like every day in the laundry. And he's like, I'm not doing that. I'm proud of you, mom. Nobody can silence me. And so it was like, well, you buy the ticket, you take the ride, hon. If you're going to wear the Katie Porter for Congress

t-shirt to school, you're kind of inviting a conversation about Katie Porter for Congress. But they're very exciting. I will tell you that the other day it came up that I have reelection in two years. And my middle son said, what? Two years? Mom, I don't know if this is a good idea. So they definitely are learning a lot about government as we go. Yeah. Well, you're bigger supporters, I'm sure. Katie Porter, thank you so much for joining us. And good luck in Congress. And please come back anytime. Will do. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, everyone. Thanks to Katie Porter for joining us.

Thanks to Paul Ryan for being Dan's punching bag. And thanks to all of you. Happy birthday, Dan. Happy holidays, everyone else. Merry Christmas and a happy new bag. And thanks to all of you. Happy birthday, Dan. Happy holidays, everyone else. Merry Christmas and a happy new year. We'll see you in 2019. Happy holidays, everyone, and good luck in the world on Christmas. Bye. Bye.

Bye.