Pod Save America - “Racist Hall of Fame.”

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

The President tells four Democratic Congresswomen of color to go back to the countries where they came from, House Democrats continue their intraparty feud, and Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders debate their health care plans. Then Politico’s Tim Alberta talks to Jon F. about his new book on how Donald Trump took over the Republican Party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, my conversation with Politico's Tim Alberta, whose new book about the Republican Party in the Trump era triggered the president to lash out at former House Speaker Paul Ryan. So, sort of, whose side are you on there? I mean, it was the only good news of the whole weekend.

Right, that's true. Watching him just lash Paul Ryan one last time, it was a treat. It was a treat. Alien versus predator. Whoever wins, we lose. But first we're going to talk about a lot of news. From Donald Trump's racist attack on a group of Democratic Congresswomen to the latest episode of

Dems in Disarray to some of the new developments in the Democratic primary from the Biden and Sanders campaigns. A new level of relief it dropped on Saturday. We had a great episode. I harangued an actual seismologist about my problems with the Richter scale, the logarithmic scale for measuring earthquakes,

plus just a fantastic episode. Andy Richter, Leary Chaney. Book Andy Richter on the Richter scale episode by designer. I just thought about that. It was happenstance, and we did ask Andy about that, and he said that every joke is new to him. Iris Stop by Aaron Ryan. It was a great episode. Also, if you didn't catch it before the weekend about that, and he said that every joke is new to him. Ira stopped

by Aaron Ryan. It was a great episode. Also, if you didn't catch it before the weekend started, we recorded a special bonus pod last week with World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe, who love it called the Babe Ruth of telling Donald Trump to go fuck himself. Accurate. Accurate. And finally, we are on tour this week.

We will be in Denver on Wednesday and Salt Lake City on Thursday with our friend Aaron Ryan. Grab your tickets at cricket.com slash events and come see us. If not, you'll hear the Denver show is our Thursday pod and the Salt Lake City show is a Friday bonus pod. All right, let's get to the news. Just when you think Donald Trump has run out of lows to hit, he finds another. Along with birtherism, Charlottesville, and shithole countries, the president has given us a new entry in his racist hall of fame. A tweet where he told representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley to, quote,

go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested countries from which they came. Ilhan Omar has been an American citizen since she was a teenager. And, of course, the other three women of color were born and raised here in the united states um about a day later trump has doubled tripled quadruple down on this on these racist tweets i believe we have um a clip of him responding to a reporter's question about it uh just this morning does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point. It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me. And all I'm saying, they want to leave, they can leave now. It doesn't say leave forever. It says leave if you want. Well, that about sums up the Trump

presidency, does it? I'm not concerned because many people agree with me. Guys, I realize this isn't at all surprising coming from Donald Trump. He has been, he was a racist before he ran for office. He was a racist during the 2016 campaign. And he's been a racist since he's been president. And we know that because he continues to say and do racist things. But where do you rank this statement in terms of how ugly and dangerous it is? Oh, that's a hard one.

I mean, it's up there. It's up there. One you didn't mention was what he had said about Judge Curiel, which was the idea that someone who is of Mexican descent can't judge him fairly. I couldn't find a single phrase. But that's it. But it's all. I thought about that, too. You know, it isn't shocking, but it does still it is still when I saw it come across the the Twitter transom, I was admitted I had this sort of like pre discussed, not just with what

he had said, but with what I knew would come right? The correct description of it by Democrats and pundits, the hand-wringing that Republicans won't speak out, the eventual arrival of the half-assed bullshit statements that we've seen today. It's like we've done this before, but just because someone's punched you in the stomach before and says, I'm going to punch you in the stomach again, doesn't mean that when you get the punch,

it doesn't, it doesn't fucking suck. Yeah. I mean, he's just thoroughly disgraced the office again. You know, it's, it's hard to talk about cause he is completely disgraced himself and the

office of the presidency and all those around him so many times, but like he's a walking Willie Horton at me. Like the guy is Rachel grievance personified. And of course none of us should be surprised. The Atlantic did a piece where they went back like four decades chronicling all the racist things he did in business and did in politics.

And who can forget the fun birther controversy that sparked this movement that was fully enabled by all the media that is now clutching their pearls and upset at the current iteration of his racism. So yeah, I'm fucking furious and outraged. And, of course, right, this started because he saw a segment on Fox & Friends

who went on to then talk about his tweets and said he was feeling a little comedic today before then scolding the members of Congress that he attacked and telling them that their words matter and then they need to take what they post on social media more seriously. So we're in the dumbest continual loop we could possibly find ourselves in. Yeah, and I mean, the immediate trigger was that Fox & Friends segment. But even last week, I think he probably took this from Tucker Carlson did an entire segment on Ilhan Omar and how she should go back to her country.

And, you know, he has his white nationalist hour. I mean, partly that's why I would make a case that this may be the worst racist statement he's made. And it's certainly the most explicit. I think go back to your country if you don't agree said only to people of color is one of the oldest racist tropes in this country. There's plenty of people of color who've heard similar

sentiments, comments made to them. And I think it also ties together with very closely, more closely than almost anything else he's said, with a white nationalist worldview, which is America is a white country. And if you are not white, then you are here as a privilege. You're a guest here. You're a guest here. And you shouldn't criticize it. You should be grateful. And if not, you should go back to your country.

Love it. I mean, love it is right. I think this is the most explicitly racist thing he's said since the Judge Curiel comment, which Paul Ryan, noted coward at that time, said it was the textbook definition of a racist comment. He's telling these women that because of their skin color, regardless of the fact that they were born in this country, that they should go back to some presumed country of origin. It is blatant. It's also, it's the most un-American thing he's said, I would say, right? It's go back to where you came from because you're not white and therefore your lack of whiteness means you'll never be fully a citizen,

that you can't actually be American. You can never be as fully American as me. That's as un-American as it gets. Deeply unpatriotic. Right, you don't want to get into a tit-for-tat about this kind of thing because it's like, I found myself typing.

Yesterday was a day of trying to not type out tweets and trying to type out tweets and deleting tweets because I was like angry and I wanted to say something. And I found myself just typing and then deleting like Donald Trump hates America. I did. And I was like, why am I going to put that into the world? seething hatred for anyone who's not white and not for him, his view that you can't really ever fully be a citizen if you aren't white, no matter how long ago you came, whether you, whether you became a citizen, uh, by, by achieving it or by being born it, um, is an expression of a hatred of this country. But of course, even saying that you feel like you're adding to this endless, endless argument in which everyone just spends all day making something simple, complicated, because there's nothing else to say. It's an incredibly racist, un-American comment. It should be denounced unequivocally. People, whether you were born here or whether you became

a citizen, your citizenship is full and irrevocable and everything else is a side joke. Well, it also goes to show that this is not, people like to say, oh, this is about illegal immigration. It's not about illegal immigration. It's about immigration writ large. Or even, not even about immigration, it's about race. It's about race. Well, but I think it is, I think what's important about this comment is you can have racist comments over here and you can have debates, legitimate debates about immigration, who gets to be a citizen, who doesn't, who gets deported, who doesn't over here. But these are fused together under this presidency. And so you have to see these comments and hear these comments through the prism of the ICE raids that have

been carried out over the weekend. What's going on at the border? You know, they just announced a rule today that will effectively, they'll try to basically end all asylum protections altogether. It seems very illegal and it will be challenged in court immediately. But that is their goal. Mike Pence touring a fucking, walking by a group of men behind a fence, refusing to engage with them, treating this like a zoo. Right. Their goal is not to try to reduce illegal immigration. Their goal is not to deal with the influx of asylum seekers.

Their goal is to have no asylum, to have less legal immigration, to get rid of, deport the 11 million people who are here, who have lived here for decades. That is their ultimate goal. They want a whiter country. And that is a... I never thought I would be saying that as something that's not an exaggeration of another party. But that is exactly what they're trying to do. It's completely it's explicit. Yeah, it's explicit. And the other the other thing that they're doing in their efforts to clean up after this racist comment is inserting Israel into the middle of it. I can't, which is completely. First of all, no one was talking about Israel in this current iteration.

They're pointing at something that offended them that Ilhan Omar said months and months ago. They're pointing at something that offended them that Ilhan Omar said months and months ago. But this should piss off anyone who actually believes that the U.S. should continue with support for Israel or want support for Israel to be bipartisan. Because Trump is taking support for Israel and throwing it, using it as a human shield in the midst of a controversy about a racist comment. He's harming the ability for U.S. support for Israel to be a bipartisan issue by injecting it here. And his little shithead friends like Lindsey Graham are doing it, too. And they're just as bad. Well, it's the president said a group of members of Congress should go back to their country.

Everything else is small. Everything else is. I don't even want to gauge the whataboutism this time because it is so like, no, you don't get to talk about Israel. You don't get to talk about the policies you disagree with. You don't get to talk about any of that shit. He told American citizens to go back to their country. They were wearing short skirts. They must have been fucking asking for it.

That's how it comes. That's what they're saying. And if you're a Republican politician and you can't just straight up condemn this, condemn the comments themselves without doing your fucking equivalency and say, even though I disagree with these four women on things, even though they've made all this bullshit, even though, even though. No, even though. Just it was wrong. The answer is it was wrong and racist. That's the only acceptable answer. And zero have done that.

Yeah. Two have called it racist. Two have called it racist. Two Republican congressmen have called it racist. That's the only acceptable answer. And zero have done that. Yeah. Two have called it racist. Two Republican congressmen have called it racist. Two me and Collins are out there being like, well, I strongly disagree with their politics. These comments are beyond the pale. Don't sink to their level. What do you make of the Republican response or lack thereof in the context of how that has changed over time right like time you mentioned that paul ryan during the judge curiel uh... controversy said this is the textbook definition of a racist comment you know kevin mccarthy is the leader of the house now you don't hear anything underneath them come across the nothing for mitch mcconnell

why is it gotten actually worse from republicans even as his approval rating has stayed the lowest of almost any modern president. Because Trump is Kano for Mortal Kombat. He punched through their chest and ripped out their spines. All the other ones. And he killed all the others. Right. Like Mark Sanford, any member of Congress who ever stood up to him is gone now. They were not reelected and they are scared to death of a primary. And that's the only thing they care about. Paul Ryan denounced what Trump said about Judge Curiel back when he thought Donald Trump was

going to lose. So he was, he didn't really think there was any cost to it. He was going to say what he thought was true. Even shithole countries, I think they were a little bit more forward. You know, I do think over time it has, and I think this is why it's useful to, you know, I think the first reaction as well Trump's always racist we shouldn't be surprised and that is true But I think we are becoming you know The whole had a lot of talk about this when he first won like oh don't normalize trope don't normalize Trump It has been normalized right like bit by bit

He is chipping away at what our standards of outrage They were I think stronger around shithole countries, except for Tom Cotton, who basically concocted a lie to try to sell that it was about something else. And I just want to correct myself. Sub-Zero had the spine-ripping attack. I was going to say Sub-Zero. That's my bad to all the Mortal Kombat stans out there.

Of which I am one. I will say that, finish him, yes. I will say, though, however, I never was a master of the fatality moves. And actually, Donald Trump not isn't either. He does do an uppercut over the pit. That is his move. He does send people falling into the pit.

The other challenge is the feedback loop is closed for Trump. He hears about these members of Congress from Tucker Carlson. He sees a Fox and Friends episode that spins him up. They go on to defend him. And the Republicans know that like that closed loop will never be broken. The racist circle will remain unbroken. Then you see people like Brit Hume, who everyone in Washington pretends is a serious reporter out there, defending the comment and denying that it was racist. out there defending the comment and denying that it was racist right like there's no there's no way for us to inject rationality into the closed loop of awful that he has created with his buddies

at fox yeah declaring it's not racist i immediately it's textbook like basically saying uh nothing can be you know racism is awful but nothing can be racist that's sort of the Brit Hume philosophy yeah and it reminds me for them like racism is only specific racial slurs yeah and slavery I guess those are the only that's the only way you can be racist it reminded me of the I always think about it when people like Brit Hume say that something obviously racism isn't racist which is the the Chris Rock line like what do you have to do to be racist you to shoot Medgar Evers like is that what we're down to that yes that's we're at? Yes, that's where they're at. I mean, on the one hand, he's an idiot.

On the other hand, Brit Hume works for the, you know, the greatest producer of racism in our nation. So, you know, maybe he has some expertise here. That is an important point, too. Like, the pipeline from Tucker Carlson directly to the president of the United States, Tucker Carlson, who has become a white nationalist, who has embraced this worldview, Laura Ingraham, too.

I mean, the primetime hour of Fox is maybe the most poisonous force in this country, not only for what it's doing to the people who are viewing it, but the pipeline it has to the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the country. And so, you know, we go back to these fucking... And, you know, we've had this debate before, but the Democrats choosing to go on Fox

or go on to the Foxtown Hall, like on a day like today, it certainly seems like Elizabeth Warren had the right idea. Yeah, I agree. And on a lot of other days. Yeah. Is there anything that Democrats can do,

speaking of Democrats, beyond statements of disgust and, you know, all of our tweets, which I know just a couple tweets away from getting this good rid of this guy. And just a couple of headlines in the New York Times using the word racist away from just ending it all. Yes. Listen, obviously, I am no fan of ponderous New York Times writing that avoids describing things as they really are. I do not hear in 2019 here in 2019. I do not believe it is the source of our ills. But yeah, I mean, I would look to Democrats in the Congress to not just let this one go by. Right. I saw some people talking about censure. I think that that's an important direction to go. So Pelosi is working on a resolution. So, you know, what do you guys think about this? It's is working on a resolution so you know what do you

guys think about this it's gonna be a resolution of disapproval which is less than censure and obviously less than impeachment I'm for something I want to do something and I'll be for it I don't really care if it's this or censure because whatever you know like I'll be I'd like to get to this later but I have not become fully radicalized for impeachment and I'm happy to agree we got all four of us now so like censure then seems like a half move to me. But do something and make all the monsters on the right vote against this. And let's try to create a political cost.

Let's get caught trying to make it hard for a Republican to be racist in 2019 openly. Right. I totally agree with that. I'd be for censure because, in the eyes of the press, because it has been used so infrequently in the past, it'll be seen as a bigger deal. But you're right, Tommy, like censure resolution, you know, a resolution of disapproval, whatever it may be, it's not going to have a substantive effect. But we are in we are at a moment now where it's just do something, use the power you have to do something. And I think that is, and we're about to talk about this, but that seems to be where so many of these problems and debates are stemming from, is I don't think it's fair to criticize people for not using power that they don't have. I think it is imperative that we criticize people for not using power that they do have. And right now the House Democrats have limited power.

They can do censure. They can do disapproval. They can do impeachment. They can do hearings, subpoenas. They should do it all because we are in a national emergency right now. Yeah, and you know, look, when we discover what it is to overreach, you know, we'll let you know. Yeah, no kidding.

When we come across what it is. We are not there yet. When we see some overreaching, when that day finally comes, that terrifying day in which Democrats have overreached, we'll hit an alarm button. When the president is telling American citizens and elected members of Congress to go back to their home countries, people of color, then yeah, I don't think we're in danger of overreaching in the response to that. Can I make just one small point about that too? And it's again, another one of those things where you're

typing out tweets and deleting them. But I saw a lot of people say, so Trump said, go back to where you come from, you know, to these four people, three of whom were born in America. And they kept a lot of the news is like, first of all, you know, this member was born in Detroit and this member was born in New York. And it does accede to Trump's line of thinking. Citizenship is citizenship. It's full and total and equal, no matter if you were born here or not. It's a bedrock principle of this country that citizenship affords you certain protections. And once you have it, it can't be taken away. And once you earn it, it is the same as anyone else's. And I just can't stand the idea of go back to where you came from, but she's from the Bronx. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Ilhan Omar wasn't born here.

It doesn't matter at all. It's not what Trump cares about, and it's not what we should care about. It reminds me of Barack Obama's a Muslim, and then he says, no, he's not a Muslim. He's not a Muslim. And famously, Colin Powell went on to meet the press and said, the real question is, so what if he was? So what if he isn't? That's the real answer I wish you'd question is, so what if he was? Yeah. Right. So what if he isn't? That's the real answer I wish you'd given is, fuck you. What if he is?

Right. I mean, and, you know, there's a really good argument to be made that Ilhan Omar, who has talked about how much she loves this country over and over and over again, is probably more grateful for the United States than most of us who did nothing to earn our citizenship, but just get born at the right time to the right person. She came here when she was a teenager, as a refugee, and had to work hard to, you know, take a citizenship test. She took an oath. She did all this work.

She's a member of fucking Congress. She worked her way up from being a refugee to representing her fellow citizens in Congress. She worked her way up from being a refugee to representing her fellow citizens in Congress. She is the representation of patriotism and what it's supposed to mean to be an American. And of course Donald Trump doesn't get that because he hates this country and anyone who doesn't

love him because he has never worked or So you got the tweet out. There you go. I mean, yeah. I'm just going to yell for another 20 minutes. I'd like to see any of Trump's kids last four years in a refugee camp in Kenya and then be as successful as she has been. Yeah. So in Trump's racist tirade, he also makes reference at the end by saying, I'm sure Nancy Pelosi would be happy to arrange the travel back to the fictional home countries. That's a joke.

He's doing a joke there. He's putting a joke in there. Feeling comedic this morning, to the fictional home countries. That's a joke. He's doing a joke there. Yeah, he's doing a joke. He's putting a joke in there. Feeling comedic this morning, to quote Fox and Prince. And that was a reference to what had, until that point, been the biggest political story of the weekend, which is the continuing intra-party feud between House Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and the four Democratic congresswomen who Trump attacked. Last week, there were stories about how members of the Congressional Black Caucus were getting tired of primary threats from the Justice Democrats, a group that was instrumental in getting AOC elected last year.

And on Friday night, the Twitter account for House Democrats quote tweeted a week's old tweet from AOC's chief of staff, Justice Democrat Executive Director Chakrabarty, where he criticized Representative Sharice Davids, one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress for supporting the border bill, in reply to another tweet. Here's the quote. I don't believe Sharice is a racist person, but her votes are showing her to enable a racist system. The House Democrats Twitter account responded with the following statement that was also retweeted by Pelosi's deputy chief of staff. Quote, who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color? Keep her name out of your mouth. Shoycott said he considers Congresswoman David's a friend, encouraged her to run, and was merely responding to another tweet that mentioned her. Just explaining that fight made me feel crazy. What is this continuing fight between Pelosi and the squad really about?

What's the source of the conflict here? I mean, I think there's been a long-running feud between Pelosi and AOC that has started when she didn't want to be part of a climate committee that Pelosi put together. magnified enormously when a bunch of Democrats voted in favor of a border bill that those four members you mentioned earlier opposed for very legitimate reasons. And then, you know, there have been multiple Maureen Dowd columns now that have taken a gigantic fan and fanned the flames of this, you know, back and forth between them, which got us to here. I think, you know, there's a whole roiling debate now about who is at fault. And I mean, I feel hearing you describe that gets my frustration up on all sides. But I land on feeling like Pelosi and leadership needs to do a better job here, because I think we often give her a pass, because we know that part of her strategy is to defend

moderate members and keep the majority and take hits for people that have tougher reelections. And I think by any measure, that strategy is failing completely, right? Like Sharice Davids, who was mentioned here, is a rep from Kansas. She is not helped by being a part of this controversy. She didn't treat her name, but she also didn't quote treat it from the House Democrats account. Like she doesn't want that to happen. That House Democrats tweet was crazy. It is absurd.

And so, like, the challenge structurally is going to be that Pelosi's team wants unity among the caucus. They want everyone to come together and to fall in line. And for AOC and people like Ayanna Pressley, they know that Pelosi and her team never wanted them to be there in the first place because they ran primary campaigns against Joe Crowley or Mike Capuano, people that the leadership would have preferred to stay in place. So I think that like what should have happened when that Maureen Dowd piece was printed is whether or not you agree that she was singling out for women of color, Pelosi should have read that concern from lots of people online or AOC herself and called her and said, here's what I meant. And I'm so sorry if you took it that other way.

Take her belief, literally, take it sincerely, you know, that she felt singled out in this manner. Because like, these are women who are singled out constantly by the president of the United States. And if I had felt like there are legitimate threats to their lives that have been increased because of attention online and nasty tweets and all this shit and like be a little bit more cognizant of that yeah i think that pelosi should have i mean you know i tweeted over the weekend that i think they should it's crazy to have these arguments on twitter like this these and and

schuylkill said this himself um he's like i'm not interested in response to the house democrats tweet he's like i'm not interested in response to the House Democrats tweet. He's like, I'm not interested in substanceless Twitter debates of which this was one. I think there are plenty of legitimate fights to have as a party, legitimate criticisms of Nancy Pelosi, legitimate criticisms of the squad. And they should be had in public. Right. But this sort of shit, when you get down to that House Democrats tweet and this and how we're all talking about this now, this is useless. And I do think that all these people should get in a room together and work this out. And I think Pelosi should be the one

who takes the lead on this because she's the leader. She's in leadership. She should invite them to her office and have a conversation and stop this bullshit. And, you know, the smart point that Pelosi made in the caucus last week was, if you have a problem, don't, you know, criticize people's motivations and attack people personally on Twitter. Come see me. And then the House Democrats attack. Turn around and do that. Which is, you know, run by Hakeem Jeffries. And then they go and do that and they start a Twitter fight, which is just it's wrong.

You don't do that. Like, I mean, it's unproductive. It's unproductive. It also, you know, Brian Boitler said this, that a lot of this feels like referred pain. You know, the squad, right? They are members of Congress, but they also represent, I think, a lot of people who feel frustrated by inaction and a sense of stasis that they see on the part of Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and the others that they view as the establishment. So on top of that, I think it's not just about the controversy over a climate change committee and whether it has subpoena. It's not just about a

border bill. It's about, I think, a deeper challenge inside of the Democratic Party. And, you know, Brian Boitler said this on Twitter that he referred to it as a kind of referred pain for the fact that there hasn't been impeachment because there's a sense not just amongst voters, but among some members of Congress, including this new younger generation that was voted in by a kind of more diverse, more feisty Democratic base that they are not getting what they had hoped for out of House Democrats. They're not getting enough fight. They're not getting impeachment. They're not getting the kind of hustle and intensity that they were looking for. And so I think there's a sense that we're kind of pushing up against the bounds of what Democrats are willing to do in Congress.

And until we see, I think, greater action on the part of the leadership, these kinds of things will happen, I think, again and again. Yeah, I do think that the debate over the border bill is very instructive and sort of where a lot of this stems from, though I think the ultimate source is the anger over the lack of movement on impeachment. Yeah. But on that border bill, and we've talked about this before, I think that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats and a lot of the House Democrats simply did not even try to fight hard enough to include more protections in that bill. They didn't, and they should have, and they should be criticized for that. That said, once you get the final border bill, it's either a yes or no. And if they had voted down that border bill and not provided the funding that Trump asked for, they wouldn't have shut down a single detention facility. The

government would not have stopped what they're doing. In fact, they just would have shut down a single detention facility. The government would not have stopped what they're doing. In fact, they just would have been more overcrowded. They would have been the same thing. So it was, both votes were pretty shitty. But to that, you know, as AOC's chief of staff did, to accuse a whole bunch of Democrats who voted for this border bill of enabling a racist system is not fair. It's just not fair.

And like, there's a lot of Democrats who voted for this bill, especially, and that's why Sharice Davids got brought up, you know, one of the first two Native Americans in Congress, she voted for it. Lauren Underwood, the youngest black woman in Congress, voted for it. Antonio Delgado voted for it. Katie Porter, very liberal, voted for it. Like, you can't just, you can't just take a huge shot at people and say they're enabling a racist system like that because it also obscures the truth about the bill, which is it was a shittier bill. Pelosi and Schumer should have fought harder, but it did provide some small measure of relief. And the only way to really end the detention of these people, of these children, the only way to close down these detention facilities is to get Trump out of office. That is the only way.

I think you're right that those members, including a bunch of brand new, really progressive, really great members, were handed a horrifically shitty political situation. I do think that the public conversation about the crisis at the border and family separation in particular has not fully understood the depth of the problem.

I agree. Family separation sounds like a temporary thing where a kid is away from a parent and then it gets resolved. When in fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics says no child should be placed in detention because even short periods of detention can cause psychological trauma and long-term mental health risks. I am concerned, and I think a lot of activists who I heard from after I talked to Warren

Binford are concerned, that we are doing irreparable permanent damage to children along the border. We are. And none of us should be surprised that these members of Congress didn't criticize Donald Trump for being a racist, because when Mike Pence went and saw 400 men in cages without cots to lie down on, without a single pillow, with like fucking tinfoil blankets, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Mike Lee and John Cornyn were there with them and none of them said a goddamn word. They experienced it. They smelled the smell that the pool reporter called overwhelming. They knew it was like 90 degrees in the room.

They didn't say a goddamn thing. They don't care about these people. It is a humanitarian crisis. It is a travesty. It is something that we are going to grapple with for a country for decades that we have let this happen, that we are letting this happen in our name right now. My point is the border bill has passed and arguing about that vote over and over again right now is useless. And if, and, and every member of Congress who's still upset about it, every activist, every person who's still upset about this should be like, okay, Pelosi and Schumer, you negotiated a shitty bill.

You fucked us. What's next? What are we going to do about this? Because this problem isn't solved and we need to do something else. And I think we have limited options here. We just have to be honest about that. Only controlling the house. But I think the focus now should be on, okay, what points of pressure can we put on Pelosi, Schumer, and then McConnell and Trump now to get something done and just to keep the fight moving forward? And I think sometimes when you have these Twitter fights, it is always about looking backwards and yelling at each other and just becomes completely unproductive. Let's put pressure on them now to do something. Well, I think that's the question that comes out of this, right? Okay, you didn't want to fight here.

You didn't fight hard enough here. Where's the fight? Well, that's where you get to impeachment. But that's what I mean. That's where you get to impeachment. Let's talk about that. Because I do think it's, you know, after a while, it's like, oh, we didn't fight here. Are we going to fight on Trump's racist comments? Are we going to fight on impeachment? At some point, you have to choose where you're going to have the battle. Well, in the choice, but the choices in some ways made for you. There is one tool that the House Democrats have besides passing fucking useless message bills and resolutions of disapproval. And that is the tool of impeachment.

And it is warranted. And if they do not use it, then they are not using the only power that they have. by saying, Tommy, like so much of this frustration is about the fact that we have a lawless president who has committed crimes and is racist and has a, and embraced a white nationalist worldview in the White House. And we have the opportunity to at least go on record and have impeachment hearings that may, may influence the political calculus enough that it can help get him out of office in 2020. Yeah. So you might as well use it. I want to get to PJ in one second. But I think another thing we're seeing, AOC and the Justice Democrats are talking about

primarying a bunch of candidates, including CBC members, which is why when you pick up the newspaper, you see background quotes from leadership aides saying, she's only a woman of color when it's convenient. None of the things she's fought for are aligned with communities of color and a group is funded by elitist white liberals. She's a puppet. That's gross.

That is an insane, offensive, disgraceful thing to say. So, like,ful thing to say so like i get why don't be a coward put your fucking name on i get why the bad blood is why would you want to put your name on that so so bad thing to say on the left but like again leadership said that right so that's why i think the onus is on pelosi and her team to fix this and get in the game here now back to impeachment like for a while i've i've constantly said that i, if I remember Congress and someone said you should be for impeachment because you're, that puts you on the right side of history, tell your kids like where you stood in this moment, that would convince me, I think, I hope. But I've worried about the politics. I am now pretty firmly convinced that the politics of

not impeaching are way worse because it is resulting in this shit because we have looked more feckless in our oversight capacity than I ever thought possible. And I'm not entirely sure how we got here or who to blame, but it is a problem. And it is going to, it is going to check our ability to provide oversight of the things Donald Trump is doing, stop him where we can. And it's also going to make Democrats who were rallying and marching two years ago, depressed as hell and wondering why. And I want to, look, it may be satisfying to lay this all at the feet of Nancy Pelosi, but it is not necessarily true. Just say, I don't blame Nancy Pelosi. House leadership aid could be any one of a number of individuals in a number of

offices. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm saying it may be satisfying to lay the failure to impeach at the feet of Nancy Pelosi. And I think she does bear a lot of responsibility for it because I think if Nancy Pelosi wanted to try to whip votes in favor of impeachment, she would be able to make some headway. But a lot of these new members who we love and who we've talked about are legitimately afraid of this because of their districts, because of the polling in their districts. And I think the question is, how do we persuade and convince these members to come along? Because if the votes are there, Nancy Pelosi is not going to stand in the way. But she's clearly not whipping in favor of it.

And so I think sometimes there's, you know, as much as we can criticize Pelosi, there's too much of a focus on her. And we don't realize that she is, in fact, protecting a lot of members. And not just asshole blue dog conservatives, people that made the House majority that we all like and we all voted for, who are very progressive, who are afraid right now. And we have to make sure that they're not afraid. We have to persuade them to not be afraid of this. Right. Two things are true. One, she is she has said publicly, privately, she wants to take fire for impeachment on behalf of members who don't want to do it, while at the same time, she's not doing enough to make impeachment possible. You know, to Tommy's point, the politics, this is what changed my mind too. The politics of impeachment, they're unknown. The politics of almost maybe someday impeaching are garbage.

They're terrible. We're living through it now. Does it feel good? I've been saying this, I feel like for months, we are in this twilight, semi-impeached, feckless oversight period that seems to have absolutely no end in sight. No end in sight. You know, if you had said to people that this is what oversight would look like if we win the House before the election, people would have been horrified. They would have been horrified that this is what they get. We spent so much time talking about how important it was to get that gavel, how important it was to have subpoena power, how important it was to get that gavel, how important it was to have subpoena power, how important it was to do oversight. Does anyone listening believe that this is what we meant, that this is the level of oversight we were hoping for?

We might get Bobby Mueller up there in a couple of weeks. Or maybe some more closed door hearings with various Trump administration officials. So I don't know what the politics of impeachment ultimately look like. But one of the cases I'd be making to some of these members who are maybe more afraid of it is, look at where we're at now. You think this is good? You like living in this permanent state of being asked whether or not you're for impeachment? If you think impeachment is bad politics, we can do it this fall and make the big case, and then you can campaign on whatever you want. But if we don't impeach soon, we are going to be talking like this for a year, and it is going to be ugly, and it's going to be unhelpful and it's going to be worse than having done nothing.

And I think, you know, Seth Moulton, congressman from Massachusetts, is running for president, made a great case for impeachment over the weekend. Look, I think we should use the fact that the Republicans in the Senate are obviously going to exonerate him to our advantage by saying we don't expect them to do the right thing. But before we go into the 2020 election, we want every member of the Senate to go on record. Do you support Donald Trump and his obstruction of justice and his crimes and xenophobia and all that shit or do you not? And, you know, I don't think we said this before. I don't think Susan Collins and Cory Gardner and some of the other ones want to take a vote on impeachment no i don't even that doesn't necessarily mean that they will not vote to exonerate trump because i don't you know i don't think they have that much courage but they don't want to take that vote they do not want to take that vote all right let's talk about the democratic presidential primary there were All right.

Let's talk about the Democratic presidential primary. There were several reports this weekend about how Joe Biden may be entering a new phase of the race where he more aggressively engages with the other Democrats in the field, especially on health care. Where over the weekend, he said this about his opponents who support Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill. Quote, I oppose the Republican Party trying to get rid of Obamacare, and I oppose Democrats who are. I don't know why we'd get rid of what in fact is working and move to something totally new. Bernie's been very honest about it. He said you're going to have to raise taxes on the middle class and end all private insurance. Sanders responded by accusing Biden of making the same argument as insurance companies and Republicans who ignore the fact that what you pay in higher taxes you'll save in premiums, copayments, deductibles and out of pocket payments,

none of which will exist under Medicare for all. I want to get to the health care debate itself. But first, Biden has mostly ignored his opponents and launched his campaign with the promise not to speak ill of other Democrats. Why do you think he's mixing it up now? What do you think the strategy is? Because he was winning because it was working so well. And when the strategy is working, you change because he was it was all it was working so well and when strategy is working you change it that's right i endorse that yeah i mean i i clearly i mean look everyone always says that one thing when the campaign starts and then kamala harris

you know threw a combo at that debate that knocked seven to ten points off his uh his lead in some places and he's fighting back right yeah right exactly, right, exactly. So here we are. She did that Raiden move, you know? By the way, though, this is the right strategy. And I think it's... You can't run a Rose Garden strategy in a primary. I think it's the right strategy. I also think it is, you know,

we just talked about substanceless Twitter spats. This is a completely, you know, legitimate and very important debate to have that both Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and every other candidate argue about healthcare and the future of our healthcare system. It's an important debate to have. We should have it. No one should be shying away from that just because you don't want to talk about other candidates. It should be a fair debate. It should be an honest debate. It shouldn't get personal, but we need that debate. I agree. And I agree with what Dan said on the Thursday pod that I don't want to make a healthcare debate

about Obama's legacy or being opposed to Obama's legacy. I really hate that. I do think that Medicare for all versus a public option is a very important substantive policy fight we should be having. I was at the grocery store yesterday, picking up some milk, you know, some yogurt, some things that, you know, listen to Dan Pfeiffer.

A lot of dairy. Talk to Senator Bennett, I know. And he, to his credit, is not doing particularly well in the national polls, but he is making a compelling argument for the public option over a Medicare for all position. I'm not saying I come down on his side, but like he at least is talking about the downside

of what that might mean in a general election. Because right now we have the Trump administration waging a lawsuit against the ACA that would just eradicate it. All the popular things for existing conditions, everything would go away. And Bennett's basically making the case that it will be a harder rejoinder for us to point that out if Medicare for all takes away private health care from what, 180 million some odd people, which is something we should reckon with today because we're going to reckon with it down the road. Like, have the conversation.

Yeah, so Biden today came out with a plan that would expand the Affordable Care Act by making the subsidies more generous, adding a public option, and making that public option premium-free for 4.9 million uninsured Americans. Mainly, this would be the people who live in states that did not choose to expand Medicaid,

these Republican states. And so if you live in those states and you would qualify for Medicaid, you could go into the public option premium free for other people. There would be, you know, some small costs to buying into the public option, but it would be more affordable than a lot of insurance, private insurance plans right now. So that's Biden's plan. And what do we think of that? And what do we think of this, the debate with Bernie? What do you think, Levitt? So I think it's an important debate. I do think that there's, I think the healthcare debate we were having between the kind of Medicare for America plan and the Bernie plan, I think was a really good and important one. I think what Biden's

introducing, I think, adds some of the complexities that a lot of the critics of Obamacare point to, which is, you know, the benefits are complicated. They are diffuse. It's hard to understand who's helping, who's being helped and who's being hurt. It makes the system more complicated. I think that's a legitimate critique of this kind of a direction. But Biden is making a case for the kind of center left politics he's practiced basically his whole life. And he's saying, what he's saying is, there is a coalition of voters who actually want my kind of politics, who aren't part of this new and louder, more progressive wing of the party, that there is room for someone more to the center,

and he's going to stake his candidacy on that, which I think shows some integrity because it's who he is. Yeah, I think it's a fair debate to have. I agree with you and Dan Tommy, too. I don't like making this about Obama's legacy. If you're for the Biden plan, you're for Obama, and if you're for the Bernie plan, you're against Obama. And part of the reason that's true is because in 2018, when he was campaigning, Barack Obama said that Medicare for all is a good idea. That's one reason why that

debate is sort of silly. But I do think getting into the details of the plans are important. You know, like Biden's sort of right now, at least rhetorically, it's a bit of a lazy argument that he's making, even though his policy, I don't think, is lazy at all. His policy is a real policy. But the argument is, we don't want to trash Obamacare and start from scratch and have all these people wait and stuff like that. If we went from

Obamacare to Medicare for All, there'd be a four-year transition under Bernie's plan. People's healthcare aren't going to get trashed in the meantime, right? It's going to be a transition to Medicare for All. We don't go to nothing first. We don't go to nothing first, right? Medicare for All is going to be incredibly difficult to achieve. I think there are both political and substantive issues around moving to a Medicare for All system, but you've got to make the case for what those obstacles are, both on the political side and on the substantive

side. You know, one thing that Ezra Klein raised this the other day that I hadn't even thought of is you know if we have a single-payer system and the government is the only place that's providing insurance to people what happens when there's another Republican in the White House and Republicans are running government and Republicans decide that the government insurance plan is not going to cover birth control, that it's going to do this or that, you know, like you are by only having one single insurance system in the entire country that also raises challenges just as our mixed system does right now. Our private insurance system does right now. Right now we are at the whims of private insurance companies and they arguably have way too much power. But the question is what happens when the government is the only provider of health insurance? And I think it's a legitimate debate to have. And I also think the financing is a very legitimate debate to have. Because Bernie sort of skims over. He's like, oh, well, yeah, you're going to pay more in taxes, but you're not going

to have any premiums, co-pays, deductibles, everything. Well, how much more in taxes? And how much am I actually going to save? And is it going to happen all at once where suddenly I'm not going to pay premiums, but suddenly my taxes are going to go up? Like, what is the difference going to actually calculate out to for the average American? And because he hasn't had a specific financing plan attached to his Medicare for all bill, we don't know that. I also do think there's another side to the argument around what if the government is in charge of the insurance system, then one day Republicans will be, which is we have seen what happens when we try to do something more moderate, which is that they call it socialism

and try to destroy it anyway, right? So I see the argument both ways, which is... They're going to try to destroy it no matter what. Right, and it's sort of like, well, we have a bigger problem here. What do you do with a Republican party that's just basically like a rearguard action against any change

or modernity at all. Yeah. And the health care debate will not solve that. No. But like, hey, moderators, the next debate, can we do like 30 minutes on these details? Right. Can we not skip around to silly stuff? Like, dig in.

You said he was lying and you said this was absurd. And you like, yeah, actually dig into the details. That's because they are complicated. But the American people and voters deserve an honest debate about this. And not a hand raise on some of the most complicated issues. CNN's saying no hand raises. They will do no one word answers and no raising of the hands, which is great. Good for CNN.

CNN will never miss an opportunity to just kind of give MSNBC just a little bit of a just a little bit of a fucking no. And I'm for it. Oh, I don't mind it. There was another New York Times story last week about Bernie shifting strategy now that he's either losing support or at least stagnant in the polls. I think you could argue that, quote, while Ms. Warren is making incursions with some of Mr. Sanders, progressive backers, campaign aides insist that they view Mr. Biden as a far more significant threat because of his support from some of the working class voters who voted for Mr. Sanders in 2016. Does this make sense to you guys? Is it a smart strategy on Bernie's behalf? I don't know. And it's hard to tell if that's an honest political assessment or a little slight of hand that you tell the press, a little head fake. I mean, you got to be concerned about Elizabeth Warren dropping $19 million in fundraising

and getting a pretty big boost in the polls and having an amazing infrastructure built in Iowa. Like, both things should worry you. Yeah, I think it's a super tough position for Bernie to be in. And then, you know, after that story, he was asked this weekend, why should you be president and not Elizabeth Warren? And he said, Elizabeth Warren is a good friend of mine, and all I can say is the following. What people understand is that for decades now, there have been great speeches, great legislation, and great

plans. What we need is a mass movement of millions of people, which I am prepared to lead as president. So that is the argument. That is as close as he's going to get, which what do you think about that argument? I think it will. You know, Bernie has been very, very kind lately. Bernie's response to Biden, I thought, was actually a pretty fair, you know, critical attack on his health care plan. I think that is what he believes. He does not want to criticize Elizabeth Warren on the merits. And I will say the gulf between Bernie Sanders and his and some of his staff and supporters is wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, very wide, a yawning chasm, if you will, a gaping maw. But no, but that's the that's that's a true articulation of their difference. Right. That Bernie believes you need a political revolution, whatever that may be. And Elizabeth Warren has, I think, had a more substantive critique of power structures.

Right. That's sort of been the difference, I think. You know, and that's what he's describing there. It's interesting. Right. It's something we talk about a lot. But that ideology just isn't as salient to a lot of people or it's less salient to a lot of people than we realize that for so many Biden supporters, Bernie is their second choice. For so many Bernie supporters, Biden's their second choice because, you know, these are, I think, I think it's fair to say that Bernie is the furthest left mainstream candidate. Biden is the furthest right candidate front runner. And yet you have all these people that look at these two people and say, I want one of these two. Now, I think you can make an argument that there's some lingering misogyny and other factors that go into what

people view as electable in there. But even beyond that, there is a kind of confusion in that there are people who want both big systemic change and are also worried about big systemic change that lead them to kind of the comfort of Biden and the change and promise of revolution of Bernie. Yeah. And I think a lot of voters just probably don't really know much about the distinctions and they're just naming a couple of people they know. I mean, that is such an important point that we always, always gloss over. Yeah. You're seeing a lot of frustration from team Bernie and they, as much as they started in a good position with name ID and money and a pretty decent polling average to start. Like they feel like they're hurting because they are not new in the eyes of the media because he ran last time.

And because Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, they're seen as new. So they're frustrated by that. They feel left out of headlines about polls that show them doing incredibly well. But the headline is the movement of some of the lesser known candidates. And I get that frustration and I feel their pain in some ways. But in other ways, I do think that making a argument constantly that is about grievance and attack on the media is a very tough strategy for Democrats. Because Republicans can do that and they can attack the New York Times and say it's shitty and whatever, and then go on Fox and just live in this right wing ecosystem. Democrats can't do that. Yeah. I also, I mean,

I think Bernie's argument that it is going to take more than speeches, plans and all the rest to bring about systemic change. It's going to require a movement of millions of people is a hundred percent correct. The tough part for him is he says, well, I'm the one who should lead that movement. Well, why? Why are you the one to lead that movement? Nina Turner, who is one of his supporters in Congress, who is one of those people who's a bit more critical, outwardly of other Democrats, even Bernie Sanders, to say the least. But she made an interesting point today, which is, you know, her argument is, well, Bernie has been there forever. He is the original. And he was the one who had the courage to run in 2016 when it was hard and he didn't look like he had much of a shot against hillary clinton and he stood up

then and that's why you should be with him now and i actually think that might be one of the better arguments that he can use and we'll get around to but the other thing and this gets to your points on me about complaining about the media in that story that new york times story about bernie you've got jeff weaver has you know his closest strategist and they're being like this isn't about making friends or sharing pictures of your dog or your recipes or blah blah blah it's like no no no that's what running for president is it's getting people to like you and vote for you i realized that i realized we wish that presidential elections were just about who has this policy and that policy and that,

but we live in the real world, and people need to like you to vote for you as president. And sometimes you wonder what the Sanders people, and I don't think this is about as much as Bernie, but some of the supporters, do they want people to join the movement, or do they just want to be right?

Well, also, I think part of this flows from Bernie himself, who is very comfortable making his argument and is, I think, less comfortable with some of the softer aspects of campaigning. And, you know, it's not that you can call that his flaw or a flaw in the system. But I think also there's something to be said for someone who's like, this is how I want to campaign. And if I can win this way, great. If I can't, I won't. And you see people around him trying to justify that. But even to that argument around he's been there, I think it goes to a central problem

here. Elizabeth Warren didn't run against Hillary Clinton in 2016, but there is no argument you can make that, there's no way you can faithfully make an argument that Elizabeth Warren hasn't been in these fights for a really long time. She was ringing the bell on bankruptcy before the financial crisis. She created a government agency.

She created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She was tapped to lead that bureau, but was seen as so toxic to Republicans because of how hard she would fight against banks and corporations that she wasn't allowed to have the position. So I think this is a central challenge for Bernie. It's not just Hillary Clinton now. There's another person who is an avatar for a lot of these policies and for this movement, and it forces him to reckon with the weaknesses of his campaign and his candidacy, and they have as of yet not been willing to do that. And she does the politics and she puts in the time. And you saw

that this week at Netroots Nation, where she went and a lot of the activists there, very liberal activists said, well, yeah, she's just, you know, over the years, she's reached out to us, she's talked to us. She's put in the time to build these relationships, which is sort of the unsexy work of politics, but very important when you are trying to win a primary. I also think that Bernie Sanders himself has been incredibly focused and disciplined about attacking a corrupt system and a corrupt town of Washington and the way money washes through it and distorts things. His team isn't always quite as precise, and there's a lot of it, to say the least.

A lot of shrapnel. There's a lot of shrapnel, like attacking Democrats as corporatists or saying, you know, like, Let's go after ThinkProgress today. Really, like, pretty personal attacks that suggest that if you don't like Medicare for All, that you don't want, like, poor people in the same health care system as you.

Like, things that, I kind of, I read them, and I'm like, do you really believe this, or is this an effective message? Because you're right that, like, look, he's not there to make friends and that's fine. I mean, but this is a reality show. This isn't like the road rules challenge. Right. Like you you're there to find voters and get their support in any way you can. And like over time, I do think this stuff can chip away at people liking you or being a second choice candidate.

at people liking you or being a second-choice candidate. Yeah, well, Elizabeth Warren has been attacking a corrupt system, and she does it without targeting, in a negative way, a lot of the voters that she needs to help change that corrupt system. And her team is super disciplined, too. You don't see them working the refs nearly as much on Twitter about coverage as some of the other campaigns. Yeah, and it's interesting, too, because Bernie, especially for this campaign, brought in Faz Shakir as his

campaign manager, and Faz, who had worked for Harry Reid in the past, he's of that world that's Warren's world as well, where you build political relationships, you talk to people, so I still think there's sort of hope to have that sort of influence on Bernie that he's got to play the game to win the game.

I think he can still do it, but that's his challenge. I also, there was a moment in 2016, I think Bernie launches this long shot candidacy. You know, I don't know what he would have said under a lie detector, but at the beginning, it certainly seemed more as a way to push against some of the assumptions of the Democratic Party. And it caught fire in a way that I think even his people didn't anticipate, which is, I think, why that their tone of being so hostile and kind of aggrieved kind of lasted for so much longer than it should have. But there was a moment in 2016 where he stopped wearing the button down collars for a second, got a nicer suit, combed his hair, gave a foreign policy speech. There was a moment

where you saw Bernie Sanders say, I'm going to show you that I actually can do this, that I'm not just here to be a gadfly, that I'm not just here to make an argument, an argument he won, by the way, on policy and on politics. I'm going to try to be president. And to me, that tension is always there in how Bernie campaigns. Do you want to win? Do you want to win the argument or do you want to win the race? I think his people are rightly frustrated at some of the ways they felt like the deck was stacked against them within the DNC and the debate schedule and some of the other things that happened in 2016. But it is also true that for a while,

he was running three days a week and not missing any Senate votes. And that's just an untenable situation to be in if you're running to win. Okay. When we return, my interview with Politico's Tim Alberta. On the pod today, we have Tim Alberta, chief political correspondent for Politico magazine and the author of the new book, American Carnage on the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. Tim, thanks for joining.

Hey, this is as good as it gets. I've done a lot of media this week, but nothing cooler than this. Thanks for having me. Oh, well, you're so welcome. So a couple of months ago, Joe Biden kicked off a debate among Democrats when he said that history will treat this administration's time as an aberration and that the fever in the Republican Party will break once Trump is gone. Other people say that Trump is a symptom of a broader rot within the GOP. What did your reporting for this book tell you about this debate? You know, it's a really foundational question, actually, at the heart of the book. You know, we see all of this polarization and disunity in the country right now. And I think it's fair for some people to sort of instinctively, reflexively want to lay

it all at Trump's doorstep. And I do think that's a mistake, just to the extent that I think what Trump really did effectively was that he saw some of these things building long before anybody else in the Republican Party did. He saw this angst. He saw some of this nativism rearing its ugly head. He saw this disgust with the political class and a lot of people feeling left behind by politicians of all stripes. And he really tapped into it and weaponized it and exploited it in a way that nobody else was able to. And I do think that, look, for all the attention on Trump, and every day he gives us cause to have these, you know, really existential conversations about, you know, where we are as a country and as a

culture and in government. But I do think we have to think beyond Trump, because he's going to come and go. It is a transient office. He won't be president forever. But I do think that these same forces that sort of propelled him into office, this wave that he wrote into office, is still going to be here when he's gone. And I do understand what Joe Biden was trying to say, what the Vice President was trying to say, which is that, you know, these Republicans in Washington have, you know, got themselves a case of Stockholm Syndrome, and they're so scared of this guy that they're unwilling to speak out. And that has sort of tainted the party as a whole. And he has remade the party in his own image in this fell swoop. And that once he's gone,

they'll return to normal. But I also do think it's pretty naive, because I think that Trump has, you know, sort of sent all of us through the looking glass here. And I think the political system itself is now so vulnerable to disruption. And you're beginning to see a little bit of it on the left, not to compare anybody on the Democratic side to Trump, but you're seeing some of that same asymmetrical warfare now. And so I think there's a big, big question for everybody well after Trump is gone, which is how do we get a lid on this thing? How do we sort of bring some normalcy back to politics? And how do we restore some of the just basic conventions and institutions that made government stable? Well, it seems like the only way you're going to do this on the right, which is where the xenophobia and racism is, at least that Trump has exploited, is if some Republican politicians

somewhere stand up and say that this is wrong and reject this. So, you know, we're right now in the middle of a whole bunch of Republicans putting out sort of mealy mouth statements on Trump's racist tweet from the weekend. I think I've counted now only two House Republicans have actually called them racist. Why is that? Do you think, I mean, because, you know, some people on the left will say this is because a lot of Republicans actually agree with them. And then a lot of other people say, well, they're just too chicken chicken shit to say anything. I mean, in in your experience talking to all these Republican politicians for the reporting in this book, what where does the resistance to stand up to Trump come from? You know, if if I had to break it down, John, I would probably say that it's

three quarters chicken shit and one quarter actually do agree with him. And I will, I'll tell you, retracing some of the earliest stages of birtherism, which of course you guys all lived through and you remember vividly. I mean, there were, and I have stories in the book about some of these members of Congress, Republican House members, who behind closed doors were constantly agitating about birtherism. And Boehner and Cantor would look around like, who the hell are these people? And then of course, you know, Boehner has this great quote where he talks about, look, Congress is nothing more than a slice of the American people. You have some really, really smart people and some really, really dumb people. You have some really, really nice people and some people who are Nazis. And so naturally, you're going to wind up with some sort of fringe,

conspiracy-minded folks. And that also means, yeah, you're going to probably wind up with some racists in Congress, or at least some very racially insensitive people, if I'm going to be very generous in Congress. But I don't think that's the majority. I think the majority of these folks are just terrified of Donald Trump. They're scared of their own shadow. Look, we all know that in politics, self-preservation is the name of the game. It drives everything. And when you are a member of the House Republican Conference or of the Senate Republican Caucus, and you see what happened to Mark Sanford or Jeff Flake, or even Bob Corker, who says he stepped down on his own, but he was going to have a hell of a hard time keeping his job, or Justin Amash, who just left the party. You look around and you realize that no longer is it the

ideological divisions in the party that determine where you are as a Republican. And that was, of course, the big post-George W. Bush debate. Are you part of the establishment or are you part of the insurgency? Are you a conservative or a moderate? All of those divisions have really fallen by the wayside, John, and we're left with this very basic division of are you with Trump or are you against Trump? And if you're not with Trump, you are taking your career in your own hands and you're running a very real risk of losing your livelihood. And that's more than most of these folks are willing to gamble with. I guess the question is, why has this reluctance to challenge him gotten actually worse over time, even as he remains one of the most unpopular

presidents in modern history? Is it just a fear of Trump, or are other political incentives and other factors coming into play here? It's a good question. I would answer it two ways. I think, first, it's not just a fear of Trump, but it's a fear of Trump's base. I think for most of these folks, and now you did see back in November of 2018, you did see some of the Republicans in Congress who were more critical of Donald Trump, who did keep the White House more at arm's length. And it's not coincidental, of course, that most of these Republicans were those who were coming from more suburban held congressional seats with more diverse populations, upscale, college educated, white collar. And a lot of those folks understood that they weren't going to win or lose based on whether Trump's base was mobilized behind them. They had to appeal to a broader slice of the electorate.

And ultimately, a lot of those folks lost. behind them, they had to appeal to a broader slice of the electorate, and ultimately a lot of those folks lost. And so what you are left with, at least in the House, which is always going to be a better case study of kind of where our politics are, you are left in the House Republican Conference with an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of Republican lawmakers who hail from these demographically homogenous districts, where if you are on the wrong side of Trump's base, then you're shit out of luck. You're probably going to lose your job. And so I think that that's a big part of it. It's not just that they're afraid of Trump, that he's going to, you know, call them late at night and bitch them

out or that, you know, he's going to embarrass them at the Oval Office. But it's that if he turns on them publicly with a tweet, or if he, you know, gives even the faintest whiff to his political operation of, you know, I don't like this guy, we should go nose around the district and see if we can find somebody, they're not willing to take that gamble. I also think the second part of your question, John, is Donald Trump's approval rating writ large has not been very good throughout his presidency, it typically ranged between 38 and 44. But what's interesting, and I talk a lot about this in the book, is that almost like clockwork, with very few exceptions, his approval among self-identified Republicans is right around 90%, very consistently.

And that's really, really good. As a matter of fact, at this point in his presidency, two years and change into his presidency, he is the most popular Republican with the Republican base in the last century, save for George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9-11. So even while he has alienated the broader electorate and certainly lost the support of moderates and independents, he is still really, really strong with self-identified R's. And I think that's what makes it so difficult for GOP politicians to seek any distance from him. How much does the media environment on the right influence this? Because, you know, I believe that Trump wouldn't be able to have this hold on his base without not only Fox, but like most of the other conservative media environment, with a few

exceptions. I know you used to work for National Review, but it seems like the National Review's, weekly standards got out of business. But it seems like the National Review's weekly standards got out of business. But some of those sort of establishment conservative publications don't really have a big audience or a base on the right anymore. And that what's left is sort of the foxification of the entire conservative media. And that is the engine that sort of keeps Trump's base scared, angry, and loyal to Trump. 100%. You cannot possibly begin to overstate just how fundamental Fox News has been to this administration. And it's not just with what they do in terms of defending the president, but it's we always talk in media about, you know, it's not just the stories

that you cover, but it's the stories that you don't cover. And that is so true when you look at Fox. You could not begin to count the number of times over the last, you know, 28 months when there was some major defining moment that in any other administration would be sort of a legacy crisis. Something that's gone totally off the rails in the administration or Trump has said or done something that is just beyond the pale, so far outside of the mainstream of the American presidency, that we would all be sort of shocked by it. And if you read the newspaper, if you turn on CNN or MSNBC, if you get on Facebook or Twitter, that's all anybody can talk about. But if you are, and I'm going to generalize here because you have to demographically speaking, if you are a white conservative voter over the age of 45, odds are you are getting most of those nights, when all of us are paying attention to those big, would-be legacy-defining stories, Fox News is not covering them. And if they are covering them, to the extent that they are, it's mostly about the left-wing media overreaching and making a

mountain out of a molehill, et cetera, et cetera. So you can't begin to appreciate how foundationally important Fox News' air cover is to Trump's presidency. If he lost them, he would be done. I mean, tomorrow. And he knows that. That's why he's on the phone with Laura Ingraham. That's why he's on the phone with Sean Hannity three or four times a day sometimes. I mean, he understands that he has to keep these people behind him or else his base disappears.

So a lot's already been made of the things Paul Ryan told you for this book, which certainly set the president off. We've had a lot of fun here in Positive America taking on Paul Ryan. My view of Ryan is that he has put up with Trump's racism and instability because he wanted lower marginal rates and entitlement cuts. I know that may be a slight over-exaggeration, but am I wrong? Like, why else did Paul Ryan put up with Donald Trump? No, I mean, look, honestly, John, I actually don't think that's much of an oversimplification. I think that Ryan understood full well, and I reported this back, you know, I don't know, a year ago or so. So it's old news. It's in the book.

And I reported this back, you know, I don't know, a year ago or so. So it's old news. It's in the book. But, you know, I was the first to report that Paul Ryan on election night 2016 in Janesville, Wisconsin, I was there and I was told that he was ready to give a speech that night, that he was certainly under the impression that Donald Trump was going to lose and probably lose very badly. And so Paul Ryan had prepared to give a speech that night, basically putting Trumpism to death and turning the page on this very dark and ugly chapter in the party's history and declaring that henceforth, we will not be this guy's party. And it's time for

a new day tomorrow on November 9th. And when Paul Ryan is watching those returns come in, he is just stunned. I mean, he's slack-jawed, and he can't really believe it. And he comes out on stage, and he gives these very brief remarks. And I told him afterwards, I said, it looked like you'd just seen a ghost. And you could just see it written all over his face. And of course, Trump does win. And he puts that speech right back into his jacket pocket and decides then and there, you know what? Look, I've got a choice here. I can remain true to myself. I can be critical of the president as he had been throughout much of the 2016 campaign. I can call him out for all of his xenophobia and all of his misogyny and all of

these other things. But if I do that, I'm not going to be the Speaker of the House. There's just no way. It's not going to work. I can do that or I can basically take a vow of silence. I can decide that it's not worth it, that maybe other people in the party can hold him to account and they can police him. But if I'm going to be the Speaker of the House and if he's going to contract out essentially all of the policymaking to me and let me have this two-year window to try and remake the American government in the image of what I've been dreaming about as a movement conservative for decades, you know, Paul Ryan's thinking, then that's a pretty good trade-off. And of course, his friends are sort of wincing, saying to him, do you know what this is going to do to you? And look, Paul Ryan is not dumb. The guy had been around politics his entire

adult life. He understood that this was, as his buddies called it, you know, Paul's deal with the devil, but he thought that it was worth taking. And from everything I understand, John, he didn't really think twice about it. He was not tortured in making that decision. But I do think that certainly, you know, six months later, a year later, and certainly two years later, by the time he was retiring and leaving Congress, the weight of this had fully set in on him. And he understood that as a guy who had always been really popular throughout his congressional career, even when he had proposed, you know, really divisive policies, he was a really well-liked guy in Congress by a lot of Democrats.

And he realized that his reputation was kind of permanently tarnished. And that really did bother him. And I could see it on his face when we sat down after he retired for our interview in Janesville. And I could tell just, you know, within 30 seconds of talking to him that he was ready to unload and that he felt like this was his chance to sort of, you know, clear his chest and get these things off of his mind. I mean, there's the obvious concern about his reputation, but do you think he regrets the deal at all? Or does he fundamentally think the tax cut was worth it? And by the way, you hear this from him, you hear this from Gary Cohn, from Dina Powell, from Reince Priebus, we all stopped him

from doing worse shit. Do you think they feel good about the deal that they made in terms of the direction of the country? Man, it's such a good question. And I did ask him and he didn't really directly answer me. But knowing him pretty well, and knowing a lot of people around him and having covered him for years, my hunch is that he does not regret it. And he primarily, I think, doesn't regret it for the reason you just stated. It's not so much the tax cuts, it's not so much the funding for the military. I think he is proud of those things, don't get me wrong, and of other, you know, some of the D-reg stuff, no question. But I do think that Ryan viewed himself as a part of this sort of guardrail system, more or less, that he and Reince Priebus and then John Kelly, who Ryan became very close with, and Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis,

Ryan had this network of five or six people with whom they sort of collectively formed this force field, as they felt, around Trump, and that they were buffering him. And they would basically say to people, look, if you think it's a shit show now, imagine how much worse it would be if we weren't here, if we weren't sort of controlling this guy and trying to mitigate the damage. So I think in that respect, he does not regret making that deal. But I think it does weigh on him. Again, you could sort of see it all over his face when we were having that conversation. So you've covered Republicans in the conservative movement for a long time now. You know, we can all have debates about, is the Democratic Party moving too far to the left? Is the Republican Party moving too far to the right in sort of normal times? Does what's happening to

the party under Trump, the xenophobia, the racism that he's stirring up, does it worry you? Does it scare you to sort of as a journalist and a person who's followed this? Because it does seem like person who's followed this? Because it does seem like something even beyond the typical, you know, reporting and analysis we do about politics, especially on a day like today. Yeah, look, I'll tell you, it does worry me for a couple of reasons. A, I've got three little kids, and I want them to, you know, as cheesy as it may sound, right? You know, the president, the American presidency is so unique, because you're not just the head of government, you're the head of state. And as the head of state, which is very different, by the way, from most countries, but as the head of state, you know,

you're supposed to be sort of projecting to the masses some degree of moral leadership. And so look, I've got three little boys, and I want them to be able to look up to the highest leaders in our government and see role models, right? So that's a part of it. I'm certainly concerned to that degree. But I'll say this, John, I'm also really concerned because of what we saw yesterday. It's not so much that I think the Republican political class is increasingly populated by racists and demagogues. I don't really know that that's the case. But I do think that the Republican governing class is increasingly populated by people who don't have the stones to stand up and call out what's wrong when it's wrong. And I think that that's a huge problem, because we as a country have always had, and obviously nobody listening needs the history

lesson on the moral, you know, shortcomings of the United States. But we as a country have always had, you know, intense periods of racism, of xenophobia, of misogyny, of sort of otherism, right? And we have traversed those periods, and it's been rocky. And ultimately, I think most people would agree that the better angels of our nature tend to win out in the end. But I do think that part of the reason that better angels tend to win out in the end is that you have people who are willing to stand up and speak out and make their voice heard, even if there are really severe consequences. And I don't think you're seeing much of that in the Republican Party right now. As a matter of fact, I think you're seeing almost none of it. And I think that more than anything else is really concerning.

None of it. And I think that more than anything else is really concerning. I do think that there are an awful lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill who are good people, who are really, really, really worried about what Trump is doing, about what Trump is saying. And they are this close. They've got their finger hovering over the tweet button and they're so tempted. They really, really want to send that tweet and rebuke the president and signal to their constituents and to their family members and to their constituents and to their family members and to their friends and the people who they care about that, look, this is not okay. I can't stand for this anymore. But again, when you throw that political self-preservationist instinct into the mix, all bets are off. And it's really discouraging to see so many people who I

think otherwise do have a conscience and who do have a real problem with what the president is doing, not speak out and not make their voice heard on it. That is what worries me, because I don't see it changing anytime soon. Yeah. I always think that those of us who sort of analyze politics for a living probably spend a little too much time focused on, you know, people's character traits and their consciences and like what they're doing about politics on an individual level and not enough focus on sort of larger structural incentives, which is often how politics works. Do you see any incentives out there for Republicans to potentially pull their party back from the brink or back from Trumpism if he does lose in 2020? I do actually. And I could be wrong on this, of course, but I really do. I mean, one of the real Shakespearean ironies of this entire stretch

of time that I chronicle in the book is that Reince Priebus was the one who commissioned this autopsy after Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama. And the RNC autopsy project was oriented around this idea that we cannot be a party that relies on older white voters. It's just not going to work. The math does not add up over the long run. And of course, he becomes chief of staff to the guy who basically wiped his ass with the autopsy. And it's worth noting, though, that that math has not changed. And in fact, really, the demographic death spiral of the modern Republican Party is only accelerating.

And so I do think that if Donald Trump were to lose in 2020, and certainly even if he were to win a second term and then left the White House in 2024, I do think that you still have enough smart, ambitious people in the Republican Party who are going to take a look around and realize, look, even if I want to try and channel some of Trump's appeal to working class America and to some of these economic anxieties, we cannot just be that party anymore. It's not going to work at the ballot box. It's not sustainable. And certainly, when you look at some of these people already who are beginning to maneuver very slowly but very clearly behind the scenes, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, you can see them trying to split that difference.

You can see them attempting to channel a little bit, harness a little bit of that Trump populist appeal, while also trying to broaden it out a little bit with the understanding that the party cannot be branded as a xenophobic entity if they're going to win over voters in Arizona and Texas, and certainly already in states that have gone off the board, like Virginia and New Mexico and Colorado, the electoral math just doesn't work. So I do think that out of necessity, the party will self-correct. I think it's just a matter of when, because it might not happen immediately. It might take 10 or 12 years. It might take a couple of beatings at the ballot box before they realize that the path they're on is just not sustainable. Yeah, I do have a fear that both the conservative media

propaganda machine and, you know, gerrymandering and voter suppression is sort of propping this up for now. But I do think you're right demographically in the long term, if you can sort of get past all that, which is a big if. Yeah, that they can't survive demographically forever. But they're doing their hardest to hang on now with everything they can. So, Tim, thank you so much for joining us. The book is American Carnage on the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. Everyone, go give it a read.

And thanks for joining us. Hey, this was a treat for me. Thanks a lot. Thanks to Tim Alberta for joining us today, and we'll see you on the road, and that's that. Sub-Zero. There's two kinds of people in this world. There's Scorpion people and there's Sub-Zero people. Get over here. There's two kinds of people in this world.

There's Scorpion people and there's Sub-Zero people. Get over here. Also, what a wonderful time it was in the 90s when two different characters just had two different colors. Right? Scorpion was like orange. Sub-Zero was blue. Totally different characters. Totally different.

Yeah, it was in the early phase of teaching children how to not just kill but mutilate their opponents. I don't remember the... Good stuff. Does anybody remember the code to get the bloody version? Ending on a high note, I see. A, B, B, A, B, up, down, select, start. No, no, no, that's the Konami code. Up, down, up, down, left, right. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start.

Because you can play with a friend. Get those Contra lives. Get those Contra lives. 99 lives. Get that laser. Get that laser. Bye, everyone.