Pod Save America - "Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Impeachment Inferno."

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

The House of Representatives votes to endorse the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, a parade of the President’s employees testify against him, and the Democratic candidates descend on Des Moines for the biggest event of the Iowa caucuses.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Tommy and I will dig into the latest developments in Donald Trump's impeachment, including a vote in the House to formalize the process, and more damning testimony from Trump's own employees. We'll also talk about the challenges that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are facing in Iowa, and look ahead to some very big elections coming up on Tuesday in states like Virginia and Kentucky. Before we get into that, Tommy, how was Pod Save

the World at J Street this week? Worldos take Washington? They really did. By the way, it's funny. I haven't seen you in like two weeks. I know. Because you're in Milwaukee right now. I'm in Des Moines. Before that, I was in DC, which was very weird. But yeah, Ben Rhodes and I did three days worth of stuff with J Street, which is an awesome progressive organization that's pushing for a two state solution between Israel and Palestine and more progressive foreign policy generally. And so we did a live podcast, which we released this week with some amazing guests and activists. And then we talked with five presidential candidates about U.S. policy towards Israel. about U.S. policy towards Israel. And what was pretty cool about the whole event was the entire party moved to the left when it comes to a more progressive policy position on aid to Israel.

All of them talked about potentially, well, several of them talked about potentially conditioning U.S. aid and assistance towards Israel if they annex the West Bank or if there's continued settlement construction. So it speaks to how badly Bibi Netanyahu has played his politics by making, you know, hugging the GOP and the Trump administration in particular. So check out the episode. It was a lot of fun to do. And they're a great organization.

I watched the video of Bernie Sanders answering that question that you just spoke about. And it was funny. It was he. He was really getting into it. And then you just see you and Ben just looking up and smiling. And look at the Democratic Party now. It's great. It was so funny, man. I mean, so we'd done five. He was the fifth conversation of five. And it was like a serious affair, right? We're talking about like wonky, nerdy policy stuff. And then Bernie walks in, grabs the mic, starts talking shit to Ben and stands up and just gives this like barn burner

of an opening statement followed by the Q&A. And it was hard not to smile and just sort of be in admiration of him coming into this event and just knowing exactly what to do. It was impressive. That's awesome. Well, everyone go give that a listen. And also, our new daily news podcast, What A Day, officially became the most popular podcast in the world this week, at least according to the Apple podcast charts, which never lie. If you haven't subscribed yet, you need to do it right away. Please go.

I mean, we know, look, it's doing fantastic. There's a bunch of you listening to Pod Save America. You haven't had time to subscribe to What A Day yet? Here's the thing. It's 15 minutes in the morning. It's now my morning routine. I had never had a morning podcast routine because I usually don't have as much time in the morning. I have a pretty short commute to Crooked Media.

But I've been on the road, and I wake up. I hit play, and it's like in 15 minutes I feel like I know all the news and not just political news either, like all the news that I need to know. That's what I love about it. This is not just politics. It's mostly not politics. And Akilah and Gideon are just a joy to listen to. Yeah, they're so funny and so smart. And it's just go sign up.

Finally, a personal plug. I know. Finally, a personal plug. Our good friend Adam Frankel, who is the very first speechwriter I hired on the Obama campaign way back when, has written a book called The Survivors, a story of war, inheritance, and healing. This is a true story about Adam's family that reads like a novel, a very compelling, exciting novel. Adam is a fantastic storyteller and writer. So go take a look. It is out today. It is a fantastic book. So check that out, too.

Agreed. Okay, Tommy. Moments ago, the House of Representatives passed a formal resolution that establishes the process for the impeachment of Donald Trump. It was the first time the full House voted on impeachment. 232 Democrats supported the measure, plus former Republican Justin Amash. All 196 Republicans rejected it, plus two Democrats, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Colin Peterson of Minnesota. And there were a couple members who were just not voting today, weren't there. Tommy, before we get into the politics of all this, what does this resolution

do? And what kind of process does it actually set up here? So it basically lays out the procedures for how the impeachment inquiry will be handled going forward. It talks about the committees that will deal with it. It talks about the committees that will deal with it. It talks about the amount of time they'll have for questioning and how much time will be allotted to the majority and the minority members of the committee. So the Republicans and the Democrats. It talks about the release of transcripts from private definitions. It's like it's a bunch of process stuff like subpoena power, how the White House will be able to participate in the process. So things that they wanted to get locked down and get in paper. And that was probably very important to the various members of Congress who will be initions as the House Democrats and Republicans on the relevant committees have been sort of gathering information.

It's the information gathering stage. This basically says, all right, here's how these public hearings are going to work. I do think one thing that's interesting in it is the chairman and ranking member on the Intel Committee, which is going to be the committee that does these public hearings, and the chairman is Adam Schiff, and the ranking member is our favorite doofus, Devin Nunes. They each get, along with staff lawyers if they want, 45 minutes in a row to question each of these witnesses, which I think is fantastic because then you don't have like,

you know, a minute of some congressperson giving a speech and then they ask a question. And then just as you get into it, you have to go to the next congressperson. And it's like hard to follow like Adam Schiff or a staff lawyer grilling some of these witnesses for, you know, 45 minutes straight on live TV. I think it'll be great. It won't be so great when Devin Nunes does it, but it'll be great when Schiff does it. I know. I totally agree. I mean, to me, that was a sign that they're taking this very seriously and that Democrats finally have learned the lesson from these hearings that if you jump around from member to member and leave it to them, they will make annoying speeches that get us no information. You know, some members are very good at it, right? AOC has proven to be a very deft questioner, but the majority are not. So I'm glad Adam Schiff set that up. Yeah. It also gives the Republicans on the committee the same

kind of rights that they had in previous impeachment inquiries in Nixon's impeachment inquiry and Bill Clinton's. So Republicans can request witnesses and subpoena testimony and documents if it's approved by Schiff or the full committee. Actually, what happens is the Intelligence Committee does these hearings. They write up a report and then they send it to the Judiciary Committee, who actually writes up the formal articles of impeachment. And during that process, Trump's lawyers would be allowed to present a formal defense of him and cross-examine witnesses once it gets to the judiciary. Though Nadler says he reserves the power to shut that down if Trump continues to obstruct justice, defy subpoenas and all that bullshit.

So it seems pretty fair. Yeah, I mean, that seems smart, right? And that seems smart, right? Quite recently, Matt Geitz and a bunch of morons tried to bum rush the committee hearing room and physically shut it down by live streaming from a secure information facility. So I think it's important to set up some ways to prevent that from happening. Yeah. So Democrats weren't required by the Constitution to take this vote. A D.C. judge ruled last week that they weren't required by the law to take this vote. A D.C. judge ruled last week that they weren't required by the law to take this vote. Pelosi had been worried about making the moderate Democrats in her caucus take an

impeachment vote too early. Why do you think they did this? And do you think it was the right move to hold this vote? I don't totally understand why they did it. Like you said, they didn't need to have this vote. I think that the Republican attacks about the process to date have been made in bad faith. I think that's obvious to everyone. And if it wasn't obvious then, it's obvious now because as soon as the Democratic side agrees to have a vote, the Republicans have shifted to another bad faith attack where they try to claim that everything that happened before this vote is somehow not acceptable. Right. So House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted today's backtracking is an admission that this process has been botched from the start. And then some senior Republican House aide went on background to CNN to say, you're never going to hear us stop highlighting the unfair process. to say, you're never going to hear us stop highlighting the unfair process. So that is their only argument. To some extent, the Democrats played into it, I think, by having this vote. But I guess you had to have a vote. Maybe some Democrats think you had to have a vote sooner or later. So they just wanted to get it over with. But, you know, I'm not that worked up about it. Yeah, me neither. I don't have super strong feelings, but I do think it is calling the Republicans bluff, basically. Like my thing in this entire impeachment hearing is like we

should we need to dismantle their bullshit defenses one by one, very calmly, very firmly. And, you know, this entire thing is making sure that we can dismantle all of their bullshit excuses without giving them any legitimate excuses to call foul. Right. And so I also think it's a recognition, by the way, that, you know, Pelosi would not have taken this vote if she didn't have the votes. And she certainly she had the votes. Right. She only lost two Democrats out of her whole caucus. So she knew she had the votes. And the reason she knew she had the votes is because she knew that the politics around impeachment have shifted so quickly over the last month that it no longer was super worrisome for a lot of these moderates to take the vote. So she felt confident. And if she felt confident about the votes, I guess the thinking is like if they're going to keep bitching about process this whole time, why don't we just tell them here we are?

We're happy to have this be a we are, we're happy to have this be a public process. We're happy to have you question the witnesses as well. We're happy to have Adam Schiff release all of the testimony. Go for it. We're not the ones who have a problem with the substance of this case. You guys are. That's exactly right. I mean, look, shifting to a conversation about the substance of these charges is necessary to move public opinion. It's necessary to have an impeachment inquiry generally. So, you know, it was inevitable that that was going to happen. It is annoying that Mitch McConnell can refuse to give a Supreme Court justice nominee a hearing,

and it ultimately doesn't matter because all Washington, D.C. cares about is power, and it rewards power and winning. And Democrats, you know, get this responsibility gene worked up in their brains and they ultimately move to a fairer place and listen to these process concerns when the bad faith tax will continue. But again, like I don't think it's that big a deal. No. And so, like you said, you know, after after Democrats agreed to give Republicans the very public hearings and due process protections they've been demanding for weeks. Obviously, you know, Tommy, Republicans thank them for the show of good faith and, you know, pledged cooperation and finding the truth wherever it may lead them. No, I saw before we started recording on the House floor, fucking Steve Scalise, who's the number two Republican in the House,

fucking uh steve scalese who's the number two republican in the house had a like a big poster up next to him as he was speaking calling this the uh the one-sided soviet style process i mean what is this what does this tell us about how republicans sort of view this entire process i think that they're nervous about the substance, right? I mean, they all say it on background and they therefore don't want to talk about it. And you're even starting to see Donald Trump complain that he's not getting defended on the substance of the charges and that he wants members to start shifting to that conversation. So I don't think that's a place where a lot of people want to be. I mean, look, here's the key, right? The New York Times upshot did a poll of six battleground states and they found that 52% of voters oppose impeaching and removing Trump, but 52% of voters also support an investigation. And so our job as Democrats is to shift those numbers and get it so that a majority of the country opposes impeaching because they learn about all these substantive details that will hopefully be discussed at great length in the open hearings. That is exactly right. So, you know, in that poll,

there's basically 10% of people, it was eight to 10% of people in those six battleground states. And those are the toughest states, right? Those are all six, all six of the states they polled are states that Trump won in 2016. So there's 10% of people who support the inquiry right now but don't support his removal yet. And those are the people that we have to be thinking about that I think Nancy Pelosi is thinking about, that a lot of the moderate Democrats are thinking about, which is they're willing to listen to this investigation. But they want to hear evidence. They want to hear facts. They want to hear facts. And for that reason, that's like one of those people are sort of the reason why I think the vote was a good idea. And being very public about how it's going to be a fair process is a good idea because Steve Scalise is bullshit on the Soviet style impeachment. It's going to work on Fox, obviously, and it's going to work on all the right wing crazy websites.

But those aren't the places that that that 10 percent of people who support the inquiry but don't necessarily support removal. They're not just Fox News watchers. They're getting their news from other places and they're probably willing to hear people try to make a good faith case. At least one would hope, you know. Yeah. I mean, here's what makes me nervous, John. I think it was that same poll. Voters said that they thought that the president's comments and actions related to Ukraine and trying to investigate Joe Biden are typical of what politicians do. 47% thought that versus something that's worse of what a typical politician does. So this is, again, it speaks to the structural advantage that Republicans have. They are trying to make it look like every politician is the same.

They're all cynical. They're all corrupt. They're all terrible. And Donald Trump is certainly helping them advance that message. And we need to fight back on that. It's on. It's the it's the single biggest challenge we have. And I'm not surprised about that answer in the poll, because when you any poll question you ask that has or is this just typical of Washington or typical of politicians? Doesn't matter what's on the other end. People are so fed up with Washington and do think that most politicians are corrupt, at least, you know, not partisans on each side as much, but most of the people who are undecided or who don't pay as close attention to the news, that's what they think. And it is going to be incumbent on the Democrats during these public hearings to make people understand that what Trump did was not only wrong, but, you know, something that jeopardizes the free and fair elections in 2020.

Right. That it was it was exactly what the framers had in mind when they thought about impeachment in the first place, the concern about foreign influence on our elections. And I think it's impossible for Democrats to make that point too much. Yep, I agree. Do you have any worries about the two Democratic defections, Jeff Van Drew and Colin Peterson? I mean, they're both sort of known as pretty conservative Democrats. I know Colin Peterson's in a district that Trump won by like 30 points or something. So it's, you know, it's not too surprising, but it is too. or something. So it's, you know, it's not too surprising, but it is too. Yeah, look, I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it annoying. But at some point, I feel like you have to let moderates just kind of have their own opinions and work their own

politics and not get too worried about it if it's not preventing the impeachment inquiry from going forward. Yeah. And, you know, sounds like Jeff Van Drew might be one of these 10% of people in those battleground states because he said, or it might be the opposite, because he said, I didn't support the inquiry, but now that it's passed, I'm willing to hear all the evidence and might change my mind. So, great. Good for you, Jeff Van Drew. I mean, look, be open-minded. That's all we can ask. Yeah, exactly.

Let's move on to the parade of former Trump officials who will soon be watching testify against their old boss on national television. On Tuesday, the House heard private testimony from Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who is currently the top Ukraine expert on Trump's National Security Council, Colonel Vindman defied White House orders not to testify because he was so disturbed by the call he heard on July 25th between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Tommy, before we get to what Colonel Vindman actually said, why is he such an important witness in the impeachment inquiry, even before we knew what his testimony was going to be? So a couple of things. I mean, a lot of President Trump's argument is that the whistleblower's account was all second or third hand and that there was no one who actually heard the call who was corroborating the charges made by the whistleblower. I'm not sure how that argument really flies when we've all read the transcript, but whatever, it was something they were saying.

Vindman was on the call and he listened to it. He's also a decorated officer in the United States Army. He's a Harvard educated Ukraine expert. He is an incredibly impressive guy that will be hard to attack, I think. Now, I just want to offer a quick pet peeve aside here, which is that I have enormous respect for Colonel Vindman's military service and his intellect. But I do think it's sometimes a mistake when we lionize the background and pedigree of some of these witnesses and like only focus on their military service or what might be because foreign service officers deserve great respect and appreciation for their work. So do the CIA officers who seemingly blew the whistle on this in the first place, right? Like you don't need to have the perfect pedigree to serve as a character witness. You could be a partisan hack with a terrible past

and still offer important information about Trump's criminal behavior. But you are seeing, you know, the far right, we'll talk about this later, the far right is saying disgusting things about Vindman. But even like Liz Cheney, and some really rabid conservative Republicans refuse to attack him personally in the way the Fox News, you know, MAGA world is. Yeah. I mean, I think the background is important only in as much as it goes to his motivations. Right. This guy is a public servant through and through. He served his country, fought for his country. And then he, you know, he's worked for Democratic and Republican administrations, including he decided to go work for Donald Trump. You know, the idea that Donald Trump's calling all these people never Trumpers.

They all worked for him. They all chose to work for him. He chose to hire them. His people chose to hire them. So he was happy, you know, Colonel Vindman decided to go work for Donald Trump after serving his country. And also, I think we have to like put ourselves in the shoes of some of these people, which I know is tough. But imagine you have all these bosses including the president of the United States, the national security advisor, all these people you're working for. You've been in the military.

So you've sort of been trained into thinking about sort of the chain of command. And you listen to a call that the president of the United States has with another foreign leader. And you're so disturbed by that call that you actually say something about it to your superiors. That's a big fucking deal. And if it was one person, when it was just the whistleblower, it was one thing. The whistleblower, Bill Taylor, Fiona Vindman, like how many people working for Trump do we need to let us know that this thing was really, really bad? his incredible background and intellect is fairly typical of the people who work on the NSC, right? It's the best and the brightest

get brought over from agencies for these details. So, like, it's extraordinary to be a lone, like, you're not a big, you're not a hotshot if you're the Ukraine expert on the NSC. You're a fairly low-level guy. For him to hear this call and just feel, like, in his bones

that what he heard was immoral and to blow the whistle on that is a really ballsy move. He also testified that the substance of the call differed from the call record and that he tried to add the word Burisma to the record. I believe President Zelensky of Ukraine had said Burisma and in the quote unquote transcript that we read, that word was missing probably because the software didn't pick it up. But, you know, it also makes the decision to ultimately put this transcript on the code word level extra secret server even more suspicious when we know that Vindman had hand edited an early draft of that transcript and said, hey, add this word, this word, this word to make it reflect what was actually said. I mean, this is a very big development. I mean, we know that the summary of the call that the White House released was bad enough and an impeachable offense on its own. But if part of what the White House defense is, which it is, and, you know, in the right wing defense is, oh, well, he, you know, we released the call. The call was perfect.

We have nothing to hide. We think everything was fine. Why would Trump have done all this stuff on a phone call? You know, Trump said, I think he tweeted this morning, why would I have said all this shit on the phone call if everyone was listening, you know, and I knew everyone was listening. Well, this shows that they did try to cover it up. They did try to cover it up. There were words missing from the transcript and however they ended up missing, you know, some of them are blaming it on the software, not hearing the word Burisma. Vindman, Colonel Vindman tried to put the words back in. They were the correct words.

And then the White House rejected it. And then he went to a White House lawyer, John Eisenberg. This was reported in The Washington Post late tonight or this morning, who deals with national security issues for the White House. He's the White House lawyer. And Vindman said, look, the president just did something wrong. He did something wrong on this call. And here's the call summary. And here's what he did wrong.

And then, according to Vindman's testimony, Eisenberg moved the transcript to this secret server. So a White House lawyer knew he did something wrong. Right. So I believe the explanation that the transcription software and the folks who make that initial transcript miss the words, because that's usually handled. In my experience, when I was at the White House, that was handled by the team that worked in the sit room, who are like nonpartisan folks who come from the intel and defense world. And they're just like the nicest people in the world who do their

jobs. They're not political. They're not partisan hires. It is, as you say, very obvious, though, that Vindman's edits were ignored by people that were high, like political hires by Donald Trump. And that makes it incredibly suspicious. Vindman also, by the way, did a good job, I think, contextualizing and explaining the damage of this kind of like corrupt horse trading from a Ukrainian perspective. I know that won't be front and center in this case, and it's not going to move votes. But it is important to understand that Trump and Rudy were constantly undermining people in Ukraine who are fighting corruption and withholding military aid, which is pretty unacceptable.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in his opening statement, he said, you know, I didn't think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen. It used to be something I thought that everyone would agree on. And then he said, I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play, which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security. It's an interesting argument, right, that I have not heard one of the witnesses make yet, that if Trump had got his way and Ukraine investigated the Bidens, suddenly democratic support for Ukraine, an ally, is lessened because they decided to get involved in U.S. politics

and interfere in U.S. politics. Totally, man. And it's totally fair. This is Trump's M.O. I mean, look, when when he encouraged, forced, whatever word you want to use, Bibi Netanyahu to block two Democratic members of Congress from visiting Israel, that was pretty intense politicization of support for Israel and something that I think will do did some damage in the Democratic Party for a long time. So, yeah, it's a pattern. pretty intense politicization of support for Israel and something that I think will do did some damage in the Democratic Party for a long time. So, yeah, it's a pattern.

And the other thing that Vindman raised aside from so he was on the call, the July 25th call with with Trump and Zelensky, he was also at and this meeting is getting a lot of attention, this July 10th meeting where two Ukrainian officials come to the White House and they meet with Ambassador Sondland. Vindman is there. Bolton is there. Fiona Hill is there. And that's when basically Gordon Sondland raises that Ukrainians need to announce investigations into Joe Biden and his family if they hope to get either a White House meeting or some of the security aid. And apparently Bolton was so upset, he cut the meeting short.

And then Sondland continues to take these Ukrainian officials into the wardroom, which is the sort of side room near the White House mess, and continue to press them on these investigations. You've got to investigate the Bidens. And Vinland heard them talk about the Bidens in Burisma, and so did Fiona Hill, apparently, according to her testimony, which also raises the possibility that Sondland was fucking perjured himself because he said, I never knew it was connected to the Bidens and

Burisma. Like, I just, I remember walking down that little hallway to the Situation Room a million times. And on the left is the White House mess where we'd get coffee and food and snacks. And then the right, you go in and you slide your key card and you can get access to the Situation Room a million times. And on the left is the White House mess where we'd get coffee and food and snacks. And then the right, you go in and you slide your key card and you can get access to the Situation Room and all those areas. And then as you just described, the ward room is a little ways up the little hallway we were just talking about. And the thought of having Gordon Sondland organizing a shakedown of these Ukrainian officials in that space is so disgusting to me. First of all, he's a moron, right? Like everyone was overhearing him do this. It wasn't subtle in any way. He's dragging these guys from one meeting to another. John Bolton's flipping out, kicking

everybody out of there. But it's like, it's such brazen corruption in a space that is supposed to be apolitical at least, or at least focused on national security. It just, it's disgusting. Yeah. And apparently, Vindman testified that Fiona Hill, who's Trump's Russia, one of Trump's Russia advisors, was so upset by it, she actually became emotional when she tried to break up the meeting. I mean, this is like, I think, I think this is all going to be important in the public testimony for what we were just saying, right?

It's because there's a whole lot of people who can be like, well, doesn't this kind of shit happen all the time, right? Like isn't this what politicians do? Isn't this horse trading? Isn't this policy differences? And you're going to have a bunch of public servants, officials who are nonpartisan, nonpartisan but worked for Donald Trump, chose to work for Donald Trump saying, no, no, no. We've been doing this for years for presidents of both parties. And this is different. This is bad. And this is different. And this is immoral. And I think that's super important as we move forward. I agree. So the Republican response to Vindman's testimony was decidedly mixed.

Donald Trump called him a never Trumper. Rudy Giuliani and Laura Ingraham accused him of being a double agent for Ukraine. accused him of being a double agent for Ukraine. Torture memo writer John Yoo accused him of espionage. And Sean Duffy of the Real World and the Real World Road Rules Challenge said that he's Ukrainian and has an affinity for Ukraine. I don't know. What was your reaction to all of that? First of all, great hire, CNN. Sean Duffy, way to land that one. I just

wish Sean had as much compassion for Colonel Vindman as he did for Montana and Genesis during the real world Boston. He was a former lumberjack. I'd love to see him bury the hatchet like he did with Jason when Jason was arguing with his girlfriend Timber.

I was reading the real world Boston wiki page before. It was a good season. It was a good season. I really liked Cyrus. This is the dregs of the Republican Party. John Yoo, Laura Ingram. I mean, look, Liz Cheney is out there defending Vindman. You're seeing all kinds of Republican senators.

Look, shout out to Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney has been calling out this kind of stuff and criticizing it when Trump crosses the line into attacking some of these folks. So it feels pretty desperate. What it does seem to do strategically is it creates space. Like these right-wing lunatics push the envelope

as far as they can to create space for almost as gross, but not as awful attacks. But when Trump calls Vindman or other people who testify never Trumpers, we also know that he defines that as scum because he tweeted it. So it's not good overall. No, Trump referred to an Iraq war hero who worked for him as human scum because he found it inappropriate that the president of the United States tried to get a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen. That's where we are. I mean, that's where, like, I just, and we should just say on the substance too, this whole Ukrainian double agent bullshit comes from, you know, a complete misunderstanding of the report. The New York Times reported at one point, the Ukrainians

reached out to Vindman and said, what are we supposed to do with fucking Rudy Giuliani? You guys have a State Department. You have all these officials that are supposed to be doing policy with Ukraine. And the president's personal lawyer is like trying to bully us into doing investigations. Like, what should we do about that? And Colonel Vindman, you know, just gets that request and is like, well, he's part of the process and he's trying to talk to them. And so because Colonel Vindman responded to their questions about Rudy Giuliani, Laura Ingram, Fox, Giuliani, all these people are saying that he's a double agent and is advising Ukraine.

That's the lie that they're that's what they're saying about that. Just so everyone knows where that's coming from. Yeah, there's two pieces of this, right? I mean, the Ukrainians reached out to Vindman because that's his job. He's the right person for them to reach out to, not the drunk lawyer on Fox News. One. Two, they're basically saying that Vindman's loyalties are somehow in question because he moved from Ukraine to the U.S. when he was three, unlike the rest of us who were just born in America. Like, I did nothing. I thank you, mom, for making me an American. Like, I didn't have to fight for it the way he did and countless others did. So it's just it's like the most cynical,

ridiculous nonsense. I think the good news is here is like it's not going to fly. That's not going to convince anybody. Yeah. I mean, you can see the Republicans problem here, right? Because Kevin McCarthy's response is like, I don't I don't question his patriotism at all. I think he's a hero, but I just have a disagreement with him. And it's like, okay, Kevin McCarthy, well, what is the disagreement? Your disagreement is the disagreement that you believe Trump pressuring a foreign government

to investigate an American citizen and his political opponent and then dangling congressionally approved aid until they do it. You think that's okay? That's your difference of opinion with the colonel who used to work for Donald Trump? Oh, interesting. Yeah, McCarthy's basically in the call was perfect camp along with Donald Trump.

So we should mention that other Trump officials have testified this week. On Wednesday, two State Department officials, Catherine Croft and Christopher Anderson, testified about Rudy Giuliani's shadow diplomacy in his scheme to get Ambassador Yovanovitch fired. Today, Thursday, Tim Morrison is testifying, who's about to be an ex-Trump NSC official working on Russia policy. You might remember Bill Taylor testifying that Morrison saw Gordon Sondland tell the Ukrainians that they weren't getting the military aid until they agreed to smear Biden. That's another person who was in that meeting. Tim Morrison was in that meeting in July 10th with Vindman and everyone else. And of course, it was announced on Wednesday that Morrison is leaving the National Security Council. Yeah,

no shit, huh? What is the significance of all these witnesses, do you think? What is this all doing to Trump's defense? I mean, they're just so sloppy. They didn't outsource the dirty work to Rudy Giuliani and leave it outside the walls of the White House. There's a lot of people cooperating. You count from the whistleblower, all the things we're hearing about withholding the military aid, withholding the meeting. I mean, Rudy Giuliani and Trump corrupted people in the NSC, in the White House. There are going to be documents, there are going to be records and emails that probably talk about some of these conversations that we're reading about. So it feels like there's a significant paper trail. There's a lot of witnesses to come. It's a fairly airtight story. Yeah. Including, it appears that we will hear from the stash himself, John Bolton, former national security advisor, whose lawyer said he will not be appearing voluntarily,

but would certainly entertain a subpoena. Bolton has been signaling for a while that he's taking care of number one here. He doesn't like Donald Trump. Yeah, he doesn't like Donald Trump. And look, I think the interesting thing is if it's one witness telling this story, you know, you can try to attack the credibility of one witness, right? If it's just John Bolton, let's say, right? National security advisor, but maybe people say, oh, well, you know, he had a grudge against Donald Trump because Donald Trump didn't want to start as many wars as Bolton did, right? Which is probably true. You know, he had a grudge against Donald Trump because Donald Trump didn't want to start as many wars as Bolton did.

Right. Which is probably true. But you have Bolton. Like when you have five or six or seven or eight of these people telling the exact same story and they're on national television telling it over and over again. Like, I think it's going to hurt. Republicans may still do their thing. You know, like they're still going to shout crazy conspiracy theories. And at the end of the day, they might vote like they voted today in the House to protect Donald Trump. But that kind of testimony from all these people who used to work for Donald Trump, his former employees will be devastating to the people watching. Yeah, I think there will be days and

days of testimony that tell a story about deep corruption in Donald Trump's dealings with the Ukrainians. And there will be a subset of the electorate, 20, 30 percent, that will only watch Fox News and will never hear about those allegations because they'll turn on Sean Hannity at night and we'll be talking about Hillary Clinton's server or some bullshit. But the vast majority of people will be exposed to this story. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope. All right. Let's talk about 2020. Tommy, you're on assignment in Iowa, which is the center of the political universe right now. All of the candidates will be in Des Moines tomorrow night, Friday night, speaking at the Liberty and Justice Celebration, formerly known as the now problematic Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

Before we get into some of the challenges certain candidates are facing, do you want to talk a little bit about why this event has traditionally been such a big deal? Yeah, it's funny. You and I are having the polar opposite political experiences right now. I don't know if you want to talk in detail about what you're doing, but I'm basically in Iowa hanging out with campaigns and young field organizers and just like, it's this like life affirming, inspiring time. And you're in Milwaukee doing focus groups with voters and it seems a little different. It is a lot different.

So I've been sort of hinting at this for a while, but I'm doing a second season of The Wilderness. And we're going to have six episodes for the second season that will be out sometime early in 2020, hopefully before the Iowa caucuses. And for this season, I decided to sort of base it around four focus groups that I did in four different regions of the country that we need to win. So for the last two weeks, I went to Philadelphia, Miami, Phoenix, and now I'm in Milwaukee. And I talked to groups of 10 to 12 voters in each place. And they're all swing voters, but different kinds of swing voters. So in Philly, it was Democrats, people who vote all the time, but they don't pay much attention to the news. They're very disengaged. And they're sort of weak Democrats. They're not like super partisan. In Miami, I talked to people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012 and then decided to stay home in 16 or vote for a third party candidate.

And in Phoenix, I talked to Romney Clinton voters, former Republicans who voted for Hillary Clinton. And then in Milwaukee, I talked to Obama Trump voters, but not just Obama Trump voters. Obama Trump voters who then in 18 voted Democrat, who voted for Tony Evers, the governor here, and Tammy Baldwin, a Democratic senator, to talk to all these people. And I will just tell you, we have our work cut out for us. Yeah. And it's not because – I mean, I'll say more in the wilderness. yeah and it's not because i mean i'll say more in the wilderness it's not necessarily because people have super partisan views one way or the other or even because these people are apathetic these people care a lot about a ton of different issues and they talk passionately about them

we are in such an information bubble not a partisan bubble an information bubble where we pay so much attention to all of this shit all day long because we're obsessed with politics and obsessed with the news. And if you're listening to Pod Save America, you know, you're probably one of these people who's very, very informed. Most of these people had no idea. A lot of them couldn't name any of the Democratic candidates except for Biden and Bernie. A few people knew Elizabeth Warren here and there, but most of them didn't know most of the candidates. Most of them didn't know anything about what's going on in impeachment. All they could say is, we heard a lot of people testified

for many hours, and it doesn't seem good for Trump. That's what a lot of them said. And so just the, and a lot of them don't, I should say a lot of them didn't like Trump. There's a couple people who are going to vote for Trump again, or thinking of voting for Trump again in these groups, but a lot of people really don't like them. But there's not a lot of love for the Democrats or the Democratic Party just yet, mainly because they don't know much about them. Yeah. Tons and tons of work to do, as you said, but that sounds fascinating. My only real people focus group was I went to an orange theory class, which it confirmed my hypothesis that if you want to make the worst playlist known to man, just go to sort of mid-market

orange theory classes all over the country and it's already there for you. But yeah, I was talking to some people who everyone's just friendly in Iowa, right? And I was like, she's like, oh, you work in the media, where? I told her, I was like, what do you listen to and watch? Oh, nothing. I kind of just turn it all off. I don't really like politics. So that's like the normal person. But like, so that for the Democratic Party in Iowa, this weekend is the Democratic Party's Liberty and Justice Dinner. It used to be called the Jefferson Jackson Dinner, the JJ. So it's a huge event. I was talking to Troy Price, the Iowa Democratic Party chair yesterday, and he told me that they have sold 13,500 tickets to this event and that he could have sold it out many times over. When we did it, John, in 2007,

it was in an auditorium that held about 9,000 people. And you remember that thing was rocking. So it's interesting this year. So the 2007 JJ was much closer to the caucuses. It was 54 days out between the JJ and the caucuses. This year, it's 94 days out. There's basically another month in between. So things feel, it feels much closer to the election day out here. You can feel the tempo increase. I've hung out with some field organizers from the Warren campaign and the Booker campaign so far. And I'm going to go see some other folks today and you can see how tired they are. But like that's still a lifetime in campaign terms. The reason that the event has traditionally been such a big deal is that this is basically like, you know, you see all these candidates on stage together at debates, but debates are sort of awful and you get a few sound bites off and that's it. You see them together at what are known as cattle calls. So like a certain organization will put on an event and all the candidates will come and they'll talk about a specific issue. this is basically an opportunity for every candidate running to give you know what is essentially their closing argument before the iowa caucuses their best case for why they should be president as opposed to all the other people who are running and at least that's how we saw it you

know like we went into the jj and um i think we were in the hunt in iowa right we were like i don't know if we were second or third but we were up there and we're doing better we're doing better but the net but nationally uh it was bad we were like down by 10 15 points nationally and we knew that barack obama had one real chance at that jj to both show organizationally with how many people we got there and um through his speech that he was a real contender and could make his case. And from the speech writing point of view, like, I mean, you remember this because you were in Iowa all summer listening to Stump speech. It was long. It was meandering. He was going to go. He was going like 40, 50 minutes at some of these events in Iowa.

And so the good thing about the JJ is it forced Obama to deliver a 10 minute speech because you can't go over the time allotted and you can't read the speech or read off a prompter or read it off a piece of paper. So he had to memorize the speech and it was hell working on that speech. But I think, you know, it really worked. It was his it was his best case. It turned out to be his best case for for his candidacy. Yeah. And you're delivering that case directly to in this this year will be thirteen thousand five hundred Democrats. You're also you know, it's a chance to hone your message and deliver it in front of these folks and show that you're ready to beat Trump. But you also get a chance to show off your organization. So all the campaigns are doing like pre rallies and the sign war stuff where you just like dance around on corners and

hold up signs that say whatever your candidate's name is on it or message or whatever to show that you have a big groundswell of people behind it. So for us in the Obama days, we had sort of a pre-rally and then we had the president and the first lady march, then Senator and Michelle, march in front of this army of people up into the auditorium. And I think it really like stunned people how organized we were. The wild thing this year, man, is like I keep waiting for people's schedules to be like, oh, I'm doing, you know, 30 stops over the course of this week. It's not just the Liberty and Justice dinner.

That's a cattle call this weekend. Then there are two forums the next day. And then a friend of the pod, Abby Finkenauer has her first ever fish fry event in Cedar Rapids. So it's like, it's like cattle call to cattle call to cattle call. So I'm still waiting for folks to hit the like extreme late Iowa tempo. Maybe they haven't yet because we do have that extra month in between the dinner and caucus day. But I'm wondering why the intensity doesn't feel even higher right now. Yeah, I guess there's still some time. People still want to keep some gas in the tank for the December and January sprint to the caucuses. But look, I will say, you know, my piece of advice to candidates and their speechwriters and advisors, if you're still working on the speech, which you probably even though the speech is tomorrow night dig deep on this one

don't don't give us the same sump lines that you always give don't don't try to find some catchy call and response with the crowd that sounds like it came from a consultant that's like really cheesy don't think of a cheesy. Like think about really why you want to be president, why you should win. You know, make the case for why you're the best candidate to beat Donald Trump and also why you'd be the best president. And just do it on your own. Like think. Think to yourself. Dig deep on this one.

Don't throw out the cheesy lines because they never work. They never work in a situation like this. Yeah. So I went and hung out with some of the folks from Iowa Starting Line, which is a great follow on Twitter, a great new website that's really covering the caucuses in depth. And they had the exact same advice. They're like, if you go in there and you give the damn stump speech you gave a year earlier or make the same jokes, they will notice, they will hate it. Do not do that. You're not introducing yourself. You're making an argument for why you should win, and you're doing it in contrast to all the others that are speaking.

So, you know, this is a big, big shot. It's a big opportunity. I wish I was there. I really want to see this. Me too. It's fun. I'll be watching it on C-SPAN probably Friday night like a nerd. Okay. It has to be like 12 speakers in a row, so it'll be long.

All right. So one candidate in particular who could use a big night is Joe Biden. Bloomberg News published a piece this week headlined, Joe Biden in danger of humiliating loss in Iowa, top Democrats warn. The story says that the former vice president is failing to spend a lot of time with voters in the state, that he's not doing the kind of retail politics you need to do in Iowa, and that his campaign's outreach hasn't been all that effective. Tommy, what did you think about the piece? And what have you seen and heard from Biden's operation in Iowa? You know, I mean, I've heard that kind of

sentiment from a lot of folks. I mean, right now, it feels like Biden is sort of half running in Iowa. He did two events yesterday in eastern Iowa. He's in Maquoketa and Dubuque, which are good places to be. Today's in Fort Dodge. But, you know, it's not that extreme tempo yet. It's not five stops a day. Meanwhile, his polling is kind of steadily ticking down and his people on background are arguing that they don't think they need to win Iowa or win New Hampshire because they've strengthened Nevada and South Carolina, in particular, because Biden does better with African-American and Latino voters. But I guess I would argue to them, I mean, if that's your belief and that's your strategy, then go there and campaign there and dominate those states and signal that you're downgrading Iowa. You don't think it's important this time around. Now, I don't think that's

necessarily a good strategy, but I think being halfway is the worst of all worlds. Well, and I think one of the reasons it's the worst of all worlds is because it's costing him a lot of money that he doesn't have. Yes. Right? Like he, I mean, you know, Ron Brownstein wrote a piece about this for CNN and he ran some figures about what everyone has spent so far on TV there. Pete Buttigieg spent $2 million on ads there. Bernie Sanders. And it's helping. Yeah. Bernie Buttigieg spent $2 million on ads there. Bernie Sanders. And it's helping.

Yeah. Bernie Sanders, $1.7 million. Biden, $700,000. I couldn't believe this. I thought it was a mistake. Warren hasn't run any TV ads yet in Iowa, and she's still in that polling position, which is so amazing. Yeah. Look, I was in a coffee shop doing work yesterday and there were three Warren field staffers there. I spent a bunch of time with her team. They are a force to be reck Pete's folks. But, you know, look, the Warren people gave us a ton of access and time, I think, because they're running a really impressive organization and they're building slowly and steadily. Yeah. So, I mean, just to go back to Biden for a second. So his campaign has already said that he doesn't need to win Iowa, right? But then there was also a poll this week from New Hampshire, the second state after Iowa, that showed Bernie Sanders at 21%,

Elizabeth Warren at 18%, and Biden at 15%. Now, I know that Biden's team is counting on him winning the fourth state, which is South Carolina. It goes Iowa and New Hampshire. The Nevada caucuses, which people don't talk about enough,

is between New Hampshire and South Carolina. And so in South Carolina, Biden has this commanding lead right now. Do you think he can wait that long to win a state and still win the nomination? I think it's very hard. I mean, I think it's a reasonable conversation to have about whether Iowa and New Hampshire are as important this year as before. Certainly the races become more nationalized, right? The DNC rules force campaigns to reprioritize their spending so that they get more donors and they make the debates. And certainly the national narrative is driving things in ways that I don't think

I experienced in 2007. But here's what I also know to be true. Despite all the jockeying by states like California to move up the calendar and the talk of de-emphasizing Iowa, all the candidates are treating Iowa like it's more important than ever. They're all here this weekend. They're building huge organizations. Kamala Harris is basically shutting down her Baltimore-based operation and moving everyone to Iowa because the election goes through Iowa. And it's not because of delegates. It's because of the massive earned media bounce you will get if you do well in the state or if you surprise people in the state. The state that seems downgraded this time a little bit to me is New Hampshire. Like you're not seeing anybody run a win New Hampshire strategy that I'm aware of. I was just going to say, like, ironically, I think the reason Iowa is more important than ever is because of the nationalization of the primaries, because if you win Iowa, there is going to be, and look, the focus groups I spoke

to this, the last two weeks sort of reinforced this for me. There are so many people in this country, democratic voters, people who are going to vote in these primaries who are still paying zero attention to what's going on. And they know of Joe Biden. There's a lot of respect for Joe Biden out there. There's not a lot of like huge passion, but there's a lot of respect for Joe Biden out there. They know Bernie Sanders. A lot of people like Bernie Sanders because they ran last time, but they have no idea who some of these other candidates are. They're going to wake up the day after someone wins the Iowa caucuses and for the first time really start paying attention to the race. And that person who wins the Iowa caucuses and for the first time really start paying attention to the race and that person who wins the Iowa caucuses is going to be introduced to the whole nation in a

way that they have never been introduced before the whole country time and time and time again and if you've lost the Iowa caucuses at that point you are going to be branded a person who just lost and all most people who vote in these primaries will know is uh that guy lost she lost he lost and that person won. So I better take a look at that person who won. That's it. It's as simple as that. And the other thing you'll get is just a huge infusion of online donations, which will help you start running ads in the later states and build organizations there, and it will just snowball. Now, I will say the argument on Biden's side here,

and this could prove to be true as well, is in South Carolina, obviously, like something like 50 percent of the Democratic electorate is African-American. And then from South Carolina, you go right to Super Tuesday three or four days later. Super Tuesday, a lot of the states in Super Tuesday have significant African-American and Latino populations. Biden is still has in every single poll a commanding lead among black voters and elizabeth warren and pete budaj don't have much support among black voters right now in any polls bernie sanders has some among black voters and latino voters for sure more than warren and pete but, you know, Biden's folks are thinking, well, if we can maintain that lead and even if we lose the first three contests and then win South

Carolina, we're set up well for Super Tuesday because there's going to be so much black voters and it is impossible. And that's this is where they're right. It is impossible to do well in Super Tuesday if with only white voters. Yeah, I think that's right. Although those numbers wouldn't make me feel great if I were Joe Biden, because I still would worry that a lot of it was name recognition. And frankly, early support tends to be soft. I mean, you're seeing even in Iowa, I think two thirds of caucus goers say they could change their minds. So, you know, and those are folks who are really focused. Yep. I totally agree with that. So another candidate who's betting big on Iowa is Kamala Harris. Her campaign announced this week that she's laying off a bunch of staff in her Baltimore headquarters and redeploying others to Iowa.

Consultants are taking pay cuts. Her campaign manager wrote in a memo, quote, plenty of winning primary campaigns like John Kerry's in 2004 and John McCain's in 2008 have had to make tough choices on their way to the nomination. And this is no different. In recent Iowa polls, Harris has trailed Warren, Biden, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. What do you think, Tommy? Smart move? Only move? Yeah, I mean, look, it's not the headline you want. It's not the place you want to be. But if I'm a Kamala Harris supporter, I want her team doing something drastic like this, right? Like more of the same is not going to win you the nomination. Kamala Harris is playing to win.

So she's going to redeploy people to the state. She's going to focus on the state where the first vote is going to happen. And I think it's her best chance of catching fire and getting some momentum and getting one of the tickets out of Iowa. getting one of the tickets out of Iowa. I mean, frankly, if I were a donor or a supporter of another candidate, I would want to know why the hell they aren't taking drastic steps like this, because like, are you playing to, you know, finish sixth in Iowa and limped into New Hampshire and drop out? Or are you playing to win? Like you got to focus your resources on the states where the vote's going to happen. It seems obvious. I totally agree. And look, obviously campaigns, when they put out memos like this are, you know, they know they're going to be public. And so there's a lot of spin in them. I will say what,

um, what her campaign manager said about John Kerry in 2004 from personal experience was absolutely correct. I mean, we often talk about how Obama was behind when we won Iowa. Well, we weren't nearly as behind as John Kerry was in the primary in 2003 at the time. I mean, we were on that primary campaign. I'll tell you, I was right out of college. We were like left for dead. John Kerry at one point fired his campaign manager. Half the staff left with the campaign manager. Bunch of other, we had no money. It was looking really bad. Most of us were like, there's no way this, we're going to be out of jobs pretty soon. And then John Kerry goes on to win the Iowa caucuses

and win the democratic nomination. Yeah. I mean, look, I, so I worked for Edwards in 04 and right. I mean, we were out of money at the end of the year, at the end of 2003, they pushed our paychecks into the next year to make it so we didn't go bankrupt and to have more cash on hand. So yeah, campaigns do desperate things, right? John Kerry, I think mortgages house in 2004 and cut himself a big check to get that last bit of advertising on TV. So look, campaigns have come back from far worse situations than this. It doesn't mean it's easy. And I think it's probably harder this year, given how many good candidates there are. But like, it's not impossible. That is that is the big difference is back in, you know, for, you know, there was a lot of love for Howard Dean. Beyond Howard Dean,

though, it's not like any of the other people ahead of John Kerry and John Edwards were like beloved and had some like huge base of support. I do think because it's so crowded up there with, like huge base of support. I do think because it's so crowded up there with, you know, Biden, Bernie, Pete and Warren, all four of whom have these growing solid bases of support. I think it's much harder to pierce that pierce that front runner status there if you're a Kamala. But look, she's making the right moves organizationally, I think. I think the question for her is the question that she's always had to face, which is, you know, what is her message? What is her rationale? And she's one of the best critics of Donald Trump in the Democratic field. I think she is one of the most charismatic candidates out there. I think she is brilliant. I've always been a Kamala Harris fan.

She is like, you know, we've interviewed her. We know her. She's just a wonderful person. She's so smart. And I just, I think she needs to break through with a message that is, that says why her and why not the other candidates at this point. So I think she's one at the JJ. I hope, you know, really, really brings it. Yeah. The thing that would give me some hope for her team is she is super competitive. She wants to win. She's playing for keeps. So if there's a will, there's a way. All right.

So we've been talking a lot about 2020, but there are a few big elections right here in 2019 on Tuesday. In Virginia, Democrats have a chance to take control of the legislature, meaning they would have the governor's office and the legislature. Tommy, what would that mean for the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia? It would be huge. It could be huge. They could be the 38th state

to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which would mandate that states and federal laws give people the same rights regardless of their sex, which is a huge deal. They could raise the minimum wage. Democrats could raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Virginia lawmakers could pass gun control measures. They could restore voting rights to people who were formerly incarcerated. We will be in a much better position ahead of redistricting. It's a big,

important deal. And, you know, I feel like Democrats are focused on it, but we could do even more in this final push. Yeah. I noticed there was a Washington Post story today about these races and Republican legislators who are running in suburbs and suburbs now they're very nervous about because in pictures with Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor, talking about bipartisanship, talking about how they're for minimum wage, too. I mean, these Republicans are trying to run as Democrats because they're so scared about this race, which is a great thing. I love it. It's also very deceptive, so we got to be careful. So they, you know, we should call them out on their bullshit there. But you look, we only need to flip a few seats here. And that's what's really important. And so, you know, if you want to volunteer, there's there's volunteer opportunities near you.

If you're near Virginia, if you're in D.C., there's also remote volunteer opportunities. You can go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash volunteer people in Virginia need your help. We really, really want a Democratic legislature. people in Virginia need your help. We really, really want a Democratic legislature. Yeah. And just a quick thank you to Crooked Media listeners across all the shows, because we raised $230,000 for some really targeted candidates in those Virginia state legislative races. And that's a credit to people who listen to these shows and really, really care about politics, even at the local level. And it's just, it's pretty amazing. Yes. Thank you. It made a real difference. Other big election is in Kentucky,

where Democrat Andy Beshear, the state's attorney general, is trying to unseat Matt Bevin, who has the distinction of being the least popular governor in the country with a 33% approval rating. What's at stake in this race, Tommy? Well, Bevin was trying to gut education funding, teacher pensions. He was undermining the state's very successful Medicaid expansion. So, which obviously, you know, there are enormous implications of that from opioids, such as general health. So look, I mean, Kentucky is a tough state, but boy, would it be fun to win this one and make Mitch McConnell sweat about 2020. to win this one and make Mitch McConnell sweat about 2020.

Yeah. I mean, and look, it's amazing that we even have a chance here, partly because Bevin is so incredibly unpopular. But, you know, it doesn't get much redder than Kentucky, especially in this age of polarization. So we should be under no illusions how tough this race is. But because Bashir has a chance, we should also be all in on this. And again, there are remote volunteer opportunities at votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer if you want to help in this final stretch. There are also important races all over the country. In other states like Mississippi, Louisiana, there's mayoral races, district attorney races, ballot initiatives, including a ballot initiative in Washington State that would make it the 43rd state to support affirmative action. So go see again, if you're one of the lucky voters with an election on Tuesday, you can find out what's

on your ballot and make a plan to vote at votesaveamerica.com. So go check that out. Check it out. That's all I got, Tommy. Anything else from you? No, that's all I got. I just want to give a shout out to Governor Steve Bullock and his campaign for getting the mooch to endorse him via a $100 purchase on the Cameo app. That is hilarious. Good work. That is the funniest thing.

That is one of the funniest things I've seen in this whole primary. Good for you, Steve Bullock. Good for them. All right, man. Have fun at the JJ. Wish I was there and report back on how it was. All right, buddy. We'll do it. Talk to you guys later. All right, man. Have fun at the JJ. Wish I was there and report back on how it was. All right, buddy. Will do.

Talk to you guys later. All right, later. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. Thank you.