Pod Save America - "Redactions Speak Louder."

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Donald Trump and his pals threaten riots in the streets if the GOP frontrunner is charged w a crime, New York’s newest congressman Pat Ryan joins to talk about what Democrats can learn from his surprise victory in last week’s special election, and Republican politicians are outraged that Joe Biden is helping people with student debt. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. Jon Lovett is still on vacation. Still finding himself. We shouldn't scold other vacations because he who scolded the first. It's the last vacation. I was just gone for the Thursday pod. Yeah, no, right. It's just been a while without Lovett. That's all. It's just poor Dan. Dan actually killed it. Dan was out there doing basically three separate parts of different interviews with Melissa, actually being smart on legal matters, which we will not replicate today.

Yeah. We're going to go full dumb. No, full dumb. Here we go. On today's show, Donald Trump and his pals threaten riots in the streets if the GOP frontrunner is charged with a crime. New York's newest congressman, Pat Ryan, joins to talk about what Democrats can learn from his surprise victory in last week's special election. And Republican politicians are outraged that Joe Biden is helping people with student debt. Outraged. But first, if you haven't tuned into Another Russia yet, now is your chance to hear Janna recount the night of her father's assassination and reflect on what her father's legacy means for present day Russia.

This is a fantastic podcast from Crooked Media, Another Russia. And Ben Rhodes. Ben Rhodes, part of it as well. The final episode of Another Russia is out now, and you can binge all six episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Binge away.

All right, let's get to the news, Tommy. So Republicans have long hoped that this midterm would be a referendum on Joe Biden, but Donald Trump's potential crimes keep getting in the way. Yeah, he's very busy. On Friday, the Justice Department unsealed the 32-page affidavit that persuaded a judge to approve the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

More than half of the document remained redacted, so we didn't get to see all the good stuff. But here's what we now know. 184 classified documents that Trump voluntarily returned back in January contained some of the government's most highly classified secrets and could have jeopardized human intelligence sources if they fell into the wrong hands. This is what the government believed. This is what they said in the affidavit to get the search warrant. The government after that then obtained evidence that Trump was withholding additional classified documents and made multiple attempts to get them back before concluding in the affidavit that DOJ had, quote, probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at Mar-a-Lago. So the documents the government received in January. What is the evidence of obstruction tapes? Is it Trump just like giving the Heisman to a bunch of FBI guys trying to get

in a basement? Well, it's a great question. The things we don't know is they recovered a bunch of surveillance footage. So they have that. They want more. I think they've interviewed a whole bunch of witnesses who they're trying to protect the identities of. So they've got witness testimony. There's surveillance footage who knows what kind of physical evidence they have but they clearly had enough to persuade a judge that there was enough cause for a search you just you just go to your cousin's tacky wedding in mar-a-lago and you end up being a witness in this fbi investigation yeah who do you think who are the witnesses some poor caterers like god damn it i was looking for ketchup so the documents that

they got back in january the first tranche um had quite a few classified markings that I know you're familiar with. Some tranches. Can you walk us through some of them and explain a little bit more about the government's concern about human intelligence sources? What does that mean? So the part of the affidavit that caught my eye was as follows. Quote, 25 documents marked as top secret. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments slash dissemination controls. HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI.

Several of the documents also contained what appears to be F-POTUS. Oh, my God. This took me back in time. I haven't heard someone say ORCON in so long. It tickled my little NSE. Tommy and Ben would just throw around acronyms like that in This took me back in time. I haven't heard someone say Oricon in so long. It tickled my little NSE soul. Tommy and Ben would just throw around acronyms like that in the White House all the time and none of us would know what the fuck they're talking about. We all have our favorite little intelligence products.

Mine was the DID, the Defense Intel Digest, because I have like little cool maps and photos of like Chinese missiles and shit. Yeah, no, I literally did. It came to my little cubby in the Situation Room. Cool, cool. So no foreign means you can't share the information with foreign governments. That might seem sort of like confusing and it doesn't need to be said to people, but we have partnerships with close allies where we share intel.

The Five Eyes is the notable one, which is the us, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. Orcon means the originator of the document has to okay it before you can share it. So it's a way of controlling information that's very close hold. Here's one where my eyes really perked up. FISA is a reference to information derived from surveillance, the FISA courts, the surveillance of spies in the US. It's pretty very sensitive.

Yeah, because you're something to do with Americans. I mean, it's very sensitive stuff. SI is a reference to SCI or sensitive compartmented information, which is information or programs that are so sensitive that it's not, you just don't get access to them because you have a clearance. You have to get read into them on a need to know basis. Those are the most closely held secrets. And that's like, you have top secret clearance

and you still might not get read into those programs because they're basically a need to know basis. Yeah. And that's sort of the deal with most intelligence. Like your top secret clearance, your TSSCI clearance is table stakes, gets you in the door. But someone important has to decide you have a need to know a certain amount of information. For example, I had top secret clearance and people decided that I needed to know nothing. There you go. The entire five years I was in government. Well, listen, and I think that worked out well for everybody. Because I was just the speech writer.

So why would you tell me anything? I'm not going to put it in the speech. Yeah, that's kind of hard. Right. Well, yeah. Ben and I, you know, we worked at that sort of intersection of of communications and nsc stuff and then you start something like how do i know you needed to know what you couldn't say you need to know what not to say and then finally hcs is information derived from spies clandestine sources

so people we have working in foreign countries often and that is arguably the most important information because if they get exposed you don't just lose access to that information going forward. Those people could be killed. And so the HCS, the the human derived information I usually saw tended to fudge the origin as much as possible. It would be like a source with direct access or a source with indirect access to so and so said the following. But like when you're the president, you get all the detail you want or don't want, right? Because you kind of, and think about it, like you want to know, okay, but really how good is this source with quote unquote direct access? Is this some random schlub that we're paying off? Is this someone

really, you know, dedicated to the American cause? And so- If this is going to lead me to make some national security decision, that's life or death. I want to know what the source is. I want to know how good the source is. That's the point of intelligence. It's not just cool. It's not, we don't gather it for the sake of gathering things. It's so policymakers can make better informed decisions. So the president is going to get the most sensitive stuff. And so when I saw HCS information, it did make me wonder, hmm, were there real specifics about sources of foreign intelligence in countries? Then it mentioned Trump had handwritten notes, because sometimes the really sensitive stuff does not get written down on the piece of paper. It

gets briefed to you orally. And if he's like jotting down notes in the PDB, that's not good. So now does he seem like much of a note taker? Well, I mean, in general, no. As a general matter, you're right, John. But it did note that he had taken notes, which made me wonder. I mean, I do think this is all important because, you know, Republicans and others will ultimately try to downplay this. It's like, you know, you saw fucking Mick Mulvaney tweeting about this, CBS commentator Mick Mulvaney. He's like, this is all a bunch of bunch of papers and documents but it donald trump brings highly classified secrets to his beach house leaves them around with very little security right that and people find them uh foreign spies other people

that shouldn't have them that could jeopardize people's lives that could jeopardize our national security it's also just we have rules you can't do you can't do that i mean there's that but he doesn't care about the rules but it really i mean it feels like you know foreign this this this kind of classified information in the wrong hands could jeopardize national security i thought there was a chance that there would be a bunch of documents marked confidential or secret level which are things you you cannot take with you to your beach house and, you know, put underneath your club sandwich or whatever it is he does, but is less likely to be really, really sensitive.

When you start getting into like some of the acronyms I mentioned earlier, that's when it's very worrisome that this was just sitting around. And it seems like the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said they're conducting a national security assessment now, the intelligence agency, so they can figure out how much damage Trump may have caused by leaving state secrets around his address. Yeah, they've forgotten to the wrong hands. Did you see Don Jr.'s defense of his father on Instagram? I did, Tommy. They're really focused on the redactions issue. And Don Jr., in sort of typical dad, father, son stuff, posted a photo of his dad where he redacted sort of the genitalia region but like

an extra big exaggerated way so again to compliment his dad don jr logs on instagram in the morning he's like what can i post about my dad's dick that's what i'm gonna do today and i have to make sure that it's complimentary because eric's out there and who knows what he's gonna do i'm in my mid-40s i need the hug so i'm gonna post an instagram about my father's genitalia that that is this is the weirdest thing it's so weird their family's so weird it's just i can't even fucking weird anyway i do think so there's obviously the mishandling of all this information and by the way the you know the whole like i declassified things we've been saying this for a couple episodes now that like that doesn't really matter. But of course, again, in the affidavit, we realize that like the classification, the laws that Trump may have broken here do not rely on the classification status of these documents.

You know, it's obstruction of justice. I mean, the poor people at the FBI and the National Archives spent over a year trying to get this stuff back. Just give us the papers back, man. Everything would have gone away. Well, it's also clear that the FBI came to suspect that Trump and his team were hiding the fact that he still had more classified documents in Mar-a-Lago. So that's the other big piece of this that we don't know yet, but that clearly led to the search, which is they're like, they think that he was lying to them. They didn't just think think he forgot they didn't just think he had some extra ones laying around they have reason to believe that he was lying and purposely withholding classified info from them and trump also hung out hung his

poor lawyer not poor idiot lawyer out to dry and had her sign a document to the fbi saying he'd returned all the classified information when he had not i wouldn't want to be in her shoes uh the washington post also reported that trump often took boxes filled with classified documents with him on foreign trips. Is that best practices? Is that a safe way to handle classified info? I mean, probably not in a box. Look, again, I don't want to like fetishize classified information or like act like it's, but presidents can read classified information on foreign trips, but there are specialized times and places and processes to do it, right? Because imagine we would go with Obama on a 10-day trip to Asia.

It's not like terrorism goes away during that time. Yeah, it's got to read classified information. You got to get the PDB. But so, I mean, you remember this, John. Like, you would be in a hotel with the president, and the national security staff would set up a room or suite of rooms for this purpose. The computers there would be hooked up to some secure satellite link. Sometimes there'd be tents? They would put up those blue puff tents.

What are those? So in case there's spy cameras in the walls, there would be those weird sound machines playing creepy stuff so that no one could record what you were doing. In really aggressive countries, I think this is Mike McFaul's book about his time in Russia as ambassador.

You basically had to construct like a mini metal submarine for the president in Russia to get his briefing because the Russians were so intense with their spying. So I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure Trump was following all those protocols. Right. But again, it's like that's when you're the president and you're surrounded by people protecting you and the information and you need to access it because you're making policy decisions, not when you're deciding to play. He's in his hotel room with these documents, like with fucking, you know, McDonald's grease all over. And today it's like, should I play nine or 18? You know, that's the, that's the tough call. So one thing the government makes clear in the affidavit is that their investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified info is far from over. And the New York Times has a couple sources that said prosecutors working on the investigation are nowhere near making a recommendation to Attorney General Garland about whether Trump should be charged with a crime.

As you can imagine, Trump and his goons aren't taking this very well. Trump's been truthing up a storm. A lot of truthing. He truthed that he should be declared the rightful winner of the 2020 election today. Actually, he gave everyone a choice. He said, either I should be immediately declared the rightful winner of the 2020 election, or we should just do it over. Just run it back. Just do it over.

He's the most annoying guy at the pickup basketball game. He was like, if I was a foul and I I win or else I'm taking the ball and leaving. So that's what he did today. And then on Sunday night, he truthed this Fox News clip of his friend, Lindsey Graham. If there's a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle, which you presided over and did a hell of a good job, there'll be riots in the streets. Riots in the streets.

That's just stuffed up. Josh Hawley also said this, that there'd be riots in the streets riots in the streets stuffed up josh holly also said this that there'd be riots in the streets if trump is arrested like do you think they're just trying to intentionally scare the justice department into dropping the case like how dangerous is this kind of rhetoric i kind of do i mean it feels pretty dangerous to me it feels like they really are trying to intimidate doj i hope it gets the opposite reaction from the department of justice because the kind of the whole point is equal justice under the law. Look, Hawley and Graham also desperately, pathetically, satiably desire for Trump and the MAGA base to love them, but they never will. That is true.

You know, and so I kept thinking about Lindsey and his impassioned January 6th, January 7th at that point, all I can say is count me out. Enough is enough speech the night after the insurrection. But like, you know, this is a guy in 2016 who is calling for a special prosecutor to look into Hillary's emails. Again, we don't know if Trump is going to be charged. All we know is that in this instance, because it's Trump, Graham is saying, I don't care what the evidence says. I don't care about all these smoking guns that are in the news or in the affidavit or that have been admitted to. I think that my friend should not be prosecuted. For what reason? No, their argument is that Donald Trump is above the law. So he couldn't be charged for doing anything when he was president because he was president, but he also couldn't be impeached.

And now that he's not president anymore, he can't be charged with anything because he might be running for president again. So basically it's like, no matter what Donald Trump does, there's always some reason why he shouldn't be charged. And basically the argument now is that so many people like Donald Trump, that he has so many supporters that they will get upset and riot and cause violence if something happens to Donaldald trump so you better let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do because otherwise there'll be violence in the streets that's what they're saying well i mean also you know yeah yeah we know there'll be violence in the streets we we watch that but some limits like just attack the fbi office too i mean this is it's

beyond irresponsible it's really it's pretty reprehensible well and what does it say to the uh to people who are watching lindsey graham on Hawley and, and following Donald Trump when they say, oh, there's going to be violence in the streets and there's in comparing the FBI to the Gestapo and all this kind of bullshit. Like it's getting very, this is, this is how you get, you know, sort of right wing violence. And we've seen it before with Oklahoma city bombing, Tim McVeigh, like this is, this is the kind of shit that we're getting again flip side spin zone it's probably keeping truth social afloat i heard they're having a tough time apparently they're in arrears uh fox news broke the not enough a million dollars to some vendor but i guess he's finally you know driving people to

the platform they're not they're not truth and hard enough not truth enough it is sort of interesting that like trump here is just he's only trying to win the political battle about this and he's not yeah the legal battle's not going well for him at all right i mean the new york times uh said that boris eftstein who's the marble mouthed um former sort of surrogate director in the white house for like seven minutes and now steve bannon co-host is the closest thing to a real lawyer that they have? They call them the closest thing to a legal quarter, the quarterback, the legal quarterback for the whole team. Yeah, that's your Tom Brady. He also hired, he found some guy named Jim Trustee

who he hired to be his lawyer because he saw him on television, which is how he finds all his best people. That's how Jared found Peter Navarro. He Googled China bad. But they just don't, it's interesting though because this is the first time where, like, obviously it matters who wins this political battle. And Trump's certainly doing his best to,

like, rev up his base here, though I don't think he's doing that well with the rest of the country. But, like, at some point, the legal system, it could come for him. And there's nothing he can do to get out of that by just winning a political argument. My concern when I first read about this FBI non-raid, don't say raid, you'll get in big trouble. This first, this very lawful, orderly. The visit. Visit. If you have a visit.

Right, it's a visit. It's a check-in. Again, they were wearing cargo shorts. Is it visiting like the way Southern people say or like? How do Southern people say? It's like having dinner. I'll lodge away in later if I'm getting this wrong. Anyway, when the FBI went, I was like, ah, shit, you know, Trump could probably use this and, and motivate his base to turn out for Republicans in the midterms.

If he would just kind of make that message turn. But in my mind, I thought, don't worry about that because it's far more likely that he'll use it to, uh, shovel money into his super PAC and raise money for himself and just kind of grift off it. And that's kind of what's happened. He's doing what he always does, which is making it all about himself. And for the people who are his biggest fans, who will always be his biggest fans, they're going to get revved up about it. And I worry less about the political consequences than the actual violence that could come from it. Yeah, that would be very terrible.

You know, like that's a legitimate worry on the political side yeah maybe he has cemented his grip on uh his his biggest maga fans but like he he kind of had that even still maybe you know the people like declaring that he's the nominee david brooks uh 30 seconds after this happened like i don't know the thing people don't like about trump is the chaos and the tweeting and the constant controversies and like we'll see how this wears over time i do think as i always have that it is um it is very difficult to be merrick garland right now because that's a tough gig when you actually make the decision say you make the decision to indict trump that is that in all

the chaos that comes with that he's also that stuff but if you don't do it if if you know there is a case to be brought against trump that would have been brought against other people who committed the same kind of crime and you don't bring it because you're worried about the political consequences what does that say too i mean it's a very it's also going to get tagged with just a brutal nickname what's that i don't know it's coming though oh merrick oh trump's going to tag him merrick garland with a brutal nickname i mean it's gonna it's gonna well it's a lot to work with well sign up for truth social find it there first um we are like 10 weeks out from the midterms um do you think kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell had a criminal investigation of their party's 2024 front runner

on the message calendar for this month you think those guys are psyched they probably should have you know yeah they should you can't predict a lot of things in politics but like this one that was an easy bet they are kind of quieting down a little bit the republicans yeah there's nobody on the sunday shows right it was just sort of they're sort of doing that like roy blunt was there he was like yeah he should have turned the documents over more quickly and whatever but like why is this happening now? It's like, well, it's happening now because it took him this long

to get the documents back. Yeah, I thought Melissa Murray made an interesting and compelling point that there was this long back and forth between DOJ and the Trump team. And basically the FBI kind of went and retrieved the documents in a calm and lawful manner

at the last kind of moment they thought was reasonable, given their guidelines about not taking major actions before an election. And so we might not hear any more from them for a while. But I was listening to that too. And there's always a timeline problem, right? Because she's right. There's the timeline for the election problem. So like, say, if you're Trump, the midterms happen, if you're trump the midterms happen you announce immediately after the midterms and now doj is thinking well now he's a presidential candidate yeah they can't think that they're that's what i'm saying like my i heard her say that and i was

like ah yes that is worrisome but also you are morons if you let that impact your decision because as dan noted everyone would run for president right so i just want to give merrick no you can't touch me i'm running for president no nope sorry officer i am running for president i am a leading contender of my party for my party's nomination i can do whatever i please thank you very much yeah no i don't think it's great for them i think uh uh i think some of the president's biggest uh biggest cheerleaders have uh have gone a little bit quiet so i don't't know that it's going to be I don't know if it's going to be the base rallying boon that people thought it was. We'll see. We'll try. I mean, look, it's nonstop. It's a grievance factory. You know, we're just constantly banging out widgets of grievance.

And so we'll see how long this one lasts. I don't know. said too that like the more the party appears to voters like all therefore is defending donald trump um the less that's going to win new people over i mean we just like people people have all kinds of problems like look when the party was like we're going to make this about inflation we're gonna make this about the problems that people worried about and how joe biden hasn't fixed them that's one thing when the party's like uh we're gonna make this election about defending donald trump and by the way if you give us power we're gonna impeach joe biden that's vote republican we'll drag you through an impeachment and we'll uh do whatever it takes to defend donald trump that's what that's what republicans give you i mean meanwhile democrats are shoving 380 billion

climate change spending through congress and like yeah we are they're not defending it because they're talking about this stuff uh well we're going to talk more about that later in terms of the student debt relief. But when we come back, we will talk to the newest congressman from the state of New York who just won a special election last week, Pat Ryan. Joining us now is the newest congressman from the state of new york who last week won a special election in a swing district that previously voted for donald trump pat ryan welcome to the pod guys thank you for having me i can't actually believe i'm on this show it's really an honor who us yeah you've fallen that far you didn't even think you'd have to do this

i stooped to this level there were some dark moments there were some dark moments in late 2016 and early 2017 and you guys were a a ray of hope so god that is you continue it that is kind of you to say um so you weren't supposed to win this race you were outspent three to one the d triple c didn't spend any money at all district that biden won by less than two points in 2020. I saw that even you and your advisors were surprised you won. How did you do it? What do you think happened now that you've looked back at the last couple of weeks?

Well, I think there was like the surprise of the moment that it actually happened. But at a broader level, I actually, I think we saw this building at least for the last few weeks of what was a very short campaign it was only about three months um i mean what we really just tried to do is be clear and unequivocal and say here are a set of what i think are broadly shared american values and we're going to stand up we're going to ask people to stand with us, and really orienting the threats to fundamental rights and freedoms under a larger umbrella of a unifying idea that Americans still very much believe in and want to fight for freedom.

And I think a lot of it too is just, we are at a moment where folks are needing to see the fight in us, like to say, this is what we believe on a personal level. It's what we believe as a collective, it's what we believe as a country. And we're going to stand up and actually really go all in on that and not pull test it, not pull our punches, not triangulate, but just actually own that and be authentic are you related to paul ryan dan pfeiffer wanted me to ask there's still like a lot of people that that sub in paul and pad and it really hurts my soul every time every time i hear tim ryan you know i would would much more proudly claim Tim Ryan,

but I'm not related to either of them. Well, yeah, but Paul really sullied the Ryan brand because you guys were riding high with Jack Ryan for a while, right? There's like a whole cool vibe going on. And this schmuck comes in and, you know, it's a gut entitlement program. A better Ryan in Congress is what we have now. My wife would not allow me to put Jack at the top of our two boys' name list. I tried everything I could, every trick I had.

I grew up reading Tom Clancy novels, so that tells you how huge of a nerd I am. But we got to bring that back. They're great novels. Back to the race, now that we clarified that for Dan. Again, that was for Dan only. A lot of pollsters and a lot of organizers all around the country have noticed this seismic shift since the Dobbs decision and voters coming out focused on abortion rights. Did your team feel that as well? And if so, how does that manifest on a campaign like yours? Is it more volunteers, money, something else?

So what was really interesting is the whole special election almost coincided exactly with the Dobbs decision. The leaked Dobbs decision came out right at the same time that then Congressman, now Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado was making that sort of move and the special election was on the horizon. And so a few days after the leak decision, I was at a whole bunch of rallies and protests across the community, across the district in response to the leak. And just like the outrage, the anger, the frustration, the disappointment. I mean, there were people, a lot of people openly bawling and crying. And to me, it was just clear immediately that this hit in a much deeper, more foundational level on rights and freedoms that folks had worked really hard to secure that meant so much to so

many people, and also portended further grabs at other rights as telegraphed by Justice Thomas's opinion. So we immediately oriented around that and it resulted in incredible volunteer numbers, grassroots financial support. I know people might make fun of this, but we couldn't keep yard signs in our office, which in a kind of like unexpected off cycle special election mattered, I think, a lot to get people energized. And we saw that in the Democratic turnout numbers on election night. So I really just think that people were pissed. I mean, people were rightly pissed, women especially, men, dads, moms, grandparents.

Like it just struck a deeper level. dads, moms, grandparents, like it just struck a deeper level. And I think the ground has certainly the political ground and the moral ground has shifted in the country. Republicans are saying, you know, you only won because it was a closed primary, which in New York is historically meant that Democrats usually turn out at much higher rates than Republicans or independents who can't vote in party primaries. How much of that is just their bullshit spin? And how much are you what's what's your take on that? I think there's a lot of bullshit spin from Republicans right now.

I think that you look at what happened over the course of the final few weeks of this campaign. They were in pure panic mode. I mean, they started the campaign with the tired Biden inflation hits and all that stuff. That was clearly not working. They weren't seeing that move the needle. Then they dusted off the racist, nasty, you're against public safety. You marched with Black Lives Matter, tired attack, that didn't land. By the end of the campaign, my opponent who pretended to be a moderate was attached at the

hip to Elise Stefanik almost every single day with her and appearing on Newsmax and Breitbart. I mean, it was bad. And none of it worked. Yeah, none of it worked too. So I mean, I think at the end of the day, the other thing when you zoom out is like we really gave people something to be for, to fight for, to rally behind. And there was just nothing on the other side of that. It was a bunch of negativity and cynicism. really a hopeful, optimistic point where, for me, the idea that not every American was directly affected maybe by the decision, but I think people are smart enough and attuned enough and thoughtful enough to get that this affects their whole community and people they love. And they said, that's not who we are as a country and we're going to stand up. It also feels like the most urgent and powerful example of Republican extremism on a host of other issues.

How much did you sort of connect it to the party becoming extreme on a bunch of things that people really care about? That's, I think, a really important takeaway here. vote. That's, I think, a really important takeaway here. We certainly, and I think rightly centered abortion rights, Roe being ripped away. But we put it under this broader umbrella of threats to freedoms, threats to democracy. Of course, remembering, it feels so long ago, but the Dobbs decision was only 24 hours after another seismic Supreme Court decision, putting more deadly guns on the streets, combined with January 6th, combined with the case on dismantling the EPA. I mean, the cumulative effect of what's happening can't be underestimated here. And I think that, again, people are smart and they see that

the Dobbs decision is representative of this really cynical, divisive, dark grab at rights, and they just have rejected it. You know, you went to West Point, you were a veteran, you served in the US Army in Iraq. How many top secret documents are in your basement? It's part one of that. And two, I mean, seriously, you know, we're a year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. We're like two decades plus after, you know, the quote unquote war on terror began after the 9-11 attacks. Just curious, like how you reflect on that time, the decisions made, things that went well and didn't,

and how that might inform the choices you make and the votes you take as a member of Congress. I mean, part of the question is we cannot turn our eyes away from the fact that a fundamental breach of public trust was conducted by the former president. I mean, I had a top secret SCI clearance. I was an intel officer. It's almost just like all my friends that were innocent. Yeah. It's like you could just not even imagine doing that. I mean, it's just so beyond the pale. Would you be court-martialed if you had this shit in your house? You would be court-martialed. I would be in jail. 100% I would be in jail. And it's just not even a question. And it just so much more

broadly represents a disdain and a disrespect for trust and accountability. And I think reminding people of that, this is a sacred trust when you have a security clearance. These are national secrets, as you all know. And to break that trust and then not accept the accountability for that, it just goes again against, I think, things we can all agree on. And yeah, I mean, the second part of your question is really personal and deep for me, where, like, a big part of the reason that I'm seeking or sought, I guess, and I'm still setting in that we've had the outcome we have here. Iraq, a really bad foreign policy, like the decision to go and the deception and dishonesty around that, the conduct itself. And I felt that in deeply personal ways that still very much stick with me. And then you look at what's happening in the world right now, continued rise of nationalism, continued growing inequality, Russia, China's growing muscle flexing.

I mean, it's a really scary time, especially to be a dad. Like I have two young boys. I am like legit worried that they could be fighting in a major war if we don't come up with a more thoughtful, nuanced strategy that understands history, that understands the limits of the use of military force, and just is re-centered in sort of foundational values that I think we've lost our way on a little bit. So last week, Joe Biden announced a big student debt relief plan. Most Democrats have praised it, though some candidates in tough races like Tim Ryan, who you're not related to, have criticized it for not helping people

without college degrees. What do you make of that criticism? And what do you think about Biden's plan? I think it's desperately needed. I think any relief for folks that have this tremendous weight on their shoulders is huge. It shows that we care. It shows that we're listening to people. And it's liberating for those under that weight. And then it's also, I think, empowering to think about what it could mean looking ahead a generation out.

I still always try to remind people of the impact of the GI Bill post-World War II for my grandpa's generation, what that built for our economy as sort of the impact of the GI Bill post-World War II for my grandpa's generation, what that built for our economy as sort of the core of the middle class. So I think it's a hugely important thing and I applaud it. In terms of the criticism, I mean, I think it's disappointing. I mean, I think the idea that just because we can't help everybody, we shouldn't help anybody. It goes against who we are as Americans. I think the idea that I've got mine and so you shouldn't have yours goes against who we are as Americans. And it's another cynical attempt, I think, to divide folks when in fact, we all know a lot of people, there's 43 million people that are going to get this relief.

a lot of people, there's 43 million people that are going to get this relief. We all are one degree of separation at most, maybe two from someone impacted by this. So just reminding people of that and personalizing it, I think is really important. No one trusts polls anymore, right? Except for guys named Nate with blue checks on Twitter. So we're all looking at special elections. We're looking at people like you. We're looking at the referendum in Kansas. And right now you are an oracle. You know everything. So I'm curious what your advice would be to all the people, the DCCC or the DSCC,

about how you capitalize on this moment and win in these midterms, because we obviously know how important they are. I mean, number one, you got to come out with a lot of humility. All campaigns, the job serving in office. I mean, that's what's also lacking in our politics right now, I think. But I mean, one of the upsides of this being an unexpected special election with very little time is like, we just said what we believe. I mean, we just genuinely stood up and said, here are values that we think are really important that are actually unifying the idea of freedom and choice.

And that when those are under threat, we're going to stand up not just for ourselves, but for others. And we didn't have time really to do all the typical watering down and diluting and adding the pablum that comes. And that's also just not how I want to operate regardless of the time that we have. You got to hire guys like us. Don't start now. You have too much time between now and November. You got another race to run. I mean, the good news is we really don't have to and we won't change our message. We won't change the intensity. I think the importance of showing a fight and a backbone is not to be underestimated. In our politics right now, I just think people are so, so distrustful of the the people telling them what they want to hear and it's almost like

jarring for people to say yeah we're not going to agree on everything that is kind of what it's about and that's okay but i'm going to say this with conviction i'm going to say it with deep love for this country i mean that's what, again, reminding people that we can have those disagreements, at least about some of the policy ideas. But when we cross certain thresholds and sort of guardrails of democracy, it then becomes an actual patriotic duty to stand up and rise above the current partisan framing. Yeah, running scared never seems to actually work. No. I'm very bad at that. Us Democrats. Well, especially, and like you said, people have so little faith in government and politics right now that I do think it's very appealing when someone comes up and says, actually, this is what I believe. And if you're with me,

that's great. And if you're not, that's okay. But this is what I believe. Yeah. And look, we're going to listen. We're going to represent everybody and do's great. And if you're not, that's okay. But this is what I believe. Yeah. And look, we're going to listen. We're going to represent everybody and do the work. But absolutely. I mean, I think, yeah, I just think that's kind of the moment that we're at. I am genuinely encouraged for our country right now. Like, I really think that people, I'm really proud that people, like, I think people see what's happening. I think they see the recent poll a week or two ago that threats to democracy is now the number one issue. I think

it was an NBC poll really resonated with me. That's kind of what I felt on the ground and that people are linking the attack, really coordinated attack on reproductive rights as part of a larger threat to core freedoms and rights. And it's not going to happen overnight, but I think there's sort of a reawakening of our responsibility to a higher set or maybe actually a deeper set of values. Congressman Ryan, your optimism is infectious.

Yeah, really. I'm going to keep it with me now. I want to feel more cynical. Next time I look at polls or go through Twitter, I'm going to remember this interview. Can't be my normal self now. Thank you so much for coming on the pod and sharing some wisdom from your race.

And good luck in November. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate you having me on and everything that you do. All right, before we go, we should talk about the political fallout over Joe Biden's decision to help millions of low- and middle-income people who are struggling with federal student loan debt. In case any of you missed it, the Department of Education will now forgive $10,000 of debt

for individuals making under $125,000 and households making under $250,000. They'll forgive $20,000 of debt for federal Pell Grant recipients, nearly all of whom come from families with incomes of $60,000 of debt for federal Pell Grant recipients, nearly all of whom come from families with incomes of $60,000 or less. And going forward, and this is a big part of the plan too, they'll cap monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower's income. So you're not going to pay any more than 5% of your income every month on your student loans. That's about half the rate that most people pay right now. Biden's move was praised by most Democrats,

criticized by a few center-left economists, and met with outrage by most Republicans. Here's a sample. If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can't get a job. Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand. Like, holy cow, 20 grand. That, you know, maybe you weren't going to vote in November and suddenly you just got 20 grand.

And, you know, if you can, you know, get off the bong for a minute and head down to the voting station. Taxpayers all over the country, taxpayers that never took out a student loan, taxpayers that pay their bills and, you bills and maybe even never went to college or just hardworking people, they shouldn't have to pay off the great big student loan debt for some college student that piled up massive debt going to some Ivy League school. That's not fair. I owed over $100,000 in student loans. The day I got elected to the Senate, I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book.

And from that money, I was able to pay it. If not, I would never, I'd still be paying. Tommy, what do you make of all that Republican whining? Aside from, God, Ted Cruz's voice in my ears just give me a fucking headache. It's just heinous. No, I think Marco Rubio is making a good point there. The appropriate way to pay off your loans is you get elected to the U.S. Senate. You barely show up for work.

You do like a funny thing with a water bottle on TV and you just humiliate yourself. Then you run for president and you hire a ghostwriter. And then you pay off your loans based on purely hype and bulk purchases from conservative organizations. We pay Marco Rubio $174,000 a year. That is what we pay. And then because of his profile, he got to write a book that helped him pay off his student loans. Yeah, that is a path you can follow.

Do you think that Ted Cruz thinks like Animal House and PCU and like, do you think those are documentaries? It's the most lame cliche. Get off the bong. College. We take edibles Ted. Also. Okay bong again. It was in the late 90s. But also can we just okay how

we went through this whole Hillary Clinton deplorable thing. The Barack Obama attacking people clinging to their guns and religions. The contempt for voters. Now we have yeah Ted Cruz just open contempt for people who work at coffee shops. Baristas work really hard. Open contempt now from Ted Cruz for people who serve coffee to other people. Honestly. That is from the Republican Party.

If you work at a Starbucks and you see Ted Cruz in there, please let him know. Imagine if a Democratic politician was sitting there attacking a construction worker. It's just unthinkable. Also, was that MTG? Was that the other one? Yeah. Marjorie Taylor Greene, just one of many Republicans who criticized this, who themselves enjoyed a PPP loan during the pandemic that was then forgiven. Yeah. Also, she wants to make this about Ivy League schools. 0.3% of federal student loan borrowers went to Ivy League schools. So that's for you counting at home. I mean, 99.7% of these loans

will not go to Ivy League students. So again, they're just like, they're trying to manufacture this grievance between college educated and non-college educated voters. But again, not to take these people seriously because we shouldn't, but not every government program helps everyone equally. In fact, most of them don't, right? Medicare, Medicaid, PPP loans. There will almost undoubtedly be people who never went to college because they didn't want to take on a ton of debt who see this decision and think that's unfair.

I'm angry about this. And you know what? That's a totally valid feeling to have, just as it's valid if you're frustrated that Biden didn't do more. But like these, this is like manufactured outrage, just nonsense. I was gonna say, there are, I think, some fair criticisms that I happen to disagree with about this decision that we can get to in a second.

But these fucking Republicans, like these are people whose only economic policy is to cut taxes for people who are insanely rich ceos and bankers and oil company executives and insurance executives they had like spent their entire lives fighting against a higher minimum wage and health care and retirement and all these benefits they literally just voted against a law that would stop rich people from cheating on their taxes and stop like multi-billion dollar corporations from paying nothing in taxes, nothing.

And so they just decided to vote to protect, to make sure that like Amazon doesn't have to pay any taxes at all, but they're all upset that like someone making 50 or $60,000 a year gets $10,000 of debt forgiven when they, when they tried to go to the mat to make sure that fucking Amazon doesn't have to pay any, any money in income taxes. I also, come on, you guys can't see it because you're, it's a podcast, but halfway through his answer, you can tell that Marco Rubio realizes he made an oopsie and he said something very stupid because, again, most people can't get elected to the Senate and then hire a ghostwriter to sell a book based

purely on hype and then not match any expectations for your political future that anyone may have had. It is so incredibly out of touch. It's just so incredibly out of touch. Now, what do you think about some of the criticism from some center left economists who have argued this will make inflation worse? I mean, it's hard to know how to adjudicate those claims because I'm not smart enough. But, you know, Jason Furman, very smart economist that we worked with in the Obama White House, he has been been sort of leading the messaging charge against student debt relief. You know, on the killing fields of Davos and Bloomberg and CNBC, of course, Twitter. Jason's point is basically, this is half a trillion dollars worth of spending, which is a big chunk of change, admittedly, yes. And he's worried that relieving the debt could lead to more spending and create

between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage point increase in inflation, and then also potentially create bad incentives in the longer term that lead colleges to increase tuition and just convince kids, hey, take as much debt as possible because someday it'll get paid off for you. I don't know if that's right or wrong. There's other economists who disagree. Goldman Sachs thinks that the inflationary impact of debt forgiveness will be offset by other borrowers who have to resume making payments. Because as you recall, during the pandemic, Trump and then Joe Biden put a pause on the repayment of student loans. And now that'll restart again in January. Joseph Stiglitz,

another economist, wrote a piece for The Atlantic where he says that debt forgiveness will cut inflation. Again, you guys fight it out with your protractors and shit. I don't understand. I'm not smart enough. But what we do know is that Biden structured this bill in a way that made it more progressive than we expected it to be by doubling the relief for Pell Grant recipients. And again, in 2015, 68% of Pell Grant recipients came from families making $30,000 or less. And the relief is far more likely to go to black and Latino borrowers. And so one other way to think about it is the Pell Grant has lost the majority of its value over time. In 1975 or six, the maximum Pell Grant covered 80% of the total cost of college at a four-year public university. Today, that's down to 28%. So in some ways,

he's just restoring parity to what the US government used to do to help low-income people go to college. It seems like most economists are agreeing that the inflationary effect, whether they think it slightly increases inflation or slightly decreases inflation, because like you said, the moratorium is going to end at the end of the year, it's going to be minimal either way. And the other reason for that is that it's a benefit that's spread out over a long period of time. It's a decade. It's a decade, right? So the inflation thing, I think we can put to the side. And also, by the way, Republicans have no plan on inflation and they just voted against any attempt to lower inflation in this country.

And all they want to do is yell about Donald Trump. We're all going to live or die based on decisions that OPEC makes in other, you know, whether the Chinese economy goes into recession and they use more, less gasoline. So I don't know that we should be worrying so much about student loans nine years from now. So the other two criticisms that you brought up that I think are worth talking about is the idea that the cost of college is far too high. And we're not going to solve that problem unless we do something about the fact that colleges can continue to raise the price of tuition. This is like the same problem we have in the healthcare market, right?

Which is what we tried to fix with the Affordable Care Act, which basically we're like, okay, we can put a bunch of government money into this and subsidize people buying healthcare, but insurance companies can keep just raising prices unless we do something to control the cost. So obviously, a long-term solution about the cost of higher education is doing something about making sure that colleges can bring down costs. So that's number one. Number two, if you had $500 billion to spend and you wanted to make sure it helped the broadest number of people possible, there are other ways you could structure a plan so that you help people who didn't get a college

degree who are working class and poor and need the help. But the problem with both of those things that I just said is to fix either of those, the cost of college education or to develop some plan that's going to help more people, you need Congress. And we don't like, republicans if republicans in congress actually cared about helping people like we could have done something about the cost of education or the cost of health care or housing or any of these problems people but but they have decided to vote against everything so all we had was joe biden having the power to do this with student

debt and it was going to help a bunch of people so of course he should take that action yeah and that's why i think you know you were going to mention some of the Democratic responses, I think, next that have been a bit frustrating. Yeah, so Tim Ryan and Catherine Cortez Masto, who were both running, you know, in Nevada and Ohio, two states where the proportion of non-college educated voters is much higher than some of these other states where there are competitive races.

For example, in Arizona, which is a competitive race race in Georgia, Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock praise the plan because there's more college graduates there. There's more people. So, but, but so yeah, talk, talk about why do you talk about the criticism from, from Masto and, and Tim Ryan? I mean, it's, it's sort of a similar response. I mean, yeah, I want that too. You know what I mean? It's like, I want low-income people to help buy every policy by the greatest extent possible. But as members of Congress, Tim Ryan and Cortez Masto should probably know that Congress kind of sucks and that it's not going to happen. And Biden has this narrow slice of authority, seemingly, hopefully, to cancel student debt.

And that obviously won't help everyone, but it'll help student debt holders. And again, not every policy helps everyone equally. So maybe from politically that they have data that shows that the Biden's move is unpopular in Ohio or Arizona, and they just are sort of messaging against it. And I'm going to give them a pass because they're in a, they're in an election year, but you know know it would be helpful to the broader cause i think if we all tried to sell this a little more yeah um because even if you're an individual who didn't go to college or you already paid back your student loans you maybe you have a kid or a nephew that has loans and is struggling to pay for them i think like we all can have a little more empathy in these situations i worry that you know that they might have gotten a little too have a little more empathy in these situations. I worry that they might have gotten a little too panicked by sort of the Republican reaction or the center-left economist reaction on this.

And I think it's important for us to clarify who the people are who hold student debt. And you talked about some of this, right? Like half of all student loan debtors don't have a four-year degree. Many couldn't finish getting it because the cost of college was just too high. So you have a bunch of people who actually don't have a means the government can garnish your wages or your Social Security benefits. Like it is the idea that the Republicans want to put out there that these are fucking Ivy League, you know, college graduates. And, you know, people also like the percentage of people with student loans, federal student loans who have MBAs or doctorate degrees or law degrees. It's like four or five percent. It's like four or 5%. It's nobody. Right?

Yeah. I mean, look, Biden made this more progressive than we thought he would by focusing on Pell Grant recipients. And again, 95% of Pell Grant recipients come from families earning $60,000 or less. These are not rich kids going to Ivy League schools. These are working class families who needed some help. Who, by the way, were told that if you want a job that pays enough to raise a family, you're going to need a degree. That's what people are told in this country. So that when they go do that and they go struggle to try to get that education for themselves, and then they're saddled with debt, we're not

going to help them when we have the chance? Yeah. America's sort of been telling itself this fiction for a long time that you need a college degree or you need to own a home to fully participate in society. And that's become completely unattainable for people. Yeah. And I get like, I get it. It's not the perfect plan that you would design if you had a function in Congress and you could pass legislation. I get that. But like, that's like the I want a pony response.

Yes. But that's their response. I want a magical wand that creates the perfect policy that helps everyone. That's what's making me so disappointed with so many smart people. Right. You're a member of Congress. Or you're in a Congress. You work in politics. You get what's going on, right? Like Joe Biden doesn't have a lot of moves here on his own. This is a move that he can make without Congress.

And it's going to help a lot of people. And he made sure to target in a way that's not going to help a bunch of rich people. And it's going to help a lot of people. And he made sure to target it in a way that's not going to help a bunch of rich people. You can hide from the grievance politics that Republicans are attempting to play here. Or you can, I don't know, try to message it a little better and own the thing. I'd like to own the thing. I think that's a great point because what they are trying to do is to pit like college educated voters against non-college educated voters. Because they know that college educated voters tend to vote more Democratic now and non-college educated voters because they know that college educated voters tend to vote more democratic now and and non-college educated voters don't and we shouldn't

let them succeed there you know and also like there's this weird sort of strain of younger republican like the charlie kirk tpsa crowd who openly advocates against anyone going for college like they see it as a horrible place full of sin where you're taught liberal values and i don't know it's very strange just a note on the popularity right like it remains to be seen um you know all the polls that were taken before this now that the policy is enacted you kind of get to wait to see how it settles but we had one from over the weekend the cbs poll um which showed biden's approval up a little bit. And they pulled Biden's plan, and it's 54-46 approval, and support was actually higher among those without a college degree than with a college degree.

Weird. Just slightly, but still. So I guess the question is, like, how do Democrats win the messaging war over this over the next couple months? Do you talk about it a lot in your campaign? I mean, I think you lean into it. You own it, and you talk about how this is helping lower- people. And as part of the democratic policy platform, we're trying to help lower income people. You should talk about the need for systemic reforms that you

mentioned earlier to reduce college costs for everybody. And then talk about the, all the other things you're fighting for. I mean, like it is also fun. I'm happy that the white house is leaning into calling out Republican hypocrisy on the PPP loans and the members of Congress who took who got PPP loans and then got them forgiven and are now attacking student loan forgiveness. That's fun. Good. Some good dunking. Some good dunking, you know, very specific, narrow, well executed. right from the white house twitter account yeah i'm where they're going to feel themselves a little bit and be like this you just like start they're gonna they're gonna start just tweeting the dark brand of memes right from the i guess i guess they've already started doing that yeah they can get you in trouble i guess rob flirty's

already been doing that no it's good it's good it was great i mean margaret harrow green she's an idiot look it's good to see some uh some pep in their step over there in the way. Yeah, look, pick a fight. Pick a fight. Pick a fight. And I do think that's important as Democrats think about this for the midterms, is you talk about, look, this is what we've already done. You send more Democrats back to Congress, and we're going to have more reform to education. It's going to help more people. And we're going to do more for people, Right. And the other party doesn't want to. The work is not done. And right. And then for folks who are frustrated that Joe Biden didn't do more.

I mean, I hope the message that everyone takes to themselves, to their friends, to their family is that's why we need more Democrats so we can do more in the future. Yeah. And also like, again, 10, 20, 30,000 votes in in Georgia, Wisconsin. There's millions and millions of people right now who don't have that debt forgiven. But because people showed up and they worked hard and they voted, there's a lot of people whose lives are changed right now. That's a big deal. All right. That's all we got, Tommy. Great.

Thanks again to Pat Ryan for joining us. And we'll talk to you on Thursday. Ryan for joining us and we'll talk to you on Thursday. Thank you.