Pod Save America - “Shamelessness is all the rage.”

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Trump’s own lawyer compares him to a mob boss, McConnell helps open the door for Trump to fire Mueller, Beto O’Rourke closes in on Ted Cruz, and Mike Pompeo meets Kim Jong Un. Then activist Ady Barkan joins Jon and Dan to talk about the special election in Arizona and his new project, beaherofund.com.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we will be talking to organizer, activist, friend of the pod, Adi Barkin. Adi just launched a new project called Be a Hero, and he just came back from a few days of campaigning in Arizona, where there is another close special election in a deep red house district on Tuesday. So we'll be talking to him about all that and more. I also, you know, announced a brand new podcast here at Crooked Media on Tuesday's show. I'm going to do a pod about the Democratic Party.

And look, I think over the last couple of days, we fixed everything. This podcast is called Nothing Is Wrong With The Democratic Party. It is perfect. Anyone who says otherwise is a traitor. No, I mean, just to explain a little more, like the reason that I wanted to do this is we have been all over the country in the last year, live shows, marches, get out the vote events. And we've met all these activists and organizers and first-time voters and first-time candidates who are energized and excited. And they're mostly young and women and people of color. And it's so inspiring. And we also get, and you've gotten this too, we also get the same

questions everywhere we go, which is, what should our message be? What issues should we focus on? Like, how do we avoid a repeat of 2016? And, you know, we don't talk about that enough on this podcast. And the four of us don't have all the answers to those questions. So I thought, why not do a 15 episode limited series on the Democratic Party? It's about learning from our past mistakes and building for the future. And I talked to people about the Obama years. I talked to Hillary staffers like our friend Jen

Palmieri and Bernie staffers like Becky Bond and Fad Shakir about 2016. I talked to Adam Serwer and Simone Sanders and Marsha Chatelain about race in America. I talked to Rebecca Traister and others about the challenges that women candidates face. I talked to leftists and liberal policy people about the economy and immigration activists and foreign policy experts. And I talked to everyone from the DNC chair,

Tom Perez and Keith Ellison, to state party chairs, to first-time candidates like Danica Rome and Jennifer Carol Foy about organizing and winning. And, you know, I did a few focus groups, which was really fun. And then I figured, you know what, as a way to hear from even more people, I figured I'd ask everyone to call in and give their thoughts about the party. I figured I'd ask everyone to call in and give their thoughts about the party. And I phrased the question, what's wrong and how do we fix it? Because we don't tend to learn a lot from only congratulating ourselves about what's going right. And I also think that we're confident enough as a party to engage in a little self-reflection. And here's the good news, Stan. Like 90% of the hundreds and hundreds of voicemails that we're getting are positive and constructive and hopeful about the future of the party.

You know, there's only a few profanities here and there. And it's really inspiring. It's really inspiring. And getting all these voicemails has been wonderful. And it makes me want to work even harder to kick the shit out of Republicans in November. So, again, call in. And if you want to call in and say nothing's wrong with the party at all, we'd love to hear that too.

That's totally okay. But we want to hear from everyone and help us tell a story about a party that is finding its way out of the wilderness. That's what this podcast is about. So if you have thoughts, give us a call. Number is 949-667-4524 and leave a message. Yes. Can I say a couple of things about this?

Please do. One, can we just stipulate that Jon Favreau and everyone of all this podcast believes the Democrats are a much better party than the Republicans? They have better ideals, better candidates, better people, better integrity, all of the above. So it's not like some of the criticism has been that somehow you're seeding the argument that Republicans are better. That's not it. Clearly. We've been doing this fucking podcast for a year and a half now.

Yeah. And I get like I understand for people who may not have as much context as like all the people you've talked to, all the things you've worked on, people who just respond to the initial tweet, that Democrats are tired of getting kicked around. The party itself, if you're someone who has worked really hard for the Democratic Party for a long time, you've been under assault for a while. And not just from Republicans, but also from within our party, because there are – some of the rhetoric on the Bernie election was about the state of the Democratic Party. And so people, there are raw nerves and people are upset about, but I think it's important to remember that this is largely about hosting a conversation about what is working in the party, and what hasn't worked in the past and how we fix in the future, because we are right on the issues. There are more Democratic-leaning voters than are Republican voters, yet Republicans control all levers of the government.

And that is something that should be examined and thought about. And so I think it's a very constructive, good thing, and I'm really glad you're doing it. And I'm glad you're the one who tweeted about it, not me. Yeah, I mean, look, of course I know there are raw nerves on all sides of this debate. I guess my thought is you can either let that be and then say, because there's raw nerves, no one's going to talk about it. We're all just going to be in our own little silos and be upset about it and ignore the other people's opinions.

Or you can say, all right, we're going to dive in and have a conversation about it. And the reason that I wanted to do it is because I was like, I hope we can have a conversation that is constructive and interesting and where people aren't like yelling all the time, but they're saying like, no, I believe that's wrong for this reason. And I realized that's way too much to hope on Twitter. But I'm thinking that through this, and look, this podcast is not going to fix it. It's not going to fix all of our problems. And it's going to have a lot of shortcomings and failings on this podcast. I tried to talk to almost a hundred people, but that's not going to be enough. There's other points of view that it's not going to capture. And so part of what I want to do when this actually comes out

is have one episode come out, you know, at the beginning of the week, and then sort of like field questions from people at the end of the week. So we have more, we constantly have more voices talking about this. And look, the segment of the criticism is from people who are like, you know, a lot of our friends in D.C. who are working really hard at the DNC and the DLCC and all these committees. I think they're thinking like, God, we're working really hard to get Democrats elected and we don't need to be doing a bunch of navel gazing right now. Absolutely. We don't need to be doing a bunch of navel-gazing. But I think as we're working to get these Democrats elected, as we're out there with the organizers and the activists and the people who are fighting every day, you know, they need to know and they're asking for, you know, what is the message? What should we focus on?

And if people in individual races and individual states and local communities can start sharing what they're doing right with other people in other places across the country, and we can get voters this information and listeners to this podcast information, then that's going to be helpful. I really believe that. So anyway, I think it should be great. Like I said, I think we fixed all the problems. Okay, quick update on the Trump crime syndicate. The president of the United States is now being compared to a mob boss by his own lawyers.

Here's Jay Goldberg, new character in the story. Jay Goldberg, who represented Donald Trump back in the 90s and 2000s through his divorce proceedings, who now Trump has gone back to for advice apparently recently. And here's Jay Goldberg talking to the Wall Street Journal about how he warned Trump that Michael Cohen might flip on him. Quote, the mob was broken by Sammy the Bull Gravano caving in out of the prospect of a jail sentence. And here's the mooch on MSNBC Wednesday.

Quote, if you said to me, and I had to flip a coin, which is not how this works, if you said to me, and I had to flip a coin, is Cohen going to turn on President Trump? I would say no. Dan, what about these statements seems amiss to you? Well, it seems like the Trump's closest supporters and friends and 10-day tenured communications directors all believe and just assume that Trump has committed many, many crimes. And the question isn't, were those crimes committed? The question is, will anyone tell the feds about those crimes? And then will Trump face any legal jeopardy? As opposed to another approach, which is just, let's pick a back of the envelope idea here, would be, I would encourage Michael Cohen to be fully forthcoming because I know Donald

Trump did nothing wrong. And the sooner we can wrap up this investigation, the better, the easier it will be for Donald Trump to focus all of his attention on making America great again. But that's not the approach they've taken. They've taken a slightly different one. You and I have worked in communications for a long time. I don't think you need to be a communications expert, a communications professional, to say that maybe the best answer is no, no. I mean, he has nothing to flip him on. You know, he's just, he hasn't, the president did nothing wrong. He has nothing to worry about.

Doesn't seem like a tough answer. Well, it says a lot about, not just about Trump's crimes, but about sort of the media coverage political narrative around Trump. Because it is the press also, I mean, this is like this, our point has also been pointed out by members of the press, so it's not, this is not a monolithic thing. But the question really isn't, what did Trump do wrong? Or if Trump did commit a crime? That's not the question the press is asking. The question is, under what circumstances will Trump face either political or legal repercussions for the things we already know he did? And that is just a very different way in which we've ever talked about a president before. It's because everything that revolves around, whether it's, you know, potential collusion in the Mueller investigation or an array of particularly sketchy behavior and criminality in the Michael Cohen investigation is, well, Trump's poll numbers haven't moved once all year. So his voters clearly don't care.

Or they're not going to be able to prove anything because Cohen's not gonna flip. Therefore, we shouldn't care. Like we should actually care about a president committing crimes either in office in search of that office or before they decided to run for that office, whether they go to jail or not, whether their poll numbers drop or not. Like that is an actual thing that should be the biggest scandal in America. And we're sort of scoring it like it's a midseason baseball game. Yeah. If the president of the United States is guilty of crimes, it is the biggest scandal in American history, certainly for the presidency, certainly in politics. And it is worrisome because like the media, by the nature of the media, always goes to what's new, what's going to happen, what's next.

And the word normalize has been overused ever since the end of 2016. But it is almost like everyone has internalized that, yeah, he's probably a criminal, including his own people as they go on TV and talk about him. Everyone has internalized this. And so should crimes be revealed? Should the president be charged with anything? Should impeachment charges ever be brought? Should the crime simply just be reported on? You're right that the next phase of the story is going to be what happens.

And if Democrats don't have a majority, then maybe Republicans won't impeach him. Or can a sitting president be tried in office? And there'll be all these questions. And we're going to sort of blow past the idea that no, no, no, he and his associates were just charged with whatever they might be charged with. And it's very worrisome. Very worrisome, to say the least.

Yes, it is worrisome. So onerisome, to say the least. Yes, it is worrisome. So one action that someone is taking to head this off, the Attorney General for the state of New York, Eric Schneiderman, wants to change the state's law so that he can bring criminal charges against aides to Donald Trump who get pardons from Donald Trump. He basically wants to change the state's double jeopardy law that currently protects people from being tried for the same crime twice. He wants to add an exemption for presidential pardons, particularly since the Scooter Libby pardon.

It seems quite clear that Trump may once again abuse the presidential pardon power to pardon Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort or any of these unsavory characters who are under investigation and indictment. Do we think this law will pass? And if so, do you think it will influence Michael Cohen on what he decides to do next? I think I might have what is a contrarian take on this. Now, I'm not an attorney. I have not been to law school. But I have seen on several occasions the movie Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd, where she's wrongly convicted of a murder. Well, then you're good. And then goes out to, yeah, so she's framed for murder and then goes out, I believe, to

murder someone knowing she can't go to jail for it. But I am skeptical, like Double Jeopardy exists for a reason. Yeah. And I'm not positive that empowering the state, just because we have one president who may be selling pardons for his freedom, does not mean that we should change the rule. Because you could be in a world where Barack Obama commuted sentences or pardoned people for drug offenses that were well beyond what should have happened because of mandatory minimums or sentencing guidelines or whatever else. And then you have the a Republican governor of a state, then prosecuting those people again out of spite. And so I'm not sure this is the like, in the world, the best, I don't think the best thing for the world to do to increase the power of the state to put people in jail more easily. But of course, if Trump just pardons

everyone and gets off with them to be particularly frustrated by that. So of course, if Trump just pardons everyone and gets off with them, I'm going to be particularly frustrated by that. So per usual, Trump is sort of upending what progressives think we should do because we have never confronted someone as corrupt and unwilling to adhere to the basic norms of American governing as Donald Trump. Yeah, it's a very good point. I would encourage all of our legal friends of the pod to please let us know what they think about that, because I actually, you know, I don't know. You make a very good point about, you know, future presidencies and pardons and what, you know, AGs and state legislatures and particularly red states might do when a progressive

president pardons a bunch of people and commute sentences. That's worrisome as well. Now, a law, like I said, a law passed by, I don't know, a second branch of government that felt a need to check the power of an unbridled executive could pass a law that would say that you cannot use the pardon power in an investigation into yourself or something like that. Now, that may not pass constitutional muster, but you could test that as opposed to passing a broader law that sort of erodes the idea of double jeopardy in the American legal system. Well, Dan, that's a great segue to our next topic, Mitch McConnell. So as Trump's associates,

you know, openly muse about his lawyer flipping on him, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that he will not allow a vote on bipartisan legislation that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller. McConnell says it's not necessary because there haven't been any indications that Trump might fire Mueller, except, I guess, for all of the president's public statements. Dan, the bill's got Republican support. Why won't McConnell let it come to the floor for a vote? Well, in a weird display of heroism, Chuck Grassley said he was going to continue to Why won't McConnell let it come to the floor for a vote? and do what he wants. So we'll see if it actually happens. But I found that to be an actually encouraging sign that you have some number of Republicans who are breaking with recent pattern and trying to do the right thing for the country. So kudos.

I think this is all about 2018 Republican turnout, which is if Mitch McConnell were allow the Senate to pass a bill that is obviously going nowhere because Paul Ryan certainly not doing anything. But if he were to allow the Republican Senate to pass a bill that is obviously going nowhere, because Paul Ryan's certainly not doing anything. But if he were to allow the Republican Senate to pass a bill that was seen as pro-law enforcement and anti-Trump, which are actually two sides of, they are actually opposite sides here, then you can see a world where the Trump voters in states like Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, West Virginia, that the Republicans need to potentially flip to maintain control of the Senate, stay home. And so I think he is doing – like Mitch McConnell's entire life view is party before country.

He cares only about the accumulation of power for himself and the Republican Party. Party. And so what is best for the Republican Party here in the short term, in the short term, is to help aid and abet the criminality of Donald Trump. In the long term, you would probably say, like, maybe doing the right thing would work out for you. But Mitch McConnell does not believe that doing the right thing is reason enough to do something. I think there's a good analogy, like, you know, what Paulyan is to passing tax cuts and gutting medicare at all costs mitch mcconnell is to confirming right-wing judges and that seems like he wants to control the senate to continue confirming trump's unqualified extremist judges and hopefully also put another one or two supreme court justices on the bench by the end of Trump's term.

And he has decided that no amount of corruption, no amount of crimes from Donald Trump will stop him from doing that. And so he will do whatever it takes to cling to power and to hang on to a Republican majority in the Senate. And, you know, he's pretty open about that. This is where we go back to our Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell. Paul Ryan likes to pretend he's a good guy and he cares about poverty or whatever he cares about. Mitch McConnell's just like, he's out there saying, oh, putting Gorsuch on the bench and, you know, blocking,

stealing a Supreme Court seat, that's one of the proudest moments of my life. He just doesn't really give a shit. Yeah, he's really, really, really bad. Really bad. I just sometimes, look, I feel bad because we attack Paul Ryan so much and we attack Donald Trump so much, we don't spend enough time on how purely evil Mitch McConnell is.

He's just not a great guy. Now, some good news on the Republican side of the Senate is, you know, what you said about Chuck Grassley, you know, Tom Tillis is a pretty conservative senator from North Carolina. He's one of the sponsors of this legislation. He's out there telling all of his conservative critics who are, you know, Mark Meadows, one of the congressmen that runs the Freedom Caucus in the House, is one of them. He's from North Carolina as well. They're all complaining about Tom Tillis sponsoring this legislation. And Tillis is like, spare me. That was his quote. Spare me. Enough.

It's like, I'm doing this. He's like, I know it's the right thing and it's not going to be popular, but I'm going to do it anyway. And he also said like, yeah, Mitch McConnell controls the floor and controls which pieces of legislation come up for a vote in the Senate. But if there's enough of us Republican senators who vote for this bill, who say we want this bill, we think we can change his mind. You know, we'll see. It didn't work so well on the fucking DREAM Act. But, you know, good for him. Good for Chuck Grassley.

You know, vote them all out still. But, you know, they're right on this issue. you know, vote them all out still. But, you know, they're right on this issue. But I think the bigger challenge for us is the only way these things are going to change is if Democrats take back the Senate. And we had some good news about this goal yesterday. There's a Quinnipiac poll out on Wednesday that has Beto O'Rourke down just four points to Ted Cruz, that has Beto O'Rourke down just four points to Ted Cruz, 47 to 43. The same poll found that 52% of Texans disapprove of Donald Trump's job performance in Texas. And I thought maybe one of the best statistics in the poll, Beto only has room to grow. 53% of the people polled have no opinion of Beto O'Rourke.

They do not know him, and yet he is only down by four points. Dan, what did you think of this poll, and how much do we need Texas in the journey to take back the Senate? Well, we certainly need, if you think that, and none of this is a guarantee, that we need to flip two seats. That we need to flip two seats. And if you think that Arizona and Nevada are two of the most likely just given the who's running, the partisan spread of the state, et cetera. But we're also defending all of these seats in places like North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, places that Trump won, in some cases, by almost as many as 18 points. And so we probably need a couple more other than the two flips, right? And so Tennessee is a very real option where former governor Phil Bredesen is running and Texas is another one. And there was something like Texas is a very hard state for a

Democrat. There was no doubt about that. It is headed in the right direction. But this is a midterm, and it's a Texas. But if there was ever a candidate who could sort of run ahead of the demographic change in Texas and flip it now, it would be Beto because he's running the right kind of campaign against the right opponent in Ted Cruz to have a real shot to do this. But he will only have that shot if people try to help him to do it, whether it's give five bucks if you have it, make calls for him. If you live in Texas, volunteer for his campaign. I mean, he is building a grassroots movement down there, and that's what it's going to take to win. So it's good to see this poll prove what we saw on the ground anecdotally when we were there a couple months ago and got to spend a little time with Beto. We did four shows in Texas. Obviously, we had Beto with us in Austin. But in the other three shows, we mentioned his name. The crowd went insane.

And that, with the exception of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, I have not heard a crowd react to a politician like that since we started doing these live shows a year and a half ago. No. And just like we saw on the ground in Virginia, it's not just the top of the ticket in Texas in 2018 that is receiving all the energy and enthusiasm, even though I think Beto could be one of the best Senate candidates we've seen in years, as long as I can remember. But you see all these down ballot races, whether it's house races or

even state house races, like there's a lot of excitement. There's a lot of first time candidates in Texas. There's people running in districts and in places in Texas where Democrats haven't run in years. Beto is going to counties where Democrats haven't been to in years. We had Julie Johnson on when we were in Dallas. She's running for state house there because we care about down ballot races here at Crooked Media. And look, it's just the enthusiasm is infectious there. So something is happening in the state of Texas. And, you know, will it be enough to carry all these Democrats over the finish line? It remains to be seen. But certainly that state is very interesting. It has a much

higher disapproval rating for Donald Trump than other red states. And so something is going on there. But it's all going to come down to registering new voters. Because, you know, in Texas, a lot of people don't vote. And a lot of people and the people who don't vote are disproportionately young and Latino and people of color, and they tend to vote Democrat. And so I think it's going to be a massive organizing challenge in Texas. But yeah, look, we need two seats to flip. But that also means we need to hold all those other seats. And we don't talk about that enough on this show. But that's still going to be an uphill climb for people like Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly and Bill Nelson now with Rick Scott.

So the Senate's going to be tough. But in a big, big wave year, you know, we can do it. And let's not forget, Ted Cruz is terrible. Yeah, we'd be defeating one of the worst, worst people in politics. Someone who today, I mean, this is just the most amazing Ted Cruz thing ever. Donald Trump called Ted Cruz's wife ugly. He accused Ted Cruz's dad of killing JFK. He attacked Ted Cruz nine ways from Sunday.

Ted Cruz stood before the Republican convention. He refused to endorse Donald Trump and told the world to vote their conscience. to endorse Donald Trump and told the world to vote their conscience. He called Donald Trump a sniveling, coward, pathological liar, no moral courage, which is actually a pitch perfect description of Ted Cruz. But so today, Time Magazine does their 100 most influential people. And they go around and ask people to write a little essay about one of the 100 people selected. So, for example, the Parkland kids were on the 100 most influential list. They asked Barack Obama to write about them. He wrote a very nice essay about their role in grassroots organizing and movement building.

So Donald Trump, as President of the United States, is de facto on that list. And who do they get to write it? Who will write a love letter to Donald Trump in the pages of America's most prominent yet still dying news magazine? Ted Cruz wrote a love letter to Donald Trump today, a man who called his wife ugly and accused his dad of killing John F. Kennedy. It tells you something about where Ted Cruz

and his strategists are going for this race, though, that they believe. And look, one thing in the in the Q poll is I think Beto is winning among independents in Texas by, I want to say, 51-36. I could be a little wrong. And Ted Cruz is just thinking it's all turnout. It's all we are going to play to the right wing. We're going to play to the furthest right elements of our base. So even though Donald Trump has a 52% disapproval rating, I'm going to write a glowing essay about him in Time magazine because I want all the most hardcore Trump people to turn out for me. That's how I think I'm going to win the state. So that's Ted Cruz's strategy.

We'll see if it prevails. It's a terrible strategy. Yeah. Well, we'll see. Trying to make peace with the Trump supporters is one thing, but doing it in the most embarrassing way possible is not good politics. I don't care what state it is, what party you're in, what year it is. Writing a letter that says, I am weak and sad is not good politics. Shamelessness is all the rage, Dan. That's why Donald Trump's president. That is true. That is true.

Let's talk about the fact that the CIA director slash Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo had a secret meeting with Kim Jong-un. There's something that doesn't happen every day. He's the highest ranking American official to make direct contact with North Korea since Madeleine Albright, who Tommy had an episode of Pod Save the World. Check it out.

Met with Kim Jong Il in 2000. And this is in advance of Trump's potential meeting with the North Korean leader. Dan, what did you think about this? I mean, honestly, it seems in the realm of all the awful shit going on, pretty positive. of all the awful shit going on, pretty positive. I think it's better to have done some prep work before the Trump meeting than not do any prep work at all before a high-level meeting like that. Like in the realm of if we were having normal politics

and normal diplomacy, you would think this is good. But I don't know. What do you think? I think it's good. Everything you say is right. It would be better if smart people were doing this would be better if there were if there was a president who had a view uh foreign policy that was more studied than whatever he thinks is going to get him the most plaudits on fox and friends

it would be great if they had a white house who could run a real process that brought input in from all the various parts of the government whether whether it's the intel agencies or the diplomats or the military, like all would be much better off if we had smarter, better people running our government. And we defended Barack Obama up and down when he wanted diplomatic relations with Cuba, with Iran, when he said in 2008 that he would meet with foreign leaders without preconditions. All of those things are – we believe then and we should believe now. And I'd much rather have Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un than launching missiles at his head just because he's angry that day about the Mueller investigation. And so I think this is good. And it is – I mean, it really is Forrest Gump foreign policy, because he really just stumbled into this by sending some tweets. And if it works, great. It's not because he's some sort of foreign policy genius.

Sometimes you just show up, and next thing you know, you're on the national table tennis team. Like, it's just – it's pure happenstance. Even a blind mole. He did it. Yes, that's exactly right. Broken clock, blah, blah, blah. Blind school farm, yeah. Yeah.

So I think it's good. We have a long way to go before this meeting actually happens, whether you actually get to some sort of agreement. This does play into, and this is really something that I know Tommy's talked a lot about, but this really intersects in a way that I'm sure Trump has not thought about with the Iran deal. Because if the United States is going to come to an agreement with Iran and then basically just two years later cancel it for some sort of fake reason, then what incentive would North Korea have to do a similar deal with the United States? And so we'll see if they can figure out that complexity. But Bob Corker said the other day that Trump was going to cancel the Iran deal. And so... Very worrisome. You know, which is worrisome in and of itself, and it's worrisome for what progress we might be able to make with North Korea. And we should tell people, you know, he cancels the Iran deal. The only thing that does is allows Iran to go back to building nuclear

weapons. That's it. Just make sure there's no more international inspectors in Iran and they can just go back to secretly kicking out the rest of the world and building their nuclear arsenal. And that's what it does. That's all that ripping up the Iran deal does. Now, I think the other, back to North Korea, the other worrisome thing is once you have a meeting between two heads of state like Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un and you go to that level, if diplomacy fails after that meeting, the next stage is often war. Donald Trump's skills as a negotiator, well, stuff of legend have not quite been realized since he's become president of the United States and made just about zero deals.

So that's something to worry about. Now, let's talk about whether Pompeo should be confirmed. I think it's great that he went to North Korea in advance of a Donald Trump meeting. I do not think he should be secretary of state. He was one of the leading Benghazi conspiracy theorists. He supports torture. He supports regime change in Iran and ending the Iran deal. We just talked about that.

He's lied already. He's contradicted the entire intelligence community on their assessments of whether Russia interfered in the election. And then he had to have his own CIA correct him for lying about that so I don't think he'll be a great secretary of state Dan what do you think well I was pretty pro-Pompeo until I heard that litany of challenges so now I've talked I flipped and he seems really bad um I look he I am have generally been of the belief that normal presidents deserve to have the cabinet appointments of their choice within a realm of normalcy. Like corruption, lying, things like that should be disqualifying in the Senate. That's at a time in which the Senate can use their advice and consent. But simply not liking the policy preferences of said nominee is wrong because the president should get a normal president, a normal president.

We don't have a normal president right now. Should get their secretary of whatever. It's just the idea that so-and-so is progressive, therefore Obama should not be able to have Tom Perez as secretary of labor is not a good enough reason. Right. Right. And the same should be true for some Trump people. Now, that does not mean that Democrats should vote for them. And I think Pompeo has forfeited that sort of normal, I think Trump just generally has forfeited that normal courtesy by violating every norm under the sun. And I think Pompeo has shown himself to be a problematic nominee beyond his policy opinions. Now, with all things with Trump, you worry about what comes

next, right? So it's, let's say Pompeo gets defeated, which is possible. If all the Democrats were to vote no, then Pompeo will go down. That's right. If one Democrat votes for him, he's Secretary of State. If zero democrat votes for him and secretary of state if zero democrats vote for him he's not that's basically where the vote count is yeah and who do we get after that this is not a reason to vote for him it's more just like a thought experiment yeah no i like trump it's like who is the next immediate promotion for john bolton yeah or nuke ingrich right like something crazy mean, what most likely happens is we have some sort of acting deputy. We have some sort of acting Secretary of State through the midterms is what probably happens. I think Democrats should defeat him. You have the opportunity to do so. It is the right, first off, it's the right thing to do. This man should not be secretary of state. And I will say too, like, I, you know, I talked about how he's for regime change in Iran, ending the Iran deal. I think in a normal administration, those should not be disqualifying for, because those are policy differences, right? It's like you were

saying, a president gets to nominate people who reflect his policies or her policies. I do think supporting torture, lying about the intelligence community assessment, promoting Benghazi conspiracy theories. Those are things that go beyond just policy difference. Supporting torture is not a policy difference. It is supporting something that is against the law, against international law. So I think that sort of did it for me. Yeah.

I mean, across the board, the way he has responded to questions about Trump putting his thumb on the scale on the Russia investigation should in and of itself mean he should not be secretary of state. And Democrats should defeat him. And I know – I've been in politics for a while now. And I know there are consultants. People should do what they think is right. But let's just do the politics for a second. But let's just do the politics for a second. If some moderate Democratic senator knows Mike Pompeo and truly believes he would be a quality secretary of state, then vote your conscience, I guess. I find that hard to imagine that someone would look at the facts on the table and believe that.

But if you're doing the politics, the downside – just pure politics – if you're doing the downsides of voting against trump's secretary of state are quite small because the political strategy of appeasement does not work yeah so if you think if i vote for him they're gonna they're not gonna say i'm obstructing trump's agenda then you're being incredibly naive about politics not in 2018, but in politics of the last 30 years in dealing with Republicans. Yeah. Find me the voter in Missouri or West Virginia or Indiana or any of these places who's looking at a Democratic candidate and is like, you know, I think you're just too partisan and you're too liberal. You know, all these crazy liberal ideas and blah, blah, blah. these crazy liberal ideas and blah blah blah and then the democratic candidate says but wait but wait i voted for mike pompeo as secretary of state and gave donald trump as secretary of state and then that voter says oh my god i'm with you i'm going to the polls i'm voting for you find me

that voter i would like the consultants who are advising our friends in the in the senate to find me find me those voters and i and I will change my mind. You're either going to be the senator who approved Pompeo or defeated Pompeo, and in an election where your election depends entirely on, particularly in a red state, of all of these first-time voters, people who are engaging in politics because they are so upset by the election of Trump and have been sort of awakened from their slumber. You need those people to vote. And if you look like you're rubber stamping Trump's nominee out of political expediency, people are not going to come out to

vote for you. The Trump voters are still going to vote against you. And the Democrats who you need to knock on doors, make calls for you, donate $5 and show up to vote are going to be less likely to do so because it's not going to have – what's the difference to them if they feel that it's just a lesser shade of who the Republican alternative? So do the right thing here. But I think to me, I understand the thinking because I've seen it for years and years and years that would lead people to think the right political thing to do is vote for Pompeo. would lead people to think the bet the right political thing to do is vote for pompeo i think that thinking is outdated and shows an inability to have learned lessons in the most recent

elections absolutely okay when we come back we will talk to activist and friend of the pod, we are very happy to welcome back our friend, organizer and activist, Adi Barkin. Adi, how are you? I am so excited to be on the show. Hey, John. Hey, Dan. Well, we're going to ask you a few questions, but then just like last time, you know, you can ask us a few questions. I'm looking forward to it the twitterverse has given me some good ones i saw that i saw that so adi tell us about be a hero why you launched it and what the goal is of course so be a hero is a new campaign that we launched this week, urging Americans all around the country to stand up for themselves

and their family and their community and be heroes as active and engaged members of our democracy. When I went to D.C. in December to try to stop the tax bill, I asked Jeff Flake and Susan Collins to be heroes, vote in support of their constituents' interests. They refused. They voted with K Street and Wall Street and have threatened and taken away the health care of millions of people in order to enrich the billionaire class. And so clearly, moral suasion and emotional pleas and policy logic, none of that works.

So now we have to vote them out of office. So along with amazing progressive leaders from across the movement, we're launching Be A Hero. movement. We're launching Be a Hero. You can visit our website, beaherofund.com, and check it out. We're asking people to pledge to vote in November, and then we're going to ask them to get five friends to pledge to vote, to give a small dollar contribution so that we can mobilize voters and share powerful stories about why this election matters. You know, I'm a lawyer. I'm a policy wonk. You guys are wonks. But the truth is, people vote based on emotion and narrative and anecdote. So the other component of this effort is trying to use my story and the story of people like me who are being harmed by the tax bill and the Republican agenda to tell a story to the American people

about why they should vote in November, why we need a presidential year turnout in this midterm, even though Barack and Bernie and Hillary aren't on the ballot. So that's kind of the summary, John. You've been in Arizona recently working on the special election that's happening there on Tuesday. What are you seeing on the ground there, and what should our listeners know about that election? Yeah, it's an amazing race. So this is the Arizona 8th in Northwest Phoenix pitting a fantastic Democrat named Harold Tipernany, who's a doctor, an emergency room doctor, an immigrant cancer researcher against a standard issue Republican state senator with troglodytic views about public policy. So I went there along

with my wife, Rachel, and our baby toddler now son, Carl, and some friends and allies, and we spent three or four days in the district. The special election is Tuesday, four or five days from now. It's a red district, went for Trump by over 20 points, lots of senior citizens there, about 85% white. But the truth is they are very worried about losing their health care. I went to a Parkinson's group meeting and spoke to the seniors there, and I heard powerful stories about how Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are keeping them alive, allowing them to have dignified, meaningful lives in spite of their disease and their age. And I also spoke to the Republican candidate, Debbie Lesko.

I went up to her just like I went up to Jeff Flake, and I asked her, why are you supporting cutting Medicare and Medicaid? She said, I'm not. It's the Democrats who cut Medicare and the ACA. I'm not in favor of that. I said, Paul Ryan and the Republicans, I'm not in favor of that. I said, Paul Ryan and the Republicans, that's your agenda. She said, no, it's not. We have all this on film. You can see it on my Twitter page.

And I said, you know, Debbie, it's really, or maybe I said, Senator, it's really concerning that you don't even know the central legislative objectives of your party and how much it's going to harm the seniors in your district. So right now, this race is shockingly competitive. With a few days left, we've seen polls coming out showing Hero in the lead, showing Debbie Lasko a little bit in the lead. It's neck and neck. And the question is, will people turn out on Tuesday to protect their health care and their family's health care? And here's what I think, here's what's really exciting. We are up on cable TV right now. The Be a Hero Fund is the only independent expenditure that's happening right now in the race, supporting Dr. Tipirneni, telling my story, urging people to be heroes and stand up for health, care, and dignity. And here's why we think it's so important. It's April right now. We have a huge midterm election in November. It's a plus-20 district, just like Pennsylvania 18.

If we can get here, even to within a close margin, winning is obviously fantastic. But even if we can make it really close, what we'll see is more Republican retirements around the country, like Paul Ryan, Republican retirements around the country like Paul Ryan, more Republicans needing to spend money playing defense in red seats, more small dollar enthusiasm from the Democrats. This is another amazing opportunity for progressives and Democrats to build a wave election in November. So I'm asking folks to go to our website at beerherofund.com, donate $10, $15, $50. Allow us to run this ad more over the weekend and on Monday. By the end of Sunday midnight, if you donate,

we can still get that money up on the air. You can see the ad on my Twitter page. If you find it moving, you can contribute. And this race, because it's a special, will have outside influence on the coming months. Adi, there's a good amount moving at the state level on health care right now. Virginia's House of Delegates has moved to expand Medicaid finally. The state Senate is considering a bill there. Organizers have ballot initiatives in motion in Utah, Nebraska, Idaho to expand Medicaid. motion in Utah, Nebraska, Idaho to expand Medicaid. What is your sense of how important an issue health care is to the voters and to the people on the ground that you're talking to

and how important the issue will be in this race in 2018? So the polling shows that health care is the number one issue. is the number one issue. Mueller in Russia, more than jobs and the economy, more than rent and housing affordability, folks are worried about their access to health care. And no wonder, right? They're paying attention. The Republican Party prioritized two bills at the federal level in 2017. One to destroy the health care system in America. We beat that back.

And the other to enrich the billionaires by taking away health care from struggling families and destabilize the insurance market. And that one passed because folks like Susan Collins were beholden to their donors. So voters see that, they're worried about it, and it's a voting matter for them. about it, and it's a voting matter for them. That's why this Arizona race is the perfect distillation of these issues. We have an amazing, brilliant doctor running on a progressive platform, including Medicare buy-in for all, and she really understands the system. And I was there listening to how she answered questions in front of the Chamber of Commerce, a hostile environment in a red district, and she was defending a very bold, progressive agenda and doing it in ways that appeals to the business owners and the conservatives and the senior citizens who she was talking to. So she's a A-plus candidate,

and she's running against someone who either doesn't know that her party's agenda is to unravel our health insurance system or is too dishonest to admit it. So this race captures everything perfectly. Oh, and as I said, it's in a district with tons of senior citizens for whom this is the number one issue. So it's a crucial race. And by winning this race or even making it tight, we can highlight for the whole country leading up to November why health care is the winning issue for Democrats. All right, Adi, you have any questions for us? I do, I do. So yesterday, guys, I had one of the most amazing political experiences of my life. I went down to the Georgia 8th District, Georgia 8th District, and it's rural Georgia where Richard Dean Winfield is running on a robust agenda of including a federal jobs guarantee, a high minimum wage tied to productivity,

free child care and elder care, and we went door to door in a white trailer park in rural Georgia in a black public housing complex, and I've never seen such impressive responses at the doors. And people didn't say, wait, how are you going to pay for the jobs guarantee, or how are you going to convince the Republicans to support it? They just liked the idea that everyone who wants to work should get to work, and that minimum wage should allow people to support and raise a family with dignity. And as you may know, Senator Gillibrand in New York has recently come out for a jobs guarantee. So my question to you guys is, what do you think about it,

and how do you think we could build political support for it over the next couple of years so that if we in fact have landslides in 2018 and 2020, we might be able to even enact it in 2021? I love the idea. I think a jobs guarantee is fantastic. I've been doing this other podcast about the future of the Democratic Party, Adi, and one of the episodes is about the economy and economic policy. And I talked to a whole bunch of people about, you know, what are some of the spectrum, from folks at CAP, folks further on the left, who all talked about a jobs guarantee is probably one of the biggest, boldest ideas that we could put out there. And there's so much work that needs to be done. And especially, as you know, there's work that needs to be done in growing sectors like healthcare and education. And a lot of people are talking about universal basic income. And I always think that universal basic income could work in tandem with

a jobs guarantee. But for a lot of people, it's even more important that they have work, that they have some sense of dignity that work provides. And because we have so much work that needs to be done in this country, from infrastructure to healthcare to education, this really could make a huge difference in people's lives. Dan, what do you think about the political support? I'll let you answer that one. Look, first, I think it's a really good idea and one that should be explored. As a party in a country, frankly, we need – the economy has changed and yet our economic solutions have stayed the same for basically decades now. changed, and yet our economic solutions have stayed the same for basically decades now.

And we need to address the fact that so many of the sort of what used to make up the core jobs that would give you a middle class life don't exist either through globalization or automation, etc. The politics are like, who knows how the politics are? And we probably shouldn't care. What we need to do is talk about it and run on it. And if we do that, you have to go make a case to the country. And so you need people who believe in it to run on it. And what I know will not work is for Democrats to secretly before a federal jobs guarantee and then win a landslide election and

then decide they want to implement a federal jobs guarantee. You have to create a political context for it. And I think the experience that you had in that district in georgia speaks to the possibilities for a bold populist economic agenda for the party of which this could really be a piece but we're only going to get it done if we make a real case for it and convince the american people that it's the right thing to do and that happens by running on it yeah and i'll just add from a message and communications point of view, like what I like about a jobs guarantee is similar to what I like about Medicare for all, which is there's a simplicity and elegance to it where so many times Democrats go out there in a campaign, they say, I'm for jobs. And they say, okay, what's your jobs plan? And they say,

well, I have tax credits for this and I have an infrastructure plan over here and I've got some skills training over here. And you end up with a laundry list of policies. And if have an infrastructure plan over here. And I've got some skills training over here. And you end up with a laundry list of policies. And if you can go out there and say, my jobs plan is to guarantee that every single person in this country who wants to work can find a job. And there's going to be a jobs guarantee. And we're going to put the federal government behind the idea that every single person is guaranteed work if they want work in this country. And that every single person is guaranteed health care if they want health care in this country. When Democrats can go out there and say things like that, that are simple and elegant and powerful,

I actually think, like Dan said, the politics sort of catch up later, because those messages are compelling, not just, as you found out in Georgia, to liberal Democrats, but to people in deep red states. You guys are making me emotional with your response. I mean, because to me, the prospect of putting this on the agenda and making it real, I mean, it's really transformative. Can I take a minute to make the case beyond what you said, John, for how this can transform American economy and society? If everybody has a job because they know that the government is there to give them a job raising kids or building bridges, installing public art, then it means the following. Number

one, you don't have to be afraid of your boss when he's grabbing you or making sexual comments. And you can complain and stand up for yourself and not be afraid of retaliation because there's a $20 an hour job waiting for you if you get fired or quit. That's a great point. Number two, it reduces the impact of racial discrimination for the same reason. Number three, it empowers workers to form unions and act collectively for the same reason. Unemployment, and forgive me here, guys, but unemployment, Karl Marx taught us, is the pool of surplus labor that the employers can wait and use in order to drive

down wages and reduce working conditions. Because workers know that they're at risk of being unemployed if they ask for a raise. But if there's no unemployment, then all of the power shifts and workers can stand up for themselves. So a jobs guarantee doesn't just transform the lives of the people who are currently unemployed or have excluded from the workforce because they just can't find work. It also transforms the lives of tens of millions of Americans who have a job but are afraid of losing it or can't stand up for themselves. And beyond that, it provides us with a vehicle with which to rebuild America, as you said, John,

do all of the crucial work that needs doing. So to me, it is, right, and that's climate change, child care, elder care. change, child care, elder care. This policy encapsulates and unifies so much of the progressive agenda. Not all of it, but a lot. It reduces mass incarceration. It targets racial inequality directly by helping eliminate the underclass of long-term unemployed and distressed workers in black and brown communities. could run on this as a national party in 2020. And Dan, to shift to your part of the answer on the question of the politics, I think what you said is wonderful. You have to put it on the table and run on it,

and that's how you shift the public discussion. Look at Medicare for All. public discussion. Look at Medicare for All. For 20 years, it was consigned to only lefties. And then Bernie Sanders put it on the table, and now it's becoming almost the consensus opinion of the Democratic Party. And the right-wing opinion among Democrats is Medicare buy-in. And I think

a good job is guaranteed can do the same thing. And we have an opportunity in the next month to make huge strides on that. So I just want to highlight Richard Dean Winfield is a brilliant professor running on this agenda. He's a white man who's putting race and racial inequality at the center of his agenda. I saw him work at the doors. I saw him in meetings. And he talks about this in all the right ways. talks about this in all the right ways. He's in a primary against a conservative Democrat or a moderate Democrat who's running and saying she's the most qualified because she's a religious Christian. And I think if we can mobilize behind him and help get him to win the primary, then we're going to see an amazing

experiment in November where we have a bold, bold progressive agenda in a red district, and we can see maybe, in fact, what Democrats need is not to be Republican-lite in order to win in red-ruler districts, but to give working-class white men and women an agenda that says the Democratic Party is here for you, not just for Wall Street and not just for black and brown people. And it's not that he's doing it by eliminating or ignoring race. He's combining race and class into one comprehensive message. So in addition to supporting Hero, I urge in Arizona, I really urge your listeners, go to Richard Dean Winfield's website and throw him $25.

He'll use it so well in the next month. And if he puts this on the agenda and then Gillibrand and Sanders and Warren run on this leading up to 2020, we could be looking at a transformative moment when we have an agenda, unlike in 2009 when we weren't unified behind more than healthcare, and we can really take advantage of the opportunity. Let me end on an emotional note. It's now April 2018. By April 2021, three

years from now, it's going to be almost surely impossible for me to be a guest on this podcast, but if I'm still alive and I can watch the Democratic Party move a guaranteed jobs agenda through Congress and to the White House, I will die a very happy man. So I'm asking your listeners to be heroes and support this movement for me and for your families. Well, if that happens, Adi, you will be one of the reasons it did. So thank you so much and keep up the work. You inspire us all, Adi. We appreciate it. Well, thank you so much. It's so great that you guys are using your huge platform to advocate for such a bold agenda and a brave political agenda for the Democrats and the movement. So I'm honored to be in partnership with you, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Take care, buddy.

Thanks again to Adi Barkin for joining us today and we will see you guys next week again we're moving Monday night recording Tuesday morning pod we'll see you then bye everyone