Pod Save America - “Shutdown for what.”

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Trump keeps the government shut down over his metaphorical wall, House Democrats bring back PAYGO, Elizabeth Warren kicks off her presidential campaign, and Mitt Romney writes a sternly-worded op-ed. Then Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal talks to Jon and Dan about the shutdown, immigration, and the priorities of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, you'll hear our interview with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. One quick housekeeping note. We're going on tour. There are tickets for upcoming shows in New Orleans, Charleston, and Durham. We'll be traveling to all those cities in February, and you can find tickets at crooked.com slash events.

Come say hi. You can also find tickets there for love it or leave it. It's going back on the road. Uh, pod save the people is going on the road in February. So all kinds of touring from us. Um, it'll be fun.

I'm excited to get back on the road. It's been a long time since we've done just a, a, a usual old positive American tour as opposed to all the travel we did around the HBO stuff stuff in the fall so it'll be fun i'm excited um all right let's get to the news there's been a bit of news since last time we spoke dan i'm unfamiliar with it because i've already been uh well i've all i've already been following my new year's resolution i'm not looking at my phone so inform me john what did i miss is that is that not not real not really the first two days have not been great i want to tell you because some people have asked me on twitter like how's your resolution about twitter going

and look i didn't say i wasn't going to use twitter or even that i was going to use twitter less i did say i was going to use twitter differently i haven't gotten in twitter fights i've tried to avoid getting in some twitter fights or weighing in on some topics that may have gotten me into some Twitter fights, trying to be a little bit more positive. So, so far it's going, it's going okay. But I have to say, you know, 2019 is, has just begun and politics is, is almost as stupid as ever. I think it's, it's stupider. It is actually as dumb as it has been since Donald Trump became president. It's going to be tough. All right. So on that note, on the day, it's, it isider. It is actually as dumb as it has been since Donald Trump became president. It's going to be tough.

All right. So on that note, on the day, it is Thursday, was recording this, a new Congress is being sworn in. And on this day, President Trump refuses to open the federal government until taxpayers fork over $5 billion for a few hundred miles of steel slats that he's calling a border wall. miles of steel slats that he's calling a border wall. Remember that just a few weeks ago, Trump signaled that he was fine with funding the government without the $5 billion. So the Senate passed just such a bill, 100 to zero. But then a few people on the president's favorite television shows got all upset with him for backing down on the wall. So Trump decided to shut down the government. And now 800,000 government workers aren't getting a paycheck. 420,000 have been working without pay for the last two weeks. Parks and museums aren't being staffed.

They're filling up with trash and actual shit. Loans aren't getting processed. Healthcare and food and education are at risk all across Indian country, which relies heavily on the federal government. Regular food inspections are being delayed. Immigration courts are canceling hearings. Border agents are working without pay. It is not great. So yeah, some pretty stupid shit has happened since Trump became president.

Where does this rank, Dan? I mean, this is the dumbest thing that has happened by far. That's saying a lot. There's been some dumb shit. There have been dumb things that have happened but usually they're just like examples of trump's stupidity as opposed to something that actually impacts people right like there have been really horrible things that have happened but they're not there but they're like substantive they're around substantive

battles around issues whether it's immigration or health care taxes this is just we have shut the government down we are making people suffer all across this country, hundreds of people working without pay for a fake solution to an exaggerated problem that everyone knows wouldn't work. Yeah, that's that is stupid. I mean, like just one thing that hasn't been talked about enough is just the absurdity of a border wall, right? Like we've talked a lot about how the border wall as a symbol is awful it is a symbol of division it's morally repugnant right we've

talked about all this stuff but even practically it is so fucking dumb the border is more secure more militarized than any time in history right now apprehensions are at a 40-year low uh 600 miles of fence already exists hasn't stopped unauthorized immigration because most unauthorized immigration comes from people overstaying their visas um to build more hundreds hundreds of miles of wall or fencing as it is now because trump is calling it a wall even though it's fencing um it would require destroying public lands, taking people's homes through eminent domain. All of this comes after President Trump just lost an election, lost 40 seats in the House in an election where the closing message was about border security. And they lost. And now he's holding up. He's shutting down the government.

He will not open eight agencies of the federal government, 800,000 people without a paycheck in order to get this $5 billion, which will build a couple hundred miles of steel slats. Including the people responsible for border security. Right. That is the agency he's shutting down. It is so bad. So let's talk about how Trump – One more point on this I think is really important. It has really gotten lost in some of the coverage of this is that Trump's signature campaign promise was not that he was going to build a wall.

Right. It's that he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. So now he has shut down the government to extort American taxpayers into paying for this wall. Which, you know, even his own supporters never really believed that Mexico was going to pay for the wall. It's just one of those crazy things that it was like his central campaign promise. And even from the beginning, almost nobody believed that it was true. And yet we all just sort of like went along like, oh, well, the guy's fucking crazy.

Let's, you know, let's keep going. It's not going to matter. He's going to lose. Don't wet the bed. Now look where we are. now look where we are now look we are uh let's talk about how trump is definitely navigating this shutdown uh politico's jake sherman has suggested that trump might have blown the politics of this shutdown by doing absolutely nothing over the last few weeks except angry tweeting hasn't given statements hasn't done interviews hasn't tried to show he's working just a bunch of tweets such as

this one you have walls and you have wheels it was always that way and it will always be that way please explain to the democrats that there can never be a replacement for a good old-fashioned wall sounds like a fucking racist dr seuss um is it possible that the great dealmaker has miscalculated on this one? Or are there some brilliant chess moves that us lay people just don't see? What's going on here? I mean, there's so much to unpack here. First, who is that tweet for? Like, what is the audience of people who were just waiting to be told

that the pinnacle of human invention happened when we were steps removed from living in caves like like like what is that you're like oh walls wheels and then the question is when is he going to get to fire like what is he going to remember that fire is also a well-worn invention it's so dumb it's so dumb. It's so dumb. So that's one. Two, I was – Hallie and I, who, as you know, but worked in the White House with us and helped plan President Obama's events, were thinking about what it would be like if we were in the White House during a shutdown over the holidays. Like all the things that Obama would be doing, right? That we would be like forced to do. Like we would gather people who weren't able to access their health benefits and we would do an event with them and then Obama would go out and bring coffee to park service employees who are working without pay. Like we would do all these things to try to control the message of the day and put pressure on Republicans to concede.

And as Jake Sherman and you pointed out, he did none of those things. And there's a real fundamental question as to why, other than he is staffed by some of the dumbest people to ever work in American politics. Yeah. And I think another reason why is he actually doesn't, if Trump really wanted the wall, if he wanted a deal, he could have made a deal by now. He could have made a deal about a year ago when Democrats were willing to give him some money for this fencing in exchange for DACA protections. He didn't want to do it then. It's clear he wants this as an issue. He doesn't really want the wall itself. And he doesn't have any interest in really negotiating because this is a play for the people on Fox who want to see that he's tough and strong. And the only way he thinks about this is, will I be viewed as tough enough, as strong enough?

And my base wants me to get in a fight with my enemies who are also my base's enemies. And so therefore, I just have to show that I'm in a fight with these people. And it doesn't really matter if I win in the court of public opinion, because he's never really trying to win over most of the American people. He's just trying to keep his base happy. And all his base wants to know is that he's fighting like hell. Do you think, I mean, this is projection here, obviously, but do you think that fighting and losing is still a net benefit with his base? Because that's sort of how this, well, I mean, we'll talk about how this is going to end but there's a very real chance this ends with this stupid shutdown for some period of time and

then no border wall and that he will run for re-election with no border wall well like most things trump does he uh he doesn't really think that far ahead he's he's not thinking past the next tweet you know and so i think that i think what he's what's going to happen is if he loses this fight he is going to pretend that the wall is being built anyway he's going to say oh that's fine i got the money somewhere else he's going to show some picture of border construction because as we know the department of homeland security which was allocated you know 1.3 billion dollars last year for fencing is building fencing as we speak they're contracting out you know projects for people to build fencing and you know they're trying to

take people's land for more fencing which is ridiculous but they're already doing that so you could see him trying to like claim victory and just making up the fact that he built a wall even as every fact checker in america in the lead up to the 2020 election says, no, that's not true. He didn't build the wall. So I think that's how he's going to get out of it. I mean, that's how Trump gets out of things by just lying, right? He's just going to lie. But politically, it's obviously not working for him.

Something like 47% of people blame Trump for the shutdown. 33% blame Democrats. Only 25% of the American people support the shutdown. So he's doing all this not even for his usual base of 35 to 40 percent of the American people. It's only 25 percent. So you have most people blaming a president they don't like for a shutdown they don't like over a wall they don't like. And this is, again, after most people punish the president's party by a landslide in a midterm election in which border security was the closing argument. So how does this end? And what can Democrats do to bring it to an end?

Well, I mean, this is an important question, but I do – one other thing is that Trump is unpredictable in the way that really stupid people can be unpredictable. But he has – like the one thing that has been consistent is he is responsive to bad news coverage, right? Whether that is he, I mean, his responses are slow and stupid, but they happen, right? Like it takes him six months to get rid of Scott Pruitt, but he eventually does.

Or when there's been, you know, when he says something really, really stupid, he will at least attempt to fix it before he then goes back and doubles down. So he, like he, like there is a stimulus that he reacts to, but he says something really, really stupid, he will at least attempt to fix it before he then goes back and doubles down. So he, like he, like there is a stimulus that he reacts to, but he has not react, like reacted here, which makes me think that he thinks he is winning this battle. Right. Like he is. And I think this is the example of this is he lives in a filter bubble. And when I was flying back from the East coast last week, the, if you have a small child and you're flying across the East Coast, you spend a lot of time walking up and down the aisle holding your child to keep them entertained.

And the person in the seat behind me was mainlining Fox News for five hours on the flight from Philly to San Francisco. And so I was like – I obviously couldn't hear what they were saying, but you could see the chyrons. And if you watch Fox news, at least for that five hour period in which I did, which we have now maxed out my Fox news allotment for 2019 is there. It was like Pelosi blocking deal, question mark, uh, Trump colon, some statement.

Like if you watch Fox, he probably thinks he's winning this, which is why he's not doing, he doesn't seem to be looking for a way out. He's not out there trying to shape public opinion because in the world of his own state-sponsored propaganda network and the supplicants who he talks to on the phone, he thinks he's doing great. He's just like mainlining those Rasmussen numbers, which I assume are telling him he's winning again. Well, I mean, so let's talk about what happens next. Mike Pence floated a compromise to Democrats of two and a half billion dollars for steel slats.

Some Senate Republicans floated a compromise that would give Trump his five billion dollars in exchange for protecting immigrants who are protected by DACA. Trump has rejected both of those compromises offered by his own vice president and Senate Republicans. He's saying five billion dollars or nothing. And Mitch McConnell is saying the Senate won't even vote on anything that Trump refuses to sign, which is also a bullshit excuse, by the way, because, you know, if Mitch McConnell already passed something a hundred to nothing, to keep the government open, then clearly he could override Trump's veto if Trump refused to sign some bill opening the government. So using Trump as an excuse, oh, I can't pass anything because Trump won't sign it. No, you're a fucking co-equal branch of government. Of course you can pass something. And if you have the votes to override his veto, we could open the government tomorrow. But that's Mitch McConnell. On Wednesday, Schumer asked Trump why he couldn't just open all the other agencies that are closed,

the seven other agencies besides the Department of Homeland Security, while they negotiated funding for Homeland Security. And Trump said it because it's because he would look foolish if he did that. And and he also said the government could remain shut down for a long time. And he also said the government could remain shut down for a long time. So knowing that this is how Trump's operating, like what can Democrats do to bring this to an end aside from just wait him out, I guess? Nothing. Nothing. They can and should do nothing.

And they have the political, substantive, policy, moral high ground here, and they should not let it go. And this is only going to, there's only one way for this to end. And that is for Senate Republicans to fold. McConnell was trying to stay out of this because he does not want to be the one responsible for undermining Trump. As long as he's it with the never tiresome turtle metaphor for McConnell, he is he is hiding. But he's going to be half the one he's going to have to be the one who fixes it. And it has always been the Senate Republicans who have stopped a shutdown under Obama. Boehner was too weak to ever end a shutdown because to sort of buck the Freedom Caucus would mean he would get tossed. And so McConnell would have to force the House's hand. And that's what's going to happen here because Trump does not care about the 60-some percent who oppose his wall. He cares about the 30-some percent who passionately care about it. And Nancy Pelosi cannot and should not give him his wall.

And so they're going to have to – someone's going to have to go to him and say we're going to – like with the Russia sanctions bill or the Saudi Arabian sanctions bill that have happened earlier, that we're going to pass something with a veto-proof majority. And you're just going to have to suck it up. And that's the only way it's going to end. And because of that, I think this could go on for a long time and maybe it becomes a fake shutdown because they pass these, these bills to, you know,

pay the people who are not working or give like, there may be some things you can do to soften some of the pain in this in the short run. But if Trump is demanding a wall that he cannot have, then it's going to go on for into perpetuities, you know, as scary as that is. Well, so next question is, how do Democrats continue to remind the American people that it is Trump who is shut, who's keeping the government shut down, that it is his fault because he told us he would take the blame on national television. Because, you know, I already saw, you know, Nancy Pelosi did an interview with Savannah Guthrie at the Today Show this morning.

One of Savannah's questions was, well, you know, aren't you aren't you guys partially responsible for this? If you're not compromising, you're getting like you're starting to get a little bit of this in the mainstream media about you know why shouldn't democrats just come to the table and give trump something because democrats you know should care about all these people who aren't getting paid uh you've got some stories i saw this morning some reuters story they're interviewing you know tourists at national parks and you get some people who are just like why can't they just talk to each other and come together and do something like how do democrats prevent this from becoming both sides bullshit um as this drags on it's going to become both sides bullshit it just is i mean it is because if you look at the landscape here, you have a Machiavellian partisan hack leading the Republican Senate and a complete and utter moron run at the White House.

And so you look at the House Democrats, you're like, you're the only adults in town. Fix this. Right. Which is it puts them in an impossible position. You can't fold here because that – we cannot put our stamp on something as fundamentally stupid and truly immoral as a border wall. It's so dumb. Like you don't – Trump does not get to have a temper tantrum to get the fake thing he wants. We just cannot do that. And so what I think Democrats should do here is I think they should continually – like our position should be we want to reopen the government for some period of time at current levels. Yeah.

Right? And we're going to send that bill to the Senate every fucking day. And then Senate Democrats are going to go to the floor and they're going to try to bring it up and McConnell is going to block it. And like that is a – it is – we know this from the shutdowns, potential shutdowns that we were involved in with Obama. When one side is demanding cuts or additional – when they're demanding something and the other side is fighting it, like then it's a battle, right? But here, Democrats are demanding nothing. They're just demanding that the government goes open. They're not asking for anything that was not passed unanimously by a Republican-controlled Senate a month ago.

So their position is so imminently reasonable. So that one is pass a CR, a continued resolution, at current levels over and over again. Do it for a week. Do it for two weeks. Make Trump take the – and the Senate Republicans take the most unreasonable position possible, which they are doing. the most unreasonable position possible, which they are doing. And second, I do think, I know you say that people don't care about the, you know, they didn't believe that Mexico was not going to pay for the wall, but we should not let that issue go. Because we are being forced to borrow money for China to pay for, then we have to pay for it with interest for a wall that Trump

promised Mexico would pay for. And I think we have to continue to hammer that because that may not help us dislodge Trump from his base. But I think nothing can dislodge Trump from his base. But it will matter with the people who sit in the middle between partisan Democrats and Protestant Republicans. I do think the other thing that Democrats should do is all the things that you and Holly were talking about that a president should do during a shutdown, which is, you know, Democrats should start holding events with some of these workers who aren't getting their paychecks, with some of these people who aren't getting government services, with people who are hurting through the shutdown. The shutdown's causing a lot of pain in the country. Like people aren't getting their paychecks and these are people who don't make a lot of money in the first place

and they're trying to support their families. And you have Native Americans who aren't getting healthcare and education. And I mean, this is some serious stuff going on. And I think that Democrats should constantly remind people every day with new press events, new communications events, whatever, that these are the real life consequences of Trump's shutdown. So that it's not just a fight about bills and continuing resolutions and, you know, who's arguing what when they all meet at the White House, but that there are actually, this is a fight about people. White House, but that there are actually, this is a fight about people. And, you know, that Trump doesn't give a shit about people, and the Democrats do, which is why they want to open the government.

And you're right, it is a perfectly reasonable position to say, okay, we have this fight over border security funding, fine. There's a whole bunch of agencies that have nothing to do with border security funding. Let's permanently open those agencies, fund them for the year, nothing to do with border security funding. Let's permanently open those agencies, fund them for the year, like we all agreed to, like 100 senators voted to do already. And then we can continue to pass short-term resolutions to keep the Department of Homeland Security open so that we can have some border security. And so the DHS is actually working to protect the country. And as we keep that open temporarily, then we can go to the table and negotiate over Trump's border security. But we're not negotiating with the government shutdown.

Yeah. I mean, you put that to the American people, that's going to be a pretty fucking popular position. The other thing that they could potentially do is pass bills that solve specific problems related to the shutdown and then make Trump and the Republicans reject those individually, right? So here's a bill to open all the national parks, right? Here's a bill to pay the DHS worker, the quote-unquote essential personnels at Border Patrol or TSA, whoever else who've been working for weeks without getting paid. Here's a bill to give them a paycheck, right?

There is – and make them reject all of those to seem even more unreasonable. But like it's going to take a lot of work because just Trump has a Twitter account with millions of followers, mostly real people, some bots, and can control – because his president can control – there's a reason presidents almost always win shutdowns because they have the larger bully pulpit. Democrats are going to have to work harder to uh even though they have the better position to may stay on top of that position and don't read like don't listen to dumb centrist pundits i know that i was then fall because that is a giant like that do is the washington post like our greatest fear here are the is the washington post editorial page which will almost certainly write some op ed, some editorial that will tell Democrats to compromise.

And Nancy Pelosi will be forced to have a meeting with like 30 members of the New Democratic Coalition who read it on the way to work that morning and are panicking. Do not panic. No one gives a fuck. This is Washington at its worst because they're all stuck in Washington. The Democratic politicians are there. Their staffs are there. Their consultants are there. They're all listening in Washington. The Democratic politicians are there. Their staffs are there. Their consultants are there. They're all listening to the same people.

You're already, like we said, we're already starting to hear these reporters asking the question, well, shouldn't, aren't you guys responsible? Shouldn't you compromise? Shouldn't you do this? No matter how extreme or stupid the position Trump and the Republicans take is, there will always be people who say, well, okay, we know they're crazy, but you're supposed to be the adults. So you give into their demands. That's, and they're just, you're right. Like they're going to have to resist that. Here's hoping. So let's move on to something else. As the House Democrats are trying to reopen the

government, they're also expected to vote on a bunch of internal rule changes proposed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders. Most of these changes are quite good and popular. They bring more transparency to the legislative process. They strengthen ethics rules. But there's one rule change that's causing some controversy. Pelosi wants to bring back the so-called PAYGO rule. It's called PAYGO. It's like pay as you go. This rule requires every piece of legislation that adds to the deficit to be offset by corresponding budget cuts or tax increases. So if you want to pass a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will add $5 billion to the deficit, you have to either cut $5 billion in spending from somewhere else, or raise $5 billion in taxes or some combination of the two. A handful of Democrats, including

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, have said they'll vote against the rule changes because of PAYGO, which they believe will prevent Democrats from passing big, bold policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. Dan, this provision has been around for many years. Why did Democrats embrace PAYGO in the first place? And why do you think Pelosi wants to bring it back? That is a great question. PAYGO has been around since the 1990 Budget Summit, which was when George H.W. Bush violated his pledge, his read-my-lips pledge not to raise taxes. And it was this idea, as you point out, that if you want to spend money either on spending or taxes, then you've got to pay for it. And it's been this principle that has been thought to be

politically popular sort of in a different political era, but was also sort of a fake law or fake principle because it can be waived by a simple majority of the House or 60 senators. So basically any coalition that can send a bill to the president's desk can waive it. And it is also – as you point out, it's also a federal law, right? So regardless of what the House does, there is a PAYGO law in the books. And what it really means is if you do not abide by PAYGO or waive PAYGO, then there will be mandatory across-the-board cuts into everything, including Medicare. So it was this idea that you would have this penalty that was so politically unpalatable that it would trim spending.

Now, this is bad politics and bad economics on both levels, but I'll get to that in a sec. But what the House is doing is not affecting the law. They are simply deciding that they, as a body, as the Democratic-run House of Representatives, will abide by PAYGO. So they are deciding that they will abide by a rule that is already law. And – And I'll get to that as why. Okay. But they were – like it seems like, oh, that's obvious. Well, why wouldn't they do that? Well, PAYGO as a law – it was re-signed as a law in 2010. When the Republicans took the House in 2011, they changed their rules to say that they would not buy by something called PAYGO. They would buy by something called CUTCO or something stupid like that.

buy by something called Cutco or something stupid like that. But the basic principle was that PAYGO did not apply to taxes in the House, only to spending cuts, which is how the Republicans were able to pass, without having to come up with any spending cuts, a trillion-dollar tax cut. And then Congress, both the House and the Senate, waived PAYGO, which is why the deficit is skyrocketing thanks to this bill. And so what Democrats are doing is they are abiding by the law when Republicans didn't. And this will make it – it's not the end of the world, but it does – it matters for two reasons, in my view. It's why I think the debate's not absurd, which is Democrats are, for limited political benefit. Basically, a press release saying we abide by pay code that matters to basically no one who doesn't work for the DLC or third way.

And we are going to adopt this view, this, I think, fundamentally incorrect view of economics that the deficit spending is inherently bad. Right. Deficit spending is not inherently bad. No. Because if you were – like borrowing money to do a trillion-dollar infrastructure package or public works package that put people to work or borrowing money to invest in our workers is the right thing to do. We should be making – we should not be accepting the false premise of the deficit fear mongers. We should be arguing that bold, progressive investments in workers in the American economy is the right thing to do. And so this is purely a symbolic debate,

which is why a lot of progressive members of Congress are going to vote for this anyway. But I think it is a mistake right out of the gates to accept the premise an incorrect premise for that does hamper the ability to make a populist progressive economic argument going forward it is absolutely stupid economic policy and and i would argue stupid politics now so you'd say okay why are they doing something so politically stupid it It is true. And I noticed this when I did focus groups for the wilderness, that you have a bunch of people sitting around a table, a bunch of voters who will tell you within two sentences, yes, I support Medicare for all, but also the government really needs to rein in their spending because they waste too much, too much money. They waste too many taxpayer dollars, But here's what I want them to spend it on. Big infrastructure investments, Medicare for all, all that kind of stuff. So you have this sort of

discordant view from voters. And the reason they have this view probably is because of, I don't know, four decades of Republicans saying that Democrats waste all kinds of taxpayer dollars. And when people's lives actually don't improve and their wages don't grow, and yet they know that they're paying all these taxes, they think to themselves, OK, the taxes are being wasted somewhere. So it must be someone spending too much money. That is the wrong view. But that is the view that Republicans and their propaganda machine have driven into people's heads for over four decades. So Democrats and of course, this was like you said, starting in the 1990s with a lot of centrists and clinton types um we're all like well then we should show that we are fiscally responsible we must show that we're fiscally responsible and so pay go came from that but like you said most economists will tell you um deficit

spending can and has spurred economic growth and deficit spending can make possible public investments that more than pay for themselves down the road. The Green New Deal would be a great example of that. You spend a lot of money for the Green New Deal, and some of it adds to the deficit. Well, because we're not going to have to pay for the disasters caused by climate change, or at least more of the disasters caused by climate change, because we're about to, you know, such an investment would create millions and millions of good paying jobs in this country. That's going to more than pay for itself down the road. So it is absolutely stupid economic policy. But the question is, so it's a mistake for Democrats to have done this, but how big of a mistake is it? Because as you mentioned, you can waive

pay-go rules with a simple majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate. So, if Democrats end up passing Medicare for All, or they end up passing the Green New Deal, they will have only been able to pass that because they had a majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate, or because they got rid of the filibuster in the Senate, which is another issue. But either way, if they have the votes to pass either of those bills, then they definitely also have the votes to waive the pay go rules, right? So technically, it doesn't really matter that much. Or on the other side of this, like you said, it's law. So even if they say, fuck pay go, we're not going to abide by it. We're not going to abide by this

rule. We're going to pass something that increases the deficit then because of the law there are going to be automatic cuts across the board that's if they don't have the votes so like practically it really doesn't hamper their ability to pass big bold progressive legislation but as you mentioned it does sort of hamper their argument to um you know that we should pass big bold progressive legislation it's just it's i guess it's a stupid my view of this is it's stupid for them to try to include pago but i don't think it is the end of the world by any means because it is something that is you can easily get around yes that you are you are Look, and let's be very clear. 99.9% of what Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are doing in the coming out – coming into power is exactly right. There is so much progressive stuff in this rules package.

Like what the incoming committee chairman are saying about how they're going to strategically and aggressively investigate the corruption and criminality of the Trump administration is great. The people that Nancy Pelosi is putting on – the progressives Nancy Pelosi is putting on committees to advocate for things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All is great. So this is not going to be the reason that Medicare for All does not become a law. I think it is a bad, outdated instinct of Democrats to allow Republicans to define the contours of the argument. And this takes me back to the days of the Obama 08 campaign and taxes, which is in my first many campaigns, the premise among Democrats was Republicans always want a tax fight. So if Republicans bring up taxes, you change the subject, right? Republicans always want a tax fight. So if Republicans bring up taxes, you change the subject, right? And Obama having a different view of politics and not sort of coming up through the battles of the 90s and sort of this third way, move to the centuries view of politics

in that period, didn't accept that premise. So we ran aggressively against McCain's tax cut, arguing that taxes for the middle class were good and that there should be tax increases for the wealthy. And Obama was the first Democrat to win taxes as an issue in the exit poll since Johnson in 68 and Johnson won on every issue because it was a massive landslide win. But we took that on. And even though the Republicans were able to use legislative procedures to sneak this bill through, the Republican tax bill is one of the least popular pieces of legislation in history, in part because Democrats have not been afraid to take on that argument.

I think this, we have to be, we have to follow the lead. I think, frankly, people like Bernie Sanders and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, that we're going to have to change the contours of the economic argument if we want to ever get to the point where we can build public support for some of these huge massive progressive pieces of legislation and i would say that that's why that's why i care yeah and i would say that it's a good sign it's a hopeful sign that we're at least having this fight and that there are people like the politicians you just mentioned who are making this a fight because we didn't have this fight when obama was president and i would say

that we got caught up in the deficit bullshit right like obama was figuring out what to do with the simpson bowls commission and how we could reduce the deficit and i don't know how many fucking speeches we wrote about why it was so important to reduce the deficit and i think we put too much emphasis on it and there weren't many Democrats back then saying this is ridiculous to talk about, to focus so much on why the deficit is such a problem when we have all this need in this country, that public investment, that if we invest in our roads and our bridges and people's health care and their education, then that can grow the economy and not just austerity politics, which has now been discredited.

So I think it's a good sign that we're at least having this fight now. And it means that, you know, the Overton window has moved. Can I say the thing that Barack Obama would say if he was here right now in response to you? Please do. He would say that what he was trying to do was, while the economy was crashing and Republicans were in control of the Congress, he was trying to trade long-term deficit reduction for short-term stimulus, like a payroll tax cut or infrastructure, something like that, because there was no other way. We had to put money in the economy to help workers and create more jobs, and we could not do that with Republicans. We couldn't do that without giving something to Republicans. Now, did we lose the argument in places? Sure. Did we

sometimes offer too much? Absolutely. But that was the strategic thinking that put us down this path, even if we were probably, we did not do a good enough job making the case for, against austerity politics, despite our really sweet speech attacking Paul Ryan. And I will say, because I know that Barack Obama would add this as well, as he was talking about how to sort of curb spending over the long term. He was focused primarily on Medicare and not just making Medicare cuts, but slowing the growth of health care costs, which no matter what we do, whether we pass Medicare for all or whether we don't, of course, we need to bring down the cost of health care for everyone that is not a

conservative position that should be a liberal position because we spend too much money on health care without getting good results we spend more money on health care than anywhere else in the world and so yeah there is no matter what kind of health care plan we adopt whether we eliminate the private insurance system altogether we still need to find a way to bring down the cost of health care so that's focused more on quality so that was what he was focused on but you know when you're dealing with the republican congress and john boehner and all these people who just want to cut cut cut you do get a little too caught up in deficit politics but anyway so yes pago dumb idea but it's not something to completely freak out over because it will not stop the passage of big legislation if we have the votes to pass that legislation.

That's the important thing to understand. OK, let's talk about the latest 2020 news. On Monday of this week, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for 2020. In her video announcement, Warren said that America's middle class is under attack and that it's time to fight back. She'll be touring a group of cities in Iowa over the weekend and also announced some big hires in that state. Warren has been a consumer advocate for most of her career. She came up with the idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while she was a professor at Harvard Law.

She was later recruited by the Obama administration to actually create that agency, after which she went back home to Massachusetts and ran for Senate. And now she's the first Democratic top-tier contender to launch an exploratory committee. Dan, what did you think about Warren's announcement? I think that was a nasty shot at Julian Castro you just took. Hey man, you know, everyone's a contender. She is clearly the most well-known. Yes, she is the most well-known.

Julian Castro, who was mayor of San Antonio and Obama's side secretary, is great. And I love Julian Castro. He is great. And maybe more people will know him as the months go on he is in a different tier than uh elizabeth warren at least in terms of name recognition and correct yes look her announcement was great she did a good job like i mean no one wins and it wins the election during their announcement i guess you could theoretically lose it but she's like elizabeth warren the field better for, we'll probably say this for almost everyone getting into the field, almost everyone.

But she makes it a better, more interesting, smarter primary by being in it. I think the thing about her that is really important is that she, I guess two things. that she, I guess two things. One is that she might have the most finely honed, most popular economic message of any of the Democrats running. And I think some people may say Bernie, but I think Elizabeth Warren has maybe with the widest appeal in her economic message. And the second thing is, is that perhaps of all the people running, economic message. And the second thing is, is that perhaps if all the people running, she may have thought the hardest and the most creatively and most strategically about innovative solutions, policy solutions to complex problems. Like in the run-up, she's probably, I think, probably won or had the best, the most interesting policy that she's been rolling out,

whether it's on foreign policy, on government reform, on dealing with the growing power of corporations in the run-up to this announcement. So I think the more policy-centric the debate in the primary, the better. Yeah. I mean, we should talk about that. She's for Medicare for All. She's for Green New Deal. But as you mentioned, she has some pretty big ideas of her own. She's introduced a very strong anti-corruption bill, a very interesting plan to give workers a much bigger voice on corporate boards by allowing workers to elect, I think, up to 40% of the members of a corporate board, which would be a huge change, a serious investment in housing

affordability, and most recently, a plan to allow the government to manufacture generic versions of prescription drugs so that people have an affordable choice of medication. It's basically a public option for prescription drugs. So like you said, she's got these really great, well-thought-out ideas. But like, as you said at the beginning, you know, for me, I always ask of these candidates, I think that every presidential candidate should have to answer two questions, why me and why now? And she has the clearest message maybe of anyone who's announced so far, anyone even who may announce, you know why she's running. She says it in the video, very succinctly, America's middle class is under attack. Billionaires and big corporations enlisted politicians to help themselves get richer. They rigged the game. They've created a corrupt system and they've propped it up by distracting and dividing us with fear and hate. I fought them all my life. I'll fight them as president. That's why Elizabeth Warren is running. You know it. You know it in one sentence.

is running. You know it. You know it in one sentence. I mean, I said this, look, however you feel about Bernie Sanders, when he ran in 2016, the first line of his announcement speech was something like, you know, I believe we need a political and economic revolution in this country. Boom. That's his message. Barack Obama, in no way, talked about change, not just change from Bush, but change from the way that politics has been practiced. Done, right? Donald Trump had a pretty clear message. It's a repugnant one, but it was pretty clear. He wanted to make America great again by returning to an era of more whiteness. Again, very clear message from a candidate. But I do think that, and especially in a crowded field, especially in a media environment like this, you have to stand out.

And the way you stand out without acting like an asshole like Donald Trump does is by having a very clear message that people know who you are, what you stand for. And in Elizabeth Warren's case, her message flows from the policy that she advocates, which flows from her record and her bio. You know she believes what she's saying. You know she wants to fight. And that's it. And that's a pretty strong asset to have in a crowded primary, I think. And like you said, it happens to also be, and we know this from years of looking at polls and focus groups and all the rest, her message, her economic populist message happens to be very popular and have very broad-based appeal

you know you'll hear some people say oh it's divisive people always say that messages are divisive that um you know are populist and take on wall street all the time but i will tell you that those messages are broadly popular not just among uh progressives not just among democrats not just among independents but also among some some Republicans. Yeah. I mean, I think that some interesting pressure points I think that will come, presuming that Bernie Sanders runs, is Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren fulfill a lot of the same lane. They've been allies on a lot of very progressive economic legislation, pushing Democrats to be more populist over the last several years together. And Bernie Sanders identifies as Democratic

Socialist. And Elizabeth Warren has been very specific about the fact that she is a capitalist through and through, I think is her language or something like that. And I think that's going to be like, what is the difference between a democratic socialist who supports Medicare for all, free college, et cetera, and a quote unquote democratic capitalist or someone or a democratic person of a capitalist who supports Medicare for all, free college? Like where, what is that, like, what does that fundamental difference mean? Doesn't mean anything at all. And I think that will be an interesting conversation that happens during this primary, presuming all the people we expect to run, run. Yeah, I do think that is probably one of her big challenges will be if Bernie Sanders does run, are they fighting over the same

kind of voters? And do those voters sort of split their preferences between Sanders and Warren? So I do think that's one thing she'll have to deal with. So I hate even getting into this, but in the wake of Warren's announcement, Politico published a piece with the headline warren battles the ghosts of hillary uh the whole article hinges on a narrative that the biggest obstacle in front of warren is her likability and that she shares too many of the attributes that sank hillary clinton the evidence for this within the piece is nothing, actually. It's basically reporting that some Democrats privately say this. Quotes no one on the record as saying this at all.

I don't know. What did you think of this piece? And I guess what did you think of the coverage of her announcement overall? I got very worked up about the piece. And in fairness to the reporter, the piece is more balanced in the headline and the tweets. The overall premise is stupid. But she does include quotes from people that counteract the premise. But the idea is stupid because the thing that Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton have in common is that they are both women who served in the Senate.

Like there's just nothing – it's just stupid. It's just so stupid and – but it's indicative of the larger coverage, which was all these stories about Elizabeth Warren's run were framed through two particularly stupid windows. One is the idea that Democrats are engaged in identity politics because we have women, African-Americans, Latinos running for president. That we're engaged – like that somehow our – that we are trying – like the idea of all politics is identity politics in the sense that you're building a coalition of different groups of people to get to a plurality or a majority or whatever you need to win, right? But when the media discuss identity politics, they treat it as like Democrats are trying to cheat by – like it is normal to get white people to vote for you, particularly white men. And then anything in addition to that is some sort of electoral trick like getting dead people to vote or something, right? It is. And so it's like Democrats are engaged in identity debate

about who represents them, women or African-Americans or Latinos. And if you're going to use the identity politics framework to describe Democrats, then you also have to use it to describe Republicans who are making an explicit appeal to white men to vote for them. Yeah.

Like a very explicit race-based appeal. Democrats aren't making a race-based appeal or a gender-based appeal. They're just trying to have inclusive set of policies and an inclusive message to encourage as many people to vote as possible. And Republicans are trying to take one group of very reliable voters and scare the living shit out of them. And it's like the framework, there is a structural unfairness in the backwards looking way that even some of the younger, more worldly reporters approach politics. It is like we are writing like it is 1968

over and over again. And that makes it hard for Democrats because we are forced to swim in a swamp of stupidity. Democrats are practicing the exact opposite of identity politics. We are trying to build a big tent coalition that is the Republican Party, which is a party made up primarily of white men and to a lesser extent white women, but white people. That is the fact of the Republican coalition right now. Democrats are a party that looks more like America. That's just a fact. And they're trying to build a big tent

coalition. That is what Democrats try to do. That is how we win. That is not a value judgment. That is just the facts of what the coalition looks like. It's so ridiculous. But anyway, back to the Politico piece. I mean, I have a few thoughts on that, which, like you said, Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton are both women. They both served in the Senate. They're both Democrats. That is where I think the similarities end. Like, I just I think they could not be more different in their approach to politics, in their approach to policy, even though they're both progressives. I think Elizabeth Warren has staked out positions a bit further the left than Hillary Clinton, in particular around economics. The way she approaches politics is different. The way she explains politics, speaks about politics is different. Her style of speaking is different. Like, they are so different as people. I think it is obviously sexist to have a headline like that, to have a story like that,

even if it wasn't the intention of the report to do that is a sexist frame with which to look at this problem but i will also say as we think about how elizabeth warren navigates this environment and other candidates navigate this environment and we as activists navigate this environment like i saw that article because I, you know, I was scrolling through Twitter. Everyone is freaking out about it. I opened my Nuzzle app, which of course, you know, gives you all the articles that are most shared by the people that you follow on Twitter. And this was like the number one story that was most shared by the people that I follow on Twitter. And it wasn't shared because people thought it was a good piece.

It was shared because everyone was so fucking angry about it that that's all they could talk about. And I do think there's something to be said for like, this is one piece and one headline in Politico that probably very, very, very few people would have read. And I think we do have to consider what it means to start sharing and freaking out about these pieces that are going to be written that are going to be stupid that are going to be sexist they might be

racist there might be all kinds of bad things at the expense of talking about what these candidates are for their policy agendas their values their platforms the big debates they're going to have like i just i am i am a little concerned as we head into 2020 that the outrage machine is going to take over and we're going to be sort of like Elizabeth Warren's announcement was this great announcement. She had a clear message. We should we should talk about and we did. You know, we started by talking about the substance of her policy and why she's a good candidate, other things like that. But so much of her announcement coverage was taken up by this one fucking piece in Politico. Yeah.

I was one of those people who shared it with outrage, which is the exact like if you had done it, I would have then told you like we shouldn't get so worked up about what the mainstream media says. So do as I say, not as I do, obviously. Yeah, you're right. It's you know, I think you make the point that I think is that we should not. It should not be glossed over in this, which is that the nice about him was one of his billionaire friends got to ride on his helicopter. Like no one likes him as a person. People may like him as a president or his policies or his fucking law or whatever, but he is unlikable. We don't read stories about how unlikable he is. Right. Like that is not a thing that happens.

Elizabeth Warren has been in the race for seven minutes and she is quite likable. She is, I mean, she will get to make that case to the public, but there's, she doesn't have some like 30 year history of people saying she's unlikable. We just, it is just as friendly treat. The press treats women, the public. It's not just the press. I guess it's, it is society had puts a set of expectations and a set of conditions on women that they don't put on men. And I do think we have to find a balance between getting outraged and twisted around the axle about stuff

and pointing out when these things are happening in the hopes that over the course of the long run, you're not going to fix all of it, but you can make it more challenging for – you should challenge these – it is the right thing to do to challenge these unfair stereotypes that are placed on women candidates or African-American candidates or Latino candidates or anyone. And so that is sort of the balance, which is we're going to have to simultaneously fight against these things and build up more thoughtful, progressive outlets and media opportunities to have a better discussion about politics. Yeah. I mean, I just say, take it from the perspective of Elizabeth Warren's campaign. I don't know what their conversations were about this Politico story, but you think to yourself, okay, we live in a world that is unfair, that is where the media environment and the political environment is in some ways sexist.

Hillary Clinton had to deal with that. And now Elizabeth Warren and and maybe Kamala Harris and maybe Kirsten Gillibrand and maybe Amy Klobuchar will also have to deal with that as they run. How do you operate in this environment when there is a story like that, when there is a comment from Donald Trump that is sexist? What what do you do in response and i do think that the way elizabeth warren handled this is probably a good indicator of of how you should handle it you know i think she uh took an instagram video of her on the on the train on the way i don't know where she was going um but uh she said a likable woman sit in the quiet car. And it's like, you know, it was funny.

She laughed it off. And then she moved on. She went on to a Rachel Maddow show. Rachel Maddow asked her substantive questions about her policies, as a good journalist does. She had a great conversation about it. She didn't have to talk about this stupid Politico story. It's probably a good way to handle it. It's a good balance.

You can't completely ignore these things, but you can't necessarily obsess over them. And I think the candidates in the campaigns are going to be very disciplined about how they handle this kind of stuff. I think the rest of us in sort of the activist Twitter world probably have to think to ourselves, like, how can we be a little more disciplined in how we shape the conversation as well? It's just a thought that I had. That is really, there's a part of, you are right, but what you said was really, was mildly depressing to me,

which is when you said those of us in the activist Twitter world. I meant activist slash Twitter world. Either way, that's who we are. We used to work at the fucking White house and now we're in the activist twitter world oh man you know man i mean the only the thing that i think is important here is the lesson for this for every candidate whether you are elizabeth warren or bernie sanders or joe biden or kamala harris is tell your own story do not live in a world where you're going to rely on Politico or the New York Times or even Pots of America to tell your story.

Find ways to tell your story that are on your terms. And if you can do that, if you can control your narrative to the public, control your message to the public, you are going to be much more successful than if we're relying on a mainstream media that has all the wrong incentives to, mainstream media and Trump, frankly, to tell your story. Do not let Trump and the media define the four corners of your story. Do it yourself. That is correct. All right. Before we get to our interview with Pramila Jayapal, let's talk about a brand new member of Congress from the great state of Utah, Willard Mitt Romney. He's come to save the Republican Party from the clutches of Trumpism with his op-ed pen. Writing in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Senator Romney said that Donald

Trump, quote, has not risen to the mantle of the office. With the nation so divided, resentful, and angry, presidential leadership and qualities of character is indispensable, and it is in this province where the incumbent shortfall has been most glaring. He also said, I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault, but I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest, or destructive to democratic institutions. Dan, how much does this matter, if at all? Does he at least get credit for saying publicly what most

other republican politicians say privately i am going to close my eyes and go to sleep and i would like you to wake me uh in the summer i was gonna say it's the summer of 2020 when mitt romney steps on the stage of the republican convention in prime time to offer his ringing endorsement for Donald Trump's reelection. Because that is what is going to happen. I saw you tweet that yesterday. I think I could take the other side of that bet. I don't think he will be at that. I don't think he will speak at that convention in support of Donald Trump. You know who this we are reliving? This is where the seven years of seniority or so I have on you are very critical, or six years, I don't know how old you are, but is that this is like Bush-McCain at this point in 2000.

Right? And then McCain, because Romney probably wants to run for president again, and he's going to, and that is going to require him campaigning for Trump to run for re-election. He's going to campaign for him. He 100 percent is. And, well, you know, and I think McCain spoke in prime time on the in the 2004 convention in favor of Bush, who he said was like deep, like had much of the same, less of a moral case against Bush as a substantive case that McCain had and he completely flipped it and campaigned for Bush and ran as a foolishly as a sort of continuing

the Bush legacy in 2008. So anything is possible. Look, to be fair, saying it is better than not saying it. Right? Right. That's great. My comment was going to be wake me up when he actually uses the power of his office to stop Trump in some way.

Like I think this this is another debate that is so fucking silly to me. Like everyone's focused on like, should he be applauded? Should he be condemned? Should he be believed? Should he be not believed? I don't know. We don't know. Like we said, like we can place a fun bet on the 2020 convention. Who the fuck knows what he's going to do? He might you he could be is he new jeff flake or is he something else uh although i will say in flake's case at least at the very end even though it was quite belated um flake stopped judges because he was trying to get a bill to protect robert muller and romney who you know was interviewed by jake tapper on c CNN on Wednesday, Tapper said, are you going to, you know, stop judges like Jeff Flake did? And Romney's like, oh, I don't know. I think that

might be unproductive. And, you know, and then he said he'd vote for the border wall. And again, it's like, I understand that you can be conservative, have conservative policy positions, and still take action to stop some of trump's worst impulses uh and actions right that don't have to do with being a conservative i think that's that's possible i guess i guess that's what jeff flake was doing when he stopped these judges um but romney like the border wall isn't an example of that right now because even though Romney is theoretically for a border wall like he knows how bullshit this whole situation is he knows that the senate voted 100 to nothing to keep the government open and that five billion dollars for steel slats is complete bullshit and yet he doesn't want to take a stand even in this first issue of keeping the

government open um because I don't know why i don't know because he he doesn't really want he wants to write an op-ed about it and not actually stand up to trump so you know it i don't know whether whether romney will rise to the occasion or not whether we're doubtful about it doesn't really matter let's just see what happens either he acts or he doesn't if he acts good for him like you know please come join us in stopping trump's madness uh and then vote for your conservative policies whenever you want fine we don't agree with you but that's your thing um but if you're not going to do anything you're just going to write op-eds then you know fucking great good for you it's like

it's so stupid yeah i mean the i the fact the fact that mitt romney is currently a monument to principal consistency integrity is the perfect example of how in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king yeah i mean like mitt romney is someone who has had flip-flops named after him. He was the pro-choice governor of Massachusetts who passed the model for the Affordable Care Act, who then ran for president and ran far to the right, disavowing everything he ever stood for, then changed his positions again to run again in 2012, ran as an immigration hard, in a way that was a model for Trump, in order to beat Rick Perry in the primary, who was then a fierce advocate against Trump, who then was willing to be Trump's Secretary of State, which I think was okay. But then when running for Senate in Utah, said disavowed the idea that he'd ever been, quote unquote, never Trump. So let's see what he does. But if past is prologue, it's, this is not going to go well. Yeah. He doesn't actually, uh,

not a lot of evidence that Mitt Romney has some core core principles and beliefs. Um, I do not like Mitt Romney. I have not liked him from the very beginning. I didn't like him 2008. I hate him in 2012. The rest of you people who've, who've applauding him, I still don't like him in 2008. I hate him in 2012. The rest of you people who've applauding him, I still don't like him. I am never going to like him. Mitt Romney is bad. I'm done. Trump, well, so Trump, I thought what said more about Mitt Romney is Mitt Romney. And like, yeah, I feel the same way. Like I said, I don't, I don't wake up thinking about Mitt Romney that much. I don't really care. I don't think he's going to have a big impact on our, on our public life. I thought what it said about the Republican Party was more interesting.

Trump obviously fired back because that's Trump, which was a funny tweet. Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast. Question will be, is he a flake? I hope not. I won big and he didn't. Be a team player and win. And then the rest of the cult got upset. Rand Paul went after him pretty hard, after Romney pretty hard. This is the same Rand Paul who called

Trump a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag who was less qualified to be president than a speck of dirt. Rand Paul thinks he was upset that Romney attacked Trump. And Mitt Romney's own niece, the Ronna formerly known as Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican Party,

attacked her uncle via tweet calling his op-ed disappointing and unproductive. Cool party, huh, Dan? Yeah, it's an awkward family reunion. I just like these people like he wrote an op-ed basically saying, I will vote for just about all of Trump's policies. I am a conservative through and through. Don't worry about my vote. But I'm going to say that the guy is offensive and degrades the office once in a while, which is what all these Republicans say privately.

One Republican congressman went on background, as they often do, to the Daily Beast and said, oh, yeah, what he said was 100 percent true, but we're just upset that he said it out loud. Like this party is just so they are. I don't know. I've run out of adjectives. The the other thing is that's an important context of this is Republicans don't like Mitt Romney. They do not. Republican elected officials think he is full of shit. They thought he was full of shit. They didn't really want him to win in 2012. They thought he ran a shitty campaign. They've always thought he was full of shit.

In 2008, the big thing was the only thing that unified the Republican primary field was they all hated Romney. And then 2012, if you remember, Republican voters tried so hard to give the nomination to someone else. I mean, it was Romney and a collection of clowns. And they were like, well, it's either Romney or Gingrich, so maybe we'll try Gingrich before he lights himself on fire. And then they were like, well, Gingrich blew up, so let's give Santorum a shot at this. on fire and then they were like well gingrich blew up so let's give santorum a shot at this i mean like this like republicans are forced to choose between two people they do not like like they don't i think they probably don't think trump or romney are real republicans they're just somehow their last two nominees yeah i don't think uh yeah there's clearly not a lot not a lot of love for him in the party but it also just shows i think that this is it really is a lot of love for him in the party, but it also just shows, I think, that this is, it really is a cult of personality around Donald Trump.

And, you know, the never-Trumper dream that some Republican like Romney is going to rise to the occasion and run for president and primary Donald Trump in 2020 seems just that, a pipe dream that's not really going to happen. Or if it is, that person's not going going to happen or if it is that person's not going to get much support in the party because it's trump's party they all love him they love his politics they love his policies he is the id of the republican party as it has been for some time now and that's where we are you know know? Anyway. Oh, well. That's Mitt Romney. On that note, on a more hopeful note, we will be right back with our interview with the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal. On the pod today, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal. Welcome and congratulations on starting your second term.

Thank you so much. It's hard to believe it's already here. It is here. Big day. So you're the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. What does that job entail and what do you hope that progressives can achieve in an era of divided government with Trump as president? What's the strategy for the next two years? Is it going to be about... Well, we're thrilled. The Progressive Caucus is the largest it has been and probably the most progressive it's been in quite some time. We have over 94 members and we continue to have members wanting to join the CPC. And so that's a significant number for us to be able to move

critical priorities that have been at the top of the list for working families and progressives across the country. And that includes everything from $15 minimum wage to our Progressive Caucus budget, which every year is sort of our statement of our values, as well as moving big pieces of legislation like Medicare for All. And so I think that this is a great moment for us to, as we take control here in the House momentarily, to really be able to talk about these ideas from the perspective of what they do for the economics and for the opportunities of people across the country. And so being the co-chair means that we try to keep the caucus as aligned as we can. We try to develop strategy. We work with inside and outside. So we work with all our progressive allies on the outside to really build the movement and the infrastructure to help make these changes real. Is the strategy to get votes on major

pieces of legislation like Medicare for All within the next two years? Or are you sort of working to build support until, you know, 2020, when hopefully there's a Democratic president? It really varies depending on the issue. On Medicare for All, I can say it here first. I don't think I've, there was a big article that just came out in the Washington Post, but I just secured a commitment from Speaker Pelosi, Speaker-designated, soon-to-be Speaker Pelosi, on holding hearings on Medicare for All. And I'll be taking over that bill and

introducing the legislation shortly. And so with Medicare for All, we will hold hearings and we'll see how much energy and momentum we can really build between 2020 and the presidential elections, momentum we can really build between 2020 and the presidential elections, as well as sort of the strategies on the inside and the outside. And if we can get there, of course, we'd love to have a vote. But I am also somebody who recognizes we're talking about a massive transformation that is long overdue of the healthcare system. But massive transformations don't come easy, and we've got to build it. And we have to do that at multiple levels. And so the hearings will be a critical piece for Medicare for All. On some other things like, you know, infrastructure and jobs and a $15 minimum wage, the support levels may be differing. And so

we may be ready for a vote on some of these critical pieces of legislation. Democracy reform will have H.R. 1 coming out. I'm the lead sponsor of a big anti-corruption bill, the Senator Warren's bill in the Senate. And so each of these things has a slightly different strategy. But what we have to do is be thoughtful, strategic, and recognize that you really need a strategy for how to move it within Congress, as well as a strategy for how you build support on the outside. So all of those things are a part of it. On Congresswoman, on what is a very joyous day, obviously, for Democrats who work so hard to regain power in this country. This is also happening while the government is partially shut down and hundreds of thousands of people are either not working or working without pay.

How do you and the congressional Democrats plan to bring this shutdown to an end? Well, first of all, it is absolutely outrageous that this president and the Republicans have put 800,000 people across the country in jeopardy of not being able to pay their rent, of not being able to make their everyday living, and all because of a vanity wall. I think it's important to just remember that Republicans did control until today the House, the Senate, and the White House, and still were not able to keep the government going. still we're not able to keep the government going. So we will vote immediately on a couple of proposals, both of which have passed the Senate in a bipartisan way to bring the shutdown to an end. There's not going to be more border wall money, but there is an agreement that passed the Senate with bipartisan support around how we continue the government either until February 8th with

a certain amount of money for border security, but not for a wall, or that we continue to have these discussions but pass appropriations bills for all the other pieces except homeland security. So we have a couple of different options on the table, but I think it's really, really outrageous that this president has even admitted publicly that he just can't look foolish before the American people. Well, if you don't want to look foolish, then don't be foolish. And let's reopen the government and let's get these 800,000 workers back to work. Is there any kind of deal or compromise around border security or immigration that House Democrats would accept other than just funding DHS at last year's levels? Or is this just basically, you know, we're going to wait for Trump, we're going to wear Trump down here and wait for him to blink because we're not giving him anything more than

the CR? Well, I don't know what compromise really looks like with a president who has done everything he can to limit even legal immigration. And if you think about it, you guys certainly remember 2013 and the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed in 2013. I worked very hard on that. Do you know that we have almost put as much money into border security since 2013 as what was contained in the 2013 bill, and yet with no fundamental reform of the system itself, nothing for undocumented immigrants, nothing for DACA recipients. And I remember in 2013, when John McCain said, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for this because I don't think we need all this money for border security, but we're getting so much in return that that's the nature of compromise.

What this president has done is moved the rhetoric and the xenophobia so far to the right, and every time insisted on essentially shutting down asylum, shutting down refugee seeking, essentially shutting down asylum, shutting down refugee seeking, shutting down family reunification, that it's difficult to talk about what a compromise means. Democrats have always put money into border security. That has been true for a long time. Some of us think too much. But now we really need to reform the underlying system and make sure that we continue to be a country that allowed that opportunity for somebody like me, who came here when I was 16 years old by myself with nothing in my pocket and now get to be a member of Congress. That is the America that we're so proud of,

and we need to make sure that we continue to advance that vision and not some, you know, crazy, xenophobic, discriminatory vision that this president puts forward. Congresswoman, if I understand correctly, you have said that even though you oppose the idea of PAYGO, you're going to vote for the Democratic rules package that includes PAYGO. I'm curious as to, A, why you're doing that, and B, what your level of concern is that the House Democrats are putting, it could be seen as putting their stamp on sort of a centrist economic view of deficits. Yeah. None of us think, in the Progressive Caucus, none of us like that PAYGO is in this rules package. And we have raised it multiple times to Rules Chairman McGovern, to Nancy Pelosi,

and we did a lot of work to try to get it out. And what we have managed to do, though, is also recognize that, number one, statutory PAYGO is the law. And if we really want to eliminate the need for offsets, then we can't do it through the rules package statutory PAYGO is the law. And if we really want to eliminate the need for offsets, then we can't do it through the rules package. We have to change the law. So we are introducing, Mark Pocan and I, a bill to repeal PAYGO. Obviously, that stands very little chance of passing the Senate with this Senate. But I think we still have to recognize that we got a tremendous amount from this package, including making sure that we got rid of the three-fifths rule,

making sure that we could get votes on a number of issues that are critical to us, and just this morning ensuring that we got not only commitments to waive the rule so we could have hearings on critical pieces of progressive legislation, but also now the Speaker's commitment to hearings on Medicare for All. First time ever that we will have hearings on Medicare for All in the House. So we have to just be clear on what we're trying to achieve and make sure that we try to stay as aligned as possible, try to stay as aligned as possible, fight for as much as possible, and then also pick our battles. And so we understand, because this is statutory, they can't just fix it by taking out of the rules package. So I am going to vote for it. I wish PAYGO wasn't in it. We did everything we could to stop it. We got a lot of great things in return that we wanted out of the rules package and in terms of commitments.

And they are telling me that I've got to go to votes right now. Oh, okay. Well, we will let you go, though, because then because the votes are very important and you should miss them. Yes, the first vote for the speaker. So I do need to go and be there. But thank you so much. And hopefully I can come back on and do a little bit more next time. Thanks for joining us, and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Thanks to Pramila Jayapal for joining us today, and we will talk to you on Monday. Have a great weekend, everyone. Yeah, happy Democrats are in power day. Woo! Big day. Bye. Bye.