Pod Save America - “Some kind of decline.”

Episode Date: June 5, 2017

Trump responds to terrorism in London by attacking the city’s mayor and his own Justice Department, while Capitol Hill prepares for The Comey Show. Then, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) talks to Jon, Jon, and Tommy about a progressive foreign policy and how politicians can talk like normal human beings, and Pod Save the People’s DeRay Mckesson joins to preview this week’s episode.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Jon Lovett, dialing in from Washington, D.C. Guys, I don't know what you thought things were like in D.C., but it's as great as you could imagine. Wonderful. On the pod today, we have Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. And later, we'll be talking to the host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. First, Lovett, tell us what you're doing in D.C. You had a show there Friday night.

Yeah, we had an awesome show on Friday night. We were joined by the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden, Campaign Zero's Brittany Packnett, who you also know from Pod Save the People, and also Jackie Alamany from CBS News. And then tonight, we're recording our second live show, and we'll be joined by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Alexandra Petrai of The Washington Post, who's a really funny writer for The Post, and Ronan Farrow, who is a friend of the pod and a friend of all of ours, an NBC News special correspondent.

So he'll be joining us. And we're going to have a great time. Blockbuster show. Blockbuster. Tommy, who's on Pod Save the World this week? My guest this week is Ivo Adalder, who was the U.S. permanent representative at NATO. I talked to him last week, and it started off as a conversation about Trump's trip to NATO, our obligations, the criticism of our European allies, but then sort of morphed into a broader conversation about the use of force, the Libya intervention,

Afghanistan 16 years later, Iraq, what actually works. It was a very different conversation than I expected to have happen. He's someone who's very honest about where he started before he was in government on these issues and where he ended up after getting a front seat at all. It was very interesting, very honest and critical. If you're new to the show and you haven't tried Pod Save the World, check it out. Listen to an episode. Check out the Glenn Greenwald one. Subscribe this week.

I think you will enjoy it. Tommy, speaking of NATO, did you read the Politico story today? The answer is usually no to that question. Apparently, Tillerson and McMaster and the third sort of sane one, Mattis, all believed that they had got into Trump's speech at NATO a specific defense of Article 5 up until the moment he gave the speech and then they found out that he took the line out at the last minute. I believe that because seemingly the only reason he says the things he says and defends the things he defends is just because he's a pig-headed old man. Right. Which once again goes to show, like,

oh, McMaster's there stopping the worst from that can happen. He's stopping all the bad things. Well, is he? Yeah, right. And we're going to get into this later, but, like, I saw on the way here, he's defending his criticism of the mayor of London, whom he took out of context. Bl blatantly took him out of context.

And he's still saying, well, now the mainstream media is spinning for him. The guy will not concede anything, despite how wrong he is. Yeah. I'll say before we start today, like reading the news over the last 24, 48 hours, I'm having a hard time even finding humor in all of this. It's not fun. So love it. You'll have to really step up today. Because I just like, I think this guy, we need to get him out of office.

Like we need an election. It's scary. Like 2018, the House elections can't come fast enough in 2018. Nevermind 2020. It's like, it's really bad. It's become really, really bad. He's not cogent. We're going to have to start talking more openly about this as a person who wasn't fit for the office, even at his best, and is now seemingly, whether it's the pressure of the job or actually he is in some kind of a decline, unable to cope with bad news, unable to cope with events in the world, unable to cope with the complexities of

the job he has signed up for. And the people around him, you know, there's two kinds of people around him right now. There are the worst people who, you know, the Bannons and the Conways and the Stephen Millers. And then there are the so-called adults uh who are either unable to adjust what's going on the mcmasters and the tillerson's or the target of federal investigation overwhelm themselves love it go knock on the white house door tell them you're from veb bank do your russia impersonation that you have a bridge loan you'd like to offer him and see if you can coax him out of the building oh well would you like $1 billion to leave this job? By the way, I think some kind of a decline is going to be the story of the Trump presidency.

It's the title of the book. It's also about America and the Trump era. Some kind of a decline. Some kind of a decline. Let's start from the beginning of this latest episode. So on Saturday, the United Kingdom was struck by the third major terrorist attack in three months. Three knife-wielding terrorists killed seven people and injured dozens more in a crowded London market. They also drove across London

Bridge and were hitting people there. Within minutes of this happening, officers found them and killed them. It appears that ISIS has claimed credit for the attack, although there's no evidence that ISIS directed the attack. It seems like it might be inspired by ISIS. So, Theresa May said, when it comes time to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need

to change. She talked about a global effort to regulate the internet. Before we even get into the Trump reaction, let's just talk about the attack itself. Tommy, is this the new normal? This is like the third time London's had a terrorist attack in the last three months. What can governments do here? Is this just something they're going to have to learn to live with? I don't know. I mean, that's the key question, because this was a relatively low-level attack, right? You hit someone with a car, you stabbed them with a knife.

But the attack in Manchester was complex. It was a complicated explosive advice and IED that he got into an event. So clearly there are these ISIS cells and sympathizers that are all over Europe. And I think it gets to the broader fear about ISIS, which is that they have waged this PR campaign and recruited individuals all over the place. And we are not doing a good job fighting against that. That part of that, the effort against ISIS is not going well at all, in my opinion, right? I mean, you have Iraqi special forces are in Mosul, clearing house to house right now, they're going to go to Raqqa, they're going to take back that territory, reduce the safe haven, but Syria will still exist. So I mean, there is a piece of any response to terrorism. And it's always been the case that bad people can do bad things, especially against soft targets like a bridge or a mall or a movie theater. And they

don't have to be Al Qaeda or Islamic terrorism as, as Trump likes to focus on. But you know, part of it is like the resilience of the nation and the ability to like keep going with your values in the wake of this sort of fear campaign. And that's where the UK has done a really good job. And we don't always do a very good job. to the victims and their loved ones. Justin Trudeau said awful news. We're monitoring the situation. Angela Merkel said Germany joined in horror and mourning, pledged aid in the fight against terrorism. Every leader in the world basically does something like this, except for ours. Donald Trump tweeted, his first tweet was,

we need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the travel ban as an extra level of safety. He said, we need to stop being politically correct. Then he said, do you notice we're not having a gun debate right now? That's because they use knives in a truck, which is absurd for a whole number of reasons that we'll get to in a little bit. And then what we're talking about today, he attacked the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, saying, quote, at least seven dead and 48 wounded in terror attack.

And mayor of London says there is, quote, no reason to be alarmed. Here's the mayor's full quote, quote, Londoners will see an increased police presence today. And over the course of the next few days, there's no reason to be alarmed. The one you one other that he did was he retweeted the drug report speculating that 20 people had been killed, which is wildly irresponsible for a news outlet to report that not the drudge of the news outlet it's a piece of shit but for the president united states to retweet that it's the exact opposite of what the president should be doing or any leader well particularly because he has all the intelligence in the world at his disposal he's the leader of the fucking u.s government in these moments he is not the president he is just

a dotty old fox news viewer responding in real time. Right. It seems he has no ability to grasp his role. He has no sense of the institutions at his disposal, the responsibility that he has. He has learned nothing. He has not changed at all. He is worse than ever. It's bananas. And I should say, when something like this happens, especially with a partner like the UK, like one, the national security advisor has a literal direct line to his counterpart in

the UK to have a classified conversation at any moment of the day to trade information to the situation room sends out unclassified updates, monitoring the sit reps, they're called that go throughout the government constantly so that you know exactly, they're called, that go throughout the government constantly so that you know exactly what's going on or at least the best available information. So, you know, to your point earlier about like McMaster and Mattis and the adults in the room, I mean, what John, John's joke was literal, like he's sitting there watching Fox and Friends, and that is what is leading to his tweets. You can draw a direct line between the conversation on Fox and Friends, America's dumbest news program, and what he tweets. And that is like, that fights against

any argument that these people are having an impact on him, especially in the most important times. Well, this is an important point, right? Because it would be bad enough if the president was watching NBC or ABC or CNN and then tweeting reports based on a news report, right? But those are legitimate news organizations. Fox News is a propaganda outlet with a handful of journalists who work there. And the worst show

on the worst network is Fox and Friends. It is the most garbage program filled with the dumbest people. Let's not count Sean Hannity out. You know, let's be careful with our words. You know, we're trying to be responsible too. No, no, I'm going to make an argument for this

because Sean Hannity basically says, I am an opinion commentator and this is my show. Fox and Friends still tries to make its viewers believe that it is a news program and it is not. So yeah, that's my only argument there because it is the deception of Fox News, which they tell you, oh, here's some news and it And it is not. So yeah, that's my only argument there, because it is the deception of Fox News, which they tell you, oh, here's some news, and it's not really news. It's just a bunch of dumb people talking. So Trump was watching them, and like Tommy said, you can trace all the tweets to specific segments on Fox and Friends. And then this

morning, he went back at it, and he attacked the mayor again. And he said, pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his, quote, no reason to be alarmed statement. MSM, mainstream media, is working hard to sell it. And then in addition to that, I mean, when the only other person that commented from his administration was his former caddy turned social media director, Dan Scavino, who was attacking the mayor of London and telling him to wake up. Not the National Security Advisor. General Mattis, who was asked about what had happened, said, I'd like to know the facts before I comment. Good advice. But, you know, you've got these people whose only experience is working for Donald Trump

throughout their career, and they're out there literally commenting in the wake of a terror attack. I mean, you can also make an argument that it was weird to me because after Manchester a couple weeks ago, I think because Trump was away from television, he was overseas. Right. Like the entire, almost all of the coverage and all of the reaction around Manchester I thought was relatively responsible from all parts. Like people didn't make a huge deal of it. Obviously it was a horrible tragedy, right? Right. I think the reason this tragedy became and this attack has become so, you know, like there's such political ramifications around it is because of Trump. Absolutely. I mean, I follow a lot of UK reporters and there they were very loud and vocal about how shitty the US press has been.

They were criticizing the US press for saying that London is reeling. Meanwhile, there's images of people running from the scene while holding their beer still. There's a very British sensibility here that is, I think, very effective in the wake of terrorism, which is screw you. We're going to keep doing what we do. These are our values. This is our way of our lives. Your goal is to make us afraid, and we will not do that. Trump has done everything possible to politicize this. He's made it about the Muslim land.

And just to talk for a second about what a response should look like we should offer condolences to the families of the victims solidarity with the british people offer them any and all support they need fbi forensic teams intelligence sharing whatever that's it right shut the fuck up it actually is sort of like this this vicious circle because trump is a cable news viewer cable news spends too much time on these kinds of attacks. They're gruesome and terrible and tragedies and they deserve to be covered. But there's a measure of attention that they deserve and they get so much more than that. And it becomes wall to wall coverage. There's no new information.

There's no new developments. It's just B-roll of the scene over and over and over again, because that's sort of the way we cover these terrorist attacks now, which, A, I do think concedes the argument to the people committing these attacks, right? That these are designed to make us afraid, designed to get attention. And then we give them that attention and we give them outsized influence in our in our national conversation. But then Trump sees that and he is both making it worse, but also a victim of it himself. Yeah, because he gets everything he knows from the news. Right. And meanwhile, guys, ISIS goes through a more deliberate, slow process before taking credit for one of these attacks than the U.S. president.

process before taking credit for one of these attacks than the u.s president the president united states declared that some degenerate gambler in the philippines who killed people in a in a in a casino was terrorism whereas duterte the president philippines said it was not and then i mean like that that just kind of gets glossed over but i do want to i mean this is not just a problem of trump it It is a problem of our media, specifically American media. And I remember watching French media, like a French, their version of cable news. And I was struck on the day that it happened, the day of the attack, how actually sober the coverage was from French media

about an attack that happened in their own country. Like we just, I'm really worried. We do not have the capacity. Our media does not have the capacity to cover terrorism in any kind of measured way. And it's not just Trump and it's not just Fox. CNN suffers from this, like MSNBC, all of them. And we've internalized that as a society.

While the Brits are like, keep calm, carry on, be stoic. We're going to do what we do. I think we take a very different approach, which is everybody kind of internalizes what happened and sort of makes it about them. And we act more afraid and work ourselves up and become more fearful. And I don't think it's necessarily, it's not a helpful thing. Everyone has a right to be worried about terrorism and upset and scared by these attacks. But like, their goal is to frighten us. And we sort of, we lose the focus on that obvious fact. One of the things, I think the reporters that cover these issues agree.

Yeah, I agree. Totally. I agree. That when you talk to reporters that cover terrorist attacks on the scene, who go and do the day-in, day-out coverage that lasts and lasts and lasts, they don't see the value of this. They wish we could just have a more kind of stip-upper-lip and describe what happened and move on to sports, you know, because that's the way we demonstrate that we're not going to let it let it change us. Yeah.

No, I mean, look, we've talked to Jessica Yellen, who was at CNN about this before, and she's told us it's not so much the reporters. It is the assignment editors, the news editors, the headline writers. I mean, this is the people that hype it up too much. You know, it's much more than the actual journalists who cover this. As long as it was someone with a Muslim sounding name. Right. There's news outlets that have a sort of financial incentive to do this, right?

They believe that the ratings will come when they do this wall-to-wall coverage of breaking news, terrorist attacks. But now we also have Fox News, which has created an ideological reason to hype Islamic extremist attacks because they're trying to help Donald Trump scare people and pass his agenda. Oh, yeah. And let's not forget that, to my point that Fox and Friends is the war show on Fox News, they had Nigel Farage on Fox and Friends, you know, former British politician and Brexit enthusiast saying that if there's not action, the call for internment of Muslims will grow. And then they had the Daily Mail columnist, Katie Hopkins, say, we do need internment camps. So bad that the Fox and Friends host actually had to say, we don't agree with this. And it's not just Fox, right? Axios described Trump as being

like a first responder because he was tweeting unconfirmed information about the attack. I mean, first responder carries with it a connotation that you're saving lives or preventing further damage when in fact he was doing the opposite. He was spreading disinformation, spinning people up. I cannot possibly understand the rationale for using those words to describe him. First responder. It's like there's like an EMT with the paddles over sort of a patient needs help. And then there's one EMT who's got a crazy head of hair and he's just tweeting the whole time. He's just tweeting, tweet away. All I could think about when I was seeing this unfold

this weekend and Trump's tweets and everything is, like, God help us if, when, there is a domestic terrorist attack in this country. Like, how does he react? How does the media react? How do we handle it? Like, I just, I don't know how we get through it with this president. When and if this happens, and it seems inevitable that there will

be some kind of an attack that some kind of lone wolf person or whatever takes credit for, like ISIS takes credit for in one way or another. And we're just going to have a president who uses it and lies about it and tries to take advantage of it. And it's, it's going to be another one of those times where we're going to see if our, if the journalists are up to it, if our institutions are up to it. And I just don't know. I mean, and to the point, what's, what's frustrating about this is the debate and the conversation never moves forward, right? I mean, we had a president who wouldn't say radical Islamic terrorism, right? Now we do. Terrorism still occurs. We've had a president elected who murdered political correctness on the day of his election,

and there's still terrorist attacks, but we're blaming political correctness. I mean, we need to have a smarter conversation because we need to get to a place where we're not talking about the shit we've been talking about for the last 20 minutes. We're talking about what should we actually be doing to deal with this and prevent to the greatest extent possible ISIS from being able to repeat these attacks on us. And we're never getting there. It's not even just about ISIS versus not ISIS. We were talking about lone wolf attacks. It doesn't, I mean, it ultimately like in terms of the consequences of what these people do, a deranged, broken, fucked up, evil person, citing ISIS, citing right wing media.

You know, we saw what happened in Portland. There are people who are interpreting the news and taking it upon themselves to try to get themselves press and go out with a blaze of glory by killing people. And it's you know, we've seen it in movie theaters and schools and in Portland. We'll see it in London. And the conversation about what we do about this kind of virus of lone wolf attacks, like that's the that's a conversation worth having. But but we'll never have it. Right. Because because right. Because Donald Trump, if someone has used Islam as a as a as a rationale, he'll talk about it every single day. And if they don't, he'll ignore it. Right. And John raised the tweet where Trump said, well, we're not talking about gun control now, are we? Because that's that's generally the Republican rejoinder in the wake of a terrorist attack that involves a gun. And he didnum actually wrote a piece about this in The Atlantic about British gun laws.

In the UK, gun owners must apply for permission. They must explain the reasons for wanting a firearm. They must have references that attest to their mental stability and good character. They must prove that the weapons will be safely stored. And all of this is to say that in only one of all of the post-9-11 terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom did the killers carry a gun, and even then it was a 90-year-old Dutch revolver. Like, that, I mean, that is strict gun control, and that doesn't eliminate, you know, there's the black market, there's all kinds of stuff like that. But when you're a lone wolf without access to a terrorist network, it is very hard to get your hand on a black market gun if you don't have the money. I mean, it does prevent gun violence, you know, and that's a real thing. But, you know, that's not a

debate that we're obviously going to have here. We should say before we move on to the self-own this morning, because Trump did not just attack the mayor of London, he also attacked his Department of Justice. Right. In a series of tweets this morning, because as you were saying, we don't move on from this debate because Trump's only solution to this now, because now he's said radical Islamic terrorism and that hasn't made terrorism disappear, is... Well, he has to say it three times in a mirror. Right.

I don't know what's preventing him from doing that. So he started talking about the travel ban. And the more he started tweeting about it, he basically said the DOJ should not have submitted to the Supreme Court this, quote, watered-down version of a travel ban. And by the way, it is a ban. I am going to call it a ban. And we should have a tougher version, blah, blah, blah. All of these tweets seriously

undermine his case before the Supreme Court. See you in court, buddy. But it all flows from this conservative idea they put forward that the only terrorism comes from radical Islamlam or or you know muslims and arabs right like a breitbart reporter who said there would be no terrorism in the uk if muslims didn't live there apparently she's never heard of the ira right all the places

to say that it was one of the dumbest things ever spoken on twitter and that is quite an accomplishment she was fired this morning good yeah. Yeah. Breitbart finally. Now Breitbart is just a, all that's left there is just sheer talent. This is like the think tank that populates the White House. Ban it on down. Oh man. Donald Trump

saying it is a ban. It's fantastic for a couple reasons. First of all, what is poor Sean going to do when he goes to the briefing? He was so clear that it wasn't a ban. He's sending Sarah. And then he was asked, like, the president called it a ban,

and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not a ban. It's just not a ban, and, like, we don't talk about it as a ban. It shouldn't be thought of as a ban. The president's like, it is a ban. Well, and this thing's falling apart because what they said originally was, it's not a ban, it's a like, it is a ban. Well, and this thing's fallen apart because what they said originally was,

it's not a ban, it's a pause, it's a temporary thing because we need 90 days. And now it's been 100 days. So like, they got their 90 days to sort of beef up their security measures. And now there's really no excuse. I mean, this is not a very good legal case that they're building here.

And one great thing that happened over the weekend is Pat Cunani, who's a former White House spokesperson for Obama, suggested that Trump's tweet should be reformatted as White House statements. And this is a very simple but important idea that I think people like Maggie Haberman have floated before, which is to say when you're president, words are policy. They're hugely important. And we've been lulled into acting like Trump's tweets are something different, that they're more silly or that we should take them as seriously. No, this is this is bad. This is the president using his words in a way that actually damage allies, adversaries, everybody

involved. And so it's a fun little Twitter bot that's reformatting these things as actual White House statements. Yeah, I mean, the good news is he's a he's a gorilla with a gun in his hand. So he's he's not really sure what he's doing because he's just that was him him firing off these tweets about the travel ban just doomed his travel ban. So once in a while we catch a break here. Speaking of his own tweets and words dooming him, on Thursday we got the Comey show. Cannot wait. Comey – this will all seem like a distant memory in a couple days from now when James Comey goes to testify in Congress.

We already have a CNN countdown clock for it. Can we maybe though – let's talk about it as if it's not going to be a big deal. from now when James Comey goes to testify in Congress. We already have a CNN countdown clock for it. Can we maybe, though, let's talk about it as if it's not going to be a big deal. Right. Because I don't, you know. Let's set expectations correctly. Whatever. He's just coming to Congress.

Yeah. He's just coming to Congress because, you know, I can see James Comey, you know, obviously someone that I've admired in an uninterrupted streak since last year, as somebody who's going to say things like, it's not for me to judge, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how he's going to be. And also like, he's met with Mueller now, with Robert Mueller, who's the special prosecutor or special counsel. And so there may be a bunch of things that he's not, that Mueller counseled him not to say because it might interfere with the investigation. So we should all be prepared for that. Do you think that they kissed? Our friend of the pod, Mark Warner, sort of previewed this on Face the Nation.

He did say, he goes, it would be unthinkable if the president actually did what was reported, which is something about these Comey hearings to keep in mind is a lot of the stuff that he says may just be a reiteration of what we have read about in the Washington Post and the New York Times. But it is different when he says it under oath himself, as opposed to it being reported by, you know, through anonymous sources, right? So that is going to be a big difference. It's harder to call it fake news when Jim Comey says it under oath to a hearing. Love it. How was the March for Truth? I know there's a March for Truth in Washington on Saturday where protesters were demanding an independent investigation of Russia.

And you spoke. Did you fix it? I did. I did. I did rally the crowd and I think it made a big difference. So I went down to the mall and I started by going to the White House to see the Pittsburgh, not Paris protest. I saw a Trump protest in the flesh and it was awesome. It was

nobody. It was just 20 of just the worst people, just like, they didn't know why they were there. And it was, they were trying so hard to get a chant going, but you know, it's like, how many people does it take to make a wave at a, at a, at an empty ballpark? Like it was just not happening. So there was basically, I think it's probably like two protesters for every reporter. Like how many people does it take to make a wave at an empty ballpark? Like it was just not happening. So there was basically – Good sports analogy there. Look at you. Two protesters for every reporter trying to drum up a chant. There was somebody with a stepstool with a Trump flag.

So that got some attention. And then I wandered down from there to the mall where there were hundreds and hundreds of people for the March for Truth, which was great. That's cool. People – lots of signs. I will say the, which was great. That's cool. You know, people, lots of signs. I will say the chants were a bit ornate. They were like, you know, we want reliable institutions, like that level. You know, we need a reliable investigation. We need a reliable investigation.

Like, okay, we're going to talk about chanting and like what the best way to chant is. But otherwise, it was great. It was great. A lot of people came out, uh, got some great applause for, uh, taking the gavel out of Paul Ryan's hand.

That is a, that's a go-to pander for me. That's a winner. You got a stump speech already. That's great. Speaking of, uh, I'm working on my son speech.

Speaking of halting, sometimes feckless efforts to find truth. Uh, Megan Kelly interviewed Vladimir Putin. Yes. And I think she did more to harm herself in her effort to whitewash years of demagoguing, Black Panther party events,

and whatever the fuck she did at Fox than she did to help herself. I mean, she let this guy, a KGB officer, dissemble, offer conspiracy theories to blame the U.S., including that U.S. intelligence agencies killed President Kennedy. So how should we believe that they think he hacked our election? He claimed he didn't know who Kislyak met with on the Trump campaign. He claimed that he didn't know Flynn was sitting next to him at this RT event. Literally, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency until very recently didn't know who he was sitting next to.

I mean, and she did absolutely nothing to push back on him. She didn't. And I can't imagine what they cut because it was obviously the best 11 minutes that they could muster together. So there were a few crazy statements in that interview. There was he so he didn't know that Kislyak, he didn't know about meetings with Kislyak. Right. Didn't know that Kislyak, he didn't know about meetings with Kislyak.

Right. If the CIA killed Kennedy, hacking the election would be easy. Right. Then it was, oh, and then he didn't know Flynn. What was interesting to me is seeing the way that he lies and dissembles. The one that was kind of believable when he was like, I don't know who fucking Mike Flynn is. That was the one where I was like, I kind of, he was like, I don't know. I sit down.

They said it was some defense guy. What do I know? I don't know. I sit down. I have dinner. I leave. It was the one that I thought like, I kind of, he was like, I don't know. I sit down. They said it was some defense guy. What do I know? I don't know. I sit down. I have dinner. I leave. It was the one that I thought for a second, you know what? Mike Flynn may be stupid enough to have gotten himself into a mess and nobody even noticed.

I don't know, man. The head of the KGB knows when the DIA chief is sitting next to him, when they paid him to be there. Yeah. I just don't know what you, what she thought she was going to get out of an interview with Vladimir Putin anyway. Like it seems like he is. She didn't push him on anything. She wasn't tough.

Where was the signature Megyn Kelly toughness, right? Trump said awful, disgusting things about her. He's a garbage human. What he said about her was unconscionable. But, like, let's not whitewash her record or pretend that she was some sort of balanced journalist. She was not. Yeah. Just one other thing on the Megyn Kelly interview.

It's such a statement of how far we've fallen that she's sitting across from Vladimir Putin. Russia is engaged in human rights violations against gay people in Chechnya. It has invaded a country on its border in Ukraine. And there's no there's no conversation about that because we have to focus on the fact that Russia interfered in our election and we can't get the truth out of it because we're dealing with a corrupt administration and an effectless Congress. Yeah. One more quick thing just before we get to the senator. This morning, we finally got the big infrastructure plan from Donald Trump. infrastructure plan from Donald Trump. I just want to read a quote from Steve Bannon in January when he was interviewed about this, his new big conservative populist movement that was going to take over the country. Crooked oppo. Quote, the conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy

pushing a trillion dollar infrastructure plan with negative interest rates. It's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. I agree with that last statement of Steve Bannon's. New York Times headline this morning, President Trump will lay out a vision this coming week for sharply curtailing the federal government's funding of infrastructure and calling upon state cities and corporations to shoulder most of the cost of rebuilding roads, bridges, railways, and waterways. There is no plan except for an off-the-shelf plan to privatize air traffic control. As a very nervous flyer, I would be very interested to hear how that will keep us safe. I just could maybe, but I just like to hear some good arguments. Decades old plan, by the way. Decades old plan. And it turns out.

It's just one of these things where it's like, finally. But like, it's just like healthcare. And that to me, the most worrisome thing for Democrats politically about Trump was that he was going to actually push through some of these economically populist ideas, that he was going to have a health care, you know, he was just going to tweak Obamacare, that he was going to make sure he protected Medicare and Medicaid, and he was going to be this president

who actually did try to create jobs through infrastructure and protected health care, and that was going to be, that's going to be good for people, and it was going to be tough for Democrats to make hay about that, or we'd have to be pushed into working with them. And instead, he just has not.

He has just gone with the Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs privatization, Paul Ryan way of thinking about that. This is kind of the original way of thinking. The Mulvaney way. Yeah, this is the original sin of Trump coverage, too, which is that he was a Manhattan Republican, Rockefeller Republican who's winking and nodding to the right wing nuts. And when he got in office, he'd have some reasonable ideas and he'd talk to Democrats and push to moderate stuff. And it's absolutely not happening. Or he was going to be this like ethno-nationalist who is also economically populist, except he forgot the economic populism completely. It's really hard to understand, actually.

I mean, I really I do think the only way to understand what's happening is that Trump is not mentally fit to navigate a successful version of what he campaigned on. He just can't – he doesn't have the acuity to help these conversations be litigated in the direction of any kind of policies that's out – like he's got Mulvaney. He's got Priebus. He's got these – and he's got Paul Ryan on the Hill. And they're just they're just winning all these policy conversations. And there's there's there's I don't know. I mean, I guess Trump never had any ideas. He never really knew what he wanted to do. But you thought that that the version that he was the Bannon, the Bannon idea was like

there was a way for him to be popular while doing these things. And there's just nothing. There's nothing. Nothing. You know, I want to apologize for my glib comment about Politico stories earlier. They're doing a good job. Oh yeah. I read them all the time.

We've really had an awakening here about Politico on Pod Save America. That was like a 2011 Tommy joke. No. They're doing a good job. No.

If you want, yeah. Yeah. I was going to criticize someone else, but I'm not going to now. No. I'm just going to leave it there. We're going to leave it

on a happy note. Right. We got to do a better job of like shouting out great journalism. Next up, we will have Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's this great stuff coming.

Lots of great stuff. Senator Murphy, how are you? Good. How are you? Good. It's Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vitor with Pod Save America. Hello, Senator. Thank you. Hey, guys.

Senator Murphy, thank you so much for being on the show. You were tweeting over the weekend that Trump has no strategy to defeat terrorism. The Muslim ban isn't a strategy, nor is more troops into Syria, nor is doubling down with the Saudis or gutting the State Department. I totally agree with you. But I guess my question is, what do you think we should be doing or what should Democrats be advocating for? We have Iraqi forces clearing Mosul, but we have Syria, civil war still raging. ISIS is clearly waging an effective PR strategy. These attacks keep occurring. What should our message be and what specifically do you think we should do to

actually defeat ISIS? Well, the first thing you should be doing is hardening the homeland. I mean, the fact of the matter is these groups do want to attack the United States, and it doesn't help when we don't have an FBI director. It doesn't help when the president is proposing massive cuts to the domestic agencies that ultimately try to protect us. So that should be the priority number one for Democrats. Second, the reason that I make the case that the kind of programs that the State Department runs and USAID runs are hard power, hard power doesn't just emanate from the military, is because ultimately the way that you chase these guys down is to help countries reduce the amount of ungovernable territory that terrorist groups can set up shop to try to deliver economic empowerment to places

where terrorist groups recruit and to push back when it comes to the online narrative and on the ground narrative that the United States simply has not met with our own version of propaganda, or at least our own version of objective truth about what this country stands for. So you cannot fight a terrorist group, which is essentially a tactic, right, with the U.S. military. You ultimately have to do it with the kind of hard power that emanates out of the State Department, and you have to recognize the way in which these groups do pay attention to domestic policy, right? When we are marginalizing Muslims inside the United States, when we are demonizing an entire religion, that does become bulletin board material for them. And so the first law of foreign policy is sort of similar to the first law of medicine, first do no harm.

And the fact of the matter is this president is exacerbating the problem, is contributing to the kind of recruitment material that these groups need to thrive. And instead, we should be focusing on hardening our own defenses and going out and helping other countries try to cut down on the pathways into terrorism. Are you worried about this rupture over the weekend between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Yemen with Qatar, given that we have a military base and we command operations against ISIS from Qatar. Can you help us understand what the hell happened and what role we should play in mediating this crisis? So Qatar, as you know, is a very small place, a postage stamp in the Middle East. It's got an

important U.S. base and it always has occupied a little bit of an outlier role with respect to the countries in the GCC. It has maintained relations with Iran. It has very maddeningly to the U.S., maintained relations with Hamas and also with the Muslim Brotherhood. And it has seeked to try at times to stand as a mediator between the growing Shia and Sunni proxy war in the region. This break in many ways says more about Saudi Arabia than it does about Qatar. The fact of the matter is it is not in the long-term security interests of the United States

to have this ongoing fight for the future of the Middle East between the Iranians and the Saudis. And we have, of course, in the last few weeks telegraphed to the Saudis in the world that we are throwing all in with the Sunni side by selling $110 billion of weapons to the Saudis in the world that we are throwing all in with the Sunni side by selling $110 billion of weapons to the Saudis. Ultimately, we should be working with groups like the Qataris to try to bring the two sides together to try to reduce the instances of conflict. I imagine the Qataris won't want to stay on the outside of that group for very long. This may have been a message sent across the bow that they are able to reconcile in the end. But we shouldn't read this about this being about Qatari behavior.

This is really about the Saudis' insistence that everything be oppositional to Iran in the region. And that's not good for the United States in the long run, in the region. And that's not good for the United States in the long run, because it's those proxy wars in places like Yemen that end up creating this space that terrorist groups like AQAP and ISIS grow. So, Senator, like the three of us and the President, you are an avid tweeter, and you do so in your own voice. And it doesn't sound like your tweets have been put through the Democratic consultant talking point machine. How do you avoid Washington speak? And why do you think it's so hard for so many politicians in both parties to speak this way? I think we have been taught from the very beginning that one mistake can cost you a political career. And there are certainly instances of that.

But today, those are the outliers, not the norm. And of course, we have somebody in the White House that has made more mistakes in a day than most politicians make in a lifetime. And he's still there. He's extended to the top position in the country. And so I think the coin of the realm today is authenticity. And I value my communications staff, but I tell all of my colleagues that they should be sending less of their communications through their policy communications staff, that ultimately it gets sort of whitewashed to the point that it's not you any longer.

And it's not just Trump that told us this story, right? Democrats have been sort of learning this since George W. Bush got elected to the White House, who everybody said got there because people wanted to have a beer with him, and they didn't want to have a beer with Al Gore. We have to be authentic. We have to be real. I make mistakes on Twitter. I do. There are a lot of times that I send something out that I regret.

But people know that it's ultimately me. In the end, my constituents in Connecticut, I think, will excuse me for maybe not being 100% aligned with their issues if they know that what I'm doing, you know, comes from my heart and my gut. And listen, I exist on Twitter in part because the president does. I mean, that's where a lot of people are getting their stories today. And to the extent that I can, you know, provide some immediate pushback to him in a authentic voice on the Democratic side, you know, I hope I'm helping the cause. Can you do that question over with a couple more references to the middle class?

Yeah, listen, I mean, there are these words, right, that people know are BS in the end. And, you know, there are some of my longer press statements that I do run through staff, and, you know, I try to make sure that those buzzwords are not there. It's an addiction that this party has. All these, like, sloganeering that we've engaged in, the fair shot agenda, that's what we ran on as Senate Democrats in 2014. Like, people didn't even get to the bullet points, because when they hear fair shot agenda, you know, they know that it's some consultant that came up with it. Hashtag a better way. Are you ever worried that because you're speaking your mind, you'll accidentally attack the mayor of London in the middle of a terrorist attack?

Yeah, I have the rule of typing out a tweet, putting it back in my pocket. I don't wait long, because as you know, you sort of have to hit the moment. But I pull it back out after about two minutes and hit send. That's my prophylactic against that. That's good. I think we'd all be better off if President Trump could count to 10. I mean, if he could count to 10. No comment.

So you had said whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2020, they're going to have to have a couple of big, easy-to-understand ideas if they want to become president. What do you think some of those ideas are? Well, here's my theory of the case. I think that as a party, we have been obsessed over the last decade with the issue of economic fairness. And that's a really important argument to make because the economy is fundamentally unfair, right? There are way too few winners making a lot of money and a lot of losers today. But, you know, I think we've lost that argument. I think that's hard to admit, but I think to a lot of folks,

fairness sounds like taking from me and giving to somebody else. And what they really want is growth, right? What a family in Connecticut that's making $27,000 a year wants, and they do exist in Connecticut, is more. They want more wages. They want more hours. They want more. So I think to start with, we need to be a party of economic growth, and that can be job growth or wage growth. And when we're framing these easy to understand ideas, I think we've got to be talking about it through the prism of giving people more. So that could be more wages. That's

a minimum wage hike. That could be more free education. I am a big believer that free pre-K through college is a really important issue for the future of the Democratic Party. But we need to be first talking about growth, second about fairness. Fairness is a component of growth, and recognize that that's just where people are today. And listen, talk about Social Security the same way. Don't be afraid to talk about the fact that Social Security needs to grow. Don't let Republicans goad you into a conversation about cutting Social Security benefits for everybody. Talk about the fact that, you know, people with lower and middle incomes, they should be getting more out of Social Security,

not less. Talk about it in terms of more money into people's pocketbooks. So obviously, we've had this divide with the Democratic Party. There's the Bernie wing and the Hillary wing. And we've talked about that ad nauseum. But there's also in this larger conversation about the way to talk about issues moving forward and what the big structural forces are. I think you see people like Elizabeth Warren, who we had on the show talking about the need to reduce corporate influence and corporate money, and that's central to our fight. And that's what we should be talking about every day. And I think you see other Democrats who think that the way we should be talking is about larger economic forces like economic

consolidation and monopolies and automation. Where do you come down on how we should be sort of framing these kinds of issues? Well, listen, I agree with all of the above. I have two thoughts about it. First, I think we need to remember to frame all of these economic issues as contrasts. Right in 2012, when it came down to it, I think, you know, most voters looked at Romney and they looked at Obama and they weren't terribly sure about either of them, but they were pretty sure in the end that Obama was more likely to be for them rather than be for all of these other forces that existed around the president. And so we've got to think about that thought process.

And Trump is handing us the message, right? He is surrounding himself with a billionaire class. He has not unwound his conflicts. I think ultimately the message is going to be that we are for economic growth for everybody, not just the millionaires and billionaires. And Donald Trump, who didn't deliver on any of the promises that he told you, in the end was just one big scam. He was just trying to enrich himself and his friends.

So I think making everything a contrast about who Donald Trump represents and who he's fighting for and who we're fighting for is really important. And then I think we do as a party need to grapple with one big sort of overarching trend line. I think in addition to these conversations that you guys often have about mechanization and technology, there is also a feeling amongst a lot of folks out there that they want government closer to them, that the sort of inputs coming into their life are just so overwhelming. There's a great book out there, Strangers in Their Own Land, about this phenomenon in Louisiana. The Democratic Party is really poorly positioned for that

because all of our solutions are Washington-based. And I just don't know that we're going to win in big parts of the country if every solution we offer comes from Washington, D.C. That's a hard thing for somebody like me as a progressive to say, but I think that's the untapped message here. Is there a way that we can deliver more sort of jurisdiction over solutions to localities in the states with some moral and ethical guardrails around them that reflect our values? I think that ultimately is the holy grail where the Democratic Party recognizes that Washington can't solve everything,

but still make sure that our values translate. Senator, we were talking earlier about our frustration about the failure of the conversation around issues to progress or move forward. And nowhere is that more true, I think, than gun control. We had the President of the United States tweeting that completely ill-considered comment about how we're not talking about gun controls in the wake of what just happened in London. If Sandy Hook doesn't move that conversation forward, what does? And what can people listening do to actually try to put some pressure on Washington to fix a problem that seems like a really obvious one to half the country and to the rest of the

country, maybe a little less so? You know, obviously, I think about that all the time. Why on earth is anything going to change people's minds if Sandy Hook didn't? I think the answer is I think Sandy Hook was so psychologically disruptive to people that they weren't ready at that moment to turn themselves into political action. And the NRA was sort of ready for that moment. They'd built up political capital, a machine, for 20 years. And, you know, we hadn't. I mean, there was really no anti-gun violence movement at that moment. And so it couldn't turn on

overnight. But I can make you an argument, guys, that over the last four years, we are winning this argument much more often than we're losing it. In 2016, we are winning this argument much more often than we're losing it. In 2016, four referendums are on the ballot to change gun laws. Three of them passed. Senate races start being defined by this issue up in New Hampshire. Kelly Ayotte, who ran in 2010 against her Democratic opponent, with both of them trying to get closer to the gun lobby,

trying to outflank each other to the NRA side. In 2016, Kelly Ayotte and Maggie Hassan, trying to outflank each other to the NRA side. In 2016, Kelly and Maggie Hassan are trying to outflank each other to the side of the anti-gun violence groups, trying to show who's more supportive of background checks. So the public is changing. The movement is getting stronger. We're winning more than we're losing. And we just have to, you know, understand that the gun lobby, you know, was big and bad, and it's going to take us a little while to get big and bad, too. What you can do is bring this fight to the local level, right?

Make sure that your public buildings are gun-free. Push to get referendums put on the ballot in your town or in your state. You're going to be playing defense at the federal level for the next few years, but there's no reason that you can't have more Nevadas and Washingtons and Californias where they're changing their state laws by going around the state legislatures, which, you know, by and large in some of these states are still controlled by the gun lobby. Senator, last question. What's the current state of play in the Senate on health care?

Richard Burr last week said he doesn't think we're going to get a bill this year, but we have learned not to get our hopes up here. Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't think you can underestimate Mitch McConnell's ability ultimately to get to 50. You know, this is a real tough political issue for them because they made these promises for five, six years. They're the dog that ultimately caught the car. And it doesn't look like they're going to get any of their other priorities done. So I think they are very fearful of going to the electorate in 2018, in particular the Republican primary electorate, having not done tax reform,

having not built the wall, having not repealed the health care bill, and having not done infrastructure. Their best chance is probably health care. infrastructure their best chance is probably health care uh... ultimately these uh... center republicans are watching how the house members are treated so the more people i know people want to put pressure on the senators but the more people that are making the lives miserable of republican house members that voted for this thing the greater the lesson center republicans will learn about the consequences of voting for something that looks like that House bill.

So I put the chances at probably still greater than 50-50 that a bill emerges out of the Senate. Now, that bill probably is only then a 50% chance to be able to go back and pass in the House of Representatives. But, you know, that's still enough of a chance that 24 million people lose health insurance that it should be our number one priority. And that's my counsel to my friends is that I know everybody wants to follow the latest sort of turn of the Russia story, but this is the biggest threat to our constituents right now. And we should be focused like a laser beam on trying to stop this

health care bill repeal from moving forward. Making House Republicans miserable can help this country. That's just win-win for us. There's nothing wrong with that. That's great advice. Looking ahead to 2018 and 2020, do you think Democrats should start advocating for single payer health care, Medicare for all? What do you think the solution is ultimately on the health care front? So I think the sweet spot here for Democrats is choice.

So if it was up to me, we would give everybody in this country the option to buy into Medicare. There's some advocates of a single-payer system that sort of want to abolish private health care and sort of have everybody automatically enroll in a Medicare-like product. I think a great place for Democrats to be is to just say that, listen, our version, ultimately, of a workable health care system is for every single person in this country to be able to buy into Medicare if they want, you know, with a sliding scale based upon your income. And, you know, my belief is, ultimately, people would buy in, that people would, you know, sort of walk with their wallets, and we would have the majority, if not all of this country, in a Medicare-like product.

And I think from a public policy and from a messaging place, that's the right place for us to be. I think it would satisfy our base, which I know is very excited about single-payer, but also sell to the middle of America, which likes Medicare, but probably doesn't want it forced on them without their ability to choose. All right. Senator Murphy, thank you so much for joining us, and come back again soon. I will. Thanks, guys. All right. Take care.

This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we have the host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. DeRay, welcome to the show. It's great to be back. So who do you got on the show this week? Let's go through some topics. So Keith Ellison is the guest this week, and he is great. It's a really interesting conversation about the state of the party and Bernie, Hillary, infighting, constituency groups.

And then we talk a lot about criminal justice. And then Jimmy from the Town Hall Project is on this week as well. Excellent. So what did Ellison have to say about the lingering state of the Bernie-Hillary divide at this point, now that he is at the DNC with Tom Perez? I can't give it all away. But he essentially is sort of, his point is that fighting about good ideas isn't a bad thing. I know we need to make sure we don't get too distracted by it, but the tension is going to be there whether we acknowledge it or not.

So it's probably better that we acknowledge it. I think that's like a fair point. It'll be interesting, too, to see what the Comey, he talks about his take on Comey and Kushner. And it'll be interesting to see what Comey's appearance this week on Thursday looks like. Yeah, we were talking about that too. We're trying not to get our hopes up. It's June 5th, B.C. before Comey. Yeah, it'll be nuts to see what happens.

We also on the pod this week talk about criminal justice. And there are a lot of things, I didn't say this on Pod Save the People, but I didn't know, did you know that 65% of private prison contracts require an occupancy guarantee? So if they don't have a certain amount of prisoners, then the city or state has to pay them for the empty beds. So there's a real incentive to actually keep the beds full.

Oh, that's awful. How is that legal? And the private prison industry is a $70 billion industry. So we talk about that in the context of what Sessions has done over at the DOJ with the call for mandatory minimums and things like that. It's really just an effort to keep the beds full because that's the only way that people make money. And that's so nuts. I mean, we've said this before on the pod, but I do think the contest for the most undercovered story in this administration about, you know, who's doing really, really bad things out there is between Sessions and everything he's doing at DOJ and all of these deportations and raids that are sort of happening under the radar, too. But the Sessions stuff lately has just been really bad. I think you guys are also talking about that story last week that was way under the radar about Sessions gutting the Civil Rights Department across all the different agencies. What's going on

there? Yeah, so he is quietly stripping out the Civil Rights Departments that are embedded in agencies. And on the last part, I have Vanita Gupta, who used to run the Civil Rights Division at DOJ, and they used to be a coordinating arm for the civil rights departments in the agencies, and he is slowly taking that away, so we talk about that on the pod. And also Sessions, you know, they're doing some interesting stuff around veterans, which we think will have mixed results, though we support people fighting for the country. It's not clear that those people being officers makes the best sense.

It will also be interesting to see what happens with like phone services. There's one company, Global Telink, that has about 57% of state prisoners use this phone company and they charge up to $17 for a 15 minute phone call in prison. It's crazy. It's like a cash cow industry. It's shakedown. It's extortion. It's so gross. What else are you guys talking about this week? What other topics? Yeah, so Jimmy from the Town Hall Project is on, and the Town Hall Project, as you might know them, as you know their work, is all those people going to town halls. The back-end infrastructure of it is a town hall project. So he's on, and then we talk about one of the biggest news pieces over the weekend was Bill Maher using the N-word on his show.

I have called for it to be canceled, Chance the Rapper, and so many other people, because that's just unacceptable. Yeah, so did you read Wesley Morris' story about this in the New York Times? No, no, when did it come out? I think it was last night, or it was online yesterday. Yeah, I think it was last night. But he sort of ends, it's a really great piece, you should read it, he ends, Should Mr. Marr lose his job, that would be too easy. It would be fascinating to see him in the next episode if there is one,

surrounded by a cast of characters who have castigated him for Friday's scandal. Which I thought was an interesting point, just because these things happen, and you get the you know sort of the forced apology that mar has to make and you know hbo says they're not going to run the episode but then it's like either he will be fired or he won't be fired and well i'll just move on like nothing happened and what you really want to know is why the hell did you do that like that is you don't you don't blurt out like my thought when I saw that is, I'm like, you do not blurt out a word like that if it's not a

word you have been using before. Oh, he's so comfortable. It's like it just rolls off his tongue. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I think you're right. It would be fascinating to see a follow-up. I want the show to end so maybe he goes he talks to Oprah or somebody so that we can figure out what made him think that

was okay. It was also shocking to see all those people clap. It's like, what are you clapping for? Yeah, Ben Sasse's reaction was just awful. Ben Sasse looked like he was like, where did I end up? Right. You know, it's been interesting because people like DeRay, I've been getting emails all week that are like, DeRay, he donated to

President Obama's campaign. He's done more for black people than you've ever done. And you're like, I don't even know what that means, right? It can't be that you are not, you don't say racist things if you donated to President Obama. If you did something kind for black people one day, then like you just get a pass for everything? Like, that's not okay. Man, that was quite disconcerting, to say the least. So, do you guys have anything else this week, or is that everything? No, it's a full episode with those things. Keith Allison, Keith covers a lot of ground about sort of why the party, you know, I asked him,

what about Bernie? People think that Bernie should be a Democrat formally and not an independent. He has like an interesting take on that. And then I don't know if you saw his interview about Hillary's recent criticism of the DNC, and he got a lot of pushback for his comment there. And I asked him again, like, what to take on Hillary. And he offers a different answer at this time. So I thought that was interesting.

Yeah, I was very confused about her criticism of the DNC thing. Like, it sort of seemed like that was out of the blue. Yeah, I don't know what her... It'll be interesting to see what her role is going to be moving forward. Her and Bernie in very different ways. Because some people are like, she should fade into the background. The reality is she's had a long career in politics. But I don't know.

It'll see. And who's going to... I asked him, too, who's going to run for... Who do you think is going to be the nominee in 2020? I personally think at this moment, it'll probably be Biden. I mean, just because it's so early and he seems like he's running for president. But who do you guys think is going to run? I think so.

I think that Biden is doing this. I do not think Biden will run. I think he's doing this so he can if he's mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, he will continue to get covered. And he's passionate about politics and passionate about being in the game. So I think he wants to continue speaking and wants to continue getting covered. But I don't think he'll ultimately do it. I don't know. I'll have to say we just we just talked to Chris Murphy, Senator from Connecticut, who's been mentioned as a possible 2020 candidate. I could see him doing it. I mean, he's a very, yeah, he's got the sort of,

you know, he's progressive, but he's also like very down to earth speaks like a normal human being, which is in short supply in the party, too. DeRay, I'm working on a March Madness bracket for 2020, and it is very close hold, but next time we're in the same room, I will show it to you. Got it. And who do you think is going to win the playoffs? Oh, I don't know what those are. Love it. It's the Cavs or the Warriors. Just pick one. Oh, oh. Well, the Warriors are from California.

That's right. And I'm from California, and I do plan to run for office here, so I'm going to say the Warriors. You're going to run for office, Lovett? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. After we build this media company, that's next. Lovett was door-knocking this Sunday with Tom Perriello in Virginia. I saw. Lovett, did you steal voters from Perriello to try to ask them to write in your name?

No, I didn't ask, but it's obviously going to happen. That's the problem. When I campaign with somebody as electric as Tom Perriello was, he's standing there next to a once-in-a-generational talent. I do my best to shine my light, but people are going to do what they're going to do. The last thing I'll say that we didn't talk about on Posse, the people are going to do what they're going to do. Jesus Christ.

The last thing I'll say that, you know, we didn't talk about on Posse to the People that I want to say here is that it was, an analysis just came out today that says that it costs $75,760 to house a prisoner in California per year, which is more than the tuition at Harvard. Oh my God. This is big business for so many people at the cost of people's lives. Can I just ask, Dre, is this prison situation something that we have to deal with because Sessions has complete authority and control at DOJ? Or is there legislative avenues, maybe not just on the federal level, but on the state

level that we can sort of push to try to stop this? Because it just seems like it's just awful story after awful story on prisons and criminal justice that we're just sort of watching and that there's like no avenue to actually act. Yeah, good question. So the majority of people in jail actually have the state and local prisons. They're not in federal prison. But what is real is that the federal prison becomes a model for states and cities. So mandatory minimums at the federal level were used by states and cities to actually make mandatory minimums at the local level, which is why they're so dangerous, because people believe

that if the federal government did it, it must be good. So that's one. The second is that we can actually just decriminalize things that shouldn't be things that are crimes, right? Like I said before, spitting in Minneapolis was a crime, and people could get fined and go to jail for it and things like that. And like that, they worked really hard to decriminalize those things. And we can fight mandatory minimums and truth and sentencing, those sort of things. We can fight those at the local level. It's really powerful. And the local DA races are huge. So you think about Philadelphia, they just elected someone, Kim Fox in Chicago. Prosecutors have a huge opportunity to change the way that the landscape of prison and jail looks like. Because we know that mass incarceration doesn't actually work, right? Mandatory minimums don't decrease the number of people committing

crimes, contrary to what Sessions and his crew are saying. And that's all at the local level, because the majority of people in jail are actually in local and state prisons. Okay. It's a good thing to keep in mind. All right, everyone, go download Positive the People. This episode drops tomorrow on Tuesday, correct? Correct. Awesome.

All right, everyone, go subscribe to Positive the People, download tomorrow's episode, and we will all talk to you again on Thursday on Pod Save America. See you later, everyone. Peace. Bye, Derek. Bye, guys. Bye.