Pod Save America - “Stockholm Syndrome.”

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

The President assures the country of his mental stability, Mueller hones in on obstruction while Republicans in Congress try to undermine him, and the Democrats plot their strategy to protect the DREAMers. Jon, Jon, and Tommy do the pod live from Stockholm, Sweden. 

Hey, Stockholm. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. It's great to be here. It really is. This is our first stop on our European adventure.

We're heading to Oslo and Amsterdam and London after this. But it's been fun in Stockholm. How many people here are Swedes? Good amount of Swedes. How many people here are expat Americans? How many people here are from other sundry European locales? All right. That's good.

All right, good mix. Good split. Good split, yeah. And other places. There's good. All right, good mix. Good split. Good split, yeah. And other places. There's other places. You egomaniacs. It's not about you. One little bit of housekeeping for all of our pod listeners out there.

Next week, Tommy is hosting his first live Pod Save the World show in Los Angeles. Gotta get ready for that. On January 17th, tickets are on sale. It's going to have Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, and the filmmaker behind the documentary, The Final Year, about the last year of the Obama administration. So if you guys are in Los Angeles, please check it out. We'll get you in for free, if you're here, not if you're listening. Let's start with the news.

So I don't know what's happening in Swedish politics these days, but over in America, we are in the middle of a spirited debate about whether the man we elected to lead our country is mentally and emotionally fit to hold that job. A headline in Saturday's New York Times reads, Trump defending his mental fitness says he's a very stable genius. That is very exciting for us. Of course, Donald Trump's mental fitness... Who can forget? Who can forget?

When Albert Einstein famously wrote that letter that said, I am a genius. And when Newton, the apple hit him in the head and he said, I am a genius. And when Newton, the apple hit him in the head, and he said, I'm a genius. A very stable genius. I'm a very stable genius. So, obviously, we've had this debate since Donald Trump ran for president.

But the latest kerfuffle is taking place because of a new book by Michael Wolff called Fire and Fury, where he interviews most of Trump's advisors, friends, and family, who all come to a similar conclusion, which is that the president is sort of an idiot. Now, there's been a lot of questions about whether all of Wolff's reporting is accurate or embellished. But I guess my first question is, how much of it is surprising? How much were you surprised reading that book, Tommy? I was not surprised about the fundamental character of Donald Trump.

I mean, I think everything we've learned about Donald Trump over his entire career is that he's a narcissist. He doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He's not particularly thoughtful or interested in learning about anything but his own news clippings and whatever's on cable news that instant. So I don't think the basic thrust of what was reported

is somehow new or revolutionary or jaw-dropping. I do think to see a White House that has so little regard for the president of the United States when they're currently dedicating their lives to working for the man, that they would shit on him to a person, including his own children like that. It tells you a lot about what it's like being in that building, what they actually think of him, you know, and it sort of confirms all the things that we know from afar because he tweets things that, you know, lead us to these same conclusions. What do you think, Leavitt? Yeah, you know, it sort of confirms what we suspected or assumed. I think it is valuable insofar as it eliminates any doubt. I think

even those of us who are very anti-Trump, there is a part of us that wanted to at least believe that it was 5% better than we feared, right? Just that the Trump we see on television is worse than the Trump that exists behind closed doors, that it's a bit of a performance. Maybe there is some exaggeration. Maybe there is, right.

Maybe there is some exaggeration. Maybe we're exaggerating once in a while. Yeah, maybe we've taken this, not even just 10% too far. No. No. It's as bad as we think. One of the things that's fascinating is it seems as though from everyone from Rex Tillerson to Gary Cohn to Kelly to McMaster to his own children, it seems that it's not possible to come away from an interaction with Donald Trump or to hang up the phone with Donald Trump. And like a lot of these guys have this inability to stop themselves from saying, what a fucking idiot. Oh my God. Holy shit. Over and over and over again, they hang up the phone

and they're exasperated. Yeah, no, he is, I've said this before, a Fox News loving, low information voter who became president. That's who he is. I mean said this before, a Fox News loving, low information voter who became president. That's who he is. I mean, I think it's interesting because so much of the coverage of Trump and his presidency is, you know, and he's got this low approval rating and Democrats hate him and they've never hated him more, but the base loves him. And so it's sort of, it becomes this partisan coverage, right? And what was interesting about this book is literally everyone who has ever worked with the guy, including family members, the Republicans in Congress, the people in the White House, his friends, they all think that maybe he has some sort of genius or intelligence when

it comes to showmanship, salesmanship, marketing. But when it comes to any other policy issue, substantive issue, that he's just not that bright, that he can't focus. There's also been this thing, you know, when he first became president, everyone's like, is he distracting us with this, right? Is this some strategy to distract us from X issue and Y issue? And the truth is, he's the one who's distracted. He's not distracting us. Like, he can't focus on anything for more than a couple minutes. All he does is watch TV.

And you've said this to me, like, he has access to the most secret, interesting information in the world, more so than any other human being on earth, and doesn't seem like he wants to read any of it. And this is, I think, is an interesting point, because the one thing people maybe gave him credit for was marketing and PR, and that he understood how

to, like, sell a message to a nation. I think his election maybe sort of led us to believe that could be true. The reality with this book is, his team fucked up royally by the way they responded to this. This would have been likely another 24-hour, 48-hour news story that just went away.

I mean, literally, there have been North Korean nuclear tests that have had a shorter shelf life than this book because Donald Trump went out with this insane statement savaging Steve Bannon. And now like all of us are like, oh my God, I got to download this right now. And his lawyer go out and then send a cease and desist letter. So they have leaned into this thing so hard and made it this fascinating food fight that everyone wants a piece of it. Let all the Sunday shows today.

And it's entirely because they fucked up the response. The Clinton people back in the day, remember like Philippe Reines is a friend of all of ours. There was this devastating book that was supposed to come out about Hillary and they managed to get a copy of it early and they all read through it and they found out the most salient points and they leaked it to a reporter

and they gave a quote, can I be quoted snoring? Yawning. Yawning, fuck. Let's do this again. Edit this. And they gave a quote, can I be quoted yawning?

Amazing, right? Great quote. And they gave a quote, can I be quoted yawning? Amazing, right? Great quote. And it killed the book because they just wrote it off as a nothing burger. We're going to cut this too. I've gotten so much shit from this guy for pulling that during live shows. Leave it in.

Leave it all in now. Leave it all in. Well, just one other thing about this. To Tommy's point, much as a tweet saying, I'm a very stable genius is proof of the opposite, the book itself makes its own point.

I was just going to say, no, their response to the book proves that the book is true. Their response to the book proves the point of the book. The book's existence itself makes the point that the book makes, which is that this is a White House that is off the rails, that there's no control. You know, Donald Trump tweeting, I didn't want to interview with this guy. This guy never did anything. I didn't want anything to do with this book. Michael Wolff, who's a sleaze,

sleaze in the right place at the right time, used the fact that nobody knew what Donald Trump thought or cared about, that Donald Trump was erratic, that nobody knew where they stood, to get access to the White House over and over and over again, and to make these people feel comfortable enough around him to get endless absurd quotes from them. Because there was no one watching the store, no one who felt like they understood how the White House was supposed to be working, so that one of New York's sleaziest reporters could camp out in the West Wing for weeks on end. Yeah. I mean, you remember, like, every administration deals with the first big book about the White House. Usually it's Bob Woodward and his, you know, he's one of the best credentialed reporters

in the world. And what he would do is he'd have a source come to his house and park in his garage with no one would see you go in and out and his private chef would make you food. And he would say, all of your colleagues say you're a disaster why is that not true and then they're like vomit up all these attacks on their colleagues you had to work hard to put one of these books together you had to be sneaky about it you had to ask tough questions you had to work your sources you had to be sophisticated and we had to have done fucking watergate now you could just get yourself on the fucking emails you get yourself on that get yourself through security you can just get yourself on the fucking emails. You get yourself

through security. You can just camp out there. Any one of you could have written this book. All you needed was a visa. No, I mean, look. Give it up for visas. Other reporters have

pointed out that there are certain facts in the book that aren't facts at all. There are certain things that Wolf made up, which is fine. But those same reporters and those same outlets have, through their own reporting over the last year, confirmed much of what was in the book. This is a staff and a president who they did not expect to win in the first place. As soon as they did win, they got in there and then they thought, yeah, we deserve to be in here. And they had this chip on their shoulder the whole time that since everyone was wrong about guessing that we were going to win the race in the first place, all the criticism now must be wrong too.

Donald Trump, as we've said many, many times over the last year, a 70-something year old who's never going to change. You're not going to teach him anything new at this point. He doesn't want to learn anything new at this point. He just wants to watch Fox television and sit in his bed and eat McDonald's and yell at the screen. That's who he is. At least William Randolph Hearst

had the decency to go crazy in the privacy of his own home. We have to all witness this together. He's doing it to us, to the whole world. What did you say, Wolf? He was the one that collected his pee in jars at the end, right?

Who's with me? Is that right? Howard Hughes! I was thinking of Howard Hughes. Leave it in. You going to say say something Tommy? I don't know all I can think about is peeing jars now I wanted to fix it I'm glad I corrected it

what I was gonna say is I think what's interesting about the book is not just what it tells us about Donald Trump which is what we already knew but what it tells us about all the people around Donald Trump because it's hard enough to believe that we could get to a point in our country

where we elected someone like this as president, but you would think that there will be institutions in place that would stop this from happening or at least alert the rest of the world and the rest of the country that this was going on. The people in the White House are not those people. Yeah. And the Republicans in Congress are not those people either.

Love it called Michael Wolff, a sleaze at the right place at the right time. That could be the name of the autobiography of almost anyone working in this White House. Steve Bannon is just this shitty opportunist who happened upon the Trump campaign and now he's at a downfall like nothing we've seen in recent history.

And by the way, Steve Bannon has not said that anything in the book is not true that he said. You know it was recorded And by the way, Steve Bannon has not said that anything in the book is not true that he said. Katie Walsh. He knows it's recorded, by the way. Yeah. So Michael Wolf has, in case you're wondering if some of this stuff is true, Michael Wolf has tapes of Steve Bannon. He has tapes of Katie Walsh, who was the deputy chief of staff, who was also quoted extensively in this book. Everyone's upset about Katie being in it too, but no one has totally refuted what she said either. So here's the scary thing. What does it say that

our government is essentially on autopilot right now? That the United States government has, I mean, people have criticized other presidents in the past. Obama's not a leader. Why won't he lead? Why isn't George Bush leading? Right now is a situation

where we actually have, we just have someone who is watching television, tweeting about it, yelling about it, and looking at his press coverage and decisions are then thrust on him that sometimes he doesn't want to make. And what does it sort of say, like what do we do? What does it say about the country?

What does it say about all of us that now we're sort of running on autopilot here and how long can we last that way? Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things about Trump is, and this may be an exaggeration, but they talk about him as sort of being functionally illiterate, or at the very least not interested in reading memos that are long, not interested in engaging in policy conversations, or at least being in a room in a meeting

where he's not the one talking for 54 out of 60 minutes, right? So to me what that means is, even if you have a staff that's undergoing a process, taking a really rigorous look at a very difficult challenge, let's say it's sending troops to Afghanistan or like dealing with a crisis in Yemen, he doesn't actually give a shit or wade in, which means you have these little, you know, policy staffers like Stephen Miller or Steve Bannon or H.R. McMaster that can sort of de facto make these decisions by greasing the process or

doing certain things their way. So you don't have anybody like you had with Barack Obama who was whacked for being aloof and professorial and for dithering because he would try to pick apart assumptions and get to the heart of what the reality of a problem is and not just sort of take on the Washington response that, you know, we're doing X thing because that's the way we've always done it, right? So there is this autopilot

feel which is going to run up against a big challenge at some point. We just don't know what and when. Yeah, I think the scary piece of this is the world is coming for Donald Trump at some point, right? There's no, every president deals with a crisis that demands them, demands that they perform the job. He's already failed that when hurricanes have come, devastating hurricanes that have caused dislocation and misery. You know, Puerto Rico still needs a lot of help. That is a terrible and sad and an enraging example of presidential failure. And it can get much, much worse than a storm. So I think that is a really terrifying reality. On the other hand, one of the sobering parts of this is that in the same way that when we thought Donald Trump would lose, we were all kind of

realizing that the only reason Donald, the only reason Donald Trump wasn't doing better in the same way that when we thought Donald Trump would lose, we were all kind of realizing that the only reason Donald Trump wasn't doing better in the campaign was not because our institutions were holding up, not because the media was holding up so well, but because Donald Trump was his own worst enemy. And that's still true now. In many ways, Donald Trump not wanting to do the job, not wanting to go campaign for health care,

helped us in the fight to stop health care. Donald Trump not having an attention span, not being able to lead an organization is part of the reason he hasn't had more success on issues like immigration and hasn't had more success on some of his plans. It's clear that the man has plenty of authoritarian impulses and that if he knew better,

might do some much scarier things. And the reason that he hasn't been able to be more effective is because he isn't that bright, and he also didn't bring a staff of people who are all ideologically committed in the same way. And it also speaks to, I think, the nature of the United States government, where in the vast bureaucracy that is the executive branch,

the president is allowed to make certain political appointments in each department, but there also is sort of this vast group of civil servants in the Department of Defense, in the State Department, in the Justice Department, everywhere else. And those people, because of their hard work and because they are nonpolitical and nonpartisan in many ways, they have sort of kept the government running

and kept us out of more trouble even when we have a president who is, you know, completely manifestly unfit for the job. And by the way, one of the great challenges of being president is figuring out how to steer this giant ship and how to get semi-autonomous bureaucracies and agencies

to bend to your political will. That is one of the challenges of being president. Which he has not been able to do in any way. Not able to do at all. You know, every president, I think, spends some time, this is true of Obama, Bill Clinton, every Republican, Democrat. At first, you know, the president kind of tells you what to do. You know, you spend some time figuring out what the job is, and then the person slowly figures out how to wield this power, how to make the, how to fit the presidency to what they want it to do. Donald Trump just can't get on.

He can't board the thing. He keeps his, I don't know what a sports metaphor would be, he can't get on the jet ski. Making the decision is the easy part. Implementing it and forcing the government to comply to what you've demanded is actually the magic. Maybe getting on a moving carousel.

Okay. That's not sports. Cool. I think we also learn from this book. and Gary Cohn, and Dina Powell, and this group of moderates in the White House, moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans, whatever they may be, who have tried to steer him in the right direction. And so far, they have all been abject failures in that regard.

Yeah. And you sort of understand why that they've been abject failures, and it's because he is this guy who only listens and can only process the last person who's been in his ear and even then can't focus past the next few minutes or until the next Fox segment. And so even if Ivanka's telling him all the wonderful reasons that we should stay in the Paris Climate Agreement, if Steve Bannon walks into the office five minutes after her

and says something different, or if he turns on Sean Hannity and he says something different, that's how that decision's gonna get made. Yeah, turns out Jared's a conniving little shit. He's just not very good at it. Yeah, those people are not good at their jobs. You know, I feel like there's

a, is he crazy or is he not crazy? Is he stupid or is he smart? And I think it's... It almost doesn't matter. It doesn't matter and it's more subtle than that. Whatever sharpness or innate abilities he may have once had, he has allowed to atrophy by virtue of his disorders, his whatever, narcissism, lack of discipline, laziness, selfishness, and lack of curiosity.

We keep going through this. There's a million articles today and conversations on all the Sunday shows. Should we diagnose him? Is it a mental thing? It almost doesn't matter. It's his personality is, will always be unfit for this job. That's just the way it is, whether it is a mental disorder or not, it doesn't matter. He's just, he can't do the job. The other thing I took away from, from all of this is to your point about the, the people who claim that they were saving America. I used to give them a little bit more credit in that I recognized that there was virtue in having a few sane people around him. we've seen in the recent weeks,

he is so out of control, he is so unable to do the job, he is so disconnected from the job, that actually what we need is much simpler, which is we don't need a sophisticated group of people pulling the strings. We need to know that there are people who will stop him if he tries to do the big, terrible things.

And that's it. It doesn't matter whether Dina Powell and Gary Cohn are there to stop Stephen Miller. What matters is having the one final check against this person because the reality is that for all the ways in which he's not

up to the job, all the ways in which he's not sophisticated, he is still the most powerful person in the world and the hope has to be that for all the criticism and for all the ridiculous and for all the rest, that people like John criticism and for all the ridiculous for all the rest that there's that that people like john kelly and others who are you know whatever they're telling themselves that if they are put to that one big test that they'll pass it and i don't know the book makes me i get like where the sort of so-called moderates are coming from and sure it would must have been awful fighting and ste Bannon, like a bona fide racist,

awful nutjob every day. But I actually ended up holding them in even more contempt, because they knew goddamn well all along what a bad person Donald Trump is, and they still helped him get fucking elected, and that's a risk that they never should have taken. Right, because the choice that Ivanka Trump and

Jared Kushner and Dina Powell and Gary Cohn didn't make was to walk out the front doors of the White House, go in front of a bunch of microphones and say, this man is crazy and unfit for the job and he shouldn't be there. And they could have done that. And it might have made a little bit of difference. Maybe it wouldn't have. If Ivanka did it, that would have made news. But they thought to themselves, we're here because we need to be here and we need to

help this. And if we're not here, worse people are going to be here. And I get that rationalization, but they all told Michael Wolff for this book, and they've told Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen and Maggie Haberman, all these reporters, that the guy is crazy. They've been doing it for a year, and they just don't say anything about it publicly, because why? Well, that's the...

But that... And every single person from The Hill, all the people that know, there's the few crazies, but all the ones who know damn well that he's unfit, from Paul Ryan to Mitch McConnell to Dina Powell to Gary Cohn

to all of them, Mattis, McMaster, all of them, they've all made the compromise for themselves that says, this is the world, and I have to do my best within it to function, and this is the moral compromise

I'm personally making. But all of them together have the power to change this. Right. All of them together are making the decision to make this the world. And so it is a collective action failure. It is a tragedy of the commons. None of these people individually are willing to do the right thing.

And so all together, they're doing a terrible moral failure, participating in a giant moral failure. And speaking of all of them together, the other thing I found very interesting is that Donald Trump, from the beginning, this book says, basically outsourced his entire legislative agenda to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and especially Paul Ryan, because he hated Paul Ryan during the campaign, because Paul Ryan said bad things about him. And then at the beginning of the administration, Paul Ryan walked into the White House

and kissed his ass. To the point where it made Trump's staff embarrassed for Paul Ryan. Right. Trump's staff. People who have totally killed the part of themselves that can feel embarrassed. Murdered it.

And basically, Donald Trump said, I'm not interested in policy. I don't care that much. I don't want to know about health care. I don't want to know about the budget. And you go handle it. And so Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are basically in charge of the U.S. government in terms of domestic policy, in terms of legislation.

And that's what we have right now. They're basically two kids wearing a trench coat pretending to be president. And it also tells you something about why, when we're all like, why won't Paul Ryan stand up to him? Why won't Mitch McConnell stand up to him? Why won't these Republicans stand up to him? There's two reasons. Number one is they know that this guy will sign whatever bill they send to his desk.

It doesn't matter. They have cart. They can do whatever they want now. And number two, they also think, well, he's also super popular with the base. And if we go against the base, then we're screwed in our elections. So... Doesn't hurt him, it hurts us. Right. It hurts us. And so we get whatever legislation we want signed, and we also get to be elected again if we just don't say anything about Donald Trump. And that's

the bargain they've made. And so no matter what Donald Trump does, no matter what awful decision he makes, no matter what awful thing he says, they're thinking to themselves, my career and the legislation that I want is more important. And it's what we've said for a long time. They're going to tolerate his head as long as his hand can sign things. Yeah. And that's it. So we should talk about the Trump response.

On Saturday, he accused the Democrats and the media of, quote, taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence. Boy. Like, just watch one documentary on Ronald Reagan. You know what I mean? There's probably a one-pager somewhere that could show you what actually the truth was

about his precipitous mental decline. Right. And I don't know if I'd call that the Ronald Reagan playbook. Nor would I. And then he continued. You know, he's the Ronald Reagan playbook. Nor would I. And then he continued. He learned, you know, he's threading his tweets now. He's learning. Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been my mental stability and being

like really smart. It's funny that the biggest laugh line tonight is just a verbatim Donald Trump tweet. I became president of the United States on my first try. Also not true. He ran in 2000. First try. On my first try. What the true. He ran in 2000. First try. On my first try. What the fuck? It's not riding a bike, you know?

What are you doing? On my first try. Like learning to dive. I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius. And a very stable genius at that. So that's our president. And then he gave a press conference at Camp David with all of our favorite Republicans standing behind him. And now we are going to play a little bit of a game.

Now for a segment we call OK Stop. We happen to have a little snippet of this press conference. Here's how it works. We roll the clip. As it goes, we say OK Stop to talk about it.. We roll the clip. As it goes, we say, okay, stop to talk about it. Let's roll the clip. But this morning you were tweeting about your mental state. Okay, stop. Mitch McConnell couldn't dress up for this? What's going on?

So you set the scene. Describe this for the people at home. So Donald Trump is standing at a podium at Camp David, the presidential retreat. Behind him are several members of Congress. And his cabinet. You've got Sexy Rexy.

Mike Pence is back there. The CIA director for some reason. Which is deeply strange. Mitch McConnell, for those of you at home, has his saddest sad turtle face on right now. It is just... Look at that.

It's funny, the red sweater and his face are in a disagreement. Because the red sweater says this is fun for me, I'm having a nice time, I'm feeling colorful, I'm in jeans. The jeans are like like what body is this how did I get with

this doesn't feel like a body that wears jeans look at that face okay I need to tweet about that this morning well only because I went to the best colleges. Okay, stop. You can see the souls of the people behind him

floating up in the air and disappearing. It's like one of those Dementors from Harry Potter came. They just sucked the life out of these fucking people having to listen to him talk about his college. You guys, what, 73? You went to the best colleges. No, you didn't. I went

to a, I had a situation where I was a very excellent student, came out, made billions and billions of dollars, became one of the top business people, went to television, and for 10 years was a tremendous success, as you probably... Okay, stop. You hosted

The Fucking Apprentice. Many things you can say about someone who hosts a successful reality TV program, but like, you don't have to be a genius. It's not something where they say, oh, we only let the smart ones do that. You fired Meatloaf. Yeah, it's not like

Yeah, I mean, it's not like Kim Kardashian, like, goes to a Mensa meeting and then heads over to the thing. He didn't lose 80 pounds to play a part. He just sat in a fucking boardroom and said, you're fired. Ran for president one time and won.

And then I hear this guy that does not know me, doesn't know me at all. By the way, did not interview me for three, he said he interviewed me for three hours in the White House. It didn't exist, okay? Stop. Okay, stop. That is... It's not true, apparently.

Michael Wolff... He might not have interviewed him in the Oval Office, but he interviewed him many times and of course knows him. Just trying to fact check it. Good? But I don't know this man. I guess Sloppy Steve brought him into the White House quite a bit. Okay, stop. Sloppy Steve? I might have gone House quite a bit. Sloppy Steve?

I might have gone with like, schlubby, or like sloppy Steve. It's like he was sloppy on his job, but he's also just a sloppy look. I think it's one of his better nicknames. Look at Kevin McCarthy. It's not quite Lion Ted. It's not quite

Low Energy Ted. It's no Little Marco. It's no Little Marco. It's no little Marco. It's no little Marco. Yeah, Kevin McCarthy, you guys can't see right now, but everyone else is trying to do the staid dear leader face, and Kevin McCarthy is losing it. He just cannot keep up the facade. It's one of those things.

That's why sloppy Steve is now looking for a job. If Robert Mueller asks you to come and speak with his committee personally, are you committed still to doing that? Do you believe that's appropriate? Just so you understand. Just so you understand. There's been no collusion. There's been no crime. And in theory, everybody tells me I'm not under investigation. Okay. That's so funny. In theory, my lawyers say I'm good. In theory? Where did that come from?

In theory. In theory, everybody tells me. It's so funny. Those words have never appeared next to each other in any sentence. In theory, everyone tells me. I'm not under investigation. I don't understand when Donald Trump chooses to be lawyerly. Right.

You know, like, he'll just look at you and tell you a stone cold lie, and then he'll come back and say, in theory. Also, there's no crimes. Four of your associates have been indicted right now. Two have pled guilty. You colluded on television. National Security Advisor. There have been crimes.

There have been several crimes. Some of them confessed to already And the collusion We're not waiting for some smoking gun He colluded on television Hack her He did it I fired him because I didn't want this Russia thing going on

He told Lester Holtz Yeah, no, it's all out there But anyway, in theory Maybe Hillary is, I don't know, but I'm not. But there's been no collusion. There's been no crime. But we have been very open. We could have done it two ways. We could have been very close and it would have taken years. But, you know, sort of like when you've done nothing wrong, let's be open and get it over with, because honestly, it's very, very bad for our country. It's making our country look foolish.

Okay, stop. Hey, wait, you know what? That's great. I'm glad we're in Stockholm. There's definitely something about this making our country look foolish. I want to ask you guys a question. All right, you have to decide

which has made us look more foolish. Is it the special counsel provision allowing for an investigation of administration of potential crimes during the campaign, or is it the fact that we elected our worst person president? This one, or this one?

The Trump one. You know where Sweden stands. We're also in a part of the world where we don't have to be reminded of the role the Soviets and the Russians have played as an aggressor for a very long time. It's an ongoing challenge. Countries that I don't want looking foolish. And it's not going to look foolish as long as I'm here.

That's interesting. Good way to close. That is reassuring because imagine what it would be like for America to look foolish Not as long as he's here So let's talk a little bit about the federal investigation into the president and his associates

which as we mentioned has so far led to two guilty pleas from Trump's national security advisor and his foreign policy advisor as well as two additional indictments from Trump's national security advisor and his foreign policy advisor, as well as two additional indictments from Trump's former campaign manager and his deputy. Again, this is just a hoax. Before we even just... That is crazy.

That's the end of a story, right? That's not the beginning of a story about what's wrong. That's the culmination of a story of historic importance. Right, like you haven't had that since Nixon. And also, those facts, in some ways, confirm everything that's in the book. Because none of those people would have taken the jobs that they

took, Michael Flynn or Paul Manafort, knowing the things that they had done that would cause them problems that they'd end up lying about if they ever thought Trump was going to win. They all did this because they thought it would prop them up financially for a while and get them some more fame and fortune, because that's how the U.S. political system works. Right, right. They got caught up in this.

So before all of our American political news got sort of swamped by the Wolf Book, there was a fairly explosive New York Times story that broke last Thursday about the part of Mueller's investigation that's focused on whether Donald Trump and his associates obstructed justice. himself from the Russia investigation because he wanted Sessions to protect him because he thought that the job of the Attorney General was to protect the President. And then we also learned that before Trump fired Comey, a Jeff Sessions aide was running around trying to dig up dirt on Comey and push it to reporters so he could slander Comey

in the press, thus making up an excuse to fire him. Joke's on you, Sessions aide. James Comey is perfect. I was going to say, joke's on you. We didn't need the bad stories. We just fired him anyway. So, question. Does any of this information advance the case

that the president obstructed justice more than we already know? Where does this leave us? Well, I mean, yes. I think that if Mueller's team has confirmed that Trump went to Don McGahn as White House counsel and said don't let him go,

tell him not to recuse himself, I think that's probably significant. It also sounds like Reince Priebus, who is the chief of staff, who's since been fired and frog-marched out the door, has handed over contemporaneous notes that buttress the case. There's a lot of evidence in this story that seems like it would very much add

to whatever case Mueller is putting together. Yeah. And again, just to reiterate this, because we've talked about this before on the pod, the standard for obstruction of justice is corrupt intent here. And so there's a lot of people who say, well, the president, of course, had the authority, any president has the authority to fire the FBI director. And, you know, there was a lawyer in the White House that came to the conclusion that said

with or without cause, you can fire the FBI director. And that might be true. But you also, a president doesn't have the authority to do things if they may also cover up crime. So you could not fire the FBI director if you were given a bribe to fire the FBI director. That would still be illegal even though you had the authority to do so. Right. There are a lot of facile arguments about, well, he can fire him any time he wants for any reason.

That's ridiculous. You're allowed to shred documents. You can have a shredder. You can shred documents whenever you want. You can't come in in the middle of the night and start shredding shit to conceal a crime trying to tell me scissors are illegal now there's all kinds of things that you have the authority to do

but then when put in the context of obstruction of justice are illegal, all of this goes to what we already knew I mean that feels like the theme of what's happening right now there's more and more reporting confirming the public shit where the crimes have been committed right before all of our eyes is being affirmed

by what's been going on behind the scenes. That what we didn't know just confirms what we saw on television, which is that Donald Trump fired Comey to obstruct justice. He practically said it. He said, James, I'm sorry, you have to go. I'm in the process of obstructing justice. Well, and we know, again, because

the biggest smoking gun was the day after he fired him, and we know, again, because the biggest smoking gun was the day after he fired him, and Lester Holt interviewed him and said, why did you fire this man? And he said, oh, because of the Russia thing. And then Russians came to the White House. The Russian foreign minister was in the Oval Office. And he said, oh, you know,

I fired the FBI director, you know, and I was facing a lot of pressure because of this Russia thing. That's not happening anymore. Yeah. Again, it's all right there in plain sight. So, I guess the question is, is there a scenario where the president could have obstructed justice

even if he didn't have any crimes to cover up? Like, is it possible that there is, that Mueller ends up with no actual collusion or crimes of collusion connected to Donald Trump, but that he still committed obstruction of justice

because he hated the investigation into him so much that it just wasn't giving him good enough press. And so he was so angry about that that then he obstructed justice. Yeah. I mean, that's possible, right? It's one of the weird things about Donald Trump is that he just lies so casually.

Like, he can be swinging a golf club while a reporter watches him and he says, I never play golf. I mean, he'll go to a course for four hours and they'll be like, no, no, no, he didn't play golf. What are you talking about? So in the course of that process, I guess he could lie to the FBI or someone relevant in this process

and get himself in trouble. That's what I'm waiting for. At some point, if the FBI, if Mueller actually interviews Donald Trump, if they put him under oath in some way, I don't think things are going to go too well for him. That's just a guess. I know he can be very disciplined if he needs to be.

That's an interesting question. I find myself not sure how much of the decline we're seeing is something he can contain. How much of the decline we're seeing is something he can contain, right? How much of this is a lack of discipline? Because during the campaign, he was deposed. He was deposed as part of the legal proceedings around Jose Andres pulling out of the restaurant that he was going to open at Trump's DC hotel because Jose Andres didn't want to be associated with a fascist Hamburglar.

And in that deposition, it's fascinating. You can go watch it. It's online. And you see the Donald Trump that is not on television, that is his most controlled, that is aware that if he lies, it's a crime, or at least will have negative consequences for him.

And it's still him, but it is more contained, and it does seem more rational and more in control. And so I don't totally know how much of that guy is left. It's possible if he knows his ass is on the line, that if this goes south, you're either going to jail or there's going to be impeachment proceedings or there's going to be a big problem that maybe he can pull himself together enough to tell the truth.

Donald Trump has trained himself to lie because he's trained himself to not fear the consequences of the lies coming out a week from now, two weeks from now. He'll just lie again in the future. That's something he can deal with. There's always another lie to make up for the last lie. That's how he glides through his despicable little lie.

Because the worst thing that can happen is people in the press and Democrats can yell at you and whatever. He can get past that. But there are the lies you can't get out of. The ones that you tell under oath, yeah. So in case you're wondering whether congressional Republicans will do anything about Trump's potential crimes, there's also been

more evidence over the last few days that the only actions that they're planning on taking are to actively help Trump cover these potential crimes up. It turns out that the only person Republicans in Congress want to investigate in relation to Russian interference in our election and Trump potential collusion is the British spy who found evidence of Russian interference in our election

and Trump potential collusion. And so these congressional committees have been investigating the Russia stuff for a year now and trump and they have one recommendation out of this committee from lindsey graham and chuck grassley to go to they believe that uh christopher steel lied to the fbi this is this is what they're doing now yeah that's very strange huh i mean they made grassley instead of graham made what's called a referral department of justice where they said you should look into this. Really, anyone can do that. It doesn't mean they'll pick it up. It doesn't mean there'll be a case or a prosecution. But it is very significant that a

senator of that stature would send that letter and do something like that. It's also very strange to me because, like, the underlying crime, allegedly, in the Trump case is that he or his campaign conspired with the Russians to change the outcome of our election. The underlying allegation here about Christopher Steele is that he talked to journalists about what he found in the course of his research, which is

not a crime in any scenario. I guess they're saying he lied about it to them, but I'm still not really sure what the sort of base case here, like what is the relevance of that fact? Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's two things going on, and they're both about obfuscation.

So on the Steele front, there's like sort of a, you step back and there's sort of a deeper lie or deeper manipulative effort going on, and it's basically to try to disqualify the entire Russia investigation by disqualifying the Steele dossier. And you guys remember the Steele dossier, it's where the rumor of the sort of...

The P-tape, John. Which, you know, because we don't live in a simulation where there is a P-tape, it will never come out, it's just something we'll dream of. It's just not going to be a P-tape. Yeah, it's dreaming of the P-tape. The P-tape is a fantasy, we hope is true. But regardless, the dossier, you know, they're trying to disqualify the dossier to disqualify the whole investigation,

but reports including the New York Times and elsewhere over the course of the past couple of weeks have made it clear that the dossier is not the whole source of this investigation, that the dossier confirms some stuff that they had separately, that there was a larger investigation going on because of Papadopoulos and others. No, he got drunk in London and told the Australian ambassador that there were Russian crimes. And it set off a whole thing because that's crazy. And the second part of this is trying to boil the entire Russia investigation down to did Trump personally collude with Putin to do this? And while it's important to find that out, what is undeniable and what is tremendously important for our democracy,

and by the way, your democracy and every democracy in Europe, is Russia's attempts to influence and undermine Western democracies around the world. And that unequivocally happened, and it is dangerous. And the point Mark Warner has made over and over again, which is important, is, okay, you've made this entirely about you. It is incredibly important that we safeguard our elections from Russia moving forward, but because Trump has made it about himself and the Republicans are carrying his water,

we're actually not doing what we need to do to protect ourselves. What Grassley's trying to do is actually even a step crazier, which is they're trying to say the Clinton campaign, at least in part, paid for the Steele dossier, which pushed it over to the Obama-run FBI, which kicked off an investigation. So this whole thing is Hillary's fault,

like everything else in our fever dream of an existence over the last 30 fucking years. Which is just... Lindsey Graham, wasn't he normal at some point? Yeah. You know, like a Republican we disagreed with. But like, at one point he said Donald Trump was a Republican we disagreed with. But like, at one point he said Donald Trump was a kook

who shouldn't be in office. There's a bunch of other Republicans who are still self-agents to Donald Trump but said, you know, on this Russia thing we still need to know what's happening, what's going on, we need to investigate it. It seems like it's deteriorated even worse than it started

in the last couple months. And maybe it's just a coincidence, but it's happened as Mueller has started handing down indictments and we've seen more evidence. I don't know what's going on with Lindsey. I mean, look, Lindsey Graham was never an ally here. No.

But he was one of those people on the list with the Corkers and Flakes and McCains of the world that once in a while would remember that they liked to believe that they had really strong principles. And he once in a while would act on them. And they'd put that statement out and then they'd be like, that was my principle.

You see it? It's a statement. Principles. It's all right there. It's right there, my statement. But Lindsey Graham has gone down a path. He golfed with Donald Trump and that was it. He was hooked. I don't know if we're just becoming numb to it or what. The other thing I noticed this last week is, and I don't know if it's

everyone's just getting back from break and they're all negotiating the spending deal that we're about to talk about, but there weren't a lot of Democrats out there this last week just sort of screaming about this. I mean, they're telling the Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton's

emails again. They're trying to, you know, indict Christopher Steele, investigate Christopher Steele as the British spy who tried to warn us about Russian interference. Paul Ryan is letting Devin Nunes, who's already been disgraced because he did one shitty thing

with the White House, to just go on another fishing expedition. Like, there's just, the Republicans are engaged in sort of a vast conspiracy to help Donald Trump cover up potential crimes. And I don't see, like, I saw Adam Schiff out there talking about this, but I don't see a ton of Democrats yelling about this. And I don't know what's going on. Is it because we feel like there's nothing much we can do now except focus on the 2018 elections, you you know get these

republicans out of office and go from there or what dan made this point on thursday's show about the fact that we don't just need to scream about this but we actually have to lay out what exactly want to do to hold trump accountable on these matters on these not policy not like democrat not uh domestic policy matters like health care and and taxes but what are we going to do on the institutional questions that donald trump has raised and the Republicans have failed on? I think that's really important, but I think part of the reason we don't have those steps is I think Democrats, we know we need to focus on healthcare.

We know we need to focus on taxes. And we also know we need to have the right things to say about investigating and holding Trump accountable. But I don't think as a party we know where we're supposed to land. And I think there's a bit of fatigue on the part of Senate Democrats to just continue to beat this drum. Like, I think they're more comfortable

fighting on healthcare, they're more comfortable fighting on chip, more comfortable fighting on taxes. And maybe ultimately that's where we'll win, so it's okay. I'm not sure. What do you think? I mean, I would just say to Democrats,

it's not like you need to be talking about the Russia thing all the time, because this is actually broader than the Russia thing. This is about sort of the Republicans in Congress degrading our institutions and the rule of law. There's all these norms around the Justice Department and what it should do and how it should be independent and how the Federal Bureau of Investigation should be independent and when you should investigate someone and when you shouldn't. And this goes beyond, like, is there a P-tape and a Russia scandal

that we should all be talking about? This is about our institutions. You know, I think that many Democrats need to stand up and make those points. I think part of it is I think we're all a bit... We're still in a kind of daze. We're still in the, oh, shit, Trump won. What does that say about what people care about?

And I think we know people care about pocketbook issues. We know that. And I think Democrats, we really don't. I think it's an open question. I think one of the most troubling things about Trump is, we should just face it, is an open question as to how much in the voting booth, in an election, you can make issues of norms and institutions and civic virtues around governance part of how you win. And I don't think we know the answer to that. And I think there's

Democrats who just are retreating to safer ground. And that may be okay, but I think you're right that these are issues that are incredibly important to talk about. One last question, and then we'll get to our game. The thing that Democrats and Republicans are focusing on this week is they're currently trying to reach a deal that will fund our government for more than a month or two at a time. Which would actually be relatively new for us in America. Hold on a second.

Swedes. Are you guys on a weekly budget? Your government funded by the Fortnite? Or you guys have a longer process? Do you guys have these showdowns every couple of weeks? Applaud if you do.

I think you're so hot. Highly functioning. Bunch of arrogant Scandinavian bastards think you're better than us with your functioning government. Your generous social insurance program.

You're better than us. We got some hisses. You took not better than us. Oh, we got some hisses. See what you did? You took it across the ocean. Enjoy your iPhones. What are you, Foxconn? What are you talking about? So the big controversial sticking points are

A, whether we'll fund the bipartisan children's health insurance program that guarantees coverage to 9 million American children. And B, whether we'll protect at least 800,000 young American immigrants known as Dreamers from being deported in March. Trump is now saying that he will only protect the Dreamers if he gets $18 billion for more fencing on the U.S.-Mexican border, which he's calling his wall. He also wants 10,000 additional immigration officers and other immigration restrictions. So, question. Is there a world where Democrats make a deal

on border security in order to protect the dreamers, or do we hold still and say, absolutely no deal on anything else, and if Trump wants to shut the government down over this wall, he can shut the government down over the wall I think this is an easy one because I think this is kind of a type of politics that existed before Trump and I think because Trump is so heinous and he's made this whole thing about the wall which is such you know dumb nonsense that he just clicked in on because it rallied some some old southern white people on his tour. You know, we have to remember that any compromise in immigration, going back to Reagan, to George W. Bush, to whatever Obama proposed, it was always a compromise that was about legalization, path to legalization, protecting the dreamers, and money for border security and interior

enforcement. And we should be open to that deal. We should fight really hard. We should actually make sure that enforcement is about holding companies accountable and not punishing hardworking people who are here just doing jobs. We have to make sure it's compassionate.

And we shouldn't just fund a dumb wall. But I think we can call border... Donald Trump can go on television and call border security, which was going to be part of any deal, his great wall. And he can take that. And then we can protect the 800,000 people that deserve to stay in America because it's the only home they've ever known. Yeah, to me, this is analogous to what just happened on health care, which is they repealed the individual mandate, which was not a good thing, and it's going to lead to higher premiums, but it is far, far, far short of repealing Obamacare.

It's not touching Medicaid. It's not touching any of the subsidies or anything else. Nevertheless, once it happened, Trump went out on TV and said individual mandate was central to Obamacare, which means now we've repealed Obamacare. It's gone. Don't talk about it again. It's dead. He can put

a little bomb on a psychic wound that's just for him. He just wanted to say it was dead. They're already saying that some of this money on the border fencing would not build a wall, but it would repair some fencing that's already on the border. If that ends up what it is, and Trump wants to go out and say, this is my wall,

and it's just actually... Put some fucking bricks in a pile, he can take a picture. I think that the key... Knowing that a government shutdown is actually a big deal and hurts a lot of people. Knowing that the clock is ticking on kids getting health insurance as we get further and further from CHIP being authorized, and we're going to get to a point where DREAMers are having to leave the country en masse.

I think the politics of a government shutdown is ultimately good for Democrats and very bad for the party in charge, so that we should fight to have every single priority we have in there. It is hard for me to swallow an idea as stupid as $18 billion for a fucking phony wall that won't work and is probably not real anyway

but maybe that's where we are. We've got $18 billion helicopters that can't fly. We've paid for dumber shit. I think we've got to watch it. I think we've got to make sure that some of the things that they want, some of the poison pills that fucking C-plus Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller are inserting in this deal

about cutting legal immigration and chain migration and stuff like that. That's all the shit they're trying to jam in late, too. Right. And it could get to a point where it's too much and we've got to say no. But I think the most important thing for Democrats is no Democrat should vote to fund a government that will deport 800,000 people who it promised to protect.

And no Democrat should vote to fund a government that will not extend insurance to 9 million American children. And we have to just be absolutely firm on that and not take that vote. That has to be a line that Senate Democrats understand is

something that is being drawn by the millions of people that have become engaged in a way they haven't been before that have been paying attention that these are the people that are going to deliver the House, these are the people that can deliver the Senate, and whatever they think about the broader politics of immigration, whatever they think about that, this is a moment where

the entire Democratic base is looking to see if Democrats are going to give them something to vote for. And if they let us down, I think we have to unleash holy hell, but we have to just push them right now to do the right thing. Okay. When we come back, we'll have another game. And we're back! Now for a game that we call Stockholm Syndrome. Sorry about the name, guys.

There were some backups, but this is what we went with. Here's how it works. Donald Trump and Republicans have spent a lot of time using Sweden like a pejorative. Oh, you're going to make America like Sweden. I'm sorry, but it's what goes on. And so we wanted to quiz one of you about the ways in which Sweden has been used in this manner. So would anybody here like to play Stockholm Syndrome?

This person in the front row is waving. Did you just scream Seattle? Your merch is in Seattle. Oh, well, maybe we'll call on you there. Hi, what's your name? Hi, Emily. Emily. Yes. Are you from Stockholm? I'm from Gävle, outside of Stockholm.

It's a different town. Where are you from? What's it called? Gävle, outside of Stockholm. It's a different town. Where are you from? What's it called? Gävle. No. No, I don't think so. No. What was it?

Gävle. And what was your name? Emily. So it's Emily from Yardley. Yardley. So, Emily. Yep. Your first question.

Emily from Yardley. After Donald Trump mistakenly referred to a non-existent terror attack in Sweden, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly interviewed Swedish defense and national security advisor Nils Bilt to provide insight into the extremist violence occurring in Sweden. The Swedish government released a statement admonishing Fox for inviting Nils Bilt to speak. Why? Was it A. His appearance on American television was not authorized by the Swedish government.

Was it B. He revealed classified information about an ongoing security operation. Was it C? He flew business class to the U.S., which was very expensive. Or was it D? He is not a Swedish defense and national security advisor. He does not live in Sweden, and his name is not Niles Biltz. The answer is D.

That is right. Nice job, Emily. How did that... Did you guys all catch up with that? Did that all... You guys all saw that happen? Yeah. Did that piss you guys off?

Yeah. Cool, us too. Question number two, Emily. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist, ran an insurgent primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016, often drew criticism from Republicans for his left-wing platform. Which Republican said the following? Quote, I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president of Sweden,

even though Sweden does not have a president. Was it A, Paul Ryan before endorsing Donald Trump? B, Marco Rubio before endorsing Donald Trump? C, Mitch McConnell before endorsing Donald Trump? B. Marco Rubio before endorsing Donald Trump. C. Mitch McConnell before endorsing Donald Trump. Or D. Hillary Clinton before it all fell apart and we ended up in this nightmare hellscape. Paul Ryan?

It was Marco Rubio. Ooh. Who, by the way, I will separately point out, said he used to say the line about Norway, but he's like, he got in trouble because Norway doesn't have a president. Hey, John, let's take a behind-the-curtain

at Crooked Media for a second. We have two conference rooms. One is large, one is small. What are their names? Big Marco and Little Marco. Good. We have a good time at work. Our staff did that.

Sweden doesn't have a president either. We know. That was the whole thing. Keep up. Okay, listen. I didn't think I'd have to do this in Europe. Here's the thing about shouting things from the crowd. You've got to be so sure that you're right.

Thank you for coming. Emily, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for me, and I'm sorry for coming. Emily, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for me, and I'm sorry for that person. Question number three. In a debate about income inequality, one conservative offered the following rebuke to liberals. You said, gosh, these executives make too much money. I don't think the government should be in the business

of deciding what you get paid. In socialist countries like Sweden and Denmark, if you are born poor, you usually stay poor. Who said it? Yeah, you don't like it, do you? Who said it? Was it A? Paul Ryan, before voting for a tax bill to make school supplies more expensive for teachers. Was it B? Mitch McConnell, before voting to cut Medicaid for millions of working people. Was it C?

Ted Cruz, despite the fact that study after study has shown that there is more economic mobility in countries with a strong social safety net, and that in America, you're more likely to be stuck in the same economic situation as your parents than you are in countries like Sweden and Denmark. Or was it D? Bernie Sanders, but like

he was being sarcastic. That's a hard one, but I'm going to go with C. Nailed it. Emily, you have gotten two out of three correct. But this last question is for all the marbles. Do you have that saying here? It means for all the things.

The whole enchilada. Question number four. Guys, can you focus? These are funny. Emily again. I'm sorry. How are you, Emily? Great.

Okay. Thank you for wearing the merch. You're welcome. It cost a ton in shipping and customs fees, so you should be grateful. Did we get the incorrect sound? Unfortunately, you are now two for four. Question number five. This is some good news.

Sweden does have at least one big Republican fan. His name is Donald Trump. How do we know this? Donald Trump pretended to be of Swedish ancestry for decades, including the line in his book, The Art of the Deal. What are Donald Trump's true familial origins? Was it A? Donald was found in a crashed alien craft in Kansas

by lovely farmers named Jonathan and Martha Trump who raised the boy as their own. Was it B? Fred Trump, Donald's father, who was one of those guys that snuck onto the left boats on the Titanic before the women and children because that kind of makes sense. Was it C?

The Trump family was German, but pretended to be Swedish to avoid angering Jewish tenants during World War II and then just kind of went with it because it seemed cool. Or was it D? No one knows where Donald Trump came from. We all actually can't remember anything before 2016. We are all in a simulation and we just relive the Trump presidency over and over again to see if we ever figure out how to save ourselves.

They've done the simulation 14,000 times. It'll end when we get it right. Okay, the answer is C. I forgot that there was a quiz. So, Emily, who paid for the shipping for the merch, you've won the game. And for that, you will get a lovely one of these Pod Save America hats, shipping included, because Tanya's handing it to you right now. Guys, give it up for Emily. Thank you to John and Tommy

because they sat there while I screwed up the intro to the game. When we come back, some Q&A with you guys. Okay, we have time for a couple questions. Hi, I'm Peter from Sweden. Hello. From Stockholm.

So in Sweden we have eight parties in Congress, in Parliament. Hearing about your grievances about splits in the Democratic Party, and if you consider the thought experiment of having maybe a Mitt Romney party and a Donald Trump party in 2016, do you hope and in any way expect that there are two parties in 100 years in the States, or don't you? I mean, I just

think that the way we're going, you could see an independent run for president and succeed I would have never said that in a pre-Trump

era but now that Donald Trump's president anything's sort of possible but I do think that our two party system right now makes it extraordinarily difficult for a third party or a fourth party to pop up and take hold. I think the Electoral College makes that really tricky. I think the way that congressional districts are drawn makes that tricky. A lack of proportional representation makes that tricky.

I mean, the U.S. has four parties. They're just stuck into two categories. The Republican Party has the corporate conservative wing, and it has this nationalist front. And the Democratic Party has the Bernie Sanders left wing, and it has a more center-left

party inside of itself. We just fight a lot of these things out inside of primaries, and because of the way our system is designed There's just it's harder for a third party to emerge and also it's you got to want it like I don't think the Mitt Romney party is pretty much just gonna have Mitt Romney in it because the other the other possibilities Bob Corker Jeff Flake all those guys, you know, they decided to quit and Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, all those guys,

they decided to quit and supposed to stay and fight Donald Trump. And so if you had this portion of Republicans who really despised Donald Trump, who were in elected office and had this following in the country of Republicans who thought likewise, like our friend Tim Miller, who is one of our contributors

and plenty of other Republicans we know, they would go do that and and they would field candidates, and they would try to do this. But a lot of them don't want to do it. They don't want to battle Donald Trump because they're afraid of right-wing media. They don't think there's support in the base. They don't think that they can get money from donors.

And so the will has to be there to actually have that fight. And I think right now, on the right side of the spectrum, that will isn't there. And on the left side of the spectrum, I don't think the splits between sort of the Bernie supporters on the left, on the far left, and a lot of the center left folks are that extreme, even as they were. The Democrats are more ideologically united, at least elected Democrats, than they have been in some time. But if it gets to that point, you actually need the people to go fight for that. And I don't see the will there.

And just one other thing that this point you made a lot, we made a lot. One lesson of Trump is there actually wasn't a big constituency for the Paul Ryan agenda that that's not what the certainly not what Democrats wanted. It turns out it wasn't Republicans wanted Trump. Trump ran roughshod of these people on trade, on immigration. He wasn't pushing a more right-wing tax policy. He ended up voting for it

because he ended up signing it because he didn't care because he outsourced it to Paul Ryan. But deregulation and cutting taxes for billionaires doesn't have a party. In fact, it's what may bring Trump and the Republican Party down in 2018. Not some of the things that Donald Trump ran on, but some of the things that Paul Ryan pushed him on,

which are cutting taxes and taking away Obamacare. That's what may do them in in 2018. Thank you. Seb, you're on from Linköping. And my question is to Tommy. I really like Pod Save the World. Thank you. It's a short question. Tonya's wearing the shirt.

So, what do you believe is the trajectory of on foreign policy views within the Democratic Party? On foreign policy views? This is hard. I don't know. The challenge is the Obama

versus Clinton fights on foreign policy were sort of the last big inter-party debate we had. And that almost entirely revolved around the Iraq War, which ultimately was a pretty obvious answer, right? Like, she voted for a war that was a fucking disaster that we're still paying for, that has led to uncertainty in the region,

the rise of ISIS, like, all these challenges. Barack Obama was opposed to it, and it was a very clear contrast and probably the reason he was able to win. Obama, when he got in office, had talked about, you know, how we needed to win the war in Afghanistan, how we needed to get tougher on al-Qaeda in certain parts of the country. And then I think Democrats were actually kind of shocked when he followed through on some of those promises,

including going after bin Laden in Pakistan, increasing targeted strikes against targets in various places, and sending tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan. Both sides seem to, in the last election, have coalesced around a desire to pull back militarily from the world in a pretty significant way. And unfortunately, on the right, that's been coupled with a desire to pull back diplomatically in terms of diplomacy generally, contact with the world, attempting to lead in trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership to pull back on foreign aid. I don't know what those fights are going to look like the next go-round.

It's hard to see because the focus right now is so domestic in nature and we're always fighting about social and economic issues first that foreign policy almost gets second shift. But I think hopefully, the good thing about the Obama administration is there was this reflexive assumption that Republicans are muscular and Democrats were soft and that the muscular foreign policy, the more militaristic foreign policy was the one that was electorally effective and can be used as a cudgel to whack Democrats in an election. I think Obama reversed that thinking somewhat, and I'm hopeful that can lead us

to make slightly more intelligent, informed decisions going forward, even in the context of a political process. That said, right now we're having a big debate over Iran and the Iran deal we cut to reduce the threat from their nuclear program, and it's still just as fucking stupid as all the other debates we have in Washington.

So maybe we haven't learned our lesson yet. All right. That's it. Stockholm, you've been wonderful. Thank you so much to everyone else. We'll be back with a pod on Thursday, our live show from Oslo. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

And good night. Bye.