Pod Save America - “Tariff Man without a plan.”

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

Michael Flynn’s cooperation is rewarded, Republicans subvert democracy in Wisconsin, Trump’s tweets tank the markets, and Democrats begin the battle for the 2020 nomination. Then Senator Sherrod Brown joins Jon and Dan to discuss his conversation with Trump about GM, the Green New Deal, how he won Ohio, and his plans for 2020.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, our conversation with Sherrod Brown of Ohio. We're also going to talk about Michael Flynn's sentencing memo, Donald Trump, the tariff man, and the early phases of the fight for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Fun stuff. On this week's episode of Pod Save the World,

Tommy and Ben talked about George H.W. Bush's foreign policy legacy. And they also talked with Kelly Magsman of the Center for American Progress about Elizabeth Warren's foreign policy speech. It's a great episode. Check that out. If you haven't heard, we've been trying to tell you because the Trump administration certainly isn't talking about it. The deadline to enroll in health care programs under the Affordable Care Act or to change your coverage is December 15th. Don't miss it. Go to healthcare.gov. All right. Let's get to the latest news about the Trump investigation. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has recommended that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn serve little to no prison time for lying to the FBI because he's been such a good

cooperator in not one, not two, but three federal investigations. The first appears to be a criminal investigation that is not being conducted by the special counsel's office, about which all details are redacted in the memo. The second is Mueller's investigation into, quote, any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald J. Trump. And the third is an additional investigation that's also entirely redacted. Altogether, Flynn has sat with Mueller's team for 19 interviews. 19 interviews, Dan! Mueller said to deliver another memo on Friday about Paul Manafort, who prosecutors say has been lying to them since reaching a plea deal earlier in the fall. And a sentencing memo from Mueller about Michael Cohen is also due on Friday.

So coming attractions. Dan, what, if anything, does this heavily redacted memo tell us about the overall direction of the Mueller investigation? I think it tells us two things. The first is that unlike Manafort or Papadopoulos or some of the other characters in this overly long drama, Michael Flynn has been very, very helpful to Bob Mueller and not just Bob Mueller, but other investigations under the purview of the Justice Department.

Because for very serious crimes, no jail sentence has been recommended for Flynn, which that usually, as I understand it, only happens when people have been very helpful. And so that's one. Yeah. counterparts are just service of the thing we should try to remember every single day, which is Bob Mueller knows exponentially more about what happened in 2016 and since than any of the rest of us do. And he has no, and he knows things when we find things out, Bob Mueller has known them for months, if not years. And so we've just, once again, to remember that there's a lot of other shoes to drop, if you will. Yeah. And I think the other thing too, is, uh, the memo did say that Flynn helped So we just once again remember that there's a lot of other shoes to drop, if you will.

Yeah, and I think the other thing, too, is the memo did say that Flynn helped Mueller cooperate in several ongoing investigations. You know, there's been some reporting that this thing's almost wrapped up, but it does seem like from all the redactions and the fact that the multiple investigations are ongoing, that there is much more to come, that this thing is not. We might be heading towards the endgame or in the end game, but it is not wrapped up by any means. It also makes clear that Flynn reported false information to the FBI about his conversation with the Russian ambassador during the transition, and that his lies were material to the FBI's investigation into the nature of any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. And that means that whatever he lied about, it had to do with potential collusion. And we know that Flynn and the Russian ambassador probably talked about sanctions relief. So again, it does seem as if we are getting closer to evidence, at least Mueller having evidence uncovering that there may have been some sort of quid pro quo.

I help you win an election. You lift sanctions from my country. I mean, it does seem like the most simple explanation. It still might not be that, but it is pointing towards that. And we'll throw in a large real estate deal at the time. Again, we're still not 100% sure on all these things, but it's certainly looking like that. So, you know, we should engage in just pure speculation here. What do we think the redacted investigations are?

I mean, just to be as reckless as humanly possible. Yeah, let's be reckless. To at least base my reckless speculation on people who know a lot more than me, like Marcy Wheeler and Matt Miller and others who've followed these investigations very closely, you have a couple of options here. One is a counterintelligence investigation into the Russians. Right. Right. So that would be redacted. We may never know anything about that. Other options could include the very weird story. It's sort of the Chekhov's gun of this whole thing, the story about Peter Smith, who is a Republican fundraiser who sought aggressively to get Hillary Clinton's emails and have them hacked and then passed away not long after the Wall Street Journal contacted him about these things. He is a very odd figure in Republican politics. He's also the – I learned this from the Clinton Affair documentary on A&E. He was also the person who raised money to fund the troopers who testified against Bill Clinton back in the early 90s. And so there was a lot of – and

Peter Smith also had some outreach and connections to Michael Flynn. So there is a nexus here. That is one possibility for what this could be. But like I said, Mueller knows a lot that we don't know, and so it could be anything. that the first investigation that seems like it is outside the purview of the special counsel's office could have to do with a secret Turkish lobbying effort where Flynn and his former business partners and clients financed a campaign against a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania that Turkey wanted extradited and potentially kidnapped. Which, you know, when you're a national security advisor, those are the things that you do. So that could be one of the investigations. So looking at this memo,

what it says, what it doesn't say, who do we think should be worried about this Flynn memo? So a lot of people should be nervous, most notably Donald Trump. This is his national security advisor, someone who's in the inner circle of this campaign, who has been spending a voluminous number of hours with law enforcement officials of all sorts, telling them clearly everything he knows so much so that they're willing to reward him for his fairly serious crimes without jail time. And we know Donald Trump is nervous because his tweets of the last few days have basically been flop sweat in digital form.

So he's clearly nervous. I think the other person who we have sort of has drifted to the back of this conversation, but should be very nervous, is Jared Kushner. Because it is important to remember that he was intimately involved in the discussions during the transition with Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergei Kisiak, about potential sanctions relief. And let us not forget this very important point that Jared Kushner proposed setting up a back channel between himself and the Russians so that Kushner and the Trump inner circle could talk to the Russians without being heard by the intelligence agencies of the government that Trump was about to be in charge of. So there is something fishy there. And we know it's fishy because Kushner lied about those contacts with Russians on multiple occasions on his security clearance forms. They are legal documents where lying is equivalent to perjury and you put yourself at risk of criminal penalties,

fines, and maybe jail time. So there was more about Jared Kushner that Flynn has potential to know a lot about. And so I think he should be very nervous. And then frankly, if you're a Republican elected official, you should be fucking nervous because you've spent the last two years covering up a wide set of crimes from collusion to corruption to grift to obstruction of justice without knowing the exact crimes you were covering up. And we're about to find out what those are. So whether you were Paul Ryan or Devin Nunez or Mitch McConnell or anyone else who have been accessories in this political obstruction of justice, you should also be nervous. Yeah. And one more thing on Jared. There were court documents about a year ago that said

a very senior member of the presidential transition team, quote unquote, directed Flynn to make an overture to the Russian ambassador about the sanctions vote. Reporting has suggested that that was Jared that did that. And so clearly he is very tied up in this potential quid pro quo, especially around the sanctions. Remember, like, I do think one of the biggest revelations in this investigation or one of the biggest areas of focus is going to end up being they changed the fucking Republican Party platform before the convention. Only, the only real difference difference the only real change that the

trump team made was to russia to be nicer to russia um to be easier on russia and then you know they did this um otherwise inexplicable move after the election to try to um let russia know don't worry about the sanctions that Obama just imposed on you for interfering in our elections. We'll take care of that when we get into power. Like, there are very few other explanations for why they would do this, other than they somehow felt indebted to Vladimir Putin for something. Yes. And let's not forget that the person who was running the Republican convention at that time was Paul Manafort, with close ties to Putin cronies who was deeply in debt to Russian oligarchs and just mysteriously showed up at Trump's doorstep one day volunteering to take over his campaign for free despite being millions of dollars in debt to people who take their debts very seriously with Russian mob ties. So, I mean, they're like Mueller will make his case. We'll look at evidence. But just like if you take the Occam's razor view of this, the simplest

explanation is there was a lot of fucking crime happening here. That's it. That's that's our conclusion. What do we think is next in the investigation? Garrett Graff just wrote a piece for Wired on Wednesday with 13 questions that Mueller has the answer to that we don't. Everyone should go read the piece. It's a good piece. What questions do you have that you think Mueller has the answer to? Well, I want to know – I think one big one is around Don Jr., who seems to have a wide horizon of vulnerability here from – very clearly it appears lying to Congress about conversations around the Trump Tower deal in Russia to who he may have told about the – in advance and afterwards about the meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower. about the meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower.

And there is this grand mystery that Mueller, I believe, should be able to know the answer to with a subpoena, which is what was the unknown number that was in contact with Donald Trump Jr. right after that meeting. And so there's a lot involving the president's son that I would like to get the bottom of. And just want to know, like Mueller has known this for a long time, and I want to know what Mueller knows. I also want to know how closely the Russian conspiracy investigation is tied up in the Trump organization's financial scandals. Obviously,

it seems like there are links there, but I'd love to know what exactly they are. I'd love to know what Paul Manafort lied about and why, which we may find out some of that on Friday. What else Cohen told them since he also sat for many, many, many, many interviews. I think he was like 70 hours worth. And I'd also like to know like whether Mueller believes that Trump obstructed justice. Like I'm very interested in that investigation because it seems so obvious to so many of us since Trump like obstructs justice every day out in the open. But it will be interesting to see it sort of laid out in a Mueller memo exactly whether he thinks that Trump obstructed justice and when and why. The obstruction of justice thing is so fascinating because he obstructed justice. He fired the FBI

director to end the Russia investigation into himself. He has just done it publicly and incompetently. And so there's this open question of whether there is either a criminal case for the people around Trump or an impeachable case from those facts. But we know he told us he was going to rob the bank. He then showed up at the bank. He tweeted about the bank. and he just left without money. So it's like, we know what happened. We know that obstruction of justice was attempted and remains a serious priority of Trump because to this day, we do not know who... Oh, this is the other question I want to know. Who is in charge of the Mueller

investigation of the Department of Justice? Is that still Rod Rosenstein? Is it Matt Whitaker? is in charge of the Mueller investigation of the Department of Justice. Is that still Rod Rosenstein? Is it Matt Whitaker? No one in Congress or the media can get an answer to that question. While there's just this unqualified, fraudulent political hack named Matt Whitaker is currently the chief law enforcement officer in the United States, and we don't know what his responsibilities are. And Trump seems to have no desire to appoint a new attorney general. And so there's a lot we want to know. Just tell us, Bob Mueller. We don't have forever.

We don't have patience anymore. It's the Twitter age. Is deeply corrupt ex-toilet salesman Matt Whitaker running the Mueller investigation? Is what we want to know right now. Okay. Enough about the Russia investigation is what we want to know right now. Okay, enough about the Russia investigation. Let's talk about another subversion of American democracy that's actually coming from within the country.

On Wednesday, the Republican legislature in Wisconsin passed legislation to strip power from the Democrats who will be replacing them. Or as the New York Times put it in the headline, Wisconsin Republicans defiantly stand like bedrock in face of Democratic wins. Fucking someone, someone talked to the headline writers at the New York Times, man. You know who should be pissed about this?

Are the journalists at the New York Times. Yes. Who for the most part write stories that are, I mean, are good. They're like, like the story itself is an accurate, fair representation of what happened. And then some fucking former no labels intern headline writer just craps all over it. Then the writer has to take all the shit on Twitter for because people only read the headlines. And I'm just going to rant for one second this is where mainstream american journalism institutions are so ass backwards which is in this day and age the headline you put on twitter is sadly more important than the story itself yeah and you have you have like reams of experienced people spending all this time editing the fifth paragraph of the story and then some fucking yahoo can just throw some dumb ass headline on and it calls a twitter riot against you just it's infuriating and look i don't like that that's how it is i read the stories i i hope everyone reads the stories in full but like

you know it's a big country a lot of people folks are busy they're like walking through the airport and they see a headline on tv they look down at their phones and see a headline pop up. Sometimes people don't know the whole news. Don't yell at all the critics about it. Go to your fucking social media departments in your media organizations and talk to the headline writers and have them fucking fix it. Your stories are too good. Your journalism is too important for this crap.

Anyway, that's a rant on that. Back to Wisconsin. So the Wisconsin legislature, the Republican-held legislature, passed bills that will limit early voting, require the governor to get permission from legislators to adjust programs like Medicaid that are run by both the federal and state government, allow the state senate to veto the governor's political appointees, require the attorney general to seek the approval of the legislature before making important legal decisions allow legislators to intervene in litigation and even prevent the governor from banning guns in the state capitol without the approval of the legislature that is fucking bonkers the reason why all this is

happening uh here's the republican state assembly speaker this week quote we are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in yeah no shit asshole that's what democracy is outgoing GOP governor Scott Walker could still veto the bills in Wisconsin and of course the Republican

party in Michigan is up to similarly sketchy stuff right now. Dan what if, if anything, can Democrats in Wisconsin do to fix this legislation? And more in general, what can Democrats everywhere do to prevent this from happening in the future? Well, first, the thing we shouldn't do is wait around for Scott fucking Walker to veto these bills, because I have a suspicion that is not going to happen. I appreciate Tony Evers calling him, but this is Walker. Scott Walker brought this type of politics to not just Wisconsin, but the country and the Republican

Party. He is the poster child for the Koch-funded anti-democratic corporatist policies that defined the Republican Party long before the era of Trump. So a couple of things that I think we need to do here, which is one, Republicans don't respond to norms. They don't respond to shame. They respond to brute political force. And so the legislators who pass these bills need to pay a price. And someone with an equally well-funded but non-imaginary super PAC should be running ads now, making sure that their participation in these efforts is forever ingrained in the memory of the voters. And that's important because every two years, the entire Wisconsin Assembly is up for election. So we're going to have a chance in 2020 to address this. Yeah.

Second, there obviously will be legal action here, right? Yeah. Second, there obviously will be legal action here, right? Like some of these things test the bounds of constitutionality and separation of powers within both federal and state constitutions. And now, obviously, one of the big challenges here is that the deciding vote on the U.S. Supreme Court is held by a angry partisan hack with an axe to grind. So problematic. But like you can still – there are injunctions that can be put in here. Some of the things that were done in North Carolina were struck down, not enough of them, but some were. The other thing that I think is important to remember is Wisconsin has recall laws. If you remember, Governor Walker was,

there was an attempt to recall Governor Walker after he passed these very anti-labor and anti-collective bargaining laws back in 2011. By simply getting enough signatures on a petition, you can make an attempt to recall some of these legislators. And even though you have some people up in 2020, you can send a signal by running recall campaigns against the most vulnerable Republican legislators who voted this way. And I think that's something to consider.

And the last thing that I think is important, it is oftentimes when states pass these regressive laws that outside entities put pressure on them and force change, whether it is companies saying they won't have their businesses there. We saw that in Indiana after they passed a blatantly homophobic law, whether it is sports leagues who said they won't hold their all-star games or their championship games. In these states, we saw that in North Carolina after an anti-trans bill. There was a law that passed the Georgia legislature that was eventually vetoed by the Republican governor because a lot of employers, including Salesforce, said they would not locate their companies there if such laws passed. And so I think Democrats should think about how we organize grassroots around businesses

and other entities to put pressure on Wisconsin politicians. And so, for example, I know the Milwaukee Bucks are desperately trying to get the NBA All-Star Game in, I think, 2022 or 2023. And I think there could be a grassroots campaign to put pressure on the NBA to not do that under this set of laws, which are anti-democratic and create, frankly, an uncertain business climate for these entities. So those are the sort of things that I think are in our wheelhouse to do. Ultimately, being in control of legislatures is the key to this. Right. Well, I was going to say, I mean, Democrats should understand, like, Tony Evers is not going to be able to accomplish all that much in the next two years with this

legislature. And they have made that very clear from the outset. It is not anything specific about Tony Evers that they're upset about. They are basically openly saying he's a liberal and that's bad. And so not only are we not going to cooperate with him over the next two years, we're going to make his life a living hell. We're going to make sure that he doesn't get anything done whatsoever. It's like Mitch McConnell saying, you know, my main goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president on steroids. That's basically what they've done here. So I think there's an opportunity here for Democrats to continue the organizing efforts in Wisconsin that we began in the lead up to 2018, which were successful in

the sense that Tony Evers was elected governor. But look, Wisconsin is going to be, you know, one of the tighter swing states of the three states that Trump won in 2016, the blue states that Trump won, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is probably going to be the toughest for us in 2020. And so it will be good to be on the ground organizing, protesting, fighting now from now until 2020. And not only will that help sort of elect a more Democratic legislature in 2020, but it'll help whoever the nominee is win Wisconsin in 2020. So I think, you know, outside organizations, the DNC, everyone else should continue sort of the organizing effort on the ground in Wisconsin to fight

this Republican legislature and then also lay the groundwork for 2020. So on Monday, we talked a little bit about how the North Carolina State Board of Elections has refused to certify a congressional election in the state's ninth district, where there's pretty clear and compelling evidence that a paid Republican consultant committed election fraud by going door to door in neighborhoods, collecting absentee ballots and literally stealing votes from people. Now there are calls for House Democrats to refuse to seat Republican Mark Harris, who appeared to win the race last month by only around 900 votes. One House Democrat is also calling for an emergency hearing into the matter. Dan, what do you think should happen here? I think that there should be a new election and there should be criminal charges brought against

the people who did this. And if there are not, and if there is not a new election, I think the Democrats should refuse to seat the Republican Mark Harris, who won the election under these pretty blatantly obvious illegal circumstances. Yeah. I mean, the guy who did this, this consultant, has been convicted before and may have been doing this for up to eight years. He's been doing this shit. There's evidence that he did it during the primary, that Mark Harris won an unusually high number, a high percentage of absentee ballots in this county in the primary, and that in this county over the last several years, the absentee ballot counts have been way off

in comparison to the rest of the state. So you clearly have overwhelming evidence at this point of a Republican consultant who's just been stealing people's votes. That's it. Just stealing their votes. And, you know, the Charlotte Observer had an editorial this week saying that there should be a new election. It is clear that I think the only way to, you know, make sure that this is a fair election is to hold it over again. I just I don't see any other way around it. And, you know, make sure that this is a fair election is to hold it over again. I just, I don't see any other way around it. And, you know, some people say, oh, Republicans are like,

well, you know, it's 900 votes and there weren't that many absentee ballots. But like, we don't know. We don't know how many ballots were thrown away. There's some evidence that in the neighboring county, this has also been been happening so it could be thousands of ballots we just don't know because this fucking guy's been stealing them so yeah it's it's pretty crazy and it's interesting like haven't heard much from um all the uh the republican voter fraud police on this mark marco rubio 60 tweets about democrat lawyers stealing an election in florida haven't heard too much from Marco Rubio's fucking Twitter feed. Have you? I saw our friend Sam Stein

from the Daily Beast tweet. I think there was faux sincerity to this, but it'd be really nice to hear from Marco Rubio about this. It's like, really? Are you unfamiliar with Marco Rubio's work? He's full of shit. That's his deal. It is. It's so bad.

I was going to say a couple of things about this. I did have this weird feeling when I saw that Steny Hoyer in some press unveil said that if there was not some resolution here, the Democrats would consider not seating Mark Harris. And I was like, oh, we have power again. There is a lever of power that we can pull and we're in charge of something. Take that, Republicans. One member of Congress, this is a huge deal. But this is not like passing Medicare for all or something else. But it's like, oh, they can't just run roughshod over us with a bunch of illegal bullshit.

We can actually stop them in some way, shape, or form. So that was very good. I also think that there is something that ties together what happened in North Carolina and what's happening in Wisconsin and Michigan. And that is the fact that the will of the voters is simply an annoyance to Republicans. They understand. This has nothing to do with Trump. Trump is just a buffoon at the top of the ticket. At the core of the Republican Party, the people who fund the party, the people who make the decisions, they have known for a long time that they represent a dwindling coalition in this country and that with every passing year, their agenda gets less popular and their base gets smaller. And so they are employing an aggressive set of anti-democratic, small d, tools to ensure that we essentially have minority rule in this country. Even in Wisconsin, Democrats got a lot more votes and a lot less seats because it's one of the most

gerrymandered seats in this country. Wisconsin also, like North Carolina, has, under Republican leadership, some of the most onerous voter suppression laws in this country. All of this is about making sure that your vote doesn't count, but also that you know that your vote doesn't count so that you're less likely to vote the next time. And it is to breed cynicism and a sense of submission in the voting public to ensure that we will continue to pass this deeply unpopular, deeply damaging corporatist environment that's, I'm sorry, corporatist agenda that is funded by billionaires. Apparently, a North Carolina Republican leader just said he'd be open to a new election

if fraud is proven. Now, we don't know what kind of standards he's going to have for proving fraud here, but that is at least a good sign. But no, you're totally right. And I would say, too, I thought the same thing when I heard Steny Hoyer say that they might not seat Mark Harris, because, you know, the first reaction of everyone, which has been our reaction for the last two years, is not enough people are talking about this we got to put pressure on them we got to make a big stink about this and like that's all true but it's like you know what's going to get a lot of people to cover this and talk about this when fucking nancy pelosi and denny hoyer are like nope not getting seated

that'll make it a big story then people will be talking about it so that's exactly i mean that's that's about it. So that's what power gets you. That's what organizing gets you. Okay, let's talk about trade. President Trump's incoherent trade war with China wreaked havoc on the stock market this week. trade war with China wreaked havoc on the stock market this week. Trump bragged over the weekend that he'd reached a deal with China at the G20 to end the trade war between our countries, but it soon became very clear that all of his bragging, as it usually is, was entirely bullshit. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, President Xi and I want this deal to happen, and it probably will,

but if not, remember, I am a tariff man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in billions in tariffs, make America rich again. And then shortly after his tweet, the stock market plunged 200 points. On Wednesday, Trump went back to saying that China was sending strong signals about making a deal following a statement from China's government. So, Dan, what the hell is going on here? Was he lying originally or was he too stupid to tell the truth? Because he didn't know the details of his own trade policy.

Or was it both? I think it's both. I mean, the answer is always both with these things. Whenever you tweet something, it's like, I don't know what's worse, whether Trump believes this or he lies about it. They're like, both. I don't know what's worse, whether he's a liar or he's stupid. People are like, it's both. God damn it. Like what this exposes is that basically we've known for two years that we have a dangerously unfit, purposefully ignorant moron as president of the United States. And yet somehow, we have made it through without the bottom falling out of the American economy in that case.

And what we know is from having worked in the White House is your words matter when you're president, unlike anything else in the world in life. You can make the market move. You can cause a crash. You can cause someone to move aircraft carriers into a gulf just by saying the wrong thing. And so the responsibilities of that role is a bad match for someone who is a pathological liar with verbal diarrhea. And you sort of see the consequences of that here. I mean, reading about this story, you're just like, you know, if Donald Trump was president during the Cuban Missile Crisis,

there would have been nuclear war. Like, there just would have. Like, you watch him in a high-stakes negotiation on the global stage global stage and you watch him just not just fumble through it i mean he didn't know what he doesn't know trade policy he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about and he doesn't know trade policy and by the way this is supposedly the issue that he genuinely believes right like and it is true like if you look at donald trump's record on trade over the last 20 30 years it has been it's one of the few policy areas where he's been pretty consistent he's been protectionist for a long long time he has been a racist protectionist since birth everything else is fake but those two things are true right yes that's right the racism and the protectionism those are both genuine uh genuine

beliefs on his part and in the protectionism like for someone who's been protectionist for so long like you'd think that he thought about that he'd have have a a nuanced view of the issue or at least some view on the issue that is uh i don't know within the ballpark of accurate he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about on trade policy he's out there who god knows what he said to the president of china who's no dummy and then he's like tweeting out shit. The White House is asked about, you know, Trump's tweets. They can't back them up there. They admitted they don't know what he was talking about. They had no idea. He starts like naming details about the deal.

White House is like, we don't know what he's talking about. I mean, this is meanwhile, the stock market's plunging. The country's in a trade war with China, which is already hurting farmers, hurting consumers. Like, it's crazy. The question is, can Democrats make this case against Trump in 2020? Should Democrats make this case against Trump in 2020? And on this trade policy, is it more of an economic case? Is it, and you've said this many times before, you know, Trump is too chaotic to be in the Oval Office. It's about his chaos and corruption. Like, what is the case you make here? Or at this point, we're just sort of used to him, you know, tweeting crazy shit and people are sort of immune to it. I think it is interesting that the only people who have not figured out the incredibly dumb

but age-old question about whether you take Trump seriously or literally is the market, who just like two and a half years in is like, oh, fuck, this guy's a Yahoo. Like, what have they been doing other than counting money for two years? To go to your question, I think that we have to, yes, we can make a case on this. Yes. We have to make a case around it. I want to talk. I'm interested to hear what Sherrod Brown has to say about this, but there is an argument that the chaos that comes from Trump, whether it's the tweets, whether it's the fact that he is always wrapped around the axle of some criminal investigation or another, the, you know, and all of the drama comes at a cost.

And you have to show people – you have to show people what that cost is. It can't be an aesthetic discussion. It has to be a discussion that has impact in their lives. And certainly in a lot of states that are going to make up the winning coalition for a Democratic presidential candidate, you should be able to do that around these terrorists. But also, if his tweets are moving the market in ways that affect people's 401ks, that is a very strong argument for not having a president who sends crazy tweets. Right. And the point is, it's not about Trump's tweets. It's not about Trump's crazy tweets. It's about, you know, policies and real life consequences that result from the statements that the president of the United States is making publicly. Right. I mean, because sometimes I think just saying, oh, you've got crazy tweets minimizes the real consequences and the damage that come from his presidency to people's lives.

It's not great. OK, let's talk about the 2020 election, since there's been some news this week. Since it's December of 2018, let's get to it. Let's dive in. We talked about trade. We talked about Wisconsin and Michigan. Now we get to talk about 2020.

So former Massachusetts governor, friend of the pod, Deval Patrick, has decided against running. Orange County lawyer Michael Avenatti has also decided against running. There were reports that Beto O'Rourke and Andrew Gillum have both met with our old boss, Barack Obama, to talk about potential 2020 bids. Joe Biden this week said that he'd be the most qualified candidate in the field, but is thinking about his family and will decide soon. Elizabeth Warren delivered a major foreign policy speech. Kamala Harris has got a new book coming out soon, which is what you do when you're thinking about running for president. And there's about, you know, four or five hundred

other people considering running. So before we get into it, Dan, how much should people be talking about and focused on 2020 at this point? As much as you want to be, right? It is now, at this point, it's like political sport, right? If you're interested in this, this is a great thing to focus on. The election itself is obviously the massively consequential for the future of the United States of America and democracy more generally. But none of it's going to be decided for a very long time. And so, you know, like, I think people should be interested. Are there candidates you're interested in? Follow it closely, see if they decide to run. And if they decide to run, watch them early on and see if they are saying things and doing things and proposing things that are interesting to you. And if someone inspires you, you can start working for them, either work on their campaign or just volunteer for them in innumerable ways. And so it is

interesting if you also want to, after a very exhausting two years, want to take the holidays off and watch, I don't know, Christmas movies or reality TV or an amazing NBA season, you can do that too. This is optional political viewing right now. Yeah. And look, I mean, just to compare it to past elections, because it always feels like, you know, the presidential comes earlier every cycle. But at this time in December 2006, I believe Obama was headed to New Hampshire to give a speech and where that sort of raised the speculation about whether he was going to run. I believe you had walked into our Senate office to interview for a job by December, maybe in December. Yeah, pretty close to that.

Pretty close to that. I think it was first week of January, Gibbs told me I was moving to Chicago. And then I think, you know, and then in February, Obama announced. So this is the time that, you know, people start to announce, candidates announce, they staff up. This is when it happens. So it is early, but it is not earlier than previous cycles. And people should get started early because, as our old friend and boss David Plouffe used to say, the only non-replenishable resource in a campaign is time. You can raise more money. You can hire more staff. You can run more TV ads.

But every time the clock ticks, that is a minute you don't get back. And so there is urgency because organizing and organizing well takes time. Building a campaign and building it right takes time. And you can either put the starting line in January or February of, uh, you basically a year out of the first primary dates, or you can do it six months out. And so you can either do a year's work in a year or a year's work in six months. Yeah. So what, you know, obviously one of these candidates who's trying to figure out whether he'll run is Beto O'Rourke. We haven't talked about the piece you wrote for Crooked.com, arguing that Beto should run and that if he does, he'd be one of the strongest candidates. Why do you think that, Dan? Well, I would say that I really felt some sympathy for journalists after writing that piece, because you always hear journalists

scream about the fact that no one reads the whole thing before they react to it and i definitely felt that because in like the fifth paragraph or something i made the point that i like beto i am he is a friend of the pod i'm very impressed by him i also like a lot of other people who are running and i wasn't arguing that he would win or he should win or was the quote most, most electable candidate, which I think is one of the most bullshit arguments ever. Or even that when the California primary rolls around early 2020 that he's necessarily the person I would vote for. I was mainly making the case for his political strengths. someone who, like you, worked for a candidate with a short, non-traditional presidential resume who had found a way to inspire people prior to running for president. And so all the sort of

weathered critiques from sort of the old sort of Washington political observers about why he shouldn't run or didn't have a shot seemed very familiar to us because they're the same ones people said about Obama. That doesn't mean, like, we don't know whether Beto O'Rourke will be a great presidential candidate or not. He's got to get in and see. I hope he runs because there's a formula for winning that is critically important, which is you have to run as a progressive who can inspire the base yet also win over independent voters. Because there are more Democrats than Republicans in the country, but when you start allocating those voters to states that make up 270 electoral votes, you're going to have to win some people who voted for Gary Johnson, some people who voted for Trump,

some people who voted for Romney. And what Beto O'Rourke did in Texas showed the ability to do that on that stage. There are other candidates who I think also have that ability, but there are very few people who can do the and-both thing of excite the base and win over swing voters. And Beto has shown that potential. There are others who do as well, but I want as many candidates to get in there who have that ability as can because the more the merrier in my view. Yeah, we were all surprised when we saw Axios report. there who have that ability as as ken because the more the more the merrier in my view yeah yeah we were we were all surprised when we saw axios report cricket media endorsed beto because he wrote a piece saying that he should run and we're explicit in the piece that you're not even sure if you're supporting him yet no i mean i we should they did nicely they did after they did correct

it some nice emails correct it uh very nice well should say, just because we're starting to talk about 2020 stuff, look, it's obvious. We've all talked about how we like Beto here. It's been reported, and you should all know that we're co-producing, Kyrgyz Media is co-producing a documentary that was filmed about Beto's campaign. There's a documentary film crew following him around the whole time, so that should be exciting. We'll see that in March. But in terms of 2020 in the primary here at Pod Save America and Crooked Media in general,

we are not making any endorsements here. We want Pod Save America. We want Crooked Media to be a place where every 2020 candidate feels comfortable coming, talking about the future of the party, why they're running for president. We have Sherrod Brown on in a couple minutes. We hope to talk to all the candidates like, and the reason we're doing this is because it's not just for like company reasons. It's like as activists, I actually believe it's incredibly important that whoever we support in the primary, and it's going to be a tough primary, it's going to be a lot of candidates,

whoever we support in the primary, and it's going to be a tough primary, it's going to be a lot of candidates, that we all come together in the general to support whoever the nominee is. And I, like, all the candidates who are potentially running right now, I would be happy to support all of them, whoever wins in the general election, because there's literally nothing in the world more important than fucking beating Donald Trump in 2020. Nothing. And the thing I worry most about in this primary is like, we should have a great debate over the different candidates, their positions on issues, how they're going to govern, what their experience is, all of that. Let's have that debate. But I really hope people don't get into, oh, well, I'm never going to vote for that candidate if he wins. I'm never going to vote for that candidate if she wins.

Or I have a litmus test on this issue. And if this candidate doesn't meet this litmus test, then I won't vote for that candidate. Or I'll vote for Trump. Or I'll vote for a third party. I want to try to avoid that because these are all real. We have an excellent field of candidates in 2020 all of them have something unique to offer all of them are exciting all of them we should be able to get behind and that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a like a contentious debate even at times where we

really argue about the policy and the positions that each of these candidates take like let's have at it but let's just at the end of the, not get so far down the road with our own candidate that if another candidate wins, we throw up our hands about it. I'm genuinely worried about that. So we're going to try to practice that here. And because we're not just like your typical pundits, we're not going to pretend to not have feelings about each of these candidates. We're going to talk about when they do something great, when they do something inspiring.

We do like Beto. We've said that here, too. We also love Sherry Brown, who we're going to be talking to soon. Also love a bunch of other candidates, and we'll be saying that. I don't expect us to trash candidates here. I expect us to be honest about how we feel about candidates. But in general, we want this to be a place. We want this to sort of be neutral ground for candidates. Yeah, and I think the other context of this

is not just our attempt at neutrality of sorts, because it's not, I don't even think neutrality is the right word, because we, I think it's more transparency. Because look, Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president for eight years. He was also my senator my entire life, being from Delaware.

And he is someone I have known and been around much of my life. You can't live in Delaware and not be around Joe Biden. It's a small state and he's omnipresent. And I have a lot of very, very warm feelings about him. I have been a huge fan of Kamala Harris since she was knocking doors in Iowa for Barack Obama in 2008.

And Elizabeth Warren has been on the pod a million times. There is, you know, we know, like this is the first election in my lifetime where I sort of have relationships or have worked with or are colleagues with a lot of the people who are running. And I basically want to see it play itself out because you just don't know by looking at someone's, how they performed in a Senate race or a governor's race and trying to project that onto a presidential race, both a primary and a general, is like watching someone playing in a beer league softball game and then trying to imagine them pitching game seven of the World Series.

It's just the different – the stage is so big, the scrutiny is so high, the stakes are so great that you don't know, one, how people will perform on that stage based on what you know before, and you have no idea sitting here today in December of 2018 what voters are going to want in the late winter spring of 2020 when democratic voters make decision or november of 2020 when voters make their decision like the world is going to change a thousand times it will change three times between when we finish recording today when the pod comes out so imagine what's going to happen in two years right candidates stumble candidates shine who you wouldn't expect uh to. I mean, all kinds of stuff happens.

And also, like, none of these candidates is going to be pure or is going to be perfect. And we're going to know that there's something wrong with all of these candidates because their opponents in the primary are going to point out the things that are wrong with their record or wrong with their policies, right? So, like, everyone is going to get roughed up here. And I think, you know, as voters, that doesn't mean we shouldn't like settle for less. Right. We should we should support you should support the candidate who inspires you most, who makes you want to go out and knock on doors for that person who you think is going to be a great president. faults and has taken positions on things that you don't necessarily support. None of them are perfect on every issue.

Some of them are great on some issues, bad on other issues. Like that's going to be the case all across the board. So just, you know, this is for folks who spend a lot of their time on Twitter, like us, unfortunately, and watching cable news and all the rest. But like, you're going to see bad shit about all the candidates. And just take a minute during this primary to listen to each of these candidates yourself to really do your own research on them to go to some events if you can you know like i said that because of the primary keller moved up they're going to be all over the country and they're going to be competing in all kinds of

states because there's so many candidates and really just take a minute for yourself forget about what everyone else says forget about fucking electability and ask yourself what you believe how you feel when you watch some of these candidates speak and when you watch some of these candidates answer questions and do interviews and that to me is like sort of the just for whoever's deciding whoever you may support that's usually the best way to do it i think so there was also a washington post story this week about how the dnc is trying to avoid the kind of uh debate clusterfuck the republic went through in 2016. Instead of having an undercard debate, which they did back in 2016 on the Republican side, DNC wants to mix it up so that some top-tier candidates appear with some lesser-known candidates. Maybe there's one debate Tuesday night, one debate Wednesday night, and they all pick from a hat to figure out who's in the Tuesday night debate and who's in the Wednesday night debate. What do you think of this plan, Dan?

And are you at all worried overall about too many candidates cluttering the field and the message? I am not worried about too many candidates cluttering the field. I don't that is not people who say it was the 18 Republican candidates that allowed Trump to win are idiots. That's not what allowed Trump to win. It was the appetite for racist populism in the Republican base that allowed Trump to win and the general incompetence of Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. That's why Trump won. So I'm not worried about that. DNC debate idea, at least for the first, I don't know, however many months of whenever they start, is the right choice because polling is a snapshot in time. It tells you how voters feel today. It doesn't tell you how they're going to feel in January.

January. And so if you were to just do the, if you were to do this by the rules applied in the Republican primary, you would, there were, if I remember this correctly, in 2016, there was a threshold. It was like the top eight candidates were on stage one and the bottom eight were on stage two or 10 and six or whatever the number of Yahoo's was. That's what it was. And the problem with that is, is it grants immediate advantage to the candidates who have been around longer with a higher name ID, as opposed to some of the younger, fresh faces who may have something to offer. And so I think mixing it up is good. Let's see what happens. The question will be, when you get closer to the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary or the California primary, at that point, will it make the most sense, if you presume the

field is still very large at that point, to have, you know, like once, or maybe even once delegates have been sort of being allocated to allow actual delegates to determine who gets on the stage. So, because you do, I think in the end, voters should have an opportunity to see the six people who have an actual reasonable chance of winning what six six is a random number but whatever that number is of people with a reasonable chance of winning be on stage debating each other instead of you know the whoever's winning at that point the person who's in third and the person who's in 17th and 18th place all being on stage at same time doesn't seem like that is good for anyone other than the uh future pundit career of the

person in 17th or 18th place. Yeah, no, I like the idea for the beginning, too, because it's also about incentives, right? Like, if you know that the only way to get into the main stage debate is to, you know, be at 6% or 7% in the polls, I don't know, pick a random number, it's going to give you an incentive to just make yourself known by saying something crazy, perhaps, right? Like it's sort of perverse incentives if it's based on polling to try to get into that top tier. And I like the fact, and it's not, you know, it's not just the lesser known candidates that this helps. It's also the candidates who are maybe a little quieter, maybe not like celebrity status, right? maybe not like celebrity status right like it's just it it is good to have a level playing field at the outset where your name id the money you've raised you know your celebrity status doesn't

directly affect how people can hear how voters can hear from you on the stage so i think it's a good move by the dnc and of course you know the dnc has under new leadership by Tom Perez has learned from sort of the DNC of 2016, which people were worried, you know, put its thumb on the scale for the Clinton campaign. People can argue whether that's true or not, but that was one of the concerns back in 2016. So I think in 2020, the DNC is probably going to take be extra cautious and trying to make sure that the playing field is level here. I think you can pretty easily argue that at least the debate strategy and plan the DNC put out in 2016 was done explicitly to limit damage to Hillary Clinton. That seems pretty clear. Putting the debates on a Tuesday night, it's like, how can we get this debate opposite the Super Bowl?

It's probably a bad idea. And debates are good. And they actually help the Republican Party in the long run because they created massive interest in that campaign. Now, that had a lot to do with Trump, but I suspect you will see very good interest in the Democratic debate field. good interest in the Democratic debate field. The one thing I want to say about the debates that I think is important, and I hope the DNC takes into consideration, is how do we structure these debates so that they are about the things voters care about, not the things that political media likes to ask about and Trump likes to tweet about, right? Like, we should have a debate about, like, it should be a healthcare debate, and it should be a healthcare debate and it should be about – it doesn't necessarily have to be hosted by George Stephanopoulos, right?

It could be hosted by someone who is an expert in healthcare policy, right? Right. And it could be like an Ezra Klein and Sarah Cliff, right? Right. Like we should set this up. Trump is going to be the – I saw Chuck Todd make this point on – at an event with Kara Swisher the other day, which was Trump is going to be the first president who commentates on the Democratic primary on a daily basis. Yeah. it's set up where we get our candidates on the stage, however else it is. And Chuck Todd gets up there and ask them, it's like, Bernie Sanders, why did you take NRA money in the early 2000s? And Elizabeth Warren, defend your decision to take that DNA test. And if it is all organized

around the trivial marginalia that political journalists care about and Democratic voters don't care about, then we are doing a disservice to the process. The debate should be a debate about issues and policies, not a debate about your ability to withstand Trump's tweets if and when they come as a general election nominee. And I worry that absent some very strong guidance from the DNC, we're going to end up in a bad repeat of previous mistakes. Yeah. Donald Trump should not dictate the terms of the debate and the questions that are asked in the debate like he dictates cable news coverage right now, which is why, yeah, I am worried when a lot of the usual suspects are

asking questions because they tend to focus on the latest Trump tweets, you know, and we do need a very nuanced, substantive discussion about policy here. So, okay, well, we will be talking to potentially one of these presidential candidates when we return, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. On the pod today, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Senator, welcome back to the pod. Good to be back. Enjoyed particularly being with you live in Cleveland that day with my wife. It was great, so thank you. Oh, that was a fun show.

That was a very popular show, you should know. It was you, but I'm sure it was also Connie, too. People were big fans. So I want to start with with GM. Ohio is obviously going to be directly affected by the recent decision by General Motors to shut down plants and lay off thousands of workers. You've pointed out that the GOP Trump tax plan gives companies like GM tax incentives to do exactly what they're doing. You said this before the tax plan passed. What did you and Donald Trump talk about when you got on the phone with him last week about this? Bit of an interesting conversation. He, first of all, didn't really understand his own tax bill because I said to him, we need your help on General Motors. This is potentially 20,000 jobs

in a community of Mahoning Valley is about 500,000 people. So this is just devastating. I mean, it's beyond devastating. People use that word. It's worse than that in this community. That's just recovering and coming back from a couple of decades of real hardship. And so the president, I said, I said, I need your help on our cars and American jobs, American cars act. The bill does something simple. It takes away the tax break that the Trump tax law gave these companies. If you shut down production in Cleveland and move to Mexico, on your taxes, you get a 50% off coupon. And he said, well, how'd that happen? I said, well, Mr. President, it was in your tax bill. And he didn't seem aware of that,

which was pretty amazing. But I said, we take that money and we put it to give incentives to American car buyers to buy cars made in the United States by American workers. That's 100 different models. So people have plenty of choice. But why should we give tax breaks to move jobs overseas instead of encouraging people to buy products made in this country and give people that opportunity. Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like better tax incentives will help keep jobs in states like Ohio. But knowing that labor will always be cheaper in other countries, knowing that automation is making more jobs obsolete, what is, in your view, the long-term solution here to keeping jobs in Ohio, keeping American manufacturing strong? Thank you for asking that. First of all, this is a president who has the history of

saying the right thing to working people and then selling them out to corporate interests. We know that. We know the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives. But here, I'll illustrate it with a short story. After NAFTA pass, I flew to South Texas and rented a car and went across the border. And I went to an auto plant, an American auto plant in Mexico. And it looked just like a US plant in Cleveland or in Toledo. And it had new equipment, clean floors, high tech, everything you'd expect, only more modern and newer than some of the plants in Ohio that are older. And there was one difference between the American auto plant and the Mexican auto plant. And that difference was there was no parking lot at the

Mexican auto plant because the workers can't afford to buy the cars they make. And that fundamentally is the distilling down and looking at trade policy. You want to have a trade policy where workers in developing countries, in countries that are a little poorer than we are, that workers make good enough wages that they bring their standard of living up and then they can buy American products. So if that were the case, if we had the kind of labor standards and NAFTA 2.0 that Trump's negotiating and hasn't gone nearly far enough yet. If labor standards are higher and wages go up and they can begin to make middle class wages, middle class in their countries, they'll begin to buy American products and then trade works.

Then it becomes trade like we have in this country between and among different states. And that's where you want to end up and that's where we've fallen short on this trade policy. Senator, in the discussions around replacing NAFTA, are there particular things that you are looking for that might be able to get your support for such an agreement? Yes. Yeah. I had a meeting today with Senator Schumer and Senator Wyden. Wyden is the senior Democrat of the Finance Committee, as you know, Dan.

And we have talked about how we need to upgrade this NAFTA 2.0. The president, of course, has declared victory saying this is a good agreement. This won't stop jobs from moving offshore. This will not do anything to raise wages in Mexico, anything. And so we need, first of all, we need not just strong labor standards. There's some good language in this bill, but we need strong enforceable labor standards. So when products are sent to the United States, products are made in Mexico and they're made with child labor, they're made among workers that are making below the minimum wage, they have to certify at the border that these products were made under conditions that we support under the values we have about rewarding the dignity of work. So as we reward the dignity of work in this country, we should be rewarding

the dignity of work in recognizing it in our trade policy. And we're surely not doing that. So when Mexican workers are paid too little, American workers can't compete. I mean, we can compete with lower wages in Mexico. We can compete with even weaker environmental laws, although we try to raise them. But we can't compete when they're not even close. I mean, our workers are very productive. We know workers in Mexico will be paid less, but they shouldn't be paid one-fifth or one-tenth what they're making in the United States. Then we just simply can't. When you look on top of that, they give a tax break. That whole idea of in the president's tax law, a new tax law, that if you move to Mexico, you get 50% off on your taxes. What kind of stupid policy is that?

Senator, some of the House Democrats, the progressive House Democrats, especially some of the ones who just got elected, are supporting a Green New Deal. Some of the versions of a Green New Deal, and there's different versions out there, have a green job guarantee. What do you think about the Green New Deal? What do you think about a job guarantee as one way to sort of guarantee employment? Yeah, I've heard about that. I don't know details yet, but I guess I look at it this way. I have heard for years corporate interests in this country and right-wingers try to play off corporations against the environment. If you raise

fuel standards so cars get better mileage, you're putting autoworkers out of environment. If you raise fuel standards so cars get better mileage, you're putting auto workers out of business. If you regulate the emissions coming out of a steel mill or the stuff they dump in the water, the stuff they put into the air, if you try to deal with that environment in the right environmental way, it'll put steel workers out of business. I've never bought that you play off workers against the environment because what I've seen is good environmental policy means more good jobs. And the jobs may be manufacturing, they may be distribution, they may be a whole host of a bunch of different kinds of jobs. And for instance, Toledo, Ohio is number one or two or three, depending on how you measure it, in solar energy jobs.

I mean, people don't know that around the country, but we've done some things that that's happened in Toledo. We know that cleaning up the Great Lakes, our greatest natural resource in our country, next to the people in this country, cleaning up the Great Lakes is obviously very important for the environment, but it's also very important for economic development and jobs. And we're on the verge of passing a farm bill that's going to mean a cleaner lake area. It's going to mean better water quality. It's going to mean fewer algae blooms. It's going to mean more good agriculture jobs because we're being the stewards of the land that we ought to be. because we're being the stewards of the land that we ought to be.

Senator, a lot of those progressives who are pushing the Green New Deal and progressives around the country are very concerned about Senator Manchin becoming the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And I was curious if you had an opinion, including, you know, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington actually called on Democrats to oppose that appointment. Do you have an opinion on that appointment? Washington actually called on Democrats to oppose that appointment. Do you have an opinion on that appointment? I don't have an opinion on the appointment per se, but I talked to Senator Schumer about all this and talked to some others. And this caucus has a full commitment to good environmental policy.

We will not compromise on the environment. We know that we know a good environmental policy, as I was saying earlier, is also a good jobs policy. And that's going to continue to be our focus, that we stand strong in the environment. It means opposing a lot of the stuff Trump's doing. It means supporting what President Obama did on clean air that goes back even before President Obama. He updated it and renewed it. But it means no real compromise on safe drinking water and clean air. And I mean, I come from a state that where people have counseled me, you know, you can't really be a progressive. You can't get a good rating from the Leave of Conservation voters. You've got to compromise in the environment. I never have because I know that good environmental policy is good economic policy. And I want my kids to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And I don't think there's the Democrats are as we stuck together in the tax bill and stuck together in the Affordable Care Act. We'll stick together in environmental policy. by about seven points in a state that Trump won by about eight points. Not only did you outperform Hillary Clinton by a double-digit margin, you also outperformed the 2018 gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray, who lost his race for governor by four points.

How do you account for that? What was different about your candidacy and your campaign? It's about, let me start with this. When you love your country, you fight for the people who make it work. And that really is all workers, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work on salary or whether you're working for tips or whether you're home raising kids or taking care of an aging parent. And I think that when you start with the dignity of work, everything flows from that. Good health care policy, good retirement policy, better wages so you can have a decent kind of standard of living. And I think that we often forget in Washington and politicians in Washington forget about honoring and respecting the dignity of work.

And I kind of – all of my career comes out of that and all of my campaign messaging comes out of that. And I think that when you talk about dignity of work, it's not just a steel worker in Ohio. It's also a physical therapist in Berkeley. It's also an IT worker in Tampa. It's also a realtor, somebody selling real estate in suburban Boston. I mean, it's people, because we've seen corporate profits go up. We've seen executive compensation explode. We've seen workers are more productive and working harder, yet their wages are flat and people don't

feel like when you work hard, you should be able to have, you play by the rules, you ought to be able to have a decent standard of living. And I think that my career devoted to that and my campaign about that really accounts for the fact that we probably got 15%, maybe 20%. I haven't quite been able to figure out of the Trump vote. People that voted for Trump voted for me because they know I have their backs. They know I'm on their side on these issues. So you have said that you're thinking about running for president. In the past, I know you've been less enthusiastic about this idea. What changed your mind and what factors will you and Connie and your family be talking about over the holidays when you think about making this decision? It's a hard call. Thank you for that question.

A lot of my colleagues have planned to run for president for a long, long time. And everybody talks about any senator running for president. But since the election, after election night, Connie and I started hearing from – we were pretty overwhelmed by the number of people kind of across the country and activists and people that were party leaders and people that have been energized to wake up and fight back against Trump. And people have, they like my message. They like the career of fighting for workers. I think dignity of work works not just through the industrial Midwest, which where we need to win, the heartland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, but it appeals to, as I said, it appeals to somebody working in a diner in Baltimore or somebody working construction in Seattle. So how you make the decision, that's just a question of thinking about it and talking to family.

But I mean, I got a call from somebody you guys both know who was very involved with President Obama. And he said to me, he said, are you thinking of this because you, would you be thinking of this if Trump weren't president? And the answer is, I don't know. I mean, I just think it's so important we nominate the person that can beat Donald Trump. And not just with a message that wins in the heartland, but a message that wins everywhere. And if I run or if I don't run, I want this message of the dignity of work to be part of the narrative for every Democratic candidate because I think it's the way to appeal to the whole country. Senator, when you were on with Jake Tapper recently, he asked you if you believe you're the best person to take on Trump. And you very transparently and honestly said you didn't know.

Do you need to come to the conclusion that you are the best person before you make that decision? Or is that something you would get in the race and then let the voters figure that out? Well, I guess you second part of your question is sort of self-evident. If you get in the race, you let the voters figure it out, but you try to help them come to the right conclusion. I don't know. I mean, I think that that I get in this race if one, if it works for my family. And that's a pretty scary thought and a difficult, you know, just a difficult bar to get over for all of us and how we work this out. And Connie has been very much a part of this decision that will be and will be our four children, their spouses, our grandkids,

most of whom don't really know what any of this means because they're five and under. But I think the most important thing is that I really want this job. I know that I think President Trump should be replaced. I start with that. I want to be convinced that I will be the best candidate for this. And then it's my job, if I'm a candidate, to go out and convince others. But at a minimum, as I've said, and I'll reemphasize this, I want this narrative of the dignity of work to be the narrative for any of us. Everybody does things her own way or his own way, but I think that's really important that our narrative be about respecting work, because that message just works everywhere. It's got to be an authentic message. You've got to live it. You've got to understand it. You've got to be an authentic message. You've got to live it. You've got to understand it. You've got to believe in organized labor.

You've got to believe in workers having a say whether they're in a union or not. You've got to believe that this drives the economy. And you'll never hear me talk white workers or brown workers or black workers. You'll hear me talk about workers. And that definition is pretty expansive about people who have been left behind far too many cases because the system is too often rigged against them. Well, Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck making your decision. And, you know, if you have any announcements to make, feel free to come back on Pod Save America.

This is the place. All right. This is the place. Cool. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, John. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thanks to Sherrod Brown for joining us today, and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Outro Music