Pod Save America - "Thanks for unmasking"

Episode Date: April 6, 2017

Ben Rhodes helps unmask the unmasking debate, Zombie Trumpcare makes a bad bill worse, Cecile Richards joins Jon and Dan to talk women and the resistance, and Ana Marie Cox discusses new Shadow President Jared Kushner.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we have a packed show. We'll be talking to the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. We have special guest, Obama's deputy national security advisor, friend of the pod, Ben Rhodes, will be talking to us about unmasking, and the host of Crooked Media's With Friends Like These podcast, Ana Marie Cox. We've basically become like Morning Joe here today.

Oh, I have not yet told you Donnie Deutsch is going to be showing up in our New York studio moments from now. Can I be Willie Geist? And Tommy's here. Willie Geist is here. I'm not going to talk. I'm just going to hide in the corner. Tommy's playing.

Love it so mad he's not here today. We told him he couldn't come. Okay. Okay. So before we start, a reminder, please subscribe to all of our pods. Tommy's Pods Save the World. He's got some excellent guests coming up. Ana's with friends like these. Love it or leave it this Friday.

Ana's got a show in Pasadena on Saturday she's going to tell us about. We still have tickets to the L.A. show at the Ace Theater in downtown Los Angeles. There's t-shirts, there's merch available on getcricketmedia.com right now. All kinds of stuff, Dan. When I did an event last night with friend of the pod,

Alyssa Mastromonaco, here in San Francisco. You mean New York Times best-selling author, Alyssa Mastromonaco? That is exactly right. Charter member of the Pod Save America book club.

And people, the San Francisco friends of the pod safe america book club and people the san francisco friends of the pod were talking a lot of shit about the la friends of the pod and why they wouldn't sell out the event oh that's rough i'm just i'm just saying i mean i i don't know i guess i'm gonna have to work harder down there okay so we have some breaking news this morning that happened before we recorded this podcast which can only mean that there will be more breaking news after we're finished. But our great friend, our dear, dear friend, Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has recused himself from the Russia investigation because the House Ethics Committee is investigating Devin Nunes for unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

Poor Devin. Does that make him one of those leakers that Donald Trump is so upset about? I mean, apparently his antics at the White House didn't go over too well when he jumped out of an Uber to sneak into the White House and look over classified information and then report to President Trump that he had just uncovered some classified information about Trump and his associates being caught up in incidental collection and foreign surveillance.

And it turns out that his source was the White House. That's still my favorite part of this, is him, with great showmanship, rushing back to the White House to tell the White House the things the White House told him. I mean, what a fucking clown show. Yeah, he's the worst. So his statement is whiny as ever.

He blames left-wing activist groups for these charges, which actually they're triggered by various rules and laws in Congress, although there were complaints filed by our friends at moveon.org. So good job. Now, as he steps aside and recuses himself, so he's still going to be,

he's still going to lead the House Intelligence Committee, but he has to recuse himself from this specific investigation. So who's taking over for Devin? Mike Conaway, who was a long time who is mike conaway mike conaway is a longtime trump supporter um he was like on one of these campaign advisory committees so very uh you know very by the book very non-partisan um he was the one during the hearing with comey a couple weeks ago who um couldn't understand that if the russians wanted hillary to lose they therefore wanted trump to win he couldn't understand that if the Russians wanted Hillary to lose,

they therefore wanted Trump to win. He couldn't quite get that zero-sum game. Ask that question. He's a very bright bulb. And it will also be led by Trey Gowdy. Noted independent-minded investigator, Trey Gowdy. Trey Gowdy, he of Benghazi fame. Yes, Benghazi.

Tommy is seething in the corner. I mean... That does not inspire confidence in this investigation to me at all. It does not. I don't know. What do you think about this whole thing? What does it tell us? I guess it just tells us that Devin Nunes is the idiot that we all thought he was.

The only real takeaway from this is Devin Nunes is dumb. That's it. I don't know that the quote-unquote new investigation is going to be seen as any more credible. This may just be

a waystation on the journey to an actual independent investigation. Right. And I don't know what kind of, I did read somewhere that the House Ethics Committee will have, I mean, it's a committee that's going to be bipartisan and it will have subpoena power. They said that they actually might have Paul Ryan come testify to find out why and what Devin Nunes, why Devin Nunes came to him after he learned this information at the White House and what Paul Ryan told him or didn't tell him to do after that. So all kinds of people getting caught up in this little incident. people getting caught up in this little incident. Can we make a plea to the people of Fresno to find the most credible and competent person who lives in Devin Nunez's district and run against him?

Yeah, absolutely. I know it's a district that is like a plus 10 Republican district in the last election, but he seems pretty beatable. And we're certainly not going to beat him if no one runs against him. And I also suspect if you live in Fresno and you're thinking of running for president, running against Devin Nunes and then maybe for president, but you're going to have no trouble raising money. Like that person is going to be a well-funded campaign. Speaking of well-funded campaigns, by the way, did you see John Ossoff has $8.4 million that he raised. Is that Bin Laden see john ossoff wrote uh he had 8.4 million dollars that he raised is that

bin laden supporter john ossoff to the mailers being set in his district yeah it was a long journey from john ossoff from aspiring jedi to uh to dangerous bin laden operative you're gonna get destroyed in your mentions for suggesting that han solo was an aspiring jedi because i'm saying john ossoff was no no yeah that's that's what i mean that's what i mean the john ossoff because i once did the these are not the droids you're looking for joke on this pod wrong and it took like three weeks to get my mentions back i don't read my mentions anymore um that's the biggest lie you've ever told that's true that's true yeah not quite as often as love it does but i do um okay so yeah so go run against devon nuna as someone um there are two districts that there are two counties that he represents one hillary one

the most populous county actually hillary uh won in the last election she beat trump and then trump won the other county that's a little less populous it's still like you said an r plus 10 or something like that but um but yeah be on the lookout um so the whole devon nunes thing stemmed from um as when he went to the white house to find out this information we now know from this last week that it was about the unmasking of certain officials uh reportedly tied to the Trump transition team who were incidentally caught up in foreign surveillance. Eli Lake of Bloomberg News reported that the Obama official who had requested that these unnamed identities be unmasked to find out who they are was Susan Rice. This has resulted in a whole pretend fake scandal

on the right and in conservative media over the last week now. And we have been flipping out about this for a couple of days. And you and I were just going to talk about this ourselves, but we thought, why not bring Ben Rhodes on? He's the crooked media unmasking correspondent. Yeah. So we're going to call Ben, and we'll be right back. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Joining us here

at the top of the show, Obama's former Deputy National Security Advisor, good friend of the pod, Ben Rhodes. Ben, welcome. Hey, guys. First time, long time. Yeah, we know you've been on Pod Save the World, but we thought we'd start introducing you

to the Pod Save America world here. Yeah, I'm trying to cover that. There's not much overlap over those audiences. True. Okay, so I want to set up the Susan story really quickly and then ask you a few questions about this. So I believe it was on Monday, Bloomberg's Eli Lake reported that Ezra Cohen Watnick, up the uh susan's story really quickly and then ask you a few questions about this so uh i believe it was on monday bloomberg's eli lake reported that ezra cohen watnick the national security

council senior director for intelligence was conducting a review of the government's foreign surveillance practices as one often does um now this is the guy who the current national security advisor hr mcmaster tried to fire until steve until Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner stepped in to save his job. So during this review, Ezra discovers that former National Security Advisor, our friend Susan Rice, requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to Trump's transitions and campaign. That is from Eli's story. This is known as unmasking the identities of these individuals. So I think we should start here. Ben, what is the process of unmasking? Why would you do it? How common is it? Could you just sort of describe the process for everybody?

Yeah, the first thing people have to understand is this is neither uncommon, nor is it a process that is controlled by any one official in the White House. So anybody of Susan Rice's rank in the government or anywhere near that rank receives thousands of intelligence reports over the course of the year. Notably, they don't even necessarily select what reports they get. So Susan comes to work, she gets a bunch of intelligence every day that the intelligence community thinks will be important for her to see. So she's not shopping through a menu of intelligence. Her briefers, the people who brief her on the intelligence, bring that to her. There are occasions when there could be an intelligence report that involves a U.S. person talking to a foreign government or foreign adversary of some sort. And the process

that has been called on masking is simply if someone looking at their report says, well, who is that person? I can't understand this report. I can't understand what I'm reading if I don't know who this person is. And then the intelligence community, not Susan Rice or any other official, they determine whether or not to provide that name to the individual, and that's it. And it's routine. And anybody who served at a high level in a Republican administration or Democratic administration has had this happen in the course of their day or week or month. The fact that someone is unmasked does not mean that that name was shared widely. It does not mean that that was leaked in any way to the press, which would be, of course, something improper.

So, in other words, this is a routine way in which the intelligence community interacts with their customers in the government. And frankly, nothing is being alleged that Susan Rice did anything wrong other than doing her job and asking questions about the intelligence that was being presented to her. So the completely bullshit Wall Street Journal editorial on this Completely bullshit Wall Street Journal editorial on this said, quote, Rice would have had no obvious need to unmask Trump campaign officials other than political curiosity. So that seems wrong in at least a dozen ways, right? That's simply not the case. If you are being shown intelligence that the intelligence community has determined is important for you to see, you want to understand that intelligence. So, you know, whatever the report is, let's say it doesn't involve a U.S. person, you're going to ask questions about it. Well, what does this mean?

Why is this important? So similarly, if the intelligence report, and I'm not even familiar with the reports that they're referring to, but if the intelligence report had a U.S. person, it's only natural that the person being briefed on that might say, well, wait, I don't fully understand what I'm being shown here. Who are we talking about here? And again, even if she learns that information, it in no way suggests that she does anything improper with it other than going about her day. So I think what they've done is tried to conflate this very routine process of reviewing intelligence with leaking, when those are entirely different things. And there is absolutely no reason that just because someone would unmask an intelligence report that they leaked it.

Drawing that inference is the same thing as saying anybody who received any intelligence ever must have leaked that intelligence report, because the unmasking is just the typical way in which people are processing intelligence reports that they have questions about. So one question that people keep asking is, apparently when Susan was on PBS, she was asked about Devin Nunes' statement that some Trump officials were caught up in surveillance and had their identities revealed. And she said, I know nothing about this. surveillance and had their identities revealed. And she said, I know nothing about this. What do you think she meant by that? Was that she, it was because certain information was classified and she couldn't say anything? Is it because it was, you know, the question was identities revealed, which sounds like it was leaked? Like, what do you think she actually

meant by that? Well, I don't, I don't know. What I would suggest is the allegations that have been made over the course of weeks here to distract from the core issue of Russia's meddling in our election to help Trump and the potential collusion between Trump associates and the Russians, the focus of the investigation should not be on the initial issue of what did Russia do and how did they collude with the Trump organization to do it, but rather were there leaks? And so I think Susan has no, you know, nobody has any idea how information is leaked, particularly when you have a report like Adam Entis that says there are nine officials from across the intelligence community and the government who are providing this information. So I think the point is that the processing of intelligence in our government does not in any way make clear how information was leaked.

So, Ben, in the bubble of idiocy that's made up of the conservative media's discussion of this story, it's become conflated with this idea that this means that the Obama administration was surveilling the Trump campaign, the Trump transition. Can you sort of explain just generally how a Trump associate could have ended up in some of these reports? outrageous attack on his predecessor, who has had an impeccable record of integrity. And then ever since that happened, an ecosystem of right-wing media and certain members of Congress have done anything they can to find any shred of information that they could somehow distort into corroborating what is clearly a false claim that they will not take back, that they will not apologize for, even though they have never presented any evidence for it. Now, in terms of the question, the U.S. intelligence

community gathers intelligence, and they gather intelligence on lots of foreign governments. And hypothetically, because I'm not going to get any classified matters, I think it would not be unusual for Russia to be a target of U.S. intelligence collection. So when you talk about incidental collection, hypothetically, because, again, I'm not talking about any specific intelligence reports, you're talking about whether or not people might have been in touch with targets of U.S. intelligence collection. Now, those targets would always be foreign targets. The only way in which there's a U.S. person who is subject to surveillance is if there's a law enforcement proceeding, which could not be directed by the White House. That's something that is done by the FBI and our law enforcement community. So again, the only question on incidental collection

here is if the intelligence community is routinely collecting on a foreign government or adversary, and there may be some U.S. person who is in touch with that foreign government or adversary. Yeah. So, I mean, no, I was going back and forth with Eli Lake on this this morning on Twitter and arguing with him about this. with Eli Lake on this this morning on Twitter and arguing with him about this. And basically his argument towards the end was, he was like, I don't think the standard for unmasking is rigorous enough. And I was like,

my thing to him was like, okay, Eli, if you guys want to have a debate out there in the media about the standard for unmasking, that's one debate to have, but the debate that's currently being had is, should Susan Rice go to jail? Here's the question. Here's the question, though. This is an important question.

Suddenly you're shocked, shocked that the intelligence community does collection. And you're shocked, shocked that if someone talks to the Russian government, that they might be incidentally collected in that collection. be incidentally collected in that collection. If you really have some sincere, if you've developed in coincidentally the spring of 2017 after Donald Trump tweets this, you've suddenly developed an interest in the kind of arcane practice of unmasking of U.S. persons who are subject to incidental collection. Well, that's like a policy issue. Right. That has nothing to do with what Susan Rice did. Do they want to, are they going to talk to all the former Bush administration officials who might have participated in unmasking? Are they going to say anybody who's ever unmasked, that is a crime?

They're criminalizing the way in which the U.S. government has approached these issues under multiple administrations for many years. Why is Susan Rice the only person who they're interested in as it relates to a fairly routine intelligence procedure? I think that suggests that the interest here is not some newfound desire to change the way in which the entire U.S. intelligence community operates on these issues. They're trying to smear Susan Rice to justify a tweet that was wrong and that has been completely unsubstantiated and for which they have no evidence. I also think it's important to realize like the whole definition of unmasking is you don't know who the person is before you unmask them. So how could she have known that she was targeting Trump officials? She didn't know who the person was in the report, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it would... If she did that. Yeah, that's the whole point. And she doesn't do the unmasking. So are you saying this story might be bullshit? You know, I mean, that's the point here. Like, this is...

They've had a story without any supporting material that they've been in search of ever since Donald Trump tweeted what he tweeted, which was wrong about President Obama. Okay? And each time they do, it gets knocked down. This one, for whatever reason, they had sufficient outrage manufactured in their own media ecosystem that they dragged the rest of the news media into covering it. But it doesn't make it any more wrong than it would have been otherwise. What Susan Rice did is not wrong. It is routine. And again, if they want to apply this standard across the board, then they have to go.

Are there people in the Trump administration? Does this mean that nobody in the Trump administration is doing any unmasking? Does this mean that no other officials, forget the White House, in the Defense Department or the intelligence community under our administration or the Bush administration, nobody else ever did any unmasking? That's simply untrue. So if they're really just concerned about the practice of unmasking, then they'd have to look at what has been done by everybody across the history of having intelligence surveillance capability in our government. But if they're really just interested in Susan Rice, they're not even alleging that she did anything wrong substantively, because unmasking is a routine

part of her job. She needs to understand the intelligence that is being brought to her. Let's be very clear again. The intelligence community brings information to her. She doesn't select all the intelligence that comes to her. She gets reports. She asks questions about those reports. The intelligence community makes decisions about whether to answer her questions by revealing the identities of persons who might be named in those intelligence reports. The fact that that unmasking happens in no way suggests that intelligence leaks any more than if anybody in the U.S. government has access to an intelligence report, that means they're the one who leaked something to the press. So this is all just a sideshow distraction. There's not any evidence that has been presented that Susan Rice did

anything wrong. And yet again, they are assassinating her character, as they have been doing for years, even though she's a person of integrity, the person who's put up with a lot of garbage for many years and still put her head down and served our country. I said it on this interview just to scream about this one thing, which this is the hashtag Benghazi right wing fever 2.0, right? Susan Rice had absolutely nothing to do with the security at our consulate in Benghazi, which the lack of security there is why those individuals died. But they attacked her over talking points, right? The attack on her today has nothing to do with civil liberties or the process of unmasking.

It's that she has become a target on the right wing. And guys like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul and all these right wing media hacks who feel like they need to get well because they've been criticizing Trump for being an absolute, unhinged, uninformed, awful president for months and months and months now think, okay, here's how I can get some of my right-wing bona fides back. It is total bullshit. This is outrageous bullshit. And for the President of the United States to accuse her of committing a crime is defamation of character. That's all I got. It feels like we might be adding

a rant wheel to the Pod Save the World show. And it seems to be very clear here, and Tommy doesn't swear in Pod Save the World. He's to be very clear here, and Tommy doesn't swear in Pod Save the World. He's much more sober. It's a different audience, I guess. He's like the Fareed Zakari of the Crooked Media Empire. But I said this notion of criminalizing

the routine governmental actions of your predecessors, that should be very worrisome to people. This is not like the standard, he creates a controversy. This is not a campaign where we have to try to, if there's a bad story for somebody, we have to have a bad story for somebody else. This is somebody who has awesome powers of the presidency, who's just decided to justify his own tweet to criminalize the very routine work of the previous administration, the work that is not illegal that was conducted by the previous administration.

So I think every now and then people take a step back and realize this isn't just like, oh, he's saying some crazy things and that's what he does and we'll all cover it because anything he says we'll cover. No, like let's step back here and say, why are we covering this if there's no there there? Why are we focused on something that is simply not true? It is not true that Barack Obama ordered wiretapping. It's not true that Susan Rice, even if she did do this unmasking, did anything wrong. So what is this really all about, other than an effort to make the Russia story about anything other than the Russia story that is there, which is Russia interfering in our election to elect Donald Trump? And there is an investigation that we've been told publicly by the FBI is ongoing into potential collusion.

Yeah, I mean, and what gets what drives me really crazy is this is not just like Trump saying crazy things like Trump does. And then like Breitbart and InfoWars and Sean Hannity like pushing it this is just about every member of the conservative media is all over this story this is the Wall Street Journal editorial board this is the Weekly Standard this is the National Review they're all like and this it's bleeding into the mainstream media too right like because they all scare mainstream media journalists into saying you're not covering the Susan Rice story why aren't you covering the Susan Rice story? And so then they do it because they're worried about this pressure and the

pressure fucking works. And it's unbelievable. When did the Pizzagate guy become the assignment editor for the New York Times? This is crazy. Well, and I'll say, I read that,

I read that whole transcript with Maggie and Glenn, uh, with their interview with, with Trump and like, they did fine but like i do not know why glenn thrush had to use the word crime when he asked donald trump did she come do you believe susan rice committed a crime glenn could have easily said do you think susan did something wrong do you think what she did was unethical do you you know and there was no reason to say the word crime and that that and then of course trump's gonna say yes because

trump's a fucking idiot and he's going to say yes to something like that. And now it's in headlines. Now crime is in the lexicon. I've really wrestled with that, with the Thrush thing, because it's not Glenn Thrush's job to understand that Donald Trump's a child and say yes. I get that. Right. So, I mean, so he's sort of doing, because it really, the question goes to like, whether it's serious or not,

right. Is if you're pissed about this thing, did you do something illegal? And the answer is obviously no, but Donald Trump's too dumb to know that. So it's sort of like by asking the question, he basically led Trump into accusing Susan of a crime. But do you adjust your questions because the person you're interviewing has the intellectual curiosity of a third grader?

I get that. I'm just wondering where the word crime comes from. That's unfair to third graders. Why are we even at the word crime? There's nothing she did wrong. It was her job to do unmasking. But my point is that I'd say a couple things. One, if he's a candidate and just pops off like that, it's one thing. But if you are, you know, maybe you want to get him to say something newsy. But if he's the

president of the United States and he's saying that this is a crime, that's a different matter when it's not a crime and he presented no evidence that it is. The second thing that's concerning is we know because of the conservative ecosystem that they've built that anything he says a large percentage of the country will just think it's true and now susan rice has that hung around her neck and that the new york times helped enable that and look i have a lot of respect for for glenn and maggie they've done some great reporting and it's a tough it's a tough thing for them to to deal with totally but the other thing that distressed me in that interview is when he's like you haven't written enough about this you know you must write more about this who is he Totally. has to be covered by everybody else. I think that that can be rejected. I sound like Barack Obama rejecting notions here. But I think that there's no reason that just because you've created a

wildfire from InfoWars and Fox and Friends, that that has to cross the guardrails into the rest of the media covering it just because it's being covered. Yeah. And I do have respect for Glenn and Maggie, and especially when you read the transcript of that full new york times interview if you can get through it without thinking that you've gone completely insane it's like they have to sit there and interview someone with the capacity of a four-year-old really and that's that's like i've no offense to four-year-olds he had six people babysitting him for that interview including the chief of staff the vice president gary cone six staffers cited on that interview. All conservative intelligentsia, go read that full interview, and you let me know that you're safe with Donald Trump as president.

Go ahead. Go read that. The thing that's so funny about the staffing is when we were in the White House, you basically drew short straws to see who had to staff the president for the interview because you're just sitting like a potted plant for 45 minutes when you could be doing real work. Certainly the vice president never staffed an interview in the history of time. Okay. Well, we're going to have to go

because we have to go talk to Cecile Richards now. She's going to be calling in and we're going to talk all about activism and all kinds of other good hopeful stuff. But man, thank you, Ben, for helping us unmask this that's what i'm here for all right we'll talk to you later bye all right so before we get to cecile um let's talk about zombie trump care when we last left trump care it was a failed rotting corpse a

bill with 17 approval that would have forced 24 million americans to lose their health insurance and raise premiums for millions more um but it's back dan it's back is it is it back i don't know um you know in an effort to win over the twitter eggs and the freedom caucus um apparently you know there was a dated reference now yeah there's no's no more Twitter eggs. It's really sad. So last we left them, there was a last minute attempt to get rid of the requirement that every health insurance plan cover essential benefits like hospitalizations, doctors visits, everything you need in health insurance. So this scared off the Republicans in competitive districts who faced all of you good people who showed up at their town halls. Right. who showed up at their town halls right so now in an effort to revive this thing uh the new twist to get the freedom caucus back on board is to say okay what we'll do is we'll let states decide whether or not they want to keep these essential benefits this was an effort to like both get the freedom caucus and the moderate and the moderates plus as a sweetener for the freedom caucus what

we'll what we'll do is we will gut protections for pre-existing conditions so that insurance companies can charge cancer patients whatever they want. Yeah, it's worth noting that the single most popular part of Obamacare, by far, supported by even people who hate Barack Obama, is the protections on people with pre-existing conditions. And so their strategy is, we're going to take this bill with 17% approval rating, and we're going to take out the most popular part of that 17% approved bill. So this seems like a pretty good strategy. Well, also, I mean, Donald Trump has promised explicitly he wouldn't touch pre-existing conditions. The Republicans in the Better Way health care plan said that they wouldn't touch pre-existing conditions because it was an important principle. So, like, this is going to, I can't imagine, this has to be a non-starter for just about every Republican who is ever worried about their election. like i mean forget just moderates like regular republicans have to be worried about this like i don't know how this flies now what they're doing today is because apparently there was this long meeting last night where um mike pence and people in the white house and paul ryan were all like

yelling at each other and they said donald trump wants something passed and they want paul ryan to pass a bill so get something done and so they're trying to add high-risk pools, which is basically where they would send people with pre-existing conditions who can no longer afford coverage because you've gutted pre-existing conditions. The only problem is what you do with these high-risk pools is they're going to add a little money for this,

but not nearly enough money to cover everyone with pre-existing conditions in this country. Also, high-risk pools don't really work. They limit the amount of coverage you can get sometimes it takes 12 months to even get insurance in high risk pools so they've failed before it was this was a pre-obamacare thing they're bullshit they don't work and i don't know but the key is what i want everyone to understand is recess is coming um their members of congress are going home for recess for two weeks, and they have not voted on this bill.

And they think that temperatures will cool once they come back from recess. So we're doing resistance recess again. Move on, Indivisible, all these groups that did it last time. You can go to resistancerecess.com slash crooked to sign up. Find a town hall near you. Go to your member's office if they don't hold a town hall or hold a town hall yourself and let your member of Congress know how upset you are at this new zombie Trumpcare bill that's taking shape because it is going to be even worse and

hopefully less popular than the last one. And if people are making noise in these two weeks when members of Congress are home, there's no way they'll be able to pass this when they come back. Yeah, everyone in Washington is focused on the Freedom Caucus, which is – Right. I mean, they're kind of like the freaks at the circus, so it's kind of amusing. But it's not really what matters on this bill. What matters is the moderates who were fleeing from the bill is really what kept it from being voted on was all these moderates who are worried.

Some of them are in districts that Hillary won in 2016. They're nervous about how they will survive if there's a anti-Trump wave in 2018. So show up at the town halls. This is the way to drive a stake into this stupid fucking thing. I also thought that the Politico story on the meeting they had at the White House is pretty amazing because basically it was like bannon

kushner who was taking time away from saving the world and do everything else he does um shadow president kushner shadow president and their uh and their legislative people and basically the trump people were saying that if they don't pass something, they're worried they're going to lose their jobs, which is a really good motivation to take health care away from people. Yeah. This is Pod Save America. Stick around.

There's this great stuff coming. Lots of great stuff. On the pod today, we have with us the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. Cecile, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. So, you have a very long background in politics. You began your career as a union organizer. You worked at a voter registration organization.

You were deputy chief of staff to Nancy Pelosi. What made you decide to join Planned Parenthood? Well, it's an organization that obviously has changed so many women's lives, including me. I mean, that was the first place I went for birth control when I was in college. And I also felt it was an organization that could be even a stronger movement. And we spent the last 10 years building Planned Parenthood not only into a healthcare provider that sees about two and a half million patients a year, but also enlisting and engaging. Now we've got 10 million supporters in the U.S. who not only fight for rights to health care, but women's rights more broadly.

And it's been an awesome experience. So a recent poll by Celinda Lake found that 86% of the calls to Congress over the last couple months have been from women, that women are leading resistance. The question we've been asking a lot on this podcast is, how do we sustain the energy and activism we've seen over the last few months for the next four years? That seems to be the real challenge. seems to be the real challenge. It is a challenge, although I'd say if any group probably gets the prize for resilience, it is women, as I feel like women have been in this fight for a long, long time. And I mean, a lot of people ask me now, they went to the marches or they saw the march, and that was obviously such an important moment that day after the inauguration. the march. And, you know, that was obviously such an important moment that day after the inauguration. I think those marches were really, they took place because women knew there was going to come a day when we'd have to really fight with everything we've got to protect not only women's rights,

but women's lives. And obviously, that day is already here. I think these last three months have been very, very tough in terms of this administration and this Congress. But the really good news is, to your point, women did not quit after they knitted their hats and went to march. I mean, they have been showing up at town hall meetings. They've been calling members of Congress. I think a lot of the issues that were at stake in this attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and attempt to end access to Planned Parenthood really fueled the kind of energy that we've seen all across the country. And look, women are not going to go without a fight,

and they're definitely not taking this lying down. And it has been exciting not only to see women who've been doing this for their entire lives, who've marched for decades, but also young women and young men who've never participated in anything like this before. And that sort of intergenerational energy is, it's infectious. It's very exciting to see. Cecil, as you think about this new administration and this Republican Congress, what are the, do you see as the most immediate threats to women? What are the policy moves they could do that most concern you?

Well, I mean, every single thing this government has done or this administration has done, I think women have been probably on the receiving end. So certainly the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Certainly, the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Affordable Care Act was really a bill, a piece of legislation that improved women's access to health care. So that was an immediate threat. And as you know, they had predicted that this would be on the president's desk January 27th. 27th. And ever since it was proposed, and ever since the defunding of Planned Parenthood was proposed, I think women have been throwing sand in the gears, you know, really speaking up and trying to prevent it because it was not only was going to take away health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, millions of women, but it also was the, it would, you know, as we've now

heard from many of the negotiations that were going on, and I assume will continue to go on now with the Freedom Caucus and others, it would have ended women's access to maternity benefits. There are proposals to, of course, get rid of the gender rating protection that we've had, which allowed women to not have to pay more for health insurance than men. I mean, there was a proposal in the recent iteration that would have said that women on Medicaid who had a baby would have to go back to work within two months or lose their medical benefits. So I think the loss of affordable health care, and then, of course, the attempt to block women from coming to Planned Parenthood,

these are all huge economic issues for women. And I think that has been the clearest first signal. But look, it's not limited to that, as you know. I mean, they've stepped back on the kinds of protections that we put into place under the Obama administration on sexual harassment and wage discrimination. Globally, I mean, they have, well, the list is very long of the kinds of things that they have done that are not only going to damage women's access to family planning and healthcare, but literally women are going to die as a result of some of these policies. And so I think that's why you're seeing so much energy. So it's been reported that, and we don't know if

this is going to happen yet or not, but that the Freedom Caucus will refuse to fund the government unless Planned Parenthood is, quote, defunded. First, can you talk about that shorthand defunded? Because I know that's a bit of a misnomer. But then more broadly, what do you plan to do about this? Okay, I'd love to address both those things. Because first, yes, it's completely fictitious that there is a defunding in the sense that we're not in the federal budget. So when Paul Ryan says they're going to defund Planned Parenthood, what it really means is they're saying we're going to

actually block through legislation, the ability of patients to come to Planned Parenthood for preventive health care. And that is important for folks to understand because we at Planned Parenthood operate just like every other hospital or health care provider in that we get reimbursed from the federal government when we see patients for preventive care, not abortion services because those aren't paid for by the federal government. But this is basically blocking folks from coming to us for family planning, well-woman visits, cancer screenings, and the like. And we see about two and a half million patients a year, and half of our health centers are in medically underserved communities. So basically what Speaker Ryan is trying to do is say to folks who choose Planned Parenthood

as their healthcare provider, you can't go there anymore. And that is what has literally, I think, fueled the outrage because one in five women in this country has gone to Planned Parenthood for health care. There's really not anybody in America who hasn't somehow been touched by this organization. So that's what the fight's over. And also, it wouldn't save the government a dime. In fact, it would cost the government money because of the, I mean, even the CBO has been very clear about this, of the loss of health care coverage for women and the rise in unintended pregnancies as a result. But it does appear that the Freedom Caucus and Paul Ryan are just hell-bent on making this their signature issue, even though the most recent poll I saw, I think the Quinnipiac poll right before the vote that did not take place is that 80% of Americans support federal funding for Planned Parenthood preventive care. And that means a lot of Republicans, a lot of independents, and a lot of their own voters. But we may get down to this. As I'm sure you remember,

the Republicans tried this under President Obama, and he was such a stalwart champion, not only of Planned Parenthood, but of women's health care, that he literally said, nope, it's not going to happen. But now, you know, anyone who votes in this Congress to end access to Planned Parenthood, it's not a free vote anymore. It's a vote that literally could end access to care for millions of folks in this country. The Daily Beast this morning reported that uh had a what they called secret meeting with ivanka trump in january um what can you tell us about that meeting and do you think uh do you think maybe it had any effect on trump's thinking on this issue uh well i mean i could say you know she reached out and of course i'll talk to anybody about planned parenthood any day and

i thought it was important that she understand like like, who we see, how devastating it would be for women if, in fact, the Republicans push through a, you know, this blocking of folks from coming to us for health care. Explain to her how Medicaid works. Explain to her the fact that there are no federal funds for abortion services because all the other myths that are out there. And it doesn't seem to have had any impact in that. I mean, the president himself has tweeted about Planned Parenthood, although I guess that's not a big distinction, I suppose, anymore. But, you know, I think that the truth is, you know, every attack that they've made on us has only increased our popularity because, you know, because folks are now focusing on, oh, God, what would it mean if there wasn't an affordable health care provider for women anymore in my community? So, but we will continue our efforts to educate everybody in Congress and anybody in the administration that wants to listen about why we're an organization that so many folks count on.

And that, you know, we've been around. We just celebrated our 100th anniversary. And we're going to be around for 100 more years. You know, we hear from our listeners and other people all the time who are looking for ways to get involved. It's a way to be, you know, be part of the quote-unquote resistance or people who are motivated for the first time in politics. And how should people who want to get involved and help Planned Parenthood do that? I'm so glad you asked. So I've got a couple of ideas. One is you can sign up actually on our website to be a defender of Planned Parenthood.

We have thousands of people who we are in touch with regularly about what's up either in their state, because, of course, all the fights aren't federally. You know, they're in state legislatures all across the country. The other thing is your listeners could do is text FIGHT, the word FIGHT, to 22422. And that way you can be part of our mobile action network. And, I mean, we have been overwhelmed by the number of supporters who've joined up. So that's really exciting. We've got folks in every single state, every single congressional district. And, again, we're mobilizing people to call their members of Congress because this is going to be ongoing.

I think as you referenced, this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. This is going to be at least a four-year campaign to protect access to health care. But I've been really excited. Again, I think a lot of folks thought after the march, well, what's going to happen next? I've been really excited. Again, I think a lot of folks thought after the march, well, what's going to happen next? But it has been, we've seen, as you probably already know, record numbers of calls going into Congress. And for anyone who's listening, it makes a difference.

I spend a lot of time now on Capitol Hill talking to members of Congress, spending time in the Senate, and it absolutely makes a difference. And it makes a difference when folks go back home, as they will here for a couple of weeks, and they see women in pink pussy hats and other folks talking about the important care they received at Planned Parenthood. at town hall meetings, sometimes to very hostile members of Congress about their own experience, cancer survivors who had their cancer detected at a Planned Parenthood. We think it's important that members of Congress understand the impact of what they are considering here. And again, I think it was at least in part why so many members of Congress, Republican members, refuse to support Trumpcare or this most recent iteration of Trumpcare. One last political question for you, because you are a Texan.

I am a Texan. You are a Texan. I wear it proudly. And we're obviously all very interested in turning Texas blue. We know some folks who are working on doing that. How do you think it's going down there? How do you think the Democratic Party is doing sort of the progressive movement in Texas? I know this is a long project, but what kind of progress have you been seeing down there? It is a long project. It's true. But look, I think that the future is definitely going to be much better for folks in Texas.

One of the problems that you probably know, John, is that we just are a non-voting state. And I think that the discouraging thing for progressives down there is just it's been so long and redistricting is so completely skewed towards one party that it's been difficult to make progress. that it's been difficult to make progress. That said, if you look at what happened in this last election in the urban areas, in all the major urban areas, except for Fort Worth, Democrats won. And obviously, Hillary Clinton did a lot better there than I think most people would have expected. So I think the most important thing that's happening now is that people are running for local office. And again, we're seeing this around the country. I mean, really record numbers of women now wanting to run for local office. That to me is how they're going to have to rebuild down there. But I think the other thing that is going to happen, and this

is something like I just saw this in Wisconsin, you know, women aren't necessarily organizing through the party. They are just organizing. They're self-organizing. I was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, you know, in Paul Ryan's district, Speaker Ryan's district, because we have three health centers there. And all of them provide the preventive health care that they would be blocked from providing under his proposal. And I was meeting with some patients in Kenosha. They not only did a press conference, and these are women who said, look, I was always a supporter of Planned Parenthood, but I was a quiet one. And I realized I can't be quiet anymore.

So not only did they do that, and a couple of them flew to Washington to actually try to speak to Speaker Ryan. They've now organized Forward Kenosha, which is their own grassroots group. They have 1500 members. And one of them is now talking about running for office. So I think what we're seeing too, and this is true in Texas as well, is these kind of homegrown efforts of people who are realizing they can't wait for a party or a candidate to save them. They're going to have to actually organize themselves and turn the direction of this country in a better place. Yeah, we've noticed the same thing, too, is that I think the really exciting thing is that the energy from this next movement is coming from the grassroots, and it's coming not from the traditional party structures, but from groups

that are popping up all over the country of people who want to run and want to make a difference and want to have their voices heard. And I think that absolutely that is the hope so cecile thank you so much for joining us today um good luck with everything thanks for having me absolutely come back again take care okay bye bye thanks cecile don't go anywhere this is pod save america and there's more on the pod we have the host of with friends like these anna marie cox anna what's up no i am i am i am and we are like nearish each other i think here in the same city so hello oh yeah that's right hello from like across the island how are you do you want to just should we make our plans to get together now on the phone people like that just let everyone hear this out we'll give a time and a place for all um it's basically a it's a pot it's a crooked media flash mob situation

excellent um just between you and me and a couple you know tens of thousands of people all right okay um So let's start with another friend of the pod, Jared Kushner. You wrote a piece this week about Jared Kushner called Too Connected to Fail. By the way, great headline there. I love that. Yes, I have to give a little tip of the hat to Dan Dresner, the Washington Post columnist and professor at the Fletcher School. He and I were talking about Jared, and he's the one who sort of led me to that phraseology. So he came up with it. He's also, I should plug him, he has a book out right now called The Ideas Industry, I think, which actually gets at some of the things that Kushner's, you know,

gets at some of the things that Kushner's, you know, weird, sudden rise to power kind of puts into the conversation, which is that we're a fetishization of business as a source for ideas and thinking that government can or should be run like a business. And also the idea that outsiders to government will have some kind of insight that people on the inside don't have. I'm curious, what do you think? Well, I was going to ask you this. I mean, we didn't get to talk about this yet today because it was quite a packed show. But Steve Bannon was kicked off the NSC. So that's a good thing, I suppose. Although I'm guessing he can sort of drop into any national security meeting when he wants and walk into the Oval and advise Trump of

whatever. But that's a respond a few other stories about infighting in the West Wing, maybe rumors that Bannon's on the outs. A couple sources that said he threatened to quit over this NSC thing, getting kicked off the NSC. And he's been very angry that Jared and Ivanka and the New York and Gary Cohn and the New York set has been sort of gaining power. Right. So this led, of course, of course, to in Axios this morning, them saying that like, so like the normal camp, right, is like Jared and those people and they're doing traditional things on health care because like a traditional thing on health care is to like, you know, take away health care for 24 million people in gut pre-existing conditions.

Very mainstream. And foreign policy in China and all this stuff and so you know maybe there's this sort of notion that these are the these are not the good guys but at least the moderate guys in charge right or the moderate gang because it includes ivanka and and dina powell as well um but i don't i mean i don't know what do you guys think about this i don't think i don't sleep well at night no thinking that like jared kushner is running the show yeah dan wait i mean i can go i I am not. I mean, he's 36 years old. So that in and of itself is a problem. And then the other problem is that his portfolio is just it's either a lie or it's inhumanly possible for him to be in charge of everything he's supposed to be in charge of, which is everything from opioid epidemic commission to streamlining the government to apparently, you know, overseeing

this visit from the Chinese, which, by the way, the reporting on that has been interesting. It's that the Chinese are totally comfortable with Jared being the point person, because in China, there is a tradition of what they call princelings, you know, the children of those in power, especially in an authoritarian government where people aren't elected, is sort of natural for the families of those in power to have a lot of power themselves. I mean, I'm uncomfortable with it, but the Chinese love it. Dan, what do you think? My favorite thing about the Bannon part, at least, is that, like, we all joked months ago that if we just call him hashtag President Bannon, it'll upset Trump and he'll get rid of him.

And he was just that simple. It worked. Our hashtags and our memes worked. Yes. The hashtag resistance. Because it's not that he has screwed up 700 things. If you listen to the reporting, it's why Trump is mad at Bannon. It's that he has taken too much of the limelight.

Yeah, that Time Magazine cover, man. You know, like that was the last straw. But not the travel ban. The travel ban wasn't the problem, right? It was hashtag President Bannon. And that is terrible. And I also want to point out, it's terrible that we're, it's kind of terrible that we even have to talk about this.

Like, you guys can speak to this. How often did we really talk, did the media discuss the makeup of the National Security Council during the time you guys were in Washington? Not a lot, because, look, and to be perfectly honest, when they discussed the makeup this time around, I had to study up and ask Rhodes and Tommy, because I wasn't completely sure, like like what it means to be on the council versus being in the principals committee meetings, which is versus being in the deputy meetings,

which, you know, are all things that happen in the White House that I had heard of, but I didn't know the exact structure. So I mean, they've literally politicized it, right? Like we talk about, you know, supposedly, our politics is supposed to stop at the water's edge. And in general, like there has been some consensus about, you know, national security in the center, right? There have always been hawkish Dems, there have always been moderate Republicans, and there's always sort of been a sense that no matter what the problem is, like we do want to kind of figure the national security part out in concert, right? And this is, it's not just, not only are we polarized to the point where that national security and it's a larger issue is hard to discuss.

They can't get it straight in their own fucking circle. Well, let's say like, yes, Jared Kushner's 36. Like, you know, I have bias here. I'm 35. But I also don't think I should be shadow secretary of state anytime soon. Right. I think one of Obama's made mistakes was not putting you in charge of middle east peace i think that's it it would be all taken care of by now um but it's not just the age it's like the lack of any kind of experience or knowledge of any of these things whatsoever also let's remember like jared was there every step of the way during uh what was

an incredibly racist sexist campaign filled with conspiracy theories, right? Like, he's supported it all. This is not some person who's going to save us in any way, right? Also, like, you know, if you want to pick anyone to, like, help with Trump's populist new working class base, I don't think Jared Kushner and fucking Gary Cohn are the guys that you want to go to. Yeah, I mean, it's bizarre, actually. You know, like what has happened, if what we're seeing in the White House, if the reporting is in fact true, and who knows, like all these competing leaks and stuff, like I now kind of miss how the Obama people used to just tell us to fuck off, right?

Like that was always the answer you guys gave me when I wanted when i wanted inside info um i kind of missed those days i miss not knowing exactly what's happening inside the white house um uh but you know apparently it's the populist you know all right people versus like the plutocrats this is not that's not a good solution you know that's why i keep saying it's it's the it's the rich versus the racists in the Trump White House. We you know, like I don't know how we're expected to like find any good policy among them. And there is this sort of strange. I mean, I feel like I have to point out, like, I think that people give Jared and Ivanka all this credit for being supposedly more moderate. And it's based entirely on style points. Yeah, of course it is. Yeah.

And it's based entirely on style points. Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, it's because they're just not vulgar. It is also a, it is a DC, New York media bias towards like Manhattanite socialites, right? Like, it's like, you know, they're pretty people and they seem like they mean well and they talk to all the CEOs and you can reach out to them and they say the right things and they're going to be okay. And it's like, you know, it's sort of a load of bullshit. And let's look at what's actually happened. So there's reporting now that Jared apparently was put in charge of Muslim community outreach. So that went great. And Ivanka reached out to Cecile Richards, right? Did you guys talk about this?

We just did. We just asked Cecile about it and she said that it doesn't seem to have had an effect. Well, also remember, Ivanka was going to be the climate czar too because she very much believes in climate change and now we're sitting here after, you know, Trump has ripped up all of the regulations

that would fight climate change. So that didn't work either. You know who Trump should hire? Jared and Ivanka's PR people. Those are the only people who have any skill in this administration because every time something good happens, it's like, it was Jared and Ivanka.

Oh my god, did you guys hear who actually did it? Or Javanka, as I call them. Jared did hire to do PR. Who? I don't remember who it is named, but apparently it's the person who did PR

for the Purge movie. Well, those movies did very well, so. That is too good. Ana, who do you have on the,

who do you have on with friends like these this week? I have an actual old friend of mine, Tom Frank. The What's the matter with Kansas guy, as he is sometimes, you know, I think forever associated with that phrase, and also the

conceit, which has turned out to be like one of the most powerful, like political ideas of our time. You know, the idea that people in red states, middle class and lower middle class people in red states will vote against their economic interests if you can pander to them via social issues. Hey, it's worked. And he has a new book out called Listen Liberal, which is about sort of the problems of the Democratic Party to reach out to those voters and the professionalization of the Democratic Party and how it's kind of become associated with and seems to cater to the needs of people who are knowledge workers and professionals. And, you know, labor and working class and working class people of color, too. He doesn't, unlike a lot of the critiques of this election, I think Tom doesn't really leave that part out of it.

It's not just about reaching out to white working class. It's about reaching out to the working class in general. And we talk about that. And also we talk about i will be totally honest there's some reminiscing about tom and i's days back at whpk at university of chicago oh nice listening to punk rock arguing about who sold out first um which used to seem really important um but now i guess they're they're even... We long for those days. Exactly.

Well, everyone listen to that. That will come out tomorrow, right? Tomorrow. And then also, anyone in LA should know that I am doing a live version of the podcast in Pasadena at the Level Ground Festival, which is, I believe, on levelground.org on Saturday with Jeff Chu, who is a gay person

who also came from an evangelical background and has sort of had a journey of making peace with his faith. And I think that's going to be a really interesting conversation. Awesome. Well, everyone, go check it out. Thanks for dropping by. Always good. We'll see you later at the place with

the thing yes yes at the time and location that we will are we tweeting out the location of the meeting for all pod fans excellent thank you dan all right well everyone we will um we'll see you again that's all we have for today quite a packed pod but we will um we'll talk to you next week bye guys you