Pod Save America - “The cycle of bullshit.”

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

Trumpcare gets a CBO score so bad that it causes Republicans to lie, cry, and body-slam a reporter in Montana. Then, the Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey talks to Jon and Dan about Trump’s budget, and Ana Marie Cox joins with a look at the President’s foreign trip.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today we have The Atlantic's Annie Lowry, who's going to talk to us about Trump's budget. And Crooked Media's own Anna-Marie Cox will talk about this week's episode of With Friends Like These. We also have Pod Save the World this week. Tommy has a fascinating interview on that. And then we have a big Love It or Leave It tomorrow, which I'm sure Love It will tell us more about when he bursts in here to record ads at 10 a.m. That means we got to hurry up and get this thing done by 10.

Yeah, right. That's true. That's true. How you doing, Dan? I feel great. I feel like a million bucks. How do you feel? I feel outstanding. Look, for having a three-day bachelor party and then I'm 35 years old, I feel like a million bucks. I recover pretty quickly on these things. I walked into the gym last night and one of the women who works at my gym was like how is new orleans that was like actually as you can tell by the fact that i am still alive and walking i did not go to new orleans and that i viewed myself as the pod safe america designated survivor of the bachelor party in case you guys all went down i could keep this i could keep this thing going we missed you call

me tom kirkman we missed you down there dan yeah i know i had a lot of fomo i have to admit although i'm not sure like the six year seven year age difference between between all of us it's not readily apparent because my youthful appearance but i think in a three-day bachelor party we've been pretty clear yeah i will say that my uh my many friends now who are fathers who have children at home did not quite do as well as some of the rest of us. Those are the worst people on bachelor parties because it's like they're one day of freedom. They're like on a furlough from prison and go crazy. Yes, that is exactly what it was like. Okay, so we're going to start with the CBO score on Trumpcare, but we'll start with something else since it is the first CBO score in history to quite literally produce a violent reaction among Republicans. Yes.

Oh, man. Last night in Montana. So there is a special election today in Montana for Congress. It is the seat that was vacated when Ryan Zinke, the congressman from Montana, was chosen by Trump as the interior secretary. Trump believed, of course, by choosing Ryan Zinke, he would fill the seat with a Republican because it is a deep, deep red state that was won by 20 points by Trump, by the Republican candidate. There's a first-timer Democrat named Rob Quist who's running for the Democratic nomination. He's running against Republican Greg Gianforte.

Gianforte ran for governor last time around and lost narrowly to a Democrat. And the race has become unexpectedly close gianforte has been ahead the whole time but he's now ahead by single digits or so um so before yesterday there's still a feeling that gianforte would might be able to squeak it out but certainly the wind was it quists back towards the end but still a very tough seat. Anyway, Gianforte last night. Good summary. That's an excellent summary. That's my summary of the race so far, because we want to give people some information before we get into the crazy stuff.

So Gianforte was doing an interview last night with a local Fox affiliate when Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, a reporter for The Guardian, walked into the room, held out his recorder, and asked Gianforte for his reaction to the CBO score. Of course, the CBO score said, we'll get into the details later, but the headline was 23 million uninsured over the next decade, thanks to the Republican bill. decade thanks to the republican bill um gianforte had previously said he would make up his mind on whether he supports trump care once the cbo score came out so publicly he was not saying either way he said he was waiting for the cbo score lucky for him the score came out the night before the election so instead of answering ben jacobs um what gianforte decided to do is put both hands around his neck and body slam him to the ground in full view of the fox reporters in the room and there's also audio of the incident

uh gianforte was later charged with misdemeanor assault the election is today what i mean i just i just don't know i Candidate. Look, elections can be very tense and candidates sometimes lose their fucking mind. They lose their cool at the end. That happens. I remember in 2008, Barack Obama came home off the trail to take his daughter's trick or treating in Chicago. trick-or-treating in Chicago, and the press did not treat that with the appropriate level of privacy that most people in the foreign president of the United States would have thought. And he got very agitated by it, which was the product of wanting to protect his daughters

and two years on the road coming to an end. Yeah. But some people make gaffes at the end. Some people say dumb things. This is the first time that I can think of that a candidate has actually physically assaulted a reporter. And the thing about this is amazing is there are times where reporters and politicians have heated confrontations or politicians and staffs have heated confrontations. This was not one of those. This was, hey, what do you think about the CBO score? I don't answer your question. No, seriously, what do you think

about the CBO score? Boom. And then he beats. No, seriously, what do you think about the CBO score? Boom. Body slam. And then he beats him up. I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. Well, so, I mean, let's place this, though. Like, okay, so you could see there's one crazy Republican out there, Republican candidate. He goes nuts, beats up a reporter, right?

Horrible thing. But let's, like, let's place it in the context of what if we were in a normal political environment? What would happen? Right. So what happens there is the guy gets charged with assault, his campaign, and he issue a statement where he says, I'm so sorry I overreacted. acted. Please find it in your hearts to forgive me. Maybe I'm suspending my campaign or, or at the very least you say, you know, I throw myself at the mercy of Montana's voters, right? Like I'm a, I'm an imperfect person, blah, blah, blah. So the candidate apologized. The campaign apologizes. The national Republicans distance themselves from the candidate. Everyone in the political world um all comes together and condemns this kind of behavior because obviously you're not supposed to kick the shit out of a reporter or anyone when you're a candidate for office right or in any role in life like there's no appropriate time to kick the shit unless you are a prof a ufc you know, an MMA fighter, professional wrestler, boxer.

Those are the only times in which said behavior is close to acceptable. So, yeah. There are so many takes on this. But it's like, imagine all that happening, but here's the thing, none of that actually happened. None of the things I described actually happened. Just silence. Just silence from everyone.

And so some people point at this and say what Gianforte did is a sign that the Republican Party is broken or that Trumpism is taking over. I actually don't think that is true. Yeah. Gianforte seems like a crazy asshole. Now, there are a number of crazy assholes in the Republican Party right now, but that happens. Democrats have had members of Congress, not who have assaulted people, but who have committed crimes, been involved in corruption. But what proves the Republican Party is intellectually and morally bankrupt is the response of their leadership, which is nothing. Which always seems to be the case, by the way.

Yes. These crazy things happen, whether it's this guy, whether it's Trump, whether it's whatever. And what truly proves how awful and devoid of any good moral sense that today's Republican Party is, like you say, is the response. Yeah. is the response yeah and there are good there are a number of republicans who have been very very critical both of gianforte and the republican leadership who's been silent those are all republicans who also happen to be very opposed to donald trump right so if you've if you have signed on and sold your soul to trumpism, then you find a way to justify this and stay silent and convince yourself that this is okay or whatever else, because it will help you. It'll make you

that much easier for you to take healthcare away from poor people and give it back to rich people in the form of a tax cut. And so you're willing to tolerate any level of behavior. And the thing, like, I'm grossed out by Paul Ryan, who I really have come to, I've decided I don't like, just to be honest. Not on the fence anymore. I've tried, I've looked at him, and I've really come to the conclusion I really don't like him.

He has surpassed Marco Rubio on my list. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, Love It obviously has a different view, but... Also, it's just like... I mean, there's all these different levels of reaction, right? Like, there's the... Like, Laura Ingram tweeted last night, Politicians always need to keep their cool,

but what would most Montana men do if body slammed for no reason by another man? Did anyone get his lunch money stolen today and then run to tell the recess monitor? So she's a darling person. Yeah, yeah, she's not nice. She's a real woman. And then Laura Ingraham, like, people, of course,

like, went nuts on the fact that she said that, and every single person who criticized her for it, she blocked it. So she's a snowflake. So there's people like that. Trent Franks, an Arizona congressman this morning, was like, well, the left created this atmosphere of tension and confrontation. So it's unfortunate that it had to come to this. So he found a way to blame the left for a Republican candidate body slamming a reporter, which I thought was quite interesting.

And then Paul Ryan, your friend, did get up there just before we started recording and say he should apologize, there's no place for violence anywhere, blah, blah, blah, like kind of did his condemning thing. And then, of course, a reporter said, well, would you seat Gianforte if he wins this evening? And Paul Ryan said, oh, yeah, well, the people of Montana will have chosen him. So that's all I have to say about that. Paul. So that's all I have to say about that. Ugh, Paul Ryan. That's all I have to say about that.

Yeah, so not a great situation. Very interesting that just about every local paper, every state paper in Montana has rescinded their endorsement of Gianforte. Even the conservative papers led the news in Montana today, led every newspaper, along with the CBO score, which I thought was interesting. So, aside from the gross reaction from much of the Republican Party and the conservative establishment, or the conservative entertainment wing, I should say, the next question a lot of people have been asking is, will this matter, right?

How will this change the votes? How will a Republican candidate body-slamming a reporter change the votes today? I can assure you no one knows the answer to that question. So our friends, friend of the pod, Chuck Todd, and Mark Murray, in their tip sheet, first read that they send out every morning, which is excellent. Chuck Todd and Mark Murray in their tip sheet. First read. First read.

That they send out every morning. It's a great tip sheet, by the way. It is the top tip sheet. It is the best tip sheet, by far. It is. It is. I always leave it not knowing when mid-level House staffers' birthdays are, but I get a lot of otherwise useful information. are but i get a lot of otherwise useful information um and but they have a take that basically says that this is a win-win for republicans which is the hottest take you can have like you literally

like the internet on fire fire and it made people very upset and i mean they're not wrong which i hate to say like they are wrong in the sense that it could be couching a little more moral outrage at reporters being beaten up by politicians. But you already can see the spin here. If Quist wins, it doesn't tell you anything about Trump care or Trump and Russia or anything else. It means don't run candidates who beat up reporters 24 hours before the election, which is, that's also true. And if Gianforte wins, it's going to be, Democrats are so fucked, they can't even beat a guy

who beat up a reporter 24 hours beforehand. If they can't do that, when will they ever win? Yeah, so like, I have no doubt that it's right and that that's what the spin will be and that's what the narrative will be um here's why that's stupid i think uh it's you know two so two-thirds of uh the vote is already in in montana uh because a lot of this is mail-in uh early vote stuff so most of the people in this election have voted already. That's number one. Number two, like, I don't know, you have to get to a place

where you think, like, I don't, I mean, you have to get to a place where you think you were going to vote for Gianforte, but then, and by the way, Gianforte has abysmal approval ratings, we should also say. He ran in, when he ran in 16 for governor, he got, I was going to say he got beat up,

but I guess you can't use that metaphor anymore. He got body slammed by the voters. He had quite a few negative hats run against him, and a very, very low approval rating at the end of that. So he's very, very disliked. So there's already a lot of people who are saying they're going to vote for Gianforte, even though they disapprove of him before this happened. Right. So we don't actually know how much last night will factor into the vote today, but maybe it will. Who knows? Because I don't think Montana, just like Kansas, is not a great test case for whether we're going to see some Democratic wave election in 2018. I think the fact that Rob Quist brought it within single digits of Gianforte is a great sign.

And who knows? Maybe he gets over the top tonight. Fucking great. But I don't know that you know him i think if he loses by 20 points then yeah we can say well what the hell happened to the democratic wave because um 20 points was the republican margin in the last couple election but you know if he loses by three or four points i don't know definitely made progress and who knows i think maybe people in montana like someone beating someone up i don't know i don't know how voters react i don't i don't think they like that that is that to me was the worst take was people in the midwest probably think it's a good idea to beat up reporters that's what men do um but you know what i've stopped trying to guess what's in the minds of some voters in

this country i just well then you're gonna have to turn in your media credentials immediately because that's the primary job of a reporter. We should just go ask them because I can't tell myself. Yeah, the only place where I think this might matter in any way is – I mean the die may already be cast here one way or the other based on the votes that are already in. But is generally Republicans depend on Election Day turnout to overcome some sort of Democratic advantage in early vote and mail. I don't know if that's specifically true in Montana, but it certainly wasn't some of these other races we've looked at. And whether people are not, whether this is a disincentive for people to actually go wait in line to vote for this guy. Right. Maybe it matters.

Maybe it matters on the margins. But the result of this race, even if the margin even if the margin is 20, I will be concerned. But the thing that I still take away from this is that Quist has been able to raise huge amounts of money. There's been huge levels of activism on his behalf, both in Montana and around the country. And there's a whole shitload of races that are in districts much closer than this one that where that where that can be the that could tip that tip it in the democrats favor enthusiasm activism and money and so if that can be replicated behind good candidates in distressed country then democrats will be in a good will be in a good spot yeah i was actually i was trying to think of what i would do if the

democratic candidate body slammed someone and i hadn't voted yet and it was election day. Like, I don't know that I could pull the lever for the Republican for Gianforte because of all of his awful positions and his position on health care and stuff like that. I'd feel it was my civic duty to go vote. So maybe I'd write in someone and vote for all the other candidates in all the other races. Although it's a special election, so I don't know if there's anything else on the belt lead to votes for quist it may just mean fewer votes for g stay home right right right um so anyway we should also let anyone know who's listening in montana of course you can um you can register today to vote if you're not registered yet they have same day registration so go vote if you're in montana go

vote for rob quist um and uh and careful out there don't you know if you run into gianforte just sort of uh go go run and hide protect yourself um yes submit submit your questions by email unfucking real anyway let's go on to something far more impactful to most people in this country than the garbage we were just talking about. The CBO score. So we already said the headline for the CBO score is 23 million would lose health insurance relative to current law over the next decade. The first draft of the Trump care was 24 million. So they improved the bill by 1 million people.

Good for them. So they improved the bill by 1 million people. Good for them. 51 million people under 65 would be uninsured by 2026 under this bill, compared with Obamacare, where 28 million would be uninsured by 2026. One out of six Americans live in places where, under this bill, CBO says insurers could charge people with pre-existing conditions whatever they wanted. One in six Americans would live in places where coverage would be unavailable or unaffordable for services like mental health,

substance abuse, maternity care, etc., all these essential benefits. So that number comes from, of course, the compromise that allowed this bill to get through the House was the MacArthur Amendment and the Upton Amendment. What that did is said to some states, you can decide to waive of protections for pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits and what they decided was about one in six americans would be at risk for this so pretty bad pretty bad yeah it's it's bad out-of-pocket spending on maternity care for women could increase by a thousand dollars a year premiums they all bragged about how premiums would come down. Premiums would be 20% higher than with Obamacare in 2018 and 5% higher in 2019. Premiums for a working class 64-year-old could rise 800%. That is not a typo.

800%. If you are 64 years old, meaning that's as old as you can be, you would not be on Medicare. And if you make 200% of the federal poverty line, your premiums would go up 800%. Unbelievable. You have to work hard to come up with a bill that is as bad as this one. It is, like I've said this before, there are lots of things that Congress does that are bad policy, but good politics. Then there are a lot of things that are good politics, but bad policy. This is the rare exception of shitty policy, shitty politics. It is absolutely devastating. And I don't fully understand the psychology

in what led them to bring this back up and for Paul Ryan to force his members to vote for this piece for this bill without this information, because they own it. That it does not matter. this information because they own it that it does not matter democrats will hang this around their neck for every day until they get booted out of office in 2018 for doing this horrible fucking thing and yeah if this cbo score had come out before it would not have passed, just like last time. So I think the psychology is, again, very difficult to get inside the minds of some of the people in this country, House Republicans at the top of the list. I think the psychology is this was a shitburger we had to pass through the House to just get to the Senate. The Senate will give us a better bill. The Senate will give us a better bill. The Senate will fix

it. And then later, if we pass something that is better than this, according to the CBO, we can just tell voters, oh, forget that attack about the earlier bill. That was an early draft. The bill that we ended up with was a lot better. They also are comforted, of course, in the fact that they have a giant right-wing Republican propaganda machine that exists every day to try to brainwash their voters into thinking that the bill is fine, that it's the Democrats who are the problem, that it was Obamacare that was the problem all the way. And don't worry about it. Now, the problem with the psychology is like this isn't like any of the other lies that just sort of like float through the Republican media and people just believe and that's it. This is actually going to affect people like they are not going to be able to avoid the

fact that if the Senate passes something even close to this, millions and millions of people will immediately feel the effects and that they will either lose their health insurance or will not be able to afford the premiums and the coverage that they need right so i don't know i don't know how they get around this i think that's right i think the other reason for this is paul ryan wakes up every day so that he can give tax cuts to rich people that's right that is his reason for being and for weird legislative reasons they need to pass this bill to do that need to get to the tax cuts and there's tax to pass this bill to do that. Need to get to the tax cuts.

And there's tax cuts in this bill, too, which they also like. Yes, yes. I mean, you really couldn't— They need to pass the tax cut bill to get to the next tax cut bill. Right. You could not write a better ad for Democrats than taking health insurance, raising premiums on expectant mothers, insurance, raising premiums on expectant mothers, taking health care away from cancer patients, 800% increases in premiums for elder Americans, all in service of paying for a tax cut for millionaires like Donald Trump. It writes itself. I don't even have to focus group it. I know how

good it is. It is. It's brutal and devastating. And they signed up for it. They just walked right into it knowingly. Except there is one thing. I think it's not that they relied. They're relying on the right wing filter bubble to communicate propaganda to them. I think they believe what the right wing filter bubble is telling them. Yeah. Like Mark Meadows. Right. Yeah. Certainly. Freedom caucus. Yeah. propaganda to them i think they believe what the right-wing filter bubble is telling them yeah like mark meadows right yeah certainly freedom caucus yeah so he helped negotiate this deal and then today would inform or yesterday i don't know what day it was informed by a reporter

about how this would have what the cbo said about how it would affect uh people with pre-existing conditions was brought almost to tears by his own vote. And people seem to feel sorry for him. I do not. Who's feeling sorry for him? People are feeling sorry for Mark Meadows for crying over like... Well, it's... Yes. Mark Meadows is the reason that we're in this fucking mess.

He's the head of the House Freedom Caucus. Like, they could have... The Tuesday group, the moderate Republicans, could have passed... Well, I guess they would have the tuesday group these moderate republicans could have passed well i guess they would have passed still a shitty bill but it wouldn't have it wouldn't have uh it wouldn't have touched pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits like maternity care and substance abuse had it not been for mark meadows he is the one who decided he would not support a bill unless they went after pre-existing conditions yes his actual view was the original version of ryan care trump care wealth care

was not cruel enough to people so he fought like hell like he fought like nothing else to make it shittier for people then when he finds out it's shittier for people that he may know he almost cries over it well fuck you mark meadows Mark Meadows. Too stupid to be in Congress. And it's not a surprise. The CBO says what every single independent expert who looked at this said it would do. And so this isn't like, holy shit, there's a drafting error that means that people with pre-existing conditions are going to get screwed. That was the point of the bill.

But because he gets his news and his staffers get their news from fox where this information was never shared right it's never discussed they thought they were doing the right thing and they didn't they they they are it is this full cycle of republicans write talking points to come up with talking points to sell their plan they give those talking points to right-wing media right-wing media repeat those talking points as if they're fact, and Republican members believe that as fact. It is just a cycle of bullshit. The cycle of bullshit.

No, I mean, so like you said, this bill, it reduces, it basically, it's very easy to understand this bill. It reduces healthcare spending on the poor, the sick, the working class, and the elderly by about $1 trillion, and it uses just about all the savings to finance tax cuts that are heavily skewed towards millionaires and billionaires. Someone can go fact check that if they want. That is not just some Democratic talking point. That is not just some Democratic ad, though it will be an ad, that some consultant wrote and sort of played fast and loose with no that is pretty much exactly what it does it's funny the republic we're talking about the republican response like mark meadows cried greg gianforte body slammed a reporter tom price

the health and human services secretary said that the cbo is wrong again um hey john question for you do you know who appointed the current cbo director uh i believe his name is tom price that is correct same time price same top price tom price's self-appointed congressional budget office director um is wrong according to tom price and uh macarthur what's macarthur's first name is he tom too tom he's tom another tom okay tom macarthur um his quote was he was the one of course that added the amendment that was MacArthur, what's MacArthur's first name? Is he Tom, too? Tom. He's Tom. Another Tom. Okay. Tom MacArthur. His quote was, he was the one, of course, that added the amendment that was allowed this whole thing to pass. He said, that is somebody's opinion at CBO.

I have a different opinion. Okay. Once again, the Congressional Budget Office is made up of nonpartisan economists. They do not work for either party. Some of them have been appointed by Republicans like Tom Price. They are economists. They are experts. Who is Tom MacArthur?

He is a dipshit congressman for New Jersey. He is not an economist. His opinion does not matter, like the CBO's opinion, because it is not an opinion. It is an actual economic analysis. Now, Tom MacArthur is not a Fox News pundit. He's not a Freedom Caucus wacko. He is supposedly a moderate Republican member of Congress. And his thought was, well, that's their opinion.

And finally— Remember Paul Ryan's reaction? I was going to say, I was getting to that. Finally, Paul Ryan's opinion. I feel good about it. It's great. And why? He sends his ABLE staff out to tweet out in a celebratory fashion that this bill reduces deficit by $119 billion.

It's like, well, no shit. If you take health care away from 23 million people and you make devastating cuts to Medicaid, you're going to be able to save money. And if you really wanted to save money, if that was the goal, if the idea was, look, deficit is too high, we have to do something, we can't afford this healthcare for people, we're going to repeal Obamacare, but we would certainly keep the taxes in place. But the reason it's only $119 billion instead of hundreds of billions of dollars is because they had to give a massive tax cut to rich people and insurance CEOs. So spare me your fiscal austerity, Paul Ryan. So let's have the media reaction. I will say in this case, just about every pundit and every

member of the media universally has the same reaction to this, which is, oh my God, how politically unpopular is the CBO score? Or is this bill terrible for the Republicans, the CBO score? Even conservative pundits who think that the CBO score is wrong were saying a headline like that, 23 million uninsured, that is going to be awful for Republicans, right? Even conservatives who disagree with CBO and like the bill said that. There's only one, one pundit that I could find who thought that maybe, only maybe this could be a win for Republicans. Chris Silliza tweeted, Key dynamic. What matters more, the $119 billion in savings or the $23 million uninsured by 2026? Boy, oh boy.

He was... A lot of people had a lot of thoughts about that tweet. I just had to back off since it was too easy at that point. Yeah, Chris, I'd like to note, Chris and I went to college together. Chris and I spent many an afternoon on the basketball courts at Yates Fieldhouse in Georgetown. Chris is a pretty good basketball player.

But this was not a good tweet this was not good it's just i just it's it's like um it's like washington washington punditry frozen in time you know it's like no matter what no matter what happens no matter how the political dynamics shift no matter how bad the republicans get it's just like it is this instinctual response to be like well maybe both sides who knows you know people could be people could be more interested in deficit savings yeah no that's traditionally voters have been very interested in deficit savings that's usually there's a long history long history long history many elections have turned because people were not willing to cut key and popular government services deep enough. I mean, come on now.

So more important question, how does this impact the Senate process? The Senate is writing a bill, too. That's how we should be scared. Lamar Alexander was interviewed. He's one of the senators involved, senator from Tennessee, involved in the writing of the health care bill in the Senate. He basically said, who cares about the CBO? We're basically starting from scratch and writing our own bill in the Senate.

Here's the problem that I see for the Senate Republicans. For them to improve the CBO score, they would have to spend billions, billions more, and cut taxes by billions and billions less for a real improvement of the CBO score. Because, like, are they going to really argue that a bill that the CBO says leads to just $20 million uninsured over the next decade? Or $15 million uninsured over the next decade? Are they going to pass a bill like that? or $15 million uninsured over the next date? Are they going to pass a bill like that? And then are they really going to try to argue that that's some kind of improvement when the headline for their bill comes out as $20 or $15 instead of $20, $23?

Like, I just, I don't know how they do that. This is a very important point. An ad that says, Congressman so-and-so voted to take health care away from 23 million people to pay for a nearly trillion dollar tax cut for wealthy Americans is just as effective as an ad that says congressman or senator so-and-so voted to take health care from 15 million people to pay for a 500 billion for a half a trillion dollar tax cut for wealthy Americans. The numbers are so big in this case

that the change in this even by an order of magnitude is not going to make much of a difference politically. But the thing that's also important is that politically the Overton window has shifted to the left because the argument here is all about people – are you going to take health care away from people? And this is where passing, whatever happens here, that passing the Affordable Care Act was incredibly important in the long run because it changed the dynamic that health care, every American had a right to affordable and accessible health care. We can debate how to do that. Maybe someone come up with a conservative solution to that that is to the right of the Affordable Care Act. There are certainly a lot of very good ideas still left of it, but that's a discussion. Right.

And once you live in that window, it's very hard for Republicans to do something that that passes. It's almost impossible to do something that passes that test. And so let's say they're going to take health care away from 10 million people. They, you know, they do this 13 million people better. That's still a really shitty, unpopular bill. Yeah, it is. And look, AARP is already out there. They decided to spend $1 billion on ads targeting five Republican senators, including Jeff Flake and Dean Heller, who are both up in 2018 in competitive states, competitive races.

Fox News poll came out yesterday. Do you think Obamacare was a good thing or bad thing for the country? 53% said good thing. Only 39% said bad thing. That's a Fox News poll. In just 2014, it was 40-52. It was almost completely reversed just two years ago. So Trumpcare did wonders for Obamacare.

So basically, where does the Senate process stand right now? Mitch McConnell gave an interview to Reuters yesterday, where he was asked about tax reform and health care reform. Tax reform, he said, I feel good about that. I think that's going to be fairly easy. On health care reform, all he said was, I don't know how we get to 50 votes at the moment. Again, McConnell can only lose two votes. And there's about 10 to 12 Republican senators who have expressed serious concern about the House bill or anything like the House bill. So he has a steep climb. Again, that doesn't mean we should just wait and hope that Mitch McConnell fails here. That is probably the worst thing that we can do. The best thing that we can do is keep up thing that we can do is keep

up the pressure on the Senate, keep up the pressure on Dean Heller, on Jeff Flake, on Susan Collins, on Lisa Murkowski, on Rob Portman in Ohio, and some of these senators in states with significant Medicaid populations. And yeah, they've got to feel like it is unacceptable for them to pass a bill with a headline that is 10 million lose health insurance, 15 million lose health insurance, 5 million lose health insurance. Like if they feel that that's unacceptable, either they'll pass a bill that basically just tweaks Obamacare and fixes it or the bill more likely the bill will die in the Senate and we'll be able to move on. So that is our goal right now. Senate, keep putting pressure on the Senate. Keep putting pressure on the House, too.

Yes, for sure. Mitch McConnell cares only about the accumulation of power. And if he thinks moving this forward is going to either cost the majority in the Senate or cost the majority in the House, then he will be less willing to do so. So Republicans have to believe, and I think this is actually true, that if they move this thing forward, it will open up a hellfire of political anger and frustration and activism that could wash them right out of power. And all the energy that was there in the first set of town halls has to be there and this is gonna be a lot this is gonna be a marathon like we and no you never bet against mitch mcconnell he is fucking smart and competent and evil and he and if we're not careful he will

get this thing through and so we have to remain focused and vigilant otherwise if we if we turn away and we get all wrapped around russia or something else important he will get it through like we'll wake up one day and we're like fuck they just voted on that it's over yep that's right and uh swing left our friends at swing left are doing another campaign where if you're angry about the cbo score you can go and donate money to the eventual challenger of every single Republican in a swing district who voted yes for that piece of shit bill. So go to www.swingleft.org slash crooked and go, you can go donate to any of these eventual Democratic candidates who can beat some of these Republicans who voted for the bill. So go do that today. When we return, we will talk about the budget that the White House released

earlier this week with Annie Lowry from The Atlantic. We'll be right back. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we have Annie Lowry from The Atlantic. Annie, welcome. Thanks for having me, guys. Absolutely. I was on your pod way back when, when you were still doing a pod with Leibovich and Alex. Yeah, you know, you were, and it's funny.

I feel like all we ever talked about on that podcast was how there was no way that Trump could win. It wouldn't happen. The Republicans wouldn't let it happen. And lo and behold. That was my sharp analysis. I remember the name of that podcast was Pod for America, and that was definitely, I think, in our mind when we named Pod Save America.

Yeah, we just stole it. Yeah, we just stole it, so thank you for that. So we haven't talked yet today about Trump's budget. The White House budget was released earlier in the week. And I think it's sort of it got a little bit lost this week in with CBO score. And now, you know, Republican candidates beating up reporters and all the usual. So what did you think about how extreme was Trump's budget? How different was Trump's budget in your mind than the usual Republican budget that might come out from, say, a Paul Ryan?

Right. So I think it's important to note that Paul Ryan's budgets are very, very conservative documents, right? Like more conservative than the average Republican in the House and Senate. You know, he's kind of ideological. He has a lot of opinions about government spending. This document is in a lot of ways like yet more conservative. Its cuts are just enormous to everything except for military spending. So it's basically Mick Mulvaney's budget plus like Ivanka's child care plan. There's no way like Republican appropriators could even begin to make the scale of cuts described in it.

And what I think is kind of interesting is, like, this is, like all presidential budgets, this is not going to go anywhere. Nobody's going to take this and try to pass it. So, like, what political message is he sending with this? And I guess that the political message is that Mick Mulvaney is in control of the budget in the White House, you know? Yeah. It doesn't even, you know, it's not even like, you can imagine him doing some kind of like red meat, like Appalachian revitalization program or something like that. You can even just imagine them kind of like cutting taxes

and saying that that tax reform would be really popular, but they're not even doing that stuff. There's a real failure of imagination in it, too. Yeah, I was trying to figure that out, too. I'm like, usually you have, and we were talking about this with the health care in it too. Yeah, I was trying to figure that out too. I'm like, usually you have, and we were talking about this with the healthcare bill too, like usually you do something that's either good policy, but maybe it's politically unpopular or it's really, more likely it's really popular, it's politically popular, but it's really bad policy. This seems

to be neither politically popular or very good policy, right? Yeah, absolutely. All there is here is cutting. There's like no reform. There's just giant, giant, giant cuts to everything. And I agree with you that, I mean, it's not like easy for me to come up with things that they could have done just for the hell of it, to kind of run on and sell. But they really didn't, it's almost like they didn't put any effort into it. The other thing to note, I mean, it's a very sloppy document. Like that $2 trillion double counting is completely crazy. So what happened there with the double counting?

Right. So this is just super, super basic budget math where basically they cut taxes, say that that's going to spur growth. But then instead of that growth, sorry, I'm trying to think of an easier way to explain this. Basically, they double count the amount of money that would be saved from cuts, right? So they have this kind of $2 trillion error where the two sides of the ledger in the budget don't match up. Maybe that's an easy way to put it. Right. They said that they have $2 trillion in cuts,

and they basically, in the budget, use that money to give a huge tax cut to people. So they're saying $2 trillion goes towards a tax cut, but that $2 trillion also goes towards balancing the budget, which you can't really balance the budget if you gave away the money as a tax cut, but the $2 trillion also goes towards balancing the budget, which you can't really balance the budget if you gave away the money as a tax cut, right? Right, exactly. So this is really, really, really basic stuff.

And I think it shows, I mean, I know that they have quite a few people in the budget office, but it seems to me that this just shows that they don't actually have enough people doing kind of policy basics. It was actually funny, I wanted to ask you, I'm not sure, do they have like a full team of beach riders in there, right? Like, they're just missing a lot of people. And I think that this is one of the things that happens when you kind of are understaffed. I'm really mystified by this because there are career budget people, or a lot of career staff at OMB. So this is not just the typical Trump thing of, you know, a bunch of Fox News pundits and some third tier political operatives getting together and screwing up basics. Like there are people, there are very good people who've been in the OMB

for many years who would have caught this. So I don't know whether those people were cut out of the budget because they're thought to be part of some sort of economic deep state, or they let it go because it was the only way to get within the 10-year budget balancing window that he promised on the campaign trail, but it's very strange. Yeah, I agree. And yes, OMB has a huge staff of career people.

It's a little bit missing. I've been asking around to try to figure out what happened. Also because, you know, like between, like Mulvaney has given kind of inconsistent answers on this and sort of came out and said, well, this is just like a preliminary document, which is sort of a crazy thing to say. So I think there's a good story to be written, which maybe I'll try to chase down, like what the hell actually happened there. And Mulvaney came from the House Freedom Caucus, right? And so he was like, I read somewhere that this budget looked a lot like something that the Republican study group might

put out. The Republican study group is like the Freedom Caucus. It's sort of a far right group of Republican congressmen who are probably like the furthest right in Congress, right? And that's where Mulvaney came from. And now he's the budget director. So it seems like something that they would put together. Yeah, I think that that's right. And I came from and now he's the budget director so it seems like something that they would put together yeah I think that that's right and I think it's worth again like going back to the contrast with the Ryan budget Paul Ryan like has proposed a number of really big reforms you know like consolidating anti-poverty programs and turning them into a giant block grant like if none of that stuff kind of made it into this there's really really

relatively little in way of reform and just a lot in ways of in terms of cuts. What do you think are the most as you look like, let's pretend for a second that some this budget got put into law. What do you think are the most alarming cuts in there? So, you know, the cut to the anti-poverty programs are really, really deep. And you would inevitably see an increase in poverty among children, among the elderly, among the disabled. That's very, very troubling. And that's money that is often talked about in both Republican, among both Republicans and Democrats as being an investment, right? Like, we don't want kids to grow up in poverty because if we help them when they're young, they tend to have better lives down the line, they pay more taxes, all of that.

You know, the cuts to science funding are really, really unbelievably damaging. The other cuts that I thought were really interesting, I mean, this cut infrastructure spending, the fact that they've said that they want more of it, which is just kind of mystifying, right? Like, why have you came in and said we're going to, like, revitalize America? Would you cut infrastructure spending in here? It's just weird. So a lot of people, everyone's been saying, obviously, this budget, when it gets to Congress, is dead on arrival. They're never going to pass something like this.

But I think the more interesting question is, what does the budget that gets through Congress look like? And how close does it look to something like this, right? Like, is this the new starting point for whatever Congress passes? Or, I mean, does Ryan go for some of these cuts? Does Trump, you know, put his foot down when a budget comes from Congress that doesn't include a lot of these cuts? Does Trump even know what these cuts are? Like, I'm wondering what the dynamic is from here.

Right. So I think that the question is what Republican appropriators can actually stomach. Because they at times have kind of like protested the Ryan-level cuts and basically said, like, we can't make these. You've seen this again and again where Republican appropriators have been the ones to kind of push back on stuff like this and be like, no, you know, this happened in secret recent. And I think that the interesting questions are more political, because right now at this point, given the fractiousness of both the House and the Senate, I think it's kind of hard to see them doing anything other than continuing resolutions. And that was that was sort of hard enough. doing anything other than continuing resolutions, and that was sort of hard enough. One thing that I think is kind of interesting that I think that people aren't sort of thinking about at this point is there is this report in Axios that said that Trump almost vetoed

the last trillion-dollar continuing resolution because it didn't include his increase to military funding. He had requested, like, $54 billion that wasn't in there, even though there was a boost in funding in the Overseas Contingency Fund. And he had never signaled that he was going to veto it. And apparently they brought in John Boehner to help talk him out of it. I think that that's kind of the interesting thing, too, right? If Trump is going to veto Republican spending bills, that's going to be really, really interesting.

spending bill that's going to be really really interesting so maybe he's been talked out of out of vetoing others or maybe he's decided that he wants to insist on you know like pass Ivanka care or else and all of this also it just gets caught up in the politics around the Health Care Act as well you know I do tax reform which I think at some point with the clean tax cut it's just hard to keep them doing anything i think there's a good chance that they get the fall without having packed much uh... uh...

i just get in given what they've been doing and and how hard it's been politically tough or which is crazy i mean yet there's republican control of you know you know i control it basically seems like it's we're getting close to the point where the most they can hope for for victory is pass a bunch of temporary tax cuts,

pass another continuing resolution to fund the government, and raise the debt ceiling without catastrophe, which, you know. Well, the debt ceiling seems to get more challenging since our friend Mark Meadows said that he wanted cuts to go along with the debt ceiling. And how you get that through a 60 votes in the Senate or even out of the Republican House seems very challenging. And where Trump comes out on that will be very interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it's going to come down to, you know, like the Mike Lees of the world. Are they going to demand something, you know, something towards a balanced budget? I think so. And what's kind of crazy is that I think that actually politically just passing tax cuts would be good for the Republicans. I don't know at what point they're basically just going to say, like, yeah, that's that's what we have to show for it. And I just you know, and I think that if they end up passing something like the Health Care Act that has passed the House, that's going to be so politically damaging. It is so unpopular. I think that, you know, and I guess the other question is, right, like, you know, with the Mueller investigation and everything else going on with the Trump White House,

at what point do Republicans on the Hill just stop participating with the White House and do what they kind of want to do? I think that there's a good chance of that happening, too. with the White House and do what they kind of want to do. I think that there's a good chance of that happening, too. So last question for you. We've been asking Democratic politicians about an economic vision for the party moving forward. And a lot of them talk about automation and globalization and a lot of the challenges that we face in the economy. But then they get to the solutions and, you know, they're fairly small or typical.

Have you run into any good or interesting proposals out there um because i know you've been writing about some of this stuff recently yeah um i think that you are going to see democrats push for something like single payer a path to single payer um and universal like truly universal coverage um i think that's one thing that they see as being politically popular. I think that they're going to push for things like EITC expansion, and that's something that Ro Khanna, who's the new member of Congress in Silicon Valley, has been pushing.

I think that they're going to go really, really big. I think that they're going to go policy populist and basically go to voters in the Midwest and say, hey, we're going to raise taxes on rich people and we're going to use it on stuff for you. And, you know, like, I don't think that that's a bad bet. You know, one thing that I think that nobody is quite thinking about right now is, you know, there's some chance that the economy does not continue just chugging along. And in what world, you know, in that world, what do Republicans pass and how does that change what Democrats demand? I think it's a really interesting question. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that Center for American Progress this week

came out with a Marshall Plan for America, which is essentially a jobs guarantee, a federal jobs guarantee, which is pretty, that's pretty populist. Yeah, it's very, very populist. It's hard to do. I was a little bit disappointed by the amount of detail in that plan, just because, you know, they were saying that they are hoping to have sort of an employer of last resort program, that you could be like a health aide or like a senior care worker. But those are not sort of the jobs that you would classically think of as being part of a jobs guarantee, which are more scalable and don't require a lot of training. So things like kind of crossing guards or beautification. But just in terms, you know, and obviously, given that nothing

like that is going to pass for the foreseeable future, in terms of just straightforward messaging populism, I think it's really interesting that they've started to go for these kind of big sweeping, you know, we're going to change the fundamentals, not just sort of tinker around the edge policies. Yeah, it seems like maybe we're learning some lessons from the laundry list of proposals that we've done in the past. Yeah, maybe. Or at least, you know, it certainly seems like they're thinking that way. Annie, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And come back and talk to us again soon.

Thanks, Annie. Of course. Thanks, guys. All right. Take care. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. On the pod today, we have the host of With Friends Like These, Crooked Media's own, Ana Marie Cox. How are you doing?

As usual, I must answer in Trump-adjusted terms, relatively good. I am doing better than a lot of people in the world. I'm doing probably better than Trump, who's, I'm guessing, jet-lagged and probably having to eat food that's not overdone steak. His wife won't hold his hand. Yeah, how do you think the trip's going we didn't talk about that yet today but um dan and i were just talking before we got you on the phone about the i don't know if you saw the footage at nato where he looks like he um pushes the prime minister of montenegro out of the way so he can get in the front of the picture i that was like the least surprising news since they didn't let sean spicer meet the pope

like now okay what was okay what was your thought on the and dan i didn't ask you this either on the on the on the sean spicy doesn't get to meet the pope story it's just like spicy is like the like so i have the cast of characters in the trump white house i think spicy is the saddest right saddest yeah for sure like he's like the the lumpy sad one um with his gum you know only his gum to keep him company uh you know apparently he is a devout catholic and you know it's gotta have been like an intentional super petty dig like they let dan scavino i thought i said the same thing meet the pope but not sean spicer sean spicer who had the ash wednesday you know apparently like everyone knows this about him he's very devout yeah no dan scavino but not it's it i don't feel sorry for sean like you can see that in the media

narrative it tipped for the first time since Sean declared Trump the largest inauguration crowd in history. The media narrative tipped to pity for Sean. But he chooses his public humiliation every day. He does not have to do this. And I think this is as much about Trump as it is about the people around Trump. Because when John and I were talking to one of our old Obama colleagues who was telling us a story of when the Pope came to DC in 2015, one of the senior members of the team was manifested for that meeting and took, but was not a particularly religious, took themselves out so that a more devout Catholic who was not on the roster could attend. And you would have thought someone in the Trump delegation would have been willing to do that,

but no, because they hate each other. They hate each other and they're just all super selfish. And I wanted to sort of say about Sean, like, I think it is possible to both pity someone and feel they should be punished, you know,

like, so that's fair. I don't, I, Sean is responsible for the bad deeds that he does as a good Catholic. He should know that. But you can still feel sorry for him. Like, you know, and it's still a shitty thing to do.

Like, we can all agree. That is what we also agree. It's a shitty thing to do to Sean Spicer. Perhaps he deserves it. But let's it's pretty bad. Their cruelty. And maybe you guys probably already talked about the budget. But like, this is a way that Trump's cruelty expresses itself in both large and small ways right like its largest expression is in this

fucking fake health care bill and their budget and the smallest expression is in shit like not letting sean spicer meet the pope but he is through and through one of the cruelest public figures like since you'd have to go back to like kings you know like yeah i can't think of anyone else that with that kind of power who is that cruel off the top of my head by the way i i got an email from a reporter uh yesterday working on a story and they were like so you know just wanted to get your view on this like don't we think that trump's foreign trip has gone relatively well and he's gotten just about everything they could have expected out of it like don't you have to admit you have to give him some credit on the foreign trip and I'm like what I thought you didn't talk to Chris Silliza

we brought up that tweet earlier okay no I and I you know what I like I held it together and I just moved on to other things in my inbox and I decided not to engage. But I'm like, okay, I guess he didn't start any actual wars while he was on a foreign trip. But we can start pointing out the gaffes along the way at this point, right? Oh my god. I mean, you guys haven't covered this, so you guys didn't cover the whole, like, we just got back from the Middle East? No, no, we didn't even cover that. that we on monday's pod that hadn't happened yet and so uh and of course we had we had today we covered cbo we had budget with annie lowry and then um and of course we started with uh greg gianforte having a um a literal violent reaction to the

cbo score yeah i mean you get know, there's something wrong with your bill when people you'd rather punch a reporter than talk about the CBO score. Yeah. So the foreign trip. So the errors, large and small. The one of the smaller ones, but fitting ones was he just he told, you know, the assembled dignitaries in Israel, we just got back from the Middle East, to which you can see someone literally face palm in the background. Like there is someone who commits an actual face palm when he says that. Yeah. And then today, I mean, of course, credit to the reporter, the email for us from yesterday, but today gets up there and gives a speech at NATO where he doesn't sort of recommit to Article 5, which is the most important part of the NATO treaty, which says if one member of NATO is attacked, we're all attacked and we all jump in to defend anyone

who's attacked. Attack on one is an attack on all. That is literally the definition of a treaty. Right. The central part of the treaty. And he did not reaffirm that commitment during his speech. Instead, he chided them for not paying their dues and made some snotty comment about how the new um the new nato whatever it was that the building that they were in was like brand new and really fancy and probably cost a lot oh my god so we already are working in the assumption that like everything that trump says as an accusation to someone else is actually a reflection of his own behavior right like everything so who doesn't pay his contractors right yeah exactly Trump who creates gaudy garish terrible you know gold dripping buildings that are actually kind of shitty Trump I mean like he's just he's just an id like out of control and also like

there's other stuff from this trip like i was joking about how i'm doing better than trump because he's probably like crabby like a baby um the latest latest thing about they're concerned about trump's screen time as if he were a toddler like they're trying to manage his screen time that is the way that parents talk about their three-year-old it is not the way that like age did you guys have to manage you know obama's screen time you know was that like we're like oh we gotta put the parental lock on the ipad no on the ipad he just basically had like the top headlines he didn't have twitter i remember he would always on his ipad he would look at like what were the most shared or like most popular stories uh in

the washington post in the new york times that's sort of how he kept up on the news yeah he never he never got into twitter did he have opinions on whether or not you should kill baby hitler yeah he did he did not he did he knew exactly what color that dress was he did not get into it no i saw today that the only app on trump's phone um abroad is twitter which is scary but also uh he hasn't been tweeting which is um that has been a nice part of this week because there haven't been any tweets from trump and that's the low bar that the reporter was referring to right i mean it's like that is it he hasn't tweeted he hasn't made things actively worse. But, you know, like I was thinking the other day that this Ben Carson quote would be a full news cycle story if it had happened to any other administration, which is Ben Carson, the head of the Housing and Urban Development Department, said that poverty is, quote, a state of mind, which is what I thought like Margaritaville was, you know, but I don't want to go to that that's a sucky license

plate by the way poverty is a state of mind we would be having a whole he talks about the culture dependency and stuff and we would be having a whole discussion about that right i mean we would that would that would take up a couple days instead you know so who's So who's on the show this week? Oh, yes. Well, first, Bob Inglis, who is a former congressman from South Carolina, who is now a climate change activist. He is still a conservative, somewhat of a Republican. He's a little wary of that label these days, as a lot of good Republicans are. days, as a lot of good Republicans are. But he came around on climate change, in part due to some family experiences and in part due to just being open minded to the science. And we people can learn about his evolution. It's been fairly well covered in other areas. But we talk specifically how would you how do how can listeners talk to their parents or in-laws or whatever about climate

change if they don't already agree with it? Like, what are some, like, really practical tips for starting a conversation with someone who you feel like you need to bring on board for climate change? So, talk to him. Yeah. It was really interesting. He winds up giving Kellyanne credit for one rhetorical strategy. I'll just. Oh, wow.

That'll be a teaser. He says she uses it for evil, but it is a good rhetorical strategy and i'll just oh that'll be a teaser um he says she she used she uses it for evil but it is a good rhetorical strategy oh well we have to tune in to listen to that one and then i also talked to uh liz brunig who people she's an active twitterer for those people who are um you know avid uh politics journalist um twitter consumers. And she also covers religion and politics, Christianity and politics. And I've been wanting to talk to her for a while about prayer. And unfortunately, this week, you know, brought some very overwhelming reasons that we might have to pray. And so we talked about, you know, praying in times of tragedy and praying

in more routine times and what that does for you and one's relationship with not just, you know, the big guy, but also to your fellow humans. Oh, cool. Yeah, I do. I follow her on Twitter quite a bit. So that'll be an interesting one. Yeah. And she's like, she's a catholic girl like uh you know we're not a catholic girl but i know that's that's your origin story so excellent so that'll be up tomorrow morning yep friday morning everyone go uh go download it subscribe to with friends like these and listen in yeah thanks for having me on guys i you know i hope you have a good long weekend oh yeah that's right.

It's a long weekend. Yeah. Are you guys taping on Monday? What does that mean for Monday's Pod Save America? Oh, thank you. I almost forgot this, guys. I had this written down. Okay.

So for those of you who've listened to the end, which all of you do. You get a special, first of all, John Lovett's here. Oh, my God. That's a bonus for you. I come here to do ad commerce. I'm here to record ads. He's here to record some ads. So Pod Save America will not have a Monday episode,

because on Tuesday, we will be joined in studio by the senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. Oh my goodness gracious. She will be in Los Angeles. She will be joining John and Tommy and I right here in studio. So that'll be Tuesday. She's a real spitfire, I hear. Yes.

I hear she's an up-and-comer. I'm reading her book over the weekend. Being recognized more and more. It's called The Fight is Our Fight to Fight. I can't wait till Lovett interrupts her like Mitch McConnell. And yet she persisted. Nevertheless, he persisted that's actually that's my book about

that's my book about working with Lovett it's more like he insisted than persisted I would say alright everyone that's all the time we have for today and Lovett and I are going to record some ads Anna have a great three ads anna have a great three-day weekend dan have a great three-day weekend and we'll uh we'll talk to you guys

next week all right bye all right bye guys all right take it easy