Pod Save America - “The fog of bullshit.” (LIVE from Philadelphia)

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

Trump blames Schumer and the courts for terrorism, Republicans propose trillions in tax cuts for the rich, and Facebook testifies before Congress. DeRay McKesson, Brittany Packnett, and Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Chrissy Houlahan join Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan on stage in Philly. 

🎵 Hey, Philly. All right. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. Hey, Philly. I'm Brittany Packnett. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm DeRay. I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We have a great show for you tonight a Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania's 6th Congressional District who would become the only woman in the state's congressional delegation, Chrissy Houlihan is here and we are very lucky tonight to be joined by our good friends from

Pod Save the People, Brittany Packnett and DeRay McKesson. John, can I just say something that I'm reminded of? Sure. Here in Philadelphia. Something that I always think about, which is trust the process? Close enough. Working on that for a while, guys.

Working on it, yeah. Before we start, we launched a new podcast yesterday called Crooked Conversations, so check it out. We have three episodes up, including one from DeRay on the role of prosecutors in the criminal justice system, one from Aaron Ryan on the corporatization of breast cancer awareness, and one from me on the media's real bias. So please subscribe

and check it out. All right, guys. Let's start with... This is a busy news day. Too much. A lot of news. Too much news. Too much news. Let's start with the attack in New York City. So on Tuesday, a 29-year-old Saifullo Saipov plowed a rented truck down a crowded Hudson River bike path, killing eight people and injuring a dozen more. It was the first major terrorist attack of Trump's presidency, and he handled it just as poorly as we all feared he would by blaming all the wrong people and all the wrong problems, Chuck Schumer,

Democrats, our immigration policies, our laws, our courts. So I want to get to all of that, but first, let's talk about what we know in terms of who this terrorist is, where he came from, how he was radicalized by ISIS. Tommy, you dealt with these issues on the National Security Council for many years. What can you tell us? So we know he came to the U.S. in, I think, 2010 from Uzbekistan on a visa program called the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. It lets in about 50,000 or so people a year from countries that

don't have a lot of immigration to the U.S. It's a lottery system. His friends who they've interviewed along the way say he wasn't initially radicalized necessarily. He wasn't necessarily a devout religious scholar, but he became increasingly angry and radicalized over time. And obviously he did what he did, but they also found ISIS propaganda, including beheading videos and other nasty ISIS content on his phone. So this sounds like a case of domestic radicalization through the internet because, you know, this is the biggest problem with ISIS is their propaganda has been powerful and we have not been able to effectively rebut it in any way or counter it in, you know, the internet. Yeah. So, I mean, you mentioned that he was radicalized here. Of course, Trump's response

was to blame Schumer and the Democrats by calling it the Democrat lottery, a Chuck Schumer beauty. And yesterday, basically, I think the Trump propaganda machine spent all day making this about immigration, making this about their immigration policy. Tucker Carlson even said, no policy in modern America has hurt African Americans more than our immigration policy, which feels like he's leaving one big one out.

Weird. Brittany, what did you make of the response from Trump yesterday? I don't think anybody was surprised. I certainly wasn't. Sadly. We are going to have to be prepared for the fact that whenever any person of color does anything wrong the attack will be on the humanity of all of us and you're absolutely right it was wonderful that apparently immigration is the thing that has hurt me most as a black

person and not not just slavery by the way like jim crow there's a few others on the list right yeah housing segregation school, all these things. But I think it's going to be up to us to prepare our side of this to have a different conversation and to drive a different narrative. I also just think it's really important to recognize that there is no amount of perfect that a person of color could be in this country to still be considered enough by those folks. We're never going to be considered American enough, right enough.

Just like we're never going to see y'all white guys start getting deported after something like what happened in Las Vegas. So, you know, we're going to continue to unfortunately paint this conversation with a brush of people of color, and we have to be prepared to have a different conversation. DeRay, what do you think that different conversation might look like how do you think we should respond in a Trump age when an attack like this happens you know this is the first time it did but I'm you know hopefully it won't happen again but it could you know on his watch I think Brittany's right you know the reality is we've seen white people walk into schools and kill people and there's no answer we've seen white people walk into theaters and kill people there and there's no answer. We've seen white people walk into theaters and kill people.

There's no answer. We've seen one person of color do this, and it's like shut down the diversity immigration program, like ban people from coming in the country. That's so wild. Is that what we can't do is let them change the facts. The reality is that this wasn't Schumer. This was 32 people in Congress and seven Republicans that the Gang of Eight actually tried to stop this recently, that like we can't let them actually tried to stop this recently. We can't

let them renegotiate the facts. That can't be a part of what they can do. And like Brittany said, we know that people of color will always be victimized in these cases, and we can't let them do that. It's 50,000 people in the diversity immigration program out of a million.

This is actually a small number of people who are even eligible for this mayor-based or for this lottery system no and it's like you said it it started under george hw bush in 1990 it had the support of republican senators like mitch mcconnell chuck grassley when it was and then over the years when they tried to do immigration reform in 2013 chuck schumer democrats Democrats and Republicans worked together because they wanted to replace it with a more merit-based system. House Republicans blocked that. So even on the merits, even on the facts, this thing, you know, Trump was off. I want a merit-based presidency. I love you.

Well, we shouldn't be surprised, right, as we've been saying. We have to recognize that any opportunity to utilize the politics of fear to strengthen their narrative is going to be used every single time. We have to resist that, right? Yeah. Well, so, Dan, what do you think about, like, how Democrats should respond? Schumer's response was, I guess it's never too early to politicize a tragedy. Obviously, he was referencing after Las Vegas when we started talking about gun control. Trump and the Republicans were like, oh, it's too early to politicize the tragedy.

I think it's a couple of things. One, I first saw Trump's tweets about Schumer. My first instinct, as it often is, is to fire off a tweet and was to yell about Trump politicizing a tragedy. And then I sort of thought about it. I am not offended by someone using a tragedy to push for a policy aim of their own. We have done that in places like Las Vegas or Newtown because if something wrong happens

and you see a policy issue, you should push for it. What offends me is not the politicization of it. It's the policy goals that he wants to do with it, right? And so how do Democrats respond? Like, Schumer's, he's sort of like, it's like a little, like, schoolyard dozens. Like, ha, last time you said you shouldn't politicize the tragedy, and this time you do. It's like, no one.

Yeah, I didn't love it. Yeah, no one, like, Trump's a hypocrite. We know that. Like, you're not telling anyone they don't know, anything they don't know. Then he came back and said, well, if you care so much about terrorism, why do you want to cut terror funding for New York? That's a great strategy for New York Senator Chuck Schumer. It's not the Democratic message. I think what we have to do is we have to go and have this fight on the merits, right? We have to go argue for the value of immigration as a whole and the things that we have done to protect us from terrorism. Because I think this is a core

example of what Trump actually wants. Because if it is true, but by report, if this person came to America through a process, through a legal process, and then was radicalized while we were here, like the extreme vetting would not have stopped this. So what he's really revealing is he doesn't want to let anyone who is essentially not white come into this country, right? It's not about how he was before he got here. It's who he was, right? And so I think we have to call that out for what it is in this debate with him. Yeah. debate with him. I think we're struggling with something fundamental, and we don't have a really good language for how to talk about it or how to solve it. You know, when someone like this commits an ISIS-inspired attack by whatever, this contagion of propaganda that inspires someone like this guy

to try to go out in a blaze of glory and take a bunch of people with him. Trump wants to make it about immigration, even though immigration changes wouldn't have prevented this. And then you think about mass shootings, and it's somebody inspired in some way by the contagion of previous mass shooters and the fame they got and the attention they got and the desire to take a bunch of people with them. And we rightly talk about what could make a difference in those situations, which is reducing access to guns. But what connects them is we don't really know, you know, Republicans go to mental health, but again, they want to cut mental health. Put all that aside. We really, as a culture, as a society,

do not know what to do about this idea that gets into people's heads about mass killings. And someone, a deeply troubled, fucked up person, wants to take people with him in this narcissistic way. He goes online and he gets turned on by ISIS and that fits his anger. Someone else sees Dylan Klebold and thinks that's the way that I want to be. Whatever it is, anger or someone else sees Dylan Klebold and thinks that's the way that I want to be, whatever it is, we don't know how to talk about that kind of person. And the internet's not going anywhere. This kind of propaganda is not going anywhere. The attention that a mass shooter gets after they commit a mass shooting doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So to me, I think we end up in this cycle because we don't know what to do. We really don't know what to do in a modern era where a person gets this notion and

it doesn't take many of them to dominate the news, right? It's a very rare thing, but it's enough to make us afraid to change our society, to change what happens on airplanes and at schools and everywhere else. So, you know, sorry, I don't have a great answer, but I think grappling with that truth, I think, is something that we have to start doing. Yeah. but I think grappling with that truth I think is something that we have to start doing. That is an ISIS goal, right? That is what these terrorists are trying to do. By definition, terrorism is trying to

have a political purpose and to make a political statement or change through violence. And also make us talk about this for a couple days and make us scared and make it into a political issue and make it into a divisive issue, right? Like, that's part of the strategy, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, Al-Qaeda was a lot more of an organization that had, like, command and control structures that were based out of the Fatah, which is the area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, or Yemen or various places where they would plot and plan and send people to flight school and coordinate these massive attacks like 9-11. The power of ISIS is they have figured out how to take what was sort of a

religious, theological-based extremism and make it this totally different thing, which is like adventurism, like come to Syria and fight and be a hero, that kind of bullshit. And countering that kind of propaganda has proven to be difficult, if not impossible, because we, you know, ISIS took a whole bunch of territory in Iraq and Syria and had these major victories in places like Raqqa, and we've taken it all back. And despite those territorial losses, they've taken zero hit in terms of their PR, their propaganda. They seem sort of impervious to it. So something about the strategy needs to be fixed. It's not working. The thing that, you know, you

say their goal is to make us talk about it and freak out. And this is, I think, both a sad statement and sort of a statement about resilience is like people in New York just like went back out on the streets I mean we're like getting I mean this is hard to say but we're getting good at this or at least like it used to be you know a white person goes into a school and

you know shoots people up that you know like that is treated one way but then if a Muslim or it has some connection to terror, then it becomes this national security issue as opposed to the story of this one disillusioned individual. I think we are, as a society, our response to terror at home is getting more proportionate. That's not the Trump response or even the cable news response, but even the cable news response is getting more reasonable in that area.

Yeah, it seems like our response needs to mirror what we hope a leader's response would be, right? And it's not to try to go back at Trump and further this sort of fight, right? Because it just, I don't know, I don't think, like, getting onto his level and going back and forth with him,

it seems like that's sort of playing into the goals of the terrorist attack in the first place. There is something, though, I would say about calling out the hypocrisy. So when he says extreme vetting, and then you have Manafort, who had three passports and ten applications, you're like,

Vet your own people, buddy. It's like a little... Not a lot of vetting, man. You're like, I don't know. But tell me, I wanted to know, I don't think of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but do you think, I mean that, that's like a serious disclaimer.

Do you think that the guy who ran the car, do you think that he really left a note that was like, hello, I am ISIS, and yelled, aloo Akbar, before he, like, that seems very convenient for this narrative. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it is convenient, and I think you need eyewitness accounts to confirm these things.

But what's crazy is these organizations, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, they have magazines they release. Like, one of them, one early one that I remember. Do they know print is dying? Yeah. They're pivoting the video. Weird joke. There was one that was called How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,

which was all about using a crock pot or a pressure cooker, and that's what the Boston bombers made their thing off of. Oh, wow. The latest ISIS magazine talked about running people down with trucks. So usually the weird thing about ISIS is they don't take credit unless you're dead, and we don't really know why yet. So they haven't owned this guy, maybe because they don't want to, like,

dime him out to the cops, although I think he's kind of done on that front. But maybe it's because he didn't complete his mission. So you're right. It is, like, I don't know. It's weird that these patterns repeat themselves, but in some part it's because there's this loose training. And Guantanamo?

Guantanamo's a shit show. Yeah, well, let's get to that part because the other response from Trump was, he attacked the judiciary. He said, what we have now is a joke, and it's a laughingstock. He called for the suspect to be tried in Guantanamo. Then he reversed himself this morning and said that actually he should be tried in federal court. And then in two different tweets, called for the death penalty in all capital letters. Why is it, aside from just, you know, horrific to see that,

why is it, like, dangerous, Trump, both attacking the judiciary and calling for the death penalty in this case? This is so stupid, and it really pisses me off. And I want to say, like, on the scale of, like, reasonable to stupid, Lindsey Graham and John McCain are in the further stupid, like, Trump's over here. Because what these guys want is they want terror suspects, including someone who had permanent status in the U.S., came in, had a green card, to be named an unlawful enemy combatant and to be tried in a military tribunal down in Gitmo. Now, Gitmo came to be in 2001 after 9-11, and they had to establish this system of justice

called military tribunals, which is completely ad hoc. It has gotten chipped away at in court. Initially, they allowed coerced testimony, i.e. torture, to be admitted, which is inadmissible in federal courts. Meanwhile, you have federal courts which have tried terrorists for decades, if not hundreds of years.

The Southern District of New York has case law upon case law upon case law and a record of putting bad guys away. They've tried, I think, I can't remember, 300 or 600 since 9-11, and only three have been tried in military commissions or successfully sentenced. You're talking about 87% of all terrorists post 9-11 have gone to jail. 100% of ISIS cases have gone to jail, which is, that's almost unnervingly successful. So the notion that our courts aren't tough enough to deal with terrorists is so stupid.

It's so hackish. It's so political. It's actually, it goes against all the values that we think make us better than the bad guys in the first place. I'll get off my soapbox about this now. It's also just, it's a reminder too that there were pathologies that preceded Trump. And part of what makes Trump dangerous is not just who he is, but the people around him. Because even the Republicans who are ostensibly the ones who are standing up to Trump, people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, they have a deeply strange authoritarian impulse on this issue, which they have had since 9-11.

And they haven't learned anything from it. They haven't adjusted their views because of it. They are still in that mindset. And so, you know, when you see a terrorist attack happen on U.S. soil and two U.S. senators, ostensibly defenders of liberty, say, because of this violent act, I want to basically suspend constitutional rights and get these people to an island in the Caribbean, it's scary because we've been through worse things before. And we know how Trump reacts to an event in which several people are killed. God help us if there's an event where terrorists are even more successful because we won't have the anti-Trump Republicans as allies in that moment. I'm not someone to tell Trump how to do his job.

But I'm just saying that if I were Donald Trump, if I were under federal investigation, if my campaign chair had been indicted and my son-in-law was turning over documents, I'm not sure I'd be calling for a swifter, more punitive justice system. I don't know where that's going to end up. Also, I mean, by the way,

him calling for the death penalty makes it less likely that this guy actually gets convicted because it's a defense attorney's dream to now be able to say that the jury pool is tainted and he can't get a fair trial because the president of the United States has already weighed in and called for the death penalty. And let's remember what happened last time Donald Trump called for death penalty with the Central Park Five all those years ago, and then they were innocent. So he doesn't have a great track record of calling death penalty. Well, we've gotten so used to Donald Trump tweeting about ongoing investigations that, like, it's now just sort of not even the worst thing he does on a daily basis. But that's completely crazy, right? The standard thing a Democrat or Republican president would say, I'm not going to comment on an active investigation.

I'm not going to interfere with the work of the Justice Department. These are standard issue phrases. These are things that aren't the hard part of the communications meeting. I didn't know that when my campaign chair showed up with a fucking eye mask and cash and bags of money with dollar signs on it or

Papadopoulos was hired through LinkedIn Ben Carson's like he got his job through LinkedIn you're like what lied about the model UN on his resume dude such a clown lying about the model UN on his resume. Dude, come on. Such a clown.

Lying about the model UN. Who does that? Okay, so other big news today. House Republicans finally released detailed tax legislation. And it sucks. Wait. Have you read the bill? We have talked about the hissing.

This is having the opposite effect you want. I love it. Oh, shut this thing down. I like that you guys can just blow past it. It's fine. All right, so here's what we got. One trillion in tax cuts to big corporations, 200 billion to super wealthy heirs like the Trump kids,

300 billion to hedge fund managers, investors, and other individuals. Most working and middle-class families get a small tax break. Their taxes will go up on about 8 million Americans. Many small businesses get no tax break. And the bottom 35% of Americans get no additional tax breaks.

Oh, and by the way, this destroys the deficit. Brittany, you want to start us off here? You on board? She likes it. I mean, I'm so excited. You know, it occurs to me that if you want to design a system to keep certain people out, you fill it with language and concepts and understandings that require no less than a PhD in economics to get it. And then make sure that the people you want to suffer don't get a quality education in the first place. So when I looked at this, what I'm most afraid of is folks skipping right past it.

Because despite how expensive it is to be poor in this country, when you don't have any money, you have a lot of anxiety around it. And so our advocacy efforts are going to be harmed by the fact that folks are not going to want to touch this, even though it deeply affects many of us. And so I think our responsibility is to demystify this thing, actually use accessible language that we talk about often in social justice movements, and make sure that whether it's in the New York Times or on a website, people actually know how this is going to affect them and what they can do about it. That's such a good point because we were all talking about

this today as we were preparing for this. We're like, how do we talk about how many tax brackets go into three and simplification and the alternative minimum tax? I was like, no one knows what the fuck any of this is. But it would be one of the most massive transfers of wealth back to very, very wealthy people. And it's not just that rich people get the tax cut. It's what the poor and the working class and middle class people lose as a result. And when you think about this tax cut costs $1.5 trillion. When you think about what we can invest in with $1.5 trillion, you know, universal

pre-K, early childhood education, solar energy all over the country, infrastructure, was it? A boat for the Koch brothers. A plane for Jared and America. Eric and Don Jr.'s inheritance. Hair plugs for, yeah. DeRay, what do you think about,

like how do we get people to care about something ostensibly boring and dry like tax policy? How do we get people excited about this? There are three things when I think about this. The first is that it was originally called the cut, cut, cut plan. I think it's hilarious. I forgot about that.

I think that that is just like ridiculous. It's too good. The second thing, the second and third things are a little more serious. The second is that our earned income tax credit is actually the single biggest cash assistance that we give to low-income people in this country, significantly more than what you call welfare. So welfare and food stamps are two different things.

Food stamps is an entitlement. So anybody who qualifies for food stamps, they just get it, like the government will give it to you. But welfare, which is cash assistance to poor people, is now a block grant in the country. The dollar amount has not changed since the 90s, same dollar amount. So when the money goes, people are just screwed. So way more people benefit

from the earned income tax credit in this country, like poor people do. The challenge is that you have to actually earn money to benefit from the tax credit. Like that's sort of how it works. So people who make no wages actually are screwed anyway. So that's like one thing to remember about why the tax code is really important to low-income people. The third thing, though,

is that what they are actually trying to do in the brackets, the collapsing of the brackets is actually not, like that in and of itself isn't going to be a huge problem necessarily for people. It is the corporate tax cut, like the 35% to 20% single biggest tax cut to corporate taxes we've ever seen, is that what the goal is, is to lower the amount, which is going to decrease the amount of revenue, but spending is going to stay the same. So what they're going to do in a couple of years is come back and just say, we can't afford social welfare. So that's like the long-term plan. So like, what you really need to know is like, the cuts are going to total a lot. Spending is going to stay flat. And then they're going to

say, we can't afford Head Start. We can't afford food stamps, we can't afford any of this stuff, because that's how they're going to say we have to balance the budget. And that is actually the danger with the tax code. Yeah. Exactly. T-off, love it. T-off. It's similar to what they were trying to do on healthcare, right? Which is, there are diffuse harm to many, many, many, many people, and then the benefits are acute and accrue to very few people. You know, they're calling it a $1.5 trillion tax

cut, but of course it'll actually cost much more because inside of it, right, they eliminate the estate tax, but not for a few years. Why do they do that? Because they don't want to tell you what it would really cost to eliminate the estate tax, which is much, much more if you do it right away. So you hide that cost. You know, they talk about cutting the mortgage deduction. They talk about cutting deductions for medical benefits, for student loans, for state and local deductions for people that live in cities and states like California, New York and Connecticut and New Jersey, which happen to all be places where Democrats are in the majority. But they do all this, and then what do they do with the money? They give it all, virtually all of it, to the people that need it least. But beyond that,

it's not just robbing from everybody to give it to the rich. They're robbing from the future. Because if this were to become law, that $1.5 trillion would balloon once you got past the first 10 years. And so, to DeRay's point, it's about making the government smaller, far into the future, so that they come back and say there's no money for healthcare.

You know, one thing that was interesting that's not in there, right? Donald Trump's been talking about closing the carried interest loophole, which is a benefit for people at hedge funds. And it's just not in there. It's like, well, why is it not in there? Could it have something to do with the fact that every fucking person working on this

plan worked at Goldman Sachs? It's, um... I mean, it does, it strikes me that some of the work we have to do is expose the lie at the heart of this plan, which was dutifully written up by most of the media that covered it

today, which is that Republicans have been saying, oh, the reason we're cutting taxes is because it is going to spur economic growth and create jobs, and that growth and those jobs are going to help the middle class and working class and the poor, and that's why we want to do this. They're not saying we want to do this because we want to give tax cuts to our rich friends, because that's why we want to do this. They're not saying we want to do this because we want to give tax cuts to our rich friends because that's not popular. So they have to hide it behind this lie. But how do we start exposing that? Dan, what do you think? I think this is probably the easiest

political sales job we will have. This is not popular. There is no constituency for this. Trump's voters do not think that corporations need a big tax cut. The reason they supported Trump is he said he was going to raise taxes on the wealthy. He was going to tax hedge fund owners. And so, like, this is something that is popular in one place only, and that is in Paul Ryan's little head.

And so we just have to go out and say, you know, do you think millionaires and billionaires should get a tax cut? Do you think corporations should get a tax cut or should you get a tax cut, right? And one of the challenges is the media is, there are a lot of very good economics in the weeds reporters who really get into the detail. But the general narrative the Republicans try to tell you is, of course the rich get a tax cut because they pay the most taxes. Like as if that is some like fait accompli that it has to happen.

And that's not true. You can very easily just pass a middle-class tax cut. If you think the middle class needs a tax cut, do that and pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthiest. That's like... The reason why they don't do that, the first... Donald Trump ran for president saying he was going to fund it himself. He wouldn't have any donors. He was completely full of shit.

He is bought and sold by the Mercer family. He's bought and sold by the Mercer family. He's bought and sold by the Mercer family. He was a bunch of hundred millionaire billionaires that fund a bunch of white nationalists like Breitbart. The Koch brothers are all in on Mike Pence, right? And lo and behold, what a surprise that the tax cut that they put forward overwhelmingly benefits those people.

The only people that want an estate tax cut are people that will use it to buy another mega yacht or whatever it is. Like, that's the only constituency for this. And yet, it would have a massive impact on our deficit, on all our spending priorities, and everything we care about. I mean, look at the lengths they're going to, right? Like, they're all aware, they're in this vice, right? Because they have to keep it under 1.5 trillion for budgetary rules, right? Otherwise, they can't pass the Senate. And they're ringing it, where are we going to get the money? Oh, maybe we'll get it from the mortgage deduction, and oh, maybe we'll find money over here, or maybe we'll find money over there. But one thing that

has never been able to come out of this is the inheritance tax repeal, which is for the absolute richest of rich people in this country. It helps virtually no one but that is that is immovable that can't come out that can't change it must be in there because this is what they paid for this is what they bought but this goes back to your point about ideologies predating this administration yeah you know we talk often on pod say to the people about the myth of meritocracy and this idea that if you are uber rich you somehow are there and in your circumstance because you work harder than farmers and school teachers and firefighters and all of the rest of us. That is the lie that Donald, you know, well, the chief sexual harasser sold on his

show, right? That is the myth that he sold on The Apprentice. So this is an idea that we've been filling America with for a long time. They're dependent on that ideology to pursue this thing. And I would just piggyback off that and say that I'm reminded in this moment that white people are the biggest beneficiaries of government assistance that the country has ever seen. That white wealth

literally was created by the government. And when you think about things like the median wealth gap or the median income for black people in 20 years is going to be zero dollars. It's going to be zero. And in 20 years after that like the median wealth gap or the median income for black people in 20 years is going to be zero dollars. It's going to be zero. And in 20 years after that, the median wealth for Hispanics is going to be zero. And like you look back, you think about government assistance. It's like we made the middle class out of thin air. Like literally there was like no middle class and we like made it, which was only white. And then you think about things like this,

when you think about like the tax code, these tax tax cuts, that is redistributing wealth in a different way that we don't talk about often. But that is government assistance. This is quintessential government assistance for white people in a way that would be never done for people of color ever in this country. And Brittany, to your point, the Koch brothers tell people that they're self-made men,

but they inherited $680 million. It's like Donald Trump inherited like a... Do you know how self-made men, but they inherited $680 million. It's like Donald Trump inherited... Do you know how self-made I would be? You could be so made. You could do... These would be real Chanel shoes instead of the fake ones. No, but to your point, Dre, too,

it's like there was a story two days ago, the Reuters story, about coal miners here in Pennsylvania. And it's this really sad story about all these coal miners, and a lot of them voted for Donald Trump. And they're sitting around, and they still don't have jobs,

and they still don't think that the coal industry is coming back. But they're sitting there, and they're like, well, Donald Trump promised that this industry would come back. And so I'm still waiting, and I'm waiting for coal to come back,

and I think it's going to happen. And what has he given them? So far he's tried to take their healthcare away and cut taxes for really rich people that will give benefits that they'll never see in their lifetime. I think there's one part of that story that you forget

which is many of these coal miners have been offered retraining. It's training in new industries and they are turning it down because Donald Trump told them their jobs were going to come back. That is wild. So there are consequences. This is like, we're all like,

Donald Trump lies, it's fine. Somebody need to call the coal miners. We need to call the coal miners. But this is what happens when you don't base the promise off of what you can do for people, but you base the promise off of who you can keep out, right? Right, that's right. So your job is going to come back because we're going to keep all the Mexicans out of the country,

and we're going to jail all the black folks, and we're going to detain all the immigrants, and we're going to make sure anybody from a country where people are remotely brown cannot come in. Like, the promise was not built on, here's what I'm going to do for you. The promise was built on, I'm going to keep us as white as possible. Right. That's right. And that's really important for another reason, too, because it's not just that he said that, but it's also that it was effective. And why was it effective? Well, in part, you know, there's this incredible amount of mistrust. There's a ton of racial animus. But there's also striation in our culture and yawning inequality and the benefits of growth accruing to the upper echelons of our society while the

people below that in the middle class and the working class and the poor haven't seen any of the benefits. And to look at that situation, a massive problem that has to do with huge forces in our economy from globalization and automation and trade and technology and all the rest and say, oh, I have a solution. We want to create a permanent aristocracy that can pass down unlimited amounts of money from generation to generation. It's incredibly dangerous. There's no reason we can't slip into having that kind of a powerful, wealthy aristocracy at the top of our country. The Mercers are using their money and have a greater voice in our system than any one of us. These wealthy families are using that money to accrue greater and greater power. So,

you know, this kind of a tax bill, it's not just going to hurt people. It is dangerous. It will tear at the fabric of our society. That's all. So we're a no on the tax bill? I was going to say. So we're a no. We're bill I was going to say we're a pass I guess my last question on this is what do we say how do we fight this and how do we talk about

what we're for and what we believe you tweeted this the other day which I thought was really smart which is like it's so easy to talk about what we abhor what we hate right but it's much harder to talk about what we abhor, what we hate, right? But it's much harder to talk about what we're for and what we believe in, even though that's the more powerful tool for organizing, right? It is the more powerful tool for organizing. It is how you stitch together

something permanent and lasting instead of something temporary. And quite frankly, that is our advantage over this other side. We often say there are more of us and all of these kinds of things, and those things are true, but their coalition is built on fear. It's built on hatred, which means that our moral high ground is one that will also make us more effective if we decide to come together on what we are about, that we are about truth, that we are about justice, that we are about liberation, that we are about equity for everyone and not for just some people.

And then we'll actually build movements that reflect that. And I'd say concretely, you know, it's important that we have a plan, that we have a plan when we get into power that we can actually enact. Right. That like when we get into power, we're not like scrambling to come up with something that we actually have something. So you think about the Trump just gave $700 billion to the military. It would only take $125 billion to take every single person out of poverty. Like we could do that. A study just came out today that said that the military spends $125 million per day on the military. Like that's, it's never been a question about whether there's money or not. There is money. And you think about

when people talk about things like financial literacy, it's like, we don't need to teach poor people financial literacy. Poor people know how to manage their money better than everybody in the middle class because they have to, right? So it's like, what does it mean to have financial literacy when you don't have assets? It's that we gave white people assets across the country. So what if we took those communities that we redlined and we drew green lines around them, right? And just like invested in those people. You know, the post office used to be a bank in the country up until the 70s. Like, and that was really important because the post office gave out loans and it stopped the banking desert. It's like, we could do those things again and we could do them for

everybody in a way that would actually build equity and asset for people. The fact that we didn't do that, the fact that we didn't do that is why a white college dropout has the same amount of wealth as a black college graduate. To put it in clear perspective for folks. Say it one more time. A white college dropout has the same amount of wealth as a black college graduate. So again, meritocracy in this country is a myth. If you remember nothing else when you leave

here, please be evangelists of that message. But, and it's because that's the result of everything that you're talking about. You know, we talked previously about juveniles getting sentences without the possibility of parole, right? So you get life without parole, but you get sentenced when you're a young person. There are three states that contribute two-thirds of young people to that situation. Pennsylvania is one of them. So when we talk about what you can do, it is literally right in front of you. It is not something that you have to travel out of state to do. It's not something that you have to go earn a PhD in.

There's something you can do about it right in your community. Excellent. you can do about it right in your community. Excellent. Wouldn't be a news panel if we didn't get to talk a little bit about Russia. So, on the heels of the Mueller indictments, executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter appeared on Capitol Hill for the first time on Tuesday

to publicly acknowledge their role in Russia's influence on the presidential campaign. And on Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee released a selection of Facebook and Instagram political ads that were bought by the Russians and seen by nearly 150 million Americans over the course of the election. We also found out that Twitter offered Russia TV 15% of the company's ad share during the election, so that's not great. Blot. Dan, you tweeted that there's a real contradiction between Facebook saying

Russian ads had no impact and Facebook also telling brands to spend millions of dollars on Facebook ads. Talk a little bit about that. Facebook has had, I mean, Facebook is a proxy for all the other groups here, but this is, Facebook is the most important internet company in the world, right? It is, Facebook is the internet for millions of Americans. That is where they get their news. That's where they have a keep with friends and family. And so their role in this is more important than anyone else. It's more important than Twitter. It's more important than Google's or anyone else. And like they have been unwilling throughout this process to come to terms with the role they played. First it's nothing happened. Then only a little bit happened, but it didn't matter. And the question, and so what they try

to argue now is, yeah, all these things happened. Tens of millions of people saw them. It was a problem. But there's no evidence it influenced the election, which is, it's kind of a moot point. The election happened. The Russians interfered. So what we have to do is figure out how to stop it. And if they can't come to terms with the role they play, then we're just going to have this happen again in 2018, in 2020. And the thing that I think is the hardest question here that they won't address is we can talk, the ad problem is, you know, where you have these international entities buying ads, that is probably a solvable problem. But the bigger problem is, you know, where you have these international entities buying ads, that is probably a solvable problem. But the bigger problem is, and the one they won't address and did not really come up in

this hearing, is the role, the entire way the algorithm that Facebook has set up to reinforce some of the, you know, most controversial views and just sort of, like, bombard people with those views and kind of create these bubbles around it. And that is the fact, that is what Russia, and not just Russia, but also Breitbart and others have taken advantage of, that Facebook really needs to come to terms with. Yeah. Tommy, what do you think we should do about this? Because this obviously goes beyond, Dan's right, it does go beyond Facebook. It seems like the central question of 2016 and after the Russian influence campaign that we haven't really grappled with is,

what do we do in this country to fight propaganda? And, you know, probably more damaging propaganda than anything the Russians paid for is, you know, Trump's media empire, Robert, you know, Murdoch's media empire, the Mercer's media empire, right? Like there's so much money behind so much propaganda. And it seems like if our essential goal is to persuade others to build a movement together, then the first thing we have to do is start combating this propaganda. Yeah. I don't have an answer. It's going to get way worse. I mean, if you think some stupid meme

of like Hillary arm wrestling Jesus is a problem, wait until there's a fake video of Barack Obama swearing allegiance to ISIS that uses artificial intelligence that looks so realistic that it's not just like your grandma that believes it, it's your friends. And they start to say, did you see that thing? Did Barack Obama swear allegiance to ISIS? You have to be like, no, he didn't. Um, so it's going to get worse. And it's also like you have a, you have a growing, the growing industry on the right is hate speech, Breitbart, Milo, these people that foment like tribalism and anger and fear is like, that's their product. That's what they're selling so i i don't know i mean i would love to like dan said i'd love to see we shouldn't beat down totally on these

tech companies because like they're not the reason hillary lost but they screwed up and their utter inability to admit it to show up to try to fix things in a more concerted way, it's infuriating. And they're going to get themselves regulated far more than they would have if they just played nice and tried to do something proactive. Yeah, you know, it's hard because I think part of the problem here is user error.

But that, and it has to do with how people use Facebook and how people use Twitter and how people watch Fox News and go to Breitbart and read what they want to read and share what they want to share and believe what they want to believe.

You know, Russia can come in and spend money and 100 million people can see dumb Facebook ads that confirm their biases and their racism and their misguided notions of who's evil and who's not, but I feel like the deeper question is what left us as such a

brittle and ignorant bunch that we were so able to be susceptible to this? I think so when I sat and looked at that, I think TechCrunch published a lot of the actual ads that were used. And it would be easy, I think, to go where you're going if all of the ads were just patently racist and problematic. But some of them were in support of things that I actually believe in, right? Like, the Russians are playing chess. They are not playing checkers.

They are... For cheap, too. For cheap. They didn't spend a lot of money. Right, like, for pennies on the dollar. Yes. So, right? I mean, it was, like, ads for fake BLM meetings. And, you know, Bernie is the real liberal,

and all of these, the leveraging of wedge issues between folks, but sometimes on the side that actually we stand on. Well, it seems like they did a mix. The lion's share was anti-Clinton, but they like to throw some in to stir the pot, and there was one story. This was the craziest story.

I was going to ask you about this story because as an organizer, what do you do about this? Two Russian Facebook pages organized dueling rallies in front of an Islamic center in Houston. One was called Stop the Islamification of Texas, and the other one was called Save Islamic Knowledge. The protesters actually showed up, and two groups escalated into confrontation, verbal attacks. So this, like, it spilled into real life. And how do we organize against that? They try to do that in Baltimore as well. And in Minneapolis, which is like totally wild.

You know, we met with Sheryl Sandberg probably two weeks ago. And then I just had a conversation with the VP of policy over at Facebook in advance of the congressional hearings. And I think that they are going to launch, I think that we're going to see some growth in the way they think about safety on the platform. I think they'll be announcing something soon. So like we should look out for that. I do think there's something about the private accounts that they've not figured out. So they're like private Instagram accounts have like 200,000 followers that are like hate accounts. And they have an algorithm that like is predicated on people reporting it. But it's like, how do you report a private account? It's like, you don't just like you don't, you don't report the like

secret Facebook pages. I think they haven't figured that out. I think they're messaging around the the like we don't know if it everybody looked at it like that's sort of what they're saying right is They're like 150 million people, but there are three trillion posts, and you're like that's not a good talking point. You know like More people were exposed to this than people that voted which is wild even if I cut it in half That's still like a lot of the electorate you know what I mean the thing that I've been thinking about too Is that like, oh, but you know, there was, there's Infowars and there's Breitbart and there's what Fox News is doing. And then there's what the Russians are doing. And it's not really coordinated. It's all kind of crazy, but noise doesn't need to be coordinated, right? The truth would like, you'd like to see the truth be coordinated, right? The

truth should, the truth should make sense with other truths, but the crazy, throwing the crazy out there, you can throw all kinds of noise and stuff and create static and make people distracted and make people confused. So they don't need to work together. Because, you know, when someone's like, oh, did the Facebook thing make a difference?

Or did Breitbart make a difference? Like, I don't know. But the entire 2016 election was conducted in just a fog of bullshit. And I think one of the hardest parts about it is, you know, there's this belief that, oh, good politics, good policy makes good politics. Like, oh, the ads can be misleading and Fox News has propaganda, but the system works, right?

The two candidates get out there and they go head to head and they fight it out. Well, maybe we need to face the fact that that's not actually true right now, that the wind is so much against us that if we don't take steps to safeguard our democracy right now, we may not have one for much longer. And this is why, this I will say is why I struggle with the Russia conversation in isolation. Because you know what else made a difference in this election? Thousands of young people of color going to polls in North Carolina and being turned away. Yeah, in Wisconsin. Folks who've returned home from being incarcerated and don't have the right to vote. I mean, gerrymandering in Wisconsin, right? Shelby County.

Like, all of these things make me know that elections have never been free and fair in this country, especially for folks who look like me. So don't ever let anybody talk about Russia without talking about voter disenfranchisement. But that's the exact point, which is why Facebook's argument is sort of, it was 70,000 votes or so over three states that decided this election. So don't tell me something is not at all responsible.

Everything is responsible for this in some way. And they bought ads over three years, which I think is the more impressive thing. The Russians really were playing the long game here in a way that people really didn't get until too late. That's right. Hello, it is me, Joe America. I'm here to buy... The Russians really were playing the long game here in a way that people really didn't get until too late. That's right. Hello, it is me, Joe America.

I'm here to buy... I start the organization. It is called Texas for Free America, and it's a very real group. Very pro-America group. I buy ads. I make Bernie look handsome. Anti-Hillary. It's good. You jumped into that really good.

He really did, yeah. He's been practicing. Alright, when we come back, Brittany and Dan will be interviewing Democratic candidate for the 6th District, Chrissy Houlihan. Alright, I have a card here because our next guest's resume is so impressive. So we're going to interview Chrissy Houlihan who is running to represent the 6th district here in Pennsylvania. It is held by a Republican. That's not good. She earned her engineering degree from Stanford with a ROTC scholarship and her master's in tech and policy from MIT. Impressive. She served as captain in the U.S. Air Force.

This is a personal niche issue for me, but she was also the COO of N1 basketball. Please welcome Chrissy Houlihan. Chrissy, thank you for joining us. Pleasure. And thank you for running for office. Absolutely. And as I went through your very impressive and voluminous resume, there's no politics on there. But you're now running for office.

Tell us how you came to decide to do that. So in a million years, I would have never expected to be here in this crowd or even in the audience a year ago. But I was basically compelled to be sitting here with you as a result of our most recent election. And as you mentioned, you know, my career has been, in my opinion, one of service in one form or another over the course of the last 30 years of my adult life. I've been trying to serve either in the military

or by growing businesses from small to big, or lastly with Teach for America by helping teach, yeah, TFA, helping teach chemistry, and finally by scaling an organization that focuses on early childhood literacy. And so that was my path towards helping our nation and our community over the first 30 years of my life. And I really felt like I was doing my part. And I honestly felt like our government was doing its part too, although slowly and not in the right direction sometimes. But that all changed at about 9.30 at night on November 8th,

as many of us remember, especially here in Philadelphia when Pennsylvania fell and the map turned red. And that was sort of that sickening wake-up call that many of us felt that we were in danger. So, Chrissy, we were talking backstage, and you said that the hardest job you've ever had was being an 11th grade chemistry teacher. And I looked at you and I was like, but girl, you were in the army. Air force. Air force. I'm sorry. Even scarier. So tell me what is going to be instructive from your time in the classroom for how you want to govern, not just how you want to run, but how you want to govern. What lessons are you taking from your time teaching and from your students as you go into

this work? Well, I think the realization that I had while I was teaching was what I wanted to have, you know, the experience of, which is what is it that's endangering our nation the most? And right now what I saw, particularly in the classroom, was that our children can't read. And so the idea, which is terrifyingly true. So the idea that I'm trying to teach 11th grade kids something like chemistry with the reading skills in third or fourth grade was a real eye-opener for me in terms of what we needed to do to help our nation develop the right kind of skills for the kind of jobs of tomorrow. And the first thing we need is to be able to read before we can do anything else

or expect anything else of our children. The other thing that I learned, and I've learned this throughout my career, is the importance of diversity and the importance of making sure that you're able to work with all kinds of people. And I think that's part of why I'm compelled to run for Congress. I'm very hopeful to bring some diversity to Congress. And for those of you who don't know, Pennsylvania is the largest state in congressional delegation in the country that has no women. None, not even one. And so I'm hoping to change that particular diversity issue. I'm also, frankly, hoping to change the fact

that there's only one of those 18 who are STEM professionals, one of them who are veterans, exactly. So we have a real dearth of people who've never educated, never served, never understood something like STEM and aren't, frankly, women involved in our government right now. And that's a problem. And what do you think is the benefit of women leading? I mean, I have my opinions,

but I'd love to know yours. I think, honestly, it's similar to veterans, to be terribly honest. I think that one of the things that veterans do very well is they work collaboratively. They work in teams. They don't work in terms of red versus blue or R's and D's

or left and right. I think women are similar that way too. And for particularly the part of our country where we sit, where the red meets the purple, we can't afford to be partisan and we can't afford to be divisive. And I think women are quite good at that. As a veteran, I wanted to get your response to something that happened in Washington last week. Maybe that was this week. Time is blending together. Time is a flat circle these days. Every day is a year.

General Kelly went out and gave a press conference where he talked very solemnly about the experience of losing his son. He also criticized Congressman Frederick Wilson in ways that were a misrepresentation of what she actually said. And when the White House was actually lied, yes, when the White House was asked, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked to respond to questions about, you know, General Kelly's

lies, she said, basically said, you cannot question a general on these matters. And I want to get, as a veteran, get a response to that sort of attitude about how we think about the military. Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons why I'm so compelled to run is that I'm really worried about truth, you know, in our country right now, and this sort of blurriness and the truthiness of the world coming from the top is really concerning and alarming.

And so I think that we deserve and respect the truth from all levels of our government, and we deserve an armed forces and services that we can respect and admire. And so I will leave it at that in terms of what I believe our armed services should represent for us. So, let's clap it up for that. So I heard this set of questions asked together yesterday, and I want to extend them to you as well. What in the last week or so has brought you to tears, and what has brought you hope? I have enormous hope. I think that the, I heard a statistic from Emily's List, which is an organization that I've been active

with, a terrific organization, that at this point in time, last cycle, last election cycle, and I'm learning to talk like that, 900 women had approached Emily's list and said they were interested in considering running for office of any form. I don't have, which is fantastic, right? But I don't have recent statistics meaning like last week forward. But this time now, 18,000 women across the country, 20,000, have indicated their interest in running. And so that's, for me, remarkably hopeful.

You know, every day, as you mentioned, I wake up with a different reason to run and a different appalling thing that has happened in our country that makes me kind of get up and answer the bell every single day. And every one of those days, I feel a little bit of despair. But I also feel as though there's just this enormous answer of the call, whether we're writing postcards or whether we're making phone calls or knocking doors or coming to an event like this on a night when we could be out somewhere else. Those are things that we're all doing to act and to take our nation back. So we wanted to get your reaction to the Republican tax plan that was

put out today. We don't know, I think, yet whether your potential opponent, Congressman Costello, will support it, but it seems likely given his past record. So have you had a chance to think about that bill? Yeah, and you know it's a moving target, and so I will caveat it by saying that, but I absolutely think that there should be some tax reform, but I absolutely do not think that the kind of tax reform that's on the table right now to the points that you guys made is the kind of tax reform that we need in terms of helping the middle class,

in terms of helping small businesses, in terms of helping the lowest and smallest of us. I think it's absolutely the exact opposite of where we ought to go. And I would encourage my representative to vote against it as it currently stands. See, there's something we didn't necessarily get to when we were discussing the tax plan is how much worse it can be for people in marginalized circumstances, right?

So if you're already low income, if you're in that 35%, that's not going to see any benefit from this tax plan. And you're a person of color or you're an immigrant immigrant, or you are disabled, etc., etc., etc., those things hit you even harder. You talked earlier about the importance of diversity, but right now we hear a lot of people calling diversity identity politics, and deriding it, and telling us that we need to move that off of the table and talk about other more important things. What's your reaction to that, and how would you approach that?

So one of the things that we didn't have a chance to talk about is, in addition to the background that I bring to the table, the reason why I decided to run for office has to do a lot with the diversity that's in my family. And the diversity in my family isn't apparent visually. My oldest daughter is a member of the LGBTQ community, and the day after the election for the next week after the election she wouldn't leave our home she was so worried for her community

and for what we had just said as a nation and similarly my dad although he's a career naval officer he also is a holocaust survivor and after the election he was equally and literally in tears undone about what we had also just done

and said about the opportunities that were provided to people like him as a refugee and the opportunities that would no longer potentially be provided to people like him and, frankly, people not like him. And so that was sort of one of the revelations that I had as a white person, a woman, that I knew that I could move through this world in some ways very invisibly and not be worried for my safety and for the safety of my family. Same with my daughter and frankly, same with my dad. And the idea that they were so undone and that I was so worried as well really was an indicator that if I'm this worried and if they're this worried, think about people

who really are marginalized and who really are concerned about everyday things that I don't have to walk out of the house worrying about, like visually different things or spiritually different things. And so that was one of the reasons why I decided to really throw my hat in, because I really feel like that that is a good representation of the things we ought to be alarmed about. Everyone deserves equal opportunity in this country. So you're a first-time politician. You've been on the campaign trail for seven months now, I guess? Seven months, almost exactly. And so this is a district that has been Republican, but it's pretty purple and it's very winnable. What have you learned in those seven months about

how the people of the 6th District are feeling in the early days of this new era? Well, there's an enormous amount of energy in the 6th Congressional. And to give you guys some perspective where we sit, the 6th actually goes roughly, it's Montgomery County, Chester County, Lebanon County, and Wayne. Yeah, I'm sorry, and Berks. Some of your people are out here. My peeps. It starts roughly in Wayne, and it runs all the way to Redding. And so it snakes across the southe know, southeastern, western Pennsylvania area in this enormously gerrymandered, convoluted way. So we are a really interesting group of people.

Four counties, two red, two blue, two that are pretty suburban and two that are pretty urban, I mean rural. And it's a really complicated diversity of people in that community. But to a person, I think they're all energized and activated. I think that there's an enormous amount of energy that I've certainly never seen in the 25 years I've lived in my community to really get involved, like Civics 101 involved in everything that we're doing. Well, that's really great to hear. Chrissy, thank you so much. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you, guys. Now for a segment called Okay Stop.

Here's how it works. We watch a clip. As it goes, when it suits us, we say okay stop and we stop and we talk about it. On Monday, during the premiere of a new show called The Ingram Angle on Fox News... Jesus Christ. That is so bad. The angle is terrible. White House chief of staff John Kelly spoke highly of

Confederate General Robert E. Lee and attributed the origin of the Civil War to a lack of compromise. You guys have heard of this one? On Tuesday... On Tuesday, on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued with reporter April Ryan over his comments.

Let's watch the clip. The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. Okay, stop. Stop. Wait a minute. I blame the schools.

Listen, I grew up in St. Louis, which means that my home is literally the result of the Missouri Compromise. That is not the cause of the Civil War, nor was Northern Aggression, nor was a tweet, which might not be our fate for too much longer. But it's so incredibly

irresponsible for someone with this much power, this large of a platform, who can change things in an instant to just get out there and lie to the American people on something that is so easily proven false. Also, it's like, no, I mean, he's right. The lack of compromise did lead to the Civil War. The lack

of compromise over slavery. He missed the end of that sentence there. Right, not the positioning of our fence, but enslaving human beings. Yes, that's right. When I was a kid in school, I remember in social studies or in history class, there was that moment where we were learning about the Civil War, and I remember the teacher saying, well, actually, it was more complicated. It wasn't about slavery. It was about states' rights and these other forces.

And I remember just sitting there being like, I don't understand. States' rights to all slaves. I don't understand. And that history teacher went on to be Seb Gorka? Just saying. I was like, that's a teacher went on to be Seb Gorka? Just saying. I was like, that's a Gorka. Mr. Gorka.

The states on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand. Last question. Compromise. The issue of compromise. What is the definition of compromise as it relates to slavery and the Civil War? Okay, stop. Just for one second. This is nothing about Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

We just always need to give it up for April Ryan. She is black girl magic personified. She has been sitting in that chair for a long time and has asked a lot of tough questions. I bet you she didn't think she'd ever be asking that though. I'm going to get in and re-litigate the Civil War, like I told you yesterday. Okay, stop. That's exactly what John Kelly just did. Let's re-litigate the Civil War. Also, John Kelly's bad. I think I've addressed the concerns that a lot of people had and the questions that you had and I'm not going to relitigate history here

when you left and I'm going to ask the question again why don't you ask it in the way that you're apparently okay stop you said there were people on both sides who were good at a Klan rally. You defend Confederate monuments, and you pretend like slavery is not the cause of the Civil War.

You don't get to be offended by the question. That's her move, though. Her move is someone that she is responsible for explaining says something despicable, racist, deceptive, or insane. Did I say it twice? Who cares? And then she gets up there and she says, how dare you?

How dare you? How dare you ask me about that? It's my birthday. I'm asking the question seriously. The question is, does this administration believe, does this president believe slavery was wrong? And before you answer, Mary Frances Berry, a historian, said in 1860 there was a compromise. The compromise was to have southern states keep slavery, but the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter that caused the Civil War. And because of the Civil War,

what happened? I think it is disgusting and absurd to suggest that anyone inside of this building would support slavery. Peter. Okay, stop. Is it? Is it really?

That's kind of the problem. It's not. You get a lot of hard questions at that podium. Foreign policy, tax law, some really tricky shit. Is slavery bad is not among those questions. Just say it's bad, lady. That's your whole job. Tell us you think it's bad. Well, it's so, it just says everything that she can't,

like the, the obvious answer is slavery is bad and then you can yell at April Ryan. Right. But in the mindset of Trump world, admitting that slavery is bad

is a loss for them. Exactly. Like, I mean, that is just a fucked up way to live. They suck. I've been editing

my F-bombs the whole time because my parents are in the audience. Hi, Pipers. Hi, Piper. Hi, Slip. When people think about the monuments and stuff, I just think about I don't want any kid I know to ever go to a school

named Donald Trump Elementary School. That just is like a crazy thing. And when she says we can't relitigate the past, it's like we also can't renegotiate history. The reality is that this was about slavery. We know that's true. And we can't go down this path with them every single time no this is pretty much why we shouldn't elect white supremacists it was a good rule before this happened uh it's gonna be a good rule moving forward

so always good to keep in mind. Don't forget the basics. White supremacist back. For homework, you should Google the Cornerstone speech, which is by the vice president of the Confederacy, and he literally says the cornerstone of this administration is based on the fact that the Negro is not equal to the white man. And when I was in the South, I went to the White House of the Confederacy,

which have any of you, did you go? You haven't been. Have any of you been to the White House? Well, they moved it to DC. When you go, they give you, they literally give you cotton when you walk in. And the like, instead of bouquets on like the flower it's like bouquets of cotton and there's this book what's like oh i remember the book oh the book is amazing it's a children's book it's a children's book and it's about the it's about the first family and it's like there's this little black kid and you're like where was the black kid from like where'd that kid come from and they're like we adopted this black kid and it's like you did not adopt that as a slave you did not adopt that black kid and it's this whole story about how they were benevolent and they like really love kids and there's this one black kid

that they adopted and they're like do you want to buy this book you're like no there may or may not be a video somewhere of me reading said book out loud. Very sarcastically. I think they gave it to us as a gift. I feel like that's a future dramatic reading. Yeah, you know, it's for the archives somewhere. Oh, boy. Well, I think we got to the bottom of that. Alright, we have time

for some questions, guys. You guys ask questions that end in question marks and not periods midway through? More questions. Something to think about. True story. Hello. Hi.

Hi. My name is Hillary. I live in Bordentown City, New Jersey. My question is nationwide legislatures have lost Democratic majorities, but New Jersey in 2015 has the largest Democratic majority that they've had in 37 years. And they're looking to get, to increase that majority this year. All 120 seats are up in the legislature. What has New Jersey done right to make these Democratic gains in the legislature? I was going to say, like, have a super unpopular,

have the least popular governor in the nation. That's my answer, I think. Bye, Chris Christie. See you later. Did Chris Christie ever get that local radio job he was after? He did not. That's a shame. Sadly.

Look, I think the one thing that New Jersey has done a good job of, the Democratic Party there has worked very hard to come out of the wilderness in the Christie years, and they ran candidates in just about every race. And you can't win in seats you don't contest. And so you can't create it. Like, it's not, Democrats can't make Chris Christie be an absolute terrible governor. He can do that all on his own. But if you run candidates, you can win seats in that environment.

And it is actually one of the few good news stories that we have in the party. And go vote in New Jersey next Tuesday. Hi, my name is Teresa. I drove up from North Carolina because you're not coming to Charlotte. Just saying. Eventually, we've got a whole year. Fuck Paul Ryan right here. I'm just curious if anybody's going to talk about

Jared and Ivanka since Jared's in a little trouble with his father-in-law. Oh, yeah. Could be. Yeah, we can talk about Jared and Ivanka. Well, there's a couple of reports I think you might be referencing, right? There's the report that he turned over

a bunch of documents to Bob Mueller. But then there's also a report in Vanity Fair that Trump is really pissed off at Jared for being the worst political advisor in history. And that's an on-the-record quote from a former Trump aide. This is the most true thing anyone who works for Trump has ever said.

Yeah, he's right. It's weird that if you hire, you go with nepotism, and you hire incompetent people who married your daughter, it doesn't work out well. An incompetent dilettante who has failed at everything he's done. Right, it's just like, hey, the worst president we've ever elected is looking to fill one of the hardest jobs in the world. It's probably going to be really tough, especially because Trump is president.

Who do we got? Oh, well, we got this kid who bought a building on Fifth Avenue and couldn't make it work. We've seen him live on the Model UN. Weren't you here for Halloween? I was. I was Jared Kushner for Halloween. It was a fun costume to pull off. No, I think he is in trouble because a lot of the reporting suggests that Jared was the one who convinced

or persuaded his father-in-law to fire Jim Comey and obstruct justice. So who knows what will come of that, but it seems like Bob Mueller might have a few questions about that. We'll see. We'll see what happens to our friend, Jared. Hi, I'm

Julia from Wynwood, and I have two beautiful five-year-old twin boys, and I want to know, I asked Dre this question a few months ago, how do I talk to them about race and inequality? They're growing up in a nice neighborhood. I want to make sure that we're raising the next generation of activists, and a plug for a Pod Save the Parents podcast coming soon. Pod Save the Parents. Good. Oh, everybody looks at the resident educator, I guess.

I'd say the most important piece of advice I have is to be honest. Kids know when we are lying to them. They know when we are making something sound better than it is. We are not helping them when we do that. You know, we educate children, whether it's at home or in the classroom, in the context of their community. And if we're not honest about that community, we don't equip them to do anything about it. And then the other thing I would say is to make them feel powerful, right? To do something about it. We can have this woe is me conversation all day long, and there is plenty of woe. And yet, if our young people are not feeling empowered to do something about it, we'll just continue the cycle. So I would remind them that they have the power to

look their friends in the eye, to invite whomever they want over, to treat their friends just like they want to be treated, to learn about them, to ask questions, to be curious, to choose not to judge and to choose to be curious and to love instead. And so, you know, I have no children of my own. Teaching was really great birth control, but I can tell you that class always worked when we were honest and when kids chose to love each other. The only thing I add, and you were elementary school, I was sixth grade, and sixth graders are amazing. Seventh grade is pubertine deodorant, and it is bad. The sixth grade is great. Is that using the stories that kids already have, right?

They are already talking about these things, even if they aren't using the language that we're talking about it with. And using that as a starting point and exploring the world in that way. So you get kids, especially younger kids will say like, oh, they don't look like me or their skin color is different.

And using that as a starting point to talk about race. Too often as adults, we like go heavy down.'re like have you experienced racism they're like what is racism you know whereas it's like you know are your like are your friends different than you what does that different difference look like using those stories as a way to enter into those conversations and validating the fact that all of our kids are storytellers and their stories matter is an important first step. Hi, folks. And love it.

Just kidding. I love you. Love you. My name is Tomal. Do you have a question? I do. I do. What do you think it is? What's your favorite food?

Just kidding. Don't care. I like her. Do you want to be on the food? Just kidding. Don't care. I like her. Do you want to be on the pod? I do, yes, very much so. You're on it now. Sweet. Hi, Mom.

So I live actually right up the street and super excited to be here. My name is Tamar, like tomorrow without the O. My question is a little bit more nitty-gritty, but I work for an organization that is a Title X funded organization, not Title X, but Title 10, which is a family planning federally funded organization. And we know that for every dollar spent on family planning, there's over $7 saved on the back end for not having to pay for unplanned pregnancies and the like. And there's a lot of examples, particularly in public health, where funding on the front end actually saves us a lot of money on the back end.

And so I wonder what you all think about making those cases for folks who are fiscally conservative to support public health, Title X, and other prevention kinds of education and the like to save money, even among those conservatives who maybe aren't on the Trump train, but are willing to support money-saving initiatives? Yeah, I was going to say, you know, I think that's an important part of the argument. I think the good news here is that making an argument in favor of women's health was

one of the key ways in which we managed to defeat the Republican health care bill. And I think that the moral argument to me and the importance of women having control over their own bodies and the access and the right to make those choices, I think that that was really compelling and helped us win that fight. I think on top of that, an argument about the fact that actually family planning is something that saves money, I think is a decent part of it. But to me, the morality of it, I think trumps that because it's important to make both. But Susan Collins is not voting against that bill because she's trying to save money in the out years. She's voting for it because it was one of those lines in the sand that she drew, that Murkowski drew, and that others drew. I also remember when we were trying to pass the Affordable Care Act,

the provision in the Affordable Care Act that said that every insurance plan has to include preventive care was actually one of the more popular provisions, and we talked about it a lot. So it's not just like it saves a lot of money, which is great, but it is a popular provisions, and we talked about it a lot. So it's not just like it saves a lot of money, which is great, but it is a popular argument not just among Democrats, but independents and Republicans, too. So it is something that we probably should emphasize a lot more. Last question. It's a lot of pressure. My name is Josh Campson. I'm actually running for state representative here in Pennsylvania. It's in the 147th district, which is a traditionally Republican district. And you're a Democrat, right?

I am a Democrat. Sneak attack. Before we go to class, I want to know what's going. What was that hissing for? You're out of control. I think they see their opportunities to hiss winning, so they're trying to get them in. I'm just going to assume it wasn't at me. Maybe it was at someone on the stage. I don't know who. So it's a traditionally Republican district,

and one of the things I've encountered when knocking on doors is the tribalism that we talk about. By we, I mean you guys are not on the pod except for right now. That you talk about a lot, which is people have said to me, are you a Democrat? Yes. Oh, I would never vote for a Democrat. And there's no discussion about

policy, there's no discussion about my opponent's voting record, etc. And how do we either bring people into our tribe, for lack of a better term, or break these tribes down so that we're all just voting for what's best and keeping racists out of office?

keeping racists out of office. Anyone want to take it? Sure, I'll start. So, I mean, tribalism is incredibly powerful for us in our politics, and it's getting worse. And one of the challenges now is that people operate in these very closed circles in their lives, right? And for someone to break into that circle, you may need like an escort almost, right? Like if you can't get a, like when you go to the door,

right, and you find this person and they turn you away from the Democrat, but if there is someone who knows both of you who can go in and say yes, but, you know, Josh is a really good guy. He wants to do these good things. He's not like the Democrats that you see on Fox News or whatever. You know, I think that is a thing. It's like we need people, we need almost ambassadors into the other tribe who have credibility. Because if you just show up and like, I'm a Democrat, I'm wearing my friend of the pod shirt, that's probably not going to work. But, you know, it is the validation of someone that they know whose opinion they value who could make them maybe give you a second look after the D besides your name.

To that point, I would think about how tribes actually are a positive thing and where you might have tribes that intersect with that person that you're not leading with. Hi, I'm your neighbor. Hi, I went to high school right around the corner, whatever that is. You know, when I decided to endorse Hillary Clinton, which was not necessarily a popular thing in the movement space, I did so in part because I watched her Humans of New York piece. And she was talking about being the only woman walking into take her LSAT and the jeers that she got and the stares that she got and all the discouragement that she got. And I'm sitting

there thinking, man, if I had a penny for every time I was the only woman on a stage in Pennsylvania. But it humanized her in a different way. And I had been assuming for so long that we had no intersections and that she was not a part of any of my tribes, and she was. So I would think about how you are showing people, hey, I'm your neighbor, and here's why I want to make our community a better place. Great. And the last thing... Great way to end. Dre? The last thing I'll say, you know, I ran for mayor in Baltimore, and one of the interesting things that I sort of understood, it was a crazy race, but one of the things that I understood was that it's hard for people to be mean to people they know, you know? So there were some houses

that, like, wouldn't talk to me, but they saw me knock on their door every, or they saw me in the neighborhood every day. And they were just like, hey, da-da-da. It's like, that's important. Just like being nice to people. There's nothing that can replace door knocking. Like I don't think that forums, all that stuff is like cool, but door knocking is like the way to go. And people like want to be in community. Like Brittany talked about, like Dan talked about, like people want to be a part of community. So thinking about like house parties, whatever you can do to create different entrances for people to get to you that doesn't have to be just you one-on-one. And I think about so many people saw me as like an activist and they were like, did you burn down buildings in

Baltimore? And it's like, okay, this is not helpful, right? But I like didn't, but I didn't show up in the way that they thought activists showed up, right? And like, that was really important. And it was hard for you to be mad at me when I'm like, oh, what school did your kid go to? And like, love your dog. You know, like those sort of things actually mattered a whole lot. And I'd say leave with that. There's a woman in the front row who's a friend of the pod who brought her Republican

husband. Was this effective at all? Is he in? Look at that. He's got a friend of the pod shirt on. He's got a friend of the pod shirt on. He's got a friend of the pod shirt on. Alright. He just signed up

to volunteer for Josh. That's amazing. If we do 70,000 more of these, we can win the Axe Locker. We literally just... Bring your Republican friends to this. We fixed everything. Two announcements, guys. One, open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act has begun.

Here's the challenge. A lot of our fellow Americans don't know about this because Donald Trump cut the budget for outreach and awareness by 90%. Yeah, exactly. So, the good news is... Who cares? I think I'm making it worse. We noticed.

Here's the deal. People can get, if you are not enrolled in the Affordable Care Act right now, you can get a plan for very cheap. It's very affordable. So you can go to getamericacovered.org, pitch in, help what you can do to fund the awareness campaign. We're trying to reach as many Americans as possible, especially people who don't have health insurance.

This is really important, and you can actually do something about it. Find your friends on Facebook and bug the shit out of them to see if they have health care or not. Yes. Right? And number two, we're working with an organization called Headcount that can register you to vote tonight on the way out. And if you're already registered to vote, you can sign up and get text message alerts, because one of the biggest problems is people are registered to vote, but they don't know when and where to vote. And so this will help you do that. So go see our friends at Headcount and please vote on November 7th.

Thank you, guys. It's been a great audience. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Billy. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm