Pod Save America - “The House that MAGA Built.”

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

The MAGA House is off to a rough start. George Santos isn’t going anywhere. Joe Biden deals with a classified documents discovery a bit differently than Donald Trump. And then Congresswoman Katie Porter joins the pod to talk about her run for the US Senate. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pate of America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the MAGA house is off to a rough start. George Santos isn't going anywhere. Joe Biden deals with a classified documents discovery a bit differently than Donald Trump. And later, Congresswoman Katie Porter joins the pod to talk about her run for the U.S. Senate. But first, the accolades keep rolling in from other country radicals. The Tribeca winner is on several best of 2022 lists. NPR recently lauded the show as a remarkable way into a really potent emotional historical moment. Needless to say, we're very proud of the show and all the work that went into it from our host, Zayd Ayers-Dorn, and the whole team at Dustlight and at Crooked. So if you haven't already, you can listen to all 10 episodes out now

wherever you get your podcasts. Also, if you're looking for a great pod to start the new year, check out Radio Lingo, Crooked's fantastic new podcast that looks at the way language plays a role in our lives, from swearing to subtitles and everything in between. You can binge the whole first season now wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Dan, let's get to the news. You might be wondering what's the new house up to now that it's run by a gang of MAGA buffoons and their pet speaker,

Kevin McCarthy. Well, Republicans looked at the midterm results and decided that the American people wanted urgent action on three top priorities. One, more abortion restrictions. Two, making it easier for rich people to cheat on their taxes. And three, a special committee to investigate the people who are investigating Donald Trump. So every House Republican voted for these three bills, two of which will die in the Senate. Senate won't take them up because it's run by Democrats. And the special committee will do very little but generate content for right wing media and maybe make some lawyers rich. Why do you think Republicans chose to start this way? Do they think this is popular? Is this just MAGA base appreciation week? What's going on? popular? Is this just MAGA base appreciation week? What's going on? Maybe in only a few days, Kevin McCarthy has discovered that being speaker is not so great. He's trying to limit it to two years and two years only. He liked the title though. There was some color that when he finally won, he took a picture of himself outside the office with the sign on it. And he said,

that's pretty cool. That's cool. I mean, that's kind of endearing, right? Well, it also, it's like, it's just perfect. It's a perfect bit of color. Like, yeah, that's what he wanted. That's it. Nothing else is, nothing else is fun for him in this job. I mean, it is what all of this in all seriousness speaks to is the fact that the Republicans have no coherent ideological agenda other than sops to wealthy fundraisers and Fox News generated culture war grievances. That's all there is. Because if you sort of put this in perspective, they mostly ran on inflation, or at least mostly ran by attacking Democrats on inflation. The gas prices were too high, grocery prices were too high. So in a normal world,

they would come to Congress and their first bill would be something about dealing with inflation, because you would send a message to the voters that you're going to fulfill your promises. But they made a strategic decision in that campaign to have no position on any economic issue of any kind other than allowing wealthy people to cheat on their taxes. And so when they get there, they can't do anything about inflation because they have no plan for it. Everything that they actually support would make inflation worse. So they went sort of, they looked at all the things on their kind of sort of agenda that they talked about. And they thought that the IRS provision would be the most popular. And it is the most popular of their

positions, but it's actually not popular, right? Morning Council poll shows that the vast majority of Americans are not concerned that the IRS is going to audit them. They have not bought into this idea that they're a bunch of jackbooted IRS accountant thugs in green eye shades going around looking to audit everyday Americans. They know what everyone else knows, which is that wealthy people cheat on their taxes and we should try to stop them. Yeah. I think they fooled themselves with some polling where the question about the 87,000 IRS agents, which of course we've talked about before, it's just a lie. That's not really what's going on there. And they've, they've worded it. So like, you know, do you think we need this many IRS agents coming around to your homes, knocking down your doors?

You know, like and people were like, no, I don't want that. That seems scary, you know, when the reality of what changed under Biden was that they just gave the IRS more resources so that rich people can't cheat on their taxes because too many rich people are cheating on their taxes. The government's losing a lot of money. Taxes because too many rich people are cheating on their taxes and the government's losing a lot of money. And guess what? When the rich people, when rich people don't pay their taxes because they're cheating on them, then the tax burden falls on middle class and poor Americans. Anyway, so that's that one. And then the abortion restriction they did is completely just absurd. The bill they passed is basically already law, which is, you know, we've talked

about this before, like less than 1% of abortions happen after 21 weeks. And then over the last 12 years, out of 149 million live births, something like 100 were the result of botched abortions where the baby was born anyway. And then if that happens in the extremely, extremely rare case that it does, then there was a law passed in 2002 that said doctors have a duty to keep that baby alive. So like they've just made up this scenario that doesn't actually happen just to try to say that, I guess, to try to make Democrats look extreme.

I don't think that worked that well. Yeah, I think to the extent for that one, I think this one sort of is an acknowledgement of the political challenges of their position on abortion, which is they could have done a whole bunch of things. They could have been a national abortion ban. They could have done the 15-week national abortion ban that Lindsey Graham proposed. And so they wanted to give something to the far right groups that have been pushing these abortion bans without sort of stepping into all the problems that probably cost them the Senate and ensure that they won the House by a very narrow margin. Now, that doesn't mean they're

not going to take those things up soon. They're going to be under tremendous pressure from the right to do that. They're going to be driven by some of these newly elected Republican governors in states. There'll be a Republican presidential primary that pushes them. So this doesn't mean it's over. This is one where they've said, this is the one that what really was MAGA-based appreciation week. We have to do something for them, and this is the one we're going to do. And we think this is the most politically palatable, even if it is nonsensical and dishonest and all the above. And we should just say, like, you know, there's some navigator polling out this morning on voter priorities for the new Congress, you know, lowering costs, number one, 58 percent,

health care, 32 percent, immigration at 30 percent, national debt at 26 percent. And then investigating the Biden administration and the Biden family, that's down at 14 percent. Even only 32 percent of very conservative Republicans list that as their top priority. We'll get to the committee, the investigations in a second. But so the abortion bill and the IRS bill, they're not going anywhere. They're what's known as message bills, right? Meaning they're just designed so that Republicans can say they voted on them in press releases and campaign ads. Do you think that has any effect? Are these worthwhile anymore? Well, good message bills have some merit. Bad message bills do not. It's like, we're just going to take the brightest spotlight this Congress is probably going to have outside

of confrontations over government funding and debt ceiling is this first week. And here's how we're going to use it. We're going to take some pretty unpopular shit that reminds everyone why they don't like us, and we're going to vote on those things. So no, I don't think this was good for them by any stretch of the imagination. I think that like messaging bills and votes have like fairly little utility on their own, even when we do it. It's obviously it's good to show that you're fighting. Right. But the fight has to be like realistic, too. A lot of these yahoos were tweeting that they successfully defunded the IRS after the vote. And it's like that's just it's just a lie. You're you're you voted on something. It's not going to pass.

You didn't do it. You didn't do anything. But, you know, no one has less respect for the intelligence of Republican voters than Republican politicians. Yeah, and Republican media. So there's two elements of message bills that I think are worth noting. One is in a world for Republicans with this huge mega megaphone propaganda operation, there is a capacity to take what they did in Washington and put it in front of their hardcore base. They can actually do that.

And in that sense, it has some merit with the base, right? MAGA, Base Appreciation Week, as you said. The way these things really work and the way they really matter is that it's not about the news coverage you get right now. Maybe you'll get an Axios story or you'll make the third paragraph of tomorrow's Punchbowl newsletter. But you're not reaching real voters. The way you do it is you use these votes in paid media later on, both what you voted for and what your opponent voted against.

So Republicans not named Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger famously declined to participate in the January 6th committee. McCarthy didn't want to put any other Republicans on that committee. Democrats, on the other hand, have said that they intend to sit on Jim Jordan's Trump protection committee. McCarthy didn't want to put any other Republicans on that committee. Democrats, on the other hand, have said that they intend to sit on Jim Jordan's Trump Protection Committee and all the Republican investigative committees. Smart move? Yes. I think we can all agree that the Republicans not showing up for the January 6th committee was a terrible idea. Yeah. It prevented them from rebutting anything, from muddying the waters, all the stuff they did on the impeachment hearings or in some of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings over the years. If you want people to hear you, you have to be there. And I think the Republicans also made a

bet that if they did not show up, the press would not cover it because there'd be no conflict. That bet obviously did not pay off. So Democrats absolutely should show up. It's the right thing to do. And I think given how we know the media operates, even though the January 6th committee hearing is a very real substantive, important thing, and this is just a bunch of partisan bullshit, the cable networks would have felt compelled to cover these and provide live coverage of these hearings, even if the Democrats weren't there. Right. And so I think it's the difference between giving Republicans sort of an uninterrupted ad on cable news and giving them a mostly uninterrupted ad on cable news because they're not going to let the Democrats speak as much as the Republicans, but they'll get some time. And I think it's also important to sort of win this messaging battle

with Republicans about the investigations because there's a bunch of polling on this as well. battle with Republicans about the investigations because there's a bunch of polling on this as well. And certainly investigating the Biden administration is not a priority for voters. In fact, it's like we said, it's very way down on the list. But there's at least and people are open to investigations if there seems to be wrongdoing. But after, you know, Global Strategy Group did some polling on this and they said what most works when describing these investigations is framing them as a waste of time and taxpayer dollars, a political stunt, childish, and driven by MAGA Republicans. So this idea that the MAGA Republicans are dragging the rest of the party down to just waste their time on these childish stunts as opposed to actually fixing the problems that people are grappling with. It's sort of wild. My, as a further reminder of how old I am these days, is that when I first started in politics, my very first jobs were in the middle of the Clinton impeachment hearings.

And the exact same talking points worked best then too. It's like, what is old is new again. That's exactly right. It worked for the Benghazi hearings. It worked for these hearings. It worked for all the other dumb shit they tried to do around Obama. It's always the same. And parties keep making the same mistake in how they focus on these things. Republicans have to do it because they have nothing else to focus on, right? If you do not have a coherent agenda, a coherent set of policy preferences within your party that you can act on, you're left with this dumb partisan bullshit. It also matters what you're investigating. I think that the reason that the January 6th hearings were probably the most successful that we've seen in a while are, well, A, because there

were no Republicans on the committee to muddy the waters, but B, it was an investigation of an attack on the Capitol, on our seat of government, an attempt to overturn the election. Everyone knew what that was. Everyone could follow along. Like it wasn't some, most of these investigations are going to seem ridiculous to people. Yeah. I mean, a group of people incited by the former president of the United States tried to murder

the vice president of the United States on national television, right? That's going to get, there should be an investigation of that. People get that. That is very different than Hunter Biden's laptop or a bunch of, and this is also the problem Republicans always have. This was sort of Trump's problem too, is they only speak in the lingua franca

of the right-wing media bubble, right? They're talking about, like when Trump would tweet about the Russia stuff and it would be like the two lovers and the words mean nothing to 75 to 80% of Americans. And you're going to have a lot of this stuff because the idea for the investigation comes from the right-wing media. The way they talk about it is a reflection of the right-wing media and the intended audience is the people who live in that same right-wing media bubble.

So it sort of goes nowhere. Yeah. There's this closed MAGA loop. I think that's why we got the IRS vote as the first one, too, because the number of segments in Fox primetime on jackbooted IRS thugs with guns coming to take your money, it was significant. Yeah. I would say there is- And so it definitely got ahead of the polling on that. Yeah, I would say there is definitely a connection between the fact that all of MAGA media is funded by billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and the Mercers and the fact that all of MAGA media focuses a ton of attention on the IRS trying to crack down on wealthy tax jutes. I think those things are very related. trying to crack down on wealthy tax jutes. I think those things are very related.

So House Republicans have also confirmed that Speaker McCarthy intends to remove Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar from the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, yet another step the American people have been clamoring for. Why are they doing this? I mean, because they're petty, petty people. I mean, this is all about the removal.

What's the ostensible excuse? I mean, because they're petty, petty people. I mean, this is all about the removal. What's the ostensible excuse? Well, there's two. There is the punitive reason and there's the actual reason. The actual reason is that Democrats removed Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their committees after they did a whole bunch of things, including pushing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and threats of violence and all of the above. That's why they were- Attended a white nationalist event. Remember that? Yeah. An array of reasons that all seem very, very, very valid. And so this is revenge. They promised revenge. Then they threatened they would do this if Democrats took that step.

And so now Republicans are doing this. They have a bunch of dumb reasons that I think actually aren't worth repeating for why they picked these three members. And because that's all a bunch of bullshit. But this is simply vengeance. It's to follow through on a threat they made to defend their most MAGA extreme members a couple years ago. Yeah, I mean, they're all all three of them are MAGA media villains. You know, Adam Schiff did too good of a job holding Donald Trump accountable

for his impeachable offenses. Right. So that's, that's sort of why they did it. One person who McCarthy does plan to give a seat on various committees is George Santos, who a press conference full of Long Island Republican officials this week called on to resign as he was accused of everything from lying about being a star volleyball player at a college he never attended to accepting an illegal donation from a confessed smuggler of undocumented immigrants. Woo! Santos still refuses to resign. And McCarthy

said that, quote, a lot of people here in Congress have made up parts of their resume. I mean, are we just stuck with this guy or what? Yeah, I think we're stuck with this guy. I mean, the whole thing is wild. Like it is just the fact that his officially submitted congressional bio has a college that has been proven he did not attend on it. I mean, the lie. It's just so funny to go from like, I'm making up that I attended this college and that I not that I just graduated, but I even attended this college. And now I'm also going to make up a story that when I attended this college that I didn't actually attend, I was a star volleyball player. He was saying like he was a striker.

Like he had the position down. He said they went to the championship. I mean, that is that is some sick shit. I mean, does he not know the Internet's been invented? I don't know what he I don't know what he's doing. I have lost track of all the different lies and potential crimes he's also committed because the lies are fun, but he's also now under multiple investigations at multiple levels of government in multiple countries. Yes. In that sense, he fits in perfectly in this party.

For like potential fraud, campaign finance violations, all kinds of stuff. I mean, there are some real questions. Like he had no personal money. He was living rent-free somewhere on a couch and then lent his own campaign three quarters of a million dollars. Like where did that come from? There are very real questions here. He obviously should not be in Congress.

In a normal world, he would not be in Congress. In a normal political party, he would not be in Congress. They would have tossed him out. The reason they are not tossing him out is Democrats would be highly favored in a special election for this seat. It is a seat Biden won. Democrats tend in the post-Trump era to overperform in special elections. We now have a larger base of highly engaged, high propensity voters. And so if he were to leave, Kevin McCarthy would be down one vote. There would then be a special election at a time and date set according to New York law by the New York governor, and Republicans would likely lose that seat, further narrowing their majority. So of course, he's going

to get to stay there. And he's already sort of getting how you do it. He's palling around with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He's attacking Adam Kinzinger on Twitter. He's learning to play the MAGA media game so that these people will back him and keep him. Yeah. I mean, if McCarthy had like a 30-seat margin or a 40-seat margin, yeah, maybe he gets rid of him. Maybe he sacrifices him. Because now – so all of these Long Island officials have called on every like Long Island Republican has called on him to

resign. Five of the 10, um, New York Republicans who were in the house, not counting George Santos, of course, have now called for him to resign as well. So like the drum beats out there, but McCarthy, he right now McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes. If Santos goes, it's only three votes. That's a pretty that's a pretty slim margin. That's a that's a Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar away from losing your job right there. All right. So how do you think the White House should handle this Congress for the next two years? Like, is the MAGA House a perfect foil for Biden as he prepares to run for reelection? Or is there any chance he can try to get something done with Republicans like he did in the Senate during his first two years?

We will talk about this in the next segment. But President Biden had a press conference today, ostensibly about the new inflation numbers. And in it, he talked about this Republican Congress. And what he said is, I am willing to work with anyone on anything. If they want to get something done that actually helps the American people, I will work with them. So as you always, it is important generally and specifically for someone with President Biden's profile to extend an open hand, but to be realistic about it. And what he did then is, but I'm not going to work him on these things. These Republicans want to allow wealthy people to cheat on their taxes.

They want to cut Social Security and Medicare. They want to pass a national sales tax that would increase costs for people, make inflation worse, would abolish the IRS if you pass a national sales tax. And Biden folks get it, is that as Biden always says,

we've said a thousand times on this podcast, one of his sayings is, compare me to the alternative, not the almighty. Up until the moment, the Republican presidential primary is fully engaged. This is the alternative. It is this MAGA house that embodies everything that voters rejected in 2022.

So you want to highlight, you want to highlight their unpopular positions. I thought it was very notable that he hammered at least once, and I think maybe twice, about the Republicans wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. They've been very clear about that. They have talked about it. It is the end result of some of the concessions that Kevin McCarthy made in his attempt to be speaker about the debt ceiling and a balanced budget amendment. And to give you a sense of how unpopular an idea that is, in the CBS YouGov poll that came

out last weekend, the top priority for all voters for this Congress is to protect Social Security and Medicare. More than 70% of them thought that. And that's not something driven by Democrats and independents. Seven in 10 Republicans think protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a priority. 70% of Trump voters think protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a priority. And 70% of all the subgroups in there, the one with the highest number is white non-college voters, the core of the Republican base. So this is the fact that Republicans wanted to- Hey Dan, I'll see you a YouGov poll and I'll raise you a Navigator poll from this morning. Oh, there you go. They had a list of potential priorities for the Republican

Congress and they ranked them in order of how unpopular they were. The most unpopular was ending the guarantee of Medicare and Social Security. Do you know what percentage of voters support that? Eight. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven percent. It's more unpopular than banning books, which only 15 percent support preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices, which Biden just passed with the Inflation Reduction Act. That's only 16 percent support uh preventing medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices which uh biden just passed with the inflation reduction act that's only 16 support that making it easier to overturn election results 20 and banning abortion nationwide 28 those are the most unpiped but like 11 it's more and fewer people support that than they support making it easier to overturn the election and that which is why by the way so

kevin mccarthy also did a press conference today with reporters before we recorded and they started asking all these questions about the debt ceiling they they pushed him on medicare and social security said oh we're always going to protect medicare and social security republicans are always going to protect it yeah right yeah you can't protect it in a ballot special amendment it is mathematically impossible you can't well and Well, and the comment Biden made today about the national sales tax and abolishing the IRS, that comes from, so they already took their one vote on the 87,000 made up IRS agents and the rich tax cheats. Freedom Caucus, a vote on abolishing the IRS completely and also abolishing the national income tax in favor of a huge sales tax increase, which, of course, hits working people more than anything else. So, yeah, I think that Biden and the Democrats highlighting sort of some of the votes they're taking, Republicans are taking because the MAGA crazies force them into it

is going to be politically potent as well. Yeah. And every opportunity, doesn't matter what you're talking about, get the Social Security, Medicare hit in there. Now, an alternative view on this, Chris Murphy said this to Punchbowl. He said, the debacle of the last week actually makes it more important that McCarthy manufactures some accomplishments. The House Republicans now have a blinking red light of dysfunction sitting on top of their caucus that the whole country has seen. Sure. Chris Murphy, I love your optimism.

And also, McCarthy might be thinking that in the back of his mind, but I think there's a difference between hoping that's the case, that you can rack up some accomplishments to tell voters about in two years, and actually making it happen with the caucus that he has. tell voters about in two years and actually making it happen with the caucus that he has? I mean, we were very dismissive of Democrats and Republicans working together on things in the last Congress. And they got a ton more done than we thought. Joe Biden was right. I personally was very wrong about that. And maybe that'll be different here. And it's always possible you could find something like the equivalent of the CHIPS Act, a very nonpartisan, non-ideological thing,

because there will be an impetus to do something. But I think it will be very limited. And you're exactly right. Even if Kevin McCarthy thinks it is in his interest to do that, the Freedom Caucus does not see it in their interest to do it. And there is also a real hesitance to give an accomplishment to a Democratic president running for re-election. That's how the Republicans were with Obama. And when he was running for re-election, I imagine that's exactly how they'll be with Biden. I will also say you can tell that President Biden and the White House want to make the economy a central issue. They want to show that they're working on the economy. They noted the inflation news today. Inflation went down.

The fights that are going to come in 2023, which is debt ceiling, government shutdown, those are going to be fights that sort of revolve around economic issues. Republicans are going to want to cut Medicare and Social Security. Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to want to cut Medicare and Social Security. Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to say they want to keep reducing prices. By the way, this vote that they took on the IRS on letting rich people cheat on their taxes was scored so that it only adds money to the deficit, even though the Republicans have pledged to lower the deficit. So like, I think that having the debate in the country, sort of revolve around these economic issues, and this sort of role of government issues is probably going to redound to the benefit of Biden and the Democrats and not the Republicans, because their position on cutting

healthcare and education and everything that people care about is quite unpopular. And also helping rich people pay less taxes, also an unpopular position, right? Republicans were able to benefit from the economy to a certain extent this last election because their strategy was to, their strategy was because Democrats were in charge of everything, just lay back and be this generic alternative of something different. Now they're going to have to have positions, they're going to have to have ideas, there'll be things they want to cut, taxes they want to lower, And that gives Democrats a very rich target environment to go after.

Okay, so speaking of President Biden, we learned this week that back in November, his lawyers apparently found two sets of classified documents, one set in his Wilmington residence and one set, which was in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which is where the president worked out of after the Obama administration ended. So as soon as the lawyers, as soon as Biden's lawyers found these documents, they contacted the National Archives, which immediately took them back. employers found these documents. They contacted the National Archives, which immediately took them back. Merrick Garland then asked a U.S. attorney appointed by Donald Trump to review how the classified material got there. And Biden said that he was surprised by the discovery, but he's cooperating fully. And then just before we started recording, Merrick Garland announced that he's appointing a special counsel, a former U.S. attorney named Robert Herr, who used to be Rod Rosenstein's counsel

in the Trump administration. How about that for a flashback? So we got a new special counsel. We got another document story. Naturally, Republicans in the media reacted to this news in a very chill and responsible manner. Here's a clip. Classified documents. Right. Where is the raid? And let me. Where's the FBI raid? I'll echo again. Impeach Biden. And that's what we need to do. Merrick Garland is shameful.

The fact he's the attorney general is shameful, I would say. He should be. He should be impeached. Yes. At least. I mean, to give Republicans this talking point for the rest of their natural lives almost exonerates Trump. He's not suspicious that he's taking a million dollar a year salary from the Chinese that they launder through the Penn Biden Center that Biden has never even gone to because he doesn't even

know it's in the closet. Classify these documents, whatever they are. If we do that, our enemies will learn our secrets. Please. China already knows our secrets. The Chinese can know, but you can't know. Biden trusts Beijing more than he trusts you. The lawyer who they say found the documents is Dana Remus. Does she look like she can carry boxes? Joe's so woke he's having women help him move now. Is this team Obama trying to set Joe up so that he bows out and newsom moves in right she just found the documents at the penn biden center you got us it was the setup what about that i mean i feel like that might have jumped the shark i don't

know about you look it seems very rational and serious and it's filled with intellectual curiosity for the facts. We went from like classified documents found in Biden's closet to selling secrets to the Chinese for cash. Or, I mean, a conspiracy theory of Obama setting up Biden to help Gavin Newsom. Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. Yeah. Anyway, all right. So the most useful thing we can do here is to explain to people how this is both similar and different to Trump hiding nuclear secrets in his beach house. We should know that they did search Biden's Rehoboth beach house. They found nothing. So that's Biden one, Trump zero.

All right. Should we start with- Score one, Trump zero. All right. Should we start with one for Joey B? Should we start with how they're similar? Yeah. They involve paper. Classified paper. Paper. Classified paper that both people took with them from the White House, which should not have been taken from the White House. Here's what we know. A small number of documents, possibly less than 15, were found

commingled with some other non-classified documents. As soon as they were found, they were returned to the archives and the Biden folks are cooperating with investigation. Here's what happened with Trump. He intentionally took a shitload of documents. He refused multiple requests to return them. He at one point reportedly moved them to ensure that other people could not find them. He had his attorneys falsely attest to the fact they'd all been returned when he knew they weren't. He was so obstinate in his unwillingness to return them, the FBI had to show up at his house unannounced to get them. After the FBI did that, he lied and said the FBI planted the documents. And then he claimed that he declassified the documents, something that was so dishonest

that no attorney representing him would ever mention an under oath in court. And then he repeatedly attacked the FBI and all the people investigating him. So in that sense sense they are not similar at all he he told us all he he truthed up a storm that they were his that the blood that the classified documents belong to him i mean it's just which is by the way why when the fbi searched mar-a-lago they did so after a judge granted them a search warrant based on Trump possibly violating a number of criminal statutes, which are not at play in the Biden case because they're criminal statutes about obstructing justice. And reportedly surveillance footage. And making false statements and surveillance footage and lying and all this. I mean, come come on it's not if donald trump and his buffoons were just running out of the white house after they were run out of

the white house because they didn't want to leave and it just grabbed boxes and some of the boxes were stashed classified documents and the archives reached out and asked for them back and they gave them back it would have been like i don't know a couple weeks a week story you know it would have been a week of stories if that and then we and you know they would have gotten some criticism and people would have called trump careless and stupid whatever and then we all would have moved on that would have been it there would have been no raid where's the raid i mean the the raid didn't happen because joe Joe Biden gave back all the documents. Idiot. People are so fucking stupid. It's important to recognize that obviously taking classified information and protecting it is very important and is very serious.

And whenever there is a violation, either intentional or unintentional, there's always some sort of investigation to find out what happened. Also to assess the damage. What secrets got out? Could people have possibly accessed it. And if the Trump thing had never happened, and all we heard was this report that Biden had had a handful of documents in locked places that he shouldn't have had them in, it would have been a one-day story, a minor story. Because this actually is something that doesn't happen all the time, but it is not unusual for the incredibly unusual or extraordinary for there to be some,

for people to make mistakes in the handling of classified information. One of the first things I did when I worked at the White House was I would attend all the vetting meetings. Are you about to confess a crime here? Should we get a lawyer? Yes. Get on Twitter and we get a lawyer? Yes. Get on Twitter and find me a lawyer immediately. This does not involve me handling customer information,

but I would attend the vetting meetings for all the people who we were going to put up for confirmation. And a lot of the folks you're looking at are people in the national security space, former ambassadors, people who work in the Foreign Service. And it didn't happen with everyone or even most people. Frequently, you would have someone who at some point in their career had made a mistake involving classified information.

They had left something on their desk instead of locking it up. They had taken the wrong folder home, or maybe it said something that they inadvertently said something that was classified to people who did not have the clearance for it. And in every one of the situations, someone investigates it and makes a determination and maybe there's a sanction there. And so the fact of a mistake here is serious, but it is very, very different than what Trump did. And I think we have to understand that and put that into context because treating these is the same thing as like treating someone inadvertently bouncing a check and FTX style financial fraud. They're similar in the fact that they involve documents,

but nothing else is the same. I mean, this is the same. We sound like we did in 2015, 2016, when we were talking about Hillary's emails, right? Like this is the same thing like there was a and you know what they ended up saying that all she was is careless that was the most they could say about how hillary handled the emails right that was what the government and that could be what ends up happening here too right is that they said yeah it was bad you shouldn't have done that

um whatever and but like again that's what they would have said to trump if trump just gave the fucking shit back if he just gave the docs back didn't lie about it didn't move them didn't obstruct the investigation this is why trump's in trouble it's not just because of taking the fact of taking the documents yeah or having the documents the fact how he took them right at that case too taking a whole bunch of them intentionally is a huge deal. So obviously, we're not surprised that the right wing media is having a field day with this. But CNN spent nearly two hours talking about the story on Monday night alone. It's a lot of content there. Are cable and other less responsible news platforms just going to gloss over the differences between the trump and biden cases here because you can tell that the play for trump and all his pals are for

voters to just hear oh biden and trump both have classified document scandals that's all that's that's what they want people to hear and because the media oversimplifies everything and people don't pay that close attention to the news anyway, you could see that getting out to people. Yeah, that plan's going to work. And the Republican goal is to muddy the waters, and the press is going to aid and abet them in that. They are incapable of doing anything else. This is how they operate. And obviously there are individual reporters and individual stories who have done a great job of outlining the exact differences in how this worked.

It is in all the stories. And even in that two hours of coverage that CNN had, which is an absurd dedication of resources, there were some moments in there where they put up basically a graphic showing exactly the differences that we said. The problem is that in the overall conversation and how the vast majority of people consume news, the differences are going to get lost. Because when you treat it like a giant deal and you send out a gazillion push notifications and a thousand tweets about it and everyone's freaking out and so many siren emojis and all of that, it seems like a huge deal. And the vast majority of people are not, and I say this and I apologize to the reporters who write these stories, but the vast majority of people are never going to click on your story. They're never going to look past the headline. If they click on the story,

they're not reading to the 12th paragraph. And so if you just simply imply that there are differences there, or you lay out the differences without screaming at the top that there is nothing the same here, that's going to get missed. And there's a whole bunch of forces within how the putatively objective political media works that are going to push this to ensure that they just simply remake all the mistakes of 2016. Yeah. I mean, look, the differences that we just talked about, like Charlie Savage, New York Times reporter, who's excellent on this,

he's sort of the expert on these issues, laid out a really great story explaining the differences in a really fair and objective way. Even within that paper, though, there'll be political coverage and headlines that probably drive us nuts. And Charlie's story may get lost, right?

And then, of course, like New York Times, Washington Post, print is usually much more responsible than cable. And then Twitter is even less responsible than cable. You know, it's just it's just go. It's the media environment on this is going to be tough. So then the question is, how does the White House handle this extremely annoying development? I think they have to walk a very fine line here between adhering to the standard they set in talking about Trump's conduct, that classified documents should be taken seriously, and inadvertently buying into the premise that this is a big deal. Because it's not. If we now know everything there is to know about how the documents got out, how many documents were and how they were stored. This is not a big deal. This is nothing like Trump. And talking to a lot of the folks who worked for Secretary Clinton in that campaign, some of them will say that one of the mistakes they made was they bought into the narrative that Washington wanted. There is a body rhythm

of how you react to scandals. We have hearings and subpoenas and then long stories about the political implications and who said who knew what when and everyone just puts on their Woodward hat and pretends they're in all the president's men. And I thought Biden's tone was pretty good. I'm not sure I would have said the locked – the Corvette part, but that's Joe Biden and that's fine. I'm not sure I would have said the locked, the Corvette part, but that's Joe Biden and that's fine. But as you say, you're going to cooperate, express confidence about what they're going to find. And don't make this a gigantic deal. Don't yourself fall into the thing of we're going to have a special spokesperson in the White House. We're going to do all these things.

Don't buy into the premise that this is a big scandal because it is not a scandal. It is absolutely not a scandal. into the premise that this is a big scandal because it is not a scandal. It is absolutely not a scandal. And I also think that wisely, they didn't make a huge deal about the Trump investigation, partly because there was an ongoing investigation that they didn't want to comment. And so, you know, they made some comments at the time, but they didn't like use this as a huge political issue, which I think is probably going to help them now. All right. So before this happened, this massive scandal for Joe Biden, his poll numbers were really on the rise over the last few months. He's got some positive approval ratings in some polls for the first time.

What do you make of that? Well, he's been on quite a run of success, better than expected performance in the midterms, an incredibly productive lame duck session of Congress where you're passing laws to fix Electoral Count Act, a really important spending bill, the legalizing same-sex and interracial marriage. He's been doing great. And at the same time, the backdrop of that are two things. One, Republicans have been an absolute high-profile shitshow, from Donald Trump dining with Nazis to all the Republicans fighting with each other about how they lost the election to the Kevin McCarthy shitshow to George Santos. And on top of that, and probably most importantly, more important than anything else, is slowly but surely, economic conditions have

gotten better. Inflation is still high, but it's coming down. People are feeling less pain when they go to the grocery store and the gas station than they went before. And while those prices are still higher than anyone would like, trajectory matters a lot. Are they getting lower or are they getting higher? And recently they've been ticking down lower, and I think that's been very good for Joe Biden. I think all of those things are probably more important than this document stupidity at this moment in time. But the document stupidity does, I think, indicate that we're entering into a new phase of the Biden presidency, which is now he is a president who is, by all reports, is running for reelection with a Republican majority in the House

in a phase of conflict, right? Cooperation is what Joe Biden was focusing on in the first two years. And he was judged on what success he could get from that cooperation, whether it's cooperation with Republicans or cooperation with Manchin and Sinema. And now it's going to be how he handles the conflict with Republicans. And I think we're going to have, it seems like the White House has been preparing for that based on today's press conference. But I think that is going to be what dictates his approval ratings going forward in combination with, obviously, the larger economic environment in the country.

And look, the macroeconomic factors are largely beyond their control. It was beyond their control when gas prices were high and inflation was really high. It's still not entirely under their control now that gas prices are lower and inflation is lower. But it's certainly not entirely under their control now that gas prices are lower and inflation's lower, but it's certainly helping them. But then I think the bigger issue here is, and it's something that we saw as far back as the 2020 election all the time, like when Trump and the Republicans are the story, it is not good for Trump and the Republicans. When the Republicans are able to make Biden and whatever phony scandals they come up with the story, then it's not as good for Joe

Biden and the Democrats. And so, you know, the Republicans had for the first couple of years, a whole bunch of stories about democratic infighting and democratic legislating and all this kind of stuff. And so it really helped them. And now that they are govern one of the houses of Congress, then it gives Biden an opportunity to make them the story every day. And as we've seen today, like they will try to make Biden the story. They will try to investigate him. They will try to keep him in the news. But to the extent that Biden can not only make the Republicans a story because of scandal,

but make them a story because here's what they want to do to make your life worse. And here's what I'm doing to try to make your life better. Then I think he'll be on a stronger footing. So the White House is always a hierarchy of strategic priorities. And in the first two years, legislative strategy often trumped communications and political strategy. Because what mattered is, A, can you get something done? Because that's why you're there in the first place.

You want to help people. You want to put your agenda in place. And politically, that was also the best thing. And so if you had to take on a bunch of short-term turbulence so that Joe Manchin could sit in his houseboat for an extra week and be okay with the Inflation Reduction Act, then you did that. If you had to be quiet about Republican scandals or Mitch McConnell talking about cutting Social Security because you were trying to get the bipartisan chips bill or bipartisan infrastructure bill done, you did that. Now, for the most part, legislative period of this presidency is over for at least the next two years.

It is now a question of information warfare. And it's going to be about messaging and communicating and defining your opponent and setting narratives. And so we're now in a very different phase. And it's going to require, I think, and I think we saw that, the fact that Joe Biden did this press conference on this day with this documents bullshit in the background shows that they are making the pivot to re-election war footing. Pivot. We got to pivot. Love a pivot. Love a pivot yeah love a pivot love a pivot um all right when we come back

uh i will talk to congresswoman katie porter about her announcement for the u.s senate joining us now is a friend of the pod who recently won her third term in the House and just announced her candidacy for California Senate. Katie Porter, welcome back. Thank you. So I wanted to start by giving you shit about not telling us you were running for Senate when we asked the last time you were on a few weeks ago. But then I remembered Lovett didn't even wait for your answer when he asked the question. And you know what? That not waiting for the answer is classic mistake in doing oversight.

You have to pause and you have to stare into the depths of the witness's soul until you literally pull the answer from them. So Lovett was just like, are you running for the Senate? Are you? It doesn't mean too fast. Yeah, he immediately wanted to get to the next joke about you've got mail. Vague smile, blank eyes look from Jamie Dimon himself. And wait for the person to go on. I didn't expect you to really give, I didn't expect you to announce then,... I didn't expect you to announce then,

but I thought that maybe we'd wait like five seconds, you know, just a little bit anyway. I will say, you know, you could see the tape, but I did, I was wearing a pink dress and I did turn the color of my... You did, yeah. And that's unusual for you. So that was probably like a good hint.

I think it's not fair to pod listeners because they couldn't necessarily listening see that. unusual for you so that was probably like a good hint i think it's not fair to pod listeners because they couldn't necessarily listening see yes but i think you guys cannot exactly say that there was not a little bit of a of a hint so i i guess my first question is you just won your third term in the house you got a spot on the oversight committee that lets you kick the shit out of ceos and in 2025 you're probably more likely to be in the majority in the House than in the Senate. Why did you want to run for Senate at this moment? Like, what is appealing about the job for you?

So first off, we are going to be in the majority in the Senate and the House. All right. Thank you very much. And I am going to campaign not only to win this race in California, but if I'm able to go out and help people in swing states around the country, I'm from a swing district in Orange County. I know how to help people win in swing states. And that's exactly one of the things that we're trying to do is California senators help make sure we're delivering the majority in the Senate. Look, why now? Because the U.S. Senate is broken. The Senate traditionally was the sort of last line of defense in our democracy. And today it's a place where our rights go to get

revoked, where special interests dominate, where Mitch McConnell spent a long time in charge. So the Senate needs to work better. I think that's a low bar right there. It needs to work at all for the American people. And I think we need, as Californians, to be sending our best warrior to Washington, somebody who understands that the way Congress has been working the last years is just not working for the American people. And that's a real problem. And I think we should take that seriously.

And that's how I'm going to ground my campaign is being willing to tackle that problem, standing up to special interests and powerful people to fight for families. What was your thinking behind announcing now as opposed to waiting to hear whether or not Senator Dianne Feinstein. She is a trailblazer. And I am one of so many women in California politics who walks in the path that she created. And I'm so grateful for that. The senator will make up her mind in her time. And I look forward to hearing her decision. This is going to be a spirited race. I'm going to be in it till the end. But I think we just need to make sure that this is an urgent moment

for our democracy. We need to be sending strong, vibrant people to Washington who are able to address the new challenges that our country is facing. So I asked Twitter if they had any questions for you. And by far, the most common one I got was some version of, oh, no, how are we going to keep her House seat now? How do you feel about Democrats' ability to win that seat in 24 when, you know, winning back the majority may depend on that seat? Awesome. I feel awesome about it. And here's why. We have done the work in Orange County year after year, six years now, two years before my first election, two years later. I've been campaigning in Orange County for six years. Orange County, a place where Democrats outnumber Republicans. Orange County, a place where a progressive like me

got elected, not once, not twice, but three times, including in some really tough election cycles nationally. So I feel really, really good about our being able to keep this seat. There are a number of, I think, very strong candidates who will think about running and will run. And let me reassure everybody, I am going to be there doing the work, making sure we keep not just this House seat, but we win House seats across California, because we've left a lot on the table this past cycle, and it really hurt us in keeping the House majority. So I think anyone like you who has ever been on the campaign trail knows that I am tireless. I will knock every door. I will shake every hand. I will take every tough question. And I'm going to bring that same kind of energy to my Senate campaign, but also to people up and down the ticket across California and hopefully across the country to make sure we're delivering for the American people.

That's the kind of Democrat I am. for the American people. That's the kind of Democrat I am. You and I talked in a previous interview about why housing isn't a bigger part of the national political conversation. You mentioned that in your first race, your then consultants tried to unsuccessfully talk you out of making it a big issue. How much will you be talking about it in this race? And what do you think you can get done on this issue in the Senate for California and the country? Housing is a huge challenge in California, but absolutely across the country. This is not just a coastal problem. This is not just a California problem. It is an American problem. And a big part of it comes from the lack of federal investment in housing and failed federal policy. And we see all kinds of problems flowing from this.

Young people not able to start families, people not able to start businesses, to accrue capital, to be able to build retirement savings, to homelessness. So this is something that we can work on. And it's something that we can't just look to Governor Newsom to solve alone.

The federal government needs to be part of the solution here. The federal government can't do it alone either. We need those partners. But for too long, Washington has kind of shrugged its shoulders and said, housing, that's kind of like a private market problem. Maloney, there are and have always been federal public policies that affect the cost and availability of housing through the tax code, through rental assistance. And so we need to make full use of those policies because the cost of housing is a huge concern for not some Californians, most Californians. And we need elected officials who are living in

California today and who understand that problem. One new responsibility you'd have as senator is confirming judges, including possible Supreme Court justices. Polls show that Americans' trust in the Supreme Court is now the lowest it's ever been. I know you've co-sponsored a bill that would impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices. What are your thoughts on changing the number of seats on the court or other potential court reforms? Well, the Supreme Court is clearly an institution that's struggling. And those of us who love the court, who believe in the importance of having a strong Supreme Court need to be leading the way and being willing to reform it. So I think we need to have a vibrant debate about what are the kinds

of changes that will work best. The Supreme Court has gone through other changes in how it does business and the number of justices. And we're in a period where we need to go back and have that debate. I think that the work of the court has expanded the number of cases, the number of people, the amount of litigation. And I think one of the things I saw as a consumer protection advocate is term after term, some of the laws that are most important to our economy never make it onto the court's docket. They never get the enforcement and the attention that they deserve. So I think we need to look at how can we right size the Supreme Court for the amount of work that it has in front of us? How can we restore judicial ethics to the court? And so I think that kind of discussion

about the court is the same kind of discussion we ought to be having about the Senate. The filibuster needs to go. We need to be rethinking about some of our procedures in the House. And I think people can look to some of the ways that I've tried to do Congress differently than typical in the House to get a feel for what kind of senator I would be. Somebody who is willing to say out of love of our democracy, out of deep respect for these institutions, I am willing to push them to be better. That's my promise to the American people. And it would apply equally to the Senate as to the Supreme Court. Sounds like the Supreme Court has a lot more work. Maybe they need some more justices. I think that's right. And I think we have to look at our entire federal judicial system as well. Because as we saw, we have judicial ethics problems up and down. It's not just the Supreme Court. We have problems in other parts of our court system as well. And so I think we need to

take a look at these institutions and make sure that they're working. That's part of doing oversight. It's one of my passions is making sure that we are looking at government and whether it's delivering for the American people. I think in the case of the Supreme Court, the answer is no. And we need to work to get that trust back. Because this is very blue California and because we have a runoff system where there's a decent chance that the general election will feature two Democrats running against each other. It does seem like this race will be more about the future of the Democratic Party and the direction of the Democratic Party than most other races. What's your critique of where the party has fallen short? So let me take this in two pieces. First, let me go back to where you started,

which is that this is going to be probably most likely, you said, two Democrats, maybe. And I think that's good and healthy. And maybe not. Actually, if you look at most of our statewide contests year after year, since we've had the top two systems, almost all of them have been a Democrat and a Republican. I can only think of one really prominently that was two Democrats, which of course was the Senate race with Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. That might evolve that way and it might not. I think we don't know that. And I think a lot of it goes to your second point, which is how are we going to make sure that we are part of a Democratic Party that is growing? And I think we have to be honest. Independence, no party preferences,

that mindset is growing. It's growing among young people. It's growing among new registrants, among immigrants who are registering to vote for the first time. Why? Why do they not trust the Democratic Party? And I think the answer is they don't trust either party because they are willing to say Washington isn't working for everyday people. And why are

they? Why are they? Why do they feel that way? Why do they think that? Because a hell of a lot of time, it's true. We have a Washington that is more controlled than ever by special interests and by big money. We have corporate PAC money everywhere you look. I don't take it. I never have and I never will. And it's going to set me apart in this race. We have people who are beholden to lobbyists. I don't take federal lobbyist money. The lobbyist wants to meet with me. You got to bring a good idea, not a check. We have a congressional stock training. And so people feel like we're getting secret information and we're using it to enrich ourselves. Anybody's welcome to come check out my minivan. There is no enrichment going on here.

And so I think one of the things we need to do is we're competing for, do people trust government? That's what we're competing for. Do people trust us to make government work for them? And while I think the answer to whether you can trust Republicans to work for you is a hard no, I think we have to be honest. Some members of our own party bear some responsibility for not taking actions or not enacting reforms that can help us grow our democratic policies. This could be a crowded race. It already seems like it could be a contentious race. Many of your potential-

That would make it like all my other races. So bring it on, folks. Welcome. I'm a survivor. I had a five-way primary in my first race for Congress. I did not have the endorsement of the Democratic Party. My now state senator, Dave Min, did. And I managed to win that primary, get into the top two.

So I'm used to tough races. I would expect nothing less of this. And let's be clear, Californians deserve a competitive race. They deserve to get to know who's going to fight for them. They deserve to hear what they think. They deserve to get a chance to shake our hand and to show us what's going on in their communities. So as you can probably tell, I can't wait to get the heck out of Washington and back on the campaign trail in California. I was going to ask, how tough do you plan to get in this race? Because I noticed many

of your potential rivals, if not most of them, like they greeted your entry into the race by taking shots at you over announcing during the storms this week. Some of the shots were oblique, some were less so. What do you consider fair game in this race and how tough do you plan to get? Well, look, I think it's pretty clear. I am a no bullshit kind of girl. So I'm going to tell it how it is. But this isn't about personalities. This is about policy. This is about leadership. And one of the marks of a leader is you're willing to squarely tackle problems in a productive way. So I am going to draw contrasts where they're appropriate, but I'm going to try to show respect because that ultimately is part of what pushes people away from politics. When they feel like it's personal, when they feel like it's nasty, then they're not willing to engage at all. And I've seen this in Orange County time and time again. So, you know, I am, I personally, you know, share what Senator Feinstein said. I would just echo to everybody

here. Senator Feinstein, when learning that I had announced my candidacy, said she's welcome to throw her hat in the ring and run. Amen, sister. I agree with that. And Senator Feinstein may choose to run. I do not presume to know when and what decision she'll make. But I actually think that's the right attitude to have. And I think our senator here is actually showing some real maturity and real leadership and real thought here, which is it's a competitive race. Let's go. Speaking of being tough, it's one of the personal qualities that's made you such an effective member of Congress. CEOs are afraid of you. Wall Street's afraid of you.

Lovett's afraid of you. But there's been a bunch of stories over the last few weeks based on mostly anonymous accounts from former staffers that you're also tough on the people who work for you. I've been wondering, what's your reaction to all those stories? Well, I'm really proud of my staff. They're incredible. And I could not do the work I do in the way that I do it without their talents, without their time, without their commitment to doing their best. But let's be clear.

Of course, I want their best effort. Of course, I want my best effort. The American people deserve no less. You know, I regret if this employee feels disgruntled. She finished her term in her fellowship, was a two-year fellowship. I enjoyed working with her. And I'm excited to continue to get to work with my staff

on this campaign and on the official side. But I, you know, I'm willing to expect people to work hard. I work hard. And I think that's what the American people should expect. Yeah, I will just say from personal experience, I've dealt with your staff, some of your staff a couple times when we've tried to have you on the show. And they don't have the fear in their eyes that some staffers have, considering who their bosses are. So I was surprised to read that. I want my staff to flourish. And I've seen this. I have staffers who have gone off to law school. I have staffers who have gone on to work in the administration in some really tough departments,

like Homeland Security. I have staffers who've gone off to work on Senate committees. And to that I say, amen, go forth, take what we did together and go off and build your career. Amen. Go forth. Take what we did together and go off and build your career. I was a law professor. I'm a teacher. So if I see a staffer making a mistake or maybe we could do it better, let's work on it. And I want them to say the same thing to me. And boy, sometimes they do. And I think that's for the better of all of us. Last question. You once told me that some of your most difficult constituents are your children. What do they think about mom running for Senate? They think I'm going to win, which was encouraging because that's good. This last election, they were like, not so sure.

So they think I'm going to win, which I appreciate. But they also, you know, I told my daughter that if we didn't win this last time in this November, this past November, that she could get a cat. So she's now saying, and I won, so I don't, you know, no cat. No cat. She's now bargaining with me, like, if you lose the Senate, can we get a dog? I mean, this is what I'm saying. These CEOs, like, they could take lessons from my children in how to negotiate and how to be tough. Katie Porter, thanks so much for joining, and good luck out there on the trail.

Thank you. All right. Thank you to Katie Porter for joining us today. It is a three-day weekend, so we will not have a show on Tuesday morning. We will not be recording on Mondayay but um dan and i will be back next thursday so we'll talk to you then bye everyone pod save america is a crooked media production the executive producer is michael martinez our senior producer is andy gardner bernstein our producers are hayley muse and olivia martinez it's mixed and edited by andrew chadwick

kyle seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerrard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth.

Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.