Pod Save America - "The odorless gas of misogyny."

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

Trump's first 100 days end with a fight over funding for the wall. Plus health care, tax reform, and Teen Vogue's Lauren Duca joins to discuss truth in the Trump era and the divides in the Democratic party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Bill O'Reilly. I'm Tommy Vitor. Tommy Vitor is in studio because he is a new resident of Los Angeles. An L.A. resident. I just want to say if government did anything as efficiently as the L. LA Parking Authority gave out tickets, we would have no problems in this country. Welcome, my friend. I am two down in like two days. Welcome to the parking lot. It's the minority report with those people.

They give you a ticket when you think about it. Park somewhere for 11 minutes. Here I am. On the pod today, we have the author of Teen Vogue's thigh-high politics column, award-winning journalist Lauren Duca. Just won an award at the Shorty Awards last night. Very cool. We don't know what those are.

They're social media awards. There you go. No bullshit conversation. No bullshit conversation. By the way, we walked into the studio today and on all of the cable screens was Barack Obama. So nice. And I was like, maybe we're back in another era and after he finishes speaking

Moring Joe's going to say he didn't emote enough. It was all a terrible dream. And then we're going to treat each other better. It's going to be like, did he reach out to John Boehner or not? Maybe Donald Trump is the ghost of Christmas future. The scariest ghost of them all. He's speaking while we're recording this. I don't think he's making any news.

I just made sure he will make news. The only news is the contrast. Anyway, subscribe to all of our pods. Love it or leave it, there was a great show in Austin on Friday. It was an awesome time. With Beto O'Rourke, I can say. I pronounced it correctly now. Yes, Beto and I played a game called Cruiser Crockett, and we actually

had a song composed by our official band, Sure Sure, a Davy Crockett, Ted Cruz cover. There you go. Among many other reasons to check it out. Anyway, subscribe to that. Pod Save the World. What's going on with Pod Save the World this week? We're going to talk about what the hell is going on in France and what the hell happened in Turkey.

We're going to go hard Europe this week. Good, because I don't think we'll delve too deeply into French politics. That's okay. Also, the only thing I wanted to say about the Turkey thing is I can't believe Donald Trump, who has ongoing business interests in Turkey, didn't refer to the Armenian genocide as a genocide. But then again, neither did Democrats. Right.

So maybe. Anyway. With friends like these, subscribe. Honor Marie Cox's podcast. And, guys, we are about to launch a new podcast with our friend, DeRay McKesson. You know, we've been sitting on this news for a long time. We have. It feels good to be able to talk about it.

for a long time. We have. It feels good to be able to talk about it. So, the teaser and you'll be able to subscribe will be up on iTunes

Tuesday, April 25th. Today's the 24th. Yes. Tuesday, April 25th. So, you can go on iTunes and you subscribe

to DeRay's podcast and we'll be launching after that. I think we've now settled on the title Pod Save the People. Probably. Now you've jinxed it.

But it's probably going to be called Pod Save the People. Thanks to Twitter. Gave DeRay some great feedback it's probably going to be called Pod Save the People. Thanks to Twitter. It gave Dre some great feedback. Anyway, we're very, very excited about this. It's going to be focused on social justice, activism, organizing, culture. Dre's going to have some excellent guests.

It's going to help people figure out calls to action and stuff like that. We're very excited about it here at Cookie Media. It's going to be great. Okay. Let's go to this week's agenda. Actually, before we get into 100 Days, Shut Down. I just actually did myself.

Before we get into all that, can we talk about the AP interview? Oh my god. Tommy, we were talking about this a little bit last night. Did you read it? Love it? I saw the excerpts. I mean, I have to say, look, I wasn't completely surprised by it because basically any time Donald Trump gives a lengthy interview, we get like a cascade of unintelligible ramblings like punctuated by insultingly obvious lies.

That was sort of my feeling. I was about to click on it to read the like, the whole thing, and I thought... It's very long. Why? Why? He's just rambling. He doesn't know why he's saying these things. They're not tethered to his views.

He's just filling the space when he's asked a question. He's a dotty old racist. And he doesn't view words as, like... You know, one thing that was really interesting that Donald Trump said the other day was, like, he was like, why would I call China a currency manipulator when I'm in the middle of doing a deal with them? And it's like, for him, he's like, why would I call Chinese China currency manipulator in the middle of doing a deal with them? And it's like for him, he's like, I don't understand why people take my word seriously. What's your problem?

Maybe because the press told us not to. But yeah, I mean, he's like absurd. Hyperbole is kind of funny in the context of a big rally when it's like him one on one with an Associated Press reporter in the Oval Office. And he says some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber about his joint session address. Who do you think you're kidding, pal? How about my interview with Chris Wallace who had the best rating since 9-11? Those are the only facts he had a good handle on.

He said 9.2 million people turned into an interview. He was about 7 million people off. He didn't even know what was in his own 100-day plan. It's not great. I mean, it goes to show you at this point in the Trump presidency, we're talking about 100 days, it's like, the guy is not some, like, secret plotting fascist. He's just, like, he's incompetent, and he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he has no desire to learn what he's talking about.

And he's just sort of in awe of the office, but more in a way that's like, oh, man, I didn't know everything was going to be this hard. I thought it was as easy as everything you see on cable TV, but it's much harder than cable TV makes it out to be. There's something he keeps taking pictures behind the Oval Office desk. And I don't know if that's how unusual that is. It feels unusual to me. Like when I picture Barack Obama taking a picture, it's in front of the desk or it's in action. But Donald Trump takes pictures behind the desk, like the way Jay-Z took a picture in the Situation Room because it looks like he's on a tour

and I think subtly Donald Trump himself, anyone with a camera in his vicinity, the picture is still, holy fucking shit, I'm president. Holy shit, Donald Trump is president. He views it as a game. It's all gamesmanship it's posturing, it's whatever but it's unfortunate that that has trickled down

to his staff because there was a long Politico piece about the press office and the way they view the press. There was an anecdote in there that they lie. They play a game where they try to slip the biggest lies they can into stories on background or wherever they do it, and they think that's fun. The White House press office lies for sport. If I had done that, Robert Gibbs would have lifted me up by the scruff of my neck, ripped off my badge, and walked me out of the gates and never spoken to me again. Like, this is deadly serious stuff. And that was not a fake news reporter.

That was a conservative activist, by the way. That was the source for that. Two of them. And like, hey guys, if you can't figure out which way an aircraft carrier is going, maybe don't brag about lying to the press to Politico.

Like, get the basics right, you morons. Their rationale was, well, they're going to print whatever they want anyway, so we might as well have some fun with it. It's a group of people. It's a funny thing. I'm learning a lot about the relationship between intelligence and morality. Some of these people are too dumb to do the right thing.

They've never thought about how hard these jobs should be, how to care about them, why it's important. Jobs should be how to care about them, why it's important. Like, these are people who have no business in these jobs because the only people willing to work for Trump are the worst, craven, ridiculous, failed-out Republican operatives. And I have sympathy for them. I realize how hard those jobs are. Do not have sympathy for them. I have sympathy for how difficult the comms office job is when you have an incompetent senior staff. They have no adult supervision from the president down. But do not brag about lying to the press and think that that's cool.

Day 95, we're still on the fence. Having a hard time. Still on the fence. Day 95. It's so fun to be back in the studio. I can see your faces. That's great. I cannot.

Three months it's been. So we're headed to the 100 days of Trump's presidency, the first 100 days, which is a completely, Trump is correct, it's a completely artificial, bullshitty deadline that every administration deals with. But anyway, coinciding with that, more importantly, is if they do not pass a government funding bill by the end of the week, the government will shut down. It will be the first time that the government shut down when one party is in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency, but somehow they might be able to do that. So negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to avert a shutdown were, by all reports, going fine.

Leaders said they were close to a deal. Everything was going smoothly until Donald Trump stepped in and said he wants funding for the wall included in the budget. Experts say the wall would cost $21.6 billion and take three and a half years to build. And not work. And not work. Trump tweets yesterday eventually,

but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying in some form for the badly needed border wall. So Mexico's getting a wall and layaway. Yeah, exactly. And then Jeff Sessions said that Mexican people, not Mexico the country, will pay because we'll take back some tax subsidies for them.

So that's their other spin yesterday. Also, just what a... Talk about Donald Trump going full politician. What a bullshitty tweet. What happened to the straight talk, man? Eventually, in some form? It was a grift.

I want to imagine in this week what Donald Trump, the candidate, would be saying about Donald Trump, the president, in his first hundred days. Can you imagine Donald Trump Trump the candidate would be saying about Donald Trump the president in his first hundred days. Can you imagine Donald Trump the candidate when he heard a tweet like that? Like, can you believe that? It's bullshit. What is he talking about? He's a liar.

He's corrupt. He's not going to last there. Can't trust these people. It's very weak. But Mulvaney's out there, his OMB director's out there saying elections have consequences. We should fund his top priority. You guys told us Mexico was going to pay for it. We're not stupid.

I was actually thinking that I'm not good at three-dimensional Senate chess, and nobody is because it's stupid. But, like, what if we introduced a bill that said we will support spending the wall dollar for dollar for what the Mexican government contributes. We'll match. It's matching funds. You want a wall? It's not a bad idea. We'll do it.

That's a great idea. Any dollar. You get Mexico to put a dollar in, we put a dollar in. We'll put in two dollars. The question is, is this a bluff? I would say yes, because on the Sunday shows, which is where we get all our news from, ask whether they'll sign a bill that doesn't include wall funding. Just about every Trump official said, we're not sure.

So that's a yes. I mean, what are you talking about? So my bet is they are going to try to get some money for border security, in quotation marks, into the government funding bill, just nebulous border security, not specifically for the wall. And the Trump people will call that a win, and everyone else will say it's fine because we didn't have wall money specifically,

and we'll all move on, and the government will be funded. I think. Who knows? Unless they want to shut the government down over the fucking wall, which, go ahead. Yeah, I have a,

my view on this is pretty simple. If they want to shut the government down over funding for this wall, then they shouldn't shut the government down over this wall. It'd be catastrophe. Because you said Mexico was going to pay for it, we said you're a dumb fucking liar, you and you shouldn't have and now you're making us

pay for it you can go fuck yourself we'll keep your promises for you we're not paying for your goddamn wall yeah i mean i think republicans are already i mean this is not just democrats united against this idea there's republicans are against it too and one of the reasons why is if you look inside the washington post poll among the people who say trump has not accomplished much 47 pin the blame on him a A quarter blame congressional Republicans. 7% blame Democrats. That's obviously not directly applicable here, but I think it's instructive in terms of how people might view a government shutdown in the context of them controlling everything. And just so people know, because a couple people were asking this on Twitter, the reason that they do have to negotiate with Democrats on this funding measure is because, yes, Republicans control the House, but they need 60 votes in the Senate to pass the bill, so Democrats could filibuster the

bill, which, of course, last week some conservative commentators like fucking Hugh Hewitt was out there saying, like, it's Chuck Schumer. He's the one who's going to cause the shutdown. The Democrats should be blamed for the shutdown. Before we get there, they don't even have enough Republican votes to fund this wall. Like, Marco Rubio was out there this weekend saying we shouldn't have the wall in this bill. Marco Rubio. Mark Sanford was out there saying the same thing.

Good to hear from Marco Rubio. All the Republicans that represent border states, for some reason, don't want the wall. The people that are closest to where the wall would be, those Republicans don't want it. So it doesn't seem like it's going to happen. where the wall would be. Those Republicans don't want it. So it doesn't seem like it's going to happen. The other thing they're trying to do in this bill is the Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies,

which we've talked a lot about. Trump tweeted, Obamacare is in serious trouble. The Dems need big money to keep it going. Otherwise, it dies far sooner than anyone would have thought. What he's really saying there is... Nice healthcare system. Be a shame if something were to happen to it.

Right. Because that would mean, if we do not fund these Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies the insurance market will probably melt down millions and millions of people lose access to health care at least premiums will go up massive massively you know and and this is a small we the republicans have done this before donald trump is doing something new but we should put it in the context of yet again a republican administration or republican Congress is threatening the country's health to get votes, right?

Like, this is sort of like the debt ceiling. Like, we'll take the country to bankruptcy and we'll put us in default if you guys don't compromise with us. Like, this is a threat to the country to get votes. Like, it's him putting a gun to the head of the healthcare system. Yeah. It's like a double threat, too. Like, give us the wall or we will melt down the insurance market and shut the government down.

Like, here, let's sweeten the deal. We'll do one more bad thing to you. Like, it's just pretty – I don't think it's going to happen. I think we're going to get a boring government funding bill and that's going to be it. We'll just have Jared and Ivanka will whisper into the president's ears and Jared will just pick up the president's hand and sign the bill and everything will be OK. It'll be good. To your point in the intro, Trump is right that the 100 days marker is arbitrary. It's bullshit.

It's silly to focus on it. He's not helped his case here by having his staff plan giant meetings around rollouts around 100 days and then leak those meetings and whatever. around rollouts around 100 days and then leak those meetings and whatever. But that said, one thing you learn quickly in the White House is that a four-year presidential term is like 18 months in reality of time where you could actually get things done when you counted recesses, re-election, like all the things. And the fact that they squandered 100 days with nothing done is really going to hurt him. It's interesting, though.

I was thinking about this, too. So Mulvaney has been out there being like, we've passed more bills. People don't realize that we've done more executive orders. People don't realize it. And I don't think the picture is as positive in terms of wanting Donald Trump to fail as we'd like it to be. Like, it is true that there have been no big, you know, banner pieces of legislation. But they have passed a number of regulatory rollbacks. They have signed a bunch of EOs. They did get Gorsuch on the court. We should not pretend that this has been that.

We have succeeded in stymieing them far more than they expected, and that's really impressive, but they're getting points. Well, Gorsuch is something that you can't undo. We always realize that the problem with executive actions when Obama took them is that they could be undone by someone from the opposite party. So that's the both good and bad. The good thing about executive orders is you can get them done. It looks like you're doing something. They can actually have an effect. The bad thing is you elect someone new,

they all go away. But the regulatory reveals are real. Yes, but everything except Gorsuch can be undone by a Democratic president. He's done damage. Not the congressional votes to undo Obama-era regulations. Those are real. Those are law now. Of the congressional votes to undo Obama-era regulations. Those are real.

Those are law now. Of the congressional votes? Yes. Right, right. But a Democratic Congress couldn't. Of course. Right, right, right. I'm just saying, like, yeah.

But legislatively, he hasn't, you know. Yeah, no. No wins for legislative stuff. But yeah, he's doing damage left and right. What's going on with tax reform? stuff but yeah he's doing damage left and right um what's going on with tax reform trump had said that there's going to be a huge announcement on wednesday which like scared everyone who works for him and everyone in congress his own staff was like what are you talking about he's saying it's gonna be the biggest tax cut in history um of course he's

got a problem here he's got also his aide saying multiple things out there. Mnuchin's saying long-term. He's saying we're going to pass long-term tax reform that's going to simplify the tax code, reform the tax code, all that kind of stuff. Mulvaney's out there saying maybe it's just a short-term tax cut. This is his quote. You can either have a small tax cut that's permanent or a large tax cut that's short-term. Which is true. What's your plan, buddy? You said you were going to do this on Wednesday. Well, and their problem is if the tax cut is scored as adding to the deficit in the long term, then you need 60 votes, which means you need Democrats, which means it's not really going to happen.

So if it adds to the deficit in the short term, you can do it through reconciliation and only have 50 votes. So this is going to end up being a big – they're going to try to push a big short-term tax cut for companies and for individuals. For rich individuals. For rich individuals. For rich people, you know, skewed heavily towards the wealthy. They'll probably throw some kind of middle-class bone in there. And then they'll call it a win. That will add massively to the deficit. And once again, we're allowing this cognitive dissonance where Republicans go out and say, well, we're going to grow our way out of this deficit problem because there will be increased economic activity that will recoup all this.

No, there's clearly a revenue side deficit problem in our country, and this is going to exacerbate it. I mean, I don't understand how these, it's like we're back in the 80s. We're starving the beast again. It's just so old. It feels very old. At a time when- Very old politics.

In the NBC Wall Street Journal poll, 57% of people said they want more government help in their lives. This is bad politics. It's the same. It's bad politics for everyone except the Republican members of Congress because it's the only thing they all agree on is that they want to cut taxes for themselves and their friends. Well, and the Venn diagram of what they agree on and what's in Trump's interest overlaps there because Trump at this point is getting desperate for any sort of win. So he doesn't care what the policy is. He doesn't care what the vote is. He doesn't care what the vote is.

He just wants someone to say that something he did was a win. I feel as though I introduced the Venn diagram and then you've taken it and run with it pretty often. No, it's amazing that you were the first person to ever mention Venn diagrams. It's actually called the Lovett-Venn diagram. Yeah, congratulations on that. I'm just saying, I just think it sounds like me when you say it. I like it.

Look, you round me a lot. You're adopting some of my language. He's a pioneer. You've got a dog that looks like his before. I like it. Look, you round me a lot. You're adopting some of my language. He's a pioneer. I'm a pie chartonier. I'm a pie chartonier. Pie chartonier. Healthcare. Yuck. I'm going to just keep going.

We're going to get all the like, is there attention on the podcast questions? And there is. Are you guys fighting? Someone said that the reason that we're not on Thursdays is because Dan and I don't get along. That we're like bandmates that don't talk anymore. Weird. Which is, you know, is there truth to it? Sure. You and Dan are the oasis of this podcast.

Okay, next topic. Are they fucking with us again on healthcare? The people who cried wolf on healthcare reform reform they are back at it trying to make Trumpcare worse than it was before so there's rumors that there has been negotiations between the more moderate

Tuesday group in the house and the Freedom Caucus it looks like where they're settling on is everything that was in the original Trump care bill stays as awful as it was, but they want to say states are going to be able to apply for waivers, which will be very easy to get, to get rid of protections for preexisting conditions and essential health benefits.

So the reason OCHA, the Ryan Care, what John refers to as... Wealth care. Wealth care. Wealth care. Hashtag wealth care. Trending topics. Didn't pass was the House Freedom Caucus didn't think that the regulations were lifted enough. And the more moderate members felt as though it was not generous enough, right? As a bill, it would do too much to kind of hurt their constituents.

This is a compromise that doesn't do anything to fix anything that made this a Obamacare redux that just made life harder for middle class people. That doesn't do anything to change that. All it does is allow states that already didn't expand Medicaid, that already have made it harder for their constituents to get health care, to make it even harder. That's all it does. It just makes everything worse. I don't understand how that passes.

This bill as a concept was rejected. And now the whole thing is like, it's the same exact thing, but Alabama won't have any rules? Basically what they're saying is insurers can charge people with pre-existing conditions whatever they want. There's no limit. It used to be that they have to charge people with pre-existing conditions the same as they charge healthy people. So they did a study on this. The Kaiser did a study on this. Estimated spike in premiums if you have lung cancer, that's about, you're paying about $73,000 more a year,

breast cancer $28,000 more a year, a couple thousand more a year for autism, asthma, diabetes, and you're paying about $17,000 more a year in premiums if you're pregnant. So that's what would happen if this new one passes. Ryan has sort of walked back the urgency of the vote on this and said, don't expect to vote this week. Trump in his press conference last week was like, the bill's getting better and better. Everyone loves it. Many people are saying it's wonderful. Many people are saying it's good. I want to get it done.

It's going to happen. It's going to happen. So I don't know where this goes. I don't know how these people vote for this. The Trump quote, it's getting really, really good. Many people really like it. And it's getting better and better and better. You know, the bill is awful.

It would be devastating. I'm skeptical of their ability to pass this. But every time they charge up this hill, it makes me really nervous. Because, like, we went into this presidency thinking ACA was dead. Right? I mean, except for Barack Obama, who was like, everyone chill the fuck out. The rest of us around, like, sort of, we're worried because they have all the votes. Oh, back in 2009.

Yeah, yeah. And like, I just don't know. I don't know that we can, we should not let our guard down. Like I said, I said this from the beginning of this debate, like never underestimate the ability of Republican politicians

to be unbelievably craven and do something stupid. Right. Like the, the, the. So you're right. Right. The thing that we would think protects us that, that anyone with self-interest wouldn't want to pass this. And anybody who cares about their constituents wouldn't pass this, uh, may not apply and they'll

just fight. They'll just, it'll, it'll somehow get through. So what's to be done. All we know is that the, the thing that these people are most likely to respond to is fear of losing their jobs. And so I do think these times, I mean, we I mean, they're just getting back from recess today. There's another two weeks of very successful town halls where these, all these Republican members heard how fucking awful

Trump care was. And the people at the town hall were very well versed in high risk pools and pre-existing conditions and all the details. High risk pools is a terrible policy. The pre-existing condition thing,

I think, really resonates. Like, you see that people at these town halls are like, they have pre-existing conditions. People have pre-existing conditions. Tens of millions of Americans have pre-existing conditions because we're-existing conditions tens of millions of americans have pre-existing conditions because we're all human beings and our bodies break and then we want health care everybody wants the same

fucking thing yeah so so the uh the do out here is to keep calling and keep and keep protesting this because like tommy said these people could vote for it um and then and if a bill comes out if an actual bill comes out we just have to go crazy yeah um did you guys see too that uh the white house uh trump is not going to the white house correspondence dinner and so they scheduled a rally in pennsylvania that night which of course it was like brilliant counter programming like it's the most obvious fucking play if you could if you couldn't figure out that if you're not going to the correspondence dinner you hold a rally to talk about why the correspondence dinner in washington are, like you shouldn't

be in politics. Of course you do that. This is about D.C. open mic night. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about the president being so concerned about jokes made at his expense at a dinner at the Hinkley Hilton that he's

been, he took himself out of it. They're planning an event around it. Like building your schedule around the White House Correspondents Center is almost is is somehow manages to be more insane than the fact that the president just says, fuck it and goes to this dinner normally. Like, yeah, it's a dumb it's a you know, I don't think it's, you know, some people say it should never have existed, whatever. It's a harmless thing that happens.

And the president is so thin-skinned that they're panicked about it they're gonna send him to kentucky be like that was washington pennsylvania oh whatever i yeah i mean oh boy i don't know whatever where he's going i'm not comparing i mean i guess the middle of pennsylvania is the kentucky of the north the correspondent association loves about these quotes are like this is a night that celebrates free speech and great no it is not i've been to it many times it's a night that celebrates free speech and great... No, it is not. I've been to it many times. It's a night that celebrates celebrity and access and who's the flashiest guest

you can get. And it's part of... Did you get your Vanity Fair in about yet? I don't think it's happening. But I mean, there were all these rumors in the press corps that maybe he was actually going to show up as an OTR and might save the thing. This does feel like a nail in the coffin for this dinner for a very long time,

but I don't think that's a bad thing. I also think it goes to show that he's going to go do this rally in Pennsylvania. He's happy to go do a rally when he can beat up on Washington in general. He has yet to do a rally where he tries to garner support for a legislative goal of his.

It's not a rally for healthcare. It's not a rally for his tax plan. It's not a rally for anything. It's a rally to just shit all over the insularity of D. not a bad strategy right it really is like sort of the whole the whole culture of the white house does reflect donald trump and that like you know during the whole health care period he did a few rallies but there's no plan there's no rollout there's no i'm going to announce a bill and then i'm going to talk to these people i'm

going to have a round table where we talk about their needs. There's no coherence to any of it ever. It's all little tactics, no strategy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all it is. And that's his fault. For sure. When he walks out of the notes, he's like, yo, we're doing taxes on Wednesday. And the staff's like, what?

How do you plan a rollout around that? It's our saving grace. In many ways, the culture of the Trump White House and the culture of Washington are perfect for each other. I thought that was going to be a segue to an ad. Oh, no. We can. Let's go to the polls. Let's go to the polls.

A couple polls out nearing Donald Trump's 100-day marker. Washington Post ABC shows that Trump has a 42% approval rating, which makes him the least popular president in modern times, but one whose own voters remain largely supportive. So 53% disapprove, 43% strongly so, but his approval rating among the people who voted for him, 94%. Among all Republicans, 84%, and only 2% of respondents say they regret their vote for Trump. It's a pretty amazing number, given that we can't get like 94 percent of people to admit that the earth is round.

But yeah, I'm still skeptical of it. The 2 percent number doesn't surprise me that much. I mean, like we are as divided an electorate as we're going to be. It's only been 100 days. Frankly, I'm kind of heartened that we got 2 percent back because that's the election. Yeah. But like there is huge erosion in the attributes that people like about him. His numbers on being decisive are down.

His marks on honesty are way down. His numbers on being decisive are down. His marks on honesty are way down. His numbers on changing Washington are way down. If that trend continues or even stays where it is, it makes re-election hard. Now, some of these polls pitted him against Hillary Clinton, which is a ridiculous thing to do. Stupid. Well, except she's going to be our nominee again. So, probably a good idea to get ahead of it.

Like, there is a massive, you take a huge hit once you lose. Like, of course your voters are going to say, I'm not going to vote for her again. That's just completely stupid. Disappointing question. I think it shows that resistance efforts have been pretty damn effective. I mean, yeah. So the rating, the one that I'm watching is approval rating among Trump voters who were somewhat enthusiastic or less excited about supporting him 88 and 79 of those say he understands their problems those are still fairly good numbers but that's chipping away those are the voters that are going to swing the election next time the people who were um some well two

groups of voters the voters who didn't vote or voted for third party candidates and then the voters who unenthusiastically voted for trump That's sort of the universe of people we're looking at here. I also think, especially on questions of, do you still think what you used to think? Are you still right about what you did before? People don't like to admit that they fucked something up. I don't like admitting I'm wrong to you two. And I never do it. That's why you don't.

And I'm often wrong. Look, I think the number we have to, the interesting number here is, if the election were held again today, 43% for Trump, 40% for Clinton. So everyone looked at that number and said, oh my God, he beats Clinton. Whatever. Clinton's not running again, so that's that.

But his re-election number is sitting at 43%. That is nowhere close to what he needs. I also just like, 2018 people, I don't want to talk about 2020, but it's so far away. 2018. Donald Trump being unpopular is the most important thing, not because he's going to lose re-election, but because he helps us win the House in 2018. There's one interesting comment on the poll that I want to dig into. Oliver Darcy, who's a media reporter, looked at the 2% regret number, the high approval

rating among his base, and said, you know, until unless Hannity and Fox and Drudge and the right wing Republican media turns against him, the base isn't going to. I think there's a lot of truth to that. For sure. Like, if most of these people every day are waking up and getting their news from sources that are saying that Donald Trump is the best thing on earth and has never done anything wrong, why would they think he's done nothing wrong? Unless they give him a lot, unless it's like three, four years down the road and they look around their communities and don't see jobs coming back

and don't see their lives improved, then maybe they're going to give it a second look. But right now, every piece of information they're consuming is telling them that Donald Trump's doing a great job. Yeah, state where media works. It's the reason it's so popular. Yeah, though, I mean, look, if,

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if he keeps losing the info wars of the world, that will hurt him. Right. That is the only place we have the crazy, crazy far right. We've seen some erosion. Oh, yeah. His boy Paul Watson is all upset about this.

Yeah, look, no. I mean, this is why the globalists taking over or not, it's not very good for the base. They're cucking InfoWars. The NBC Wall Street Journal poll was similar to the Washington Post. 40% approved, 54% disapproved. It was weaker than their February poll. But, Tommy, you referenced this earlier. There was a very interesting question in that poll that they've been asking since 1996.

The question is, do you think government should do more to solve problems and help meet people's needs? Or do you think government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals? In 1995, more than 60% said do less, and a little over 30% said do more. During the Obama years, it was pretty close, and it actually traded back and forth around the 50% marker. Today, it was 57% say government should do more, the highest ever in the poll, including 59% of independents. So what do we think that means?

What do we think that says about Trump, Republicans, Democrats? Anyone have thoughts? I don't know. I think it's interesting. I think that's the, I don't know. The one thing I would say is Obamacare being threatened and people being worried about their health care and seeing it through the lens of a Republican administration potentially attacking the government's ability to help them get affordable care, I think is maybe an interesting part of that. Yeah, it makes you question the ability of the Tea Party to run hard on an

anti-government platform. I mean, certainly that seems like it would not be in any way effective. It also makes you wonder if Trump's refusal to do sort of the basic things in government, like, I don't know, appoint anyone to work at HUD, to appoint anyone to work under Rex Tillerson, to get any sort of policy staff in place that can make government sort of be basic and competent. Like, if hearing about that might over time erode people's faith, that's probably not going to happen because, God forbid, someone reads the paper. I think it says that Paul Ryan's agenda is a disaster. Totally.

It is a political disaster. And that's why Donald Trump did not run on Paul Ryan's agenda or the traditional Republican agenda. He pretended to run as a populist nationalist, someone who was going to have government do more for people. And it's also an opening for Democrats

to not be afraid in talking about activist government because people do want the government to provide basic protections, whether it's about the environment, whether it's reducing income inequality, whether it's providing for education, like those things are still popular, which is why Trump said things like pretended to say things like he wasn't cutting Medicare and Social Security, like he broke with Republican orthodoxy on the campaign trail in those areas about government activism. Yeah, so I talked to Beto O'Rourke, who's campaigning against Ted Cruz in Texas, and

he's running to become a Democratic senator from Texas. And he's polling, you know, it's early polls, but he's polling even with Ted Cruz. And he was just openly talking about how he thinks that we need to move to single pair. And I think that's a good example of a shift. You know, the we don't need to be. I think that, you know, the era of big government is over way of thinking is dead. That people recognize that in an economy that has changed this much, that has created this much uncertainty and anxiety for people, that's this dynamic, that we need a strong public sector that helps people, provides a strong safety net, that sort of evens out these sort of vicissitudes, whatever. Yeah, people want competent government, right? They want a TSA. They want competent government. They want a TSA that will keep dogs away from Mark Halpert in first class when he just wants to be left alone.

Okay? That's what people want. Oh, my God. What a journey. That's why when Barack Obama, when healthcare.gov got rolled out and it was a total fiasco, that is what drove him insane with basic government and competency and services. If we can get past that, if we can make it work and prevent Republicans from starving it of resources that then make it ineffective so they can further chop it down, people like that. Well, it's interesting. You're making an argument. You're saying that the poll is more about people wanting competent government than activist government, which are two different things.

I don't know. It could be both. It could be some mix of. But I do think, look, people don't want fucking Paul Ryan's big tax cuts start the government agenda. It's hard to get that through sort of the D.C. establishment thinking because D.C. thinking is still primarily Republican establishment thinkers. One reason this might be changing, actually, is there's now three positions, right? There's no longer the kind of the Paul Ryan orthodoxy versus Democratic orthodoxy. It's Democratic orthodoxy versus Paul Ryan orthodoxy versus Donald Trump. And two out of the three of those have a view of very strong role for the federal

government. Another statistic from the poll that will segue into our next segment about Democrats in disarray. I'm ready. 67% of people said the Democratic Party is out of touch with Americans. That is slightly more, slightly more than said Republicans were out of touch with Americans. That is slightly more, slightly more than said Republicans were out of touch with Americans and more than said Donald Trump was out of touch with Americans. So if you rank them, it would be Democrats were the worst, then Republicans, then Trump. And I think I agree with that. You think Democrats are more out of touch with Americans than Republicans? Yes. Really? Yeah. Why? I don't know. Something to say. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, it's not about policy. It's about, look, I'll tell you one reason I think it.

We've lost everywhere. Now, Republicans may not be offering solutions that will actually help people, but they have figured out a language to talk to people that resonates with them. You think the Republican Party has? The Republican Party? Absolutely. I think, I guess here's what I'm saying. They have 33 governorships.

They have all the state legislatures. They have all the branches of government. What are you talking about? Of course they're more in touch with regular people. That means they win. That doesn't mean they're necessarily more in touch. Well, I don't know what it means, but people are looking at a Democrat versus a Republican all across the country and they're choosing the Republican. Look, I'm saying

that Democrats definitely are out of touch with people. The party has a problem. And clearly in the last race, people thought Donald Trump was more in touch than Hillary Clinton was. That's what swung the election. I don't know that I would think that Republicans are somehow more in touch with the American people than Democrats are. I don't believe that. All I'm looking at is the fact that we are losing elections up and down the board everywhere. Of course we are. And there has to be a reason for that because it's certainly not. We would not say that it's because Republicans are offering better policies.

So clearly Republicans have a language for relating to people that is far more successful than what we have. Right. But what does it mean to lose elections? What does it mean to lose elections over and over again other than the fact that we're out of touch? But it's not just gerrymandering because we're losing at the state level. Right. We're losing everywhere. Well, how did Barack Obama win twice? He's more in touch than Donald Trump, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Clearly, both parties have enormous problems. Right.

Neither of them are like I think the status quo probably the status quo probably has a pretty big messaging problem, period. Right. For sure. Getting tossed out no matter what party you're in. You hate Washington. You're sick of what's been going on. I mean, this is sort of, a lot of this conversation is predicated off a New York Times piece about a, quote, unity stop in Nebraska where Democrats end up fighting over whether a mayoral candidate should be pro-choice or can be anti-choice in the Democratic Party. Nationalizing municipal elections like that is always going to lead to ruptures like

this. Hold on, though. I want a better answer to the question, then. It's one thing to say, yes, Democrats are losing up and down. Of course we are. We've had a horrible run from below the federal level, below the presidential level, right? But what policies do you think make Democrats more out of touch than Republicans? That's a different question.

No, I guess that's the question I want to know. I think the answer, Democrats are more out of touch than Republicans because Democrats are losing, thus they are more out of touch, is sort of a weird way out of that question. Yeah, it begs the question. But I guess what I'd say is, so you know what I was thinking when I saw this, that 67% of Democrats, I tweeted about the fact that we shouldn't ignore this number. It's a really important number. And what was amazing to me is how everybody responded with their own personal explanation like i got so many different reasons for what it means for democrats to be out of touch one reason is oh we don't know how to talk to trump voters uh the other is we're

enamored of the hillary clinton wing and we're not listening to the bernie people the other is that we're doing too much identity politics and it's alienating people right like or we're too it's the neoliberals and they've taken over the party. Like every explanation has been offered. I think my answer, my response is like, yes, like those are all the reasons that that the policy options that we're offering people. But some of those are very contradictory. There's got we what I guess all I'm trying to say here is at some point this party or the people who make up this party have to come to a conclusion about what we need to say and believe going forward. And what we do say and believe going forward.

And what issues we believe in. And I feel like we have been focused so much on personalities. There's this Bernie versus Hillary fight. And not enough on the issues and the values that we believe as a party. It was easier when the party was divided back in 2005 and 2006. was like over whether you support or didn't support the Iraq war, which did become this over magnified thing. But like, at least that was a war. Like you were either for or against a war. It was an issue. You could be on one side or the other. Right now, it is even hard to figure out what it is we're arguing about. Because like you said, you

said the Democrats are out of touch and you've got a million different answers about why many of them contradictory. They weren't. It's not all true. It's too much identity politics or Bernie Sanders. There's a whole bunch of people criticizing Bernie. Right. So it's like, well, I would say no, but so that this is where I come down that like that

the Bernie critique of the Democratic Party is accurate, that the party doesn't sound enough like it's fighting for working people. And he has a language for how to do that as part. And so there's a language question, right? That's part of the reason why I don't touch. That's a language question, not a policy question. But as part of that, there's also a deeper policy question that I think is represented by that feud that is sometimes represented in that divide, but not always. It's a connected but different, distinct fight, right? So affordable college or single payer, right? These are fights that are linked to that conversation about fighting for the working class. But there's a connected but different, distinct fight, right? Like, so, you know, affordable college or single payer, right? These are fights that are linked to that conversation about fighting for the working class.

But there's a world in which Tom Perez could sound just as tough on the wealthy in this country, but embrace a more moderate agenda, right? There's a world in which that could kind of be one way to bridge the divide. So I think that these fights are all connected. By the way, on the identity politics fight, like, I think that's part of it. So people like, oh, you know, that the Hillary Clinton campaign was fought too much on love, Trump's hate and, and social issues, but but and that Bernie doesn't care about those issues. Well, I don't believe that that divide is actually there. I think that there's a way in which we don't need to say that talking about sexism and talking about feminism and talking about trans rights and talking about gay rights and all the rest and choice

has to mean that we can't also be a party that's like very working class focus. Like, I think we can do both of those things. So when you say we're out of touch, you believe that it is the language that we're using or an like what what about us is like of all the explanations you got? What do you why do you believe the answer is for why we're out of touch? I think that the Bernie critique is largely correct, that the Democratic Party has lost touch with a language and a set of policies that are simple, easy to digest, and that people understand are for them. That's my sort of view. But what about his policies? I guess what I'm trying to get at is Bernie and Hillary argued

over a $12 minimum wage versus a $15 minimum wage. They argued about a public option on the road to maybe Medicare for all versus Medicare for all, right? And so it's like, do you think that these issue debates are the salient debates in the party? Or do you think it is a question of how we speak, what we emphasize when we're out there, message, whatever? Because I think I'm not sure, but I do think that the reason Hillary Clinton, this is why it's hard to articulate. I think the reason Hillary Clinton felt that in order to appeal to Bernie voters while still maintaining whatever her seriousness and responsibility was, that she had to take Bernie's $15 minimum wage and put it through a machine that came out as a $12 minimum wage, where states could go up to $15, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, where we take the Bernie proposal on

college and then put it through the kind of democratic think tank machine. And what comes out of the other end is a much more complicated but less expensive version. Like that policy apparatus, I think, is broken because it's built for a kind of governing majority. It means that what pumps out of the democratic institutions are these kind of feel like they've already been through a budget reconciliation process, because a lot of these are institutions that were built around governing, whether they came out during the Clinton administration or they kind of a lot of these are people that were policy experts that came up during

the Obama administration. I think a party in the wilderness and a party that is trying to show people that will fight for them is a party that should embrace big, simple ideas that don't necessarily always need to be practical and that say to people like we're going to go really hard and we're not going to worry about what the donors think. We're not going to worry about what the wealthy, moderate backers of the party think. We're going to fight for working people for big programs that you will see personal benefits from easily that aren't a crazy means tested complicated jury rigged tax code okay here's what we're going to do we're going to pick a date on the calendar and we're

going to stop re-litigating the primary in the frame of bernie versus hillary because that's not how we viewed politics or the democratic party at all until very recently and we're going to stop re-litigating whether it was frigging Jim Comey that lost the election for us or whether the media is to blame or whether it was Hillary's staff and not going to Wisconsin. We're going to figure out

what do we care about most? What do we stand for? What are our values? And we're going to talk about that every day from now on. Like, this is a valuable conversation to have, but, like, the conversation that's happening on Twitter

between, like, the Hillary people and the Bernie bros and the reporters taking taking them out of context, is toxic. It's infuriating. It drives me nuts. Love it. I'm glad that we got into this here because I think what started setting me off about your initial response to the question was I am very, very tired. And I'm not saying you do this. I'm saying I'm very, very tired. And I'm not saying you do this. I'm very tired of people. They think that all they need to do, their only responsibility is to take a shot at the Democratic Party being losers. And then we can like move on and say like, Democratic establishment is horrible. And I'm for changing the Democratic establishment. And that's it. And it's like, yeah, of course, it's easy to say that the Democratic Party has done pretty poorly over the last eight years, aside from the presidential level. I think the much harder challenge is figuring out how we get back to winning, what

policies we stand for, what values we talk about, and how we talk about what we want to do. And I don't think that either one of the sides has all the answers to that. For sure, I totally agree with that. And I do think we are, and I know our party and I know what we believe in, and we are way more in touch with what Americans want than Republicans. Of course. Of course. That goes without saying. I guess that's why this is so important. And like, we should not be relitigating 2016. It's an

incredibly stupid conversation. All the answers are right. Hillary wasn't a good candidate. Comey was a terrible influence on the election. There was a policy problem. There was a media, every answer, there was sexism. All of it's true. So we don't need to have that conversation. But the divide between the Bernie wing and the kind of Tom Perez wing now, whatever the establishment of the party is a real one, an important one. And for me, like all that I'm trying to figure out and think through, and I don't have all the answers at all. I don't know exactly what to do,

but I agree that like, as a party, we are more in touch. We have better policies. I don't think that the best policies, I don't think we've solved all the answers, but like we're a better party, but we're losing. And I think we need to ask ourselves why. And it's a really important question. And the one thing I do see is that Bernie at least has a theory of the case. He's the only person out there like this is a direction you can go try this. Yeah, I can't get past the fact that we put forward a candidate in the last election who

was the standard bearer for our party that was largely perceived as out of touch for a variety of reasons, you know, fair and unfair. And this poll, while we have a lot of work to do, is probably a big legacy of that. The thing that I will think about that video, so the Chris Hayes video where Bernie says we should go after the billionaires and the millionaires, and then Tom Perez refuses to agree. I'll think about that video for a while, not because I thought, I think Tom Perez is going to be a great chair of the DNC, but because Tom Perez didn't seem like he had the words, like he didn't have a language for how to talk about these issues in a way that could appeal to Bernie people, but without giving up on the kind of larger coalition that the Democrats need to have. And like that to me is the problem. And that's what I'm thinking

about. Because what Tom Perez in that video, we talked about this a little bit, but what Bernie should have said, or what I would have agreed with is saying the ruling class in this country has not passed policies or helped push for policies that would help working people. And it's bad that they have done that. What Bernie said is the ruling class's greed has destroyed America, you know? Right. And I think that probably caught Tom Perez off guard and he said, I disagree with that. But he didn't want to disagree with it because he was too afraid because now he's in this position where he's afraid of everything and he's going to be cautious. So he gives some

namby-pamby language about hope on the ballot, which sounded absurd. Right, I feel like he got stuck. He got stuck and he didn't handle it well. Because people are so afraid to say that Bernie's language might be a little too hot sometimes. Terrified of that. And it's not even the base, it's Twitter

folks who want to keep re-litigating this primary and feel very aggrieved by it. There's absolutely a need to improve the conversation and the language we use. But I also think there's this like there's this very small minority that's very loud and still very pissed about this primary that will like chop you down the minute you say anything that goes against what Bernie Sanders stands for. I think that's toxic as well. Right. Yeah. No, i agree with that completely i i'm just open to anything because we are in such dire straits donald trump is president we've lost the country so how do we solve it yep for sure soul searching is required and there's a well yeah and there's a lot on our side and we have the better argument so we should figure out a way to fucking make it

you know okay when we're back we will have teen Vogue columnist, freelance journalist, Lauren Duca. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod with us today, we are very excited to have the author of Teen Vogue's Thigh High Politics column, award-winning journalist, Lauren Duca. Lauren, welcome to Pod Save America. Hello, thank you for having me. You guys have a lot of fans. I have to say hi to, like, a lot of people.

I don't know. I know are listening. I'm not going to let them down, I hope. Do you think Tucker is one of them? Does he wish you congratulations yet? Oh, he actually is unsure who I am. I maybe work for Chief Glamour. He doesn't remember.

What a clown. I heard him say that he was like, he wanted to be mean to you. Which was just very, very classy. And that I am the type of person who says go with God and everyone else is infidel. That was another piece. Unbelievable.

So I'm sort of like a, I don't know, I think I'm like a Christian crusader figure in that, and that was me, but I don't know. So Lauren, we were just talking about this divide in the Democratic Party and what it means going forward, and we talked a little bit about sort of Bernie campaigning with Heath Mello in Omaha and the Ossoff stuff. I noticed that you tweeted that Senator Sanders

should not have campaigned with Mello. Do you think there's room? And then later Nancy Pelosi said, of course there's room in the party for pro-life Democrats, even though she's very, very pro-choice. What do you think about that? Do you think there's room in the resistance or room in the party for people with differing views on this? Or where do you come down on all this?

Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the issue. And this is not one of them, especially coming off of criticizing Ossoff for being impure. It's such an inopportune moment for it to then be like, oh, this is just another issue. I think reproductive rights are pretty fundamental to any kind of serious, progressive, post-social agenda. It doesn't seem like something that we can just treat as a one-off. And it's strange because I saw so much framing of it where it was, well, this comes down to that great divide of identity politics

and economic policy. And I would push back on that because abortion allows women to have the economic freedom to better support themselves in the kind of post-social system that Bernie is fighting for. And it's interesting because there was always such a divide in his own rhetoric, where I think he didn't quite smudge his economic agenda with his feelings on AIDS, on AIDS politics. And I think everybody always believed he was so kind of true to those issues. So this feels like a really shocking portrayal that I don't think even his supporters were ready for. So that's interesting that you kind of put it, you sort of put it next to what he did on Ossoff, which I think is a valid critique. I guess the question would be, what would happen if Bernie said, I'm embracing somebody like Heath Mello, I'm also embracing somebody like John

Ossoff, this needs to be a big party that has a lot of different people moving in the same direction, but not always agreeing? Yeah, I think it's valid, and yet there have to be some staples, or it feels like, what are we unifying exactly? And it's just strange to have, like, so are we always supporting everyone? Because it seems like he was lukewarm on All Stuff at Best, and then he kind of came around and was like, whatever he said to kind of correct it. But it just seems like he's playing up the kind of cult of personality criticism he gets feels like what's been happening.

And it's just more division at a time when we're just as divided as they are. Do you disagree with Pelosi's take on this? that she's worked in Congress with a number of poor choice Democrats and the party needs to be big enough, in her opinion? Because I was struck by how, I think it was on Meet the Press, how strongly she came out

in defense of the Big Ten approach. Well, I actually think Tom Perez kind of got it right when he said you can personally be anti-choice, but if you pursue policy. And I mean, I guess to be fair, you know, in Omaha, we're not hearing about policies that are going to enact this belief. But there was the past ultrasound legislation. So it's complicated. And, you know, it's like how do you, what other metric is there for knowing someone's future pattern of behavior from their past one? And I don't think it's always

what they say. So, I mean, it's just really tough because that's a place where you can be swayed. If that's your personal belief, I think there's a difference, especially for politicians, obviously, from having a personally held belief and broadcasting that belief and acting on it in legislation, and it becomes a fine line. So, I mean, I think it's a matter of ultimately the position and what the entire kind of women's rights movement and Planned Parenthood leadership needs to better emphasize is that anybody is welcome to be personally pro-life and pro-choice. It's about allowing for the right and the legislation. So I think that there needs to really be a hard red line on that

because that's not up for debate in terms of the right and the choice. And so I think we get caught up in the belief that, obviously, religion just has some kind of armored octopus around this entire conversation. But, yeah. Sorry, I hope I answered the question. You did. I didn't think around it. You did.

Yeah, better than we did. So, last night when you accepted your Shorty Award, congratulations. Thank you. You said, without the truth, we have no foundation from which to resist. Yeah. Which is great. So, you have embraced this role as a journalist who, a journalist who, you know, and you're a columnist, too. So obviously put a lot of your opinions in your column that is very, you know, identified with sort of the resistance against Trump.

How do you balance that out? Right. The need to do journalism and to discover the truth, but also be unafraid to talk about your own views. I mean, we deal with that here at Crooked Media all the time. And I'm wondering sort of how you reconcile those things. So I have really strong feelings about this, and I think they are hard to navigate, and I'm sure that I never get it perfect, and thankfully that's why I have editors who are able to correct beyond my self-correction and maybe sometimes say,

use the word regime a little less, please, this week, that kind of thing. But ultimately, I'm kind of out as progressive, as feminist, as I have a voice that contains my opinion. But I think I still hold myself to objectivity of method in the way I lay out my facts and the way I choose them, and I try my absolute hardest to take a full look at the situation and to provide what I think is the most honest representation of whatever issue I'm working on, and I always try to show my work. So if I'm choosing certain examples, I make it clear why I'm picking certain quotes. I don't want to be part of a kind of journalism of affirmation that is just arming people with plenty more bullets for their machine guns,

for their contentious fight that they have with some idiot libertarian. That's not what I want to be doing. that's not what I want to be doing. That's not what anybody wants to be doing. But, you know, sometimes some people, you know, even on our side, I think there's a lot of focus, especially right now, about Fox, right? But, like, none of the TV news is getting it right, frankly. The best shows are comedy shows. Like, Sam C. and John Oliver are way more journalistically disciplined than some of the things

that we even see on CNN or on MSNBC. There's obviously exceptions, but, like, even figures like Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, like, who are, you know, not quite as conspiratorially nutty as what we're seeing at Fox. They're still just, like, there's a thumb on the scales. And so, anyway, I'm very voicey. I say often wacky things reflecting my opinions,

and I curse, and I'm a little like, I don't know if anyone really knows how to make sense of how that kind of person is a journalist. And so my answer to them is that I have a commitment to journalism as an institution that is meant to empower the public with information that is as to empower the public with information that is as truthful as possible. And I think that a lot of the distrust in media lately comes down to

an overcorrecting for bias, where we've all sort of, as an industry, lost our way because, you know, it's trying to present the truth as if it's a math equation, and as if female, female, female equals banning Muslims, being accused of sexual assault, just entire laundry list Costco long-sized amount of things that Donald Trump did during the campaign, and it's distortion in and of itself. And it's meant to kind of overcorrect for this, like, liberal media expectation, but it's similarly dishonest.

And, I mean, you know, there are definitely times when I need to be corrected by editors, and I don't always get it right, and I'm a human being, and I feel the things I feel probably too strongly sometimes. But trying to have that objectivity of method when I'm showing my work, I guess, really is how I feel that I deserve to be called a journalist and not just a writer or a teen blogger, which is what Carl Bernstein called me back then. I'm seeing him one time.

The thing of the Harry Styles defense of teen girls and their taste. Well, he asked if I was a teen. To be fair, probably anyone under the age of 73 looks like a teen to Carl Bernstein. Yeah. One thing that I think is, you know, you talked about how hard it is on the left to not sort of, you know, just sort of whatever, create more arrows for people to fire. With Trump being such a strange case, an outlandish case that does so many things wrong, that does so many things that are unusual. I think especially on stories like Russia, we do see liberal writers and liberal journalists kind of taking everything to 10, you know, and saying,

you know, and taking every rumor and taking every kind of potential source and an anonymous quote into sort of another example of some nefarious thing when we don't necessarily know. How do we push back against that side of things when we when we're so concerned about all the things Trump is doing and it's so hard to know what's normal, what's unusual and when he really is a threat? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's kind of a primary function of a journalist in this information age. Like, there's not a gatekeeping role anymore. There's not a holding back, and I'm kind of just, like,

holding elements of journalism here, but, you know, maybe a few more people in the media should reread that book, because it's, so there's not, we're not deciding, oh, what negative information should the public learn today? Everyone knows everything, and they're walking into every story with prior knowledge almost 100% of the time. So I think that the role becomes, obviously, verification first and foremost, and then maybe discounting, obviously,

given just the level of deception from this administration. But then the kind of analysis i think that that new journalism of helping to great things and helping to or out the significant of and knowing and having the and when the ten needs to happen and it's just like it

uh... an easiest way to talk about that like and other people about it kind of the easiest way to talk about this is like, Dan Rather's Facebook status is like the only fucking thing that's like truly trustworthy to like a huge proportion of people anymore. And it's shocking. I mean, I know my mom has a master's degree and bought a Washington Post story. What's fake news? And I just don't understand how it's gotten to this point

where just people who are actually like a little tapped out of media are so easily fooled and so the role has to become about about waiting and presenting information and using our best judgment and and it's not like pulling a comey and like trying to make everyone feel okay about everything and and not being truthful and ultimately you know just like it's not it's not pr journalism is not pure and so it has. And ultimately, you know, just like, it's not PR. Journalism is not PR. And so it has to be about, you have to use your personal system of ethics and have an objectivity with the way that you're working through those problems.

And obviously there's going to be human error because humans that are doing this. But I don't know. I don't know how else to gain back trust. I think that we have to go with our gut and not fulfilling expectations. Lauren, I don't want to re-litigate the election, but some days I sit and think, we elected a man who was accused of sexual assault by a dozen women. And I'm wondering if you have reflections on what you hear from young women in your reporting or think personally about what message

that sends, like how, what that means for us culturally. Is this another thing that society says, you know, that that's how it is? Like, how are people dealing with that fact that this monster is in the White House? Yeah, well, I have met a lot of college students lately, and they're all so – everyone I've met has just been so brilliant and capable and exciting. And I hope that that's what I would have been like, you know, at age 20 in this moment. I probably would have been just, like, drinking extra Mike Farts. I don't know. But, like, they're kind of all in the same regard. But the thing that I keep seeing on college campuses, too,

which I guess we all know about, but it's tons of rape. And it's sort of insane that these young women are being told online and then just sort of as a group that they don't have access to a political conversation, that, you know, they can't have serious and non-serious interests. That's just kind of like the rhetoric overall. And then also, like, that it's okay, that their whole role in life is to kind of just hit the highest possible number on a scale of 1 to 10

and, like, feel deserving of being grabbed, I guess. I know that's just what's being protected in a very literal read of things that have been said. And to be dealing with that and being told also that they're overly sensitive and that they're triggered snowflake. And obviously I've lived through this narrative in a really, like, hyper-intense way, but it's just stop telling us that we're too sensitive. I don't understand what that scrambling technique is, because it's working, so I don't know how to push past it,

but beyond using my platform today, it's unbelievable that we just kind of continue to live in a world where men rape and kill and grope and sexually harass women frequently without any repercussions and in one major case while winning the White House. But then even like, God, Bill O'Reilly is going to make more money than an entire family would make in a generation, in a lifetime after this. I mean, it's the ultimate thing that I think is a lack of repercussions on this level. And then, you know, the tie to college rape, because college rape is the conversation,

because it's just obviously a microcosm of what a generalized danger that women feel outside of the world. And the tie I wanted to make is just that there are never any repercussions and there's sort of like an awareness, a hypersensitive awareness of this danger and of this possibility working in the distance and that's sort of like been condoned in the biggest possible way and I don't understand how, if that's me being overly sensitive, then I'm overly sensitive. I don't know. We should all be so overly sensitive.

I mean, what I saw as a hopeful sign is that, you know, the fact that, yeah, it's gross. Bill O'Reilly is going to go off into the sunset and make a whole bunch of money. But the fact that he's off the air was the result of, you know, a lot of people speaking up and and pressuring advertisers and not the result of the murdochs those creeps right it was such unbelievable bullshit that that reporter took that fucking spin this was a financial decision that yeah that is garbage it's so crazy it's so crazy it's like we just were so overwhelmed by the fact that you knew what we knew for years. Way to comply with the law, guys. Thanks for that. Yeah, sorry.

And they also renewed his contract after the time of revelation. Right. But no, it shows that it was a result of activism and speaking out, which is great. I think it's funny because it's like, these egregious examples are obviously never a good thing, but in a way they've become something that finally is like, okay, the odorless gas of sexism and misogyny can now just be a bullseye that people can rally around. And I think there's definitely some backlash to Trump contained in that forcefulness of that media firestorm that made 50 advertisers back out.

I mean, there's latent anger in there, and that anger needs to keep going. Like, in order for this to be kind of like the last gassing brass of all white supremacist patriarchy, like, people need to stay angry, and, like, phone calls are really good, but let's just think overall about how we can be vigilantly tending to democracy and not let this be a fad or a moment, because the second we get quiet, it will get faster and continue, and it's going to be tough, but keep fucking fighting. Well said. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, guys. Really appreciate you coming on, and we will come back again soon. I would love to. Thank you so much. Sorry for talking so much. No, that's perfect. Sort of the goal. That's why we had you here.

It's a podcast. That's what we do here. Yeah, you're an award-winning journalist. We're three idiots. Take care. Safe flight. Bye. Bye-bye.

That's all the time we have here on Posse of America. Wouldn't that be a fun sign-off? That's all the time we have. We have as much time as we want. Exactly. We record until the sun dies. Don't that be a fun sign-off? We have as much time as we want. We record until the sun dies. Bill's looking out the window like, get out of my house. Bill's having a great time. Bill's my

gut check. I look in the booth and if Bill's laughing, I know that I'm doing a great job. It's all about you. Look, we had a good conversation here. We fixed the Democratic Party. We should keep doing this because that's the harder conversation to have. It's easier to just read the news and laugh. It's going to be a lot harder to fix these problems.

I felt it was good. I felt like we talked it through some hard things. Now let's get back to Twitter where everyone will hate on us. Yeah, I know. We're going to have a lot of problems on Twitter. Whatever. Come at me, bro. Just know that I don't care.

Just know that all of our thoughts weren't expressed in an hour podcast. Even in an hour podcast. We didn't express all our thoughts and the thoughts we did express. We're just trying to work our way through these feelings too. We're trying to figure it out, you know guys? You know what? It's in progress. Yeah. Pod Save America in progress. Thank you Lauren Duker for joining us and we will see you again soon.