Pod Save America - “The outrage election.”

Episode Date: May 31, 2018

Roseanne’s racism reveals a reality about life in the Trump Era and the Republican midterm strategy, Trump is caught in a perpetual justice obstruction machine, and Democrats face real danger in the June 5th California primary. Then John Legend talks to Tommy about the work he’s doing to call more attention to elections for local prosecutors around the country.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's interview with friend of the pod, Jon Legend, who's doing great work to get people to pay more attention to critical elections for local prosecutors across the country, something that usually goes under the radar. We've also got a lot of news to cover today. We're going to talk about Roseanne.

We're going to talk about the president's addiction to obstructing justice. And we're going to do a special segment about the potential jungle primary disaster in California. But first, Dan, how about a little announcement from you? Yes. Baby Watch is over. Yes. Wednesday night, as you guys were on stage at Radio City Music Hall, our daughter was born. Kyla Adele Pfeiffer was born.

Everyone is happy and healthy. It has been an amazing week. I tried to think about how can you talk about your child without sounding corny? And then I realized there's actually no way to do it. And there's a reason for that.

And she's amazing. Hallie's doing great. We're super excited and happy. And we appreciate all the people who sent very nice tweets wondering about the status of the baby over the last few days here. I thought about announcing it on Twitter. And then I remembered Twitter as a cesspool. And I thought I would do it here in our nice coastal elite liberal bubble with people we like. You're a father. This is so exciting.

It's amazing. The whole thing is amazing. It's hard to believe it's real. But Kyla is awesome, cute, sweet, a ton of personality. She's napping right now so we can do the pod. But things are great at home. When you sent us the picture, which is very, very cute, we were about to do our Boston Calling show. And I was like, do you think we can now finally announce on stage that Dan's a father?

And then I was like, no, we should probably let him do that. I don't see it on Twitter yet. I don't see it on Instagram. It did occur to me that if the baby had come a little earlier, you could have done it from the stage at Radio City. But I felt like let's just make sure everyone's happy and healthy before we worry about the rollout strategy. That was why. Well, we missed you very much on the road. We had some good shows. Elijah told me anyone who wants to see the full Radio City show, that includes you, Dan. I know that's what you want to do with your time.

Go to YouTube.com slash Crooked what you want to do with your time. Go to youtube.com slash Crooked Media and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And we have the full show up. So check it out. It was a good one. I've listened to Radio City. I have not caught up on Boston yet. But the Radio City Show was awesome.

Super cool. It's an amazing thing for our little podcast and your media company that you guys got to perform at Radio City Musical, that's pretty great. Yeah. Though when you hear the Boston show, the game that we played in Boston is definitely one of my favorites because we got to break out our Boston accents. And Sam Power and Duvall tried their best to keep up. Well, I would say as it relates to the boston thing uh my friends uh our friends have a two-year-old and they were listening to the boston show in the car and the two-year-old heard the word democrat and started and charlie started chanting democrat and and they which everyone was very excited about that's better that's better than them hearing another word and chanting that

but but then he started chanting, fuck the Yankees. And everyone had to reevaluate whether they could listen to the pot in the car. Although they are Red Sox fans. So in that sense, it wasn't terrible, but it's probably not a phrase they want him to bring to school today. Oh, I always hate hearing that.

Um, okay. Maybe I'll try to clean up my language. Maybe. Um, you have any book things to announce? I mean, you had the birth of your child. That seems like a big one, but I know you You have any book things to announce? I mean, you had The Birth of Your Child.

That seems like a big one, but I know you also have a book coming out timed to The Birth of Your Child. Book comes out June 19th, as everyone knows. I've talked about it many times. We are in the final stretch here. People have been really amazing from our friends at the pod, supporting the book,

tweeting about the book, letting me know you bought the book. I have very ambitious goals for how many books I hope we can sell by publication date. And that is because I have a fragile ego and I'm very competitive, but it's also because as we've said before, a portion of the proceeds from every book sold between now and June 18th, which is the last day of pre-sales, will go to our friends at Swing Left who are doing such important work. And so I would encourage everyone to continue to buy the book.

My publisher had a – I had a suggestion to my publisher that we could get to 10,000 total books pre-sold. And that's books in eBooks and regular books. My publisher thought that was impossible. I have great faith in the fans of the pod. We are above 7,000 today. So I think we can get to 10,000 in the next few weeks. And then we can give a nice check to our friends at Swing Left when the book comes out. Buy the book. Everyone, thank you for buying the book. Thank you for supporting the book. And now go find some friends to buy the book.

And I will say I'm about halfway through it. It's fantastic. I talk to you for an hour every single Thursday, and yet I'm still learning a ton from this book. And it's a fantastic read. So please, everyone, go buy this book, and it's a fantastic read, so please everyone go buy this book. All right, let's start with the most important story in America, which is that Roseanne Barr went on a racist Twitter tirade that led ABC to almost immediately cancel her show.

Roseanne has been known for tweeting conspiracy theories and other Uh, Roseanne has been known for tweeting conspiracy theories and other vile, racist, Islamophobic garbage for a long time. But what finally did it for the network was a tweet about our friend and former Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Roseanne wrote, Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby equals VJ. Monster. had a baby equals VJ. Monster. Roseanne blamed her initial tweet on being up at 2 a.m. in the morning and quote,

Ambien tweeting. The company that makes Ambien then responded by saying, while all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication. What a world we live in.

What a fucking world we live in. What a fucking world we live in, Dan. Within 12 hours of the tweet, ABC's network entertainment president, Channing Dungey, said in a statement, Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values. Disney president Bob Iger then said it was the right thing

to do, and the show was canceled. Dan, why did ABC go ahead and cancel the show, and what are your thoughts on how they did it relatively quickly? Kudos to them for doing this. I mean, this is one of their highest rated shows. It was a tremendous success, kind of a surprise success, I think, for its ratings. They knew there would be blowback to this because everything in the Trump era has to be about what side you're on. And this was the island of Trumpism in liberal Hollywood was going to be Roseanne, which the show was about a Trump supporter or a Trump supporting family.

And so they did the right thing. What I was struck by was the fact that most people assumed they wouldn't do the right thing. And not because there's something particularly wrong with ABC or they're known to be particularly craven. I don't think they're any better or worse than any other entertainment network. But what has happened is the things Roseanne said would be seen so far out of bounds prior to Trump being president that it would be without a question. There would be universal condemnation. But in the Trump era, this is seen as reflecting some legitimate political ideology that we must for some reason respect. And so we assume they might stay. So look, I think they did the right thing. I'm really pleased they did it. And it says a lot that it was a surprise that they did this. Yeah. I mean, so of course, President Trump responded to all this because he can't let anything go ever by demanding an apology from Bob Iger. He did it yesterday. He did it again

this morning on Twitter. He's continuing this. He demanded an apology for, quote, horrible statements made and said about me on ABC. And then on Wednesday in the briefing room, Sarah Huckabee Sanders elaborated, quote, where was Bob Iger's apology to the White House staff for Jamel Hill calling the president and anyone associated with him a white supremacist? And where was the apology from Bob Iger for ESPN hiring Keith Olbermann and his numerous expletive-laced tweets attacking the president as a Nazi and even expanding his role after that attack against the president's family? Dan, do these people need a reminder that calling someone racist is not equivalent to being called something racist like we the the right has this problem where they like to they think that racism is just like saying

nasty mean things to someone so that when someone on the right says something repugnant and racist or sexist or islamoph, they then find someone on the left who said something mean and nasty about a conservative and they say, this is equivalent. Yes. I mean, even before Roseanne, Peter King responded, the congressman from New York, compared the Colin Kaepernick and the NFL players who protest to people who would do a neo-Nazi salute at an NFL game and how the NFL would do that. And so this is really, I think, the absolute cancer that Trump has been on the moral fiber of this country is that we have polarized the idea of racism. Like we did believe for a long time in society, or at least pretended to believe that there were certain things that were out of bounds. And just full frontal blatant racism was something that both – that everyone could agree was not acceptable in our society.

That that was the mortal sin that would have you – you would lose your job. You would be condemned. You would be pushed out of the public square. But now Trump has polarized racism. And so for something to be racist has to be – it's the other side of the coin, right? Yeah. That racism and opposing racism are the same – are just two opposite views like being pro-Obamacare, anti-Obamacare. It's not that.

We had treated racism in public statements of racism and sexism and other things as something different. Now, to be perfectly fair, I mean that was a little bit of a fiction in the sense that maybe it was hiding all this racism that was happening underneath, but at least in public life for a very long time. This is not new PC correctness, whether it was the NFL analyst Jimmy the Greek or others, people who said things that were racist often paid a price professionally because we had decided as a society that there were going to be repercussions for that. decided as a society that there were going to be repercussions for that. But in this response, what is amazing is the people who are engaging like the White House in this what about what about ism about all these other things that were said about Trump is at no point does anyone condemn what Roseanne Barr said? No, of course not. You can see it is a fair belief like you could have an argument that ABC has been has not been even handed in their treatment of people of their talent who say offensive things. That is an argument to be had. But it just they cannot say that what Roseanne Barr said was was racist or wrong, because to do so would be to admit that many of their most prominent surrogates and supporters and the president himself is also a racist. So we must pretend like it's just some – like it's saying – like the Keith Olmer example, like fuck you or anything like that.

That it's somehow – the fact that it is no longer seen as different is such a disturbing impact that Trump has had on this country. that Trump has had on this country. Well, and they also don't want to say it because they want the votes and support of people who believe that what Roseanne said was correct and who hold those same views. People in this country who are racist, who are white supremacists, who showed up in Charlottesville at that rally,

Donald Trump, his White House, a lot of Trump pundits a lot of trump supporters that you see in the media not all of them but a lot of them um they will not refute these things because for their electoral survival they want the support of these people um you you were talking about what this says about sort of broader life in the Trump era. Brian Boitler, our editor of Cricket.com, wrote a piece about this that's online yesterday. And he said there would have been no Roseanne reboot if Donald Trump hadn't become president, which I think is a very smart point. ABC knew, we all knew, that Roseanne tweeted racist shit before. She said something horribly racist about Susan Rice a couple of years ago.

All of the tweets were there when ABC decided to reboot the show. Roxanne Gay noted in a New York Times op-ed, before ABC did the right thing, it did the wrong thing. ABC is the same network that shelved an episode of Black-ish because it addressed the NFL anthem protest. I'm more interested in the statement ABC could have made by never making the reboot in the first place. But of course, they chose to make the reboot because there is this belief now that because Trump won, we must somehow understand and validate some of the people who elected him president and their views by having entertainment, products, politics, media that reflect those people's views, even if some of the views are repugnant. And that is something that that is a shift in this country that has happened very quickly,

but also seems extraordinarily disturbing. Yeah. And I think that the thing about it is it's just so ham-handed. It's the same way the New York Times has to write a profile of Trump supporters every three days. It's as if somehow there's some magic number of those profiles, like allows them to look in the mirror and say they don't have liberal bias. Or if they do 12 of them in a 12- month period, then the right will stop attacking them. I will say a, a television show, a movie, a book, whatever, whatever form of content you want about people who are Trump supporters is great. Let's do that. Like, I'm fine with that. It just didn't have to be Roseanne. They knew what they were getting into when they picked her. But like there are, I believe there are many Trump supporters, the majority, probably

more than overwhelming majority who are not racist in the way that maybe Donald Trump is or Roseanne Barr is. They may be willing to tolerate a level of racism that we find disturbing in some of their leaders. But like we, like, But one of my favorite shows is The Americans. It's a show about Russian spies attacking America. I'm not into Russian spies. I don't support the Russians in the 80s. But it's an interesting show. And there could be a good show about this.

But when you pick a long-time conspiracy theory-wielding crank to be in front of the show, this is where you're going to end up. But it's just so like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Trump won. We're liberal. What can we do to placate the MAGA hat wearing crowd? Let's do a Roseanne show. It's just it's it's ham handed and bad.

ham-handed and bad, and there are better ways to try to reflect that strain of thinking, the less offensive version of that strain of thinking in America. Yeah, it shows sort of a lack of even intellectual curiosity and rigor on behalf of the people who try to put these shows on or appeal to these people. I mean, look, I know what you're saying about Trump supporters. I conducted a focus group. I conducted a couple focus groups for the pod that I'm doing on the Democratic Party. And one, I went to Texas and I did Obama voters who voted for Obama in 12 and then they were third party or no party voters in 2016, didn't vote. And then I went to Michigan. And I sat down with some people who voted for Obama in 2012, and then voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And these are some interesting people. And their views aren't quite exactly as you might guess. You know, they're sitting there saying they

want Medicare for all. And they're pretty liberal in that way. And they also thought, you know they're sitting there saying they want medicare for all and they're pretty liberal in that way and they also thought you know hillary clinton was corrupt and but they would have voted for brock obama again if they could and they thought donald trump was going to fix their health care but he didn't and you can say whatever you want about these people but they don't the views don't necessarily fit into the boxes we have for them and why people vote, how people support who they do is much more complicated than I think you see reflected in the media and politics right now and the political analysis of like, why we have Trump. But Roseanne, taking, plucking Roseanne out of her, out of, you know, from her Twitter feed and all of her racist tirades and saying, OK, yeah, this is going to work. We're going to give her a television show and now she's going to be normal and not say racist shit.

It doesn't seem like it was well thought out. No, not at all. So another issue with this whole debate, Media Matters pointed out yesterday that cable news covered Roseanne for over 10 hours. for over 10 hours. The three networks spent only 30 minutes, however, on the new study that came out on Wednesday that found almost 5,000 Americans may have died in Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Maria, which is a lot more than the official government death toll of 64. Meanwhile, the government's rolling back a bunch of Wall Street regulations. Some Republicans in Congress are planning to make another run at repealing the Affordable Care Act. There's now 10,000 unaccompanied children in the custody of Health and Human Services because Donald Trump is tearing them away from their parents at the border.

It seems like on one hand, you know, we just talked about it for a couple of minutes. It's an important issue. Someone on one of the highest rated television shows in America said something horribly racist and got the show canceled. It's worth talking about. But are we sort of destined to be consumed. We did not live in a world where the public consumed deep, serious policy news nonstop with a smile on its face prior to Trump. We have always lived in a world where celebrity gossip, like the shiny object, is more interesting to the public than a study about a hurricane in Puerto Rico or the other issues you mentioned. And it's easy for us to say, God damn it, cable news, why didn't you spend all day on this Puerto Rico study? And maybe they should have. But also the reason they don't, they is that people are interested in the other thing, too. And so it's about finding a balance. Now, we always we do sort of treat

Trump like a toddler with a Twitter account. It's like, oh, he's he is actually upset that Bob Iger did not call him. is actually upset that Bob Iger did not call him. He's mad that Bob Iger will call Valerie, but not him. That's an affront to his very fragile ego. But I think there is a method to the madness. I don't know if it's... I always say that what Trump does is his strategy is not intellectual, it's instinctual, but he wants to fan the flames of these culture wars as much as humanly possible because any discussion of anything else is bad for him. He just wants to keep a certain segment of the American people, 38 to 42 percent, angry and threatened. And in doing this, he is able to keep the conversation off of the issues that we know would be helpful to Democrats in the 2018 election.

Rising premiums due to Trump administration sabotage of the Affordable Care Act. The benefits of the tax bill overwhelmingly going to large corporations, investors, and not getting down to the American people. Those sorts of things, keeping that out, shaping the conversation around Colin Kaepernick kneeling, Roseanne being unfairly targeted in the view of some, is all about controlling the conversation. It's how he won in 2016. I mean, if you don't include the Russians intervening on his behalf, controlling the conversation in the media

and on social media is to his great advantage, and he's pretty good at it. Yeah. And we should say that it's not just Donald Trump. It is the entire Trump media. This is all the Trump pundits out there. This is their strategy, and they're all united in the strategy, is to gin up outrage on the right to keep people angry so that they can try to match the enthusiasm on the left for voting. There's actually a great Politico story about this the other day

about how Trump and the Republicans, their entire midterm strategy is outrage. And they know Democrats are fired up and they know they're not going to be able to get Republican voters excited about anything that Trump has done, about any legislative accomplishment. His voters don't give a fuck about his tax cut. They don't like it. They didn't want him to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They don't like much of what he's doing. But they do love him taking on these cultural battles every single day and these outrages. And so what you see on the right, you know, in all these Republican races, it's, you know, Nancy Pelosi is an MS-13 lover, which is what

Donald Trump said at a rally the other day. And it's, OK, you guys canceled Roseanne. Well, now we're going to talk about every single person on the left who said something outrageous and nasty and we're going to go after them and demand an apology for that. So basically what they're trying to do is they're not trying to get people excited about their agenda or what they have to offer. They're just hope they're not trying to inspire anyone. They're trying to hope that people are just cynical enough to either stay home in November or to go vote Republican to own the libs. Vote Republican to own the libs is basically all they have as a slogan right now. Yeah. The Republican Party has been taken over by trolls. Everything they do, everything they care about, everything they say is to troll. They are Twitter trolls in government. And I don't care if you work for

Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy, and you think you are Rand Paul or whoever else, and you go to work every day and you think you're working for Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy or Rand Paul, you're not. You work for Donald Trump and no one else. You go to work every day to do his bidding, to enable the things he does, to support the absurdity of his presidency. And that is what the Republican Party has no agenda other than to own the libs. That's what it is. That's what you do. And their strategy, you're exactly right, their strategy is to make enough people feel under threat from immigrants, Muslims, Hollywood elites, that they will vote to protect their cultural interests. And it sadly worked in 2016.

And if we, if Democrats do not turn out like we have never fucking turned out before, it will happen in 2018 again. Yeah. And look, I mean, I brought up the Media matter study, not even to critique the media for this, because I'm sort of past that at this point where, you know, we're going to war here with the media we have, not the media we want. The question is, as Democrats, we somehow have to break through this noise and we somehow have to remind people why they're going to the polls in November. And it's not to just own the conservatives or to own Donald Trump. It's to actually bring some accountability back to this government and start the process by which we actually start passing progressive legislation and progressive accomplishments. And it's going to be hard even if if we take back Congress, to pass anything

legislatively while Donald Trump's president. But in the states, we're already seeing some of this happen. I mean, on Wednesday, Virginia finally passed a Medicaid expansion. And the only reason they passed that expansion, 400,000 people in Virginia are going to have health care now. And the reason, the only reason they are going to have health care is because people showed up in November of 2017, and they didn't just show up for Ralph Northam, who was at the top of the ticket, they showed up for all of these first time candidates who are running in these state assembly races. And that's a very big deal that made a difference. Phil Murphy in New Jersey, Democratic governor, now a Democratic legislature in New Jersey, one of the most progressive

governors in the country right now, passing all kinds of progressive legislation right now, especially around registering voters and automatic registration and all kinds of stuff like that. We can have an enormous difference that will make a positive impact in people's lives in November if we go vote. And we have somehow got to get out of this poisonous, toxic cycle every single day of just fighting back and forth with these fucking Republicans who only want to just attack Democrats all day long. They have no issues. They have no issues.

They have no issues or ideology. Forget about an ideology or issues that we disagree with. They have nothing anymore. They have nothing. With the exception of making people – their only ideology is try to make white people scared of non-white people. That's right. That is the driving force of the Republican Party. It is – and you're right.

If we are fighting about Roseanne or some of these pardons that came out here, whatever else, and not the tax cut, health care, those sorts of things, the corruptions happening in Washington, I think we're going to be in big trouble. We're going to end up right where we were in 2016. And so pivoting to the issues is going to be critically important. we were in 2016. And so pivoting to the issues is going to be critically important. And what happens on Twitter is only mildly related to how this is going to play out in the campaigns, right? David Leonhard from the New York Times had a very good column the other day where he went and looked at what the Democrats were actually running on in campaigns, and they were running on all the right things, corruption, healthcare, tax cuts, and not Russia or impeachment or anything else. And so we're going to have to be disciplined. But Twitter is not a poll. Twitter

is not a mirror of what's happening in the country. Maybe it's a funhouse mirror. But what will matter is what is happening on TV, in digital ads, at the doors, on the phones, in these campaigns, in these districts that matter. And the early signs are very good that candidates are doing the right thing. And look, I'll also just end with this is not to say that we should not engage on issues and controversy around race or sexism or immigration or any of the things that Trump wants to fight about. But it's reminding people what the actual issues at stake are. to fight about. But it's reminding people what the actual issues at stake are. So when they fight about, when Peter King starts tweeting about comparing Colin Kaepernick kneeling with, you

know, Nazi salutes, it's not about fucking the national anthem. This is about what he was kneeling for, which is protesting police brutality and racial injustice. So let's talk about police brutality and racial injustice. Let's talk about the issues that are at the core of these fights and not like who's in a fight with who right now. That seems to be the important point here. Let's move on to talk about all the law breaking in the White House because they have been very busy. Very, very busy. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Donald Trump asked Jeff Sessions to retake control of the investigation into Donald Trump and his associates. After Sessions had already recused himself from the matter.

himself from the matter. According to the Times, Trump told aides he needed a loyalist in charge of the probe, and Sessions refused his blunt suggestion to reverse his decision about recusal. The new reporting from the Times also sheds light on how Sessions is a key witness into Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump tried to obstruct the Russia probe itself. Trump, meanwhile, tweeted on Wednesday that he wishes he chose a different person for the job than Sessions. I imagine he was drinking from his world's best boss mug when he tweeted that. Can you imagine that? You're Jeff Sessions and you're, I wish I did pick someone else. Times also reported that Andrew McCabe wrote in his notes, wrote a memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the president pressured him to cite the Russia investigation in the document he wrote that provided the basis for Comey's dismissal.

Dan, my first question is, what's a guy got to do to get caught obstructing justice around here? How, like, what else do we need? I'm no lawyer. I'm no brilliant legal mind, but it does seem fairly obvious at this point. I mean, if at the end of the day, because this is a precedent, the question is,

did the president try to abuse the powers given to him by the Constitution to stop an investigation into himself and his campaign? Yes, 100 percent that happened. He didn't just do it once. He did it as often as he possibly could. At every turn, he tried to do everything he possibly could to stop this investigation. He's still doing it.

So that is clear. That is – it's done. Robert Mueller can't finish the investigation into obstruction of justice because Donald Trump continues to obstruct justice as the investigation continues. It's like, he's like caught in one big cycle. Every time he probably finishes writing his report about obstruction of justice, there goes Donald Trump trying to obstruct justice again. Now Robert Mueller knows how I feel when I do the pot outline every Thursday.

Exactly. Well, Donald Trump this morning as I'm sitting here getting ready to come over to the studio tweets, not that it matters, but I never fired James Comey because of the Russia investigation. The corrupt mainstream media loves to keep pushing that narrative but they know it's not true does the guy know that video exists of him with an having an interview with lester holt of nbc where he said and i told myself when i fired him i'm really sick of this russia thing we all saw it i mean i don't never know what is a worse outcome for America. Is it that Trump is so fucking dishonest that he is willing to bald face lie to the American people about something that is so obviously true? Or does he have such a limited grasp on reality that he doesn't even remember what he said to Lester Holt that sparked the entire controversy and led to the appointment of Robert Mueller. So, I mean, you never know which it is. Neither outcome is good, I will say.

Or both are true, yes. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the man, he's not a details guy. He doesn't have a long memory. He doesn't know much. He's very ignorant of government politics, policy. He just doesn't know much. He hasn't wanted to learn much. So a lot of it might be not remembering, not caring, not learning about anything, not being briefed. And then we know that the guy also lies and he lies on purpose. And we know that for many reasons, there's a million different examples. We also know that the rare, we've said this before, the rare times he is under oath and testifies and knows that he could, you know, break the law by committing perjury. He actually is,

it's a different Donald Trump. It's not the Twitter Donald Trump. We've seen him in these depositions before. So we know that the man lies, but we also know that the man's an idiot. So probably most of his statements are a combination of both. The other thing he did today is he pardoned fucking Dinesh D'Souza, who pleaded guilty of illegal campaign contributions and is one of these right wing morons who was around during the Obama era who said, you know, slavery wasn't racist. Slaves were treated pretty well. He mocked Rosa Parks. He's a famous birther, mocked Barack Obama, said horrible things about Michelle Obama. A lot of people are saying, rightly so, that, you know, Donald Trump pardons someone on the right,

a favored figure who was guilty of campaign finance violations, right as we're getting closer to a Michael Cohen indictment, and that perhaps this was a signal to people like Michael Cohen that if you stay strong and don't flip, there will be a pardon coming for you too. What did you think about all this? It's almost like the Roseanne thing all over again, which is Dinesh D'Souza is a terrible human being. He works really fucking hard to be a terrible human being. That is his goal in life is to be the worst person online. It's how he makes money. It's how he stays famous.

He's disgusting. And so Trump does this. And it would be so easy for Republicans to say this was the wrong thing to do or to even say, if you believe incorrectly based on all the evidence that this was the case of some sort of selective prosecution, that to condemn the person, even if you support the action, but they are incapable of doing that because to say anything negative about a racist online troll would have the side effect of suggesting something negative about the racist online troll sitting in the Oval Office. almost to a person are incapable of saying even the most perfunctory condemnation of offensive behavior in racism. And we're right back at it again. Yeah. And look, I mean, one of the most common responses I saw this morning is,

well, just for all of you who think this might have been illegal, you know, the president's pardon power is absolute. It's the closest thing illegal, you know, the president's pardon power is absolute. It's the closest thing to, you know, basically being a king. And constitutionally, that may be true, but that doesn't mean that presidents can't abuse that power. And it is clear that Donald Trump has severely abused his pardon power already. It started when he pardoned Joe Arpaio, who basically, you know, ran torture chambers. And now, pardoning Dinesh D'Souza, there used to be a process by which presidents pardon people. That was true in Republican administrations and Democratic

administrations. It goes through the Department of Justice. There are memos written. There's legal reasoning as to why you pardon someone. People have to make a case for it. And now he's just going around pardoning his supporters who've done horrible things and in some case have admitted their guilt and have pled guilty. And he's just doing it because he fucking can. And the reason this is important is not just because he's trying to protect himself. It doesn't just have to do with the Mueller investigation and the rest of the investigation. The idea that we now have a president of the United States who is sending a message to the country that if you are my supporter but you commit crimes, you will be OK. If you go down that path, it is a very dangerous path to be on, that this guy is just going to start pardoning anyone he wants who commits any crime just because they are one of Donald Trump's supporters.

Yeah. Using the pardon power to help political supporters is an abuse of power. It just is. It would be up to Congress to decide whether that was an abuse of power worthy of impeachment and conviction by the Senate. But he is abusing his power to help himself politically in ways in which no president since Nixon has done. And because it's all happening so fast right before our eyes, we don't treat it. We, the larger political media culture, don't treat it with the same sort of gravity that we would in any other situation. And that is largely from the fact that it is consequence-free because Trump has

immunity by majority because the Republican is in charge of Congress. And so their control of Congress combined with their cowardice and their absolutely morally bankrupt approach to anything other than the accumulation of additional political power means that Trump can do whatever the fuck he wants. There are no checks and balances in government right now. Except the judiciary. We are in a very, very disturbing place for democracy. Trump got on Air Force One and said, it's as if a child discovering a new toy.

He's like, maybe I'll also pardon Illinois Governor Rob Ligoyevich and Martha Stewart just because it's not a legal theory. It is not a rationale for using the pardon power. But that is apparently what he's planning on doing. And you're right. Maybe this has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation. But if you're Paul Manafort or Michael Cohen, you probably feel a little bit better about your discussions with Robert Mueller if you know that Trump is handing out pardons like candy on Halloween. Meanwhile, we have – this week we had Republican congressman who's on the Intel Committee, Trey Gowdy, Trey Benghazi Gowdy, the guy who led the investigation into Benghazi, you couldn't get more hackish and partisan during the Obama era than Trey Gowdy. And he went on TV this week and he basically said that after

the highly publicized briefing with Justice Department officials last week, that Devin Nunes and Donald Trump and that everyone demanded to talk about, you know, Donald Trump's bullshit spygate conspiracy theory that somehow a spy was planted in the Trump campaign. Trey Gowdy said that nothing he heard, nothing, suggested that the FBI acted improperly by using an informant to investigate whether Russian officials had attempted to contact Trump's presidential campaign and interfere with the 2016 election. And this news about one of the Republican Party's staunchest members, the person who's on the Intel Committee, who's led these politically charged bullshit investigations in the past, he's now out there saying the FBI acted properly and we just move right past it.

Just move right past it. You don't see it on conservative media. You don't see it anywhere else. We're just sort of, okay, fine. Trey Gowdy has basically blown a hole in this conspiracy theory and now here we are. Yeah. I mean, it is amazing it's Trey Gowdy because, I mean, as you point out, Trey Gowdy led the Benghazi investigation. But he didn't lead it because he just happened to be the chair of the committee at the time.

In order to satiate the rabid right-wing base, John Boehner decided to appoint a special committee on Benghazi. So he scanned the waterfront looking for the biggest partisan hack he could possibly find to lead the biggest, most partisan, hackish investigation he could find. And he landed on Trey Gowdy. So when Trey Gowdy says that your conspiracy theory is bullshit, then your conspiracy theory is really bullshit. And I guess this is my sleep-addled take on the Mueller investigation, which is I think we care about it too much. Yeah. In the current context, if what you care about is, how do we get Donald Trump out of office?

How do we ensure that he suffers consequences for the things that he has done politically, legally, or otherwise? It's all sort of irrelevant as it relates to Trump in our current political situation. There is no piece of information that Robert Mueller is going to find that is going to convince Donald Trump's base in the public or anyone in the Congress to take action. There is nothing they could find. A voicemail from Trump to Putin,

a videotape of Trump and Putin sitting on a laptop together hacking into John Podesta's emails. None of those things would change the actual dynamic here. The investigation is important because we need to find out what happened. And there are multiple crimes committed,

extraneous and otherwise, to quote Roger Stone, and people should pay for those crimes in front of the justice system. But if it is the view of Mueller that Trump cannot be indicted and can only face the consequences for his crimes in front of Congress,

depending on two-thirds of the Senate to convict him, then we're going to have to find other ways to get Donald Trump out of office. And we're going to have to suffer through this for a few years and then kick his ass in 2020. So I mostly agree with that. I think that's right. I was going to cite this Navigator Research, which is a progressive group, did a poll this week and found that self-identified Fox News watchers overwhelmingly opposed the Mueller investigation by a 73 to 23 percent margin.

CNN and MSNBC viewers support the investigation by a 79, 18 percent margin. But the interesting thing is all viewers of all news except Fox, so when you do not just CNN and MSNBC, but anywhere you get your news, newspapers, local news, wherever else, those viewers, in comparison with Fox viewers, those viewers support the Mueller investigation by a 64 to 25 margin. So it's basically only Fox viewers that are isolated in this little bubble. And I think for those people, you are 100% correct. That is Trump's base. They are never, no matter what happens, this is the, you know, shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Ave crowd. No matter what happens, they are going to be behind Donald Trump and the Trump media is going to be behind him. I do wonder, again, we don't know what Mueller knows. And time and time again, it's proven that like, you know, Mueller can drop these bombshells. It sort of changed the narrative for a while. And it doesn't matter a bit to Trump's base. But obviously, there's a lot more people out there who are either undecided, they're independents, they're in the middle, they're back and forth. And I remember and I've said this before, you know, if you listen to that podcast Slow Burn about Watergate, public opinion was with Nixon even after the media revealed all these potential crimes right up until the time where the tapes dropped.

And then when the tapes dropped and they actually heard Nixon's voice, public opinion shifted against him very quickly. public opinion shifted against him very quickly. Now, I don't, I know what you're saying. I don't think there's like some, I don't think there'll ever be audio of Trump and Putin talking and saying, let's collude together. That's probably too much to imagine. But there is a very real possibility that Robert Mueller could name Donald Trump an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime. And that is a very big deal. There's a possibility that he could name him an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime. And that is a very big deal. There's a possibility that he could name him an unindicted co-conspirator for money laundering or corruption or something like that. So there's all these possibilities out there that something could come in the Mueller investigation that turns some of the more undecided, soft, up-for-grabs voters against him. But I think

you're right that in the final analysis, Democrats can't do anything about that. We just have to wait and see. We just have to wait for Mueller to finish his job and when we need to protect the investigation from Donald Trump shutting it down, because we need to know the truth and we need him to do his job. But beyond that, you're right that there's nothing much we can do. We just have to wait for the investigation to happen. I think all of that is right. It is just worth noting that in the Nixon example, Nixon had to leave office, not because public opinion turned on him, although these two things are about to stay related, but because a group of Republican senators went to the White House and said, you have to go. That day will never come in today's Republican Party. Never.

House and said, you have to go. That day will never come in today's Republican Party. Never. Never. There's only one way Donald Trump's leaving this office, and that is on a helicopter on January 20th, 2021, when a Democrat is sworn in. And I just think that I cannot imagine a world, no matter how good the 2018 Senate elections go, where we are in a position where two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict Donald Trump. It just seems impossible to imagine. Two-thirds. Two-thirds is such a big number. We can't find 51 senators for shit right now, never mind 60. Never mind the 65, 66 is necessary. 67, I think, for two-thirds.

It is a very, very steep hill to climb. Very steep hill. On that hopeful note. Okay. So on that hopeful note, that is a hopeful note because now we are going to talk about elections, elections that matter. You have heard us talk about California's top two primary system. We are not fans anymore. I don't think I was ever a fan, but we're really not fans now. This is a system where the top two finishers in the primary advance to the general election

regardless of party. So you can have a situation where two Democrats face each other in the general election, or you can have a situation where two Democrats face each other in the general election, or you can have a situation where two Republicans face each other in the general election. On Tuesday, June 5th, this Tuesday, in three very flippable Republican-held House districts in Orange County, the top two finishers could end up being Republicans. And that's because there are too many Democratic candidates running in these districts, and they are splitting up the Democratic votes, and it is a very real and very big problem. This is now sort of break glass moment here on these primaries. So we talked about this at Crooked Media.

We are not going to make official endorsements here. We don't know these candidates. We have not spoken to these candidates. And most importantly, we do not live in these districts. We want all friends of the pod to decide for themselves. We on this pod have criticized the DCCC and other organizations for stepping into primaries and telling people who to vote for. We don't want to do that. telling people who to vote for. We don't want to do that. What we do want to do today is give all of you the information and insights that we have into these races to help you make an educated

choice that will ultimately, we hope, help Democrats win these seats. Dan, before we get into the three districts, how's your level of anxiety about this? Pretty high. It's very high. of anxiety about this pretty high it's very high and because the like i like to think of myself as someone who believe focus believes in the math trust the math believe you know look at the data but i also as you know and been known to find the uh dark linings and silver clouds at times and and silver clouds at times and the horrendous irony of democrats not taking the house back because we were too fucking enthusiastic is more than i can possibly take and so it is uh this has been weighing on me for a long time and it weighs on me more with every passing day yeah me me too um okay let's um let's start with the 39th district. We're going to start from the districts that are least problematic and move to the district that is most problematic.

So the least problematic, but still something to watch, is the 39th district. This is the Fullerton-Yorba Linda area, currently represented by Republican Ed Royce, who will not be running again. He decided to retire. He was one of our Crooked Seven. We've already retired him. This district is rated lean Democrat, and Hillary won it by eight points. It is one of the most flippable districts in the country. But there are currently six Democrats in the race, even after a bunch of Democrats dropped out of this race to avoid the lockout. There are currently six Democrats in the race, even after a bunch of Democrats dropped out of this race to avoid the lockout. There are six Democrats running, and there are two Republicans who could finish first and second easily. So this is one of the most flippable

districts in the country. If a Democrat wins, it gets into one of the top two spots. We have an extremely good chance of flipping this district. Based on all the polling so far, and a lot of it is internal polling, there has not been a lot of public polling on any of these races, the two Democratic candidates who are most likely to win in the 39th are Gil Cisneros and Andy Thorburn. Gil Cisneros has been leading in the polls. He's above the top two Republicans. He's probably leading in the polls. He's above the top two Republicans. He's probably leading in the race. He's a Navy veteran, ex-Republican, a philanthropist after he won the lottery. He has the backing of the DCCC and several current and former members of the California

congressional delegation. And in terms of issues, he is your standard issue progressive Democrat. If you want to know more about his positions on various issues, you should go to his website. That's Gil Cisneros. The other candidate who's a Democrat who has a decent chance of winning in this district is Andy Thorburn. He's also been at the top of the polls. He is a former classroom teacher, workers' rights advocate, and Democratic businessman who has the backing of Bernie Sanders, our revolution group. He's in favor of Medicare for all. He is more Bernie-like in his stance on different issues. Those are the two candidates with the most likely chance of

winning. Like I said, there are other Democrats in this race. They have not broken out of polling in the single digits. This is not to say anything bad about them. They are good candidates. They have not broken out of polling in the single digits. This is not to say anything bad about them. They are good candidates. They are good people for running. But they have been lagging very far behind in the single digits in polling. And the only two Democrats with a real chance are Gil Cisneros and Andy Thorburn. This is the 39th. Dan, you want to take the 49th? In the 49th, this is the race to fill the seat vacated by Congressional Pest Daryl Issa. This district is the northern coastal areas of San Diego County. There are four Democrats running and, again, two Republicans who could easily come in first and second. Clinton won the district by eight points, but it's rated as a toss-up.

So it's a little bit tougher than the 39th. Based on the polling thus far, there are three Democrats with a real chance of winning the top two spots. Colonel Doug Applegate, Sarah Jacobs, and Mike Levin. Doug Applegate is a retired Marine who ran against ISA in 2016. He lost by only 1,600 votes. He was leading in the polls at the beginning of the race, but has since been trending downward. He has been endorsed by the South Orange County Democratic Party and the Justice Democrats. Sarah Jacobs was a policy staffer who worked for Hillary Clinton, who grew up in the district and moved back home to run. At 29, she would be the youngest woman elected to Congress. And she's been backed by EMILY's List, NARAL, and a few members of Congress.

And she's been gaining in the polls over the last several months. And then there's Mike Levin, who's an environmental lawyer and former head of the Orange County Democratic Party. He received 53% of the state delegate support at the state convention, which is short of the 60% you need to get the official nomination. which is short of the 60% you need to get the official nomination. He's supported by a local indivisible chapter of the Sierra Club and members of the California congressional delegation like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. All three of these Democrats are very close in their policy positions, very close in the polls, and any of them could get the first or second spot. Yeah, this is really one of the tougher ones in terms of picking between the Democrats because,

and we have to go with the three here because they are all so close in the polls. And look, this is another like very easily flippable district. It's one of the reasons that ICE are retired. And so we need a Democrat in one of these top two slots. So, you know, do some research on these three. But I think, you know, those are the three with a chance of winning. Finally, the California 48th, where we're trying to knock off one of the cricket eight, Russia's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher. The 48th is Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach. This is the most Republican district. Clinton only won it by two points. It's rated a toss-up. And it is the one place where Democrats are most likely to get

shut out. A, because it's the most Republican district, and B, because there are five Democrats running and two serious Republican contenders, Rohrabacher and and another guy who were at the top of the polls. So this is the district that could be a very, very serious problem. Based on all the polling, there are only two Democrats of those six with a real chance of winning. And frankly, only two Democrats you should vote for, Harley Ruda and Hans Kirstead. Harley Ruda is a tech entrepreneur who has a slight lead in the polls. He's supported by the DCCC, the Sierra Club, the Progressive Democrats of America, about 10 congressional Democrats. was so crowded have decided to support Harley Ruda. He also has the endorsement of the local Indivisible chapter. And then he got the national Indivisible endorsement as well. And I actually reached out to our friends at Indivisible about this endorsement because they're telling me,

you know, the threshold and the criteria you need to meet to get not only a local endorsement, but the national. And, you know, it's very rigorous. And they said that the grassroots have been so excited about Harley Ruda from the very beginning. And he's been the grassroots favorite ever since he jumped into the race. And so they endorsed him locally and they endorsed him nationally. So that's Harley Ruda. Hans Kirstead is the other Democrat with a chance of winning. He's a stem cell researcher who was endorsed by the state party and two congressmen. He's slightly behind Harley in the polls. And again, the two candidates are very close on the issues. Again, it is very important in this district that people rally behind one of these candidates. And so if you live in the 48th, if you live in that area,

and you want to beat Dana Rohrabacher, please consider voting for one of these candidates. And do not, the other problem with this district is about three candidates have dropped out. Like we said, two are now supporting Harley Ruda. The other one hasn't said anything. But there are still a number of candidates on the ballot, including some of those candidates that have dropped out, who are still on the ballot because they dropped out so late that their names are still on the ballot. So, again, Harley Ruda has a lot of endorsements, Indivisible, Grassroots, Hans Kirstead. Those are two candidates in this district you should be thinking about.

No one else. So that's all the things that we know about these districts. That's all the polling we've seen. Again, we've reached out to some of the people working on these races. We reached out to some California Party insiders. And that's what we know. We're also going to stand up a website. So if you've missed this on the pod and you want to just get more information, you can find it there. Don't know exactly when it'll be up, but we will let you know. Keep checking out Crooked.com and we will tweet about it from the Podsave and Cricut accounts soon,

so everyone who lives there can get this information. The primary is Tuesday, June 5th. Everyone in California, vote, and don't just vote. Even if you're registered, even if you're ready to go vote, go talk to your friends. Bring a friend to vote. Go talk to your friends. Bring a friend to vote. Get your friends to vote. Find out if your friends and family are registered and ready to vote and make sure they get their ballots in. Here's my challenge to friends of the pod and listeners in California. Don't bring one friend. Don't bring one family member. Find 10

friends. You're all very popular social people. If you weren't, you wouldn't listen to this podcast. Go find 10 friends. Make sure they're voting. Go together. Go to brunch afterwards. I don't care. But this is the most critical election that we have seen in our lifetimes, and we can't half-ass it. So we all have, your vote is critically important, use it, but you have agency to get more people to vote. Find your laziest friends and make sure they vote. But just be aggressive about it over the next several days here until Tuesday.

California makes it easy. If you want to all get together, have a cocktail, vote by mail, do that. If you want to go be in person and get a cool sticker, do that. But find people to vote. It's really not enough anymore in the Trump era to just you yourself vote. You've got to get your friends to vote.

Yeah. And look, ballots are already coming in because California is a state where you can mail in your ballot, and a lot of people do. And we'll say the people who are tabulating the early vote so far in some of these districts, Democrats are a little behind on getting their ballots back. And so the ballots that are coming back are from older people, whiter people, people who are not Democratic constituencies, and it's a little worrisome right now. So this is not, this is the time to start worrying about these California districts and this primary and this final stretch. And so if you have friends and their ballots sitting there in the mail or sitting on their counter and they haven't, you know, worked on it yet, get those ballots in, make sure your friends get your ballots in, because

another way to make sure that we don't get locked out in these districts is to just have more Democratic voters. If we turn out more Democratic voters than Republican voters in some of these districts, we won't have to worry about the lockout problem. So the best way we can – the easiest way we can handle it is to have as many Democrats voting as possible. And then the second thing we need to do is actually focus on the Democrats who have a realistic chance of winning these districts. When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with John Legend. My guest is a Grammy and Academy Award winning singer, songwriter, and the founder of Free America, a nonprofit with the goal of helping end mass incarceration.

He's also a dad two times. Yes, two times. That's very exciting. Thank you. Thank you for making time because I imagine time is hard to find at the moment. Well, I'm not really working right now, so I have a lot of time, but it's mostly spent at home and it's good. Good, good. Raising a little brood now. That's amazing. Yes. You're also working with the ACLU on a campaign called Meet Your DA. Yes. Meet Your District Attorney. Did you say my name yet? I don't know if you introduced me. John

Legend. Yes, John Legend. I didn't say your name. I gave you titles, and I didn't say the name. My guest is John Legend. He needs no introduction. You're working on this campaign with the ACLU called Meet Your DA. Yes. Meet Your District Attorney. You describe them in a video um you're working on uh this campaign with the aclu called meet your da yes your district attorney

uh you describe them in a video you guys made as the most powerful elected official that you might not know yeah so let me start with some basics like what does a da do and why do they matter so much to us so everybody watches law and order you see what prosecutors do on law and order most of the time you see them arguing in court and you see this kind of equal adversarial relationship between the prosecutor and the defendant's lawyer. But what really happens is almost every case that is brought in our criminal justice system is pretty much decided before it ever goes to court. So very few cases actually go to trial. And most of the kind of determinations of where it's going to end up are done by the district attorney. They decide what kind of charges to bring. They decide what kind of deals they're willing to offer to the defendant,

you know, in exchange for testimony or in exchange for a plea, and they decide what kind of bail they're going to go for. And so we think of judges as making all the decisions, which kind of they do, and they stamp a lot of decisions, and they kind of make final approval. But most of the work and the decision-making and power is actually in the hands of the district attorney. So as we see, even with what's going on with the Russia investigation, with all kinds of things, we see that prosecutors have a lot of power. They decide what to really go after. And they make choices and they set priorities for their offices. And all we're saying in our campaign is pay attention to what those choices are, pay attention to what those priorities are for your local district attorney, and make sure they align with your values as a voter and the overall values of your community.

Right. So you mentioned values and voters. Do you think people get that so much power is concentrated in the hands of these individuals? No, I don't know that I even knew that a few years ago before we started really getting into this project. When we started Free America, the first year we spent just listening and learning. We visited jails and prisons. We met with district attorneys. We did a lot of reading and speaking with experts on the subject. And one of the areas that kept coming up was how much power the prosecutors have. And a lot of actual prosecutors will tell you that, but also people that want to reform the system will tell you that a high leverage point is thinking about who your district attorney is

and making sure that they have the right kind of values that emphasize doing what's best for the community. And if you think that your job as a district attorney is to get as many convictions as possible, lock people up for as long as possible, and then you have the power to do that, then that's what's going to happen. But if you think that your job is more nuanced than that, and you have different metrics by which you're judging your staff and your office's success, then you can come up with solutions that are more community oriented. Because the bottom line is we lock up way too many people in America. We're the most incarcerated country by far around the world. And this costs us a lot of money.

around the world, and this costs us a lot of money. And every time we send someone to jail or to prison, we're spending that money on those punitive measures rather than on schools or highways or all kinds of other things we could do to invest in making our community stronger and safer in other ways. And we're also not only on the financial side, but on the emotional and societal side, we're saying we're destroying these families. We're saying this father or this mother is separated from their kids and possibly kind of creating a cycle where their kids get into trouble as well because they don't have a parent at home that's there to help out. All these other issues come from the destruction of all these families. And this has been a particular issue in minority communities,

particularly the black community, where we're losing so many of the adults that could be in the neighborhood and in the family contributing to making the neighborhood a better place. And again, it's a choice we're making to invest in punitive measures rather than in things that are more edifying like schools and health care and proper nutrition and all the other things that lead to a healthy life that would possibly

prevent people from getting in trouble in the first place. You guys made this video on meetyourda.org. You mentioned Prop 47 here in California, which is supposed to reduce penalties for some nonviolent offenses. But only two of 58 DAs actually seem to agree with the policy. Yeah. How do they get away with that? Well, whenever we do a lot of work around the country and assist state and local organizations that are lobbying for change in one way or another. And almost every time, one of our biggest oppositions is the organizations of DAs. They are against any changes that will give them less power to lock people up. And anything that will reduce mass incarceration, they tend to be against. And so part of our project is finding DAs,

people that will run for DA, candidates that will run for district attorney offices around the country, and find people that are more progressive. And so part of our project has been helping to find those people and do what we can to raise funds for them. So I like that. So you talk about some good DAs that are out there. You've talked a lot about George Gascon in San Francisco, Larry Krasner in Philly. We helped with Kim Fox's election in Chicago. And these are all people that we met early on when they were still running for office. Not Gascon. We met him they were still running for office. Not Gascon.

We met him when he was already in office. But we met several others while they were running for office and decided that their program was something that we could sign on to and support. And then we helped support their electoral chances. And then once they got into office, we've been paying attention to them to make sure that they live up to the promises they've made. And we're really encouraged by what we've seen from Kim Fox and from Larry Krasner. And we've always looked at George Gascon as someone that's been a leader early on in being a more progressive prosecutor. And you see what prosecutors can do because in places like New York, some of them are saying, we're not going to have cash bail for most offenses that come across our desk. That's a big choice for them to make because bail is the biggest driver of the jail population because so many

people are in local jails because they can't afford the $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 set by the prosecutor and the judge that says this is what you have to spend to buy your freedom. We saw Harvey Weinstein could afford a million dollars the other day, but a lot of folks can't even afford $1,000. And so they're basically locked up because they're too poor. And so they're locked up because they're poor. They can't afford $1,000. Maybe $500 is too much for some people. And then if they do pay, it's usually through some kind of bail bondsman, which essentially has the same kind of ethical profile of like a payday loan type institution. And then so they're stuck in debt and they have all these fees if they can't pay everything on time.

And then they could get locked up again if they can't afford to pay back the debt. And so you're basically punishing people for being poor, and you're making them poor through that punishment. And then in addition to that, they usually will lose their job or their jobs in jeopardy because they're away from home for a while. And of course, their family is going through all the trauma of dealing with one of the parents being away. So bail is a really big deal. And so for prosecutors to decide we're not going to lock these people up because they're too poor to afford $500, $1,000 bail, that's a big deal. And that's a choice that prosecutors can make independent of judges, independent of all the other players in the system. They can make these choices on a policy level.

And we have to pay attention to those kinds of policy decisions because they really impact the jail population there, which in turn impacts the way communities interact with the criminal justice system. You did a very cool video with ColorChange.org, I think, recently about this problem that people should check out. Yes, that was all about the bail issue. We want to end money bail. And I think a lot of people, we're so used to the way America does things that we don't realize it's kind of egregious around the world. So the fact that we even have money bail is crazy. It basically says you're locked up because you're poor. And these people haven't been convicted of anything. They're just

accused. And in our system, they're innocent until proven guilty. But if they're poor, they can't afford to pay the amount that many of us could afford to pay just to go back home and go back to their lives and work. Some of them may be guilty, and they may end up being convicted. But some of them are actually innocent. Kalief Browder, who's one of the people we talk about in the video, he ended up dying because of the trauma that he went through being locked up at Rikers in New York. And he maintained his innocence throughout, even though the prosecutor offered him all kinds of deals. He said, I'm not going to admit to something I didn't do. And the thing he was accused of wasn't even that important. It was a very minor crime. But he was maintaining from the beginning that I didn't do this. I'm not going to admit to something I didn't do. But he also couldn't afford bail.

So he stuck in jail for years because he didn't get a trial and he didn't agree to the deal. And eventually he committed suicide based on all the trauma that he went through through our jail system. So our system killed Kalief Browder, and the system of money bail killed him. And we want to prevent those kinds of things from happening. And prosecutors are a big key to making sure that those kinds of things don't happen, because they have to use their discretion in a way that's humane and just and thinking about the holistic needs of the community. And just to sort of play out what a good DA can do, I mean, I was reading about Larry Krasner. He sent this five-page memo to everyone who worked for him.

And one of the things he said was, if you're incarcerating a person in Philly, it costs between $42,000 and $60,000 per year. Yes. Which is greater than the cost of a beginning salary for a teacher, a cop, a firefighter, or even a prosecutor in his own office. Exactly. firefighter or even a prosecutor in his own office. And he said, if you want a three-year sentence for somebody that costs $126,000, you need to justify that cost to taxpayers. That is revolutionary sounding. It's revolutionary sounding, but you would think every prosecutor would think like this. Every time you decide to lock someone up, you're making a choice. You're making a choice about what kinds of priorities that the state and the local government

should have, and you're saying the economic term, opportunity cost. Every time you spend a certain amount of energy or money or anything on one thing, then you're precluding the spending on something else, and every time we spend all this

money on punitive measures, we're saying we're prioritizing these things over things that could be more edifying. Or preventative measures. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Someone who was treated horribly by the criminal justice system is Meek Mill. He was going to meet with President Trump about prison reform but decided against it. Apparently today Kim Kardashian is going to meet with Jared Kushner and meet with Trump about the same issues. Do you think these meetings on a federal level are time well spent?

And will we be reading any thoughtfully written text messages from you on Twitter tomorrow about, you know, criminal justice reform? You know, I think they can be well spent because whether we like it or not, he's the president and the branch of government that he heads has a lot of power, though I will say the local and state governments actually have a lot more power when it comes to criminal justice reform because so many of the people locked up are in local jails or in state and county facilities. So there is some power that the federal government has, and no bill will get passed and enacted into law without the president getting behind it. So if people are going to meet with the president, hopefully they are not doing it just for the photo op, but they actually will get some good policies passed that will actually help people. I'm not of the mind that just because

you disagree with someone politically, and you might think they're abhorrent and think they're terrible for the office, that you can't meet with them. But don't let it just be a photo op. Make sure you're getting something that will help people out of the meeting and don't be used to kind of put a seal of approval or a stamp of approval on someone that is pretty abhorrent otherwise. So if you're listening right now, these guys have made meeting your DA really easy. John is not saying drive down to the DA's office and say what's up.

You don't have to go personally meet them. You don't have to go do it personally. You don't get arrested just so you can meet them. Good tip. So you go to meetyourda.org, you type in your zip code, and it tells you how your DA aligns with voters in your area. So my DA is Jackie Lacey.org. You type in your zip code and it tells you how your DA aligns with voters in your area. So my DA is Jackie Lacey. I was disappointed to learn that she's obviously in Los Angeles, but she opposed some sentencing reforms.

She opposed giving more prisoners access to parole, legalizing marijuana. So if someone is having that same experience and they're kind of pissed off by the results, what do we do next? Well, pay attention to who's running against them. the results? What do we do next? Well, pay attention to who's running against them. Right now, it's hard for any individual to make a difference unless there's somebody that they can vote for that's an alternative. And so in some of these races, these DAs are running unopposed. And so that's an issue that deals with recruitment. And I think it's a larger issue for people that believe in the reform movement to deal with. And we are dealing with that.

We're looking at recruitment. We're investing in candidates that will do the right thing. But that's kind of a bigger organizing process. But for a local voter, if there is an opposition, pay attention to what the opposition is saying and what they intend to do differently. And then you have to vote. It's that simple. Be an educated voter and then use that education to go out and vote. I try to read about all the local races that are here in Los Angeles. And I'm a newly minted California voter within the last couple of years. I used to vote in New York. And I'm from Ohio originally. But pay attention to what's happening in your state and in your local area.

And if there's an alternative for district attorney, then pay attention to what they're saying and go out and vote because it actually does matter. And these DA votes are so under the radar that a lot of people aren't paying attention. And a few votes one way or the other could make a big difference if there's an alternative. And that's a bigger issue of making sure that we actually have choices. Yeah. You seem like you're focusing a lot of issues that aren't like that are under the radar. Yeah. Because everything is in the Trump world.

You wrote an editorial in the Columbus Dispatch recently about how your home state is one of the states that still hasn't abolished sentencing children to die in prison. Life in prison without parole. Again, America is egregious in this area, too. We are, I believe, the only country that has juvenile life without parole. That's saying a 16-year-old could get locked up with no hope of ever getting out of prison and sentenced to die in prison, despite all the things we know about kids' brains at 16, how they're not fully developed, and they have lack of impulse control and all these other issues. But we're treating them like they're full-grown adults at the ages of 14, 15, 16, 17. And the Supreme Court ruled that this was cruel and inhumane, but it's been some kind of gray areas around how that gets implemented into law.

And so we still have to go to these states and say, hey, you need to change this law to make sure that you kind of align with the principles of what the Supreme Court has ruled, which is saying that this is an inhumane and unjust punishment for young people to get sentenced to life without parole. So you guys are focusing initially on these 13 states, right? Yeah. So the Meet Your DA campaign is focused on these 13 states because kind of the ACLU's assessment that these are the kind of the best targets right now based on local organizing and other things. But I think it's an important message for everybody around the country to be paying attention to is that you need to know who your DA is and know if there's an opposition running against them and know what the differences are between them.

Then make an informed vote. Last sort of question on Trump is, is there a lot of us lately have been alarmed by this zero tolerance immigration policy. And yes, it's now a choice to separate children from families as a deterrent to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the United States. Clearly, this is being driven by his team and their attitudes towards people of color, people from other countries. What can we do, in your opinion, to deal with the frustration and how do we channel that rage at decisions made by unelected people in some instances that are against our values,

that are harming people, that are frustrating us generally? The most power we have is electorally. The most power we have is electorally. We have to vote in 2018 for a legislature that will be a counterweight to what the Trump administration is doing. There's a lot of things they can get away with as long as they're heading the executive branch, but there are a lot of ways we can hold them accountable if we have a Congress that is willing to hold them accountable. And we are directly in control right now as voters who is going to hold President Trump accountable and Attorney General Sessions accountable. If we get a Democratic Congress into office in 2018, then I think a lot of these issues we can be a lot more vigilant on. But as long as they control all the branches of government, it's going to be tough to do any of these things other than protesting, other than making a lot of noise, which I

think is important. Tweeting about these things and making them subjects of conversation is important. important and tweeting about these things and making them subjects of conversation is important but if we don't vote if we don't have actual power um then there's not a lot we can do about it so if you're living in california and you haven't voted yet yeah please my wife and i already voted by mail we tweeted it out a couple weeks ago and uh we want everybody to vote and be judicious about how you vote because of the way our primary system works in California. You know, it's kind of weird because it's nonpartisan and you could have two Democrats at the top or you could have two Republicans at the top. You could have any kind of combination of those those outcomes.

And you just want to make sure you vote for people that actually have a chance to win so that you're not wasting your vote. you vote for people that actually have a chance to win so that you're not wasting your vote. And we want to make sure we have, you guys identified what, seven or eight districts that we can flip possibly? Yeah, there's seven districts that Hillary Clinton won, but had a Republican member of Congress. So that means we have the constituency in those districts to turn them blue. And the only way we hold Trump accountable is turning them blue. As simple as that.

Last question for you. Yeah. Getting married in July. Okay. Making a band, a playlist for the band. Oh, yeah. I'm an expert in these areas. Do you go with, like,

the classics that grandma's going to love? Right? Like, you know, are you, like, Jackson 5, Earth, Wind & Fire? Yes. Or do I say, this is my wedding, wedding and Jenny Wine and Next had their moment and Too Close is going to play too. Oh, man. And that's just how it is.

We were probably the same age. How old are you? 37. Oh, okay. I'm 39. So, yeah. Those songs were big in my youth as well. So I think you just have a mix. I don't believe in having...

Personally, I didn't want a live band at my wedding. Really? Because I wanted the DJ to play so we'd have complete flexibility. I see that. Because when you have a band, and this is no shade against live musicians, because I am one, and I employ quite a few as well. But I felt like having a DJ was the best thing because that way you get actual Al Green

instead of someone covering Al Green. That's true. And you get actual, you know. It's dicey. Beyonce instead of someone covering Beyonce. So you're saying that a cover of Pony might not be as good? I would rather have the genuine article. That's great advice.

But it's up to you. Okay. And I don't want to put any live musicians out of work because I think that is important too. But I liked having a DJ. We had Biz Markie as our DJ, which, you know, that's a stunt. Sorry. That is. But he was a very good DJ.

He played a range. He played some, you know, Let's Stay Together by Al Green. He played some old school Earth, Wind & Fire. range he played some you know Let's Stay Together by Al Green he played some old school Earth, Wind & Fire and he played some old school hip hop

but he also played some new stuff too you know and so I think it was nice to have that balance did you get dragged up there?

I sang at the reception like the dinner part of the reception which was in a different location than the it was all on the same property

but the dance party was in another room and after the, it was all on the same property, but the dance party was in another room. And after dinner, we all went over there. So you worked your own wedding? Yeah, I did. And Stevie Wonder did too. Okay. That's another show.

All right, enough name dropping. Meetyourda.org. Yes. Check it out. It's really important. Check it out tomorrow if you're in California. Yeah, pay attention. And some of these, you'll be frustrated because you're like, oh, they're running on a post.

Lesson learned. But pay attention to them. And then, you know, hopefully as kind of an organizing thing that we all do who care about this issue, we'll get more people to run for these offices. more people to run for these offices. And you've seen the big difference that recruiting makes and energy makes on congressional elections, because so many people are running in places where we thought we couldn't win before. And so many people are motivated to make a difference now because their reaction to the evil man in the White House. So, you know, I'm optimistic that a lot of people are ready to fight back and make change and get involved in government and make a difference. And we as voters, if we're not going to actually run for anything, the least we can do is pay attention and vote. It doesn't take that much, especially in states where you can mail in your ballot like we did.

It's so easy. It's so easy. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Thank you for doing the interview. Thank you for focusing on these down ballot races

because we spend so much time yelling about Trump and frustrating as we should, but this is so important. And you're right. Republicans have been laying the groundwork for decades. Yeah, they've been doing it.

They've been doing the work. And really, it's not even like a Republican thing with these DA races. The overall message for DA elections for decades has been tough on crime, tough on crime, tough on crime. I got this guy convicted and I gave him

this many years and I put this guy to death. And we've only been rewarding people who say that they're the most punitive people possible. And so what I'm saying to everyone is let's reorient what our incentive structure is for these DAs and saying we're not just rewarding you for saying you're the toughest, you're going to get the most convictions, you're going to lock people up for the longest amount of time because that's not actually what's best for our community and our society and the families that comprise our society. and the families that comprise our society. So let's get DAs that will do the right thing, and the right thing isn't always to lock people up for the longest amount of time. MeetyourDA.org. John Legend, thank you so much for doing the interview. Thank you.

Thanks again to John Legend for joining us. Congrats again to you, Dan. Congrats to Holly. And we will see you guys on Monday. Talk to everyone next week. Bye. Thank you.