Pod Save America - “The own goal presidency.”

Episode Date: July 26, 2018

A secret recording of Trump and Cohen conspiring about hush money is released, the President retreats from his own trade war, and he steps up his attacks on the media. Then Democratic candidate Danny O’Connor joins Jon and Dan to talk about his campaign to win the special election for Ohio’s 12th congressional district on Tuesday, August 7th.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, we'll be talking to Danny O'Connor, the Democratic candidate running in this year's final special election on August 7th in Ohio's 12th Congressional District. We'll also discuss the newly released recording of Donald Trump and Michael Cohen conspiring about hush money. We'll talk about the president's retreat in his own trade war and the latest developments in his war on the media. trade war and the latest developments in his war on the media. Before we begin, be sure to check out our other Crooked Media pods. On Crooked Conversations, Julissa Arce talks to UCLA professor Hiroshi Matamura about abolishing ICE. And on Pod Save the World, Tommy has two outstanding interviews with former U.S. Ambassador to

Russia Mike McFaul and the Washington Post's Jason Rezaian. to Russia, Mike McFaul, and the Washington Post's Jason Rezaian. Also, don't forget to subscribe and listen to The Wilderness. Chapter five is out this week. We take a look at race and politics in America. We talk about the need for Democrats to break the cycle of progress and backlash when it's come to race in America. And then chapter six, which is released on Monday, we actually talk about how Democrats can build a multiracial coalition that adds up to a governing majority. So these are actually two of my favorite episodes in the series. So please download The Wilderness and give it a listen. You know, give it a whirl. Download The Wilderness and give it a listen.

You know, give it a whirl. We are in the Pfeiffer household. We are saving Episode 5 for the drive to the VTOR wedding. Oh, yes. On Friday because in addition to high production value, important information, interesting guests, The Wilderness also does a great job of putting our daughter to sleep. And so we were coming back. We had a long car ride last weekend and we just threw on some wilderness and just zonked her right out. So the value proposition of this podcast is innumerable. You're not the only one who's saving it. My parents are driving up to the wedding too.

And they're like, we've saved the wilderness for the drive up to the wedding. And I was like, up to the wedding too. And they're like, we've saved the wilderness for the drive up to the wedding. And I was like, great. It's been out for a couple of weeks, guys. Also,

I would say I, we talk a lot about politics. I never really remember what I say. Cause it's like, what do I say to you on positive America? What did I say to you when we did the wilderness? What do I say to you when we're just talking or on text or Slack or all the various music communications.

And I had totally forgotten that I compared Donald Trump to the Cleveland Browns. Yes. And while I say, I will say this, the people of Cleveland are not pleased. You know, it's funny. I heard that episode for the first time since I actually put it together the other day. And I heard you say that at the beginning. And I wondered about that. I'm like, I wonder if we're getting, I haven't seen anything on Twitter from Cleveland people,

but I imagine that you might. I haven't seen anything on Twitter from Cleveland people, but I imagine that you might. There's an unfortunate analogy about the Cleveland Browns and the Patriots at the very beginning of episode three. I think it's a very apropos analogy, thank you. Well, it's unfortunate for Cleveland fans. Yeah, the people of Cleveland, it's more in sadness than in anger. It's sort of like, we can't win anything. We didn't win any games. We lost LeBron two weeks ago, and now you compare our football team and Donald Trump.

I understand that, but such is life, people. We can talk to Mike O'Neill about it at the wedding. Exactly. Okay. So let's quickly go through the latest in the Trump investigation. A lot going on out there. It turns out that Michael Cohen secretly recorded, this is so funny, it turns out that Michael Cohen secretly recorded a conversation with Donald Trump where the two of

them discuss funneling $150,000 through a shell company so that they can buy the rights to a story from the National Enquirer about an alleged affair between Trump and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. CNN obtained the recording on Tuesday. And just for all of you, I believe we have a clip that we're going to play of this call. Because you have to hear it to believe it. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David, you know,

so that I'm going to do that right away. I've actually come up and I've spoken to Alan Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with funding. Yes. And it's all the stuff.

Because you never know where that company is going to be. Correct. So I'm all over that. And I spoke to Alan about it. When it comes time for the financing, which will be... Listen. What financing?

We'll have to pay you. No, no, no, no, no. I got... No, no, no. What a couple of fucking goobers. I don't quite know where to begin. The only unfortunate thing about that clip, and it was harder to sort of splice this all together, is we missed the part where at some point Donald Trump just yells out while Cohen's talking,

Can I get a Coke? So Dan, how big of a deal is this? So, Dan, how big of a deal is this? What did we just hear? And how does it possibly relate to legal and potentially criminal implications for Cohen and or Trump and or other members of the Trump organization? I mean, that's quite a question. Well, before we get to how big a deal it is, because there are different sort of ways to look at that question, but it is worth noting as you sort of break down the tape, the casual nature by which Michael Cohen and Donald Trump discuss setting up a secret shell company to funnel hush money to cover up an affair. And they do this. If this were the one and only time they had done this, or this was an unexpected, I guess it had to be somewhat expected, but crisis that had befallen them, you would expect there to be some sort of tension or nervousness or seriousness.

And they are talking about this as if they are planning a trip to the movies. And I think that says a lot about not just the specifics of the efforts to which Donald Trump has undergone to cover up extramarital affairs and other personal problems, but just the way in which they live very comfortably in the very, very gray areas of the law. And I think when you hear your president, the president of the United States, our leader, talking like that so casually about this, I think that should be a cause of concern to someone at least. How this fits into the context of the inquiry is an open question. It has, there are all kinds of financial disclosure laws, campaign finance disclosure laws, which may have been violated

as a part of this, which is why Michael Cohen is under investigation. And it is, as of right now, like separate inquiry to the Mueller inquiry, but it is one where Michael Cohen clearly knows where all the bodies are buried and all the secret corporations are set up and where all the hush money has been sent over the many years he's worked for Trump. And he now seems to be a very willing cooperative witness, if not with the prosecutors, at least with Chris Cuomo and CNN. And that should be deeply concerning to Trump. It is also, should be, but won't be, a warning sign to Republicans who are, and, you know, Lovett has made this point before, is that Republicans are covering – they're obstructing justice broadly, literally, figuratively for Trump without having any concept of the crimes that he has committed, either involving Russia, involving financial crimes, involving money laundering, involving campaign finance disclosure, all of these things.

And if I was a Republican who had bet my political future, my reputation, and my moral standing on helping Donald Trump, I would be deeply concerned right now. Yeah, I mean, talking about the legal implications, there are all kinds of laws around how you donate to campaigns. make a donation when you spend some money that could potentially impact the outcome of an election that could assist a campaign, assist your campaign, it must be disclosed. And if they can prove that Cohen and or Trump or both of them were trying to spend money to kill a story about an affair for the for the purpose of making sure that if that story came to light, it would not affect Donald Trump's election or it would not hurt Donald Trump's chances of winning. And they didn't report that, then that is a crime. Here's Miriam Rocha and Ellie Honig, two former assistant U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York writing in the Daily Beast, quote,

Trump's conduct on tape could support criminal liability for campaign finance violations, bank fraud, wire or mail fraud, and tax evasion. Even if Trump himself did not commit all of these offenses, or even if the crimes never actually occurred, he could be liable for conspiracy because he agreed with others to commit these acts. So that doesn't seem too good for him. No, no, it does not. So let's step back for a second. It appears that Michael Cohen lawyer, former Clinton confidant, Lanny Davis, released the tape.

And here's what he told Axios about why he did. Quote, Michael Cohen has made a turn. He is going to tell the truth to the powers that be and let the chips fall where they may. There are more tapes. There's more to come. What do you think Lanny's up to here and Cohen? Why do you think he released the tape? I think I would just note there are no heroes in this story.

This is the story of a sleazy fixer for a sleazy individual who gets himself in legal trouble and then hires a sleazy fixer famous for helping sleazy individuals help him get out of this mess. And so Lanny Davis has a long history of working for very bad people. Michael Cohen is a bad person with a long history of working for bad people. And they are now battling against Donald Trump, one of the worst people that has ever been involved in American politics. And so it's not entirely clear what Lanny Davis is doing other than trying to help Lanny Davis get more sleazy clients. really wanted to be – now he's turned a page. He's now going to be a good person after a long period of being a pretty bad person apparently. Then he would not have given this tape to Chris Cuomo who as far as I know has – is an excellent TV journalist but has no law enforcement powers. He would give it to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

So this is a little like – there is a whole razzle-dazzle cult of bullshit crisis communications that has made people like Lanny Davis rich for a very long time. This ultimately does nothing. Michael Cohen, there is no – his only goal is to get out of legal trouble. Everything else is bullshit. He's not – there is no future for him as a shining member of American society. He's – Joel – You don't think he's going to win his race for mayor of New York? Yes.

Seems unlikely that he will win his race for mayor of New York. I mean, based on how Bill Shine has done, maybe he could get a job working for a Trump-like president one day. But his goal is to stay out of jail and avoid complete and total never-ending financial ruin. And leaking these tapes, while good for the general public discourse that we get to know more about our terrible president and the terrible things he does, isn't really helping Michael Cohen's case as far as I can tell. There's a dispute as to whether Trump tells Cohen pay with cash or don't pay with cash. And everyone can just like hear the clip over and over. And, you know, you can make an argument for both ways. But does that, does it really matter whether he said pay with cash or don't pay with cash? Why was this becoming sort of the big debate

here? Because we tend to focus on the dumbest, least meaningful points of any discussion if it involves Trump. And it doesn't matter because they are setting up a secret shell corporation to hide the money. So whether it is passed with a check from Hush Money Inc. set up in my home state of Delaware, or it is given to her through a duffel bag of cash withdrawn from the Hush Money Inc. bank account that was set up to finance this show corporation, it doesn't really matter. What matters here-

Or the Cash App. With the Cash App, which was an excellent tweet by your wife. I'm kind of mad I didn't think about it. But what I think matters here, and I think in fairness why I think people think about that this is relevant, is when the tape came – was reported the tape existed and some of the details of the United States slash person hoping to fill Kimberly Guilfoyle's spot on The Five lying again to the American people. And so that is a relevant discussion for the course of whether we can believe what Rudy Giuliani says. But the record, both past and present, is you really can't. So I'm not overly worked up about this question. you really can't, so I'm not overly worked up about this question.

Well, lucky for all of us, we also have a clip of Rudy Giuliani responding to this disclosure. Of course, he went on Laura Ingraham, and, well, everyone listen in. What I urge people to do is just go online, listen to your broadcast, you play the tape, play it three times. The third time you play it, it'll become clear. I've done tapes even longer than Alan Dershowitz. How about 4,000 hours of mafia people on tapes? I know how to listen to them. I know how to transcribe them.

This tape is crystal clear when you listen to it. I've dealt with much worse tapes than this. Look, he's very experienced in dealing with mobsters. He's done this a million times. This isn't Rudy's first rodeo here. He's dealt with much worse tapes than this. I mean, it's pretty bad, but look, when you listen to it the third time, something magic happens. If you play it backwards while listening to Pink Floyd, Donald Trump is innocent. If your defense is the president of the United States is nowhere near as bad as the mobsters

that I've prosecuted, I think you're starting off in a deficit in this battle. He also said at one point, he's like, there's no way the president is going to be talking about setting up a corporation and using cash unless you're a complete idiot and the president's not an idiot. I don't know if we've proven that case yet. Yeah, he is an idiot and he is a liar and he is a crook, at least in the moral sense of that word, who has zero concern about whether he breaks the law, abides by the law, does things that are moral and moral. He is – in that sense, he is a crook.

Whether he is enough of a – whether there is enough evidence to prove that he is a crook beyond a reasonable doubt is a question that will be answered over time. But he is a crook and he is an idiot and that is those are pretty clear facts um so michael avenatti this morning um because you know he's still out there um tweeted breaking donald trump conspired with michael cohen to pay off multiple other women prior to election day in 2016 they were also concerned about a pregnancy co Cohen has evidence and info in his possession, and it must be released to the public now! Exclamation point. Hashtag Basta. Man, what a fucking circus.

Okay, so let's talk about how this all matters, because we can start with how it matters politically, how it matters legally, and truthfully, those two things intersect since ultimately this could or could not lead to impeachment, which, as we've said many times on the show, is ultimately a political question since, you know, legally, there's still some questions around whether the President of the United States can be indicted. Let's start with politically. What do you think it matters politically? I don't think it matters that much politically. I really don't. Look, I think over the course of time, one can believe that the sum total of all of the absurdity of the circus of the chaos adds up and is either dampens enthusiasm

among some Republicans or will move some of the – would keep – would be a reason to cause some soft Trump voters or Republicans who voted for Gary Johnson in 2016 to vote for a Democrat over a Republican in the congressional elections. So I think that all of it, like the idea that nothing matters is not, we don't know the answer to that yet, right? We will know whether things matter come election day 2018. Do I think that we are just like one tape away from the bottom falling out for Trump politically?

No. We have, we, people like Trump's absurdity, his immorality, his racism, his misogyny, his criminality are all baked into the baseline with a significant percentage of voters, and it causes people who hate Trump to be madder and people who love Trump to love him more. It is, once again, a very important, very newsworthy discussion that is very removed from the things that are most likely to move votes in Democrats' direction in 2018. Yeah. I'll make the case for why it could matter politically over the long term. I think when you're talking about Trump's base, forget it. Enough. We know they're going to stick with him until the end, shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Ave, blah, blah, blah.

But we have said before that a winning message for Democrats is about Trump's corruption, about the corruption of the Republican Party. This sort of case, Cohen, tape, shell companies funneling money money fits into a corruption message. We also, the other development this week was that federal courts are now allowing the emoluments case against Trump to go forward in which plaintiffs argue that Trump is violating the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign officials who stay at his hotels. As this goes forward, we could finally start to know more about Trump's business and financial entanglements. It seems like the more that Trump's business practices, which are deeply corrupt, are exposed to the public, the more they will see him as corrupt. The more Republicans try to protect him, the more they can see the Republican Party as corrupt. And if people

think that Trump is unfairly and possibly illegally benefiting himself and his friends at the expense of the American people, that seems to me a message that could impact him politically, especially among independents, especially among those people who were Obama-Trump voters, and certainly for Democrats. Okay, that's a good case. You made a very compelling case. Yeah. Maybe not, but if I had to make a case for why it would hurt him politically in the long run, that would be the case.

Yeah. If this is a gateway to more discussion of the corruption that within his business is tied specifically to profiting as president, I think people are going to give him a pass. People who are inclined to support Trump or Republican going to give him a pass. People who are inclined to support Trump or Republican Germany will give him a pass on things that happened prior to him at least running for president, if not becoming president. But that's why the emoluments case is so interesting, because if he is enriching himself at taxpayer expense, that is something that could be very powerful with a large swath of voters not wearing red hats in that very particular bar in Pennsylvania at the New York Times frequency.

Love that story. potentially more crimes committed by Trump and people in Trump's orbit. The Republicans are continuing their effort to shut down the investigation into Trump's conduct. Jim Jordan, that Jim Jordan in the House, and Mark Meadows filed impeachment charges against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Republican appointed by Donald Trump himself. Why are they filing charges of impeachment against him? Who the fuck knows? It's because they couldn't, I guess, get more, get every single detail of the Mueller investigation, because you're not supposed to get details of investigations yet, when they're still ongoing. But they think they're owed it because they're

trying to sabotage the investigation. How alarmed should we be about this? It doesn't seem like they, well, they don't have the votes in the House to move forward on these articles of impeachment, but what does it say that they're doing this? I don't know that I, I'm not any more alarmed by this than I was yesterday before it happened, which was – I had a pretty high alarm level at that point. People who are either actual conspiracy theorists or play the role of conspiracy theorists in order to be on television who are out there running interference for Donald Trump's criminality and illegality and are running basically a political equivalent of obstruction of justice. What I would say is what seems batshit crazy on a Monday can often become the consensus position of the Republican Party by Thursday. And so Paul Ryan is resisting this right now. And if past is prologue, then I think before too long, you can see them holding this vote or demanding something else or just moving. Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus are very good at shifting the Overton window into crazy.

And so the consensus position will become slightly less batshit crazy than the current batshit crazy proposal. And so, yeah, I mean, ultimately what will really matter is whether Trump fires Rosenstein or fires Mueller or fires Rosenstein as a way to fire Mueller. The rest of it is sort of noise in the interim. I will also say that a year or so into the Trump presidency, for all the talk about are Democrats too focused on impeachment, the one party that has now filed articles of impeachment against the Trump administration is the Republican Party. We now have, for all the teeth gnashing and pearl clutching over Democrats and impeachment, and should we talk about impeaching Trump, blah, blah, blah,

Republicans didn't really give a shit. They just filed articles of impeachment against the Republican deputy attorney general because they're basically open about the fact that they're trying to shut down the investigation into Donald Trump because they think it's hurting him and they want to protect him at all costs the Republican deputy attorney general appointed that to that position by Donald Trump approved by by the Republicans in the Senate. Well, and it just goes to show you, too, like, it's not like Jim Jordan and

Mark Meadows and the rest of the lunatics in the Freedom Caucus were sitting there like, oh, we have to be careful. Should we talk about it? What should we do? Like, they don't, they're so transparent, or at least they're just so shameless now, about the fact that they're trying to sabotage this investigation and shut it down. They're not even really bothering anymore to come up with reasons for why they do what they do.

They're basically just out there saying we want to protect the president because it's a witch hunt. It's pretty outrageous. It's pretty outrageous. Yeah, I guess it is just simply interesting that there was only one strain of political analysis in the Trump era, which is even though Democrats have won and overperformed in every election that's happened since Trump was elected, they have won a number of special elections. They swept the elections in 2017, and they won a Senate seat in Alabama. The only kind of political analysis is, are Democrats coming apart at the seams? When the Republican Party, they never ask the question of, are Republicans hurting themselves with independents or swing voters or people in Macomb, Michigan, or pick your swing county of choice? The question is only around Democrats,

which is sort of a bizarre way of approaching it when Democrats actually control nothing and we're the only ones with a record of political success in the Trump era. Yeah, I certainly think it is a result. It's a hangover from the 2016 election and the fact that everyone thought the Republican Party was destroying itself in the lead up to the 2016 election. And the thing they did that just, you know, destroyed their party the most was nominating Donald Trump for president. But then because he won, everyone said, okay, well, because we missed him winning, then clearly our entire analysis for the last however many years about how the Republican Party is destroying

itself and making itself less appealing must be wrong. And I don't necessarily know that that's true. Certainly not true when you look at the numbers and the appeal of the Republican Party, particularly among independents, which has just fallen off intensely. And less people are calling themselves, fewer people are calling themselves Republicansans now than they were uh in 2016 so they've had you know a not insignificant number of people leave the party and their numbers with independence are cratering and yes they're clinging on to power because of gerrymandering because the electoral college because of the senate because of all these um sort of anti-democratic trends in this country but uh the republican party and i'm not saying the democratic party is perfect obviously did a whole podcast about it but the Democratic Party is perfect, obviously,

did a whole podcast about it, but the Republican Party is not in great shape. No, it is not. Okay, let's talk about Trump's trade war retreat. On Wednesday, Trump and the President of the European Union Commission announced a preliminary agreement to hold off on proposed automobile tariffs. This came after Trump's announcement on Tuesday that he plans to give $12 billion in aid to farmers who've been screwed over by Trump's trade war. One farm group has estimated that corn, wheat, and soybean farmers have already lost $13 billion since China, Mexico, and other countries slapped tariffs on American goods in retaliation to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. Dan, is this an admission that Trump is losing his own trade war? I mean, obviously, yes. Yes, he has created, Trump has proposed a

$12 billion. I mean, let's think about it this way. This is maybe the best way to understand it, which is Trump picked a trade war with China, is currently losing that trade war, and then in order to help the people in his own country hurt by the trade war, he's going to borrow $12 billion from China. Just what a massive own goal by Donald Trump here. But, I mean, like it is laughable To To even suggest That like Yeah of course

Trump This is an admission That Trump's losing His own trade war But On CBS His chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow

Actually said Don't blame Trump for this He inherited a broken Trade system And he's trying to fix it I mean I don't know if that's Going to fly

Is that going to fly? It will obviously fly with this base. Do you think it will fly with people who are getting hurt by the trade war? I would hope not. people in these deeply red states like North Dakota, the upper mid, you know, states in the upper Midwest, Minnesota, Ohio, etc, who are affected by these policies and what it makes them think about Trump and the Republicans and how they understand it. Because in many ways, sort of party identification and being part of your party group overrides a lot of people's own economic interests. And this is, I think, a real test of the power of the Trump propaganda machine. So I'm very curious about this. And

certainly, if you were doing things that were going to help the Republicans try to maintain political power, launching a trade war against your own voters seems like a bad idea, I guess. But I'd be interested to see what the actual political impact of this is. Yeah. One soybean farmer told CBS that he's facing a 20% pay cut and that Trump's proposal isn't a long-term fix. It's a pacifier. He said, I'd rather not have it. Republicans in Congress weren't much happier about this. Ron Johnson said, quote, this is becoming more like the Soviet type of economy here. Pat Toomey, another conservative senator from Pennsylvania, called it a Band-Aid on a self-inflicted wound. What could they do if they wanted to do something,

these Republicans, as opposed to just put out their sad, disappointed statements? My favorite tweet was something from Bob Corker, passive observer from Tennessee. He said, why isn't there a revolt in Congress on this? You're in Congress, at least for the next six months, my friend.

You got nothing to lose, Bob, nothing to lose. They could pass a bill that could constrain Trump's ability to do this. They could reverse the tariffs. They actually have power here. They have just chosen not to use it because they are afraid of mean tweets from Trump or angering the Trump base. And so they've chosen to do nothing except just put out statements. is a fascinating sociological study of how Republicans think about their power

in Congress, which is really that their first loyalty is to the Republican Party and that they are adjunct members of the RNC and not public servants who've taken an oath to the Constitution to protect the country. Paul Ryan views himself not as the Speaker of the House, but as the leader of the Republican Conference. Mitch McConnell does not see himself as the leader of the United States Senate trying to move the Senate towards passing legislation, but as the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. And so that is a filter by which they view everything. And so they are almost ignorant of their own powers. They have forgotten they have these congressional powers because it's been so long

since they used them. Yeah. I mean, Politico was saying, reported a number of senators have been itching to tie the president's hands from making unilateral tariff policy with legislation that would require Congress to approve of unilateral tariffs that are imposed with the justification of national security. So they could pass legislation that attempts to tie the president's hands in this area, and they just refuse to do it. So how do you think Democrats should react if this farm bailout package comes up for a vote? It's sort of unclear, by the way, how the Trump administration is going to spend this money. They're just going to find it in the government and just send it out to people.

It doesn't appear that they think that they need legislative approval for this, which seems a bit odd. But if something like this does come up to Congress, what do you think Democrats should do? Well, I think the first step would be come up with an alternative, right? So we sometimes put ourselves in a position where we either have to be for the exact thing that Trump proposes or be against any help at all. And a lot of – we have Democrats running for office and serving the people who are hurt by this – by these policies, whether it's Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota or whoever else. And they should want to do something to help them and they should not be seen – it's unfair to call them opponents of this. So I think if there was some sort of counterproposal that had some sort of help paid for by – I would come up with some help paid for by closing some of the tax loopholes that were opened up for big business in the tax scam passed last year. You could tie the aid to a restriction of Trump's tariff ability. I'm certainly not the Senate parliamentarian, but there are things you could do here that would

make a better... Not yet, at least. Not yet. Fingers crossed we get that majority back. I'm putting my name in a zip recruiter. But I think that we should be for something that not just accepts the argument as outlined by Trump, which is the trade war is good and we should help people get through the short term so that we can win in the long term. We should have a more aggressive, progressive, populist case that puts Republicans on the defensive here. And so there are people much smarter than me about what works policy-wise and what works legislatively, but that's where I would go. Let's talk about a few media developments

over the last week. The Republican chair of the Federal Communications Commission has announced he has, quote, serious concerns about Sinclair's proposed acquisition of Tribune, saying that he'll send the transaction through a long process

that many are viewing as a deal killer for the transaction. Ajit Pai, who's the FCC commissioner, also said Sinclair demonstrated a, quote, lack of candor in representing itself to the FCC, which is an accusation that could lead to fines and even revoking licenses. Trump is obviously very pissed about this and tweeted this week, So sad and unfair that the FCC wouldn't approve the Sinclair broadcast merger with Tribune. This would have been a great and much-needed conservative voice for and of the people.

Liberal fake news NBC and Comcast gets approved. Much bigger but not Sinclair. Disgraceful. Dan, why do you think Ajit Pai changed his mind? I have no idea. I was blown away when I saw it in his previous 14 or 18 months or however long Ajit Pai has been in that job. He has basically only done terrible things, whether it was trying to reverse net neutrality, originally greenlighting this deal. I don't remember exactly how it played out, but I know there were some reports that Ajapai was under some level of inspector general investigation for his contacts with Sinclair. So maybe this is related to that.

But let's – if we can get some good news somewhere, let's take it. It's also interesting – and this is yet another example of the fact that Trump always says the quiet part out loud. This is the whole point. You're supposed to pretend like this is good for media generally without saying that it will be yet another battalion in our propaganda war. But he once again made it clear to everyone what's really at play here. Well, yeah. I mean this also relates to something that Trump told a group of veterans in Kansas City this week. He said, quote, don't believe the crap you see from these people. CNN is the worst. What you're seeing and what you're reading is not happening.

Doesn't get much closer to 1984 than that. How important is Trump's propaganda machine to his political survival? How much of an effect is it having? It is the single most important thing. scored in this country while Barack Obama, an African-American president with the middle name Hussein, was president, created an environment where Trump could even be a viable presidential candidate. It created an environment where he could win, and it is propping him up against a series, daily, hourly set of controversies that would end the presidency of any other human being. It has created a filter bubble that protects him, protects the base from finding out information that would cause them to question their support of Trump. It is what has caused, there is no more destructive force in American politics than Fox News and

the follow-on propaganda operation of Breitbart, Daily Caller, The Federalist, etc. It is the most destructive thing in our politics and is the reason we're in the shithole that we are currently in. Yeah, Fox News and then – and we should tell people Sinclair, which owns all these local news stations already all across the country, has been sort of spouting this conservative propaganda itself. They have these like must read segments during the local news that are very pro Trump, that are very MAGA friendly. They have, you know, some former Trump officials on Boris, whatever the fuck his name is, spouting out all kinds of Trump talking points. So they are doing something that in some ways is even more insidious than what you get from a Hannity who is outwardly favorable towards Trump.

And they're trying to sort of push Trump propaganda without saying that they are a pro-Trump propaganda outlet, which is pretty sneaky and also could be effective. I think it's important to understand the political psychology of our current moment, which is we live in very polarized times. People want to be part of their political tribe. They want to, they are looking for reasons to not have to step outside of their comfort zone. And so much of politics is about giving people a permission structure to do what they really want to do. And so there are lots of people who have voted Republican their whole life, who hated the Clintons up all the way through 2016.

And they want to stay with Trump. They want to stay with Republicans. And what Fox News and Sinclair and everyone else does is create that permission structure. Oh, you're concerned about the fact that the president is under multiple federal investigations for colluding with a foreign adversary to steal an election? Yeah, that's concerning. Oh, I didn't realize that there were 13 Democrats on there who had given to Hillary Clinton. And I didn't know about these totally unrelated things like text messages that are taken out of context. It is everything. If a billionaire or a million people spending $100 were willing to buy Fox News and take it off the air tomorrow, Trump and the currency of the Republican Party would collapse for at least the time being. Do it, liberal billionaires. Do it. But until a liberal billionaire does that, how should the rest of the media deal with this?

Because it does seem like there's an asymmetry between Trump propaganda outlets and nonpartisan outlets who are not liberal propaganda as much as Donald Trump says they are, as much as we might like them to be, but they're not. How do reporters deal with this sort of imbalance? And one example of this is on Wednesday, the White House, through Bill Shine, their new deputy chief of staff who used to run Fox News, banned a network pool reporter from a Rose Garden event, Caitlin Collins of CNN. by Bill Shine that she'd been banned from the event because of questions she asked while serving as the pool reporter for TV stations during an event earlier that day. Being the pool reporter means so that you don't have all the reporters in the White House at once. You have one reporter go in and cover an event or cover a press conference or cover a pool spray, and then they transcribe that for everyone else in the White House press pool to use. What did you think of the press's reaction to this and what should it be? I think the press's reaction was right, which is anger.

It's also a reminder that they have almost no leverage in this battle. Some people proposed on Twitter, well, why didn't no one cover the event if they wouldn't let Caitlin Collins cover it? And it's like, is that the right choice? I mean, isn't that ultimately you're letting Trump win if he gets to have no one cover his events and just broadcast it out through Periscope or YouTube or whatever else it is to move entirely to state TV? And you also have limited leverage because if, let's say, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC, NBC, all of the legacy media organizations said we're not going to go. The right-wing – even Fox, who actually sided with CNN in this, let's say they all said we're not going to do it. Just like Breitbart, The Daily Caller, LifeZ, Gateway Pundit, the rest of the nutjobs would go and cover it and Trump would get what he wanted.

And so it's just – we always get frustrated when the White House Correspondents Association sends out a strongly worded statement. But that is the full – the only tool in their arsenal is a strongly worded statement. And so they are at a disadvantage. The other thing I would say here is I think the wrong way to think about this is how do CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post battle against Fox News? I think Fox News is not – they are not the other side of the coin of CNN. The question is what are we going to do? What are we Democrats going to do? What are we, the larger progressive movement, going to do to fight back against Fox News?

Because we will always lose a war where one side, if the other side is CNN and New York Times, and they feel, for good reason, obligated to be, in the best way possible, objective journalists who try to do journalism the traditional way, and the other side is an adjunct to the RNC or the Trump organization, then you're going to lose that battle because you're playing by two sets of rules, right? One, people agree with the Geneva Convention, and the others don't't and you will lose that way what the question for us is how are we going to battle that that propaganda machine how are democrats going to break in those filter bowls how are democrats going to create not propaganda

but similar outlets that help shape the conversation in the media and social media around topics that we care about how do we avoid having our message drowned out by this propaganda machine? Yeah, I think that's right. The one other thing I'll say about this is, you know, on Twitter yesterday and on cable after this happened, journalists were rightly outraged that the White House would do this. And they were calling it attack on press freedoms and press access. And they all sort of banded together. There was solidarity. And, you know, like I said, they were absolutely right to have that reaction. But I can't help but notice, you know, Jim Acosta at CNN tweeted, this is a new low for the White House. And I started thinking to myself, you know, it's pretty awful what they did. But a new low, I don't know if I would classify it as that. And I started thinking to myself, you know, it's pretty awful what they did. But a new low, I don't know if I would classify it as that.

And I do think that sometimes, I guess what I'm saying is I wish the press would be as outraged by some of the other Trump attacks on norms, institutions that have sort of been bipartisan, nonpartisan, held this country together for decades, for centuries, as they are when it affects them and their profession. Because this administration is still kidnapping children. This administration, Donald Trump just betrayed the country in front of the world as he stood next to Vladimir Putin in Russia. There are a lot of really bad things he does. And we cover them for about three, four, five hours or at the most a couple of days. And then we quickly move on to the next thing because it's new. And I do wish that the press would muster the same level of outrage on some of the other extraordinary actions that the Trump administration has taken as they do when it affects them and their job and their access. taken as they do when it affects them and their job and their access.

Yeah. I mean, this is sort of the hard part of the Trump era, which is how do you have, like, what's the appropriate hierarchy of outrage, right? It's because everything is terribly outrageous. And can you as a journalist be very, very upset that something very serious happened to your profession and your colleague. Yes. Can you also at the same time hold in your head the thought that it is also, and probably even more outrageous, I mean, certainly more outrageous and more consequential that thousands of children have been cruelly separated from their parents and no one seems to have any idea how to find them or how

to reunite them. Yes, those things are true. I mean, it has always been true. And this is something that Trump understands and uses to his advantage, which is there is no, and this is true before Trump, is there's no story, and it's an old saying, there's no story the press likes to cover more than itself. And so whether that was things that happened in our presidency, the Clinton administration, I remember, I mean, this is even before mostly my time, but I've read books about it. But early in Bill Clinton's administration, one of the ideas they had was to – there's a door that goes from where the press sit up to where the press secretary and the communications director sit, where Jay Carney, Josh Earnest, Robert Gibbs, myself used to sit. And they could walk up there freely to ask questions, get updates, try to corner an official for a reaction. And the Clinton administration proposed locking that door so that they could not come up on their own.

And all hell broke loose as if that was the greatest infringement of the First Amendment. And so Trump understands this, and that's why they do these things. Tape is very clear many many people what caitlin collins yelled was exactly what every reporter has yelled with the same tone same type of question at every time in which yeah this isn't even just a reaction to trump this is how caitlin collins would have who is a very good journalist and i obviously have some biases because i am a cnn contributor but it's the same sort of questions that she would ask if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or someone else's president, if a tape had been released the day before about them conspiring to set up a secret

shell corporation to pay hush money. And so it was totally normal. They picked this fight for a reason, right? There's nothing about this this is different than any other time. Any other journalist has yelled questions at a president and know the questions weren't inappropriate. The tone wasn't louder. The approach wasn't ruder. It was exactly standard. But they wanted this fight because it helped distract from other things. And I think that's just something the press has to keep in mind as they do this, which is the outrage like they've ever right to be outraged by this. It is deeply concerning both for their ability to do their job and for the ability of the public to know what's happening, but to understand that when they do this, they get this outrage. They are in some ways playing into Trump's hand. So finding a way to find balance between that and all the other outrages,

I think is important. I think that's right. And I think it goes back to the point you said though, which is we can give the press advice and we can hope that the press does better here or there. But the ultimate solution here is to not count on the press to win our battles against Donald Trump for us because they are not going to do it because they are not Fox News and Breitbart and what Donald Trump has at his disposal. And we need to find new ways to communicate and new ways to get our message out if we're going to beat this guy. Right. That's not their job. That's not what they see their job to be, and they don't have the tools to do it. When I brought up the question, we were talking about how these farmers in North Dakota feel about the tariffs. I sort of said that in the traditional way of what you think about the press, which is, boy, we've done our interview with the New York Times and the local North Dakota TV

station about this. Gee, I wonder how they're going to interpret that information. And that's not the right way to think about it, right? It is how, what are we doing to expose these voters to the right information through campaigning, through door knocking, through advertising? And it's the distribution of that information beyond the press that Democrats have to get much better at, because the press just doesn't have the reach that it used to have to control the conversation in this country. That's right. Okay. When we come back, we will talk to Danny O'Connor, the Democratic candidate running in the special election in Ohio's 12th congressional district.

district. On the pod today, we have the Democratic candidate for the special election in Ohio's 12th congressional district. Election will be held on Tuesday, August 7th. Danny O'Connor. Danny, welcome to the pod. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. So Donald Trump won your district by double digits two years ago. What's been your strategy for making up that difference and giving Democrats a chance to take this seat on Tuesday? Yeah, you know, it's been a strategy that takes us everywhere. We have a very gerrymandered district. It's seven counties. And, you know, the president won the district by 11 points. But

I have a message crisscrossing the district about why we need to protect access to health care, why we need to have an economic system that works for folks, why we need to have folks who go to Washington like me who aren't beholden to all these special interests, all this corporate money, all the old games of the past, because I think folks are really looking for new leadership. When we win in 12 days, for a few months, I'll be the youngest member of Congress at the age of 31. I think that's a positive. I think that people are ready for change. I think that folks are ready to have some new leadership in Washington, D.C. that's committed to actually delivering solutions as opposed to what we see right now. Danny, Conor Lamb won a special election earlier this year in a congressional district in Pennsylvania that Trump won by 20 points.

Yours is a district that Trump also won. What lessons did you learn from that election and the race you're running right now? You know, I hope that the lesson that we all learn when we're running for office is that we should talk to everyone anywhere at any time. And I grew up in rural Western Ohio, in dark red. It's the district that Jim Jordan represents. And my high school class was 78 kids and we had a mock election that year. It was 74 to 4, Bush over Kerry. But when you grow up in a place like that, you learn that the issues that folks sit down and talk about every night at the kitchen table

aren't that different depending on what party affiliation they have. Everybody's worried about having access to health care. You know, my mom's a breast cancer survivor. So when people talk about pre-existing conditions and taking them away, I get pretty pissed off. And, you know, folks worry about the same things. It doesn't matter where they come from. But when it comes to delivering solutions for folks, it doesn't matter if an idea is a Republican idea, a Democratic idea. If it's a good idea, we want to implement it. And, you know, going out there from my standpoint and having the conversation with folks, no matter where they are, no matter where they come from, is just the right way to do things. So Danny, you know, Trump, as we said earlier, Trump won not just your district, but

Ohio two years ago. At the same time, you've got a fantastic senator in Sherrod Brown, one of the more progressive populist senators in the country. He's a friend of the pod, right? Absolutely. Who has won Ohio many times and right now, thankfully, has a big lead in his Senate reelect. How do you sort of account for the different swings in Ohio's political preferences? And what does that tell you about the two parties and also sort of the issues that are on people's minds? Yeah, I mean, I think Ohioans are folks that look for solutions. And you guys, I know you've spent a lot of time here over the years and understand how important our state is. You know, it's a place that it likes honesty. We like candor. We like folks who speak directly.

Even if we don't agree on everything, it's important that we have folks who go to Washington for us who listen. You know, one thing I do every single night, I'm engaged to a Republican. And so when we sit down every night, you know, and talk about stuff, we might disagree on a few things. We might not see eye to eye on everything. But having someone who listens represent you like Senator Brown does and like I will do, I think that's key because people here are sick and tired of the gamesmanship. They're sick and tired of the mudslinging. You know, we got these super PACs and this dark money, all this corporate money that's just hammering me every day. And it's not working because average folks are just so tired of it.

And so when we are out there talking about, you know, how I want to protect access to health care and how we need to invest in education and rebuilding our communities, I think it really resonates. And I think that's the model that people should follow. You know, as you're out there campaigning, you obviously need the votes of people who voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. And obviously, from, you know, what I've heard about your race and the polls you've seen that you're obviously winning some of those people over right now. What are you hearing from them about why they are willing to, after everybody voted for Trump, willing to vote for a Democrat for Congress? What has changed in their perception

of Trump or politics or Washington? You know, I think a lot of folks, and one thing I love to do is, you know, Sundays, afternoons, I love to get out and knock on doors, because I think it's good for you to do if you can take the time to do it. But it's also good just to talk to some folks. And one thing that I notice when I talk to people in the 12th District is politics is a bit more personal, I think, than it's been in the past. And if I talk to – like I mean I talked to a woman a few weeks ago in New Albany who's a big Republican, like has no business voting for me. And she's voting for me because I support common sense gun reforms. I don't think that folks who are on the no-fly list should own a firearm.

I don't think that folks who have committed domestic violence crime should have access to weapons. So I think having a common sense approach like we do that says, okay, let's get rid of all of the crazy ideas that people have who are attacking me. Let's get rid of these notions of the super PACs and the corporate money coming in. Let's focus on some actual common sense solutions. I think that that is something that works well for folks. And it really cuts across partisan lines. So this week, Donald Trump floated a massive bailout to the farmers who've been screwed over by his own trade policies. How would you say that Trump's trade war has been affecting your district? And what do you think of his policies? No, it's hurting a lot of folks. I mean, we have a lot of soybean farmers, corn farmers,

commodity farmers. And I had a gentleman come up to me a couple weeks ago who is a hog farmer. And he said, I'm worried like hell over this stuff. These knee-jerk reactions and this kind of economic and foreign policy by Twitter is harmful. I mean, this is real stuff. It impacts real people. When you are knee-jerk imposing tariffs on our allies, you know, Canada, Europe, it's problematic. And that impact is going to be felt by folks in the district. Obviously, whenever there's a situation where Americans aren't being given the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, there's ways to fix that. The way to do it isn't via Twitter. It's to do it through a well-thought-out procedure to make

sure that we're not pitting steel workers against farmers. If you were, if and when you're elected to Congress and that bailout package were to come up, would you vote for it? Right were, you know, if and when you're elected to Congress and that bailout package were to come up, would you vote for it? Right now I would, because these are folks who need relief. But we need to focus on letting them put their markets, put their products out to the market. My last question was, have you secured your fiance's vote? I have. She's self-identified as a Danny-crat. I've tried to commit her to being a Democrat, but she's not quite there yet. But we're our hall. We've got our band. It's the British Invasion. So it's going to be a lot of fun. It's May 25th next year.

So I guess there will be trackers at it now. But we're really looking forward to it. Well, if she promises to vote Democrat up and down the ticket, you send me those vows. I'll take an edit. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Danny. But we have a lot of fun with this. I'll take an edit. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Danny. But we have a lot of fun with this.

I mean, it's a good time. And she sees all the attack ads. It's like they attacked me a couple months ago for not having a fishing license at one point. And it just shows how desperate and strange these attack ads are where they think that someone growing up in rural Ohio would take the time when they're in high school to go and get a fishing license. I mean, the desperation is just crazy and she sees it and she sees through it as well. Yeah. They don't really know what to do when the opponent is focused on issues that people actually care about and talking about those issues. No, they don't. They don't. They don't. Absolutely.

Thank you so much for joining and we wish you all the luck. Come back soon. All right. Thanks a bunch. Thanks again to Danny O'Connor for joining us today. We'll talk to you next week.

Dan, I'll see you tomorrow at the wedding. I'll see you in my part of California. Talk to everyone next week. Bye.