Pod Save America - “The strategic sense of a rabid raccoon.”

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Trump botches the human act of calling grieving families and rejects a bipartisan deal to improve the Affordable Care Act. Then Jon and Dan talk to Virginia Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Swecker about the race between Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie, and Ana Marie Cox joins to talk about #MeToo and the Trump Administration’s legal push to force an undocumented immigrant to give birth. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we'll be talking to the chairwoman of the Virginia Democratic Party, Susan Swecker. And a little bit later, we'll be talking to the host of Crooked Media's With Friends Like These, Anna Marie Cox. Also, be sure to check out this week's Pod Save the World where Tommy talks to Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. They really throw down. It gets nasty. Does it? That's supposed to be clickbait, Dan.

Alright, it's like next on my podcast list. It's a great conversation. It's a great conversation though. It's really interesting. So everyone go check it out. Also go sign up at Crooked.com for all kinds of exciting updates we'll have soon. And subscribe to Crooked Conversations, which will be launching in just a few weeks.

Exciting stuff. I have so many Crooked Conversation ideas. I just spend most of my day thinking about them. Look at that. You're going to make Tanya so happy. Okay, let's start with a story that I had wanted to avoid because it's just sad and painful, but now it's been in the news for three days, four days. And that is how Trump has handled the deaths of four U.S. Special Forces soldiers who were killed by ISIS fighters on the border of Niger and Mali. It is the deadliest

combat incident since Trump took office. So some background, the ambush took place on October 4th. On October 5th, Trump's National Security Council drafted a condolence statement from the president and the first lady. For reasons we don't yet know, the statement was never released and Trump never said or tweeted a word about the soldiers who died until he was asked why 12 days later at a press conference. So at that point, when asked this question, he said, well, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls. A lot of them didn't make calls. So Dan, I sort of missed this as it was happening, but I looked at Twitter and saw quite a few of our former Obama colleagues, you and most colorfully Alyssa, get understandably upset about this. What did you think? What was your first reaction here? Well, I mean, I think I would associate myself with

the remarks from the gentle lady of Rhinebeck, New York, Alyssa Mastromonaco, who called him a fucking liar and a deranged animal, which seems like- That got some pickup there, Quill. It did. I mean, it became, in many ways, the official response of Obama World to Trump, and I'd never been more proud to be part of Obama World. To think about this, there are all sorts of ways in which Trump has eviscerated the norms by which presidents deal with former presidents. Now, of course, when we came in office, most of what we were doing was undoing what George W. Bush had done. And our main argument without saying his name was that the Bush administration had so screwed things up it would take us a long try to question the patriotism or the affinity of a previous president of either party, question their dedication to the troops they serve. Like the one sacrosanct part of the presidency that goes beyond politics is the role, the role and

responsibility of commander chief. Now, people may make different, different presidents make different decisions, national security decisions, but the one thing that you believe, and even as much as we disagree with President Bush on Iraq and some of the other disastrous decisions he made, I don't doubt his affection for and loyalty to the troops who serve them. And so for for Trump to do this was just such a disgusting and so obviously false smear of President Obama that, you know, it led to the reactions like the one Alyssa had. I was screaming at my TV as it was happening. I mean, I have to say that I was not completely surprised.

I mean, he has called Barack Obama the founder of ISIS and accused him of a felony of wiretapping him. So I just sort of think nothing is out of bounds with him at this point. But I thought it was revealing. I mean, let's talk about what really happens when you're in the White House and you get noticed that American soldiers, that American service members were killed in action. Barack Obama called countless families during his eight years in office, families whose sons, daughters, husbands, mothers, wives were killed in battle. He also sent letters, I think, if he didn't call them, he sent letters to almost every family. He visited Walter Reed. He went to Dover Air Force Base to greet flag-draped coffins as they came off the plane.

And so it is true that Obama, and not every president preceding him does not sometimes have time to call each and every service member's family, particularly in the middle of two wars when, sadly, you know, there are a few soldiers, you know, died almost every day, which is tragic in its own right. But it's revealing that Trump's reaction to the question was to immediately blame Obama and not to say. Like Trump could have diffused the entire situation by responding to the question, we make sure that every single family who loses someone in battle, who loses someone who has served this country, hears from us in some way, whether it's a phone call, whether it's a letter, whether it's a visit. Of course, it's important to reach out. And I'm doing that now. Right. That's all he had to say. But he has this fucking Fox News point of view on everything where if you're attacked, instead of defending yourself, you just attack a Democrat and you bring them into it. Right. Like I always think Donald Trump actually shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue like he said he could and not lose any fans.

What Fox News would do is they wouldn't defend Donald Trump for shooting someone. They'd start talking about Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster or Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. You know, like that's that's what they do. They just deflect and say, oh, we don't care what kind of bad things that our our side did. We're just going to now talk about all the bad things and conspiracy theories about the other fucking side. Like that's how they operate. And that's how Donald Trump operates because he is a Fox News viewer who ended up in the fucking White House. He is so sad.

You know, it is – you know, I sort of always view that Trump's strategy when cornered is to lash out in the lie. That is where – that's like his natural comfort place. And I think it is mostly Democrats, but he would also lash out at Republicans. He would lash out at anyone. It's nonpartisan. He doesn't care who. He would lash out at his own family as long as it wasn't himself. as long as it wasn't himself.

Like he just, he has no, he has shown no capacity for empathy for any other human being or to even think about anyone but himself the entire time we've seen him in public life. I don't even know of an exception. I don't. No, I mean, you remember that we talked about this at the convention

and even, you know, one of the main points of political conventions is to highlight the human side of the candidate, of the nominee. That may not come through in day-to-day political coverage or whatever else it's like. candidates for good people and less good people who've been nominees, someone can come up with some very touching story because they are human beings who have families and lives and children. In the Republican convention, there were no one, not Trump's children, not anyone else from his life could tell a story that showed anything human about him or he put someone else or something else before himself. And that was not a – and I don't think it's because they forgot that part of conventions. It just – it did not exist. That part of Trump that separates the rest of us from robots either never existed or ceased to exist at some point and was destroyed by the sort of culture of the narcissism that comes with being famous. I don't know what it is.

I won't diagnose it, but it's certainly fucked up. It's something deeply wrong with that man. Yeah. I was thinking about, you know, Trump is, you know, like we talk about when they're, you know, like we can teach robots to drive cars and beat chess masters. But they always say you can't teach them to be human. Like Trump is that. Trump is the example of the pinnacle of robots. Trump is the example of the pinnacle of robots. Like we'll know like whether someone is a Terminator or a human based on their ability to do things like call widows of people who lost their lives while serving you.

And Trump fails the robot test. Yeah. I mean, that part of the story was like, yeah, we can be enraged that Trump attacked Obama. But, you know, I'm pretty used to him saying horrible things about our former boss. And I would imagine that if you ask Barack Obama, he would be like, yeah, that's what this like. He would not even be that upset because he's just expects that from Donald Trump. So if the story ended there, that's one thing. But of course, the story takes an even more depressing turn the next day when Trump told some moron at Fox that Obama didn't call General Kelly when his son died

in Afghanistan in 2011. And then the White House staff started pushing this story to reporters. Now, Obama didn't call Kelly because, like we said, presidents don't call every single family, but he did invite General Kelly and his wife to an event at the White House with Gold Star Families shortly afterwards. So now Trump has decided he's in the middle of a fight that he refuses to lose. And he just this is the part where he does not care who he has to hurt to win the fight. He doesn't care that he has to bring up the dead son of his chief of staff who his chief of staff has avoided talking about because it's so painful and he didn't even ask kelly if he could bring up now we found out if he could bring up his son didn't even ask his chief of staff just did it

just to prove a fucking political point and now we have general kelly and his heroic son brought into this story and now we have to deal with this. Now his family has to deal with this. It's just like that's what got me even angrier than the initial attack on Obama. Yeah, I have a very complicated set of emotions around Kelly in the sense that Mejia is someone who has served his country with great distinction for a long time. I, you know, unlike Gary Cohn, who's selling his soul for the chance to cut his own taxes and maybe be the Fed chair, I do get the sense that Kelly is taking on this horrible, miserable job because he thinks America needs him on that wall. But when you read this, Kelly was the highest

ranking U.S. military official to lose a family member in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he, as you point out, he went out of his way to never – to talk about it very rarely because he did not want to put – when you read some of the stories about it, it's that he had a lot of troops serving with him who had lost colleagues or family members and he didn't want to put his story above their own, you know, and that it was somehow different because he had a higher rank than me. And that was very admirable. And then for Trump to use that for someone who has been incredibly loyal to him is, I mean, it's just simply disgusting. And the, you know, it's just the part that i took away from that is it shows so much how we have so dumbed down expectations of humanity in our president that a lot of the

commentary from white house reporters over the last 48 hours is well you know kelly should have known that you don't tell trump things because he will utter them publicly. Yeah. Like, no. Yeah. It's just like, I'm just trying to like, I try to step back from this when I was thinking about this issue the other night. I'm like, let's just forget about anyone in the public eye. Like, if you lost a family member, especially if you lose a family member in combat, like, I can't imagine like the pain and the grief that you must go through. And now to think that that pain and grief are going to be public and used in politics somehow. It's going to be on TV.

People are going to be talking about it. Reporters are going to be analyzing it. It's just so fucked up. And the President of the United States had the ability and has the ability to avoid that. And you're supposed to think about these things. And people in public life are supposed to think about these things. And you're supposed to be careful about this stuff. And if for no other reason, forget about politics, then you're just a human being who wants to think about other human beings and their feelings.

Like it's just – it's so sad. feelings. Like, it's just, it's so sad. Yeah. I mean, look, if Kelly was angry that Obama didn't call him and he wanted to talk about it, or he told Trump, Trump could talk about it. It is Kelly's family's tragedy, right? And, you know, people should respond to that if they want to deal with that in private or in public, that is, that is their decision to make. It is not Trump's decision to make. And the idea that it's just that Kelly should have known, you know, we've all worked for politicians where if you have to tell them that, you know, if you tell them a piece of information about like a poll that just came out or, you know, a policy decision or something that,

you know, that you're still running down the details of, then you tell them, like, don't mention this in your press conference. That's one thing. It is like even the most insensitive human would pause and think before – like you shouldn't have to tell anyone. You shouldn't have to tell a small child that that's not something you should utter publicly. And then for Trump to do it is just – the whole thing is just, it's sad. It's sad for Kelly's family. It's sad for America that we have

a president who acts like this. And it's sad that, and I think this is really one of the worst parts of Trumpism, is that it automatically reduces every conversation to its most basic and stupidest form. Like there is a real conversation about decisions to send men and women into combat, decisions about war, conversations about use of force. Also, and just in this specific incident, like what really happened in Niger? Yes. Like we don't know. Exactly. Why were the troops ambushed?

I mean there's questions about this too. Yeah. And because of Trump and his minions in the right-wing propaganda forces, the conversation we're having instead is did Barack Obama call all the troops and did Trump, all the troops families and did Trump call any of the troops families? Like that's not, that's the wrong conversation, right? It is like, there is not a test to say you have to call every family who, member who lost their life or you have to send them a letter or visit with them. Like that, that is the wrong conversation.

The test is just, please don't lie about it. You know, like just please tell us the truth about what you're doing or exploit it it shouldn't be this hard and it also bugs me because like you know we're on day four of this story that's like one more news cycle than we had when the republican chairman of the foreign relations committee said he's concerned that the president of his own party may start world war three it's like you know what's disrespectful to our troops and their families? Starting World War III. It's just, you know, all of these things are now discussed on the same plane. You know, like Bob Corker says something crazy,

and so let's talk about that. You know, he thinks Trump's crazy. Let's talk about that for a couple days. Now Trump lied about calling troops families, so let's talk about that for a couple days. It's just like there's this leveling effect of all these controversies that we don't have a perspective on, like what's most important. And of course, like the story got unbelievably got even worse and more depressing the day after because Trump finally called the widow of Sergeant David Johnson, one of the soldiers who was killed in Niger and reportedly said to her, quote, he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.

He knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt. Now, we heard about this because Democratic congressman Frederica Wilson was in the car because she knew the family. She mentored Sergeant Johnson when he was a child. And so the Sergeant Johnson's widow was in the car. His mother was in the car. And, of course, the mother has since confirmed that this is what Trump said. The White House's response is they're not denying that that's what he said, but they're saying, you know, she took it out of context. But, of course, now Trump's in a fight, you know, where he said, I have proof that the Democratic congresswoman's lying that I said that.

And I can provide that proof. Of course, he doesn't have proof. He also has, like, proof that Obama was wiretapped that we're still waiting for and that three million people illegally voted in the election that we're also waiting for. And, you know, it's just like things like this, too, where the mother said that, you know, Trump really didn't even remember Sergeant Johnson's name when he called and things like that. And you can tell that that point Trump was so annoyed by the attacks he was getting in the media over his initial statement that to him, the call was just like, oh, fine. Now, you know, you've made me do this. So now I'm going to do this and it's going to be perfunctory, you know. The White House did not deny Trump said it, but Trump did deny he

said it. He said it was fabricated and he had proof. And they said the White House later, you know, through some the array of background sources said that the proof was that John Kelly was in the room. Now, that's not actually proof. And then do I think Trump was trying to offend the widow? No, I don't. No, of course not. He just is incapable. He's just he can't like the he's incapable of expressing empathy or sympathy. He just doesn't have those emotions like that was left out of the package when he was created. So one reaction to this would be to simply say that I certainly in no way meant to do anything other than recognize the sacrifice and the heroism of Sergeant Johnson. Right.

Very easy. I apologize if it came off in the wrong way and just let it go. Like that is the only way to approach that, that any normal person would do. And it's not the politics of fighting with a gold star family, which is how this is being covered somewhat with. It's like, well, this probably isn't going to hurt Trump because he fought with the cons during the campaign, and he's still president. So therefore, Teflon Don can do anything. When it's like, no, that's not the point. Who gives a shit Teflon Don can do anything.

When it's like, no, that's not the point. Who gives a shit about the politics of arguing with a widow? Let's actually instead think about the feelings of this family who are going through a tremendous tragedy with a widow who is pregnant and has a small child and a family and a community that is mourning a hero. And just like shut your trap for one minute and just let it go but he can't i know that's exactly that's exactly right like i don't give a shit about the politics i don't care about whether like trump looks worse or better because it's just like everyone just be fucking human for five seconds that's all we're asking and let's just like move on to the next thing you know so that's what we'll do i mean we we should also say that you know there there know, the army is investigating what actually happened in Niger, why these troops lost their lives, why there was an ambush. There's a whole bunch of questions. John McCain was asked if Trump was

being upfront about what happened. He said, no, because I would not like to repeat the crazy witch hunt that the Republicans engaged in after Benghazi. I'm not going to make a big issue about it. I'm just going to say, I would like the army to investigate this and find a full report of what happened. And we'll look at that report and then we can move on. Or we can fix whatever happened where we're not going to, we're not doing fucking Benghazi, like those awful fucking people did for all those years for no fucking reason. Anyway, so I would I would I would note for the listening public that on midday Tuesday, when we emailed about this, you said, quote, if we are still talking about this on Thursday, I'm going to scream. I think we all appreciate that you did not scream. I wanted to.

I wanted to because I just. It sounds like you're holding it back. Yeah. It just made me really upset. Okay, let's talk about the Affordable Care Act, as you called it, the case of the disappearing deal. Earlier this week, after months of negotiating, Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander reached a deal on a bill that would fund the Obamacare subsidies and Obamacare enrollment assistance that Trump cut recently. In exchange for Republicans agreeing to fully fund the law so that it can work as it intended and provide people with affordable health insurance, Democrats agreed to give states more flexibility to experiment with their own health care programs

as long as they still provide affordable coverage. Seems like a good bipartisan deal. You got Republicans on board. You got Democrats on board. It is designed to make a law work as it was intended, and that is to help people afford health care. Trump says he's for this, and then when the deal is announced, he basically changes his mind and comes out against it um what did you make of

the like 24-hour flip-flop there to be honest i have no clue like not a clue because it i mean other than it might be exhibit a in whatever innocent for reason of insanity, not guilty for reason of insanity defense Trump may use in the Mueller trials later, but it, because he talked to Lamar Alexander on the phone and indicated support for the, for the, what Lamar Alexander was working towards. Basically because, I mean, when these deals are done, the majority party or the president's party, at least talks to the White House to get a steer because they can't agree to a deal that the president is not for because they're going to need him to sign the bill.

So they got the high sign that said go ahead. He praised it and then just a little while later, and I assume it's because of something that was said on Fox News, he pulled the plug on it and not a – this is kind of – they're almost there. They didn't get exactly to where I wanted to be. But no, this – I think he's like Lamar Alexander is a good guy. But this deal goes to the bottom line of insurance companies who are making record profits, and I can't do that. And so I just don't know. I mean, maybe is it like, I don't know.

I'm clueless on this. One clue is that he does have a former Freedom Caucus crazy in his cabinet, which is Mick Mulvaney is the OMB director. And if you remember a couple of weeks ago when Alexander and Murray were working on this deal, I think Mulvaney told Politico, like, we don't want that deal. We don't want a deal that just funds Obamacare. We want to repeal and replace Obamacare. And so sometimes I wonder what these budget things, if Mulvaney sort of gets in his ear about some of this stuff, because Mulvaney is the closest thing to a,

you know, a Fox News viewer that you have in the uh in the cabinet i shouldn't say that we have sessions there and a whole bunch of other crazies but anyway so i i wonder if it's a mulvaney thing um you know the the other assholes who came out against this are you know of course paul ryan and mitch mcconnell um paul ryan uh pretty strongly mitch mcconnell was hedging his bets a little bit more because like even mark meadows of the Freedom Caucus said something nice about this, you know, when it was first when it was first announced. So, you know, I don't know what we do now because like that's right. I just it's like, well, I mean, you know, Washington is, you know, has fetishized bipartisan deals for a long time. We know that we were there and look, bipartisan deals are a good thing.

Both sides come together and then we get something done. But here we have an example of like Democrats and Republicans coming together around a piece of legislation that could improve people's lives. And now the president of the United States is saying, no, I am sabotaging Obamacare. I just, I want this law to fail. And the only reason I want, and he doesn't have a good reason why he wants the law to fail. You know, I mean, he's also saying, he said the other day, Obamacare is dead. Don't even talk about it anymore. It's dead. It doesn't exist. And then he also said the next breath, but by the way, if premiums go up, it's Obamacare's fault. So, I mean, you can't have it both ways, asshole. It's just, you can't have it both ways asshole yeah it's just

you can't have it both ways asshole yes that is correct you know someone i saw i wish i had i think i blocked the person who tweeted this out of my memory because i didn't want to hold the lifelong grudge against them but somewhat after the deal was announced some reporter tweeted trump's high-risk strategy on aca pays off what What? And the idea being that his – I know. I know. I would go back and look for this, but then like you and I would just assail them on Twitter like five days later. That's not – it's not a good use of any of our time. Show me the dividends.

In what way does it pay off? Well, this was pre-Trump bailing on the deal. So the logic here was he canceled CSR payments and the sort of art of the deal brinksmanship of I'll just walk away from this deal and forcing them to come to the table. Now, that's idiocy for two reasons. One, this person has clearly never met Trump before because everything that comes before this shows that he has the strategic thinking of a rabid raccoon. This deal was already done months ago before McConnell scuttled it. And you guys talked about this on Monday. Scuttled it so that to give Graham Cassidy, GCHG, if you will, a chance to pass. GCHJ.

Oh, GCHJ. I think GCHC is a party drug i think that's right and but then he so like you could that's a narrative you could theoretically stick to like i i i did brinksmanship i got a deal i wanted it's bullshit but you but you could sell it and then he just pulled the plug on the deal and which is also like this is proof that no one's thinking this through is, as you guys talked about on Monday, there's a good chance he's going to have to swallow this in the end because most Republicans want this because it's their states who are getting screwed. They don't want to – they're smart enough to know that they're going to own this because the insurance companies are sending out letters saying, your premiums are going up because the Trump administration canceled the payments. So they know that this is on them. And so he's going to sign a deal, you know, unless the government is shut down indefinitely,

which would be bad for national parks, but I don't know, maybe it'll be good for safety for that. He's going to end up probably having to eat a deal that he said he doesn't like. And so it's well, and also the argument that was bandied about that, you know, oh, he did this because it's not legal to make these payments and what we really need is a legislative solution to this. Well, there's your legislative solution. You don't want that either.

So it had nothing to do with the legality of the payments. It just, let's stop pretending that it did. The other thing is he keeps calling it a bailout for insurers. Because of what he did and because he's rejecting this deal, the government's going to spend more money. So that's more money for taxpayers and middle class people who don't get

subsidies through the Affordable Care Act, they're going to spend more money. And guess what? Insurance companies are going to make more money because he did this. They're not going to make less money. They are going to make more money because he did this they're not gonna make less money they're gonna make more money so the whole bailout for insurance companies is another bullshit argument from him yeah it's you know whose fault this is who mitt romney why i'm sorry i said mitt romney i confused mitt romney with marco rubio yes i was actually

marco rubio's fault yes i was yelling about this to Lovett yesterday, that it was Marco Rubio's fault. Because during the campaign, he was the one that said, I'm going to end the bailout for insurance companies. Like, he started this whole thing. Yeah. I really stepped on my line there. But yes, it was Marco Rubio. How dare you speak of Mitt Romney? I know.

I know. Our hero. Our hero is waiting. That's right. If only. So, yeah waiting. That's right. If only. So yeah, you alluded to this. What happens next is this sort of year-end scenario, and we've talked about this in the pod before, where Trump needs to fund the government. He doesn't have the votes to fund it within his own party, which runs Washington because he has too many crazies in his own party.

He needs Democratic votes. Therefore, Democrats have leverage. he's in his own party. He needs Democratic votes. Therefore, Democrats have leverage. And as part of the Democrats should say, as part of funding the government, fully funding the government is fully funding the laws in the government. And one of those laws is the Affordable Care Act. And making this law work is part of funding the government. I mean, it seems like a very sensible, reasonable argument for the Democrats to make. Yeah, I'm not worried about this. I have complete faith that at the end of the day, Nancy Pelosi will be smarter, tougher, and savvier than Paul Ryan, and we'll know how to get what we need done, done. Good. And we should also let people know that we can do

something about help making sure that people get enrolled, sign up for Affordable Care Act over the next couple months, open enrollment, which is the period that you can sign up for the Affordable Care Act. It's going to be much shorter this year because the Trump administration made it shorter because they don't want people to have health insurance. But it is going to be between November 1st and December 15th. Those dates are very important. Tell everyone you know. to getamericacovered.org. You can find out how you can help and spread the word to make sure that everyone signs up for health insurance who can because the Trump administration refuses to do that. Okay, let's talk about Virginia before we bring on Susan Swecker. This is perhaps the closest biggest election of 2017. It's the governor's race in Virginia between Democrat

Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie. Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail there today, Thursday, later Thursday. I figured before we talked to Susan, it'd be good for us, the two of us, to freak out about the race for a few minutes, since we haven't had the chance to do that in a while. Freak out about an election. So just some background. In 2016, Clinton won Virginia 49.8 to 44.4. The outgoing Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, has an approval rating of like 52, disapproval 34.

And the current RealClearPolitics average, hasn't said that in a while, has Northam up 5.8%, about 49 to 44. But there was a Monmouth poll out Tuesday that showed Gillespie up one. It was the first poll that showed Gillespie up in quite a while, or maybe the whole race. Other polls have showed it close. It's an off-year election, which means that turnout is always a challenge for Democrats in off-years elections. People are anxious. And why not? Of course they should be anxious.

What do you think, Dan? What are your thoughts on this? yeah democrats should win therefore i'm scared shitless because i mean there's a couple of things here one ed gillespie who's who's actual official title is super lobbyist ed gillespie uh almost be enron lobbyist ed Gillespie. He was an Enron lobbyist. Everything. I mean, he is the swamp. Like, Ed Gillespie is the personification of the swamp. And now he's running as, like, a Breitbart, Trump, pro-nationalist, nativist candidate trying to appeal to Confederate sympathetic voters.

But he almost beat Mark Warner, friend of the pod, in 2014. Mark Warner is incredibly popular in Virginia. No one thought the race was going to be at all close. And it was incredibly close, went down the wire in the very end. And so we should be worried about this. And all of the most disgusting tactics

that Trump, his Russian friends, his Breitbart friends used to try to scare voters in 2016 are being used by Ed Gillespie in this race, including running ads that our fair president has endorsed saying that Ralph Northam is working to help ms-13 the gang from el salvador so it's like also this stems from like the gillespie's campaign blame northam for the gang ms-13 because northam voted against banning sanctuary cities in virginia even though there are no sanctuary cities in virginia so um somehow he's talking about sanctuary cities and gangs spreading up in sanctuary cities. It doesn't even make sense, the connection he's drawing. But who cares? We don't need truth anymore in Republican ads. We haven't had that in a while.

And so they have these ads that show tattooed Latino men and blare the words, kill rape control across the screen. Very subtle. Didn't you think these people are so terrible? Well, and I read the story to Gillespie's like all upset because he has like 20 different policy papers and he wants this to be a campaign about substance and all of his ideas.

And granted, I'm sure he has a whole bunch of ideas and a whole bunch of policy papers, but all his fucking money is being spent on these disgusting ads. So we have to beat him for several reasons, which I'll say, but also he will carry, if he loses and he tries to go back into the Palmer, Charlie Palmer's with his cufflinks

and pocket square and fit in, everyone should remember that he ran a disgusting racist campaign and he should that that will hopefully be in the first line of his wikipedia page going forward now yeah well i stopped hoping for that when sean spicer was on the emmys and then got a fellowship at harvard so but anyway that's that's a topic for another time fair enough um we'll ask susan how to you know how you know our listeners who do not live in Virginia can help. Because I've been very concerned about everywhere we went, everyone asked us earlier this spring about John Ossoff and the Georgia race.

Yeah. We just did a tour of the country, and maybe two or three people asked us about Virginia. And in Twitter, everyone was Osaf, Asaf, Asaf. Very little about Northam. This race actually matters more than that one did. That was one more seat in the House that we were not in charge of. The governor of Virginia, in addition to making important policy to affect millions of Americans, will help determine redistricting and also will send a message to this is this could be the shot heard around the world either way if we lose this race it's going to have implications about what

democrats will run in 2018 whether republicans will retire how scared republicans will be in the senate to in the house in the senate to pass trump policies and if they win if the republic if gillespie wins that will be a permission structure to Republicans to do horrible things. And so this race matters whether you live in Virginia or not. Yeah, no, there are a number of congressional seats that are basically up for grabs. And the outcome of this election, like you said, this next governor of Virginia is going to do redistricting. And so that's going to, you know, and if there's Ed Gillespie, he's going to gerrymander the shit out of all these districts. And we're going to have a bunch more Republicans in the House.

And it's going to be even harder to take back the House. We're not talking about 2018, 2020, 2022 and beyond. We've got to think about the future here. And so if you care about all these issues, if you're upset about Trump, if you're worried about everything he's done, if you hate this Republican Congress, if you want to change things, it has to start in Virginia. And if you're in Virginia, please get involved and make sure you vote and get your friends to vote. And if you're outside of Virginia, we're going to ask Susan what people can do to help. So when we come back, we will be talking with Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of the Virginia Democratic Party. Party. On the pod today, we are lucky to have with us the chairwoman of the Virginia Democratic Party, Susan Swecker. Susan, welcome to the pod. Well, thanks for having me. Good to be on your

show and talk about all the exciting things that are going on in Virginia. Yes. You know, I will say, you know, I'm out here in Vegas because we have a DNC meeting and state chairs meeting going on. That's right. And I'm really conflicted because President Obama is coming to Richmond today, making his first appearance, post-presidential appearance for our ticket. And, you know, I wish I could be there, but I felt like I had to be here and do my duty and pump up the ticket out here.

But I wanted to let everybody know that, not to worry that all the campaign money and party money stayed in Virginia, so it didn't come to Vegas with me. Look, we have that conflict, too. We're going to Richmond for a live show, Pod Save America, in a couple weeks. But're going to Richmond for a live show, Pod Save America, in a couple of weeks. But when I saw that Obama was there today, I'm annoyed that we're not there

already because it'd be fun to see the old boss campaign again. And John, you've also chosen Vegas over Obama before yourself. That's true. That's true. I have stayed there and let Air Force One fly home without me. So anyway, let's talk about the race. So I think most of our listeners know that the race is very tight. They know that it's very important. They know that Ed Gillespie is running a bunch of nasty ads about gangs and Confederate statues. But I think outside of Virginia, people probably don't know too much else about the race. What should people know about this race, about Ralph Northam, and about Ed Gillespie?

Well, one thing about, and I do want to say this because a lot of people do ask, if you don't live in Virginia, we are the only state that a governor cannot succeed himself. So one, that's why our fantastic governor, Terry McAuliffe, isn't running for re-election. But his lieutenant governor, Ralph Northam, Dr. Northam, who's a pediatric neurologist, is running, has the Democratic nomination. And we have, you know, a really great ticket. And you're exactly right. Ed Gillespie, who is a Republican nominee, is running one of the really nastiest races that I have seen in a long time. Look, I'm a native Virginian.

I've been involved in Democratic politics since I was an ee-hit-pop, and boy, this one just really takes the cake. Ed Gillespie has really shown the dissent of the Republican Party over the last couple of decades. Years ago, he worked in the Bush White House. He's a D.C. insider, insider lobbyist he supported comprehensive immigration reform really just a paragon of the gop establishment and we've watched him transform himself into basically a mini donald trump in a desperate attempt and effort to win the race. And he has ads up telling all sorts of despicable lies about Ralph Northam, and that he supports sanctuary cities and gangs. And the voters really, you know, we have a pretty smart voting population in Virginia, and they're not buying into it. On the other hand, Ralph Northam has a history of service to his country and service to Virginia. He is a veteran, a doctor who served patients in Desert Storm, came back home. He's

from rural Virginia like me. I'm from the western part of the state. You can probably tell that that I might have a little bit of rural in me from my accent, but I grew up in the mountains of Virginia. Ralph Northam grew up on the eastern shore. Got his medical degree, and he's a pediatric neurologist. Has, you know, never really has talked about it a lot, but, you know, cares for sick kids. Then served in the state senate. And then he was elected four years ago with our ticket, with Terry McCullough as governor and our great Attorney General Mark Herring as lieutenant governor. And he's been a brick wall with his ticket mates, his partners, against all the very right-wing intrusive legislation that Republicans have put up to defund Planned Parenthood, to any kinds of attack on women's rights. And trust me, there have been plenty on, you know, lots of things to intrusions on making

into women's health care decisions, extending the ACA, those types of things. Ralph is going to be right there to do that as governor, just like he has done as lieutenant governor. I'm worried. I'm worried because, you know, what happened November 8th, you know, it was one of the worst nights of my life, except for losing somebody I loved. But when I look back on it, we've got to remember, folks,

we did well in Virginia. Hillary Clinton won by five points in Virginia. We picked up a congressional seat. Virginia. We picked up a congressional seat. We elected a very rising star and a 35-year-old African-American mayor in the city of Richmond, LeVar Sonney. He was doing great stuff. And we defeated a very onerous, backwards-looking constitutional right-to-work amendment with very little money that partnering with organized labor and our local committees and got the word out. And you don't usually defeat a constitutional amendment in Virginia. So it was a dark night nationally, and we're seeing the ramifications of every vote

counts and that elections have consequences. But for us in Virginia, it was really a good night. And I never thought growing up and being a Virginian, I'd see the day that we would carry Virginia and Virginia would go blue and we'd lose the presidential election. Susan, how can our listeners who do not live in Virginia, how can they help get Ralph Northam elected and to help the Democrats gain seats in the state legislature? Like, you know, where can they go to get more information on volunteering or donating or what action items are there for them? Super. I'm so happy you asked that question because the stakes are so high in this election. And it is about the statewide ticket. But we do have our House of Delegates that are up.

We are right at 34 right now, 34 out of 100. And that has been, they have stuck together. When Governor McAuliffe vetoed legislation, they all stuck together, upheld all of his vetoes. But we surely would like to add to those ranks so that Ralph Northam will be able to get more accomplished. and so that Ralph Northam will be able to get more accomplished. So to get folks involved, and whether you live in Virginia or outside, you can just text BLUE to 21333. It's just that simple, BLUE to 21333.

And we would really appreciate anybody and everybody that would like to help us out because I do think that this is, you know, we're off your election. We have elections every year. But this one is the precursor to next year when a lot of states have governor's races, U.S. Senate races, congressional races up. And this is the precursor to really the Trump effect, I guess, is what I would say. And I think the eyes of the nation are going to be watching on what we do and how we do. Susan, Jonathan Martin has a story in the New York Times today about African-American turnout, where a local Virginia County NAACP president says he's worried that black voters aren't engaged. What are Virginia Democrats doing to increase turnout to make sure we get everyone out on election day? We have a base program that we're reaching out to all of everybody. I mean, we are leaving no stone unturned. But I think the biggest mobilizer and the biggest energizer for that is President

Obama coming in tonight. I mean, who can, I mean, you know, he just speaks to everybody. But I think that that will be, you know, this is the first. I can't tell you how much our phones, text, emails lit up when that announcement went out and how exhilarating and exciting that was and that will be. And I'm going to go get a glass of wine. I'm going to find a little quiet corner and live stream, watch President Obama on my laptop. I'll probably get a little misty-eyed, too. And remember the OA campaign when Mitch Church, who's a friend of yours, was running in Virginia and how great that was. But I think that will help.

But, you know, we will help. But we know we're taking nothing for granted. And we have a very, very aggressive and outreach to, you know, all of our constituency groups. That's good. As you said, you grew up on a farm in rural Virginia, you've been working on outreach to rural voters. You know, a lot of Democrats say, okay, we have to show up and compete everywhere. Totally agree. When Democrats do show up in rural counties, what do they say? What issues should they emphasize? Well, here's the thing. Number one, I live in Highland County, smallest county in Virginia, west of Charlottesville on the West Virginia border where I was brought up.

I have a house there. I have a house, condo in Richmond. So I live in a really, really blue part of Virginia, and I live in a really, really red part of Virginia. The people in both those places want the same thing for their families. They want to know that their kids are going to get a good education. They want to know that if they want to stay in their areas after they graduate from high school, they can, that they have some sort of sense of job security,

and they want to know that they're safe and secure, that you don't have to live paycheck and paycheck, you don't have to live in fear, you're not going to school and be worried about getting shot, getting hurt, getting bullied, which that's increased over this last year. Now, why do we think that is? I mean, studies will prove that. I mean, when you have the President of the United States,

there's nothing but the biggest bully in chief. Kids are going to follow that example. But parents want the same thing no matter where you're from. Families want the same thing. Financial security, knowing that you have health care. I mean, what the president has done to gut the ACA is nothing but just plain out cruel and putting that kind of financial insecurity and just meanness in that you are risking putting lives at stake. So people are the same everywhere. That's what I have found.

I hear the same thing no matter where. Now, the other thing is we didn't lose those rural voters. We didn't lose my people overnight. We're not going to get them back overnight. But if we don't go out there and talk to them and keep working it, you know, it's just like exercise. If you don't do it, you know, you atrophy. So you got to, I think, is that how you say it? Atrophy? That's right. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I like the analogy. You got to work it. The one thing that is really great,

and I just want to say I'm so proud of our House candidates too, and that is one thing. We have all these great House candidates who run in rural areas. Our committees have grown. We have these great committees that have, we've had rural areas where they've been dormant or just like lax,

and we have seen growth in that, and that's one thing i'm really proud of the party but i'm really excited about where we are we just can't let up on the gas right now i think that last piece of advice is the one that everyone should take to heart that wants the selection uh to go the right way which is don't let up on the gas everyone work your uh work your hearts out in these final days because this is a tight race and it's going to be close and uh we need to do everything we can to get Ralph Northam over the finish line.

So thank you Susan so much for joining us. We really appreciate you coming on the pod. It's been a pleasure. And hey, I'm the first Howland County resident I bet you that has asked to be a friend of the pod. You are. Well this is perfect. I mean at least I know. I don't know how many t-shirts there are

in Howland County. Maybe there's a couple uh if they're out there they should tweet at us yeah we'll we'll send you a friend of the pod t-shirt so you can wear it out in uh highland county sounds great i hope i started a groundswell okay take care thank you okay bye-bye on the pod we have the host of crooked medias with friends like these anna marie cox hello anna hello gentlemen so who is uh let's start with who's on the show this week well it is a jam-packed show uh van newkirk is on writer for the atlantic yeah we talk about his piece defining uh white supremacy which is kind of like a 101 thing that a lot of times I think people assume they know what that means, but he really lays it out and goes the history of the term. And we talk about why that's useful. And in my opinion,

more useful than calling people racist is talking about white supremacy. And then I talked to Helen Rosner. And weirdly, we talk about patriarchy. So we cover a lot of bases in this one, the two big, you know, systems of oppression in America. So I think it's pretty good. And actually, the conversation with Helen is in response to a listener question. This actually one of the most intense questions we've ever gotten, which is from someone who admits that he had a, I'm going to very generously call it a gray area encounter with a woman in his life. And he wanted to know, as someone who's now older and wiser, what is his place in this conversation, the Me Too conversation? That's good. I mean, I'm glad you're asking that. Yeah, I think it's an important question to ask. Yeah. I think the self-reflection that he shows, spoiler alert, it's a tough conversation and a tough answer for this guy, but the fact that he

was willing to be introspective says a lot. And I hope guys, the two men I'm talking to, I hope a lot of men are introspective about this and reexamine their own behavior. It's not just about pointing out the I'm both, you know, reading all of the accounts, you know, both on Twitter, which is shorter, but on Facebook people, you know, obviously women posted longer accounts on Facebook. It's like both heartbreaking to read them and also heartening that women are finding the courage to speak out about this after the Weinstein scandal. this after the Weinstein scandal. And so. Well, I want to put a pin in the idea that the showing courage part, because I think a lot of times coming forward gets described as having courage. Yeah. But there's nothing wrong with not saying what happened to you.

There's not. No. You know what? I would say it's hard. It's a hard thing to do. Yeah. And I would imagine that under no matter what the circumstances are, that speaking out and especially making it public

is an incredibly hard thing to do. And so it's good to see that. But I think if the only side of that equation is women speaking out, then we have failed to make any significant changes in the culture and that men need to do a lot of reflecting because look we've all been in offices in parties we've been in social situations where a man says something awful to a woman says something that is as you said either gray area

or clearly crosses the line and you know we haven't said anything a lot of men that i've talked to since the wine scene thing actually some have said you know, we haven't said anything. A lot of men that I've talked to since the Weinstein thing, actually some have said, you know, it has caused me to think back on all of my behavior over the years and stuff like that. And that, as you said, that self-reflection I think is important and useful.

And just as important is the fact that, you know, men, when we are in situations, when we are in rooms where this happens, where we see this happen, that we don't just let it slide because we're afraid to speak up and say something or because we don't want to look like, you know, we're attacking our buddy or just, you know, yelling at someone like it's, it's important to say something. It has to be because otherwise we never change this culture. And Helen actually wrote a great piece, the reason why I had her on. She wrote a piece for Medium that's 20 things that men can do right the fuck now besides literally not harassing us. And maybe

a good segue to our next topic of conversation because she talks about things that men can do in their everyday lives that help dismantle the patriarchy, for lack of a, that's actually, that's the perfect way to put it. You know, there are things that men can do all the time that go beyond simply not, you know, harassing people. And one of them is, you know, supporting freedom of choice. The story that you brought to our attention from the Washington Post, I had not seen, and it is incredible.

I'll give you guys the lead and then we can jump into it. A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to allow an undocumented teenager in its custody to have an abortion and said she was astounded that the Trump administration was trying to block the procedure. I mean, you got to go read the whole story. But at one point, the judge asked the lawyer from the Department of Justice whether he thought illegal immigrants had constitutional rights and whether he believes Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. And the lawyer said he wouldn't concede the point. And the judge actually, she laughed and said, this is remarkable, which I found also remarkable. I found the story remarkable as well. Anna, what did you think? It's a terrifying story terrifying story it really is one of the details of the story is this happened in texas and texas has already restricted you know access to reproductive freedom so much that she's going

to have to go through some more hurdles the jane doe involved in this uh she can't just go get the procedure done she has to like go get the procedure done. She has to like go up here and then there's a waiting period and there's a lot of travel involved because there's only a few places in Texas you can even get an abortion. So this story really illustrates what a lot of us fear is the future, which is a culture that's not pro-life. You know, Helen actually introduced me to this term and I think it's one that I would encourage everyone to start using when you're talking about the other side of the reproductive freedom debate which is forced childbirth right that is what this is this is handmaid's tale that's what i said i said that's dan handmaid's tale i said that right before we called you i was

like this is this washington post story is very handmaid's tale like probably people have been saying that about a lot of stories since The Handmaid's Tale came out, but this is actually the closest to this show. It's very on the nose for that analogy. Yeah. And I do think this idea that when people are against freedom of choice, they're not pro-life, they're pro-forced childbirth is such a more clear way to describe that position. Because I know you know a bunch of pro

life people who are, for instance, pro death penalty, right? Who are pro cutting welfare, who are pro gutting ACA, like things that I would think of as pro life, you know, things that support life. They're not exactly consistent. Yeah, what they really are interested in is something really specific, which is forcing children to give birth, forcing them to do that. And there's actually no other way to describe their position. You're right. And also fitting the story in with the way that the Trump administration treats and has treated and will treat undocumented immigrants as a whole is makes it even more infuriating too they want to expel these americans some people who've been here for a long time from this country

they want to put them in you know detention centers the ice raids and stuff like that they want to it's so on hand they're pushing away but you know and in this case if if you're an undocumented immigrant who has escaped violence in another country and you come here for refuge and you come here because, you know, in this case of this woman that she did want to terminate her pregnancy, then the idea that, you know, they're going to force you to give birth

and then probably, you know, deport you from the country is just awful. Exactly. That is like the capper to this, right? They would force her to give birth and then give her nothing else. Right. Except maybe a plane to this, right? They would force her to give birth and then give her nothing else except maybe a plane ticket home, right? And also, they really tipped their hand in doing this because they admitted in court

they don't think immigrants have rights. They don't. And that's an appalling position to take, I think, in a country that was founded on the idea of inalienable rights. And not what settled case law says. Yes, that too. I mean, we don't have to guess. I'm like, who's right? We've had cases about this, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, this to me, I think what you guys are saying is exactly right, that this is sort of a microcosm of all of Trumpism in its purest form, which is they are doing this to this individual because they think they can. Right. All parts of it, whether it is the forced childbirth, the deportation, it is to find the most vulnerable person you can and then try to use it as a vehicle to enforce your worst beliefs, knowing that this is the person who will have the least ability to fight back on their behalf because it's a woman, it's a young person, it's someone with undocumented status. And you can just see it in the way in which they've approached the case. As you guys put on the legal argument, which is we're going to discard

all of what everyone else believes and just make this absurd case because we think we can't hear because this person will not be able to defend themselves in the way others might. And who knows if Donald Trump even knows about this? I'm sure he doesn't.

He doesn't. It's not like he's reading the Washington Post. If it wasn't on Fox and Friends, he doesn't know about it. So it's important to say, like you said, Dan, it's Trumpism, but it's not necessarily Trump. This is like Jeff Sessions. This is some of the lawyers he's probably hired at DOJ.

This is like a Mike Pence type thing, right? This has been brewing in the modern Republican Party for quite some time, at least a huge faction of it. I totally agree. The Trumpism, I guess we talk about this all the time. Trumpism is a lot more dangerous than Trump.

Well, actually, you know what? I take that back. We'll see. It is distinct from Trump, but it is as dangerous as Trump. Trumpism can't press the nuclear weapons button. Trump can.

So that would be the distinction. But yeah, I mean, this is the patriarchy and the misogyny that we've seen from the Republican Party for a long time. Finally, if you'll excuse the metaphor, bearing fruit. Yes, I will excuse the metaphor. Thank you for bringing that story to our attention because it's gone under the radar this week with all of the other messiness.

Can I actually say something? Yes, please. Well, I know you guys are all about giving people action items if they're upset about something. There are legal aid centers for people seeking to terminate their pregnancy. NARAL is obviously a good place to donate to. I think the Center for Reproductive Rights is the place that I support. There are people fighting for the rights of this young woman and your rights too you know this affects this policy does affect everyone we all should remember that not just women

it affects everyone so everyone tune into uh with friends like these drops friday as usual and uh anna thank you for joining us as always all right thank you guys all right take care bye all right guys uh thank you to uh susan swecker and to anna marie cox for joining us today and uh we will uh see you on monday bye guys Thank you.