Pod Save America - "Trump always shoots the hostage."

Episode Date: September 5, 2017

North Korea conducts a nuclear test. Sessions announces the end of DACA with a six month delay. And Jon, Jon, and Tommy are joined by Congressman Adriano Espaillat to discuss potential legislation to protect Dreamers and reform the immigration system. Plus a discussion of a New York Times piece on rising economic inequality.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm a little bit late. Lovett missed the time for today. You know, look, it was a holiday weekend. There's a lot going on. Did I see an 8.30 calendar invite? Yes. But did I still in my mind make it 9 o'clock? You bet I did. But I drove like the wind, guys.

Tommy's joining us from Salt Lake City where we were this weekend. Our friend Shamik Dada got married, so Tommy's hanging out there. You guys officiated. We did. We did. Tommy and I officiated the wedding. It went very well. By the power invested in bros. It's actually

by the power vested in. Power vested, that's right. You know why? Because I had invested, and Tommy corrected it right before the ceremony. I would have sounded very stupid. That is really, yes, and I'm glad you corrected me. I wish it hadn't been on the podcast, but it's done now. Yeah, well, you know, there you go.

Okay, guys, on today's show, we will have New York Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who will be talking about Trump's decision to end the deferred action for childhood arrivals program, which just happened within the last hour. Okay, let's first talk about other pods. Pod Save the People is out today. On Tuesday, DeRay is talking to former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as the candidate for Georgia governor, Stacey Abrams. Oh, that's great. I'm excited about that. I know, me too. I want to have her on this podcast, too. And it's out right now, Stacey Abrams. Oh, that's great. I'm excited about that. I know, me too.

I want to have her on this podcast, too. And it's out right now. You can download it. Oh, awesome. Tommy, who's on Pod Save the World this week? Doug Lute, who ran the Iraq and Afghanistan war for President Bush, stayed on with President Obama. We talked about what that was like, what he learned over 35 years in the military, six

years in the White House, and two years as a U.S. ambassador to NATO. So he's a person who sees the whole field and understands these issues like very few others. You will not want to miss it. Excellent. We will all check that out. Okay, so I want to talk about DACA, but let's start with North Korea, because we haven't talked about that yet. And Tommy, we have you here, so we're going to ask you all about it. On Sunday, North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb about seven times stronger than the bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima

is the country's sixth nuclear test. This follows the North Korea's launch of a missile into Japanese airspace on August 29. There's also reports that they may fire more intercontinental ballistic missiles soon as well. Lovely. Tommy, I know we probably can't pinpoint this exactly, but what do we think Kim Jong-un wants here? What is his game plan, or at least what are some of the possibilities of what he's trying to do here? Literally no one knows. I mean, there's a theory that they think having a nuclear weapons program and having an ICBM capability where they could actually launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM that could strike the United States provides them a

deterrent that they think will protect the survival of the regime. There's others who think that the continued development and tests of these missiles and the nuclear tests are an effort to divide the alliance, divide up the U.S. and the Koreans and Japan and split us up and try to, you know, create diplomatic friction that would, you know, help them sort of get what they want, which is to get us to stop doing military drills with South Korea or to get the U.S. to pull its troops out of South Korea entirely. So, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different theories. I think the best quote I've seen on this is that anyone who claims to know what he's thinking is probably lying, or if they really, really know, you're deep in the bowels of the CIA and you're probably not going to say anything. But it's

an incredibly dangerous situation. Yeah, it sounds like it. I was reading in the Times, New York Times, that, you know, they said the conventional wisdom thus far has been, like you just said, it's a defensive measure. It's to prevent regime change. But then I thought that some people in the Trump administration are now thinking that it's getting a little worse, which is potentially he can use this as blackmail. You know, the worst case there would be let us invade South Korea or else we'll nuke Los Angeles kind of thing. South Korea or else we'll nuke Los Angeles kind of thing. Or at least they're going to try to get away with smaller military provocations now knowing that they have this nuclear arsenal, if anyone tries to fuck with them. Right. I mean, that's always sort of been one of the

broader concerns about proliferation of these weapons generally is that you could, you don't necessarily have to launch a nuclear weapon to use it. You could give it to a terrorist group. You could, you know, sort of give it to some other bad group. You could, you know, sort of give it to some other bad actor. You could, you know, use it as a cudgel that you hang over your adversaries and take increasingly caustic steps and, you know, do things that you might not be able to get away with before. So like, you know, there are a lot of scenarios here. None of them trend in a direction that feels safer. All of it is getting worse.

And this was their sixth nuclear test, but it was by far their most successful one. It's not clear if it was actually a hydrogen bomb. Some experts think that it was a boosted conventional nuclear weapon, which is still bad. It's still a very successful test. weapon, which is, it's still bad. It's still a very successful test. But you know, the hydrogen bomb we tested the Bikini Atoll in the 50s was like 1000 times more powerful than what we dropped on Hiroshima. So, you know, they're they've a ways to go before they are truly threatening us, like China does, or like Russia does. But, you know, it's, they're moving quickly, they're progressing quickly. And that should be worrisome to everyone. It clearly is to the Trump administration.

I mean, when you read General Mattis's comments, when you read Nikki Haley's comments, like people are seized with this. They're very worried. The problem is that Trump's response is not helpful. I mean, tweeting criticism of the president of South Korea, essentially calling him weak for wanting to have a conversation is not helpful. Like floating that we're going to cut off all trade with anyone that does business with North Korea is not remotely feasible and is not helpful.

So like there are these splits in the alliance that are developing. They're the direct result of the things he's saying in response to these actions. But at the same time, what is helpful? Because we've had several presidents who aren't Donald Trump, who they've tried the diplomatic approach. They've tried the threatening approach, you know, from the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, the Obama administration. Things have progressed. And it seems like is there any hope for any kind of a change? It just seems like we're moving inexorably toward a nuclear armed North Korea as a defense against regime change.

And they don't seem bent on stopping and we don't seem to have the tools to stop them. Well, I mean, look, how we ultimately resolve this is the hardest problem in all of foreign policy. But I don't think it's hard to say that attacking the president of South Korea in the midst of all this is an unhelpful thing to do. I don't think it's surprising to say that like threatening to pull out of the US South Korea free trade agreement in the midst of all this is unhelpful. sanctions, unanimity, and using diplomacy and whatever other tools we have to get sanctions or to try to pressure the Chinese to reduce exports of oil or stop selling them coal. There's a whole bunch of additional economic pressure steps that we could take that get harder when you have a president of the United States that's seemingly more interested in

tweeting criticisms of China or South Korea than like engaging them in a serious dialogue to try to get them to take the steps we need. That's sort of what I'm getting at. Yeah, I mean, it's funny, because in the outline, I have, let's talk about the Trump administration response, and then Trump response, because insanely, those two things are different. They're very different. So like, like you were saying, Tommy, like, his his response was to attack South Korea on Twitter, and to suggest cutting off the United States trade relationship with China, which is our biggest trading partner. And like not just not feasible, but like economically catastrophic for the United States. It's like Nikki Haley and Mattis and Kelly have a Snapchat filter that makes Donald Trump Mitt Romney.

And Kelly have a Snapchat filter that makes Donald Trump Mitt Romney. So, yeah, but, like, if North Korea was able to take a bunch of steps that got the U.S. and China into a trade war, that's a big win for North Korea. And it's a big loss for us. Right. I mean, like, they're our biggest trading partner by far. That would create an economic catastrophe. So we don't want that. Yeah. So the less insane step, let's talk about

Nikki Haley. She said she was trying to pressure the United Nations Security Council to cut off all oil and other fuels to North Korea, specifically trying to pressure China. She also said the time has come for us to exhaust all of our diplomatic means before it's too late. So A, would this make a difference cutting off all oil and other fuels to North Korea if China did this? And would China ever go for this? It's hard to know. I mean, I think 90% of North Korea's trade basically, and almost all of its imported energy is from China. China's overall trade with the North was up in the last year or so. So there's some questions about whether this would only hurt regular people in North Korea who need to take a bus from one town or the other or need energy to

eat their homes, because the military is assumed to have stockpiles of energy that will last them a significant period of time. There's also concern that they may lash out and do more. So I mean, I think those are probably risks you have to take to exert increased more pressure on North Korea and on their military. But, you know, there's no guarantee, like Lovett was saying earlier, that any of those things are actually going to work and solve the overall problem. So, South Korea's defense minister on Monday said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula to guard against the North. What does that mean? Is that a good or bad idea? Would that ever happen? A tactical nuclear weapon is one that is in some way small enough that it's seen as being able to be used on the battlefield. So if there were a big tunnel that was used to get forces from one point to another,

or I don't know, some sort of like route that they were going through that you might be able to take out completely, you could use a tactical nuke. I think it sort of sounds insane on its face. I think a lot of these things you want to throw into a bucket of things that are designed to sort of reassure the South Korean government or military or people that were on their side, that they'll help them, that will continue to escalate. But, you know, you hear these things that are getting floated, like requesting permission to increase the payload on South Korean missiles so that they can, you know, use them more effectively against North Korean targets. I mean, all of this is so escalatory in a region that is fraught and tense to begin with. I mean, none of it sounds good. Like all these things that we're talking about are military solutions, and there's seemingly no

diplomatic track going on. And you have a president tweeting that talks are weak and that talking is not the answer. You know, one thing I saw people talking about over the weekend is the larger context for this kind of diplomacy. And people were noting that Libya, Iraq, that these are examples of countries where Kim Jong-un can look at these countries and say, if I don't have nuclear weapons, this is my fate. How much damage to our ability to convince someone like Kim Jong-un that giving up nuclear weapons peaceably is the best step he can take for himself personally? Has American

policy of regime regime change caused? It's a great question. I think it's, I mean, I think obviously Iraq was seen by most people as a disaster. I think the more and more you step back from Libya and hear the way it's talked about in scenarios like this, you know, with Qaddafi sort of being literally killed in the streets because he gave up this capability, it does make you step back and wonder and rethink. I mean, ultimately that was, you know, supposed to be a humanitarian intervention to save, you know, several hundred thousand people in Benghazi from getting massacred by Qaddafi's troops and forces. And it escalated into a broader NATO mission that ended up toppling

the government and leading to regime change. But yeah, I mean, you know, look, it's a whole part of the list of unintended consequences that come from these things. So for all the shit that Republicans have given Obama over the years about red lines, it seems like with North Korea, Trump is sort of drawing and then erasing red lines as this crisis progresses. It seems like with North Korea, Trump is sort of drawing and then erasing red lines as this crisis progresses. It seems like the latest is Mattis saying that basically the new line is if we're threatened with attack. And I was sort of confused, like, what does it mean to be threatened with attack? Like, at what point does it seem likely that we would strike North Korea or take some sort of military action? that we would strike North Korea or take some sort of military action.

Yeah, I'm confused by, I mean, it seems like apparently we're now defining red line is only when you say, here's my red line, but it does appear to be shifting. I was not entirely sure what that meant either, because it seems unlikely that they're going to say, hey, here's the ICBM with the weapon on it. We're going to attack you now. And then you would sort of have to respond. North Korea issues threats against us on a semi-daily basis. Right. Yeah, they have the most over-the-top rhetoric in the history of the world.

I mean, at the end of the day, these guys have so much artillery pointed at Seoul, where tons of American civilians live, where we have 20,500 U.S. service members serving. And there's also now apparently have the range to hit Guam,500 US service members serving. And there's also now apparently have the range to hit Guam, the range to hit Japan. So there's a lot of terrible scenarios where a military intervention is taken. Really doesn't seem like there's any good outcomes here, huh? Happy Tuesday, everybody.

No, I mean, look, diplomacy won't necessarily solve every problem, but there was always seemingly some value to having an ongoing diplomatic process, like talks in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians could sort of calm things. I think, you know, that was not necessarily the case in North Korea, like there were talks, and then their North Koreans were cheating behind the scenes. And that was incredibly problematic. But like there has been no diplomatic track that we've seen. And I think that has made things worse. So just like one last thing on North Korea.

Are there any Hail Marys, totally out there policies, totally new approaches that people are talking about? talking about, I mean, normalizing relations, doing something completely unexpected or, you know, that had been whatever considered unacceptable or not appropriate for a long time because we're in this desperate situation in which nothing we have done in the past seems to have worked. The one I saw was Henry Kissinger has apparently been pitching an idea where we go to the Chinese and say, we talk about what happens after the North Korean state falls. And we commit to them that we will pull US troops out of South Korea. We'll get our guys off the peninsula. So they don't view this as sort of American military just creeping north closer

and closer to their territory. That's sort of like the one kind of interesting Hail Mary that I've seen. I don't have an opinion on it because what the hell do I know? But yeah, to answer your question. That would be about convincing China to do what they've been afraid to do, which is actually put the economic screws to North Korea to the point where the state would collapse. It would be a terribly punishing thing for the millions and millions of people there. But that would because that's Henry Kissinger. But that's one idea for something different. Yeah. I mean, it would be terribly punishing in the short term. I guess he could maybe argue that in the longterm, not having to live under Kim Jong-un is beneficial.

But yeah, I mean, it's all about them, their overarching concern being that the North Korean state collapses, millions of refugees go over the border, or the peninsula reunifies and suddenly an American ally is right on their doorstep, as opposed to having a buffer of North Korea between the two. But, you know, I have no idea if they would listen to that or not. Yeah, it seems like China has to become more concerned about a nuclear attack launched by North Korea than they are about a refugee crisis or the United States and South Korea sort of being at their border. Yeah.

Well, luckily we have the dealmaker, the great Trump, able to definitely navigate these delicate issues. Wonderful. When we come back, we will talk about another happy topic, Jeff Sessions' announcement that Donald Trump will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. We will cover that as soon as we're back. Okay, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made an announcement just now that Donald Trump will be ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program in six months. If you are currently a DACA recipient, you can renew your permit for another two years.

As long as your renewal is within the six months. Correct. But no new requests for permits will be acted upon. Trump was too much of a politically weak coward to say this himself, and Sessions refused to answer any questions about a decision that may lead to the deportation of 800,000 young people who have lived in America for most of their lives. Just to review, so everyone knows what a DACA recipient is, the average age they came to the United States was six years old. The average age of them right now is 26. Ninety one percent are employed. A hundred percent,

100 percent have no criminal record. They pay five hundred dollars to renew this permit every two years. And that gives them the opportunity to work in the United States and pay Social Security and other taxes. I would say this is probably the cruelest decision that Donald Trump has made since becoming president. Yes, I think ending DACA is the cruelest thing that Donald Trump could do. It is true that he put a six-month window on it. And because it's Trump, we can't trust them to do anything about it, to successfully pursue a legislative strategy to fix it but at the same time clearly he could have ended it outright today if he wanted to so well here's why that's bullshit i know that was a lot of the reporting leading up to this i know there's all the white house sources have said that trump is not sure and and i know maggie haverman at the

new york times and people at politico also this, that at the end of the six months perhaps he just quietly extends it because he didn't really want to end it. I think if that was the case, you would not have... Jeff Sessions came out today that statement said, it is being rescinded. There is a letter sent, the program is being

phased out, it is done. So they are giving a transition period, but it did not appear by any means today that Jeff Sessions, the way that he made that announcement, what he actually said at the press conference is that he was leaving room for this. We don't know if Trump would sign legislation that passes Congress to protect this program. So there's no indication that that would happen. Yeah. I mean, so this is the problem, one of the many problems with the Trump Right. to no end whatsoever, given that the legislation is dead. He is now threatening 800,000 young people with DACA who now are panicked and terrified because they have no idea if their

status will continue beyond this renewal period. Now, but at the same time, you can see how this is Trump as a worse and crueler version of where the Republican Party is, where Jeff Sessions is, where Tom Cotton is, you could imagine another Republican president announcing a plan to phase out DACA as part of a strategy to get something out of Congress, to get border funding, to get a comprehensive bill. Now, because it's Trump, there is no strategy. There's no one competent. There's a general overseeing a bunch of goons who have no ability to work with Congress. If anything, Donald Trump has been a hindrance when it comes to working with Congress. So it's terrifying because he's playing chicken with

people's lives, but he has no idea how to work the machine. So it's horrible on that front. That being said, we have a six month period in which Congress can protect these young people. You know, I see Democrats today saying, OK, you want to, you know, Paul Ryan, you say this should be left up to Congress. Jeff Sessions, you think this should be up to Congress? You know, the we can talk about the constitutional issues and whether or not it's legal. And, you know, the vast majority of sort of the legal scholars say yes, but it's a extension of presidential power. You want to debate that fine. Put it through Congress as a clean bill. Or you want to talk about comprehensive reform. This is your big play for immigration reform, even though you've not talked about that and

you've said how tax reform is the next thing, fine. But like, clearly Donald Trump didn't want to go out in front of the podium and appease his base and end this thing. And that is a glimmer of hope on this issue. Tommy? Yeah, I mean, I second everything you guys said about the cruelty. It also seems just pretty un-American to punish a kid for something their parents did when they were four or five years old. God help all of us if that were the law in this country. I find myself increasingly confused by the politics of the issue because you see polling where this like 64, 65 percent of Americans support DACA. But but Trump is throwing this back into a Republican Congress and asking them to fix it when nearly all of them voted against the DREAM Act in 2010. So it doesn't it doesn't seem like there's a ton of hope there because there is so much anti-immigration sentiment in the Republican base. So, I mean, in a weird way, you're seeing these soundings from

members of Congress who are talking about their, you know, how concerned they are about this choice. I just wonder if any of them will muster the political will to do something about it. I'm not hopeful. I'm not too hopeful either. And you're right. I actually saw a poll this morning that said something like 86% supported people who came here when they were five years old staying and when you get to teenage years it's like 83 so you're right it's overwhelming i think tommy that the that the politics on this has actually changed in a very short time because back in 2010 when obama tried to pass this legislation you not only had a bunch of Republicans, or almost all Republicans, voting against this. John Tester voted against it in the Senate.

Joe Manchin wasn't there for the vote, but said he would have opposed it. So you had some Democrats even opposing this as well. I don't think you'd find any Democrats today who would oppose this. I think the politics have shifted. And you had Paul Ryan, Orrin Hatch, some others say we should fix the president. Trump should not do this and we should fix this legislatively in the Congress. But whether they'll be able to do that or not is, you know, we don't know. As Levitt said, there's a six month window.

I think that six month window is probably that's up to now us to activists, to everyone else to put enormous pressure on congress to do something about this john what do you think democrats should be doing right now what should our position be our position should be introducing another version of the dream act or whatever the there's uh we were saying this on thursday there's a version of the dream act that dick durbin and lindsey graham introduced bipartisan bill it's. It's a very good piece of legislation. It would protect all these 800,000 young people. And they should introduce it and Democrats should be pounding the pavement on it every single day. I mean, that should be, they should demand it. They should scream it from the rooftops. Yeah, I agree with that. At the same time, right, the politics have changed. It's,

Democrats have shifted to the left. There was this video circulating over the weekend, which showed George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan debating basically this issue. And both of them bending over backwards to show that they were more compassionate, which is a totally reasonable and reasonable thing to see. And look, these are not two people that I think were particularly compassionate in their policies as president. But there you have it. It seems like the Republicans in a lot of ways have shifted to the right. Democrats have shifted a lot of ways to the left on this issue. Okay, so we're going to say, give us a way to make these kids, let them stay. You have a six-month window, let them stay. And then if Republicans haven't gone for that before, Paul Ryan says, let's have a legislative solution. Of course, he voted against the legislative solution when he had the chance. So Trump and the Republicans come back and say, we want border security. We want a wall. I mean, what do we say to that? Do we say, we'll be for that as long as these kids are protected? We'll be for that as long as you do something for these kids and the other millions of people who are here? I mean, is this, do we give in to this wall nonsense to try to get something through Congress? That's where I think the politics are so strange from the White House. It's because you have, keeping DACA is a very popular program, funding a wall that people increasingly believe will not work in any way is not as popular a program anymore. So I feel like

he's thrusting Republicans into a very tough political situation, whereas Democrats can just push for a straight DREAM Act type legislative fix, right? Yeah, well, I mean, exactly, Tommy, because, Lovett, what you're saying is it's so hypothetical right now, because there is no unified Republican plan. There is no plan on the table at all. There is a few Republicans who said maybe we get a wall-down payment and then pass a version of the DREAM Act. But not every Republican's on board with that. Not even a majority of Republicans are on board with that. Tom Cotton is saying he'll only do it, pass the DREAM Act, if you curb legal immigration and lower immigration levels, like in the plan that Stephen Miller wrote.

But that's only Tom Cotton. There's some people who would just do a straight DREAM Act bill, like Lindsey Graham. So you don't have a unified Republican position on this. So Democrats, there's no reason that Democrats should start negotiating against themselves already when there has not been. The Republican Party broke this and now the Republican Party has to offer a plan to fix it. That's where we should start right now. Okay. I agree with that. Yeah. This is the Trump problem because, you know, Ben Smith wrote something in BuzzFeed over the weekend, which I thought was good. He says, Donald Trump always shoots the hostage, right? That,

that he has this leverage, right? On Obamacare, he had leverage over the exchanges on, on DACA. He has leverage over these young people. He's leverage. And he spends it in this capricious and undisciplined way without any strategy because there's no one good around him. He has the ability to do this and he himself has absolutely no idea what he's doing and lacks the discipline, resolve or values to care enough to see anything through. The man wants a wall. If he went out there today and said, I believe the DACA program is illegal and unconstitutional. I don't believe we should be kicking out these kids, but we have this huge problem of illegal immigration

and we've allowed this to go on for 30 years. Give me border security and we can figure out the immigration thing together. If he wanted to use this, he could do it, but there's no impetus, there's no goals to any of this. It's absolutely ridiculous. See, you just made the point

where, like, that's why your original point about how... You're thinking it out loud, thinking it through. No, but there's a glimmer of hope and all this stuff that he didn't really want to end it. No, that's all fucking bullshit. If he really didn't want to end it, you don't send Jeff Sessions out, who's the biggest opponent of this, and says, It is over. It is done. Jeff Sessions did not urge Congress to pass a solution.

He didn't do anything. Right. You signal to your base with Jeff Sessions. There is no public statement from the administration today that they actually want Congress to fix it and they're going to sign it. Zero. So if Trump really wanted to fix it, he would have done exactly what you just said, Lennon. Right. But at the same time, he is worried about his base and he doesn't want to seem like

he's appeasing these people to his base. So you send out the most hard liner to say, I'm ending this thing. But that itself is not necessarily a signal he doesn signal he doesn't want a legislative fix again we know nothing and the answer is unknowable because donald trump wants nothing right but just because he sends out his most his most hardline person doesn't mean that a legislative fix is impossible that's right tommy but it's just so fun like you have this very hard immigration problem and seemingly the only solution being floated is a very expensive wall that no one thinks will work. And we're throwing this into the mix

in the middle of a month where you're gonna have a debt ceiling fight and you're gonna have a massive piece of legislation coming up to fund Harvey relief efforts. And you have a category five Hurricane Irma barreling down on Miami. It's like, what are they doing? The, there is no chance in my mind that Congress is

going to be able to take on something this large and fraught and challenging, which I guess just speaks to the fact that the Stephen Millers and Jeff Sessions of the world know that by pushing this now, it will end DACA and that's ultimately what, and they don't care if the process is messy. And we should keep in mind that for there will be a lot of talk today about how trump is cruel trump did a bad thing trump is incompetent but this is a bigger problem of like the trump era here where we only focus on trump and not any other parts of the politics that are broken if the republican congress does not fix this program every single member of that congress is as guilty as Donald Trump

on DACA. It's not like they rubber-stamped Donald Trump's agenda, blah blah blah. No, no, no. Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham and all the rest of them, if they cannot pass this, they are just as guilty and cruel as Donald Trump on DACA. And every one of them has made this argument

about the legality. You can concede that this is an extension of presidential authority. You can even be uncomfortable with the fact that in an extraordinary situation where we have this basically huge extra-legal population of people that aren't Americans because they weren't born here but have lived in this country all their life, and you could say the president did something extraordinary. It's an extension of presidential power. I don't support it. That's why Congress should act. So do it. You'll have every Democratic vote. It can pass. But Paul Ryan is afraid to do it because he's

afraid of the same people Donald Trump is afraid of, which is why he sends Jeff Sessions out to do his dirty work. Which, by the way, they're afraid because they don't want to make a very simple case, right? Like they know that the Breitbart's and Fox News's and every one of the world was going to say they let a bunch of illegals in here and illegals stay here and blah, blah, blah. And they're ignoring the fact that these people are American, that they are American in every single way. And it's almost weird that we talk about them as DACA recipients. We use this fucking weird acronym like we do with everything else. And we talk about them like there's a separate group of people. are just like you and i they they have been here since six years old they don't

have another country to go home to because they don't know many of them don't have families in the countries they came from they've never lived there they've never been there they've they've grew up in los angeles and miami and all over the country and they work here and they pay taxes and they study and they defend this country and they're in the military it is unconscionable that we are going to expel these people from their home country for no reason it is a made-up crisis it's a made-up crisis you know we talked ruby martinez who works at i believe ucla she was on love it or leave it talking about this and she's a daca recipient and she just talked about how terrifying it is and how heartbreaking it is and how DACA finally gave people legal status, not just sort of the technical paperwork so they could legally get a job, but a feeling like they could plan for their futures and think about their futures because they knew that they weren't going to be deported in the middle of the night. And now all that fear comes rushing back.

Yeah. And one of these young Americans is a paramedic who worked six straight days rescuing Harvey victims. And we found out that one was killed trying to rescue others during Harvey. And the government won't even give his mother a humanitarian visa to come to Houston so she can bury her son.

So these are the stories we're dealing with. We should tell everyone, if you want to stop this, obviously call your congressman, call your senator's office. I think we should start up everything we did during the fight to save the Affordable Care Act. And if we can, I know there's activists that are holding rallies and they're protesting and they're standing outside of the Capitol today. United We Dream is a good place to go to find out what you can do to take action on this.

And we'll be telling you guys a lot of other places to go and to go help over the, over the coming days and weeks. There was one thing we forgot, which is that, uh, that Jared and Ivanka are against the, the end of DACA.

Um, and I'm glad you didn't make that point because I'm sick of talking about those two because they're useless fucking people. Useless. They're useless. All the fucking moderates in the white house are useless. I don't want to hear about them. I don't want to think about them.

I don't care about them. Fuck them all. Cool. cool okay when we come back we will talk to new york congressman Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Congressman, you were the first Dominican American to serve in Congress. You're also the first member of Congress to have been undocumented as an immigrant when you were a child. Tell us a little bit about your background and what it was like to be undocumented in America. Well, I came here at the age of nine. I came with my parents on a visitor's visa,

and we overstayed our visa, and then we had to go back to the DR and get my legal residency. So that's the status of how we got here. But, you know, for some time we were without our documentation, and we were able to finally get our green car and the rest of the system. So you wrote a letter to Donald Trump recently asking him to save the Deferred Action Program. Obviously today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said it's illegal and that they'll be rescinding the program in six months.

What's your response? I think that he lied to the Dreamers and he lied to the American people when he said that they should rest easy. And so again, we see today how he turned his back on them, the American people, and it's really a troubling time in America when the president says one thing and does another. He's put this six-month window on this thing. Are you hopeful that Congress can act in the next six months to protect these young people? Well, you know, we have a lot on our table.

Harvey in Texas and money for that. We have a lot of initiatives that must be addressed. But I see nothing that should have more priorities than this. So what do you think the prospects for passage of a DREAM Act in Congress are right now? How do you go about getting some of your Republican colleagues on board? Well, there are some Republican colleagues that seem to want to assist the Dreamers. In fact, even Paul Ryan has said that, instructed or asked the president not to dismantle the program. There are senators, several Republican senators, that also support the Dreamers.

senators that also supported the dreamers. And even one of the attorney generals that was involved in the litigation and threatening to include the DACA students in the current litigation that have on immigration are dropped out of a lawsuit. So there is some sentiment out there in support of them. And I am hopeful that this item will take priority when we get back today to D.C. So, as you said, Congress has a lot on its table, from Harvey to the debt ceiling to keeping the government running to, obviously, tax reform has been something they claim that they're going to do next. What legislative steps do you think are worth taking now? Is it worth holding up government funding as much as we can in the Senate?

How far should we push to get these DACA recipients saved in the next six months? Well, there's two pieces of legislation, one introduced by Congressman Gutierrez, the American HOPE Act, and the other one by Senator Durbin, the BRIDG Act, which seem to want to address this particular issue. Senator Durbin, the Bridge Act, which seem to want to address this particular issue. I think we should begin discussions around these two legislative proposals and try to bring closure and a solution to them as quickly as possible. Certainly what we don't want is for this DACA discussion to be linked to funding the building of the wall or throwing another monkey wrench in the way of these 800,000 young people, 60% of which are working, 48% of which already have a bank account,

and we've seen some level of increase in their salary. 30% of them already have a credit card. So it's not only inhumane to disconnect them from their experience as Americans. It's economic malpractice as well. And so I ask that this be set as a priority and that we begin the discussion of these two pieces of legislation that have gained bipartisan support, and we can make this a priority when we get back to D.C. today. What would sensible immigration reform look like if we were doing sort of a comprehensive type of immigration reform right now?

Because obviously what we need to fix the system goes far beyond protecting these young Americans. Well, you know, a comprehensive immigration reform will bring a pathway to first a legal residency, a conditional legal residency, permanent legal residency, and ultimately citizenship. And so this is what most countries that engage in a comprehensive immigration reform system or initiative, this is what they put forward. And it should not be any different in America. So we must bring some level of process through which undocumented people get a conditional legal residency that will then become permanent legal residency, a green card, if you may, with the ultimate goal that they may have a pathway to citizens down the road if they abide and play by the rules,

they work, if they pay their taxes, why not make them American? So as part of comprehensive reform, there's always been a border security component of it. Would you support that, having border security and restrictions on legal immigration as part of a comprehensive plan that included helping the Dreamers? I don't believe in building a wall. We can put more border patrol. We can deal with technology that's available right now to secure the border better. I think the wall is a bad symbol. It doesn't help security in no way, shape, or form, and it's really costly, and it sends a bad message across the world that America is now a close society, that it is a close society to outsiders, if you may.

And so there is no objection from me in strengthening border protection, although I would not support the building of the wall. But so the wall is like a dumb thing Donald Trump backed into because he got applause at his rallies. Yes, it was a bad idea. And perhaps he got, you know, he heard the applause and felt that, you know, he would get some political cheap shot from it and boost his ratings. And now he's sort of like committed to it. But I don't see how it works.

It will be costly. How can you take money to build a wall when we really got to rebuild Houston right now and Texas? So this is where we're at right now. Congressman, what are you telling your constituents who may be affected by the Trump administration rescinding DACA? Well, first and foremost, I'm telling them to be serene and to be waiting for the legal interpretation, the correct legal interpretation of what all this means. We're looking to see how we will counteract this, both politically and socially,

but most importantly, each person should feel reassured that we have the social service safety net of legal services that will be able to interpret what this means to each and every one of them, because every case, of course, may have different circumstances. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate that. Absolutely. Have a good day. Take care. So, Lovett, there's a great story in the New York Times by Neil Irwin. It was on Sunday that I would encourage everyone to read. It tells the story

of two janitors making comparable pay. Gail Evans who worked for Kodak in the 1980s and Marta Ramos who works for Apple today. Here's a big difference. Evans was a full-time employer with four weeks paid vacation. Kodak reimbursed a portion of her college

tuition. She was mentored and trained by other people in the company, and she ultimately became chief technology officer at Kodak. Ramos, on the other hand, is a paid contractor, hasn't taken a vacation in years, can't afford college, hasn't received any bonuses, and has no opportunity for advancement at Apple. Yeah, and what's interesting is they roughly make the same. Yeah. Even accounting for inflation, basically, they have the same income, but just one of the jobs is upwardly mobile and the other is not. And it's basically a story of how companies are driving inequality today by paying middle and lower wage employees less than they used to and outsourcing work to cheaper part-time contractors.

I thought it was interesting in the context of the tax reform debate that we're having today. Trump is meeting with his two White House aides who are former Goldman Sachs executives, as well as Republican congressional leaders to talk about tax reform. And the main plank of reform is bringing the corporate rate down from 35%. Trump wants 15, Congress wants 20, 25%, whatever. They're going to pay for this, pay for some of it, because they might not pay for all of it, might just blow up the deficit, but they want to pay for some of it by possibly taxing workers' 401k contributions, cutting home mortgage deductions, penalizing voters

in the highest taxed states like California and New York. By getting rid of the local and state deduction. Correct. So I can't believe that this dream team of Mnookin, Cohn, Ryan, and McConnell landed on reducing corporate tax rates by increasing taxes on everybody else. The thing about this is so outrageous is it actually also goes to their Medicaid cuts, too. It is so ideological to the point of being self-defeating. We actually do have a corporate tax rate problem in this country.

I don't care where the rate lands, but we have a jury-rigged Rube Goldberg contraption of lobbyists financed tax breaks and loopholes that riddle the corporate tax rate to the point where even though we have an internationally high corporate tax rate, on average, companies pay less. And then some companies pay zero. Some companies pay the main rate. It's really, really unfair. So you want to reform the corporate tax rate? That's something that makes you really excited. More power to you. There is no reason whatsoever to pay for a reduction in the corporate tax rate

with money taken from the individual earners in this country. You want to cut loopholes? Go crazy. Have a good time. But then you're going to pay for it by making people pay more taxes on their houses or pay more taxes on their retirement savings. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It seems like there's a bigger issue here, which is the defining challenge of our time, that we have not been able to political challenge. Economic challenge is that we do not have an economy that is providing for average workers. We have not figured out how to respond to globalization as a country and what to do about companies that are outsourcing jobs, that are using automation technology.

We've talked about in positive America a million times where We're very comfortable saying that in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton did not break through with an economic message that would have meant something for working people, right? And we sort of now, I read the story and I'm like, we sort of lose sight of the economic challenge at the heart of all of our political problems with all these other Trump fights that we're having right now. And for the longest time, the Republican Party's answer to that story about those two workers in different times working at Kodak and Apple is everyone's being strangled with regulations and high taxes. And if we only lower regulation, if we only cut regulation and lower taxes, everything will be fine. We saw through the 2000s, that's not true, right?

That didn't work in the Bush administration. Yeah, they've said growth would solve every problem, but it doesn't. And it did. And there was always also a wink and a nod for the Republican Party to, oh, and by the way, yeah, maybe immigrants are taking your jobs too, right? That was always a subtext. Now, that is the primary plank of Donald Trump's campaign and administration, right? Donald Trump's answer to that story, that New York Times story is immigrants are taking your jobs

and foreign workers are taking them when their companies are outsourcing them. That's his now, his problem. But he still has this Republican Party with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and his Goldman crew who are saying, no, no, no, no, cut the corporate tax rate. Fundamentally, I think that the Republican Party just does not recognize economic inequality as one of the great challenges in the economy. They view it as a problem, but they view it as a problem you can solve, again, still with deregulation and growth, except for Donald Trump, who ran on this nationalist platform. But at the same time, the Democratic Party's answers have been insufficient. That was what

I was thinking as I was reading the story, and I actually was thinking of another story that came out over the weekend, which is the fact that on college campuses, most colleges now are employing huge numbers of adjunct professors who are not full-time, who don't make as much money, who are not on tenure track. And I found myself making a connection between the contracted janitors at Apple HQ and a young grad student who can't get a job as a professor and people driving for ride sharing

companies. And then you look at what Democrats are offering and it it's at the kind of the end of this structural inequality, right? It's it's earned income tax credits and raising the minimum wage and shifting to a more progressive tax system. Now, those are all really smart things to do. If you look at an economy that all the gains and all the rewards are going to the top earners and to corporations, like companies like Apple sitting on tens of billions of dollars, trillions not investing in the economy. If you look at that and you say, what we need to do is cut corporate taxes and widen the base so you shift the burden of taxes onto middle class people, that's insane. But at the same time, our answer is sort of at the, as at the kind of mouth of the river, like we're not at the problem,

which is what we do about the fact that a technologically sophisticated, globalized economy has left working people without the leverage that they used to have. And I was also, you know, the decline of unions is part of this. The fact that we're now, I think it's down to 6.7% of, it was Labor Day, 6.7% of the private sector is now unionized, the lowest rate that it's been in 100 years. You can make a connection between rising economic inequality and the decline of unions in the private sector. So we have these big structural forces, consolidation of companies into these behemoths that are not responsive either to their workers

or to consumers, to automation that has made people more productive, which means you need fewer employees. So, you know, when the center left and the center right are failing to offer solutions to these fundamental problems, you have people like Donald Trump who can emerge from the wreckage and say, all of your mistrust, all your anger, it's fair. Here's who you can point it at. So what should Democrats do then? What's the plan? You know, that's a great question, John. There you go. No, but we've been talking about it. Look, we, you know, you and I and Tommy, you know,

we've started this company and it's gave us this platform and we're talking to people, people that we can sit down and have conversations with. And we put this question to a lot of different kinds of people and the answers aren't great. There's a, you know, it's, it's really, really hard, but so it's actually just something, you know, I am fascinated by this question because I think that, that answering this question is fundamentally the answer to how we can win in our politics, but also just actually help people. I mean, it seems like there's only three. Well, as Democrats or people on the left in general, it seems like we would say there's three different components to fixing this problem. One is making sure there are jobs that pay well for people, right? That seems to be

almost the trickiest thing to legislate or to create a policy around. The second plank would be making sure that people have the skills and education to get the jobs that pay well. Now, I did some digging into the good old better deal plan, which again, part of the problem with better deal is you lead with the slogan, no one knows what's in the deal. Everyone only knows there was an argument about the slogan. But if you look in there, they have tax incentives for employers that invest in workforce training and education, apprenticeship for workers. Now, we can certainly argue over, like, do tax incentives really make a difference or should we require apprenticeships and skills training and stuff like that? Whatever, we can have that debate.

or should we require apprenticeships and skills training and stuff like that? Whatever, we can have that debate. But it seems like you need some sort of robust program in this country where employers or the government or whatever are offering people apprenticeships, training skills, just like, I mean, that's how that woman at Kodak was able to become chief technology officer. She got all these apprentice programs and skill training program. And the people who do succeed at some companies today are getting all those kinds of skills-based training. And then the third bucket

of things is making sure that you have all of sort of the safety net and the benefits, whether it's vacation, child care, living wage, retirement. And perhaps we should be talking about a robust program for contractors, independent workers, part-time employees, so that they're getting the same democratic debate. So whether it's apprenticeship programs that are funded by the government or that we make an intensive for companies to do themselves, you're right, sort of training, universal higher education available to people. I think that's part of it. One other piece of this, by the way, is immigration reform, because getting people out of the shadows and legal is one of the ways you make sure that people aren't being paid under the table less. And you can see wages start to rise because pressure on wages at the bottom is

a piece of this. The other part of it is consolidation of big companies. Big one. And that was in the better deal. That is in the better deal. And even people on the left applauded that as well. And I do think consolidation is a huge, I mean, automation is a tough one and we have not found any good answers on the automation challenge. We know, and we're asking. But consolidation of companies is something that government can do something about. And in fact, many on the left, including us, would argue that government exists to do something about.

And this is one of those places where the left critique of the donor class having too much influence is really important because certain things become impossible to imagine, right? The breaking up of big companies that treat consumers like shit and don't play their employees enough because they're monopolies or monopolistic or part of like a, you know, a trio of companies that are setting prices together and kind of dividing up in the country into feudal manners seems impossible when you're raising money from all of these places but uh i think we need to sort of widen the scope of what's possible yeah and and you know the union question i think is a is a really hard one because the decline of private sector unions has has had an impact you know you you think about this you know contractor who isn't in charge of their hours.

And by the way, this extends beyond contractors at big companies. This is a problem for a lot of people from Walmart to Starbucks to a lot of service economy jobs. It's not just that they're not making enough and that the minimum wage isn't high enough. People can't count on their hours. They can't count on a promotion. You can't build a life when your shift is going to be moved around. So figuring out ways to protect people, and that can't always come from the government. It's very difficult for to do to make sure people got paid when they were when they showed up to work and that they could count on a reasonable day and a reasonable wage. So, you know, these are really hard whether you voted for Trump or Clinton, or at least some people that voted for Trump, some people that voted for Clinton. It is a top issue on voters' minds, what to do about the challenges of globalization. Donald Trump, we have said a

million times, it's no secret that we think he has no good and practical answers to this. We do not believe the Republican Party, the establishment Republican Party, has any good or practical answers to this. They make matters worse. And Democrats must find an answer in 2018, 2020, and beyond to this question. They need to think about Marta Ramos working at Apple and what we can do for her, why she would vote for a Democrat. That's what we need to think about. And we don't spend enough time talking about it. So we started here, but we should, um, and we're, you know, every time we ask a Democrat who we have on the show, politician, they say they do the front end automation. This is

a problem. Here's the problems we have, and we need good answers on that. And so far, you know, I think some of the, the roots of some of the answers are there as we just went over, but I think we have not, we haven't gotten there yet. Yeah, it's, it's, um. The seeds are there to some of this stuff. Like, this isn't, like, we're not, I don't think the answer to all these questions is going to be some unknown, giant, single solution. It's going to be a collection of, it's similar actually to climate change in that it seems insurmountable. But then you look and you realize, actually, it's a collection of steps. Each one is possible and reasonable, but taken together makes a massive difference in people's lives. And I think that the better deal for all the criticism it got was an important first step. I wonder that everybody hates their cable company, and I know everybody hates the airlines,

but I don't know if people can grab onto that because anyone who claims to think this is easy or that they are confident in their way to address these problems or even talk about these problems is not being honest. Well, hopefully we can have a good faith debate about this. You know what, John? I think we already have started one. Now let's go back to Twitter.

Hashtag jobs. All right. That's all the time we have for today. Is it? It is. That's a shame. Yeah, we've gone on

a little while now. Anyway, that's all. Anything in the outro you want to say? I talked to Chuck D and Tom Morello. That was great. I love the episode.

I listened to it on the flight home yesterday. I love it. I love it. It's coming along, guys. If you haven't checked it out in a while. No, but. I love the episode. I listened to it on the flight home yesterday. I love it. I love it. It's coming along, guys. If you haven't checked it out in a while. It's coming along. No, but look, you launch a show, you try, you learn.

I've never hosted a political chat show at a comedy club once a week, and now I have, and I like it. Okay. John, how are you? I'm great. The music is going. We're in the outro. This is me procrastinating from going to work.

Well, we have to go do some ads now. Oh, yeah. All right. We're going to go do ads. Bye, guys.