Pod Save America - Trump’s Bloodbath? (feat. Katie Porter)

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Donald Trump salutes violent insurrectionists at a rally in Ohio over the weekend and deals with the fallout from his comments that there will be a "bloodbath" if he's not elected. Former VP Mike Pence says he won’t endorse Trump, Chuck Schumer calls for elections to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, and Congresswoman Katie Porter stops by the pod to talk about her Senate primary loss, crypto, and why she voted against a possible TikTok ban. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.  Tour dates & cities: crooked.com/events Support abortion freedom & shop Crooked’s new No Trespassing Collection: crooked.com/store.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Mike Pence says he won't endorse Donald Trump, Chuck Schumer calls for elections to replace Bibi Netanyahu, and later, Congresswoman Katie Porter stops by to talk about her Senate primary loss to Adam Schiff, 2024, and her future plans. But first, Trump's weekend rally in Ohio for Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno

has dominated the news over the last few days thanks to Trump's comment that if he doesn't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. The guy that's facing criminal charges for January 6th had been talking about his proposed 100% tariff on all imported cars, though the rally also began with a recording of the national anthem sung by violent imprisoned insurrectionists who Trump saluted and then promised to pardon on the first day of his presidency. And it didn't get any better from there. Well, thank you very much.

And you see the spirit from the hostages and that's what they are as hostages. They've been treated terribly. How about a couple of more indictments, Joe, you dumb son of a, dumb son of a. Young people, they're in jail for years, if you call them people. I don't know if you call them people. In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion, but these are bad. These are animals, okay? We're going to put a 100%

tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected... Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected, now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole, that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. If this election, if this election isn't won, I'm not sure that you'll ever have another election in this country.

Does that make sense? So lots of focus on the bloodbath comment. Trump says he was just talking about the auto industry. Biden says Trump wants another January 6th. The whole thing led most of the news coverage over the past few days. What do you guys think? I don't think they're hostages. I also don't think they're very good tenors. You don't like the singing?

No. We've done this kind of news cycle several times, which is Trump says something, uh, ominous and violent. And people point out that once again, Trump is inciting violence and using dark and, and dangerous language and, and violent rhetoric to, to kind of rile up his base. And then his, his, his spokesperson said, oh, these people are crazy. And then we kind of rinse and repeat. That was what I thought when I saw that. I mean, optics and phrasing

and context matter in politics. Remember a week or two ago, whenever that was, when people were mad at Joe Biden for talking about the Middle East while getting ice cream? Yeah. Right?

I remember the Trump campaign and be like, guys, come on. Let's focus on the substance here. What he's saying, he's talking about a ceasefire. It's very important. So long story short, if you guys, come on. Let's focus on the substance here. What he's saying. He's talking about a ceasefire. It's very important. So long story short, if you're a guy who led an insurrection on the Capitol, maybe you shouldn't say, if I don't get elected, there will be a bloodbath.

That's just a little bit of free advice. He also added in there and that will be the least of it. So sorry. I'm sorry. Call me crazy for thinking maybe there's some violence behind it. Also the beginning of the event. I don't know if you guys watched the full event. So the live stream goes.

We did. We watched the whole fucking thing. So the live stream goes. We did. We watched the whole fucking thing. So the stairs are up. The plane pulls up. They're playing the Top Gun theme music. You know, the Joe Satriani guitar. Sort of sounds like our theme song. Yes, exactly.

Then they go to YMCA. Then they go to Proud to be American. Then the J6 choir. Weird. Salute. He's saluting. Saluting convicted felons. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. Really omin choir, weird. Salute. He's saluting. Saluting convicted felons. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.

Really ominous and weird. So like, is it a perfectly clean shot at Trump? No. But is this somehow out of bounds? Not at all. Not at all. It doesn't fucking matter. I mean, Trump has threatened violence if he's not elected multiple times.

He most recently threatened, quote, death and destruction if he was indicted, which he then was, as we all know. I think it was one of the darkest, most threatening speeches any presidential candidate has ever given. And that's if you completely remove the bloodbath line altogether. Let's pretend you completely removed it. I continue to think that one of Trump's most alarming and politically damaging comments is when he promises to pardon the january 6th insurrectionists who have been convicted of violently assaulting police officers like these aren't people who went to jail for trespassing like some people on the right say they weren't peaceful protesters they had weapons they said they were there to kill elected officials they tried to kill cops they beat the shit out of. Some of them were beaten so badly that they are permanently injured and disabled.

And some of the insurrectionists, by the way, have said that when they get out of prison, they'll be rejoining the fight. They were proud boys and part of that group. And like imagine if imagine Trump pardoning these people who have been found guilty by a jury of their peers or pled guilty to assaulting police officers. Imagine what it says to other crazies who want to commit political violence. That is, it's OK to go commit violence as long as you're on Team Trump. This is the same Trump, by the way, who we heard from Mark Esper, his former defense secretary last week, that Trump at one point said to Esper, why can't we shoot protesters in the legs, the protesters that were against him? So if you're protesting against Trump, he wants to shoot you in the leg. But if you violently assault a police officer for Trump, he will make sure that you don't see any jail time.

Yeah, he also talked about in the speech wanting to somehow indemnify police officers for getting tough on crime, which is, again, just about permission to the people who will do bidding on his behalf. It's just, he posted a message once that said, this didn't even,

barely cover it, I was just reading it. It said, free the J6 prisoners, arrest the cops. That was his message. That's a good message. It's just like,

the bloodbath thing, whatever, it's the big focus, fine. Like like let's give him that he was talking about the tariffs fine he's going to like the the the pardon promise the pardon on day one is fucking it's also the other he also says we won't have an election this will be our last election that joe biden will destroy the country we won't have a country if we elect Joe Biden, right? Like, even if he doesn't say a violent word at all, if you take Trump's words to their logical conclusion, it is a call for violence. He goes back and says throughout this speech

that the 2020 election was obviously rigged. This wasn't real. What happened wasn't real. They're going to steal your country. They're going to take your country from you. There's one thing that was really interesting in the speech so he does the whole fucking reagan this is my microphone thing about the teleprompters being all wavy in the wind yeah the teleprompters were were blowing around he said he couldn't read them he's not gonna pay the teleprompter people

which are his people it's all bullshit but but so but he says at some point i can't read the teleprompters my team didn't want me to talk about this on the plane. They told me, don't talk about this, but I can't see the teleprompter. Funny fucking Willis. And so there's definitely like an effort of people around Trump to get him focused on. Oh, yeah. The tariffs, the imports, the economy, Biden, and don't want him talking about don't want to talk about the 2020 election being rigged. Don't want to talking about the prosecutions.

So the speech is a full 90 minutes so i don't uh i don't suggest uh watching the speech no we did that for you but i would watch about half of it on double speed because once once he gets to the halfway point it's all about like him and and grievance and he starts going off but the first half is just like a very tight argument that is very scary and very threatening. And it tells you what he's focusing on, right? And it's immigration. He starts on immigration. He starts on the border. He goes into, he links it to the economic problems that the country's facing. Like it's very. It's very specific in that he says he's trying to divide, he's trying to peel off Black, Hispanic,

and union voters from the Democratic Party by saying undocumented immigrants are taking your jobs. And he's doing it in this incredibly gross, lurid way, dehumanizing way. He reads The Snake again, where he compares migrants to snakes that bite you and you should have known all along. I mean, it's...

The other thing that's slightly different this time around is it used to be, you know, all immigrants from Mexico that he was railing against in these speeches in 2016. Now he's got this whole thing where all the countries around the world countries you wouldn't believe from Asia, from Africa, from South America. He's notably leaving out Europe, which he doesn't seem to mind. He's fine with the Ukrainians. Yeah. Yes. And then he clearly enjoyed he enjoyed he likes this. The the, you know, Biden saying that he should have used the word undocumented instead of illegal. And so then he in this part where he's sort of railing against demagoguing on immigration, he says, you know, these are monsters. Some of them are the worst people. They're not even people because he wants to do another cycle of, you know, they're defending they're defending the worst criminals in the world. I'm trying to defend the border.

Like he wants that argument. That's the part that's, that's like pure fun for him. Yeah. I just think a good tip for everyone, especially when you're out like persuading voters, there is what Trump says and there's what Trump wants to do and what he's going to have the power to do. And he will absolutely have the power to pardon anyone he wants to. He's already abused the pardon power in the past. If he wants, he can slap tariffs on foreign autos too.

This is a small thing, but like 100% tariffs on imported cars would certainly be an economic bloodbath. Like when he was floating a 25% tariff on imported cars in 2018, economists said that it would add up to $7,000 on the price of a car. Now imagine four times that, 100% tariff. And by the way,

that wouldn't just be on cars that are like foreign made cars, American made cars all have foreign parts. So when he was trying to float that in 2018, everyone was like, yeah, every car will be I mean, it's the tariff thing I continue to think is like underreported here, because it's like he's yelling about inflation, slapping tariffs on imported goods is going to skyrocket inflation. Yeah, it's hard from China. It's hard on imported goods is going to skyrocket inflation. Yeah, it's hard from China. It's hard, right? Because it gets applause because it's a anti-trade pro-American.

That's how it's taken. That's how it's received. It's a pro-American manufacturer. But even the American car companies, when he was proposed in 2018, were like, no, bad idea. We don't want that. Please don't. So Republicans mostly used the context defense when asked about Trump's bloodbath comments. But one prominent Trump administration official has finally had it with his old boss.

Former Vice President Mike Pence announced on Fox News that he will not be endorsing Trump and then said on Face the Nation that he isn't too keen on him calling violent insurrectionists hostages and patriots. Let's listen. I think it's very unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza that the president or any other leaders would refer to people that are moving through our our justice system as hostages. And it's just it's just unacceptable. Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative

agenda that that we governed on during our four years and that's why i cannot in good conscience uh endorse donald trump in this campaign but let me say one so i'll go out on a limb here and say that uh well that's what they tried to do to him it makes sense it makes sense for mike pence uh not to endorse the guy who almost got him killed by a violent mob. But how big of a deal do you guys think the Pence non-endorsement is or should be? It's a big deal. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Not because there's a lot of Pence voters out there, but because you tell someone that this guy's former vice president won't endorse him.

That's a big deal. And I think I, you know, whenever you tweet something that people tell you, actually, it's not. It's like, I take the win. Let's take the win here. Let's take Mike Pence's comments. And yes, I know the context that he was almost hung. And then yes, I know his explanation that it's because Trump is not conservative enough. I know that's annoying, but when you add up Mike Pence, Bill Barr, John Bolton, HR McMaster, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, Mark Milley, Nikki Haley, until she caves and endorses get those testimonies in an ad together. Cut them into an ad. Intersperse them with shots of January 6th and people attacking the Capitol.

That is powerful. That will send a message to Normie voters who are like, that's weird. I didn't know all that. Yeah, make it matter. Who knows if it matters or not? Make it fucking matter i mean and the the list that you just read tommy the biden campaign uh had a statement about it and they used pence as sort of the as the peg there and then they had all the different like you know secretary of state multiple defense secretaries multiple national security measures all the rest um it i think it is very effective

for people who are not paying close attention to politics right now yeah i think there's three there's three reasons it matters one is what you're just saying i think that like if you're just a normal person out there and you hear that the vice president has said that they don't think this person should be elected again, I think that's a big deal. I think, too, I think it is permission or a kind of a model for someone like Nikki Haley to follow and for others to follow. And three, I think it is going to annoy the fuck out of Donald Trump. And I think he is not going to be able to avoid talking about it. Yeah. And just like you're a voter, you're sure about trump or biden or you want and then you hear all

these people who worked closely with them and they said oh no he's bad i could not endorse him and i worked closely with them and then you're gonna be like oh yeah but greg kelly on newsmax told me that uh trump is great i mean it's like yeah there's gonna be a whole bunch of mega voters to think that but there's a lot of other people are gonna going to be like, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's just such a simple argument. Wait, his former vice president won't endorse him? Yeah. Why?

Yeah. What does he know that I don't know? Right. And Dan pointed this out in Message Box, which is that Mike Pence is a joke to us because we've been paying very close attention to Mike Pence for a very long time. But he was the vice president of the United States. Yeah. He was a joke to a lot of people. states yeah i do it was a joke to a lot of people yeah yeah but he's but i do also think too it's like mike pence did this on camera which is better than a lot of these guys that do that do it in

long form atlantic pieces and it's like okay great like we need to see these people on television i'd like to see some of these people at the fucking democrat jeffrey goldberg's house yeah go to a studio yeah jeffrey goldberg's not broadcasting to millions of people from his home out of jeffrey goldberg's dream and into my car. Oh, also, by the way, one person who's getting back on Trump team. Do you guys hear? What? Paul Manafort.

Oh, yeah. Other convicted felon that Trump pardoned who was working with Russia in the 2016 election to help interfere. He might run the convention for Trump. Guy had great ties. Talks with Paul Manafort. I liked his ties. Again, criminals that are on team trump are not criminals uh people who are against trump even if they're not criminals they're criminals that's that's it that's the whole fucking 2024 election okay

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Head to cricket.com slash store to shop now. All right, Trump also sat down with Howie Kurtz of Fox News over the weekend and made his most explicit comments yet about his plans for a national abortion ban if he wins in November. Here he is. You were quoted as saying to one of your aides, well, I like 16 weeks because it's a nice round number four months. Do you think that could be politically acceptable? So we're gonna find out and pretty soon I'm gonna be making a decision. And I would like to see if we could do that or how I would like to see if we could make both sides happy. A lot of things were done with Roe by killing it. Number one, we brought it back to the states. Which was, of course, your justices to the Supreme Court that made that possible.

They did. And, you know, they did something that from a lot of standpoints is extremely good. So on Friday's pod, Dan and I talked about Kellyanne's comments on this. She kind of previewed it in an interview with Politico. It certainly sounds like Trump's really going for it here on the national ban. Are you guys surprised? And what do you think about the politics of a 16 week ban? I mean, there's some polling that suggests that there was a YouGov poll recently that said 48% of adults support a 16 week ban. So I think Trump is

probably really worried about the Republican Party's position on abortion. He's trying to seem more moderate by sort of putting some guardrails around it. I think Democrats should just seize on the fact that he is now talking about a national ban. He's not, don't focus on the duration, say this guy is going to put forward a national abortion ban. It's not going to stop at 16 weeks. He's in league with right-wing zealots in Congress, in the courts, Speaker Johnson, people like Mike Pence. Then they will go after IVF. Then they'll go after contraception. Then they will go after, there's the freaks out there who say they're going to prevent recreational sex not sure about those people that's weird i am and so like this is i'm pretty sure about them this is what are you the institution of marriage

i'm gonna stay married by not having the same not giving anyone that clip this is about this is about abortion rights and abortion access but it's also the most obscene government overreach imaginable like if you don't want speaker mike johnson sitting in a little chair next to your bed at night like don't vote for the republican party yeah i'm just gonna say like something about the polling on abortion too it's all about how you have questions politicians uh as we have seen don't really know what the fuck they're talking about with abortion uh they think that they know more than doctors and women but they don't certainly voters don't you're gonna ask a bunch of 16 weeks 24 how many people do you think know the difference in any of the weeks on abortion how many when

they're asking answering a pollster's question just want to go with the more moderate position right and i think when you know i said this last last week, but when Glenn Youngkin tried to do the 15-week ban in Virginia and said, oh, this is going to be the path, this is going to fix it for Republicans, he got smoked. All the Republicans in Virginia got smoked in that case. Yeah, that's right. Also, I just think the more voters learn about what any sort of ban means, the more they come out against it, the more the horror stories that these bans produce, not just for people people who want abortions but people who want basic medical care people who have miscarriages people who who have just sort of a serious complication the more they find out about that the more they turn against these kinds of policies

this is not an important point but did you guys notice in the interview that uh trump has a new nickname for jake tapper no do you want to try to guess it's hard i mean guessing could you could you guess what picasso would do with paint can you can nail this one uh tapper tapper joke tapper fake tapper not his desk sorry dude did you see that he just takes a- Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom, we've seen. The fucking detour he takes to call Pritzker heavy.

Just like- Who orders five cheeseburgers? No one. You do, you fuck. Also, what does he talk- Is this a real story we're referencing, or just made it up? I don't know what he was doing.

He makes up JB's, Governor Pritzker's hamburger order and then gets mad about it? What are you talking about? I don't think the guy's all there. One last item before we get to Katie Porter. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish official in the United States, made quite a bit of news when he called for new elections in Israel to replace Bibi Netanyahu in a Senate floor speech, where he also condemned the Israeli prime minister for his military

campaign in Gaza. However, I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel. He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gavir, and as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October

7th. At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government. So Bibi went on CNN over the weekend to call Schumer's speech, quote, ridiculous and totally inappropriate. Republicans also criticized Schumer for trying to meddle in Israel's affairs. McConnell called the speech grotesque and Lindsey Graham called it earth shatteringly bad. Tommy, what's your take on the significance of schumer's speech and the uh response if only lindsey graham were so offended when we invade countries remember invading iraq lindsey fucking jesus christ uh should we start

with the schumer speech itself yeah sure i mean i think it's like an incredibly important inflection point in this debate uh correct me if i'm wrong i'm'm not a New Yorker, but I don't think most people think of Schumer as anti-Israel. No, man, this is Schumer. Schumer is like as pro-Israel as it gets from New York. I mean, it is such a, it is a huge deal for him to do this. I think it's a huge deal. Like, I don't think Chuck Schumer ever forgets the politics, but just forget the politics for him personally. I think that this was a very important and big deal. You could feel in his, even just his delivery that he took this like really seriously, that this was like actually something he really thought through. And I, by the way, like, I think a lot of people talked rightly about the part about calling out Benjamin Netanyahu directly. But even before you get to

that, it is a very big deal to say that there are four obstacles to peace and the Palestinian authority, Hamas, right-wing extremists, and Netanyahu, to say it like that is a very, very big deal. Yeah, I think it was a big deal policy-wise. I think it was a big deal for Schumer personally. It also tells you a lot about the kind of political pressure that Schumer must be under from New York in terms of a primary possibly, but also within his Senate caucus and the progressive flank in the Senate caucus. And yeah, to those four impediments for peace, I mean, I think he's right about all of them. Netanyahu, Abbas, the leader of the PA, Hamas, obviously, and these right-wing extremists. It's a little uncomfortable to hear a US lawmaker say a foreign head of state should go, but Netanyahu meddles in US politics all the time. Him being on all the Sunday shows all the time is

him trying to influence American politics. This is a guy who worked with Republicans in Congress to schedule a joint session speech going around the Obama White House, working with the Republican Speaker of the House to try to upend and prevent the passage of the Iran nuclear agreement. And then more recently, the prime minister's Twitter account has been bragging about promoting laws in U.S. states across the country to punish Americans who support the BDS movement. So give me a break with that nonsense. It's also, I thought it was, you know, there were some people online saying, oh, Schumer is coming out for conditioning aid to Israel. And it's like, I read the speech and I didn't see that. Then I went back just to kind of find like, what could there be in the speech that actually makes reference to that? And it says, if prime Minister Netanyahu's current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies

that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israel policy by using our leverage to change the present course. And I took that to be the reference to conditioning aid. But I think it speaks to just how much we aren't meddling in Israeli politics, despite how much money we send over there, despite how much money we send there for munitions, despite how much military aid we send there, that even in this context, this is as far as Schumer is willing to go. I am glad Schumer is pushing in this direction. I think it speaks to how much the politics on this issue are changing and how much someone like Chuck Schumer

has come to believe that it is no longer in Israel's interest to back someone like Netanyahu. But the fact that this is as far as the Democratic leader can go now, even in this context, to say at the end of the war, then we can begin to consider potentially a conditioning aid when we should be conditioning the aid we give them because we believe it is in Israel's best interest. It just tells you that even though this is a very big deal for Schumer to do this, just how difficult the politics on Israel remain even for Democrats. Yeah. I just, I mean, the aid thing just drives me crazy because like Netanyahu going on CNN and being like, how dare you meddle in our country's affairs and all this stuff. It's like, we're giving you just like billions of dollars in military aid. What are you talking about? in Gaza are starving to death right now as we speak. And they are starving to death because Israeli authorities are not letting enough aid trucks into Gaza, period. That is why.

The U.S. cannot airdrop enough aid in to change the calculus. We cannot construct a port off the coast of Gaza fast enough. You have to let these trucks into the Gaza Strip. And they have to let not 100 of them, not 200, like 500, 600, 700 people are starving, especially in northern Gaza. And so, you know, for him to, to complain that, you know, people are criticizing his leadership at the time of this war just going catastrophically badly for everyone involved. It's so maddening. What did you, what did you make of Biden's response to Schumer's speech where he was like, sort of carefully said, yeah, they talked, they talked to us about the speech. Like, I'm not going to add anything to it, but he's definitely, he said what a lot of

Americans are feeling. I would like it to be where Biden is personally. I don't know that to be true. Yeah. Hopefully what Biden is probably thinking is he can be very hard on the Israelis and threaten to cut off aid, but there might be a veto-proof majority in Congress to go around him because Democrats and Republicans historically have supported a lot of aid to Israel. But I think what Schumer's speech is getting at is just how unique and extreme this Netanyahu coalition is. Like one of the guys he mentioned by name, Itamar Ben-Gavir, who's currently the national security minister, until very recently had on his wall in his home a photo of a man named Baruch Goldstein, who is an American Israeli mass murderer. He shot and murdered 29 Palestinians while they were praying during Ramadan. He had a photo of this

man on his wall. This is a guy who was untouchable in Israeli politics, untouchable. No one would talk to him, work with him him consider him as part of a government until very recently and now because netanyahu has all these corruption cases barreling down at him and he needs to be in charge to try to create a way to get around them he's working with guys like it's our ben gavir right and so that is that is kind of the out that schumer gives him in the speech which is if you jettison ben gavir if you jettison Ben-Gavir, if you jettison Smotrich, the finance minister, maybe there's a path forward where you're kind of, you know, like, I won't call on you to go, I guess. But it's just, it's such an extreme coalition that it's, you know, leading to these unique responses. Chuck Schumer has spent literally decades

building relationships, campaigning among all kinds of Jewish communities all across New York. He has to feel he has the credibility to push on this, which is why I think he felt he could give this speech. I still think that he can go further. I still think there's a kind of deference to the old politics of Israel that, I don't know, it feels like it's from another time. And that like in this moment to say like in the future, we might have to use our leverage. We can use our leverage right now. What the speech was missing is we need to cease fire right now. Yeah.

You know, and I think part, like he talks about the context, which is there is a cease fire agreement that's been offered by the Israeli side. I think there were reports that Hamas rejected it. I don't really know where those talks are at the moment. It takes days and days and days to sort of get a response because think about it, like you're having these talks mediated in a place like Qatar and it's like the Egyptians and the Israelis and the US, and they have to go through a go-between to get a message into Gaza, into some tunnel that Hamas has to speak to leaders there who can actually like make the call to stop fighting. So it takes forever to figure these things out. But I would like to see Biden,

Schumer, everyone involved to say like, we need a unconditional ceasefire right now to get humanitarian aid. All right. When we come back, we will talk to Katie Porter right here in studio for her first interview since the california senate primary a good friend of the pod congresswoman katie porter welcome back thank you good to see you yeah uh all right you've had a few weeks to decompress from the Senate race. You probably could use a few weeks more. One week and four days. One week and four days. Okay, perfect. I've lost all track of time. Looking back on everything, what is your take on what happened? Well, I mean, first off, California is our largest state democracy and any election here between Democrats is always super competitive. So I've been in politics long enough to watch great candidates run great races and not win.

I'm proud of the campaign we ran. It was a campaign centered on my values, including campaign finance reform, calling attention to issues like housing, which have not always been at the top of Democrats' priorities list, but really are at the top of Californians' priorities. So, look, I think that it's too early in from any one race. You can't prognosticate about what the cycle holds. But I think we ran a good race and I think we pushed on issues and on things. So, you know, if I hadn't been in the race as someone who has never taken corporate PAC money, I don't know if we would have seen the other Democratic candidates come to that as a new policy position. So I had a lot of fun doing it. So I'm overall, of course, it was a disappointing result, but I'm glad I did it. Now, you got in some controversy when you exited the race

by using the word rigged to describe it. How do we stop the steal? Is Hugo Chavez involved? it, how do we stop the steal? Is Hugo Chavez involved? And how do we stop him? So obviously, I wish I had chosen a different word, because what happened with the controversy was it took away from two really important truths. One, our California election officials do a terrific job. I have been through competitive close elections where it has taken days to count. And so I have tremendous respect for them. So I want to really make clear that at no time and in no way would I ever suggest that there's anything other than a careful, thoughtful, amazing election system that actually should be the model for a lot of the country, in my opinion. The second truth that is really important that got lost in all of that is that big money does influence our elections. Outcomes are manipulated and distorted when you have people coming in spending millions and millions of dollars at the last minute.

And that money is not disclosed until after the election. So people don't know about it. They can't take it into account when they vote. And we're already seeing like with this fair shake pack, they making noises about threatening sherrod brown john tester these are people who are not necessarily interested in making sure democrats have the majority and we can stand up to donald trump um they have a very different agenda than i feel like this entire race should have been about yeah i remember um when i first saw this statement i you know writing speeches for Obama, we would say like lobbyists rigged the system and money rigs the system. And then I was like, oh, yeah, that's like a pre 2020.

It was OK to say the system was rigged by money and stuff like that. But post post Donald Trump actually calling an election rigged. I thought about this, you know, when I in early in 2018, maybe when I first ran, I wore a red dress somewhere toward a campaign event. And somebody said, because, you know, people give you a lot of advice as a candidate. And someone said, you can't wear red. That's Donald Trump's color. And I was like, I'm not giving that guy a color.

No. Like, please, please. Like, he doesn't own red. Look, I think we do need to find words that connect with today's electorate, that do not create wrong associations, that really do drive a conversation about money in politics. And I think we are in a little bit different place than we were when I was elected in 2018 with a whole group of new House members, first-time candidates, people who rejected corporate PAC money. And I do think there's a place where now we're in a little bit of this anything to stop Donald Trump. And so, you know, the goal is obviously we must stop Donald Trump. But I know that the best way to do that is to run and campaign on better governance and making sure

that we're not having influence peddling and lobbyists and those kinds of, because Americans don't like that. And swing voters really don't like that. And so I don't want to lose that as an important narrative and a talking point and a winner. So think about Conor Lamb and his election when he won in 2016 and what a big deal that was. It's 2017. I mean, I think it's important that we still talk about this as Democrats. And I don't see as much talking about it as I think we should. And I want to unpack the stakes of some of the spending you're talking about. So this pro-crypto super PAC came in and just dumped money into your race near the end. In the past few years, there have been all these people who are harmed by the implosion of crypto companies like FTX. There

were entire currencies that collapsed like Terra and Luna. There were outright scams where people just bought bullshit coins. They got pumped and dumped and they lost all their money. Now the price of Bitcoin is up again. It feels like the cycle of boom and bust and big winners and big losers is happening all over again. Is government doing anything to stop it? And what do you think the role of big money super PACs, people like Marc Andreessen, right, who these venture capitalists were spending billions to influence the debate in Washington is like? So first, it's so interesting. You are the first person to actually ask me about crypto policy. Is that good or bad?

Well, I mean, it's interesting that people came in and spent $10 million, which I think we should put it in perspective in this race, was a huge sum of money, particularly because it was all, every dollar of it was spent on negative toward me. And I was the only candidate who faced negative, right? My colleagues, Adam and Barbara, Barbara Steve Garvey there was no negative on them um and so this there was no like what are your views on crypto Katie how do you see crypto affecting the the economy do you believe blockchain can be a force for good the answer to that last question of course is yes there wasn't any of that yeah there was just the first notification

I got about this was the disclosure of the spending. And so this wasn't actually a conversation that I think we should be having about crypto, about technology in Congress. I mean, I have colleagues who are tic-tac-mints and tic-tac-toeing. I mean, we do need to talk about technology, about financial markets. I mean, but unfortunately, and this is where i think it's it's sort of a really disingenuous um spending why i feel comfortable calling it kind of i don't mean dark money in the sense that we don't know the players we know the billionaire's names but dark in the sense of this doesn't this wasn't about crypto policy this wasn't about engaging me

seeing what i think teaching me coming to a policy understanding. This was just a learning. They thought you were going to be the toughest. This is like a group called. Just a guest. There's a group called DMFI that ostensibly advocates on behalf of Israel. And what they do is they have a super PAC that goes in and runs negative ads against progressive Democrats on issues about everything except Israel. This is sort of like the new trend you're

seeing in super PAC spending. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think, I mean, look, the point I think is, should there be a robust policy conversation about crypto? Sure. Candidates should be asked about this. We know that about, you know, 20% of Americans may have some kind of crypto assets. Congress has been grappling with this, but true to its motto, solving yesterday's problems tomorrow, Congress has not done anything about it yet. So what's unfortunate and what I think when I say sort of this race was manipulated by this spending is it wasn't spending to create a debate about policy issues. That's good. That's the nature of a system we have. This was spending to actually bury a conversation and a candidate who might have had a thoughtful

position, which to this day, they don't know what my crypto views are because they never asked. Nobody's asked until now. I feel like one of the reasons you don't hear a big public debate about money in politics anymore is because of Citizens United. And once Citizens United happened, everyone's like, OK, well, that's the Supreme Court. We don't have the Supreme Court. It's impossible. You know, it's possible to pass legislation now. So we're just going to make sure that we don't unilaterally disarm as Democrats and we're going to spend. And then that's that. Have you thought about like going forward? Is there anything we can do about money in politics short of getting a new Supreme Court?

No, there's lots we can do about money in politics. Look, do we do I want to see that decision gone? You bet. You bet. But I think this is about recognizing our own roles as leaders. So I ran and won the most expensive house race in the United States last cycle without taking corporate money, without taking federal lobbyist donations. So this argument that you can't do it without the money, just here I am in my chair, Congresswoman Katie Porter, like it can be done. So I do think that we're allowing in a larger way, the fear of Trump, the stakes are so high for LGBTQ rights, for abortion rights, for all of these things that we care passionately about to allow certain forces that benefit from the status quo to convince us we can't afford to

change and we can't afford to be different. And I think the ultimate problem with that is we're having a real problem with younger voters. We're having a problem with people choosing to register no party preference. Like, how do we build our party? What is our forward future message? And I think if I take anything away from this race, I really tried to focus on that. What are we going to do next? Where do we go in our economy? on that. What are we going to, where are we going to do next? Where, where do we go in our economy? Where do we go in our society? And I think that the specter of Donald Trump looms large and I absolutely feel that. And so people were like, we gotta, we gotta think everything, every decision has to be made in tension with Trump. Soon Trump will lose or go to prison or I don't know, have a heart attack. I'm not sure. I don't know

what his demise is going to be, but he'll have his demise. And the question will still be there. Who are we as Democrats? What economy do we want? What society do we want? What's our plan on climate change? These questions don't become less relevant because of Donald Trump. They actually become more relevant because of Donald Trump. And so I think that is sort of an aspect of this, that I don't buy the premise. I reject the premise that we can't do anything on campaign finance because the law, no one requires you. I always tell my kid this, he was learning how to drive. You know, it's called a speed limit. It means you can't go faster. No one says you have to go 65. You can go 63, right? I think that van's going 67.

I don't want to talk about the van speed limit, but I'll just say it has a V8 and a very large engine. But I do want to say, like, you know, you don't have to, because it's legal to take corporate PAC money, you don't have to do it. And so I feel like one of the things that people said back during this whole controversy in the wake of the election was nobody broke the law here. I think that's right. I don't think, I don't, I don't, it's legal for billionaires to give millions to super PACs who put false ads on TV. That sadly is legal in our system, but I'm a policymaker. So my job is to talk about what should be. I'm not a litigator or a juror figuring out what is or isn't legal. My job is to raise

what we should be doing in our democracy and to be kind of a bulwark for that. So you talk a little bit about getting elected despite not taking this kind of money in a district where you can kind of like fight more hand-to-hand combat. You can get out there. You can meet a ton of voters. You can do it yourself. California is the biggest state in the country. It's a bit more like a national election. You know, every winning campaign, every decision they made makes some geniuses, every losing campaign, everything was a mistake. But you were trying to turn out the kind of voters that Democrats need in other places, younger people, more disaffected people, people that are maybe don't don't don't like the Democratic Party very much, what have you. What did you learn about trying to get those people to turn out?

Where do you think Democrats need to do better? Where do you wish you did better? So I think turning out those voters who are skeptical about Democrats and Republicans who think that there's nothing really changes no matter who's in office. I disagree with that, but there are voters who feel that way, and we've knocked doors and I've talked to them. I think TV advertising is a tough way to engage those people. I think mass marketing advertising is a tough way to engage those people. Door-to-door works, more long-term back-and-forth, like real texting, not spam texting, but conversational texting, which is a real thing that I've used in some other campaigns.

And those things are hard to deploy in a state with 39 million people. Yeah. I watched a focus group of California Democrats for Sarah Longwell's pod right before the race, and everyone liked you. But then a lot of them were just like I don't know I don't know too much about her you know it's like I've seen Schiff he's on TV all the time I've seen him on MSNBC I see him on Fox I see him here and there I think I'd like to learn more about her but I just don't know enough yet do you think that at the end of the day it was like a name ID sort of like you just didn't for people who aren't from

this region like in northern California just didn't you didn't have enough money to get on the air or to build the kind of relationships that you're talking about. When you're outspent three to one, as we were, and really particularly at the end, right, by Schiff Super PAC, the $5 million that AIPAC put into United Democracy Project at the end, that was most of his Super PAC funding. I mean, yes, I think there's a communication and a resource problem. And look, I think there is a tension. People always say, and you guys hear them say this when you knock doors, like, I don't want career politicians, right? And yet, there's a comfort and a familiarity in this very scary time in more of the same, right? And so I think, you know, this is something that I think President Biden's going to face in his campaign.

I think Democrats are going to face this generally, right? Which is sort of the rank and file, like really traditional Democrats who are like, we want to not do anything risky, no big policy changes, like stay the course, just beat Trump, any means necessary, versus kind of the voters that we're not really connecting with, for whom that's not going to be an engaging message, right? And so I think we'll see this play out in other places. And I think it's something Democrats have to think about. I mean, look, I find myself in the position now of having a president in President Biden who I think is more forward looking, more future oriented and more progressive than the Congress. where we were when I was elected in 2018 and during that presidential race, right,

in which President Biden ran as kind of a moderate traditional candidate. But now he's at the front pushing on child care, pushing on climate, pushing on taxing billionaires. Where's Congress on those issues? Oh, it sounds, I don't know. I mean, a bunch of weenies kind of. So I think that is a really interesting reversal we find ourselves in now. And part of what's changing beneath all of our feet is the way that voters get information and communicate with each other. One issue along those lines that was before Congress recently was whether or not to force a sale of TikTok and ban it.

You voted against the TikTok ban, correct? I voted against the TikTok ban in this piece of legislation. Why? Oh, was it was your so can you explain why you're you voted that way? Yeah. So look, I've said this before. I think if you're doing this job in Congress, right, it is a teaching and learning job. So there's a lot of listening to where people are, what they're concerned about, learning about things like the national security issues that are presented by TikTok. But then there's this teaching part of telling the American people why you're doing what you're doing. We did not do that on this bill, like at all. So this was rushed through. Neither party actually whipped on it, but they tried to put it up on suspension. They had a classified briefing like the day before.

And we didn't bring Americans into the conversation to have them understand what we're doing, why we're doing it. This is something that people like and use. So if you're going to make that kind of change, and I do think there are real concerns about data sharing, about data privacy, about foreign ownership of media, like these are real concerns about data sharing, about data privacy, about foreign ownership of media. Like these are real concerns.

You got to bring Americans into the conversation and you've got to have a robust discussion and a carefully drafted bill. This wasn't it. And so, yeah, I mean, look, I don't love that the only thing that is bipartisan in Washington is kind of Cold War 2.0 anti-China stuff. I mean, this bill came out of the select committee on the Chinese Communist Party. That's a thing that was stood up in, what, 2023? So that's half of my brain on this. The other half is, well, Xi Jinping is a really scary bad guy. He will do whatever he can to advance his agenda. Often that agenda is whatever weakens the West. Chinese hackers go after U.S. intellectual property on behalf of the government. Chinese researchers, academics steal secrets all the time.

If the United States had access to a tool that could influence the feeling and thinking and emotions of 300 million Chinese people, we would probably fuck with it via the CIA. Chinese people, we would probably fuck with it via the CIA. And so I just wonder how you kind of balance, you know, I think what, you know, a well-articulated view that this was rushed, this was not the right bill with this concern that like they probably, the Chinese government probably would tell ByteDance what to do if push came to shove. Right. So I think what you just explain to people, which is that this is the risk. If push comes to shove, ByteDance will do this. I mean, most Americans weren't familiar in the hours before the vote that TikTok was owned by the Chinese. Most Americans that day are trying to figure out how they're going to pay for gas and pick up their kid on time.

And they're worried that their dad didn't eat the food that they took over last week for him. Like, you got to do the work of democracy to get to a result that Americans really buy into. And so I do expect this to come, you know, I think the Senate will either hopefully amend this. There might be a different bill that comes to us. I think we need to take these issues seriously. I also think the people who say there are real issues with data privacy and manipulation of information within the United States, and we don't ever seem to want to regulate that or talk about that. I think one doesn't excuse the other. There are separate risks and separate problems with Chinese influence. But this wasn't the right answer. One of the things that was strange about it is so much of this has been

about what members of Congress are hearing behind closed doors in sort of a classified setting, which is in a democracy not really acceptable to like sort of, no, no, no, you have to trust us. What we're seeing behind closed doors is very serious. Do you think if the American people saw what members of Congress are seeing behind closed doors about their concerns about TikTok and privacy, do you think if the American people saw what is classified, it would have a big impact on sort of the public view of TikTok? I think if Americans understood the risk better, yes. But that isn't it isn't as simple as

you just if they only if only if only you knew. Right. I think this is a not a healthy way for representatives to engage with the public. So especially when we're calling it a threat to democracy. Right. So, I mean, we need to do democracy. Americans not believing that their congressmembers are acting in their best interest is also a threat to democracy. And so I think the right thing to do is to is to start with, you know, have a town hall. Talk with your constituents like here are some facts. ByteDance is owned. It's a Chinese company. It's not owned by the Chinese government, but it's a Chinese company.

Here's how the Chinese Communist Party can influence Chinese companies. Here's the kind of information that, I mean, a lot of people do not realize what is being collected about them all of the time by American companies even. And so I think it's not even having to get to that classified point. I think it's more fundamental than that. And I think it's also giving Americans a hot second to tell us what they think, right? So we got, you know, we had calls kind of coming in that day, but that doesn't give us time to have a town hall, to talk to people, to show them, to give them a chance to air their concerns and grievances. And so it was really, there's been nothing in this Congress, but kind of examples of how not to do it. And I think sadly, this was another one, even if the concerns and the need for action in this is very, very real.

How many of your colleagues do you think could get a unsigned PDF from their phone into a signed PDF on their computer? I mean, low. I mean, we are not strong in the technology space, I would say. But I think we are capable of understanding risk and the briefings that we get are high quality and are good. But I think we just have to give Americans some time and figure out how we're going to communicate in a way that's convincing to them. And what I heard on the floor, the tic-tac-toe, tic-tac-toe, tic-tac, I mean, that was not it. That wasn't really, I don't think, respectful to where people are who are saying, this is how I make my living. This is how I find other people who share my expression of my gender identity, for example.

Members of Congress use it. I mean, my campaign has a- Members of Congress use TikTok and I mean, my campaign has it. Members of Congress use TikTok and then voted for this bill. So to be clear, we voted to ban it already on government devices. So to the extent that we're using it,

we're using it in our campaign capacity on non-government owned devices. But nevertheless. But nevertheless, it would have stopped all of that along with everything else. And it wasn't a ban. The choices were ban or sell, divest.

And I think the divest strategy would be a really good solution to this. I think you got to give a little bit of a runway and do a little bit of thinking about like who- Sort of a big transaction. That we trust might have like $500 billion sitting around that might buy this. All the best people have it.

And when I heard like that Jared Kushner, oh, Steven Mnuchin, one of my faves, was going to like buy, I didn't feel like, oh, wow, from the CCP to Steven Mnuchin. Former Trump treasury secretary, great. You mentioned that President Biden has been more sort of progressive and future oriented than a lot of people expected. Obviously, he's facing an incredibly difficult reelection. Do you have any advice for Biden and Democrats in general as they head into 24? I mean, I think that President Biden is doing the right things.

I think he needs his congressional partners to amplify them. Right. So President Biden is really pushing us to talk about what he's delivered on, to talk about student loans, to talk about $35 insulin, to connect what we're doing in Washington to what is happening in people's lives, both what he has done, but also acknowledge where we have not, where we have fallen short so far, right? We know childcare is still hurting you. Give me a second term and i'll take another stab at that because he did a really good job the first time congress gutted it right we know housing costs really affecting younger families and and people and the racial wealth gap is deepening because of that like in a second term housing is going to be a top priority i think he's pointing

us in the right direction i think congress needs to follow along and be on that message with him. And I think, you know, the president's doing a good job of kind of walking the line, I think, between pointing out the harms of Trump, but also offering a really positive, strong vision for how our country can be better if he has a second term. And I think that is the right strategy because you're only going to get, I mean, look, you're only going to get so many people on Trump sucks. Now, look, I won in 2018 on Trump sucks. That was my sole message. It wasn't Katie Porter on her white board. It was just Trump sucks. We've been riding that horse here for a little while.

I was anybody, I'm well aware. So I'm anybody other than, you know, that was the whole thing, right? That's not, I don't think how I stayed elected in a swing district. And I think some of my colleagues who have struggled to stay elected, who are now unelected in their swing districts, one of the reasons is that once Trump was gone, people said, now what? And they said, Trump sucks. And they said, yeah, but Trump's not in office. and they said Trump sucks. And they said, yeah, but Trump's not in office. So I think there's a risk to the Democratic Party going forward if we don't have that wedding together of Trump bad and we are good and here's why.

If it's just Trump bad, then when Trump is gone, how do we win in 2026? How do we win in 2028? How do we win down ballot where maybe things aren't even partisan, but issues still matter to people? And so I think that is I think the president's actually doing a strong job with this. I think that Congress needs to take its cue from from President Biden on this. Have you given any thought to what's next for you? So, no. I have been enjoying getting up in the morning and not opening up my phone and learning about spending against me.

That's been like a real... That must be nice. I mean, I got up in the morning and I was like, nobody spent any money today. Tagging you. Tagging me. It's like so great.

So, I've been thinking a little bit about what I want to keep working on in my remaining time in Congress. So, I just talked to you about town halls. I've been actually thinking about, do I want to try to do a town hall on this TikTok issue and to try to help educate people a little bit about why there is a real problem here. I might continue to work a lot on issues of money and politics, on transparency of good government. I have a whole bunch of bills on that. And they didn't move under the Democratic Congress.

Things like banning congressional stock trading didn't move under the Democratic Congress. I think there's an opportunity maybe to move them under the Republican Congress. And so I'm going to continue to try to find bipartisan partners to do those things. Accountability partners? On a brief side, is johnson is off-putting

and weird as he seems he's like at least like the vibe is a neighbor that's nice to you but like looks into your windows with binoculars from the i i honestly have had very little interaction with him so i have a lot of interaction with my republican colleagues generally um but but this man wasn't yeah like a one that you would have sought out before now. It was like that guy. Like I think there were people Googling frantically trying to figure out who he was when he was being elected. Including Republicans in the House probably. I mean, I think literally Republicans were like, Mike Johnson?

Is there another Johnson here? Like, where's this guy from again? I mean, so I do think that there are Republicans, though, who are. I mean, Ken Buck, you know, exiting Congress, like Representative Buck has been terrific on banning stock trading. Like he's serious about these issues. And so I think post this whole Hunter Biden debacle, my real hope is that the Oversight Committee will do some real work on some of these issues because, look, I think the thing to take away from the Hunter Biden sort of nonsense is that he did nothing wrong. There's no evidence.

Why do so many Americans think that something like that could have happened? And that's because we don't have strong enough guardrails in our democracy to stop influence peddling. We don't have strong enough guardrails in our democracies that people trust their representatives. That's something that I think Democrats should take from this thing. It's not just that Joe Biden didn't do anything wrong. True, Joe Biden did nothing wrong. That's the most important fact. But then there's a strategy question. What do you then do with that? I think the lesson is, boy, a lot of people are quick to believe any inference that Congress is not on the straight and narrow. How do we diminish that in the public's mind? And I think the answer is banning congressional stock trading,

beginning to move. I have legislation where I disclose every meeting that I public meet, every meeting that I take. So if you come to my office, you want to meet with me, I disclose that on my website every month. People can see who I'm spending my time with. So when they say, you're not listening to so-and-so, I'm like, here's the meetings I took, right? So I think there's a lot we could do to shore up confidence in government.

You know what you should do at Just Realized? You should run for governor. Have you thought about that? That'd be awesome. I really, literally, I'm just thinking about whether we're going to fund the government. Not ruling it out.

Not ruling it out. I mean, that's like a perennial question. Actually, it's like a bi-weekly question. What's up with that? I'm not funding the government. I mean, I literally was like, do we have the bill text? Do we have the bill text?

It sounds like you're going to miss Congress a lot. Well, look, I mean, I said this in the book that I wrote. Brag. The work is amazing. Amazing to get to learn about things, to help hear from Americans, to see corners of your community you've never seen before. to see corners of your community you've never seen before. Like, wow, to have amazing, talented young people as staffers helping you and teaching you and working alongside you. It's amazing.

The work is amazing. The job, like if you went to work and your cubicle was next to Marjorie Taylor Greene, would you polish your resume? Yeah. Right? So the commute, 3,000 miles each way, like the pay, the some of these issues are really are challenging for people. And so I would say I will miss the the work was fabulous. But look, I went to Congress to work on having a more fair economy. When I was a consumer protection professor, that's what I did. I wrote articles and I exposed the cheating that banks were doing

when they were foreclosing on people's homes wrongfully. When I went to Congress, I exposed the cheating that Wells Fargo was doing, the fact that the CEO of a bank doesn't pay his tellers enough to live and hasn't thought about that apparently ever. I'm going to keep doing that work. I want to make sure that my kids and everyone's kids have an amazing America with a really great economy that provides opportunities for people and mobility and stability. Like, that's the project. Congress was where I did the project, but it wasn't the project. Well, very glad you're still going to be doing that work. Katie Porter, thank you so much for stopping by.

Come back anytime. Thank you. Very glad you're still going to be doing that work. Katie Porter, thank you so much for stopping by. Come back anytime. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Katie Porter, for joining today.

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