Pod Save America - “Trump’s crack legal team.”

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

President Trump announces the death of the Islamic State’s leader in the most Trump way possible. A federal judge gives a boost to the House’s impeachment inquiry. And Jon L. and Dan examine what Joe Biden’s apparent shift on Super PACs says about his campaign. Then, What a Day co-hosts Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick join Jon to talk about Rep. Katie Hill’s resignation from Congress.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Jon and Tommy are on assignment. So Dan and I are back for a crossover episode like when He-Man and She-Ra team up. I decided to switch it up, Dan. It's a much more modern reference. Not really. I'm She-Ra. We have a lot to cover today. The death of ISIS's leader and Trump's deeply mature response to that successful operation. There have been developments in the impeachment inquiry from the release of grand jury materials to the emergence of a new whistleblower, Rudy Giuliani's butt. And in 2020 news, we'll look at Joe Biden's

fundraising challenges, his reversal on super PACs and what we learned from Biden's interview on 60 Minutes. Plus, we'll look at Katie Hill's decision to resign from Congress with Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick, the host of Crooked's brand new daily podcast, What a Day. So, Dan, let's start with the news that broke over the weekend. On Saturday at 9.23 p.m. Eastern, Donald Trump, the person occupying the job of president, tweeted, something very big has just happened, exclamation point. Then on Sunday, President Trump announced that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, died over the weekend during an American-led operation in Syria. Trump called Baghdadi a sick and depraved man and said that the United States brought the world's number one

terrorist leader to justice. According to the White House, Baghdadi was chased by special forces into a tunnel, ultimately detonated a suicide vest that killed himself and three children. The president also noted that the American forces entered the area through airspace controlled by Russia and did so with permission of the Russian government. I think it's important to separate two parts of this. One is the significance of the operation itself and what it means for the larger fight to defeat ISIS. And the other is the politics of Trump's conduct around the raid. You know, Dan, I'm sure Pod Save the World will talk a lot more about the geopolitical significance of this death. But Dan, can you briefly say why this operation is important? His death, as you mentioned, Ben and Tommy will talk about in much greater and smarter detail this. So it is a victory in the war

against ISIS and as someone who has been at the top of the U.S. list since we were in the White House in 2014. So, of course, the context for this raid is Trump's decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria at the behest of Turkey. The Times reported the following, and it was pretty stunning. For months, intelligence officials had kept Mr. Trump apprised of what he had set as a top priority, the hunt for Mr. al-Baghdadi, the world's most wanted terrorist. But Mr. Trump's abrupt withdrawal order three weeks ago disrupted the meticulous planning underway and forced Pentagon officials to speed up the plan for the risky night raid before their ability to control troops, spies, and reconnaissance aircraft disappeared with the

pullout, the official said. Mr. al-Baghdadi's death in the raid on Saturday, they said, occurred largely in spite of and not because of Mr. Trump's actions. That was a pretty extraordinary story in the Times, and it was, I think, so close to when the raid took place. Extraordinary to see the see officials from within the national security apparatus be so explicit. How much should Trump's larger foreign policy choices, erratic decision making impact how this event is interpreted? I think it should be play a central role in it. I mean, it is like if we were ever in the world of a 25th Amendment proceeding, that paragraph you just read would be Exhibit 1. I mean, here is someone who has said

privately and publicly that getting al-Baghdadi is one of his top priorities. He knows that the military is closing in on al-Baghdadi, that according to the Times, there have been two previous missions that had been called back for various reasons. And yet while he knows those things and he knows he wants Baghdadi, he capriciously and fairly crazily pulls out of Syria, putting the military in this position where either they're going to lose al-Baghdadi's top Trump-dictated priority or be forced to go do it with greater risk to the troops. It is an absolutely insane decision. And I don't think you can look at this without putting in the context of the fact that he

almost screwed the whole thing up by being the terrible president that we know him to be and that people's lives were at risk because of it, either because we wouldn't have gotten al-Baghdadi and ISIS were to stay strong or for the brave troops who went in to go do this. They did it under less than ideal circumstances because because the way in which Trump made his decisions. Yeah, I mean, it seems that, you know, after the bin Laden raid, conservatives were loathe to credit President Obama for the decision making and wanted to put the credit into the hands of those that actually carried it out and the leadership in the military. No one was more invested in that denial of respect than Trump for Obama. And yet here now we have an example where it does seem as though Donald Trump's decision making, according to the people involved

in that decision making, made this raid less likely to succeed, harder to pull off. It seems that we've had a number of moments in which Donald Trump's sort of capricious, erratic decision making has been something Democrats say and nonpartisan national security experts say is dangerous for our security. But this does seem to be a specific, practical, real world example. Do you think it's something that will linger or do you think this is the kind of thing where this will just go down the memory hole of of an event in which I think a lot of people didn't even know who al-Baghdadi was. Now he is dead. Trump is declaring victory. Democrats are critical. I mean, what what what actual political impact does an event like this have?

Well, I always bet on the memory hole in the Trump era that, you know, I mean, this happened, this was announced yesterday morning. And by Monday morning, we were engaged in a national debate about the civility of booing, which I'm sure we'll discuss. And so it's very quick. It is like, I sort of hate this competition that's been happening online, where Trump wants this to be his quote unquote bin Laden moment. And then Democrats want to explain, want to explain, want to fight about which terrorist killing was more significant. And I think it's just, it's a sort of a dumb, gross competition.

But there is a fundamental difference in the political, in the national consciousness about who bin Laden was, right? Like at the White House the night that happened, people spontaneously converged on the White House the night that happened, people spontaneously converged on the White House and started chanting USA, USA so loudly that we could hear it from our offices when it happened. And so it is different in that sense, because you were correct. My

assumption is most people have no idea who al-Baghdadi is. Now, if you tell them Trump was responsible in some way, shape, or form for a mission that led to the killing of the leader of ISIS. I imagine that would make people who live in great concern about ISIS, even if that concerns are somewhat irrational, feel good about it. But they are two separate things with two different things. I think the politics of this is very limited. It's mitigated by what you read from the New York Times for sure. But even bin Laden,

Obama's poll numbers went up 11 points in some polls right after bin Laden was killed. There was this talk that Obama had just won reelection. It was over. And most of that polling bump was gone within two weeks of the event. And so the idea that this is going to somehow change the trajectory of Trump's politics, I think, is pretty naive. And I also do think there's this pattern with Trump in moments where he is meant to try to evince the gravitas of the presidency and fails to do it, that, you know, something big happens. He thinks, here is this moment where I'm fails to do it, that, you know, something big happens. He thinks here here is this moment where I'm going to get respect. Then, of course, he mishandles

it completely due to egotism and narcissism. He tweets something big happened like he just found out he got cast in a musical and he's very excited to tell people the next day. Then he comes up to the podium and we have one clip of where Trump is explicitly comparing al-Baghdadi to bin Laden. Hamza bin Laden was a big thing, but this is the biggest there is. This is the worst ever. Osama bin Laden was very big, but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center. This is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, a country, a caliphate, and was trying to do it again. So, you know, Dan, I don't want to dwell too much on this because it is aesthetics. There is something, I think, deeply ugly about Trump talking about terrorist masterminds like they're like lounge singers in Vegas having a moment. But, you know, do the aesthetic, just Trump's inability to project the gravitas seriousness of the presidency, his inability to carry that mantle at all.

Is it important or is it just sort of an obsession of kind of D.C. and other political pundits who watch this constantly like us? I think Trump's lack of presidential bearing and his just ability to trip over his own two feet whenever he's on the national stage is something sort of baked into the cake in American politics. I don't think anyone was surprised to see Trump handle it this way in a way that's sort of gross, used car salesman-y, sort of thirsting for like personal affirmation out of it. Like I don't think that bothers people. Where I do think this matters is outside of the US where there are moments like this where this is not just Trump doing a Hannity interview or doing one of his absurd rallies. This is a moment where the world is watching, right? And it's not just our allies around the world, but it's also people in Syria,

people in Turkey, the people who have been victims of ISIS. And the way Trump talked about it was a way in which I am sure no terrorism expert would ever recommend a president talk and all of that, I think it has the potential to become part of a larger propaganda effort and turn off the world. Like when Obama gave his statement after the death of bin Laden, he spent a lot of time thinking about how it would be viewed by the people in Pakistan, right? Knowing that U.S. forces went into Pakistan to kill bin Laden. How would people there see his remarks? How could he do to mitigate whatever fallout there would be from that? And Trump gave no concern about that. He was really only speaking in the mirror, right? He wasn't thinking about how the world would see it. It's also, you know, one other difference,

too, between the way President Obama handled the death of bin Laden and how Trump handled the raid to take out Baghdadi is the notification of bin Laden and how Trump handled the raid to take out Baghdadi is the notification of Congress. And this is something that I do think is important. Trump did not notify key members of Congress in advance. So before the 2011 bin Laden raid, the White House notifies the top Democrat and Republican in both the House and the Senate, as well as the bipartisan leaders of the intelligence committees, what they call the Gang of Eight, traditionally understood to be a group of people that can be trusted with the most sensitive of information. It is a nod to, I think, an important reflection of

congressional responsibility, congressional authority and checks and balances. Trump foregoed that completely. He notified two Republicans. He notified Richard Burr, who is the chair of the intelligence committee in the Senate. And of course, he told Lindsey Graham because Lindsey Graham sucks up to him in the golf course. Dan, do you think there's an important breakdown? What do you think? I think it's troubling about how not just in this moment, but in future interactions between Congress and the president. And it's probably not surprising that Trump, who is so grievance oriented, would not find it with himself to put aside his personal grievance to notify the speaker of the House of a pending operation so. And like most of the time, this sort of petty stuff is just annoying and distracting. But there can be a time when the president and Congress are going to have to work together to solve a very real problem or to avert a very real crisis.

And these sort of steps from Trump are incredibly counterproductive and they don't speak well of, which I guess it's not surprising that Trump would be too wrapped up in his own head to do the right thing. But I mean, it's a warning sign for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's also, you know, look, we're at a moment where we're grappling with whether or not Congress has ceded too much authority to the administration and whether or not Congress has the ability to uphold its responsibilities to check the administration. And one of the ways in which we've ceded so much authority to the presidency, and this is long, long precedes Trump, is in secrecy. That secrecy is often a tool that the presidency has to keep information from Congress,

to keep accountability from the public. And one of the ways we guard against that is a custom and laws that require the president to inform members of Congress, congressional committees, Congress writ large, because we understand that there are dangers associated with the president's ability to do things in secret. Now, I know we don't, that doesn't matter when to Trump, it's not his concern. He's not thinking about the prerogatives of the president. He's thinking about his ego. But I do think as we look beyond Trump, or at least think about what we would do to restrain the presidency, regardless of who holds the office, I do think thinking about how we make sure that Congress can protect its prerogatives, I think is really important. These operations in Syria, both dating back to President Obama, is the 2001 authorization for use of military force,, if necessary, pass another one that would be more narrowly tailored and speak to whatever challenges we have in the moment and not just essentially an 18-year-old blank check. Right. Especially considering that al-Baghdadi was the leader of an organization that did not

exist for more than 10 years after the passage of that authorization for the use of force. Let's move on to impeachment. Last week was perhaps one of the biggest weeks to date in the impeachment of Donald Trump. Up to that point, the Trump administration had insisted that the perfect call between Trump and the president of Ukraine did not reflect any kind of quid pro quo. But last week, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, provided the first testimony that drew a direct line between Trump's insistence that Ukraine's president publicly announced an investigation into the Bidens and the release of aid. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, we've learned that former U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, is confirming Taylor's account of the quid pro quo, telling House

members that he believed that Ukraine agreed to open investigations into Burisma Group because it was a condition that the White House set for a meeting between Trump and Zelensky. It seems like Taylor's testimony forced Sondland to admit what he had previously denied and what Taylor was clearly interested in getting Sondland to admit in their text conversations, which is that he had knowledge of Trump's decision to withhold aid to Ukraine and the reasons why. At the very least, this removes sort of a fragile pillar of the Trump defense that was floated last week. I guess you can't really float a pillar because of shit. Taylor. Can you float a defense? You can float a defense that Taylor's information was secondhand, right? At first you saw even senators like John Thune say, this is very bad news for us.

And then the kind of whatever the intellectual Zambonis come in to try to smooth over the ice. And one of the defenses was, well, how would Taylor know it was only secondhand? It's hearsay. This isn't proof of anything. And now it seems like Sondland is being forced to confirm what Taylor said, which we obviously know is true based on the conversations we read, the text messages between Sondland and Taylor. I mean, Dan, it feels sort of absurd to ask, but this how bad how bad is this for Trump? I mean, at this point, we are now there is there are so few defenses, actually substantive defenses left against a quid pro quo. Now that we're learning Sondland is confirming what Taylor said. Yeah, I mean, it is the conduct is indefensible and it's been it has been amusing, I guess would be the right word to watch Republicans

lay out basically like draw a line and say Trump did not cross this line and then new information comes out and they have to draw another line and back and forth. You get to the point where, you know, we went from Trump saying the whistleblower misconstrued the call to putting out the call transcript, which proved it, to it wasn't a quid pro quo, to it is a quid pro quo, to it was hearsay, to it now it is firsthand evidence of a quid pro quo. And we're eventually going to get to the point where the only answer is the president can do whatever the hell he wants. And the thing I thought was interesting is so Thune made those comments and then he immediately backed off the next day and said, well, now I've read the whole thing. And it's very – there's a lot of who said this, who said that, like maybe it's hearsay. And then something comes out and cuts Thune's legs out from underneath them. And I saw today in an article about Republicans feeling very uncomfortable in this position that Trump has put them in.

I'd like to point out they probably – they helped put Trump in that position by enabling his every action and defending him all the time. But the new the new sort of line for Republicans is we can't comment on this because we're going to be jurors in the trial, which is the sort of the new version of like Mitch McConnell saying he doesn't read Trump's tweets or Paul Ryan saying he doesn't read the news. And so I think that like they can't keep doing this because they don't know enough and Trump is lying to them or lying to himself or lying to someone. So we're going to get to the point where their fallback position is going to be what Trump did was bad or wrong or not perfect, but we're too close to the election to remove

the president, which is a position that is probably sustainable with some portion of the public. Right. And then you add on top of that, Lindsey Graham's effort to kind of attack the investigation itself. You see others like Hugh Hewitt floating that the impeachment that if there is an impeachment trial, it should focus not just on Ukraine, but everything from the Iran deal to the Mueller investigation to the Steele dossier. Trump also has been launching into attacks against never Trumpers, that Trump is the victim of of a cabal of radical, moderate, never Trumpers. I don't know who that argument's for. That seems like it's just for him. It's just for him and National Review to bicker about, I suppose. I don't I don't really understand it.

Also, Hugh Hewitt is America's most unmutable human. I go out of my way to not know what he has to say because I find it to be so stupid. But he causes such outrage that you can't avoid it. I mean, he he is really out there. He is an artist when it comes to figuring out how to give some guidance to ostensibly or, you know, to some serious Republicans for how to talk about this. And, you know, he's he's trying his best. You got to give him that. The other point I was going to make on these two is I can also actually see as we get closer to the election, the Republicans in the Senate taking the juror defense, which, by the way, has also been used by people like Amy Klobuchar to avoid calling for impeachment earlier in the process. While at the same time, I was thinking about the the defense against swift boating.

So when the swift boat ads are maligning John Kerry on television, Bush is avoiding talking about it for a long time. Finally, he agrees to comment on these sort of malicious smears against John Kerry. And what he says is, I think all these ads should go away. I don't want to see attack ads unfairly attacking John Kerry via these outside groups. And I don't want to see those kinds of attacks against me. We should all swear off all of these attacks. And it was a way to avoid actually acknowledging that there was something unfair happening to his opponent while ostensibly denouncing a larger trend. I can see some of

these guys going out there and saying, I think what Trump did was inappropriate. Obviously, I'm reserving judgment because I'm a member of the Senate and we may have to face a trial. But at the same time, I think anyone soliciting any kind of foreign interference, whether it's from Ukraine or whether it's Hillary Clinton and the Democrats with the Steele dossier, we're all Americans, Dan. We've all got to do our part to make sure that we have free and fair elections. I'm just I'm just, you know, look, we don't predict anymore. I'm just if I were if I were a cynical tax cut loving regulation hating Republican member of the Senate with eyes on the presidency, which is 100 percent of them, that is, I think,

what I would be angling toward. I think the other very cynical response we're going to hear is exactly what you said, but then also, look, what Trump did was wrong, but I really worry about the precedent of proceeding with impeachment, right? What happens to the next president, Republican or Democrat? Are we going to do this every four years? We have to protect American institutions by allowing this particular president to commit crimes while in the White House. And so there will be this sort of, because of the proximity election, there will be this argument that it is bad for democracy to hold a president accountable for obvious and multiple crimes in office. And that is the sort of talking point that I think will

have some success in pundit world, but basically cannot survive 14 seconds of intellectual scrutiny. You know, it's interesting. There is a parallel between that conversation, and I don't want to dwell on it too much, but this civility conversation that's been unfolding in the wake of a truly horrifying event, which took place at the World Series, which is people booing Donald Trump. We do have some audio, because why the fuck not? All right, you know a booze sound line. But the, so...

I've never experienced them personally, but I'm aware of the concept. Oh, well, you've never, you've never made an unfortunate Saints reference in New Orleans. Nope. But so, also there were chants of lock him up. And this got, I think, a lot of pundits upset

at Americans shouting lock him up at Donald Trump. They say it was wrong to shout lock her up at Hillary Clinton. It's wrong to shout lock him up at Donald Trump. I don't want to dwell too much on the on Boogazi. Fuck. Is that going to compete for a title with Buttgazi? Oh, that's good, too. Buttgazi. Fuck. Yeah, it's Boogazi. Oh, man. Anyway, I guess it's just so obviously the president got booed and you have a problem with booing Donald Trump. You got a problem with me. That's easy. But but but on the matter of lock him up, I. There is a easy, you know, bipartisan pundit rebuke which says it was wrong to say lock her up when it was Hillary Clinton.

And it's wrong to say lock him up to Donald Trump. Do you do you agree that it's wrong that those two things are equivalent, Dan? Like this whole conversation is stupid. And I guess we're guilty of it because we're. Yeah, why not? It's a fun. Let's have fun. It's a Monday. It it speaks to the gravitational pull of the political conversation towards the least relevant thing. The point isn't who chanted lock him up at Trump at a baseball game. It is that the president is committed multiple crimes. And at the same time that he ran around accusing all of his political opponents of committing crimes. Like, let's have some fucking understanding for context and nuance in this conversation from the pundits.

And this is – so that's point one. It's just stupid. And like some of the arguments around – point two is some of the arguments around this are saying it's embarrassing on the world stage to see people chanting lock him up at our president. Well, yeah. You know what's really embarrassing? him up at our president. Well, yeah, you know what's really embarrassing? Donald Trump is our president. That's a bigger problem. Yeah, I don't actually agree with that. I think it's actually really important that people around the world understand that there's a huge number of Americans that find Donald Trump to be as repellent as everyone else does. There is a connection too, I think, and a serious point about this, which between the kind of discomfort with

using the powers of impeachment, the discomfort with investigations, and with the discomfort of protests of what they, you know, what they see as a kind of a lack of manners in that protest is a big part of America's traditions. Not being polite, not being not going along to get along is a big part of how we protect our institutions, that that people booing Donald Trump and shouting at Donald Trump at a baseball game are showing respect for the presidency. And that if it comes, you know, we've talked about this in terms of, you know, the enforcement of congressional subpoenas. There's this baked in understanding that if Congress were to use its inherent power and send out, you know, the sergeant of arms and a deputy to go grab Rudy Giuliani and force him to testify or go get whoever else is on the tarmac with a

one way ticket out of the country, what have you, that we kind of understand that that would be bad for Democrats. It would look bad because it looks uncivil. But civility is just a means by which the people in that box defend themselves and protect themselves from the very fair accusations of criminality that we're currently in an impeachment about. Yeah, it is. The fact that pundits, a certain class of pundit in Washington, and not just pundits, like there are, like my home state Senator Chris Coons today was very upset about this. And I just think that people within the Washington establishment spend more time trying to understand the anger of the people around this country, the righteous anger around what is happening with this president, this White House, and less time telling him to keep their anger to themselves. Last, less serious point on this is it was fascinating that Trump went to the World Series to begin with. And it speaks to the difference between who Trump is

and who Trump sees in the mirror every morning because every politician knows that you're at great risk of being booed if you go to an event. And here you have Trump going to a baseball game in a city that is one of the most democratic cities in the country. And in his mind, he envisioned this being a moment where people would applaud him for what happened with Baghdadi earlier in that day, like George W. Bush going to the Yankees game after 2001.

And like there is this great slow-mo video on Twitter of him thinking it's cheering and then slowly realizing it's booze and his face tightening up as he as he sort of the gap between who he is and who he thinks he is comes together. And it is I think it's just a fascinating window into his own self-delusion that brought him to that baseball game to begin with. Because Trump is not a huge baseball fan by any stretch of the imagination. Not really a fan of anything other than himself and Fox News, I guess. Yeah, I don't like it's like no like, no, the man has no hobbies. It's golf, fast food, Twitter, and grievances. It's golfing with sycophants or famous people, too. It's very, it's not about golfing with friends because he has no friends.

It's golfing with people like Lindsey Graham who will kiss up to him, people like Tiger Woods who he can then say he golfed with someone famous. So before we move to 2020, there was one other development in the impeachment saga. This week, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., confirmed the legality of the Democrats impeachment probe and granted Congress access to the secret grand jury evidence gathered during the Mueller investigation. In a 75 page decision, Judge Beryl Howell undercut the Republican argument that a formal House resolution is necessary to legitimize an impeachment inquiry. Howell also called out the Trump administration's efforts to stonewall Congress, writing Congress's need to access grand jury material relevant to potential impeachable conduct by a president is heightened

when the executive branch willfully obstructs channels for accessing other relevant evidence, while Pelosi and Nadler both praised the ruling the Trump administration will probably appeal the decision. Dan, how big a deal is this? And do we have any sense of what we may learn from these materials? It's certainly a big deal for the very specific reason you pointed out, which it is a ruling from a judge that undercuts the Republican argument that this is not a legitimate impeachment inquiry for some set of completely bullshit process reasons. And it shows that the traditional legal obligations of administration to cooperate with an impeachment inquiry are there, that witnesses are going to have to testify. They're going to have to provide documents they would not otherwise provide. The ability to use executive privilege to shield those documents and those witnesses

from Congress will be circumscribed. So that's very important. I don't think we have any idea what we're going to find. My hope is that Congress goes through the information they have and lets the facts lead them where they may, right? Like where we don't say, well, this is – we've decided in advance this is all about Ukraine. So we're just going to stick with that. Let's see what's in there. Let's see if there's information in those files, whatever they are, that is relevant to what we know now, right? That speaks to a broader set of crimes.

what we know now, right, that speaks to a broader set of crimes. And if you find additional crimes, additional peaceful offenses, additional evidence of abuse of power, that that becomes part of this inquiry. Let's just basically let the facts go where they lead us and not try to reverse engineer this from an arbitrary deadline, if you will. Yeah, I mean, it does seem to that there is more educating to do whether or not the balance of impeachment are scoped to Ukraine or become larger based on what we learned. Five thirty eight's aggregate of national polling has support for impeachment at forty nine percent and opposition at forty three percent. But in in key swing states, there have been a bunch of polls that are not as strong. One Wisconsin poll found that forty four percent of voters want Trump impeached and removed,

while 51 percent do not want him impeached and removed. A University of North Florida poll released this week found support for impeachment and removal at 46 percent and an opposition at 48 percent. And The Times also did a survey of six key swing states, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona. It averaged results from across these states. 50% of voters supported an impeachment inquiry, while 45% opposed it. However, only 43% of voters supported impeaching and removing Trump, while 53% opposed it. There is, Dan, in this, you know, first of all, every poll has been phrased a little bit differently. But when you kind of blur your eyes and try to see the big picture, you see a kind of ambivalence around

impeachment. Because obviously, like if you actually think about what it means, I support impeaching him, but not removing him. I support, in other words, voting to send him to a trial for a set of crimes, but not actually convicting him of those crimes. It's a kind of intellectually confusing position, which I think speaks to just a kind of base level discomfort with the stakes of impeachment. Dan, what do you think that suggests Democrats should do? I think it suggests that Democrats should keep doing what they're doing, right? That there is very real support for the inquiry itself. There is understandably apprehension about removing a president from

office a year before an election, nine months before an election. I understand why people are apprehensive about that. It's also, I think, somewhat baked in the cake that people know that that is an incredibly unlikely event, right? All of the coverage of this from the moment it happened in the story that our own Crooked Media Change Research polling has shown, people are following incredibly closely. All the discussion around it is centered on the fact that this is the affixing of a scarlet eye on Trump and not an actual step to remove him from office. And I think the political significance of it in the long run, right? I think there is real political significance to the information people are learning about Trump. There's real political significance to Trump's completely

insane reaction to this process. There is opportunity cost for Trump for spending these months during the middle of the height of the Democratic primary, just lashing out on Twitter like a crazy person, as opposed to trying to raise his numbers up to where his win number would be in battleground states. But ultimately, I don't think it's going to be – whether we did impeachment, whether we didn't do impeachment, I think it's not going to be incredibly – that mere fact is not going to be incredibly politically significant. So Democrats should just keep doing what they're doing. Do not let an arbitrary deadline foreclose this. I think if people saw that Democrats got scared and were like, well, we said we'd get this done by Thanksgiving. We haven't heard from all the witnesses yet.

We don't have all the documents, but we're going to have the vote anyway. I think that would undermine the legitimacy of the probe in the eyes of the independent, less partisan voters who now say they support it. And I think would be very frustrating to grassroots-based Democrats who have long thought this was the right thing to do. So just let the facts go where they may. If this gets us into 2020, so be it. But there's enough support that Democrats should be bold here, I think. One last development. This weekend, we learned there's someone who takes a great deal of personal responsibility for the fact that Donald Trump may face impeachment, and it is a former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, at a summit put on by the Washington Examiner. Kelly described what he said to Trump when he left the White House.

He said, saying, quote, I said, whatever you do, don't hire a yes man, someone who won't tell you the truth. Don't do that, because if you do, I believe you will be impeached. Trump categorically denied Kelly's claims, as did the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grissom, who said Kelly was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president. Now, sadly, after she said that everyone's phones did melt and we no longer have them, which has been sort of a tough, tough thing to get used to. You know, listen, I don't mind when somebody wants to take a shit on Mick Mulvaney. I say have at it. It's part of it's great. But Dan, am I forgetting a kind of Pax Americana when John Kelly was chief of staff and Donald Trump was disciplined and everything was going according to plan. I mean, am I forgetting some golden era under Kelly?

No, you are not, John. I mean, at the risk of offending the civility police, but fuck off, John Kelly. Most of the impeachable offenses that are outlined in the Mueller report happened while John Kelly was chief of staff. Donald Trump praising Nazis happened while John Kelly was chief of staff. The – I mean I'm sure we all remember this very brief moment when John Kelly took over. There were all these stories about how he was going to bring order and process to the White House and control who called Trump and manage the inbox and do the very basic things that you would expect of an office manager at a mid-sized paper company to do. And we treated that like it was some sort of fucking genius. And none of it worked. Trump was just as irresponsible, just as crimey as he is now. It just happened to be that when the whistleblower came forward

was when Mick Mulvaney was chief of staff, who is a terrible chief of staff and seemingly just a real blight on American government. But John Kelly does not get to clean up his reputation this way. Right, the only reason I thought it was worth sharing is I do think

it's not really an insight into the Trump White House. It's an insight into the mindset of someone like John Kelly, who believed himself to be some kind of a savior inside of the White House, even as it was operating so chaotically. This idea that that's the justification he is now offering for the reason he was a participant in this administration, and now I believe sits on the board of a company that's responsible for some of the detention facilities along the border, I think tells you something

important about the kind of people that went into the administration. All right, let's talk 2020. So we've covered some of the fundraising troubles Biden has faced. Late last week, it seemed that Biden's team was breaking with his previous opposition to getting help from super PACs. Biden's deputy campaign manager said he still wants to limit the influence of big money in our politics, but that, quote, nothing changes unless we defeat Donald Trump, end quote. Biden reported the last filing deadline that he had just $9 million in the bank. You know, Dan, you know, besides the obvious reason that he needs something to buttress his fundraising from the outside, are there any other reasons he did this?

I mean, that is the one it is. The extent of Biden's money troubles is dramatically understated. He has a third of the money on hand as Warren and Sanders. He has thus far demonstrated no ability to quickly raise money online. far demonstrated no ability to quickly raise money online. Nine million dollars in the bank in October is not enough money to run the sort of campaign that Biden claims he's going to run, to be able to run. Like Biden's path to the nomination is to do well enough to survive the first four states and then leverage his large national name ID and standing within the party and his, as of yet, tremendous

support from the African-American community to rack up delegates in a long battle for the nomination. He does not have the money to run serious campaigns in two early states, let alone all four plus Super Tuesday and beyond. And so it's a huge problem. So this is his only choice if he wants to remain viable. But it comes with real downside. Right. I mean, one of the one of the issues I mean, nobody's by the way, Joe Biden has spoken to those downsides and speaking to why he was against the help of a super PAC to begin with. It also, you know, one of the downsides is what we're seeing is the candidates that have eschewed Also, you know, one of the downsides is what we're seeing is the candidates that have eschewed big money, Bernie, Warren, have been, you know, two of the most prolific fundraisers.

Joe Biden is now kind of doubling down on bigger money at the expense of smaller dollars, I guess, because it's a concession that they just will not be able to compete for small donors. I also don't understand. I mean, you know, a super PAC coming in and running ads to help Joe Biden, you know, maybe that has value, but doesn't solve the problem of the kind of organization he'll need to do on the ground to rack up the delegates he needs, right? Yeah, it is. It's suboptimal, to say the least. He like there are certain things that super PAC cannot do for you, right? It cannot put organizers on the ground to organize your caucus goers in the same way your campaign can do it. It cannot build the infrastructure and the data and technology that you need to run a real operation to accumulate delegates.

What it can do is do your advertising for you. It can respond to attacks for you. But it's going to lead to new attacks, right? Because Biden has now reversed himself on something that is right in Warren and Sanders' wheelhouse. And I'm sure they're going to make great hay of that as time goes on. We have some experience with this in Obama world. In 2008, under a very different sort of campaign finance world, we said – pre-Citizens United said we did not want any outside groups on our side and did not need them. In the primary, John Edwards was in a very similar situation that Biden is in now where Edwards was unable to raise enough money. He actually was actually forced to take federal matching funds, which was a sign of great weakness at the time.

And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, pops a super PAC funded primarily by one individual, a woman named Bunny Mellon. And the super PAC was run by Nick Baldick, who was Edwards' longtime advisor and former campaign manager on his 04 race. And that was very helpful to Edwards. It got him actually to second in Iowa, and they started bombarding the airwaves. In 2012, because Citizens United had passed and we were staring down the barrel of hundreds of millions of dollars of ads from American Crossroads and the Koch brothers and others, Obama reversed his stance on super PACs and essentially invited them into the race. And Priorities USA was formed and ran ads to help Obama in re-election.

I think in a general election, as long as Citizens United is on the books, there is no option, right? There is just absolutely – you cannot compete financially without it. I think that's an argument for getting rid of Citizens United. I was very pleased in a primary that all the candidates had refused super PACs because there is something particularly problematic in a primary of these individual candidate super PACs. So Biden now has been forced down that path. He's going to have to take some political downside from it in the primary of these individual candidate super PACs. So Biden now has been forced down that path. He's going to have to take some political downside from it in the primary. If he survives, I think it'll be hard for Trump and the Republicans to hit him on it, given the wide array of super PACs they have.

But that won't. Obviously, shame has never been a break on Trump's political attacks in the past. Right. It is a distinction between the general and the primary, because in a primary on Trump's political attacks in the past. Right. It is a distinction between the general and the primary, because in a primary, it's you're you know, you're campaigning against fellow Democrats. And one of the things that super PACs have often done because they are not directly affiliated with the candidate is they've been incredibly negative. In fact, some of the ads that Romney people are angry about to this day are the super PAC ads that were run in the 2012 race

against Mitt Romney. So on Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a rare long form interview with Biden. Also, New York Magazine ran a profile by Olivia Nutsy that I thought was actually very poignant in examining both the strengths and weaknesses that Biden is bringing to the table. In the 60 Minutes interview, Biden spoke about his confidence and his ability to finance his campaign. He talked about Trump's attacks against him. What struck me about it is so much of the coverage about Biden nationally has been around his challenges as a campaign. And yet his support has remained pretty robust, right? The race hasn't moved that much. You know, he announced he was higher, right? You know, whatever, low 40s. He's now, let's say,

high 20s. But that has been relatively stable. In fact, it's been stable despite, you know, people saying that, oh, this Hunter Biden news was going to hurt him. These bad these these mediocre debate performances were going to going to hurt him. And yet the race has been relatively stable. And what you see in that profile, even though I think the Biden campaign was pretty surprisingly critical of it, is you see some of his appeal and why certain people like him and the kind of genial, relatable persona, somebody who's sort of been through a lot in his life. Dan, what were your takeaways from both the kind of the 60 Minutes interview and the profile? I thought the Olivia Nuzzi New York Magazine profile was a phenomenal piece of campaign journalism that really got at the core of

the campaign itself, the Biden campaign specifically, and who Joe Biden is in a way that I thought was nuanced and deep and very fair. And I think it did speak to a thing that, I mean, you're right, that we have sort of forgotten in this discussion about Biden's weaknesses is he is a tremendous retail politician. And that sounds, I don't mean that in the like, you know, shake hands and kiss babies, although he does that very well. It's that Biden has a tremendous ability to connect with people on a very human level. He has this unending well of empathy for humans and this ability to take the tremendous tragedy that he's experienced in his life and use it as a rock of strength for people who have suffered similar tragedy. My office in the West Wing was basically right past where West Wing tours ended, and it was basically in the pathway to Biden's office. So many times I'd be in my

office at night and I would hear Biden running into tourists and hear them crying as they were talking to him about stories about cancer in their lives, about losing a family relative, and Biden consoling them in a way that it's hard to imagine any politician doing. And I think that part of who Biden is has gotten lost in this campaign. And that part of his political strength has gotten lost as to when he is in Iowa, he is campaigning differently than others have. All the critiques about the nature of their campaign or it being too old school or, you know, him making mistakes on the campaign trail are all fair and legitimate. But it is worth understanding also where that reservoir of strength that has been – as you're right, it's been very consistent. Nate Silver points this out all the time.

But Biden is – people have been predicting Biden's demise for a year now. And he has – while others have risen, he has remained quite strong. And that should be noted, particularly in the midst of a closely watched natural national discussion about his son's business ties. And that has not affected him. And I think that is is notable, at least. Yeah, I mean, one of the most critical voices in the New York Magazine profile was actually from, you know, our friend David Axelrod, who worries about the way in which Joe Biden is not out there as much they are, you know, our friend David Axelrod, who worries about the way in which Joe Biden is not out there as much. They are, you know, trying to keep him focused on prepared remarks,

even as he does retail politics. And Axe called it a candidate protection program. But yet, you know, we kind of understand where that's coming from, right? Because famously, Joe Biden is somebody who has made mistakes when he is speaking off the cuff. Dan, we've talked about, I think, the strengths that come through the piece, that come through when you're not talking about the financing and the polling and what have you. If you were inside of the Biden campaign, trying to kind of highlight those strengths, what would be your advice now? Other than immediately putting them on Pod Save America? Yeah, that goes without saying.

I think that's not advice. That's just a no-brainer. I think they got to let loose a little bit. I am incredibly sympathetic to some of the instincts of his campaign staff. It's very easy when you're a front runner to play prevent defense. I don't think they have that option because we can talk about Biden's strength right now that he has lasted longer in a stronger position than I think most political pundit types ourselves included in some cases predicted. But an Axelrod points this out in the piece, his path to the nomination is incredibly precarious, right? Part of his strength is on electability and winning. And he is currently in real risk of losing three of the first four

states. And the question is, what happens to someone who is succeeding with this patina of electability if you start losing races? campaign in an aggressive way and allay the concerns that some have, as some of these voters and very dialed in caucus goers, others have about his ability to stand on stage with Trump, his ability to navigate an incredibly tough campaign, a very complicated media environment. If you don't allay those concerns, you're not going to succeed. So you got to get out there and do it, even if there is risk. Yeah, and I do. It's actually, I think, an especially tough challenge for Joe Biden specifically, because, you know, we've just talked about it, right? The strengths of, I think the strengths of his candidate, you know, the strength of his argument is around electability. But the strength of him as a candidate, right, is that kind of human connection he has with people. And I do think it's about a candidacy rooted in understanding

loss, understanding pain, and being able to relate to people who have experienced pain. And a lot of people have, whether it's people that have experienced losses in their families, the way that Joe Biden has, or people who have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost whatever. And the fact that so much of, I think, what makes him someone appealing is not something you're going to be able to say in a some speech. It's deeper than that. It would be vulgar. It is an emergent quality of him as a man that comes through not through talking points or policies, but through something deeper. And so I think it's an especially difficult challenge. They have to get him out there because getting out there, despite the mistakes and the

gaffes, is where you see that special thing that makes him somebody people might want to make president. But you can't script it because it's not a policy. It's not a plan. That's not what's driving his support. In the sort of the conversation around being overly protective of Biden, I think there is one opportunity that speaks to just the incredible level of caution they're doing, and it's not Pots of America. It's these interviews around healthcare that Adi Barkin's been having with all the candidates. Obviously, Adi and Joe Biden disagree on Medicare for all. But I can't imagine a politician who would have a better opportunity to have a conversation about this, to talk about sacrifice and tragedy and what people go through than Joe Biden. And the fact that he has – that his campaign has not yet let him do that I think bespeaks the larger problem here.

I totally agree. It makes me sad to think that they're not putting him in that conversation, because I do think you're right. The strengths of who he is as a person are what would shine in that kind of a moment, even if they disagree on the policy. I mean, even, you know, even just reading about, you know, Biden going back to his to the house he grew up in, you know, I like I've been incredibly critical of Joe Biden. I've been incredibly critical of his campaign. I've been incredibly critical of the debate performances he's had. But I have a well of sympathy and love for Joe Biden because I do believe he is someone who has sort of been through such tremendous pain and come out as somebody with empathy. And if and if and if they're afraid to put him in a position to demonstrate that the key moments where that could be could be revealed and shown to people. for him other than, you know, this kind of slow and steady kind of stuff, you know,

kind of not a decline, but not a not growth, just sort of a kind of stasis. I feel like I know Joe Biden pretty well, having grown up in Delaware and worked in the White House with him for six years. And I just know that if he knew that Adi Bark had wanted to talk to him and that he would do it in two seconds, my guess is that request has not gotten to the candidate yet. Well, you know, hopefully we'll see that conversation. When we come back, I'm going to sit down with Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick, the new host of What a Day, to kind of go through this Katie Hill story and her decision to resign, as well as the controversy around it. We'll be right back. Congresswoman Katie Hill of California's 25th District announced her resignation from Congress this weekend after a tumultuous week in which she faced revenge porn, allegations of inappropriate relationships with staffers, and ethics inquiry, as well as questions as to whether she'd be facing this level of pressure.

Were she a man and were she not bisexual? Here to help us understand this story are Gideon Resnick and Akilah Hughes, the hosts of Crooked's brand new daily news podcast, What a Day. Gideon, let me start with you. What the fuck is going on? Brand new daily news podcast. What a day. Gideon, let me start with you. What the fuck is going on? Yeah, this is probably the messiest story of this variety that we've maybe ever seen in Congress. Because you have a lot of questions about Hill and whether, you know, first off, the relationship that she was alleged to have had is even appropriate because the person involved is a staffer, an underling. So she now is kind

of the beneficiary of the first time when these new rules that have been instituted in Congress after Me Too and after, you know, hordes of creepy men had to retire in 2017 and 18. She's sort of the first person to receive the repercussions of that. And the rule is strictly that, you know, you cannot have relationships with people that are on your staff that work below you. And yet at the same time, she's also facing these really terrible, you know, publication of private images, all these issues around that these, you know, like nude photographs that were put in conservative publications. So people are trying to sift through here a little know, like nude photographs that were put in conservative publications. So people

are trying to sift through here a little bit, like the actions that she did, which she, you know, took accountability for, said she was sorry for, and also the really terrible actions that are kind of coming from the outside at the same time. Right. Terrible and illegal, right? It is illegal to use private photos. Revenge porn is illegal in California. Akilah, you know, when I saw the letter from Katie Hill, I know she put out a video today as well. It was very sad because Katie Hill is somebody that, you know, I canvassed for Katie Hill. I think a lot of people here did in California. She was one of the people who helped take back a district that helped us win the house. What did you think? I mean, it's all just really unfortunate. I think that, you know, Gideon is right. There are a lot

of moving pieces in this. But at the end of the day, you know, people shouldn't be, I don't know, I guess, condemned publicly for taking photos. And I think that that might be the bigger reason why she's resigning, just because of the public pressure from that. And, you know, there's a lot of sort of slut shaming and whatever else. And so it's I think it's disappointing because she has a lot of promise, but also because, you know, we live in a society that is on the Internet and these things can get out. And so I think that we're maybe seeing the beginning of a new era of politicians who just have to not exist online at all, which is kind of sad. Or we grow and come to understand that, yeah, that people that are going to be surrounded by smartphones their whole lives, I don't even consider myself in that generation. I didn't have smartphones when I was in college because just made it out.

But it does seem like this story combines a few things, and it's worth, I think, stopping on each of them. One is matters of consent, and I don't believe there have been any allegations that these relationships were coercive. Not at all. But then there are others pointing out that, well, wait a second, even if these are consensual relationships, there are thorny issues when a member of Congress or a candidate for Congress has a relationship with a subordinate because that leads to questions around favoritism. And it also leads to questions around what happens when that relationship ends. I think we're sort of figuring out some of these harder issues. Gideon, what do you think? Yeah, I think that's the big takeaway from this.

Besides, obviously, you know, the fact that I think people can, by and large, condemn the publication of those images as being horrendous and potentially from, you know, like Hill was saying, actions from a vindictive husband with whom she's having a divorce. I think Hill herself and others have acknowledged that having that sort of relationship with a subordinate is not good. But I think it's up for other people to decide, you know, if that reaches the threshold of needing to resign from Congress. Yeah, I mean, Akilah, you know, I think this is a sad story for a lot of reasons. And there are important political implications for this specific story. But I also think we're kind of grappling with something that is important, because I do

think I've seen people try to have these sort of two competing ideas in their mind at once, which is, on the one hand, wait, there is something inherently concerning about a relationship between a boss and their employee. That is a problem. And then I've also seen a lot of people kind of openly wondering, well, hold on a second, don't people meet at work, right? I mean, I think we're sort of grappling with in the wake of Me Too. And as we sort of uncovered some of the more ugly and sinister parts of our culture, I think we're also grappling with some of these

sort of now the more delicate questions. Yeah. I mean, I think the important thing to remember is that these are two consenting adults. And so while there are these very long standing sort of standards for who gets to date who in an office situation at all, it does seem a little archaic because, I mean, how else do you meet people? I honestly don't know. Not that I'm dating anyone here, but I'm just saying, like, I think that if neither of them have a problem, you know, if there's favoritism, that's something you can address. And if it affects the rest of the staff, that's something that can be addressed. But I tend to believe that it's really, it's just something that as much as society has progressed, we have really like just stayed in the fifties on this issue.

Like, don't date your secretary. I'm like, well, that's not what's happening here. I mean, Gideon, now that Katie Hill's resigning, there's a big question about what's gonna happen with this seat. It's a swing district. It was one of the most important pickups in 2018. What's happening now? And what's next for Democrats hopes of keeping the 25th district? Yeah, I think that Democrats are actually kind of happy with the movement that it's that that district is gone. You know district has gone. It was a Hillary district in 16. And then obviously, the incumbent Republican was defeated pretty sizably, I think, in 18 by Katie Hill. I've seen that Steve Knight, the Republican incumbent who was there before, is actually going to run again. And then a local assemblywoman, Christy Smith, is also going to formally enter the race. So I think that the initial impression is that they're

hopeful. You know, the difficult part is that it's a special election, though. So like if it's happening, you know, like January 25th, I'm just making that date up arbitrarily. You start to you start to end up having a little bit more wildcard situation because, you know, lower turnout, maybe people aren't paying that much attention to it. People are going to vote their ass off. Yes, yes, exactly. But no, I think that I think Democrats, by and large, you know, still consider it a swing district.

But at the same time, the trend line is kind of there for Democrats to likely keep it if, you know, they get a good candidate and they run a good race. Now on to our own news. Yeah. The first ever. That's terrible. How do you transition out of this horrible story? That's all you should say.

Let's leave that in. Whatever. The first ever What A Day pod went out to listeners this morning. This is the new daily news podcast from Crooked Media. What are listeners going to find when they download it? And what are they going to be able to expect each and every weekday morning? I mean, just a fire podcast. It's great. It's short. It's to the point. You'll be informed on your way to work. I've heard a lot of great feedback today that it wasn't like a bummer. The first episode was fantastic.

Thank you so much. Right out of the box. We were here until very late because we were so nervous. And it's actually really excellent. But I think if you're interested in daily news but also don't want it to be like, I don't know, happening all day at you, this is a good way to just stay informed without going insane. Yeah, it's like not being overwhelmed but at the same time being able to go up to somebody and say like, well, I know who Baghdadi is because of XYZ. That's the goal. Every day,

talk about Baghdadi in some respect. Every single day is what he'll cover. Right, right. Still dead. Still dead. Gideon, Akilah,

thank you guys so much for being here. Go subscribe to What A Day right now. Do it. Do it. Do it. All right, Dan. You're the She-Ra to my He-Man.

I was going to go, like, every time we do this, I Google best crossover episodes, and you find a lot of fake crossovers where they take, like, a show that was off the air and they bring it back,

like when Alf went to Gilligan's Island. But I think the best one I found thus far is the crossover episode between the fresh prince of bel-air and blossom uh so am i the i'll be the mayan biolic uh to your will smith i'll take it you're carlton i'm carlton fine fine i'll wear a sweater vest i don't give a shit uh all right dan talk to you later. All right, bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez.

Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week. Thank you.