Pod Save America - “We can win this fight.”

Episode Date: June 20, 2017

As McConnell moves toward a vote on the secret GOP health care bill, Lovett and Tommy are joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to talk about the Democratic strategy to defeat Trumpcare and what each of us can do to help. Plus, mounting tension between the US and Russia over Syria, the demise of the White House press briefing, and declining transparency across our government.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Jon Favreau's on his honeymoon. Yeah, he's out here. But who needs him? Joining us on the pod today, we have Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Looking forward to talking to him about this health care bill, Democratic senators' plans to slow it down or put the kibosh on the thing. And by looking forward to it, Jon means we just talking to him about this healthcare bill democratic senator's plans to uh

slow it down or put the kibosh on the thing and by looking forward to john means we just talked to him i actually feel better having talked to him so you want to stick around and listen to the interview yeah i'm excited for you guys to hear what he said um so we have a a new pod save the people is out today with de ray he actually talks to andy slavitt who kind of walks through the details of where we're at on health care. So give that a listen. Tommy, Pod Save the World this week. Who do we have? We have a woman named Liz Sherwood Randall, who had a number of positions in the Obama administration.

She was the deputy secretary of energy. She ran defense and WMD policy at the NSC and ran Europe. So we talked about a whole range of issues. She's brilliant. Check it out. And last but not least, it is election day. If you were listening to this on Tuesday in Georgia and South Carolina, Georgia's sixth, John Ossoff, South Carolina's fifth district, Archie Parnell. You know, we have a shot in both. Both these are really, really tough races,

but we've got a shot. So if you're there and you're listening, do what you can. If you're listening to this on Wednesday, you already know what happened. Yeah, get out and vote. Tell your friends who may live in those districts to get out and vote. Do everything you can. So this is a special Tuesday edition of Pod Save America because Tommy and I were on our way back from John's wedding in Maine and we thought to ourselves, no thank you Monday morning. No thank you Pod Save America Monday morning.

Yeah, it was a great wedding though. Let's make this part of the conversation about the wedding about us. Lovett and I both gave toasts. I'd say they were well-received. Tommy, what a toast. What a toast you gave. What a toast you gave. Fantastic.

We played some music. It was great. It was a beautiful wedding. Thank you to the Favros, the Black family. Emily was a beautiful bride. Stunning. We had a great time. I don't know what to say.

We had an awesome time at John's wedding. Truly, truly fun wedding and just great people. And that's it. We're excited for our guy. He's married. He's all girt up. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see him in a week or two. Anyway, let's get into it. So obviously this week is all about healthcare. Next week is all about healthcare too. There's been a lot of talk about how we should walk and chew gum at the same time. We've got to be able to talk about Russia and all of the various scandals happening with the Trump

administration while also dealing with healthcare. I think this is not a moment for that. There's no more walking and chewing gum. It's healthcare. It's healthcare all the time. It's really what we should be focusing on. Axios has reported that McConnell wants a vote by July 4th. And there's some speculation in that piece that he's going to bring this thing up for a vote, whether he has the 50 in the Senate that he needs or not. He either wants this to pass or he wants this off his plate. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that we will get the bill text for a bill that will affect the lives of basically every American and will revamp a sixth of the economy at the end of this week. CBO score early next week and a vote as soon as Thursday of next week, which is stunning. Bananas. Absolutely outrageous. and a vote as soon as Thursday of next week, which is bananas.

Absolutely outrageous. Now, we don't know much about what is in the bill, or at least how the bill differs from the House bill, and the details are super important, pre-existing conditions, lifetime limits. I mean, these are things that are life or death for people. But Jeffrey Young in the Huffington Post wrote a really smart piece about this, which is, there's one thing we still know, regardless of the machinations going on right now, this is still going to be a massive tax cut for the rich paid for by cutting and eliminating health benefits for tens of millions of Americans. It's why Senate Republicans are having such a tough time explaining this.

I call the bill wealth care. That's a term that I came up with. And remember that that gigantic tax cut is why Paul Ryan sat on stage and talked about how he's been dreaming about slashing Medicare and Medicaid spending since he was drinking beers out of a keg. It's because he is paying back his big donors by cutting taxes for the richest people in the country. That is the reason. So, Tommy, you know, we have this secret process and we have what is very likely to be a terrible bill. This is something we talked about with Senator Schumer, which you'll hear in a bit. But should we be focusing on the process or should we be talking exclusively about how

this bill will hurt people? Yeah. And it's interesting to hear that he was torn on this, too. I think that Democrats need to take steps, do things to highlight how messed up this process actually is, because it is unprecedented. It is historic. It is the most one of the most cynical things Mitch McConnell has ever done. No committee hearings, no debate. People literally Republican senators who are normally charged with being chairs of the committees that draft the bill like Orrin Hatch have no idea what's in it. It is astounding. But I think what we need to do is talk about the process as a way to create news and get reporters to focus on it, because this strategy of drafting this thing behind closed doors has been effective and there's not much being written or talked about

about the bill. So, you know, I think we use this process point to sort of get people to cover this and pay attention, but then we have to really talk about the impact of the bill and how much it will hurt people because it is brutal. Yeah. I mean, you look at West Virginia. Senator Capito is one of the people that we could target a Republican who's vulnerable and she's vulnerable for a specific reason. And it's a reason why Manchin, who's our most conservative Democrat, has never wavered on opposing this bill, because whatever the kind of BS on the process of what actually is going to happen to Medicaid expansion, maybe they'll delay the cuts by two or three years. It's irrelevant because ultimately you're talking about Medicaid expansion and Medicaid, which West Virginia relies on heavily, especially because, you know, we've had this whole national conversation about the opioid epidemic. Well,

you know, people get treatment for those kinds of things. They get it through Medicaid. So I do think when it comes to people like Capito in West Virginia talking about what this will actually do to her state at the very least will shame her into having to explain why on earth she'd support this terrible bill. Yeah. And if you're if you're if you're disabled and you you need a lot of help living your life on your own, this is going to be devastating for you. Also, on this process point, I mean, these arguments are tough to make. But you know, part of this process argument is what sunk Hillary Clinton's efforts back in the day to revise health care. And you also, you know, it's fun going through Donald Trump's old tweets and finding things that directly contradict what he's doing or saying now. This is an instance

where you can do with almost every senator. John Cornyn in 2010 tweeted that people have a right to know what is happening behind closed doors with secret health care negotiations he said hc so all of them are out there with these unbelievably cynical hypocritical quotes and throwing them in their faces as a useful exercise yeah john cornyn mike pence i mean look they these people all went on record during the obamacare debate in 2009 which i'd remind you lasted more than a year, involved hundreds of hours, dozens and dozens of days of floor debate, amendments from Democrats and Republicans, and then they called it a secret process, a backroom deal, etc., etc., etc. Everything

that they said about Obamacare was untrue. Everything that they said about Obamacare is 100% true about this bill. You know, you've seen some Republicans express their dismay about this process. I don't know if you... It's pathetic. One thing that was interesting that I saw yesterday was Dean Heller of Nevada got a legitimate opponent. Politico reported that Representative Jackie Rosen plans to run against him. So that means he may be particularly susceptible to pressure because he's quite possibly the most vulnerable senator up in 2018. He a poll release on Monday

said he's at just 39% of the vote if you're held against a generic Democrat. And you know, if you're going to vote again for Trump care, which polled at 17%, at least the House version of the bill, that's probably not a good electoral strategy. So that's the kind of person we should be pressuring every single day. Yeah, so you have people like Heller in Nevada, Flake in Arizona, you have Murkowski in Alaska, you have Collins in Maine, and you have Capito in West Virginia. Those are the probably the most important targets, but there are 10 Republicans who are vulnerable on this. So, Tommy, we are partnering with Indivisible, a group that we love working with. They're excellent. You can go to trumpcare10.org slash crooked. That's

trumpcare10.org slash crooked. Really hope you do this. Look, I know we are pushing a lot of websites, pushing a lot of things that you can do. All right. You know, but sincerely, you know, I have to say, I think this is maybe the single most important moment in the first hundred and fifty days of the Trump administration. You know, they said they wanted to pass this thing on as though this is some inevitable outcome, that this will pass during reconciliation, get thrown to the House, get passed, and then it's law. But that is just not true. You know, this thing can be stopped. It's going to be really hard. But basically, if you go to TrumpCare10.org, TrumpCare10.org slash crooked, you will see a lovely video from Tommy and I calling our senator. Yeah, we should we want to practice what we preach here. Whenever we ask you guys to do something. We live in California, which you may have noticed is not a swing state. But we called Senator Kamala Harris's office yesterday to ask her to please do everything she can to block this bill. And we also talked to a lovely woman named Jackie and Senator Feinstein's office who was diligent and taking down our views and told us how they get run up the chain to the senator and really appreciated talking to her because one of the things that Senator Schumer talked about and that Democrats are doing is grinding Senate business to a halt to try to slow this bill down

in the hopes that some more scrutiny, some more time to figure out what's in this thing, to get a CBO score, and to talk about how much this is going to hurt tens of millions of people across the country might be what it takes to sink the bill. So if you live in a blue state, call your senators and say, please do everything in your power to gum up the works in the Senate to slow down this bill. What McConnell is doing is absolutely unprecedented, and we need to do a response that is commensurate with what he is doing. But especially if you live in one of the states where you are represented by a vulnerable Senate Republican, you can really make a difference. So go to that website and make a call. There's also email addresses there for key staff members that you can reach out to. So there's a lot you can do. So we hope you'll do that. You know, this really is make or break. You know, I was thinking of a sports analogy, Tommy. Which is that McConnell thinks the only way that he can win this game is to turn the lights off in the stadium. And I'm gonna get earnest for a second. We all have flashlights

in our pocket and we have to do something. You know, it's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking and soul crushing that this may work. And by the way, you know, look, there's nothing more important than what this bill will do to the lives of basically everyone in this country. But if this thing passes this way, it will fundamentally change the way laws are made in this country. It will be a lesson that people will have learned that you can pass things in the dark and it's dangerous and scary and the damage will be incalculable. So do what you can right now. Do what you can. This bill is being written by 13 men behind closed doors. And I was thinking of a biblical analogy.

Oh, another analogy. Yeah, the last time 13 men got together over lunch, someone very special to us got whacked. I don't think that's good. I'm not very religious. Does that work? Tommy, I have to tell you, given the fact that I was raised in a Reformed Jewish faith,

my experience with the Bible ends before yours. So, you know, we're just going to put a pin in that. We'll come back to it later. Cool, cool, cool. Look, it's important to laugh. Yeah, it is. That's all we got. I feel like if John were here, he'd be moving us home.

Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, so, Tommy. Yes. Meanwhile, there's been a lot going on on foreign policy, and it's barely registering. You know, we have to focus on health care, but meanwhile, there's a lot of important decisions that are being made. Can you walk us through some of what's been happening in the past few days? You know, I want to reiterate your point that I do think it's fun to talk about the Russia investigation.

It feels like an unsolved mystery, but you're right. We should focus everything we're doing on health care. But I do just want to talk about some of the things that are happening because it is really significant stuff. So over the weekend, an American F-18 Hornet shot down a Syrian government plane. American backed fighters had come under attack from pro-Syrian forces. On Monday, the Russians then condemned that act and threatened to target U.S. aircraft and allies aircraft over Syria. And they suspended the use of a military hotline that we've used to avoid collisions in Syrian airspace. And so friend of the pod, former Biden National Security Advisor

Colin Kahl had a smart tweet storm over the weekend where he talked about the escalation. I'm sorry, who? Colin Kahl, friend of the pod. And he talked about the fact that in recent weeks, we fired 59 Tomahawk missiles in retaliation for Assad's chemical weapons use. We've bombed Iranian-backed militias three times. We've shot down an Iranian-made drone. Now we down this jet. And it's just when Democrats were concerned about the initial response to chemical weapons,

it was this sort of escalation, this slippery slope that could occur. And it's going to get more complicated because we're moving it to Eastern Syria where the regime cares more about the territory being taken. So just to step back for a second, because I don't fully understand.

There's this incredibly complicated relationships at stake here, at a play here. So what is the circumstances where, so we're engaging with Syrians that are represented by the Russians. Can you just take a step back and just give us like the 10 second version of what is happening between the US and Russia in Syria? Sure. I mean, you know, Russia is all in and backing Assad and his forces. And we are part of a coalition that's trying to take out ISIS. And in the in the process of that happening, there's a lot of proxy fighters and things get mixed up Iran's in there, the IRGC, which is their military force Hezbollah is there. And so what happened in this specific instance is

the US had airlift a bunch of forces into an area that were then bombed by is there. And so what happened in this specific instance is the U.S. had airlift a bunch of forces into an area that were then bombed by the Russians. And so the coalition led by the U.S. said that we reserve the right to defend the people we're working to support. There may be American trainers in that area. We don't know, but it's just like this is a momentous thing. And we are creeping closer to I don't think people get how deeply involved we are in Syria and the escalating risk of an actual conflict with Russia. And it's just something we should be aware of. I think this morning there was reports about some sort of near collision between U.S. and Russian planes. Like, it's happening every single day, and we're sort of just mindlessly walking towards some kind of confrontation.

And we're trying to deconflict that airspace through this hotline between the U.S. and Russia, which is a phone call from one base to another. And apparently an unsecured Gmail account is the backup, which seems like a best practice we might want to avoid. Well, you know what? Who cares? The only person that would hack it is the people that we're talking to. So it's fine. There you go. But, you know, it's funny.

It's like this is significant militarily, policy-wise, but also a broken promise. Another one is, you know, recently, last week, Trump gave Secretary Mattis the authority to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. In practice, this means we'll probably be sending thousands of more troops to Afghanistan. And that's something he ran against. But he's also given Mattis the authority to increase troop levels in Iraq and Syria and change the rules for counterterrorism. You know, there's no debate about this.

There's no conversation. There's no accountability. It's particularly shocking because not only are we not debating these incredibly important foreign policies, Donald Trump is systematically outsourcing his responsibilities, right? It is the president's decision whether or not to escalate in Afghanistan or not. And by the way, you see this also on things like the debt limit where the president's saying, actually, we want Congress to take care of it. We're not necessarily going to get that involved. It's really strange. You have this sort of vaguely fascistic authoritarian tendency on the part of Donald Trump, who just, you know, shoots off the hip, doesn't seem to respect the rule of law. But at the same time, they seem very afraid of exercising their power because they don't seem

to have the apparatus in place. You know, Doug Lute, who you worked with, wrote a piece this morning in Politico about how worried he is about the lack of preparation for a national security crisis. There's no preparation for crisis. And there's no Trump promised a ISIS strategy, a counter ISIS strategy in 30 days. I don't think we've seen that. He promised a revised strategy for Afghanistan. We haven't seen that. But we're sending more troops. We currently have 9800 American troops in Afghanistan. When Obama took office, we dramatically rammed up our presence there from 30,000 to 100,000 in 2011. And so, you know, a few thousand more doesn't sound like a big number, but, you know, I think it's significant. I think people can disagree on the policy, but I don't think a few thousand more

troops is going to make a big difference. And we're not being honest about what may be needed there or what we're doing. And once again, we are not, we're not addressing the fact that America continues to be in its longest war without end, without policy, without goals. Without, yeah. And the last thing that I'll just sort of mention is that, you know, there was a pretty significant change to the Obama's policies towards Cuba. And we're sort of closing off Cuba once again. And it seems like the only reason he did it is because maybe Marco Rubio talked him into it, or because he just wanted to, you know, criticize another deal made by Obama. But this is going to hurt people on the ground. It's going to, you know, set back this effort, which actually, frankly, opened up our ability

to have better relations with all of Latin America. And not only is it sort of, it's a bad decision on policy grounds. The Cuba policy, opening Cuba, that was something that was carefully, delicately negotiated and worked on for years. And these people are undoing it with barely a thought. Barely a thought. Cool. That's all I got on foreign policy.

So anyway. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. Before we get to Senator Schumer, one more topic worth covering is what McConnell's been doing in the Senate is part of a larger story about a lack of transparency among Republicans, both on Capitol Hill and in the administration. Philip Rucker and Ed O'Keefe in the Washington Post wrote a great piece under the headline, In Trump's Washington, Public Business Increasingly Handled Behind Closed Doors. It's really worth reading, but they kind of tick off the ways in which we're seeing a lack of transparency and a lot of secrecy

in this administration, not only obviously the Senate bill, which we're seeing a lack of transparency and a lot of secrecy in this administration, not only obviously the Senate bill, which we talked about, but what they point out is that numerous agencies of the Trump administration have stonewalled friendly Republicans in Congress by declining to share internal documents on sensitive matters. Trump is still forbidding the release of his tax returns, obviously. His mediates have started banning cameras and otherwise routine news briefings. And Trump even refuses to acknowledge to the public that he plays golf. So we see someone's Instagram every time.

Well, what's really funny about it is his schedule says he has meetings near his golf course, but the meetings always get canceled when it rains. Yeah, you see this pear-shaped man in a MAGA hat out there on the golf course. We know it's you, Donald. Jason Chaffetz, who obviously we love uh no but so Jason Chaffetz who didn't discover uh his sense of duty until after he decided to leave Congress cared so much that he quit right he said I see a bureaucracy that doesn't want documents and the truth out the door and just flipping the middle finger at Congress you know what Jason Chaffetz I do not understand why you had to resign to tell

the truth you should really think about that man You should think about what's wrong with you, that you couldn't tell the truth until you weren't afraid of reelection. Anyway, Tommy, Jim Acosta of CNN went on a pretty great tirade about how the briefings have basically become pointless. You sat outside the briefing room. Did you ever see anything like this, briefings where you weren't allowed to record audio or video? No, this is a hobby horse of mine, because on Monday, Sean Spicer held a briefing where reporters weren't allowed to record audio or video, as Lovitch has said. Sometimes you'd have background briefings with experts that were that were not quotable or not for broadcast in addition to the normal press briefing. But this is instead of and this is on top of the fact that

Spicer routinely lies at briefings. He refuses to get answers to basic questions. Trump hasn't held a real press conference since February. He does these smaller Q&As occasionally with foreign leaders, but he gives one question to like Infowars.net from Skype. To Burst Certificate Weekly. Yeah. So they are systematically dismantling the daily press briefing, which is a very important event to put them on the record constantly about things that are happening. And the White House Correspondents Association, which is the group of reporters who are charged with pushing for access and fighting for the press corps, has been feckless and pathetic in front in their response. And so Jim Acosta made the point that why are they even covering these events if they're being lied to if they can't record it? These guys need to band together and skip these briefings or do something because it's going to be gone soon

So what do you think the White House Correspondents Association should be doing? Do they need a change of leadership? I mean, what are you hoping that these that the association would do? I mean, I think that one of the big challenges with the press corps and Bannon and Spicer and Trump know this is they're competitive. So encouraging collective action among them is very difficult, especially when you have like right wing outlets that are more propaganda. But I do believe that they should refuse to attend these briefings. They should refuse to abide by these baseless ground rules and record the thing and put it on the record because we know when they try to ask spicer or sarah huckabee sanders about why there are changes to the briefings they don't respond and when someone asked steve bannon he wrote back in a text message uh that they changed the briefing schedule because quote sean got fatter which i think we all can agree is a very

funny joke it's really funny but i mean it speaks to the fact that they treat this like a joke and they think reporters are a joke that they can manipulate and lie to yeah yeah they do tommy and like listen you know it's hard go go go the the press corps and democrats have done this and republicans have done this we've we've attacked the media for so long that their approval ratings in the shitter and they've done a bad job and messed up a lot of things but they're great reporters out there and like but they are the tip of the spear They're in the most important conduit for us getting information and understanding what's happening. The efforts to lock down and close these guys out is going to harm us in the long run. You know, I've, I've said this before that, like, there's been this

conversation about whether the briefing has value when you know that Sean Spicer basically refuses to get answers to questions. So he's constantly asked, does the president think this? Well, I don't know the answer. I haven't talked to him about it. Does he believe in climate change? I haven't asked that for months. You know, you see this thing where she's like, I haven't talked to the president about it. And then the questioner is like, well, will you? And he's like, I'll see what I can do. And then he never follows up. But having a White House briefing on camera where a spokesman either spokesperson either lies, refuses to to answer elides the question what have you i think is really really important and i don't understand what it takes for the white

house correspondence association to step up but uh come on guys yeah enough of your sternly worded not even that sternly worded letters right like let's do something let's band together enough sternly worded letters trump is president letters don't work anymore he doesn't read them yeah gifs memes credit to jim acosta though because cnn is one of the networks that's been kicked around and shit on by this administration more than anyone and no one has no one has gotten his back yeah it's colleague it's this fascinating moment where we both have this right-wing propaganda with sean hity and Infowars sort of rising to the fore. But at the same time, it really is a golden age of journalism.

We've seen incredible investigative reporting in The Washington Post and The New York Times and other outlets. And we have seen incredible, tough reporting on cable news, which has been one of the great surprises of the first 150 days of this administration. But at the same time, you know, these guys need to figure out a way to work together because this is unprecedented. And I think and I think the good news is I think that the journalists at least understand. Yeah, I hope so. And I hope they get to a point where they take understanding into action. But it is it's amazing when you watch the Sunday shows and Trump's personal lawyer is on TV and he is trying to spin that Trump saying he's under investigation means he's not. It's just we are in this bizarro world of lies.

Yeah, we as a matter of discipline and to practice what we preach, we did not talk about the latest Russia nonsense, which was Trump's lawyer on the Sunday shows. But I'll say one thing, which is to I'll leave it here. But I'll say one thing, which is I'll leave it here. It is worth watching the Chris Wallace interview with Donald Trump's lawyer on the Sunday shows because Chris Wallace didn't take any guff. He works for a propaganda outlet. He is the lipstick on a pig. But we can get to that later. In this in this moment, he did an incredibly good job of holding that lawyer's feet to the fire. It was a weird, pathetic, deeply uncomfortable uncomfortable interview and you should give it a watch yeah i love when people start uh their responses to tough questions allow me to be clear and then their response is not remotely clear yeah it's like i have to say one thing word salad allow me to be clear purple crayon red blue computer block i want to be very clear with you chris uh the sky is filled with unicorns. I am made of jello. I have to go. And with that, we will leave it there.

When we come back, the Senate minority leader and the senior senator from the great state of New York, my home state, Senator Chuck Schumer. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. more great show coming your way. Joining us on the pod, we have Senate Minority Leader and the senior senator from my home state of New York, Senator Chuck Schumer. Welcome to the show. Great to be on. Now, where are you from, John? I grew up in Woodbury, Syosset. Which high school?

I went to Syosset High School. Syosset, oh, very good. Yeah, home of, there's been, you know, three celebs, me, and then to a lesser extent, Judd Apatow and Natalie Portman. Oh, that's right. Well, let me tell you. I dated a girl who went to Syosset High School, and I would drive my Plymouth Duster on the LIE out to visit her. Exit 41. Get off at South, we had exit 43. She had a great New York accent. That's right, that's right, that's right. So let's get into it, obviously. You've got a lot on your plate. Can I just say one more thing here?

Please. is that my son-in-law and daughter, who both worked for Obama and in fact met and got married there, and they love your show, and they said, Dad, how come you're not going on their show? Of course I'll go on. Well, we appreciate that. We love them. We love them for... We have just one more little...

We have Schumer marriages. Do you know what those are? I do not. Okay, it's two people, didn't know each other. They met on our staff, and they got married. We have 15 Schumer marriages, including Mike Lynch, my chief of staff. Wow. Jerry Petrella, who runs our whole issues operation, and Megan Tyra, who's our legislative director, just got married in Hawaii last week, 15th one. There are eight Schumer children.

I hasten to add those are byproducts of the Schumer marriages. So I call my daughter and son-in-law an Obama marriage. There might be many more of those. That's lovely. You should figure out what's in the holiday party punch. Well, the good spin on it is we're the closest-knit staff on the Hill. The bad spin on it is they work so hard they never have a chance to meet anybody else. Well, double-edged sword. So let's start with the substance. Do you have any details on the GOP bill, on the McConnell bill?

Do you have any sense of how it differs from the House Pass bill? We do not know anything about it. Here's the great irony. Most of the Republican senators do not know the answer to that question hardly surprisingly the president does not know the answer that question it's being done by thirteen men in a room and uh... there are rumors here are some of the rumors the rumors are for instance that because there's an outcry from some of the senators from the states that extended, that got the extra Medicaid, that they're going to have to, they were going to cut that off in the House bill by 2020. They'll have to do it by 2025. But what the good Republicans giveth, they taketh away. So now to do that, they would cut Medicaid even deeper.

And that's what some of the hard right people are asking. There's some talk that they will allow pre-existing conditions to be covered, but only by these high risk pools. And most of the states that have done them, they've been an abysmal failure. In other words, you pay more, you get less, and you have to wait forever, often when it's too late, to get covered by one of these assigned risk pools. So we don't know. There's a great deal of debate whether they will allow Planned Parenthood to do all the great work it does on women's health or whether they will cut it.

We don't know. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, two Republican senators, have spoken out very strongly that it must include it. They've almost, but not quite, said if it doesn't have it, they won't vote for the bill. But as you know, we just went over three Republican votes because we've had great Democratic unity. We can win this fight and kill this bad Trump care. Yeah, I mean, there's been one other rumor, too, which is that they can leave the pre-existing conditions in but bring back lifetime and yearly caps, too. Which, again, they're under such heat because so many people have done such a good job.

I have to tell you guys, I have never seen sort of normally very non-political, if you will, state groups like the AMA and AARP gone so strongly against the bill because they know how bad it would be for America and for their constituents. And so what they've tried to do here, because of all the pressure, is make it seem like they're doing something, but then take it away. So just as you said, if you have a lifetime cap, what good is the benefit you're getting? Because you won't have the money, you won't get the insurance to pay for 90% of your illness. Senator, you've spoken out a lot about how outrageous and unprecedented this process is

and the way this bill is being written behind the scenes. And Democrats have started using procedural means to try to slow down that process and get the bill some more scrutiny. Can you talk about what you're doing? And are you guys considering a filibuster by amendment? Okay, so let me answer the whole thing. First, what we've done so far, last night, we took to the floor till midnight, and about 20 of us asked consent to send the bill to committee, which is what should happen. To have no committee hearings is just an outrage. To have no amendments is just an outrage. And they say, well, Obamacare, that's how that was done. Bull. Let me give you some statistics. When Obamacare came up, 50 hearings in the Senate Finance Committee, I was on it. I participated. Eight days marking up the legislation,

130 amendments were considered. Two dozen Republican amendments accepted. Then you go to the HELP Committee. The HELP, it's called HELP, but it's the HELP Committee, for your listeners' benefit. 47 hearings, 13-day markup, 160 Republican amendments. Then you go to the floor, 25 days. So there was an open process. And as you guys know better than anybody else, there was a real attempt to bring in Republicans. We delayed the bill for six months while this group of six, which included, let me get my memory, Grassley, Collins, and Enzi. You do not need to remind us of the six-month dance to get Chuck Grassley to support the bill. So they are just shutting this thing down.

What we think McConnell will do, and I challenged him directly to his face last night on the floor, maybe you saw it, it was on C-SPAN and then Facebook and everybody, Facebook Live put it on. It was everywhere. I said to McConnell, will we have more than 10 hours of debate? He said, you'll have ample debate. I said, I rest my case. Will we be allowed amendments? No.

Why are they doing this? I'm going to answer your question. I know it's an important question, Tommy, in a minute, but I want to get to it. Why are they doing this? Because they're ashamed of the bill. That's what I've said. They are ashamed. So we are making that.

That was our theme yesterday. Today's theme, mean. You know who called this bill mean? None other than President Trump, behind closed doors to Republican Congress, Senators and Congressmen. The House bill is mean. Why is it mean? For all the things it does, you know, knocking 23 million people off health care, getting rid of pre-existing conditions, greatly curtailing opioid treatment, greatly, you know, people will be thrown out of nursing homes, and the young kids, you know, their children, who will have to decide whether to bring mom or dad back home

when they have no room for them or pay thousands of dollars a month. It's a mean bill. And we have also stopped committees from meeting today. We called for the rule that delays committee meetings on into the afternoon and so they're not going to into the so they're not going to be many committees that even my colleagues have come to me i want to have this committee meeting i said no no no this is too important

we're going to continue we've asked for an open session a session where democrats and republicans can be discussed this because we're the first people to say Obamacare, ACA is not perfect. We're willing to make changes. I'd love to try the public option. As you know, we fought hard for that last time and just missed by one vote, Mr. Joe Lieberman. You do not need to remind us of that.

Believe me, I am reminded of that almost every day. So we're doing that. We're asking for the open meeting tomorrow and we're going to try to push this session so we can have debate past the usual thursday when we use uh... go down okay this is all aimed at our number one goal as you guys know but let me just inform your listeners

the part the only way you can get on a bill is what's called the motion to proceed now usually need sixty votes so they need a democratic votes in this case you The only way you can get on a bill is what's called the motion to proceed. Now, usually you need 60 votes, so they need eight Democratic votes. In this case, you only need 52 because they're doing this process reconciliation. Our whole focus, if McConnell will bring this up right before July 4th, is to get three votes against the motion to proceed. And we think we have a damn good chance. And I would urge every one of your listeners to email, to tweet, to call, to write, to protest, Indivisibles having protests all across the country on Thursday, to make your voices heard.

Very, very important. Now, Tommy's question goes to the fact is if we lose that motion to proceed. And we're going to look at every option. Our main focus right now is on that first motion to proceed vote where we think we have a pretty good chance of getting three Republicans. Our Democrats, by the way, I have to give a lot of credit to my caucus, 48 Democrats from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin. mansion. Not one has wavered in their belief that we ought to go against repeal completely and not sit down and negotiate semi-repeal, partial repeal, repeal this, but not that with them. And that's put them in the real pickle. They had expected to pick off some of our more moderate Democrats. And even though they come from states that Trump won and are more conservative states. Those states are affected the most by this.

West Virginia has the greatest percentage of people added to health care. You know, it's poor people. And the Medicaid expansion and the Medicaid expansion and opioid treatment through Medicaid all happens through West Virginia. And here's what Joe Manchin said. This is a great line. He said, they don't know who gave it to him, meaning President Obama, but they sure know who's taking it away from them, meaning Trump. If we don't win that motion to proceed,

we're going to try, we're going to look at everything possible for the next days after that and see what to do. One of the possibilities is the thing you mentioned. Now, there's a problem. They might change the rules in a day or two, so we couldn't go forward with it. Who knows? We're going to look at every single thing and find out the best way, but this is full-scale warfare. This is the most important advancement since probably Medicare in terms of helping people, and we're not going to be complacent or go along or business as usual in any way, any way, both before and after the motion to proceed. You know, part of what we're talking about in the reconciliation is the fact that the

Senate is going to offer unlimited amendments. That's what's called a voterama. Now, some people have floated the idea of offering 10,000 amendments, so it's pushed indefinitely. It seems like the parliamentarian, and you'd know this better than I would, would say that those amendments are not germane and would force a vote. I guess my question is, if what we're looking for is some time and space and to push this past the July 4th recess, why not offer hundreds of amendments that are obviously germane to the underlying bill if the goal is to bring some more scrutiny to the legislature? Look, everything is on the table, and that's a possibility. We have to explore if they could move to change the rules after three amendments and then just block us off. That's the

problem. So we wouldn. That's the problem. Got it. So we wouldn't even have the weekend. Who knows? I mean, again, we're exploring all of that. This is uncharted waters because no one has been as obnoxiously bold as these Republicans in terms of changing the terms of how we debate in the Congress and the Senate on something as important as this. But we'll look at everything. So, yeah, so McConnell's process here has been

unprecedented. You've talked about that on the floor. You've never seen anything like this. Do you believe the Democratic response has been commensurate with what McConnell has done to sort of upend the way our democracy functions until now? Well, the problem is when you're in the minority, even in the Senate, certainly in the House, but even in the Senate, you have limited, limited power. We're using every tool we have. It's just there aren't that many. This reconciliation process, you know, we put in a legislation that if you don't have hearings, you can't do reconciliation. Debbie Stabenow did a good job of that, and some of you may have seen on the floor last night, she had a big chart, no hearings, no vote. So we're trying to do everything we can the problem is we are constrained in what we can do

and then people say well slow one thing we usually can do is slow down things that are on the floor there's nothing on the floor right for two reasons one they don't want us to slow it down but two things this trump administration is such a shambles such a mess that they don't want us to slow it down. But two, this Trump administration is such a shambles, such a mess that they don't have anything to put on the floor. They don't have anything, you know, other than this bill. That's what we face. But votes. Correct. And indivisible. We're partnering with them, too. And there's sort of 10 senators that people can target. Then let's say it were to move forward. So what sounds to me what you're saying is you are not able to promise that you'd be able to delay a vote past the July 4th recess. Well, we could try, but they might have the procedural way to stop us, even if no Democrat will vote with them. I could be certain of that. And that would require them to change the rules to prevent you from offering amendments. Yes. We fought hard. People out in the streets

said, do not give Gorsuch 60 votes. There were some people who talked about it, but I was always against it. I knew Gorsuch is going to be very some people who talked about it, but I was always against it. I knew Gorsuch is going to be very, you know, the New York Times and the Washington Post, when they analyzed how he would be as a justice, the New York Times was a little nicer. They said he'd be the second most conservative justice in the history of the court after Thomas. And the Washington Post, and this is an objective analysis of his opinions you know and said what he wrote would be worse than thomas so we wanted to stop them and we did they got fifty six

they got four democrats but didn't get the sixty and then right immediately mcconnell went to the floor and change the rules he could do that and particularly if he knew we were planning to do this he could do that after the first amendment senator europe uh... policy won't but also one of the best messengers Democrats have. Should we be focusing our criticism of this bill on the substance and the impact on people or on the process?

We've wrestled with it. So it's a three-step dance. One, they are using unprecedented darkroom, backroom processes to move this forward. Why? They're ashamed of the bill. I said on the floor today, if they liked this bill, they'd have a brass band marching down the streets with the bill through every town in America. But why are they ashamed? And then you give the substance, the fact that so many covered people will lose coverage,

$23 million under the House bill, pre-existing conditions, women's rights, women's health care, opioid addiction, nursing homes, you name it. So we're trying to combine those arguments into sort of one coherent three-sentence paragraph, and it's working. People are understanding how bad the process is, and I'm not just talking about our Abbott supporters, but you're hearing this from Trump voters. People who voted for President Obama and then voted for Trump are particularly susceptible to this argument, the process argument. So we're making both. Senator, just one last question. A lot of people listening are participating in ways they haven't before. They're making phone calls. They're coming to offices. And this has been a pretty discouraging time, right? There's a sense that what McConnell's been doing to kind of keep this bill out of the public eye has been effective. It hasn't been able to dominate the headlines with Russia in the news. What do you

say to people that are discouraged and worried and feeling behind? Look, there are two Republicans who it looks like are going to vote no. Not certain, but looks like. I give it an 80% chance, okay? Okay. We get one more, we win the whole damn fight. And so don't be discouraged. We're right on the edge. You think we can get them? I do. All right. Now let me just, can I conclude with a story? Do we have an extra minute? Please, of course. The floor is yours. Okay. So here's how I got involved in politics, Okay? I was a kid from a working class background. I got into Harvard. I was scared. Harvard in 1967

was 80% what we call preppies. Are either of you guys preppies? No, if you, no, no. I'm a gay Jew. Don't worry about that. High school's not preppy. I don't know Tommy where you went. Anyway. Tommy is the definition of preppy. It's actually his face in the dictionary.

Anyway, so I am scared. How am I going to make it at this place with all these fancy people? I go to the one guy from my high school, and I say, how am I going to make it at this place? He says, try out for the freshman basketball team. They're terrible. You'll make it. Those will be your friends. I tried out for the team, and the coach didn't let me touch a ball. He asked me, how tall am I? Six foot one.

He said, can you dribble? I said, it's not my strong suit. He said, go home. I was distraught, wrote my mom a note saying I told you I should have gone to Brooklyn College. That night, someone, this is fate, that night someone knocks on my door. How would you like to join the Harvard Young Democrats? We're working for a man named Eugene McCarthy. Now, many of your listeners haven't heard of him, but he was running in a primary against Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire

on the basis we shouldn't be in Vietnam. I was against the Vietnam War. I said, okay, next day, get on a bus, a whole bunch of kids from all over the Boston area. I loved it. It was like sports. You divide up neighborhoods and knock on doors, make your own leaflets. And I went up every weekend. Now, people may not remember the history, but Johnson nearly lost the New Hampshire primary to Eugene McCarthy. And a rag-tab bunch of students and other assorted misfits, myself included, toppled

the most powerful man in the world. Okay? Johnson said he wouldn't run again because the nation was so against him. People in the streets matter. Get out there. People did a great job before the House bill came up. In the next two weeks, we need the same job here. Get out there. Demonstrate.

Tweet. Email. Do everything you can. And don't just do it yourselves. Get your friends. get your relatives, get all your followers on Facebook to do the same. We can win this fight. We are close.

Don't give up. Amen. Thank you, Senator Schumer. Appreciate you joining us. And I don't know, I felt inspired. I'm inspired. Me too. Well, listen, we've got to win this fight.

There's too much at stake. Too much. All right. Great, sir. Thank you. Thank you for your right. Agreed, sir. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Take care. Bye.

That's it for Pod Save America. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. This is a special honeymoon edition of Pod Save America. Do me a favor and send Jon Favreau a tweet that says, we really missed you, but we didn't need you. Are you talking to me or the people? I'm talking to the people at home.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll do it too. But thanks to the Senator for joining us. And on Thursday, Dan will be joined by Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Tommy and I will be talking to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Big get week. It is leadership week here at Pots of America. Infrastructure week is coming up.

John's not here. He can't make me stop this outro bye guys bye we love you