Pod Save America - “We’ll do it live.”

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

Chaffetz and O’Reilly take extended vacations, Ossoff heads to a runoff, and the 2018 map looks bluer. Then, Governor Deval Patrick sits down with Jon and Dan to talk politics and the future of the Democratic Party, and Ana Marie Cox joins to ponder the Case of the Missing Aircraft Carrier.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, in studio, we will have the former two-term governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. Very excited about that. And later, we'll be joined by the host of With Friends Like These, Anna-Marie Cox. Of course, first, please subscribe to all of our pods. On Pod Save the World this week, Tommy talks to good friend of the pod, Dennis McDonough, former White House Chief of Staff.

It's a great episode. And tomorrow, Friday, in Austin, Texas, there's a live version of Love It or Leave It. And Love It will be joined by Beto O'Rourke who will be running against ted cruz in texas so that should be a fun show and tied in the polls and tied in the polls right now according to the one random media poll yeah we'll take it you know we're not going to pay attention to polls anymore except polls that we like um yes can i ask you a question about love it sure what is your concern that he's gonna leave the group and go solo? I mean, it was less of a concern, more of just an expectation.

Yeah, he's like Clooney in ER. Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I've expected that. This whole thing is for, well, he'll be here later recording that, so I'm sure he'll bust into this interview at some point anyway. Okay, what a week, Dan. We had a whole list of things to talk about we still do but it's funny again i woke up this morning the first thing i saw when i woke up this morning was that picture of uh donald trump in the oval office flanked by sarah palin kid rock and ted nugent racist ted nugent who called for the hanging of obama and

hillary now he's in the white house that's's great. Great thing. I was like, and I looked at the picture. I was like, I don't want to fucking talk about this, but here we are. But you, but you did tweet about it, but I did tweet about it. Yeah. I felt like you advanced the tonight's the night Donald Trump became president meme. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to quit with that meme, Dan. It'll never not be funny. It'll never be funny. Um. Also at the White House yesterday, the New England Patriots, I'm very happy that Tom Brady, for some mysterious reason,

did not go, along with six other Patriots. And I'm also happy that while Trump had the event, Giselle, Tom Brady's wife, tweeted about the climate march. And then untweeted about the climate march. Yeah, untweeted about the climate march.

Yeah, I didn't like that as much. But good for Gisele. Do you think maybe Gisele has been... I'd like to think that maybe Gisele has been the force for good here in Tom's ear about this. People don't care about this. People are listening and they're like, fuck Tom Brady. I get it. I get it. I mean, I finally just like three weeks ago got over my

anger at you and Tommy for being Patriots fans in the Trump era. And I was just like, it's fine. Brady's not a political person. He can go. It's sort of gross that he's friends with Donald Trump, but he's a great quarterback. So I'm glad he didn't go. I do not appreciate the New England Patriots Twitter account doing Sean Spicer style rapid response on the number of Patriots Twitter account doing Sean Spicer-style rapid response on the number of Patriots who attended the event? I'm chalking this up to Bob Kraft getting involved, the owner, who's giving money to Donald Trump. Look, I'm very conflicted about this.

Tommy has the best way out of this, which is just not everything has to be about politics. Let's keep the Patriots over here. That's not really true, but yes. Tommy's good compartmentalizing, so I'm going to go with that on that. I'm a Washington football fan who has an owner who is basically a Donald Trump Jr. and has a racist name that I can't say.

I forgot you were a Washington. I can't really look down on you too much. I forgot you were a Washington football fan. Anyway, speaking of Giselle's tweet that came down, the Climate March is in D.C. on April 29th. We'll talk a little bit more about that next week. This weekend, I just want to give a plug for the March for Science. It'll be in D.C. in more than 500 cities all around the world.

Go to MarchForScience.com to find out more about it. There'll be scientists and science advocates marching. The fact that we've gotten to a point where scientists have to march because they are worried about a political attack on the integrity of science from Trump and other Republicans is a sad state of affair. But Emily's been working with Bill Nye on this. Bill Nye is one of the hosts of the science march. So everyone. You mean Bill Nye the science guy? Bill Nye the science guy. Yeah. Emily spent a day with him the other Guy? Bill Nye the Science Guy, yeah.

And we spent a day with him the other day going around as he was doing interviews about this. So he's going to be at the March. And you should too, marchforscience.com. Okay, so we had a retirement this week, Dan. Huh, who retired, John? Our good friend, Jason Chaffetz. Is he an elder gentleman who's towards the end of his career and wanted to maybe spend some time with his grandkids?

In fact, no. He's an up-and-comer. He was a former rising star of the Republican Party and chair of the House Oversight Committee, which is quite a big job. Well, I guess in fairness, if your job is oversight and you've decided to do no oversight, why hang around? I mean, some people were saying that yesterday, which is probably maybe one of the better takes, that he thought that Hillary Clinton was going to become president and then he was going to investigate her for four years. He was excited to investigate Hillary Clinton for four years. He didn't know what he was going to investigate her over, emails, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but he knew he was going to do it. And then Donald Trump won, and he started off by saying, I'm not going to investigate Donald Trump, but I am still going to investigate Hillary Clinton. He was very excited about that. Donald Trump because after the Access Hollywood tape came out, he said, I can't look my daughter in the eye anymore and support this man. And then, of course, not only supported him, but

decided not to investigate any of the many investigatable things that Donald Trump does. How's that for a word that I just made up? Yes. And then, of course, there were some other great Jason Chaffetz moments. He was intimidated by his own constituents at a town hall. great Jason Chaffetz moments. He was intimidated by his own constituents at a town hall. He was upset that they were yelling at him. Oh, he said that poor people should maybe, if they can't afford health insurance, should just maybe not buy that new iPhone and invest in their health care. Remember that? Yeah, he doesn't seem like a good dude in any way, shape, or form. No. He was, as you said, he was one of the,

if we had a list of people that we hoped would leave politics forever and fail miserably in their careers, he was at the very top. So we now have an X through Jason Chaffetz in the media office. I think as a merch idea here, I think we should get a deck of cards like the Bush administration had for the top 52 members of Al Qaeda of just Republican politicians that we cannot stand because they're cowards in the Trump era. I mean, obviously, Paul Ryan would be the ace of spades. Yeah. No, I want the Arya Stark style list. You know, that's a joke yesterday. That's right. The Hound, Searcy, Walder Frey. So, yeah, Chaffetz. So the weirdest thing about this, and then we'll move right. The Hound, Searcy, Walder Frey.

So, yeah, Chaffetz. So the weirdest thing about the—and then we'll move on. The weirdest thing about the Chaffetz news is today, just before we started recording, he told a radio station that he may resign before the end of his term. What's up with that? Well, I read in several publications, including The Failing New York Times, that he may want a TV deal with Fox, which apparently has some openings. Oh, good segue, Dan. That was a natural segue. Yeah, do you like that?

First of all, it's sad that he wants to go to Fox and not, like I said, if he wants to come do a pod on Crooked Media called Pod Save My Soul. That's a clever joke. Well, I've said this before. Any Trump defector is welcome to do a pod here called Pod Save My Soul. It's for Spicer, for Chaffetz, whoever wants it first. There's only one slot. But yeah, so Fox has a new spot open because they too had a retirement, a forced retirement of one Bill O'Reilly.

Out at Fox after the New York Times disclosed that Fox had paid out $13 million in settlements involving sexual harassment allegations against him from five different women over the last decade or so. So the first question is, why the fuck did it take them so long? Because they're terrible people? Yeah, probably. Who care only about money i mean yeah the it's these allegations many of these allegations have been known since 2002 right right it's just the world changed where people got active and started pressuring these advertisers to stay away from the real value. So once it started affecting their bottom line, then they cared. If people were still advertising, O'Reilly would be on the air on

Monday, and Fox News would still be a viper pit of misogynistic sexual harassment. Yes, and that's an important point we should give credit to. Color of Change, National Organization for Women, Media Matters, Sleeping Giants. All those organizations helped run campaigns to pressure advertisers to pull out of the O'Reilly factor. And they did. And he was left with a couple gold commercials and bullshit like that. like that. And look, a lot of people did not think that the, there's a lot of, you know, everyone had their smart takes about how the pressure on the advertisers wouldn't work because,

you know, Fox makes most of their money from the cable companies that pay Fox to be on their package and all that bullshit. But it did work. The pressure worked. I also think there was pressure on the parent company, 21st Century Fox, right, which is movies and television and lots of other forms of entertainment besides just the Fox News channel. And it was probably hurting their reputation as well. Yeah, I think if you're a liberal activist, if liberal activists can come together and pressure Fox News to do something, then there's literally nothing you can't do. And so I think it's a powerful motivating factor. It also sort of shows how I think politics and business has changed a little bit in this new era of activism during the Trump presidency, which is there's a brand cost of being associated with some of this behavior that Trump has brought to the forefront. And I think this may be a different conversation if we had not elected a president who bragged

about sexual assault and said many misogynistic things. It energized people to take a stand against a set of horrible behaviors that have been accepted in some corporate environments for a long time. And Fox seems to be a real throwback to the, you know, the Mad Men era of, you know, workplace conduct. It makes me feel good, too, for the women who had the courage to come forward, too, because I've said this before, but I always think about all the women who came forward to talk about Donald Trump sexually harassing them before the election,

and then, you know, Donald Trump wins. So the woman that came forward to, you know, tell the truth about Bill O'Reilly, you know, they can see today that he's gone. And it took way, way too long for it to happen. But I'm glad it did. Do we think that anything changes at Fox? Do we think that there are big changes afoot or they just, you know, shuffle the deck and we get the same kind of crap? Well, I think there's sort of two different ways to look at how Fox changes. I mean, it is a different, there's the, what happens on the air,

right? And then there was like, what happens in the workplace? And you would have to hope and believe that if O'Reilly, who is the biggest money, if Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, who's the biggest, the most public face of Fox News, the biggest moneymaker, I assume, can go down for this conduct, then that should hopefully send a signal that that is unacceptable and cannot continue. You know, I'm skeptical. Our friend Gabe Sherman of New York Magazine, who is sort of owns the Fox News beat, said what his tweet today was, what we're learning more and more is that Ailes' Fox News was a cross between the Nixon White House, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and Hooters.

So it seems pretty good. But some people like have responded to this on Twitter and saying, well, nothing's going to change. Fox News is still going to be this terrible vessel of – I almost said fake news, so I don't mean to do that. But this – we continue to push this – Conspiracy theories. Nativist, racist. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's not what this was about, right? I think Fox News will always – will be that way as long as there's a way to make money being that way. They're just now in a new era because in a year they've lost Roger Ailes, who's the brainchild of this whole thing, Bill O'Reilly, and Megyn Kelly, who left for her own reasons. who left for her own reasons. And so it's going to look like a different product, but I think it's still going to try to serve the same purpose, which is to misinform a segment of the population in a way that will help elect Republicans. Misinformed, angry, and fearful. That's their goal over there. So let's turn to Georgia 6th.

We have a special election on tuesday night um can i say one more can i say one more thing about fox news please do please do which is i think we people always argue that fox news is a quote-unquote conservative outlet yeah um and that's the i've always thought that's the wrong way to look at it. It's a Republican outlet. When the Republican position is be for to be for immigration reform, Sean Hannity came out for immigration reform. When it turned out that that wasn't popular, no one beat the racist drum of raising fears about immigration like Fox News. And so it is – Sean Hannity literally took Putin's side over the CIA. I mean, come on. I mean, in Fox News, just think about that. In Fox News, the people who basically tried to destroy the careers of the Dixie Chicks because they were critical of the

Iraq war. And now it adopts a pro-Russia position against career military intelligence professionals in this country, which is insane. It's a good point. And I think there is no, I hate saying even conservative media, because it's not conservative. And also, they're probably, you know, there's conservatives out there that I disagree with on policy and on issues. But I think they're trying to make an honest case, just that I'm very much against. But like, you don't see that a lot in the quote, unquote, conservative media. It's like a bunch of hacks now that are just, you know, spreading conspiracy theories. And so, look, I'd love to point to more conservative media outlets that I just happen to disagree with on policy, but are telling the truth and not spreading conspiracy theories.

It's hard to find those these days. Yeah. There are conservative writers. Yes. Who adopt a position and have stayed within relative consistency. But there's a business model for engaging what has now become the Trump base. And whatever it takes to do that is a way to make money, whether it's as a cable television network or driving Facebook traffic or other social media traffic. So, Georgia 6th, Tuesday night, special election. How annoying are election nights now? I hate them. Especially on Twitter.

Oh, God. I tried to go for a run right as the polls closed because I knew it was going to take a while for results to come and not look at my phone. And I have to confess, even on the run, I look down and you get all caught up in early vote. The early vote looks good. I am like Charlie Brown with the fucking football every time. Someone has to take my phone away until the polls have been closed for three hours. Like, I need at least one hour of Election Day voted. Like, I know this. You and I had this exact conversation over text that this is what would happen.

And still, when someone tweeted, Ossoff has so overperformed the early vote, it seems impossible he's not going to get to 50 or something like that. I'm like, well, it's over. And then slowly over time, I watched the numbers narrow and just got sadder and sadder what was most annoying about it is my expectations were set in the complete right place going into the night because the his polling average so asaf's polling average going into the special election was 46 so not close to 50 um not without the margin. Not within the margin of error. It wouldn't have been crazy if he got 50, but I wasn't expecting it at 46%. Also, just facts, in 2016, Hillary Clinton won

46.8% of the vote in that district to Trump's 48.3%. So it was narrow, but she still lost by about a point and a half. Tom Price in 2016, the congressman that Ossoff's trying to replace, carried it by 23 points against a Democratic challenger that, granted, was not well-funded. And Barack Obama lost the district by 23 points in 2012. So, like, first of all, getting to 50 would have been quite an achievement. But, of course, Ossoff overperformed in the early vote. I get that there's this new thing now where just Democrats just all vote early. Every single Democrat there is just goes to the polls ahead of time or mails in their ballot, and then none of them show up on election day. I guess that's just what we have to expect from now on.

Yeah, it seems there's always been this argument that, you know, the early vote cannibalizes your election day vote. And I've always thought that not to be true. And it doesn't really in the sense it's good, you want to have as many votes in the bank as possible, for sure. But we're definitely the party by focusing so much on early vote in the last several cycles has definitely moved people who would traditionally be election day voters into the early vote pool. And so it sort of screws up the expectations, probably not of the campaigns who should know better, and I think do know better, but of sort of media pundit Twitter world, who in the expect, you know, the expectations determines how, you know, that that sort of arc of expectations determines how the press covers it.

You know, if the fact that we thought Asif was going to get 50 for some period of time in the evening, the fact that he didn't, even though he outperformed expectations, was seen somehow as a loss by some very dumb people. Very dumb people. dumb people. Very dumb. And, you know, it's just like you saw this on these primary nights where, you know, like either Hillary or Trump or Bernie would win a bunch of races early in a, you know, on one of the multi-state days. And then everyone would be like, huge win for Hillary. And then that would be all the coverage or all the coverage for Trump, even though the other candidate would then win some of the, you know, the West Coast states are the ones that took longer to count and the margin would not be as decisive, delegate wise as people thought. But, you know, then you settle on a narrative and run with it,

you know. So question is, can he win the runoff? So he ended up at 48.1% in the vote in Tuesday's election. If you combine all the Republican votes together, they add up to 51%. All the Democratic votes together, there's a couple other Democratic candidates. That adds up to 49%. So 51 to 49 in Tuesday's race Republican. So very close. But I don't know. What do you think? Do you think he can pull it off in June? But I don't know. What do you think? Do you think he can pull it off in June? Yeah, I do. I think it's if he got 48 percent now, it's a you know, it's a coin flip. I don't know that he is favored, but I don't. But I think he has a very good shot.

He should have an enthusiasm advantage going and getting 48 percent in a very large multi-candidate field is very impressive. So there's not a ton of Democratic vote to consolidate. But, you, but you wonder where Trump's numbers will be, where the Republican enthusiasm will be a month from now or six weeks from now, whenever it is. And so he has a shot and we should, as a party, fight to win it and fight hard. And it may suck if we lose, but you can't just pass up a house seat. Like we need, if you have a shot at a house seat, particularly one in that district, it, you know, it matters. And so we need to continue to channel the grassroots enthusiasm and then the democratic progressive organizations who played a role in the runoff, in the first race seemed to play a role in the runoff. I do want race, need to play a role in the runoff.

I do want to step back and focus on the bigger picture here. We need to flip 24 Republican seats to win the House in 2018. If Republicans end up with a two-point advantage in the Georgia 6th, That means, this is according to our friend of the pod, whiz kid Harry Enten over at FiveThirtyEight, that means that there are 48 Republican-held seats that are bluer than the Georgia 6th. As we've said this before, there are 23 Republican-held seats in districts that Hillary Clinton actually won. Remember, she came close in Ossoff's district, but she did not win it. So that means there are Republicans sitting in districts that Hillary Clinton actually won. Remember, she came close in Ossoff's district, but she did not win it. So that means there are Republicans sitting in districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. So, look, Ossoff outperformed Democrats over the last few cycles in Georgia by about seven and a half points, if you average it out.

In Kansas, Thompson outperformed Democrats by 22 points. points. In the current generic ballot, if you ask people, do you want a Democrat for Congress or a Republican for Congress, is Republicans minus six, which is the largest gap ever recorded at this stage of the election cycle. So there's a, it's all this to say is that, you know, Trump has been able to basically pick which districts are having special elections right now because he's picking the congressman in his cabinet. And then, you now because he's picking the congressman in his cabinet. And then, you know, he's not picking congressmen to put in his cabinet from swing districts or districts that are vulnerable. He's trying to pick them from safe districts. So just to sort of like set expectations here for Democrats out there, like, yes,

like you said, and we should contest every single one of these races for sure. But let's not expect to win all of them. need we need 24 we need to keep our eye on the prize here you know yeah i think we talked about this a little bit uh after the kansas race which i think was last week but it feels like 100 years ago um we've had like three wars since then um is that i the old theory was you know know, we have, like, the Republicans have a huge money advantage. They're going to have, you know, it's a midterm. They're going to have a turnout advantage. We have to be very narrow and targeted in which races we go after because, you know, as a former DCCC official said,

after the Kansas race, a million dollars spent in Kansas is a million dollars you don't get to spend in the ISIS seat or the Nunez seat or a seat that may or any of those 23 districts that Clinton won. But I don't I think that that we may be past that. There may be a near bottomless well of grassroots enthusiasm and money and donations. Yep. Right. And money for these races. And we just don't know where Trump is going to be when we either in these specials or, you know, when you get to 18. This should theoretically be the peak of his popularity. And he is historically the most unpopular president at this time. And, you know, one of the things when we had a huge wave and took the House in 2006 that was to the great credit of our former boss and then DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel was they put candidates in as many races as possible, even in ones that people, Democrats had not won in generations and thought there was no shot in. And you hope for a wave.

And the early signs are there could be a wave here because of what Trump's numbers are and Democratic enthusiasm. And so we got to invest, get candidates, invest time and money in all of these seats. And you might pick up a bunch. You know, it'd be a real shame to leave a bunch of seats on the table because we were afraid to invest. Like this Montana seat seems harder than the Georgia seat, for sure, but it's easier than the Kansas seat. And if you performed at near that level, you might have a shot in Montana or in the South Carolina seat that's coming up for Mick Mulvaney's seat, I think. Yeah, we should definitely focus on Montana. And look, I do think

that the DNC and the DCCC has to go big, they can't be afraid and they have to play everywhere and they have to and they have to take risks. You know, like I do not think this is a time to be timid when there's this much enthusiasm in Agreed. I mean, the moral of the story here is to, you know, when you see one of these special elections, there's a lot of focus from political reporters on the drama and personality of the individual race and the characters involved. And what you really want to do is pull back and look at the big picture, which also, which brings us to the Clinton book that was out this week, which I just want to say something quick about before we move on to Anna. So Amy Parnes and Jonathan Allen wrote a book about the Clinton campaign called Shattered. It was not very kind to the Clinton campaign.

Dan, you want to talk about why these books are sort of stupid overall? sort of stupid overall? Well, I mean, I... Like, there's like a fork-in-the-road narrative for all campaigns. If you win, you're a genius, no matter how many dumb things you did. And

if you are a... If you lose, then you are... Then you're an idiot. And everyone on the campaign's an idiot, and they only made bad decisions. And it... You knowary if 70 000 or whatever his votes in three states had uh changed columns and hillary had eked out a tiny victory over donald trump then this book would be the book would be written in a way that treated everyone in the Clinton campaign. Geniuses. Geniuses because they overcame the inappropriate Kobe announcement, Russian hacking, the emails, the Wall Street speech,

all the bricks on the load of the Clinton campaign. They managed to pull that out, like what geniuses they will be in history books. And because of that shift of votes, then now for there, therefore, the it go takes the opposite narrative in. There's true, I'm sure all the quotes in there are true. Right? I don't think they, you know, these are real journalists, they didn't make these up or anything, right? But it's just it's pushed through a different narrative. If we had lost in 2012, the books about our campaign would have been would have treated us like morons as opposed to the people who took campaigns to this new level with our data and analytics and all this other stuff and so it's just you gotta you know just read these with a note of caution i don't think

they make stuff up either um but one thing to note about these books too is that they don't quote people directly a lot they sort of characterize people's thinking and i'm talking about this because you know when the book came out sort of axios the thinking. And I'm talking about this because, you know, when the book came out, sort of Axios, the morning tip sheet, like led with something that I said that for me in the book, right? Because I volunteered to help out with the announcement speech. And like, I'll say this, yes, the announcement speech process was badly fucked up. I don't think it was the fault of the speechwriters or the campaign managers or any staffers. I think that Hillary had a really hard time articulating a rationale or compelling vision for her candidacy. That doesn't mean she didn't inspire millions of her supporters, especially women.

It doesn't mean she wouldn't have made a great president. It doesn't mean it's why she lost. But I do think articulating that rationale and that vision is vitally important if you're going to run for president. That said, it was written that I thought the people in the campaign reminded me of the Kerry campaign, and that no one was united by any common purpose larger than pushing a less than thrilling candidate into the White House. Well, I do not say that. I do not believe that. I think that's bullshit, really.

I actually think that I was on the Kerry campaign. I think every campaign I've been on, Obama, Kerry, and then all the people that I know in the Clinton campaign, you join a campaign, and this was true of the people in the Clinton campaign, because you believe in your candidate, you believe in each other, and you just you don't join one of those campaigns just because like you have your eyes on some office in the White House, like you join the campaign because you believe in things. And so I do think that was unfair. That said, yeah, there was a lot like I do believe that they had a really, really hard time coming up with a cohesive message in that campaign. And we've talked about this before, but, you know, it's true. But look, the moral of the story is,

and I have fallen victim to this myself, and I know you have, and all of us have, when a reporter calls you up who's writing a book about the campaign and you're part of that campaign, don't fucking talk to them. Don't return Mark Halperin's call. Don't return John Heilman's call.

Don't return Amy Barnes' call. I like all these... Look, their incentive is to write a book that is salacious and has a lot of juicy details and is dramatic so that it will sell copies that is their incentive your incentive is not to do that it's not to talk to them and it never works out it never works out you know my my big beef of about this book is it's just brought up the worst debates that we went through i know all over twitter last night it's like the whole thing's about hillary and then the bernie people

are mad and it's like what is going on again but it's like every time the the clinton campaign has taken you know has a responsibility for what happened here. And many of them have taken it, that responsibility publicly. But they also have some legitimate beefs about either how the emails were covered or the fact the Russians hacked the election. And every time they bring it up, the response is, why didn't you go to Wisconsin? things can all be true at the same time. And they are. Right. The campaign was not perfect. Hillary was not a great candidate, even though I think she would have been a very good president. The Russians did hack the election. Jim Comey moved votes by doing something dumb. And Hillary Clinton's emails were covered like they were the worst scandal in history. All of those things are true. All of those things contribute to the result. You don't have to pick one. This is not like choose your own adventure. You know, the making of the president and the press was unfair to her.

And there was misogyny. And she had problems that predated the campaign. That's the most boring story is that some of her flaws as a candidate predated anything that the campaign did. But she did face a lot of shit, too. And there were a lot of black swan events, too. So you're right. Like, it is a very complicated series of explanations for this campaign. And it's important to learn from those as we go forward. But man, just fighting them over and

over and over again ad nauseum. I don't know. Anyway, that's that. When we come back, we will be talking to Annamarie Cox. Hey, don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. Hey, don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. Welcome to the show, Anna Marie Cox, the host of Crooked Media's With Friends Like These. How are you? Hi. Again, in Trump-adjusted terms, I am doing fine. I am doing better than a lot of people. So I just count that as fine. We just talked about a lot of things from this week. What really stuck out at you this week?

What's on your mind? Well, did you guys talk about the case of the missing aircraft carrier? We did not get to the case of the missing aircraft carrier. I'm so glad you brought that up. Yeah. So, it turns out, you know, some of this tough talk was shockingly just tough talk.

Trump, correct me if I have any details wrong, but, because that would be doing me a service that apparently no one did the president, right? You know, when North Korea was doing its saber rattling, we saber rattled back, specifically by Trump saying we were sending, I think he said an armada, which, you know, I presume he wasn't, which is, you know, kind of a quaint term.

And he talked about submarines and aircraft carriers, specifically the USS Carl Vinson, I believe it is. That's the one. And it just turns out that that aircraft carrier was not, in fact, on its way to North Korea at all. But, in fact, was doing some kind of training exercise off the coast of Australia. Yeah, just hanging out. I mean, it's dangerous for a whole bunch of reasons. That's like number one. But also, how embarrassing.

Like, apparently, like, Chinese state media, Japan, South Korea, like, media in all these other countries in Asia were just, like, mocking us for doing something like this. I mean, like what? Why do it? What is the don't you know you're going to get caught when someone notices an entire aircraft carrier where it's not supposed to be? You know, I mean, it really is tough to try and figure out motives with this administration. Like, I think it's Josh Marshall who kind of invented the rule of thumb that it's probably just incompetence, usually. Like, we can look for the four-dimensional chess play or, like, try to figure out a rational motive.

But, I mean, I do think incompetence explains it most of the time. I do think incompetence explains it most of the time. I feel like with this particular instance, it's dangerous and it shows also just how willing Trump is to bluff, right? Yeah. And that is, you guys have worked in the White House. You tell me, is that something that is a good thing in diplomacy? Yeah, maybe if it's your very last diplomatic move ever. But after your bluff the first time,

guess what's going to happen next time, you know? Yeah. This was so good because mainly the reason why we know that Carl Vinson was leaving, was not in North Korea, was they posted a photo of themselves on social media, like just chugging away to Australia. Okay, I didn't know that detail. Also, Carl Vinson spent 50 years in Congress representing what is now known as Georgia

Six. I saw that the night of the election. That was... Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Guys, we're all being pranked. You know, we have to laugh because it is kind of terrifying, right? Because who knows, if he says this with such confidence,

who knows, we cannot believe a thing he's saying. And it comes right back to that, and we always mock it, and we always laugh about it. But it's actually a crisis, you know, for our government, not just foreign, you know you know relationships but also domestically um the lawfare blog which i'm sure you guys keep up with i do i like the blog um they did a a post and a a talk about how our entire government kind of depends on trusting the office of the president to basically fulfill the sort of general outline of duties right right and to be honest in is stating what the intentions are and what um

the policies are like you know we we all i'm sure and you know this moment did not like a lot of the stuff that Bush did. But we kind of understood why he was doing what he was doing and trusted his explanations for that. Yeah. And whatever we thought of them. And that's how we could proceed. And that's how people on the other branches of government could proceed. And now no one knows what to believe.

And now no one knows what to believe. I do think that a silver lining on the foreign policy agenda this week, did you notice that the Trump administration verified that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal? I did not notice that. It went right under the radar because they're lying about where aircraft carriers are. But yeah, they certified uh the iran deal which is very cockish of them i thought yeah you know i mean that's that's that that's just another sign right that like they're all they're not just tough talk but they're discovering the reality of government of governing put you in positions to just to continue with the uh norms that have been set, right? Like, if you look at the actual information available to you about all these different situations, it turns out, hey, what is the phrase of the presidency?

It's more complicated than you thought. Yep. As Barack Obama used to say, hard things are hard. And I feel like I had this fantasy before Trump actually took office that, you know, I think you and I talked about this, that, like, Obama would become Trump's, you know, kind of drunk dial friend. Like, that he would late at night call Obama up and be like, Hey, so, North Korea, tell me more. But I guess that relationship didn't happen the way that I imagined it would. I thought maybe this would be Obama's last and most important act of public service,

would be to take Trump's call at two in the morning. I feel like after you've been accused of wiretapping your successor's phones, you'd feel like maybe I'm not going to take that call. Yeah. I think he would take the call if Trump asked. I mean, I don't think any president would, but Trump would never do it because it would admit some, it would reaffirm his massive insecurities. Yeah.

Anna, who's on your show tomorrow, Friday? Well, two segments. We have Greg Doucette, who some people might recognize that name from Twitter. He is a criminal justice attorney. He's not, in fact, a criminal, as far as I know. You kind of hung on criminal. I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah, no, he's a criminal defense attorney. That's what you call this thing in Durham, North Carolina. And he's a never Trump guy and has sort of had an interesting, let's say, ideological journey to a place where on issues of racial justice, he sounds like he could be speaking at a Black Lives Matter rally. He is very passionate about criminal justice reform and about the way that police treat

black people and most people of color. So we talked about that. And then the second segment, no offense to Greg, but I had a lot of fun doing the second segment. We took a, not a reader, but a listener call about dating, dating while biracial. And I say we because I had my pal Jane Kostonoston who's also at MTV News. She and I got on the phone with a gentleman who wanted

to talk about, you know, how do you talk about race with your friends and with people you're dating and I think it sounds like it would be serious but we had a lot of fun with it. Although, you know, there's some serious points to be made too. I love taking the readers' questions.

It's a great segment. Yeah. We'll do more of it. I think it's a lot of fun, and I think that, you know, what we do here, right, is the whole point of our participating is that we want to have the conversations that people are having already, right? We want to talk about politics like real people do. So I will talk to real people. It's right on brand, Anna. Thank you.

I studied the memo you sent. All right. Well, everyone, download Anna's episode tomorrow. On Friday, it will be with friends like these. It'll be great. Anna, thanks for joining us. And when we come back, we will have Governor Deval Patrick. This is Pod Save America.

Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we are very lucky to be joined by Governor Deval Patrick, two-term governor of my home state, Massachusetts. It is great to have you here. It's great to be with you both. Thank you. So, there have obviously been a lot of comparisons between your campaign for governor in 2006 and Obama's campaign for president in 2008. Is that right? I've heard it a few times.

You didn't have a lot of experience in politics. You were an outsider with the grassroots organization running against an establishment. You'd become the first black chief executive. Why did you run? What made you decide to run? What made you think you had a chance against those odds? Well, those are two or three very different questions. That's true.

The first, with respect to your question of why, I think, first of all, there are two things. One, one of the things I noticed in my business career was this incredible focus on the short term, managing from quarter to quarter, I think sometimes not without due regard or not with due regard for the long-term interests of the enterprise. And I think that bad habit has leaked over to the way we govern ourselves, frankly. We govern ourselves from election cycle to election cycle, sometimes news cycle to news cycle, and not for the next generation. And I think that's hurt us. So that was one thing. And the second was that increasingly it felt to me like we were settling for candidates who were fixated on how to win rather than why they should.

On the mechanics of how to put it together rather than on a vision for what it is they want to do with the position once they'd gotten it and who didn't really stand for anything. And, you know, I'm not so naive that I don't understand. You have to sometimes moderate your point of view in order to achieve the position. But, you know, you ought to believe in something other than just accumulating power and influence for the sake of having accumulated it. It seems to be you don't bank political capital, you spend it, because that's how you actually move things along. So I wanted to see whether it was possible to be a principled candidate running at the grassroots and then trying to govern at the grassroots. And so, yeah, long answer. I stink at soundbites. It seems like such a distant, quaint notion today.

Actually, I still think it matters. I think the, first of all, you know, the public, I believe, as a citizen, can read a fraud every time, every time. And what I think what's come to happen is that we've come to settle for that in politics. And so we are eventually sort of essentially making our judgments based on how people play the game rather than how authentic and well-intentioned they are. And, you know, I think that's hurt us. And I think that's why President Obama was such a different kind of candidate and a different kind of leader and such a compelling one. Dan, you got a question? I do.

You know, you went into, you know, much like the Barack Obama comparison, you know, you ran on a message that was very hopeful and optimistic. How hopeful, you know, are you? Why should Democrats be hopeful now, given what's going on in the country? Well, Dan, first of all, I think we are a hopeful nation. We are hopeful people. And I think Democrats are, I mean, the reason I'm a Democrat is because I think the Democratic Party is the party of the American dream, and I still believe in the American dream. I've lived it. I think there are challenges. There have always been challenges, and there are different kinds and more broad-based challenges today than perhaps there have been in recent times. But we win, I believe, as Democrats when we stand for something. And we lose, frankly,

when our case is mainly about what's wrong with the other side rather than what's right with us. And so I'm a Democrat, I think, in part because I'm a hopeful person and because, as I say, I think the American dream still matters. I think it's what's defining about this country. And when we direct our attention and our focus there and we have both the right programs and the right vision of what those programs are for, then we win and we deserve to win. Do you think national Democrats are doing a good job of standing for something right now? Well, I think it's a perennial challenge. You know, I think you both know I feel strongly about the importance of running and governing at the grassroots. For me, that was both a practical and a philosophical point of view. It was a practical point of view because, you know, politics in Massachusetts for all of the, you know, all the focus on how blue a state it is, the to come from the grassroots around and up rather than

getting permission from those in control. But philosophically, I think there's power in inviting people who have been left out and left back back into their own civic and political life and to take charge of it because I think we get the government we deserve. And I think we deserve better government. So long way around to your question. I think Democrats are beginning to focus again on the importance of politicking and engaging at the grassroots. I think a 50-state strategy, as it's sometimes called, is exactly right. And if I knew the number of counties in the country, I'd tell you it should be that many counties a strategy. We should be engaging everywhere because our message is a fundamentally patriotic message. And it's proven over time to be good for people who are trying to

build an economy and an opportunity set that is about reaching out to the marginalized and not just up to the well-connected. So a couple days after the 2016 election, you wrote some thoughts about the election to some friends. It was reported in a few places. It's an extraordinary email. I'll tweet it out later for everyone. One of your first reactions was you said, quote, I am sad, disturbed, embarrassed, but not surprised. Why were you not surprised?

Well, I think, you know, to the point, first of all was probably the best prepared candidate for president that had ever run for president. In many ways, though, I think our campaign was, to the point I was making earlier, more about what was wrong with them than what was right with us. And I think though it was dark and divisive, the vision that candidate Trump painted was a vision. And an answer to that vision, I think, has to be more than a list of better policies. And our policies were much, much better. But knitting them together into a picture of what kind of country we wanted is something we didn't do very well. And so there was that. And then also, I think there were some truths that both the Trump campaign and the Sanders campaign talked about. And this is a point that I and others were making to the Clinton campaign all along. Had they won,

it was important to hear what Sanders and Trump supporters were trying to say about how they felt about their government, how they felt about the economy, how they felt about each other. And the notion that, you know, a dispirited and disaffected part of the population would choose Trump or President Trump, now President Trump, as their spokesperson rather than a Democrat was wild and discouraging. But I think they felt heard in some ways by him and in ways that they didn't always by us. Danny, you want to jump in? Sure. Governor, are there some specific things you think Democrats could do or say to try to win back some of those voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, 2012 and voted for Trump this time? Or even some of those voters who voted for Obama in those two elections and then sat out this one? Well, Dan, that may be above my pay grade, but I think probably as a citizen, what I'm listening for are both messages. Well, I am both

listening for messages and watching for actions, because you asked about what Democrats can do or say, and I think they have to do and say. I think on the saying part, you know, we have to be unapologetic and unembarrassed about the corny old notion that we are the party of patriotism. We are the party of an American vision that recognizes we are the only nation in human history organized not the way nations are normally organized. It wasn't geography or language or culture that defined and has defined America. It's a set of civic values, freedom, equality, opportunity, fair play. And if you think about the best of the Democratic Party, we've been central to advancing those values over time. around equal pay for equal work legislation, around the ability to organize as workers, around clean air and water, around reasonable parameters for a free economy. those values and connecting what we do to what we believe about those values in unapologetic ways,

I think is enormously important. And in fact, and frankly, I think is unifying across a whole range of differences, because I think finally, the truth is that most people aren't buying 100% of what either party is selling. Most people are more discerning than that. I know I am. I know you guys are. And I think we ought to acknowledge that and sort of, you know, swing for the fence in our broadest, most optimistic and most forward-leaning way. So what made you leave politics? Well, you know, I only had one elective office. Right. It was two very successful terms. Well, that's kind of you. We got a lot done. I'm, you know, it was a, you know, I ran

not realizing I was going to run headlong into the, to a global economic collapse. Yeah, we know how that feels. Right. And, you know, and in some ways, one of our biggest challenges was that my predecessor, Mitt Romney, had signed a bill around universal health care that took effect the day I took office. So it was up to us to implement it. And I'm proud of the fact that after eight years, we were number one in the nation in healthcare coverage, in student achievement in our schools, in veteran services and economic competitiveness, in energy bond rating in the history of the Commonwealth. Lots of good things happened. We didn't get it all right by any means. Nobody does. But there's a lot of wear and tear in those jobs, as you know. And I thought, first of all, I like that old-fashioned notion that you can come in and out of public life when you feel you have something to contribute and back into private life when it's time to get reacquainted with your friends and family. And it felt like it was time

to get reacquainted with my friends and family. And I'm having a ball in what I'm doing now. And what are you up to now? So we've started a new impact investing business at Bain Capital. I've heard about that. Yeah, right. I know you and everybody else think you know everything about the firm from the 2012 campaign. I know, I know, I know. Sorry. Yeah, sorry.

It's a wonderful group of colleagues, and we've built a new business. We're investing in lower middle market companies in North America for both a competitive return and measurable social or environmental impact. So you're investing in companies that either are invested in sustainability or creating jobs in low-income areas? Exactly. Is that the kind of thing? The three areas of focus are sustainability, as you said, which for us is about sustainable consumer goods. It's about water and energy efficiency companies. We're interested in urban agriculture as well. We're investing in our second area of focus in health and wellness, so access to

affordable care, including behavioral health. We're interested in nutrition, including healthy QSR, so-called quick-serve restaurants. We're interested in ed-tech companies whose products and services are about closing achievement gaps and skills gaps. And then our third area of focus, we describe, John, as community building. So companies that intentionally are creating jobs and helping to catalyze economic activity in places of chronic underemployment. You think you'd ever get back into politics? under employment. Okay. You think you'd ever get back into politics? Maybe, if the time is right, and if I have something to offer. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I think public service is an honorable thing to do. And frankly, I wish we had a system where everybody had some responsibility at some time to do some public service.

Because as I said earlier, we get the government we deserve and we deserve better government and we deserve more engagement in our democracy than we have routinely today. Well, I will admit I was at South by Southwest a couple months ago and we were asked about our favorite 2020 potential candidates, and I brought up your name. So forgive me for that. You should have told me that before I came on this show. I did not share that with you. This is not a trap. This is not, yeah. I will move on from there.

I'll just leave it there. How's that? Dan, you have one more question for the governor? Sure. Governor, one of the things we try to do on this podcast is encourage people to run for office up and down the ballot, whether it's, you know, state senate, school board, something bigger. What advice would you have for someone who, like you, was a first-time politician who was considering a run for office? office? First of all, do it. There are all kinds of kind of obvious reasons not to, and not the least of which is that more and more, particularly the sort of higher you go or the more senior you go, the crueler it is. And, you know, it's not the best of who we are, But it is often that way. But, you know, there are some incredible other benefits, not the least of which is the value of service, the value of looking out rather than in,

of trying to do what our grandparents taught each and every one of us, which is that we're supposed to do what we can to leave things better for those who come behind us. I think the other thing that is rarely mentioned, though, is that I found in the job I had that, you know, and partly because of the way we did it, I was out a lot. I was with people that almost always people had something to say. And you could tell, you know, you're out in the grocery store or on the street or something like that, and folks would give me a double take. And I now realize that in the first instance it was because they were processing that I'm taller on TV. And then you could see them trying to figure out what to say. And more often than not, it was not a criticism or a compliment. It was some tiny, intimate insight into how they live their lives. And those are gifts. And if you're listening, you begin to hear consensus points. You begin to get real understanding about people's lived experience, and it makes you better at the job. And that's

a kind of a richness. It's hard to describe, but I think it's available to people who serve. Well, Governor, thank you for coming by. I don't know if you remember, but the moment we met was right after the New Hampshire primary. I will never forget it, John. I will never forget it, John. I will never forget it. And we were backstage, and Barack Obama had just lost to Hillary Clinton, and I was sitting by myself, and I had my head down, and I was probably a little teary, and you came over to me.

I don't know if you knew who I was, and you just put your hand on my shoulder, and you said, keep your head up, son. This fight is hard. Keep working. And someday you'll look back on this moment fondly. And now I do. And as my grandmother would say, look at you now. We all did okay. We all did okay. Thank you so

much. We really appreciate you stopping by. Thank you, John. Thank you, Dan. Okay, take care. Take care. Thank you to Deval Patrick. Thank you to Anna Marie Cox. That's all the time we have for today. We have the whole gang here on the outro. Dan, Anna, Lovett's here. I'm here, guys. I listen to a lot of that show.

And this is what we're going to play us out for. We will leave you with a... I can't do it. We'll do it live. We'll do it live! Do it live! I'll write it and we'll do it live! You know, I really did a deep dive on that clip.

And it all stems from the fact that he didn't understand what the term play us out was. He found it baffling. See you later, everyone. Bye, guys. You know, John, I always find that the USS Carl Vinson is in the last place you look.