Pod Save America - “Where is the line?”

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

New evidence and whistleblowers further incriminate the President, Republicans are running out of believable excuses, and Joe Biden’s campaign weighs the best response. Then Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub talks to Jon about the crime of soliciting foreign interference in a U.S. election.(Production note: Dan's takes are recorded via phone this episode due to technical difficulties.)

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, my interview with Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub about the crime of soliciting foreign interference in our election. Topical. Topical. But first, we'll be talking about all the latest developments and responses from Republicans and Democrats to what very well could be the biggest and the dumbest political scandal in American history. A few housekeeping notes. We got a new episode of Love It or Leave It that dropped over the weekend,

and it includes Adam Scott and Nicole Byer, and a very Ken Burns-ish take on the Great Civil War that some Trump supporters have been warning us about. That sounds fun. There's also a brand new episode out today of America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed. It's all about the insane cost of prescription drugs in this country and why the pharmaceutical companies get away with this shit. Go listen. It is a fantastic episode. Please check out this podcast if you haven't already. And finally, we talk a lot about 2020 here, but there are also very important elections in 2019,

particularly in Virginia, where Democrats have a very good chance of flipping the legislature, which would mean progress on issues like gun control and the ability to draw to redraw gerrymandered congressional maps in 2021. So if you haven't, please make a donation to Vote Save America's Fuck Gerrymandering Fund at VoteSaveAmerica.com slash Gerry G-E-R-R-Y. We only need to flip two seats in each chamber in Virginia to put Democrats in charge. So this is one of those funds where a little money is going to go a long way because these are state legislature races. We have a few to flip. Elections in November, very, very big deal.

So check it out. All right, Dan, it's all happening. Check it out. All right, Dan, it's all happening. Since we last spoke on Thursday, even more evidence has emerged that the president directed a scheme involving multiple government officials who attempted to trade America's financial and diplomatic support for a promise from the Ukrainian government that they would launch politically motivated investigations into American citizens with the purpose of helping Trump get re-elected. The president and his personal lawyer have basically admitted that they did this. It's been confirmed by the White House summary of the call between Trump and the president of Ukraine. And now we have incriminating text messages between various Trump-appointed diplomats, as well as the emergence of at least one more whistleblower who claims to have firsthand

information about the arms for investigation scandal. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported on Sunday night that a couple of Rudy's clients were bragging about their connections to Rudy and Trump while, quote, trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies. Dan, I can only imagine how hard this news hit the president, who, as you know, has been a passionate foe of corruption his entire life. But let's start with the news that Attorney Mark Zaid confirmed on Sunday that he's now representing multiple whistleblowers and that the second whistleblower who has not yet filed a formal complaint has firsthand knowledge of some of the allegations. How big of a deal is this when so much of what the original whistleblower told us has already been confirmed? I think the significance of these additional whistleblowers has less to do with the specific information we may or may not

get about this Ukraine scandal, but it does say that Trump's strategy to intimidate whistleblowers writ large is failing. Because ultimately, all of that, you know, we've had this question in our head about how, like, Trump keeps attacking this whistleblower, even though the whistleblower, what the whistleblower said is now basically overtaken by events, right? Where we already have the scrawl transcript, we have Trump's repeated confessions to said crimes on camera on national television. And so why do we care? But the main thing that Trump is doing is he's trying to intimidate additional whistleblowers saying, if you come out, I will come after you. And at least for this group that we're hearing about now, that has not worked. And I think that is the moral marming concerned if you're Trump.

And I think that is the moral gang to try to take down Trump. Like the more that come forward and the more that have firsthand information and, you know, and the more that this information is all corroborated by all of the other evidence we have, it does feel like that lessens the effectiveness of the already ridiculous attack. But I don't know. What do you think? I'm sure he's going to be deep state, yelling about the deep state till the very end. Yeah, he will. The question is, is that going to matter for anyone other than

his supporters who want some sort of permission structure to back crime? They need a pro-crime permission structure. They're just waiting for it. And the deep state's their best target.

Yeah, no, I mean, I'm sure we're going to have, you know, more Glenn Beck chalkboards and fucking all the rest of the conspiracies on the right about all of this, depending on who the whistleblowers are or where they work. But it doesn't seem like that's going to really hold water with almost anyone else. I mean, that's the hope. That's the hope.

That's the test for democracy, I guess. Well, it's a test for democracy. It's a test for voters. It's also the test for media, by the way, because, you know, reporters in the past have had a tendency to jump on some, any kind of whiff of partisanship on behalf of some of these whistleblowers, right? Like if it turns out that this one of the whistleblowers were somehow in the Obama administration or even in the Bush administration now, right? Like everything seems now to be fodder for Trump saying,

these people are just out to get me. It's not on the level, which is itself a bit ironic. I mean, it does, just for a sec, speak to a little bit of the Watergate fetishization of a certain generation of reporters, which is like there's all like secret sources are supposed to be the way in which presidents come down. But we don't need a secret source here because we have the White House releasing the smoking gun. We have the knuckleheads texting about it. And we have the president admitting to crimes on television. So like like, I'm for everyone blowing the whistle. All blowers whistle or something. But it doesn't really, it's like the obsession with the secret source

is less relevant when the president admits to the crimes publicly. Yeah, and, you know, Lovett said this during one of our live shows before, but, you know, Donald Trump is deep throat here. So it's, don't have to worry about that. All right, Dan, so early last week you tweeted, the perfect call is actually a text. Turns out you were even more right than you thought at the time. On Thursday evening, the House Intelligence Committee released a series of texts provided during 10 hours of testimony by Kurt Volker, Trump's former special envoy to Ukraine. The messages between Volker, U.S. ambassador to the EU,

to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and interim U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, are fairly cut and dry. Here's Volker texting President Zelensky's top aide, quote, heard from White House, assuming President Xi convinced Trump he will investigate, slash, in quotations, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016. We will nail down date for visit to Washington.

Here's Sondland to Volcker, quote, I think POTUS really wants the deliverable. And here's where it gets good. Here's Bill Taylor to Sondland, quote, are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations? And then Sondland's response, call me. Taylor the next day after that call, quote, As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. And here's Sondland, quote, The president has been clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.

And then I suggest we stop the back and forth by text. And then he suggests another phone call. Dan, I don't have a legal or law enforcement background, but it smells a little fishy to me. What do you think? I mean, to quote the great American television character Stringer Bell, don't take notes on a motherfucking criminal conspiracy because that is what is happening here. I mean, we are dealing with the dumbest criminals. And Bill Taylor is not dumb because he knows exactly what he was doing, which was he was basically luring them into admitting to the crimes in writing just so everyone was clear. They're sort of like, yes, let me put the drugs in this bag in case anyone is listening to the wire.

And then I'm going to hand you this bag with drugs. You're going to hand me an envelope with money. Yes. Can you confirm just a little louder that the drugs in this bag, it's heroin in the bag. Can you just repeat that for me? Just say it closer to my chest. Tommy has made this point several times on Twitter

and to us, which is, you don't have to text call me. You can just call. I know, it's pretty bad. So, I mean, what possible reason does Ambassador Sondland have to be involved as such a passionate loyalist to Donald Trump? Who is this guy? What's his deal? Why does he seem to be the one who's trying to protect Donald Trump here? He is a rich guy who was originally for Trump, and then he walked away from Trump over one of the many horrible things Trump did.

But then when Trump won, he bought his way back in with about a million dollars in donations. And he got the job of ambassador to the European Union, which is very strange to give that very important position to a donor, right? Like American ambassadorships are not great, but there's usually generally a set that go to donors. And then there's a set that go to career foreign policy professionals.

And the EU is usually handled by a career foreign policy professional. And it's also notable that Trump sent this guy with no relevant experience, given that he has been screaming about his support for Brexit for several years now. So the whole thing is very awkward. It's also noting that Ukraine is not a member of the EU, and therefore Sondland should really have no authority over this. But he appointed himself to this position, and when anyone in the State Department asked why, he said, talk to the president. Right. So he is a Trump henchman, essentially. And it's important to know who these people are

to give the text some context, right? So Sondland is a Republican mega donor, owned a hotel chain, donated a couple million to the inaugural, to Trump's inaugural, through a shell company, and then was rewarded to be an EU ambassador, which, as you pointed out, Ukraine's not an EU, probably shouldn't be handling the Ukraine portfolio here. Bill Taylor was a former ambassador to Ukraine. He was, he worked as a more of a career diplomat in the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and now for Trump, sort of reluctantly took this job after Trump

and Rudy had the current Ukraine ambassador, U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine fired before she was supposed to come home. So Bill Taylor gets there. He's sort of like a longtime diplomat in both kinds of Republican and Democratic administrations and is now pretty horrified that they're all trying to commit these crimes and tries to say so in text. And it's pretty clear that Sondland is trying to protect Trump from all this by saying, oh, Mr. Trump said no quid pro quos. I'm supposed to say that right here in the text. I mean, how do you think this adds, these texts add to the already pretty airtight case for impeachment here? pretty airtight case for impeachment here. Well, the line keeps moving on the Republicans,

right? So first, when we heard reports of the call, the idea was, well, as long as he didn't explicitly ask for a favor, then it's fine. And then Trump asked for a favor. And then the next line is, well, Trump did not explicitly tie Ukraine military aid to these investigations. And so that was the new line in which Republicans are like, Trump cannot cross that line or he's in trouble. And then these texts come out and make it just vividly clear that the exact play here was if Ukraine wanted U.S. military aid, which it needs, then it was going to have to do the things that Trump wanted. then it was going to have to do the things that Trump wanted. And so we now like it every time the Republicans say, yeah, it's fine, except unless this happens, that this happens. And the texts are rock solid proof that this was a quid pro quo for U.S. military aid. Yeah. How much does it matter that Sondland claimed in the text that there was no quid pro quo? And now Republicans on the Intel Committee, no surprise, are saying that Volcker claimed the

same thing during his testimony, that there was no, I was not aware of any quid pro quo at all. How much do you think this matters? Well, it's going to matter in the same way the deep state conspiracy matters for some, which is it's just, you're looking for, if you were looking for a way to stick with Trump, then this gives you a piece of evidence. Even if all of the other evidence completely runs counter to it, they're just going to hang their hat on this very thin read at this specific line in this text, but everything else, the full pattern of behavior is very clear that there is an explicit quid

pro quo here involving us military aid in a meeting with president Trump in exchange for Trump's doing Trump's political bidding regards to the 2016 election and the 2020 election. And there is also one more piece of evidence that emerged over the last several days from new dumbest senator alive, Ron Johnson, who we're going to talk about later. But Johnson basically says that Sondland came to him, said that there was some kind of a quid pro quo around military insistence for investigations. Johnson then goes to Trump and is like, what is this about a quid pro quo? And Trump's like, no, I would never do that. What are you, are you serious? Are you kidding? Absolutely not. So it goes to show that Sondland,

who was saying there was no quid pro quo in the text messages to Volcker, really believed that there was, but was trying to cover it up. And so was Trump, which goes to show that there was a moment at the beginning of the scandal where I was like, I wonder if these people are so brazen and so ethically and morally bankrupt that they just don't know that what they're doing is a crime or that it is a severe abuse of power at the very least. But it's clear that they did. It's clear from these texts and from reporting about Trump that they absolutely didn't know that this was wrong and that they were actively trying to cover it up. Right. Right. I mean, it's very clear what was happening here.

It is not a mystery to anyone. It's very clear what was happening here. It is not a mystery to anyone. And all the other depositions and the subpoena documents, everything, are going to fill out the picture. But we know what happened. It is very clear. And the question is, what is Congress going to do about it? will there be any accountability for a very clear scheme to leverage U.S. foreign policy to help the political campaign of the incumbent president of the United States? Dan, finally, one more question before we move on to the Republican response.

Do you believe, like Donald Trump reportedly does, that former Dancing with the Stars contestant slash current energy secretary Rick Perry is in fact the mastermind behind this whole sordid scheme. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was Rick Perry convincing us that he is a moron when he was pulling all the strings. The whole time. The whole time. It's basically Rick Perry as Kaiser Soze. It's not a story that people are going to believe.

Well, so, and what we're referring to, in case you've missed this, is Axios reported that on a call with House Republicans, Trump said something along the lines of, quote, not a lot of people know this, but I didn't even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG, liquefied natural gas, plant. So, I mean, it's sort of funny that he's blaming Rick Perry, but there is also another way that Perry is involved here.

You know, I mentioned at the top of the show, the AP story, that a couple of Rudy's clients were trying to use their connections to Trump and Rudy to push for favorable treatment from the state-run natural gas company in Ukraine. It turns out that Rick Perry was also trying to fire the whole board of this natural gas company that is, again, run by the state of Ukraine and replace it with at least two Republican donors from Texas. and replace it with at least two Republican donors from Texas. Now, Perry claims this was because, you know, this natural gas company wasn't as open to Western business interests as it should be. And yet, usually when you try to push for the removal of a whole bunch of people on a state-run natural gas board in Ukraine, you need the approval of, I don't know, the IMF, the World Bank, the international community.

It's not just the U.S. coming in like a bunch of fucking gangsters and saying, hey, please replace these people on the board with a couple of our fucking donors. I guess we should have seen this part of it coming, not the Rick Perry mastermind part, seeing this part of it coming, not the Rick Perry mastermind part, but ultimately at the heart of every Trump scandal that we deal with is someone trying to get rich, right? It is never about politics or policy. It's always about profit. And so in the core of this, there's the D-State conspiracy. There's the trying to take down Joe biden but ultimately it's about a bunch of people close to trump trying to get rich off what's happening in america yeah and the and look in these two rudy clients uh they've met with trump before they've been at mar-a-lago they actually

helped uh they were in conversation with the ukrainians about investigating joe biden and then these same people go back to the Ukrainians about the board of the natural gas company. And they say, you know, look, we're close with Trump and Rudy. And obviously, you know, Ukraine wants a better relationship with the United States. And the board is run by the government of Ukraine. So look, you know, it's pretty beneficial for everyone to do business with us. I mean, that is how they are using their connections and Trump and Giuliani. Like all of this is so fucking corrupt in the audacity of them to be doing this side

hustle while their whole point supposedly is to clean up fucking corruption in Ukraine and to accuse the Bidens of corruption while Rudy and his clients and his Trump buddies are running a side hustle the whole time? It's not great. It's not great. This element of the scandal, I think, speaks to the need for a broad impeachment inquiry because if we think this is the only time

yes that a bunch of trump cronies are prostituting the american policy process in order to make money that's insane right like that is obvious that we just stumbled on this grift through some other corruption scandal yeah so there is grift happening everywhere, and we should be looking for it. And I don't think we should short-circuit this before we at least do some due diligence to see where else this is happening. Because the intersection, you have lobbyists running federal agencies, you have donors with full access, you have Trump greenlining said corruption. And so I think an important part, if we're going to use the impeachment process to tell a story about Trump,

this is an important part of the story. And it's bigger than Ukraine. Also, if the argument for impeachment is that this is a serious abuse of power, and that it's not the first time he has abused his power, it's not some one-off incident that was an accident or whatever else. I think it is important to build a case that Trump has been abusing the power of the presidency over and over for personal, political, and financial gain. That's it. That's the story of Donald Trump's presidency. That's the story of his campaign. It's the story of his whole fucking life. But I think that's going to be the ultimate frame for Democrats. And, you know, we have all this evidence. This is all the Ukraine scandal, but like you said, there have all this evidence. This is all the Ukraine scandal. But

like you said, there's probably a ton of other scandals under every single government agency there is. So let's talk about the Republican response to the scandal, which has been decidedly mixed. Here's an outstanding lead from The Washington Post, quote, a torrent of impeachment developments has triggered a reckoning in the Republican Party, paralyzing many of its officeholders as they weigh their political futures, legacies, and ultimately their allegiance to a president who has held them captive. Across the country, most Republican lawmakers have responded to questions about Trump's conduct with varying degrees of silence, shrugged shoulders, or pain defenses. So I'd say one of the most pain defenses came from Iowa

Senator Joni Ernst, who's up in 2020, when one of her constituents confronted her during a town hall. And I think we have a clip here of the question, and then we'll get to Senator Ernst's answer. We have him going after Ukraine. Oh, well, if you want weapons to protect from my buddy in Russia, then you're going to have to do what I want you to do and investigate Joe Biden. Now, this morning, we have him going, oh, well, we should, you know, he's going to be in the White House here in the next couple weeks. And yet, you know, we're going to have, you know,

he should investigate Joe Biden, too, because I'm sure there was some other stuff over there. And then we get conspiracy theories, and we get lies lies and then we get everything else except for what we really need to know and what we really need him to do. And it just where is the line? When are you guys going to say enough and stand up and say, you know what? I'm not back in any of this. And then we have Joni Ernst trying to answer this. Okay, so President Trump, if I can say yay, nay, whatever, president is going to say what the president is going to do. It's up to us as members of Congress to continue working with our allies, making sure that we remain strong

in the face of adversity. I mean, that's what we have to do is continue to encourage those other countries. So that's what we will continue to do. Nailed it. Nailed it, Joni Ernst. We can say yay, nay, whatever. What was that? That was awful. Now, I do, I mean, I have to give such credit to that questioner who is a constituent of Joni Ernst. She's an Iowan. And, you know, I think she put people's frustrations and also why Donald Trump's actions are so deeply disturbing and rise to the level of impeachment. And, you know, she articulated it probably better than anyone I've heard. And just asking the question, where is the line?

Where is the line? And, you know, Joni Ernst could not answer. Do you think, Dan, this is why no one from the White House or the Republican leadership was willing to go on any of the Sunday shows this weekend? Why are so many of them afraid to say anything about this? It is actually notable that no one did it, because really the fastest way to Trump's heart is to be willing to absolutely embarrass yourself on TV in his defense. And it says a lot that no one was willing to step up to that task. And there is nothing to say. It isn't like the president committed a crime. He confessed to the crime. He is threatening whistleblowers. He's doubling down on the crimes.

Oh, you want to impeach me for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm going to ask China to do it, too. And so I don't know what like there is nothing to say. You know, in one of these stories, it says no one wants to be Kevin McCarthy, which should be basically everyone's pinned tweet. But there is no answer you can say that is not embarrassing, because the position of defending and enabling this crime and corruption is embarrassing. And most Republicans know that. Did you see this morning, Dan, that Kevin McCarthy Kevin McCarthy himself again?

He was he was on Fox and Friends and they asked him about the president calling on China to investigate Joe Biden. And and he was like, he didn't say that. Just like I like that Kevin McCarthy has just gone to a place where like he's basically telling us things we see with our eyes and hear with our ears just are not true kevin mccarthy is going to pretend that none of this shit is happening it is like a step beyond the usual oh i haven't paul ryan his predecessor used to do the old oh i haven't read the tweets this morning i haven't read the transcript i didn't see the president's answer to that i don't pay attention all stuff, which of course was a lie. But at least it was a comforting lie. We knew that Paul Ryan was lying and we all moved on. Kevin McCarthy's, he's going an extra

step. Kevin McCarthy's like, you know what? That's just not true. And they're like, well, here's the transcript, sir. And he says it right here. He said the word though. Do us a favor though. Nope. Nope. I didn't see that. I didn't see that. I mean, does he think that's going to work? Nope, nope, I didn't see that. I didn't see that. I mean, does he think that's going to work? I think Kevin McCarthy is, I think he missed, I'm sure when Paul Ryan left the Republican leadership,

he left a note for Kevin McCarthy on the desk. And one of those things probably was, the best way to deal with Trump is to tell the press you don't read the news. But as you point out, Paul Ryan read the news and said that. I think Kevin McCarthy took Paul Ryan too literally and just does not read the news. He has no idea what is happening. Someone get Kevin McCarthy a fucking newspaper. Sign him up for what a day, fast.

So speaking of Paul Ryan, his former communications aide, Brendan Buck, had an interesting quote in one of these stories where he said, they are working with a president with no tolerance for anyone to criticize him, they being the Republicans. They're getting stuck wrapped around the axle of whether what the president did was wrong or whether he even did it in the first place. So, you know, I wanted to ask you about this. Do we think that, I mean, I think that Brendan has a point, right, that some of these Republicans are just terrified of speaking out because, and we'll talk about Mitt Romney in a second, that the president will just unload on them, right? He'll tweet about them. He'll attack them. All the right-wing radio hosts will attack them. Everyone on Fox will attack them. They'll get a primary challenge. So fear drives a lot of this. But then, you know, this morning, you know, we haven't talked about this, but late last night,

the president basically decided that U.S. troops are going to immediately pull out of northern Syria and that and he's going to basically allow the Turks to invade northern Syria. And the Turks to invade northern Syria and the Turks want to sort of go after the Kurds who have been our allies in this fight. And so basically all these Kurdish fighters who have been our allies are going to be just left to the mercy of, you know, the invading Turkish army here. And, you know, Trump said, fuck you, I don't care. I'm just going to abandon our allies here. And, you know, Trump said, fuck you, I don't care. I'm just going to abandon our allies here. And this morning, all of these, a ton of Republicans have spoken out against Trump's move here.

Why is he abandoning our allies? This is part of our national security. This is horrible for him to do. He has to reassess. So none of these Republicans were too scared of speaking out against Trump this morning when it came to Syria and Turkey. So what do we think is driving their reluctance on this scandal, the Ukraine scandal? I do. Before we get to that, you mentioned Paul Ryan's aide, Brendan Buck. He's been quoted in all of these stories about Republicans. I just think it's so funny that Paul Ryan's top advisor

has become the spokesperson for Republican cowardice. Poor Brendan. Yeah, it's, uh, thanks. Thanks for, well, yeah, thanks for speaking up now, at least. Yeah, I mean, I guess. But it's not, I mean, it's just so funny. I mean, this is, is like the one way in which Republican.

Like pre-Trump orthodoxy has remained is on foreign policy. Right. This was the first thing the Republicans did together when Trump was elected, was working with Democrats to pass Russian sanctions because they were afraid that Trump would unilaterally get rid of them. They have pushed back on other things Trump has done. And so this is like, as the party gets splintered into never-Trumpers, MAGA folks, supply-siders, anti-trade populists, the one thing that still ties most of them together, at least in the confines of Washington, is neoconservative foreign policy. And so it's sort of like they get to all go back to the same cocktail party they used to go to before Trump was elected. I mean, I guess, but the Ukraine scandal is also a scandal about foreign policy. Like, I find it completely insane that the Republican Party, right, which is the party

that has told, you know, has feared Russian aggression for so long and is supposed to be the tough party, right? And now under Donald Trump is supposed to be the nationalist party, right? The people are sovereign and we're all about nationalism and U.S. borders are super important, blah, blah, blah. This is the party that now says it's okay for the president of the United States. This is also, by the way, the party of civil libertarians, right? We're to protect you from federal government overreach. That's the Republican party for a long, long time. But when the president of the United States decides to go to a foreign government, foreign governments, including authoritarian foreign governments in China and says, hey, why don't you go investigate American citizens to help me out and to basically then jeopardize our national security and our foreign policy

to say, okay, we will only provide U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support to your country that is facing Russian aggression if you give me the investigations I need to get myself reelected. Somehow, the nationalist party, the tough party, the Republican Party, is totally fine with this. No big deal whatsoever. Federal government, the federal government asking foreign governments to investigate the lives of American citizens, no problem.

Super conservative. It's like, it is unbelievable. One prominent Republican who did speak out against Trump's abuse of power is the party's 2012 presidential nominee, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who said that, quote, the president's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling. For that, Trump called him a pompous ass who deserves to be impeached, which senators cannot be. Dan, aside from Romney, Susan Collins said Trump's call was inappropriate and a big mistake. Ben Sasse criticized Trump asking China's authoritarian government to investigate an American citizen. So I guess that's nice. How much do these statements matter matter how positive of a sign should we take them to be i don't want to give people credit for doing

the bare fucking minimum i mean like the amount of like people were on twitter were carving mitt romney into mount rushmore for sending one tweet. If he votes to convict Trump, then he gets full credit. If he used his power in any way to push for accountability on Trump, then I would give him credit. If he were to partner with a Democrat on legislation that would curb some of Trump's powers or co-sign a subpoena in the Senate to ensure that we have some oversight and give him some credit. But it just is not true that the only power the founders granted to a co-equal branch of government is sad tweets. Like, it's just, like, I'm glad he did it. Like, he should, like, we should, it's better than not doing it. But let's actually do something. You should not get a huge amount of credit for saying the obvious truth.

around and debating whether we give someone credit or not or whether you know their statement about trump is a sign that they're going to convict or not like we can sit around all day debating this and predicting to me mitt romney's statement forget about how we think about mitt romney it is a politically useful statement because as we are trying to build a case against Donald Trump, not just for a potential Senate trial, but for the most important trial, which is the 2020 election, we are trying to show that not only has what he done pissed off Democrats, because we're just partisans, but that there are enough Republicans, conservatives, never Trump Republicans, wherever they may be out there who find this behavior appalling because there are going to be some voters who think to themselves, okay, well,

it's not just the Democrats criticizing Donald Trump. I am also noticing some of these Republican senators that I know or Republican pundits that I see on TV also criticizing Donald Trump. So maybe this one's worse than the other ones, right? Like, I find the statement useful and I find it like we should take Mitt Romney's statement right now, put it in a bunch of ads, run them in Maine and Colorado and Arizona and all the places where Republican senators are vulnerable and up in 2020 and say the party's 2012 nominee thinks that what Donald Trump did is appalling. What does your senator have to say about it? Where is your senator stand instead of just hiding? And so I think Mitt

Romney's statement is useful and that we can use it to pressure some of the other vulnerable Senate Republicans. Where it might lead, what Mitt Romney might do, we have no fucking idea. But I think, you know, what we should do is welcome it and then use it to pressure these other Republicans. Okay, you've convinced me. I allowed my never-ending hatred of Mitt Romney to cloud my judgment here. Yeah, you know me. I mean, during the 2012 campaign, I was always the big Romney defender. Loved the guy. Yeah, you were the one who, you were like, this Bain stuff seems off-limits. Look, we strap Leo

on the roof of the car all the time, you know? That's a throwback. I'm wondering who gets that. To your point, in addition to using it to pressure Senate candidates, we should also use it in the impeachment ads that exist only in our brains to target Romney Clinton voters in core battleground states. Because that is a group that's going to be very hard to hold on to and where Trump has a chance of making inroads to nullify the gains Democrats may make with some other groups. And so, like, having Mitt Romney say that what Trump did is terrible and showing people who pulled the lever for Mitt Romney not too many years ago could seem like a good use of money we don't have and can't seem to find.

Yeah. And I will say that after complaining about this for, like, the last several days, Yeah, and I will say that after complaining about this for like the last several days, I noticed that, you know, Bill Kristol's group is running some ads right now. These are a bunch of never Trump Republicans who are running a few ads about impeachment. And then I saw a report that Tom Steyer's group is going to put a couple million dollars into ads in battleground states about impeachment as well, which is a positive sign. There could be a lot more of that. We could be doing all this a lot faster. People should be producing like digital ads, even if there's not a huge buy behind them, just so, you know, the media covers it. But like there should be a lot more creativity around the ads here and they should be a lot faster than they are. But it's good to at least see a couple groups are starting to play here. Kudos to Tom Steyer, but it is sad that Bill Kristol is the one coming to our rescue. That is not great.

Yeah, it is. So another defense of Trump is that he was just joking about asking Ukraine and China to investigate American citizens. This was the brainchild of Marco Rubio, who before losing to Donald Trump, suggested that he has a small penis and shouldn't be trusted with the nuclear codes. Dan, what do you think? Is the Donald Trump's just joking excuse that was the brainchild of Rubio, but also repeated by Jim Jordan, I think Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri, a couple other Republicans, just joking, just trolling us?

Is that going to work? I mean, that had like a 2% chance of working if it had not been reported mere hours after Trump said this by CNN that Trump did actually do it and that there was a call transcript on the secret White House server that contained the information. So no, I do not think that's going to work. Yeah, the best part is Rubio says this about China that was just a joke. And then the very next day, which always happens, Trump tweets, look, I do think that China should engage in investigations. You know, I don't think it's politics. It's just corruption.

So he wasn't joking. He fucking told us he wasn't joking. You dipshit. God, I hate Marco Rubio. I am. He sucks. He sucks. hate marker Rubio.

I am just... He sucks. He sucks. Finally, we have the Ron Johnson defense, which is to go on television and repeat all the memes that your crazy uncle posts on Facebook.

Here is the exchange between the Wisconsin Republican and Meet the Press host Chuck Todd. That is why Trump is so upset. He had this false narrative that resulted in him

being set up by James Comey on January 16th. Then he has a senator council appointed that has hampered his entire investigation, his entire administration. And now once he's been, that was proven false, he would like to know, and I would like to know, and I know his supporters would like to know, where did this all come from? Who planted that false story? Senator. You know, I have my third letter in to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Committee asking to just confirm, just confirm, are you investigating those leaks that Peter Strzok talked about?

All right, Senator, I have no idea why. No, that's a setup. It is entirely relevant to this point. Why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here, I have no idea. I have no idea why we're going here. Senator, I'm asking about... Because this is underlying exactly why President Trump is upset and why his supporters are upset at the news media. Okay, this is not about the media.

Senator Johnson, Senator Johnson, please. Can we please answer the question that I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him? Wow. Chuck. I've never heard Chuck in all the years we've known him that angry about anything. That was something. I mean, Dan, did Ron Johnson, did he have to do that? Like, what does it say about being a Republican in today's Republican Party that that and you go back to the fucking, you know, Peter Strzok texts,

and the idea that James Comey set up Donald Trump in the fucking Russia investigation, which was conducted by Republican Bob Mueller and a bunch of FBI agents and the intelligence community and the FBI is somehow a fucking conspiracy because you see that on a bunch of right wing websites. I think it speaks to two elements of modern Republican republicanism. The first is the

audience of one. Right. Yeah. Everyone is on TV knows that Trump is going to watch what they're saying and very well may tweet them out of existence. And so they're all performing for him, not for the voters back home, not for swing voters who may be watching, not for the moderator, but they're performing for Trump. And that matters. That affects how they think. And we know Trump's going to watch because he actually DVRs all these shows and watches them later. He tweeted about Face the Nation like nine hours after it was on. So he got back from the golf course, whatever he did on Sunday, sat down on his couch, fired up Face the Nation, and watched it afterwards,

which that's the first person to ever do that in American history. And so the second phenomenon is it's the Fox News effect, And so but the second phenomenon is it's the Fox News effect, which is we think all the time about how Fox News affects voters. But we don't have time to think about how Fox News affects Republican politicians. And they have moved into the Fox bubble. Ron Johnson believes these things because he gets all of his information from a right wing propaganda bubble. And so he, you know, I think probably a little bit like Kevin McCarthy, as we talked about earlier, is like Fox News. If I use Fox News sort of as a catch all for all of the terrible Republican propaganda, but Fox News is pickling the Republican brain and is happening at the highest levels of American government. And that is that shouldn't scare people because our government decisions are being made.

Our policy outcomes are being dramatically impacted, not just in the White House, but in Congress by the things that Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Amara Ingram say on a nightly basis. And that's scary. Yeah, I mean, and there's no better example of this. Forget about Ron Johnson, then the abuse of power that the president may be impeached over. forget about ron johnson then the abuse of power that the president may be impeached over right like one one of the investigations he asked for was into the biden's um which is also part of a conspiracy uh theory that you know fucking peter schweitzer put in a book somewhere the other investigation is uh into you know the idea that ukraine fucking framed russia, this menacing country next door that has invaded it. And Ukraine has somehow had it together to frame Russia for interference in the 2016 election. Not this idea that, you know, I know a lot of them are pointing to some Politico story that Ken fucking Vogel wrote last year or whatever, that, you know, perhaps there was people in the Ukraine who like exposed Paul Manafort's crimes

because they fucking hate Paul Manafort because he worked for a Russian puppet in Ukraine. So they say, you know, they were helping the Clinton campaign by exposing Paul Manafort's crimes. Not that. Donald Trump believes that there's a server, that Hillary Clinton's server is hidden somewhere in the Ukraine. And that if we find the server and look into it, then we're going to discover that it wasn't Russia all along, that our FBI and our intelligence agencies and members of both administrations, the Obama administration and the Trump administration, all of these people in the federal government, even people that Donald Trump appointed this whole time, were part of a conspiracy to just frame Russia and Donald Trump appointed this whole time were part of a conspiracy to just frame Russia and

Donald Trump for election interference in 2016. That's what he believes. He believes that. Rudy Giuliani believes that. And no small amount of the Republican Party fucking believes that. That's what we're dealing with here. Not great. It is not great. What do you think Republicans could be doing right now? What would the best strategy here be from Republican politicians who are trying to get through this? Aside from what we would like them to do, which is show some fucking courage and say that it's wrong and that you're going to hold the president accountable. I think you could say it's wrong, but say it doesn't resolve all of impeachment. Which I'm surprised that more of them haven't done. It's so obvious to do because it allows you to state the obvious.

Trump's conduct is indefensible. It is obvious and indefensible. And so don't defend it. Don't like wrap yourself or into a pretzel or whatever, trying to explain why it's okay for presidents to pressure foreign governments to interfere in elections. It is not. That is like on the list of hypothetical impeachable offenses that the founders probably drew up, right? Like, obviously what it is. But you can say, if you're a Republican, it was wrong. The president should not have done it. But it doesn't reach a level of impeachable offense, particularly this close to an election, and we should have let the voters have their say.

And then it's pivot and attack the Democrats for focusing on this partisan obsession instead of doing X, Y, or Z, improving, like, raising wages or building infrastructure, whatever it is. But they can't do that because Trump will brook no dissent. And so they're stuck in this, you know, on this very sad short menu of options that we outlined, the Marco Rubio joke, the hide from the press, the, you know, Ron Johnson conspiracy theory route. There's the obvious answer is not available to them because Trump won't let it be available to them. And it's because they don't belong to a political party anymore. They belong to an authoritarian cult. That's the truth. That's that's why they don't belong to a political party anymore. They belong to an authoritarian cult. That's the truth.

That's why they're not allowed to criticize Dear Leader, even to say that something he did was wrong, but it doesn't deserve impeachment. They can't do that. I also think once you say that it's wrong for the president of the United States to ask a foreign country to interfere in our elections, to investigate American citizens, to do this as a quid pro quo for getting the United States' military, financial, and diplomatic support, you do then have to answer, well, if it's so wrong, why are we just going to let him do it? And yes, we have an election in 2020 where we can decide this, but we don't have any confidence that it's going to be a free and fair election because the president is actively trying to rig it.

That's that's what he needs to be impeached for. I think that strategy only works if you can hang your hat on the non-quid. It's not a quid pro quo text. I think you cannot admit to all of the facts that are at play here and then not hold Trump accountable through removal from office. Like you can't really say the president blackmailed Ukraine in order to get a political, uh, investigate beneficial investigation. But he did that, but I'm not accountable. But you can sort of, you have to admit to some set of facts to do it. Otherwise, it's impossible. But people either are willfully,

they're making, the members of, like, Democratic make them willfully ignorant of the fact, or they're just, like I said, twisting themselves in a pretzel. Yeah. All right, let's talk about how impeachment is affecting the Democratic primary, especially Joe Biden. This is from the New York Times over the weekend in a piece about how his campaign has struggled over how to respond. Quote, Mr. Biden himself was equivocating. He wanted to defend and protect his son, but he also believed the president was baiting him into a dirty fight. And as a lifelong adherent to congressional tradition, Mr. Biden was wary of acting hastily as an impeachment inquiry was getting underway. was wary of acting hastily as an impeachment inquiry was getting underway. The Biden campaign's tense deliberations reached a climax last weekend when Mr. Biden agreed to give a scorching rebuttal

to Mr. Trump in a speech on Wednesday in Reno, Nevada. But he delivered it well into the evening on the East Coast, and it was mostly lost amid another long day of Trumpy interruptions. To some Biden allies, it seemed too little too late, a case study in political indecision. So, Dan, on one hand, you read this and you see Biden equivocating on whether Trump should be impeached and the Biden folks writing Saturday night op-eds in the Washington Post and responding to Trump tweets that are like two days old. And you think maybe not the most nimble response. On the other, there were two Fox News polls out this weekend that show Biden winning Wisconsin and beating Trump by more than any other Democrat there and holding a huge lead in South Carolina. So what do you think? Is he handling this well? Are we all in the in the media and on Twitter overreacting? What do you

think? I like that you considered it two groups of people, the media and Twitter. I don't want to lump us right in with the media, you know. Yeah. I want to just provide a little context first that I think underlies that New York Times story, which is any time I've ever been working in a campaign and a candidate's family became part of the campaign conversation, that's when things got really messy. It just gets very hard for campaigns to make clearly thought out, nimble decisions when the impact of those decisions is not about what happens in polls or what happens in the voting booth, what happens around the kitchen table on their family. And Joe Biden is incredibly close to his son, Hunter. Obviously, together they have been through an unimaginable amount of tragedy in their lives.

And so, like, I just think we have to recognize that the fact that this is about Joe Biden's son makes this a much more complicated thing. So when we sit here and say you should be doing X, Y, and Z, you should do it this fast, understand the decision-making process is more complicated than it would be if this was just about, you know, some other false attack. And so, you know, just any time Candace Stanley is involved, things get very complicated very quickly. But no, but having said that, the response is lacking on every level. And it's like they are playing by an old set of rules by responding with speeches and Washington Post op eds. And they're even by the old set of rules,

they are performing poorly, right? Giving your speech, your big response on the West Coast at night makes zero sense. And there's a reason no one noticed it. When you texted me on Sunday morning to say that Biden had written a Washington Post op-ed, I was forced to remember that the Washington Post had an op-ed page. It's so, and like, I happened to catch it Saturday night, and I was just, because I'm a loser and was going to bed and was reading the news on Saturday night, and I just see him like, wait, Joe Biden has an op-ed that he wrote in the Washington Post. What is this? And, you know, I read it before I went to bed. It's a fine op-ed. It doesn't break any new ground, doesn't say anything interesting,

but it's fine, whatever. And then I wake up the next day and of course, all the Sunday shows have happened, all this other news, and you can't find a single comment about that op-ed anywhere no one is talking about it few people have read it it has made no news and it just to me i don't mean to harp on an op-ed because it's just a fucking op-ed who cares but to me it is indicative of a problem that their campaign has had beyond just this scandal which is they are not very nimble they do not move quickly they do not um like you, they do not play by the rules of today's media age. Now, part of this is because they believe that the gang of people who are on Twitter and part of the media, whether it's reporters or progressive activists, are always

overly hysterical about everything, that we're all in a bubble, and that all their voters, who are non-college educated, white Americans, black Americans, Latino Americans, their older voters, their coalition is not always on Twitter freaking out about every development in the news cycle. And I get that. I understand that. And I understand that that is their coalition. But what they don't realize is that what is happening on Twitter and on the news and it is is driving the media that eventually reaches all voters in this country it is shaping the narrative and they seem to be very reluctant to be quick enough and bold enough to shape that narrative as events are happening they They always seem to be a bit behind the eight ball. And I'm trying to figure out why that is. I think there is a happy medium somewhere between a campaign that's basically RT, if you agree,

and where the Biden campaign is right now. Yes. And yes, I know I stole your joke you made to me separately, but I can do that. And I think this is like, I think Biden is an extreme example of this. So I think this speaks to democratic political communications more broadly. That's something that very worries me, which is in 2019, political communication is not public relations. It's modern information warfare.

And where the press is only a small part of a strategy to persuade people. So Biden is in this mix. Trump is spending millions of dollars in digital ads. He's protecting himself by attacking Biden and convincing targeted sets of voters in battleground states all across this country that Joe Biden is corrupt. And he is doing it unimpeded, unresponded to. And you just, the Democrat, for too many Democratic campaigns, their strategy is talk to the press. And the Republican strategy and Trump strategy is to talk to people and to put money behind it. And when you play by the old set of rules, you are going to lose. And like I said, they are not even playing by them particularly well. And to the point I made earlier about why this is complicated is Joe Biden has very smart advisors.

People we've worked with, we've worked on campaigns with. And so sometimes it's not – in a campaign, the sum is less than the total of the parts. And so, which often speaks to organization, right? And I am, you talk about nimbleness, and I am not particularly good at nautical metaphors, but they are an aircraft carrier, right? It takes a long time to turn. They have a lot of people. Joe Biden had people around him for a very long time.

And you want to be something, I don't know what you would call it, but something that's more nimble than an aircraft carrier, that turns more quickly and can react more quickly. And that is particularly true in this media age against someone like Trump, who is firing a new version of a new attack at you every five seconds. There's also a strategic issue here, which, you know, Biden sort of gave voice to during one of his fundraisers that was quoted in one of these pieces where he said, you know, he basically his lesson from 2016 is, you know, Trump pulled Hillary into the mud with him. And so every time Trump said something crazy,

she had to respond, which is something that we've talked about a lot, which was a problem, right? That like Trump says something racist, Hillary gives a speech about Trump's racism. And the headline is Trump says something offensive. And here's Hillary Clinton's response. And it's not really helpful to her campaign because it's always just her responding to every crazy thing that Donald Trump tweets. And so what Biden takes from that is, I don't want to get down into the mud with Donald Trump. I don't want to respond to every bullshit thing he does. And I understand that. And I understand that. And I, to a point, I agree that you don't want to go tit for tat with Donald Trump and you don't want to respond to every fucking tweet that Donald Trump sends out every day. Because if the campaign is about small things, he wins. If it's about big

things, we win. I keep saying this, right? But this is different. This is not a small thing. This is not Donald Trump saying something offensive. This is Donald Trump interfering to make sure that we don't have free and fair elections in 2020 because he wants to rig it and he wants whatever help he can get to rig it, whether it is the Attorney General of the United States or the government of Ukraine or the government of China, whoever can help him. He is going to use the power of the presidency to make sure that we don't have a free and fair election in 2020, but that he has every advantage that the presidency gives him and doesn't give him, according to the law, but he's going to take anyway to try to win this fucking election.

And there is nothing bigger than that. And it's part of Joe Biden's message, if he wants it to be, right? Joe Biden is the one who's saying this is a fight for the soul of the country. And it is Donald Trump who is uniquely bad, even more so than your typical Republican. Donald Trump is uniquely bad. He is a threat to our democracy. He is a threat to the world. So what better example of Donald Trump being a threat to our democracy in the world than what he has done in Ukraine? Joe Biden should be all over this talking about it every single fucking day. He should have a new topper to his stump speech every single morning. They should be pumping out videos from the campaign over and over again.

New creative videos. They should be he should be doing interviews all the time. Right. Like a nimble campaign would see what Donald Trump has done as right in their wheelhouse. This is in Joe Biden's message wheelhouse right now. And he doesn't have to make it about him and his family either. That's the other thing, right? Like I've been saying this whole pod, it's not just about Donald Trump asking for an investigation into his political opponent. Donald Trump is asking foreign governments to investigate American citizens. Yes, it happened to Joe Biden this time, but next time it could happen to Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris,

or any American who disagrees with Donald Trump. That is what is at stake here. The other elements of this for the Biden campaign is Biden's campaign is very explicitly hooked his candidacy to electability. Yes. And here you have, there's probably no better validation of Joe Biden's electability argument, at least in terms of public perception, than the fact that Donald Trump is so scared of running against Joe Biden that he engaged in a multifaceted, ham-handed international criminal conspiracy to try to sink Biden's candidacy. And so, like you point about some other things they should be doing is I do think they need like there's an offense element of this where they're making this about their message. They're using it to raise money online because they very much need to do the biggest story in America and spending money digitally to. Even if you're not doing it to defend yourself, but to raise money and build up your supporter base, it would be a smart thing to do. The second thing is, I think one lesson in 2016, you don't have to follow Trump down into every rabbit hole, but you better be sure to arm your supporters with the facts they need to defend you when these conspiracy theories start spreading on social media. And so explainer videos, graphics,

things that Biden supporters could share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, wherever else, or even interesting conversations at the water cooler that would explain why Biden's call to fire the prosecutor had nothing to do with his son's business. In fact, probably put the company that his son served on the board on at greater legal risk. Yeah. Like, the facts are all on his side, but they are not being marshaled, as far as I can tell, by the campaign in a way,

in a digitally friendly way to combat what is truly a wildfire of conspiracy theory that's spreading on social media. And look, you know, I started this by talking about the polls, and it is true that these two polls that were released over the weekend do not show any real damage to Joe Biden's candidacy. He's far out in the lead in South Carolina. He's on top in Wisconsin, still beating

Trump by a few more points than Sanders or Warren in that poll. But I also think, A, it's still early. B, there's other polls that when they ask, you know, Investors Business Daily did a poll that said, you know, do you think the Department of Justice should investigate Biden and his son? Yes, 57. No, 37. Monmouth, a plurality of Americans say it is, quote, probably true that Biden, quote, put pressure on Ukrainian officials to get them not to investigate his son's business dealings there. 42 to 37. not to investigate his son's business dealings there, 42 to 37. So there's a lot of people who don't know yet, but that's still a plurality who think that Biden put pressure on the Ukrainian government. And so this might not be making a dent in the horse race or Biden standings right now immediately, but this is going to wear over time. This is exactly what happened to Hillary Clinton with the email scandal. And that's the real danger here. And we talk about electability in the general, like, to me,

one element of electability is, is your campaign going to be nimble enough to respond to the dirtiest campaign in history from Donald Trump? Are you going to be ready to respond? Are you going to be fast and nimble and understand, as you said, Dan, that this is information warfare? That's what this is about. And you need every campaign that wants to be the Democratic nominee needs to understand that, I think. I think by that test, we would both agree that Joe Biden's campaign has not met it yet. No. We also haven't seen any of the other campaigns tested in this moment yet. That is also true. And so we just don't know.

Like, we, I think, rightfully have praised Elizabeth Warren for running the best campaign in the race to date. But we also haven't seen her tested like this. And so it just before we make conclusions that biden is definitely not the best candidate or shouldn't be the nominee or whatever else we he is facing no one else has he needs to do better but he's the only one who has been in this position today but you should presume as you point out that everyone is going to whoever our nominee is is going to face a coordinated election interference that will involve the american government foreign governments and everything else

yeah it's it is very high likelihood that whoever the democratic nominee is donald trump will somehow order an investigation into that campaign whether it's with the help of his foreign autocrat pals or his buddy, the Attorney General. Whether it's like Kazakhstan, investigating Elizabeth Warren or Bill Barr investigating Mayor Pete, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Or at least, at the very least, if it doesn't happen, we should be prepared for it to happen. And all those campaigns should figure out what their plan is and how they would respond. And hopefully it is better than how Biden has responded so far.

But of course, it also still is early and, you know, Biden still has time to mount a better response. So that's our hope. That's our hope. That's our hope. All right. When we come back, we will have my interview with FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub. On the pod today, we are very happy to have the Chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, John. So in June, you released the following statement. Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with the U.S. election.

You just retweeted the statement again last week. Why do you feel you have to keep reiterating this basic point about the law? You know, we are in an interesting moment in our democracy, John, and I think that as chair of the FEC, one of my duties is to make sure that the public and all political actors are well informed about the law. I want to make sure that we are 100% clear on what the law is and where the lines are. And I am really hoping that people will hear me and they will listen to me and they will follow the law. Obviously, the June statement was around when the president told George Stephanopoulos famously that he might again accept foreign assistance in the 2020 election. And of

course, last week was right in the middle of this latest Ukraine scandal. How much has this news surprised you? Do you think, what's your reaction to this, Ben? Without getting into the details of the case, because I know that you can't. Yes, I am not going to comment on any individual's conduct, but I do think that we saw in the 2016 election that there were foreign actors who were trying to interfere with our elections, and our intelligence community has warned us that we will see it again in 2020. I was reading just yesterday that the Iranians are now trying to hack into political databases. So who knows where all of this is going to be coming from. But we need to be all on high alert.

It is an all-hands-on-deck moment for our democracy. And I think all of us in government who have any role to play in trying to prevent foreign interference in our elections, keeping American elections for Americans, really need to be stepping up right now. So in your statement, you also point out that the founding fathers anticipated the very problem of foreign interference in American elections. Why were they concerned? Why is this such a big deal? Well, it is a big deal because we're an important country. And even back before we were important, George Washington in his farewell address warned against the insidious wiles of foreign influence. The jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake since history and experience proved that foreign

influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican government. And we have one of the leading cases in this area, the Blumen case. Interestingly enough, the author of the opinion was then Judge Kavanaugh, no friend of campaign finance regulation. But when it came to foreign influence, he chose an entirely different attack on the problem and was very clear on the importance of American citizens being able to define our American political community and making sure that we are the ones who are making decisions in our elections. We do not want foreign spending in our elections. We don't want foreign interference in our elections.

This is sometimes described as meddling, but it's really a much more serious problem than that. As a major superpower, obviously, there are many countries around the world who feel like they might have a stake in who our leaders are and how our policies get shaped. And we need to make sure that these are decisions that we as Americans are making for ourselves. So the law makes it illegal for a foreign national to directly or indirectly, quote, make a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value to a campaign. Can information such as opposition research, polling or politically motivated investigations be legally considered things of value, in your opinion? Well, there are a number of court decisions on what can be considered a thing of value in light of other statutes, and some of those directly

address information as a thing of value. There's also FEC precedents on this topic, where we have looked at polling data, at opposition research, at an activist contact list, at polling data, at opposition research, at an activist contact list, at mailing lists, something can be intangible and still be a thing of value. In an advisory opinion that the FEC issued in 2007, the Commission recognized the broad scope of the foreign national contribution prohibition and found that even where the value of a good or a service may be nominal or difficult to ascertain, such contributions are nevertheless banned. And it's important that if you go back to the Blumen decision to note what a small amount was at issue there. We were looking at Benjamin Blumen, a Canadian citizen who wanted to spend $300, three individual $100 contributions, and wanted to copy a bunch of flyers and hand them out in Central Park.

And at no point while this case was litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court did anyone say, oh, that's just too inconsequential, that's de minimis, we don't need to worry about that. No, anything of value that comes from a foreign national and comes into our electoral system is a problem. How do you all determine what constitutes either a contribution or what constitutes a thing of value, right? Like, for example, if someone, say, ordered a politically motivated investigation, that investigation, of course, may turn up nothing, in which case maybe there would be no value to that individual's campaign. And yet the intent would clearly be to get something of value to help one's campaign. So how do you make those determinations in individual cases?

Well, in individual cases, we look at the facts of the particular case, And some things may not be very valuable. That is certainly true. We would have to assess that in the context of the individual case, but we would normally look at, is this something that people normally pay money for? Is this something that is going to cost someone something to produce? So if costs are incurred in connection with the thing of value, then it plainly has that value. And the fact that something is not terribly valuable, you know, that might go

into a decision as to how far the commission wanted to go in terms of investigating or penalizing it, but the foreign national ban is the broadest and one of the strongest prohibitions that we have in the Federal Election Campaign Act. And it's one that the Commission has historically taken very seriously. On the solicitation end, of course, it's hard to value something when you are soliciting it. end, of course, you know, it's hard to value something when you are soliciting it. It's not clear what, it may not be clear what the value is, but soliciting something of value from a foreign national is plainly prohibited under our law. Right. So there is a longstanding rule that when information comes to the attention of the Department of Justice indicating a probable

violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Quote, the department will apprise the commission of such information at the earliest opportunity. The Justice Department did not do this in the case of the whistleblower complaint. And former Solicitor General Neil Katyal has described this as a cover-up. Are you concerned about this? Were you surprised when you found out that the DOJ did not forward the whistleblower complaint to the FEC? We don't normally comment on communications that we have back and forth with the Department of Justice. So I think I'm going to demur on that one. OK, I figured I thought I would try.

So I appreciate the effort. I appreciate the effort. No, no, of course. So last question, you know, what concerns do you have at this point about the 2020 election and making sure that we hold sort of free and fair elections in 2020? What keeps you up at night? Well, I'm concerned that we have not adopted stronger protections in light of what happened in 2016. There are a raft of bills that have been introduced and many of them have passed in the House and are stuck in the Senate. I would particularly like to see Congress adopt some very strong sanctions measures to demonstrate to the world

that this is the United States of America. We will not stand for anyone messing around in our elections, and there will be consequences to be paid if that happens. Now, because we really need to focus on deterrence. What happened last time is not going to be the same thing that happened next time. It's going to be very hard to predict exactly what will happen before it happens. So I think the deterrence angle is really important. I would also like to see things like the Honest Ads Act pass so that we could bring internet communications under the same set of rules that we have for broadcast ads. We know that politics is moving online at a rapid pace, and we are going to see more and more advertising and other information sharing

going on online. So we need to bring our rules up to date with the information age and with the internet's role in our politics. Outstanding. Chairwoman Weintraub, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you taking the time, and thanks for all you're doing. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for all you're doing. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks to chairwoman Weintraub for joining us today.

And we'll see you Thursday. We have a special pod that we're recording Wednesday night with guest co-host Rachel Maddow. We'll be in studio with me and Lovett and Tommy. And that pod will be out first thing Thursday morning. We're very excited about it. So we'll see you then. All right, Dan, talk to you. Bye, everyone.

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