Pod Save America - "Why We Can't Give Up."

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

The U.S. Senate debates gun safety reform following the horrific school shooting at a Texas elementary school and Senator Alex Padilla joins to talk about what else can be done to stop mass shootings. And later, Jon and Dan go through Tuesday's election results from the primaries in Georgia and Texas.Our team has compiled a few ways you can help support the Uvalde community and the work to get rid of the Republican politicians who have failed to do anything to prevent shootings like these at votesave.us/texas. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the U.S. Senate debates gun safety reform following the horrific shooting at a Texas elementary school. California Senator Alex Padilla joins us to talk about his new push in the Senate to stop mass shootings. And later, we'll go through this week's election results from the primaries in Georgia and Texas. Texas. But first, in case you missed it this week, check out What A Day, America Dissected host Dr. Abdul El-Sayed joined to discuss the rise in COVID cases across the country. Abdul's also recovering from getting his appendix removed, so we wish him well, a speedy recovery. Also, Love It or Leave It shows are back in LA throughout the month of June. Plus, tickets for Pod Save America Tour are still available for our shows in Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, and more.

For tickets to both shows, Love It or Leave It and Pod Save America, head to cricket.com slash events. And one more thing, Dan, I hear you have a special deal for our listeners. I do. Thanks, John. We are now less than two weeks out from the release of Battling the Big Lie, my book about how

Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA media are infecting our politics and what we can do about it. And because we are in New York for a live show next week, this is actually the last normal Thursday pod before the book comes out. And so I just wanted to first just thank every one of our listeners who has bought the book, pre-ordered the book. I'm always so grateful to this community that they listen to what we say. They come to our shows. They buy the book.

It's like this is why we do all of this and we love them so much. And for our listeners who have not yet bought the book, the folks at the Strand Bookstore are offering a special deal for Positive America listeners. listeners we have who have not yet bought the book, the folks at the Strand Bookstore are offering a special deal for Pod Save America listeners. If you go to strandbooks.com slash Pod Save America, you can order a discounted signed copy of the book. This is a special discount just for our listeners. Once again, I just want to thank everyone who has bought the book. I hope more people buy it. I hope you all read it, whether you buy it, borrow it from the library, borrow it from a friend. It is, I think, gets at one of the questions that drives this podcast. I know our listeners are focused on, which is,

how is it possible in a country where progressives have the majority of voters, the more popular positions, the more popular politicians that Republicans and conservatives keep winning some of the battles and that Donald Trump almost won. Right-wing propaganda disinformation is one of the reasons for that. And in this book, I try to explain how it happened, how it works, and what we can do about it. So please check it out.

Yes, check it out. And we'll be talking about, we're trying to answer that question when it comes to guns today. All right, let's get to the news. For the second time in two weeks, we're talking about a mass shooting in America. On May 14th, it was a racist massacre that left 10 people dead in Buffalo. On Tuesday, it was an elementary school massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas. They were third and fourth graders,

Uvalde, Texas. They were third and fourth graders, 10 years old, nine years old. One of them was eight. It was the deadliest school shooting since 20 children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago. And in those 10 years, Republican politicians in Washington and state houses across the country have blocked even the most minor reforms to our gun laws over and over again. So that as soon as the murderer in Uvalde turned 18, he was able to almost immediately purchase two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and up to 375 rounds of ammunition, shoot his grandmother in the face, enter a school that had installed fences and hired its own police force, get by several of those armed police officers, barricade himself in a classroom, and murder two teachers and 19 little kids. And here's what some of those

Republican politicians had to say in response. As horrible as what happened, it could have been worse. We have in our constitution, you know, our second amendment rights, and I'm not interested in taking away rights for law and Biden citizens. If people want to talk about banning specific guns, they should propose that, but it wouldn't prevent these shootings. I mean, they could commit the crime with a different weapon. Don't have all of these unlocked back doors. Have one door into and out of the school and have that one door armed police officers at that door. Dan, before we get to the disgustingly inadequate political response, your reaction to the utter nightmare in Uvalde? You know, John, obviously, I've known that we

were going to talk about this for a few days now. And I've been thinking since then of like, how to possibly put into words the combination of sadness, rage, and fear to describe what happened. It honestly feels impossible to communicate the fact that we live in a country that chooses to let this happen. Because it's a choice. It is absolutely a fucking choice. And we know it's a choice because in every other country in the world where something like this happens, they change the laws and it doesn't happen again. We live in a country that doesn't just let people have guns, that fetishizes them, where an 18-year-old, as you say, can go in and buy a weapon of war easier than he could buy a pack of Sudafed or adopt a dog or anything else. It is insane. And it is the ultimate failing of everything. And I've been thinking a lot these last two days

about Newtown, because you and I worked in the White House when that happened. It was the moment when we thought things were going to change, and they didn't. Right? And there's this photo that's been going around on the internet from when President Obama went to the prayer vigil in Newtown. It's a picture of President Obama with these smiling – he's smiling and these little kids are smiling. And these are the brothers and sisters of the kids who were killed in Newtown. And they're too young to know that their brothers and sisters aren't coming home. And the response to that was nothing. And in that speech, President Obama said something that I think is the question we all

have to wrestle with, which is the ultimate test for a society is whether you're willing to protect children. Because as he wrote in there, and it's something that obviously means something very different to me now than it did 10 years ago. But the idea that when you're a parent, there is a moment when you realize that you cannot keep your kids safe on your own, that you need your community or your country or your life. When you take him to school, you drop him off at the bus stop and you watch him walk into that building and just have to hope that they're going to be there when you come get them. And we're going to talk in this podcast about whose fault it is, why things haven't gotten done, why it's so hard to get things done. The role Republicans in the NRA have obviously played in this. But if you take politics aside for just one second, and this whole thing is such an indictment

on us as a society, that happened in Newtown and nothing happened. That happened here. And even the things we're talking about, red flag laws, et cetera, wouldn't have stopped this. And they're not going to change the fact that we still live in a country where people can go buy fucking assault weapons the day they turn 18 before they can buy a beer. And that is the thing we have to wrestle with. Because for all the things that we say make this country great, make us exceptional or whatever else, is that the most

basic thing, a solvable problem to prevent the slaughter of our citizens, we are incapable of doing. And that is what this is all about. And that's what we have to wrestle with. And I don't, there's no easy answers. There's no way to feel better about this or to try to, it just, that is the reality of life in America right now. And it's a huge problem. Yeah. When it happened, I thought about when, remember the Aurora shooting happened at a movie theater in Colorado, and that was July of 2012. And we were on the road with Obama. It was in the middle of the reelection campaign. And I remember he was about to go speak at an event and the news of the shooting broke. speak at an event and um the news of the shooting broke and he was going to talk about it and um he and i were standing backstage and he was you know sadder than i had ever seen him though i would then see him even sadder at sandy hook after sandy hook but he um he turned to me and he said you don't fabs you don't have kids yet but uh once you do uh this will hit differently you know and uh he said that

he said you know when you have kids it's like walking around with your heart heart outside your chest that's what having kids is like and i remember at the time thinking like well i don't have kids but i'm unbelievably angry and unbelievably sad about this. And I felt like that at Sandy Hook. And then when he went to Newtown, he said that line in his speech. And I've thought about that for 10 years. And when I saw this happen, now that I have Charlie, I was like, oh, he's right. It does hit differently. And to what you just said, he's right it does hit differently and to what you just said like he Charlie is almost two and I haven't had to leave him at a school yet but now I don't want to um to your uh to your point about other countries which if you really want to get enraged you're

right this doesn't have to happen here when this happens in other places they take different actions and they do different things and they they don't eliminate shootings they don't eliminate gun violence but they certainly do uh reduce it other countries. In the United Kingdom in 1996, 16 children were killed at a school in Scotland. They passed a law to restrict gun ownership. As of 2019, gun crimes had dropped by nearly 60% from their peak. That's the UK. In Australia, same year, 1996, 35 people killed with a semi-automatic rifle. A center-right government at that time bought back 650,000 automatic and semi-automatic rifles. They created a national firearms registry. They instituted a 28-day waiting period. Since then, there has been one

shooting, one mass shooting in Australia. And it was a case where a grandfather killed family members and then himself. Overall, studies show that Australia as a nation, as a continent, became less violent after that law. Overall, less violent. Not one mass shooting they had since they passed that law in 1996. In New Zealand, which didn't have gun control laws like Australia did right next door. The Christchurch racist massacre in 2019, again with an AR-15 style rifle, left 51 Muslims dead. In less than a month after that, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the parliament passed a buyback law and restrictions on AR-15s and other semi-automatic weapons. Someone interviewed Jacinda Ardern about that and why the United States hasn't done anything. And she said, we passed laws after

this happened to us. Australia passed laws after there was a mass shooting. The UK do. I don't understand the United States. I don't understand. Canada had its deadliest ever mass shooting in 2020, and it took Justin Trudeau in the parliament less than two weeks to announce a ban on military style assault weapons, red flag laws, and a voluntary buyback program. And then here's us in the United States, more gun deaths than just about every other country on earth, more guns per capita than any other country on earth. And of course, the fewest gun laws of any other country on earth. So I've had so many people ask me over the last few days, why hasn't anything been done? Why can't anything get done? Why are the politics so immovable on this issue? Dan? The problem here is the same problem on climate change, abortion, immigration, everything else, which is you have an extreme, radical, pro-gun minority in this country.

But unlike all those other countries you talked about, that existed in many of those countries too. But what is different here is that our political system gives massively disproportionate power to that minority. We live in a situation where states like Idaho and North Dakota and Wyoming have the same number of senators as California, yet a fraction of the population. And so that gives a disproportionate power to that group. And then you add on top of that, the fact that we have a filibuster in the Senate, which allows a minority of senators representing a fraction of the population of the country to have veto power over popular legislation. There is a majority in the Senate right now for background checks, for a bunch of other

comments. And I want to be crystal clear. Any law that we pass that saves a single life is worth doing in this case. But we're not even willing – our political system lacks the – because of the strictures of our political system, we don't even have the imagination to contemplate the things you really have to do. No one's even talking about an assault weapons ban. That's not even part of the conversation right now. I know. I've been thinking about that over the last couple of days and it's been making me really angry. Because when you actually look into the background checks, what they do, the background check, great, we should fight for them and pass them. They're like closing loopholes

here and there on private dealers and internet sales and all that kind of stuff. Great. But like, you're right. AR-15s used in every single one of these mass shootings in this country.

We're not even talking about that because the political will isn't there. You can't buy two packs of Sudafed at a time in this country without registering with your state. Like, how can you buy 375 bullets? To what end is that allowed? Like, that's not part of the conversation here.

But to go back to try to be rational and perhaps even slightly constructive about this, the other thing I think we also have to understand is in addition to the problems of the political system is the politics of guns are even more complicated than I think we think. And that it like, we see these polls all the time and say 80% support for background checks, 90%. And then you're like, why the hell can't you pass something that's 80 or 90% support? Part of it is to my previous point, that 80 to 90% support for that particular provision is not distributed evenly around the country. It is different. It's obviously much more popular in California and New York than some of these other states

with equal numbers of senators. But Gallup tracks this question of whether Americans are satisfied with their gun laws, dissatisfied with their gun laws, when stricter gun laws are less strict gun laws. And at no point in Gallup's polling has there ever been a majority who said that they were dissatisfied and wanted stricter gun laws. The majority of people say that they are satisfied or want less strict laws, right? Which says a lot about maybe what people think the laws are, right? Maybe they presume that we actually background check people with red flag laws actually exist, but the politics are more complicated. And there have been instances when ballot measures for these 80, 90% issues are put on the actual ballot, people actually have to vote. They're basically getting at, or in some cases below the level of

the Democratic candidate at the top of that ballot. Yeah. I mean, just examples there. In 2016, there were some ballot measures that Everytown and Bloomberg and a bunch of great gun violence organizations put on the ballots in different states. In Maine, voters in Maine favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by three points, but defeated a ballot measure for universal background checks by two points. And that year, Clinton also ran slightly ahead of background check ballot measures that did pass in Nevada and California. So that just goes to tell you how much work we have to do, not only to persuade Democratic senators who love the filibuster and Republican senators who have been blocking gun control for a decade or more. But each other, voters in other states, because you just – a ballot measure on – that the voters can just vote on with no politician attached in Maine where Hillary Clinton wins by three points still loses. And that just tells you sort of the challenge.

And that's actually the harder question to wrestle with, right? Because the story we like to tell ourselves is the American people are 80, 90% united on these issues. But for some cowardly politicians and the power of NRA lobbyists and money, this would be passed. And we actually have a much bigger cultural problem in this country when it comes to guns. I will say that if you think about where the Democratic Party has moved on this and you look at what happened after Newtown, where again, so for people who don't know this, after Newtown, Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, conservative Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania who who is now retiring work together on a back piece of a background check legislation universal background checks and it was like okay well this could pass we got a joe mansion who's no one's no one's favorite

idea of a liberal pat to me who's super conservative doing gun gun control legislation and maybe this will get enough votes and And Newtown just happened. And we just watched elementary school children murdered. And it got 55 votes, including Manchin, Susan Collins, and Pat Toomey. Needed 60. There were one, two, three, four, four Democrats voting against it who were no longer in the Senate. If you think that Joe Manchin's bad. Back then, we had some more Joe Manchins that were even further to the right. Dianne Feinstein, at the same time, proposed a renewal of the 2004 assault weapons ban. That only got 40 votes after Newtown. Lost all the Republicans and all those Dems that aren't

there anymore. And it lost the following Democrats who are still there today, Joe Manchin, John Tester, and Mark Warner and Michael Bennett. Those two have since changed their position and now favor an assault weapons ban. So the Democratic coalition that we now have in the House, in the Senate, is actually closer to a majority favoring the assault weapons ban than we've had before. And again, we've said this now for voting rights. We have said this now for abortion. But if you look at Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, he's for an assault weapons ban. So you replace Pat Toomey with John Fetterman, you got one more senator that can cancel out Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. He's also for getting rid of the filibuster. You look at Wisconsin, the leading Democratic candidates

in Wisconsin, where Ron Johnson is senator, also favor assault weapons ban, also favor getting rid of the filibuster to pass things like voting rights and abortion rights and gun control legislation. So again, if we can somehow reelect the House, Democratic House, reelect the Democratic Senate and flip two seats seats suddenly we actually can start talking about assault weapons ban but that's the work that has to be done and it is not fucking easy because it is a really brutal political environment but there that is the that is the path forward right now and that's you know it like you said dan it's like you you look at all these polls and it starts frustrating you because you're like some of these some of these gun control

policies are getting 60 70 80 90 if it's background checks and you're like, some of these gun control policies are getting 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% if it's background checks. And you're just like, well, what the hell is going on? But again, it comes down to everything else. It comes down to the same thing everything else has come down to, the Senate and the existence of the filibuster. Right? Or is there anything else I'm missing? Well, I mean, those are the problems. I think it is easy and

understandable to throw up your hands and say fuck this right nothing happened after newtown nothing happened after el paso nothing happened after park you know on and on and on but there is you know one of the people who has been optimistic and hopeful that this time could be different than some progress could be made is david hogg, who is one of the survivors from the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And one of his points is that even in Florida, a state with Rick Scott as their governor at the time and Republican legislators, they passed some gun laws after Parkland. Is it everything? No, far from it, but it's something and some lives will be saved. So there is to say that all of the activism and the organizing and

the voting will lead to nothing, I think is incorrect. And as a self-fulfilling prophecy, because there are elements of progress, there were incredibly important laws passing Connecticut after Newtown. And like, yeah, you need Congress, you need national laws in this situation because Republicans love to point at Chicago. Like, Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws, look at the murder rate. The problem in Chicago is it's next to Indiana, which has some of the least strict gun laws in the country. So people just go to Indiana and buy guns and bring them back to Illinois. So you need, but there are, like, it is frustrating and painful and, you know, disillusioning and everything else. But there are – like it is frustrating and painful and disillusioning and everything else.

But there are only two options here. It's either keep pushing this fucking boulder up a hill to try to get some stuff done and save some lives or give up. And giving up in a world in which we're just going to sit by and let our children be slaughtered in schools is not an option. And so I understand why it's frustrating. And like, even when we start talking about doing this podcast today, the idea of giving people like calls to action about what to do seems so hollow and empty, but there's no other choice. Yeah. I'm going to talk to Senator Padilla about what's going on in Congress, because I know there's a new push to get something done. Let's you and I talk about it for a second. a new push to get something done. Let's you and I talk about it for a second. So the Democratic House has passed a pair of background check bills. There'd be universal background checks.

Early on Wednesday, Chuck Schumer made it sound like he wasn't going to hold a vote on those because it would fail. Later on Wednesday, he said, we are going to vote on gun legislation and that he'd use the domestic terrorism bill that was introduced in the wake of the Buffalo Massacre to begin debate on gun safety amendments. Joe Manchin, of course, said he still doesn't want to get rid of the filibuster, even though he supports universal background checks, while Kyrsten Sinema said she wants to work with Republicans on a compromise bill. There's also reports this morning, Thursday morning, that Schumer told Chris Murphy to go talk to Republicans and work with them to try to find a compromise. I guess Chris Murphy had been working with John Cornyn for like the last year

on a potential compromise on red flag laws or background checks. Nothing came of it. Where does all this leave us? I think it leaves us with a slight hope for a small solution to a big problem. It is possible that they will be able to come together on a red flag law. I think Schumer said, according to Murphy, he's going to give them 10 days to try to figure it out before they had a vote. And if they can get something done, great. We should be clear a red flag law would not have done a single thing to stop what happened in Texas.

But any progress is good. Any victory makes the next victory a little bit easier. So we can pass a red flag law now. It may create an opening. You can pass universal background check after that. And then maybe assault weapons after that. Just because you can't solve the whole problem is not an argument to solve none of the problem right now if you can do it? I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's likely, but it may be possible and it's worth the effort. Yeah. And a good example

of that is one of the House background check bills. It was introduced by Jim Clyburn. It closes the Charleston loophole in reference to the massacre in Charleston in 2015 at that church. And that's an example of if that loophole had been closed, that killer wouldn't have been able to purchase that gun, and maybe those people would be alive today. So you're absolutely right that some of this stuff sounds like it's just nibbling around the edges and it's minor, and some of it is. But again, if you can save one life right why not fucking do it why not do everything you can to do it um here's what better war rourke has decided to do about all this he's running for governor of texas he showed up at greg abbott's

press conference on wednesday let's take a listen next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing no he needs to get who's out of line. What did you think of that, Dan? I was proud of Beto. Me too. I mean, you and I know Beto a little bit. We spent some time with him over the years. And there is nothing.

He's one of the most earnest politicians ever. There is nothing. This is not a stunt. This is his true, authentic, emotional response to this carnage. And it's coming not long after it happened in his hometown of El Paso. And I think, is it a good political move? Is it a bad political move? Does it help us get something done? Does it not help us get something done? I don't have any idea. There's been a really stupid debate about that on Twitter. And obviously, Republicans have latched on this to try to make this whole thing partisan, and that's going to happen anyway. course of business has gotten us nowhere. The trying to solve the problem through traditional political means and strategies has gotten us nowhere. There's a reason, I think, that Steve Kerr, the coach of the Warriors, his remarks at a press

conference went viral. There's a reason that Chris Murphy, Senator of Connecticut, his remarks on the floor of the Senate went viral. The reason that people reacted to Beto's the way they did is that they want to see someone reflect their anger, to realize that this is an insane fucking way to run a country. It's insane. It makes no sense. It boggles the mind that this happens. And then we all go, we're talking about it today. People are talking about it. We're all going to go back to our lives tomorrow. Everyone's supposed to take their kids to school today. And to see someone say, just to stand up and say, this is fucking crazy. We have to do something about it, like mean something to people. And I think we have to like, why open our eyes to the fact that we may need different, more aggressive, more confrontational approaches to calling the question

here and raising people's awareness of what is happening in this country. I don't, there may be no, I don't know what any, what the other option is. Also, this is just showing up at a public press conference and, and, and peacefully protesting. Yeah. Civil disobedience. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about civil disobedience. Entirely within the realm. But look, your point about Beto, we talk a lot about what is politically wise to do on this show. The reason we do this is because you need to think about politics to build winning coalitions and to get stuff done, right?

That is a core thing here. Beto, during the presidential primary, clearly did not think much about the politics when he said that he wanted to do an assault weapons buyback program because the politics weren't that great. He did not care because he cares more about that issue and that was every once in a while as a politician we're running for office you think to yourself like yes i'm trying to win here but you know what why am i in this race why am i doing this why did i like you know sacrifice all this time in my life if it's not to speak my mind about what I fucking care about and what I

believe in. And I'm going to try to persuade people that I'm right. And that's what Beto O'Rourke's doing. And I don't, you know, he's obviously not favored in this election against Greg Abbott, because again, the political environment is terrible, but he's leaving it all out on the field. That's for sure. And it's good to see that so uh one last thing uh if if anyone wants to help if you want to get involved uh if you go to votesave.us slash texas uh we have three ways to give you can give to the uh elementary school relief fund uh to help help folks in texas you can donate blood we have a link there and then of course you can donate to register voters in texas they need all the help they can get down there uh and so go to votesave.us slash Texas if you'd like to help.

When we come back, I will talk to Senator Alex Padilla. Joining us now to talk more about potential action in congress on gun violence our senator from california alex padilla welcome back to the pod senator good to be back although uh wish i was there in person that'll have to be next time next time for sure um you just held a press conference on gun violence with senator murphy and some of your other colleagues what was the message that you all wanted to get across at that event? Look, I think it's important to share that it wasn't just a few senators, Democratic senators standing together, pushing for a common sense gun safety legislation to come up for a vote in the Senate. We joined, we weren't joined by, we joined Moms Demand Action,

We joined. We weren't joined by. We joined Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, so many other advocates and activists around this cause because enough is enough. You know, we we say after every tragedy, tragedies that could be prevented if we made progress on things like assault weapons ban, improving background checks, et cetera. We could get into more detail, but that's what the press conference is about, still reeling from the trauma, from the pain of the tragedy in Ovalde, Texas, which comes on the heels of a shooting at a church in Laguna Woods in Southern California, which came on the heels of a shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

You know, we're pleading with our Republican colleagues, wake up, wake up. It's our job to do something about it, keep our country safer. And my God, if the loss of 19 young souls doesn't move you, you know, what will? So our hearts, our prayers, our condolences go out to the families of Novaldi, Texas, of the 19 students, the two teachers, and the entire community. There's reporting this morning that Senator Murphy and others are going to try to find 10 Senate Republicans to work with on compromise gun safety legislation. What kind of policies are in consideration there? What kind of policies do

you think Republicans might potentially support? Yeah, that's a good question because, you know, we're pounding our fist a lot, but what is a realistic hope for progress and action here? And I want to take a moment to just applaud my colleague, Senator Murphy. When I joined the Senate last year, he reached out as one of the few, one of the very few senators with young children. He's got a fourth grader amongst his kids. I have a third grader and a first grader, my two younger of three children. And so we approached this conversation and we react to an incident like Ovalde, Texas. it's not just as policymakers, but it's as parents. So maybe it's extra gut-wrenching for us. But there are areas where I think it's possible

to make progress. There is bipartisan support for things like strengthening background checks. There is bipartisan support for red flag laws, for example. A few years ago, it was Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut and Senator Graham that introduced a measure. The challenge is, and just to be realistic with people and be honest with people, given both the makeup and the rules of the Senate that you're all too familiar with, the filibuster, first of all, but even without a filibuster, we're working in a 50-50 Senate. Every vote is precious and to convince one, two, three, four, five Republicans is encouraging, but when you need 10 to agree to specific language on any of these proposals, that's a tall task. But I remind

it every day that I didn't seek this job because I thought it'd be easy. I sought this job because I know it's important. And what can be more important than creating safer environments for our children

in our communities and in our schools? If Republicans do continue to resist any kind of compromise, what do you tell people who ask, like, what's the path forward here? Is it just, what I tell people is, you know, we got to return all the Democratic senators that we have and then elect two more who are anti-filibuster and pro-choice, pro-gun safety, pro-voting rights. I don't know what else to say. Is that what you tell people?

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Our commitment, if you're truly committed to this cause, the bottom line is we cannot give up and we will not give up until we pass more gun safety legislation. And so people may say, well, why waste your time talking to Republicans? Well, I can't go home and look my kids in the eye

and say I did everything I could if I don't keep trying. So we're going to keep trying and we hope for progress. But yes, whether we are able to get another bill through this year or not, I will be pleading with voters across California and beyond to keep this in mind when we go vote in November. If you care about gun safety, if you care about whether kids are safe at school or not anywhere in America, then that should influence who you vote for this November. You bring up a couple of other issues that we haven't made progress on because of the filibuster, whether it's long overdue immigration reform, filibuster, whether it's long overdue immigration reform, codifying Roe v. Wade protections,

equality, criminal justice reform, more aggressive climate action, and so much more. And to top it off, to top it off, I mean, it seems like eons ago, it was just a couple of weeks ago when the world learned about this leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would undo the 50 years of protection of Roe v. Wade. So yes, anybody listening, keep this in mind. If Republicans regain control of Congress, undoing Roe v. Wade is just the beginning. Our governor, Gavin Newsom, said on Wednesday that he intends to fast track legislation to tighten enforcement of the state's gun laws, including a bill that would let private citizens sue those who make or sell illegal firearms in the state. What do you think of that, Bill? I'm supportive and applaud the governor. I applaud the legislative leaders for acting consistent with their words. If we're going to say we're doing everything possible,

then you have to back it up. And I'm just so proud to work with Governor Newsom and legislative leaders, proud to represent California because we are a national leader when it comes to gun safety. I'll give you another example of a law that's in place in California.

We have an assault weapons ban and it's helped that The data is clear. The number and prevalence of these types of incidents, while they still happen too frequently, they're down from prior to an assault weapons ban and should make the case for reinstating the national assault weapons ban. It was in place for 10 years nationally, and we saw numbers of violent mass shootings drop. And when it expired, you know, we come back to Republicans unwilling to stand up to the NRA, unwilling to stand up to the gun lobby. And it hasn't been reinstated. And we're seeing these

mass shootings far, far too frequently. People are wondering right now, where can I direct my outrage, my sadness, my anger, my energy? What do you tell them? All of the above. Let it be known. Talk to friends, talk to neighbors, talk to co-workers. Everybody should be outraged. And eventually, I pray, Senate Republicans will be outraged enough to do something about this and side with kids over the gun lobby. Call your representatives. And if they're already supportive of what we're talking about here, let's say thank you. We don't thank you often enough for doing the right thing sometimes. But for those representatives at all levels, from your Senate representatives, your House representatives, your state legislative leaders, down to mayors and

city council members. Make this known that this is a priority. That's how we build momentum. That's how we further influence public opinion, which is already what 90% of the American public supports some of these common sense gun safety measures. And ultimately, make sure you're registered. Make sure you vote and make sure everybody around you who's eligible is registered and voting because that's the most potent tool that we have in our democracy, our right to vote. So let's exercise it and make sure we're electing representatives at all levels that put children above guns.

sure we're electing representatives at all levels that put children above guns. Yeah. If your leader, no matter what level it is, doesn't support changing our gun laws at all, fire them. That's what you get to do as a citizen in our democracy. Senator Padilla, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save America. And thanks for all the work you're doing. Come back again soon. Thanks for having me back. Hope to be back soon. All right, let's talk about some of the results of this week's primaries in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. So on Tuesday's pod, we went out on a limb and predicted that Brian Kemp would beat David Perdue for the Republican nomination in the Georgia's governor's race. You know us.

We're not usually in the prediction business, but those polls. Not at all in the prediction business. But those polls. I think the polls showed the average of all the polls was like Kemp was ahead by 23 points or something like that. Trump endorsed David Perdue lost by over 50 points, 74% to 22%. Not only that, the Republican primary for Secretary of State, which the poll suggested would be closer, much closer, was also a blowout. Incumbent Brad Raffensperger beat Trump's candidate, Jody Heiss, 53% to 33%, also avoiding a runoff just like Kemp. Trump's pick for Senate,

however, former NFL star Herschel Walker crushed his crowded primary with 68 percent of the vote. So Trump obviously invested a lot of time, a lot of money in trying to defeat Kemp and Raffensperger. Kemp was like number one on his enemies list and he failed miserably. Trump is a loser in Georgia again. He found a way to lose Georgia again. It's his third time in like a year and a half. He just loves losing Georgia. Is this something to cheer? Is it cause for optimism or does it not matter that much? What do you think? I think I'm going to go against type and say it's a cause for a modicum of optimism. Wow.

I was not expecting that. I am not cheering. I'm giving Brian Kipp. I've never heard you cheer for anything. Well, I'm a Philadelphia sports fan, so that's why. That makes sense. I'm giving Brian Kipp no awards for courage. No, he is not a moderate. He is ultra MAGA, as our president would say, in every way, shape, or form.

But I think we can take the tiniest sliver of hope or optimism or something from the fact that even within the Republican Party, the most demented, big lie believing faction is a minority. Yeah. And that is – we saw that in both those races here and we've seen it in some of the other races around the country. Now it is a powerful minority. It is a minority that is sufficient to win a lot of primaries in multi-candidate races. But in a one-on-one race between a Trump big lie candidate against a generally big lie adjacent MAGA candidate, the big lie adjacent MAGA candidate wins and wins pretty easily, I think.

So then I guess it's left to me to play typical Dan. Yes. Okay, so I'll do that. I mean, no. Yeah. So the, the let's avenge our 2020 loss by overturning future elections cohort is

about 30 to 35% of the electorate. We kind of keep seeing that in all these primaries. Yeah. And as you said, in a crowded primary, that's enough. It's not enough in a, in a one-on-one though,

of course, a crowded primary is exactly what Trump won in 2016. exactly and we could get that we could get that in 2024 i also think that if trump and and other trumpy candidates just dropped all the 20 if they ever figured this out and they may never figure this out but if they did drop all the 2020 talk and focus on all the other mega extremism they've been up to lately, like dictating when you can have a family, how many kids you can have, who you get to marry, who you get to be, what your kids learn in the classroom. They could probably win a Republican nomination pretty handily because that's exactly what Brian Kemp did. Brian Kemp was MAGA just without the big big lie i'm gonna overturn an election stuff but he had all he was the rest of the package and forward-looking extremism forward but i've often

thought about this and we've talked about this in the pod when i listen to trump's speeches is like there's what there's a part of trump's stump speech where he's singing the same tune as a brian kemp or as a ronSantis or as all these other Republicans. And then that all gets subsumed in just like 30 minutes of big lie bullshit where he's just, he's just talking about how mad he is that, you know, everyone, all of his grievances about 2020 and all that kind of shit. And he can't seem to help himself because he doesn't have a lot of discipline. But I do think, um, that message that the, the MAGA extremism message minus the big lie shit is still powerful enough to unite most of the Republican Party right now, or at least unite most Republican voters. There's no non-MAGA candidates winning primaries. 101 primaries.

No Mitt Romneys. No Susan Collinses. No Liz Cheney. No Kinzinger. They're not out there. They're not winning. The difference between Trump and everyone else is Trump is trying to relitigate the previous election. These other folks want to overturn the subsequent election. Trump's grievances are personal.

Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republicans, their grievances are collective. Trump's grievances are personal. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republicans, their grievances are collective. It is a collective grievance on behalf of some collection of white people. And that is the difference in between them. None of them are good for America. And unfortunately, all of them have the potential to win the next election, be it for Congress or the White House. Yeah. And there's still a lot of other swing states like Georgia where pro-insurrectionists have a good chance of winning races that will put them in charge of our elections, right? There's a lot of these pro-insurrectionist candidates in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, we talked about in Arizona. So a lot of other, like good that Brad Raffensperger won secretary of state race like that is a good sign and something we should feel some some level of confidence about exactly how to gauge it. But there's a lot of other Brad Raffensperger's out there that need to win their races before we're in a much better position in terms of Trumpy people being in charge of our elections and potentially overturning them in 2022, 2024 and beyond. Trumpy people being in charge of our elections and potentially overturning them in 2022, 2024 and beyond. And in most of the swing states, there are no Brad Raffensperger's on the ballot for secretary of state.

It's just degrees on the Republican side. Yes, right. It's Democrats or big lie insurrection. This is the only choice. Georgia is unique in that situation. Exactly right. So Kemp's now going to face Stacey Abrams for a rematch of their 2018 race. This race is rated somewhere between a toss-up and a slight Kemp advantage, mainly because the larger political environment is dogshit for Democrats. How does Stacey Abrams win this race?

We could spend a long time talking about message and issues and the kind of ads you run or organizing strategies, but there's a pretty simple math here, which is in what is even a favorable midterm environment for Democrats, Georgia is a slightly red state. In a presidential election year electorate, it is a purple state with a tiny advantage to blue. And so to put a little specificity on that, there was record turnout in Georgia in 2018. Stacey Abrams received more statewide votes for a Democrat than any candidate in history. Two years later, Joe Biden received 500,000 more votes than Stacey Abrams did. That 500,000 votes is how you win. It is getting

those presidential year, the people who voted for Joe Biden to vote for Stacey Abrams. And it is about turning that out. Now, if there's any, that is a hard piece of business in the best of years. But if there is a politician who could do that, who has the cachet and the organizing skills and the strategic thinking to pull that off, it is Stacey Abrams. Yeah, I agree. I think the other thing that she has going for her is Brian Kemp is an incumbent in a year where everyone's pissed. So she can, and I think she is, blaming him for conditions in the state like Republicans are blaming Biden on the national level. Brian kemp has been governor overseeing inflation high prices

extremism name your problem that is pissing off people in georgia and brian kemp uh has probably not been doing anything to fix it for the last several years and because he's been focused on pursuing all of this mega extremism bullshit to ward off a primary challenge from david purdue and so he's not focused on what people in Georgia actually care about, because all he was focused on was making sure that he got out of his primary okay. And so he did all the extreme shit possible when people in Georgia were caring about the high cost of things, not being able to afford health care, making sure that they can vote, etc, etc. So I do think that she has that advantage as well. Like we say all the time that all politics is national now. And I think

that is certainly true to an extent. And definitely running against David Perdue would have been, I think, easier for Stacey Abrams just because David Perdue is a historically shitty and very lazy candidate. One of the worst. Man, that guy is a bad candidate. But there is a way, the decisiveness of Kemp's victory, I think there's a way in which that could inure to Stacey Abrams' benefit, which is the big lie thing is over in the context of this. It's not an election about Trump. It is an election about Georgia.

And I actually think Stacey Abrams has her best chance when it is Stacey Abrams running on her all Georgia platform, trying to reach out to every Georgian against Brian Kemp, a bad governor of Georgia, then it is some proxy battle between Stacey Abrams, savior of democracy, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, 2020 relitigation. It is about what is best for Georgians in that environment, in this political environment with the economy and the pandemic and everything else, that there is a shot there and there's a way to run that race. It's not, as you said, it's not easy, but it is possible. Yeah, very smart. One other primary

worth mentioning, the extremely close primary between Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar and progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in the Texas 28th, where Cuellar is currently leading by 175 votes out of more than 45,000 ballots counted. Cuellar is one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress. He's anti-choice, has an A rating from the NRA, and represents a mostly Latino district that stretches from the outskirts of San Antonio to the border, where the voters are a bit more conservative themselves. Cuellar was endorsed by Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn, who helped his campaign, while Cisneros was endorsed by A leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn, who helped his campaign, while Cisneros was endorsed by AOC and Bernie Sanders. Dan, what's your take on this race?

Why do you think Pelosi and Clyburn backed Cuellar? There is a... I'm going to throw this hot potato to you. Yes. Well, John, I can give you the answer. There is a simple... I am not justifying it. I do not like Henry Cuellar. If I lived in that district, I would have voted for Jessica Cisneros a hundred times in a row. Congress and the DCCC are incumbent protection rackets. Nancy Pelosi to be elected speaker, Jim Clyburn or Steny Hoyer or Hakeem Jeffries to be elected speaker after Nancy Pelosi or leader after Nancy Pelosi need the votes of other members. And to get those votes, they often pledge to protect them against primaries. The urgency for that pledge is even greater in the last few years

since the Justice Democrats and others have been running a bunch of successful primaries against entrenched Democratic incumbents in blue districts. Second, the DCCC is also an incumbent protection operation. Do you know who the largest contributor to the DCCC is? The Democratic caucus. Members raise money. They have to pay dues to the DCCC. They raise money for the DCCC. They pay it out of their own campaign accounts. And no one is going to pay money to an organization if they do not think it is going to protect them in this situation. And so that is why this happened. I don't think it was a good idea. I think there was a difference between endorsing and going to campaign for, between staying out of it and sending robocalls in the last few days. I think that it was a political mistake,

but that is certainly disheartening to a lot of progressive activists. But the reason here is that it is a protect your own industry and they are protecting their own. I don't think that is good, but that is why. Yeah. I get all that. I do think there's like a line you have to draw somewhere. Like on one hand, right? Like you have a good Democratic House member in Congress and they get a bunch of challengers and you want to keep that Democratic House members because they are broadly in line with the national party. Yeah. You try to do what you can to protect that incumbent. At some point you think, okay, when we have an incumbent who is anti-choice, A rating from the NRA, this conservative, you know, I'm sure also in their mind is, well, Cuellar

has a better chance to win this, you know, more conservative district in the fall, which is going to be competitive. There's a Ted Cruz, former staffer who won on the Republican side. competitive uh there's a ted cruz former staffer who won on the republican side and in a competitive year that's tough for democrats like this this seat could be competitive and so i'm sure the leadership is thinking we need every seat we can get and we think the quay is a better fit for this district than cisneros but when you have someone who's this far out of step with the party with the national party i think like i'm I'm not expecting Nancy Pelosi to endorse Cisneros, but like, maybe you just say, okay, let the voters decide on this one. I'm going to step

back. I'm going to step back and see what happens. But you know, they chose not to do that. Ultimately, the best way to understand House politics, Senate politics, internal House and Senate politics is high school, right? It's like the high school cafeteria. And these are all their people. It's the same reason why House and Senate leaders are always for pay raises for the members, even though the single worst polling issue in history is to be for congressional pay raise, is it is a protect your own. I think you make a very important point here, is there is a big distinction that we've had a bunch of different primaries. And in many cases,

I don't know who, whether Cuellar is more competitive than Cisneros in this district. I think that anyone who's saying that, it's very hard to tell, right? Yeah. It's impossible. It's impossible to know.

And some of the arguments on behalf of Cuellar, I think are pretty specious at best. But unlike Jamal Bowman versus Elliot Engel or AOC versus Joe Crowley or Ayanna Pressley or Cori Bush, this is a Biden plus seven district now. It is 80% non-college educated, 70 plus percent Hispanic. This is where Trump made all of his gains in Texas in this part of the state. that this is a one where the outcome of this primary has some consequences, whether it, whoever wins, I don't know what those consequences are, but it's not a guarantee that the winner of this primary is the next Democratic member of this, is the next member of this district. Politico said that Cuellar's apparent victory is a warning for Democrats who are eager to run on abortion politics. That make any sense to you? I know we are not playing take appreciators today for all the obvious reasons, but if we were,

that would be for politicos. Cause I don't even understand that take. I get, I can't even speak. I was so annoyed with, there was so many things wrong in that playbook. I had read it super early. Like I think Tommy got to it later in the day and I was like sitting next to him

in our office and he was just like, has anyone read got to it later in the day, and I was like sitting next to him in our office, and he was just like, has anyone read Playbook today? What the fuck? You're like, it's three o'clock in the afternoon on the West Coast, Tommy. What are you doing? Did you take your long time to get through Punchbowl?

He was doing Save the World in the morning, but I was like, see, I'm glad someone else got around to it. Yeah, okay. I guess it's a warning to Democrats not to run on abortion, maybe in a district that's filled with conservative leaning Catholic Hispanics. Yeah, no, that is a group of people who may be more anti-choice.

That is a group in that district in the country. We're not talking about that for like every other fucking district in the country or suburbs all over the country or place where they're like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about what are you talking about you're extrapolating a national strategy from a single district with unique demographics and in the texas border in a primary in a primary dumb so dumb yeah they are so dumb yeah i mean it just just they just that felt good that was cathartic thereic. We've needed a lot of catharsis about it. There needs to be like the equivalent of a five second delay on take writing where it's like before you can finish the sentence,

you have to pause, read it to yourself. Before you hit all caps in bold, just think for a couple of seconds. There's a warning on the siren emoji on Twitter. Anyway, I'm glad we're ending on that note. All right. That's all we have for today. Thank you to Senator Padilla for joining us. warning on the siren emoji on twitter anyway i'm glad we're ending on that note um all right that's all we have for today thank you to senator padilla for joining us everyone take care for memorial day uh we will have a mailbag episode uh that you will all be hearing from uh lovett

and tommy and i so uh you can look forward to that everyone have a great memorial day and um we will we'll see you in New York next Thursday night. Stay safe, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,

and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded

as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.