Pod Save America - "Willy Wonka and The Covid Factory.”

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

The Trump-Covid ticket returns to the campaign trail despite unanswered questions about the President’s condition, Senate Republicans revolt against Covid relief negotiations between The White House and Nancy Pelosi, and Democrats make the first day of the Amy Coney Barrett hearings about her opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Then Congresswoman Katie Porter talks to Jon Lovett about the pandemic, inequality, and the 2020 election.

And you see how many crooked ballots are being found and turned back in and fraudulent? Just what I said. Then they'll say, he doesn't believe in freedom. I totally believe in freedom. That's called freedom. What we're doing is freedom. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Lovett talks to Congresswoman Katie Porter about the pandemic, inequality, and the election. Before that, we'll talk through Donald Trump's return to the campaign trail, the latest in Congress's COVID relief negotiations, and how Democrats should handle the Supreme Court confirmation hearings that have already begun today. One exciting announcement before we start. Vote Save America's Build Your Own Ballot tool is now live in all 50 states.

Here's what you do. You go to votesaveamerica.com slash ballot. You enter the address where you're registered to vote. And we will give you all the information you need about the exact races and ballot measures you'll be voting on. You can pull it up while you fill out your ballot at home. Or you can save it on your phone and bring it with you if you're voting in person. Again, go to votesaveamerica.com slash ballot now to learn more. This is like one of the coolest things Votesave America does.

We did it in the midterms and the amount of information is just mind blowing and the team put so much work into it and it is fantastic and everything is double checked. And it's I'm going to use it to fill out my ballot. I literally I held off filling out mine because I wanted the ballot tool to be live because it's that helpful. I need to I need I need I need the ballot tool. Tell me whether or not I think Uber should stop people from having health care. All right. Let's get to the news. There are 22 days left to vote in the 2020 election. Donald Trump is trailing Joe Biden by double digits and still recovering from a covid infection that he contracted after throwing a super spreader event at the White House.

And so his next political move was obvious. Kick off a full week of swing state MAGA rallies with another crowded White House event and a doctor's note that said the president is, quote, no longer considered a transmission risk from the same guy who already admitted to lying to us about Trump needing oxygen. Tommy, first of all, what do we know and what don't we know about Donald Trump's current condition? So the letter tells us that he is no longer considered a transmission risk to others, but it did not say that Trump has tested negative. And you'd think that they would have released that fact because it's the thing Trump wants to hear more than anything else. We know that as of Saturday, he hadn't had a fever for 24 hours, but the White House

won't say when the actual start date was of his symptoms. We don't know what his lung scans look like. We don't know whether there were negative side effects from all the drugs he was taking. And we know that we probably shouldn't trust all of this information because the doctor lied previously and the doctors at Walter Reed were all forced to sign an NDA or else they weren't allowed to treat the president. Yeah. And as you mean, because they said that about the fever, that mean that there was a previous note that he didn't have a fever like last week, which means that there was a new fever

this week and there were new symptoms this week, which is like when you read between the lines of the letter, you find that out. So on Friday, Trump did some swing voter outreach on Rush Limbaugh's show where he said, you know, I was asking the doctors today, how bad was I? They said, you could have been very bad. You were going into a very bad phase. But then on Sunday, during his second interview in one week with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, he said this. Again, I think I would have been fine. You know, I'm in good health. I think I would have been fine.

And people have to realize that. And once you do recover, you're immune. So now you have a president who doesn't have to hide in a basement like his opponent. You have a president who is immune, which is a big, I think, which is a very important thing, frankly. So, Lovett, the Trump campaign is pushing this line that the president has personal experience with COVID and understands what people are going through. You see any messaging issues with that?

Yeah, I mean, it's, he hosted a series of super spreader events at the White House. It caused dozens of people to become sick. He then claimed to have now understood what COVID was all about and then immediately resumed hosting super spreader events at the White House and across the country. He's on his way to hosting a few in other COVID hotspots across the country right now. There was always a conflict for Trump, right, when he got COVID because there are two things he wants to do at once. One is to defeat the virus strongly. You know, he wants to say that he overcame it. He wants to say that it could have been very, very bad, but he's very, very strong and therefore defeated it. He also, for his ego, needs to act as if his denials of its seriousness all along were true,

that it actually isn't a big deal. And sure enough, he said them both. In some interviews, he could have died. In other interviews, he would have been fine. He can just do both because he's relying on the fact that he can just sort of spread various messages all at once on various platforms that people won't question him on, whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Maria Bartiromo. As for his message of, look, you don't want a president who hasn't had COVID. I don't think that that's, I don't like, I don't think I like, you know, Illinois is going to hell

and I had COVID is not like the economic message. I think he should probably be closing with if you, if you want him to win. I mean, it's like essentially the message is you shouldn't be afraid of COVID, which almost killed me. But for the special antibody cocktail I mean, it's like essentially the message is you shouldn't be afraid of COVID, which almost killed me. But for the special antibody cocktail I received only because I'm the president. Now, please excuse me while I go infect some more voters. Yeah, I mean, it's really like it obviously look like we are through the looking glass. Like this is not politics anymore. This is we are in another kind of conversation. Like Chris Christie got out of the hospital like a week later, like he was very, very sick, potentially on the verge of death. Like Mike Lee still contagious, currently in a hearing spouting off about the constitution.

Like we are in a deeply strange political moment where, you know, we're not just talking about policy anymore. These are human beings putting other people at risk just to be in their presence because their egos and their politics demands that they deny that COVID is serious. That's all. Yeah. And like, Tommy, you went through sort of the doctor's note on the physical conditions and how Trump's doing with COVID. Like, we haven't even gotten into questions over his mental state right now with all the steroids he's on and the some of the things he said over the last week which of course four years into this we're all very used to trump saying completely crazy shit and none of us can diagnose his mental condition nor should we but um there's some concerns yeah yeah i mean the message seems to be that if you have a private

helicopter to take you to your private suite to see your personal doctors to get experimental drugs, you're going to be fine. But, you know, in the middle of that, there was some rather unhinged behavior as part of whatever his closing argument is apparently going to be. Well, we just got to note, like in the New York Times story over the weekend. Got to note it. Got to note it. Got to note this. Got to talk about it. Because it's a great anecdote that Maggie Haberman reported. In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering. When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according

to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman t-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt. He wanted a Willy Wonka this. So was it Willy Wonka or was it more of like a Kaiser Sose usual suspects

where you like limp and limp and limp and then all of a sudden you're good to go and you smash the cup on the ground? Hard one to visualize for me. I want to make two quick points about this. Obviously, this is very stupid. We live in a very stupid time. Point number one, Gene Wilder.

Little fact about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka only accepted the movie if he could do that stunt at the beginning. Really? Yes. And the reason he said that, this may be apocryphal, who gives a shit, but this is my understanding, that he wanted to do,

the only way he would agree to do the movie is if he got to do that stunt. And the reason he wanted to do that stunt is because he said, after I do that as this character, you'll never know if you can believe this character ever again. That was his goal.

His goal was, that's why he did it. That's one. Two, if you defeat an illness, you know, with grit and determination and you're getting a little welcome home party from your family and you want to make a little joke with a Superman tea, I say have at it. I say have at it. I love it. But you don't do it if you put a bunch of other people at risk and your recklessness almost killed people, you don't do it if you get out of the hospital after you drove drunk into a school bus, which is basically what Trump has done with COVID. So no, you don't get to brag about having overcome it.

You hurt a bunch of people. Well, it just it's so very Trump. What is what does he really care about? He cares about looking weak. He doesn't care about all the people he put at risk. It's indicative of the entire presidency and his entire life. I think it would have been awesome and it was a missed opportunity and you guys are wrong. We'd be looking at a two-point margin in the polls right now. 538 would be up to a 27% chance. Can you do this, Joe?

Hairs open like Hulk Hogan. Donald Trump discovers Joe Biden's kryptonite. Tommy, beyond COVID, what is Trump's closing argument? I heard him yelling about court packing Hillary's emails, prosecuting Obama, the election being rigged, the debates being rigged. Anything I'm missing? Yeah, let's think about it. So it's like 30 minutes of steroid infused improv on Maria Parta Romo's weekday show that included calls for Bill Barr to arrest Obama and Biden and an attack on his own secretary of state for not releasing Hillary's emails. There was a two hour call into Rush Limbaugh's show because all the undecided voters are probably listening to Rush. There was the Saturday joint Blexit law enforcement event at the White House. There was supposed to be 2,000

people, but a couple hundred showed up and they were paid to be there. There were attacks at that speech about the radical socialist left and all of the normal hits on fracking. And it was a big hatchet violation. Then he called into Maria Bartiromo's weekend show to make sure he didn't miss any of her viewers who remain undecided. So, you know, Now he's in Florida tonight, I think. Tomorrow he's in Pennsylvania and he's tweeting specific attacks about California and New York and Illinois going to hell. So I don't know. It's not all that coherent. I'm sorry if I didn't describe it well. I'm not sure there's a thread that gets you through it. You boys are falling into the trap, not understanding what's going on once again. Pompeo is going to

release those Hillary Clinton emails and all of a sudden you're going to see Hillary's numbers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan crater. All right. Hillary is toast. She is toast. Once Pompeo releases those emails. Here's the problem with like us laughing about what a fucking disaster Donald Trump and his campaign are right now. Every time we do it, I think to myself, I want to hold a couple ideas in my head. One, which is he can still win. Of course. Of course he can.

He can definitely still win. But you know what? Even if he does win, this is still stupid. stupid. This is still a fucking horrendous way to close your campaign when you know that you are at least down with independent voters, swing voters, everyone else. He is retreating to the safe space of right-wing media. He is firing up the base, right? He's doing all that kind of stuff, but it is bad. It's also evil, by the way. It's also threatening to jail his opponents. Look, I've said everything is very stupid and very important and it sucks. Yeah. But also 300,000 people watch Maria Bartiromo show.

He gave her a full half hour and then called in again a couple of days later. Like I agree that he could still win for a variety of reasons, but that was not a good use of time. No one will ever convince me otherwise. He just canceled. He pulled out of a debate this week that would have been 60, 70 million people would have been able to see him because he didn't want to do it virtually because he didn't want to be on Zoom like all of us. Well, how much we want to be on Zoom because it's an advertisement for his failures. He didn't want to be on Zoom because he's, you know, Captain Contagio stuck in the White House, unable to unable to defeat the virus. So, like, no. Yeah, I mean, I get why he pulled out of the debate. There's no winning that debate. He's tweeting about General Flynn. Why are you tweeting about General Flynn for, man?

That guy's trying to stay under the radar so he doesn't get arrested again. I keep trying to think back to 2016 and like what what is different now? And I do. I remember a hint of a message from him at the end of 2016. And it was, you know, the global elite are coming for you. And I'm the only guy who can change Washington. There was still a lot of craziness, a lot about Hillary should go to jail and all this kind of stuff. But there was a at least with some of his ads, too. And I'm sure his ads are smarter than what he's saying every day right now. But there was just, there was a message about him being an outsider that was going to change Washington and fix immigration and all this stuff. And that really

did come through in the last couple of weeks of 2016. And maybe there's still time for it, but I don't sense it now. I think, look, if we got to, you know, he can win the forces of propaganda and cultural decline are still very much alive. But I do think what if I were to pick like one moment that to me signaled how we ended up where we are right now, there was a moment where Trump was supposed to roll out his new slogan, which was keep America great. And they quickly realized that saying keep America great in the middle of the greatest economic crisis in 100 years during a pandemic he failed to resolve was not a great idea. So they they retreated back to make America great again. And I think in that you see the core underlying problem that they have, which is what are they supposed to fucking say? Give us a redo. Mulligan, Mulligan on the last four years. So no message,

you know, he could have come out of COVID and said, I recovered. You know, I really understand what this disease is now. I understand what people are going through. I'm going to get going. And we're about to talk about this. I'm going to go work with Congress on a COVID relief package to help struggling Americans. We're going to do testing. And I'm going to get us through this just like I got us through this.

Right. Like, yeah, when it's turned things around, maybe not. But like, it's something. Yeah. If he became a different person, he'd have had a real shot. Right. Well, so much of this debate is about can he become a different person?

But he was the same person in 16. And what he did well then was he made it about Hillary Clinton. He's never been capable of making this race about anyone but himself in his failed record. He's never had a clear message about Biden. Biden's either trapped in the basement or he's sick with dementia or he's all these different sort of flailing, you know, captive of the radical left. None of it's coherent. None of it is working.

The law and order message isn't working. It's just a mess. It's been a mess. Yeah. So we've talked before about how the one issue that's keeping Trump alive is the economy where voters generally approve of his performance. But the president has put that advantage in jeopardy by bungling the negotiations over a new economic relief bill. After tweeting that he was ending the negotiations last week, Trump has since reversed himself and proposed a $1.8 trillion package, which is more than the $350 billion Republicans offered in July, but less than the $3 trillion HEROES Act that House Democrats already passed. Nancy Pelosi called Trump's proposal grossly inadequate, while Senate Republicans revolted against the White House offer. According to The New York Times, Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a call that accepting a bill with Nancy Pelosi's support

would deflate the base and amount to a, quote, death knell for the party's hopes of keeping the Senate. Lovett, what happens if there's no deal? If there's no deal, you know, right now, the only hope we have is that some vulnerable Republicans feel some pressure to do something before the election. The fear is even in the best case scenario where Joe Biden can win the presidency, we can keep the House and win the Senate. You will be unable to pass a significant relief bill until after Joe Biden becomes president because the Republicans will want to saddle him with the pain of the downturn as well as the cost of the stimulus bill. And so people that are in desperate, desperate need right now who are running out of options right now will have absolutely no relief from the federal government for months. And it's incredibly dangerous and harrowing for people that are like on a knife's

edge right now. Tommy, why do you think Donald Trump wants a deal now, at least in this hour that we're recording this, but not Senate Republicans? What are the political considerations driving their position on this? I mean, this is a hard one to answer because it is so irrational. I mean, I think part of it is that the Senate Republicans have no coherent leadership from either Trump or McConnell, right? Trump changes his mind hourly, so they don't want to embrace a position that he might then go against. There are all these leaks from over the weekend where you have Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, talking to these Senate Republicans. Mark Meadows isn't like a coalition builder either, right? He's an arsonist. He's an obstructionist. Also, why isn't Trump on that call with these senators showing leadership? Then you have Mitch McConnell,

who only cares about the Supreme Court. I'm sure he'd be happy to lose a couple of seats as long as he's got another justice to brag about. So you're reading these leaks where Republicans are saying they're worried about deficits and debts again, and they're worried about some new iteration of the Tea Party and that they could get in trouble politically for being in favor of a big spending bill. To me, that's one of the dumber things I've ever heard. The Tea Party was never about deficits. It was a bunch of astroturfed events paid for by corporations about how Obama was bad. But, you know, I guess maybe like they've made their bed on Fox News and with their supporters about how this bailout is just for Democrat-run states and therefore must be bad, and they can't seem

to walk back from that. But yeah, I mean, the implications for regular people, you're going to see bankruptcies. You're going to see people losing their homes. Half of all small businesses think they need more help from the government to survive. 1.5 million state and local government jobs have been lost. help from the government to survive. 1.5 million state and local government jobs have been lost. Like unemployment benefits are down two thirds for 25 million people who have been laid off. So we're in a very, very dire place right now. Yeah, I mean, we were talking about 2016. One advantage Trump had in 2016 is that voters at least perceived he was more economically

populist than a lot of Republicans. He made all kinds of false promises about protecting Social Security and Medicare and health care. And he talked about maybe taxing hedge fund owners and Wall Street. And none of that has come to bear during his presidency. But there is a strain. There are some Republicans, the Josh Hollies, people like that in the Senate, who see the future of the Republican Party as maybe we should be more economically populist and we can be as xenophobic and culturally right wing and racist as we want to be. And that's like that's a coalition. But most of this goes to show that, like, most establishment Republicans still aren't there. McConnell and the rest of them still would rather just push tax cuts for super rich people and absolutely fucking nothing for a bunch of Americans struggling in a recession through no fault of

their own because it's the middle of a pandemic. And like, I mean, I really think the only people worse at politics than Donald Trump are establishment Republicans in Congress. This is like the Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell wing of the party that somehow thinks if they if they pass a one point eight trillion dollar stimulus bill in the middle of a pandemic, that the price tag is going to be more offensive to their voters than actually, you know, lifting up the economy and saving a bunch of workers. I also think it's potentially even more cynical than that. You know, they recognize that there's a need for a big stimulus. than that. You know, they recognize that there's a need for a big stimulus. They see their majority going out the window and they'd rather put two trillion dollars on the Democrat ledger than on their own before they start complaining about the debt and the deficit again. And they'd rather hamstring a Joe Biden administration in the first hundred days with an even deeper downturn than

give him a tailwind so that he can pursue some progressive priorities. So I think there is a it's even more cynical. That's all. I think that's that's a big part of it. How hard should Democrats try to make a deal here? Should should Pelosi accept the White House offer and then put the ball in McConnell's court? Tommy, what do you think? I this is hard, but I come down on the side of yes, like we should just be. I recognize it's weird politics. Democrats are trying to help improve the economy for Donald Trump right before the election. But I worry about inaction doing irreparable harm to millions of families and then also the economy generally. And whether or not Joe Biden wins, like I don't think that's a good thing for anyone, including our political system.

We should also be clear that Pelosi is not playing super, super hardball. She came down from $3 trillion to $2.2 trillion. She didn't put in place provisions that say, if the economy continues to struggle, unemployment insurance would automatically be extended. That's something a lot of people want, to prevent Republicans from being able to hamstring Joe Biden if he is elected and we don't get the Senate. She didn't put a ton of money in there for vote by mail, even though we probably need it. And so, you know, I think she's worried about like state and local governments collapsing. We all should be worried about that because we're Democrats. We believe that government should work.

It should do things for people. These are the people we all got into politics to help the people who are out of work right now. And so I don't know how the politics will cut, but I like the idea of doing nothing until, you know, January or February with covid cases increasing with people, you know, really hurting. I don't know. I just I can't stomach that. don't know. I just I can't stomach that. Yeah, no, I think this is a tough one, too, because I do think there's a lot of politics that play into this. But I think on the substance, the absolute right thing to do is to try to get a deal because you're right. People people struggling and hurting until February when things are only going to get worse is too much to stomach. So if you can get a deal, you get a deal. Now, let's imagine she gets a deal. Let's imagine it

passes. You know, Donald Trump spends the last couple of weeks saying he got a big bipartisan COVID relief deal to save the economy. What does that do to the election? I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's too late at that point. Maybe people have already made up their minds. Maybe people give Democrats credit for, you know, working with Republicans. But I think it's a risk. It's definitely a risk. Now, what do I think is the most likely outcome? Pelosi passes something through the House that the White House has agreed to.

And then Mitch doesn't have the votes in the Senate, which clearly he doesn't because that's why he's been trying to avoid this. And if you read all the stories about that call with the Senate Republicans, that Marsha Blackburn quote wasn't the only one. There were a whole bunch of them saying absolutely not. Then Pelosi throws it to McConnell and McConnell kills it. saying absolutely not. Then Pelosi throws it to McConnell and McConnell kills it. Well, then we tried to do the right thing. And the politics at that point are great because now Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans single-handedly killed the COVID deal. Yeah, I mean, I think it argues for Democrats not giving more than what they've already given and holding the line for a really, really strong package. Because I asked Katie Porter this,

I asked it in the most cynical way possible. It was embarrassing how she answered for me. But the point that she made is, it's actually harmful to keep coming back, right? Like we need to give people certainty, need to like, if you just give a little bit of money to local government or just to give a little bit of money to businesses,

they don't have the certainty they need to not lay people off, to keep people on the payrolls, et cetera. So like, we need to do a really big package. The only reason to do it now is because you need something that's going to last for a long time. And so, yeah, like I think the, like the politics of we put forward a really good deal and force Republicans to go along with it is the only way to make some kind of political hay out of passing something while Donald Trump is still president. And if they walk away, well, they walk away. The other thing that gives me a little hope that he wouldn't use this to great political advantage

is when has he ever driven a consistent message about policy? When has Donald Trump run on an accomplishment? Well, they passed a big coronavirus relief bill, what, March, April? He never talks about it. So I guess I'm just less worried about his ability to leverage this in a way that's consistent when, you know, he'll probably pass it and then that same day, like, have, you know, Pompeo lock up Hillary Clinton or somebody in the cabinet. Look, you could also see, like, Joe Biden at the last debate with him, if we have a last debate, saying, you know, yeah, you tried to kill the deal single handedly.

And luckily for us, luckily for the country, Democrats fought really hard to get a very good deal. And, you know, just take credit for it. All right. Today is also the first day of hearings on Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court. And over the weekend, we got a preview of her opening statement where she claimed to believe in an independent, nonpolitical judiciary. She said policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people. The public should not expect the courts to do so and courts should not try. If you didn't know much about Amy Coney Barrett's views or her background, and this statement was the first you've heard from her, which it was for a lot of people who

watched today, you would think she's some independent minded right down the middle judge. Tommy, how should Democrats handle that? I mean, look, I read her statement. She said nothing. Nothing. There were like five paragraphs about her family, which is all well and good and nice. But it mentioned how much one of her kids deadlifts. There was nothing about what she thinks about the law. It was the same right wing judicial rhetoric that tries to make them sound like nonpartisan judicial robots who just call balls and strikes. And, you know, that's how the court should work. It's total bullshit. I think the Democrats have done a good job focusing on the Affordable Care Act. They should focus on the

fact that she might overturn Roe versus Wade and stay focused on all the policy implications of the way she might rule. I think they can also talk about the fact that this is a rushed process that is happening in a way that is completely unethical and outrageous. And stick to that. Republicans clearly want to manufacture some attack on her religion. They want to manufacture some sort of attack on her gender or her family. We shouldn't play that game. It's not what's happening anyway.

You have like hack idiots like Hugh Hewitt tweeting that the left despises every person of any faith, right? Like that's for a bunch of defenders of religion. They sure are trying to push it into the political arena to get pilloried, right? But like, let's just not take the bait there. Well, what does it say about how Republicans sort of view the court in these hearings that like, before they pick a nominee, they have all these litmus tests. You must criminalize abortion. You must have all these positions. They say, we're going to pick people

who will do X, Y, and Z policy outcome. Then once the nomination happens, it's, oh, what are you talking about? No policy positions from us. Just balls and strikes down the middle, just as independent as they come. I don't, politics? What are you talking about politics?

I've never been political. Look, I have decided to subject myself with weeks of embarrassing accusations of undeniable hypocrisy, risk life and limb, put my staff at risk, do this in the middle of an election, bring COVID positive Mike Lee and COVID curious Lindsey Graham into the Capitol to have a hearing because we just don't know what kind of judge she'll be. And the mystery of that, the excitement of finding out is just too much for us. We really want to see how this thing turns out. No, they know what she's going to do. What matters is not what she says in these hearings. Like we've been through this before during the hearings, their job is to be as, uh, inane and innocuous and banal as humanly possible. That's the game we're playing right now to, to put forward kind of personal values in place of radical judicial philosophy. You know, she has written her views down. They are available to us. They

cannot be denied. She has taken a pretty clear position on believing Roe versus Wade was wrongly decided. She's taken a clear position on the Affordable Care Act. She's taken a clear position on originalism, which is the same radical view that Scalia held. She wrote a piece for a law journal where she discussed basically how her originalism can, can live in a practical world where all these, uh, to her mind, unconstitutional statutes and laws and rules are in place. And basically in that piece, she talks about how you reckon with the fact that we're not just talking about the affordable care act. We're talking about the social security administration. We're talking about the fucking Louisiana purchase and paper currency and all

kinds of aspects. The 14th Amendment being technically not ratified legally. The views she holds are the logical conclusion of originalism. And everything that we're seeing is a kind of dance to hide that radicalism, a project that they've been engaged in for 40 years. Does that mean she will immediately begin overturning every single precedent and putting that originalism in practice? No, they are cynical operators who do their best to overturn as much as they possibly can while legitimizing their viewpoint. But there's no reason to pretend that what we're seeing is a legitimate exploration of her views. We know what her views are. They are clear. Yeah. And that's, you know, this morning as the hearings are going on, I see some reporters tweeting like, wow, the Democrats are like unbelievably disciplined on health care right

now. And they're not even bringing up a lot of other issues and stuff like that. It's like, yeah, good. Finally. That's because like for voters, like voters are not going to get into a deep debate about originalism and textualism and all that stuff. But they are going to know that she has views on the Affordable Care Act, which is that it was wrongly decided when it was upheld as constitutional. We know that for sure.

And there's a case coming the week after the election to decide whether it's constitutional again. That's what you need to know about Amy Coney Barrett. And, like, Mitch McConnell very well probably has the votes to confirm her, and he makes the rules in the Senate. So as much as we can slow this down, we can try, but he can always change the rules at the end. So it's a very good chance he confirms her. But at the very least, we want voters to know what's at stake in this election and what Republicans will do and what she will do if she gets on the court. It's a little thing, but because her opening statement said nothing, that's all we can go with. But she said in her opening statement that she hadn't sought out this job. I was like, you have been groomed this Republican ecosystem on the right with their

judicial processes and thrust upon us to do incredibly radical things. And they are nice people who have families who, you know, come off as friendly in these hearings. But yeah, the implications for how she would rule are massive. And I'm glad Democrats are focused on that. So cynical. I think her lifelong dream was to just be a law professor. Right. For sure. For sure. That's what she told us. I will say, I think she is a sincere originalist, but we just shouldn't pretend that that's not radical and outside of what Americans want from the judiciary. We just don't need to pretend. So if Barrett is confirmed, we'll have the most extreme right-wing court we've ever had that

could last for decades. The only option for Democrats at that point would be to pass legislation that reforms the court in some way, either by changing its size or instituting some kind of term limits. There are plenty of different reform options out there. Joe Biden keeps getting criticism from Republicans and question from reporters about whether he's considering something like this. Here's how he answered over the weekend. The only court packing going on right now is going on with Republicans packing the court now like this? Here's how he answered over the weekend. court is being packed now by the Republicans after the vote has already begun. I'm going to stay focused on it so we don't take the eyes off the ball here. That was Joe Biden from inside an airplane engine. Glad we're stealing that little tendency from Trump to do it with the airplane

engines on. That's great. What do you think of that answer, Lovett? Has Biden landed on a good answer? I think it's a great answer. I've like somebody made, I've seen a few people make this point today and it's actually, I think, a really good one. Like, I think that's the right thing to say. They are packing the court. You know, these are people that wanted to shrink, that they successfully shrunk the size of the Supreme Court in 2016.

They attempted to shrink the size of some lower courts when they didn't want liberal appointees to shift the court to the left. You know, look, we just saw a debate where Mike Pence was asked point blank, if Roe versus Wade is repealed, what do you want to happen? Now he has a clear position on this. They want to criminalize abortion. That is their view. That is their view that they, that's what they've been fighting for, for 40 fucking years. That's what they're trying to do. And if, and if we're really going to be in another endless news cycle about asking Joe Biden about this perspective question around the Supreme Court, when the politics are obvious to every single person asking the question, why he doesn't

want to answer what the implications are for her confirmation or lack of confirmation. We really need to make sure that the stakes of what happens on the court, not just who's on the court, but what the court does are elevated. And that means driving a similar question at the Republicans. What do you want to do if Roe versus Wade is overturned? You want to criminalize abortion. That is what you are driving towards. That is the goal of this project. And I think we should not let them off the hook. Like we need to direct that question at them because that's what they've been doing to us. They decided that this is the most important issue. Well, I think there's another important issue about the Supreme Court.

Tommy, obviously, like, you know, Republicans have made this court packing thing an issue for the last several days. Reporters are happy to bite. They've become obsessed with this as well. Why do you think what do you think the obsession around this is? Do you think it's warranted? You know, I think it's an important question that's relevant. It's totally fair game to ask Joe Biden this.

I think that they haven't handled it particularly well. So it's going to come up again and again. I also think that like, you know, reporters probably feel like they need to be tough on Biden because they've been tough on Trump in a lot of ways. But my answer to this, if I were Joe Biden, is that the courts are already packed. McConnell stole the Supreme Court seat from Obama. Trump confirmed 30 appellate judges from 2017 to 2018. Obama confirmed two from 2015 to 2016. And the reason is because McConnell refused to move the process and he just stole them for Trump.

And to Leavitt's point, in 2016, John McCain suggested that the Republican Senate might be justified in refusing to confirm any nomination that Hillary Clinton made to the Supreme Court for four years. Richard Burr said similar things. The National Review proposed shrinking the Supreme Court down to six justices. Tom Cotton put forward a bill to reduce the size of the D.C. Circuit from 11 to 9. So none of these things are outside the mainstream. None of these things are new. I just think we have to do a better job reminding the press and the Republican Party that these are ideas that they've entertained, they've introduced. This is a totally reasonable conversation that they've tried to have for a long time. By the way, Barrett got her seat on the Seventh Circuit because the Senate blocked

Obama's choice to fill the open seat for an entire year. That's why we're here. Courts are packed. I mean, I do think I would take it out of some of these process arguments too, right? Like it's sort of what you were saying, Levitt. Like we know what a right-wing court will do. We know what they believe. We know what decisions they'll make. We already have evidence of that.

They're going to gut the Voting Rights Act. They're going to prevent the government from doing anything to stop carbon pollution, to do anything about climate change. They're trying to criminalize abortion. A good number of them didn't want gay marriage. They want to strike down the Affordable Care Act, a bunch of them. They want to actually prevent government from doing any kind of regulation of corporations at all. So if we have a 6-3 court, those are the policy consequences. Those are the consequences that will cause millions of Americans to suffer.

Right. And so if I'm Joe Biden, I'm going to say I'm going to fight to stop that. I'm fighting to stop that now by trying to stop Amy Coney Barrett from getting a seat on the court. And I will continue to fight that as president to make sure that we actually have an independent, balanced judiciary again, not like we've had for a long time. That's what I'm fighting for. And we're still in this nomination fight. And once I'm president, we'll figure out what to do about it. One of the things you see, too, when you look at like Amy Coney Barrett's writings about the law is I think they I think they want to overturn the ACA. I think they want to overturn Roe. But

she may find ways to uphold precedents that her originalism tells her are unconstitutional. But what is very clear is that they view it with an incredible urgency to prevent the passage of laws that they view violate originalism, that she will be an easy, easy no vote on every form of progressive legislation we're trying to do. Just an easy, reliable no. She is as activist a judge as you could get. And what Republicans used to say is they don't want to legislate from the bench, and they have completely given up on that talking point because it's all they do. That's where all their wins come from. I mean, I think the thing worth noting is Dave Weigel was tweeting about this, great reporter for The Washington Post, a bunch

of others. No voters are asking this question. No voters care about court packing. They care about the implications and all the things you're talking about, John. And that's exactly right. I just think in terms of like volleying this back into the sort of DC press arena requires pointing out the hypocrisy and the absurdity of Republicans suddenly caring that they care about like these strict rules around judicial nominees. That has not been the case for a very long time. That asshole Mitch McConnell was on Fox News bragging about how he stole a bunch of judges for Obama. Like, give me a break. Judges aren't like inhuman people who just call balls and strikes or whatever the narrative is. They're Republican and they're Democrat. They're conservative and they're liberal these days.

Like the Warren court, all those old school days are gone. Like this is what we're dealing with now. And I think Biden has to act accordingly. Yeah, legislate from the bench. Like the Amy Coney Barrett's of the world and Antonin Scalia's of the world, they don't want you to legislate from Congress, right? Like Joe Biden and a Democrat, this is what's going to happen.

Joe Biden and Democratic Congress will pass a bunch of legislation that the Barrett Scalia Kavanaugh court will strike down. There will be no legislation, no major legislation coming from a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress if we leave the 6-3 court the way it is. That's where we are. You say Scalia, but I do can see I can see them reconfirming him in the lame duck. I think it's hard to keep track of who's alive and who's dead on that court frankly oh man Kavanaugh Thomas Thomas it's so annoying it's so annoying to watch these guys just like praying for like a I like beer moment praying for Lindsey Graham

to be able to dust off his little soapbox and start screaming and freaking out again. They just want to be victims so badly when they're in control of everything. It's infuriating. Lindsey Graham's going to like have a different voice and just be like, I hate Catholics. Did you hear that?

Did you hear that? Maisie Hirono just said she hates Catholics. I heard it. Oh God. Lindsey Graham, who refuses to take a COVID test. Unbelievable. What the fuck? That is so, that is, we are gone.

We are in a whole new place. Yeah, no COVID test. No COVID test because he might not get his justice through. Okay, let's take a few questions from the audience before we go to Lovett's interview with Katie through. Okay. Let's take a few questions from the audience before we go to Lovett's interview with Katie Porter. Questions. Jennifer Claproth asks us, I'm suspicious that the Trump campaign has pulled back on ads in the Midwest. Does it mean he's given up or that he's rigged those states so he doesn't need to campaign in

them? Oof. I don't think he's willing to take that. Look, I have the same paranoia. I have the exact same paranoia. I'm like, pulling back, what's their fucking secret? You know? Yeah. I don't think he's rigged the states. I wouldn't, and I don't think he's given up. I think that they're probably making very tough resource decisions about what states they absolutely have to win versus what states they want to win. And they're also hoping that the super PACs that can take $25 billion checks from Sheldon Adelson at a time will help them close the gap in some of these places. But it's not an ideal situation to be in. I wouldn't look at that as a sign of strength or a great plan for Donald Trump. It seems like a sign of weakness to me. have decided is if you if you look at the 2016 map and you give joe biden michigan and wisconsin but uh donald trump keeps uh especially arizona pennsylvania and florida he wins and so they have now they are running out of money and they figure like why save michigan and wisconsin what we really

want to pay attention to is pennsylvania ari Florida because I think they feel they're the closest there. So they're going to pour whatever money they have into those three straights and try to pull an inside straight like they did in 2016. And they don't view voter suppression and ads as an ether or proposition. True. Unfortunately. Very true. Rachel Libby asks, hey, guys, question for you. I'm confused as to why we are talking about slash taking some comfort in polls that show Biden in the lead when polls also predicted

Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 in a landslide. What's different now? Why should we trust today's poll when they were so inaccurate then? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. So few things. The national polls in 2016 did not show that Hillary Clinton was going to win in a landslide. The national polls showed that her final lead was three points and she won by two points. So the national polls are pretty close. The problem we had was in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, the polls were five, six, seven points off. So there was a big polling error in those states.

One of the theories of why there was a polling error in those states is that polls were not capturing enough non-college educated white people. So too many college educated people picked up the phone for pollsters. Not enough people without a college degree picked up. People without a college degree tend to vote for Donald Trump if they are white. So what do you do? You change the polls this time to weight by education, meaning you make sure there are enough non-college white voters in your polling sample that match the population of that state. So pollsters did that after 16. And then in 18, the polls were

closer. They were closer. And they were now now you still had a couple polls in 18. Florida showed Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson winning by a few. They both lost by a point. Polls showed, you know, Tony Evers in Wisconsin winning by a couple points. He won by one point. So they're still not they haven't totally fixed the problem. But they did improve the polls in 2018 and the 2018 polls in general were better than they were in 2016. improve the polls in 2018 and the 2018 polls in general were better than they were in 2016 but who knows it's close i would say all of that take all of that all right all right remember it and throw it in the garbage all right yeah polls are shit how's that go i've got you know get a good night's sleep like the polls are right all All right. Wake up every morning and assume they're wrong.

And that's it. Tammy DeBow asks, do you really think phone banking is more effective than text banking, letter or postcard writing? Because I personally never answer unknown calls and I've written hundreds of postcards and letters. Three text banking attempts have been frustratingly unsuccessful for technical reasons, but haven't phone banked. That's all you guys promote.

So I'm feeling insecure. Tommy? I don't think that's all we promote. I don't think anybody knows what's more effective in the middle of a pandemic, whether it's texting, letter writing, postcards, phones. So I would say don't feel guilty about whatever you choose to do.

Do the one you want to do and know that you're contributing and don't sweat it. Great answer. All right. When we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with Congresswoman Katie Porter. Very exciting. We are joined by Congresswoman Katie Porter. No whiteboard, but whiteboard energy.

Thanks for being here. Well, that's not true. I have a whiteboard. I assume it's always nearby. It must always be available to you. There it is. There it is. Yeah, there it is.

Deep background, just in case. Just in case it needs to be. People need to know. It's like Chekhov's gun, you know? All right. I actually got a new whiteboard that fits in my purse. Well, now my purse is about the size of a small newborn elephant, but nonetheless, it's a, it's really awesome.

It's a whiteboard that fits in my purse with a whiteboard marker that attaches. So I do now truly always have one. That's great. Just trying to think of the emergency whiteboard situation, but I'm glad you're ready just in case. So the last time we talked, last time you were on Pod Save America, it was mid-March. The country was just beginning to shut down. Here we are all these months later. How are you doing? How are you holding up? I'm holding up okay, but I'm worried. I'm worried about my kids. This morning, I took my son to one of his in-person days at school. And he came home because he forgot his mask.

So I had to drive him. And he said, I don't know if we really need these masks. And I said, you know, Paul, COVID can cause brain damage. And he just looked like he was terrified. And so that really is what daily life is like for so many of us who are really trying to balance between doing the things we have to do, including, in my case, trying to get Congress to be productive, get my kids to school so that they're learning, and then trying to stay safe at the same time. Yeah, I mean, right now you are the only single mother of young children in Congress. It just seems very clear that lawmakers do not have

the interest of people in a situation like yours as their priority. What would a Congress that was actually responsive to what families are going through, what would it be doing right now? I think there are three top priorities, and I don't think this is this hard to discern. I don't think you need to be a single mom of kids to understand this. I think you just need to be in touch with your constituents. The first thing is help for state and local governments. These are the entities that are closest to the people that are delivering relief, food relief, food banks, rental assistance. We need to get that money to the state and local governments, and it needs to be a big enough number to tie them through what is going to be an extended period of lower taxes, lower sales tax, and things like that. Second thing is we need to be making sure that we're getting, we're focusing on reopening schools and child care centers. If

we don't do that, our economy will be permanently crippled, not just now because women are staying home, working parents are staying home, but for a whole generation of women going forward. McKinsey, not to be confused with Ms. Magazine, McKinsey, the consulting firm, just did a study that found that one in four working women with children is considering leaving the workforce. And that is a big problem for our economy as women are major drivers of GDP, their efforts in the workplace. And then three is making sure that we have adequate resources for testing and tracing. We still need to approach this from a public health situation. So those are the priorities. Trump on steroids tweets that he doesn't want there. There will

be no more negotiations. Then quickly he realizes that that was a dumb thing to say. Now he's, he's taken every position conceivable on negotiations. McConnell seems to be trying to pour cold water on the idea of the Senate doing something. What is going on right now with negotiations? Where is the possibility of stimulus? And like, what happens when you have Trump kind of taking every side every single day? Oh God, John, who the hell knows? Okay. Like I have no idea what's going on in Trump's mind. Does anybody? And, you know, I think one of the things that we're seeing is that there is a divergence between where Mitch McConnell is and where Trump is. And it's not the kind of divergence we were hoping for.

We were hoping for a majority leader that would actually step up and legislate in this moment. And now we're in this odd world where President Trump is actually showing that he's more open to doing coronavirus relief than Mitch McConnell is. So I think the Democrats are continuing to try to be open to negotiation. We know what the priorities are and we're continuing to try to push them, but we just can't do that with Mitch McConnell and the White House not on the same page. I mentioned before the importance of state and local government help and the importance of schools and child care testing and tracing. I would also say we're in a situation where we need to give direct help to those who are unemployed, particularly with regard to keeping them housed.

I think we are cruising for a major housing crisis. And as somebody who's already lived through one of those, almost two of those now, I guess this will be my third one in my lifetime. Starting with the farm crisis in the 1980s when I was a kid in the Midwest, what we went through with the national mortgage crisis here in 2008, 2009, 2010, we're going to be in another housing crisis coming up if we don't help people keep making their mortgage payments and keep making their rental payments, keep our roof over their head. So yeah, it does seem like there's been some, it hasn't gone far enough. There've been some moratorium, some of them local, some of them national around rent,

but that doesn't at all address the problem about what happens when all these people that have been out of work, they're still going to have to figure out some way to either pay or be relieved from paying all of that background. It seems like we have this sort of ticking time bomb in the economy of all these people. They're going to have the rent come due. What is the answer to that? I mean, obviously, it's money, but... Yeah. So we've seen moratoriums used before. They were used during the Great Depression. They've sometimes been used during other agricultural-based depressions. But you're absolutely right. You have to ultimately answer the question about how you're going to pay this landlord. And of course, there are large landlords,

there are private equity firms that have a lot of access to capital. But there are also people whose landlord is a senior who's renting out an apartment and that rent is their income to make ends meet. So I think we need to be providing direct assistance to help people make their rental and mortgage payments. And if we don't, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt, not unlike what we did after the mortgage crisis, where we're going to be trying to get loan modifications for people, because this is affecting both renters and homeowners. And of course, those at the lower end of the income spectrum who are more likely to be renters are having the hardest time recovering in this pandemic. But I think the fact that we used a moratorium as our primary tool

reflected a fundamental misunderstanding by policymakers that this would somehow blow over in a month or two, right? And not treating this as the year or two economic game changer that COVID-19 is in this country. Right. It wasn't a pause. It was a new way of living for a long time. So right now, Democrats seem open to pursuing a stimulus package. You know, there is this conflict for Democrats who want to help people who are terrified at the prospect of failing to do something before the election. Republicans having no interest in helping, even in the best case scenario, knock on wood, all caveats, we can win. We're talking about months and months without helping people. Yet at the same time, I think Democrats are afraid of giving Donald Trump some kind of a victory in the final days before this election. How are you

grappling with that? How do you put together our political interest of winning this election, but also more importantly, wanting to help people in this crisis? I don't think that's how we're thinking about it, or that's at least not how I'm thinking about it as a Democrat. My concern isn't about Donald Trump. My concern is about the American people. So I will vote for any stimulus package, regardless of whether it comes before or after the election, whether it is bipartisan or not, that's going to deliver enough meaningful help. Because the reality is we can't do these packages every two weeks. We can't do them every month. All right. They take

too long to negotiate and the programs take too long to set up to get help to people. So we need to come up with something that's going to be big enough to actually meet people's unmet needs for the last couple months and understand that we have at least six more months, best, most miraculous case scenario of economic pain caused by COVID. So for me, I think for most of my colleagues,

my freshman colleagues in particular, we are in our districts, we are hearing what constituents are going through, we want to deliver for them. It's not a question of Donald Trump and helping Donald Trump. It's a question of helping people. Is this a package that will help people? And the Democrats have voted for more than one of those heroes, the updated heroes package. We keep going back to the drawing board. If Trump were willing, or McConnell more pointedly, were willing to step up and do any of these things before the election, after the election, I don't care. People need help. And when people are getting help from their government, that causes them to feel confident

about government working for them, and that leads them to go out and vote, regardless of their ideology. That's an important thing to understand about this moment. It also sounds like what you're saying is we can't settle for a half measure. We need to get the package we think is the absolute best package because it will be months before we should or would be able to do this again. So we should be using our leverage and we should only move forward if it's a really good deal that reflects democratic priorities about how to actually fix this mess. Well, absolutely. Because this is not, if you're thinking about someone who's lost their job and they can't make ends meet, maybe they have, their spouse kept their job, but it reduced hours. They lost their job. They're three months behind on the rent. They have a moratorium.

They're having to juggle childcare expenses that are higher because school's closed. Sending them a $50 check isn't going to solve their problems. That's a political stunt. So what we're trying to do is provide enough to actually help meet the needs. And you think about it with state and local government. If you send them a tiny amount of money, they still have to lay off firefighters. They still have to lay off police departments. They still have to make cuts in senior services and child services.

So it needs to be big enough to actually help people solve their problems. Yeah. So one other question I was interested in talking to you about. So it seems like this downturn has accelerated or made worse certain trends that we were already seeing. So you have, you know, Amazon is hiring, local stores are closing, big restaurant chains like Domino's and Chipotle are doing well. And restaurants that have, you know, fewer than five locations, they're really, really struggling. Millions of people have lost their jobs.

You know, these small businesses, they're not just the heart of downtowns and communities. They're also the competition for these big companies. And we're in this situation where we have these big downturns as the second giant crisis in a decade. And it's like a brush fire. It clears out small businesses so these big giants can thrive. Like what is the answer in good times to protect small businesses, to create incentives so that every time we're in any kind of downturn, it's not just the big guys that are able to weather the storm, that we have a system in place to make sure we have downtowns with unique local businesses that are part of their communities. John, this is a wonderful point,

and I'm really glad you're making it because not enough people are talking about this. Anytime we have a major economic crisis or a major industry transformation, there are winners and there are losers. And what we've seen in the last 50, 60, 70 years in the United States is the winners are always the biggest companies and the losers are always the smallest ones. We saw that with the mortgage crisis where the big banks came out fine,

but a lot of smaller banks were closed, merged, or consolidated. So I think part of the answer here is to be during the crisis, really right at the start, building programs that will help the smallest entities. And so I think there were mistakes made with the original Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, where it was much easier for larger businesses, for white-owned businesses, for businesses with lots of credit already connected to financial services to get help.

I do think when we went back, we improved that program. But there's no doubt that we weren't thinking enough about the most vulnerable businesses right at the start. I think the other answer to this is to understand that in good times, as you said, what should we be doing in good times? We ought to be making sure that we are focusing on enforcing antitrust laws, reducing barriers to competition, making sure that people can compete on a level playing field. And so those are all things that you have to be thinking about constantly in a capitalist economy. That's a sort of under precursor of capitalism. A healthy capitalism is that you have this competition. And there are lots of industries where we really can't honestly say we have that. Big Pharma, great example. Health insurance, another example. There's a handful of companies.

Pharmacies, another example. But there's lots of examples outside of healthcare as well. So, you know, you recently had a viral clip in Oversight around pharmaceutical costs. You've had a number of these in your time in these committee hearings. You've made, you know, Oversight a cool thing for people. What is it that you're thinking about? Oversight is a cool thing. Yeah, OK, sure. Yeah, no, I agree.

I agree. I mean, how about we say you're making it cooler? Absolutely. I mean, look, I really do mean this. I love oversight. And it's because it's really fundamental to this core problem of democracy that I was hinting at earlier, which is if people think government isn't working, they don't vote for the other party.

They simply don't vote at all. And that is a big long-term problem. So we have to be thinking about oversight as a tool to help show people that their vote does matter, that their vote is improving the nature and type of government. And that doesn't mean, that's not an ideological agenda. That's just about getting the American people competent. So I do truly heart oversight. No, but what I'm trying to ask is, what is your approach in those moments when you're breaking out the whiteboard? How do you decide this is what I want to focus on? This is what I think

will really matter. This is what I think will break through because I think you've managed to do that when a lot of other before you who have cared about oversight, it's been harder to break through, harder to break through, harder to get people excited about it. One of the things we do is we really focus on not what I want to say, but what do the American people want to hear? And so we think about, you know, not the speech I want to give, but the answers that they need from these witnesses. It also just takes a lot of hard work. We'll often start out with anywhere between eight and 10 possible ideas for lines of questioning. And we'll even go into a hearing, even narrowed down with two or three different ideas, picking the one that we think is best in the moment. So it takes a lot of preparation, but it really takes not thinking

about what you want to say. It's not an opportunity to give a speech. It's a moment to get answers. Last question. What are you doing to stay pumped for the final three weeks? By the time this comes out, it'll basically be 500 hours until the last polls closed. How are you staying in the fight? Yeah. So I've been really, really enjoying working with and supporting other House challengers this cycle. I think there's so much focus right now, obviously, on electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, on taking back the Senate, but I have a newsflash for listeners of the pod. The House challengers of 2020 are terrific. So if you like what you saw out of the class of 2018, get ready for the class of 2020. So I formed a leadership organization

called Truth to Power. And through that PAC, I've been able to endorse 26 House challengers. They're all women, people of color, women of color, and not one of them takes corporate PAC money. So I'm going to help build what I'm doing in this next phase is not only focusing on my own election, winning in this Republican territory of Orange County, but also making sure that I'm going to have many, many more colleagues who are willing to stand up and fight for the truth in those hearings. Congressman Katie Porter, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you so much. Thanks to Katie Porter for joining us today. And no debate this week.

Did she have a whiteboard? So that's something. It was deep in the background, but it was there in case. It was like, I've said in the interview, but it was like Chekhov's gun. Did you get any lesson? No? Okay, got it.

But she's great. We love Katie Porter. She's awesome. Love Katie Porter. And we didn't use it, but we had a great conversation after the interview that was like really some hot gossip gossip oh i like that wow well you're just dropping that here at the end of the episode release the tapes here where it was release the tapes rough rough i i saw

her uh i saw her quote tweet and respond to trump saying california is going to hell with just a big eye roll emoji which i thought was spot on classic Classic. Classic. All right, guys, we'll talk to you later. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.

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