Pod Save America - “Yo, collusion!”

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Marcy Wheeler joins Jon and Dan to break down Individual-1’s very bad day and discuss the future of the Trump investigation, Pelosi wins her caucus vote for Speaker, Schumer kicks off shutdown negotiations, and Sherrod Brown shows Democrats how to talk about Trump and the economy.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Today on the pod, we're going to kick it off with friend of the pod, Marcy Wheeler, who's going to talk all about the latest in the Mueller investigation, which has heated up a lot this week, Dan. It's been a busy morning, I'll tell you that. A lot of crimes. A lot of crimes. We're also going to be talking about the Democratic leadership fight in the House, the shutdown negotiations in the Senate,

and how the GM layoffs are shaping the Democrats' economic message. Also check out the newest episode of Pod Save the World. Tommy gets a rundown on news from around the globe with Ben Rhodes. They also talked to former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul about the latest crisis between Russia and Ukraine. You're also going to want to check out the new Keep It episode this week. It's the Ira and Louis Variety Hour. Ira's been in Europe for a little bit. He's been working on his British accent. So it's a pretty great episode. Check that out. One more housekeeping thing, a public service announcement. The deadline to enroll in coverage or change coverage under the Affordable Care Act is December 15th. Fewer people have selected a plan this year since Trump has done everything he can to sabotage the program.

So please let people know the market is open. You can still get a very affordable plan with good benefits. Just go to healthcare.gov. Okay, so big week in news about the investigation into Donald Trump and his dopey gang of criminals that include, but are not limited to, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Jerome Corsi. And here with us to talk about all this news, knowers of all things Russia, Mueller. Welcome back to the pod, Marcy. Thanks for having me. I'm not sure I want to be the knower of all things Russia or Trump or Mueller for that matter. Y yikes i don't think any of us do

um all right let's uh let's start with the news this morning about the newest member of the resistance michael cohen um what is what is cohen's guilty plea tell us about a potential conspiracy between trump his associates and the r Russian government. And Vladimir Putin personally? Yeah. We've got Putin and Trump named in the same charging document. So that's sort of newsworthy. So Cohen just basically pled guilty to lying to Congress when he told Congress that these discussions

about a Trump Tower in Moscow in 2015, 2016, he told them they all ended in January before the elections, before the primary started, before the Russians really thought they'd get something off of Donald Trump. And what, in fact, Mueller laid out it to be the truth today is that he kept working on that Trump Tower Moscow deal until basically the day the DNC hack was revealed, in which case he canceled a trip days before he was about to leave. But up until that point, so up through the time when Trump got the nomination and actually kind of it intensified after Trump got the nomination. He was working on going to Moscow to finalize a Trump Tower deal. And why would he why do you think he would

lie about that? Why would that be a big deal? Are there legal implications there? Is it just sort of appearances sake? Like what what causes you to lie to Congress about something like this? Well, he said specifically that he did so to to try and limit the scope of the Russian investigation. And remember that Trump had had The New York Times very obediently set a red line for him, saying that if Mueller started investigating his business deals, that was going to be beyond the pale. And he raised that again when SDNY, when New York prosecutors raided Cohen's house, presumably knowing they would find what we see today, which is that at the time the Russians were dealing dirt to Trump. At the time when Trump's campaign was was very aggressively trying to set up meetings with Putin, we know part of the reason he wanted that meeting with Putin was because it was part of this Trump Tower deal. Trump was going to profit personally out of it. So there are tons of reasons why Michael Cohen lied about that. But, you know, again, starting with the fact that this puts Vladimir Putin and Trump in a conspiracy together.

fact that this puts Vladimir Putin and Trump in a conspiracy together. And oh, by the way, Trump at the last minute canceled his meeting with Putin in Argentina over the weekend, inventing excuses. But all of a sudden, it looks bad when you're meeting with the guy who is going to pay you off with the largest hotel in Moscow deal. I mean, to be fair, he said that he canceled the meeting because of disagreements over the policy around Ukraine. So we got to give Trump the benefit of the doubt here. But in all seriousness, we have read reports that Trump turned in his answers to the special counsel last week. And is there a connection between Trump turning those answers in last week and this filing today involving Cohen? Yeah. So and the events of Manafort and

Jerome Corsi, but that feels like old news at this point. We know that he would have been asked questions about whether Roger Stone told him about his outreach to WikiLeaks. We know that he would have been asked questions about whether Roger Stone told him about his outreach to WikiLeaks. We know that he would have been asked a question about whether he knew in advance about the June 9th meeting. And we know that he would have been asked how much he knew about this Trump Tower deal, basically about real estate deals involving Cohen and Felix Sater. basically about real estate deals involving Cohen and Felix Sater. And we presume that he would have lied because that's what he does, but also because that's what we can interpret from briefed. He kept Trump briefed. He originally Cohen said that he had only talked to Trump about it three times. But this information reveals that he continued to keep Trump in the loop about it, presumably right up until the day on June 14th, when when he stopped. He also, by the way, kept Don he he kept family. It's not, Don Jr. doesn't get named like Trump does as individual one, but he kept family briefed, which we assume means Don Jr., which we assume means this is another perjury charge against Don Jr. for lying to Congress because he clearly told Congress there was no deal. That seems like trouble. Just to go back to the now

old Paul Manafort news, what do you make of both why Manafort sort of lied to Mueller and what he was lying to Mueller about? Right. So, you know, no one I said this yesterday. So, you know, no one I said this yesterday. It's really hard to find good legal commentary on what's going on with Jerome Corsi and Paul Manafort. Yeah. One, because they're both such liars. But that's true of a lot of criminals. But because it's so hard to understand how lawyers might calculate on a pardon on a on a presidential pardon. And oh, by the way, one of the things that ABC said Cohen talked to Mueller about is pardons. So, right. Right.

But in any case, who knows what explains Manafort's behavior? It might just be that he's a compulsive liar. But he he entered into a plea deal in September that took his that took the prospect of a trial dominating the campaign season off the map. He proffered at least enough that Mueller entered into the plea deal with him, but Mueller built it to protect himself. So, for example, whereas Rick Gates and Cohen's plea deal say that if they want to declare them in violation of their deal, they have to show preponderance of evidence. With Manafort, they're only going to have to show good faith. They're

only going to have to show, you know, here, he lied. And the judge is going to have to say, well, you know, good faith. That meets that burden. So they sort of expected he might lie. Now, Wall Street Journal has said that he lied about his ties to Russia in his business deals. And we that that means two things right off the bat. One is, remember that as part of that plea deal, Manafort had to forfeit forty six million dollars, which, by the way, it means Manafort by himself has paid for the entire Mueller investigation so far. But if Manafort is continuing to hide his business deals, that means he may have money stashed away that would explain why he entered into that business deal. You know, it's a lot easier to sign up to losing $46 million if you've got another $100 million stashed away in Ukraine or Cyprus or something like that, right? Yeah. But the other key deal that he reportedly, that we know he lied about is his ongoing communications with a guy named Konstantin Kalimnik, who

might be called his handler. He is, you know, even Rick Gates has said that he knew he was former Russian intelligence. The FBI says he's ongoing Russian intelligence. So Kalimnik would be the GRU handler for Trump's campaign manager at the time of the campaign. And we know that Mueller is looking into whether Manafort left from being fired from the campaign and went and took a cruise with Kalimnik and with Tom Barack, who is a big, huge funder for Trump and a big player in his inauguration. Can I just ask what what connections, if any, do you see between the sort of hack hacking conspiracy with WikiLeaks and the emails and everything else and some of these potential business deals between Trump, his organization and Russia. Yeah, I did a piece. I want to say it was back in May. It was forever ago, even more forever ago than the Manafort news. But I did a six part series on what the questions that we knew at that point that Mueller wanted to pose to Trump, what they told us about a potential conspiracy between Trump and Russia. And and it all holds up. I have to say myself, pat myself on my back.

But, you know, I, you know, I laid out that there was kind of this there were there was this laying of a relationship starting in 2013 with the with the Miss America pageant. There were these floated business deals. Trump had always wanted a business deal, and those business deals were renewed at a time when this conspiracy was in the works. And then there was the offer of dirt in exchange for sanctions and some other policy considerations. And we've seen evidence to support all of those since May. In this case, one of the things that's really important about

what we learned in Cohen's plea deal today is that part of setting up the deal was setting up a meeting between Putin and Trump. And that timeline that is laid out here utterly parallels the timeline that was laid out in the Papadopoulos plea deal about a million years ago, which shows that Papadopoulos came in and he said, I want to set up a meeting with Putin. And the campaign was really receptive to their purported coffee boy offering to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And now we know why, because part of this Trump Tower deal was the notion that Trump and Putin were going to have a meeting. And we see the counterpart of that with Cohen also trying to set up a Putin deal and also trying to work towards a Putin deal at the same time. So when you read

this plea deal in conjunction with the Papadopoulos plea deal, and then the other thing that it tells us is if you think back to the language that Rob Goldstone used to set up that meeting with Don Jr., who, of course, knew that this Trump Tower deal was on the table and probably knew that a Putin meeting was part of it. Right. And he says this this meeting is part of the larger Russian government help for your father. So that meeting was set up in the context of a larger conversation about Russian assistance to Trump. And so I think part of the receptivity that Don Jr. showed is explained by the fact that they were going to get the tallest hotel deal in Moscow out of it on top of winning the election. I mean, remember, Trump know, how he leveraged this campaign to only get what he thought, which was the Trump Tower deal. And the Trump Tower deal, I think, is what the Russians used, A, because he was never going to win, right, back in the golden days of we didn't think Trump would ever win. But it's what they used as his payoff one way or another to be their partner in undermining the election. So, yeah, they were going to entice him to sort of cooperate with by dangling the Trump Russia deal. And then once they found sort of willing

cooperators, they said, oh, by the way, would you also like some dirt on Hillary Clinton to help win the election? Right. And And that time frame was really was really compressed. I mean, you know, Cohen was working on this through May. Right. So after the time when Papadopoulos told the campaign about the emails, Cohen was working on setting up the meeting. Cohen had a ticket to Russia all ready to go. And then The Washington Post reports on the DNC hack and he calls up and cancels. And I have a very strong hunch that, for example, in the Papadopoulos plea deal where Manafort says we're not going to make any show of taking these meetings, that that's really putting things on ice, but but still carrying on the conspiracy. I think that, yes, Trump needed to be brought back on board after the DNC hack was revealed. But my suspicion is the Russians got him before the end of the summer. And that shows in things like Trump, you know, openly asking the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton and then Russians

in Moscow doing so immediately thereafter. I mean, that is really quite a story. Another thing that's come out in the reporting over the last few days, which I know also feels like a million years ago, is this defense cooperation agreement between Manafort and Trump that has persisted past Manafort's original plea deal. So a couple questions on this. One, how unusual is this? Could Mueller have prevented this from happening as part of the terms of the plea deal? And you've written that Manafort is pardon-proof in how Mueller has structured this. If that's the case, what incentive does Manafort have to keep helping Trump? Yeah, he's pardon-proof. I keep trying to think that through. So it's completely unusual for people in a joint defense agreement to continue going after a deal. I mean, remember that Mike Flynn very ostentatiously withdrew from that DPA, and that's when we knew that he was going to flip.

to flip. Of course, Jerome Corsi was trying the same thing, if we ever get around to talking about that, which also was a million years ago. But with Manafort, it's particularly notable. There's been some bad response to the New York Times story of this, as if to suggest that Mueller had no idea this was still going on. That's wrong. The day of the plea deal, Politico and a couple other people were like, no, Rudy knew about it and he that the cooperation agreement still went on. Politico had another report maybe a month ago saying, you know, Rudy still talks to Downing, Kevin Downing, Manafort's lawyer, all the time. So Mueller knew through this entire period that Manafort continued to speak to Trump and presumably, particularly because there was no gag on his plea deal, unlike Rick Gates, he presumably was very careful about what information he shared with Manafort and how much he showed his hands to Manafort, knowing that it was all going to go right back to Rudy. And so my guess is that Trump couldn't take anything into account when he filled out his open book test and turned in the answers in answers to Mueller. So we should assume that, you know, he thought he could get away with lies on the Manafort related questions. And now

we know from Mueller that they have evidence that Manafort was lying about some of these issues. And we know that one of the questions Manafort was asked about is whether Trump knew ahead of time about the about the June 9th meeting. So so so it was really unusual. I'm sure, as I said, Mueller built the Manafort plea deal to be safe. And I think to at least bring advantages to himself one way or another, whether or not Manafort actually kept up his end of the deal. What Manafort expects to get from it, it's possible because this is one important reminder for people trying to understand this larger story. reminder for people trying to understand this larger story. Normally in presidential scandals, all of the major players have really superb lawyers. And that's just not the case here.

Trump is way underlawyered for his criminal exposure. Manafort's lawyers, you know, again, we don't know what it is to be a defense attorney knowing that your best deal for your client is a presidential pardon. Every lawyer I've talked to says Kevin Downing will never, ever be able to make a deal with DOJ again because he's burned himself in working this Manafort plea deal the way he did. If Manafort has $100 million stashed away in Cyprus and thinks he can get away if he is pardoned. Maybe that explains it. You know, he one of the reasons I said it was it was pardon proof is that he is susceptible to charges in Virginia and New York if he is pardoned. And I wouldn't be surprised to see Barbara Underwood, the New York attorney general, rollout charges soon just to be safe in case Trump decides to kind of preempt a pardon so that so that then Manafort will never be released and be able to run off to Cyprus. But, you know, it's also possible that Manafort thinks six years or two.

Let's hope it's only two until the end of the Trump term. And then if you commute his sentence, he won't be at. It doesn't make any sense. Let me just put it that way. There is no scenario where Manafort should think he gets off easily, even with a presidential pardon.

He may not have thought this through adequately because, again, there aren't... There's not a whole branch of law about how to play for an expectation of a presidential pardon. But but that forty six million dollars that I'd love to talk about, most of that is always objected to. And of those 10 million probably is going to lose. So $43 million are in the works to going into the U.S. Treasury to pay Bob Mueller's salary and the 17 angry Democrats that Mueller always likes to squawk about. I mean, that, sorry, Trump always likes to squawk about. Very tidy. So going back to the old Jerome Corsi news, what are the pieces of all the chaos around Corsi and Roger Stone that are most worth paying attention to?

I saw you tweet that you were worried that perhaps Corsi may steps towards what we assume is going to be a Roger Stone indictment for lying to Congress about his communications to WikiLeaks, possibly some role in a conspiracy with WikiLeaks or the Russians and or the larger conspiracy, possibly campaign finance violations, you know, with Roger Stone, sky's the limit, right? But Corsi's lawyer told Corsi, now, you know, here's the problem is we're sifting the truth through people like Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi, who we should assume are always lying. But Corsi has held out that his lawyer told him that Mueller's lawyers told them that his was a really critical part of the prosecution. And I really want to caution people about dismissing Corsi as a whack job, which he is. But I mean, for one, he's been a tremendously successful whack job at damaging Democrats going back to John Kerry. Right. Yeah. And before. But he has very successfully damaged every major Democrat along the way.

One of the things we learned from his draft plea deal is that he reported back to Stone on July. to Stone on July. I'm going to get the date wrong. July 29th, maybe saying you should really push this Hillary Clinton is sick angle because there's going to be some files coming out about that. Two days later, by his own or on August. So that was August 1st, August 3rd. Roger Stone's on the phone with Trump by his own by his own claims. And August 7th, Trump actually starts that attack on Hillary by saying, you know, she's got some screws loose in her head. So that may be possible that we're seeing how Jerome Corsi is feeding how he fed that line that got used against Hillary all through the campaign, that she was having a stroke, that she was too old, that she was feeble, that blah, blah, blah. And that may have been based on a belief about WikiLeaks that might have come out.

And that didn't come out, right? So not all of the files that Corsi thought were going to come out did come out. But the other thing about it is that—so they've been working towards this indictment of Stone forever. Yeah. So they've been working towards this indictment of Stone forever. Yeah. Corsi is a key player because Stone for a long time has been saying Credico was his journalist source. We now know that it was Corsi.

And my bet is that Corsi is important for two reasons. One is because Corsi helped Stone invent a cover story. is because Corsi helped Stone invent a cover story. Starting, according to Corsi, he testified that even in August 2016, Roger called him up and said, hey, I need a cover for story for how I knew that John Podesta, you know, his time on the barrel was gonna, you know, it'll soon be his time on the barrel or theirs.

He pretends now it was both Podestas. And so they wrote up this quick report that distracted from an attack that they that I strongly believe they knew at that point in August 2016 was going to come out in October 2016, an attack on John Podesta. So they started the cover story then. Corsi wrote that up publicly in March 2017 when it became clear that Congress was going to ask Stone to testify. So that's one part of it, is that Corsi and Stone created a cover story for Stone. And the government knows parts of this now, having gotten Corsi's documents. But what we don't know yet, because Corsi is not telling, is who told him.

because Corsi is not telling is who told him. And I strongly believe that there is solid evidence that Corsi and Stone got not just news that John Podesta's emails were coming out, but the specific content of them. And I think that's what's so damning is they knew that they were going to be able to return to this attack on Podesta. So we don't know who he got it from, but my guess is the story is pretty inflammatory, and that's why he balked at the moment he was going to tell the grand jury who told him about the Podesta emails. And he claims that he kind of had a sign from God as he was flying across the Atlantic on a honeymoon, on a wedding anniversary trip with his wife. the Atlantic on a honeymoon anniversary wedding anniversary trip with his wife.

And that's now his current explanation, but not getting confirmation from Corsi that it's that that, you know, that he could be put on the stand to deliver a trial about who that source is may damage the possibility of indicting Stone. It may damage the degree to which and the charges which Mueller may be able to bring against Stone. And then the other thing about it is that, of course, he started doing this on the wake of the election. And remember that when Trump appointed Matt Whitaker, his kind of hatchet man to be attorney general to shut down the Mueller investigation. He said it had to happen by end of day. Now was a period when Corsi was in active discussions with Mueller's office.

And then all of a sudden, Corsi kind of flips on a dime and says, I'm not cooperating anymore. So it's likely that Whitaker's presence is one of the reasons that Corsi did refuse to cooperate after having dangled it. And then and and then he's now, you know, creating an excuse for Whitaker to investigate Mueller by claiming that Jeannie Rhee told him he didn't have to tell FINRA that he had accepted a plea deal for lying. So, you know, this Cohen stuff is huge. I don't want to minimize that. The Manafort stuff, I think when his sentencing memo comes out, we're going to learn a ton more about what Mueller knows about Manafort. But I do caution people from laughing too much about Jerome Corsi because it always bites people in the fanny when they do that, because he's tremendously skilled at what he does. And he's, you know, he was working with the White

House when he plotted this. And, you know, we'll see how badly he damaged the prosecution of Stone. Last question. What are you most interested in learning over the next couple of weeks? What's the biggest question you have about this investigation? in learning over the next couple of weeks? What's what's the biggest question you have about this investigation? I'm self-censoring here. No, I think that we're going to find some. Look, I think I said this earlier. I think that Trump backed out of an understanding with the Russians on on June 14th when it became clear that the DNC, that the Russians had hacked DNC. I strongly believe that later in the summer, there was some re-engagement from Trump. And I very much look forward to see what kind of evidence Mueller has of that, if in fact I'm correct, because that would mean that, you know, that would make that statement from Trump,

which by the way, already showed up in the GRU indictment. Remember, on July 27th, was it, 2016, Trump said, hey, Russia, if you're listening, go find Hillary's emails. That night, GRU's hackers launched another wave of attacks on Hillary and her staffers and her personal, you know, the Clinton personal assistants as well. And so that comment from Trump may come off very, very differently and may expose him to far different legal repercussions if he was in an understanding with the Russians at that point that, you know, there was this big quid pro quo and he would get a Trump Tower deal at the end. Now we know the Trump Tower deal was real. So let's see what else is real. All right. Can't wait to find out. Marcy, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you as always. Thanks so much. All right, Dan, that was quite an interview with Marcy Wheeler. It was so much easier than reading on the news this morning.

Quite an interview with Marcy Wheeler. It was so much easier than reading on the news this morning. Is there anything else, any other thoughts you have on all this Russia stuff, Mueller stuff that we haven't covered? I mean, it does seem like we are, it does seem like we're headed towards the end game here, finally. Yeah, it does. I mean, the pace of events is quickening. You know, I think there was,

Mueller kept it quiet during the closing days of the election, something his friend Jim Comey could have thought about. But in the weeks since the election, things are moving very quickly. Marcy sort of explained why that was so significant. I think two takeaways from this is, one, I've made this point before, but when you read everything that's happening here, it is clear that we are dealing with criminals, but not criminal masterminds. Because just the amount of buffoonery from the president, his family. Oh, did I say the president? I think I meant individual one, which is how we should refer to him going forward.

Individual one. Tough day for individual one. I should tell everyone also that when you sent the outline to me, you've changed it officially from no collusion to yo collusion. I was pretty proud of that. I liked it a lot. I thought I should bring it up on the pod because otherwise it was just for me and Michael. So, I mean, things are moving quickly. You wouldn't want to be Trump. usual, the insanity that has been Trump's Twitter account for the last few days, we now understand

to be related to what has been happening, which is he's, after not tweeting about Mueller for a long time, the panic is setting in. Yeah. And it seems like, I mean, it's also crazy that he just canceled a meeting with Putin, right? Which is, you know, obvious he would cancel a meeting with Putin, right? Which is, you know, obvious, he would cancel a meeting with Putin after all this news. But it also goes to show that we have a foreign policy that is now being driven by, you know, when potential criminal charges come out against Donald Trump and his associates, which is not a great thing for the country. No, we should also note, this is important, Not a great thing for the country. No.

We should also note, this is important, that on the way to get on Marine One, the presidential helicopter, to fly to Air Force One, to leave on this trip where he is scheduled to meet with Putin, on the way to the helicopter, he told the press that the meeting was going to happen. Yeah. Less than an hour later from Air Force One, he starts a Twitter thread where he explains that he is no longer meeting with Putin because of the situation involving Putin and the Ukrainian Navy. And we know that Trump did not do this tweet because it involved a thread, because Trump does not know how to thread his tweets, which is why they're so frustrating to read when we wake up at 530 in the morning, wondering about the fate of our democracy on West Coast time. Yeah, and it does seem like there's a few more shoes to drop here to say the least so we're going to be looking out for the sentencing memo that um muller provides to the judge about manafort um of course some of that could be under seal so maybe it's not all public but you know as marcy has been saying and other people have

been saying as well it seems as though moeller's report the famous report about russia that everyone thinks he's writing he could have been writing all along in these sentencing reports in these other documents public documents that are coming out about the different charges he's filing so he could be just telling us the story of everything that happened through all of these charging documents in order to avoid, you know, someone like Matthew Whitaker burying all this stuff and it never becoming public. We should note that Matthew Whitaker is still in charge of the Mueller investigation, even though two weeks ago, he said that despite obvious conflicts of interest, he was going to talk to the ethics folks in the Department of Justice to determine whether he needed to recuse himself.

That meeting would take approximately 35 minutes. And two weeks later, we know nothing. And the Justice Department is refusing to comment on whether the meeting happened, what happened in it, or what Whitaker is doing. And Whitaker's purported presence at the helm of the Russian investigation seems pretty related to all the events of this week. Yeah, well, I mean, fortunately, it doesn't seem to be stopping Mueller. It's not slowing Mueller down. Well, the question will be whether, I mean, I believe if Whitaker's still in charge, he would have to sign off on an indictment of Stone, an indictment of Corsi, or the person who I think should be most nervous after the Cohen plea today is Don Jr. Don Jr. Who, as Marcy points out, almost certainly lied to Congress about the very things that Cohen testified to under oath today.

Right. And the one other thing we know is that there are also multiple sealed indictments that have already been filed by Mueller. So who knows? Who knows who they're about? Okay. There's also lots going on in Congress this week. Let's start in the House where Nancy Pelosi won a vote among her fellow Democrats on Wednesday to become the next Speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber in January. But 32 Democrats voted no on her nomination, which means she only has 200 of the 218 votes she needs when the full House votes on January 3rd. she needs when the full House votes on January 3rd. Dan, how does Pelosi get those last 18 votes? And what does it look like if she doesn't? I think this all depends on whether someone else is going to run against her. Right. Because right now, if you do not give her those votes, then you basically could make a Republican speaker. So it is basically vote for Nancy Pelosi or

we're screwed. And that has been ultimately why she's been so successful in this is there is no, you can't beat something with nothing. And the anti-Pelosi people have no place to direct any opposition to Nancy Pelosi. So you would have to believe she's going to get this done. I think it's just going to be hard and unfortunately messy at a time when we don't really need messiness on the Democratic side. Yeah. No, we should say if for some reason the vote fails on the floor, it's not that all of a sudden like Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker. It just seems like there's not 218 votes for anyone and it's like really embarrassing and then they all have to go back and vote again. guess that's that's what the process would be right yes that's that's my understanding what are your thoughts because we have you and i haven't talked about this yet what what are your thoughts

on the state of the opposition here and what the what the strategy was of the anti-pelosi forces i think it's very generous of you to use the term strategy to describe what they're doing so look i think i we have yeah you and i have not have not talked about Nancy Pelosi at all in this. And my take on the whole thing is that I am very sympathetic to the idea that we need leadership in the Democratic Party, in the House and the Senate,

the DNC, the Democratic governments, everywhere else that highlights the diversity of the party, that it highlights the next generation of the party, it highlights the next generation of the party, the generation who just won us the house. And having said that, Nancy Pelosi is one of, if not the greatest legislative leader of modern American politics. And I think it is believed by Republicans and Democrats to be incredibly good at her job. And we need someone who's incredibly good at her job.

And it is pretty telling. There are two elements that kind of give up the game here. One is the argument against Nancy Pelosi is that she is politically toxic. That is basically the subtext to everything. Now, that is a terrible argument to make when Democrats have just won the House with the largest popular vote margin in history. is a terrible argument to make when Democrats have just won the House with the largest popular vote margin in history. And two, if the argument is we need a next generation of leadership, we need to highlight the younger faces of the party, which I agree with, why is no one talking about Steny Hoyer? Yeah, right. Right? Like the way in which this would make the most sense is for Nancy Pelosi to be in some sort of transition period, and you elevate a younger

Democrat, a fresher face, someone who is more future-oriented in the party to the number two spot so that they can get the experience and the exposure they need for when they take over. And then the third thing is, there is a progressive critique of Nancy Pelosi from outside of Congress, but the opposition within Congress is coming from her right, not from her left. And their argument seems mainly to be the Republicans like to attack Nancy Pelosi, therefore we should have a different leader, which is, I think, in my view, a very, a terrible reason to decide who the leader of the Democrats should be. So one of the ways that Pelosi won over eight centrist Democrats in the bipartisan problem

solvers caucus was by agreeing to some of their proposed changes to house rules. The most notable being that the new rules will make it easier for any bill with at least 290 co-sponsors to get a vote on the floor. Do you think that any of these changes will hamstring Democrats and Pelosi should become speaker? Or are they mostly minor changes designed to sort of just shut up the problem solvers caucus? I mean, this is mostly optics, we are not solving problems, and they should probably change their name to like the optics solvers conference or something. And it like, this thing pisses me off a lot, because you have a group of centrist Democrats who waited until Democrats were in the majority to take concrete

steps to empower the minority. Like what the point of that and the other thing is another point about this is that these changes are not binding. So if this group of naive nimrods thinks that Speaker Kevin McCarthy, two years or four years down the line, is going to keep their good government process oriented changes in place when they're in charge, just to help Democrats bring bills to the floor, they've been sleeping through the last 35 years of American politics. And the problem with this is, is the problem with centrism generally, which is centrism is not an ideology, it's an identity. And they are simply trying to show some group of voters that they are different than Democrats by scoring points against Nancy Pelosi, which

I think is pretty bad form and not productive to the larger cause of Democrats using this one level of power we have to try to advance progressive goals and put a check on Trump. So I'm annoyed at these people. Well, yeah, because it centers them based on this notion that there is there exists a healthy Republican Party that is sort of the equal and opposite party of the Democratic Party. And that has not been true for a very, very, very, very long time. They, you know, they are, it's been very clear, even since way before Trump became president, that the Republican Party has become a cult and sort of gone off the edge. And so, you know, if you want to compromise on a specific piece of legislation, where you don't give up your

principles, and you just give a little to the other side like that's one thing this is like like you said it's all based on optics it's like you can tell that it was hatched in some fucking consultant's office so that they can all run ads in two years yeah mark that was the consultant so that they can run ads in two years being like i'm in the bipartisan problem solvers caucus and i made sure Congress worked, that the house worked better by forcing new rules and blah, blah, blah. And it like, it doesn't mean shit. And all it does is try to, you know,

like you said, it could, it's trying to hamstring Democrats at a time when the Democrats have the, have power for the first time in two years and not total power either, power in one house of Congress. It's pretty crazy. Speaking of not learning lessons, in addition

to congressional leadership races, Washington is also bracing for a potential government shutdown, which Trump is saying he'll do if Congress doesn't fund his wall. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has countered by proposing a deal that he negotiated with Republicans a few months ago for $1.6 billion in fencing for the border. The government could shut down on December 7th if there's no deal. Dan, what do you think about Schumer's opening bid here? What do you think his strategy is? You know how I knew things are not going well for Chuck Schumer is when I look on Twitter

and the word Schumer is trending and it's not Amy. is when I look on Twitter and the word Schumer is trending and it's not Amy. It's like the entire internet just dunking on Chuck Schumer for making a pretty significant tactical mistake, which most misread the sincerity of the Republicans and the political moment we are currently living in where Democrats won the House by a huge margin. Donald Trump is at nearing his all-time lows in approval ratings. And even in the Senate where we lost seats, we did much better than anyone could have expected, given the worst Senate map in modern political history. And so to begin this new political era of divided government,

to begin with the deal that we put on the table in an era when we had no levers of power, is just a real mistake. Yeah. I mean, look, I understand that the original dunking on Schumer on Twitter was based on a tweet from CNN reporter that was off, wrong, because it said that Schumer had proposed $1.6 billion for a wall. And in reality, it was fencing and it was Schumer had proposed $1.6 billion for a wall. And in reality, you know, it was fencing and it was an old deal that he negotiated. So fine. But even when you correct that, my question is, you know, why did Schumer feel the need to point to some bipartisan deal that offered a billion and a half plus dollars for fencing, which we know we don't need at the border because the border is more militarized

and has more fencing and more security than at any time in history. Why do you start by pointing to that deal to show how reasonable you are vis-a-vis Donald Trump when you could just sit there and say, here's our position. We want to fund the government with a clean continuing resolution for the next couple of months, a clean CR. here's our position. We want to fund the government with a clean continuing

resolution for the next couple months, a clean CR. That's our position. Fund the government at current levels. And when the new Congress is seated in January, Donald Trump wants to negotiate about immigration. If he wants to talk about how to protect all of the dreamers in this country from deportation, then, you know, let's talk. Let's have a conversation about that. But for right now, our position is clean funding clean cr we want to fund the government and if the president doesn't want to fund the government unless we give him his wall he can very politely fuck off yeah that that that to me is pretty damn reasonable yes it is exactly right and we we know this from being

involved in multiple budget battles with uh house republic Republicans is a clean CR where you are simply saying the American people, we're going to keep funding the government at the same level we were funding it at before for some period of time is almost an impossible argument to defeat. Right. Because it seems it is quite reasonable. And it is even more reasonable when it happens after an election. And so we can call this, to use a term that Mitch McConnell might like, called the Garland Standard. It is quite reasonable. And it is even more reasonable when it happens after an election. And so we can call this, to use a term that Mitch McConnell might like, called the Garland Standard, where the American people have spoken and they have chosen a new government. And so we should allow the newly elected Democratic House and, I'll throw them this bone, the newly expanded Republican majority in the Senate to sit down at the table and negotiate

a new deal for a new era. Right. Like, it seems that simple. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi was pissed when she heard this because this is a deal that struck between Schumer, Trump, and Paul Ryan. And Nancy Pelosi wasn't at the table. So, or a deal that was negotiated among those three. Nancy Pelosi should have great say in this. Yeah, I just, I

mean, what do you think happened here? Like, do you think that, because obviously there's a lot of criticism of Schumer here, like, do you think it was just a slip up? Do you think he has fundamentally misread the political moment? You know, on what scale of, how much should we be worried about this going forward? I don't know. I i think let's see what comes next before we burn him in effigy on the capitol lawn um because this is one statement in one press conference let's see where we go from here and if we revert to a stronger negotiating position then we'll see but it was it was alarming but I'm not going to panic about it just yet. He's also, Schumer is also dealing, like, I know this from having worked in Senate leadership in

my life. This is a particularly challenging time because he has a lot of members who are on their way out the door who are packing up offices, saying goodbye to staff, and are going to have to cast this vote. And so he's managing a particularly complex caucus that is fraught with emotion. I don't know that that is what led to this, but that this is different than any normal period of time. He has all these senators who lost, who he is going to have to try to hold to ask them to do difficult things or even delay vacations or trips home or job interviews or all the other things that you want to do after, vacations or trips home or job interviews or all the other things that you want to do after, you know, losing elections is traumatic. And so that may be some of the subtext here that I think is at least worth acknowledging. Yeah. And I think, I mean, and he responds to outcry pressure.

So everyone should just keep, you know, holding his feet to the fire on this one. But look, I think if Schumer does learn his lesson, he will realize that democrats are in an incredibly strong negotiating position right now like if trump decides to shut down the government because he didn't get his wall after losing election as badly as he did after knowing how popular the wall is which is not popular at all you can look up any polling on it from the last however many months that's's at like 32%, then like, obviously, Donald Trump gets blamed for the shutdown. This one isn't even close. This is perhaps the easiest call in shutdown history, that Donald Trump is responsible for the government shutdown in a government that he controls all, you know, Republicans control all of Washington. And there's one party that says, we just want to fund the government as is.

And there's another party who says, no, the only way we're keeping the government open is if you build a $5 billion wall that nobody wants. I mean, this is just, this is so easy. Yeah, I think the important point here, and these are lessons we learned the hard way working for Obama, which is Republicans do not respond to reason. They respond to brute political force and shows of strength. And so if you start out by trying to show yourself as reasonable, Republicans just take what you put on the table and move the new baseline for negotiations. The negotiation is not between zero and 5 billion. It's now between 1.6 billion and 5 billion. And so this isn't even about setting

ourselves up to cast blame on someone for a shutdown. We would prefer there not to be a shutdown. It is messy. It's going to get in the way of the things we want to do. But the best way to avoid it is to be united and strong and tough and seem like you're not afraid of a shutdown at the outset. Right. You get nothing. That is the message. Yeah. Let's use some godfather you know it's don corleone negotiating here people okay i want to talk about democrats economic message we had a little preview this week of how it might sound in 2020 after the announcement that General Motors will be closing factories and cutting more than 14,000 jobs in North America, including factories in Ohio and Michigan.

Trump responded by lashing out at the company and threatening to cut their subsidies. All of this comes as economists are starting to forecast that the economy may slow down next year and possibly may fall into recession in 2020. CNBC says that the economists point to a number of factors for the slower growth, but topping the list of scare factors for markets are Fed interest rate hikes, as well as the impact of tariffs and trade wars, should they continue. Dan, let's start with GM. Here's Donald Trump in Michigan in October of 2016. Quote, if I'm elected, you won't lose one plant.

You'll have plants coming into this country. You won't lose one plant. You'll have plants coming into this country. You won't lose one plant. I promise you. I promise you. Now GM is saying that Trump's tariffs cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. Ford says the tariffs have cost them a billion dollars. How much of a problem is this GM news for Trump? It's potentially a giant problem because as Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio pointed out on Twitter yesterday when the news came, that this is a direct result of a provision within the tax bill that the Republicans passed and Trump signed that – I mean this is mind-boggling to believe, but truly did give tax incentives to companies like GM to ship jobs overseas. tax incentives to companies like GM to ship jobs overseas. And that, like you and I laughed about this when that happened in the sense that that has been the highest testing line in every poll we've ever seen in the last 17 years of democratic politics. And every democratic politician says it ad nauseum. And yet we've only won a small handful of those elections. But the difference here is you can,

I think this is so important to understanding economic, the impact of economic messaging within a political campaign context is when it is general, when it is quote unquote macroeconomics, it is often dismissed as two parties going back and forth. It is just ideology. When it can be specific, localized to someone's community or their industry or their livelihood, then it can matter. And so now you have this example in a state Trump 100% needs to win to win the White House, where you have these plants being shut down very specifically because of a decision that Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress make. And so that will be the battleground in 2020.

And we know the impact of this because Obama won Ohio in 2012, in large part because he could make the argument that he saved the auto industry and saved thousands upon thousands of jobs, not just from the specific GM plants, but also all the people who make the auto parts, which are all up and down the Midwest, particularly in Ohio. So this can be a big deal if it is messaged correctly. Yeah. And I think that Sherrod Brown has been doing a great job of that. I mean, he's been talking about basically that the Trump Republican tax bill gave a 50% coupon to companies that send jobs overseas. So no one should be surprised that GM is moving their plant to Mexico. He also said too many companies lay off

workers to impress Wall Street and boost stock prices and raise CEO pay. He's introduced legislation in August that would give customers a $3,500 discount on cars made in America and also seeks to stop tax cuts on overseas profits from automakers that move jobs overseas. Again, a proposal that, you know, Obama had a version of this proposal. Every Democrat that's run in the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years has had some kind of version of this proposal to change tax incentives and tax structures in this country so that there is no incentive for outsourcing and shipping jobs or profit overseas and that there is all the incentive and and to keep jobs here in america which by the way doesn't solve all the problems of globalization technology and outsourcing but we're talking about what the government can do to try to incent companies to do the right thing and create jobs here in america now part of what I wonder about is we talk about how we've proposed this forever and Democrats have talked about this forever.

And yet it doesn't seem like we ever get it passed, right? Some kind of tax bill or tax reform or tax structure that actually stops companies from shipping jobs overseas or stops giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and starts giving them to companies that create jobs in America. We almost laugh about it because we say the line so much. But do you think part of the problem is Democrats need to come up with policy and then actually pass policy that has an effect on outsourcing and factories leaving? Yes. I mean, the hard part, yes, we need to do that. Yes, we should do that. Even if there were no politics, no elections, no polls, that is the right thing to do. The hard part – yes, we need to do that. Yes, we should do that. Even if there were no politics, no elections, no polls, that is the right thing to do. The hard part, to be brutally honest about this, is it ends up being a counterfactual argument, even if we have that success, because of what the larger trends in the economy are around globalization and automation, which is you are stemming the tide of something that is moving, in many cases, irrevocably in one

direction. And so there will always be, you know, this is what Trump is suffering from right now, which is no matter what you say or what you do, there will always be examples of businesses that make decisions to move jobs overseas, right? Yeah. And we haven't really figured out the right economic policies to mitigate the damage that that does to families and communities, but also create a new economic model that creates quality, high-paying jobs in a world with globalization automation. So I think a big question in the 2020 Democratic primary discussion is going to be what policies people put forward that address that. It's all theoretical until you get into office, and then you're going to have to

actually do things. So yeah, I think we need policy, we need to have this conversation, and we have to be able to have it in a way that feels real and tangible to people, and does not just seem complicated white paper stuff or pablum. Or, you know, sort of piecemeal incremental policies that nibble around the edges of this problem, right? Like, I think one of the reasons we're going to see a lot of Democrats who are running in 2020 propose bolder, more progressive policies, economic policies, is because not because everyone wants to just like move to the left, but because sort of the magnitude of the moment we're in calls for those kinds of policies. And that like, you know, a few tax breaks here and there to sort of incent in companies to do

the right thing might work on the margins, but there's something more fundamentally broken with the economy here that we need to fix. And that's why you see people talking about a federal jobs guarantee. That's why you see people talking about a Green New Deal, a $15 minimum wage, debt-free college, right? Like, it seems like we have reached the edge of trying to make, you know, trying to work with companies to make sure they do the right thing and sort of incentivize them to do the right thing. And we have to go bigger. And the only option there is for government to really step in and take bold action. It's so interesting to have this conversation, because if you were to just separate the words

you just said from what is just like put in a time capsule and someone listened to it, they would come back and think that if they were to like look up what the economic stats were at the time in which you said that sentence, that it would be like 2009, shrinking economy, high unemployment, et cetera, except we're living in a world of near full employment. The economy is growing, not as fast as we would like it to, but it is growing. And, you know, the stock market is doing well. And there are these basic economic indicators that seem fine. And that is actually the part that is so goddamn alarming, which is all these things that have been happening that you would hope and believe would affect the, they would

affect wages, it affect people's quality of lives, affect people's personal economic security, they would affect wages, it'd affect people's quality of lives, affect people's personal economic security, but they're not. And if you are struggling at 5% unemployment, you know, where is the American family going to be in, you know, if inevitably the economy is going to get worse than it currently is, like that is just the natural movement of things. And so it says a lot that what people think we need, and I agree with this, are huge, bold solutions because just simply fixing what was broken with the economy doesn't actually fix what is broken with the economy. like people were struggling before the crisis, right? And that families and people in this country who were right on the edge and who were, you know, struggling to like have a middle-class lifestyle right before the crisis hit, as soon as it hit, a lot of those people fell into poverty because even in an economy now with almost full unemployment, the real problem is, you know,

if you see any chart of economic growth you know going up you see wages just flatlining and as wages have flatlined or or only wages have just grown a little bit you see you know the cost of health care skyrocketing the cost of college and education skyrocketing all kinds gas prices everywhere so people are having trouble keeping up uh even at a almost full employment economy because they're just not making enough money. And so that, you know, Democrats have to address that because the way the Republican Party has addressed that is twofold. The Ryan, Paul Ryan wing of the party has said, oh, well, we'll just give more tax cuts and the tax cuts will make everything wonderful again, which almost no one in the country believes now. It's like maybe the one thing that most people in the country are united about. And then now the Trump wing of the party, which is now most of the party, is saying, no, no, no,

the way to fix the economy is to get rid of all the immigrants who are taking our jobs and to close all the borders and to slap tariffs on everything. And that's the way we'll get back to economic success. So that's Trump way we'll get back to economic success. So that's Trump's argument. And I think in 2020, we have to take on that argument directly and say, no, that's wrong. And that hasn't led to greater economic success for more people in this country.

Here's our plan. And it's big and it's bold and it's a lot different. I think you are 100% right that we need a plan needs to be a good plan. And we should debate that plan within the party, and then we should debate that plan across – in front of the country in the general election of 2020. But we have a very specific project that we need to get done, which is related but not entirely to what you just said, which is – Ron Brownstein, one of the smartest political analysts out there who writes for The Atlantic and CNN, he said this on Twitter the other day in response to Senator Brown's tweets about the tax bill and GM, etc., is that the holy grail for Democrats is to disqualify Trump with white working class voters, in the Midwest particularly, on the economy. And that is our project.

That is what we have to do. That would be project A number one for my well-funded imaginary super PAC, which is we have to convince a certain number of voters in Rust Belt states that Trump is full of shit when he says he's a populist that will fight for you. If you do that, the next president will be a Democrat. And it is that simple. And I actually don't think we should wait till – you say 2020 because that's the election. No, it's starting now. Fire up the super PAC.

That's a project that should be started now. Yeah, that should be started now. And remember the margins by which Trump won those states. Convincing every white working class voter in the Midwest that Trump is full of shit seems very challenging. Convincing a few percent of them in those states, that seems very doable with some brains, a little bit of money, and plenty of ammunition from Trump's corporatist policies. Look, and I can imagine people's eyes are rolling, hearing, oh, we must focus on the white working class. No, it's not that it is a we realize that like 90 of these voters aren't going to be convinced or 80 whatever it may be but we have

already seen between 2016 and 2018 that there were people who voted for trump who supported trump who switched over uh and started voting for democrats and a lot of the reason they did is because they started they they realized that Trump's promises were full of shit. And I talked to these people in Michigan for the wilderness. They exist. They're out there. They have fallen out of love with Donald Trump. They don't think he kept his promises. And they are willing to give Democrats another look. It is real. And when elections are this close and they're on the margin, then it really makes a difference. And more importantly, I don't think that proposing big, bold economic policies that might help some of these voters is in conflict with proposing big, bold economic policies

that will help the people who vote for Democrats. It'll help working class Latinos and working class African Americans and young people who are struggling with college debt, right? Like there is one message, one economic message, and one set of economic policies that can appeal to a broad range of voters in this country. And that seems to be the best path back towards power for Democrats. Yes. It is only cynical political reporters who think that the term working class refers to white men in Ohio. Right. The working class in America is diverse, and that is who our agendas would speak to. I am specifically speaking about a project to take votes away from Trump and give them to Democrats.

And that specifically means dealing with the set of voters who are soft on Trump, are frustrated by the economy, and or voted for Barack Obama in 2012. And that is your universe of people that you have to communicate with relentlessly over the next two years. And it's about folding Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania back into the Democratic column in 2020, which if we do, it makes it almost impossible for Trump to win the election. makes it almost impossible for Trump to win the election. All right.

Well, we covered a lot today. We started talking about crimes. We got into GM and the economy. We got a little Pelosi and Schumer in there. You know, it was a journey. Really, the thing that tied it all together was Individual One. Individual One. It's a tough day. A tough day for individual one all right

everyone uh have a good weekend and uh we'll uh we'll talk to you next week bye everyone