Pod Save America - “You can’t be a woke Hungarian fascist.”

Episode Date: August 28, 2017

Hurricane Harvey batters Texas with historic flooding, and Trump again obstructs justice by pardoning a racist sheriff before he’s even sentenced. Former Deputy FEMA Administrator Richard Serino discusses Harvey response efforts with Jon, Jon, and Tommy, and Demos President Heather McGhee joins to discuss how to address racial inequities in the wake of Charlottesville.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the pod today, we will talk to the former deputy FEMA administrator, Richard Serino. Then later, we'll talk to the president of Demos, Heather McGee. Be sure to also check out from Friday. It was a great episode of Love It or Leave It. Very loose. We got into all of it. Very loose. It wasn't just politics. There was some

Game of Thrones. There was some Taylor Swift. It was all there. Strong views about Taylor Swift. The most animated I've ever seen the Love It or Leave It crowd was a discussion of Taylor Swift's reputation. There you go. On Pod Save the World this week, who do we have? It was a conversation

about Venezuela that I promised you guys last week that we are going to have this week. It's a reporter named Hannah Dreyer is now at ProPublica, but she was the AP correspondent down there for three years. She was actually the last American credential to work in the country and watched Venezuela's slow descent into dictatorship in many ways, a failed state. So it's a pretty riveting account of what it's like to live through that, to have friends and family and people you love around you sort of having to deal with this transition and the country going to a very difficult place.

So check it out. Okay. And on Pod Save the People, which will be released tomorrow, Tuesday, Dory will be talking to former state's attorney for Cook County, Kim Fox. So lots of pods to check out. Okay, let's talk about Hurricane Harvey. Over the weekend, Harvey left at least five people dead, dozens injured, forced thousands upon thousands to evacuate their homes. FEMA says that more than 450,000 are likely to seek federal aid from the storm. About 30,000 people are seeking

emergency shelter. Currently, it's been downgraded to a tropical storm, but one that is still pounding Houston with torrential rain. It's expected to last a few more days. Probably some of you saw the terrifying warning from the National Weather Service, quote, the breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before. Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days. Quite the warning from the National Weather Service. What did you guys, what were some of your reactions watching this unfold over the weekend? I mean, I think it's a great reminder that, you know, president has to deal with everything. Every single crisis comes to you and is on your plate.

And what it requires often is really great technocratic management. We had a FEMA administrator named Craig Fugate who had just been working on hurricane preparedness his whole life. And the guy knew how to pre-position tons of supplies and the way the systems worked and interagency coordination and all this stuff that is not sexy. It's not interesting news when you don't care about it and don't need it, but it is so important. And so the good news is that the Trump administration has some folks. Tom Bossert was working at FEMA when Katrina struck. He's a number of Mr. Long, who's the head of FEMA now, was in the was running the head of FEMA's hurricane program at the time of Katrina. So hopefully they have learned from the experience of that effort.

But this is a catastrophic hurricane. Donald Trump, it's not his fault that this hit, but his team is going to have an enormous task to manage it. Yeah. It's sort of the, it's a good, it's a good example. It's probably the best example of why you need competence and experience in government and all levels of government. Forget about the Oval Office. Also why you need government, period. No other entity can possibly manage this. five, Tommy, you and I were in Obama's Senate office. Obama was a new senator and that's when Katrina hit. And I just remember he got very involved in the response to that. And one of the things we learned there was, and one of the things he always said was, you know, a lot of people in New Orleans were abandoned even before the hurricane because there were people who were too poor and elderly and disabled to evacuate in time. I think you're seeing this in Houston, too, that a lot of these, the pictures that we've

seen are people who just, they could not evacuate in time. They did not have the resources to get out of there and now, you know, are waiting to be rescued. Yeah, I mean, two thoughts. Our nation's overall disaster readiness is not good. The current FEMA administration's chair, Mr. Long, said we have a long way to go. Craig Fugate, the one who did it for Obama, said it sucks. So we as a country need to do a better job. But also, like you said, I mean,

there are people who are poor, who are sick, who are elderly, who just can't evacuate. Lovett, what did you think? Yeah, I just sort of had two thoughts over the weekend. One was just that the job of president really matters and that when the tweeting is done and all the rest, like it's a real administrative job. It is a job that sits on top of organizations that require presidential leadership and what the president does in the days before a storm, during a storm and after a storm actually do matter and make a difference on the ground. And we have somebody who's totally unsuited to it in the task. And then the other, the other thing I couldn't help but think about and is, you know, climate change doesn't care if you believe in it or not. You know, it's, I was thinking about our conversation with Al Gore when he's, and I was thinking about

the movie, the Inconvenient sequel movie, because one of the things they talk about is just how strange the weather will look and that all of a sudden it just looks like buckets of water pouring down from the sky in ways they never saw before i was literally bouncing off the ground yeah that it looks like a deluge it looks like the sky is pouring water onto the ground and so when you see the national weather service say this is unprecedented we don't know what to do with this when you see trump who dan i think made a good point about when he said that, you know, he's president, but he's behaving like a weather pundit. When he's like, wow, look at all this rain.

But when he says that, you know, this is unprecedented, people are talking about how we've never seen anything like this. Well, you know, we politicize cause and effect. Climate change is here. This is it. This is what it looks like. It looks like a hurricane all of a sudden becomes something we've never seen before. I'm going to be cheesy for one second, but it also is a reminder of how decent people in this country are. When you see people literally driving to Houston with their boats to put them in the water to drive around neighborhoods to rescue people. When you see news people flagging down rescue crews to save people's lives. I mean, know again i'm being corny and cheesy but no i thought it's like extraordinary the coast guard has rescued

1450 people so far houston police have completed 2000 rescue missions national guards out there rescue workers neighbors reporters saving people's lives i mean it is we look we need these reminders yeah but also right now yes but what i was also thinking about, too, is that's acute decency. We're very good at acute decency. And climate change requires a different kind of decency, a different kind of imaginative decency of what it means to care. Well, it means thinking beyond the short term to the long term. That when someone's stranded on a roof, when water is rising in a car, you know, compassion kicks in and humanity kicks in and decency kicks in. And we have this fundamental challenge that we are not built to have a more expansive version of compassion. compassion. I want to get to the, I want to do one more point in the climate change thing, because some people may say, oh, conservatives will say, well, or some conservatives will say,

you know, climate is not weather and there's no proof. And so, so I looked this up because you and I love it. We're talking about this over the weekend. Michael Mann in the Guardian wrote about this, said, you know, climate change may not have caused Harvey, but it almost certainly exacerbated its effects. We know for a fact that the storm surge is half a foot higher than it would have been with sea levels lower. We also know that sea surface temperatures were warmer when Harvey struck, which meant three to five percent more moisture in the atmosphere when it hit, which meant that much more rain.

So over and over again, there are all these ways where, yes, the storm probably would have hit without climate change, but climate change made worse all of the different effects. The wind speed, the surge, the amount of rain. We don't have to be defensive on this. Climate change, yes. No one event. We don't have to be defensive, but we need to be explanatory about it. No, no, no, I'm not saying you are.

I'm making a separate, that absolutely true, you know, there will be cold winters and cold summers and there will be years without hurricanes and all the rest, but climate change makes storms more likely and it makes it more likely that those storms are worse. budgets matter. And the administration has recommended cutting FEMA programs by like $667 million. They've also proposed a 16% cut to the overall budget and a 32% to the office, the NOAA budget and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. So like these are relevant programs that help us anticipate and manage and then solve these problems. That's why government matters. Also, the dams were built in, I think, the 30s or 40s, and we haven't had a significant investment in the infrastructure of this

country in half a century, and we're coasting on the roads, bridges, rail lines, and airports of another generation, and it's not going to last. I was going to make a more immediate point, which is a couple weeks ago, Trump reversed the Obama-era federal flood protection standard, which would have required federally funded infrastructure to be built to withstand extreme flooding and higher sea levels. Why? Just, you know why? Because Obama put it into place, and everything he does is to oppose Obama and reverse what

he does. We should talk about the Trump response, because, you know, first of all, it's nowhere near done. This is continuing to unfold. This is an emergency that's, you know, still playing out right now as we speak. But the New York Times over the weekend ran a piece saying, Trump's Twitter feed and the photos and statements released by the White House indicated that Harvey and its aftermath had energized Mr. Trump

and called it a calculated display of energetic presidential leadership, revealed the president genuinely riveted. Yeah, unless... Now, they've changed some of that story, in fairness. Unless people are going to use Sheriff Clark's book as a fucking flotation device, that's not true. Yeah, he was promoting Sheriff Clark's book. He was talking about how he was going to go to Missouri and beat, and Claire McCaskill

was going to lose her race. He was talking about Mexico paying for the wall. It just shows how much that the way these the way Trump is judged has completely been flipped on its head. In a normal president, one tweet that was off topic would be used to say you are not focused. In this instance, the fact that like 30 to 40 percent of his tweets were on topic was like, oh, the guy's on it. You know, he's got like a red hat that says USA, not MAGA. He's at Camp David for some reason. It doesn't really matter, but I don't get why you'd be there instead of at the White

House. But yeah, I mean, look, sitting in the sit room, getting briefed. I mean, that's sort of in some ways the best you can do. But his team is talking about taking him down to Houston or Texas on Tuesday, which makes no sense. Yeah, apparently he's now not. You shouldn't do that. He's going outside some of the affected areas, but still...

Still, there's no reason to do that. It's just amazing, and people pointed this out, that he has not used Twitter, which he's been using throughout the weekend, to share a single piece of actionable information on what you can do to help the hurricane, and he's not expressed any empathy whatsoever for the families who have been evacuated

and have lost everything. It's just... I will say... And it is. He's a weather have lost everything. It's just... I will say... And it is. He's a weather pundit. Everything's about record rainfall. We're setting new records and blah, blah, blah. But we have the best...

He wants it on one hand to be the most intense storm ever. And then also on the other hand to show that he is the best prepared and best responding president ever. I mean, he can help... Everything's about the records. Donald Trump is like a living embodiment of why weather does well on the news. Like he is just interested in how cool the storm is, forgetting when he's on Twitter that he's president. I will say in fairness to him,

the fact that he was wearing a USA hat is a sign that he's taking this seriously because he didn't want to put in the time to have his hair done. So that's why he wears the hat. You realize that's why he wears the hat. And that's why he's pulled down so low. Because whatever's going on beneath the hat, it has to be completely covered. I think he just wanted a red hat that said USA. No, no, no, no. It's not. He knew he had to do the one photo.

Well, look, I think he likes how he looks in these hats. But he puts on the hat and he puts it down so low because he has to conceal whatever the truth is. So just one thought on him. People call him a master marketer, but this is going to show that the marketing techniques that work around real estate do not work in the government. Just like a big splashy event talking about how great everything is and how everything's going to be done perfectly does not comport with the reality of a multi-year cleanup process and the expectations management and the honesty and the transparency that is necessary to make people understand and

sympathize with what you're doing. Exactly right. They are in big, big trouble for the way they've talked about this. One of his close advisors told Politico, quote, he enjoys playing the role. He knows what a president is supposed to look like during something like this. And what is that? This is the pundit aspect about him. This is the weather pundit.

But like you said, Tommy, this is a multi-week, multi-year effort that is not going to go away. That's also not true because tweeting good luck is not what a president is supposed to look like either. Anyway, fine. His advisor is an idiot. We agree on that. Good. Okay, up next we will talk to former Deputy FEMA Administrator Richard Serino.

On the pod today, we have the former Deputy FEMA Administrator from the Obama Administration, Richard Serino. Richard, welcome to the pod. Great. Great to be here. Mr. Serino, thanks so much for doing this. A question for you about Harvey. Can you talk about what the situation looks like on the ground and how this compares to past storms or disasters and whether you think we're prepared for this or if it's even possible to be prepared for an incident of this magnitude?

Well, just from the images that we've all seen on TV, it shows that it's still very much in a life rescue, saving lives at this point. It's very important to realize that this is going to go on for a long time. The storm itself, we haven't had a Category 4 or any hurricane, a major hurricane hit the United States in 12 years, and a Category 4 came with very little notice. It originally was going to be a small tropical storm, and then getting the flooding, the amounts that we're hearing,

already 34 inches in some places, going up to 50 inches over the next few days. But it's stuck in one place, and it's continuing to rain. the next few days, that it's stuck in one place and it's continuing to rain. So there's the damage that happened and severe damage from Category 4 on Corpus Christi and Rockport, but now also we're seeing in a large urban area, seeing the heavy rain and the flooding that's happening there. And I think one thing that's important over the last period of time is that we've seen a lot of headway made and how people are able to work together and the fact that the state is working in the request of being

met from FEMA and then they're communicating with the local officials as well and the state emergency management director in Texas, Nim Kidd, is you know one of the people that's been around for a while. He's been through a lot of the flood watch. He's obviously not as serious as this, but he has the experience and also a lot of the relationships built already. You were involved in a lot of natural disasters at your time at FEMA. You were by President Obama's side during Hurricane Sandy.

What do you do, what does the government do to prepare for a hurricane like this? And then what are some of the most important steps you take immediately following the hurricane? I think initially and to prepare for, one of the things is to move resources as close to the affected area but safe, so they're able to go in as soon as it's safe for the responders to go in. safe so they're able to go in as soon as it's safe for the responders to go in. For example, moving some incident management assistant teams, some of the urban search and rescue teams that are able to go into the area ahead of time, moving some water and blankets and food into the area ahead of time, but also reaching out to a lot of the partners as well, working with the Red Cross, working with a lot of the other voluntary organizations

such as Salvation Army, Team Rubicon, getting people that are going to be there able to help as soon as it's safe for them, but realizing that the first responders are really the ones that are really making a huge difference, the people in the local community. that are really making a huge difference, people in the local community. And one thing that we've seen on TV and getting reports from people who are on the ground is neighbors helping neighbors. And I don't think we can underestimate how important that is, it's for neighbors to help neighbors, is they bring their community together. They're the ones who know whoever's living in the house, whether they're elderly or alone.

They're the ones who are going to be able to help them get out. I think that that's important. We have to, in this part of the rescue, really reach out to a lot of different folks in order to see how they can help out as well. So the president in a moment like this has both an administrative role but also a public-facing role. We've seen the president over the past couple of days tweet about the storm, but also tweet about other things, sort of talk about his political opponents, talk about a supporter's book, which are obviously very strange and unusual in a moment like this. But put aside how off that is to say publicly, does that have any impact? Does that have any effect on what people are doing? Are there any negative repercussions

when the president does these kinds of things? Well, I think the professionals that are at FEMA, at the city and the state level, at the tribal, those are mostly career professionals that have a lot of experience. The FEMA administrator has experience dealing with major incidents, both when he was at FEMA and Alabama previously. So I think the people who are career and the head of the administrator for FEMA now are folks with experience who are going to do the job and continue to work and continue to save lives and continue to reach out and to get people sheltered and get them taken care of.

I think leadership is actually a key issue that we have to look at, that we have to look at in all disasters and how leadership and how important that is. And looking at what leaders can do, and I think we've seen great leadership from, as I mentioned, Brock, from Nim Kid, the state director, from the governor of Texas. We've seen people who can reach out, and now is the time for rescue. reach out and now's the time for rescue. And then as we start to move forward, how we can start to look at, you know, the coordination, the communication that's necessary,

and the collaboration, how people are able to work together. I think one part that's important is also to look at how compassionate it is and how important compassion is at a time like this, as the professionals are doing their jobs rescue people as the neighbors help neighbors but after they get tired move on have the professionals help but looking for what other people can do and how they can help and people able to reach out and hopefully can make donations whether it's to their favorite volunteer agency, somebody that they've worked with, a NOAA, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Team Rubicon, there's a whole bunch of those.

But now is the time for compassion. Now is the time for people to reach out and help. And I think leadership is absolutely key during a time of crisis. That was actually the last question we wanted to ask you. I think you see these extraordinary acts of courage and compassion on TV, people rescuing their neighbors, first responders. People listening probably want to know what they can do today. Do you have recommended charities they could go to right this second

and give $10 or whatever they can afford to give? Yes, I would say the three I mentioned are great. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Team Rubicon, which is a veteran group that helps people, veterans and people who aren't veterans but led by veterans going in, that will help rebuild the community. And I think that also it's time for businesses that can step up and help out as well, both through contributions.

As Airbnb has done, they've opened up, you know, a site where people can open their homes for free to help the other, whether it's the survivors or some of the people that are coming in to help as well. And these disasters are, they're not easy. They're complex issues. They're complex incidents that we have to look. And that's when we bring together the whole of community, federal, state, local governments. We bring together the private companies. We bring together the non-profits, as I mentioned. We bring in the faith-based community, which is huge. They're in communities throughout this country and how they are able to do it and how they're

able to help out in the communities and then reaching out to larger faith-based communities, but also reaching out to the people and understanding that this is about the people and this is about how we can help the individuals, that this is about having no ego in this, no blame. This is about making sure that the survivors, the people, are taken care of. This is not going to be a quick event. This is going to be a very long event. This is going to go on for months.

It's going to go on for years. And looking at housing issues for tens of thousands of people, as it looks like now, if not more. So it's going to be a long event. And this is the time for us to make sure we're doing everything we can for the survivors. Richard, thank you so much for joining us. And we really appreciate all the incredible work you did at FEMA over the years, so we appreciate you stopping by. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And again, if you guys want to donate to the Red Cross, you can text Harvey to 90999. You can also donate to the Salvation Army, Team Rubicon, Feeding Texas, Coalition for the Homeless, a number of other groups that we'll tweet out later. We should also tell you we're going to donate some of the proceeds from this episode of Pod Save America

to the hurricane relief efforts. When we come back, we will talk about Joe Arpaio. So, as most of the media's attention was focused on Hurricane Harvey on Friday, rightly so, Donald Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who violated the Fourth Amendment, tortured Latinos, citizens as well as non-citizens, in what he himself referred to as concentration camps, and showed no remorse served no time. Wasn't even sentenced.

Wasn't sentenced yet. This to me is one of the worst things that Donald Trump has done. And, you know, I didn't fully appreciate how I talked about this on Thursday's pod a little bit. I didn't appreciate how bad Arpaio was until I dug in. Like I was like, you guys did a good job. I was like, oh, he's the bigoted bit. I didn't appreciate how bad Arpaio was until I dug in. You guys did a good job. I was like, oh, he's the bigoted sheriff that supported

Trump and he spoke at rallies and stuff like that. But when you dig into the tent cities and you read about what he did, it's hard to believe that happened in America. He's proud of it. If you listen to The Daily today, Michael Barbaro's show on the New York Times. I was going to recommend people listen to it as well.

Great pod. Our Piotr takes a New York Times reporter through one of the camps and is bragging about how crappy the food is. And he puts on the Food Network and the Weather Channel to torture them because these are outdoor tents and it's 130 degrees. And he wants these people to see a different existence so they'll go to Canada, he said. I mean, he's just a horrible person he set up webcams in women's bathrooms that people could look at online to like watch the conditions in the jails to see this this is this is what joe arpaio did in these jails he's a it is a lot of people died in those jails people died i mean so what this pardon says is that law enforcement officers are allowed to refuse judicial commands to obey the Constitution so long as they are loyal to President Trump or friends of President Trump.

To me, it is a completely different category than most things he has done so far. And I think it is absolutely it is an impeachable offense. We also you went to Jeff Sessions and asked them to drop the case. unreachable offense we also you went to jeff sessions and asked them to drop the case so he's tried to meddle in this process multiple times which is just a it this is one of the moments we have to remind ourselves this is a stunning breach of protocol this is an absolute disregard for the rule of law period you know the the pardon power itself is strange it's a strange power because it's hard to really understand why the president can sort of intercede in this way, because it is basically a rejection of the court system. It is a check against the courts. And it's the logic of it. It's it's all pretty murky, which is why it's always the Clinton administration and Mark Rich or the Bush administration and Scooter Libby or the first Bush administration and Caspar Weinberger or Ford and Nixon, like the pardon power is delicate when it's abused people. There's a political cost. But this itself is such a radical

departure because there was no process. There was no DOJ process. He hasn't even been sentenced. There was no urgency behind this. And also, it's for contempt for violating the Constitution he knew he would grant him the pardon anyway. This is completely different. This is another case. I mean, so someone, a couple of Ulanos were saying Arpaio's pardon demonstrates a pattern where Trump tries to end investigations of his friends, thus demonstrating corrupt intent. It can be used as evidence in Mueller's investigation of whether he obstructed justice with the firing of Jim Comey. I mean, it is just... It's also a reminder of how useless his entire staff is.

Like, you go to the attorney general and say, hey, can I stop this case from proceeding? He says, no. He's like, I'll figure out another way to do it. Like, you bring in a new chief of staff who's going to ride herd on the process and make sure things get done the right way? Apparently not. You ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether he's going to talk about Joe Arpaio at the event? She says, no, absolutely not. He absolutely goes right ahead and talks about it.

These people are useless around him. I'm done talking about them. Yeah, I sort of took I like sort of took three like what are the three lessons from the parting of a pile? One, it is a lesson to racist law enforcement that that as long as you're loyal to Trump, he'll support you and he'll have your backs. And it's just a powerful message to them. Two, it is a message to his collaborators and to anyone under investigation by Mueller. And then three, it is just a message about personal loyalty to Trump. You know, one of the things that was interesting about the daily conversation with Arpaio is this sort of is a kind of a perfect representation of how Trump is because it's has no disrespect for the rule of law. It very clearly

kind of redounds to his benefits personally, but also it affords him the chance to feel like such a good guy because it's very clear that he likes Arpaio. Arpaio got behind him. Their buddies. Their buddies. The one thing that came away from this conversation, which is really worth listening to, is that Arpaio is kind of charming. You know, he's sort of funny and befuddled. And even this reporter who had been investigating Arpaio for years and knows about the horrors that Arpaio inflicted on a lot of innocent people, the racist policies and the deaths and all the rest, she said it was hard to keep it in the front of her mind. And Arpaio comes across as this sad, sad, lonely old man whose wife is sick and who Trump called because Arpaio said that it meant so much to him that he had this role in the administration. So it gives Trump the chance

to feel like a good person while also protecting himself and putting forward his racist policies. I would add that there's one more very important lesson. It sends a message to people of color in this country. It sends a message to people who've been discriminated against in this country that says the president of the United States doesn't care. He doesn't think you matter and he doesn't see you. And to me, pardoning someone who has tortured people because of their ethnicity, because of who they are and where they come from, pardoning that person, not even letting that person serve time at all for their crime that they were convicted of. I mean, there is a process for pardons. Like you said, it's extraordinary

power. There's a process you go through with the Department of Justice. You show remorse. You serve some time. Maybe they cut five or 10 years off your sentence. This is the usual process with a pardon. This is completely different. This was a foregone conclusion before the man was sentenced because he was a political supporter of Donald Trump. Yeah. And because Trump is a racist, so doesn't see it as a problem. So just felt bad for a sad old man. So some Republicans did come out against this and criticize him. John McCain had a pretty solid statement. Jeff Flake had a OK statement that was not as solid as John McCain's. We should talk about Jeff Flake's statement,

because I find Jeff Flake's decision-making process around how to address Trump fucking fascinating, because... It's the Dean Heller strategy. It's both ineffective and also not enough. Like, it hurts him politically without actually doing enough to please people like us. It's like, I don't get it at all. This is jeff flake and dean heller aren't going to be senators in 2019 and we won't be that sad about it will we um paul ryan did the rare statement through a

spokesperson that says that the speaker disagrees with the decision which is as much as you're going to get from paul right but of course for for Paul Ryan, people on the right were saying, oh, he's done. Bannon's going to go after him. Breitbart's going to go after him. I can't believe he came out against this. So you do have some Republicans speaking out against this. On a separate issue, Rex Tillerson was also on Chris Wallace this weekend

and basically said that Trump speaks for himself and does not necessarily speak for American values, which was extraordinary. It was extraordinary. Any other weekend, it would be one of the more shocking things that's happened in politics this entire administration. I mean, he said the president speaks for himself. Then he said, I have spoken. I have made my own comments as to our values as well as in a speech I gave to the State Department this past week. He's distancing himself from the president of the United States. I think hopefully it speaks to the fact that Tillerson is completely fed up with the way he is treated in personal matters and the way he's, you know, been made a joke. And he's willing to walk out the door pretty soon and start talking about what he's seen.

But that is, it is a remarkable comment to me. Mattis also. Did you see that Mattis gave a speech? Hold the line. Yeah, gave a speech to troops that was basically in Afghanistan saying, you need to hold the line until we learn to treat each other better in the US. Yeah. Now that I think could be interpreted any one of many ways, but it is something

weird going on, man. People are fed up in those buildings and rightly so. Walk out. It's feeling very Banana Republic lately. Yeah. Don't walk out. We're in the 25th Amendment. Just stay, chill out, buddies. Well, so we're not expecting a lot of courage from Republicans or pretty much any courage from Republicans anymore, but where all this matters, where these Republicans speaking out matters is in this pardon thing. It all kind of intersects with Mueller's investigations here because Mueller is issuing subpoenas through a grand jury. If the witnesses that he subpoenas do not show up, they will be held in contempt.

Trump has just issued a pardon for someone who was held in contempt. Oh my God, that's so weird. I didn't even really make that connection. So this pardon sends a signal that he is essentially nullifying Mueller's enforcement tool by pardoning those who defy orders. I mean, so we have to figure out what happens when Trump starts issuing pardons in the Mueller investigation. Right. And pardons to prevent people from testifying to conceal information in an investigation is the definition of obstruction of justice. Shredding papers is not illegal. Shredding papers to obstruct justice is illegal. You can doing things that are technically allowed become illegal when you're doing them for the purpose of blocking an investigation.

The 12 step process we go through every time we realize something about Donald Trump is just things that are technically allowed become illegal when you're doing them for the purpose of blocking investigation. The 12-step process we go through every time we realize something about Donald Trump is just as horrible as he's been telling us it is. It's so frustrating. He's been chanting, lock her up about Hillary Clinton for like a year and a half. And like, oh no, oh, what weird. He doesn't have any respect for the rule of law. What a shock, Paul Ryan, you bozos. I mean, it's just like watching this happen in slow motion every time is so infuriating

because, of course, he's going to pardon his moron son or whoever was colluding with these Russian officials or lying to Congress or lying to whomever. You don't have to look too far for the corrupt intent. It is in your face. It is everywhere. He says it in interviews. He says it in interviews.

My intent is corrupt. My intent, hello, my intent is everywhere. He says it in interviews. My intent is corrupt. Hello, my intent is corrupt. MAGA. I'm hearing that Jared and Ivanka have a lot of respect for the rule of law though. Jared and Ivanka feel very sad about their move to DC. Vanity Fair tells us. I didn't even get to that yet. They feel like they've been

sacrificed in DC. Because this has been such a depressing episode, can we just talk about our boy, Seb Gorka, for one? Oh, I forgot about Seb Gorka. Yeah. Gorka, ouch. Gorka, ouch.

Back to Breitbart. I love all these clowns leaving the most powerful job they will ever have, a job they had no business having, were never qualified to have, and acting like going back to their racist zine is what they've wanted

their entire lives. They refer to it like it's, they're like, we go back to the tanks, we go back to the, we're going to go get our arms and we're going to take arms and we're now more powerful

than you could imagine. It's like, you guys work for a shitty blog. Calm down. You're playing Call of Duty at work, you loser. Does, I think we have Seb Gorka here in the studio. Is that correct?

Oopsie doopsie, I was fired while on vacation and wrote a fake resignation letter. He was on vacation for two weeks. Did you hear that? He's been working there for eight months. No one takes a two-week vacation in four years. No one takes a two-week vacation at the White House, except for Jared and Ivanka. It's never been done. Two weeks.

Some White House staffers were saying that Seb Gorka's resignation letter was, quote, incredibly woke. Don't think you're using it right. Yeah, you guys know. Don't think you're using the word in the proper context. You guys might want to check out this thing. Dictionary.com. You cannot be woke if you're wearing a Hungarian fascist uniform.

It's actually not possible to be woke in that. The Venn diagram of being woke and wearing fascist regalia from the 1940s. There's no overlap. You know, Seb Gorka, it matters not at all that he was there. It matters not at all that he was gone, except for the fact that someone like that should never have been in the White House. But again, that is the problem, right? The fact that he's gone doesn't matter because the problem was that someone like him could be there in the first place because the problem is Trump. There was a reporter who I'm just I'm not going to name by name.

I'm not trying to be critical of any person, but was defending Seb Gork on the way out saying, well, it's overblown. His influence is overblown. He was overblown that he was not in a Nazi party. I mean, the fact that this was a question is kind of a big deal. His Nazi associations were overblown. The fact that he had a fake PhD. The fact that he worked in the White House without a clearance. Instead, he did national security, but really just did cable hits all day.

He wore the uniform to the inauguration. He wasn't subtle about it. He was a walking joke. He embodies the clowns that are staffing this administration. It's a fucking sideshow. But anyway. But you know, there was a story this morning.

I still want to be angry about Joe Arpaio because I'm so... The Democrats won the House back and they happened to drop impeachment articles against Donald Trump. The pardon of Joe Arpaio should be at the top of the fucking list. High crimes or whatever we want it to be. I know, we always say this, but I still think

we need, for future presidents, to have some norms in place where we talk about what is impeachable and what's not, and it's not just to the whims of a political majority, even though that's technically true. This is impeachable, what he did. and it's not just to the whims of a political majority, even though that's technically true. This is impeachable, what he did. It is so outside the bounds of anything. It is a severe abuse of the power and power. Angry. I'm angry about it.

I know. I know. Anyway, anything else on Seb Gorka? All I was going to say, well, you know, speaking of the White House comings and goings, as always, Jonathan Swan with a leak from within the administration or from someone recently in the administration. You don't know if it's is it is it Bannon trying to attack the globalists or is the globalists saying, look how good we are being globalist? You'll never know. But there was a report this morning that of basically what Trump was saying in a meeting about tariffs. Did you see this? And he basically there's this it's a it's basically a transcript of

an Oval Office meeting. and it's Trump saying to Kelly you haven't been here for some of these meetings I just want you to hear what I say to these people give me the tariffs give me some tariffs, I want tariffs but they never give me tariffs he calls Gary Cohn a globalist that's what made me think it was Bannon

yes, but it's a little bit also a look what we kill thing too because you can't tell you can't tell if it's the globalists proud of their globalism or Bannon trying to point out their globalism. But so, but it's a reminder that for all the ways in which this is theater and we have this crazy scenario and people like Gorka coming and going and Bannon coming and going and

who's in and who's out, like Donald Trump is sitting at the Oval Office desk saying, give me tariffs, let, give me my trade war. So they're playing with live ammunition every single day. That's it. That's all I wanted to say about it. Okay. When we come back, we will talk to President of Demos, Heather McGee.

On Pod Save America today, we are very likely to be joined by the president of Demos, Heather McGee. Heather, welcome to the pod. Thanks so much for having me. So it's been a few weeks after Charlottesville. It's a few days after the Arpaio pardon. A lot of your work at Demos involves having frank conversations about racial inequality, systemic racism. What do those conversations sound like right now? You know, I think the country in many ways is waking up to the way that white supremacy not only has been historically an organizing principle in our economy and in our politics,

but is still alive. And how, frankly, white supremacy is about more than just statues. It's also about statutes. And Demos has been working as a public policy organization whose mission is to create an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. And the most vivid contemporary form of white supremacy today that we are seeing is in the right-wing attack on the right to vote and voter suppression. The very idea, which is in many ways a neo-Confederate idea, that members of the state should limit the franchise with, quote, almost surgical precision, as the federal court described in the North Carolina voting case, to limit the franchise in racially discriminatory ways. That's how we're seeing white supremacy act today. And it's how

we're seeing mainstream Republicans wink and nod to that ideology that some groups of people are better than others. And some groups of citizens should have a voice and some shouldn't. Heather, during the campaign, I heard you, you did a great interview with Ezra Klein, you did a couple of them. And folks enjoyed this conversation, they should check those out as well. But you talked about how you thought there was some value in the sort of dog whistle politics of race that have been played by Democrats and Republicans, more so Republicans for a long time, becoming more overt and more honest, because this is going to be an ugly debate. And it should happen in the open for us to actually heal and have honest conversations and move on. Do you feel that way still? Do you think that this conversation is one that is ugly and necessary? Or has it become something else? That's a really good question. When I did those podcasts with Ezra, you know, I really hoped that

Trump turning what had been a 50 year, mostly Republican dog whistle, one that really denigrates the identity of people of color, and then importantly, right, this is the move, links it, links people of color to government. And in so doing, undermines white support for common solutions, undermines white support for government and for unions. I thought that actually having someone like Donald Trump, who most of the political class was repudiating, make that silent dog whistle into a bullhorn would be good, would help exercise the demon in many ways from our politics. Of course, I did not think that he would be able to so convincingly make it a powerful and irresistible political formula for the majority of white voters in this country. I suppose I should have been more realistic, given that, in fact, the majority of white voters have not voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act

and the Southern Strategy really began. But I think what we're seeing now is a lot of people who, of all races, frankly, and ethnicities, who thought that the kind of torch-wielding white supremacy that was on full display in Charlottesville was a thing of the past or a thing of the shadows of the internet, are starting to make the connections, frankly, between the logic of white supremacy and the core logic in the right-wing narrative that we see on Fox News and Breitbart. You know, you can't dine on a diet of stereotypes of criminal aliens who are killing, you know, white children for breakfast, and then, you know, Muslim terrorists who are operating Sharia law camps in the desert for lunch, and then, you know, black thugs in the inner city for dinner,

as most Fox News viewers do, and not start to have a logic of white supremacy creep into your thoughts and creep into the mainstream of our politics. Yeah, I mean, look, I think all of us were unrealistic about the chances Donald Trump had about getting elected. I think you were quite realistic and honest about the ugliness of racial politics in the US. So one other thing you talked about is that your think tank has done this research showing that racism actually harms white people, as well as people of color. Can you talk about that research and whether you think talking about the issue and framing it in that way is able to break through with, you know, the white working class

voter that we're all agonizing about since November? Yeah, sure. I'm happy to. I'm actually working on a book about the costs of racism to white people right now. And it's been a fascinating journey to really understand and try to articulate that ultimately in an interconnected society, our fates are linked and that there are personal economic and social costs of racism to white people. A really vivid example of this is in the financial crisis, where Demos was working as part of our economic inequality work back in the early 2000s to really raise the alarm about the predatory practices that were distorting the financial market, that were absolutely discriminatory in many different ways in the housing market, payday lending, etc.

And those bad loans, those discriminatory loans, those subprime loans were then packaged, of course, and sold across the financial system and ended up creating the financial crisis of 2008, which, of course, cost tens of trillions of dollars in lost wealth and jobs, not just for the African Americans and Latinos who were targeted in the original instance, but for everyone. So that is a vivid example of the economic cost of racism, not just to the people who are originally targeted, but to all of us. And I think we're also seeing that in terms of the way that our democracy is so distorted, there is a racial logic to obviously the intentional discrimination that Republicans have been found guilty of across the country since the election of President Obama that is also undermining our democracy for everyone. Barriers to voting and registration that have been erected are obviously targeted towards African Americans and Latinos, but trap up white college students, white women who don't have the right ID with their

current name on it, etc. Do you see anybody that's sort of scrambling that divide well, that's sort of overcoming that racial divide to talk about issues for working people, either a message or messenger that you think sort of has this right? You know, it's funny, in some ways, you have to actually go back to Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition. He had a really beautiful way. It may not have occurred to most people to go back to Jesse Jackson's political speeches lately, but I think you'll find something pretty surprising and wonderful in it, that he had a beautiful way of talking about the loss of jobs and economic problems in the country and making it very clear that the ruling elite were the ones who benefited from a divide-and-conquer strategy. My colleague Ian Haney-Lopez and I wrote an article during the heat of the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders called How Economic Populists Like Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Racism.

make a false choice between being very real about the racial and gender divides in this country and racial and gender oppression, and speaking up about the economic inequality. It's so silly to think that Democrats, the sort of argument that Democrats are not sufficiently economically populist because of, you know, Black Lives Matter activists in Ferguson, right? It's not them who is, you know, it's not people who want to see racial and gender justice who are keeping the Democrats from having an economic populist message and agenda. It's their donors, and it's wealthy people and corporate interests that have infiltrated into the heart of the party. And so it's very frustrating, the idea that there should be this choice when, of course, not only is the majority of working class people of color and women and immigrants today working in the service industry, but working class people of color and white people have an enormous amount to gain from uniting their interests. Yeah, it's very frustrating. And, you know, we were on the Obama campaign in 2008 and didn't try to make that choice, right? It was about economic justice and racial justice and social justice. And, you know, it wasn't a choice. So just about one year ago, you were a guest on C-SPAN when a white man from North Carolina named Gary called in and said he was prejudiced and that he feared black people. You were incredibly calm and

thoughtful in your response. The exchange went viral. Apparently he called in last week to say that he's changed and that you guys are now personal friends. So what happened in the intervening year? Did you guys like see Dunkirk together? What's going on? intervening year. Did you guys like see Dunkirk together? What's going on? We did. We actually went to a casino together. We've gotten a beer together. We've had the beer summit of the prejudiced caller and the black advocate or whatever I am. You know, I was not expecting what happened last August at all, right? I mean, I went on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to talk about economic policy, to talk about Deimos' support for debt-free college, to talk about the election. And, you know, here's this guy who spends most of his time watching TV in the foothills of the

Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. And he was moved for some reason to call into the show and admit his prejudice and ask for my help. And I think that this was in the dog days of a really racially charged summer when you had Donald Trump coming down those gold-plated stairs at Trump Tower and calling Mexicans rapists and criminals, and then going on to say that he didn't have a racist bone in his body. So for someone who seemed like an everyday guy, to admit on national television that he was prejudiced, to me felt like a call that I couldn't ignore. And I was moved, and I gave him some ideas off the top of my head. Get to know black families who are not the stereotypes that he was describing.

Most importantly, change what he consumes in terms of TV news that so over-represents black crime and under-represents white crime. But I also importantly told him to pick up a book and to read about the history of this country. And really, that is what has done it. Gary would later on join Twitter to find me. His first tweet was, how does this thing work? And he direct messaged me and I communicated with him and we had a phone call. And soon after, he went to the bookstore and got a whole bunch of

books from The New Jim Crow to Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. He loves Cornel West now. I mean, he has really taken what he calls a walk to really understand how it is that we got to this place in this country. And, you know, he gives me a lot of credit. We have become friends. I did go down to North Carolina for work a few months later and did meet with him. And I was actually back in North Carolina just last week interviewing him for the book that I'm working on. He gives me a lot of credit, but I give him a lot of credit for being willing to be humble, to have a little bit of sort of joy and wonder whenever he comes upon another prejudiced thought in his mind. He loves to kind of catch himself in that moment, for being willing to talk to

his friends, all of whom are kind of your prototypical Trump voters. He's lost some friends over this transformation that he's made. But I can say that he's also gained one for sure. It sounds like you need to put out this sort of anti-racism, you know, course list, the syllabus that you've put together for this guy. I know, I was thinking it's funny that someone being kind and gracious on cable TV is what goes viral these days, but like, it's pretty amazing that you had that poise

in that moment, because boy, you could see that going a different direction. It's true. I do think that we are suffering from, I mean, this goes without saying, but a tremendous lack of leadership, not just from Donald Trump, who's obviously making it very clear whose side he's on. also we have not as a country for really 50 years since the civil rights movement waned, had an honest reckoning about the way that this country was founded on a notion of racial hierarchy and on the lie that some groups of people are better than others. You know, there are other societies that have had truth and reconciliation commissions that have made sure that education from the earliest levels is very clear about our past. And, you know, we, I think, as Americans hold very dear to a mythology of American innocence.

It is heartbreaking to engage even just a little bit in the truth of how much racial violence and oppression has shaped our society and still does today. And yet, the only way that we can actually get beyond it, and I think really all of us, white people, people of color, want to get beyond it, want to be able to have a country that fully lives out the potential of its humanity and fully lives out the potential of being a multiracial demos, right? The name of my organization is Demos, but it means the people of a nation. We've got to be honest about it. And we have so much denialism from white supremacy and white nationalists, obviously, but even on to the kind of mainstream racial grievance that is now kind

of the majority opinion, particularly among white working class voters, the idea that racism no longer exists against people of color, that racial competition is a zero-sum game and progress for people of color has meant that has come at the expense of white people. We've gone backwards in some ways in our racial discourse. And I think it's going to take leaders in the private sector, in the public sector, in schools, in faith groups, to really stand up and say that we can't keep lying to ourselves and that it's going to take work, but we should take some good old-fashioned American pride in doing that work. Yeah, and Gary's story is instructive here.

It starts with turning off the TV, picking up a book, and having a real conversation. That's right. Heather, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And come back again soon. All right, my pleasure. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Thanks. Take care. Bye. All right. My pleasure. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thanks. Take care. Bye. All right. We get great guests on this show, by the way. We get great guests.

Great guests. They're very smart. They're very thoughtful. Heather was excellent. Richard Serino was excellent. We had a good show today. We had a good show. Anyone want to talk about Game of Thrones?

Look, some people were asking. Spoiler alert. There's no spoilers. We're not going to talk about the show itself, but we will talk about the viewing experience. I went over to John and Emily. You should have seen Lovett's face. He did not know that Bill... Is that even the Game of Thrones music?

He did not know Bill was going to play that. I think that's just not even... I think that's just generic action music now. That's where we're at. Thanks, Bill. All right, great. There was one moment where Emily did turn to me and say, this is my house, when there was a debate over whether it was acceptable

to start cooking tortellini at the 40-minute mark. Emily quietly went about her business cooking tortellini while watching the video. But in her tone back to me, I did realize that I was wrong. Aren't you glad you weren't there, Tom? Yeah, although I T-voted because Hannah's family's in town and then went to start it at like 7.30 and it just wouldn't work. Should we talk about why Hannah's family was in town, Tommy? Should we talk about it, Tommy? Oh, yeah.

I got engaged this weekend. Tommy got engaged! Tommy got engaged this weekend. What an outro. What an outro. I figured we'd save it for the outro. I wanted to look at Tommy to make sure he wanted to talk about it. I know, I know.

We had some news. I wanted to look at Tommy to make sure he wanted to talk about it. I know, I know. For the first time in our relationship, I made a big stink about demanding a birthday party. I was a bit of a birthday princess, birthday prince. I don't want to be the gender normative. Yeah, I demanded that Hannah throw me a party, but what it actually was was a ruse to get a bunch of people in one place and proposed to her Saturday morning and got to tell her that her entire family was landing at LAX in the next uh half hour i was talking to uh my birthday party

was her engagement i was talking to hannah's dad about what happened if they right when they landed they called you and you're just like she said no just get back on the plane get back on the stay on the tarmac stay on the turn there's uh yeah there's some preparatory work that goes into these things that helps you uh ensure that doesn't happen. Well, congrats, Tommy. Thanks, guys. And we know how you'll be suited up at the wedding. One more. Don't sponsor content my way. One more year.

One more year of adventure. Don't even say their names because that's not guaranteed. You want to see some bros in suits? You guys know where to reach us. That's all the time we have for today. You know, we didn't even get to the fact that there's a new Russia story that came out today, but I don't know. Let's just say it's all the time we have for today. You know, we didn't even get to the fact that there's a new Russia story

that came out today, but I don't know. Let's just say it's bad for Donald Trump. Bad for Donald Trump. You've already made up your mind. You're listening to this. It's a couple hours later. The emails are something like this. You should collude with Putin to become president. This way we'll all make lots of money. I'm your shady Russian businessman friend.

Collude with Putin. Win election. It was Joe America. You'll get money. You'll win the election. Collude with Putin. Win election. It was Joe America. You'll get money. You'll win the election. Collude. Go all the way with it. No one will ever know. ABC.

End of email. Always be colluding. All right. On that note. Is that it? We'll see you later this week, guys. It's time to expose the crooked media deception. Yes.

That would be great. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you.