Pod Save America - “Your tweets are not enough.” (LIVE from DC)

Episode Date: November 4, 2017

Trump vs. the Law, reforming the DNC, and the race in Virginia. Rep. Keith Ellison, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and Alyssa Mastromonaco join Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan on stage live from the Swamp. 

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🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 All right. Shoes are off. Hey, DC.

All right. The bar is open. The bar is open. This is stupid. Look at this place. Look at this place they built for us. That's nice of them. Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm Jon Favreau. Alyssa? Oh, I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco. I'm Jon Lovett. Hi, Mom. I'm John Lovett. Hi, Mom. I'm Tommy. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Thanks, guys.

It's fine to be back in D.C. In the swamp? Are we in the swamp? We're in the swamp, yeah. Look at you swamp monsters crawling out with your swamp stuff, your mud and your moss. Sludge. Your sludge. Sludge.

Nailed it. We have a great show for you tonight. The vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Keith Ellison, is here. And we have the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Sally Yates, is here. All right. This is Sally Yates, man. Fan favorite. So one person who's not here with us in D.C. tonight is Donald Trump.

He's on his way to Asia. Have a great fucking trip. But before Trump left, he left the American people with a series of tweets, as he is wont to do, in which he stated that the Justice Department and the FBI must launch an investigation into Hillary Clinton for an imaginary crime. For good measure, he slandered Bernie Sanders. Elizabeth Warren said he's disappointed in the Justice Department for not prosecuting his political enemies. So Trump is doing this after having a pretty tough week with the law. Just to go through the list. His campaign manager was indicted as a criminal agent of a foreign government.

His foreign policy advisor pled guilty to lying to the FBI. His attorney general likely perjured himself about contacts with Russians. His Department of Agriculture nominee withdrew because of the Russia investigations. His son-in-law turned over documents to Mueller about his role in potentially obstructing justice. And his chief of staff reminded everyone that Trump himself is under federal investigation. Tommy.

Yeah. In the battle between Trump and the rule of law, who's winning? Right now, the rule of law. I wouldn't be playing to type if I didn't point out that he just left for an 11-day Asia trip. I've been on a 10-day Asia trip. I know many of you had.

It is about the most grueling thing you can do as a president. He's got a lot of big issues he's going to deal with, like North Korea and trying to prevent a nuclear war. So you'd think you'd have like a breathing book to read and wouldn't be tweeting about everyone you could think of, but here we are. But what he was tweeting is essentially that DOJ and the FBI should start investigating Hillary Clinton because of some made-up scandal. And ever since Watergate, there has been a line between what the White House does and what the president does and what the attorney general does, because there's supposed to be independence there.

And he is just blowing through it in plain sight. It's like it's collusion in plain sight by tweet, which is a very weird thing because the press corps in the D.C. establishment does not know how to internalize this sort of reaction. reaction. If the Washington Post reported that Trump had called the Attorney General and said, get the FBI investigating Clinton, it would be the biggest scandal since Watergate. But now it's just something we read five times a day. Alyssa, are we sort of numb to this now? You guys, he called Senator Warren Pocahontas on email, and it's like, on to the next tweet, and it's on the tweet. So yeah, I think that we are numb, and it's really hard to keep up the resistance. Like, we know that we have to, but he tweets more than any of us do.

And he should be, like, having a day job. Well, I mean, like, you've been on all these trips with President Obama. We were just saying upstairs, Alyssa's looking at her phone, and she's like, he's still tweeting, he's landing in Hawaii, it's still happening. Well, I was joking. I'm like, do you think that Donald Trump remembers Barack Obama was actually born in Hawaii?

Or do you think that he's like, it's cool because he's from Kenya. It's not a thing for a specific room president. Lovett, what did you think about the tweets today? What did you think about the, you know, why are we investigating Hillary Clinton? You know, we're, I mean, there is this argument that the rule of law is holding up that, you know, Trump, and he said this in an interview last night too, he was like, you know, I would like to, someone asked him, you know, why haven't you thrown her in jail yet? You know,

and he's like, look, I'd love to do all these things, but I'm not supposed to run the Justice Department as if he just figured this out. And he's like, they don't let me do this kind of stuff anymore. Yeah, yeah. Not like the good old days in Tsarist Russia. You know, it's funny. People are sort of like, oh, well,

he doesn't actually mean it. He's not trying to cause a political prosecution. He's just trying to direct a massive propaganda apparatus to call for a political prosecution, as if that's better. I think one of the implicit defenses of Donald Trump when he tweets like this is he doesn't really mean it. No one's going to really execute on it. And you think about the implications of that are.

One, it's saying that basically Donald Trump, we were saying, Dan and I were talking about this earlier, that Donald Trump is a sort of a passive observer of his own presidency. He is a pundit watching the Trump presidency unfold on television and he feels powerless. And like any of us do when we feel powerless, he tweets about it. And then there's this larger issue about what Alyssa pointed out, that he called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas today. I believe it's the month dedicated to Native Americans right now.

I think he did do a declaration three days ago, but his memory sucks. Off to a great start. But it's not just that Donald Trump will threaten a political prosecution in a tweet. It's that Paul Ryan will go to the Al Smith dinner and say, isn't it funny how I pretend not to see what he tweets? There's no consequences.

So there's nothing to stop Donald Trump from doing this because there's no one inside the White House that seems to have the ability to prevent him from doing these kinds of tweets that interfere with active investigations or that call for investigations. interfere with active investigations or that call for investigations. I mean, he interfered with the Bo Bergdahl trial, which the judge had to comment on as part of determining what the sentence would be. So there's no one inside the White House that seems to have the ability to stop him. And he knows that there's not going to be any accountability on Congress, in Congress, because the only people willing to hold Donald Trump accountable are people that have announced their retirement. Right. Yeah. I mean, Dan, it's not just his tweets. Like, there were three House members today, House Republicans, who introduced legislation to say that, you know, Mueller should recuse himself from the Russia probe because of this

fucking bullshit Uranium One deal. And so there's actual motion on this in the Congress. I mean, it seems like this is an open conspiracy to obstruct justice between some Republicans in Congress and the President of the United States just out in the open here. Yes, we are Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Paul Ryan's minions, Roger Stone are involved in a massive, very sloppy effort to engage in a massive conspiracy to obstruct justice. very sloppy effort to engage in a massive conspiracy to obstruct justice. And it goes to a bias of the press, where because people said it out loud publicly, we shouldn't take it seriously.

But if Donald Trump had sent a memo to Jeff Sessions saying all the things in his tweets, it would be a Watergate-level political conspiracy. But we just brush it off as like, oh, it's crazy Grandpa Donald tweeting again, right? If you put in a hacked email, that would have been it. Yeah, exactly. What we need to do is we need to email John Podesta about this.

And then let WikiLeaks put it out. We have to have Bill Clinton tell Loretta Lynch on a fucking tarmac. Too soon for a lot of people in this room. It's fine. Let's talk about the story about the DNC that Trump was referencing this morning. Oh, we're going to hiss? Honestly, all right. I don't know which way the hisses are going to go on this.

Let's talk about the hissing again. First of all, it's terrible regardless. But also, in this case we have no idea what you're hissing about it's too big nothing specific has come up we don't know if you're angry about the story itself or if you have a Bernie person or you're a Hillary person

your hisses are totally useless so give it a fucking rest don't hiss boo. And then don't boo vote. Vote is the best one. No, look, a lot of people were tweeting at us to talk about this, and I wanted to not just start tweeting about it because I thought we would have a thoughtful, nuanced discussion.

Would you call it a no bullshit conversation about it? A no bullshit conversation. Okay, so here's what happened. For those of you who haven't been steeped in this for the last couple of days, Donna Brazile has a new book out where she says that when she became interim chair of the DNC in 2016,

You gotta let it go. I know. She discovered an agreement that gave the Clinton campaign a measure of undue influence over staffing and strategy at the DNC in August of 2015, which was right at the beginning of the primary campaign. Brazil said that it was not illegal, but in her view, it compromised the party's integrity. Dan, let's try to sort out all the facts here. What does the DNC do? Let's start from the beginning.

What does the DNC do, and what are these joint fundraising agreements that we're... I want Dan to have a serious answer, but I'll tell you what it doesn't do. What did you say? It hasn't done a lot of winning of elections. Sorry, Dan. Well, that's sort of the point, right? And so the DNC, in part because of the way the 2016 primary played out, is seen as this all-powerful entity that is supposed to win elections for Democrats up and down the ballot,

elect Hillary Clinton, elect the dog catcher and everything in between. And the reality is, that's not what the DNC does. It is not the all-powerful wizard. It is the little man behind the curtain. And so in the case of the primary, what the DNC really does is two things. Or I guess

I would say they do three things. The first is, they set the debate schedule. Right? So that's real power, setting the debate schedule. They work with the candidates to decide how many debates there will be. It's important to remember that when we were running, working for Barack Obama in 2008, there were approximately 935 debates. We debated every day for like two years. Oh my God. And one of the ideas was that that was bad. And so we should come to a better version. We shouldn't debate every other day. The second thing they do is they set the calendar

for in what order the primaries and caucuses play out. And that is not done by the people who run the DNC. That's done by the Rules Committee, which is a group of members appointed by the chair who then have to vote to make the decisions. Like, is Iowa going to come first? Is New Hampshire going to come second?

And that's just the first states, because other states actually can decide their own. They can decide, but they have to there's a set of rules the DNC has put forward that they have to come second. And that's just the first states, because other states actually can decide their own. They can decide, but there's a set of rules the DNC has put forward that they have to abide by. So basically, Iowa has to be the first caucus, New Hampshire has to be the first primary, then Nevada, then South Carolina, and then other people can figure out whether Alabama goes next

or California wants to be early on Super Tuesday or later. And then the third thing they do is they prepare for the general election. They're raising money. They're doing opposition research on the potential Republican nominees. They're hiring staff so that when the Democratic nominee wins a nomination, by wins a nomination, I don't mean they just, they get the delegate count. They stand on stage at the convention, are nominated by the party, then they can turn over that machine to the Democrat, to whoever that nominee is, whether that was going to be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in this case.

So what the DNC doesn't do is they don't determine whether states hold primaries or caucuses. The states do that. Most of the states, except the first states, they decide when they go on the primary calendar schedule. Right, as long as they don't violate the DNC rules. If they jump ahead, then their votes won't count. That did not happen in 2016. So what they do do is they set the debate schedule, they figure out the number of debates,

and they also set up, and this gets to the story, they set up joint fundraising committees with all of the different primary candidates, or they offer them, right? So Hillary Clinton signed one of these agreements. Bernie Sanders then signed one of these agreements, though he didn't really use the DNC for that. He did a lot of grassroots fundraising. The difference is on Hillary Clinton's agreement, in that agreement it said Hillary Clinton's staff and the campaign would have veto power over new positions

that were supposed to be filled in the DNC. So that was the unusual agreement that she struck with the DNC. But it should also be noted that all of the money that both Hillary raised with the DNC and Bernie or any other candidate, none of that money could be used by any of those candidates unless they became the party's nominee. And this fact pattern is important to understand in the story because you can separate two ideas, right? One, that it was

unusual and improper for the Hillary Clinton campaign to be in a position where they were deciding who the staff was. So that's one thing. And then the separate idea is that even if that happened, it didn't affect the order in which the caucus and primaries take place, and that the money raised by Hillary for the DNC was not and could not be used in any way to help Hillary in her primary campaign against Bernie Sanders, just like money that Bernie Sanders would have raised into his similar agreement could not have been used against Hillary Clinton. Alyssa, you've obviously in your many positions on campaigns and in the White House have dealt with the DNC. What did you make of this whole story?

So one, I was curious does anybody know if the Clintons had the same agreement in 2007? Because that would be interesting. Just saying. I mean, this isn't a good point. I mean, I'm serious. For the Sanders people out there, I mean, when Obama ran in 2008,

the DNC was very friendly to Hillary Clinton. It was stacked with many Clinton people and we had to deal with that. And this is my sort of POV on the DNC, which is that you really, like, Bill Clinton was the last Democratic president. When we ran for president in 2007, the DNC was largely staffed by people who had supported the Clintons. And so I think that, you know, for anyone to say, especially, you know, in the Donna Brazil article

where she says, you know, that it was, or her book, I guess, that says that it was rigged for Hillary, but I mean, she was the one who was reportedly giving her the questions to the debate. but I mean, she was the one who was reportedly giving her the questions to the debate. And so, I mean, I don't, I mean, I just think what's fair is fair. And I feel sort of sympathetic to the people who might be, you know, taken up on Bernie's part because I feel like we were kind of Bernie in 2007. Like nobody, people didn't, people were not stoked for us in the Democratic Party. Was it tough slog to get those superdelegates? She had a lot of those locked up in 2008.

That was great. Lovett, where were you in 2008? Was there an agreement? Just hanging on to those superdelegates just by fingernails. That's it. Never let me go, superdelegates. Tommy, Lovett, are we doomed to relitigate 2016 for all eternity? I think, yes.

But I hope not. Look, clearly, one campaign having a say, having a greater say over staffing inside of the DNC during an active primary, a reminder, a primary no one thought was going to be as contentious as it turned out to be, is a problem. I think whether or not, you know, I think it's hard to imagine. I mean, the DNC shouldn't play favorites.

Absolutely not. It's wrong to have an agreement where you get to staff the DNC. It just is. So the DNC... It's wrong. So the DNC should absolutely not play favorites, and I think one of the most important things

that should come out of this is making clear that in the future, no fundraising agreement should come with these kinds of strings attached, not because it necessarily had any impact on the outcome. I don't think, look, the communications team at the DNC, with all of their many powers... Listen, you swamp people, though.

Question for you. Who had a similar role at the RNC? Sean Spicer. So I want you to imagine the Sean Spicer of the left pulling the strings and determining the democratic nominee in 2016 I don't think so

but regardless of whether or not it had any impact on the outcome I think two things one of the ways in which we can heal the divide is by making sure that every voice feels like it's represented that nobody's shut out of the process that what we're having is a debate in which the deck isn't stacked against the left of the party

or the center left of the party, that, oh, that's not a reasonable idea, that's a crazy idea, that's too left, that's too different. Donald Trump is president. We should widen the ambit of what we consider to be possible. Yeah, I think,

I'm glad we walked through the fact pattern of this because I think it ultimately speaks to the fact that I don't think it had a huge impact on the outcome of the race. I think we as a bunch of people who work for Barack Obama should also concede that after the 2012 election, we saddled the DNC with several million dollars in debt that they

were working to dig themselves out of and we compounded that by transferring a bunch of money to the DSCC in 2014 that made it tougher. We raised the money. We also raised the money too. I'm sorry, we raised the money. We also raised the money, too. Don't whisper. I'm sorry. We raised the money. We got ourselves out of debt.

But that's why the DNC signs these fundraising agreements to the Clinton campaign and needed to raise all this cash. So I don't think it was a huge deal, but it was worth talking through. Sorry. I just want to make one other thing. Look, the idea that this turned the election, I think, is absurd. However, I think put aside this one case of whether or not there was a side agreement about staffing, which I think is definitely something we have to get to the bottom of, I think the larger concern that I think is very reasonable is that there was an expectation

that this is what a nominee looks like, this is what a nominee sounds like, this is who the nominee is going to be, this is the process, this is how the establishment kind of weeds out people who maybe have a different direction for the party or a different idea of what's possible, a different idea of what's practical, a different idea of what's electable. And I think one of the most important things we can do going forward is leveling the playing field so that all these voices are heard, not because there's going to be some new side agreement. I think probably something Keith Ellison is going to tell us is that that's not going to happen again, But not just that there's not a contract

that the establishment candidate picks the people at the DNC. Transparency. Which is why we need comprehensive campaign finance reform. That we are open to new people, new ideas, new points of views, and new directions. And I think that is the single most important thing we can do. I think there's an important point here too,

which is, whenever you think about what happened to DNC in 2016, and I think if you were a Bernie person, you have a right to be angry about it, because the DNC has to avoid even the perception of putting their thumb on the scale for one of the candidates. But whatever you think about what happened, and we can and probably will relitigate it until the day we die, but is that there are new people at the DNC. Tom Perez is in charge. We have a new, there are new staff. Keith Ellison, one of Bernie's top supporters, is the vice chair. And so, you know, Tom Perez put out, he put out, he sent a letter to the DNC members last night

making the point that joint fundraising agreements happen. They were offered every candidate. They are normal. But whatever happens in 2020, it will be a transparent process for everyone. And that's what we have to hope for, because the DNC is important, but it's not so important that it should be the hill that we die on in the democratic civil war. Yes. Well, look, I wanted to bring this up and talk about this because like, I think as a party, we're going to have to get used to, in this Twitter age, in this social media age to have an agreement that favored one candidate, but also it's wrong to suggest that Hillary Clinton won the nomination because she got to put some staffers in the DNC. Totally.

Because she won by four million votes. Yeah. So, like, I think you have to be able to say, like, yeah, if I was a Bernie person, I would be pissed at what happened. But if I was Hillary, I'd say, like, yeah, well, I still won the election. You know, like, I think. And also. And that's okay. It's okay to believe both of those things.

You know what? After we solve the transparent DNC joint fundraising process, we have another big problem, which is we've lost every fucking election. Holy shit. I don't care how transparent the DNC is. We need to figure out why we lost the White House, the Senate, the House, the state houses, and the governorships.

So Bernie versus Hillary is the least of our problems. Next topic. Okay. Well, no, not next topic, Tommy. Because when we come back, Dan and Levin are going to talk about this more with DNC Vice Chairman Keith Ellison, who's going to tell us how to fix all of this. Our next guest represents Minnesota's 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected in 2006 as the first Muslim to serve in Congress. He co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus

And he is the Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee Please welcome Congressman Keith Ellison What's up? Congressman, thank you for being here Good to be here, man At our live show Oh yeah We talked about you dressed down because this is not a suited event.

This is how I always dress, man. All right. So, obviously, we've been talking about this Donna Brazile story about the fundraising agreement and the side agreement over staffing at the DNC. Was it news to you when you saw it? Did you know that that had happened? No, I didn't. But, you know, the fact is, is we have to deal with the fact that people have been hurt and have been suspecting that one candidate in the primary may have had an advantage over the other. But my view is we got to deal with it. We got to explore it. And then we got to move out

strong, you know, because we got a lot of really important elections coming up as early as Tuesday. But I will say, John, you know, you can't really heal a wound that's not cleaned out. So I do believe we have to commit to reform. And I know that Tom is committed to it. I'm committed to it. And we have to embrace the Unity Commission. But then after that Tom is committed to it. I'm committed to it. And we have to embrace the unity commission. But then after that, we've got to come together and get out there and win some elections. Yeah. So I think there's this tension between not wanting to, you know, Donald Trump is going to go out there and take advantage of this. He's going to say, oh, it was rigged. It was rigged. You know, and he's going to watch what Democrats like you say about this and try to exploit it. But at the same time, I think, as you were saying, we need to make

sure that we're cleaning out this wound. Lovely metaphor. It's not gross. But so to Bernie Sanders supporters and to others who maybe feel outside of the, whatever, the center left of the party, the establishment of the party, they're seeing this and they're saying, this is what we said all along. We said it was rigged. Bernie found out about this from Donna Brazile before the party, the establishment of the party. They're seeing this and they're saying, this is what we said all along. We said it was rigged. Bernie found out about this from Donna Brazil before the election, but he kept it under his hat because he cared about the future of the country. And yet he got vilified for what he did. Was the Democratic primary rigged? And what do you say to reassure the people that feel alienated from the way the party has made decisions in the past? John, it wasn't fair if one candidate in the primary had the prerogative to appoint staff.

We should just admit that and move on. We should correct it. We should rectify it. But it doesn't profit us to say, oh, it wasn't rigged and argue over whether it was rigged or not rigged. It wasn't fair. And I think we should pledge to never do this again. And that is really the most important thing here. Because at the end of the day, we have so much more in common than we have with these folks who are trying to push this horrible tax bill down the throats of the middle class. I mean, but it doesn't, it does not profit us to act like, to sweep this thing under the rug. Let's just really deal with it in an affirmative, clear way, admit that it shouldn't

happen, pledge that it will never happen again. And, you know, the unity commission process is coming up. And I think that this is a very clear opportunity to really move out strong in the direction of rectifying some other things that need to be corrected. I do believe in reform when it comes to superdelegates. 700 superdelegates or unpledged delegates should not be able to just seem to set a certain trajectory in the race early on. We've got to reform that. You know, we've got to, now, it is the prerogative of the states to have a primary or a caucus, but I think the DNC should say that we believe open primaries are preferred and important. And you take a state like, John, you take a state like New York, you've got to be registered six months before the election

to participate in that election. I think in Minnesota, we don't do it New York, you've got to be registered six months before the election to participate in that election. I think in Minnesota, we don't do it that way. We've got same-day voter registration, and it works great. That really hurt Ivanka and Don Jr. at the time. Not a huge problem, not the small fish, but still, that happened. It happened. I want to push you on one thing. There are two possible ideas here.

One is that what happened at the DNC is wrong and unfair. And the other idea, which some have taken from Donna's book, is that the election was stolen from Bernie. And so do you believe that what happened at the DNC stole the election from Bernie? I believe that it is impossible to know what the outcome would have been if the rules would have been different. Now, look, I know some of y'all don't agree with that. I've heard the... Don't boo Orhis. No, no. How about... Listen like adults. But look, I'm standing on that because I'm one of those people who believe that if everything is not straight up from the beginning, how then would you possibly know

what the finish would be? But look, it's all, it's a 26, we're not here to redo 2016 primary. I'm not here to redo the 2016 primary. You know, when, you know, I ran for the chair of the DNC. It didn't come out the way I had hoped. Tom Perez said, hey, man, join me as the deputy chair. I said, absolutely, man, let's do this thing together. And we've been fighting that way ever since. I'm asking people, but we did it on the basis of honesty and forthrightness. We had a lot of debates. We talked about issues. We talked about our vision. We found that we had a shared vision about grassroots organizing, going to every zip code in this country. You know, skip this thing where we only go to the battleground states. Let's

go to every state. And so we believe in that. And so that was a basis for unity. But I'm not going to be here to tell you, oh, it for sure would have been how it was, because I don't know that. I think what you bring up involving Tom is important. And, like, I hear so much from our listeners and people we talk to about, I love the Democrats, but the DNC is corrupt, right? The DNC is broken. It's not.

Right, this is what I want to ask you. As one of Bernie Sanders' most fervent supporters, can you help make the case to people who may feel upset about what happened in 2016, about why they should join with you and Tom Perez going forward with the DNC? Well, we want you to help us and join this Democratic Party because we are reaching out to the grassroots and every zip code in this country. We're no longer, we have changed the mission. We're no longer just a presidential party. We are an every race party. That's why, that's why Dan, I'm down there,

I'm down there in Charlotte trying to fight for Vi Lyles to be mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina. That's why Tom has been all over Virginia fighting for candidates up and down the valley, including in the House of Delegates. We got to take the House of Delegates back. We're only 17 down. We can get those. So we are fighting all over.

And we used to be more of an every four years party. We used to ramp up every four years. But now, man, we are fighting every single day because there's an election every year. And in some states, it feels like every month. But we got to be in all these elections, the state, the city, all of them. This is a party you can feel being part of. We are reforming. We are cleaning out the old. We are bringing in the new. And our new commitment is that we want to reach out to everybody. We want everybody who voted for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton. Hey, we're even coming after the people who voted

for Jill Stein. We want them all. We want them all. Maybe some of those Trump voters too. You know what? I tell you, it's funny, man. I was talking to some guy about it. He said, you know, I voted for Trump, but the first two times I voted for that color guy. about it. He said, you know, I voted for Trump, but the first two times I voted for that color guy. I said, hey man, whatever dude, we need you. Vote for us this time, you know what I mean? And so, and it's funny, he couldn't even call Obama's name, but he voted for him, which is the most important thing. So my point is that, so my point is that we, So my point is that we, Trump attacked us from the left and the right. He went, he was anti-immigrant and pretty racist in my view.

And on the other hand, he said jobs, infrastructure, fair trade. And that's hitting us on both sides. We have got to claim that we are a party of working Americans. We are a party of equal opportunity. We are a party of equal opportunity. We are a party of human rights for everybody. We believe in the dignity of all people. And we're going to fight for that kind of stuff. And we are always, always going to be about it. But it's going to start with building a relationship with every American. We're not going to just come see you every fourth October. We're going to come all the time, every month. And you guys are at this.

You've been doing this. If you show up at that pastor's church in October of the election year, they kind of look at you like, we know what you're doing here, and there must be an election because otherwise you wouldn't be here. We are fighting that image by being there all the time, working with those congregations in terms of like payday lending and immigration reform and equality of all kinds and employing folks to help us fight for DACA recipients, which is a real battle coming up. This is the thing, man. The Democratic Party is not for the Democrats. It's for the American people. We are an agency that is dedicated to asserting the values of economic opportunity for working people

and human rights and civil rights for all people. That's who we are, and we want you if you believe in those ideals. So, that's a good segue into one final question. Roy Moore. Roy Moore. In Alabama. Not a fan, John. So he has said that Muslims shouldn't be serving in Congress. He said specifically I should not be serving. You personally.

As a Muslim in Congress. As a Muslim. He was speaking about you. Yeah. I heard about that. And not only, it's not just about Roy Moore, it's about the Republican Party lining up behind this person, right? It's Mitch McConnell, Cory Gardner, John Cornyn in Texas. The leaders of the Republican Party have lined up behind this person. What do you do with that? They're lining up behind a person

that thinks because of your religion, you don't belong in Congress. Well, you do with that? They're lining up behind a person that thinks because of your religion, you don't belong in Congress. Well, you know, John, that's the problem with Trump. It's not just him. It is the sort of folks that he calls out of the woodwork. I mean, it's Roy Moore, but it's also the guy who beat up a reporter in Washington, in Montana, excuse me. It's also him making this false equivalency between the KKK and the neo-Nazis and people who are protesting them. He is creating a ugly, damaging, corrosive atmosphere, and that is what we have to stand against.

That's why I really like your show, because you guys are not afraid of standing on these core beliefs that we all count and we all matter. You can't kill us with kindness. Liberty and justice for all. I want to know, but I want... Mitch McConnell in the Senate, he is, you know, you see him on the Hill. He's gotten behind someone who says, you don't belong in Congress because of your religion.

What do you say to him? I say to him that he does not stand on his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. And look, the Constitution says there shall be no religious test. It's in there. It's written in there. The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or a bridge to free exercise thereof. If they don't stand up for my right as a Muslim to be in Congress, then they don't stand up for the Constitution at all. And so, look, this is a new, let me just tell you guys, we got a new Democratic Party. Tom is doing all he can. He's tireless.

He's running all over the country. I'm running all over the country. Blake is running all over. All of the officers are and DNC members are. We need everybody to join with us to turn this thing around, not just turn the Democratic Party around, turn the whole country around

and uphold these values of economic opportunity for everybody and human rights and dignity for everybody. That's what we believe in. We'll leave it there. Guys, give it up for Congressman Keith Ellison. Thank you so much. All right. As the congressman mentioned,

we have an election in Virginia on Tuesday. Dan, I want to start with you. Ed Gillespie is a creature of Washington who lobbied for every corporate boogeyman, including Enron. Yep. He's aligned with Republicans on taking away people's health insurance to pay for huge tax cuts for him and his rich friends. And yet somehow, a couple days out from the election and for the last couple weeks, we've been talking about sanctuary cities, which Virginia doesn't even have. What's going on here? Why did the race turn out like this? Well, I think the first question is, why is the race close? The reason it's close is all races are close now. Virginia is sort of right now the quintessential swing state. And Democrats have done very well there in recent years,

whether it's electing Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Barack Obama winning it twice. People like Virginia senators here. Or Hillary Clinton won that state by a good margin. But it's still a very close race. And Ed Gillespie is terrible. He is terrible. And he is everything that Donald Trump ran against when he talked about the swamp.

But so Ed Gillespie can't run as who he really is, which is super lobbyist Ed Gillespie. He is trying to run as Donald Trump Jr. And so he has been struggling. Not actually Donald Trump Jr. Yes. He actually is killing adorable wildlife right now. And so what he's trying to do is he needs to get, he's the kind of guy that Trump voters would hate, right?

So he's trying to appeal to those voters by sort of hitting what we always call sort of the right-wing erogenous zones, right? Like the, you know. Okay, we are chock-a-block with gross metaphors. Whether it's Confederate monuments, whether it's this basic idea that somehow Ralph Northam is bringing MS-13 gang members into the city,

through the trunk of his car. And so he's trying to get those Trump voters out, right? Because that is what the Republican Party has come down to now, is an attempt to get those Trump voters full stop. Alyssa, what issues do you think that the Democrats should be focused on in this race? What should we be talking about? So for anyone who can't see my sweater, it's not the University of Texas hook them horns. It's a uterus. That's right. Love it. That's what a uterus looks like.

I thought it was a cartoon moose. It's not a cartoon moose. This, so everyone who doesn't know, and ladies, you've seen The Handmaid's Tale, okay? It's coming. It's coming. And Ed Gillespie believes, and I would like to know how he feels about the tax reform bill. Oh, he's for it. Oh, yeah. Because here's why. If you don't know, Ed Gillespie does not believe any abortion should be legal. Any. Okay? Correct. That is an acceptable boo. Okay. So he doesn't think any abortion should be

acceptable. The University of Notre Dame has just stopped protecting, exactly, no more birth control. And the Republicans in the tax reform bill have just eradicated the adoption tax credit. So I don't really know how they think things happen. Because if you can't afford to adopt a baby, you can't have birth control, and you can't have an abortion. Sounds like we're on the fast track to fucking Shitsville. Tommy, what do you think? My body, my choice.

You're welcome. The only thing I want to say about this race is I don't feel good about it. I don't like seeing races closed like this where the polls are all over the place, but the general trajectory is not in the direction we want. It seems like these vicious, scummy, race-baiting MS-13 ads that Gillespie is running are working because they have tied Northam up in knots, and he is now talking about this issue, and it has become the focus of an election

that should have nothing to do with these things. I mean, Ed Gillespie, like Dan was saying, is like the world's dirtiest lobbyist. If you lobby for Enron, you have problems. He was taking money from anyone who would give him money. Paul Manafort may take issue with that. Paul Manafort will. Paul will, yeah, gentlemen's agreement to agree to disagree.

But so the point here, though, is we shouldn't just tell ourselves everything's going to be okay. Everyone in this room has agency. We all are close to Virginia right now. You can all go to Northern Virginia tomorrow and the next day and volunteer and knock on doors and call your friends and give money. And, like, we have time. There's time left to do it. So we're going to do it. We're going to be there on Sunday night.

We're going to canvas on Monday. We hope to see everybody in this room there because it's too fucking important not to. I think this is so important because... So a few days ago, Northam said, Ralph Northam said, you know, that he has always been against sanctuary cities even though they don't exist in Virginia. And this has led some voters on the left to say they're not going to vote for

Northam anymore. They're withholding their support. Lovett, what do you say to those voters? I think that... You know what, you just, you hiss at them and then things are better. Yeah. I'm going to ignore the hissing. You hiss at them and then things are better. I'm going to ignore the hissing. I think that there is a time and place for a very big and vigorous debate on the left about where we compromise and where we don't,

where our lines are, where we draw them. Three days before the election is not the time to draw that line. You can't... This is an incredibly important election. The difference between Ed Gillespie and Northam is not just a tremendous difference in terms of the policy outcomes for the people of Virginia. It has national implications. It has implications for redistricting. It has implications for a whole host of things that will affect this country. And so to draw a line in the sand now, even if you have a very legitimate disagreement, I think is not right. No, I mean, look, it's a year after Donald Trump was elected.

How many people, how many people in the center left, on the left, on the far left, would rather see, with all her flaws, Hillary Clinton as president right now instead of fucking Donald Trump. How many times do we have to go through this test again? And it's like you said, it's like, you know what else is at stake in Virginia? If Ralph Northam wins, that could be 400,000 people who have Medicaid who didn't have it before. It's a huge fucking deal.

And it's like, if Ralph Northam doesn't agree with you on one issue, then that's one issue that he doesn't agree with you on. And if you think Ralph Northam is trying to kind of get out of this debate and maybe acceding to some kind of racial animus, say it. You can say it. You can disagree. You don't have to fall in line and agree with every word that he says, but you can disagree and then still talk about how incredibly important it is

to keep Ed Gillespie, who's decided to run as Trump, out of statewide office in Virginia. Yeah. But also, Fabs, can I... The thing that I worry the most about is that suddenly, Ed Gillespie's being just like a little moderate, right? In the right places. And so he's been out there talking about how he believes in

criminal justice reform. That's a fucking lie. No, he doesn't. Don't buy it. And don't think that like, oh, you know what? He's not good enough, so maybe I'll go there. That's you know, enough rope to hang yourself. Yeah. And look, we've been talking about this a lot on the pod,

but Ed Gillespie's campaign has already been teaching Republicans all across the country, including in states like New Jersey, Phil Murphy's opponents doing this and everywhere else, that they can win or at least they can get close if they start running on issues like race and immigration and ignore everything else. And we have to find a way, it seems, as the Democratic Party, to figure out how to make economics and the economy an issue in this race.

Republicans just, they proposed a tax plan that is going to give trillions and trillions of dollars to corporations and make adoptive parents pay more money, students pay more money for their loans. It's going to take away a business tax credit that hires veterans. If we can't make that a fucking issue, we should just go home. You know?

And these things are very much connected. If they can succeed in using race, in using immigration, in using confederate fucking statues to keep the debate on that instead of on the issues, it makes it easier for them in using race, in using immigration, in using Confederate fucking statues. To keep the debate on that instead of on the issues, it makes it easier for them to do what they want to do, which is force through repealing of the inheritance tax and all the other giveaways

that will create a permanent aristocracy in this country that will turn around and use that money to do it again. And it also feeds this narrative. Washington becomes so enamored with these stupid political operatives like Steve Bannon and Karl Rove who are a couple thousand votes away from being idiots or geniuses. Let's be careful here.

Well, we're fine. We're sweet. But again, Steve Bannon is peddling this brand of politics that's as disgusting and divisive as you could possibly imagine. And if we lose in Virginia, it will be seen as ascendant, and it will be seen as the path forward,

and it will receive more money and more support from conventional Republicans who might otherwise have found a spine and fought against this garbage. Like, win or lose. So two points. One, Ralph Northam and the Democrats should be talking about the tax plan, because if Ed Gillespie loses on Tuesday, he will be registered to lobby for the tax plan on Wednesday.

Yes. But the question for Democrats is, how do we handle those issues? Because whether Gillespie wins or loses, this is going to be injected into every race in 2018. Yeah. And I think the key thing here is we have to learn how to take the issue head on and then pivot to better territory, right? Right.

He is, like, Ed Gillespie wants to talk about issues that don't affect the other class of Virginians, like Confederate statues, because he does not want to talk about his plan that would cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of students, people with medical expenses, et cetera. Like, we have to, we cannot be scared of these issues. Like, what does not work, to your point, is, well, I'm just going to give a little on that direction and hopefully then that will, I will appease the racists and then I can go get the votes. We have to, we have to call it off for what it is and get back to our territory.

We did not do that in 2016. I think that's, we've talked about this. We've talked about this with Trump. We've talked about this, we've talked about this over and over again, but it's sort of basic. It's the basic politics that somehow because Trump scrambled all the rules, we sort of forgotten this basic thing. Ed Gillespie's talking about statues because he doesn't have answers for your family. It's that simple A to B thing that we kind of forgot to do because Trump seems so unusual. And look, it takes, we've all been on campaigns, it takes creativity to figure out how to break through, in this day and age, the Trump circus every day. And it takes discipline to be able to say the same thing about the economy and about your economic message over and over and over again and not get thrown off track when he starts throwing a fucking MS-13 gang hat at you.

I mean, that's what it's for. I mean, we have a beef with sort of Northam making that one statement on sanctuary cities. Like, we have a beef with sort of Northam making that one statement on sanctuary cities. But for the most part in this campaign, he has been running a very focused, disciplined campaign on the issues that matter to Virginians. And so, like, this is a race we should win. Yeah. It's going to be very close. To Tommy's point, we will only win it if everyone in this audience goes out. Everyone.

Everyone. In fact, we're going to play a little game. What? Related to Virginia. This is an experiment. Now for a game we call Your Tweets Are Not Enough. Can you tell us about this? Here's how it's going to work.

There's an election in Virginia. Crooked Media is partnering with Flippable.org. We're working together to make sure that everyone in this room does their part. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to come out there. The sprite is on the move.

He's doing his Oprah impression. Still walking. He's on the loose. Love it's on the loose. We talked about them making fun of me on the way out to fill the silence. How's it going? Okay. So,

I want somebody in here to tell me what they're doing to volunteer this weekend. He's so Tony Robbins. He's so Tony Robbins, I can't handle it. Kristen, are you guys hearing that? Did you hear her say Kristen? Hi, can you't handle it. Kristen, are you guys hearing that? Did you hear her say Kristen? Hi, can you hear me?

Yes. Yes. Kristen. What are you going to do? I don't remember who it was. Nope. Nope. What's your name?

Marilee. What's it? Marilee. Marilee? Row, row, row your boat. Marilee. Yes. Okay, we'll allow it. What are you going to do to help on Tuesday in Virginia?

I'm canvassing on Sunday in Alexandria Yes Okay, I think she gets a flippable hat I'm giving a hat Alright, what else do we got? Oh, hi, what's your name? Brittany Brittany, what are you going to do?

I'm phone banking on Monday with people for the American Way. Oh, that's good. All right. Whoa. We were so much lazier. Great. I feel like I'm going to say you're going to get a T-shirt. Thank you.

Who else? All right, I'll come over there. Hi. I don't know if you're going to deliver these T-shirts. Is that running? Is somebody keeping track of where the t-shirts are supposed to go? I can't do talking everything. I have a ledger.

Hi, what's your name? Ari. Ari. I am canvassing in Centerville tomorrow and phone banking on Sunday and Monday. That's two things. Guys. Guys. I think that's going to be a parachute gift card.

Yeah! This is the weirdest thing we've ever done. Hi, what's your name? Brandon. Brandon. And I'm going to be canvassing for Danica Rome in Manassas in Virginia. Alright. What else we got? Nothing.

No. Hat. Hat. What do we got over here? I can't get to you. Alright, calm down. What's your name? My name is Marjorie. Marjorie, what are you going to do? I got a whole bunch of Bethesda moms that are going to make some calls on Monday night. That's great.

That's great. The t-shirts are following me. Anybody over here? Oh, I see somebody over there. Hi, what's your name? My name is Tara. Don't grab the mic. Oh, I'm not live. What's your name? What is it?

My name is Tara. Tara. I stole the mic at your last show. Okay, we don't want your live story. What are you going to do in the mic? What's your name? What is it? My name is Tara. Tara. I stole the mic here last show. Okay. We don't want your life story. What are you going to do in the election? And canvassing with mobilize America on Sunday. That's great. That's great. I want a couple more. What's your name? Alicia. What are you going to do? Drive people to the polls. Drive people to the polls. That's actual votes. T-shirt. Where are the men? Who are the women? I'm sorry, where are the men?

Are the men who are doing shit? First of all You've erased Brandon Who happens? I mean he's won Alright, give me a guy There we go What's your name?

Dan All right, give me a guy. All right, what's your, there we go. What's your name? Don't go too far, love it. My name's Dan. Dan. Be phone-bagging tomorrow for Flippable. Phone-bagging for Flippable. Oh, that's an inside job. That's good. That's great. I feel like you just made that up now. What do you got, anybody else?

He did just make that up now. Oh, this guy, I see a Pod Save America shirt. What are you guys going to do? Are you guys both doing stuff? We drove from New Jersey to see this. What's your name? Barthes? What's your name?

What is it? Neil. Neil and Barthes. We are canvassing for Phil Murphy on Sunday. Oh, that's sweet. Okay, that's New Jersey. That's New Jersey, but we will allow it. That counts.

We'll allow it. We'll allow it. We'll allow it. I think they can get a shirt. I want to do, what do we think? One more? Two more? A couple more.

I don't care. Somebody stop me. I'm in the crowd. A couple more. I'm going to go back to Indiana and tell Mike Pence to go fuck himself. Okay. Thank you. No shirt.

No shirt. That's a moral victory. That's basically a tweet. We're not counting it. Nothing. What else we got? Oh, hey, hi, hi, hi. I'm coming in.

I'm coming in. I'm Maria, and I'll be in Massachusetts making calls with Let America Vote with Jason Kanders. Yeah, we like that. Okay. Anybody over here? Oh, I see somebody over here. Hi, come over here.

Hi. Hi, I'm Dominique. My sister just flew in from California. Okay, that's too much detail. We're going to be on Sunday and Monday. Canvassing? Oh, thank you. Oh, give her two things.

All right, one more, one more. Hi, my name's Sierra. I flew here from Tucson, Arizona to get this this weekend for Elizabeth Guzman. That's insane. What was her name? Sierra. Sierra, guys.

Chicken dinner. How do you know they're all telling the truth? How do you hold them to this? First of all, I have a Jim Comey-like ability to suss out the truth and the fiction. I'm a real Reinhold Niebuhr type. I'm a Mueller guy.

Sierra, thank you so much. Thank you. Guys, should we do one more? One more. You're going to keep it at one more. I keep saying one more. I'm Bella, and I'm going to be canvassing in Hampton for Ralph Northam all weekend.

All right. Thank you guys so much alright so go to flippable.org to participate I'm going to call that a success I'm going to fill the time until I make it back on stage guys that's the website right there

flippable.org. You can all participate. You can all call. You can all get involved. Here's the bottom line. I know what you people do in D.C., all right? You're going to get craft beers at a place with exposed wood and Edison bulbs. Maybe take

one fucking night off of doing that again and help. Flipable.org. End of segment. How'd that go? You did great. Thanks, buddy.

Was that your cardio for the day? Yeah, that was it. Okay. Just want to make sure. That was conditioning. It was good. That was leg day. It was good. All right.

Sorry. Cool. When we come back, Tommy and I will interview the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Sally Yates. We are very lucky to have with us the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Sally Yates. Thank you so much. Thank you. What an reception. That was great. That's a lot. That's good.

I think they like you. So, Sally, we... In dark moments, I'm just going to listen to that over and over again on the broadcast. So, I think we've all watched with some trepidation as Donald Trump tweets at the Department of Justice and the FBI to take action to investigate his former political opponent, which is something you might expect in Venezuela and not the United States. You were the deputy attorney general. Now it's a guy named Rod Rosenstein. If you were Rod or Attorney General Sessions, what would you do if Trump was repeatedly calling on the Department of Justice to prosecute his former opponent? Does he have an obligation to not just refuse to do so, but to speak out publicly rather than do what he did this week, which was give a speech

extolling President Trump's commitment to the rule of law? Well, I mean, you've pointed out that the wall between the Department of Justice, like the one wall that we actually need, is something that's, you know, is a time-honored norm. It's been recognized through Democratic and Republican administrations, and it's really essential. It's part of what makes us the country that we are and not an autocracy. And, you know, when this first started at the beginning of the administration, I thought, well, maybe somebody just hadn't told him yet. That, yes, the Department of Justice is in the executive branch, but you're not the boss of them

when it comes to criminal cases. And, you know, that's really, it's not, it's a really serious thing. And instead of it getting better, it's gotten worse and seemed to have, you know, hit a crescendo even this week with his continuing to sort of treat DOJ like he thinks they're muscle for the mob or something and that they're supposed to go after his enemies and protect his friends. And so, you know, the good news out of it is despite the fact that he's been hammering at this, we don't have an indication that anybody at DOJ has acted on that,

that they've resisted. And certainly they should resist. But the damage, a lot of the damage is done just by him doing what he's doing, because it's not just whether DOJ acts on that, but it's undermining the public's confidence in the Department of Justice and whether decisions are being made just on the facts and the law and nothing else because that's how our country works. The damage is done just by him trying to use it that way. You've said that there are serious questions about the timing and motivation of Trump's decision to fire Jim Comey. If you were Robert Mueller and you were investigating whether obstruction of justice had occurred, what evidence would you be looking for?

What kind of case would you be trying to put together? Well, you know, first let me say with respect to that, that investigation couldn't be in better hands than it is with Bob Mueller. That's comforting. And I think we all need to make sure that that investigation stays in Bob Mueller's hands. Now, some of the things that the special counsel is looking at are things that either happened or we were investigating while I was at the Department of Justice. So I'm not sure Mueller needs me telling him how we ought to be investigating this. He seems to be doing okay on his own right now without my advice.

But look, I mean, he's, you can already tell that he is pulling on every thread and he's being thorough. And if there's a case to be made, he's going to make it. And likewise, if there's not a case to be made, he's going to make it. And likewise, if there's not a case to be made, he's not going to drum one up. And that's what we want him to be doing as well. One thing that drives me crazy is every time we arrest a terrorist

like we had in New York this week, this horrific act, killed eight people, injured 12. You hear this call from the right, from Lindsey Graham and John McCain, to send them to Gitmo as opposed to prosecuting them in Article III courts. And if you look at the merits, you know, I think there have been 600 convictions in Article III courts since 9-11. There have been three in military commissions. I'm just wondering, why do you think some Republicans have lost faith in our courts to deal with terrorists when we've been dealing with terrorists and other criminals for as long as we've had a nation in these courts? Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. In the three, I think there originally

were maybe like six or eight, but they got reversed in the military commissions because they don't have the same experience that the folks at DOJ do in handling these terrorism trials. 600 of a wide variety of cases. You know, I understand the feeling that you want to ensure that you get all of the intelligence and all of the information that we need to be able to keep our country safe. But we shouldn't be afraid of our constitutional protections. That's part of what makes us who we are. And, you know, the system that we have, our Article III courts, has worked really well for a long time, and we ought to be able to continue to aggressively pursue terrorists, and I think we should, while still staying true to our Constitution and the values of our country. You recently said that criminal justice reform may be on life support, but it isn't dead. How do we get it off life support?

What is the path to real criminal justice reform in this country? Well, you know, I think we made a lot of progress during the Obama administration, and certainly President Obama and Eric Holder and others were really committed to this, and we worked hard in a number of areas in policing and sentencing and prison reform. But obviously we've got an attorney general now

who looks at things very differently than we did. Sorry, it's a whole thing. So they don't just... It's all right, I love these people. They cheer. So I'm not... I love these people. They cheer. But what I think we're going to have to do, I think Attorney General Sessions is trying to take us back to the failed policies in the 80s and 90s. And that's scary. But the good news is, is that I think reform has already taken root in the states. There are red states and blue

states all across this country that are engaged in really meaningful criminal justice reform on a whole lot of different levels. And the fact of the matter is a lot more people are impacted by the state criminal justice systems than the federal system. So we would like to be able to look to our Department of Justice to lead on this. I don't think that's going to happen during the rest of this administration. So what I think we need to do is the states need to kick it up a notch.

And now they're not going to have to just continue what they're doing. They're actually going to have to lead on this issue. And we need to support them. That's great. So one last question. You're someone who had to make a very difficult decision. You were acting Attorney General.

President Trump decided to propose and throw out his Muslim ban. And you had to make the decision, do you say that the Justice Department is not going to defend this ban, or do you just resign because you are going to leave office anyway? And you decided that the Department of Justice was not going to defend the ban. This is the first Pod Save America standing ovation. Yeah, it is.

I guess my question is because there's a lot of people, there's probably... There's probably a lot of good people, good civil servants working in the government right now who may have to make decisions like that at some point. How did you make that decision? Well, you know, the decision was a difficult one. And sort of here's, in a nutshell, what it came down to is that my responsibility as acting attorney general was to protect the law and the Constitution. And it was an option for me just to resign at that

point and to say, I'm out of here, kind of you guys figure out what you're going to do, but I'm not going to be part of this. But to me, I didn't feel like I would be doing my job when I had determined that I wasn't convinced it was lawful or constitutional, and beyond that, that to defend it would require DOJ lawyers to go into court and to argue something that I didn't believe was grounded in truth, that being that this ban didn't have anything to do with religion. And I actually thought about when, in my confirmation hearing, when there were some senators that were asking me, so if the president asked you to do something that's unlawful or unconstitutional, will you say no to him? They were thinking about a different president at the time because it was President Obama. And, you know, they didn't say

if he asked you to do something unlawful, will you resign? It was, will you say no? And so, put most simply, I just felt like I needed to do my job. put most simply, I just felt like I needed to do my job. Sally Yates, thank you so much for joining us. This is really good. Now for a segment we call Yesterday. You remember Yesterday. We are approaching the one-year anniversary of Trump's election. What is the first year anniversary?

What do you get? Is it the wood? Is it wood? Paper. I love it. What are you guys, Emily Post? Who gives a shit? Trump is president.

So we wanted to play a game because over the course of the past year, amongst the many kind of world historic and epic scandals, there have been sentences and statements and moments that would have been defining in previous administrations, but that came and went because we could barely retain it because we're living in a nightmare. So we wanted to quiz somebody here

on some of the most outrageous statements that maybe we've forgotten about because so much is going on so would anybody like to play yesterday you remember yesterday Tanya's on her way down guys give it up for Tanya Somanator

Tanya if you wouldn't mind, let's find somebody who's wearing merch. Right in the front row. I see a repeal and go fuck yourself. That's not merch. That's merch. Oh, that's an I'm fine in Trump-adjusted terms? Yes.

With friends like these merch. Yes, I got merch. I got merch. What's your name? I'm Claire. What isadjusted terms. Yes. I have merch. What's your name? I'm Claire. What is it? Claire. Claire. Claire.

Hello, Claire. Claire. Hi, Claire. I'm sorry about Alyssa. Claire, have you been paying attention? I've been trying. Okay. It's hard. So, Claire, here? I've been trying. Okay. It's hard.

So, Claire, here's how the game works. Okay. I'm going to read you part of a statement by Donald Trump, current president. And I'm going to ask you to fill in the blank, but you're going to have help. Each of our panelists, John, Alyssa, Tommy, and Dan... Hey, Claire. ...are going to read you a possible answer for what could fill in that blank. It will be your job to pick.

Are you ready? I am. Are you ready to play? I am. Your first question. Blank is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I noticed. The president said.

Who was he talking about? John, who was he talking about? Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer after he lied about the size of Trump's inaugural crowds. Alyssa? Or former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn three days before he was fired. Paul Manafort after he was perp-walked on live TV.

Paul Manafort, after he was perp-walked on live TV. Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895. Claire? Frederick Douglass. It was, it was Frederick Douglass. He died in 1895. Next question, you're one for one. In a call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in speaking about immigration and relations between the United States and Australia,

Trump said, quote, this is going to kill me. I am the world's greatest person. That what? That makes deals. That does not want to let people into the country. That was totally, definitely, absolutely not helped by Russia. That figured out how to make Marco Rubio Claire the deal maker Claire you're wrong it's so fun when someone's wrong

Claire I forgive you this though because it was the craziest grammar he said I am the world's greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. Because his

vocabulary is shrinking like he's living with the 1984 dictionary. Which we all will be soon. Next question, Claire. You're going to recover. I believe in you. Thank you. Trump said this to reporter

April Ryan. He said, I tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting? Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours? Who did he assume was friends with reporter April

Ryan? John, start us off. Paul Ryan because he thought they were related. The editorial board of the New York Times. Joe and Mika. The Congressional Black Caucus. Because April Ryan is black. It's the Congressional Black Caucus. That's true.

He just assumed in one of the many moments that we've forgotten about, even though it's insane, he assumed that all black people in Washington are friends. Claire, your final question. You're two for three.

You're doing wonderfully. You've recovered. You look great in the merch. Thank you. Are you ready for your final question i am okay do you regret volunteering quite in a call with the president of mexico in january revealed in a leak this summer trump explained to his mexican counterpart how he won the state of New Hampshire. He said,

I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is what? A beautiful state with magnificent vistas. Very, very white. A drug-infested den. Close to Canada, where I'll build a wall after your wall. Claire, this is it. This is your final moment.

Why did Donald Trump believe that Donald Trump won New Hampshire in a call with a foreign leader who certainly did not bring up the Republican primaries? Because it was a drug infested den Claire you have won yesterday

you remember yesterday I think we're going to have a parachute gift card we will now maybe a flipable t-shirt I don't know how it works at the live shows give it up for Claire give it up for her panel and now we'll do Q&A.

We have time for about five questions. If you could line up right by Tanya, she's waving her hands right there on the right. Hi. Hi there. Hi. So basically... What's your name? Oh, I'm Kelsey.

Hi, Kelsey. It's my friend Catherine over there. Hey, Catherine. Hi, Kelsey. It's my friend Catherine over there. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Catherine. It's not about her. So one of the main reasons I'm a Democrat and a big old liberal is because my dad, he's

in a union and so in... Yeah, thank you. And so in Missouri, we have this piece of crap old governor named Greitens and he signed a right to work law. And so what did we do? We got enough signatures in every single congressional district to put it on the ballot next year. Who else is on the ballot? Claire McCaskill, so you know.

Great. So basically, I mean, there's other reasons I'm a Democrat, obviously, but what should we do? Because I mean, I think that union membership is a big reason why the Democratic Party has been so strong. And I kind of, I mean, I know my dad's coworkers that are like, I voted for Trump because he's orange or whatever. I don't know.

But you know what I mean? Like, these macho men that are like, well, I voted for Trump because I'm not going to vote for a liberal. So unions. Yeah. So something that happened last week that probably none of us noticed because of all this bullshit that's out there is that the Senate Democrats and House Democrats, as part of the Better Deal, added a really important policy around unions, and one of the proposals is to ban right-to-work laws nationwide. And I think it's, look, I think we have not, you know,

it's time that the Democratic Party in 2018 and 2020 starts running on a very pro-union platform and doesn't just talk about unions but actually does something to get unions strong and organized again. That's exactly right. One of the huge things that's driving the collapse of the middle class in this country and inequality is the shrinking union membership. And so as Democrats, there's a lot of things we can do, banning right to work, card check, things like that. But also unions also have to update to the new economy, right?

As people are moving from manufacturing to service, right, we need to be organizing there as well. But we're only going to get back to where we need to be if unions and Democrats work hand in hand to put in place policies that address the new modern economy. Good question. Thank you. Hi, guys.

My name is Marina. I'm a college student, and I live in Pittsburgh most of the time because I go to the University of Pittsburgh. I'm from Maryland, which is why I'm here right now. So I live in a swing state eight months out of the year or so.

I was active in the 2016 campaign. I worked on the election in Pittsburgh. But I'm going to have some free time after I graduate. So what would you guys suggest as productive things for young people to do in swing states or not in swing states? Just things that we can do to really be effective in this crazy time. What do you think, Alyssa? Is that for me? I'm always the productive one.

So here's what I would say. You guys, you know, you know. So here's what I would say. We all have to make money, right? And so the most important thing is to make sure that you have enough money in your bank account so you can pay your bills.

That's number one. Number two is find one or two things where you live that you can participate in regularly. You know, like when I was much younger, I had to work at restaurants and I was a babysitter and I was a nanny and I did all that stuff. But I did something. I actually was an intern for Bernie Sanders. And I just showed up. I showed up every Wednesday morning. I showed up every Thursday night. And so it doesn't take... I don't want people to think that participation means

you have to take this vow of poverty. You're going to volunteer on campaigns. You don't have to do it. You just have to pick something you care about. And it may not be a candidate. It could be the school board. It could be Planned Parenthood. Whatever you... Exactly. whatever you feel passionate about, just be able to support yourself and then find one or two things that you can do every week that make you engaged in

your community. Hi, my name is Jeremy and my question specifically is about the Russia stuff, but also applies kind of more broadly in that we've seen kind of a continual moving of the goalposts where it started out as there was no Russian, there were no contacts with Russian officials, and then it became, well, there were, but we didn't talk about policy, and now we're all the way down to, well, yes, he met with Russian officials and he talked about policy and he talked about emails, but it was just George Papadopoulos, so it doesn't matter. How do you suggest we push back against the continual moving of what the bar is for unacceptable behavior on collusion or otherwise? I would attack the premise of your question. Of course. For this specific reason.

The reason that they've had to move the goalposts is not because Democrats have been brilliant about how we message around Russia. They've had to move the goalposts because of the legal system and the ongoing special prosecutor and the many charges now filed against the campaign manager, campaign ads, and others. So I think that

for all the ways in which Trump is lying every single day about Russia and then tweeting about Hillary and cricket Hillary and all the rest to try to distract. The facts are still the facts. Paul Manafort has a trial date. It's now set for May of 2018.

And I think as much as we would like to think that we are central players in the story of Russia, the truth is we have a much bigger impact that we can have right now around tax reform, something that we've been talking about a lot. We've all, you know, people in this room that had very, very little impact on the work of Robert Mueller, but they had

a lot of impact on stopping several healthcare bills. So, I think calling a lie a lie, keeping people accountable to those lies, calling out when things like Uranium One, which is a totally made-up and bullshit scandal, starts coming up again because they need some kind of a distraction,

being rigorous around that, being disciplined around that, but not forgetting that there's places where we can really help and really focus, and there's places where we're sort of a little bit at the mercy of events, too. I think there's another... I won't attack the premise of the question, but I'll test it, right? Which is the idea that you,

is that Trump lies, his people lie, they're getting more trouble, and quote unquote, nothing matters, right? Well, let's be very clear. Trump has passed none of his agenda. His approval rating is at a level that if Barack Obama ever had those levels,

we would have jumped out the windows of the White House. And so it matters. But people seem to want immediate, like we want to be caned in the town square right away. There is a cumulative impact of all the things he's doing, whether it's Russia, the general corruption, his policies. Democrats should not lose heart that we haven't solved all the problems right now whether it's Russia, the general corruption, his policies. And so we should, like, people, Democrats should not lose heart that we haven't solved all the problems right now

because the people, except for the Trumpace, get what's happening. Super good. Hey, y'all. My name's Jordan. I wrote my question down because I know y'all like concise questions. I'm sorry.

Excellent. Let's see how it goes. I figured. I'm Jewish,. I'm sorry. Excellent. Let's see how it goes. I figured. I'm Jewish and I'm also from Tennessee, which means I know a lot of Jewish Trump voters. And the main reason when asked why they did so was because he's extremely pro-Israel. And after listening to the pod Save the World

from this past week, it had me thinking a lot. It was a hell of an episode, right? It was really great. Let's do a plug for George Mitchell on pod Save the World from this past week, it had me thinking a lot. It was a hell of an episode, right? It was really great. Let's do a plug for George Mitchell on Pod Save the World. I'm glad I could help with the marketing. So after listening to that pod, I was thinking about it a lot, and my question is, how do we combat the rights rhetoric about Trump and him being extremely pro-Israel

and how he does so much for the Jewish people when in reality he sent his, you know, 30-year-old son-in-law to, you know, solve the Middle East peace crisis and he's a dotty old racist with, like, legit Nazi supporters. A plus question. I think... This is a V tour. I think your question probably answers the question better than my answer,

but I will persist. Donald Trump couldn't find Israel on a map with half an hour and Google open on his laptop. The thing that's so frustrating about this issue is Barack Obama said things about the Arab-Israeli peace process that Ronald Reagan had said, George H.W. Bush had said, George W. Bush had said, Bill Clinton had said, but suddenly it was treated like the most horrific thing ever uttered

when Barack Obama said it. So that's just a thing to know about this process. The idea that Barack Obama was somehow anti-Israel is utter bullshit. In fact, Bibi Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu, who was Donald Trump before Donald Trump was Donald Trump, said that the U.S.-Israeli military cooperation

was better under Barack Obama than any other president in history. We gave them $3 billion a year in military hardware and assistance. We funded another program called the Iron Dome, which literally saved lives by keeping rockets from landing on Israeli citizens. So I think understanding the history of the peace process and the conflict is very important in talking about the fact that Democrats actually are far more in line with your average Israeli in terms of basic values around democracy and education and healthcare and all the things that we care about and support as Democrats, I think are more in sync with what Israeli

voters care about too. So I think you can sort of push back on this idea that Donald Trump is doing anything for Israel. As you said, he sent his 12-year-old nepotistic dilettante son over there to solve the peace process. Son-in-law, thank you very much. I get confused. Still a dilettante. Yeah. Thank you. I think Favreau has a better chance of creating a peace process than Jared Kushner. I agree. Thank you for the question.

Hi. My name's Andy. I'm from Wellesley, Massachusetts. All right. Go Red Sox. Go Red Sox. I have a question that seems a little outdated right now because there's just so much going on. But I have a question about Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All proposal. As I understand it, one of the most popular

components of Medicare is our Medicare Advantage plans, where private insurance companies can provide extra services to people that are not currently provided under Medicare and often provide tailored services to people with specific chronic disease or disability. And I'm wondering, I hear what you guys are saying when you say that we shouldn't whitewash our policies to try to make them sort of overly palatable in modern America or try to make them overly politically popular and we should just fight for what we believe in. But I'm wondering to what extent do you think the over-politicization of the healthcare debate currently is forcing us to sort of fail

to consider the positive services that the private insurance industry can pay for and provide to individuals that currently can't be provided or aren't provided by the federal government itself. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would be lying if I said that I was an expert in Medicare Advantage, but I think that the debate that you're talking about, about what role the private sector will play in whatever future democratic policy proposal on healthcare is sort of central

to the debate right now. And I think the bands of that debate run from Medicare for all, where every single person will have access to Medicare, or some kind of a public option, which is a Chris Murphy proposal that makes sure that everybody has access to Medicare. But if you're happy with your private insurance, you'll be able to keep it. I think the debate that you want to have is the debate that Democrats are probably going to have in the next Democratic primary. And it's a really hard and important conversation. I think one thing every person on this stage knows with intimate experience is how complicated and difficult healthcare is, especially when it comes to what people currently have, because people are very precious and protective about

the healthcare they receive when they like it. And there's something that makes this debate really difficult. But I think the point that you're raising about the ways in which the private sector might provide services that people like and want to keep is a totally reasonable and important part of that conversation. So I, yeah, I think that it's interesting. One of the reasons that Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act tried to originally propose a public option is, and one of the reasons that you see people like Chris Murphy and a lot of other senators still proposing a public option as a transition between a private insurance system and a single payer system is because it actually allows for that competition that you're talking about.

So if people have a choice between private insurers and a public option that's run by the government, if they like what the private insurer is offering, and if the private insurance industry really is so good, if it really can provide affordable, high-quality care, then it will win that competition. But if it can't, if the government can actually provide cheaper care that's still really good quality care, then the government option will win out, and it'll end up squeezing the private insurance industry out anyway. And so you end up having this public option that becomes a transition between the private insurance industry we have now and a single-payer plan. And that might ultimately be the best way to transition to a single-payer plan, because then you don't

have to tear down the whole system right away. You actually have some time to get people into it. Thank you for your question. Guys, before we go, we've obviously told you, please vote on Tuesday. That's huge. But beyond Tuesday, there's something else you can do. We talked a lot about tax reform tonight and everyone here and so many people who listened to the pod did so much and were so effective in trying to stop the Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act. We can do that again with tax reform. If you're in D.C., sign up with moveon.org to get text alerts when a protest is coming together at the Capitol. And if you text the word ACTION to 668-366, they will let you know when there is a protest right here in D.C.

And you can go and help stop tax reform because this thing might not pass. They don't have all the votes and it's actually a really big deal. So please help as much as you can. Thank you. You've been a great crowd. We love you, DC. Thank you.