Pod Save America - “Zombie Correspondents’ Dinner.”

Episode Date: May 1, 2018

Michelle Wolf destroys democracy with jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Trump moves closer to withdrawing from the Iran deal. Then CNN’s Jake Tapper joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to talk about politics, the press, Trump, and his new book, The Hellfire Club. And DeRay Mckesson calls in to talk about Seattle’s move to abolish marijuana convictions, and the brand new season of Pod Save the People. 

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm the shattered remains of DC after a comedian made a few jokes. I'm Tommy. On the pod today, our interview with CNN host and author of the new novel, The Hellfire Club, old friend of the pod, Jake Tapper. Hellfire Club, I feel like that's a nickname for what the Washington Press Corps is trying to do to Michelle Wolf. You got it. You got it.

Jake was here in studio earlier today. It was such a great conversation. It went a little long, and we're just going to make it most of the pod. He was like a co-host today. Yeah, we had a great time with Jake. Well, look. It's good when you get a rookie broadcaster in the room for the first time, and he's a natural. He was like a co-host today. Yeah, we had a great time with Jake. Well, look. It's good when you get a rookie broadcaster in the room for the first time

and he's a natural. He was like a duck to water, that Jake Tapper. You know, he could relate to one of those terribly offensive jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders because Jake is famous for throwing softballs. Oh boy. Isn't the joke

there that it's the opposite? So we're good.'re good he has tough questions let's not get meta we're not Michelle wolfing you you got some tickets to love or leave it everyone go on the website oh yeah go to this is the last chance to get tickets for the Pittsburgh Baltimore and Columbus shows that are this

weekend and they're gonna be awesome we're gonna do a special show about social media that'll be in uh Columbus and in Baltimore and then we have a great show lined up for Pittsburgh too so get some tickets I think Pittsburgh may be sold out but I don't know fantastic this weekend go get it this weekend and we had an awesome love to leave it with Larry Wilmore and Grace Parra and Paul Downs and Travis Helwig did a rant Nagin Farsad was there. It was delightful. Delightful. Also on the pod today, we'll be talking to the host of Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson.

Okay. Comedian Michelle Wolfe destroyed journalism and reelected Donald Trump on Saturday night by making jokes about the fact that his White House press secretary lies every day. Did I pretty much get that right? Yeah. Covered it. So Michelle told some jokes. Michelle, who is a guest on Love It or Leave It. Friend of the pod.

Friend of the pod. Delightful. Delightful. Wonderful comedian. Incredibly funny. Incredibly talented. We all just actually watched it for the first time in the office. She made jokes about the press.

She made jokes about reporters. She made jokes about Hillary Clinton, about Democrats, Trump, Trump's staff, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. That was the subject of all the consternation. So she makes these jokes, the Trump jokes and the Huckabee jokes. They piss off some Republicans. It all sort of kicks off on Twitter Saturday night with Matt Schlapp, the head of CPAC, who tweeted, my wife, Mercedes Schlapp, and I walked out early from the White House Correspondents

Dinner. Enough of elites mocking all of us. He is a Koch brothers lobbyist who left 10 minutes early and then went to the after party which is actually just like a smart move yeah right i've done that to the dinner get out of there early get to the after parties sean spicer said it was a disgrace and takes one he takes one to no one uh so that was all fine that i also respect of course they're going to do that but then all the reporters jumped in and they were very upset. Peter Baker said, unfortunately, I don't think we advanced the cause of journalism tonight.

Jeff Zeleny agreed it was an embarrassment in the room and surely to the audience at home. Mika Brzezinski, Andrea Mitchell said that Michelle Wolf owes an apology to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Chris Eliza is very upset. What do you guys make of all this? I'm so sick of us pretending that we're shocked by these jokes every single year. Like, I get it. If you know someone personally, even if you don't like them, and someone says something to them that kind of is mean about their appearance or whatnot, it's totally fine to be personally offended by that. It is ludicrous to pretend that this dinner is about the First Amendment.

It is not. You can't, though, say that this is about the First Amendment and then say, but your joke was too mean. If you don't see the obvious contradiction there, you're an idiot. And on top of that, like, so, you know, we talk about this with Jake as well. If your issue is basic decency and that Trump doesn't treat people well and we should call him out for it, we should call this comedian for doing so, too. That's fine by me. But, like, give me a break that we shouldn't call these people for lying brazenly for a living every day and getting famous and making money down the road off it. Give me a goddamn break.

Yeah. I mean, look, it was she spoke for like 18 minutes. It was a tight set. Sometimes people go too long. Too long. But and so there's this quiz. Oh, it was crass or it was vulgar in some way. Well, you know, she's talking about a vulgar and crass administration.

She's talking about porn stars, which is talking about grabbing people by the pussy. She is using the words of the president that deserve to be called out now. And so there was a bunch of right wing people that were like, oh, it was vulgar and crass beyond measure. Okay, guys, give us a break. We know what you defend every single day. We know what Sean Spicer defended every day, the kind of personal attacks he looked like. All these people are ridiculous. Now, single day. We know what Sean Spicer defended every day, the kind of personal attacks he looked by. All these people are ridiculous. Now, if you want to isolate two Sarah Huckabee Sanders jokes, that there is a debate about whether they may have in some way been at least partially referencing her opinions. If that is ultimately what we're talking about, an 18-minute set of

jokes about literally everyone, Democrat or Republican, reporters and politicians, everybody. And you want to say, okay, two of these jokes, to my mind, may have gone too far. That's what we're going to debate for two days. That's why the White House Correspondents Association is issuing an apology. That's why Axios is saying that Donald Trump won the evening. Because you're saying maybe two jokes out of what, a hundred jokes, may have in some way referenced a person's appearance. jokes may have in some way referenced a person's appearance a woman who works for a person who insults people based on their appearance every single fucking day yeah like here's where it went over the line for me if you do not like a joke that is fine if you don't think a joke is funny no big deal if you think a joke is mean that's fine too everyone's entitled to their opinion to

say that joke wasn't funny that joke's mean Where it drives me fucking nuts is that we go from people offering their opinions about the jokes to saying that this is giving Trump a win. That this is not advancing the cause of journalism. When the fuck was the last time we advanced the cause of journalism at a White House Correspondents' Dinner? Never. Right, and some Trump officials or the spouses of Trump officials stormed out and said they were done being mocked by elites. You are the elites. The comedian was speaking on behalf of the rest ranting hour and 15 minute tirade where they chanted lock her up. And he threatened to release secret dirt on the United States senator. Like there are more important things to be offended about Washington. But yeah, we're on day seven of this idiocy.

I can't. It is so embarrassing for the White House Correspondents Association to have invited Michelle Wolf. They knew her comedy. You can see it on Netflix. for the White House Correspondents Association to have invited Michelle Wolf. They knew her comedy. You can see it on Netflix. They know what she does. And when they invited her, they put out a statement praising her truth-to-power style.

And Margaret Tulloch said, her, quote, feminist edge make her the voice right now. And then last night, this is what the statement says. The program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment

to a vigorous press, and the speaker did not do. The speaker's message was not unifying. It's like, you know like you know what you're the press though it's not the press's job to host an event that is fucking unifying their job is to report the facts their goal is the truth their goal is not unity their goal is not civility and their goal is not to persuade republicans that they're objective their goal is to be objective. This is the difference. It's like they cannot get out of this mindset that their job is to come off as balanced above all else. That is not their job.

The job is to report the truth. When you have a gangrenous limb, the goal is not to unify with it. It's to get it off. It's the obsession. You know, like it just goes to show that like working the refs works. Republicans have been working the refs for decades now and they have done a fantastic job because in the reporter's

minds all the time in way too many washington reporters minds is this idea like i have to be very careful because i do not want to be seen as biased that is that's the worst sin possible the thing that offended me the most had this weekend when I was scrolling through Twitter or looking through an email and someone just shoved a photo of the mooch and Michael Avenatti, Storm and Daniel's lawyer, like, you know, bumming around together. Like one was like holding the other and has fist up like he was a boxer. That chumminess that you have an idiot who worked in Washington for 10 days before he got canned. who worked in Washington for 10 days before he got canned. You have a lawyer who just loves to be on TV and they come together and they find common ground

at this celebration of self-importance. That shit drives me crazy. That is why people hate Washington. It's not because someone told a mean joke. It's also because it makes people at home watch these cable news shows where everyone's yelling at each other and they yell at each other on cable

on these news shows and then they see them at the correspondence center and they're all buddy buddy and they're like cosplay so was the whole thing a fucking act like do you not really believe the things that you're saying on tv because you're all buddy buddies now it's also michelle wolf like okay she used some vulgar language she made some vulgar references her message what she was addressing kind of the spirit of what she said wasn wasn't vulgar at all. There is a morality to what she was saying. There's a kind of an ethic to her jokes about speaking truth to power, about pointing out hypocrisy, pointing out lies, pointing out people who are not serving their country, who are doing the wrong thing all the time. Washington right now is vulgar.

Our political culture is vulgar and crass and broken and disgusting it's disgusting what's happening in washington is gross beyond measure every single day and the fact that there's a room full of people who wanted to put on tuxedos and nice dresses and pretend that wasn't true for a night i'm sorry that this comedian shook you from that i'm sorry that that you wanted to pretend that we were still in 2012 when we had a president who was a decent human being and you could take a joke without losing his shit who was respectable.

But we're not. We've all been to the dinner. There was definitely a time where I thought, okay, there's some value to bringing together people who wouldn't necessarily talk and you have a drink

with the guy who works for Paul Ryan or a reporter you don't know very well. And you connect on a different level that actually makes that next interaction you have on email or on the phone better. There's actual value to that. There's not value to Washington being perceived as or actually circling the wagons in the way Lovett said and defending itself.

It's like this little organism that is defending off reality at all costs. And it should upset people. And one more note on handed trump a win the handed trump you have no you go fucking find me a voter out there who was like you know what i was thinking about voting against donald trump in 2020 but then that comedian made fun of his press secretary at the dinner with the reporters and now i am for him i am for donald trump that is the most fucking patronizing view of voters in this country coming from reporters who think that this hands donald trump a political

way and it's how you it's how you launder kissing sarah huckabee sanders's ass through the guise of some analysis that's based on no evidence you think that little of voters they don't think anything of voters they don't have any opinion of voters it's what they're saying it is a bunch of people pretending to have an opinion they're looking around and thinking i know what i should think right now it's not what they think maybe they didn't like some of the jokes maybe they didn't like the other jokes the notion that these people were offended is made up it's nonsense oh these poor people these poor people they're delicate sensibilities. They couldn't handle the jokes.

They don't give a shit. They don't give a shit. This is nonsense. This is a... The White House Correspondents Dinner is now a zombie. It died when Barack Obama left office. And then all of a sudden, everybody was sleeping in their beds and they thought they were safe. And then the White House Correspond house correspondence dinner cold and gray and dead beat on the doors of washington to eat the brains of the white house press corps and it succeeded

okay we gotta do real news because then we're just like them um at a news conference on monday president trump said that killing the iranian nuclear deal would quote send the right message to north korea uh right on the heels of a weekend in which north and south korea took historic steps to come to an agreement about the north's nuclear program the same time today israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu stepped up pressure in the united states to pull out of the nuclear deal uh he had a prime time address on israeli tv where he presented what he called evidence of a secret iranian nuclear weapons program there's supposed to be evidence that ir Iran wasn't sticking to the deal. Tommy, talk us through this.

What's going on? So pretty interesting that the Mossad and the Israeli intelligence service managed to get all these secret Iranian documents out of Iran. Like, good for them. That's impressive. Essentially, what they put forward evidence of an Iranian nuclear program years ago. There was no evidence of violations by Iran of the agreement since the deal went into effect in early 2016. So it seems like this was a effort to spin up old-ish intelligence, new documents, but sort of old news that shows that they did intend to have

a nuclear program at one point along the line. They haven't discarded the know-how, the manuals, the knowledge if they were to pick it up in the future again. But, you know, he's trying to create cover for Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. It seems pretty obvious to me. We'll see if it works. I mean, I think most experts you see are like, you know, impressive in one sense, you know, another reason not to trust them, but it doesn't show that he's violated the spirit of the deal. How is killing the deal sending the right message to North Korea? I mean, it's up is down, black is white. You know, it doesn't show that he's violated the spirit of the deal. How is killing the deal sending the right message to North Korea? I mean, it's up is down, black is white.

You know, it doesn't make any sense. I don't know why you would cut a deal with the United States after we told another country that we will no longer live up to a deal that we had just made. Yeah, it doesn't. I mean, I don't see any indication at this point that there's any hope that Trump stays in this deal. Me either. see any indication at this point that there's any hope that trump stays in this deal neither and of course all of this came after trump received cheers from supporters at a speech on saturday which they all chanted no bell no bell that's true you know when brock obama got the nobel peace prize his reaction was basically you've got to be fucking kidding me okay like he understood

that you're going to campaign for it you didn't go to campaign for it you didn't have people chanting it at rallies he was sort of embarrassed by it and wrote a speech that was honestly kind of scolding towards the Nobel Committee in response to getting this thing prematurely. But the notion that like, let's just wait till the negotiations are over. We all want this to work out. But, I mean, Kim Jong-un, six, eight, ten months ago, was tweeting or releasing statements that he was going to nuke us or blow up japan or you know burn the planet to the ground now he's being really nice do we think the now part of this is sincere or then maybe he's being a little duplicitous like they've done every step along the way in the past you know like seeing everyone leap to get ahead of this and start

talking about awards is ridiculous i like that that they were chanting Nobel, Nobel right before they were chanting lock her up, lock her up about Hillary Clinton. Which, that's not offensive. That the president holds a rally, by the way, where his supporters are cheering to, chanting to lock up his former political opponent for nothing. Totally cool, John. That's not offensive at all.

The Sarah Huckabee Sanders joke, though, that was over the line. The jokes of old during the campaign was like, oh God, imagine nuclear negotiations or the nuclear button being under Donald Trump's finger. Like his ego could destroy not one, but two nuclear agreements in the next couple of months. This is a terrifying situation right now. This is why it would be great if the Correspondents Association spent a little more time talking about, you know, shit that mattered. Like President Trump hasn't had a news conference in over a year. Let's talk about that.

Don't see a lot of statements about that. Not releasing the statements. But the big discussion now is reform. How do we reform the dinner next year? Let's have a debate. Look, the bottom line is... How must we reform the dinner? I'm the kind of person where when I see a comedian

make an inappropriate joke, I speak out. When I see the most powerful human being on planet Earth who commands the most awesome military might in the history of Earth, I sometimes speak out. I think they're the same thing to compare. One is the president. The other is a comedian. Equal footing to me.

I just take him as a – I don't like bullying from anybody. That's me. The guy that doesn't like bullying from anybody. Straight shooter. When we come back,ake tapper jake tapper welcome to pod save america okay i'm a little nervous i will admit having been on the other end welcome thank you tommy welcome to thunderdome oh no it's love it's here what's gonna happen this is your first time although you were a frequent guest on keeping it 1600 back in the day i would appear i can't believe we haven't had you on pod save

america well i haven't out here i haven't i know do i mean do we need to provide for the uh listener any context that uh i will just say that i was a huge pain in your butts for eight to ten years i don't know what you're talking about i wish i would i thought we had very pleasant exchanges we called you the softy we told obama go out there you go you ask jake for the first question yeah i would say any trump administration official listening who thinks jake is too mean to them just know that one time jake and i got an argument so heated that someone looped in his wife to calm us both down so that that's where we were. Yeah, and that's not including when Gibbs and I were going to meet each other outside by the North Lawn.

Physical fight. It literally was going to, when those emails are foiled, we were going to meet each other out by the North Lawn. Yeah. Unceremonious fight, I think. Not a two-punch fight, I think. Who would have won? I think it's who got the first one in, honestly.

I think it's a luck of the draw on that one. I'll say this. Gibbs is meaner. So I think he might have won the fight. He would have just gone right in and hit in the face before I could do anything. I'll bark no bite, Robert Gibbs. You think? You know that.

A lot of barking. A lot of barking. You have a new book. It's called The Hellfire Club. It is a historical thriller. It's your first novel. First novel. Yeah, first novel. It takes place in 1954. And a young congressman comes to town and gets swept up in a conspiracy. And there's a lot in there that is, I think, fun, interacting

with real people from the time, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn. And then, you know, they say history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And I think there's a lot of rhyming. If anybody knows anything about the 50s and Joe McCarthy, there's a lot of rhyming to today. What made you write a novel? Learning just a bunch of cool things about Washington and wanting to write about them and also wanting to write about how corrupting Washington can be and how there are good guys and bad guys, but how it's a town built on compromise and how corroding that can be sometimes. And I just thought that it would be more effective and fun to do fiction.

Is that how you vent as a newsman who has to keep it straight? You write a fictional character and just kind of unleash? Yeah, because I could have them do whatever I wanted. You talk about corrupting influence, and I think there's a lot of people looking at what's happening in D.C. today, and they see not a question of legal versus illegal corruption, but people who have compromised their values to work with Trump. And that there's

a lot of liberals who say, oh, these are a bunch of people acting in bad faith, and that they shouldn't be taken seriously at all. And then on the other hand, there are people who say, well, these are the representatives of the White House, and you have to talk to them, you have to treat them with respect. Do you believe that when people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders or people like Kellyanne Conway come on your show, that they are speaking in good faith? That's a great question. First of all, it's individual by individual, right? I think, for instance, the last time I had Kellyanne Conway come on the show, oh, my God, it was a scandal, but it was like 30 scandals ago.

So I don't even remember what she was talking about. It was Rob Porter. It was about Rob Porter, the Rob Porter story. So she came on to talk about do I think that she was speaking in good faith? I think that she was a senior advisor to the president during the scandal, and she came on the show to give her perspective and give the administration's perspective. But obviously, there's a lot of lies that are told by this White House, and there's a lot of bad faith. And, I mean, I've made no secret about the fact that they are constantly trying to undermine credibility in journalism, not just individual journalists or individual stories. But there was a poll last week showing a majority of Republican voters think that the press is the enemy of the American people.

I mean, the president is succeeding and it's horrible for democracy. Just following up on that scandal question. I mean, normally a Washington scandal goes like this. It's like big report on scandal, followed by defensive press briefing, tepid statement of support, more journalists to send on the story, more stuff comes out, pressure builds, they get canned, right? That's happened a few times. But Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, Ryan Zinke, they have sort of defied political gravity. Does that lack of accountability worry you long term? I mean, what does it mean in Washington if you can just shout

fake news and ignore real corruption like we've seen with some of these people? Well, I mean, I think, first of all, one of the issues for those stories is that President Trump is such a big story in a pejorative way, in a negative way, that it crowds out a lot of the other news about other cabinet secretaries. So that's one. I mean, he is this enormous presence. Two, yes, absolutely. The fake news thing. I mean, from the very beginning, and I think I've been saying this since the very beginning, the whole purpose of fake news is to undermine when the media provides oversight, the oversight that I would point out the legislative branch is supposed to be conducting, but they're not, when the media provides oversight that they can just say it's fake news and thus undermine facts and truth. And it is troublesome. It's obviously

very, very worrisome. I don't understand. I mean, you see glimpses here and there of members of Congress with integrity, Republicans saying or doing things that make me think, okay, well, they get it. They understand. Like, for instance, Johnny Isakson, the senator who chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee, he had John Tester do the dirty work, but he has not said anything negative about John Tester, even while President Trump is attacking Tester and threatening Tester and alluding to things he knows about Tester. So that's something that is oversight and now for some reason dr ronnie jackson who's this american hero according to president trump uh according to administration

sources is not going to be returned to his job as a chief medical doctor at the white house which by the way i let me just turn the tables for one second yeah you guys worked at the white house when ronnie jackson was there and he was very he got all these positive reviews from president obama did you hear of anything like this no No, I was going to say, like, I knew that when, because originally Dr. Coleman was there, and Ronnie was like his number two. And I remember when Coleman left and Ronnie took over, I heard some rumors that they had had a falling out.

That was literally the only negative thing I had heard about Ronnie. But again, I said this on the pod last week, like, he was our doctor, and so we interacted with him that way. Like most of these allegations are from people who worked for him. Right. And, you know, there is a difference sometimes between people who manage up and manage down. Right. And so they could very well be true.

It's just that those of us who interacted with him, or at least me, like I didn't notice any of that. Did he hand out pills freely? Did he give you guys Ambien? Did he give you prescription drugs without a prescription? Did he? No. I mean, he any of that. Did he hand out pills freely? Did he give you guys Ambien? Did he give you prescription drugs without a prescription? Did he? No. I mean, he's your doctor.

If you're going on a 10-day flight to Asia and you get a tiny little baggie with two Ambien to help you on one of the three nights when you're just physically not going to fall asleep, which is what would always happen to me, absolutely, you could go to him for those things. But I don't know how that's somehow deemed inappropriate when I could go to a travel clinic next to a CVS and do the same thing. Get the same thing right. One time we were at Studio 54.

And he said to me, this one will make you small. And this one will make you big. And I took them both and I stayed the same. So that was my story. But they did. They would do. You've always been the Alice in Wonderland of my life, John Lovett. You'd go to the med unit for physicals.

They'd check you out. So then by the time, whether it was Ronnie or the nurses or some of the other doctors, they'd come to you on the plane and be like, okay, do you know how to take this? They'd write it down. And so it would be a very formal thing. It wasn't just like, hey, you take a pill. I'll just say this because, all right, so I got an award from the White House Correspondents Association over the weekend, me and my CNN team, Shuto, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein.

Congratulations. Thank you. It's a shame right before Washington fell apart because of Michelle Wolf. It's actually meaningless now. We don't even remember what the words mean. So the first time I won that award, it was because I broke the story that your nominee, Obama's nominee to be Secretary of the Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, hadn't paid taxes on a driver that he'd been given.

He didn't pay taxes on a car service. The guy couldn't be in the cabinets. It's pretty, I mean, relatively, it's pretty incredible. So let me just say, hey, man, I'm not the one that held up his nomination. I just reported on it.

But let me just say this. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the world. But this is what happened. I got the story. I went to you guys. Next thing I knew, somebody who was working with Daschle

called me. We talked about it. I broke the story. There was no fake news. There was no attacks on me. I broke the story. There was no fake news. There was no attacks on me. I had the story right. It wasn't good for you. It wasn't good for Daschle.

And then it was all just up to the Senate after that. And then Daschle withdrew his nomination. And you're right. In the context of today's swamp, it seems bizarre. Like, why couldn't he just write a check and move on? But that said, this is the world we're in. And what if you had done what Trump does? What if, you does? Fake news, not true, blah, blah, blah. He was supposed to have two jobs. He was supposed to be HHS secretary, and then he was going to run healthcare reform from inside the White House, which Nancy Underparl ended up doing.

Once his nomination went down, we didn't even make him advisor in the White House, which we didn't need Senate confirmation for, because we were so worried that he had this mini scandal that we were like, okay, we're going to be extra careful and not even have him. No, I mean, it is incredible, the degradation of standards. Incredible. Let's talk about the White House Correspondents' Dinner that ruined America on Saturday. So the Correspondents Association said when they invited Michelle Wolf that they liked that she speaks truth to power. And then last night they put out a statement saying that her monologue was not in the spirit of their mission. What did you think of that statement? And what did you think of the dinner? I mean, my general, first of all, she made fun of me and nobody is out there defending me, which is very hurtful. She did a whole thing about me. And what, what, what, what?

I think that, I think it's the kind of joke, yeah, she made fun of you, but she sort of singled you out as someone she liked. She wasn't as mean to me as Obama was, if that's what you mean. With Obama's joke. You mean Lovett's joke? Lovett's joke that Obama read. Actually, again, similarly, it was a compliment. Should I keep this in here?

It's a little tough. It's really rough. The first draft of the joke was just it just said F Jake Tapper five times and then he knocked the podium over and that was it. You're a magician. I don't know how you got Lovett to talk about previous correspondence speech

jokes that he's written. What a triumph of journalism this is. So let me say this. I'm not like the comedy police. I'm not going cracked the code. What a triumph of journalism this is. So I will say, so let me say this. I'm not like the comedy police. I'm not going to come in here and tell you which jokes I laughed at, which ones I thought were inappropriate. Some of them I laughed at, some of them I didn't. But I will say this. I have been trying to

have on my show a conversation about decency for the last two and a half, three years about what is appropriate to say in the public sphere and what is not appropriate to say in the public sphere. And the position, the times I've like taken positions on my show, because I don't take positions on tax reform or immigration or the wall or North Korea or whatever stuff. You guys take positions. I don't do that. But I do try to take a position on facts and I do try to take a position on decency.

So we've been having this conversation for two and a half, three years. If the Trump White House and Trump supporters in the media want to have this conversation now about decency, I welcome them to the table, but they've got some catching up to do before we get to a comedian at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. We have discussions to have about the way that women are talked about,

the way that women's faces are talked about, Carly Fiorina's face, about the way that disabled people, people with disabilities are referred to. Just a few weeks ago, the president made a derisive comment about one of his own former aides with an alcohol and drug dependency issue i mean if we're going to talk about decency i'm all for it and michelle wolf can be part of that conversation but there's really a big backup of material before we get to that yeah i agree with you on the decency debate like trump should apologize to

serge kovalevsky whom he made fun of for having a disability. He still denies it. He still denies it. So like there's that gaslighting that goes on. But I think one of the things that people love about your show, your reporting, is that you're not a big euphemism guy. You don't sit up there and accuse people of dissembling or stating falsehoods. You say you're lying. And I wish more journalists did that.

I wish more people spoke the way Michelle Wolf did at the Correspondence Center and spoke truth to power and didn't fudge it for us. Isn't that what we want out of journalism? Isn't that what a First Amendment event should celebrate? Yeah, I mean, I think the lie reference to Sarah Sanders and the smoky eye, which I had to look up, by the way. I didn't know what it was. There's just never any gay people it was. I got it.

There's just never any gay people with me. You got it immediately. You knew what a smoky eye was? Yes. I knew what a smoky eye was. I didn't have any friends in high school. I somehow found out what a smoky eye is. It's just a little black,

just sort of a nice, you know what we'll do with it later. People tweeted Tommy what a smoky eye is. It's a nice thing though. It's a good, it's a pun. It's like, I'm like kind of like,

it's just like a way of doing the makeup. So there's kind of like kind of dark around the eye. The smoky eye wasn's a nice thing though it's a it's a good it's like um like kind of like it's just like a way of doing the makeup so there's kind of like kind of dark around the eye and the smoky eye wasn't necessarily the insult the insult was the kardashian the insult was the reference to aunt lydia on um what's such a also she acts not how she have you looked at a picture of aunt lydia yeah yeah okay you don't think that she was also making the comparison that they look a little bit alike you don't think that was part of it the comparison that they look a little bit alike? You don't think that was part of it? I think that was part of it. Okay, and then also the female softball coach. I mean, look, she was making jokes about how Sarah Sanders looks. I mean, I think she was more important were the jokes she was making about how Sarah Sanders conducts herself.

Right. But she was making jokes about how Sarah Sanders looks. I don't know why we would pretend otherwise. And look, I mean, that's not my cup of tea. But at the same time, again, I find it difficult to get upset about what a comedian about how a president is a spiritual leader, whether he wants to be or not. He talks about how John F. Kennedy inspired people to join the Peace Corps. He talks about how Ronald Reagan inspired people to go to Wall Street. I would add, Reagan probably also inspired people to join the military. Barack Obama, for all the criticisms and tough coverage I provided of Barack Obama, there's no question that he inspired millions of people. Recruited for ISIS. Founders. He just provided Fox and

Friends their lead. There's no way that he didn't inspire millions of people on issues having to do with race and issues of having to be a good father and that sort of thing. It's inevitable. It just is. Presidents inspire people that way. Look at the outpouring that Barbara Bush, people legitimately moved by Barbara Bush and her being a tough broad. I mean that in the best possible way. Decades before that was cool and acceptable, even if you didn't like what she stand for or whatever. Donald Trump is a spiritual leader. And just the question is, what is the leadership?

It should be. But where is he leading people? like what is the example being set and i see a lot of people being led in a way that is indecent and is mean the most annoying take from that dinner for me was like you hate that you hate the dinner to begin with let's be honest well here's the deal like if you saw those jokes and you didn't find them funny that's fine if you thought some of them are too mean that's fine too everyone's entitled their opinion no big deal sure leaping from that to like this gave donald trump such a political gift seemed a little odd to me well i mean it's like do you do we think that like trump voters anywhere in the country they were like on the edge and then they saw michelle wolf and like that's it

now it's really a fake news media because this comedian got up there and told jokes well i mean it's one of the things that you get when you're outside of Washington, D.C., or if you still aren't drinking the water, which is there is an overinflation of our own importance and how much people are actually paying attention to any of this. And the truth of the matter is that not very many people saw it, not that many people care. saw it, not that many people care. The people don't bring it up. And, you know, at the end of the day, people are going about their business and they care much more about, you know, health care or the economy or jobs or North Korea or whatever than they do about a comedian. And that's just true one way or the other.

And by the way, we do have this discussion every year about whether or not so-and-so comedian went too far. Every year we have this discussion. I mean, Larry Wilmore, the guy last year, I forget his name. It's not a menage. Every year there's a discussion of whether or not. Colbert Underbush. Colbert Underbush.

That was, yeah, people like, and then they overcorrected. They had Rich Little the next year. That was not good. Yeah, I mean, I guess for me. He does a great impression of people who are no longer alive. Johnny Carson, Richard Nixon. His Nixon is great. You got to give him that.

I guess. That's how I know Nixon. His Wendell Wilkie is amazing. What a Haldeman he does. I don't know. But I guess to me, I think there's this decency debate that also feels shallow to me because it almost feels like in the same way that you know a pg-13 movie becomes an r movie if you say fuck three times but you can have the most

vulgar and crass and disgusting violence and issues and all of it raised before you get to that r rating and somehow that roomful of people describing her using the word pussy or an insulting joke about sarah huckabee sanderscent, to me, feels like a childish definition of indecent, right? Like, that was my problem. Like, okay, some jokes cross the line, but you understand that the conduct of these people, regardless of the words they use, even regardless of the insults, is indecent in a larger way. Like, it's almost like that attacking Michelle Wolf is to pretend we live in a more decent

world than we do. Yeah, I mean, look, I take your point point and I don't disagree that the idea that the word pussy is being used is so shocking today when the reason the word has been mainstreamed in any degree to any degree is because President Trump was on tape saying that he would grab women by the pussy and because he was a celebrity, he could get away with it. I mean, that is much more shocking than the word pussy. The word is a curse word or whatever. And you get in trying to make sure my kids are, if they're listening, you're not allowed to use that word. But the act of grabbing women, even if he wasn't talking about that body part, if he was talking about any body part, their shoulder, whatever, that is offensive. That is

much more offensive. And I agree that there's a forest for the trees thing that happens in Washington, but it's eminently predictable. You know this. It's probably one of the reasons you guys are all living in California, to get away from it. Yeah, it's pretty good. Now we talk about it all the time. Obviously, 2016 was a very unique and crazy, very unique election to cover. He hates very unique.

It's a whole thing because you're not supposed to say it. Is that right? We all get it. It's fine. Unique is unique. You don't need that. How can something be more unique?

How can it be more one of a kind? It's very singular. It's good. We have a whiteboard in my office where I write down things that my producers

are not allowed to put in the scripts. I haven't put in very unique, but I've put in... What's that now? We have a game change double down.

Measuring the drapes, popping the champagne. Any others? Feel free to send some. I'm trying to add some. Oh, this is good. We'll send you some now. I don't think there are any, but that's good. I'll make a mental note of very unique.

What lessons about journalism did 2016 teach you going into the next presidential campaign, which will also involve Trump and like 25 Democrats running for office. So first of all, can I, this, I'm going to bring this back to the book and this is not because I want you to buy my book, although I want you to buy my book, dear listener. Buy the book. Buy the book. But when I was researching the book, when I was doing all this research, I read this great biography of McCarthy that was written in 1952 when he was still powerful. It was written by Jack Anderson

and it was just a destruction of Joe McCarthy and what a liar he was. And there's a whole chapter in there that I thought was so moving that I took pictures of it and tweeted it out when I was in the middle of reading it. And it was about how the media,

when McCarthy was rising to power, would report his claims, his lies, just as if they were like perfectly normal things to be covering with no fact checking, with no concept that there is empirical truth. And he kept on changing the number of people, alleged communists in the State Department, this and that. And just remember, like there were communists in the government and J. Edgar Hoover was bringing them down. Joe McCarthy didn't bring any of them down. Everything he did was a lie. There were commies, though, just to remind people.

But that said, this entire chapter was about how the media just let Joe McCarthy rise based on these lies. Then once he was powerful, then the media started looking into the charges and realizing he was lying. And then Joe McCarthy turned around and started calling all the reporters communists. And it was just like I couldn't even believe it. I mean, if, you know, I would not have believed it if it wasn't a book I was holding in my hands that had a copyright of 1952. I'd be like, oh my God. So we went through this all before in more than one way.

So, I mean, I think that people in the media did not call lies lies enough in 2015, 2016. And we did not call indecency out as much as we could. Now, that said, I don't think I did it perfectly, but I did try to do it. The last time I interviewed then candidate Trump, President Trump, was in June 2016 in this very city when I did the Judge Curiel interview. And I pressed him on, isn't saying he can't do his job because he's of Mexican heritage. Isn't that the definition of racism? And he said, no. And that was the last time I was allowed to interview him. So, I mean, there were people trying to do it, but did we do it enough? No. But just to also point out some issues,

his opponents were supposed to be doing it and they weren't doing it. His opponents wouldn't do it until they were so far down in the polls it looked desperate and pathetic, as opposed to doing it right out of the gate, just like saying, what he's saying is not true. These are lies. We can't go down this road, et cetera. By the time people like Jeb Bush or Rubio or Ted Cruz started doing that, they were already losing, and it looked bad. It looked pathetic. Jake, the AP reported today that Trump hasn't done a press conference, a full one in a year.

February 2017. Can you talk about how much access they're giving? I mean, from my perch, it seems like the occasional foreign leader, one or two questions, Fox News, and that's essentially it? Yeah. I mean, I'm not a White House correspondent and I don't know, but I mean, it seems as though in terms of on the record questions, that's it. Like in a pool spray, you might get a question or two, and one or two during a bilat with a foreign leader. And yeah, it's astounding. I mean, if the White House, I mean, look, I'm a member of the White House Correspondents Association, and I think I'm like an associate member. And Margaret Tatloff was put

in a, she's put in a tough spot. And I get everything. I get the criticism and I understand where they're coming from and all that. But let me just say, like, that is really offensive. The president has not had a full press conference since February 2017. That's nuts. I mean, but again, everything in this administration, they just break so many precedents and nobody cares. And the media are the only ones talking about it. So then I feel like that would be the criticism of this statement.

OK, you think Michelle Wolf won't cross the line. You need to put out a statement about this issue. Why isn't there a statement every week, another week gone by? No precedent or a statement more like why does that group of Washington journalists not. Why does that group of Washington journalists not – why are they unable to muster a continuing level of outrage at their own treatments versus the occasional outsider making jokes or what have you? Have they gotten too comfortable with this new normal? Are they so used to it that they can't sort of pull an emergency – press the emergency button? Again, I'm not the leader of the White House Correspondent Association. You're their leader.

They follow you wherever you go. I don't know. There are 400 reporters outside. They're terrified, Jake. They're just in traffic. Some of them are wandering off. Just like deer. Jake Sherman almost got hit by a car.

Sorry, Jake. And I would recommend, honestly, bringing in Olivier Knox, who's the incoming president, to talk to him about this stuff because I think he'd be much better at it than I. But that said, I think there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than you think. I think there's a lot more pushback than you think. And I think that, I mean, Margaret, when she gave her speech and talked about press freedoms and talked about immigration and talked about the importance of the First Amendment, I mean, that was, she was talking about the Trump White House. She was calling them out in a speech that didn't get a lot of attention. So, I mean, I think there is some of that. But I, look, I agree with you. There's also, to you, what seems decent and normal, which I, you know, might agree with a lot

of in Washington is different because the entire political world is divided into groups, and some of them are trying to act as though all of this is normal and there's nothing to see, even when they're winking to you off the record. I'm talking about Republicans. I'm talking about Republican officeholders who are all – and this is – I'm going to bring it back to my book again. One of the things about the book is – You should say the title every time. The title is The Hellfire Club, available now at fine bookstores and Amazon.com. And one of the things in the book is there is a senator, Margaret Chase Smith, a real senator. She's a character in the book.

She came out and decried McCarthy in 1950, way before Moreau did, way before anybody did, on the Senate floor. And she was a hero, and she's a hero of mine. And one of the things you look at when you see the history of McCarthyism is Republican senators trying to straddle it. You know, why are you covering, you know, like Robert Taft was a Senate majority leader. He'd be like, why are you covering him? You know, why are you even paying attention to him? Which is the kind of thing I remember hearing in 2016. Why are you even covering Donald Trump? Well, he's the front runner, you know, we're going to cover him. So, you know, and then Robert Taftft dies in 1953 and so now his legacy is largely he didn't stand up to mccarthy you know you don't get to write your legacy yeah he thought he would just write

it out and he would be known for whatever his leadership or whatever and one of the main things he's known for is he didn't stand up to mccarthy one of the craziest things though is that after he died his soul left his body and actually floated for several years uh looking for a new home and then it found one in uh this guy named marco rubio went into marco rubio's body and he went oh finally a chance to i'm doing it again i'm doing it again the shit it's really amazing whenever i mean whenever something pops up on my twitter feed that is anti paul r or anti-Marco Rubio, I'm like, oh my God, look at these three guys.

They're obsessed with Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. They were before. I think that Lovett is particularly obsessed with Rubio. Dan definitely wins the Paul Ryan. Oh God, he hates Paul Ryan. He hates him. It was a big day on the pod but here's the thing also like paul ryan when all is said and done is going to be known for how he handled trump it won't be medicare reform no

that's what i'm doing yeah he's not right it's certainly not certainly not anything having to do with uh entitlements or social safety net programs he's that's going to be part of his legacy whether he likes it or not and the same thing with robert taft so you could have done paul ryan there but you hate marco rubio so my with so with the burning embers of a thousand suns it's different i'll tell you it's very different because i believe my reason for focusing my r on rubio is because i believe rubio knows better that's why you don't think paul ryan does oh i think paul ryan knows yes but i think but i don't think it weighs on paul ryan i think marco rubio feels his shame and you see it on his face and i think paul ryan has killed that part of himself and so i feel like anyway marco rubio come on the show we'll talk about it yeah

um so you did obviously a lot of research uh into the mccarthy era do you think the book is called the hellfire the hellfire club available now yeah you know i hear you guys doing ads yeah i'd like one right now what do you think the last 35 minutes the hellfire club um do you think our institutions are more threatened now or were they more threatened in the 1950s now now interesting because um is there any historic what what historical period do you think maybe the institutions were more threatened than? Or do you think this is a unique emergency right now? I think they were threatened during Nixon, during Watergate. But this is unique in what it is.

I mean it's kind of like a combination McCarthy-Watergate. Classic combo. Classic McCarthy-Nixon combo. With a splash of Bill Clinton. Just a little tinge. So I think that – yeah, I mean mean, yeah, I mean, the way that President Trump, although the institutions are still standing. I mean, that's

the thing. That's when people come up to me, as I'm sure they do to you, and say, are we going to get through this? As of now, you know, Mueller's still on the case. Rod Rosenstein, whatever you think of him, is still Deputy Attorney General, and there's a lot of people, a lot of criticism for him to go around, but he is still keeping the integrity of the investigation going on the

southern district of new york is you know criminal investigation of michael cohen i mean these things are still standing now president trump is still railing against them but um the one thing i have seen is well i guess two things one is the degradation of faith and confidence in the media is very upsetting um the idea that that the the majority of republicans confidence in the media is very upsetting. The idea that the majority of Republicans don't think that we're the enemy of the American people is really saddening. I hope that changes. I hope once there's either President Trump changes his tune or there's somebody else in the Oval Office. And then second of all, it is sad to see the degradation of institutions like the State Department, where people used to be called to service for a noble cause to help the United States, to help the relations with the United States around the world, et cetera. And again, all of these institutions, including and especially the press, deserve criticism.

And certainly you guys have never held back. But that said, it's important to have them standing, and it's important to have them thriving and improving. And it's sad to see the State Department as what it is, as opposed to what it could be and should be. You mentioned Joel Anderson, and I actually just, he did this long interview with Johnny Carson about Nixon, which I happened to watch because we were talking to Kimmel. Jack Anderson. Jack Anderson. Joel Anderson is his Jewish cousin. Yeah, yeah. Joel Anderson is his nephew. He made a real impression on you. Joel Anderson is his nephew who's trying to make it in theater. Anderson. Jack Anderson.

Jack Anderson. And he talks about the threat that Nixon poses to institutions and one of the things he said in the interview was, at no point in reviewing the tapes, at no point in reviewing the documents, do you find anyone saying what's the right thing to do? What's the moral thing? What's good for the country? It was always about how to protect ourselves, how to do this, how to do that. You know, we're all people who worked in government.

You've been covering government for a long time. I think we all believe that the people inside the Obama administration were people that were, you know, flawed and selfish in their ways, but ultimately guided by public service. And while I think Bush administration made heinous decisions, I think most of the people inside the Bush administration thought that that's why they were there too. We would say that's not true of the Trump people, that these are cynical people. They're doing the wrong thing that they're all of them. I say, I don't think all of this is my question to you. Do you believe, I mean, well, so I guess I would say you think that there are people inside the Trump administration for the right reasons. Do you think, do you think Kellyanne Conway is there

for the right reasons? Let me tell you the people that I think definitively aren't administration for the right reasons. Yes. Do you think Kellyanne Conway is there for the right reasons? Let me tell you the people that I think definitively are in it for the right reasons. And I know you're going to disagree with some of them. Okay. I think Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster was in it for the right reasons. I'm going to tell you that I think Dina Powell was in it for the right reasons. I know that's a controversial position with you. Love it.

And you can argue it. But I'm going to tell you, I think Dina Powell was in it for the right reasons. I think retired General Mattis is in it for the right reasons. Do you think Sarah Huckabee Sanders is in it for the right reasons? Do you think she's doing it for the country? Oh, God. I don't know. What are the right reasons, though?

Is it, I need to be here because if I'm not here, someone worse will be here? You know, or... Because it's clear Dina Powell doesn't agree with half the things that Trump says. She's probably shocked by them so much. McMaster, too. McMaster and Powell and Mattis and Gary Cohn. There's another one. I think these are people who think that they can get in there and help make this work.

This is a situation. He's the president for at least four years, if not eight. Let me get in there and try to make this work and try to make it work as best as it can for the American people. And also part of that is also, and if I don't do it, like who's going to do it? It might be somebody who doesn't think this way. And I know, you know, I mean, maybe I look, I give a pretty, I give a lot of leeway to the national security focus people because I know those jobs and how hard they are. But at some point, like we've been talking for a while about the hollowing out of institutions

like the State Department, Trump acting in bad faith the lying the effort to obstruct justice at some point don't you also have an obligation to talk about those things if you've been on the inside and see them like i did how is on the government anymore i don't think gary cohen was really in it to save the world i think this is an arrogant person who ran goldman sachs who thinks what's the next feather in my cap before I go start a fucking hedge fund or whatever it is. But let me ask you a question. I have no faith in these people. Okay, so you don't think that.

But let me play devil's advocate here for Gary Cohn, who I don't, by the way, know particularly well. I met him over the weekend at the White House Correspondents Association. And why were you lighting a candle at a Sunsboro Midsomers? It's a joke, everybody. No one pays attention to this. Do you think that... Do you really think it was a feather in his cap? Do you really think the head of Goldman Sachs

going to work for Donald Trump enhances his popularity in the Hamptons and on Wall Street? Because I don't. The final reports about Gary were that he would have stayed if he were offered the chief of staff job. And when he didn't get it, he left, which to me said this is about him and his climbing the ladder more than it was about the country.

Well, what about this? I mean, look, OK, I'll concede. I actually was sympathetic to the argument. These are people that needed to be there. Trump is chaotic. There aren't good people around him. The national security jobs are really important. That was what Dina Powell seemed to be suggesting. I'm there because you'd have no idea how bad it would be if I left.

But then she leaves and she hasn't said anything, right? If she had an obligation to be there for the country to keep things together, now that she's left, doesn't she have an obligation to speak out? She's not stopping anything now. She's not at the National Security Council. She's back at Goldman Sachs. Doesn't she have an obligation now to say, I did it for the country, but I left because holy shit, you should know about this. It's dangerous what's going on. Well, we don't know why she left, but let me ask you this. Because she won't tell us. Let me ask you this. She was leaving. I mean, what if she just wanted to do a year and leave and she knew McMaster was on her way out the door? I mean, I don't know. Let me ask you this. Do you think that McMaster and Dina Powell played a role that actually helped with North Korea.

Now, I know it's premature on North Korea. We don't know what's going to happen. But there are reasons to be at least remotely optimistic about maybe what will happen. And the McMaster-Powell argument would be we helped do that. And maybe sometimes it was insane. And maybe sometimes this is me projecting and this is not what I say. Maybe sometimes we had to like pretend as if a trump tweet was like part of the plan but ultimately well that's what i was going to say it's not like mcmaster or dina was signing off on the tweet like

little rocket man yeah i don't think we can look back on that history and say there was a narrative or a strategy i i genuinely think that they did a good job on sanctions and getting more pressure but i think that any objective look at this says Kim Jong-un has been driving this process. He decided to take these steps. I seriously doubt that Trump had to do it. Well, the McMaster argument would be we provided, you know, and obviously it wasn't in a vacuum that Obama did stuff and George W. Bush did stuff and et cetera, et cetera. But we provided one route for them. Stop the progress you're making for your nuclear weapons program. Get off here. And we push them that way.

I mean, all I'm saying is you could argue that maybe what they did was worth it if this ends up... And it's premature. I'm not saying... I will say I wish that McMaster was still there and that John Bolton wasn't.

Like, I definitely don't like that John Bolton's now there instead of McMaster. So I do get the argument that there could be worse. Like if there's just Trump surrounded by a bunch of awful people, it could be worse than it is now. I mean, I hear you guys joking about on your podcast. I hear you joking about, oh, and Don King is going to be going to be nominated to Customs and Border Protection. And Lou Dobbs is going to be Secretary of the Treasury, right? I mean, these are jokes you guys have made. But they're not that...

I mean, they're... Sean Hannity, Chief of Staff, year five. Don't say year five again in this room. He might get re-elected. You know that. Of course. We're not in the prediction business anymore. Of course he might.

Absolutely might. Let me ask you this. I'm sorry. I'm turning the tables again. I love it. What Democrat is going to win back Pennsylvania in 2020? Because that's what people say. He's not going to get reelected.

I'm like, really? Who's going to? I'm from Philadelphia. Who's going to win Pennsylvania? Tell me a Democrat that can beat Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Oh, we're not doing the, we're not handicapping 2020 right now. You're not going to do that? Absolutely not.

I'm not asking you to list him, but just tell me one Democrat who can win Pennsylvania over Donald Trump. I don't know. A Democrat that goes in there and talks about – That's not a name. That's what I don't know yet. I mean, people have been asking me this about the campaign. You have to see – you know this.

You have to see these people up on a stage during a debate, 20 people. Absolutely. All going at each other and then on the trail. See what their stump speeches are. See how they – I'm having flashbacks. You said 20 people. I'm having flashbacks. You said 20 people. I'm having flashbacks to that Reagan debate when I had 11.

Poor Cory Booker's falling off the side of the stage. Oh, my God. Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake, Jake. Just like senators and governors calling my name, begging for me to call them. No more than six on a stage. That's what I was thinking. How do you enforce that? Oh, I can't.

How does one make these debates better? Because they became the Trump comedy show. I loved watching them because he would shit on whomever was next to him and it was funny, but that didn't add any value to the process. Well, I mean, I think there was value to the process. I'll say this. I mean, while we're talking about the media's

mistakes in 2016, so let me just tell you about that debate. So that debate, i just done the undercard debate of four people and then we had the and then we had what a what a culture an undercard debate well we're just trying to be fair to i know i know i watched it i was good debate and then and then it was it's actually you know because you only had four people it was great lindsey grain it was much more thoughtful debate and then you have then i go to the main debate with 11 people because carly fiorina has like muscled her way on stage, but we weren't going to like take away the spot.

So the very first question I had was for Carly Fiorina, and it was Bobby Jindal earlier today said he would not feel comfortable with Donald Trump's hand on nuclear codes. How do you feel? And she wouldn't play. That's for the American people. That's for the voters to decide. Then I go to Donald Trump because his name has been invoked by me yeah and he starts railing about how ran paul shouldn't even be there on the stage and which is by the way technically not true it should have it was chris christie that shouldn't have been there if we're going by poll right but anyway so i'm like well oh my god

these guys don't get it they don't get it that that he he's in the center of the stage he's the front runner he's not going anywhere and you have to explain to people why not. And Carly wouldn't do it. So I went to Jeb Bush. Same question. Same whiff. Well, that's for the voters to decide. I'm like, he's going to get the nomination.

He's going to get the nomination because there's no one willing to take him on. I thought, I mean, I obviously predicted the general very wrong. But in the primary, during some of those debates, I was like, yeah, he could get this thing. He could easily get this thing. In addition to, you know, the fact that he was not of Washington and that was right, that there was a popular sentiment in his party at the time, there was just nobody willing to take him on. Yeah. Nobody. To your Pennsylvania question, though, I don't know that this is magic.

Like, Conor Lamb won in an extremely conservative district. magic. Like, Conor Lamb won in an extremely conservative district, and I don't think he ran as conservative or to the right as people think he did. No, he ran as a- He ran as a- He ran as a traditional Democrat. Yeah, a Western Pennsylvania pro-union, pro-gun Democrat. Very heavy. I mean, pretty, either at the center of the party or even left on economic issues, especially.

That type is very familiar to Pennsylvanians. You know, like a Bob Casey Democrat, conservative on a lot of social issues, but ultimately when it comes to economic issues, really about unions and paychecks. And that is a way to win. But tell me who represents that, Joe Biden? Well, I mean, that's exactly where I have to see who runs and what they say. Like, I don't think all these people's positions are fully formed yet. Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about is not a person.

You're talking about a platform. You're talking about, will the Democratic Party have a set of policies and an agenda that appeals to the people you're talking about that can win in Pennsylvania? And I think that's a challenge, but I think it's a solvable challenge. The only names that I've heard that fit that, and it's early yet, but the only names that I hear that are like that are like Sherrod Brown, who still has to win. He has to win at re-election first. And maybe Bullock

from Montana, Governor Bullock. Think about, has Pennsylvania changed, and you're from Pennsylvania, has Pennsylvania changed that much since 2012 when Barack Obama won there?

No. No. So like, you know, and I think, think of all of the commentary back in 08 when Obama was losing to Hillary in the primary in Pennsylvania and people like, oh, he's never going to win Pennsylvania.

Well, I never thought that because it's because but I then again, I never thought that I would I would live to see a Republican win Pennsylvania again because I thought it was I thought it was just trend. I mean, I was I was 19 when a Republican I'm almost I'm 49 now. I was 19 when a Republican last won Pennsylvania and then Trump won it. And no, it hasn't changed that much. It's just, there are a lot of, you know this, there are a lot of working class people who feel like Washington has just shut them out for the last 30 years. And Obama- They cling to their guns and religion instead.

Not a proud moment for then candidate Barack Obama, but- Would you mind just repeating the line, though? Just for editing. Never mind. We're just playing on the preview of this. Jake Tapper, Hellfire Club. You know what? But it was the word cling that was the problem.

He'll say that. It was not they turn to. He'll say that. Or they find comfort in. Anyway. But I don't know i mean but this is also the argument when when people talk about talk to me when when hillary clinton speaks in india about how donald trump won and the idea that like 200 american counties that voted for obama twice turned to

donald trump because there was like this racial racist awakening is nonsense to me and you and to you people too you guys do i think that i think that's too easy i think that's too easy to say that it's nonsense i think that that donald trump may have had the ability to kind of reorganize voters and to make racial grievance more salient and that doesn't well he made explicit racial appeals that mitt romney that john mccain refused to make and so it is hard to rerun an election with Trump as the Republican candidate in 08 and 12. I mean, you know.

But the question is, if you're talking about the 10% of the voters who switched or whatever it is, 5% of the voters in a county, did those people switch from voting for Obama twice because Mitt Romney and John McCain refused to be racist and were not racist. And suddenly this guy was racist. So they went from voting for Obama twice to voting for him.

That doesn't make any sense. It's complicated because it might not be a completely race. A lot of it is anti-immigrant sentiment too. And I think there were some people who voted for Obama twice who still were uncomfortable with immigration and too many immigrants in this but but because but obama was able to straddle the issue and mccain and romney

didn't make a huge deal of it and trump did and this might have activated that again but it's it's all like i think there's so many different reasons for this some of its economics some of its racial some of its anti-immigrant i think to make it one simple explanation right is but hillary clinton those comments in india i think were problematic because they did tend to simplify it to a degree and let me just also say that the same day that there was coverage of her her comments in india there was that story about four million obama voters not voting right and a third of them were black and like that's your 80 000000 vote margin right there. And that's like the other argument to what you're saying about Pennsylvania is like maybe the path is to get someone that can drastically boost turnout in Philadelphia and other parts and get the base more excited and get millennials more excited.

I think there's a bunch of ways we can do this. I think the focus of what happened last time has been entirely on white working class communities in places like outside Pittsburgh. And there's other paths to win. It was the margin you're talking about. Because, I mean, as you know, Obama lost most counties in Pennsylvania. He just won the most populous. But Trump just drove up the margins that would win counties 70-30 as opposed to ones that Obama lost 55-45. I tend to think it's going to be a mix between getting back some of the people who voted for Obama in 8 and 12 and then didn't vote in 2016

who were disproportionately young and African-American and people of color and women and getting back some of the Obama-Trump voters who have less polarizing racial attitudes than maybe some other Trump voters. Yeah, but thought that Washington had sold them out.

Right. So I think it's some of both. I think it's probably some of both. Obama thought that Washington sold voters out on trade deals. I mean, that was part of his – I mean, I was there in 07 and 08. I think an anti-Washington message is going to be very important for whichever Democrat runs, which is why I think some of these governors, some people who haven't been in Washington long are probably... We'll see.

I will say this. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, as you guys know better than anyone, you underestimate him at your own peril. I mean, he has political gifts and he has political skills and he has a way of becoming, of being anti-Washington. I mean, it's always funny when presidents or sitting senators or congressmen run against Washington, but Donald Trump, you know, that's been his whole thing. Washington's out to get him.

He hates it. The deep state, all this stuff. I mean, he's going to lay a claim to that that's going to be a lot easier than Barack Obama being anti-Washington in 2012. Yeah. I think one of the big lessons, you know, all the ways of slicing and dicing, I think, are obviously important. But to me, like stepping back, whether it's people who didn't turn out for Hillary, who

otherwise would have, or people who switched from Obama to Trump. I think one of the lessons we took away from it early on, at least I did, was we need to stop saying that people feel left behind and start saying that people are left behind. Right. And I think that Trump woke people up to just how damaged people's relationship to their government really was. And I think racism is a part of that. I think anti-immigration racism, anti-immigration sentiment is part of that. Misogyny was part of Trump's appeal. But even putting all that aside, I think this larger kind of distrust, I think, is something that we shouldn't ignore and actually is something Trump exploited. He didn't create it. Right, exactly. And also that he's not wrong necessarily in some of the sentiments. I mean,

it's really hard to look at some of the decisions made about trade in the 90s and the aughts and not conclude, you know what, they were selling American jobs down the river, but doing so in a way that would help corporate profits and Wall Street. I mean, it's just true. I mean, blaming NAFTA is silly in a way because it was kind of just a wash. But if you look at most favored nation status for China, that's what sent all those jobs overseas. But I think it's even bigger. I think NAFTA is too small, but even trade as an issue is too small. I mean, there has been no president, Democrat or Republican, who has figured out a way to help people succeed at a time of globalization and automation. And like Obama used to talk about this all the time, you know, he got us out of the crisis

and back to normal, but normal still wasn't great before the crisis started in 2008. It's stagnant wages for what, 30 years now. Right. And obviously the way Trump talks about it, you know, I mean, you can go back to the creation of container ships or automation. I mean, there are all these reasons why these jobs are going overseas, and there hasn't been the solutions that we need. I mean, I remember Obama talking about re-education. It's the wrong word.

Worker retraining. Re-education. That's what it's China. Those are the camps Trump's building in Missouri. But no, but I mean, like worker retraining. I remember him talking about that. But there wasn't enough investment on that. I'm not saying it's Obama's fault, but there wasn't enough investment in Missouri. But no, but I mean, like worker retraining, I remember him talking about that. But there wasn't enough investment on that. I'm not saying it's Obama's fault, but there wasn't enough investment in that. And there wasn't, you know, Congress wasn't as

committed to it because, and this is, you know, one of the problems with Washington is it's so much about it is money and so much about is getting money from rich people and rich corporations. And they are more vested in their bottom line than they are in the future of the country and making sure that there are jobs in these factory towns that have been decimated. But even putting aside the way money drove the decision and it did, I think that there was a legitimate belief like, oh, this is actually just a hard problem because of communications, that trade creates incredible diffuse benefits for the society as a whole

and it does have these acute harms to lost jobs, but that's a price worth paying. And I think Washington got too complacent about making that argument. And I think so one is I think Democrats are trying to figure out a better way to talk about trade. But also, too, I think one thing Trump has done is let people like, well, you know, maybe that deal isn't a deal people want to make. Even if you think it's the right thing, even if you think trade is on the whole good, that deal of we're going to lose some jobs, but it'll be worth it because the overall benefits of the economy. I think people like Sherrod Brown and others are saying, well, hold on a second. I don't think that's a deal

that's going to win us votes or even as good policy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so look at this. We're all finding common cause. Talking about the wisdom of Donald Trump on trade. I just want to break in. A couple of straight shooters. I just want to break in with some breaking news from Donald Trump's press conference. He said, quote, people don't realize what a big country Mexico is. It's true.

Can you tell me how many acres it is? You were spokesman for the National Security Council. How many acres is Mexico? Do it, Nakers. It's Texas plus Nebraska. Is that true? I have no fucking clue. You have no idea. That was good, though.

That sounded confident. Even the former spokesman for the National Security Council under Obama has no idea. Geography minor. I think once again, how big is this? You're a geography minor? No. Is that a minor? What is that?

You were a philosophy major. By a math. We don't talk about my useless major here, John. Just kidding, philosophy people. You got very mad at Dan one time. I was kidding. Dan got very attacked for that. Tommy thinks, therefore he is, you know?

Jake Tapper, thanks for joining us on Pod Save America. The book is The Hellfire Club. The Hellfire Club, available at fine bookstores and on Amazon.com. And thank you for coming, even though you are bandaged and sutured from Michelle Wolf's speech. You barely were able to make it up the stairs. We carried you down. It looks as though you cried all night. That's a smoky eye.

I wept. I wept. Everyone go buy the book. Buy the book. We carried you down. It looks as though you cried all night. That's a smoky eye. I wept. I wept. Everyone go buy the book. Buy the book. It's good. We have so many copies around here in Cricket Media. Thanks, guys.

And I have to say, like, you know, when Jen Psaki's at my roundtable and we've been like, look how successful those guys are. Those little pishers.

Smoking mirrors. Those little Obama bros are all grown up and running a media empire in California why the fuck are people listening to that no we don't say that

we're just like look at oh my god could you believe it yeah well look if you want to host a podcast we should talk

I don't want to host a podcast but when you guys come to Washington you should come on my show okay cool we'd love to have you your show's the only show it's too hard

to ever do it from out here because we'd have to wake up too early so lazy but next time we're in DC let's do it alright I'd love to have you. Your show's the only show. It's too hard to ever do it from out here because we'd have to wake up too early. It's so lazy. But next time we're in D.C., let's do it. All right. I'd love to have you guys.

Thanks, Jake. Thanks, Jake. Thanks, Jake. Buy the book. On the pod today, the host of Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. DeRay, welcome back. Yeah, it's good. I haven't talked to you guys in forever so here we go it's good to be back i know it's good to talk to you congratulations by the way on winning a webby award for best news and politics podcast that is outstanding yeah i'm excited you know it's like a i remember a year ago when we first

had the conversation about starting a podcast together and like look where we've come so it So it's cool. And it's cool too, because the news that we do on the podcast is like the overlooked news, you know, like it's not Trump. It's a lot of the other stuff that people just don't think about. So it was cool to get the award. And today, because people are listening to us on Tuesday, today is the launch of season two of Pod Save the People, right? It is. It's been a whole year, which is sort of wild. So season two, we have Brene Brown coming back to round out the conversation we had at Riverside Church not too long ago. And then the news crew, per usual,

got a new song, got a new logo. So it's good. I'm pumped. The new logo's cool. I'm excited for people to see the new logo. Me too. And the new jam is much more hip-hoppy. I love it.

Oh, that's exciting. I haven't heard that. So speaking of under-the-radar news that you guys often cover, I wanted to talk to you about one story that you brought up. Prosecutors in Seattle have asked that more than 500 convictions be abolished for people with charges on their records for carrying small amounts of marijuana. City officials announced on Friday they filled a motion to vacate the convictions and drop the charges.

The mayor, Jenny Durkan, announced earlier this year that the city would be making the move. All of these people were convicted before Washington moved to legalize recreational use as a state. DeRay, what do you think about this? And is this now going to be a trend with other cities and states that are legalizing marijuana? Yeah, so Seattle's actually following in the footsteps of Philadelphia that vacated about 50 criminal charges not too long ago with the new DA, Larry Krasner, which is dope. You know, Washington has made about like $730 million, or they will make that much, $730 million over the next two years from legalized marijuana. So it's such a profitable industry, and you still see people in jail for making profits when it wasn't being taxed the way that it is. What I didn't know about marijuana though is that,

did you know that there's only one federally approved grow facility in the country? It's at the University of Mississippi. It's one of the reasons why the research on medicinal marijuana is actually pretty slow because there's literally only one place in the country where it can legally happen. But DeRay, on the other hand hand i've been conducting tests for quite some time i don't think the cdc can you or the fda can use your tests uh but i'm sure you're an expert and i didn't know did you know that marijuana-based businesses can't a lot of them can't open um bank accounts like checking accounts because yeah i didn't know that i didn't know that how'd you know that how do you know that john i just i've read about it he's read about it in books um but i will say no it is pretty outrageous especially i mean now they've legalized it in california and you see a lot of these stores

now popping up all over la and it's these like there are these fancy marijuana stores they look like you know apple stores from outside and everyone's lining up and people are buying marijuana. And you're like, I cannot believe right now that this is going on and there are people in jail and they have been in jail for years for doing the same thing. It wasn't legal. It does seem like we have to move now towards abolishing most of these convictions as marijuana starts becoming decriminalized and legalized.

Yeah. And the other insidious thing about it is that in a lot of places that have even legalized it, if you've been convicted of a crime formally, you aren't able to obtain a license to legally sell, you know, which is even wilder, right? So like you get out, you serve your time, but because you have a criminal past, like you can't get a license to sell legally. And it's like, well, you sold illegally and you know how to do it. Like, you know what you're doing. And I didn't know that in some places it's taxed up to 25%. Isn't that intense? That's like, so the government's making a killing off of this. Yeah. Well, it's almost as if I think in part because it's still a federal crime and part because of just general sheepishness, it's being legalized, but we're not legalizing it.

When we legalize it, we're not saying, and it was immoral when it was illegal. Like when we've gotten rid of other kinds of laws that were punitive, especially towards people of color, there's been a recognition that we were getting rid of those laws in part because of the way in which they were unfairly distributed and hurt people. But we're not doing that now.

Like the recognition that pot should be legal seems to not be coming with also the recognition that a lot of people were punished unfairly. No, you're people it's interesting that it's like the double speak they're like oh yeah legal now for people over 21 and then you're like well what about the people locked up and it's like well it was a crime then and you're like yeah that was like six months ago you know what I mean like this isn't like 30 years ago this is recent it's also just so like it's almost authoritarian it's like well yeah were they wrong or was the law wrong because i feel like we decided that the law was wrong so maybe

we ought to let these people out yeah and it plays on like those this idea that like criminals are bad people right like that's such a ingrained stereotype in people's minds it's like yeah just because they got convicted of of that thing doesn't actually mean they were a bad person that like or any of that stuff that like we know that were a bad person that like or any of that stuff that like we know that laws have been been wrong in a host of cases like you know you hear me talk about a lot like theft over 300 in florida is a felony it's like when most people think about felons they they would say like murderers and bank robbers and it's like i don't know if stealing like an ipad makes you is like what most people think of felons being, you know? 20 grams of marijuana.

Yeah, you're right, yeah. So, is this always going to be up to officials like DAs and prosecutors to make this decision, or are there other, do you know of any legislation that's out there to sort of get rid of these convictions? I mean, this seems like

something like we could get on a ballot initiative at some point. What do you know about different efforts to sort of stop this? Yeah, so the DAs can work to vacate criminal convictions. The legislatures can pass laws that just automatically do it, which is huge. The citizen-led petitions are important. Remember, not every state has the opportunity to do citizen-led petitions. It's like just a fraction, not even half of the states have citizen-led petitions. States like my own, like Maryland, the only petition you can do is like to null and void a law that got passed. You can't actually propose a new law through citizen-led petitions. So that's sort of an interesting tool in some places and not in other places.

And you can just get elected officials who will instruct the police department just not to enforce it right it's almost every single branch can be a lever here to change this that's good to know so deray who's in the show this week what are you guys talking about we have brené brown who's like a she's a follow-up to the conversation she and i had at riverside church this is like a deeper dive into thinking about the intersection of race and trauma and joy. And so we talk about a lot, which I'm excited about. And then we have some cool guests coming up. I know that on the newsletter you shared that Senator Gillibrand introduced a new piece of legislation based on one of the Pod Save the People episodes. So we'll have her back on at some point and the experts she talked

to. So I'm excited about season two. I want to emphasize how cool it is because this is a piece of legislation that emerged because of a conversation you guys had on the show. And I think that's really awesome. Yeah. Yeah. She even, her team reached out to the expert, Marissa, who was on the show. They met, they like, they figured it out. And the bill around postal banking is huge because it could actually make sure that everybody has access to a bank in a way that people don't know. Yeah. It's great. I mean, cause, and there's post offices in every single community. So access to a bank in a way that people don't know. Yeah, it's great. I mean, and there's post offices in every single community,

so it's a perfect place to do that. And there are other countries that have already done postal banking. I had no clue until I talked to the expert about it. Yeah, I didn't know that either until I dug into the whole thing. Well, you guys are doing great work on the pod. We're excited for season two. And thanks for coming by and saying hi. Boom, great to be back.

And I'll talk to you guys soon. All right, Dre, take care. Don't let the webby go to your head thanks to jake tapper thanks to duray mckesson thanks to us thanks to us especially thanks to you john thanks to you leo what are you looking at leo it was just sort of staring at me. We apologize. Obviously, Leo did make some noise during the Jake Tapper interview, which John would love to deny, but he can't because of what happened.

Pundit was crying. Oh, don't you? Until Jake picked her up and took that cute picture. You know what? This is like when Rubio tried to behave like Trump. It didn't work. People aren't buying it. We all know Leo made the noise. We all got the receipts. Elijah's got it. We all know. Have I said Pundit never barked? Is that the claim I've never made?

Are we still in the outro? Is there music beneath us? We're still in the outro. Yeah, it's just playing. It's playing us out. All right, everyone. We'll see you Thursday. Maybe. Thank you.