Pod Save America - "A conversation about our divides."

Episode Date: February 23, 2017

Trump's relatively tame week on Twitter, his orders on deportations and transgender policies, and the growing activism at town halls. Then Ana Marie Cox joins Jon and Dan to talk about her new Crooked Media podcast, With Friends Like These.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, our guest will be MTV's Annamarie Cox, who is also the host of the brand new Crooked Media podcast, With Friends Like These, that launches tomorrow. with friends like these that launches tomorrow with friends like these is a show about what divides us and we're going to talk to anna marie a little bit more about the new podcast that we are very excited about good stuff dan isn't she really crooked media's anna marie cox now i don't know how mtv would feel about that but sure we'll say that yeah yeah it's our podcast we can do what we want yeah we can say what we want here. Also, everyone, in case you missed it yesterday, tune into this week's Pod Save the World. Tommy has Lisa Monaco on the show.

She was our counterterrorism advisor in the Obama administration. And so she's going to scare the shit out of you. So give that a good listen. Yeah, I had drinks with Lisa Monacoica which was in san francisco last week and it was the day before uh harvard uh dropped out and she was like ah he's great i feel good about this and then two hours later i felt less good oh that's that is sad all right dan all right let's do this let's do this so uh question has the pivot So, question. Has the pivot finally arrived? I hate asking that question.

I can't even do it seriously because I don't think the pivot has arrived. But I will say that some of our pundit friends based in Washington have said this this week. They've pointed to evidence that maybe the trump administration has turned a corner what do you think do you know what the evidence is trump has tweeted less yes that is the evidence the the evidence is he only sent two crazy tweets this week one about swedish immigration that ended with a not joke and one that was based on a fox news segment about the town hall meetings yeah so i guess that's a step in the right direction which is his two crazy tweets this week are two more than any president has previously sent ever that's true i mean he also

um i guess that you could you could point to the appointment of lieutenant general hr mcmaster as the uh as the new national security advisor as something that is i mean you know he removed someone that was completely fucking crazy from the job, General Michael Flynn, and replaced him with, you know, someone who is, by all accounts, non-ideological, you know, praised by a lot of the Republicans who've had worries about Trump, like McCain, General Mattis likes him. And he's supposed to be reorganizing the National Security Council so that, you know, the director of national intelligence and CIA, their positions on principals committee meetings are restored. So, I don't know.

I guess it's somewhat hopeful. It probably reduces the chance that we all die in a nuclear apocalypse by maybe a percentage point or two. Well, we're grasping at straws here look i think i think what is true is it feels like the last the four weeks prior to this is four weeks i guess that's like it's been seemed insane like every two minutes something crazy was happening trump was tweeting something kelly and conway was making up you know mass massacres um steve bannon was joining the national security like something crazy happened every 10 minutes and it was fucking exhausting this week has felt like more

normal-ish you know have we been normalized to the point that like Trump insanity now feels okay? I don't know. But like, I think the McMaster thing is good news. Like, has anyone ever been more appropriately named for the job than HR McMaster? So that's good. I do think it's worth pointing out your, you know, you mentioned the reorganizing of the reorganizing of the National Security Council. Great story. Did you see that story in the New York Times last night talking about how we ended up in this place? Yes. The Trump administration reorganized the NSC by accident. Yes.

Yes, they did. the Bush org chart, which is interesting. That would seem to make sense unless you forget that that was done before 9-11 when the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security did not exist. Right. It's such an interesting window, right? It's like, obviously, the organization of the National Security Council by Obama must have been wrong. Let's not even look at it. Let's just go right back to the Bush administration one, even though it's like 15, 20 years in the past, you know? Yeah, so that was crazy. I mean, look, I think I don't give them any credit for this week at all.

I think what they're trying to do is the PR people in the administration, the communications people, the Kellyanne Conways, the people who think about politics. They probably recognized the gross incompetence of the last month and thought, you know, can we at least put on a better, can we put a better foot forward in terms of like, you know, our messaging and our politics and restraining the president united states from saying crazy shit this week um so we can go about our so we can push our continue to push our agenda which is by no means moderated or you know pulled back or anything else so um i mean like they send him to the you you know, he went to the Museum of African American History and Culture where he said slavery, man, that was a bad thing. That makes me laugh so much. And then and then he he denounced anti-Semitism because all those that graveyard had been desecrated. And, you know, it took like a day for everyone to say, why isn't the president of the White House condemning this? And then, you know, Trump finally did when he was asked. So good. I know Pence went to the cemetery and cleaned up. So that's good.

effort they have to do this, right? Like it's taking all their restraint to sort of put on a normal face for a couple of days. And there was a great story in Politico about how they do this. The story is headlined, How Trump's Campaigns to Efforts Tried to Keep Him Off Twitter. The trick, making sure his media diet included a healthy dose of praise. Did you read that story? healthy dose of praise. Did you read that story? Oh, I did. I did. I mean, it's basically a description of how you manage a poorly behaved eight-year-old. I mean, exactly. I mean, I think that was the intention of how they wrote it. Because it's, it's the similarities between Trump and an eight-year-old child in this story are so strong. And it's not, you know, look, it's not fake news. They had six former campaign officials speak for this story.

Many of them on the record. And basically what they said is, during the campaign, whenever a bad story about Trump would hit, the campaign would then plant the good version of that story in publications like Breitbart, Fox News, Washington Examiner, and the Daily Caller. And then once they got their exact story that they wanted in one of those publications, they would then bring the story to Trump and show him. And they knew that they could sort of influence him because Trump doesn't read any news online. He only reads the print edition of the New York Times and watches cable news. That is the extent of his diet, his news diet, unless one of his staffers brings in a printed out copy of one of the stories they have placed in a friendly publication. I have to say I'm a little jealous of that. I know.

If we could have managed Barack Obama's media diet that way, if I could just have controlled what he saw based on what I brought to his desk, that would have been awesome instead he had an iPad and access to the internet like most adults so he could read news I know he did that everyone would yeah he President Obama by the time he got his iPad you could say he would he would be like looking online and he's seen like the most read stories and you know you would probably hear about it more than I would Dan but if there was a story that displeased him he would let you know he he would or if he had questions about it more than I would, Dan, but if there was a story that displeased him, he would let you know. He would, or if he had questions about it. You know how President Obama would get, as all presidents do, would get movies before they're released so we could watch them in the home theater? I was pretty convinced for a while there that he had a deal with the New York Times where he also got the news before it was released. there that he had a deal with the New York Times where he also got the news before it was released because the time between when it posted and when I would hear from him sometimes was so short that

it seemed physically impossible. Specifically David Brooks columns, I believe. I don't even know who that is. I don't know what you're talking about. No, I mean, I thought you were going to say you were jealous because, look, people can make arguments on the right that there's a liberal bias to some media outlets right but even even a even a media outlet like the huffington post you could not have called sam stein and said hey sam uh there's all been all these bad stories about obama doing something can you write a good one uh and just here i'm just going to dictate to you what we want to say and then sam runs the story and then you bring it to Obama. Like, could you imagine that happening?

No, I mean, it's there. It is absolutely possible. This is one of the real challenges about being a progressive is that we don't have like a propaganda machine like the Republicans do. Like they literally own. Except, of course, the guy who owns Breit, sits down the hall from, from Donald Trump and was basically they were Trump media for the entire campaign. And, you know, we certainly had, there were lots, like, had nothing like – there's no one I've ever known I could call to say, hey, the boss is kind of grumpy. Could you write a story about it so I can show it to him? And then he'll probably tweet it out, which would be good for your traffic, which is why you went and formed Crooked Media, I assume. That's what I said.

Look, next democratic administration just call us up we'll write up i mean we're too lazy to write up the story these days we'll probably just talk about it on a podcast you know um and that'll be that no even even we won't do that here um my other the other best quote from that politico story was leaving him alone for several hours can prove damaging because he consumes too much television like that is such a a both it's funny and also scary like who's watching the president he's watching he's watching too much television and he might start a war i mean it's bad it's it's also we live in an era of great television there is more good tv to watch than we possibly have time for yeah like if you have all these extra hours i don't know watch the

young pope do something do not just like mainline sean hannity in your brain for eight hours a day um it is just but anyway apparently this this has worked for this week maybe i don't know i don't even think you can say that it worked this week like he's it's still pretty bad you know uh and also yeah i just think like you can't be you can't be waiting around and saying like okay trump hasn't done anything crazy for like 24 hours maybe this is a sign of something like it's like fucking char Charlie Brown with the football. How many times have we gone down this path before where people think if something crazy doesn't happen in a couple of days that it means they've turned over some new leaf in the White House? Come on.

It's like – usually the periods of calm with Trump are followed by the craziest shit ever. It's like, Trump seems like he's got his shit together. Oh, I don't know. Let's pick a fight with the father of a deceased U.S. service member, right? Right. You know, I think he's really, he's the nominee now. I think he's really, you know, he's going to start pivoting to the center. Oh, let's go on a racist 10-day campaign against an American-born judge.

Like something is coming. There's a good chance it could be tomorrow when he speaks at CPAC. There's a good chance it could be right now while we're on this podcast. That's right. I have Twitter up. So it is not happening at this exact minute, but between now and when you guys listen to it, there's a good chance things are going off the rails. I did see that during the pool spray at the top of the manufacturing meeting with CEOs this morning,

Trump started by asking Jeff Immelt to tell the story about the time that they were golfing together and Trump got a hole in one. Hey you, hey you, I brought you here. Tell that story about the time I was cool. But in all seriousness, there is a lot of evidence that nothing has changed. And in fact, some of the actual policy moves the Trump administration is making are just getting worse. There's no new travel ban this week. They delayed the announcement of the revised travel ban. They delayed the announcement of the revised travel ban.

But the reports are that basically the only thing that's changing in that ban is that they're probably going to exempt green card holders, make sure that no one's caught up while they're traveling to the United States. And they're not going to explicitly say that you can't accept Syrian refugees. But in practice, you know, they'll still probably slow it down to nearly a trickle or to nothing. So the ban's not getting much better. A story about the Department of Homeland Security preparing to carry out Trump's executive order on deportations was fairly horrifying, what's going on there. Basically, it used to be that only undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes would be deported. Now, just about every undocumented immigrant is at risk of being deported. And we're seeing these raids all over

the country. Trump administration plans to spend more taxpayer dollars on a larger deportation force, maybe up to 100,000 more ICE agents. They want to spend more taxpayer dollars on a larger deportation force, maybe up to 100,000 more ICE agents. They want to spend more money on detention facilities. They want to enlist local police officers as enforcers, and they want to speed up deportation so that there's no trial first. Pretty bad shit. Pretty bad. Also, they want to send everyone back to Mexico, even if they're not from Mexico. I mean... everyone back to Mexico, even if they're not from Mexico. I mean, so it's like, we're just going to send you to the closest country that has fewer white people. And we're going to drop you off there. And secretary of state Tillerson and secretary of Homeland Security,

Kelly went to Mexico yesterday and Sean Spicer gets up at the briefing, which everyone, by the way, said is his best briefing ever. Sean Spicer at the briefing said, we have phenomenal relations with Mexico. And then there's all these stories that they got a horrible reception when they got to Mexico, and Mexico said, absolutely not when we take your deportations that aren't even Mexican citizens. Yeah. So was that also the briefing where Sean Spicer got in an argument

with the Anne Frank Center? I didn't hear this whole story. Please tell me what happened here. So the Anne Frank Center was particularly critical of Trump's response to anti-Semitism, including what happened at the cemetery in St. Louis. And Sean Spicer basically attacked them for not being more complimentary of Trump's longtime efforts to fight anti-Semitism. I think Sean Spicer is confusing Trump's efforts to fight anti-Semitism with hiring an anti-Semite as his chief White House strategist. I mean, God. Poor Sean.

Poor Sean. Not poor Sean. He chose this life. Yeah, no Oh, poor Sean. Not poor Sean. He chose this life. Yeah, no, not poor Sean at all. But the deportation thing is really scary. I mean, a story yesterday had a woman from El Salvador who was diagnosed with a brain tumor under the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, was dragged out of a Texas hospital and returned to a detention center. I mean, you know, I saw this this morning. Trump was like, we're getting a lot of bad dudes out of this country. Like, oh, is that the bad dude that you're trying to get out of this country? I just,

I don't know what to do about this, what people can do about this, because, you know, the president of the United States does have a lot of latitude on who he can deport and just a lot of latitude over immigration laws in general. So, you know, I think we got to keep publicizing these stories because if people think that these deportations are anything like the deportations that went on under the Obama administration, which look, we deported a lot of people. We tried to narrow the deportations to people who committed serious criminal offenses. Now you're seeing like parents who have departed from their children and, you know, the domestic abuse victim who walked into a courtroom to report domestic abuse, and then she was detained in the courtroom because her abuser tipped off ice. I mean,

this is just awful. Like I'm about to do something I should not do, but I'm just going to repeat what I saw on Twitter. But there were Twitter reports about customs agents checking people's IDs, getting off a domestic flight. I think it was from L.A. to New York or New York to San Francisco, whatever it was. San Francisco to New York. And the people who reported it were two Vice News reporters. So, you know, it's not just like random Twitter user X. Yeah, I think you're right. The only thing, like, this is in part a battle for hearts and minds here, right? The Trump and Bannon and the Breitbart nationalist movement are trying to define immigration and immigrants as this nefarious thing of, you know, Trump words, rapists,

gang members, people who are taking your jobs, who are committing crimes in your community. And that is not the case. That is not what this is about. And it's not who we're talking about, right? In their definition, refugees are ISIS sleeper cells. are ISIS sleeper cells and in not, you know, women and children fleeing violence and oppression. And it's incumbent upon all of us to engage in that battle, publicize these stories, let everyone know who are the people of, who are the victims of these policy changes in the hopes that we can change hearts and minds now and change policy

later by winning elections. Yeah, because I mean, look, they do know, they do understand that mass deportations are not politically popular. And even among people, look, you know, Obama always used to start just about every immigration speech by saying we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, right? And we do have to respect the laws that we have about immigration in this country. But this idea that, you know, I think it is, it is somewhat, probably the wall or probably at least increased border security is more popular when you poll it than these mass deportations, which are extremely unpopular. I think it was something like, you know, there was a Fox News poll about this that was like,

I don't know, 17% of people said you should deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible. And the vast majority said you should provide them some pathway to citizenship if they pay a fine, go to the back of the line, et cetera, et cetera. So people don't want just completely open borders in this country and, you know, just have everyone come in here who wants to. But at the same time, people recognize that if you've been in this country for a long, long time and you've been working hard and contributing to the country, like they don't you shouldn't be deported. And especially like parents shouldn't be ripped away from their children. country and everything like they don't you shouldn't be deported and especially like parents shouldn't be ripped away from their children you know it's just it's not a they have to keep saying that the people they're deporting are criminals and hardened criminals because they know that telling the truth about who they're deporting is not popular at all yeah it's also just as one note of hypocritical comedy that uh at the same time trump's uh government is cracking down on immigration

trump wineries is has filed an application with the department of labor to get permission to hire more people more immigrants uh so i mean it's possible that trump may not be on the level on this right yeah yeah it is possible. Who knows? He's going to go out on a limb, yeah. Just go on a limb. The other policy they announced this week, or announced last night, really,

was the Trump administration, well, the Department of Justice, the new Jeff Sessions Department of Justice, has rescinded a federal policy created by Obama that said school districts must protect transgender students. This is another one that, like, and apparently even Betsy DeVos, because the order has to come from the Department of Education, apparently Betsy DeVos did not want to do this.

And Jeff Sessions overruled her or convinced her to go along with this. And, yeah. And so now this is, there's another thing, you know, everyone's like, Oh, Trump won because of, uh, jobs in the economy, right? Uh, yeah, no. Well, this is, so one of his first moves is to rescind protections of transgender students so that they can go to school and, uh, and in a safe environment. Yeah. Okay. Good job, buddy. Yeah. Remember all the pieces about how Trump, because he was a rich guy from Manhattan, was going to be the most LGBT-friendly Republican ever? Right. Yeah. And look, this order was rescinded and, you know, Jared and Ivanka weren't

even in Shabbat, right? They were just, they were there in the White House. I thought Jared and Ivanka were supposed to be the big heroes protecting LGBT community, you know? The people who refer to them as Javanka is one of my favorite things. I haven't heard that yet. Yes. But I think the larger question here between the so-called pivot and the fact of the policy that they're pushing anyway is like what do democrats do in response because if there is a new strategy in the trump white house that they are going to try to put a better public face on the very right wing react you know uh reactionary sort of

racist sexist whatever uh policies that they're pushing, like, how do we respond? You know, how do we respond? I think part of it is we can't let our guard down. Right. Like Trump is so dumbed down what it's acceptable in the White House. Right. Where we were, we've been afraid for a long time that we are moments away from a nuclear war

or like a military confrontation in the South China Sea or just absolutely anything that can happen, pissing off Canada. Like a week where Trump does not yell at one of our top allies, joke about another war in Iraq to take oil, is not around repealing ACA, like have to, you know, we can't take our foot off the gas in terms of, we can't, you know, our fear and outrage and urgency. And, you know, I think that's what you're seeing in these town halls, but you can see a world where crazy things start feeling sane and we relax and go back to normal. And I don't think we can go back to normal for four

years, right? We can't go back to normal. I also think it's, we have to focus on the policies, right? Which is, you know, it's the, it's the less sexy thing to do, right? Because what makes headlines is a Trump tweet or Trump saying something crazy or, you know, palace intrigue and what's happening with Kellyanne Conway and the crazy thing Sean Spicer does and all things that we joke about and talk about all the time on this podcast. But I think the key is to really focus on the policies that he's pushing, the actions that he takes, what Trump does, what his administration does, and the effects that those decisions have on the lives of real people.

And it's a little harder to do that, to dig through the news and find those things, and to sort of lift them up and talk about them and argue about them, than just sort of, you know, what's on Twitter or what the headlines of the day are. But if they're going to improve their PR and communications messaging political operation, which I'm still very doubtful of. But if they do improve that, then it's going to be incumbent upon the rest of us to really pay attention to the policy moves. Yeah, we have to step up our game. And I think the question for folks like us, but also the people who are showing up at

town halls is how, like, is focusing on how what Trump does and says affects real people, right? Yeah. And making that point. That's the difference between – Trump wants us to focus on optics and we have to focus on substance, right? So it's – or wants to focus on style. We want to focus on substance to make that slightly more pithy. And that's going to be hard because it's not what the press wants to cover. But they will cover people showing up at a town hall and making an impassioned case for ACA, right?

And so... A great segway to our town hall segment, Dan. That was the goal. I'm so inspired by your Square Cash segways every week that I'm really trying to step up my game. So one update from us. Almost 1,800 of you have signed up at resistancerecess.com slash crooked for town hall events, which is fantastic.

And as a reminder, there are more than 300 events to come before Sunday. So this is not done yet. And we've seen a lot of these. The stories this week from these town halls have been great. The stories this week from these town halls have been great. Some senators and congressmen have had to move the town hall locations many times because so many people have shown up. I saw that Tom Cotton, who we'll get to in a second, his town hall last night was moved five different times. Some people said it was just to try to fool his constituents so they wouldn't show up.

Other people said that it was also to just accommodate the the larger request so here's some of my favorite stories from the town hall a couple people tweeted at us their sign that they've been putting up all over florida that just says missing flirty and marco rubio have you seen me because he will because rubio refuses to hold a town hall which i love is there anything anything less surprising than Marco Rubio being too big of a coward to face his constituents and have to defend his pitiful, slobbering support of Donald Trump? He will never do that. All he'll do is just hide. He's hiding on the Senate floor and tweeting. That's all that Marco Rubio can do. He's hiding on the Senate floor and tweeting.

That's about all that Marco Rubio can do. There's some folks in Orange County, California, who sent us a picture of the town hall they organized because their congressman refused to come. And then there's some of the clips we saw on TV. The woman yelling at Mitch McConnell, which was great. There was an older white guy yelling at Chuck Grassley. Didn't seem like a liberal activist to me. And then I love that some of the reaction from some of these Republicans at the town halls, like Jason Chaffetz, is complaining this morning about an attempt to intimidate and bully him at these town halls. Poor Jason Chaffetz. It must be so hard for him.

Oh, so sad. I mean, Jason Chaffetz, can we just take a pause on him for a second? Please. Can we flash back? I said this morning, too. He's vaulted to the top of my list above Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio as the Republican with the least courage, I think, in Congress right now. Let's flashback to October of last year during the election when the Billy Bush Donald Trump grab him by the pussy tape came out. I remember that. Jason Chaffetz gave an impassioned explanation of how he could no longer support Trump because he could not look his wife and daughters in the eyes if he were to do that. and daughters in the eyes if he were to do that.

Weeks later, Jason Chaffetz re-endorsed Donald Trump and has been carrying water for him, including instead of investing as the head of the government oversight, instead of investigating all the damaging information that's come out, he wants to investigate the leakers who released the damaging information. It's not good.

Not good at all. Also, how awkward are the family dinners at the Chaffetz house when he does not look anyone at the table in the eyes? Did you see the reports that our friend of the pod, Evan McMullen, might challenge him? I know. I'm excited about that. We encouraged that here on Pod Save America a couple weeks ago. So I'd like to say that we launched this, but, you know, I won't. I don't want to tell you your business, but it's probably not going to be super helpful

for Evan McMullin and his Republican primary challenge in Utah. I don't know that many Republican primary voters in Utah are listening right now, but if you are, don't take our word for it, guys. I know. I know we're not great. Yeah, so Chavis is very worried

that he's being intimidated and bullied by his own constituents. I think there was like a 10 year old girl who asked him a question at one of these town halls. So that must've been very scary for him. Um, and then Louie Gohmert from Texas, uh, said he won't hold, won't hold a town hall because someone might get hurt. He's worried about it because, uh, he's worried about the leftists.

Yeah. I understand that. That makes sense. Special democracy is very dangerous. Special snowflake Louie Gohmert. That's such a beta move. I don't really understand the snowflake thing. What is that supposed to mean?

I don't either. I think the Breitbart crowd, the alt-right crowd, whoever the fuck they are, they always called us liberal snowflakes, I guess, because we're so precious and scared like a snowflake, I i don't know are we what are we one of a kind is that what they mean i don't know it's one of a kind or it's just like you know you get snowflakes are fragile fragile i think we're trying to say we're fragile oh i say these these are the people these are the people who can't show up at town halls now they're there too this is like you know like sebastian gork, the national security guy

who called up and threatened a lawsuit against some random Republican because they were tweeting bad things about him. So sad, Mr. Gorka, so sad. Anyway, so what do you think about these town halls and like people getting angry and yelling at their members of Congress. Like, do you think this is, I think this is helpful, not helpful? Well, I personally love it. I watch every clip, like Brad Jaffe of NBC News. I've retweeted every single one of his clips. Yeah. So he tweets out, he kind of collects these clips and has been tweeting them out. And I watch all of them. I watched some of that Chaffetz town Hall on a live stream last week. Like, I am addicted to this. It is the most fun television that I have. I am to that what Trump is to Fox News.

And so I think, like, I enjoy it. I think it's great. in 2009, us believing that these town halls of these angry people screaming at the members of Congress was politically bad for them. That turned out not to be the case. So I guess we don't have to worry about that. The one thing that I think is interesting is in 2009, the overwhelming bulk of those versions of the clips were centered around ACA. It was all about opposing ACA and being angry that the government was going to give all this money away and we couldn't afford it and all this sort of wrong information. But it was very focused on that. It almost sank the bill. When you watch these clips now, it is like the overall message is anger about trump

right it is less policy specific policy focus like there's a lot of really powerful aca ones the woman um who confronted tom cotton also not a particularly favorite republican of ours um about how her husband had was dying and they needed health care and pressured him on what health insurance he had. Like there's a lot of that. But there's also the seven-year-old asking questions about climate change. There's a lot of Russia, like really a lot of like, will you investigate Russia? A lot of the refugee stuff. And so it's a little bit of a mishmash. and I don't know exactly how I feel about that yet. Does it concern you at all?

It doesn't because I guess I have seen the overwhelming number of clips that I've seen and stories that I've read have been ACA-focused. I feel like the media has been packaging these as town hall protests about the Affordable Care Act. I've definitely heard some of the Russia stuff come through. And I've heard just general anti-Trump stuff. I have been most impressed. Look, in 2009, there were a lot of signs like, you know, about death panels and Obama is, you know, government takeover of our health care and worse, right? The Tea Party signs are pretty rough. And look, there's some pretty tough signs about Trump out there right now, too. But I've been enormously impressed with these town hall questioners

knowing, like, detailed policy, you know, information about the Affordable Care Act. Like, the questions have been very specific. They're about, you know, specific provisions of the bill. People have looked up what like health savings accounts are, which is what Republicans are proposing to replace some of these subsidies. And people have realized that health savings accounts are bullshits because you have to be rich in the first place

to be able to put away money in a health savings account. So I've been very impressed with the knowledge at these town hall meetings. I do agree overall, whether it's at these town halls or not, that democratic message at some point can't just be we hate Trump. It's just that it's not going to work, right? Like we need to have, we need to attack specific policies and then provide solutions of our own. I do, you know, genuinely believe that and there needs to be some focus, right? I think, you know, genuinely believe that. And there needs to be some focus, right? I think, you know, I don't think letting up on the Russia thing is a good idea, because I think there's some serious questions that are unanswered here. But I think that, you know, talking about

bread and butter issues, talking about issues that affect people's lives in their everyday lives is important. You know, we got to hit that hard. everyday lives is important. You know, we got to hit that heart. I, you know, I think people like you and I sort of, even though we're no longer Washington based political operatives, but we were at one time, have to resist the urge to script this, over organize it. Like this is what is going to work here is organic grassroots enthusiasm you know yeah that the like the the solution to the democratic party's problems both at the ballot

box and how we deal with trump is going to come bottoms up not top down and outside in that inside out when you think about washington and so, yeah, like as a communications professional, I would love to like write out seven focus group poll tested arguments that I know work with this sliver of voters I found in our data who we can move from Trump to Democrats in the midterms and give them to everyone and have them go do that.

But that's not how the world works anymore. And it wouldn't be effective even if we, we're not able to do that. And even if we could, it wouldn't work. And so I think we'd have to let this play itself out, right? And it's like Democratic leaders have to respond to this and help steer it in a electoral direction as we get closer to actual elections where people vote. But we have to, the biggest task for Democrats is not to try to control the Democratic enthusiasm out there, but more to become worthy vessels for that enthusiasm when it gets to election day. I completely agree. I completely, and I think it is, it's a timeline thing. You know, you focus more is the closer you get to the elections. But right now, the most important thing is energy and enthusiasm. And I think we can give people, you know, Democratic activists can give people the tools to help them organize and they can guide the overall effort and encourage it. But I don't think you script it too heavily.

I don't think you micromanage it. I mean, Republicans are complaining like, oh, the organizers gave them talking points on issues. Like, yeah, like I've seen some of those. There's some like broad, very broad points about the ACA that are pretty high level. And the questions that are in those town halls are so much more specific than the high-level talking points that you see in some of these packets. It's coming from the grassroots. It's coming from people organizing themselves, looking online, researching the issues, doing everything you're supposed to do to democracy. It's great. And we should applaud it and we should encourage it.

But you're right. I don't think we should try to micromanage it in any way. We should do an update on elections before we get to Anna Marie. The DNC members will vote in Atlanta on Saturday for the next party chair. And right now it's a close race between Tom Perez, friend of the pod, friend of the pod Keith Ellison,

and friend of the pod Pete Buttigieg is in third. It's pretty much a close race. It's pretty much a race between Perez and Ellison. It seems like Perez is ahead in the delegate count right now, but no one really knows for sure. And we know that no candidate has the majority they need right now. So then there was a CNN debate last night, which, you know, I have to be honest.

I love all these people. They're great. I watched a couple minutes of the CNN debate and I was like, I don't know. It seems a little boring. Yeah. I mean, i mean why i mean we had them on our podcast we don't have to go to somewhere else to listen to right that's i sort of i get the i get the gist you know yeah i mean look either way i think i remember you and i being concerned at the outset of this that this could turn nasty between like the bernie sanders wing the clinton people the obama people establishment first insurgent and i think among the candidates it's been pretty good like i think keith ellison and tom perez went to dinner the other night and they tweeted about how they're

friends and we'll help each other however this ends pete butigieg was incredibly impressive on our podcast and reportedly on CNN too last night. And I think the good news is we have three very good candidates. You know, I personally am supporting Tom Perez because I know him well. But it's not and that's because I have a friendship with him. And I think he's great. Not because I think the other two are bad. I think they're also very good. So, you know, however this ends, I think we're going to have a good person in charge of the DNC, which we're kind of in this purgatory phase where we're waiting for a DNC chair to get the DNC up and running to begin planning for the elections in 17 and 18 and 20. Yeah, I said the same thing. I'd be very happy if any of the three of those,

Yeah, I said the same thing. I'd be very happy if any of the three of those, Ellison Perez or Buttigieg, won this race, just because I think I also I mean, we should not over torque how important this job is. It is an important job. It's, you know, we're out of power. So it's the head of the Democratic Party for now. But it's not. I mean, this is an organizing job. This is a rebuilding and infrastructure job. This is not like, you know, the biggest thing in the world, meaning it should not split the party apart depending on who wins, you know, like it's, it's going to be okay. Um, we can have bigger fights, uh, when we get to primary season, you know, and we're trying to figure out a candidates for office, like, you know, those are going to be some serious differences that are policy differences. I think all these folks are very, very progressive, and any one of them would be a good party leader. And, you know, we'll see what happens. As you mentioned, there are other races in 2017. Before we even we've been talking a lot about the congressional elections in 2018, the House and the Senate. But in 2017, we're going to have some chances for Democrats to show up and win here. The Virginia governor race, the New Jersey governor race. Chris Christie is at 18% in New Jersey and he can't run again. So very good chance for

Democrats to pick up New Jersey. Same thing with Virginia, really. Tom Price's seat in Georgia. Tom Price is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And Trump won his district by one point after Romney won it by 23 points. And so this is a district right outside Atlanta. It's suburban. It's turning blue. So that's going to be very closely watched. I think there's a runoff. The first election is in April, and then the runoff is in June. Yeah, and it's like what they call a jungle primary, like we have in California,

where whoever win the top two, or in the top two in the primary, proceed to a June 30th runoff. And there's a Democrat who, John Ossoff, I think his name is, who worked for, is supported by John Lewis, and a bunch of other people who people think is very talented. And he's been getting a lot of attention. A guy at my gym told me that his wife had given money. But I think there's an opportunity there. And if people are looking for a place to channel their short-term energy, this is a good one. Excellent. Okay, we will – Wait, we forgot one. We forgot an important one.

What's that? I've got an important one. What's that? Two other points. One, Virginia governor matters a lot because Virginia is a state where the governor and the state legislature do redistricting. So who wins this race in 17 will be the person who does redistricting after the 2020 census. So it's very important we hold on to that. Oh, yes.

Yes. Second is Delaware has a state senate race on Saturday that will decide control of the state senate. And Democrats have held the state senate for, I think, 44 years. And friend of the pod, Joe Biden, went door to door this weekend to try and encourage people to vote, which is pretty awesome. I love that. God, I love Joe Biden. Come on our podcast, Joe Biden.

Come on our podcast, Joe Biden. Okay. When we come back, the new host of the brand new podcast from Crooked Media with Friends Like These, Annamarie Cox. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. With us on the pod today, MTV's Annamarie Cox, who is the host of the brand new Crooked Media podcast with friends like these. Anna-Marie, welcome to the show. Hey, my brothers in arms.

We're so excited. Yeah, well, I'm excited too. I actually just recorded the first episode. So I'll try to avoid giving spoilers. Well, so tell us a little bit about the podcast and why you decided to do it. And then maybe we can talk a little bit about a quick preview of the first episode. Even more than that, it made me start to think about, like, wait, so how do we survive this? You know, like the divide in our country is so deep and seemingly, you know, uncrossable. Like we have this, you know, separate spheres of media.

We have these ideologies. The poll that stayed with me for the entire election was this poll, I think, from Gallup that showed that people who were supporting Hillary Clinton and people who were supporting Trump said that they didn't agree on basic facts. So how do you have a conversation if you're that divided? talking to friends about it and i had a very wise friend actually krista tippett who has her own podcast um on being who made the suggestion that when we talk to people who we don't agree with that maybe we need to give up agreeing we have to sacrifice the idea that we might take it to some common ground and rather rather than try and find common ground, which is really about convincing people, right? Yeah, it's a persuasion question. When we say common ground, what we really mean is agree on something. So if you give up trying to find common ground, instead just try and figure out what is the other person's ground.

Like, you know, why do they feel what they feel? I'm not saying you're going to get anywhere. Like, I don't know if that's the solution to, I mean, if your goal is, again, convincing people, I don't know if that's going to convince people, but, you know, maybe, maybe make the gap between us a little smaller. Yeah. I mean, it's a good place to begin as any, right? I mean, I think that there's a couple, there's two different questions, you know, some people say, okay, well, how do we, you know, how do we beat trump in

2020 right like do we need to reach his voters and i tell people look there's a base of his voters that may never leave him um we don't need to convince those people to defeat him we could put together a majority that includes people who voted for hillary clinton and then some of the more reluctant trump voters that decided very late in the game and then you got a majority but that is a different question to like then then some people say, OK, well, what about all those Trump support, like the hardcore Trump fans? You know, how do we reach those people? And it's a tough question because I think if you live in this world where your news diet is Breitbart and Fox and all of these news sources. And that's how you get your information about the world. And you refuse to believe the facts that we believe, or we can't agree on a

common set of facts. Like you said, I don't know. I don't know how we get past that. And that has implications. Forget about just elections that have implications for how we govern, how we live together, how we, how the country survives. I mean, it's- Whether or not our elections work. Right. Yeah. People lose faith in elections. Like that's a crisis. That is an existential crisis. Yeah. And so, yeah. So, I mean, my first guest is a pastor from Wisconsin who pastors to two counties that voted for Obama in 08. One of them went Obama 08 and 2012, and then Trump,

and one of them went Obama, barely Romney, like five points for Romney, and then 28 points for Trump. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he and I just have a discussion about what the people in his congregations, like why they made the choices they made, and what, if anything, would convince them that they should not change their minds. But like I would guess, say, resist. Like, is there anything that would make them reject Trump having made a choice that they knew was a compromised choice? Because he says his people definitely understood that Trump was a bad guy and they voted for him anyway. And I think that's something that kind of us, you know know on the left sometimes we we don't quite get that you know this idea that they made an educated and aware choice for this incredibly like i don't want to say flawed that's almost like too too generous

you know they weren't snowed like they didn't you know I think a lot of people feel like that white working class got fooled. They didn't get fooled. They made a conscious choice to vote for this guy. No, I keep thinking about there's something like 20% of voters had a negative approval of both Trump and Hillary. So if you didn't like either Trump or Hillary, you still voted for Trump by like 15, 20 points. Yeah. And that's, you know, and we just talk about that and talk about what's happening for

the people there now, to what extent we can say. It's only been a month, believe it or not. Everyone has to remember it's only been a month. But I also want to add, because as you know, because we've talked about it, I'm interested in other kinds of divides too for this show. I'm not just interested in, you know, the illustration for the podcast is a pussy hat and a MAGA hat. Very clever. Very clever.

It's very clever. It's an incredibly clever cover. I think the person who designed it was probably just genius. Jesse is a hero. He's designed all of our podcast stuff. But it is a clever cover, and it does communicate, you know, sort of the central conceit. But we're also interested in conversations that would cross other kinds of divides

between people. And I want to have conversations about those divides. Like, I want to talk to my, you know, friends who are people of color about our differences. Because, you know, a lot of things of color about our differences. Because like, you know, a lot of things happen on the left where we just kind of assume we're all together on the same team, you know? And that's the sort of the real with friends like these part of it is like, yeah, we're all on the same team, but maybe we need to talk about our different experiences and talk about what makes us come to this same general, you know, ideology. But we're here for different reasons,

and we're getting different things out of it. That's cool. I'm really excited about this. Are you good? So what, who are some of the who are some of the guests you have? You don't have to say the names of the guests, but what types of guests do you have lined up? Like, I imagine some Republicans, I imagine some, you know, yeah, Republicans, definitely, but it's not going to be the never Trumper of the week. Right? Yeah, that's like, but it's not going to be the never Trumper of the week. Right. Yeah, that's like we do here. Yeah. But some Republicans and some actual Trump supporting Republicans. I also think that I want to talk to, you know, some Muslim people, like statistics that show that very few Americans actually know a Muslim person.

Yeah. So I feel like that's something that we can do and we can talk about, you know, people of color of all kinds of color. I also want to talk to, you know, people with different gender identifications, people with speaking about class, which is another thing on the left that we sometimes kind of skip over. But this election showed some fault lines. And I think, you know, people like Tom Frank are obviously like who comes to mind for that. And then also, you know, I'm going to take some suggestions, I think. And I also am interested in if people are willing to talk about some personal insight and some personal experiences about how politics interrelationships and relationships interpolitics. how politics interrelationships and relationships interpolitics. I was going to ask, so your husband is a Republican, and I think I've seen you tweet about your in-laws are fairly conservative as well. How do you talk to them about politics? Well, the short answer is that we discovered we can't.

This election, the differences are so extreme that what had been some kind of fairly good-natured ribbing and good-natured, oh, you silly, bleeding-heart liberal, oh, you hard-hearted, you know, Reaganite, that, you know, shit got real. And we just agreed not to talk about it. And with my husband, what's been interesting is that he actually would not say he's or he now does not identify as a Republican. or not that ideology was something that really he wanted that the conservative side of the spectrum maybe was not as representative of his feelings and beliefs as he thought it was, which I think has happened to other people as well. But that story doesn't get talked about as much.

I'm interested in exploring it. Not with John, but that would be weird. But I think people like Ben Howe, who is a writer, conservative writer, who for him, Trump's rise made him question whether or not, you know, who his allies were and what it meant to be allies with people who supported Trump. Have you found it at all possible to even not talk about Trump with your in-laws? Like, I can't. I live in San Francisco, obviously. So I'm not, you know, I live in my own bubble of my choosing.

But, like, it infects everything. Like, Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times wrote his column this week about how he tried to take a week off Trump news. And his basic takeaway was it's impossible because he's everywhere. Are you guys able to find other things to talk about? it's impossible because he's everywhere. Are you guys able to find other things to talk about? Oh boy, has my relatively new discovery of sports helped. Because you can run out of the weather pretty quickly, but sports is still kind of enough material to avoid um specifically talking about politics

but of course you know that is now tough too right like when you have the new england patriots refusing to go to the white house and also like i remember relatively recently i was visiting them and i got up before anybody else. And I very quickly when I got up, turned the TV to ESPN. Like, all right, we're going to rather than have Fox and Friends on the background, we'll have ESPN and everybody will be safe. And for some reason, like the first thing that was on television when, you know, my in-laws came down for coffee was a discussion about the NCAA pulling out of March Madness in North Carolina. So, you know, it's everywhere. And, you know, I mean, something that I truly believe is that it usually is not like that productive to talk about, you know, extreme disbeliefs with people that you love, because you never just

talking about the area you disagree with, you disagree about, you're also talking about your relationship. And it brings up fears of acceptance and fears of loss. And, you know, like, if you have an argument with someone who you really care about, you're also arguing about your relationship and the health of that relationship. So I mean, the whole concept of the show is kind of about, you're also arguing about your relationship and the health of that relationship. So, I mean, the whole concept of the show is kind of about, I'm not going to be talking to my in-laws or my husband. Unless you're really low on guests and you're just... Because those relationships are complicated and they're always about more than politics. Whereas I think it is possible to start with the disagreement and then develop a relationship.

That is maybe how we're going to have to work. to start with the disagreement and then develop a relationship, you know? Yeah. That is maybe how we're going to have to work. And I do think this is the way forward. I mean, I don't know what it's a way forward to. I hope that my mind and my eyes and my heart are open to the people that I talk to as much as their hearts and minds are open to me. people that I talk to as much as their hearts and minds are open to me. I think that one of the things that will make, hopefully make this adventure, you know, this conversation worth having is I want to give up on my own grip of being right, to the extent that I can, which is to say, I want to listen with, you know, if I, if I come into this hoping that they might be persuadable,

then I have to at least open my mind to being persuaded, you know, which is tough. It is. It's really great of you to do this. Cause my reaction to the election has been the exact opposite. Like I have retreated further. Like I want to have, I want to just insulate myself with people that agree with me and not it, just be angry. And so like, kudos to you.

You can be both. Get you a podcast that can do both. This is a question that was, how do you see the sort of the town halls and the protests fit into this? Right. Because I know you've I saw some people trolling you that like you admitted to joining MTV News's Anna Marie Cox admitted to joining anti-Trump protests. It's like, yeah, you like set it on TV. You were proud of it. I said it on TV, a show hosted by a former congressman. So, you know, I think the divide between activism and media is pretty thin. But I also I mean, I would say like, I'm not an activist, I'm a citizen. I went to a protest specifically about the travel ban because that is something I felt strongly about.

I think these town halls and these travel ban protests, what I find encouraging and hopeful about them is the degree to which people are being drawn to them out of personal experience and communicating that personal experience. Yes, I totally agree. Because I think that's also, if we make our project about reaching people with the potential of changing their minds, statistics are not going to be as helpful as stories.

And those most powerful moments we've seen from the town hall so far, I mean, think about what they are. They're all miniature stories, you know. Yeah. And it's so much easier to have empathy for someone else in their position and, you know, the ground that they stand on when you hear them talk about themselves and you see that the motivation is, you know, about their own lives and their own families and not some, you know, purely political motivation. And I do think the Trump administration has underestimated the degree to which the people that they want to oppress have deep roots and relationships in the communities of America, especially in cities, in blue cities and red states. You know, I've told this story a couple of times, but I was having coffee the other day, and I happened to overhear the two women next to me.

This is like, you know, a pour-over coffee shop, hipstery place in northeast Minneapolis. And they were talking about, not they were talking about the travel ban, they were talking about the deportations and immigration order, sanctuary city order. And they were talking about some friend of theirs who was married to somebody who had overstayed his visa and was now facing deportation. And, you know, one of them was very upset about this. And it was one of those things like you don't realize how interconnected people's lives are. Like you don't realize like this is not just about like low wage labor, you don't realize, like, this is not just about, like, low-wage labor, you know? Right. It's complex and nuanced. I mean, Obama always used to talk about this gap between how

people of diverse views, backgrounds, beliefs treat each other within their communities, right, which is quite well, and they get along quite well well versus how you think people treat each other by looking at national politics and what we see on TV and how they treat each other on Twitter and how they treat each other on cable news shows. And, you know, what do you do about sort of reducing this gap? Because if everyone wasn't getting along in their local communities and neighborhoods, you'd say, okay, well, we're a lost cause. You know, everyone's at war with each other. But the fact that people are getting along in communities and are treating each other so well in real life, but aren't when it's some stranger on Twitter or when you're yelling at

someone in Washington, that's a huge problem. And I don't know where you narrow that gap. I mean, my belief is that the other kind of thing that has to be a part of the way forward is getting offline you know yeah is getting into our communities i i think obama's final speech i know how much you guys loved it i loved it too and you know the most compelling parts of it were if you have a problem with this get out you know go organize right and out, you know, go organize. And I think, you know, the degree to which we survive as a country, and I actually am not even talking about policy, right? I'm not even talking about which kind of policy succeeds.

I am talking more about that existential crisis of whether or not we can even talk and trust each other. We need to be of service to each other. We need to be out in our communities. Like I have made this joke on Twitter a thousand times, but, you know, one of the most compelling things you could probably do to both advance your own self-care and advance the interests of the nation right now is go be a dog walker at your local shelter. Because that's going to be self-care for you because dogs, awesome. And also it's going to put you in touch with your community. It's going to get you out and you may run across people because lots of people love animals.

And you may meet people who you don't realize you have different opinions, but you share this one thing and you're going to make connections. That's awesome. You could do other stuff besides walk dogs. That's a personal favorite. But I think get out in your community and start being of service to someone, especially a stranger, in whatever way you have the most passion about, whether that is soup kitchen, mentoring, tutoring, visiting the elderly, whatever it is. Get out there and start doing it, and you will develop the resilience for your own sake. That is extraordinarily good advice we are so excited about this podcast everyone please get the teaser is on itunes right now so you can go subscribe right now and then uh the first episode is going to drop tomorrow right

it's uh dropping tomorrow dropping tomorrow all right with friends like these go sign up and um anna marie come back on and we'll keep talking about all this stuff all right thanks all right take care thank you thank you so much to anna marie cox for joining us again today go subscribe to with friends like these go subscribe to pod save the world and of course um rate us and review us on itunes uh dan i'll talk to you later all right bye All right. Bye.