Pod Save America - "A moment of silence for Bowling Green."

Episode Date: February 6, 2017

Behind the scenes of Trump's first weeks, his attacks on the judiciary, and his not-so-populist revolution. Then Neera Tanden joins Jon, Jon and Tommy to discuss the fight to save ACA.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On the pod today, we have the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden, also a long-time Hillary aide and healthcare expert. We're going to talk to Neera about some ACA stuff. But first, what a day. Which day? Yesterday? Lots of days. The Super Bowl victory? I was talking about the SuperA stuff. But first, what a day. Which day? Yesterday? Lots of days.

Is that the Super Bowl victory? I was talking about the Super Bowl victory. All right, you guys do this. Let's just get it over with. I don't want to be, yeah, we don't want to be Inseparable Patriots fans. We know our listeners.

Just Inseparable Patriots. Look, I'm taking comfort in the fact that Donald Trump left his own Super Bowl party a little after the half, right when the Pats comeback began. He's not a real fan. I just wanted to do a quick message to America.

Let's not make everything about politics. A football game can be just a fucking football game. It's not about... I'm trying not to swear anymore. It can be just a football game. Yeah, I'm going to be better about it. This is also a... Save it.

This is also a... Usually everything is about politics, but we're compartmentalizing because we're Patriots fans. That's right. Yeah, and I'm fine with that. It's called hypocrisy. And this game was on last night.

Love it. You were there. You were jumping up and down. You were taking pictures of yourself. You were putting them on Twitter. Tommy, you want to talk about Pod Save the World? The juggernaut, the new juggernaut from Crooked Media? The juggernaut from Crooked Media. Pod Save the World, my new, now weekly, we moved up to weekly already due to popular demand,

show about foreign policy. I'm going to try to take you guys inside the White House Situation Room, the big meetings, the trips we did with President Obama by interviewing the people who made the decision while we were there. This week, I have Dan Restrepo, who handled all of Latin America policy for President Obama, a really smart guy. He understands the politics, the policy, and he speaks like a human being in multiple languages. So he's a good person to hear. Dan's going to tell us how to build the wall.

Yeah, he's going to tell us when the wall is going up. And before we begin, we have a quick word from one of our sponsors. Okay, let's get to the news. Enough business. Should we first have a moment of silence for the victims of the Bowling Green Massacre? Okay. That was good. Thank you. We're first have a moment of silence for the victims of the Bowling Green Massacre? Okay. That was good. Thank you.

We're going to insert music in there. Like the ABC memoriam. The memoriam segment, yeah. Okay, let's start with the failing New York Times had quite a story that Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thresh dropped just at halftime last night. Yeah. It's just a great move. And what a story it was.

A boss move. The story is called Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles. But it really should be called Dottie Old Racist Wanders Around the White House in a Bathrobe. I mean, the takeaway image of this thing for me is that Trump leaves the office at 6.30 p.m.,

nothing else to do, I guess, walks upstairs and, like, watches cable alone with his private security guard just screaming at Don Lemon on the TV. In his bathrobe. That's what it was. It's very William Randolph Hearst. It's not great. He often offers a bitter play-by-play of critics

like CNN's Don Lemon. Of all the critics, it's Don Lemon. Hey, President Trump, don't waste your time yelling at Don Lemon. Yell at us. Yell at us. Yell at anyone. You can't use a phone.

I just, the thing about these stories about like, it feels like year six Nixon. Like it just feels like a president who's just beleaguered and who's been at this. It's two and a half weeks old. It does. I mean, in fairness, it feels like it's been 10 years. The extraordinary anecdote in that story, though, joking aside, is that he was so upset about the presidential memorandum that codified Steve Bannon as part of the National Security Council because he didn't actually understand it when he signed it.

That is scary. Yeah, it's like Steve Bannon's just having him sign memos. Like, just initial here, sign here, I'm the president now, you have no more power. He's like doing a subprime mortgage with an old woman. Who can't afford it. That's what he's basically doing. He's running a fucking subprime. It's like you listen to a Fred Thompson commercial. Yes, he's doing a reverse mortgage with an old woman who trusted him and who just wanted

somebody to talk to. And by the way, how much do those guys hate Chris Christie? Just so thirsty for a job that he will tee off on them at any moment. Good for Chris Christie. I would have said that. I would have gone further. Yeah, so there were some great details. A couple details from the story.

Closer to the White House, he now has little access to his fans and supporters, an important source of feedback and validation. Fans. Everyone talks about him, by the way, and writes about him like he is a six-year-old. Rightly so. But it's just so funny, the tone that comes through in these stories. is a six-year-old. Rightly so.

But it's just so funny the tone that comes through in these stories. And he feels increasingly pinched by the pressures of the job and the constant presence of protests. That is awesome. Keep it up. That's probably the best news

in that story. He hears them in there. He is mad about the protests. They're getting to him. It also is definitely getting to him because, outrageously, this morning on Fox & Friends,

Sean Spicer, who's now been memorialized by Melissa McCarthy in SNL this weekend. Tough hit, Sean Spicer, who's now been memorialized by Melissa McCarthy in SNL this weekend. Tough hit, Sean. Tough hit. Spicer says that, was asked about the protest,

and he said they are, a very paid astroturf-type movement, not like the Tea Party, which was organic. This is, of all the lies, this one really bugs me. Yeah.

We're sort of cutting a lot of K-1s this year with all those contractors. Well, it's because, like, they do fake news all the time, and, really bugs me. Yeah. We sort of cut a lot of K-1s this year with all those contractors. Well, it's because they do fake news all the time and believe your own facts. When you see pictures of thousands and thousands of people protesting, I think to myself, okay, this they can't

ignore and lie about because this is real and it's in your face. And they're still lying about it. Where do these people send their W-2s? What are you talking about? And it's also, it's a protest. Somebody who's making this point, it's not that expensive. It's a couple bottles of water and some cardboard.

What do you think we need to do to bankroll this? It's an Uber to the airport. Everybody's fine. Well, Lyft to the airport. I would love, a reporter at the briefing should ask Spicer, what is the evidence that you have that they're paying protest?

What is the hourly rate? This could easily turn into another crowd-sized lie, three to five million illegal voted lie. I mean, there's just, there's no evidence for this whatsoever. They're at their worst when they dig in and defend, defend, defend. The other thing I loved about this is that the guy can barely sit through the PDB every day. They're shrinking the thing down to like bullet points essentially, but he flipped through a 17-page book of like window dressing options.

I mean, like we waited a year and a half to redecorate the Oval because we thought we'd get attacked for it and because Obama paid for it himself. He had the gold curtains up literally day one. He's very proud of the curtains. Very proud of the curtains. They look fine. He should not be president. So back to the Bannon thing, though.

So Trump is pissed that Bannon got on the National Security Council and he didn't know about it, apparently, because he's just signing things left and right. And then last week, the Washington Post, I think Ashley Parker and Phil Rucker had a story that said Trump has raised the fact with aides that Bannon got the cover of Time magazine. So then this morning on Trump's primary source of information about the world, Morning Joe. Yeah, Trump's PDB, Morning Joe. Oh, no. So they're on Morning Joe. They show the Bannon Time magazine cover. They play the SNL clip of President Bannon and of President Trump and President Bannon thing.

And then they discuss that maybe Bannon's calling the shots. And sure enough, like five minutes later, we get this Trump tweet. I call my own shots largely based on an accumulation of data. And everyone knows it. Some fake news media, in order to marginalize, lies. I just, based on Trump, you can't, that's too much. Like, we can maybe buy that you're calling. It's just an interesting use of 140 characters.

Marginalize? We can like, alright, I get why you want to buy that you're calling. It's just an interesting use of 140 characters. Marginalized? We can, like, alright, I get why you want to say that you're calling the shots, but nobody believes you're making your decisions based on an accumulation of data. No one thinks you have data. No one thinks you're looking at the facts. There have been many aides in the White House that have flown a little too close to the sun, right? Karl Rove being called Bush's brain was probably not great.

We've seen it with other presidents. Steve Bannon got there faster than anyone else in history. I would be scared to death if I were him. Yeah. I mean, well, I think we should keep it up, you know? Impeach President Bannon, guys. Impeach President Bannon. Coming to a merch store near you. Speaking of,

don't forget, one week left, sales almost over. Capitalism. It's our Kickstarter. Thanks to Jesse McClain, our graphic designer. Use your Soros check. Buy a t-shirt, and then go to the protest. Then everyone wins. Everybody got your Soros money from the protest. One other thing, though, in that story that I wanted to make sure we covered, which is that Paul Ryan and Bannon are talking all the time.

And now the story originally said they were texting, but then somebody got it corrected. Now they're just talking. But regardless, this is from the story. Speaker Ryan, have you ever texted with Steve Bannon? Do you have his number? Mr. Ryan, he once described as the enemy in Vow to Force Out, but he now talks regularly with Mr. Ryan to coordinate strategy or plot their planned overhaul of the tax code. Separately, Politico reported that Kevin McCarthy, the House number two, speaks with Trump several times a week by phone. And Trump dotes on McCarthy,

even referring to him as my Kevin. Yes. So I just want to make sure we're all aware that Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy are not holding their nose. They're breathing in and out. They are in it. Hey, congrats to Brendan Buck for getting that texting thing changed to phone call. Great job, Brendan. Great job, Brendan. Friend of the pod. You're allowed to come on

anytime. We invited you on the tweets. I want to know what emojis they use when they text. Exploding truck face. A lot of frogs. Trump watched Morning Joe, but he also watched CNN

this morning because David Challen did this whole segment on his polls and how his polls are bad, which immediately led Trump to tweet, Any negative polls are fake news. That is a parody of a Trump tweet. Not just like, polls are fake news because polls have been wrong.

Any negative polls are fake news. Positive polls, right on track. How? Two weeks we're at this level of parody. Nothing to even say about that. You know what? It was nice watching the Super Bowl last night and looking at Twitter because even though everyone was making everything political, it was like a moment where you weren't constantly scared and upset by something Trump was doing. I noticed this morning when I saw his tweets again, I'm like, oh, we're back to it. We had like a brief three-hour window where this was not a thing. Although, I have to say, yes, reporters, you can make a joke

about how the game was like the election. Oh, the Falcons didn't go to Wisconsin. Oh, looks like Comey made me the ref. Great job, guys. You're crushing it. First couple jokes were funny. By like joke 45, it wasn't as funny. I think there's a 99% chance

that the Falcons win. Enough. Falcons shouldn't have booked the Javits Center so early. That one was a good one, and that was yours. Okay, I said it because I didn't want to say it. All right, let's go to, so before the Super Bowl. Let's talk about O'Reilly. Trump sat down with O'Reilly, and it's Bill O'Reilly.

You might have heard of him. You mean in the no-spin zone? He's in the no-spin zone. So Bill O'Reilly said, he started talking about Putin. And, you know, do you respect Putin? Trump said, yes, I respect Putin, as he's ordered to. And then O'Reilly said, well, he's a killer. And Trump said, well, we've got killers in this country.

What do you think? Are countries so innocent? Can we just start by pointing out that this is the softest Bill O'Reilly history. He is such a wuss when it comes to interviewing Donald Trump. When Obama did this interview in 2011, Bill asked him, does it disturb you that so many people hate you? And then he followed up like three times. Like, but they hate you. They hate you. Okay?

So yeah, O'Reilly pressed him on this and he's like, Trump said, yeah, we got a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent? Which, the charitable explanation is that he's referring to Iraq and that the toll, the civilian casualties, the result of that enormous mistake were enormous. But there's just there's no way you can say that we target and kill political opponents or journalists the way Putin does. I mean, he's funding separatists in eastern Ukraine. separatists in eastern ukraine he which he is there's a long list of political opponents like boris nemsov and alexander litvinenko who died from a radioactive uh plutonium that was slipped in his drink i mean they're murdering happens all the time happens all the time the united states

yeah it's very reagan did it what is he talking about i mean like it started this whole debate about american exceptionalism and finally like a lot of conservatives came out and blasted him for this comment. Rightly so. But it's just amazing to watch these people because these are the same folks who accused Obama of going on an apology tour because he admitted that maybe our foreign policy decision making hadn't been perfect over time. Mitt Romney wrote a book called No Apology as a rebuke to Barack Obama, who as far as I can tell, who only went so far as to be like, America's made some mistakes in the past. No apology. Here's an example. Central part of my campaign.

Our country has not perfected itself, was the first thing he said when he was in Berlin. That was the attack. He said, too, in the Cairo speech, Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. Dear God.

Now Donald Trump's like, we're worse than Putin. What do you want? Come at me. And meanwhile, Paul Ryan, nowhere to be found. Steve, I just want to text you about the tax cuts. Yeah. And then Mark, Mark, dollar sign, dollar sign, question marks. And Marcus Rubenstein, Marcus Rubenstein, who's not going to be up for election until

2022 can only muster up. I think that Putin's not good. Marco, you silly guy. As he then started tweeting his play-by-play at the Super Bowl. I think the Super Bowl's going great and I enjoyed Lady Gaga, but I won't be critical of a president who hates America. Because I'm Marco Rubio and I'm a serious adult. Immigration, I'm for it. Not anymore.

Whatever you want, I want. I'm Marco Rubio. So anyway, so that was the O'Reilly interview. It was also taped right before the big news of the weekend, which was a judge, a Seattle-based judge, Judge James Robart, in a case brought by the states of Washington and Minnesota, put a nationwide halt on the Muslim ban, on the travel ban. And of course...

Ban is your word. Ban is my... You said ban. You said ban. You said ban, Glen Thurston. You said ban. So there have been a whole bunch of other rulings since the ban went into effect, but this one was by far the most expansive because he said that it had to go for every state.

It wasn't just Washington, Minnesota, even though they brought the case. So the entire order, the entire EO is now on pause while it's appealed. Basically, the government then appealed to the Ninth Circuit and said that they wanted the ban in place while it was still being appealed. The Ninth Circuit denied the government's emergency request to reinstate the ban. And so now the next place it would go is to the Supreme Court. If there is a tie at the Supreme Court, the federal, the original federal decision stands because that's what happens when there's a tie at the Supreme Court. And for

that, Trump can thank the Republicans and keeping the seat open for Merrick Garland. But anyway, so as opposed to just saying, you know, maybe Trump could have said something like that was a bad decision. I don't agree with it. No, no. He said the so-called judge, so-called judge. That wasn't even the worst one. He said, just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens, blame him and court system, period. People pouring in, period. Bad. No, they're not. No, they're not. So, yeah, this is now the most egregious thing he's done via Twitter, I think.

And maybe the entire time he's been in office, he's threatening the judicial system. He's just outright saying if there's an attack i will blame them because i can't keep the country safe under the constitution and that's the most dangerous thing he's done so of course we can expect weeks of hearings from the republican congress who will do their best not just as represented representatives of a party but literally the representatives of a branch of our equal, a co-equal branch of our government. They will call hearings. They will make the central to the Gorsuch nomination fight.

I'm sure Paul Ryan has raised this personally with Donald Trump and made it a focus of their conversations. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Wait. Is none of that happening? I don't think any of it happened. Oh, are they just rolling over like a bunch of feckless cowards, putting the entire country

at risk? To their credit. Great. I like that speech but like ben sass strongly criticized him there were some republicans out there on this even mcconnell was like this was inappropriate ben sass is it does okay not mike pence though mike pence i meet the press was like well he's got feelings about the judiciary he can strong strong yeah watching mike pence try to defend donald trump is just sad but i mean he's clearly views the courts rightly probably is the final check on his unbridled power to do whatever he wants across the country. And he's laying the predicate to attack them in case something bad happens.

Thanks for saying it was a nice speech, Tommy. You're welcome. It was really good. I liked it. People think you don't like me. We're going to get into this now? Yeah, yeah. Come on, we got near in 10 minutes. Let's go. We got other things to cover. Also, people wonder if you like me. We'll do a bonus pod.

Is this the About Lovett segment? So, important things to read. From the New York Times over the weekend, there was a really important story about the way ISIS actually directs attacks. And the key takeaway is that the threat we face is not foreign. It's people in the United States who, we call them lone wolves but often they're actually directed by isis from abroad right but these are people who feel uh you know like they're they're being radicalized they feel like they're we're at war with the west right and like this muslim

ban again makes us less safe because it's going to make more of these people come up michael hayden wrote a really important piece about how the ban makes it harder to get human intelligence sources and all the countries named because one of the things we promised them is we'll bring you and we'll bring your family to the United States if you help us. And now they feel like we can't keep up with that honor. We can't honor that promise. Michael Hayden, the former Bush Intel guy. You know, you see these tweets and it's like, oh, he's done something outrageous, egregious.

But I do notice that we're just at some point, God forbid, but the likelihood is that there will be a lone wolf attack. There will be some kind of terrorist attack. And then if he's doing this now, what does he do then? I mean, that's the real scary. He's telling us what he's going to do. I know. He's telling us what he's going to do. And I don't know what, like, we're just sort of like watching the train come, you know?

I don't know what you do in advance other than just talk about it. And defend the judiciary and have as many people in influential roles as possible, whether it's Republicans, other leaders, just talk. People were very quick to rush and be like, well, this judge that halted the ban was a George W. Bush appointee, and he has some conservative positions. But it's like, I don't care if he was the fucking most liberal judge ever. He's a judge.

Yeah. Right. Like when the judiciary makes a decision, they make a decision. You know, the other thing is I was thinking about, too, that we're going to get to the point where we'll be talking more about federal employees having to decide whether or not to honor an order from the administration that violates a court order. whether or not to honor an order from the administration that violates a court order and how we handle that, how we're ready for that, what the ACLU is doing to be prepared to help those people. I am heartened that after an initial round of confusion, like DHS said that the Customs and Border Patrol would honor the judge's order. Because there was a moment there where they weren't,

and you wondered, was it confusion, or was it because they were just deciding not to carry the order out? And I was very worried about that. But it's good to see that now that the confusion has died down, that they all are carrying out the judge's order. Following an illegal order doesn't mean

you don't go to jail, just because the president told you to do it. And people will go to, like, the president won't go to jail, he can pardon himself, he can pardon anyone he wants, but you can't break the law on his on his behalf you don't work for him it's also you know we have the national national counterterrorism center the fbi's terrorist screening center state department dod dhs all these agencies are currently vetting refugees

it's an 18 to 24 month process like in the president's just saying that's not happening he's telling these people they're incompetent they can't do their job because some judge made a rule he's just like it's not how you lead a workforce it's not how you do anything anything it's like this this eo landed in the courts because of his donald trump's gross incompetence and putting together an executive order with a bunch of incompetent goons in his white house who didn't know what the hell they were doing right right like he could have he could have devised an order that we disagreed with, but that would have maybe been lawful.

He could have tailored it in the right way. He could have had all kinds of people in Congress and in his White House and experts weigh in on this. He didn't do that because it is a clown show in the White House. He's sort of trying to mask the incompetence of his own administration by attacking this judge.

Sure. I don't think he's a of trying to mask the incompetence of his own administration by attacking this judge. Sure. I don't think he's a good president, guys. This is Positive America. Stick around. There's this great stuff coming. Lots of great stuff. So a few other things were going on this week. I mean.

It's first of all... Dangerous. How do we even... It's like, even structuring this conversation is impossible, because there's so much happening between Thursday and Monday, that's insane. This is sort of the whole point, right? Yeah. With all these regulations we're about to go into, I barely even recognize half of these

things happened. And you hear some journalists and conservative commentators say, you know, the people in middle America don't... They don't care as much about the ban and the protests and they don't follow the news like we do and so they're not as uptight about that and i that's that's probably true in many cases there are a number of things that happened last week that i do think threatened to um expose the emptiness of the promise that trump made to working class america to protect them and if I had my way like and I was running a Democratic campaign, the main message would be Trump said he was going to help working class people and he did not. And here's why. And then you could list the regulations that we're going to get into right now. But it's hard to keep these things in the news.

You see this all the time, which is reporters constantly back and forth between description and normative judgment. Like, they describe, like, this is not breaking through in middle America. And now, like, that may be true. Yeah, no, I'm sure it's true. But it's not good. Right. And so it's like, well, okay. Because what it says is, you people should stop talking about this stuff

because it's not breaking through and middle America doesn't care. But it is like a circle. Yeah, it's an uroboros, if you will. It's also condescending and paternalistic. And guess what? There's some Muslims who live in middle America. doesn't care but it is like a it's like a it's like a circle yeah it's an uroboros it's also if you will condescending and paternalistic and guess what there's some muslims who live in middle america yeah it's probably breaking through and big protests in red states yeah we we we brought in uh huge numbers of muslims to live in the midwest but anyway this so this last week trump and congress um repealed regulations that prevented mining companies from dumping toxic waste into water. Cool.

Oil companies now do not have to disclose their payments to foreign governments. Finally. Trump signed an executive order stating that they want to look into and repeal most of Dodd-Frank, which were the Wall Street regulations put in place after the economic crisis. So now Wall Street can... And the best is Trump signs this with a picture of former Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn smiling behind Trump as he's signing his order to just dismantle Wall Street regulations.

Do it, do it, do it. The Goldman Sachs executive who apologized to the nation at that first hearing in 2008 before the bailout. Oh, really? He was the guy. Yeah. Oh, man. Just a real fuck you to everyone.

And then also signed an executive order repealing the rule that Obama put in place that said financial advisors have to act in their customers' best interests. You know what? People are sick of getting good advice. Yeah. They want to know that their financial advisor has gotten a cut of to consumers to make sure that banks and mortgage lenders don't take advantage of them. And also, this one is just like, why? The FCC is now stopping nine companies from providing subsidized internet to poor people. How are they supposed to find Trump's tweets?

That's just so cruel, right? Because what child in 2017 can do homework without the internet you know you're just you're just that's who you're hurting also it's paid for by the companies the companies want to subsidize this it's not like taxpayer money this is just it's why it's also so how do we keep trump doesn't care about any of this he's just a vessel for these for these ideological buffoons around him. Goons. Goons. You're saying goons so much. We're all saying goons so much.

Sorry, you started it. How do we keep these things in the news? I do think this is when most people hear about these moves that he is screwing over working people that's what's going to separate them from Trump.

And it's so hard because he does, it's the tweets and it's the, you know, it's the bans and it's the protests and it's just hard to keep these in the news. I mean, protest has been the one surefire way to grab hold of the news cycle, right, for us. Yeah. Like, that has worked. And put, I mean, that changed everything.

So, but, you know, you can't, you can't, it's like, today's protest is about the first executive order, not the second executive order. It's hard. This is also where Democrats need to be very focused on the language they use. If you're out there chanting, save Dodd-Frank, preserve the fiduciary role,

you're probably not winning the argument. But if you're out there saying, hey, do you want used car salesmen handling your retirement and trying to upsell you on fancy products that don't necessarily work? No? Okay. Then you want these regulations in place.

I just say that, Tommy. That was not like a great chance. They put your financial... It's like, make them put your financial interests above theirs. I mean, we have to be able to talk about these things better. We live in a free but fair market with regulations that protect consumers, but we're not against businesses doing well. You know, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are good at this. Very good, yeah.

Sherrod Brown is good at this. There are Democrats that do well with this messaging. One place where this all kind of comes together is the fight to save the Affordable Care Act. The protests and the calls are working in the Affordable Care Act. There are Republican officeholders in very conservative districts. I saw one story out of Tampa Bay where the town hall was overwhelmed by people who just wanted to save the ACA, and this guy had no idea what he was doing. There was one person at that that had a very funny quote that I really liked. It was very simple.

This was it. He just said, yes, we have something in place. They have nothing in place. I mean, so it's, the affordable character has never been more popular than it is right now, now that people want to get rid of it.

Yeah, grass is always greener, isn't it, guys? Unbelievable. Frank Luntz is out there telling Republicans not to say repeal and replace anymore, but to say repair. I'm surprised that Frank L that Franklin is out and about,

because most recently he was recovering from a glitter attack, and I believe bed-bound for quite some time. I think the glitter attack is what got them at Bowling Green. Yeah, no, no, it was mostly casualties due to glitter at Bowling Green. Excessively fabulous. But so, in the O''reilly interview right he was asked about trump was asked about this and try and o'reilly said you know will there be a replacement for the affordable care act this year and trump's quote was maybe it'll take till sometime into

next year but we're certainly going to be in the process it statutorily takes a while to get that is the first time he's ever used the word statutory. Somebody said it to him that day, maybe an hour before. Yes, definitely. And then he said, we're going to be putting it in fairly soon. I think that, yes, I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year. First of all, that is actually amazing for a couple reasons.

He sounds like such a politician. He sounds like a president politician. He does. He sounds like a president who's dealing with the fact that the job is hard. And he sees the danger in repealing the Affordable Care Act. Yeah. I love that he's pushing this thing into 2018. Push it as close to the midterm elections as possible. Let's make this as big a deal as we possibly can for as long as possible.

Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. Well, then Ryan, Paul Ryan is interviewed on Meet the Press and he's, and I think Chuck Todd said, you know,

are you using this word repair now too? And Ryan basically said, no, no, no, we're still repealing and replacing. No, I'm gutting this thing. Because this is, this is again,

this is the divide now, right? Like when it comes time for unconstitutional travel bans, Paul Ryan's against it, but doesn't really want to say anything or just sort of like nods in approval because he's waiting for the tax cuts and he's waiting for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But when it comes time to do these things, Paul Ryan's like, okay, can we repeal Obamacare? And Steve Bannon's like, no, we're trying to be populist over here.

So watch out. Text, text, text, text, text. Bloop. Angry face emoji, angry face emoji angry face emoji hey hey how are you I'm fine do you have a chance

to jump on the phone no let's just text him in the name Bannon's like text can you say repair three bubbles honestly he started typing

but then he just left you know perhaps perhaps if they get in a big text fight they can those things escalate yeah

and then pretty soon then they're not talking. And then, to make it up for it, Paul Ryan has to send Bannon books. When we come back, we will have the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.

This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. With us on the pod today, we have President of the Center for American Progress, longtime Hillary Clinton aide, healthcare expert, Neera Tanden. Neera, welcome to the pod. Great to be with you guys, I think. It's going to be great.

Fabulous. It's going to be amazing and terrific. You and John have something in common, which is I worked for both of you. So, you know, congratulations on that. So the weird thing is you worked for Jen after me, so I don't know that happened. And look, I asked Nira what she thought about Love It, and there was a little bit of a pause

that I should have... I definitely gave a shrug. He's fine. I should have taken that. I feel like the phrase hit or miss was issued. PolitiFact true. Okay, Nira uh we were just talking about the affordable care act and um you probably saw the o'reilly interview where trump now said uh you know they might now push it into 2018 uh what do you do you think there's like a method behind this madness at all. Like, one of my fears is that they don't act on anything right now. And yet, because there's no certainty, a bunch of insurers leave the exchanges, and then bad things start happening to the individual insurance market, and then prices go up. And then the

Republicans say, well, look, now it's failing even worse than it was. Democrats help us fix this law. Like, I'm sort of wondering how this plays out. I mean, I definitely think that in the world of Donald Trump, any conspiracy theory is reasonable. I guess what I would say is that he, Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to own whatever happens to the Affordable Care Act from January 20th forward. And so January 20th, 2017 forward. And so rather than see a mystery behind this, I think the truth is that they have actually no idea how to fulfill his promises or anything remotely looking like his promises and address health care. So, you know, we've done a lot of research.

Others have on how many Trump voters actually rely on the Affordable Care Act. Five to six million people. Those people actually believed that he would produce something better than the ACA for them, something with less paperwork, or many of them did believe that they'd get less paperwork or lower premiums. And the reality is that this is a giant bait and switch. It already always was. And they have no plan. And I think truly, they're just in the mode of like scratching their heads about what to do. I mean, they have a number of senators who don't who have stated they want to do a repeal and replace together vote on that very eminent

idea that if you're going to rip up the health care system, you should have your replacement at the same time. And they don't know how to do that. What how much damage could Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price do to the Affordable Care Act without any legislative changes? I mean, they can definitely undermine the insurance markets through regulation. insurers and others are actually delivering this message is that, and consumers, is that anything that they do to undermine the markets is they're going to own. Now, I appreciate that Paul Ryan has an ongoing strategy to tell people that the ACA is a disaster so that he has free cover to do what he'd like to do. But I think think honestly, you know, they don't have a lot of credibility on health care. It's not like people tend to believe Trump on these issues or Paul Ryan and that, you know, we have a job to do, which is to remind voters that this law, you know,

obviously could have some improvements, but it has fundamentally succeeded in delivering health care for millions of people. And the good part of the debate we're having now, which has really shifted public attention and public support, is like we're having a debate about what people would lose if they lose the Affordable Care Act. And I think that's what's really fueling this groundswell of opposition you're seeing flood into town halls across the country. Yeah, it's been this really interesting thing that the more Obamacare is in jeopardy, the higher its approval rating goes.

Now, do you think protest and strategy is playing a part in that? Or do you think it is more the basics of people now see it in their lives and they're worried about what happens if it's repealed? I think with any policy or any policy change, it's easier to understand what you lose than what you gain. going into town halls and they're telling their stories, their own stories of being in college and being able to afford a surgery because they, you know, were able to stay on their parents' plan or having a pre-existing condition and being able to get health insurance for the first time. These aren't, you know, these aren't stories I made up. These are people who are going into Tom McClintock's district and telling him how they, their lives are better because of the Affordable Care Act.

And I think it's it's not a you know, to me, you know, when we look around the country, this is there's no strategy here. I mean, we love people to go to their town halls and the Center for American Progress Action Fund is definitely delivering information about when town halls are and how to call your member of Congress. But this is all organic. You know, people are worried about what Trump will do, worried about losing their own health care, worried about, you know, an erosion of democratic institutions and they're taking to the streets. And I think that's, you know, the most important thing coming up is the February recess that

starts February 20th. And I urge people to go to their town halls, ask their members of Congress who are now avoiding town halls to actually have one and have a discussion before they decide any votes on the Affordable Care Act. Yeah, we need a big presence at those town halls. If someone's at a town hall with a Democratic member and asks, you know, what would you do to actually fix the Affordable Care Act? What would you tell Democrats to propose that would substantively improve the Affordable Care Act? I mean, that's a great question. And there are steps that we've offered, the White House has offered, people offered for the last seven years to improve the Affordable Care Act. I mean, there are issues with affordability, particularly for middle class folks, and whether we could improve the subsidy level a little bit

and make it a little bit more affordable for folks. You know, there's been tremendous savings in the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of billions of dollars. It's come in hundreds of billions of dollars below cost estimates. And so taking just a little portion of that and helping increase subsidies would do a lot. We could strengthen the benefits that are offered, make those more affordable. There's some issues with particular families at particular incomes. It's kind of got this fancy name of the family glitch, but those things can be kind of smoothed out, making it harder for making it like easier for people to get insurance, but ensuring that they really stay insured. There are a bunch of ideas that could improve, absolutely improve the Affordable Care Act. And, you know, a lot of the moderate Democratic senators in the Senate and a lot of Democrats have offered that. And I think when you hear Democrats say that they're happy to kind of improve the law, there are good ideas to do

that. What we shouldn't do is tear apart this law with no replacement in place. What about a public option? You know, I'm a strong supporter of a public option. I think that would be great. supporter of a public option. I think that would be great. And you know, I'm all for offering it. And it actually does offer competition in every part of the country. How much, this is just a pet peeve of mine, how much damage do you think Joe Lieberman personally did by getting rid of the buy-in and getting rid of the public option? Because it makes me crazy like once a week. I mean, it's like the public option might be just one of the top 10 things of damage. Not a friend of the pod.

Not making a shirt. All right, Nira, I want to get into it for like one second, which is, you know, look, we we here at Pod Save America, we once did another podcast and we were quite I think dismissive of some of the arguments that the Bernie Bros were making about... Bernie supporters, not just the Bros. Not dismissive. No, I mean, I consider myself to be a Bernie Bro now. I use it as a term of love and admiration.

Weren't you always a Bernie Bro? I mean, weren't you a Bernie Bro before there were Bernie Bros, John Lovett? Thank you, Neera. Correct. I don't know how you think that, but I'm going yes. But anyway, I feel like we were dismissive. I really you, Nira. Correct. I don't know how you think that, but I'm going yes. But anyway, I feel like we were dismissive. I really just think it's the hair. I have a

Brooklyn vibe and I appreciate that. I do wear the skinny jeans. Oh yeah, I had a question. Right, Nira's here. So I feel like we were kind of dismissive of their argument on policy and also on electability and I just, I think I've've been I think we've been reflective about that. I'm just wondering what you think the lesson of the campaign is with regard to Bernie supporters and Bernie's policy positions, his campaign.

So, you know what? I learned this year, and it applies to Bernie Sanders, but it applies to obviously more than Sanders, is that I think we do have to recognize levels of enthusiasm and excitement. And I think, you know, just to move it to the other side, Trump had a strategy of really exciting his base and emanating out, you know, growing support from the base out. And I think there was an incredible amount of enthusiasm for Senator Sanders, which we should, you know, I was on the platform committee. I saw it. I bore witness to that. And I think we need to recognize the importance of generating that excitement in the future and that you need to have a strategy in which your base is energized. But also, you know, obviously have a strategy that reaches out to a lot more than that. But an enthusiastic base is critical. And I'd say if we save the Affordable Care Act today, it will be because people are joining these town halls, people are calling their members of

Congress, people who haven't been active before in politics are seeing something at stake and taking their labor and trying to change the political process. And that is vital to democracy. And that is the kind of thing that's going to overcome some of the money spent against us in the future. And so that was a really important lesson from I think from Senator Sanders campaign that we should pay that we should pay heed to in the future. And any other lessons about like, say, email security? Do you think that it was a problem? It wasn't my email. Thanks for getting this into this, but I just want to say my emails were just in someone else's. Mine haven't been hacked directly. Not that I'm inviting the Russians to go after me now.

The problem is emailing somebody whose password was hack me please. Do you have Podesta on the pod? I'm just wondering. I have some counsel for him in accepting the invitation. But that brings up an interesting question, though, and we won't get into all the email security stuff. But when some of those emails came out, you were seen as a bit of a truth-telling hero in this whole thing because you had very unvarnished opinions in your emails. I think unvarnished is a nice way to describe how I want someone to be drawn and quartered.

But I think like, you know, we after the campaign, we're talking about this like, you know, I wish we could have been more honest sometimes in our criticisms. But once the campaign's going, you sometimes don't want to do that because our overriding goal is to beat Donald Trump. Right. sometimes don't want to do that because our overriding goal is to beat Donald Trump, right? But I think, how do we all be more honest now in the early stages about sort of the faults of various Democratic candidates without sort of delving into infighting? And hurting our own cause. And hurting our own cause. Like, have you, from now that all those emails out, are you feeling like as you go forward, like, yeah, maybe I'll speak a little more, a little more unvarnishedly in the future?

I don't think I could have spoken more unvarnishedly in the emails. But I hear what you're saying. I mean, I think that the truth is that it's really difficult in a binary choice. The truth is that it's really difficult in a binary choice. I mean, it's difficult when it's, you know, Clinton versus Trump to because when you're public, I mean, as you know, it's the reason why it's hard to do this in a public setting is because, you know, the media, people on Twitter, whatever, whenever you're critical, they they really use that against the candidate. And what was really tragic about the WikiLeaks thing for me and what was the hardest part about it is that the media and the Trump campaign definitely weaponized these private comments against Hillary. And that was like a miserable experience that happened 24-7 for like a like two months of my life. But but I think the I think the I think we have to be honest about our advice to people. I mean, I tried to be honest internally. And I think we should be we should you know, we should have a situation where if there are

multiple candidates, we can be really honest about where we go. I mean, I would say like an example of this is I've said to a number of Democratic senators over the last couple of weeks, and I'm not using their names, so it's easier. But I've said that, you know, the challenge for Democrats in the Senate today is that they have a kind of playbook for how to deal with a president. But, you know, Donald Trump isn't a normal president. He's certainly not a normal president to his to our to the base of our party and he hasn't acted like a normal president anyway so when you do things like you would you know give difference to a traditional democratic president

or a traditional president republican or democrat you give deference to their nominees it's like not normal I mean he's kind of playing on the deference you give by jamming through the most radical nominees across the board. And so, you know, I think that's advice you have to kind of give. I say that publicly, I say privately, you know, I don't personalize it, but we have to, you know, these are really critical times and the Democratic Party, but like a lot of Americans are looking for leadership to get us through this, these precarious moments. And they're looking for people who will be strong opponents to the kind of agenda that Trump is offering. One last question. So a lot of our listeners are right now trying to figure out how to help. And they're going to protest and they're starting to go to town halls.

But I guess, you know, as someone in the thick of these policy fights, where do you think people should be directing their energy right now? Is it to stopping nominees? Is it to the ACA? I mean, if you're asking people like in the next three days to's really no matter who's a nominee, it's either going to give people, millions of people, over 20 millions of people health care coverage or not. That's a choice we make. their momentum on the ACA, if we're actually able to save the Affordable Care Act. It may, not that I would be motivated by politics like this, but it may actually depress their base in the 2018 elections at a time where we really want to take the House back. Of course, my concern is much more about people who get health care. But if people had political concerns, they might be focused on that as well. I'm 100 percent focused on getting Paul Ryan the hell out of that speaker. I know I follow your tweets, but I think that would be a great strategy. I guess what I would say is we're asked all the time how to focus your energy because the reality is part of the strategy of the White House is that they want to overwhelm the opposition by doing 20 times crazier things than anyone else would do. And that is definitely their strategy. Now, I think what they've done

is they've helped create this crescendo of opposition. I mean, I have never seen this level of political activism in 20 years. We went through, I mean, just recall, we had the Iraq War. It was, you know, became deeply unpopular and we never got a march like the Women's March. People are activated.

This election was like, you know, it's like for the left, it's like the passing the Affordable Care Act for the right times 10. You know, people are motivated. They see an affront to their values. is the most important thing. But I think the most vital issue is to make a plan to go to your town halls, the town halls of your members of Congress and your senators during the week of February 20th, show up at those town halls and tell them, tell your representatives how you do not agree with what is happening in the country. That will do more. And I also think make calls every day, make calls to members of Congress, say how you disagree, but showing up and because, you know, he can. The reason why I think Trump lies about crowd size is he understands the power of crowds. He understands. I mean, he talked about it all throughout his his campaign that he got these big crowds. He understands it means people believe in something when they're willing to take time out of their day and go do something. And that's what I think

will be the most important, you know, aspect out of this whole disaster. If we have a sleeping giant that's created, that's defending progressive values, that's the only positive I could see out of a Donald Trump presidency. Nira, thank you so much for joining the pod. And please come back again. It's great to be with you, Frav. And totally fine to be with you, Jen Lovett. Take care. Thanks, Neera.

Talk to you later. That's all we have for today. Thanks again to Neera Tanden for joining the podcast. And we will see you all on Thursday. Bye. Bye. y'all on Thursday. Bye! Bye!