Pod Save America - "A season for happy warriors."

Episode Date: February 2, 2017

Jon and Dan talk about Trump's bullying of Mexico and Australia, the promise of progressive protests, and Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Then they're joined by two DNC Chair candidates, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today, we have two DNC chair candidates. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, and the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Jamie Harrison. I'm very proud that I just pronounced Mayor Pete's name correctly, Dan. He'll be Mayor Pete from this point on. Yeah, I had a pronunciation written out here.

I'm just, I'm not going to lie. A few housekeeping things. Everyone go subscribe to Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor's new podcast, where he speaks with all the top foreign policy folks who made some of the biggest decisions in national security and foreign policy of our time. Right now, he's got an episode up with Hillary Clinton's top foreign policy aide, Jake Sullivan. There's some fascinating new stuff in that interview on Iran, Russia, Benghazi, all kinds of good stuff. It's a good time to subscribe to a foreign policy podcast considering Trump causes a new foreign policy crisis like every 10 minutes.

And it's a top trending podcast right now. It's number two in the iTunes store. So, go subscribe today. Also, we have merch. Dan, have you bought all your t-shirts yet? I have so many t-shirts. They've not arrived yet, but I'm pretty excited to start wearing them around San Francisco. Yeah, so go to getcrookedmedia.com. We got some t-shirts there.

Okay, Dan. How do we feel today i still don't feel great i'll be honest i do not feel great you know we started this outline you sent me a draft of this outline yesterday and said that you were tempting fate by doing it early and i didn't even think that it was that early uh because it was like yesterday afternoon. And, you know, pretty much most of the outline was just talking about Gorsuch, the new Supreme Court nominee. And yet, in the intervening hours, there was quite a few things that happened. I was in an Uber headed to a meeting and I read the news about our threat to invade Mexico. headed to a meeting and I read the news about our threat to invade Mexico.

Pretty alarmed about that. Seemed like it was idle talk. You know, Trump's been pretty anti-Mexico for a while there. Went into a meeting, came out of the meeting, and got a text from you saying that he threatened the Australian prime minister. I was in the meeting for 45 minutes. We, like, picked another ally to get in a international dispute with i mean yeah god so let's let's go through these two stories quickly the so the associated press reported that in a phone call with the mexican president trump threatened to send u.s troops into mexico

to stop quote bad hombres down there the white House denied this. Mexico denied this. There's some CNN reporting that contradicted this, saying that Trump was offering to help fight the cartels. But who knows? Today, a senior official said it was just lighthearted talk. So they're not denying now that it didn't happen. They're just saying it was lighthearted talk. I don't think it's great to threaten to invade Mexico. I don't know who does. Maybe that's your thing.

Maybe that's why you voted for Trump. You hoped he would send U.S. troops into Mexico, but it seems like that's not a great thing. I mean, in Trump's defense, he only pledged no new Middle Eastern wars. Right. He did not say anything about North American wars. So he has not violated a campaign pledge just yet.

Someone said yesterday, I think Jonathan Martin tweeted this, like, remember the Republican line during the campaign? I think it probably started as early as 2012. Like, oh, Barack Obama has alienated our allies and coddled our adversaries. Well, yesterday, we had two major allies that Trump alienated for basically no reason. And then this Australian thing. So he does a phone call with the Australian prime minister. They start talking about a previous agreement that the United States made with Australia

where the U.S. said they would accept about 1,000 refugees from Australia. And Trump just sort of lost it. Didn't know about the deal. Said, I don't want those people. He tweeted that they were illegal immigrants, which is just not true at all. They're refugees. They're fleeing from a war-torn nation, Syria.

And then Trump hung up on him. And the White House acknowledged it was a hostile call. Oh, Trump also bragged about his electoral college win to the Australian prime minister. I mean, and then, like, all these people have to clean up after Trump. So the State Department said the White House will honor the deal with the refugees. John McCain today released a statement where he said he called the Australian ambassador and assured him that relations were still okay, that we still support Australia.

And then the White House said that this whole thing happened because Trump had a long day and was fatigued. The call was at 5 p.m. Low energy. Do you know how tired you can be if you watch hours and hours and hours of cable news? I mean, that is exhausting. I would be cranky if I watched hours and hours of cable news. I do get cranky when I watch hours and hours of cable news? I mean, that is exhausting. I would be cranky if I watched hours and hours of cable news. I do get cranky when I watch hours and hours of cable news. Let's do a little context here, which is Australia is basically our number one ally.

They fought with us in every war since World War II. Yes, every single time. I mean, I know we have a special relationship with the UK, but just when it comes time to fight with the US, they do it, right? And so it's the strangest thing that of all the countries you would pick a fight with, it would be Australia. I mean, there was also the report from Jim Acosta of Fake News CNN that people in the White House say Trump's calls with foreign leaders are making people's faces go white. Turning faces white inside the White House. Yes.

They seem pretty white. They seem pretty white from the photo ops, but I get his point. There was quite a few jokes about faces turning white in the White House. Yeah, but also it's like, oh, these calls are making your face turn white like maybe you should fucking say something about it right you're in the white house this is like

we're playing with live ammo here people who's like whose faces are turning white and saying that to jim acosta but this but then just like slinking back to their offices and like you know crossing their fingers knocking on wood that trump doesn't start a nuclear war like what the hell i mean it's very i mean it's all like we are laughing but it's actually not that funny it's pretty scary no i mean and then so then uh general flynn crazy general flynn uh says that the white house has officially put Iran on notice. Trump tweeted about this this morning. Iran is officially on notice and also said that it's a country that was on its last legs and ready to collapse before the Iran deal. Actually, it was about to have the capability to create a nuclear weapon before the Iran deal, and it was not ready to collapse at all. So that was another weird one.

So Flynn's, like, threatening Iran, which is always great. My first thought was, like, why did we think to put Iran on notice? Like, duh. Like, we had just done that. The problem would have solved themselves. They would have been like, oh, shit, we're on notice. Stop our nuclear program immediately. We are on notice. Oh, yeah, also, like, maybe shit, we're on notice. Stop our nuclear program immediately. We are on notice.

Oh yeah, also, maybe Tommy can correct us on this one, but I don't think putting Iran on notice is an official state of art for foreign policy. I don't think that's phraseology that's used often in the sit room. Check out the next episode of Pod Save the World to get the answer to that. Unbelievable. I also, I mean, the executive order banning immigration from majority Muslim nations and stopping refugees from coming to America,

like, I don't want to forget about that either. I saw reports yesterday that not only are they not backing down on the ban, that not only are they not backing down on the ban, they want to, they suggested adding other countries and also said that instead of being temporary, it might just be indefinite, the ban. So, I mean, what do you think about, like these things happen, there's outrage, there's protests, and then, like,

does the White House think they can just sort of wait it all out until everyone tunes into the next thing and then they can, you know, behind closed doors secretly make things worse? I don't know. Yes, they think that. And the reason they think that is that the man who's president of the United States was once caught live on tape bragging about sexual assault. Then a dozen women came out and accused him of sexual assault. And they just held on and moved on.

He got elected president. and they just held on and moved on. He got elected president. So there's a history here of just batting down the hatches, wait for the next crisis to come, and just move on with their lives. I think that's what I'm going to do here. I want to back up on one thing that I think – two more points on the foreign policy debacles. Right.

Three points, actually. One is, there are consequences to the Australia war of words, you know, and this goes particularly to you guys

on the Monday pod, is what are you going to do if the price of Bloomin' Onions goes up to 50 bucks each? I mean, we cannot afford a trade war.

I want the Outback Steakhouse to know that we still support them. We stand by them. They haven't sponsored this podcast yet, but, you know, we have Bloomin' Onion bets all the time. So I think that really puts that in jeopardy. We might have to go

cash in on our Bloomin' Onion bet soon just to show our support for Australia. The problem, I mean, this is bad business sense on your part because you're just doing these free product integrations when you could be out there selling these ideas. Hey, if you're out there, I'm back. when you could be out there selling these ideas. Hey, if you're out there, I'd back. Second, and this is a more serious thing, is this reporting on the raid in Yemen with the Navy SEALs that cost the life of one Navy SEAL

and by all reports was an absolute, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Reports are lots of non-combatants in Yemen were killed, potentially the eight-year-old daughter of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki. But the thing that I found – there are two interesting things in the reporting on this last night. One is the military officials talking to Reuters saying Trump okayed this without any of the necessary planning or intelligence gathering. And second, that he agreed to the raid over dinner with General Mattis, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner. Right. Jared Kushner with his long resume of foreign policy experience. Jared Kushner with his long resume of foreign policy experience and Steve Bannon, who in the Time Magazine story about him today was quoted as saying in November 2015,

our big belief, one of our central organizing principles at Breitbart is that we're at war. And that was not metaphorical. That was like literal war around the world so but imagine the republican reaction if on day six in the white house president obama had okayed a failed military raid with david axelrod and valerie jarrett over dinner we would not have survived the week we would have been impeached and sent home i mean i probably would have quit i mean that would have been extremelyached and sent home. I probably would have quit. I mean, that would have been extremely disturbing. And also, like, imagine, like, Bob Gates at the dinner, too. Bob Gates probably would have left the dinner and flipped the table over. I mean, what?

He would have thrown those people out, as he should. And Barack Obama would have thrown them out. They would never have been there or wanted to be there. Also, the Trump administration is claiming the Obama administration cleared the Yemen raid and that they just basically gave the order. This morning, Colin Call, who was Biden's top national security aide and the deputy at the national deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, said Team Trump claimed that Obama cleared Yemen raid was false. It was deferred to Trump so he could run a deliberate process. Instead, he hosted dinner. So this is the part

where this gets really scary like these are the decisions presidents make and we have so we have as a country hired someone entirely incapable of the sort of strategic thinking intellectual prowess humility that it takes to make these sorts of decisions yeah no it's it's extremely scary and it's not going to, these aren't going to be issues where every time one of these things pops up, we all, like, roll our eyes and start tweeting about it and say, oh, I can't believe this, and joke about it, and then go back to the next crisis. Like, something really scary could happen, which is why I think,

I mean, back to the ban, I noticed that there's still protests at some of these airports. And I sort of think that it's important to keep up the protests because, and for people, influential people to keep speaking out against this. Because I think that's the only way it continues to get attention. And it's the only way to sort of take the spotlight off Trump is to continue marching and protesting and speaking out, right? So you went to, did you go to one of the protests at the San Francisco airport? I did. I became one of those protest brunchers. Yeah, protest is the new brunch. Let's go check out the protest.

And so my wife and I went, and it was amazing. There were so many people there. It was this great mix of definitely a lot of people who moved to San Francisco in the 60s for a protest and just never left and have been protesting every time since. So there were some professionals there who knew all the chants. there who knew all the chants and a lot of really young people of all backgrounds, all races, just very – the energy is very similar to the women's marchers I got a chance to spend some time at in DC after the inauguration is like people weren't angry. They were – I mean people were there because they were vehemently and morally opposed to what was happening. But the atmosphere was not anger.

It was just collegial and peaceful and really great. There was one funny – we met some cool people there and everyone was – it was clear that people felt good. It was important to be together in this time and to be doing something. Cause you can either be doing something or sitting at home being some combination of scared and pissed and being together is definitely doing something's better than sitting home. The one sort of funny,

awkward thing that happened was there, the protest was so big that it was, took up the entire departures and arrivals level of the international terminal. And so it really was to like lots of different protests, like over in one corner, that it took up the entire departures and arrivals level of the international terminal. And so it really was like lots of different protests. Like over in one corner, there was a band playing protest songs. And then down here, there were people chanting, holding signs, and there were people speaking by the customs office.

And then in one corner, there was a woman with a bullhorn and like hundreds of people around her, and she was doing a call and response. And so she would be like we believe in no walls no ban sanctuary for all people be like no walls no ban sanctuary for all and at one point she said we don't agree with what trump did people like we don't agree with what trump did but we must remember people like we must remember and then she's like obama and everyone goes crazy like obama and she's like then she says deported more people than anyone else and people like what like everyone looks at each other they're like wait a minute that's not why we're here

not on message yeah i was like i had to move to the other protest at that point but that's the beauty of spontaneous protest right i mean i do think we started this podcast talking about how we feel shitty and everything shitty, but these protests are having an effect, right? And sort of not just these protests at the airport, but people showing up to their congressman's offices around ACA and all the sort of speaking out and protesting that's going on out there. I mean, the ACLU was able to get these various courts to order stays on the ban. They have had record fundraising, record membership increases. The Trump administration was forced to walk back the ban on green card holders. At least that's what they said, even though we're still having some trouble with that. And Murkowski from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, as well as Susan Collins from Maine, opposed Betsy DeVos. And they said they did it because of all the constituent calls they received.

They were just flooded with calls. You see Republicans are starting to talk about repairing Obamacare instead of repealing it. And a new Quinnipiac poll out this morning said only 16% of Americans want full repeal now. So I do think it's important for everyone to know, you know, when you see these stories and they make you want to tear your hair out, if you do something about it, if you go speak or if you go protest, if you go call up your congressman, it does make a difference, you know. And look, it's not, we're still going to sustain a lot of losses and a lot of bad things will probably still happen. We can't prevent everything because Republicans have unified control of government, but it's worth trying. We still can have an effect. I think that's 100% right. If people had just stayed home on Friday night and Saturday and Sunday instead of going to airports and protesting, we would be in a very different place.

The protesters moved the Republicans to come out against or to criticize Trump's ban, which is forcing them to hopefully backtrack on the green card issue. If it had just been a Trump done it, a bunch of Democrats put out a – Democratic elected officials put out a statement. People went on cable news and complained. And Nick Kristof wrote a column in the New York Times. Nothing would have happened. But politicians react to what people do do and they react to getting phone calls

and it is worth the effort and the energy and and fighting even if we lose is better than not fighting and and if you fight you'll get some wins and so that's the part part as scared and alarmed as I am about what Trump is doing, both his incompetence and the malevolent things that he is doing to gain power for himself and hurt progressive ideas. The thing that it does make me feel better is that I've never seen progressive energy like this, you know, not in the 2008 campaign, not in the protest against the Iraq war. So there is something happening and it's up to all of us to figure out how to channel it in the right direction. I will say too, on Friday, all of these Trump's advisory council, all these business leaders are coming to the White House. And a number of them have already written letters and put out statements saying that they oppose this ban. And I really hope when they're sitting in that room, in the Roosevelt room with Donald Trump, these business leaders step up

and tell him what they think about this ban. And, you know, if he refuses to give an inch, I hope they think twice about why they're on that advisory council, because there's a lot of companies there who talk a big game about being open to diversity and tolerance and being a country of immigrants. And if you're going to be on that advisory council, I think you probably have an obligation to step up and say something if you're going to the White House. One side note on that is that we had a similar council. We called it the Jobs Council or the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. And those meetings were open to the public via live stream. And so the press could see what happens

because there's a law that requires you to do that. It's called FACA, the Federal Advisory Committee Act for law school nerds. Yes, I just wanted to be clear that FACA is not a word I made up. And it's very strange to me that Trump, Trump is probably in violation of the law by closing this meeting and making it a behind closed door thing if this is truly an advisory committee so if people are looking for another reason to sue the trump

administration this is one of them this is what cheney did where he had his energy task force that violated this fucka law if i remember correctly and yeah they were embroiled in lawsuits for years and years and years and i think almost went to the Supreme Court. Remember, there were so many like Democratic campaign ads then like Cheney met in secret with big oil executives. Now we have a big oil executive running foreign policy at the State Department. It's just like, I read that yesterday. I was like, we have an oil CEO as our secretary of state now who's friendly with putin and that's actually the least of our problems right now just it is it just shows like how insane things have become that people are like oh the ceo of exxon's in charge of u.s foreign policy

that's cool right if hillary clinton had said that on the campaign trail a thousand fact checkers and editorial writers would have scolded her for playing dirty politics for saying something so unbelievable and ridiculous right and then then again there he is um so we should move on to the trump supreme court pick neil uh gorsuch although it is hard not to it is hard to just breeze by what happened at the prayer breakfast this morning. Where Trump speaks at the national prayer breakfast. He's introduced by Mark Burnett, famous producer of The Apprentice. Wait, what?

Did you hear this? I knew about the Schwarzenegger joke, and I was about to be a straight shooter, and respect him on both sides and give him a pass for that, but Mark Burnett introduced him? Well, he started things by saying, thanks, Mark Burnett. Oh, yeah. See Bill,

our producer is nodding his head. Um, so I guess it happened. So he gets up there and his opening remarks at the prayer breakfast are just attacking Arnold Schwarzenegger for not getting as good ratings as he did. And then he said, prayers for Arnold. Good job.

Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job.

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Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job.

Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. did and then he said prayers for arnold good job evangelicals good uh good pick hope this is what you hope this is what you were hoping for when you uh when you endorsed donald trump i was sort of the way i obviously did not get up and watch this on television um so i just saw twitter and my first take was if he wants to make a arnold schwarzenegger ratings joke at the beginning of the prayer breakfast i don't know that's what i would do but it's not the same as say i don't know threatening to invade mexico or right you know poking our one of our leading allies in the face but if mark burnett introduced him that is an

insane thing is mark burnett a particularly prayerful individual that i just don't know that or he just who i don't even know i mean it's like he's complaining about arnold's ratings or he's attacking arnold's ratings at a prayer breakfast yesterday he was at a black history month event and he was yelling about cnn and i mean it's just it's uh let's not forget about frederick douglas frederick douglas as trump said yesterday at the black history month event was quote an example of somebody who's done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more, I noticed, Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, finally getting his due from Donald Trump. The only thing worse than what Trump said was what Sean Spicer said, where he also seems unaware of Frederick Douglass' contributions or his passing

of 170 years ago. It is worth reading Spicer's quote in full. Don't worry, I have it right here. Quote, well, I think he wants to highlight the contributions that Douglas has made. And I think through a lot of the actions and statement that he's gonna make, I think the contributions of Frederick Douglas will become more and more, period. Thank you, Sean Spicer. Just nailing it, as usual usual looking good in your new suits buddy okay we are just one more thing on the black history month because it's just so funny do

you see mike pence's tweet uh praising lincoln for black history month what no i did not he's like on black history month we remember when lincoln freed the slaves basically yeah that's usually who you think about on Black History Month. Faces in the White House are going white. Okay. Neil Gorsuch. Neil Gorsuch is a 49-year-old judge on the 10th Circuit of Appeals in Colorado. He attended Harvard Law with Barack Obama.

Friend of the pod Norm Eisen said he's a great guy. He clerked for Kennedy. friend of the pod norm eisen said he's a great guy he clerked for kennedy though politically uh the new york times did a little chart and they put him to the right of scalia and left of only clarence thomas uh and many many people say he's in the mold of uh scalia he uh you know he's had unlike many nominees he's actually written extensively about the law. He's had a whole book where he came out against, he wrote about why, you know, euthanasia is against the law. He's not very big on regulations. He takes a view of the regulatory state that, you know, is not something that most of us would agree with from the Obama world. But people do say that he's like fairly good on

the balance of power between the three branches of government, which may come in handy as we have a quasi-authoritarian running the government. But there's no getting around the fact that he is, by every account, an extremely conservative judge who was being nominated for a seat that was held open for about a year under Barack Obama's last year in office after he nominated Merrick Garland, who was also a judge who everyone across the spectrum said was a wonderful guy, brilliant jurist, and fairly more moderate. I think probably Garland was closer to the center of the spectrum, certainly, than Gorsuch is. And that's who we got now. What do you think, Dan?

I don't know. I mean, not good. I would have preferred Merrick Garland. Right. Is that fair? I mean, Trump had this rollout, and I guess because Trump didn't insult Gorsuch's family or trip over the podium or whatever. Everyone said, oh, it was a brilliant rollout.

They kind of said, oh, it was a real... There was a reality show nature of this rollout where Trump had reportedly flown both finalists for the nominees to Washington. Although it seems like Hardeman didn't really get there. And then sort of unveiled that Gorsuch was the guy. And I saw a lot of people in the media sort of saying, oh, this is so Trumpian, the reality show rollout.

What a great thing. I was like, eh. No, it is literally the exact rollout that we did for Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. every basically every other Supreme Court nominee in history it's like can we just stop with the Trump the Trump T is a brilliant TV producer therefore we must pretend like he's turning the presidency into a reality show that's not it's not funny what's happening no one cares about it it doesn't matter what's happening yeah

it's just so well it also like these things keep happening where trump does something insane completely incompetent and then the next day he does something like minorly competent everyone's like oh wow he really got back in the game because everyone's still in the like old dc mindset that this is how you fucking judge politics you know it's, people. Okay, the question is the Democratic response and how we should approach this. CNN has a story that some Democrats argued that maybe we should not block Gorsuch this time around, because if we do, McConnell will get rid of the filibuster, the filibuster will be gone forever, and then we won't have as much leverage next time there is a justice nominated who would actually tip the balance of the court towards the conservative justices.

What do you think about that? No, no, don't do that. That is a terrible idea. It makes no logical sense to me. It's so silly. Because if we let him go, and then the next time he'll just trigger the filibuster. So I don't understand.

That is not a strategic retreat. That is surrender. Yeah. I mean, so you and I have both said, you pointed this out to me, that in our year end, our look ahead episode back in the Keeping It 1600 days,

one of your hypothetical questions was like, should we do to the Trump Supreme Court nominee what the Republicans did to Merrick Garland and just block the hearing forever? And we both said no, that you can't do that forever. Should we be hypocrites now and change our minds? I am changing my mind. I prior to 10 days ago was an institutionalist. I worked in the White House, I worked in the Senate leadership, I believed in these things. I have been radicalized by Donald Trump. I think that this is not a – we are not in a normal world of politics. Every single thing we can do to gum up the works, stop him with lawsuits, parliamentary maneuvers, everything, we should do. And we should force him to fight for this, right?

And they will probably win because they have control. But that is not a reason not to fight. And part of the reason to fight is make him spend political capital on this because that's political capital that he is not spending to give tax cuts to millionaires or take away ACA or any of those things. So fight like hell. And also, if the Democrats take a pass here, like hell. And also, if the Democrats take a pass here, the base will not forgive them. And the base is not wrong. And the trick is for Senate Democrats, congressional Democrats to show to all those people showed up in airports and showed up at the Women's March last week, that it matters if they go back if they get if there are more of them in Washington, if more Democrats get elected, and if they just seem to see if it seems like it does not matter, then these people will stop protesting, they will stop marching, and they will not vote.

And Donald Trump will get to do whatever he wants to do for the next four to eight years. Yeah, I mean, my view on this is every Supreme Court nominee has required 60 votes to get confirmed. That's just the way it's been. Like Kagan and Sotomayor got a like five to eight Republican votes. Merrick Garland didn't even get a hearing. So it's just the way it's been always that you need 60 votes to get confirmed. If the Republicans cannot produce 60 votes for this nominee, then they need to nominate someone who is a consensus pick that can get 60 votes. And so Democrats should force that, right? And if Mitch McConnell wants to get rid of the filibuster in an unprecedented move, then he can do that. And we should expect that he will do that.

And we should expect that ultimately Gorsuch could be confirmed and that, you know, our fight, you know, could not succeed. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't, like you said, we shouldn't put up a fight. I do think I would rather hold hearings. I mean, they didn't want to hold hearings on Garland at all, because everyone would have realized that Garland is, in fact, a consensus pick that many Republicans had praised in the past. I would love to hold hearings on Gorsuch because I think it's always important that if Democrats are going to block something, that we also make an argument and persuade people why this nominee is bad, right? And so I'm sure Gorsuch is a great guy. I'm sure he's a brilliant jurist, but he has views that are fundamentally opposed to what

many, many, many Americans across the country believe, and also views that are very, very different than what Merrick Garland believed, who should have got a fucking hearing. So I'm all for holding hearings for this guy and holding a vote, because I believe that that will help us make a case against him and make a case that this seat was supposed to go to someone who was a consensus pick that was the deal and that's what barack obama did with merrick garland gorsuch is not a consensus pick i'm for hearings you got i i think i agree with you we should that the best way is to have some sunlight on this i mean he will be very very good in his hearings because

like john roberts he or even elena Kagan was born to do this, right? Right. And so. But we should be aware too, he's, he's definitely, I mean, it seems like he is to the right of Roberts on many, many, many issues. This is not a John Roberts. He's, it looks like he's to the right of Alito, Sam Alito on many, many issues. So this is not like, like John Roberts is like, looks like a good guy, brilliant jurist, highly respected, but has sort of surprised us in certain decisions on the court. It seems this,

it would be less likely for Gorsuch to do that. Yeah, I think that's right. Can I say one thing about our friend Norm Eisen? Sure. I love Norm. I think he is on the shortlist of people who's going to save the country.

And I understand he went to law school with him. And then Neil Katyal, who was the acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, wrote a – I guess an op-ed supporting or publicly talked about how Neil Gorsuch was a really good guy and he's the kind of person we want on the bench. Can I tell you what I find exhausting? Yeah. People who went to Harvard Law School together saying, oh, he may, look, he's going to vote to gut the Voting Rights Act, and he is probably going to undo Roe v. Wade. But he was like a real mensch on the squash courts. I don't care if he's a good guy. Doesn't matter. That's a good guy.

That's not the point. A lot of nice people out there. Doesn't mean you should be making life and death decisions. That's right. Go play squash. Don't let him decide the reproductive rights of your mothers, wives, and daughters. Do not do that. Okay.

We have to move on to Mayor Pete from South Bend, Indiana, who's running for DNC chair. We will be back with him right after this. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. With us on the pod today, we have the two-term mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and current candidate for the DNC chairmanship, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Did I say your last name correctly? Yeah, you did. I've heard it every which way, but that one's right, so thanks for that. Nice. All right, good. I would be lying if I told you that I didn't have a pronunciation written out.

Okay, so you are running for DNC chair. Right. What made you decide to do this, to possibly go into the swamp in Washington and take this job from where you are in South Bend? Because it's so important. Look, I love South Bend. I love being mayor of South Bend. But the reason I decided to be worth stepping away from this job to be DNC chair is that I think our party really needs a fresh start. If you look at where we are, even if we had won the White House, our party would be in trouble.

When you look at the state are, even if we had won the White House, our party would be in trouble. When you look at the state houses, the governorships, and we've got to make sure that we're offering new solutions that I think are, frankly, not going to come from Washington, but they're going to come from communities like mine and other communities around the country. And I think that a fresh start and new leadership is a pretty good place to begin. What would a Democrat have to do to win statewide in Indiana again? Well, look, it's been done. President Obama carried Indiana in 2008.

We got Joe Donnelly. We were pretty surprised about that. Yeah, it was a beautiful thing. We didn't know why that happened. Well, in 2012, Joe Donnelly got elected, so it can be done. There's a few things I think are really important. One is making sure we're showing up everywhere. So even in these

rural counties that we're never going to win, it still matters whether you lose 60-40 or whether it's 80-20. You know, our Senator Joe Donnelly, he only won 10 of our 92 counties, but he did well enough in the other 82 that the 10 could put him over the top. And I think there are a lot of folks in, certainly in my part of the country and around the country, who feel like the Democratic Party isn't even talking to them, isn't even trying or addressing them. And if we can change that, we'll be a big part of the way toward being able to compete and win in states like mine. So you are a Harvard University graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and also an openly gay former

naval officer, served in Afghanistan. I'm sure you encountered some resistance when you were running for office in Indiana. What did you say to people? How do you talk to people in Indiana who aren't either Republicans or Democrats or are conservative and unsure about the Democratic Party? What's been your secret? We really focus on results.

I got re-elected with 80% of the vote, and it wasn't about shooting for some ideological middle. It was just about getting stuff done. And when you deliver for people, whether it's economic development or streetscapes or just potholes, you know, the one benefit we do have at the local level is that there's no such thing as a fact-free environment at the local level. It's not like proving I wasn't born in Kenya. People can tell if I plowed the snow successfully or if I didn't. And there's accountability for that.

I think we need to take that local accountability and deliver it at the national level because there are a lot of people in their homes, at their kitchen tables, in their communities whose lives are going to be affected by the leaders who are in charge now. And we need to connect up what's happening to them, what's being done to them, to the decisions that are coming out of Washington. Let our listeners know what sort of your top, the first couple things you would do to change how the DNC operates is if you were elected chair. Well, I think it's critical that we get back to a state and local orientation. The DNC has to be a resource supporting state and local parties in their work, not a mothership kind of beaming

down instructions. And to do that, I'm planning to visit every one of our 57 states and territories in the first year, not just to show up and be there, but also to work with the state party leadership on formulating a plan that's right for their state. At the same time, we also have to talk about the things that cut across, the things that cut across our states, our geography, and our different constituencies, and really return our vocabulary to a moral vocabulary that focuses on the values that hold Democrats together.

Values, in my view, we haven't talked about enough, like freedom, which I think we're absolutely the party of, especially now, families, as well as things that we've always been focused on, like fairness and taking care of the future. Debate going on now about what the Democrats in the Senate should do, both about Trump's nominees and particularly his nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch. Do you think Democrats should sort of wage an all-out effort to block Trump's nominees and to block the Supreme Court nominee? Or how do you think, what would you do in that situation? Yeah, when the other side is not acting in good faith, I think we have to be ready to be tactically ferocious. That doesn't mean that we'll do anything that we'd be ashamed of. We're never going to break our relationship

to the truth and to facts. But it does mean that we're going to fight fire with fire. And I think that we should show them exactly the same courtesy that they showed President Obama's nominees. So you served for seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserves. What do you think about the story that sort of broke last night, that U.S. military officials had revealed that the Trump-ordered military raid in Yemen was insufficiently thought out. How extraordinary is that leak, first of all? And what do you think about that story?

Yeah, I mean, obviously we're still getting information about it. We've got to find out more about what happened. There are a couple things right off the bat I'd like to know more about, like why was this decision-making happening over a meal? But, look, beyond the specific case, the thing that's always on my mind is, you know, everybody that I know in the military, and even people like me who are still in the ready reserve, our lives depend on this person's judgment.

Our lives depend on him making good decisions with the facts that are presented to him, asking good questions, and acting in good faith. And I think it's something that anybody who cares about a loved one or a friend in the military needs to be asking of their government, and whether it's this situation as the facts come out about this first operation, or whether it's more broadly uh... the decisions that and impulses i mean how do you get a fight with australia there's some of the chillest people i've ever known uh... and we're having a meltdown getting in a in a fight with

a country which by the way i mean those guys were side by side with us in afghanistan and uh... and they're great allies this is unquestionably endangering american lives and there's got to be accountability for that And they're great allies. This is unquestionably endangering American lives. And there's got to be accountability for that. And what do you think about the ban on immigration from Muslim-majority nations?

I mean, is this... Look, the Trump administration will say, well, the Obama administration identified these countries as hotspots anyway, so, you know, we're just trying to take precautions. I mean, you know, this is a totally different thing. It's unconstitutional. It's embarrassing. And again, I think back to my military experience. You know, we had civilians who put their lives on the line in order to work with us,

and we depended on them for insight, for information, for translation. And when I think about those guys who were out there with us, I mean, I would have a hard time looking them in the eye right now. And I've got to tell you, as mayor, right now in South Bend, we have families that are still trying to unite. There's one case where the mom finally got clearance to come over. It was an Iraqi family. They're refugees, and her clearance was going to allow her to come home in February this month. I don't know what they're going to do now.

Some of these people are refugees specifically because they helped us, or they're refugees because ISIS is trying to kill them. And if ISIS is trying to kill you, that's a pretty good sign that we ought to have your back. You know, with all the protests happening and at the airports, the Women's March, what we hear from people every day and what we know people are asking is, what should they do? What can they do? So what would your message be to these folks who are showing at airports or marching on the mall or in town squares about where they should channel their energy to have the biggest impact in fighting back on some of the things that Trump and this Republican Congress are doing? Yeah, so there is an energy that is waking up in our country that is extraordinary,

and we've got to harness it and recognize that it's a while before the next election, although we've got to keep that energy alive for political purposes. But there's more to it than just going from election to election. We've got to build that energy and use it to do things like, for example, hold moderate Republicans accountable for the decisions they're making every single day in Congress. You know, they've got to decide whether they're going to follow this president who is unpopular and evidently unhinged. Are they going to follow him off the cliff, or are they going to do what's right? And that accountability comes from us.

I'm really glad we were marching in the streets and in the squares and in the airports. I went to the airport protest in Houston. It was a beautiful thing. Same thing with the Women's March. But we also got to be marching on the offices of members of Congress who are enabling this sort of thing and make sure that we recognize that it is ultimately connected back to elections and elected officials.

And just the last thing I would say on the marches is that the reason they're so significant isn't just their scale and their scope. When I think back to the Women's March, even South Bend's version of it that I was here for, which had, even in our small city, 3,000 or 4,000 people, it was the character of it. It was fierce. It had a moral gravity to it, but it was also fun. And that's very important because as concerned and as serious as we are, we can't be sour. This is the season for happy warriors, and I think happy warriors are rising up around the country to take on the outrages of this administration.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, thank you for joining us, and best of luck to you in the race ahead. Thanks, it's a pleasure. Take care. Bye now. Hey, don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. Joining us also today, we have on the phone the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party

who is running for the DNC chairmanship, Jamie Harrison. Jamie, welcome to the show. Thank you, guys. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely. So you are chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Tell us a little bit about how you got into politics, your personal background, and then why you decided to do something crazy like run for DNC chair. Or be the South Carolina Democratic Party chair. Either one. Either or both.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chair, right? Either one. Either or both, yeah. So no one in my family was ever involved in politics. I grew up in rural South Carolina. My mom was a teenager when she had me. She was actually about 16 years old. And so my grandparents really helped a lot to raise me. But my grandfather loved, he had a fourth grade education, but he loved watching the

nightly news. And so growing up, I sat there and watched television with him, and I just was fascinated with, you know, everything dealing with the presidency. And remember watching conventions with him. I remember my first convention was Jesse Jackson spoke, and it was just so riveting to me. You know, Jackson came from South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina. And so from that moment, it sort of sparked this interest in politics. I got an opportunity to meet Jim Clyburn when I was a junior in high school.

I was the president of my National Honor Society. He had just been elected to Congress, and he was the first African American since Reconstruction to be elected to Congress from South Carolina. And so I invited him to come and keynote a speech, and after that speech, I walked up to him and said, Congressman, I want to work in your office. And he said, well, Jamie, let's get you into college first, and then

we'll get you an internship, and then we'll talk about you working in the office. And so I never forgot that. And, you know, I went on. I was fortunate enough to go to Yale University, and during my freshman year, after my freshman year, I interned in Senator Fritz Holland's office. So in my freshman year, after my freshman year, I interned in Senator Fritz Holland's office. And then the summer between my junior and senior years, I interned for Congressman Clyburn and really got the Potomac fever, I guess. And, you know, Washington, D.C. was just in my blood then. Went on, taught high school. Then I was the COO for a non-profit here in Washington, D.C.

And then Congressman Clyburn asked me to join his staff when he got elected vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus. And I was in law school, in the midst of my law school time at Georgetown, and started working on Capitol Hill and the rest is history. time at georgetown and started working on capitol hill and the rest of history it became the executive director for the house democratic caucus at twenty nine uh... first african-american do that and then at thirty uh... ran the whip operation for democrats when we took back the house though i i thought had a very very fortunate uh... career i've had an opportunity to some amazing things

but i love politics and I love it because of the impact it could have on the lives of so many people. Now, you are chair of the Democratic Party in South Carolina. I think it's fair to say that Democrats are in the distinct minority in South Carolina. What lessons have you learned from your time there about how the party might broaden its reach on a national level? Yeah. The one thing that I've learned, guys, is that there are so many states that are, there are more states like South Carolina than there are that are not like South Carolina, meaning that state parties in this country, undemocratic state parties, are struggling.

And they need a lot of attention. They need some investment in order to build a capacity in order to compete. I'm fortunate because on many levels, because of my D.C. connections, people I know in D.C. and having Congressman Clyburn as my lone member of Congress, that we've been able to leverage things and bring resources into South Carolina to help us build that capacity. But there are a lot of states who are not like us, who are not as fortunate. You know, you can take an example just looking at our annual dinners that we have.

You know, we've been able to get Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Vice President Biden. The list goes on and on. And there are some states right now, you take Iowa and Idaho, I mean the Idaho's of the world, the Wyoming's of the world, that are just begging for national Democrats to come to their states so that they can, one, build that capacity, raise money, and the resources they need in order to hire the appropriate staff. So if we want to, you know, folks like to think about and analyze where we went wrong in this election,

well, where we went wrong is when we started to abandon the 50-state strategy because that was one of the most, the best things that the DNC has ever done in terms of its relationship with the state parties, and we have to go back to that. One of the things I'm really, really concerned about is that we have all of this energy and all of this activism that is there, but the problem is we have state parties who barely have $30,000 cash on hand, and in two years from now, they have a governor's race or defending one of the 25 U.S. Senate races, and if 500 activists or volunteers walked into their

headquarters today, I don't know if many of those state parties could do anything with them, because they don't have the capacity to handle that. And that is something that the DNC really has to focus on. It's not sexy. It's not the thing that people has to focus on. It's not sexy. It's not the thing that people want to talk about. It's not about message or the messenger. It's about just the nuts and bolts of building an effective and efficient organization. And right now, that is fundamentally lacking in our state parties. I agree with a lot of what you said about the need to build up state party capacity. What do you think the Democratic message should be right now?

Well, I think the message has to be about that we have to fight for all Americans, and particularly for working class Americans. Listen, I grew up, I know what it's like being poor. I know what it's like to use food stamps. I know what it's like to go to I know what it's like to use food stamps. I know what it's like to go to sleep and the lights not being on in your house because your parents can't afford it. I know what it's like to lose your home. We've lost our home twice while I was growing up.

And so there are a lot of folks in this country that are struggling. They're working two, three jobs, or they just can't find a job because there's no jobs in their neighborhoods or in their communities. So we, as a party, need to start talking about that, but not even talking about showing those folks that we care about them and that we are going to fight for them. The problem that we've had in the Democratic Party is that when I was a teacher, I always taught my kids that the most powerful way that you persuade somebody is when you show them and not tell them. Lately in the Democratic Party, we've

been doing a lot of telling people that we're fighting for them, but we've done very little in terms of showing that or at the very least promoting the fact that we that we we are fighting for them we got to do a better job of that many of the messages that i think secretary clinton had were good the thing that i think would have been stronger is if she could have incorporated some of that hope and change that president obama had and frankly that uh... center standards sort of adopted a lot of folks want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves

uh... and and it's not just about being against something but being for something and and that's where we need to go as a party so that people feel that there's a movement that is that is building that they are part of it and that there's hope at the end of the day that their lives are going to be better than they are today, that the lives of their kids are going to be better than what they are right now. And that's what we need to focus on as a party. The DNC chair and the DNC does not generate that message. A lot of that comes from our policymakers,

DNC does not generate that message. A lot of that comes from our policymakers, but the DNC and the DNC chair are the mechanism by which we get that message out to the people. And if the mechanism is broken, which is really the problem right now, I'm going back to this thing about state parties, but if the state parties are broken, that mechanism in which you have that direct contact with voters, then that means regardless of how good your message is or how great your messenger is, it's not going to have the desired result.

You're talking to a lot of DNC members. How unified is the party to you right now? Do you still hear strains of the Sanders-Clinton primary? Are people still bitter about that? What's your view of the state of democratic unity right now? Yeah, we got still a ways to go on that, guys. There are still a lot of infighting. I think some of that focus,

some of the sort of vitriol and the edge is being taken off of it because of just by the robust and craziness coming out of the Trump administration. But there's still some lingering, you know, you hear the tags of this person's a neoliberal, this person's this and that. And what I've been trying to tell my people is,

listen, guys, in the end of the day, somebody will win the battle, either a Bernie Democrat or a Hillary Democrat or Obama Democrat. But ultimately, we all just got to be Democrats. But if we can't get there, then ultimately we all will lose the war because there is a war. There's a war right now for the heart and soul of this nation against the efforts that Donald Trump has taken to take us back to some bygone era that he wants to go back to, to make America great again, I guess. And we just can't allow that to happen. So people need to put on their big boy and big girl pants, get over the 2016 primary,

because guess what? Both Secretary Clinton and bernie sanders law the let's figure out how do we win in twenty eighteen how do we win in twenty twenty uh... and fight for the people that really need us to be their voices and so that what i'm pushing for uh... you know at the end of the week dot a p good democrat and we've got the fight to strengthen this party

and these little divisions from primaries and everything else aren't helping in that effort. Jamie, you've been a lobbyist as well. Do you think lobbyists have too much influence in Washington, D.C.? Well, I mean, I think that's debatable. I mean, at the end of the day, listen, lobbyists are sort of like lawyers in the courtroom, right? Those are folks who understand you don't need them. You don't need a lawyer when you go to court.

You don't need a lobbyist to go on Capitol Hill. The reason why a lot of people get them is because they don't have the time, energy, and effort to get to understand all of the nuances of the courtroom or how you navigate Capitol Hill or the executive branch. So they're sort of experts in that field. My problem is that we've focused most of our energy on lobbyists, but we fail to realize that these are people who are probably getting a $2,000 a month retainer. But really, if you want to have the real focus on something that's problematic,

talk about the CEOs of the companies that are making $25 million and with these golden parachutes. That's where the real problem is. And so we sort of created this red herring, right? There's sort of the symptom of the problem rather than address the problem in and of itself. So again, it's not the lobbyists, the small lobbyists in some of these lobby firms that are getting small retainers. It's the people and some of the corporations that are doing things that we should curb and that we should make sure that we fight back against. Jamie Harrison, thank you for joining the program. We've got to take off now, and I'm sure you do too, but thanks again and best of luck to you to you thank you guys i really appreciate it and good luck on on the podcast thanks take care thank you

thank you to mayor pete budaj and jamie harrison for joining the pod today uh we'll be back on monday make sure to uh rate us on itunes subscribe to pod save the world and uh and have a great weekend. Talk to everyone next week.