Pod Save America - "Congress scares easy."

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor talk about the rallies to preserve ACA, Trump’s twitter war with John Lewis and his creepy embrace of Russia. Then they’re joined by Erin Gloria Ryan to discuss covering the Trump White House and Philippe Reines talks about playing Donald Trump.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Today on the show, we have senior editor at the Daily Beast and host of the podcast Girl Friday, Aaron Ryan. We also have the man who played Donald Trump in debate prep, former Hillary Clinton advisor, Philippe Reines. Friend of the pod. Friend of everybody.

Before we start, thank you, everyone. Yeah, big thank you to all of our listeners. We started over with a new name for the show, which, even with a name as awesome as Pod Save America, is not easy to do because no one knows where to find you. You have no subscribers. You have nothing. But you guys all told your friends and family about us. Some of you even stole their phones and subscribed for them in a very morally and legally questionable way, which we love. Keep tweeting that at us. We will retweet you. Even more amazing is we begged you guys to leave us five star reviews because we're pathetic.

And like thirty three hundred people did so. And that is amazing for the show and our ability to stay at number one on the iTunes rankings. But it also makes me feel like this is a group of people that can get engaged and do some really cool, great stuff in terms of taking political action. So thank you again. I also think like you're doing it because you want the show to succeed. And that's for you as much as us. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

I have a role to play here. Please rate and review Pod Save America in the iTunes store. OK, a bunch of other people are engaged in something much more important. I have a role to play here, guys. Please rate and review Pod Save America in the iTunes store. Okay. A bunch of other people are engaged in something much more important. The fight to save the Affordable Care Act. Yesterday, our first stand rallies were held all across the country. It was organized by Bernie Sanders' group. Also featured politicians from Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen.

And you had all these rallies, like hundreds to thousands of people showed up, which is great news. This stuff is working. There's a great story yesterday that a crowd of over 100 people showed up at Representative Mike Kaufman's constituent meeting. He is a Republican representative out of Colorado, represents Aurora. And he was supposed to have this small constituent meeting with a couple people, and 100 people showed up to complain and yell at him about his plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Someone got some great footage of Mike Hoffman sneaking out the back door of the meeting before he could meet with everyone. This morning, there was a story in Bloomberg. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina

said Friday, there is a lot of angst in our state over an Obamacare repeal. This is a Republican. Here's a quote. My constituents are freaking out about commercials they're seeing on TV about how they're going to lose health care, he said. It's working. They are feeling this pressure. So that's amazing. Look, preventing these people from repealing Obamacare is going to be very, very hard. But this is like our one lever here. And, and, you know, we learned a lot from the Tea Party. And I think that's a good thing. And like, we are bringing pressure to bear and it's making a difference. Yeah, the moral of the story is that members of Congress scare easily, a few dozen people

showing up at an event event or at their office or calling them makes a big difference. And like, that's what we learned from 2009 during the Tea Party rallies. You know, the beginning of that effort, people made fun of it and they called them tea baggers and they dismissed it. And then before you knew it, Fox News had picked up the cause and Glenn Beck was talking about this every day. And there's a million or two million people on the mall. So these things can grow and become hugely politically impactful if you stick with it. Yeah. And like you said, Levitt, this is going to be really hard and it's unclear whether we'll succeed or not, but that's no reason not to try and be as loud as possible. I mean, we just got to

fight through the cynicism here on this. It is working. I mean, we don't know what the end result will be, but it is already making a difference, and we're just getting started. Well, it may be making a difference because someone has noticed all these headlines, and his name is Donald Trump. His Google alert is going bananas. Like I said, this is only someone who is affected by what he sees on cable chyrons, and we finally reached the cable chyron status for the Affordable Care Act rallies. So last night he did an interview with Robert Costa of the Washington Post where Trump said his plan will be revealed soon. His plan for Obamacare replacement. It's going to be terrific. And he said it's going to be insurance for everybody, in quotes.

He said everyone will have insurance and there'll be lower deductibles. It'll be cheaper insurance Better deductibles But it'll be better That's all he said basically So no one knows what this means Donald Trump doesn't know what it means But look

If he stays true to what he just said You basically can't have that kind of Obamacare replacement without it being Obamacare But just more money spent on the program. And so we're about to see how, we're about to see whether Paul Ryan will stomach this or not, or if it's just bullshit, which, you know, that's my guess, but who knows? He's feeling the heat and, you know, it will be very interesting to see where this goes. The one area where I have, pray our president-elect succeeds, is he says he's going to force drug

companies to lower prices and negotiate directly. I pray our president-elect succeeds is he says he's going to force drug companies to lower prices and negotiate directly. I hope he bullies the shit out of pharma and all these other drug companies, but he's going to run into a big stumbling block of his own party, which has historically opposed this, and then the 11 million lobbyists in Washington

that are working for these guys. But Godspeed, sir. Yeah, I mean, we've been trying to do this forever. So if he wants to work with Democrats on this, great. Tweet about it. If Paul Ryan wants to just give up all of his economic conservative principles to support direct negotiation with drug prices,

better way. Hashtag better way, Paul Ryan. Obamacare with a public option? Okay, sure. Sure, Donald Trump. Donald Trump brought us that. If Donald Trump wants to add the public option to Obamacare and increase the level of subsidies

so more people are covered in college Trump care, all the power to them. You know what we'll have to do, though? We'll have to be like, pretend we're super angry about it. I won't even be angry. I just want people to survive and have health insurance. We should also be clear, like,

this is a flight of fancy. Donald Trump is a liar making it up as he goes. So I think that we have some more concrete and terrible things coming our way in this fight. Bottom line here, continue calling your... Go ahead. It was funny, isn't it? Wait, Tommy made a face like I said the wrong thing.

I thought I turned my mic off or something. It's just concrete and terrible things coming our way in Amy Lapp. That's what's happening. So keep calling your congressional office. Also ask when they're holding their town halls and their constituent meetings. Someone had this idea on Twitter yesterday. I thought that was great. And then show up.

Okay. So speaking of organizing and protesting, John Lewis, American hero, civil rights legend, congressman from Georgia, was interviewed by Chuck Todd. And he was asked about Donald Trump and working with Donald Trump, and John Lewis said the following, I don't see this president elect as a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I've missed since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right. John Lewis and about 10 Congress people are boycotting the inaugural.

I think it's gone up since. Has it gone up since then? Yeah, yeah. Probably more? I think it's above 20. We got above 20 now? Okay. So a lot of Democrats or a handful of Democrats, a dozen Democrats are boycotting the inauguration.

It didn't take long. I mean, you could just you just knew when you saw John Lewis say that you were like counting down the counting down the minutes until you scrolled through Twitter and saw the Donald Trump response. He attacked the pope. Never forget. Right. Yeah, exactly. And so sure enough, Trump tweets, Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing

and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart, not to mention crime-infested, rather than falsely complaining about the election results. I'll talk, talk, talk, no action to results. Sad. I mean, first of all, John Lewis represents Atlanta, which is a major city in the United States. He represents beautiful parts and parts that have problems that other cities have.

But he seems to think every African-American represented district He represents beautiful parts and parts that have problems that other cities have. But he seems to think every African-American represented district is like crime addled and horrible and a disaster. And there's a weird pattern here. Yeah, I was going to say, this isn't the first time. It's almost as like his mind is a New York Post headline from 1978. He's like a walking Central Park 5 ad. That's all he is. He doesn't have any, he has no information. It's just a walking Central Park 5 ad. That's all he is. He doesn't have any, he has no information. It's just so gross.

It's like, you know what, like John Lewis had his skull bashed in on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Right. To like, you know, for voting rights. And he is a hero. You can't like. Of course. The thing that's so frustrating about this is like, it's so obviously wrong. It's so obviously an evil thing to say.

And then you see all these people bending over backwards to kind of demonstrate. And like like it's such an easy thing to like take donald trump said he's a hero sir how dare you which is good we should be saying that but like we've done this before this thing of donald trump you know picks a fight with somebody uh beyond reproach and then everybody kind of rises to the defense of the person who's beyond reproach and we just kind of do it again yeah i mean i don't know no one is immune to criticism but to tee off like this on someone for expressing their opinion, like, listen, if John Lewis doesn't think the election is legitimate,

that's his opinion. But then you have the way they circle the wagons is so bizarre. You had Rance Priebus on ABC this week saying that it's on Obama to get all his tell his people to, quote, grow up and respect the results of the election, which is like such an absurd response. You know, maybe it's on your president to grow the fuck up and to stop tweeting about SNL every time he gets pissed off about it. Well, here's the thing.

There's a thing. First of all, we're going to get Tommy to say Reince at some point, like it's going to happen. Second. No, I won't. Second, like, look, we can do this thing where Donald Trump says something repellent and everybody kind of piles on or we can ask ourselves why he pays no price and views it as positive for him. And really, like the people that are responsible for that are Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, the people that are around him directly.

Also, people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and other allies who have made this dirty deal and sold their souls to back this guy. And when Donald Trump spouts off like this, you know, we can make fun of him and criticize him. But like, he just is shameless and valueless. So it doesn't really matter. It's about the people that are enabling him. That's all. Although I do think, I mean, someone from the LA Times tweeted that, you know, like John Lewis knew exactly what he was doing. He's protested his whole life. And when you say something like this, you get people, you bring some energy and enthusiasm to the cause. And like you just mentioned, Lovett, that the number of Congressmen boycotting the inaugural has gone up since then. So people do take a cue from at least on John Lewis's side of the equation here. Even if, like you said,

you know, shaming Donald Trump is impossible because man has no shame. Yeah. So our friend David Axelrod was asked about this. And he said, I'm not comfortable with Lewis calling Trump illegitimate, adding, the greatest triumph for Russia would be to legitimate their charges about our democracy. I worried about our institutions. I worry that we're in this mad cycle of destruction. I understand the outrage, but where is this all going? So I understand on one side, like, this is a time to protect institutions, particularly because, and norms, particularly because Donald Trump does not care about them that much, and has seemed to broken some, he's broken so many norms and,

you know, not cared about institutions. But at the same time, I don't know, desperate times? Well, look, first, to not point out the fact that Russia influenced our election doesn't change that fact, right? Like, it has the order of events backwards. Like, pointing out that Russia interfered doesn't delegitimize Donald Trump. The fact that Russia interfered delegitimizes Donald Trump. I mean, I think this word legitimate has a lot of different things to it. That seems to be part of the problem here. It's like, what does legitimate truly mean in this context?

He is certainly certified by the Electoral College. Right. He won the same time, I don't really think that matters. You know, what convinced me about what John Lewis said wasn't the part about whether Donald Trump is legitimate or not. It's about supporting something you don't feel at home with. And that to me is like the central question. Like, do you feel comfortable standing there and being part of the pomp and circumstance that's endorsing Donald Trump as our president? circumstance that's endorsing Donald Trump as our president. I don't know that I'd want to attend that as a member of Congress and say that I am supporting this person as my president. I don't know. I don't know. It's a hard decision. I don't want to get to a point where people are boycotting an inauguration because they disagree with someone's position on health care. But I think

we have to recognize that this is an extraordinary circumstance with Donald Trump. It's different. It's back to the, you know, we're all annoyed because it was like used to death and cliche, like, don't normalize this. This isn't normal, but it's really not. Right. You know, and so I think a response that says, I'm not going to go to that inaugural is warranted. You know, Hamilton Nolan was a writer for Gawker. He wrote a very short, very strong piece in Deadspin. Deadspin. very short, very strong piece in Deadspin. Deadspin. Deadspin. Deadspin. John literally spit out his water. In Deadspin. Basically, that says, don't kiss the ring. And I really think it's worth reading. And it really stuck with me. And the basic point he makes is, you know, this is not a this is not a battle of ideas. This is going to be a fight for civic society. And part of that

is going to be recognizing when it's time to not respect Donald Trump's authority because he's already abusing it in so many different ways. You know, this is a vice grip we're going to be in for a long time, which is we believe in these democratic norms. We believe in these democratic institutions. And so how do you defend them against an adversary who is going to use them when he sees fits and abandon them when he sees fits? He sees fit. He's already doing that on conflicts of interest, on having members of his family be part of his administration. I mean, he's going to be breaking the Constitution on day one. So when he doesn't care about the laws and norms, he breaks them. When he wants them, when he wants to pop in circumstance, he's going to say,

how dare these congressmen not respect my institutional authority? So it's up to us to recognize moments where we're going to say, you know what, if you're going to abandon norms, we're not going to respect the norms that give you power based purely on the job that you've won here, I guess. I don't know what that means, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, no, and it's worth saying on Martin Luther King Day that Martin Luther King and people in civil rights movement were not seen as legitimate or like they were seen as radicals. They were criticized. They were called troublemakers. I saw somewhere today that Strom Thurmond, after King was assassinated,

called him an outside agitator bent on stirring things up. Oh my God, what a horrible person. I mean, but that, so just to give you a think, right now we look back on Martin Luther King Day and think, oh, it must have been so popular and embraced to be in the civil rights movement, you know, because it's like, right, like history becomes whitewashed about that. But like,

in reality, it was extraordinarily hard to be part of those protests because you were seen as anti-american outside the mainstream and i see those uh i see those republican members of congress who endorse donald trump tweeting how how much we have to honor martin luther king supporting donald trump you might as well be tweeting that while peeing on martin luther king statue give me a break give me a break oh i we today we celebrate today we celebrate. Tommy, Tommy's eyes just went wide open. Today we celebrate the virtues of Martin Luther King, which is why I endorse Donald Trump and him tearing this country down to back a racist

so he can cut marginal tax rates for my wealthy buddies. You goons. Straight shooter, respected on all sides. Straight shooter, widely respected on all sides. Guys, you know, little side note, merch coming soon. Merch coming very soon. One more thing to end on this.

Have you guys noticed that Donald Trump is, not just because these congressmen are boycotting, he's having a bit of a hard time filling the seats in his inauguration right now. So apparently there's permits for only 200 buses for the inauguration. By contrast, Obama had 3,000 buses for permitted. And also the March on Washington, which is the day after the Women's March on Washington, which is the day after the inaugural, there's permits for 1,200 buses. You're also seeing ads for potentially for seat fillers, allegedly. I don't know. I can't confirm them.

Fake news, maybe. The whole thing. Very careful about libel here at Pod Save America. Very careful. I mean, you know, listen, I don't want to stand outside in the freezing cold on a January day in Washington, D.C., but I do think this is the kind of thing that's going to show a lack of enthusiasm for Donald Trump's presidency, and it's going to drive him crazy. It's almost as though he has a 37% approval rating, the lowest of any incoming president

in recent memory. Weird. Weird. It's not a matter of that. If you do end up going to the inaugural, though, and you need some last minute attire, may we suggest Indochino suits? These are great. Let's come back to these. Let's go to Russia.

So in the New York Times, Nick Kristof has a column where he asks, is our new president a Russian poodle? Duh. Is our new president a Russian poodle? Duh. Yesterday, Trump did a round of interviews with foreign press where he just continued this very odd, alarming, ominous embrace of Russia. Tommy, you want to walk us through some of the highlights? Yeah. I mean, he talked to a newspaper out of the UK and one out of Germany.

And one of the things he said was that he thinks he said NATO is obsolete because they're not fighting terrorism, which first of all, is just that's factually wrong. I mean, that has been their primary mission since 9-11, starting in Afghanistan, but they also do training missions in countries all across the world. But, you know, that kind of comment, which he's made during the campaign, is scaring the shit out of our European allies, because NATO was founded in 1949 as a bulwark against Soviet aggression. And I think it's easy for us with the benefit of two big oceans surrounding our country and keeping us away from Russia to forget about that threat. But if you're in Latvia or Ukraine or Poland or Finland, you're very worried about Russian aggression. And so, you know, when you combine that with his comments of cheerleading Brexit and the breakup of the EU, and then he started talking about giving Russia sanctions relief for arms control reductions, which is it's a very weird comment because arms control treaties are usually negotiated in a reciprocal fashion, meaning like you reduce your stockpile of nuclear weapons, Russia, and we'll reduce ours, the United States.

reciprocal fashion, meaning like you reduce your stockpile of nuclear weapons, Russia, and we'll reduce ours, the United States. He's essentially saying to them, the sanctions we have on you for hacking our election or for invading Ukraine can go away if you'll for the cost of 100 nukes or whatever it might be. I mean, it's it's inviting more Soviet aggression in the region. And you already have, you know, leaders in Britain, leaders in France, leaders in Germany speaking out and scared to death. Can we do a quick, Tommy, why Putin's awful? I think I feel like sometimes this gets lost. It's like, you know, we're worried about Russia. Why is he embracing Russia? And some people might say, well, why isn't it an okay thing to have better relations with Russia? Like, what's so bad about them? You know? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not a bad thing to have better relations with Russia. Like, what's so bad about them? You know? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not a bad

thing to have better relations with Russia. It's something President Obama tried to do a number of presidents have tried to do is for reset relations. But I think you need, we need to do it in a way where we're not selling out our allies in Europe, or, you know, sort of creating these deals that sound good in theory, but in practice don't mean anything. For example, it would be great if we had more support from the Russians in terms of dealing with ISIS. But I don't think that we want to just give them carte blanche to go after ISIS in Syria in a reckless fashion, totally indiscriminate, without any regard for civilian casualties, the way they've done in places like Chechnya and others, because that leads to, helps ISIS recruit, and I think in the long term it will be bad for us. So there's a lot of, there's places where we can align strategically, but they view us as a threat. And they,

Russia and Putin believe that by diminishing the US, he can prop up Russia. And Putin's an autocratic thug, right? I mean, he murders, like... He kills his opponents. He kills, you know, they go after journalists. They've cracked down on human rights. I mean, the values are not aligned here. He's helped Bashar al-Assad, like, commit a near-genocide in Syria, right? Yeah, and Trump kind of brushed past that in one of the interviews.

He's like, yeah, I mean, what he's done in Aleppo is terrible. It's like, well, you know, he's not talking about any sort of consequences for that or would be given to Russia. Like, that's crazy. And then there's the potential, we learned, the potential FBI investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow. We know that the FBI sought a FISA warrant to look at phone calls between the Trump campaign and Russia? I mean, back to the legitimacy conversation, I still believe if there is an investigation that finds that people on the Trump campaign were in touch with Russian counterparts during the campaign and knew of the hacking, I mean, that's Watergate. That's worse than Watergate. That's helping a foreign adversary, you know, steal information, commit espionage. Imagine, imagine what Paul Ryan and the congressional Republicans would be doing if this were the Democrat with these kind of close ties to Russia behaving as if you're compromised by Russia. There would be impeachment hearings right now.

It's in. So. So, again, we're back into this place where, like, all this new stuff that's coming about coming out, all these interviews Trump is giving, all these things Trump is saying, they are the logical conclusion of what he's been saying for basically six months. It is now the concrete and terrible version because he's about to become our chief policymaker. Again, when Trump is behaving as though he is under the thumb of a foreign despot, we have to ask ourselves, why is he paying no political price for it? And the reason he is not is because Paul Ryan wants to cut the top marginal tax rate and he has sold out our country to do it and we have to keep the pressure on the people that are enabling this devious and despicable man to uh say these things with who may have slightly more shame than donald trump right we right there are still people who have shame members of his cabinet will have shame uh members of the congress will have shame i do i

believe that ryan's previous has successfully killed the part of himself that experiences shame. I think that he, it finally happened somewhere like sort of right before Christmas. He killed a dead, but otherwise they still got some shame over there. You know, listen, he said, you know, he sort of played footsie with Putin for a while and we've criticized him for that. But, you know, now you're sort of seeing it play out into what that means in policy terms. And the fact that, you know, Putin is managing to divide us from our European allies because of these comments from Trump about NATO and about sanctions relief. It's a huge problem. And it's just antithetical to like decades of foreign policy, you know, thinking.

I don't want to say thinking because that sounds like conventional wisdom. But, you know, you have Jim Mattis going up there testifying who's going to be Donald Trump's secretary of defense. And he says, NATO is central to our defense. I mean, this is seen as an essential, most successful alliance in all of all time. And I don't understand why he thinks otherwise. On the other hand, the last time Russia and the US allied and then marched on Berlin kind of worked out well for us. We won that one. I can't.

I'm not even going there. A little humor. Dive in. A little World War II humor. Okay. When we come back, we will have senior editor of the Daily Beast and the host of Girl Friday podcast, Aaron Ryan. Hey, guys.

Thanks for listening to our show, Pod Save America. Don't forget to check out our website, getcricketmedia.com. All kinds of good content. We'll also be coming out with more podcasts, more shows, more everything. More everything. More everything. Please also follow us on Twitter, at Pod Save America, at Cricket Media, at Jon Favs, at Jon Lovett, at TVTour08, and at Dan Pfeiffer. I should probably get that at Tommy Vitor someday, huh?

Do it. Bye. probably get that at Tommy Vitor someday, huh? Do it. Bye. With us today, we have the senior editor of the Daily Beast and host of the podcast Girl Friday, Erin Gloria Ryan. Erin, welcome. Hi, thanks so much for having me, guys. Thanks for coming on. So we have a question we'd like to start off our conversations, which is, how are you feeling? Trump is president. How's it treating you? I tweeted this yesterday, and I realized that it was articulating something I've been thinking a lot. Almost every time I make a decision, it's a decision between an activity that will make me infuriated or will calm me down. And it's been that way since November 9th.

So you've been off Twitter for a while then? I'm trying to lean into the pain because I feel as though we have to pay attention to what's going on even more than ever. But I also feel like I'm going crazy and I need to step back and take a deep breath every once in a while. You dropped acid and went to CES. What was more surreal, that experience or our current political situation? How is that analogous to this? It actually made more sense than almost anything that has happened in the last couple of months. I had never done that before. I'd never done any hallucinogens or psychedelic drugs at all.

So that was a really strange and singular experience. It ended up being very pleasant. I would never advocate for people to do drugs like that. Nor would the show. What? Nor would we at the show. I just want to say that for a little reason. Yeah, don't do it.

I really think I threaded the needle and got lucky with that specific experience. It was, one thing that I liked about that was that a show that's a consumer electronics show has this sort of endearing optimism to it in the light of what's happening on our national and international politics. It almost seemed

like cutely endearing. It was like, oh, you guys think that there is going to be a world in five years and in five years we'll all have smart kitchens that will text us at work

and isn't that nice that you think that there's going to be something it's like when you have a conversation in a relationship and it's kind of

on the decline and you talk about going on vacation together and you have this momentary little balm in your soul oh man that's CES

I just don't that's capitalism. I'm just not convinced that a smart fridge is going to get us over the finish line here as a country. Well, first of all, I'm a real Luddite. I don't like technology, and I don't really like being around people who get really dorky about it because it makes me feel like I need to take a shower. And they're just a bunch of nerds, you know?

Oh yeah. They're a bunch of nerds with a sense of self-importance who have decided that consuming things and creating things are the same thing. And they're not. So yeah, it was like, I don't believe in like a smart home. I don't want my coffee maker to know when I get home from work. Why? Why?

My house is fine. I don't need any of this stuff. But at the same time, it was a little bit, I left the experience of tripping on acid at this show thinking,

okay, well, there are a lot of people that are pretty sure that the world's not going to end, so maybe I could live in that headspace more. Silver lining.

Yeah. I also just, we're like, we're all reading about Compromat every day, and then Amazon and Google are like, here, bug your own home. Okay, Google. Thus concludes the Fuck You Silicon Valley segment of our show. So, we wanted to get your thoughts on the Trump administration considering evicting the press corps from the West Wing. Yeah, I'll walk everybody through. So when you guys see, to our listeners at home, when you see

President Obama speaking in the briefing room or the press secretary, what people don't necessarily understand is the other side of that wall is actually an office space. That's actually where my office was. It's called Lower Press. And then the reporters can walk through a door all day long to go into Lower Press, to go up to upper press and see the press secretary. They bump into senior officials. They see people coming and going from the West Wing. It's a great way to keep an eye on the place. The Trump people are talking about moving the press corps out of the West Wing into the EEOB, which is an adjacent but separate building, which would, you know, the spin on it is it would allow more reporters into the press briefing room. That doesn't mean those people are going to get a question. It just means they're in the room. But it, you know, in practice, it will severely limit their access to

the to the White House staff and their sort of ability to get a read on the building when something happens. So we're just wondering, you know, do you have a strategy that you're taking to covering this White House or that you would recommend to reporters who are starting on Friday? Oh, my gosh. I would be the wrong person to ask about this because the way that I cover things is mostly I take a step back and I make fun of it until it hurts a little less. That's good. But I think what is really interesting about this new administration, and we saw it in his press conference last week, which was just crazy. It was like Ringling Brothers' last circus.

During his press conference, he had his tax attorney go up and explain in extremely vague and not specific terms how it wasn't possible for him to totally divest and to disentangle himself from his potential conflicts of interest. But she used these words. So I used to work in financial services before I was a writer. And I don't really think about it very much anymore, but she used words that somebody

uses when they just assume that the audience is stupid and not going to understand anything that they're saying. It's like getting in an argument with a person who's taken a one-year philosophy and assumes that you know less than them. I noticed that in the spin on moving the press room to this other building, like you mentioned, the spin has been, this will give more people access. It will give more people access. And it depends on people being ignorant, which is why I've been thinking lately about how important it is for

people to pay more attention, even though it hurts. Because the only way that that lie is effective is if you don't know that the previous derangement gives people more access and awareness of what's going on. The way that that works, the way that that line works, is if the general public doesn't know that that's the case. Well, and of course, Spicer, his first comment was, Sean Spicer's comment was, well, we just want additional capacity to accommodate members of the media, including talk radio bloggers and others, because there's so many people who want... Yeah, we need... Burst Certificate Radio needs a seat in the living room.

There's not enough stupid people here. We need to make room for everybody. It's a big tent. Are you going to get credentialed now? Do you think you're going to be part of this new crowd? I don't fight for credentials, but I would honestly rather drop acid in Las Vegas every single weekend than spend more time than I need to in the Trump White House. Is that much different, do we think?

I don't know. Maybe. It depends on where Peter Thiel is. That's true. Oh, my gosh. That's a little bit of a sore spot for me since I came up through Gawker. For sure. So, you know, you said your general take on reporting is to step back and make fun of things. I'm wondering, I mean, do you think that satire is going to play an even bigger role? I mean, what's the balance between sort of giving Trump a pat on the head and ripping him to shreds on SNL?

Like, where do you strike that balance? and ripping him to shreds on SNL? Where do you strike that balance? Well, I think there's a place for serious and thoughtful engaging in what is actually happening and stepping back and laughing at the thing that's actually happening. One thing that I noticed, and I'm from a rural county in Wisconsin, originally that went 2-1 for Trump, I think, this election. And one thing that I noticed about the Trump voters there

was that they're a population of people who are sick and tired of getting laughed at, for better or for worse. A lot of people who are in that demographic deserve to be laughed at because they like crappy art. They listen to crappy music, as we can see from the inauguration concert lineup. They just don't have any taste, and they're tired of being made fun of for not having any taste. And Trump is like the person who kind of, you know, opened up his oversized suit and was like, look, no, no, no, it's fine.

You guys are fine. We're not laughing at you. We're laughing at, you know, we're sick and tired of it. And I think satire maybe played an outsized role in the last cycle because people used it as a way to not engage with the actual facts. Like they would get their news from the Daily Show instead of actually reading the source material, which I think is fun and a little bit easier than actually taking news in directly because it can be a little dry and it requires effort and thought and not just sitting back and laughing. But I think it's more important than ever to kind of balance that be a little dry and it requires effort and thought and not just sitting back and laughing.

But I think it's more important than ever to kind of balance that out a little bit. So long story short, I'm part of the problem. Well, no, but I think I don't think you are. Also, I think that I feel like there's like I think satire. I think you're right in sort of your critique of the way satire has been treating our politics. But I don't think it's the fault of like of of the approach of let's make fun of what's broken in the news. I think that there's this this sort of liberal thing that's going on right now. That's about like what we're making fun of is that people just don't get the real facts. Like they just don't get what's really going on.

And I think people kind of resent that. Right. Like there's like it's I don't think I'm making a good point. No, me either. I do think there's a point where satire can be incredibly condescending. And I'm going to start a sentence that you should all punch me in the face for when I finish. Malcolm Gladwell did a podcast on how satire backfired when it was used against Margaret Thatcher and in some ways against Palin. Because at some point along the way, they're brought in on the joke. And it just kind of like, it divorces you from the real problems of Sarah Palin not knowing what the hell she's talking about to kind of like goofing on her

accent. And maybe that's a dangerous thing. Yeah, I think that that is not, I don't think you're wrong at all. I think, But I also think that, like I said, that truly understanding an issue requires a little bit of effort. And laughing at somebody like someone, I don't know, Jeff Sessions, for example, to me, looks like three Keebler elves in a trench coat. That's funny as an observation, but it doesn't really engage me with what his record is.

And I'm not super well-versed in what he's doing and what he's done and why he's so abhorrent to so many people. You know, so if I were a layperson, part of my job as a voter and a participant in democracy would be to educate myself about this person rather than just take the shortcut and laugh at them. Because I think in an ideal world, the laughter is more fulfilling and funnier because of what his record has been. Well, I was going to say, the satire sort of has to be on message, right? Like the satire about Trump has to be how he's screwing a bunch of people, not how he has bad taste, right? Because you don't want him to be able to say,

you're not just making fun of me, you're making fun of my voters. You want to sort of separate him from the voters. Right, right. It can't be like a satire of aesthetics, which is like too often what it is. Yeah, no, I agree. But also that's the easiest thing. And I think people are a little bit lazy sometimes. And that's a shame. So you said that you've been trying to strike the balance between paying attention too much and then ignoring it all so that you don't freak out where have you sort of landed on that what's your regimen to do it you know like when you have a knee injury and you have to alternate some people say alternate hot and cold

i have to do that i can't really go halfway one or one way or another so you know, I will go to the gym and listen to Meet the Press as I run. Ugh, that sounds awful. I know. You live in Washington? I get all my horribleness in one place. Right, smart. I'll do that, and then, you know, I'll go home and I'll watch Rick and Morty for six hours. And not at all look at Twitter.

So that's sort of the way that I've been handling it. It's like, you know, a few hours on, a few hours off, a few hours on, a few hours off. And I've been reading a lot of fiction, although Don DeLillo is maybe not the best choice. But I have been reading a lot of fiction. So when I'm not reading the news and I'm trying to catch up on the news, I'm trying to take in the beauty of things that aren't of and related to Donald Trump. I also like at dinner now with friends, if Donald Trump comes up, it's like, hey, you know, we don't of and related to Donald Trump. I also like at dinner now, when like with friends, if like Donald Trump comes up, it's like, hey, you know, we don't need to talk about Donald Trump. Like we can have like a discipline of some other conversations.

I know. When I was home over Christmas, my dad, because, you know, my family, they're not in the media. My father just kept wanting to talk to me about, you know, the election and how upset he was about it. And I was, I finally had to be like, dad, I can't, I can't do this. Like you're ruining Christmas. I can't, I can't talk about this anymore. I get a lot of people saying, you know, talking about it and they're like, you must be sick of talking about this because you talk about it all the time. And I was like, no, I'm sort of resigned. I'm like, no, that's my life. That's the path I've chosen.

So I deserve it. Bring it on. It's an obsession. Yeah. And girlfriends from college of mine, none of them are in the media either, and they're all sort of like, oh, you know, it's nice. I'm just going to not pay attention to the news anymore. Wouldn't that be nice? I would love it if I could step back and not pay attention to the news. But, you know, like you said,

it's the job I picked, the job you picked. Yeah, I mean, we're three guys that just sort of looked at this and said, more? Yeah, more, please. Look, we have a republic to save, you know. And it's awesome. Our tweets are going to do it. Our podcasts are going to do it. One podcast at a time.

We're like five podcasts away from getting Trump to realize what a jerk he is. Aaron, Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. And everyone, check out Aaron's podcast, Girl Friday. It's great. Anything else to plug? Yes, it was great. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on.

Bye. Bye. You're listening to Pod Save America. You're listening to Pod Save America. Special guest today on the pod, we have former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines. Philippe, welcome to the program. Thank you. How are you guys? Great. We have former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines. Philippe,

welcome to the program. Thank you. How are you guys? Great. We're great. We're great. Everything's going well. Everything's fine. So we're really excited to have you on. The reason we wanted to talk to you is because there was this big story in Politico that everybody should read, and it's rare that we say that about Politico.

Think about it from my end end i've been telling everyone like politico's got this great story but uh it's a long piece looking at uh philippe's experience playing donald trump in debate prep and everybody should read it because it's called the man who became donald trump annie carney and politico and uh we were excited to talk to you i was excited to talk to you because you know philippe we've known each other for a long time and there's been a lot written about you but i don't think anyone has ever to this moment really captured how obsessive you get about things. And I think it's fair to say you got a little bit obsessive about playing Donald Trump, right? Well, you guys are out in California and Hollywood. I mean,

that's what you're supposed to do, right? Immerse yourself, take a method. Yeah, you're the Daniel. Actually, I did get obsessive or I did apply my usual obsessiveness to it. A lot of it was just for my own head. It's not like if I didn't wear knee pads to hold my legs straight, she would have said, he doesn't look like Donald Trump. But it was just a good reminder for me that it was sort of a constant, you know, remember the role I was playing. So, Philippe, I mean, I sat in a, you and I used to work together very closely when

you were a spokesman in the State Department and I was at the NSC, and I remember going to see, do a lot of interview preps with you and Hillary Clinton, and it seemed like your primary job was to piss her off as much as possible during the practice so that it didn't happen in the main event. Was that kind of your goal here during debate prep? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it worked, but it was a lot of fun. I mean, that was, my goal in life was just to antagonize her. You know, it had a great byproduct of, you know, my job getting done while I was at it. I think, look, we've all worked for principals.

We've all worked for people who, you know, every word they say is really pulled apart. You don't want them blurting everything on the top of their tongue out in an interview or a debate or even in a meeting, in a conversation in their office. They have staff. They have people like us oftentimes to say what they can only say to us, to get it off their chest, and frankly, just to talk things out so they can, you know, they can work through in their own head where they are on something. And I think that was the process.

Look, you guys know, you've all been on debate preps, and a lot of the same people on the same team. You know, hers was run by Ron Klain and Karen Dunn, who did President Obama's in 2012, too. They're just remarkable. They're the best. I've known them for a long time. The best. Seeing them in this context was just actually unbelievable. They're scary smart.

They run a great process, and honestly, you know know things didn't exactly go as planned but not because of the debates the debates hopefully will stand out as well what was the standout no one's gonna remember them no they won't be look she won three debates i mean it you know in the end uh so small comfort but still it happened flip what was the process in hindsight i think with a lot of things, but had she won, I think there would have been an element of the debates having sealed the deal. And a big part of it would have been

because people had a good shot of seeing her and all the psychobabble of who is she, we don't get to see her, she's this, she's that. So it not only would have been just very rewarding, it would have been a very, I think, sort of important way for her to have won. They were good opportunities.

And, you know, it was all for naught. Philippe, what was the process of getting inside Donald Trump's head? What did you do? And how fucked up did it make you after it was all said and done? I did what I do best, which was watch an inordinate amount amount of television um i just i watched him over and over and over and first of all it's not like the whole country wasn't watching especially people like us you're watching a little bit more than than usual and frankly it's not i wasn't solving rubik's cube i mean he has some pretty predictable patterns. In fact, I shouldn't say some.

I mean, he is one big predictable pattern. What was tough, and I've never done this before, so I don't know. I shouldn't say tough or less tough. practicing if you're running debate prep with President Obama in 2012 and someone's pretending to be Candy Crowley and saying okay Mr. President Governor Romney we're not going to talk about Medicare you then have a a fakey fakey exchange for 15 minutes about Medicare he I mean there's one great snippet that to me really summed him up from the debates in the primaries where he got pressed on Social Security three times. And the way he got out of it on the third time was that he, within 17 seconds,

went from Social Security to Kim Jong-un. And it's not helpful to do that in a practice setting. It's not helpful to, when you're trying to think through, you know, economic answers or social justice or Syria, to every 45 seconds start ranting and raving about, you know, Bleachbit and her hammering her phones and being in jail. So, you know, I think the harder thing to do is actually to try to debate, because he doesn't bother to. So one of the things you said in this story is that he is predictably unpredictable. And I think that...

Unpredictably predictable, predictably unpredictable, it doesn't really matter. It's hard to know the difference. No, it's a huge difference. All right, fine. It's a huge difference. Well, whatever you said... Don't get into the fake news. Love it doesn't read the news. Quoting whatever you want to think.

I think it was he's the most predictable, unpredictable person. Sure, great. That's what I was getting at. I think that's something people have come to a lot, which is that in hindsight, after he says something, you sort of realize, oh, that's obviously what he would say to protect his ego, to kind of defend his narcissism. But in the moment, it's really hard to figure out what he's going to do. So how did you wrap your head around that problem of this predictably unpredictable person?

That's a good question. Well, I don't think I had to go much further than what you just described, because the first thing is always, you know, about him. Did you say something or did you do something that he would consider, you know, a challenge to him, to his experience, to his abilities, which pretty much he experiences every word that way. And look, especially in a debate, in these debates where not just the opponents but the moderators, there's a lot of it was, you know, Mr. Trump, you said this 10 years ago.

Mr. Trump, we heard a recording of you saying this yesterday. So it was very much within the framework of, Mr. Trump, you are a bad person. Tell us why you did not screw up. And that's where he's most predictable. But in general, I mean, he's, again, I think it's funny, you know, I'm sure you watch as much TV as I do.

Everyone's trying to figure out who he's going to pick for this slot. What does that mean? When is he going to reveal his plans for X? This idea that things are going to settle out, that campaign was all big show, transition is sloppy, but, you know, taking it more seriously, and that suddenly just going to wake up one day and things are going to be even remotely akin to any kind of plan is a lot of things, but it's naive. It's just not who he is. So that's not who he's going to be.

So then I guess the question is, and I think it's a good idea to look forward. All right, you've embodied this guy, you've kind of figured out the way he approaches problems. What would be the lesson for reporters, for those of us trying to hold him accountable? How do you box Donald Trump in when you've played him? What works? Reporters, I think, have a couple of problems but the solution i think you know the the the press conference held last week what i was seeing was so much what should have happened should have been the the ending scene in um in the robin williams movie i'm sorry i'm blanking on the name where they all stand up on the desk captain captain to my captain. If they don't, if they are not willing to all go down for each other, if they do the standard routine, which is of the White House briefing, this isn't just with the president,

just with the press secretary, of I'm going to practice my question all day, my question itself is going to be newsworthy in the sense that my network can then say, oh, today X stood up and Sean Spicer or President Trump would refuse to answer X. That's not going to work. They literally have to get up there with the goal of getting an answer, which sounds incredibly obvious, but I don't, look, you guys have worked in the White House, I never have, I don't think that's what goes on. The prancing and the, sort of the drama of it is not geared to get an answer. It's geared towards getting at least

something for television. And every day, I think they almost have to go, they all have to embody either, you know, Jay Tapper or Chris Matthews. They all have to add up. Because if you look at the interviews he's done, one with Jake with the David Duke fiasco, and I think there was one other in Chris Matthews' interview where he said women should be criminalized for having abortions. Those are two people who just are relentless.

And the media together is not going to have a lot of opportunities. having abortions. Those are two people who just are relentless. And they're not, the media together is not going to have a lot of opportunities like that. He's actually subjected himself to difficult interviews where he's asked something six, seven times. They have to become one giant Jake Tapper

at these press conferences. That sounds like a scary version of Ghostbusters. But you're right. I thought that with the last press conference, like, no more multi-part questions. No, like, what do you think about this where you ask him to play the pundit? It has to be direct questions that are yes, no, or that force him to an answer. Yeah. And it has to be.

And look, in fairness to him, anyone you ask multiple part questions to is going to nab which part of it they want. Right, right. I mean, a lot of what he's doing is not anything our bosses haven't done. The length to which he's doing it and the shamelessness with it. But, you know, there are days, and I can't think of one, but there are days where the event of the day has been so overwhelming that you could go to each of the 49 questions in the White House press briefing room and it would be the same topic. That's almost how I think they have to approach it. Because this whole thing, any given day, and here's a good example, you think a week from now everything's going to be settled in,

there's only going to be one horrible thing going on a day. He's not going to still have his taxes on release. He's not going to still have his taxes on release. He's not going to still have X. There's always going to be three, four, five things to latch onto in the course of a day. And that's always going to benefit him. I don't know why I keep saying him because 90% of this is going to be Spicer. Yeah, I think Sean Spicer's in for a couple of rough briefings, which is very good. Yeah. He seems to be a bit of a sore winner.

Yeah, he doesn't seem to be growing in the role yet. Yeah. Philippe, thank you so much for joining us. And everyone go read The Man Who Became Donald Trump in Politico to get more of this feel for what it was like to play Donald Trump by Philippe. Thanks, Philippe. Thank you for having me, guys. I'm going to go yell at someone about something they didn't do. Okay, great.

Perfect. That's our show for today. Thank you to Aaron Glory Ryan and Philippe Reines for joining us. And we'll talk to you on Thursday. And see you later. Thank you.