Pod Save America - "He'll run the country from jail like El Chapo."

Episode Date: March 23, 2017

The Russia story gets messier, Trump confirms the truth is dead, and Republicans try to take away health care from their voters. Then, new author Alyssa Mastromonaco joins Jon and Dan to reminisce, and Friends Like These host Ana Marie Cox stops by to talk health care.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today we have Barack Obama's former Deputy Chief of Staff and the author of the new book, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? Best friend of the pod, Alyssa Mastromonaco. Three-time guest. Yes. Maybe Plouffe. Other than Plouffe, Alyssa's monaco three-time guest yes she's maybe pluff other other than pluff

alissa is the only three-time guest is she like the steve martin of pod save america that's an snl such a dated reference snl reference well that's the most hosted snl uh host i guess also anna marie cox is going to stop by to talk about her guest this week on With Friends Like These and her thoughts on the ACA repeal. Before we get into that, subscribe to Pod Save the World. Tommy has Mark Lippert on this week. It was a great interview. Lippert's also a friend of the pod who became ambassador to South Korea. Talks about the time he was stabbed in South Korea as ambassador.

Remember that? Yeah, that was terrible. I know. It's a good episode. And then, of course, subscribe to Love It or Leave It. The show is tomorrow night. John Lovett's here

staring at me for some... Oh, there we go. Oh, great. We tried to do this before he showed up, but here he is. I don't even have headphones, Dan. I'm really not supposed

to be here. Okay, we're done. Anyway, Dan. I'm really not supposed to be here. Okay, we're done. Anyway, subscribe. Why are we playing music? That's the theme song to Love It or Leave It, Dan. Oh, I see. It'll be in your head forever. It's just, it's brutal.

Also, special announcement today. Tickets are going on sale for the very first Pod Tours America. I like that. It's a good pun. Pod Tours America. We are going to be in Seattle on Friday, May 5th. We're going to be in San Francisco on Saturday, May 6th. And then here in Los Angeles,

Wednesday, May 17th. It's going to be the two of us, Tommy Vitor, John Lovett, friends of the pod, various friends of the pod. And tickets go on sale today at noon Pacific time, 3 p.m. Eastern. And we will all be sure to tweet out the links to the ticket sales as soon as this pod is over. So you might actually see those links first. Can't wait for it. It'll be great shows.

Okay, two big things to talk about today. Healthcare in Russia. I don't want to start with Russia because I think it's more important to people's lives, but because healthcare news could break at any moment. So we're just going to wait to save it until the end. All right, so here's the Russia story. I think the biggest news of everything that happened yesterday was the CNN story, which posted like 8 p.m eastern

um i'll just read the lead the fbi has information that indicates associates of president donald trump communicated with suspected russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to hillary clinton's campaign u.s officials told CNN. What did you think when you saw that, Dan? Well, as a communications professional, I would suggest that that is not the headline you're looking for if you're the Trump administration. You don't think they put points on the board with that? There is no whiteboard in the Trump White House that's a message of the day that says, Trump associates collusion Russia. it says that the info includes human intelligence travel business phone records and accounts of in-person meetings um now so all all

of the things that is all of them this does not seem now this came after of course monday's news where fbi director james comey announced that trump is under investigation or the trump campaign is under investigation sorry could be trump as well he wouldn't really say um who in the trump orbit is under investigation we don't know various reports have said michael flynn paul manafort roger stone carter page and then also adam schiff yesterday the ranking democrat on the house Intelligence Committee, said to Chuck Todd, there is more than circumstantial evidence now when it comes to collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives. He would not elaborate on that because you're not supposed to as an Intel committee member. We'll get to more of that soon.

But yeah, but Schiff took it up a notch yesterday, and then the CNN story broke. So, wow. Yeah, wow was the right answer. Wow was the right answer. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess here's my hypothetical question for you on this. let's say that tomorrow james comey or adam schiff went to the microphones and they pulled out a speaker and they played a voicemail from trump to putin that said vlad great to talk to you have would you please hack hillary's emails best donald do you what is there any

scenario in which republicans do anything with that other than fake news attack the person they just either fake news or they attack the person who gave it to adam schiff to get after the leakers like i can't like i want to, from a political perspective, be helpful, but I don't believe there's anything short of helping poor people or raising taxes on the rich that would cause Paul Ryan to ever move articles of impeachment against Trump. What if there's a Billy Bush tape from Access Hollywood where Trump tells Billy Bush that he's asked Putin to hack into Hillary's emails? Do you think that'll do it? Do you think that'll do it?

Do you think that'll do it? Maybe Jason Chaffetz will respond by saying that he can't look his child in the eye again. And then quickly decide that he's going to continue supporting Donald Trump's presidency. No, I think it's a good point. I don't know at this point what would cause them to turn on him. I don't know what kind of evidence would. I mean, at some point you would think that... I don't know.

I mean, first of all, we've got to figure out what the charges would be here. Right. Like, I do think it is not, you know, hyperbolic to say that if Trump associates were colluding with a foreign adversary who had committed a cyber attack against the United States, there could be charges of treason, right? Like, I don't, I mean, I know that sounds like a fucking crazy thing to say, but like, what else are you charged with if you're secretly helping a foreign adversary attack the United States? Yeah, I'm not an attorney either. So neither of us went to grad school. Thanks, Barack Obama. Right.

But so imagine, like to take the i mean to me it seems like treason or nothing that's but that's my i don't i'm just trying to figure out what other charges there are maybe it's not maybe there is it's also very true that uh they could have said yeah we heard that the russians are going to uh dump a bunch of emails that they hacked from the dnc sounds cool and then like there's nothing you can get them on i don't know i don't know you know let's crowdsource this i imagine we have people with strong legal backgrounds who are lawyers and maybe they can listen to this and they can uh tweeted us the actual charges that you would bring against donald trump and his associates in said situation perfect that sounds

that sounds like a sound process let's follow it yeah yes i also think that uh if even if trump was arrested and convicted of whatever the said chart whatever the charges are that our friends will tweet at us do you think i still think paul ryan would not impeach him and he would just let him run the country from jail like he was el chapo well i mean but but that's that's sort of the crux of this whole thing right now right is that paul ryan is racing to give as many tax cuts to as many rich people as possible and take away health care from as many people as possible before this investigation really gets hairy, you know? Like, he just, he's out there, he's like, I gotta get this agenda passed because God knows what's happening with the FBI. I mean, it's pretty, and look, there's also a possibility. There's a whole range of possibilities here.

A, that CNN story was couched in such a way that, you know, it's hard to tell. It's not definitive, right? Also, even if it's Trump associates, we don't know. I mean, it seems like it would be very hard to prove that Trump himself knew what was going on or that he was implicated in some way. So who the hell knows where this goes? I mean, again, we've said this before, but it's not like it's something we can talk about in message every day because we don't – I mean, the FBI is moving on their own timetable here. Yeah, it could be months, years before this comes to some sort of resolution.

And in that time, many people could lose health care and many rich people could get richer. Exactly. Exactly. Now, one of the reasons that I think Schiff maybe took it up a notch yesterday and talked about there's more than circumstantial evidence is because his counterpart, Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, formerly one of the leaders of trump's transition team now the chairman of the intel committee um he he had quite a day yesterday didn't he yeah he i mean there's an obvious and painful oxymoron joke about david nunez being the head of the intelligence community which i will not make that we can save that for Love It or Leave It. But I mean, what a moron.

What a moron. The thing that makes it so dumb is, like, there are people who are very malicious, who do malicious things to help Trump. But when Nunes is doing it, he thinks he's helping Trump, and he's only making things worse for himself and Trump. Well, okay. So to give everyone some context here, you should know that the intelligence committees in the House and the Senate are unusually serious

and bipartisan relative to all the other committees in Congress. Yes, very unusual in that sense. Right. But people in the intelligence committees in both parties have always taken their jobs very seriously. We had a friend of the pod, Adam Sch adam chiffon he was very careful not to attack nunez uh when he was on the pod because it's his counterpart and he's trying to do this investigation together they're trying to share information they have with each other before they tell the public before they tell everyone else so it is a very it's supposed to be a congenial environment also to know as of yesterday every intelligence agency in the government, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Director of National Intelligence, the NSA, everyone, intel committees of both parties, everyone has confirmed that Trump's conspiracy theory about Obama tapping his phones was a complete and utter fabrication.

It was not correct. Even Fox News is not standing by Judge Napolitano's reporting. So that's sort of the backdrop of what happened yesterday. So then Nunes yesterday is told by an unnamed source that intel agencies that were conducting what he said was lawful surveillance, which means it was either surveillance conducted on foreign agents or on people suspected of a crime, that that surveillance incidentally picked up conversations from some Trump transition team members, possibly Trump himself, because those Trump people were communicating either with foreign agents or people suspected of crimes. And the names of the Trump people ended up in intelligence reports that were shared within the Intel committee and the Obama White House. And also Nunes said, none of this had to

do with Russia. None of the, none of the incidental communications that were picked up had to do with Russia. So this is what Nunes learns yesterday. Upon learning this information, Devin Nunes does not keep it to himself. He does not tell Adam Schiff or any of the Democrats on the committee. He goes to Paul Ryan, and Paul Ryan tells him to go to the White House. So Nunes then goes to the White House and tells President Trump, whose

campaign is under FBI investigation, and then Nunes walks out of the White House and tells the entire fucking press corps. What was he doing? I mean, he's a moron. Also, what is Paul Ryan doing? I mean, that's just idiocy on Paul Ryan's part.

Because even, like, Paul Ryan's supposed to be smart, all evidence to the contrary. And he, one of his goals is to keep, is to prevent there being a special committee, which, a bipartisan special committee, which would not protect Trump. He wants to protect Trump because he wants to protect tax cuts and less health care and all the other things that he holds dear to his heart. And doing this, he basically makes the argument for the Democrats that we should have a special committee. And I mean, it's just, it's idiocy. But basically, the secret plan that Paul Ryan and Devin Nunez cooked up together was the equivalent of going out there and saying, someone couldn't be, this person is not guilty of murder because I knew they were out robbing a bank at this exact same moment.

You're just implicating them. It's so stupid. Well, that's, I mean, it's so funny that, like, Trump, the White House, some of the Fox headlines were like, the Trump White House, Trump feels vindicated by this because he said people were spying on him. Like, I mean, Tim Miller had a great tweet about this. He tweeted, see, the FBI was investigating whether we colluded with a hostile foreign power. Boom.

Roasted. What was that? Why do they care about that also like did Nunes leak classified information after a hearing on Monday where all he talked about was finding leakers of classified information and how awful they were just so dumb it's just so dumb I just I don't and of course, like it did the trick because Trump and all of his idiot defenders were running around. Like I feel vindicated by the way, everyone, by the way, if you can stand it, please go read. And Dan, you sent this to me this morning, please read Trump's interview with Michael Scherer of time magazine. So time does a cover on, um, is the truth dead? And for that, for that cover story, they interview, of course, Donald Trump.

And it is such a dissembling, moronic tirade of word salad from Donald Trump in which he manages to lie in the article about lies, I don't know, dozens and dozens of times. in the article about lies, I don't know, dozens and dozens of times. And all the interview apparently took place right after Nunes went out to the driveway of the White House and talked to the press corps. So all Trump kept saying the whole time was, did you see the Nunes thing? No, I'm vindicated. Did you see the Nunes thing? And it just it goes on and on and on. It was it was crazy.

That interview was amazing. Just a couple of thoughts on it. One, Trump seems so, like he's almost like he'd given up on life. Like at the end, after Michael Shearer, who does a very good job of interviewing Trump, because he basically just gives him as much rope to hang himself as possible. At the end, Trump's like, yeah, I had all these problems.

I inherited a mess and I can't be doing too bad. I'm president and you're not. I'm president and you're not. I'm president and you're not. And then he ends with, say hello to everybody, okay? But then also, like, what was the thinking in the White House on why Trump should do this interview? Like, time calls up. It's like, hey, we're doing an article on the death of truth. And we'd like to interview one of the world's most famous liars.

You game? I'm sure he's like, well, I'm neck and neck with Richard Nixon for most time covers ever, so maybe this is a shot at that? Like, what are we doing? I was trying to figure that out, too. And it seems as though if you really listen to that, or you really read that interview between the lines, and you try to go through all the deranged commentary from Trump, it's like the White House must have printed out

a couple pages on all the times that Trump was proven correct, even though people said he was lying. And so like he's like, you see right here, it says, I talked about Sweden and the next day there was death and destruction in Sweden. People thought I wasn't going to win the election and then I won the election. That's like the only one he can really legitimately come back to, right? He thinks because everyone was wrong about the election and he was right, then all of his other lies are therefore true. But yeah, so I wonder if they pitched it to the White House and said like, this is Trump's opportunity to correct the record. And then they gave him like a list of all the things that, all the lies that were supposedly proven correct i don't know i think it was pretty fucking crazy

yeah it's it is an insane raid if if for some reason you were as an american you were still sleeping well at night uh this interview will stop that yeah i mean i i suggest everyone take that interview print it out and every time trump gives some speech where everyone says he's fucking presidential or he's pivoted or he does something to turn the corner and save his presidency like just read that interview because that's who he is you know like that's this is who we're dealing with here um so nunez is clearly weighing over his head here. It doesn't seem like the brightest bulb. And after he does this, John McCain calls again for a special prosecutor or an independent prosecutor, an independent investigation. I don't know whether that comes to pass or not. It just it seems hard for enough Republicans to get to a place where they're asking for an, or they're allowing an independent investigation, right? I mean,

whatever is in the best interest of Trump is what they'll do. And so it's hard to imagine. Yeah. Uh, I could see the Senate moving towards something, but the idea that there would be a 50, 50 bipartisan committee with subpoena power seems so unlikely. Yeah. bipartisan committee with subpoena power seems so unlikely.

I just can't imagine what these yahoos would ever, they will never do the right thing. Like I hate to be so cynical, but they will never, never do the right thing. Yeah. I mean, at least enough of them won't, you know,

I mean, I'm good, good for McCain for calling for that, but you know, it's like, it's the usual suspects of like McCain, Lindsey Graham and no one else. Yeah, like Jeff Flake on a good day.

Right, Jeff Flake when he's worried about his re-election in 2018. Now, it's interesting that all this Nunes and the CNN story sort of overshadowed the morning's news about Russia, which was an AP report that Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to assist Vladimir Putin for $10 million a year. Manafort proposed a plan to influence politics and news coverage in the U.S. and Europe and had this deal from 2005 to 2009. And then he became the Trump campaign chairman. Well, John, to be fair, he had a limited role for a limited amount of time. That's from our boy, Sean Spicer. That was his explanation. Manafort played a limited role for

a limited amount of time. Manafort was campaign chairman for longer than Steve Bannon was campaign manager. And we only have to look back to Sean Spicer himself, who said very definitively when Paul Manafort came on board that, quote, Paul was in charge. I mean, maybe it was hard to get into the 140 characters, limited time for a limited scope of work, but we get the point. And where was Paul Manafort living when he was working for Putin? Trump Tower. Interesting. Does anyone else live in Trump tower that we know there's so many crazy coincidences here this all this russia stuff i don't it's amazing how many coincidences there are i don't know i feel like paul manafort the things are not going to end well for him

yeah it's it's notable at the very least it seems like paul manafort could be in trouble yeah at bare minimum paul manafort could be in trouble um who bare minimum paul manniff could be in trouble um who chooses to live in trump tower that's russian russian agents i guess russian agents yeah russian agents and donald trump um so with this cloud of investigation uh over hanging over the trump administration uh chuck schumer uh leader of the democrats in the Senate, said that, quote, I'd like to point out that it is the height of irony that Republicans held the Supreme Court open for nearly a calendar year while Obama was in office, but are now rushing to fill the seat for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI. It's unseemly to be moving forward on confirmation of a Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment.

Confirmation of a Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment. So the Democratic strategy now is, you know, we are not going to or we're going to. And Schumer announced this morning that they're going to filibuster Gorsuch. So the strategy is basically like you guys held this seat open and wouldn't give a hearing to Merrick Garland because it was a year left in Obama's term, even though he won by 5 million votes in 2012. But yet, this president is currently under FBI investigation, and you want us to move forward with a vote on someone who's going to get a lifetime appointment. You know, I first heard the strategy and I was like, I don't know, is this right? But it sort of makes sense to me now. Yeah, it is. I don't know that it'll be? But it sort of makes sense to me now. Yeah, it is. I don't know that it'll be successful in the end because Republicans control the rules here,

but it is a good argument. It is most certainly the argument Republicans would use if Hillary Clinton got elected and was under an FBI investigation. 100%. If Hillary Clinton was under open FBI investigation while she was president, I mean, I don't think anyone would be going to work in Washington. I think Republicans would literally be staying home. Like they would be protesting outside of Congress.

They wouldn't show up at hearings. They wouldn't be holding votes. I mean, it's just it's crazy. You know, there was this Politico story last night that you and I got very worked up over suggesting that Senate Democrats were going to try to cut a deal with McConnell saying we let Gorsuch through on a promise that they would not change the rules on the next one. We got very fired up about that. It seems pretty clear that that story was either a wrong or that was a trial balloon because what Chuck Schumer did this morning makes it clear right. Makes it clear that, that this is going there. Republicans are going to either have to get a new nominee or change the rules. Those are the,

those are the two options to get Gorsuch through. I'm just, I'm my suspicion is that they are going to get, they're going to change the rules, but I think it's the right thing to do for the Senate Democrats to fight like hell here. Like the base would not take it. You're going to get the same result either way, and you might as well fight like hell

and prove to the base that you share their anger and frustration and are worthy to have people show up to vote for you in two years. Yeah, no, I totally agree. First of all, that Politico story, when you really read you really read it closely, it says sources, it's sources familiar with the matter it's attributed to. So it's not even like, you know, some Senate official said it, right? So either, like you said, either it was a trial balloon or it was just, you know, some kind of rumor there. there. But I totally agree that, look, we've already offered Neil Gorsuch more of an opportunity than Republicans offered Merrick Garland. We held hearings for him. You know, he's getting questioned. He's able to make a case. And I think, I mean, I have not paid too much attention to the

Gorsuch hearings because so much other shit's been going on. But I was reading about some of it last night. And, you know, the Democrats have been pretty great on that committee and the Judiciary Committee in asking him pretty pointed questions and sort of exposing him as a, you know, a far-right justice or that he could be a far-right justice with a very, very conservative ideology. And, like, that alone doesn't disqualify you from a supreme court seat but coming on the heels of what they did to merrick garland which was not even give him a fucking hearing yeah i think it's fair and any republican now who's like wringing their hands like how could democrats not

vote for this qualified guy how could they block him i can't even imagine you know like well you were just fucking here two years ago when you sat around and wouldn't even give an eminently qualified jurist a hearing for the first time ever. Yeah. I mean, all is fair here. The Republicans will absolutely wring their hands, and Mitch McConnell will, with a straight fucking face, complain about democratic obstruction and all of that. Yeah, because he has no soul. Speaking of no soul, let's go to uh health care the uh the effort to repeal and go fuck yourself uh which is what what republicans are saying to america um i think they may be repealing and fucking themselves

repeal and go fuck themselves um all right state of of play here. Who the hell knows? We don't. It appears that. So I think NBC's count as of late last night was 27 Republicans publicly opposed to the bill or strongly leaning against. leaning against. But it appears that Donald Trump and the White House are trying to make a deal with Mark Meadows, who's the head of the House Freedom Caucus, extremely conservative group of House members. And they're trying to make a deal that appeases the Freedom Caucus because most of those no votes are coming from the Freedom Caucus, who believe that the bill is not conservative enough, doesn't take away healthcare enough. So they're in these negotiations and we have no idea whether they'll strike a deal in time for this vote, which is supposed to be late, late tonight sometime. Hopefully, at least it's not going to happen during this podcast.

They haven't scheduled it yet. The House Freedom Caucus is in the white house cabinet room as we record this uh for these negotiations mainly between it seems like mark mark meadows and the head of the freedom caucus and bannon although trump just walked in the room per twitter i'm just keeping up to date here as this is real time yeah and it if they cut this deal i I imagine it will pass. They will lose some other less non-member. I don't want to use the term moderate because there are no moderates left. Sane, maybe? I don't know.

I don't even know. I don't know if they're sane either. No. Just people who – Republicans are not members of the Freedom Caucus. Good. Who may happen to be in blue states. members of the Freedom Caucus, who may happen to be in blue states. And because they are, I mean, this is an interesting thing, because with every additional Freedom Caucus vote that Paul Ryan and Steve Bannon and Donald Trump get, it makes it less likely to ever pass the Senate.

And to get into some like dorky parliamentary maneuvers, because they are doing this on a budget bill, it has to be strictly about taxing and spending basically. And so they can't – the changes that the House Freedom Caucus wants make it according to many people – many people are saying that the changes they are making will make it so you can't do it on only 50 votes in the Senate, you would need 60. So they would kind of have to start over in the Senate. So it's not entirely clear what is happening other than Paul Ryan gets to not, and Donald Trump get to avoid being embarrassed. Um, and Democrats get some really great ads to make against the Republicans who voted for this shit burger. Yeah. It seems like the only things that ryan and trump are thinking about is a how can we win and b how can we not embarrass ourselves and trump clearly doesn't know what the fuck is in this bill he can't he probably couldn't

sustain an interview on policy uh health care policy for more than two minutes he couldn't sustain an interview on his own statements with time magazine today exactly right um and so yeah i mean look john harwood tweeted this morning he was like is he still a master negotiator if his starting position was health care for everybody and basically he's trying to just he's going to move the bill so far to the right that it like covers fewer and fewer people and offers them shittier and shittier insurance like yeah, I guess you could be a master negotiator. If this passes the House, it's not because he's a master negotiator.

It's because Trump has no principles and doesn't care what he gives away. If you're a negotiator whose position was, take anything, I don't care, then yeah, you probably could be pretty successful. And we should tell people what they're trying to do now. What the Freedom Caucus wants is for the Trump administration, for this bill to remove the essential health benefits that were required by the Affordable Care Act. So what does that mean? In the Affordable Care Act, basically we said, okay, right now insurance companies can offer people really shitty insurance plans that don't cover almost any services. So here is a list of

health benefits that every insurance plan in the country is required to cover. And those benefits are. So that means that insurance plans, so if they take away these health benefits, it means that insurance plans are no longer required by law to cover the cost of doctor's visits,

trips to the emergency room, hospitalization, prescription drugs, pregnancy-related care care and substance abuse treatment while we're in the middle of an opioid epidemic epidemic so like that is like what what use is that health insurance if you can't if it's not even going to cover emergency room trips or hospitalization or doctor's visits i mean it's really really bad it's so funny hospitalization you will not cover trips to the hospital well i mean hospitalization and doctor's visits together are the best it's like what else what else is health care but trips to the doctor or trips to the hospital and prescription drugs right like those are the three ways that you use health care

or an ambulance ride to the fucking hospital i mean it's so bad it's basically the new strategy is we're still going to take healthcare away from 24 million people but the people who get to keep healthcare that healthcare is going to be even shittier than it was before yeah i mean so the and they also so it would also cause a death spiral in the markets right because uh insurance companies would offer these really cheap plans that don't really cover anything. And then sick people would be attracted. I mean, it's just, it's not a recipe for success. Don't think it's been well thought out. So I don't know if they're going to do that or not. because of these parliamentary procedures and these arcane rules, it's not even clear that they can take away these regulations

with a bill that goes through the budget reconciliation process. The Senate parliamentarian has said, but in the past you can't do that. Who knows if it's true now? So the question is, we don't know whether this passes the House or not. As of this point, we're not in the prediction game anymore. But what happens if it fails the House? What's the next step after that? I don't know.

Just Trump and Paul Ryan have to walk the streets of D.C. yelling shame? I don't know. If it doesn't pass, I think two options. They move on to tax reform, which is what Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, I think, want to do anyway. They move on to tax reform, which is what Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, I think, want to do anyway. Or they go back and try to pass the straight repeal bill that has passed the House 37 gazillion times in the last six years. So that'll be those two things. But this is clearly their best shot to do this.

And if this fails, it's a little bit back to the drawing board and some of the wind may be out of their sails. And some of the enthusiasm of the major players here may go away. And if it passes, I still think there's a very strong chance it dies in the Senate because already you have like, they can only afford to lose two Republicans in the Senate. They already have four or five Republicans on record saying they absolutely won't support this bill. Of course, the question is if it's a very conservative bill, then maybe the people who've said no, like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, maybe they become yeses. I think the moderates who've said no are Susan Collins, and I don't know if you can call them a moderate, but Dean Heller is up for election in 2018. So I think you'd still need to find three moderates in the Senate to make sure that it dies.

So this thing is still alive, and people should still fight this with everything you have. One suggestion we got from our friends at MoveOn and Indivisible, who are working together with a bunch of other groups, is on Friday, they want everyone to take a big stand. is on Friday, they want everyone to take a big stand. So after the vote, if the vote happens on late Thursday, what they want everyone to do is to make a homemade sign, show up at their local congressional office at noon to chant, take a picture, post the sign online. So just go to your nearest, look up the nearest office for your member of congress go at noon on friday and the idea is to if your congressperson made the right decision and voted the right way you want to praise them and tell them it's great if they voted the wrong way you want to apply enormous amount of public pressure because it's important to understand that even if it passes

the house tomorrow it's it's going to go back to the house again after it goes to the senate it's going to go for probably or it, or the Senate's going to be impacted by this, right? So like you still have an opportunity to make a difference once this passes the house. It is by no means the end of the story. So a big show of force on Friday to tell your member of Congress that they either voted the right way or the wrong way is very important. So find that local office, go there, protest outside the office, you know, post it online, send around pictures and keep calling. Keep calling your members, too.

When we come back, we will have Alyssa Mastromonaco. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we have new author and friend of the pod alissa master monaco her book is who thought this was a good idea alissa welcome welcome back bros friend of the pod you are the ultimate friend that's best friend of the pod best friend of the pod has anyone been on the pod more than i have we were just saying that that at the beginning. I think you're holding the current record.

I hope that that means I get like a sweet velvet jacket like they get on SNL. We'll work on one for you. Exclusive merch just for you. So I stayed up late last night and finished the book. That's big for you. I don't read books a lot, Alyssa. You what? I don't read books a lot.

I know. You're like me. It was outstanding. I often describe you as one of the greatest writers of our generation and one of the worst readers. That's an accurate description. That's okay because so many people have said that my book reminds them of Mindy Kaling's book. And it might be because that was the last book I read. First of all, you did an outstanding outstanding job it was so enjoyable to read and um and i think it's gonna have a lot of a lot of good advice for people in it as well i hope so um what made

you write it like what what were what were you thinking before you uh decided to sit down and do this mostly that like if you read all the other books people do when they leave the White House, they're sort of like stuffy and really long. And I thought that I could just do something that made working in the White House seem sort of accessible. I might have jumped the shark since now like Donald Trump thinks he can be in the White House. But what are you going to do? I mean, I noticed that too, like the theme of the book, in my view, was, you know, politics often plays out like it does on Veep. But what you were trying to argue is most people making decisions are working really hard and trying really hard to do the right thing. Right. That's sort of the theme. How do you feel watching this White House? I mean, you know what it is? It's like we all know that, you know, politics is a pendulum.

It swings back and forth. There's always a winner and a loser. But this like offends me to my core is like a public servant. When you read the articles about how like the State Department's home alone, people are just drinking coffee because there's no leadership. And you look at like, you know, people talk about the picture of Kellyanne Conway with her feet underneath her right in the Oval Office. It didn't offend me. People weren't attacking her because she was a woman. They were attacking her because she was in a room of HBCU presidents playing like Brick Breaker. You know, and now it's like all the news about Ivanka, who like, look, I remember the first time on the pod. I said Donald Trump should pick her to be vice president.

But like now her accessories line is failing. So she's taking up a hobby of working in the West Wing, which is not really a hobby. No, it's offensive. Alyssa, what how how is the experience of writing this book for you um it was it was very very hard until I accepted that I needed help and I think it's like you know especially for the three of us it's like we've watched so many people come and go and things that we were like integral to doing and then like they go and write a book or anyone before us in past administrations. And suddenly like certain accomplishments are written as one person's achievement instead of like that of a group. And so my problem actually in the

beginning is that I kept trying to identify every one of the 75 people we worked with every day. And the publisher was like, Alyssa, you cannot do that. But you came close. I thought you... I tried. You mentioned more people that we worked with than I've seen in any other book about the Obama White House. It was really good. Almost every other sentence you were like, and then so-and-so was helping me, and this person was in the meeting, and they were responsible for this, and they did a good job playing this trip. So I thought that was really nice of you. So what that actually... So what happened is I i also the thing i wanted to do was only tell the stories that i saw as my stories

and not like you know talk about health care it's like i didn't really have that much to do with health care happy anniversary by the way guys seven years ago today seven years aca and uh and now the republicans are like we'll really shove it down their throat and try to pass it on the same day. It's like assholes. But no. So I so I was like, finally, I decided to get a co-writer, this woman, Lauren Whaler, who I met at Vice, who worked on Broadly. And she helped me actually order and sequence the story so that I could introduce a person one time and then have them repeat throughout the book. So that like, you know, after chapter four or page two or three, you two were literally just known as Pfeiffer and Favs.

No description needed. I got very, I got very nostalgic when you talked about, and I had forgot about this in the Senate in 2005 and six, when we'd have a a when we have tough thursday nights we had to meet for breakfast on friday you and tommy and me and french toast and have french toast when you say tough friday nights do you mean like a votorama were you up all night just counting votes no we were drinking too much we were at that place on the corner what was that called called? Like Red River or whatever? Yeah, it was terrible. What's your favorite story in there? I want to hear from you because you had a lot of good ones, but which one stands out?

My favorite story is probably meeting the Queen. You know, our trip to London. You guys were both there there how can we forget that that trip i don't know who i thought i was i think that my body like my spirit hovered over my body as i literally like tried to curtsy to the queen as flotus and potus are looking at me like alissa don't go like they looked at me like i was some sort of weird stalker that might like lurch at her um remember you guys remember you guys pushed me to the front we were all standing around and like who was gonna go who was gonna meet the queen first and you guys were just like go just go and i

had no you can do it fabs you're handsome capricia just capricia marshall our chief of protocol just pushed me forward and i was like i don't think i spoke any words to her i think i just mumbled and president obama introduced me he's like this is my speechwriter john favreau and I was like I don't think I spoke any words to her I think I just mumbled and President Obama introduced me he's like this is my speechwriter John Favreau and I'm like your majesty and I sort of like bowed and just ran away it's better than the time which I think is a story that's not in the book than when we went to Saudi Arabia oh yeah and typically you know women don't meet King Abdullah and you know and Valerie Jarrett and I were supposed to just like skip when we got off the plane. There was a receiving line and the king was there and we were supposed to skip it.

But then the Saudis were like, no, no, go through it, but don't touch his hand. And so when POTUS was introducing everybody, he's like, you know, and this is David Axelrod, my senior advisor. And then he got to the two of us and didn't know what to do. And he literally said to King Abdullah, this is Valerie and and this is alissa and he was like just go he gave us a face he's like just go just go um but that was that trip to london was something and then um and then remember david beckham he was giving you eyes right you guys like let's just talk about david beckham for a second um He thought I was so hot.

He could not keep his eyes off of me. You guys doubted me. And then I had a little too much champagne and regaled Colin Firth with impressions of himself in love. Actually, I believe you were shouting about Uncle Jamie, right? We love Uncle Jamie. We had Uncle Jamie. That was the best of all the trips, think that was the best trip ever yeah so this book also has a lot of advice for young women who want to get into politics what what what would you say that advice is you mean how to beat down the bros how to beat down the

bros yes let's get into it to bro or not to bro um no see and i actually one of the points and i don't know if you guys picked up on it is that you know for women to default to something you know as sexism what i actually found in the white house is that there was actually more ageism than sexism and i felt you know, someone asked me a question about, remember when Bob, well, when Bob Gates wrote his book and said like that he basically had to deal with these like snot nose kids. Yes. Yeah. No, I do remember that. Thanks, Bob. And so thanks for that. Thanks for Rex Tillerson. Great Bob Gates. It's like, I actually like I, when I think about it, I'm like, okay, like right now, if someone gave me like, at 41 years old, if someone gave me a 25 year old and was like, here's your deputy chief for operations, I'd be like, fuck off. And so I guess I have a little sympathy for Bob Gates.

But what I tried to impart is that it's not always just about being a woman. Maybe sometimes people think that you're succeeding at a very young age, and that's a compliment. So you just got to like bowl through it. And also having two bro friends that understand when you're melting down and give you video games to play so that you cheer up is also super helpful in being successful. And you've been there when we've melted down as well. So which I mean, it's true. Yeah, no, the ageism thing is i mean look when people attack the trump white house now it's like i don't think it's because there's a bunch of you know completely inexperienced people who are too young i mean the president is super fucking old

and he's the biggest idiot of all yes and it's not just inexperience like brock obama didn't have a lot of experience when he got to washington you know, it is. And you get to this a lot in your book. It is just the failure to even try, you know, like. Yes. And I do think that at least in our White House and, you know, I would say probably some people in the Bush administration, even though we didn't disagree with them and people in the Clinton administration and people in every administration, they take the job somewhat seriously, sort of like tutoring sessions. And I appreciated it so much that I when we started thinking about, you know, how were we going to do things? I didn't feel like blowing up everything they did just for sport. And I really think that that's that's what it feels like. Everything that the Trump administration is doing right now. They're not looking at what we did and thinking about it and being like, maybe that's not a bad idea. They're just like, fuck it. Barack Obama did it. Boom. And it's,

it's, that's the part. It's like, it's like not even, it's made me look at bipartisanship in a, or partisanship actually in a different way. Because what would we give to have Mitt Romney right now? Alyssa, I got a couple questions for you. One, I want you to rank the experience of meeting the following people. Okay. One, Bruce Springsteen. Two, the Pope. Three, the Queen of England.

So, I mean, did I meet, I didn't meet Bruce. You talked to him on the phone which is one of the better parts which was awesome but i was also like you're super busy you can go now um i would also tell people why he called you uh he called me because it was during hurricane sandy and everyone in the white house had abandoned me to go on a road trip with Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen. I was left in the office and everyone who was with POTUS and Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z was like, oh, we should throw a bone. And so Bruce called me to thank me for all that I was doing for New Jersey. And it was awesome. And I basically sat at my desk and sang Bruce Springsteen songs to myself for the rest of the night.

That's really nice. But I would say, I mean, the queen, like I'm not super religious. I thought that the meeting the pope and being in the Vatican was just like, I mean, who the fuck gets to do that? Like we had an audience with the pope. That's amazing. But like in terms of a lifelong dream, I got to put the queen at number one. terms of lifelong dream i gotta put the queen at number one i just i just wish that she would have taken me in her range rover with her two dogs and her purse for a spin around buckingham it would have completed the experience but it was it was quite good enough next time what

how are you thinking like talk to us a little bit about how you think about your role in the resistance and what advice you would have for people who are looking for things to do now who are concerned about what's happening in Washington. Sure. It's like when people ask me sort of like what's the thing that surprised me the most, it was like, I don't know, protesting the White House a day before the inauguration. Like I never thought I'd be doing that. But I think that for most people, this is about getting engaged. Like sometimes people are like, oh, for me to help, I need to go work in Congress

or I need to find someone to back for president. And it's like, I think the thing that we, that Democrats have missed for the past couple of years is how local, starting local is really, you know, like bottom up movement. So I have told people volunteer, like volunteer at City Hall, go and do something. It doesn't have to be every day after school or every day after work. Do something, you know, so that you learn as much as you can and participate. learn as much as you can and participate. And the other thing that I have told people is that I think that social media, which I'm super fond of now, has sort of like destroyed our view of the

world. And I can spend an hour reading seven versions of the same story. And so I tell people to get a newspaper subscription and read it cover to cover. And that's what I've been doing. I try anyway. So that I'm smart about something other than the one thing that Rep Nunez might have said. Which we spent half this episode talking about. There's no one smart about what Rep Nunez says, especially not Rep Nunez. I mean, he looks scared. He does look scared. What is, before we let you go, what is one thing operationally that you would fix about the Trump White House?

What bugs you the most that you would if you were a deputy chief of staff right now, you would just get in there and change? Well, the one thing that's great is that they actually hired Joe Hagan, who was deputy chief for operations in the Bush administration. He's a super smart guy. But mostly it's literally how they are using the building. but mostly it's literally how they are using the building. You know, it's like, this is sort of embarrassing, but a couple of weeks ago I said, you know, it's like, it's like president, I couldn't remember what president it was. And I said, you know, it's like the president said when he said, the White House is the greatest home court advantage.

And then I realized it was President Shepard from the American president. And like that's, I think that, you know, I feel so deeply about what every room in the White House means and how you use it. And I just feel like, you know, not only that, but like, not even paying attention to the State Department and protocol officers. They did that meeting. And you guys know how I feel about Angela Merkel. They did the meeting with Angela and they just like ditched the German translator. So she was sitting there speaking German. No one knew what the fuck she was saying. I didn't even know that.

Yes. And so mostly I wish that they would just understand that certain things have been in place, protocols and such for years and years. Not just for us, but to make other people feel comfortable. And like, really, can you just bring it back? Because it's painful to watch. Bring back the sanity. Alyssa, congratulations on the book. Everyone go buy Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco on sale now.

Bros, I love you. Thank you for having me on. It's so good. We're so excited. I've actually read it twice in my attempts to upstage John, who read it once. Everyone needs to reread the part over and over about how Pfeiffer and I say goodbye to each other on my last day in the White House. That was a tough day.

When you left me there, I'll put myself to die. Basically, any time I leave John or Pfeiffer, I sob. So, cheers. Yeah. And it is worth noting, and this is a story for another time, but we would,

when I say we would not have survived the white house, I literally would not have survived the white house since you basically saved my life once. Oh yeah, that's right. That's real. I mean, I did.

We can, we should, we should write a story about that. Maybe, maybe put it in a forthcoming book one day. On your fourth appearance on Patsy of America. We'll get to that. All right, guys. It's John Lovett.

And I just want to say that this sappy nonsense is just killing me. Oh, is this the star of Love It or Leave It? Lovett just couldn't fucking stand outside the studio for five minutes. Hey, guess what? It's not about you, Lovett. I just wanted to say hi. Did you read the book? Yes, I loved every part of it.

Are you lying? Yes. Lovett only reads the mentions on his own tweets. I mean, I'll check the index for my name. You won't be happy with what you see. I would just say that two people on this podcast got acknowledgments and one didn't. They did. Well, if I had acknowledged Lovett, it would have been about how he dressed as a park ranger

when we went to the Grand Canyon. That's right. That's true. I feel bad about that. All right, Alyssa. Bye, guys. We'll talk to you soon. Good luck on the book tour.

Bye. Bye. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America and there's more on the way. With us today, we also have our Crooked Media friend, the host of the podcast with friends like these, Anna Marie Cox. How are you? Well, in Trump-adjusted terms, I'm fine.

How are you? Well, in Trump-adjusted terms, I'm fine. Before we talk about your show this week, what do you think about what's happened this week? We spent most of the show, we did half on Russia, half on the Affordable Care Act repeal attempt. Thoughts? Thoughts on it either? Both? You know, I think the Russia stuff is obviously really important and there needs to be an independent investigation. But I'm really stuck on the ACA repeal because, as you know, I myself have been long-term recovery and I am a part of a community that's, you know, dealing with substance abuse issues. And there's been so much progress made under ACA on that,

and this bill just threatens to rip that apart. It is a giant fuck you to anyone in the country that has been struggling with the opioid crisis, which kills 52,000 people a year. It is a 9-11 every month. That is the way people talk about it now. It's like the way that the substance of this bill, I mean, this happens to an extent with everything in politics,

but to the extent that the substance and policy behind this bill has been completely separated from the politics of passing it is just incredible, right? That, like, the day before they pass this bill, they're going to change it to take away coverage for substance abuse or prescription drugs or hospitalizations or emergency room care, especially after, like you're saying, I mean, how many times did Trump and the Republicans during the last campaign talk about the opioid epidemic, right?

Like, every day. Yeah, it is. Well, almost every day because people brought it up. Because it's hitting those working class, white working class communities where Trump did well. It is statistically affecting those communities more. And it won't just be if they take away the essential health benefits, by the way, because of what they've done to Medicaid in the bill as it stands.

Like right now, I looked this up before talking to you guys. Medicaid covers a quarter of all substance abuse treatment in the United States. A quarter. So imagine if that's taken away. Imagine because a lot of the treatment centers in the U.S. are small, kind of like one, you know, like small person shop, let's say. They're basically like, and all they do is substance abuse disorder. They're not like a hospital, right? Or they're providing like a suite of different kinds of treatments. These are small places, usually like

what we call in my community, like street level treatment. And they probably are getting most of their coverage, you know, most of their payments are through Medicaid. If you're some small street-level treatment center in Ohio and Medicaid expansion gets taken away, you shut down. And not only people covered by Medicaid can't receive treatment through you, but no one in that community can receive treatment through you. And there's already a massive shortage of hospital beds. Something like 40% of the counties in the U S have no treatment centers in them. Yeah. These guys, these are not good people.

I mean, just to be blunt about it, or at least generally kind of familiar with this stuff. Like you, you understand the depth of depravity here, like what they're doing, but it is breathtaking. It is just hard to get your head around, like the way that this is, this just screws the people that put Trump in office. Like just, I know that there's like some, you know, on Twitter, some people are like, oh, well, it's hard to feel sorry for them. They deserve it. I defy you to go into these communities and see what's happened to them and not just get angry. And angry at Trump, let's face it. I'm not angry at those

voters. I'm not angry at the people that are struggling with this. That is the worst response, that it's the voters' fault. They deserve all the pain they get. It's just the worst. There's also a response, though, I saw Mike Lee's communications director was on twitter yesterday saying well the affordable care act helped cause the opioid epidemic it made it worse and i like i couldn't even follow the reasoning like because people were having these people having access to more care and prescription i couldn't even follow it it was crazy but like a number of a number of conservatives were making that argument on Twitter yesterday.

Okay, allow me. But even if that was true, that's still not an argument for exacerbating the crisis. Well, of course. Yeah, no. I mean, oof. Right. So first of all, I highly recommend, there's a book out there, Dreamland, which is about the opioid crisis.

Oops. Sorry about that. Anyway, there's a book out there, Dreamland, about the opioid crisis. I'm blanking on the name. Sam Quinones, that's the name of the author. And he documents the way that the drug companies are responsible for this and actually the lack of care. Because what happens, if people are wondering why this is mainly affecting a lot of Rust Belt communities and working class communities. You can trace the roots back to places like Kentucky where there's a lot of manual labor.

People get hurt, right? And they get hurt on the job. And their HMO, let's say 10 years ago, gives them an option, doesn't give them the option of like long-term rehabilitative care. They say, have a few oxys and get back to work. And that is how the pain pill epidemic started in these communities because it was cheaper to dope people up and get them back to work than it was to do any kind of long-term care to get people like actually healthy.

And that's the origins of this. And then it just gets worse because doctors were being encouraged by big pharma to prescribe them. Because again, it's like so much more profitable to prescribe a pill than it is to give someone the kind of like sort of multi-level treatment for pain that actually works over time.

Oof, God. Not a good bill, people. Not a good bill. It's not a good bill, people. Not a good bill. It's not a good bill. And it's cruel. I mean, it's more than just not a good bill. I mean, I think that this gets to the heart of what's wrong and what's

infuriating about Trump. And I have to turn my notifications off. I'm sorry. It gets to the heart of what's wrong and what's cruel about him. I would hope that this is the kind of thing that even his supporters are going to start to see through, right? Yeah, no, I think they will. Dan, what was the poll you were just telling me right before we called, Anna? The Quinnipiac poll has the 8-atcha, I guess we call it,

Trumpcare or wealth care, underwater by I think 46 points among non-college educated whites. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably, that's a worse score than he's ever gotten with them. Yeah.

And I have to think that this matters more than Russia to them. Yeah. Oh, I think so for sure. But this is where they live and breathe, or don't breathe, or don't live. This is what affects people directly. Talk about repeal and go fuck yourself.

Yeah, we were saying that today. Yeah. So who do you have on the show tomorrow? Well, I'm excited. It's moving right along. Although, of course, always somewhat related to the news of the day right yeah um we're we're going to be talking to adam savage the myth buster excellent um yep uh he's somewhat political he's also a science advocate which of

course makes him a radical and member of the resistance in this day and age science science is part of the resistance now it is um well it's trump's. Science is part of the resistance now. It is. Well, it's Trump's against it. Right. Part of the resistance. Science, journalism, all that kind of stuff. I mean, when I was interviewing Jake Tapper the other day, he was like, I'm not a member of the resistance.

And I was like, too late. You know? Sorry, Jake. But we're going to be talking to him about science, of course, but also about conspiracy theories. Because, you know, he has experience in trying to bust myths and with trying to use science and facts to reveal things that people think could be true as untrue. to be true as untrue. And I think we're just going to try to, we're actually, I think, going to be helping out a listener who has some family members who are kind of caught up

in info wars, conspiracies. And she wrote to me asking if I had any ideas about how to deal with them. And so I decided, you know, like, let's see if we can use a case study if we can if we can if we can actually get some facts about using facts not a fact is this person ivanka trump hey so i have this family member he's out there he's saying some crazy things you know that's good um so that's great if if so if you want to know how to respond to um your uncle's email forward or your aunt's crazy

facebook post uh tomorrow's the show for you yeah it is and then we're also going to talk about sort of more broadly about whether or not there is a political bias to conspiracy theories. You know, because it's true that if you happen to be aligned with the ideology that's not in power, sometimes conspiracy theories can get more appealing. As people, as listeners might actually feel themselves. Sometimes when we hear these things about Trump and Russia, it's tempting to kind of go to that darkest place and look for the most shadowy connections because that's what helps us make sense of it.

But that's not always the right thing to do. No. I mean, I keep saying that here. I do not want to, because there's so many conspiracy theories out there on the right, I've been trying to avoid delving in on the Russia stuff. But then news keeps coming out that sort of starts pointing towards the deepest suspicions that you have. So who knows? Who knows where it leads?

But yeah, it's a good caution for everyone. That's it. So subscribe. Listen, subscribe. Yes, subscribe to With Friends Like These. Subscribe, listen, subscribe. Yes, subscribe to With Friends Like These. Listen tomorrow when Anna interviews Adam Savage and helps someone out with their family conspiracy theories on the pod. That should be fascinating. I can't wait to hear it.

All right, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for stopping by. Thank you, guys. All right, bye, Anna. And thank you again to Alyssa Mastromonaco for joining us today. Thank you to Anna for joining us. Subscribe with friends like these. Subscribe to Love It or Leave It.

You better subscribe to Love It or Leave It, people. And go buy tickets to Pod Tours America. They'll be on sale now. And mostly subscribe to Love It or Leave It. But also the tickets. And also all the other shows. But also Love It or Leave It. Bye, guys.

Bye, guys. Bye, guys.