Pod Save America - Pod Save America takes Austin

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

Health care lies dominate the Sunday shows, and Congress's biggest racist strikes again. Then, Congressman Seth Moulton joins Jon, Jon and Tommy to talk about the future of the Democratic Party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. We are here in Austin today, guys, for a live show. You guys, be a live show. Thank you. Thousands of people. That is the sound of 100,000 people.

This is, yeah. It's deafening. I don't know if it's coming across. Sean Spicer would be proud. With us today, we have Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton is in the crowd, and he's going to join us in a few minutes. Behave like a live crowd. Tommy, who do we have on Pod Save the World this week? We have a journalist named Glenn Greenwald.

He is, as you guys know, Glenn and I have not necessarily gotten along over the years. We sort of trolled each other on Twitter. He's one of the guys who helped Edward Snowden initially, unveiled a lot of the NSA programs that were part of that archive. And a couple weeks back, I had Ben Rhodes on the show. We talked a bit about Snowden, and Glenn asked to respond, so he came on last week. We talked for bit about Snowden, and Glenn asked to respond, so he came on last week. We talked for about 45 minutes.

It was a really good conversation. It was great to hear his direct pushback on some of the things you hear leveled against Snowden pretty frequently, so I think you guys will like it. I've heard it. It was a fascinating conversation. And he's never said that to me before about any of my... No compliments from Lovett ever.

I mean, look, if you hear a compliment from me, it's true. So subscribe to Positive World. That drops on Wednesday. love it ever. I mean, look, if you hear a compliment from me, it's true. So subscribe to positive the world. That's what I'm going to check it out. Subscribe also to Anna Marie Cox's podcast with friends like these. She had a great episode with Rick Wilson, Republican strategist last week. That was also a great conversation. Yeah. A lot of great conversations.

A lot of divides being anyway, enough about our podcast. Guys, let's talk about health care, please. So on the Sunday shows this weekend, we had top officials from Trump's administration fanned out across the shows to sell the merits of the American Health Care Act, a.k.a. ACHA, a.k.a. Trump Care. They didn't do that well. We had a few interesting comments from the Trump crowd. Health and Human Services

Secretary Tom Price went out and said, nobody will be worse off financially. Nobody. What do we think about that kind of promise, Lovett? First of all, it's just not possible to pass a big bill through Congress that everybody wins. That's just not how it works.

So it's wrong on its face. Also, as a couple people who have spent years being abused for President Obama saying, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, because it was a little too simple, and basically captured the point of the way we wrote a grandfather clause, and the rest of which

I will not get into, because it makes me crazy. I had a whole explanation for the grandfather clause here. We don't want to get into it? I guess do it. No, no, no, I don't really want to. Okay, let's not do it. I just say that we did. A lot of people think, by the way, that you and I just wrote that line

and slipped it into a speech and we were making policy. That's not really. That is not what happens. In most administrations, that's not what happens. Speech writers don't just come up with policy in a line. Yeah, there was a dedicated effort to make sure that the system of private insurance

as it existed wouldn't be disrupted too much by the passage of these reforms. And for the most part, it wasn't. And that's all there is to say about that. There it is. But Tom Price went out saying nobody will be worse off financially. That is like easily proven false right off the bat. If you look at the legislation they're proposing, they are trying to, when you take away subsidies or you cut the subsidies that people are using to buy health insurance and you cut Medicaid, both of which are in the bill, that's going to make people worse off

financially. Right. So basically there will be millions upon millions of people who cannot if they do nothing and keep the exact same insurance policy they have, they will receive a smaller subsidy. It's just on its face can't be true that they won't be worse off, even if they don't disrupt the system too much, which isn't what they're going to do.

Tommy, did you have something there? Boil down the logic here. Yeah, I mean, 15 to 20 million people. How dare you? 15 to 20 million people will lose. The logic is boiled down. It's a rue. 15 to 20 million people will lose coverage.

The plan would cost the average Obama enrollee $1,500 more a year if it went into effect today. So it seems like it would actually cost everyone more money unless you're really rich. Yeah, rich and healthy people are going to make off better. They probably won't be worse off financially. Most other people will. Young people with money will do okay.

You know what I mean? If you watch the Americans and girls, this bill's not so bad for you. Which is crazy because those people didn't vote for donald trump former goldman sachs exec gary cone who's now part of the administration senior administration official said if you're on medicaid you're going to stay and the expansion is not going to change yes it is that's the point of it the whole point of it going to end in 2020 they hate medicaid they want to they want to they want to wind it down especially the expansion for people that

were above the poverty line so that's not true and And Paul Ryan, who doesn't seem quite as comfortable lying so blatantly as some of the members of the administration, when he was asked about it, Paul Ryan was asked by John Dickerson how many people will lose coverage. He said, quote, I can't answer that. It's up to people. You get it if you want. That's freedom. So that's

outrageous. But we should take it on its face first, right? The point he's making at an ideological level, there is some truth to it. His point is it's not necessarily the government's job to make sure everybody has health care, so we're going to get rid of the mandate. And because we're going to get rid of the mandate,

there may be some people who choose not to buy insurance. And because they're going to choose not to buy insurance, which is now their right to do, some people won't have insurance. Now, I don't think that's necessarily good policymaking, but I understand where he's coming from. But basically, it's actually a non-sequitur to what this law is intending to do. Because while they get rid of the mandate, they include a lot of punishments for people who don't

have health care. So if you don't buy health insurance as the draft law currently stands, the bill currently stands, if you try to buy it again down the road, you'll have to pay more, which is sort of a backdoor mandate. So he still believes there should be punishment for people who don't have health care. I love it's getting into the backdoor mandate again. He's been trying to explain it for three episodes. I got it that time. Mandate through the backdoor. That's a new phrase. That's a new phrase.

Congressman Moulton, who's in the House, you can use that. Take it. Don't take it. I won't be offended either way. Don't take it. Leave it if you want. It's yours if you want it. Plagiarism is flattery. But anyway... You can't get it if you want. It's yours if you want it. Plagiarism is flattery. But anyway. The point is you can't get it if you want. Right.

Everyone has access to health care, but you can't afford health care. What people need to start asking, Paul Ryan, what people need to start asking these Republicans is, what do you do if you want health insurance, but you cannot afford it under this plan? No one has asked that question. No one's really answered that question. And the point that I'm'm making is if you think people should be free to have insurance, that has nothing to do with getting rid of subsidies, giving people the ability to afford the insurance still fits with your, with your ideology that you're so crazy about, you're going to ruin people's lives over it. Like if you think people should have the freedom to buy insurance,

okay, you want to get rid of the mandate. That's fine. You still need to give people the, the, the tax incentives, the credits, the financial ability to buy the insurance you're saying they should be able to choose to buy. That's the point I'm making. Again, great. If Republicans were very honest, what they would say when they were asked these questions is, we do not believe the federal government should have a role in helping people afford health insurance. We think that the market should take care of that. They are not saying that because they know it is not a popular decision. Right, it's not popular. And also, by the way, they're basically keeping the structure of Obamacare in place with this bill, but making it much, much worse.

Tommy? So do you think they're making these great big lies because they're growing more desperate? Because you're seeing people like Senator Heller and others backing away from the bill publicly? Yeah, no, I think that they have – well, the CBO score is interesting here, right? So the Congressional Budget Office, which is, as we've explained, a bunch of nerds who are number crunchers, who are nonpartisan. They're not Democrat or Republican. They work for Congress, and they basically decide – they score what's called score each piece of legislation to decide how much it costs, what impact it will have on the population. So they come up with the estimate. cost, what impact it will have on the population. So they come up with the estimate. The Trump administration and the Republicans are preemptively attacking the Congressional Budget Office, known

as the CBO in Washington, and saying, like, they don't do a really good job. They were off on the Affordable Care Act, so we can't really listen to them. They're doing this for a couple reasons. They know that the CBO score, which will probably come out while we're recording this podcast, as news usually breaks while we're and by the way if you're all in your all on your phones because you're a bunch of addled overstimulated people um if the cbo score comes out while we're doing this shout it out don't be don't don't get ahead of yourself don't be wrong that'd be annoying but if it really does come out tell us i'm really i'm serious about that so they so they want to start attacking the CBO because the CBO is probably going to say

that anywhere between 15 and 20 million people will lose health insurance under this plan. That's the estimates. And so it is in their interest to just say, eh, they're not right anyway. Mick Mulvaney, who runs the Office of Management and Budget, he is the guy who's supposed to be crunching numbers, and he was in Congress before this.

He actually said that estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn't the best use of their time. That is their time. So let's wing it. Yeah, but it is part of this pattern of the Trump administration and now some of the Republicans in Congress just telling these lies because they figure conservative media is going to back them up. And they're going to, it's not necessarily they're going to convince people

that the CBO score is wrong, but they know that their side will believe them, that most people who watch conservative media will believe them. And they'll sort of muddy the waters enough so that people are like, is it true that people are going to lose their health insurance? I don't know. That's just what the fake news media said. And the partisan CBO. And also, right.

So, you know, look, the CBO isn't perfect. No giant sort of apparatus to figure out what a big bill is going to do is ever going to be perfect. But the CBO does a pretty good job. And the one point I wanted to make about this is this is not Trump out of nowhere. This really is the logical conclusion of the way Republicans have treated the CBO for a long time. Trump out of nowhere. This really is the logical conclusion of the way Republicans have treated the CBO for a long time. They argued with the CBO every time the CBO said that the Bush tax cuts would cause a giant increase in deficit, even though, of course, that's what happened. So they have this long-running beef that the CBO looks to outcomes in a very specific way. The problem is

it just does a good job. It's sort of on par with what a lot of other estimates will show you. Well, when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, which they said that the CBO was very off on, Well, when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, which they said that the CBO was very off on, the truth is the CBO was closest to what the impact the Affordable Care Act had, closer than any other organization. They basically had the amount of people covered correctly. They basically had its effect on premiums correct. So they weren't exactly right, but they were very close. So it's an estimate, and it's a pretty good estimate. It's part of the pattern, an ongoing pattern of attacking nonpartisan institutions to undercut their faith in government

and just make their arguments breeze through generally like the government ethics office, like the intelligence community. I mean, this is something they've done over and over again, undermining these institutions. I mean, there's a few examples this weekend, right, Tommy, of them just lying blatantly on this stuff, too. There was Spicer and the jobs numbers. Spicer on

Friday said the jobs numbers may haveicer on Friday said the jobs numbers may have been phony in the past, which is what Trump used to say about the jobs numbers, but now they're real. Ha ha ha, I'm a fascist. And that one... And then the press corps gave a big hearty laugh like everyone did to love his joke.

And it was really... I mean, I'm sure that they were probably laughing at the brazenness of that lie and of the hypocrisy and just sort of stating it the way he did. But it's not funny. I mean, I think it was a really bad optic for the individuals in that room. I mean,

it was funny. The joke is the president's a liar. Like it is like to just for the press secretary to make a joke about how his boss is a world historic liar is hilarious. Well, and then Mick Mulvaney, Mick Mulvaney, who runs OMB, also said, after he was attacking

the CBO, with no evidence whatsoever, said, oh yeah, well, I believe that Obama was making up the jobs numbers for years. Just kind of let that out on the foundation. Right, in which, if you try to unpack that, it would require such a conspiracy that would include, you know, the private sector contributing to the data. I mean, it makes no

sense on any level. But they persist in putting forward this lie because Donald Trump said it along the stump at some point because Steve Bannon whispered it. But the most obvious way to figure out that it's a lie is the jobs numbers that were just released were fit perfectly into the overall trend of jobs numbers through the Obama administration.

So it's not like they got so much better or so much worse. It's all the same trend. So why did he suddenly make them up? Two things. One, if we were going to make up job numbers, why did we make up all those shitty months sometimes just to keep people on their toes? That's the first thing. The second thing is if we did make them up in advance, it would have been nice if they told the speechwriters because so many times at 830 in the morning, the job numbers would come out and we'd frantically assemble to try to write a statement. And maybe they just didn't trust us with the conspiracy and that hurts my feelings it is a

good thing to tell people though how this works yes like the people in the administration in the white house are not supposed to know the jobs numbers until everyone knows the jobs numbers so they come out at 8 30 a.m eastern time on the first friday of every month and they're released by the department of labor and the department of labor doesn't tell anyone except there's like two or three people in the White House that know, including the President of the United States, but the communications team, the chief strategist, the director of communications, the speechwriters, no one knows this.

Even the press corps is locked in a room where they're not allowed to communicate with anyone for 30 minutes or whatever the period of time is before they can actually release them. Remember when we used to have rules in institutions? And you know what? We didn't really like them that much, but oh, we miss them now. One more conspiracy.

Speaking of people who belong in institutions. I was going to say, this is not on the topic of numbers in healthcare, but a lot of people told us to talk about this today, and so we listened to our fans. Kellyanne Conway was interviewed at her home by the Bergen Record in New Jersey and was asked if she has come up with any evidence to support Donald Trump's claim. Her home on Skull Island, which is very difficult to get to.

To support Donald Trump's claim that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. And she said, no, I am not in the job. I'm not in the business of providing evidence, which take that for what you will. And then she said, look, these days, your microwave can spy on people. So Obama could have done that. I was ready to read this and just

assume it was a joke about the Internet of Things and spying, but she was not kidding. Why would you tap a phone with a fucking microwave? What are you talking about? I have to say, if you want to find out what's going on in my life, being near the microwave is not a bad idea.

It's a three-hot-pocket day. It's like, oh, John, that dominoes. That's a couple days now. Here's the problem. I do think they can get away with a lot of these. This was a question. My mom had a question today that she wanted us to answer. She's like, if Donald Trump does not provide any evidence on this wiretapping, what happens?

Does he just get away with lies? Is there no, you know? That's depressing. It's depressing to answer that question. I said, mom, listen to the pod. We've got to win the House. That's what has to happen. I think the tale of the tape is that he does.

Right? What has the cost been for saying three to five million people voted illegally? Right. What is the cost been for saying three to five million people voted illegally? But what so what I was going to say to just to finally put a pin on the health care conversation is I think the one this is the first time where the he can't get away with the lies necessarily. It's a noble fact. If it doesn't matter what the CBO scores, if this thing passes and a bunch of people lose their health care, they will get the cancellation notices or they will go to, you know, they'll get a health care bill that they can't afford. And like they won't be able to lie their way past that. So I do think that this is the first time they're really going to get in trouble because what they're doing is actually going to have

an impact on people's lives. It's not just going to be something we read about and think, oh, this is a funny conspiracy thing. So which is, I think the conclusion here is, these resistance recesses are actually working. You see members of Congress caving left and right, and I think people are running scared, and we should keep at it. And one thing Ben Wickler, our friend from moveon.org reminded me of last night, there's going to be a mini recess on Thursday and Friday

of this week. And move on is organizing 12 hour stakeouts in front of Republican House and Senate offices. So you can sign up on moveon.org for one hour shifts. And basically all these protesters will be outside of the offices. And listen, see some pod save america shirts front of the pod shirts straight shooter shirts repeal and go fuck yourself shirts we won't be mad about it we will not be angry don't go anywhere this is pod save america and there's more on the way Steve King, Congressman Steve King, our most racist congressman. Steve King had an interesting tweet over the weekend. Tommy, do you have the tweet? I don't have the text in front of me.

The tweet was, I'm a racist. Yeah, here I have it. He said, we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. I mean, I think it's pretty self-evident why that's a pretty appalling thing to say, but I think what people don't necessarily understand is this isn't just some random member of Congress

popping off. This is a guy who has enormous influence on the party because he's a member of Congress from Iowa. So in 2016, he held an Iowa Freedom freedom summit which included chris christie scott walker mike huckabee ted cruz rick santorum ben carson others um they attended this event that's that's either a republican primary or the worst game night they attended this event after he he said that dreamers uh young immigrants brought to the u.s illegally as children children, were primarily drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes because they were hauling marijuana over the border. I mean, this is a guy who gets the ring kissed every couple years.

He has outsized influence in pushing for immigration laws and other parts of the party platform. And, you know, he said Al Qaeda would dance in the street when obama was elected verbatim um yeah it's like this guy persists in the party and he's a cancer that is spreading through their policy through their platform through the tone of what they say and like we can't just laugh but not us like they they they're like oh he's you know crazy steve saying more stuff i mean this is a huge problem and it's become more representative of the party than it is an aberration. Yeah. I mean, what used to happen when something like, when someone popped off like this is they tweet something or they say something and everyone condemns them and then they end up trying to apologize or walk it back. So this morning, CNN has Steve King on and they're like, you know, what the hell was up with that tweet?

And he basically said, I stand by every word, uh word uh quote i'd like to see in america that's just so homogeneous that we all look a lot the same and first of all i just don't like it's calves the size of cantaloupe babies everybody like a lot of like it's a it's very sexual for him it's very dark no it's weird right like there's this blend of fascism and like a weird homoeroticism that always is like right under the surface. It's right fucking there. I don't care. For love of Steve King fan fiction, please go to... No, it's... But like, what is he...

It's like... He's not in it. But... Is this the Tommy John underwear segment? Effortlessly into the worst segue for an ad but um i forgot the train of my thought it doesn't matter well the point i just like it's just it's just a bunch of in his mind sort of like kind of adult race science right like it's about like whose babies come here it's about inter like in his mind it's like interracial

like becoming a one color it's a crazy, childish, racist notion. So when you ask a lot of Republicans and conservatives about this immigration debate, they'll say, look, this is not about racism. It's not about ethno-nationalism. It is about national security. We've got to protect our borders. We don't want people coming in who are going to do harm. But what Steve King said is that it's actually, for a lot of people on the right,

at least in some of these Republican politicians and a lot of these far-right leaders in Europe right now specifically, it's really not about national security. It's about assimilation. It's about culture. And so what Steve King said is not super far off from what people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller have said. Stephen Miller have said, Steve Bannon, who said, quote, when two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think a country is more than an economy or a civic society. Which is, and as you know, that's for white people. It's just a very old thing, right?

Like, oh, you know, the Muslims can't assimilate, the Jews can't assimilate. The Irish can't assimilate. The Irish can't assimilate, the Italians can't assimilate, the Greeks can't assimilate. The Irish can't assimilate. The Italians can't assimilate, the Greeks can't assimilate. We've done this a million times. Well, basically, Bannon and Miller have been reported to tell other policymakers in Congress that if large numbers of Muslims are allowed to enter the U.S., parts of American cities will begin to replicate

marginalized immigrant neighborhoods in France, Germany, and Belgium that have been home to plotters and terrorist attacks. So this is part of their... You know what the surest way to do that is? To make millions of people feel like they're not welcome in this country and have to close off and protect themselves and be separate.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is disgusting. So what do we do about Steve King, guys? Well, you know what? That district's brutal. I mean, I'm not sure there's a lot of... Yeah, what is that like, Tommy? What's that Western...

It's really hard. It's Southwestern Iowa. It's incredibly rural, conservative. I think he won by like... One thing we should stop doing... He beat a Democrat by like 20 points last time. One thing we should stop doing is stop excusing those voters too, right?

Like we should stop pretending that those people aren't voting for this and like we need to reckon with the fact that there are people that want this kind of politics in our country and it's a problem. Yeah, well, look, I think we need to, I think part of what you do is publicize that he's been saying these things

and then you leave it to voters, right? Because maybe some voters don't know that he says those things, but maybe some do. Yeah, I mean, what's so disappointing is that you you would think the calves like cantaloupes comment would exact a cost on him and his political future his ability to get people to come to his little event in in iowa but it hasn't i think you know mitt romney stood up and said he wouldn't go i think uh jeb stood up and said he wouldn't go so like we should we should give them credit for having some courage there

and probably costing themselves some votes in a very important part of the state in a Republican caucus in Iowa. But the rest of them deserve all the shame that comes from these comments. Right, like not being denounced. And plus, it's hard to get caps like cantaloupes. I mean, I guess you hold the weights and then get on a thing with your toes and kind of step up and down. I don't know how to get caps like that.

Is this not in your workout routine? No, I'm thinking out loud, like, how do I get caps like cantaloupes? Okay, well, while you figure that out, when we come back, we will have Congressman Seth Moulton join us. And we're back. And we're back. Today we are very happy to have,

representing the 6th District in Massachusetts, Congressman Seth Moulton, former Marine, who served two tours in Iraq. Congressman Moulton, thank you for joining us. Four tours in Iraq. Four tours.

Oh, man. Harvard grad. Sorry, Wikipedia page was off. Four tours. You are overqualified for Congress, which is a state ad right now. And we're going to tighten it up.

Very impressive. We're going to be very professional. But he's also very handsome, and you can't see that over the audio. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Hey, we're off to a good start.

Thanks for having me. Say, thank you for coming on. One of the biggest things in the news these days has been the Trump Muslim ban. And you were speaking out about this a long time ago, really early, based on a personal experience from your time in Iraq and a friendship you made with your translator in Iraq. I was hoping you could just tell everybody that story and why this was so important to you and how you took steps actually personally in your own life to work on the issue. Yeah, so I was a Marine. I was an infantry officer in Iraq. I was sort of out there.

I had to work with translators all the time and intelligence sources, who of course were Muslims. They were Iraqis. And one of the guys I worked with became very close to me. He and I had a very odd job. I was an infantry officer. I was in the first platoon of, first company of Marines into Baghdad, and then I was asked to run a TV show. This is a good argument for the State Department, by the way. What was the TV show? So I was actually, the job was actually to help the Iraqis develop a free media. See, the Marines back in 2003 thought that a free media was an important component of a democracy. I know that's a radical idea these days, but we thought that was pretty critical. And so, you know, this lieutenant was assigned to work with the police department, this one with the fire department, I was assigned to work with the Iraqi media this one with the fire department i was assigned to work with the iraqi media so we had to teach them the principles of what an evening

news broadcast was like i mean they used to just play tapes from the ministry uh ministry of information in baghdad and so while we're teaching that's because they learn from hannity that's right we're moving in that direction now but one of the things we did is we just did some public service announcements on tv they proved surprisingly popular and, and Moulton and Mohammed suddenly had a TV show, and I was signing autographs in the streets. I was way more popular in Iraq than I was in my district when I started to run for Congress. Where can we watch episodes of Moulton and Mohammed? You can't.

It's a title you have to say. See, because you can't see them, it sounds like a really good professionally produced show. In fact, the bar was very low so was one of you neat and one of you messy well i wore the same uniform every single day so he was definitely better looking but uh we had this show it was sort of like a 60 minutes news commentary show was very popular because we actually like the free press we reported on things that mattered to the iraqi people like why the electricity wasn't working but it meant that Mohammed was not only a quote-unquote collaborator with the Americans he was a very public collaborator because he's literally on tv

so he came to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship to his credit he got that on his own but then he couldn't go back because the country had descended in the civil war 2006 it was a death sentence in fact his family had to pick themselves up and move to a different city because they were threatened because of Mohammed's work with me. And so my family took him in while he sought asylum. And he was living at my parents' house in my brother's bedroom for about a year while his asylum application was going through. And ironically, during that time, I got deployed back to Iraq.

So their son was in Iraq. They had an Iraqi son living with them. And he's during that time, I got deployed back to Iraq. So their son was in Iraq. They had an Iraqi son living with them. And he's become part of the family. He comes to Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. And he's just like one of the kids now. So what do you hear about the refugee ban or capping the number of refugees at 50,000? Well, so here's the thing. Just to put the Constitution and morality aside for a second to sort of minor things, let's just talk about

Trump's rationale, which is it will improve national security. And he's dead wrong. This will absolutely weaken our national security. Because first of all, ISIS and other terrorist groups are going to use it to recruit against us. They already are on Twitter. It's not that hard to see. And inspire attacks against us, inspire attacks against our troops. That's happening. And then second, it's going to be

much harder to get people like Mohammed to come work with us. In fact, I remember the day that Mohammed showed up at our base in the morning for work like he did every day. And he said, Seth, I have to quit. I can't work with you anymore. So Muhammad, what happened? He said, well, some insurgents came to our house last night and said that they will kill me or my family if I continue working. And I convinced him to stay on the job, because what we were doing together was that important, and because we would take care of him. he trusted me he trusted the marines to do that but how do you think those conversations are going in places like iraq or afghanistan or syria today not very well um what do we what do you think the the steps are to uh deal with the revised travel

ban that they put in place right because one thing that struck me is they do the first ban. It causes incredible, you know, so many people's lives are disrupted. Travelers are disrupted. There's all these protests. The revised ban was signed. It was sort of quiet. He didn't do it in front of cameras. And we've all sort of, this is like a typical Trump thing now. We all freak out about something, and then we sort of move on to the next thing

because we can't stay outraged, right? So what do you think sort of the steps are now on the ban? Well, first of all, we've just got to be honest with people that this is a Muslim ban. Like, this is the same thing. It hasn't changed. They've made it a little bit more legally acceptable. I think it's still going to be found illegal.

And it absolutely doesn't do anything to improve the national security picture. I mean, it's still going to be used by our enemies against us in the same ways that the previous one was. So we need to just make sure everybody understands that. That's the first step. I mean, do you think, so do you think we're sort of relying on the courts then at this point? I mean, or do we have to, I mean, how, I guess the question would be like, how do we motivate people to actually change public opinion? Barring that, do we, do you think we're sort of stuck waiting for courts to rule that it doesn't, didn't change at all because they left out the green cards?

Well, it's another time when we need courage from people, especially folks on the other side of the aisle, who can stand up and say, no, this is still really bad. And as a veteran, that's one of the reasons why I speak about it. And I don't just talk about the constitutional issues. I'm actually one of the only members of Congress who's not a lawyer. But I do talk about the national security implications and what this means for our troops,

for the guys that we're asking to put their lives on the line every day. Because it's bad. It's really bad. What do you think about how things are going in Iraq, specifically the effort to retake Mosul, and the decision that was made by Obama to send more troops back into theater? And it sounds like Trump is considering an even bigger increase of up to a thousand. Yeah. So the irony with President Obama's policy in Iraq is that it actually was really successful militarily in the sense that, I mean, just from pushing ISIS back, I mean, ISIS controls next to no territory today compared to what they did early on. Now, I'm not going back to how ISIS

got started in Iraq. And there's a lot of criticism that I think President Obama deserves for just kind of allowing this political vacuum to form that ISIS then came to occupy. But when he made the decision to go after ISIS, he started doing so very successfully. And so the military has done well. But the problem is that how do we prevent the same situation that got us ISIS in the first place, which was a political vacuum that some terrorist group came in to fill, right? So that's what we have to be asking. That's the question we have to be asking.

It's not what the military strategy is to defeat ISIS. It's what is the political strategy to ensure that Iraq can be stable enough that we don't have ISIS 2.0 coming down the road. Because in a lot of ways, ISIS really is al-Qaeda and Iraq 2.0. That's what's going on. Do you think having a secretary of state that doesn't ever speak in public and no undersecretaries or assistant secretaries is a good step forward? Oh, it's great. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean, those huge budget cuts, do those concern you as someone who's shot and bled? They don't only concern me. They concern Secretary Mattis. Secretary Mattis has said, if you cut the State Department, you better buy me more ammunition. And that means that more Americans, young Americans, are going to die because we're not doing diplomacy. And so it requires troops to go in. And so my criticism of President Obama is the same as my criticism of President Trump.

We don't need a new military strategy against ISIS. We don't need to drop more bombs or send more troops. We need a political strategy so we have an endgame. So that at the end of the day, Iraq can take care of its own national security. And we can finally come home for good. How are you liking Congress? So it's an odd job. It's not where I expect it to be.

So I didn't grow up interested in politics I really didn't follow politics at all I decided that I wanted to do something to give back and so I went into the Marines had so much respect for those 18, 19 year old kids

who put their lives on the line every single day for our safety and freedom and this was just before September 11th so I didn't know I was getting into a war when I made that decision 19-year-old kids who put their lives on the line every single day for our safety and freedom. And this was just before September 11th. So I didn't know I was getting into a war when I made that decision. But I ended up going in, did four tours in Iraq. And I thought over the course of those tours, I saw some of the consequences of failed decision-making in Washington, failed leadership in Washington, making a lot of political decisions about how to fight the war that affected us on the ground. Was there any one specific decision that you remember hearing that you thought,

I need to do something about it? For example, I remember when President Bush got up in front of the country and said, the Secretary of Defense is not doing a great job, so it's time for him to go. And he did that just after they lost the midterms. And I wanted to say, you know what, Mr. President, you ought to write a letter to the mother of every 18-year-old who died between the time you knew that Rumsfeld had to go and when it was politically convenient because of the midterms to fire him. So that's kind of how I thought about it. But listen, I got out of the Marines. I went to business school. I took a job down in Dallas, Texas, like every aspiring Massachusetts politician,

you know, you go move to Dallas, Texas, right? So this was not what I expected to do, but there's a great new nonprofit called New Politics out there, and they're recruiting service veterans to run for office, because we've never had fewer veterans in Congress in our nation's history than we do today.

And not just military veterans, by the way, but like City Year, Teach for America, Peace Corps veterans. And the founder, Emily Cherney, she called me up and said, you ought to run for Congress. And I said, I'm living in Dallas, Texas. Like, I'm not moving back to Massachusetts. This is a crazy idea. But she kept after me. In fact, that night, someone asked me, well, Seth, who are you going to run against? And I couldn't even remember the congressman's name. That's how checked out of politics I was.

But I ended up taking on this incumbent, this 18-year incumbent, who I said was too partisan and not getting anything done and won a pretty tough primary and then won a tough general election in 2014. So I'm very new to this whole thing. I've only been in politics for about two years. But when I ran, the number one question I got on the campaign trail was not, hey, what do we do about ISIS? Or what do we do about Obamacare? It was, Seth, why? Why do you want to get involved with Congress? Congress is

broken. Everyone hates Congress. Why don't you do something else? And you know what? Nobody asked that question today. Everyone says, thank God someone's there. Because Congress is perfect. No, it's not because Congress is perfect. It's because, my God, suddenly I realize with the administration that we've got, Congress is really important. Have you found it frustrating? Of course, it's frustrating every day. But you know what? If you go there to be frustrated, you're never going to make a difference. And I think it's disproportionately the older people, the people who've been there for a long time, who just kind of get cynical and say, oh, this is just whatever, it's never going to change.

And I think if I get to that point, that's time for me to move on. Do you see a new generation of representatives sort of coming to the fore? Absolutely. And look, when I ran, I was running against the party. I mean, everyone in the party was against me because I was running against an incumbent. Right. So I'm not a party guy at all. But but one of the people in the party just said that I'm the apparently the number one recruiter right now. And it's because of all these veterans who are coming out of the woodwork. A lot of people, but especially veterans who come to me and said, hey, if you can do this, I want to do it too. We need better people in government. And so this is one of the

best things to come out of the election. In fact, if you make a list of all the good things to come out of the election, number one is new people getting involved in politics, wanting to make a difference. I don't know what number two is, but we're working on working on that. We're working on that. But this is exciting. I mean, this is the future. This is how we can change things in Washington, is to get new people, people who come there having, you know, worked for something a little bit bigger than themselves or their political party.

Get those kind of people in Congress to start serving. Should we term-limit leadership positions, committees, members of Congress themselves to help that process? Absolutely. I think it'd be a big help. I think it'd be a big help. I mean, look, it is long past time for a new generation of leadership in Washington, but especially in the Democratic Party. And I think that's one of the things that we Democrats have to come to terms with is we lost. And we didn't just lose a little, we lost badly. Not just in this election, but you put all the last few elections together, like we're in dire straits. And we're not going to fix that just by being the Trump opposition.

We got to have a new vision. We got to have a forward-looking vision. And you know what? Trump has left us a great opportunity too, because a lot of people talked about how the economy dominated this election. Well, Trump's vision for the economy is entirely backwards looking. Let's go back to 1955, because everything was – I mean, Steve King was happy back then. It was real racist. But we're going to go back into the coal mines. We're going to go back into these manufacturing jobs that didn't just go to Mexico. They've been automated out of existence, right?

So this is a totally unrealistic vision. It's backwards looking, it's pessimistic, but it's also just not going to happen. And no one's really fooled by this. So this is a great opportunity for Democrats to get out there and say, let's develop an economic vision for the future that embraces the new economy and says to everybody in America, not just people in Silicon Valley or Cambridge, Massachusetts or Austin, Texas, to everybody in America, not just people in Silicon Valley or Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Austin, Texas, but everybody in America, we want you to be a part of the new economy. We need you to be a part of the new economy, and here's how. So you've talked about this a little bit.

You talked about the economy. The fight in politics is always, is it trade that's hurting us? Is it foreign competition? And obviously a huge, huge challenge before us is automation, right? Automation is taking a lot of jobs. Huge challenge. So we hear a lot of people talk about that, but what are some of the policies or ideas?

Like where is the next generation of jobs going to come from and what should Democrats be saying? What is the economic vision for Democrats? Well, first of all, I tell you what, I started asking this question after the election. I realized there are not a lot of answers out there. Yeah. And I said, well, who's asking this question after the election. I realized, like, there are not a lot of answers out there. Yeah.

And I said, well, who's a Democrat who's figuring this out? That was kind of the response I got. So we're trying to work on this now. But one thing is clear is that most of the, almost the majority of new jobs that have been created in the last 10 years in America come from entrepreneurs, from new businesses. And this makes sense, right? Because if it's truly a new economy, then it's not just the old line businesses where you're going to get new jobs. It's not just the old companies that are suddenly going to start hiring people instead of firing them and hiring robots, right?

So we need to much more embrace a new economy. That means entrepreneurship. It means this phrase, economic dynamism. It's how quickly our business is starting. So one of the things, I mean, not to say anything bad about Obama, but great top line numbers for the economy, for the economic recovery under President Obama. But one measure that doesn't look good is starting new businesses. Actually, more businesses went out of existence under President Obama's term than were started. So that's something we have to reverse. Because new businesses with new ideas create new jobs that sort of by definition succeed in the new economy.

But here's the thing. There are a lot of new businesses actually here in Austin, Texas. There are a lot of new businesses in Massachusetts. There are a lot of new businesses in the Bay Area, in Silicon Valley. But there are no new businesses in Middle America. So why are we starting businesses in middle America. So why are we starting businesses in these few coastal cities or these unique places like

Denver or Austin, but we're not starting businesses in the heartland? That's a question we've got to answer. I guess the question, you know, we've sort of bumped up against this same problem too, which is you ask this question, so where's the new economic vision going to come from? And everybody's like, well, I guess from us, from someone, by us like Democrats, from nobody really knows, I guess from us, from someone, by us, like Democrats,

from nobody really knows where. I guess, like, for listeners, for people, like, what can they do to help be part of this process? Who can they push? Who can they ask questions of? Because I do agree with you. I think one of the big challenges for us is figuring out what that vision is. Well, you're right. And, look, this energy

that's coming out of this election is fantastic, and a lot of people want to get involved. One of the things that we did back in my district in Massachusetts is we just held this forum where people could come out and meet a bunch of different organizations that are doing things. Now, this was kind of like environmental organizations, women's rights organizations, specifically groups that felt targeted by the Trump administration.

And we had hundreds and hundreds of people come out just to kind of, you know, wander around and talk to some of these folks and get involved. So I think that in the same way as people are helping out with those kind of movements, we need to get some energy behind figuring out these economic challenges. And if you can figure them out and, you know and get behind some Democrats who have that economic vision for the future, then we're not only going to be able to help people, we're going to start winning elections again. What do you think Democrats get wrong? Specifically with the message, right? What would you improve upon with the Democrats' message? Looking to 2016,

back to 2016, and then looking ahead to 2018. Well, in some ways, our election during this presidential campaign, our message during this presidential campaign, was just kind of like, things aren't that bad. Things have gotten better under Obama, which is true. I mean, overall, he was dealt a terrible hand by President Bush, and he did orchestrate a magnificent economic recovery overall, but a lot of people were left out. And Trump managed to speak to those people,

and he said, I know you're hurting, and here's some crazy idea for how it's going to be fixed. And people aren't stupid. Americans aren't stupid. A lot of those people knew that that wasn't realistic. A lot of the coal miners know that those coal jobs aren't ever coming back. But they said, you know what? At least he gets that I'm hurting, and he says something.

It may not be realistic, but at least he says something. Meanwhile, Hillary's just saying, all she's saying is, things aren't that bad, and that guy's nuts. That guy Trump is nuts. Well, that's not a winning campaign message. So we have to have a message that actually reaches out to everybody and says, I know you're hurting. I feel you. I hear you. I'm going to listen. And we're going to work together. We're going to figure out a plan to get you back in the economy. Do you think it's a question of framing too? Because so

Hillary's people would say, andary might say um we have this like mountain of policy papers right look at our website we have all these white papers we have all these ideas in the economy right and she would give these major economic speeches all the time right didn't break through to people obviously in part because the only thing that was covered was trump right well that's what i'm saying so like how do you and i'm looking ahead to like 2018 and 2020 you can imagine a lot of these democrats saying i have like, how do you and I'm looking ahead to like 2018 and 2020. You can imagine a lot of these Democrats saying, I have ideas on how to fix the economy. Here they are. And then Trump tweeting something crazy, making fun of them. And then that's the new cycle, right? Like, how do Democrats basically break through with sort of a new message and new ideas?

Well, I think one thing is you've got to have new leaders, you've got to have new people that sort of represent this new generation of the Democratic Party. And I think part of it is an image problem. I mean, look, one of the best cases to make for the fact that we have an image problem is if you look at all these reams of policy papers, they're actually really good for a lot of Trump voters. Right? I mean, that's the big joke with this election is a lot of Trump voters voted against their interests for this crazy guy who rides in a golden elevator yeah and so that's how bad our messaging problem is that we don't actually have to change our policies so much as as we just need to make sure they connect to real people's lives and you think that's but you think that's basically a question of we just need new people i think that's a huge

part of it so to that recruitment effort so you're making this big push to recruit veterans. Do you find that you're able to have a better conversation about foreign policy with someone like Congressman Kinzinger, who served? Absolutely. Do you guys sort of see eye to eye? I sat on a panel with him two days ago. It was amazing how much we were talking about.

Republican Congressman, Air Force, I believe, right? Yeah, Air Force Congressman. And he, look, there are things we disagree on, for sure. But there always used to be this tradition in America where those partisan disagreements would end at the water's edge and we could at least be united on foreign policy. And I think you still see that in large part among veterans. So I serve on the Armed Services Committee,

and I do a lot of things across the aisle with Republican veterans. What, on the Armed Services Committee, and I do a lot of things across the aisle with Republican veterans. What, on the foreign policy agenda of sort of challenges Trump will face the next four to eight years, hopefully four, what worries you the most, or what do you think is the greatest threat we face? Russia. And, you know, people ask me this question a lot, and I used to, you know, five months ago, I answered this question by saying, we've got to think about the short-term, medium-term, long-term. And in the short-term, the greatest threat is from terrorism. Not just killing a lot of people, but the reaction that we might have to terrorism that might fundamentally change our values, our constitution. In the medium

term, it's a resurgent Russia. And then in the long term, it's a hyper-competitive China. And now I answer that question by saying, in the short term, it's Russia trying to undermine our democracy. In the medium term, it's Russia trying to undermine not just our democracy, but other democracies across the world. And in the long term, it's Russia because we might not even get to the long term because we could literally have a nuclear war with Vladimir Putin. So you're worried about like the asymmetrical cyber attacks in the near term. asymmetrical cyber attacks in the near term. Do you think that a 54 or 10% increase in military spending is appropriate to manage that threat? Because you're worried about a long term nuclear threat? Or like, what horizon are you looking at? It all depends on how we spend it. And if we're cutting the State Department, we're cutting our diplomats at the same time as we're expanding our

military, it will absolutely make things worse. And I know I said a pretty strong statement there when I said we could get in a nuclear war. So I want to unpack that for a second. Please, please, please do. I'm trying to cheer you up. We're scared. No, look, it is scary. But this is what we have to, we have to, this is a threat that we face today. Russia's changed its doctrine. They're now willing to use tactical nuclear weapons. They have this idea that they can escalate to deescalate. Well, what happens if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Europe, especially if Donald Trump is president, who, by the way, has a sole decision-making authority over the use of nuclear weapons in the United States? Sleep well tonight.

What happens? He fires a nuke at them. And that escalates very quickly, very quickly. Russia right now is violating one of our landmark nuclear weapons treaties. I actually asked the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a hearing this past week if they were violating the treaty, and he answered me. He said, yes, it was the first time the administration has said publicly, or the defense, the DOD has said publicly that Russia is violating this treaty. This is a big deal, folks. Russia is violating a nuclear weapons treaty. And what has Trump done about it? I mean, he hasn't even tweeted about it.

That's how out to lunch he is. The net bar is low. We just got to get John Lemon to fucking talk about it. So, look, I don't want to end on a pessimistic, I don't want to be pessimistic here, but these threats are real. These threats are real. And that's the existential danger that Russia poses.

So when you have an administration that wants to cozy up to these guys, when they're trying to undermine our democracy, and you don't have Republicans and Democrats standing together to oppose them, you know what Putin's going to do? He's going to take the same message he did in the Crimea. He's going to say, whoa, I just tried something pretty bold and it worked. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do a little more. Well, are there any conversations like on the

house gym or in the hallways where people are like, hey, this is getting kind of serious. Paul Ryan, maybe you could find some courage or a spine, rent one online. When are we going to hear these moderate Republicans stand up besides John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and a couple others? Well, there are a few. And let's acknowledge John McCain

and Lindsey Graham for the courage that they're showing. And I think we can get more and I think some of it will come from other veterans. I mean, it's notable that those are both veterans, right? But courage seems to be in short supply in Washington these days. In the House gym, I go every day.

In fact, I'm a part of a bipartisan workout group. There's two groups that work out together. Love it goes to base camp. There's one that does this P90X, which is kind of like dancing around and whatnot. And then there's one that does CrossFit. And I'll just say that Paul Ryan and I are not in the same workout group.

But in any event, when you go to the house gym in the morning, people are pretty real. And people know that this is a problem. People know that their presence is crazy. But then they put a suit on and get out in front of a press conference and say, this guy's great

and I can't wait to work for him. Why do you think that is? You always say courage is, courage more than anything else is what's missing in D.C. today. I've thought that for a long time. Like, what is it? Is there incentives?

Is it just people wanting to keep their jobs? Is it fear? It's self-preservations i mean you know uh that one of the reasons why look i don't think you should you have to be a veteran to run for congress i don't think it should be a litmus test but one of the reasons why i think we'd be overall more healthy if we have more veterans is like like i've taken greater risks in life than losing my job in Congress, right? So when you kind of put that in perspective, you know, I remember during training one of the captains was asking us. It was a really, really long, rough day, late at night. He said, you know, hey, guys, was this a tough day?

And we were all like, yeah, it was really, really tough. And he's like, nobody died. So it wasn't a tough day? And we were all like, yeah, it was really, really tough. And he's like, nobody died. So it wasn't a tough day. And I think that some of that perspective, when you're worried about party politics and, you know, am I going to get primaried and all this stuff that really doesn't matter when you're talking about preventing Russia

from undermining our democracy, I think that that perspective might help. And if people are spotting each other in the gym? Is that like a, is it like you switching off on like the lap pull down? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

it sounds like a good time for some audience questions going around, but yeah, it's a freeway thing. Cause freeways are better, right? Cause you're working the smaller muscles. Well, you know, it looks cooler.

It looks cool. This is pod. Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Does anyone have any questions for us, for the congressman? Hi. Hey.

Good to see you again. Good to see you too. I want to know if you think that the media puts too much attention on his tweets instead of you know saying okay yeah he tweeted something crazy but it's a distraction for this let's talk about this because I know there was a whole thing with Don Lemon and that guy who was like this is fake news let's stop talking about his tweet but he kind of had a point like not in the sense that it's fake news, because that's not what we've all kind of established what fake news is now. But in a sense, it's like, why are we talking about the fact that he's tweeting something crazy? Let's talk about the fact that, you know, all these, like, other really intense things are happening, that the investigations aren't going fast enough or aren't going through at all, or he's saying this behind closed doors, and we know this because of this, and there's all these leaks.

Do we need to put more pressure on the media to focus in and not get so easily distracted? Because I'm sure everyone in this room has been following things very closely on Twitter and follow a lot of journalists and do the homework but there's not a lot of people who do that. There's people who just see trending moments or Facebook

Twitter, I mean not Facebook Facebook news feeds and don't do the homework and it's frustrating when they're like oh I can't believe he tweeted that. I'm like, yes, but what about this? And they're like, oh, I didn't know about that. And they're like, Kristen, you're crazy. Yeah, I mean, look, it's really tough

because he's the president of the United States and he's tweeting crazy lies and distracting things about important issues. And so I think it's hard to say, oh, they shouldn't be written about, they should be ignored. But I think it is important to be putting them in context. So one thing I think that has happened is there was a long time where you'd see a Trump tweet, and then all of a sudden that'd be a headline. Trump accuses so-and-so of X, or Trump says

Obama wiretapped him, right? And you still see some of that. But I think the key thing is making sure that these things are put in context, which is Trump offers baseless allegation in the midst of Russia investigation. Right. Like I think it's not necessarily about whether the tweet itself is a distraction, which, of course, of course, it can be. It's just making sure that it's in the right context. Congressman, do you guys like pass the tweets around on the floor when you see them? How does that go down when you're with your colleagues? I remember when when something came out and it was early in the morning, and I hadn't looked at the news yet.

So I walk in, and the guys are all talking about something. I'm like, what's going on? I was like, well, it's another totally absurd thing that the president did. And this was a Republican saying this. And I remember thinking to myself, you know what's absurd is not that Trump did that, because Trump is an absurd person.

What's absurd is that you supported this guy in the election. And still do. And you still do. Right, but not in the gym, apparently. In the gym, they're great guys. They put their suits on. They become maniacs. It's hard because I agree.

The problem is that the media has sort of a built-in incentive to cover more sensational trivial things than they do substance that's existed long before Trump but I do I mean he is the president United States like Levitt said so when he does tweet something you sort of have to cover it the question is the balance between if Trump is tweeting you know if he's just like making fun of Chuck Schumer and calling him fake-tier Schumer or whatever? Is that as important as if Trump is tweeting about a policy issue, in which case you do want to cover it

because he's the president of the United States that could have implications for millions and millions of people. Let's give credit where credit is due. I'm about to say something nice about Donald Trump. He's actually good at manipulating the media. Yeah. He is. He's good at that.

Well, he's a showman, and he's been manipulating the media since long before he was in politics, and he knows what rabbits that they'll chase, right? Right. I mean, it's like we wouldn't say a teacher was good at manipulating her kids because she gave them all Oreos. I'm just saying, like, they're the press. It's not that hard to get to the bottom of it.

Well, that goes to that. That's an interesting thing, too, is I don't know that there's a lot of people like, oh, Trump is trying to distract us from X. I don't know if there's that much thought necessarily behind what he does versus what's just an impulse, right? He wakes up, he sees something on Morning Joe or he sees something on CNN, something on Fox and Friends, and he just says, hmm, I'm going to grab my phone and I'm going to speak my mind about this. Like, I don't know that it's a planned out strategy, but it happens, you know, and I do think like, I think the media has been getting better about it, better about covering substance, but this is like sort of a longer, a bigger issue, which is, and look, the media has

to do what the media has to do. At least for Democrats, I think we have to do a better job of focusing on like specific issues and policies from Trump that are actually going to affect people's lives because we're not going to win if we just say, oh, Trump said something crazy. Isn't that nuts? We actually have to talk about how his health care policy is going to affect people. Because, by the way, we tried that. That's how we tried to win this past election. Look, Hillary fell into that trap, but all of us fell into that trap. It's just like something Trump does is crazy. We do two days about it. The news goes there. this past election. Yeah. Look, Hillary fell into that trap, but all of us fell into that trap, right?

It's just like, something Trump does is crazy, we do two days about it, the news goes there, we go there too, and all we're talking about is the crazy thing. We're not talking about the policies that he just

put in place that are going to hurt people. Yeah, we're not talking about a plan, our plan. We're not talking about our strategy. We're not talking about

how we want to help people. Yeah. Thank you. My name is David Modigliani. I'm a high school friend of Tommy Vitor's from back when he dominated the weight room in the morning on behalf of the Milton Mustangs. Nice. Congress Moulton, thanks so much for your service to the country and on behalf of the great state of Massachusetts. You spoke about the economic distress, particularly

in the heartland and Donald Trump's ability to communicate to those people to reach out to say, you know, even if his ideas don't make a lot of sense, I feel you, I feel that you're hurting. He seemed to also be very successful in dividing those folks from those, for example, in inner cities that might be feeling very similar economic distress, a very similar sense of hopelessness, a lack of resource, food deserts, not availability of credit and other economic resources. As we think about the Democrats' vision moving forward and the story that we're telling, what can we do to help those groups of people understand that essentially their fates are linked?

of people understand that essentially their fates are linked? And what can we do to, I guess, whether it's telling stories, whether it's putting, you know, connecting those folks, I guess, on a national level to prevent this successful division that has led to so many electoral successes on behalf of Republicans and others? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, when people are hurting, they tend to go back into their corners. And that's part of what we saw in this election. But, you know, I think back to my experience in the Marines. In my platoon, I had Marines from all over the country, from Massachusetts and Vermont, but also from Alabama and Texas. I had Marines from a gated community outside of Park City, Utah, and Marines from inner city Brooklyn, New York. And we came together with remarkably different backgrounds, different religious beliefs,

different political beliefs. But at the end of the day, we were able to set aside those differences to do what's best for the country. We had a mission. And I think what Democrats need to give to Americans is a mission. And to talk about how, you know, everybody is entitled to the American dream. A lot of people you describe feel like they don't have access to the American dream anymore. They've lost a job. They don't have a prospect for getting a new job. And even worse, their kids might be worse off than they are today. The American dream is about everybody having the potential to succeed. Not everybody will, by the way, but everybody has that chance. And that happens when people come together, when people from different backgrounds, when I benefit from having guys from Alabama and Texas in my platoon, because I know that they know things I

don't. So I think if we as Democrats can give that mission to really show a plan to the American people, it'll help bring folks together. And you mentioned another great way to do that earlier, which is AmeriCorps City Year, like national service programs that I think that you have to watch Paul Ryan from gutting the budget for these programs. Yeah, and when I came back from Iraq, I was amazed by how much I had in common with people who had gone and served in an inner-city school in New Orleans for a few years. Because you had that experience of serving your country, of putting your country first. Orleans for a few years. Because you had that experience of serving your country,

putting your country first. And in going back to the fundamental ideals in our Constitution, the kind of things that Donald Trump just doesn't care if he shreds right up. But most Americans know that the Constitution is important. The oath I took as a Marine is the same oath I took to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America as the United States Congressman. Can I ask you a question? You know, we talk a lot about politics, obviously. But there's also—

Welcome to the show, love it. I'm not, you know. Anyway, but part of this is about culture. And I think one thing that Donald Trump appeals to is a sense that, you know, they're treating you like suckers. You have to get what's yours. You got to take advantage. I mean, Trump got a lot, you know, I'm going to do for you what I did for myself, right? I take advantage of people. I'll take advantage of people for you. That's a little bit part of his appeal. And it's a little bit of this dog-eat-dog

reality TV show idea of competition. And I think that is something that's like in our culture now, this sense that like, oh, people are taking advantage of the system. I should do the same. So culturally, what do we do to sort of inculcate a better sense of, I don't know, solidarity, mission, a sense of selflessness in our culture and politics? Well, look, I'm going to go back to what Tommy said because I'm a huge, huge believer in national service. And if young people in America, I don't think we should have a draft.

I don't think you should be required to serve the country. But I think it should be an expectation that you ought to do something. And if we got back to that point in America, General McChrystal is a big advocate for national service, too. And he talks about getting to a point where when you have a job interview when you're 30, just the first question off the bat, because people want to know, is what did you do to serve? Where did you help? And maybe it was in Iraq as a Marine. Maybe it was in New Orleans in city year. Maybe it was just something in your community right where you live.

But you did something to serve the country, and you got that experience of making some personal sacrifices to do what's best, not just for America, but for other people around you. I mean, when I was in the Marines in this war that I, by the way, didn't agree with, I mean, I thought Bush was a Marines, in this war that I, by the way, didn't agree with, I mean, I thought Bush was a little crazy to get us into Iraq. Not as crazy as Trump.

He looks great now. I mean, George W. Bush's stock is skyrocketing. Man. But, you know, a lot of what I was doing every day was just looking out for the guys to my left and my right. Because we believed in each other. And that's what you're talking about, right? Is believing in each other enough that you don't want to take advantage of the system, you don't want to scam the system,

because it's going to hurt somebody else. Who matters? Hey, how are you doing? Mike Watson here from Austin, Texas. Got a little bit of allergies going here, so no, it's all good. As someone who didn't know you prior to coming into this room,

I'm very impressed with you. My question is pretty simple. Would you ever run for president? That was not directed at Lovett. Listen, I'm thinking about it. Obviously, I have a lot of decisions. I think about my family. I never considered running.

But obviously, the interest is something that's really moving. The eyes are rolling hard. There we go. Next question. That was to give you space to come up with a way of saying that's not something I'm interested in without giving yourself an option. Look, I literally got asked about running

for Congress two years ago. Nice. There it goes. Look, the thing that's exciting to me is the fact that there aren't a lot of exciting Democrats out there, but there are a lot of exciting Democrats out there, but there are a lot of exciting Democrats coming out of the woodwork.

And I think that's the exciting thing about what's going on in the party right now. But look, I mean, yeah, most people don't even know who I am. I mean, follow me at Seth Moulton on Twitter. I need like every Twitter follower I can get at this point. He tweets himself. That was very presidential lately. You know, I do tweet myself, and I used to brag about it, this point. He tweets himself. That was very presidential lately. I do tweet myself and I used to brag about it because I used to thought it was like a great

thing. I'm one of the only members of Congress who does his own tweets and now it's kind of like... The other thing for folks, all the people in the room and everyone back home listening to this on their phone, if you hear a congressman like Congressman Moulton and you really want to support them, go on their website and give them $10.

It's time he doesn't have to spend fundraising and he can be working on policy. Look at that. Tommy has a fundraiser right now. I gave you some money back in the day when you announced you were staying on the refugee crisis. I should disclose that to you now. I didn't before. So the congressman is here to just reward the big donors. Maybe you should be president.

Oh, my God. Figuring out politics. We have time for one more question. Thank you. Max Oglesby from New York City. And I wanted to link together two thoughts that I was mauling over. The congressman mentioned economic dynamism and also the need for the Democrats to provide a mission for people.

I feel like organized labor and unions were a great way to give people a mission at scale. The jobs that sort of welcomed unionization were also among the first to be automated. So I wonder how you link together the need to create that mission with the need to be automated. So I wonder how you link together the need to create that mission with the need to create economic dynamism. And those entrepreneurs are probably the one in 10,000, the one in the millions. So how do you link those people together so that you get the scale of labor

with the economic dynamism that you mentioned? Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know I have the full answer, but I'll tell you this, that a lot of people after the election, a lot of Democrats got really angry that many union members voted for Trump and started saying, look, the unions abandoned us.

Look, the unions didn't abandon us. We abandoned them. We weren't looking out for these people who are losing their jobs to automation, who are seeing their jobs go away and don't have a chance to get it back. And you know what? A union's great if you're in the union and you've got a job and you're bargaining for better wages. Unions are really important for that. But if you don't have a job at all, then a union doesn't do you much good. And so we do have to figure out how to connect these two because they matter.

I mean, people should have the freedom to organize, and we need unions to support wage growth because wage growth matters. One of the good things is that new businesses generally lead to wage growth too. So bringing those two together, I think, is something we need to figure out. It's a great question. Thank you so much to Congressman Moulton for joining us today. And thank the thousands of people who came out in Austin. We'll be back next week.