Pod Save America - "The greatest speech in history."

Episode Date: March 2, 2017

Sessions lies about meetings with Russians, and Trump snows the pundits with his speech. Then, former Republican operative Nicolle Wallace joins Jon and Dan to talk about Obama-Trump voters and the future of the Republican Party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On the pod today we have NBC political analyst and former communications director for George W. Bush, Nicole Wallace. This is our first Republican in the Pod Save America days, Dan. Oh, it's a huge moment for the pod. Finally, got to hear both sides. Get out of our liberal bubbles. Yes, we are piercing the bubble today.

That's all we have to do. By calling another coastal elite. Right, right. Who doesn't like Donald Trump? Perfect. Also, remember, on Pod Save the World this week, Tommy interviews a good friend of the pod, Heather Higginbottom, about her time in the State Department working for John Kerry for many, many years.

Also, a reminder to subscribe to Anna Marie Cox's new podcast with friends like these. This week, she interviewed MTV News' Ira Madison, and so that's going to drop on Friday. Okay, Dan. Okay, Dan. So we were going to start with the transformative joint session that transformed Donald Trump's presidency two nights ago. Very presidential. Very presidential. Very presidential. It's a whole new ballgame now. Everything he's done that's bad before is wiped away, and we have ourselves a unifying, successful president on our hands. Very exciting stuff. But then we had a couple stories break last night, which we're just happy they broke last night and not during the pod.

I know. But, you know, things are starting to move in our direction after a tough couple months. And, look, we're only doing this pod right now because we know that Jeff Session will probably recuse himself from the Russia investigation while we're recording. So, this is why we're doing this. We'll just keep talking until it happens. So, let's start with the New York Times story, which is not about Sessions, but might end up being the bigger story in the long run. This is a story, the title is obama administration rushed

to preserve intelligence of russian election hacking three bylines matthew rosenberg mike schmidt forget who else anyway basically the story is is the obama administration came to a close and learn more about the trump uh campaigns contacts with russia russian intelligence russian government people tied to the Russian government, the White House tried to spread the information to as many government agencies as possible to prevent the Trump administration from covering up or destroying the evidence. This meant that they lowered the classification of some reports so that more people could see them. For the very classified uh sensitive information

they decided to put like names of sources and stuff like that they decided to make sure those were in places where people worth only the highest clearance could access them so to avoid having trump political appointees try to cover them up and basically they tried to leave a trail of breadcrumbs breadcrumbs for investigators. I mean, if this thing didn't sound like a fucking spy novel, it's crazy. I couldn't even believe it when I was reading it. But perhaps the most explosive paragraph in the whole story was the second one. American allies, including the British and Times know the content of those

meetings. They do not know what was discussed between the Trump associates and the Russians in the European capitals or what was being discussed in the Kremlin. So that is still a mystery. I guess it could have, again, it could just been Christmas greetings, like between Flynn and Kislyak. Could just be, hey, what's up? Hey, I look forward to working with you in the future. Maybe just some above board business deals. I don't know. What do you think, Dan? I mean, maybe there, maybe it's some sort of vodka for taco bowl exchange. I don't, you know, who knows, but also interesting would be not just the content, but the actual,

like, who are the associates? Are they the same people who were mentioned in the dossier from a few months ago or weeks ago, whatever that was? So who are they? What are they talking about? And why didn't the Times lead with it? That is, I think, a fair question to ask. Why didn't they lead with who the people were? Or just the fact of the meetings, right? The fact of the meetings seemed to be more newsworthy than the efforts to preserve the intelligence, which is also very newsworthy.

Yeah, the whole thing is newsworthy for sure. But you're right. It seems like, well, the big question in all this has always been like, you know, it's one thing. I mean, it's one thing if American intelligence agencies are no stuff or have been spreading stuff or there's this whole, you know, conspiracy, you know, is the deep state and, you know, the intelligence services in America, are they, do they have it out for Donald Trump? But the addition of, you know, I've always been curious, the addition of the British and the Dutch intelligence agencies, too. Like, there's a high possibility that there are other intelligence agencies all over the world, specifically in Europe, that also know things about the contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians. And also, I go back to like, I keep asking everyone this that I know, like, what? Give me

just an innocent explanation for all of this. You know, like, so we don't go down the conspiracy road. Like, what is the innocent explanation for not just Flynn's call with the ambassador, which you could sort of say, oh, maybe that's just business he's talking about you know that that happens with all incoming administrations and the people that they're going to work with all over the world and the officials they're going to work with all over the world fine but it's like flynn it's manafort it's other it's you know they're investigating roger stone they're invested i mean it's just like there's a lot going on here. Seems very coincidental. Yes, that's exactly right. I can almost buy, almost, by the Flynn calls to the Russian ambassador being in the realm of the normal course of business during the transition.

Right. Clearly some real questions about violations of the Logan Act. But in general, I can buy the idea that the incoming national security advisor and officials from foreign governments would communicate in the transition period. It's odd that the Russians were the ones he spoke to the most, as opposed to, I don't know, the British or the Canadians or others. But especially, especially not just because the Russians are some big, scary adversary, because we know they had just interfered

in our election to try to elect Donald Trump. Yes. They had committed a... We were talking about a country that had committed a cyber attack against us. But anyway, but anyway. I think it's worth going through a little, just to put it all in perspective,

because it does feel like 100 years ago since we had the presidential election and we had a formula a podcast for me and i was keeping it at 1600 and talked about these things but so let's let's go back sure there's a point in time where during the i guess it was the was the democratic convention where the republican convention where trump held a press conference and told the Russians to. Democratic convention. Democratic convention. Told the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. He, at the time, had a campaign manager who had worked for many clients in the Ukraine who were very close to Putin.

to putin he at the republican convention they adopted the most pro-russian platform in the history of the country um under most republicans of the convention were like what are you doing why is the trump campaign changing the platform it's always said this about russia it's an odd choice right it's an odd choice right and then russia hacks the election they hack the dnc to sow chaos during the democratic convention you forgot you forgot one thing before that on august 21st roger stone tweets john podesta is about to spend his time in the barrel roger stone close close associate of donald trump that is a couple weeks before the dn's hack that the hack is released of podesta's emails somehow he guessed that john podesta somehow he guessed that john podesta was going to be in some trouble trump's closest associate a man who refers

to himself as a quote-unquote rat fucker because of all the dirty political tricks he's pulled happens to just suggest that possibly a senior clinton campaign official was going to have problems right before wiki leagues published emails hacked by russians from said clinton campaign official i'm not saying where there's smoke there's fire but this doesn't look great this This would be the most smoke where there was no fire in history. Yes, that is correct. Of the smoke fire metaphor. There would be no other time where there was this much smoke and absolutely no fire.

And also, I think you and I can say this as senior officials on many campaigns. senior officials on many campaigns, it's very fucking weird for campaign staff members to be communicating with intelligence officials from countries with an adversarial position towards the United States. Yeah. That's weird. And it's even weirder when said country

then interferes in the election to help elect one of the two candidates. It's very odd. When you're already in the White House and you go on foreign trips with the president, you are extra careful about anyone that you talk to, especially in certain countries, because you don't know if that person may accidentally be an intelligence official in that country. an intelligence official in that country. It is always something that is on the minds of people who are in politics and people who have official roles to be careful about what you say around different people, to have, like, operational security. I mean, this is, yeah.

So, come on. Well, all of this brings us to Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III, our attorney general. So, Washington Post story last night let's let's back up and sort of walk through what happened here during his confirmation hearings under oath al franken asked senator al franken as jeff sessions quote if there's any evidence that anyone on the campaign communicated with the russian government during the course of this campaign, what would you do? Jeff Sessions responds, quote,

I have been called a surrogate of that campaign from time to time, and I did not have communications with the Russians, end quote. Sessions has now admitted toak, the Russian ambassador. One in his office, which he's trying to say is in the course of normal duties as a senator on the Armed Services Committee. Sometimes senators on the armed services committee meet with foreign ambassadors um he just happened to forget this meeting of course under oath that happens all the time uh it also is the case that they interviewed 20 other members of the armed services committee and none of them met with kislyak during that time just just such sessions and a second meeting sessions had with kislyak during that time, just Jeff Sessions. And a second meeting Sessions had with Kislyak.

Where was that meeting, John? Where was that meeting? It was at the Republican National Convention. Why did Jeff Sessions meet with the Russian ambassador at the Republican National Convention? Is that where armed services committee members meet with foreign ambassadors at a party convention? Why was the Russian ambassador

at the Republican National Convention at the exact moment that the party, that Trump was adopting the most pro-Putin platform in history? Was he just visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and stumbled upon the convention? It was like, oh, there's my buddy, Jeff sessions. Let's talk about some business.

Like what? I mean, it's insane. It's insane. And why he clearly lied. Like he gave false testimony. That is beyond a shadow of a, can I just say it is,

it is so revealing, uh, under the category of Donaldald trump is not the beginning and end of our problems that all these fucking conservatives are tweeting like well you know i mean they're like parsing the language did he really lie or you know he just he didn't remember that meeting and those meetings are fairly common it's like like, no, no, no, no, no. This is from the lock her up crowd. This is from the people that were yelling lock her up when Hillary Clinton was not,

after Hillary Clinton had been exonerated and the FBI decided not to even investigate or to continue an investigation of her or to have an indictment or to prosecute her and do anything like that. There were lock her up chants everywhere. But yet here we have Jeff Sessions clearly not telling the truth under oath. Clearly. Whether he intentionally lied, whether he forgot the meeting, whatever. But it is clearly not the truth.

You don't forget the meeting. Two meetings. That's not a thing that happens. You don't forget two meetings with the Russian ambassador. Meeting with an ambassador at a convention seems like something that wouldn't slip your mind when you're under oath. Yes. And it's not like maybe he has bad short-term memory. He's forgotten a lot of his sort of previous racism at times. But it's not like he was just asked on the street by some dude. It was during a confirmation hearing where he did i presume hours upon hours of prep what was the number one story in america when he was doing

when he was going before the committee russia's involvement in the election so that's why september 2016 they could have like oh they knew this was coming up and he chose to be dishonest about it. And the question is why? Because would it be mildly painful to just say, I had these two meetings in the course of my business as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee? Sure. Would there have been some headlines about it? Sure.

Would he still have gotten confirmed? Probably. But what is worse but so i mean there's no more trite statement than it's not the crime it's the cover-up because it's also the crime right especially in this case possibly but this is an example of he either it's an innocent thing he stupidly lied about but he still lied which is a crime for which you could be quote-unquote locked up or there's an innocent thing he stupidly lied about, but he still lied, which is a crime for which you could be, quote unquote, locked up. Or there's an actual thing there that he was willing to risk perjury to avoid admitting to. And that's crazy. So the explanations for this.

Explanation number one from Sessions' office is, quote, he did not remember in detail what he discussed with Kislyak. Second explanation from Sessions himself, very carefully worded, I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. There is specific intention in that statement. And then he said, I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false. It's hard to call an allegation false when you idea what this allegation is about. It is false. It's hard to call an allegation false when you don't know what it's about.

But then John Harwood gets an explanation from a Trump administration official who says there were, quote, superficial comments about election-related news. So they did discuss the election i mean i just i don't i don't know i don't know how he can go on here i mean so did you see sean spicer's response this morning yes yes i did he did nothing wrong yes i did he did nothing wrong period i was like what fake news fake news to distract from the president's amazing convention amazing joint session address um so we have a handful of democrats calling for um sessions to resign nancy pelosi elijah cummings elizabeth warren um a whole bunch of other democrats including joe manchin who voted to confirm jeff sessions have called on him to recuse himself from the

russia investigation along with the following republicans rob senator rob portman uh jeff flake jason shaffetz oh jason looks like he wants to look his wife and daughter is in the eye again jason in the house um and kevin mccarthy who called for him to recuse himself on morning joe and then walked it back an hour later on fox and friends now the person of course now right as i was coming up here to do the podcast i saw on c. Our friend Paul Ryan did not join that chorus. Paul Ryan! What? No, stop. That's fake news.

It's so weird because Paul Ryan is the intellectual darling of the official Washington. He's like a straight shooter. He's a man from Wisconsin who likes to do P90X and is strong in his biceps and his convictions that he's a serious politician that paul ryan he's a he's one of the serious ones he's one of

the grown-ups uh he said that he said that basically trump should um trump should not i mean not trump sessions should not recuse himself unless sessions is the target of the pro just like i said how does ryan feel i wonder if it ever bothers paul ryan that he is now one of the biggest trump sycophants even within the republican party you know he can just taste he can taste those tax cuts for the millionaires they're so close that's like in one hand he can almost reach tax cuts for millionaires in the other hand he can almost reach taking health care from poor people this man has worked his whole life to do those two things and he

and he is in his grasp he is not going to let a little perjury stand in the way no millionaires need tax cuts when the dow's at 21 000 everyone says that okay so we don't know what will come of the Sessions news, although it will probably have broken by the time you're listening to this, some kind of development. But let's move on to the greatest speech ever to be delivered by any president in history, including the Gettysburg Address, including Lincoln's second inaugural, including you Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself and Kennedy's inaugural. Let's talk about the first joint session from Donald J. Trump to just two nights ago. I think the question you have to ask yourself, John,

is has any president ever stood up before the Congress before and used complete sentences written for him, not said anything racist, and not called the media the enemy of America? Has that ever happened before? Not that I can tell. Not that I can tell, certainly. That's why this is seen as one of the great pieces of oration in not just American history, civilization. Look, I'm just in Obama Kool-Aid drinking vroob, right? So maybe I... You are so jealous of Stephen Miller. I'm so jealous of Stephen Miller and his abilities. I mean, let's start with how did it feel to... It was weird. I mean, we just had eight Obama joint sessions in a

row over the last eight years. How did it feel watching this one? Just the fact that there was no Obama. Wasn't that weird? Yeah, it was weird. I will say, so I worked on every one we did through 2015. And by work on meeting, I just talked to you and Cody about it. I didn't actually have to put real words to paper, but I had to read it many times.

And preparing for the State of the Union for the speechwriter is like the worst thing in the world but it's not awesome for anyone else either and so i appreciated last year having to do nothing more than just like get like read it once and then this year was like it's kind of nice not to have to think about it but it is a gut punch to have the to have the guy do the and the and the president states and have that be donald j trump walk out that for me it was still it was weirder for it to be trump than it for not to for it not to be obama because i remember i watched most of bush's state of the unions as well you know and it was weird i just remember watching bush's state of the unions and thinking we should ask nicole about this um but like there would always there would be this bad news about bush and bush doing making all kinds of bad decisions that we disagreed with in iraq

and all that stuff and somehow bush would still go to the state of the union and he'd give a pretty good speech you know and he'd have some good stagecraft and it like there were a few moments during some of bush's speeches where i'm like you you know, don't like the guy, think he's destroying the country. But right there, he's trying to sort of bring people together. I appreciated the speech writing sometimes. I thought like Michael Gerson and that crowd, like they did a good job with the speeches. And it just seemed like normal. It seemed somewhat normal. George Bush is president. Don't agree with them, think he's doing a horrible job, but he's president and it feels normal. Donald Trump walking into that chamber was just like, what the fuck is going on right here? It was brutal, man. I will say the best headline about the speech that I saw was from Ari Melber tweeted this, which was, atypical politician gives typical speech.

That to me is the fair analysis of Donald Trump's speech. a State of the Union that was long, fairly boring, you know, more trite and cliched than usual, since all State of the Unions have a lot of cliches in them, but Donald Trump's was extra cliched. The writing was just a little bit more terrible than most of it. And I say that, forget about Obama, because obviously I'm biased, but worse than any speech George Bush has given, worse than any speech Bill Clinton has given, worse than any... And I've read a lot of State of the Unions in preparation for writing Obama's, and this is certainly one of the worst written State of the Unions that I've... Or worst written joint session speeches that I've ever seen. And yet, yes, it was better than any of Donald Trump's other speeches. I don't know. What did you think?

Yeah, I think that's right. It was fine, right? It was fine. Fine. This is the Axelrodian dancing bear deal. Yes, sure do. The bear danced, and we're not critiquing him how well he danced. It's just he got through it without embarrassing himself.

Yes. That is the test we've given. When a bear dances you don't critique the man who is the leader of the free world yeah when i wish you just say the uh the dancing bear thing since i think we last talked about that in the keep it in 1600 days axor i would always say when a bear dances you don't critique the dancing you marvel at the fact that the bear is dancing at all and i think trump had some pretty bad dancing on Tuesday night. But yet, a lot of people marveled that he was dancing at all.

That was the story of that joint session. I mean, look, some of the lines in that speech, the torch of truth, liberty, and justice is now in our hands, and we will use it to light up the world. The dreams that fill our hearts, the hope that stirs our souls, every hurting family can find healing. We all bleed the same blood. That is a true statement.

At one point he was talking about his election, because of course he has to talk about his election, and he said eventually the chorus became an earthquake. I mean, so Tommy pointed this out on our live stream, but comparing yourself to a natural disaster isn't always the best move, I think. Yeah, that's a solid point. I hadn't really thought about the consequences. Is an earthquake what you want?

It may be what Steve Bannon wants. But also, look, I had said, even though I'm out of the predictions business, I said earlier in the day on Tuesday, I wonder if we were going to get a speech that was fairly standard with a whole bunch of poll tested lines. And certainly whether they tested the lines or not, I could tell as I was watching that speech, there were a number of lines that would do very well with swing voters and, you know, even non-swing voters, right? Like, lines like, I'm not going to let America and its great companies and workers be taken advantage of anymore. America has sent $6 trillion to the Middle East, all while our infrastructure at home has crumbled. I can tell you, because almost every politician that I've worked for has used some version of that line, that that thing polls probably at 90%. Yeah. Like that was a lot. I remember John Kerry used to say, we're opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America. It was his biggest

applause line in 2003 and 2004. That's what that reminded me of. Like they're, they're just, so I don't think it's magic or necessarily takes an incredible amount of talent to put a speech together where you drop lines in there that are somewhat nationalistic in an economically populist sense that are going to appeal to voters across the political spectrum. And they did that. So, like, you know, good for them. It was also a speech that you could tell was, like, nominally fact-checked. Like, there were

plenty of um untruths in that speech he said a lot of things that were false that he'd said before uh just like he always does but there was a few there was some language that was hedged here and there so you could tell like it had gone through a little bit of fact-checking even though you know i'm sure it got like 4 000 pinocchios um so they definitely like they tried to sand the roughest edges off his usual speech um and that seems like it yeah that was certainly enough for the collective pundit world to just faint with joy. I have to say, we watched the speech at Funny or Die.

We then went on and did our Facebook live stream. We answered people's questions. And I walked out of there feeling pretty good. I was like, he gave his speech. We had a good conversation. We got some great questions. I'm not going to let myself be bothered by what I'm hearing via Twitter, because I wasn't watching TV, that all these pundits are falling all over themselves about the speech and saying how presidential he is. And then yesterday, the more and more I read about everything, the angrier I got. Because it's like, look, I'm not saying that everyone should have, that they should

have cut from the speech to the CNN studio or on MSNBC or on Fox and had everyone say, that was a horrible speech. Donald Trump just gave a disaster of a speech. He's still a disaster. No, it would have been totally fine for people to say, you know, that wasn't as crazy as a normal Donald Trump speech. He made it through the whole thing. He stuck on prompter. He probably delivered a speech that might have been effective with some voters. But now the question is, does he have any real plan? What are the details? Can he bring Democrats along to get anything done? Can he heal the divisions within the Republican Party over repealing and replacing Obamacare, figuring out an infrastructure bill, figuring out tax reform. These are the challenges that still lay ahead for Donald Trump.

Also, here's a bunch of things that he said that were incorrect. Like, that to me would have been fair analysis. Starting to say that, like, that was the moment he became president and knocked it out of the park and Grand Slam and Reagan-esque and all the other shit that you heard it was just crazy to me yeah you could tell you know we were on a text chain you me tommy our friends cody keenan and ben rhodes and you could tell that you and tommy were not consuming as much news as ben and cody and i were because we were getting more and more worked up as the hours after the speech went by and iody and i were because we were getting more and more worked up as the hours

after the speech went by and i know and i was like don't worry you're not sharing my outrage which is so unusual i know it must have been annoying because i was like guys i'm not going to be upset about this it's fine we just had this nice conversation with real people who asked questions don't worry about it and then i and then i like sat in bed and started checking my twitter feed and i was like oh yeah well that's your first mistake no twitter in bed and started checking my Twitter feed, and I was like, ugh. Yeah, well, that's your first mistake. No Twitter in bed is an important rule. Well, tell Emily that. Yeah, she would agree. Maybe like the Politico headline, was this the Trump that could win in 2020?

It's fucking February of 2017. What are you writing that for? Mainly so people will click on it, you and I will yell about it, and then people will go find it and click on it again. That's basically their business plan. Win for Politico. I thought it was funny. Jeff Shussell, former Clinton speechwriter, wrote in The New Yorker that the Washington Post calling the address, quote, surprisingly presidential is like calling an athlete's performance surprisingly athletic. Yes.

That was a great point. yes that was a great point like this whole idea like he was presidential is a is an adjective you use during a campaign about a candidate who has never been president but something they do during the campaign think you think okay that's presidential you can't say that a fucking president is acting presidential that's their job yes this podcast is surprisingly podcast like here's here's i think this this is uh derrick thompson who is an editor at the atlantic yes uh tweeted this that i thought was pretty interesting which sort of i think explains a little bit of the gross overreaction here from the press is the fundamental bias and punditry is not towards quote presidential behavior or against quote resistance it's more

simply pro plot twist and then he followed up narrative shifts are great for television so great that is irresistible to manufacture them in the absence of actual shifting narratives which is exactly right like this is what's a boring story? Trump is still quasi insane. What is an interesting story? Huge shift. Is this the new Trump? Pivot, pivot, pivot, shift. You know what?

Amazing. I think there's something else that might be going on too with some of these folks, which is everything in Washington, all politics and all punditry revolves around both sides, the both sides narrative, right? Like you've got to be fair. You've got to be balanced. There's too much partisanship. And so the way to solve partisanship is to attack both sides equally and to give both sides credit sometimes. And there's always has to be this balance. And because of what Donald Trump has done and said throughout the campaign and through his first month in presidency, the balance has been severely off. And most of the media has been, we would argue, and some Republicans have argued, rightly critical of Donald Trump for mainly lying a lot.

He doesn't say anything that's true, neither does his administration on many, many, many occasions. And doing things way outside the boundary of any Democrat or Republican president, right? But you can tell with a lot of these reporters, as Trump has attacked the press and attacked the media over and over and over again, you know, working the refs, it has, maybe it's subconscious, maybe it's not, but it has a psychological effect on you where you start thinking, I got to find a moment to praise Trump because all I'm doing is criticizing him. And so I've got to get my, look how fair minded I am. I, I praise Trump when he deserves it badge, which you can then wear

proudly around Washington. So then you can go back and criticize him. Like, and I don't, I'm not saying this is a nefarious feeling to have. Like I, it's a very human feeling to have, but, but to me, that's a little bit what was going on tuesday night yeah i think that's true i also think i would separate the reporters for sure wrote about the speech and the people who were quote-unquote analyzing it on twitter or cable tv i think the reporting was, a little, there was certainly an element of surprise that he did not do something insane, which is frankly fair, which is totally fair and relatively straight.

And I think pretty consistent with the way in which state of the unions are generally covered. You get the benefit of the doubt in your state of the union. Yes, we certainly did. You look at, you wouldn't, but you go back and look at the coverage of some of the ones that Bush did in the darkest days of his post-Katrina presidency, where you get to be president and you're treated as president

and people kind of push aside some of the environmental political factors around you to let you own the stage that moment. So I think there's some of that but i do think if you are if you are someone who analyzes politics for a living you look for opportunities to not be seen as just a partisan hack and this is a this is a moment to do that what bothered me was the was two things one the degree of this it was so it was a degree so exaggerated it didn't need to be that exaggerated you could have said like you said

this was surprising from trump it was unusual he stayed on script without like resorting to these i mean it just it was a good reminder to me and I'm glad you just separated out reporters, because media hierarchy, right? Number one, reporting is essential and vital, and a lot of people have been doing an outstanding job at it, right? That's reporting. Number two, opinion journalism, voicing your opinion. As long as you're being honest about your partisan biases, here I am, this is what I believe, and now I'm going to argue the point. That's also valuable. This is what I believe. And now I'm going to argue the point. That's also valuable. At the bottom of the pile is useless punditry, political analysis, which is severely to um not trip over himself and uh you know his ability to read full sentences on a prompter what like what people need to know when they watch a

speech like that is was he telling the truth um could his plans and policies pass what is the path to making sure they passed how what he said might affect their lives the that's actually what people need to know when they turn to the speech they don't need to have other people guessing what they thought of the speech yeah that is a silly exercise is what is if you were if you john favreau were on cable tv or i guess a funny or die live stream you said as a person who has written many State of the Unions or worked on many State of the Unions, he accomplished the following things you try to accomplish in a State of the Union. He did some well, he did some poorly, he did them all well, did them all poorly.

That's analysis. What is a huge mistake is to say, is for media types, podcasters included, to project how they think voters or the public will interpret it. Like that's not your job. And history in this election most particularly proves that you're not very good at it, ourselves included apparently. So just analyze – you can analyze the performance. You should analyze the substance first.

Like what were they trying to accomplish? Do you think they accomplished it? I think it's also fair for people who have worked in politics for a long time to analyze how they – based on some reporting and discussion, how will the Hill respond to this? Do you think he made any efforts to bring Democrats on board to his plans? Did he help consolidate? efforts to bring democrats on board to his plans did he help consolidate like that's good but when you start saying that this is going to fundamentally change political dynamics that's just it's guessing right and and i'm look it's not a good use of time i'm fine with them going to voters at some bar and talking to them about what they thought because like that's at least asking real

people what they think and you know like i'm i'm sure that those people are going to like the speech because a lot of them liked all of our speeches like like you said the state of the union is an opportunity it's a softball over the like that you can sort of just knock out of the park because it's like it's a set piece you have time to prepare for it there's uh little room for. And a lot of them are very popular with voters all across the spectrum. There's no shock here that a bunch of people like that speech on my behalf, you know. But it was also a good, it was a good lesson to me that when Donald Trump says or tweets some crazy thing, oftentimes the opposite happens of what happened on Tuesday night.

And everyone, all the pundits, us included, and we did this a lot during the campaign, will say, oh, that's the end of his presidency. He's done. He said and tweeted this crazy thing and voters are going to hate him, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, he gives a speech like this and everyone says, oh, the presidency is transformed. Everything's better. Like, it matters so much less what he says and and how he performs and what the optics are than what he actually does and what the policies are and what the actions and decisions are you know and we need to remember that both when something bad happens and when something good happens like what happened to him on on t. And I think we forget that. I mean, it was interesting. Like I saw yesterday, like Van Jones was sort of talking about why Van Jones on the night

of the State of the Union said, you know, this is the night he became president, period. Right. He's one of those people who got really excited about it. The next day he was saying, well, the reason I said that is because Democrats need to be aware that if Donald Trump starts doing this all the time and giving these speeches all the time and starts being rhetorically sane, then we have real problems and he could be there for eight years and we might not beat him. And I think Democrats need to realize, like, if we think if we think that we need Donald Trump to tweet crazy shit in order to beat him, then we should throw in the towel anyway. Because the way to beat him in 2020 is not to hope that he is always crazy. It is to attack the policies that are hurting average Americans. And there will be plenty of those policies. And if there aren't,

then we're not going to beat him. But if there are, we have to attack him for that. And we just have to remember that. Yeah, he's not going to beat himself. I mean, not to be overly harsh about it, but that was sort of some of the 2016 strategy was step back, let himself light himself on fire. And in a polarized world where Donald Trump will get 85 to 90 percent of Republicans, it's not going to work that way. Yeah. We should talk briefly about the big moment in the speech that everyone was talking about, which was, you know, to tell the whole story, Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, a Navy SEAL, had died during the military operation Trump ordered in Yemen a few weeks back, a month back. Over the weekend, Ryan's father demanded an investigation into his son's death. Earlier that day, earlier the day of the joint session, Trump was asked about the son, Fox and friends. He said, they, the generals lost Ryan, which was

extremely disturbing. And then, so then at the speech, Ryan's widow, Karen Owens comes to the speech and Trump recognizes her to sustained applause. It was obviously tough for her to be there. There were tears in her eyes. And, you know, it was this moment. And then Trump said, I'm sure Ryan's smiling down at us and happy that he just broke a record because of the applause, which is such a weird Trumpian thing to say, to measure the whole thing based on applause. But anyway, and everyone said, you know, this was like his Reagan-esque big sort of moment. And it was just, it also bothered me because like, not from Karen Owen's side,

like I'm glad she came and I can't imagine what she must've been going through and like good for her for coming and being strong and standing there. And like, you can't take anything away from her whatsoever. Her husband was a hero and like you can't take anything away from her whatsoever her husband was a hero and you know uh it was like you know that it was an emotional moment i was you know emotional just watching her standing there but um to sort of assign this to trump seemed weird to me particularly since he then said and we did and mattis told me we did gain valuable intelligence from that raid when 10 U.S. officials yesterday said the opposite.

So why is he lying about that? I don't know if I've ever read a story where someone went and got 10 officials from across government talking about something. You know what the rule is? Two. We're just going to stick the knife in and twist it in Trump. I don't know what to think about the moment. I agree with your assessment. Like, my heart goes out to Karen Owens. I mean, it's heartbreaking. It's, you know, I can't imagine having the strength to stand there as she did. I'm much more concerned. having the strength to stand there as she did um i'm much more concerned what bothered me about some of the analysis of the moment was they and i'm not even that bothered by the weird

record standing ovation thing like that's weird to me but fine right but the to analyze the moment without including two points one that earlier that, Trump had passed the buck on it. Right. Could you imagine if Obama had sat there and been like, you know, Benghazi wasn't my fault. It was the general's fault. It was someone else's fault. And then invited a Benghazi widow there to sustained applause.

And then no one mentioned that Obama had said that earlier in the day, that he blamed the generals. And they did the weird thing to try to win an argument about the raid um citing mattis basically hanging mattis out to dry on it and but even and then the next day as we're still analyzing this moment it comes out the the trump white house is considering a policy change which would remove trump from the decision-making process on raids like this so he's going to

completely pass the buck where he can take credit for all successes and be distanced from all failures. Before we get to Nicole quickly, what did you think of the Democratic response by former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear? I think he did as well as you can do in a terrible environment. I went back and looked through all of the responses of the last, like, you know, 16 or so state of the unions. And it is a killing field of promising politicians who've gone to do it and

emerge diminished. You just can't compete with the state of the union. So in some ways, like a lot of people have said, why did you pick a retired 70-year-old politician to deliver it as opposed to one of our rising stars when we have a rising star problem? And I think the main thing is we didn't want to sacrifice our rising stars to look poorly in this. But I think Bichir did pretty good. I mean, he was better in the format than 90% of the people who normally do it. Yeah, I thought so too. And I thought,

I think focusing on one issue as opposed to trying to launch someone's political career in that setting is probably the better idea. I thought it was like the people sitting quietly behind him in the diner. It was like a little weird, but yeah, it's like a mannequin challenge. It was a little mannequin challenge-ish. Okay, when we come back, we will have NBC political analyst, Nicole Wallace. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod with us today, we have NBC political analyst and former communications director for George W. Bush, Nicole Wallace.

Nicole, welcome to Pod Save America. Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a fan, so this is exciting. You are our first Republican in the Pod Save America era. We used to have a bunch on Keeping It 1600, but for some reason we haven't had a chance. We're all in the Witness Protection Program. Tim Miller's been hiding out somewhere. We've been trying to get him on, but he won't join.

So let's start with the news of the day. Do you think more Republicans will call for a special prosecutor, for Sessions to recuse himself and to appoint a special prosecutor? We've seen a few this morning, but do you think this ends up a stampede or what? I think it's up to four, right? And they're not wishy Republicans like me. They're hardcore Republicans like Daryl Issa and Rob Portman. So I think this is a—I wouldn't say that the dam is broken,

but you guys, I think, are in California, right? I mean, the dam is very strained. We're watching it. And I think this White House is handling, as you guys know, I mean, it's never the crime or the alleged crime. It's the way you handle it. And they're handling this question of contact with Russia in a way that's harming them. in a way that's harming them. I keep asking everyone this because I'm like,

I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist because there's too many conspiracy theories floating around out there. But like, I'm trying to think, especially with the New York Times story, right, about now intelligence officials saying, you know, meetings between Trump associates in European capitals, right? And this is also from Dutch and British intel as well as American intel. Like, what do you think the most innocent explanation of all these contacts could be? Right? Like, is this...

It's getting harder and harder to imagine what it is. Right. I mean, that's it. I think you can always, and I say this for myself, I wouldn't paint anyone else with this brush, but a lot of the things that went wrong in our White House, you could chalk up to incompetence. That's usually the most innocent explanation, but it's just getting harder and harder to imagine how so many people

could forget so many conversations with so many Russians. No, I mean, I thought the same thing. You're right. Whenever something would go wrong in our White House, and I had a greater appreciation for things that I thought went wrong in the Bush White House after this, being in the White House for all those years, is that everyone always subscribes

nefarious motives, right? And a lot of times you're like, no, you know what? We were just, someone was an idiot. Someone made a mistake. But like when you have this many, there's only so many coincidences you can have before, you know, before you have to start wondering if it's a little bit more than coincidence. Yeah. And why is it always Russia? I mean, why did Mike Flynn forget to tell Pence about Russia? Why did Jeff Sessions forget to answer the question about Russia? Why is Donald Trump only sweet to Vladimir Putin in terms of, you know, I mean, he's so skeptical of NATO made up of all of our allies,

and he's so sweet to Vladimir Putin. It's just, it's just so many inexplicable, you know, situations and Putin is sort of at the root of all of it. If you were Nicole, if you were advising some of these Republicans who are up in 2018, how would you tell how would you tell them to handle the Sessions question specifically, and just the general Trump-Russia ties? Because you're seeing people who are, as you said, calling for recusal, people like Paul Ryan, who are just riding this thing all the way to the end. What do you think the best political strategy is? You know, I mean, it's so corny, but it's like find your North Star. I mean, you know, I think that hugging up Donald Trump in terms of the things he talks about on the economic front and sort of, it's just harder for Republicans than Democrats, frankly,

but starting to embrace some of his protectionist economic policies might make sense for some Republicans, because that's where our party is. Frankly, it's where parts of your party has, you know, that's where Democrats ended up voting for Trump. I'm covering two-time Obama voters who voted for Trump, and a lot of them sort of stopped at the Bernie station along the way. I would advise them to be very supportive of Donald Trump's economic policies where they agree with them, but to be very skeptical of these unanswered questions about Russia. And what's troubling to me is that so many Republicans can't locate that northern star. I mean, why can't you follow sort of any sort of the notion that john mccain and lindsey graham are and and i guess now daryl isa and and rob portman but the idea that you can still tick off on one hand the number of people

calling for more answers on russia says something really troubling about today's republican party well it seems like it's like this circular thinking, right, where the Republicans in Congress stick with Trump on almost everything because, you know, he's got 85, 90 percent approval rating among Republican voters. And so if you're a politician, you think, well, this is where my base is. I can't break with Donald Trump or I'm going to be in trouble with my base. But then you have to ask, why is the base there? Right. Like the base is there because they see Republican politicians saying, no, no, no, the Democrats are lying. We're standing with Donald Trump. This is all fake news, right?

Like, I don't know what breaks the cycle there. Well, and nobody in the base is with Donald Trump because he's nice to Russia. I mean, right? So that's just a loser. They like him despite the affinity for Putin. It's the head-scratcher. And I've been out talking to voters, and they were happy to see Mike Flynn go.

They were happy to see Donald Trump dispense with someone who had had conversations and not disclosed them. You know, the political risk for saying we should get to the bottom of any ties between, you know, Putin's Kremlin and the American election, the notion that any of them are in a defensive crouch about calling for more answers really speaks to the weakness. It explains why Trump was able to hijack conservatism so completely in the processes of Republican primary. So you had an interview on the Today Show where you talked to Trump voters in Bay City, Michigan. Seems like a lot of them liked the speech from Tuesday night.

In your mind, I don't know if you had additional conversations with them, but what would it take to peel those voters away from Trump? What would make them disappointed about him? It would take a lot. I mean, that was, I think, the seventh state I've been to that Trump flipped, either for the first time since Reagan. I mean, we've been to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan now, or states that President Obama had won. And they're really, really in it to win it with this guy. I mean, they're in it for the economic revitalization. They're in it for the sort of stripped down

rhetoric. I mean, they sort of had all the hope and change they could take, and they are ready to hear from a guy who's sort of crass and blunt. And, you know, one of them said to me in Bay City, I like that he talks the way I do. You know, John F. Kennedy used to be sort of the rhetorical model, and your old boss, President Obama. I mean, you know, we used to aspire for leaders who elevated the dialogue. That's not the case with swing voters

in America right now. They were looking for someone who they felt communicated at their level. But what it would take to peel them away would be someone who came down to their level and leveled with them. I mean, I think what they felt about Donald Trump was that he was telling them the truth. And it's so ironic because I don't know that there's a politician in modern times who has lied more than Donald Trump about silly things. So it's a real, you know, it ties my brain in a knot in some ways. In other ways, it's sort of this phenomenon that was hiding in plain sight. I mean, people have lost faith in institutions, so it makes sense that someone that came in with a wrecking ball

to everything that we sort of cherish about political institutions was viewed as more trustworthy than people like Jeb Bush or like Hillary Clinton who were from established political families and organizations. But I think to peel these voters away from him, he would have to come up short on his promises. And I think they're going to give him years, not months to do that. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's like, in my mind, I can get why a lot of them wanted to give him a chance, right? Because of the unbelievable distaste with politics and distrust of political institutions in general and also political language from leaders that sounds

bullshitty right um but at some point it seems like he has to deliver on a podcast oh on this one you can you can swear all you want we got the explicit rating so we are good to go we had katie korek was swearing on this podcast the other week and she yeah that's so exciting um no i guess but the the question about the economic agenda has me wondering because you know you were saying you would advise republicans to sort of stick with trump on the economic stuff well you can imagine a trump agenda where he's um you know sort of renegotiates nafta right he's already pulled out of TPP. It also seems like he would keep his promise not to cut Medicare, Social Security, even Medicaid, right? Like, you'd imagine an Obamacare replacement that is still very generous to working-class Americans

who need help buying health insurance. You would imagine tax reform that sort of offers a big working to middle class tax cut, right? All these policies that seem very much at odds with the Paul Ryan, Mike Pence wing of the party. And I'm wondering, do you think Ryan and Pence and the Republicans move to Donald Trump? Or do you think it's going to be tough to get something out of this Republican Congress? I mean, listen, I think Paul Ryan died a thousand deaths on election night. I mean, he's not just a sort of conservative in the mold of, you know, believing in free trade and believing in, you know, economic policies that sort of hew to the very traditions of conservatism.

He's an architect of the modern version of those policies. So, you know, will he move to Donald Trump and Trumpism is a political calculation on his part, not a policy question. We know he doesn't believe in any of those things. He's been the creator of policies that are all rooted in the opposite philosophy than what Donald Trump believes in and campaigned on and plans to make so. not because I believe in any of those things. I worked for a president who is still in a book tour this week talking about the perils of isolationism and nativism and protectionism. But, you know, the political reality is that if you want to get anything done, this is Donald Trump's moment.

This is Donald Trump's Republican Party. He achieved this victory without any help from the Republican establishment. The Republican establishment was as uncomfortable with him as the Democratic establishment was. And so he owes them nothing. So if they want to get anything done, they are definitely going to have to move to him because he has no motivation. He has no debt to them. And I just don't see him. I can't even imagine the conversation where they walk in and say, you know, you can't futz with NAFTA. And what does Donald Trump say?

Oh, okay. I mean, he campaigned on it. He won on it. And he converted lifelong blue-collar Democrats to his column for the first time since Ronald Reagan. I just think Paul Ryan, he may fight that fight, but I think he'll lose that fight. Yeah, it doesn't even seem like he's actually going to fight it. As you look as a veteran of a White House communications operation, I was going to ask, how do you think the Trump White House comms operation is doing?

But that's kind of probably an easy question. We've all dealt with leaks in our times in the White House comms operation is doing, but that's kind of a probably an easy question. So like, what, like, we've all dealt with leaks in our times, the White House, you know, how do you think that, you know, Sean Spicer, the Trump guys are dealing with that? And what should they do differently? You know, I talked to Sean this week, he's a he I'm sure you guys know, I mean, he's a really nice guy with an impossible job. I mean, you know, I didn't work in a very leaky White House, but it wasn't because we didn't have cell phone numbers of reporters. It was because we had a rigorous internal process. You know, we could have screaming matches. There weren't a lot of them, but we could have really big fights and we could even take those fights if we couldn't get to an agreement to the president and have him weigh in. And even if we weren't happy with the outcome, everyone sort of,

there was a really rigorous process for sort of making your case and taking it all the way to the president. If you lost, you lost. You hope to win the next time. But if you lost and you leak, you wouldn't make it back into the Oval Office to make your case next time. So there was a process for airing your side, and there was sort of a promise that, you know, that would continue to be the process,

that you'd get to air your, you know, concerns about a current strategy. And obviously, in my case, often it was a communication strategy or a decision to go to an event or not go to an event. Dan Bartlett and I were involved in a series of speeches when public support for the Iraq war had sort of fallen out, the bottom had fallen out. And we suggested a series of speeches acknowledging mistakes in the military strategy and the diplomatic strategy. And there was a lot of opposition. And we made our case, and we prevailed. And only, I think, you know, two years later was it aired that there were some people that had some questions about it, but it never leaked out at the

time that we were having this robust debate inside the White House about whether or not to do something. So my point is leaks are never the cause of anything, they're a symptom. And my guess is it's a symptom of the lack of any sort of process for having debates internally and the knowledge that Donald Trump reads all of his press coverage. So if they want to say something to the president, just leak it. They know he'll read it. You know, when I think about the current incarnation of the Republican Party, which is now Trump's party and Trumpism in general, I always trace it back to at least the first time I noticed this sort of shift was, you know, Sarah Palin, right? During in 2008, which I know you were part of that campaign and very public that you had plenty of problems with it.

But when you were when you were on that campaign, did you sort of see this coming? You know, were there hints that this might be where the party goes, or at least a big chunk of the party goes? I heard a piece for the New York Times in January about this. I mean, I was not aware at the time, but I should have been. I mean, I was traveling with both John McCain and Sarah Palin, and John McCain's events remained, you know, sort of small by presidential political standards. And her events were like Obama-sized rallies. I mean, they were massive and people were just thrilled by her

attacks on the mainstream media, by her attacks on Republican operatives. And by the end, she was openly attacking her own campaign advisors at rallies. People were going crazy, which is sort of the first version of Trumpism, where he sort of openly attacks other members of the Republican establishment and the media at his rallies. So she definitely was Trump 1.0. And I think that, you know, the efforts to try to turn her into a more traditional politician were so wrongheaded. I mean, she was sort of ahead of her time in a bizarre way. And, you know, the problem with letting it rip was that she wasn't at the top of the ticket. John McCain was.

And so ultimately we ran the campaign that he wanted run. But the moment I think that he's remembered for, for his candidacy was confronting one of his own supporters who called President Obama a Muslim. And he said, no, no, no, no, we disagree, but he's an American and a patriot and we just have different ideas on policy. Well, there were people shouting the same sorts of things at Sarah Palin's rallies. And, you know, she, she, she never confronted that kind of nativism. And, and so, you know, I think that was the first sign that the party had gone somewhere very different. And, and, and I think dark, Nicole, do you think if more people had done what John

McCain did in the Republican Party over the last few years, you we might be in a different place? Because after McCain lost, it felt to me, at least someone who was on the other end of these attacks that a lot of people in the republican party um particularly the ones on the hill were sort of just they wanted to ride this tiger as opposed to do anything about it yeah and i'd say that after after you know john mccain's loss you know um john boehner was sort of the next casualty of sort of a civilized Republican Party. And then it just became very primal and very tribal. And it's never the fault of the voters. You don't blame the voters.

They were just, there was something, there was a deficiency in what they were getting from the Republican establishment. The establishment grew so detached from its base, they continued to champion free trade. Well, that's not where the base of the Republican Party was anymore. They continued to advocate a foreign policy that had sort of exhausted the party in terms of being champions for intervening in faraway wars. I mean, I mean, the party had just changed, and it's not the voters' job to keep up with the establishment. It's the Republican establishment's job to keep up with the voters, and it was just a colossal failure to do so,

and it was laid bare and revealed during the Republican primary when every week another one bit the dust. I mean, it was just a, you know, one after another establishment Republican figure viewed as strong and viable before that contest was really underway, tumbled and really withered away when Donald Trump faced them. One last question, we'll let you go. Since you've been talking to so many of these voters, specifically Trump-Obama voters, what kind of Democrat do you think Donald Trump should be most afraid of?

I think that if someone sort of emerges from this part of the electorate, this sort of working class voter, you know, a working class politician, you know, someone who is a, not the son or daughter of a union worker, but an actual union worker themselves, someone who understands how, you know, we in the political class fight about trade and NAFTA as policy debates. These guys lived it. They watched factories that were once sort of glowing and sparkling just become wastelands with windows that don't get replaced and parking lots with no cars in them.

I mean, it needs to be someone that lived that life, I think, who sort of rises up and makes the economic populist argument without all of the nativism and tribalism and without all the isms, you know, without the protectionism, with the understanding that we have to be part of, you know, we have to be a trading partner to other markets. Otherwise, you know, lettuce and tomatoes will cost $60 each. I mean, you know, no one is making the case for capitalism in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, really, in a way that resonates with working class Americans. And I think it also has to be someone that speaks a more inclusive sort of script on diversity.

I think a lot of these voters felt insulted by the national conversations that ensued after Ferguson and after some of the cases, the egregious, horrific, and unforgivable cases of police brutality. But I think a lot of these voters experienced them in a way that we, as part of establishment politics and elite media, didn't understand.

I think they felt like all police officers had been indicted in the conversation that ensued after Ferguson, and that wasn't how they felt about the police. So I think that liberals and elites started painting a lot of social problems with too broad of a brush, and it left too many people out of the conversation or feeling like they didn't recognize the divide. So I think someone that they themselves sort of lived the economic despair that these people live with, and I think someone that can speak about diversity and culture and social issues in a way that isn't condescending and

judgmental will be the kind of Democrat that could give Donald Trump a run for his money. All right. I'm sure that person will be easy to find. She's on the other line. Nicole, thank you so much for joining us and please come back soon. We appreciate it. Thanks, Nicole. Take care. Bye, guys. Bye-bye.

That's all for today. Thanks again to Nicole Wallace for joining us and please come back soon. We appreciate it. Thanks Nicole. Take care. Bye guys. Bye bye. That's all for today. Thanks again to Nicole Wallace for joining us. Uh, remember tomorrow, listen to with friends like these. Anna Marie Cox has a, a new episode. And other than that,

we'll talk to you on Monday. Bye guys. you