Pod Save America - "The outrage meter is on tilt."

Episode Date: March 30, 2017

Republicans flirt with Trumpcare 2.0, Trump flirts with a government shutdown, and no one knows what the hell is going on with Nunes. Then, David Axelrod joins Jon and Dan to give advice to Democrats and Donald Trump.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Today on the pod we have former senior advisor to Barack Obama, the director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, and the host of the Axe Files, David Axelrod. Finally. This is the crossover episode everyone's been asking for. Like a year in the making. Before we begin, everyone go subscribe to Pod Save the World. Tommy has Gail Smith, who's the former director of USAID on with friends like these. Her show on Friday was excellent. She had Adam Savage on for Mythbusters and they helped someone whose relative was believing in conspiracy theories. And so we talked about sort of like how to stop conspiracy theories,

which is interesting. And then of course, love it or leave it, we're going to have another show this Friday. So sign up for that and check it out. Lovett's not going to interrupt our podcast today. He's not here, Dan. Oh, that's amazing.

Do not, he's not here now. I fully expect at the end, we're about to wrap up and you're like, David Axelrod, it's John Lovett. Just wanted to chime in here. I would not be surprised. And also, our shows and Pod Tours America, our shows in Seattle and San Francisco are sold out,

but there are still tickets left to the L.A. show May 17th at the Ace Hotel here in Los Angeles. So grab yourself some tickets. My main takeaway is that you and Lovett need more friends. Tommy and I did fine on the San Francisco show. I think it's just further away. People want to just bide their time. Ace is a big...

Anyway, we'll see. Whatever helps you sleep at night in your parachute sheets. San Francisco did sell out fairly fast, so that was good. You and Tommy have some good fans up there. Okay. We had a whole outline, and as uh often happen often it happens here at positive america um you know we had to change a little bit because of trump's tweets this morning that usually uh usually roughs up our morning um so he tweeted this morning we must

fight the freedom caucus and the democrats in 2018. He also tweeted that the New York Times has disgraced the media world and said, change libel laws, which is the kind of tweet that if it happened right after he won, people would think it's like the second coming of, like this is like the fascist president we've all been worried about. But now when he tweets it, you're just like, eh.

Is that because we've normalized it or people just think he's too incompetent to actually enact his fascist agenda? That's what I was going to say. It's the latter. Because it's like, oh, you're going to change the libel laws? Like, that requires a legislative strategy. That would require you to pass something through Congress. And we know you've been having trouble with that.

So, okay. No, I mean, it's still scary and horrifying that he would say such a thing. But it's just him and horrifying that he would say such a thing but uh it's just him acting out at this point um now to the freedom caucus democrats thing um what do you think of that legislative strategy dan uh pissing off the 30 to 40 members of the freedom caucus in the house and uh the democrats who the white house has been saying for the last couple days now they are going to reach out to? I don't think, John. I don't want to shatter your hopes and dreams, but I don't think this is a quote-unquote strategy. Yeah, I don't know if it's a strategy either.

Because if it is a strategy, it's a strategy to never pass legislation again, because if you don't have either of those, you don't have enough votes. Yeah, like, I don't know. Where is he's he getting his votes from i mean he hasn't exactly been um very nice to the moderates in in the republican house either you know so that leaves like that leaves like paul ryan and whatever votes paul ryan can get which is certainly not a majority in the house um and he would need he needs democrats in the senate to get most things done unless he's using a reconciliation bill that only needs 50 votes which you can only use you know on health care reform and tax reform now and budget stuff and you can only use it you can only use it once you can only use it once it's like a it's like a

lifeline you know um so during the campaign Trump promised to change Washington, drain the swamp and fight for the working class. Let's take stock of how he's doing here. So he tries to pass a healthcare bill that basically was just a huge tax cut to rich people and took away health insurance for middle class and poor people. That pulled at 17%, couldn't even pass the Republican house. there was some talk yesterday i noticed that conservative house republicans in the freedom caucus were going to talk with the more moderate house republicans in the tuesday group on a deal to revive the health care bill um do we think this has any chance of passing that this could be revived or is this dead for good i to follow the favre rule

of politics never underestimate uh how sort of shameless house republicans can be and so it doesn't seem like it is on the cusp of happening since whatever it is the tuesday group or whatever the moderates call themselves uh declared they would never meet with the freedom caucus again so it didn't seem like they're on the cusp of getting a deal but it would not shock me if they found a way to pass something that had no chance of moving in the senate yeah it does seem like at this point paul ryan just wants to say that he passed something out of the house so that his job is done yeah and i could see them potentially, like, it's not clear to me why they don't just pass the straight repeal bill. They've passed 37 times, even though they know it can't pass the Senate, at least just like,

well, it's interesting to your angry, poor people hating base. I mean, this is a testament to the activism we've seen over the last couple months because you're right the house these same house republicans have passed so many straight repeal bills just taking away obamacare and now a lot of these moderate republicans or republicans in these districts where clinton won or competitive districts um don't believe that they can get away with passing a repeal bill that doesn't replace it with something better or something that covers people or what whatever um because people have shown up at their town halls they've called them and they're afraid of just passing a repeal bill um these people in the tuesday group which i think makes up a you know a sizable i think i think there were like 34 anywhere between 30 and 50 uh uh, on the more moderate side that

they were going to probably lose from this, or at least they had the potential to lose in this vote. Um, but yeah, no, there was this Bloomberg story yesterday saying that the Tuesday group and the house freedom caucus wanted to work together on a bill. But then today I think it was Chris Collins, um, Republican from New York said, uh, yeah, what you just said, they'll never meet with the Freedom Caucus. So cold water on that. Yeah. That seemed like a kind of sketchy report that was sort of poo-pooed by sort of the reporters who were pretty close to what's happening on the Hill pretty quickly. And then Paul Ryan gave an interview to Nora O'Donnell this morning at CBS where a bunch of crazy shit in that interview.

But one of the things he said is he's worried that Trump will go work with Democrats to change Obamacare if the Republicans don't pass something on their own. Wow. Um, wow. I don't think I've ever heard a speaker of the house or president or any leader in Congress be like, you know what I'm really worried about is that my members will go work with the other party. Like that's just pretty blatant. Yeah. It's, I don't really understand. I think it's possible. Paul Ryan doesn't understand what he's trying to do here. Like one theoretical strategy is the only, this may be a cudgel to get the Freedom Caucus is if they're afraid that Trump will work with Democrats, but doesn't seem particularly believable. And certainly if they they see Democrats every day, and I think Democrats

will probably tell them that's an unlikely outcome. Is he just like working out some anger at Trump over how Trump handled the after, you know, all the stories that say they blame Paul Ryan for this. So it's not, this seems like a smart move, whatever the move is. It's, it seems like he's putting his politics with the Freedom Caucus ahead of his politics with anyone else, right? Like he's trying to signal to them, like, if you don't play ball, then I know that you would hate if Trump worked with Democrats, because it would, we'd have more moderate legislation and a more moderate healthcare replacement bill. And so if you don't join the team, and try to make some concessions, what we're going to get is an Obamacare replacement that's more that looks more

moderate or more liberal. It seems like that's what he's trying to do. But I guess it goes to show you how worried Paul Ryan is, which is also how worried John Boehner was, about the Freedom Caucus revolting and preventing him from getting anything done. Yeah, survival first. Survival is the first instinct, I guess. Still. Certainly not to accomplish anything.

It's not to, no know at all um so in the aftermath of this whole health care disaster white house officials have been telling reporters that trump may reach out to democrats to cut a deal on health care or infrastructure which is which is what ryan was afraid of too um so he invited he invited some of these democrats to the white house some of the Senate Democrats. Dude, there's a BuzzFeed story from yesterday that says Trump believes that the Congressional Black Caucus might be willing to cut deals with him. Like, what are these people smoking? Do you think Trump or any of the yahoos at work have any idea what Trump's approval rating is in the districts of the members of the congressional black caucus like zero in some cases apps actually zero i couldn't i mean here's one thing that's happening though which the dc press often does in situations like this

um there's a lot of stories that are focusing right now on personalities and like can trump negotiate with Democrats? Can Paul Ryan and Trump get along? Can this person, that person? And it's like, I always think, and this happened in the Obama administration too, I always think there's way too much focus on the individual personalities and not enough focus on sort of the larger structural challenges that these people are all facing, right? Like, I don't think that like trump is going to win

over democrats by not insulting them or inviting them to the white house or any of that bullshit he'd win them over by proposing legislation that they approve of or at least that's in the ballpark of what they might approve of and allows them to compromise a little bit. Right. And he actually can't do that. Right. Right. Like it is not, there is nothing that Trump can propose that would get Democrats

that Paul Ryan is going to bring to the floor of the house. Because if Paul Ryan brought a bill that had mostly Democrat or large Democratic support, he would no longer be speaker. And so this is like a dumb, you know, there's gonna be a raft of stories that say that Paul Ryan needs to learn how to play golf so he and Trump can go to Mar-a-Lago together and bond.

You know, it's like politics is about incentives, right? Like, what is the incentive structure of the players involved? And there is zero political incentive for Democrats to work with Trump. In fact, there is a huge political disincentive to be anywhere near him, given how horrendous Trump's numbers are with Democrats and independents. The only people who like Trump are Trump's base, and those people have not and will not vote for Democrats in Congress. So they don't give a shit about it. It is just like we have said before

in many of our aggressive and incorrect prognostications around 2016. Like politics is covered like a novel when it is much more, we need hero, we need a protagonist and antagonist and we need a plot line and a narrative. And the truth is you can understand a lot of what motivates people

just by looking at who their voters are, what the approval ratings of the various players are, and what the electoral history in their district is. It's not that complicated. Well, and it's one of the reasons that we ended up getting 2016 wrong, is I think we bought too much into the novel approach, like Trump is the villain., you know, like it's, but there, there were bigger structural forces at play there, you know? I mean, the interesting thing about the House Republicans is like under Obama, I always thought that the, the primary force in Washington that was preventing any progress was the House Republican conference for the reasons that we just talked about, which is that the Republican speaker of the House in order to pass things through the House, needs Republicans and Democrats. But if the Republican Speaker of the House brings Democrats along, there is a group of 30 to 40 Republicans in his caucus or her

caucus that would revolt because they don't want any governing whatsoever. They are extreme far right people, right? And so therefore, nothing can pass out of the House unless it looks, unless it's okay with the Freedom Caucus. Like, the House Freedom Caucus really is holding the rest of the government hostage. They were under Obama, and they are under Trump, too. It didn't matter that the president changed or the party changed. Like, if we do not defeat the House Republicans and, like, wipe out most of that caucus in an election, this pattern will continue over and over and over again. Yeah, the Republican Party is not a cohesive ideological party. It is a series. It's not even a party of, you know, mildly conflicting, somewhat overlapping ideologies. It's a collection of different groups

of ideologues who do not believe the same thing. What Paul Ryan believes the Republican Party to be is very far from what Donald Trump believes it to be. Paul Ryan is close to Wall Street. He's pro-trade. He wants to cut, privatize, eliminate Medicare, Social Security entitlements. Paul Ryan comes from a Wall Street-centered party. Trump comes from a working-class-centered party. You have a bunch of nativists in the middle who are part of both, like Steve King, and who were also part of the Trump world. There's the Breitbart, you know, sort of nationalist Brexit wing. And it's like, this was true in the Obama world, and Donald Trump did not solve that problem by getting elected.

Well, I think the other point, too, is Trump is too, I mean, you could say that Trump comes from this like working class tradition, but Trump really hasn't thought much about his ideology, right? Like it doesn't seem like anyone in his administration really has, right? Like Rich Lowry, a conservative has a very good piece in Politico called the crisis of Trumpism, where he basically argues like the problem with Trumpism is Trump isn't really trying it. He's not trying to pass an agenda that would appeal to the working class voters, at least economically. You know, he's appealing to some nativist tendencies, certainly. But he's not promoting an agenda that would appeal economically to the working class voters who elected him.

He's not even trying because he's being, he's letting Paul Ryan railroad him on all of these different issues. And not just Paul Ryan, we should say, people in his own administration that he has picked to lead his administration from Mike Pence to Tom Price to all of these people who are basically Paul Ryan acolytes, okay?

So, which moves on to our next topic, like because Donald Trump's legislative agenda isn't going anywhere, all the damage he's doing is via executive order. Right. Or when the House can pass something that is what Paul Ryan wants and the Freedom Caucus wants. So there is a lot of bad stuff that's been happening in the last couple weeks. So just before we started this, Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote on a Senate bill that would let states deny Title X family planning funds to Planned Parenthood. This is something that Obama put in place. He passed the first resolution. There's actually one more vote tonight on this,

but it looks like they'll be able to do that. Yesterday, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, rejected the conclusion of the agency's own chemical safety experts who recommended that the government ban a widely used pesticide because it might poison children and farm workers. Do you think that's what Trump voters wanted? Yes. There was a huge populist movement across wisconsin pennsylvania and michigan about too few unsafe chemicals uh out there and i'm glad they could respond to that call on tuesday 264 republicans in congress voted to reverse an obama-era privacy rule that would have prevented internet service providers like comcast and verizon to sell your internet browsing data and history to whoever wants to buy it.

That was something, huh? Yeah, like, I... What? Like, why? I don't understand. I mean, I understand the internet service providers give a lot of money to folks in Congress, but what is the ideological, small government, Reagan conservatism argument for allowing people's browsing histories to be sold without their permission? Yeah, like what voter went to the polls being like, yeah, sell my shit. That's what I want.

I'm voting for Donald Trump because I believe that Comcast should have my browsing history. I think it's too private right now. It's very, there is too much privacy. We must change that. And it's, not only is there too much privacy, large multinational corporations are not getting the opportunity to make additional money off of me. Right. So that one's bad. And then the big one, Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that instructed the EPA to roll back Obama's clean power plan, which would have replaced coal-fired power plants with natural gas, solar, wind, and other sources of renewable energy.

This will take a while. There's plenty of potential for litigation on this, so it doesn't go into effect immediately. But it basically tries to curb most of the government's efforts to fight climate change. They also jettisoned what the government has to do, which is take into account the social cost of carbon. So when you issue a regulation,

you have to judge, you know, how much it would impact, you have to take into effect what the cost of carbon would be, right? And no longer do you have to do that now. In fact, Politico reported that a supervisor at the energy department told the staff not to even use the phrase climate change anymore.'s where we are like all the other things bad this one is really like what the fuck it's just i mean we can come back to the silver linings buried in this very dark carbon-filled cloud but it's like there is a very in a normal world with normal Republicans and a normal functioning opposition party, the response would be, we're going to repeal Obama's solution to climate change. And then we're going to propose our own, quote unquote, in the world wants you to do and save the planet or destroy it and line the pockets of rich fossil fuel industries. It's insane.

It's insane. It's dangerous. It's embarrassing, too. There's a report this morning. The one thing he hasn't done yet is he hasn't pulled the United States out of the Paris agreement, which is an agreement, you know, historic agreement among most nations of the world to curb climate change for the first time. And it brought along nations like China and India that have been, you know, developing nations.

So they pollute a lot more. And they were saying, you know, the United States basically had to push China to be part of this agreement, right? Because China has been growing and using a lot of carbon and contributing to global warming. But now, because Trump's president, they're saying that the Chinese will probably do more than the United States over the long term to curb climate change. And that China may be the one that has to push the rest of the world to do stuff because the United States now will not lead on this because we have extremely reactionary party that is running the country. I mean, it's like you said, like, we can have a debate on how fast or slow you battle climate change and what kind of approaches you use,

whether they're more market or more government based. But we shouldn't be having a fucking debate on whether you should curb climate change or not. It's insane. Yeah, it's ridiculous. The fact that there are these stories out today that China, who up until two years ago refused to do almost anything on climate change, is now going to become the world leader on this. Why we become the laughingstock of the world. Yeah. Do you remember those stories in the transition about how Ivanka and Jared were going to save the planet by pushing Trump to do the right thing on climate?

Yes. And also, by the way, this is what Ivanka and Jared were telling a bunch of business leaders and a lot of the tech people about why they should be on Trump's advisory council because they could influence him. This is like one reason why fucking Elon Musk is still on the council because, oh, maybe I can, maybe I can have some kind of influence on climate change. And well, like does, doesn't seem like that's working, you know?

No, no, it does not. Don't go anywhere. This is pod. Save America. And there's more on the way. So the tough part of this is like some of these executive orders, I think, can be fought through litigation. Right. And so there's a hope that we tie them up in court on a lot of this.

You know, I think we need to put public pressure on them. But a lot of these things are a lot of these actions are just actions that Trump can take on his own that we really can't stop by yelling at members of Congress. But it is something to know and something to remember when we're, you know, running in 2018 and Republicans pretend that they're the party of working class people and not the party of letting corporations do whatever the fuck they please. You know, that'd be a pretty good slogan. Let corporations do whatever the fuck they please. Vote Trump Pence. That's basically the agenda that they have right now from top to bottom. uh good slogan let corporations do whatever the fuck they please i mean trump pence that's basically the agenda that they have right now from top to bottom so um now if you know like if you believe that tax cuts for everyone and corporations doing whatever they want is the

best way to run government then like by all means run on that i don't think a lot of republicans will they'll pretend that they're working people right if you think wall street and large corporations have been getting a raw deal in this country for the last few years, step up. You know, this is your chance to give them the salvation they need by voting Republican. So the most immediate challenge that the crew in Washington faces is that there could be a possible government shutdown if we do not fund the government by April 28th. Very perfectly, the shutdown would happen on April 29th, which would be Trump's 100th day in office. So what is this all about? Well, they have to pass a bill that will keep the government running because you have to, you know, appropriate so much money for the government to keep running. So why is this controversial?

Well, the Republicans control the House, control the Senate, control the presidency. So you wouldn't think it would be controversial, but they need 60 votes in the Senate to pass this government funding bill. So it does require democratic votes. Of course, if they just put up a bill that said, let's keep funding the government at current levels and let's just have the debate about exactly how we fund everything later, it would probably sail right through. That's not what they want to do. Trump has asked for $30 billion in extra defense spending. He's asked for $3.8 billion to build the wall. He wants to pay for some of this by cutting education, Pell Grants, other social programs. So that's one problem.

A lot of Republican senators, Roy Blunt the other day from Missouri was saying, no way is this wall funding going to happen in this bill. Paul Ryan this morning to Nora actually said that he didn't think the wall funding would be in this government spending bill either. The House Freedom Caucus and some other Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood in the bill. That would be a non-starter in the Senate. That would not get through the Senate, not just because of Democrats, but because of some Republicans. So what is the answer here? Well, here's my question for you. Okay, okay you are nancy pelosi or chuck schumer for a second fun paul ryan puts up a just plain straight extension of funding but tells you i need 40 of your votes to pass it right do you help them well if it's a bill that i mean if it just if it keeps the government running at obama era levels of funding yeah i probably do because like at that

point that point then you become the democrats shutting down government which would hurt a lot of people because you're asking for specific things, right? Like you're asking for more funding for X or Y and Z. And I think there's other avenues to do that. I think if I think if Republicans change the Obama era levels of funding at all, to include things like the wall or to defund Planned Parenthood, then you certainly don't give Paul Ryan the votes because then they're trying to get their way through this bill or threatening to shut the government down. And then, you know, that's a fight that you win. I'm sort of torn on this one.

I think you're probably right. But there's a little bit of, you know, sort of fuck you. You treat us like shit. Trash is Nancy Pelosi. John Lewis. Fake tears Schumer and everything on Twitter. Has never reached out to them in any way shape or form and that is like hey we cannot get our shit together to pass our own president's right you

know desire to keep the government running so do some work for us like it's kind of hard enough to tell them to go fuck themselves and figure it out on your own paul ryan you gotta whip whip some votes well i think it's not just like go fuck yourselves the question is what do you want right like if if Nancy and Chuck want to have like a list of demands that that Ryan has to give them to fund the government then like let's see that you know yeah I don't think you do it for nothing you're gonna get some out of it you know the debt ceiling to me is different debt ceiling is very different yes you don't fuck with the debt ceiling you just don't that's like global catastrophe so um now, well, it's interesting, though. I feel like Paul Ryan is sort of going to lean is already leaning towards passing a clean bill here because he told Nora that he wants.

He told Nora O'Donnell this morning he wants the Planned Parenthood defunding in the health care bill, which is funny because he's not getting a health care bill at this point so i don't know if that's just trying to placate the freedom caucus people who want the who they want to defund player and parenthood in this government funding bill right and paul ryan's basically telling them no no don't do it in this bill you'll screw everything up we'll get it done in the health care bill of course there's not going to be a health care bill um and paul ryan also said we're not going to have a shutdown the president doesn't want to shut down i don't want to shut down so it seems like right now a lot of these republicans are leaning towards um screwing over the freedom caucus and not giving them what they want in order to keep the government funding but that's now we'll see what happens you cannot keep the government open and put planned parenthood in there because you cannot get 60

votes for that you can't so i think the the pa Paul Ryan's point, if you want to give him some credit, and I do this very reluctantly, but is you definitely can never get 60 votes for Planned Parenthood. There's a chance you could possibly get 50, which is so – I think his point is if you're going to do it, you have to do it on budget reconciliation. Right. Also, I just hate myself for having you said going to do it, you have to do it on budget reconciliation. Right. Also, I just hate myself for having you said that sentence because it sounds so lame,

but yes. But even then you might not get it. Cause you've got a couple of Republicans who have said that they would not support a bill without Planned Parenthood. So maybe you could lose to get Pence to, to break the tie or whatever, but that's the only shot. Yeah. So that's the shutdown. So we'll see what happens on that in the next couple of weeks.

The other variable here is they all go on recess, I believe, at the end of next week for an April recess. So these members will be going home to their constituents and town halls and district offices and all the rest. So we will see where things stand at the end of next week. But if there is a need to apply pressure to members of Congress, you know, we're going to have to have a big recess here and get people out there because, you know, that will make a difference when they come back and try to pass this government funding bill. Yeah, I think people should put pressure on them. Here's the one thing I guarantee.

They are going to try to do a lot of shitty things that hurt people the second they come back. So have your voices heard now. It's not like they learned their lesson are going to do only good things going forward. These people are going to try to fuck up the country. So show up at the town halls,

make the calls, send the letters, send the you know do what you did the last couple times and made a difference yep so before we get to axe um we should just check in with our pal devin nunes he's had he's just that guy man i bet he wishes he was maybe not on the Intel committee at this point, that he was just some backbencher Republican who was just twiddling his thumbs. No, he's too dumb to know that. I want to know what's going on in Devin Nunes' head. Like, I want to know what he thinks right now. So, last week he informed the White House and the press corps that Trump transition officials had been the incidental target of surveillance operations. Also said that they had their names revealed in intelligence reports that were circulated around the Obama administration.

He didn't tell Adam Schiff, his counterpart on the House Intel Committee, or anyone else on the committee about this information. He didn't tell anyone where he got this information, refused to reveal his sources to anyone. And then it was reported that he got the information while he was at the White House. And then the White House said he was there without anyone at the White House knowing, which is impossible. Unless he jumped a fence. Unless he jumped the fence. Devin Nunes is now a fence jumper.

Sean Spicer actually said at a briefing, he was not sure if a member of Congress had to be cleared to get into the White House. What the fuck? Does anyone brief these people on, like, just the most basic rules of government? Like, people just can come in and out of the White House now? No. Yes. Every single, just so everyone knows, every single visitor to the White House, no matter who you are, no matter how important you are, you're the Speaker of the House, you have to be waved in, you have to be in the

White House records, everyone would know that you're coming to the White House. You don't just slip into the White House, meet a source who tells you that the Trump transition officials were spied on, and then just leave without anyone knowing. Yeah. Just to talk about Sean Spicer for one second. Yes, please. Just so people understand how press secretaries before Sean Spicer operated, not just Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney, and Josh Ernst in the Obama administration, but everyone before that is for hours and hours before the press secretary briefs, his or her large team puts together all the questions that they could possibly get asked and then combs the government for answers to those questions, whether it's what's in the news that day or some international incident or a shooting somewhere in the country.

So they have an answer, right? It's called guidance. And that is a very effective process. It is pretty clear that Sean Spicer does zero prep. Like, even if he didn't want to answer the question, he could have practiced the non-answer before he got asked that. Like, it's an insane thing to say. Yeah, man. Spicy.

Not sure it's working out well for him. Spicy. Not sure it's working out well for him. So like, once again, with this Russia thing, it's just it's like, who knows what's buried at the bottom of all this bullshit. He claims that he doesn't want to interview. Sally Yates was supposed to testify. Clapper was supposed to testify. All these people are supposed to testify. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm like waiting on James Comey. But that's sort of an excuse that he wants to pause all the investigations for right now. Republicans are starting to bail on Nunes being the head of the Intel Committee or, you know, some have called for him to recuse himself of this investigation or at least explain where the hell he got this information that he decided to tell the rest of the country about Trump transition officials being spied on. So Lindsey Graham, John McCain and the Senate have both said something. Charlie Dent, Walter Jones and the House have started saying something. So Republicans are starting to fold here. It's starting to seem like perhaps the House arm of the Intel Committee is not going to give us the investigation that we need that's going to reveal anything important. And that maybe the Senate committee headed up by Richard Burr, Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark

Warner is the only hope here. I think I believe they're having a hearing as we record this. Yeah. I mean, if you were Trump and his team of... Goons. Geniuses, whatever, right? His team of populist nativist assholes, would you... And you believed in your core that you were innocent

and this was a bunch of bullshit, right? Right. You would want Nunez to step down because no one is going to – if Nunez goes into this, he looks at all the stuff, he goes through everything, holds hearings to all the right people, even if he does every right thing from now to the end, no one would believe a clean bill of health for Trump. Right. to the end, no one would believe a clean bill of health for Trump, right? You only want Nunez there if you think there is something at the bottom of this that is bad for you, because you want him to be running interference from you. And so Trump's team is acting like they're guilty by standing by Nunez. Paul Ryan is acting like Trump is guilty by standing by Nunez. Andunez by being Nunez is acting like Trump is guilty. Or they're just a bunch of idiots who haven't been, uh, who aren't playing checkers or chess or anything or any kind of game. What is the game they would be playing? I don't like

hangman. I don't know. No, no, no. Those are, there are words in hangman. So it seems unlikely tic-tac-toe. I don't know. Is know. Is there any game that they can play? I don't know. I think they're just, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Not good though. Not good. It's tough. It's a tough position because I don't know again, we're still in a spot where like

where can we get a bipartisan independent investigation that gets to the bottom of this? Like maybe, maybe Mark Warner can help us here. Maybe, you know, Richard Burr is not going to be as partisan as Nunes was in the Senate. Who knows? I mean, the answer here is the FBI. The answer is the FBI. Yes. Once again, which has worked out great for Democrats in recent months. Once again, a nation turns its lonely eyes to James Comey.

Yes. So that should sit well with everyone. Okay, when we come back, we will be talking to the host of The Axe Files, David Axelrod. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we have former senior advisor to Barack Obama, the director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, and the host of the Axe Files, David Axelrod. How's it going, man?

It's going great for me. I don't know about the country, but it's going great for me, man. Everything's good. It's good to finally have you on. Well, we spent a lot of good time together. You know, I always say the same thing. The best time I ever had in the White House was with you guys. With you and Dan Lovett

and all those guys around the stuff that mattered. You know, and I value it. So, good times. I miss our mustache meetings. Yeah, those are the good old days. Now, State Senator Eric Lesser, who was your assistant at the Times, would email all the speechwriters and say, it's time for the mustache meeting, and that would mean that we'd go sit in your office and talk about all the speeches for the week, and we'd

do that every day. It was the best part of the day. Yeah, it was. I'm sure they're having those meetings right now in the White House. You think so? You think they have meetings every day to say, here are the tweets we're going to throw out today? I'm sure they're carefully constructed. I think it's more like the meetings to clean up the tweets. Yeah, no, I think you're right. How would you like to be?

Look, I'm sure you guys have beaten up on Spicer, and he's made a Faustian bargain for sure. But what a miserable job to have to chase that stuff and to try and justify the unjustifiable, to try and make up sound like down and down sound like up. I just, I would rather be boiled in oil than have to do that well we were just talking about this because uh we're talking about newness and spicer saying like well i don't know if he was if he was at the white house i don't know if members of congress have to be cleared to get into the white house and it's like

can you imagine the meetings, the press secretary prep meetings for the briefing every day under Spicer? Like, what is happening there? I don't think they're happening. Of course, he could have, as Nunes said, he could have snuck

into the White House at night because they don't reveal who comes into the White House anymore. So he could have done that. Or as I pointed out, he might have just been a fence jumper over there. But, no, I know.

I mean, there is a day that goes by that Sean doesn't have to say or doesn't say something that just causes you to scratch your head. And I've known him. Like, I've known him. You've probably known him, too. You know, he was pretty well-liked, and I think he's still well-liked among reporters in Washington. But, man, he's gotten himself into a jam here. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. So, Axe, before you came on, I tweeted this morning that you were joining us, and I asked people for questions for you.

So we have some great Twitter questions. All right. One of the most popular ones was, when does the mustache return? Paul Begala and many others asked that question. Well, I'll tell you what happened there. You know that I shaved it off because I was raising money for epilepsy research. This is the cause of my life. My daughter's life was fairly ruined by unrelenting seizures for 19 years from the time she was seven months old. And my wife started this foundation, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, to raise money for cutting-edge research into epilepsy. And we got this idea,

to slash the stash and raise money. That way we raised $1,000,000, too, including, by the way, $100,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. I feel like I should note that I shamed him into giving me $100,000. I was on Morning Joe, and I pointed out that we never collected the $5,000,000 he owed us when the president produced his birth certificate. And so I said, at least you could give me $100,000 for this. He did. Then I took that to Mark Cuban and said, you can't let Donald Trump outdo you. And he gave me $200,000. So I have a big debt of gratitude to the president

for that. But as I shaved this off on national television, I walked a few steps away after the event, and my wife of then 33 years, Susan, says, I always hated that thing anyway. Good time to tell you. So I am under edict not to grow the mustache back. Susan is awesome. And actually, I look at the old pictures, and I think, that is kind of dopey. Why did I have that thing? I mean, I think that when I look back at the pictures of me I think, that is kind of dopey. Why did I have that thing? I mean, I think that when I look back at the pictures of me with the shaved head for no

real reason for much of the campaign in the White House. Yeah, what was that? I meant to ask you about that. I have no idea. It was very easy. Kind of like a skinhead. I didn't have to go to a barber shop. We were on the road and I could just do it myself, which, you know, don't cut your own hair is my lesson there. I think you guys know if you can, my feeling is if you have hair, you ought to grow it. Those of us who are follically challenged, you know, don't understand why people would shave their heads.

But anyway, go ahead. So the question I get the most is, someone actually asked what the hell is going on in this country, ask him. But I haven't really talked to you, and I talk to you a lot, about these first 60-something days of Trump, and I know there's a temptation to take everything Trump does to like a 10 on the outrage meter every day. So I was going to ask you in your... The outrage meter is on tilt. It's on tilt. But in your mind, what worries have been warranted, and what worries have been unwarranted or

maybe a little over-exaggerated? Look, here's my view. I mean, I don't like the policies. I hate the policies. But I'm old enough to have been through a lot of elections, and I know that when you win, you get to make the policies, and when you lose, you don't. My big concern is, or two really, one is there is absolutely no appreciation for institutions, for the importance of institutions. He will assault any institution, whether it's the media or the courts or the intelligence community, for his own narrow political concerns. He does not see that as a problem. And, you know, so elections come and go, but we have to sort of stand up for democratic institutions.

That's why this Russia thing is so concerning. So that's one of my concerns. The other is, and you guys can speak to this as well, when we came to the White House, I hadn't been in government before, but I was surrounded by people who had a lot of experience. Rahm had been chief of staff. He had been in Congress in leadership. He had been six years in the Clinton White House.

And Pete Rouse was like the guru of Capitol Hill. You know, it spent 30 years there, including with the leader, and, you know and just knew everything. And you could go on and on. There were people who knew how to get things done. You look at this president, the least experienced president in history, never been in government, never been in the military, and you look at the people around him, not one senior person, other than, I guess, Spicer,

has actually served in government. senior person other than i guess spicer has actually served in government uh... so is it really surprising that his major initiatives have kind of crashed and burned and uh... you know i worry about this sort of maybe i should be grateful that some of those initiatives initiatives crashed and burned but what happens when north korea uh... you know uh... uh... you know, launches a missile in our direction. What happens when the, as you guys know, every day in the White House threatens to bring something that you never even anticipated? If you don't have people who are experienced around you and the president himself is inexperienced, it seems to me that's a prescription for disaster. And so that worries me a lot. How do you think the Democrats are handling this strategically?

You know, I think that in the early going, I think they've been fine. You know, I've always been of a belief that, and this probably is unpopular with your vast audience, but I think if an opportunity presented itself to do something that would actually help people, that, you know, as a party, you're foolish to take the posture that you're not going to do it. I'm not in the resisted every. Now, I don't know if that will ever happen.

Right, that's my thing. But if Donald Trump said, I'm going to spend a trillion dollars, I want to spend a trillion dollars, not tax credits for wealthy investors who are going to do infrastructure already, but actually to rebuild bridges and roads and airports and do the things that we really need done in this country and put people to work, should the Democratic Party say, no, we're not going to do that because that would be helpful to you?

I think that's a foolish strategy. I'm even, you know, and this will, if I haven't sent people to the ramparts against me with that. Let me say, I'm ambivalent about this filibuster on Gorsuch. And I understand it completely. Merrick Garland's a friend. I admire him. I think he may be the most impressive nominee ever to the Supreme Court, and the way he was treated was horrendous.

But I just think you've got to pick your battles. Gorsuch is going to be on the court. We know that. So really what the decision is on the filibuster is can you force them to change the rules so it's then easier for them to put the next guy on. And it seems to me the next guy, or gal, likely a guy in their case, could be a really decisive appointment. So, you know, you asked Dan, how are the Democrats doing?

I think doing pretty well so far, but I think there has to be more nuance to the positions, you know, as events present themselves. I guess on the Gorsuch thing, though, I mean, I went back and forth on this at first, too. It's like, if every Supreme Court justice so far has gotten 60 votes, so there was not a filibuster, you know, isn't it incumbent on a president to nominate someone who they believe is in the mainstream enough to garner those 60 votes? Like, which is why President Obama put up Merrick Garland and not someone further to the left. Yeah. He did the responsible thing. Yeah. And, uh, and they did the irresponsible thing. Um, but under normal circumstances, Gorsuch, I think, would get a significant number of votes because he is qualified.

And, you know, most people you talk to in the judiciary would say that, that he is well qualified for the Supreme Court. He got, you know, high ratings and so on. So I don't know. It's a tough one because I think what McConnell did was abhorrent and, you know, really subversive. They would say, well, Harry Reid did this on the pestle, but we're in this mad cycle here. And if we were going to have the battle of the filibuster, I'm not sure I would do it on this one but uh... it seems like that decisions been made you know it's interesting to me i i don't know if you've been following uh... trump's tweets today but you know he's now we have every day on the uh...

freedom caucus uh... and ryan's out there saying look president's gonna have to cooperate with democrats if these guys don't get in line. I wonder, you know, exactly what they mean by that. I mean, are they going to now produce a health reform that actually fixes the Affordable Care Act and maintains coverage and does all the things that Democrats want? I mean, I can't even imagine what they're talking about. It feels like it's not well thought out. Which makes this unusual.

This is the exception that proves the rule, yeah. But I guess that could be the case. Axe, how do you think Democrats sort of break through the noise with an economic message, right? Like, we talk a lot about the Clinton campaign, and, you know, she didn't talk enough about jobs and the economy, and then the Clinton campaign will say, well, yeah, we talked about it every day, but it never broke through. And, you know, I think there's some truth on both sides, right? Like it's when Trump gives people shiny objects to go run after. And then that's what the news covers that day. And it's hard to sort of break through with the message on economic stuff. And I can imagine this happening in 2018

and 2020. Is it just that the party needs to be more creative, more disciplined? What do you think? stuff and i can imagine this happening in twenty eighteen and twenty twenty uh... is it just that the parties to be more creative more disciplined what do you think uh... i think it you know that the the problem with hillary's message was there was always uh... like uh... a thousand trees and no forest uh... you know at at at the first level an economic message has to be a values-driven message.

And, perhaps, you're one of the great writers of our time, speechwriters of our time. You've written some wonderful words over time on this. And you remember some of the great speeches on economics that the president made were very much about not just programs, they were about the values behind them and why it's important that people have opportunity and what a job means. So I think that values-based argument was missing from her rhetoric, and that has to be restored. But I have another concern, which is, you know, there's a lot of... Trump has...

He pandered to the alienation that people feel, the sense of loss, the sense of being left behind in the economy, the sense of being disrespected. And he identified villains, and the villains were Mexico, and the villain was China. And the real story of our time, and the one that I think is most menacing, is not China and not Mexico, but robots and computers. You know, there was a study recently that said in the next couple of decades we're going to lose 40% of our jobs to automation. And that's going to keep moving up the scale.

I mean, how long will it be before artificial intelligence produces better podcasters? That's kind of a scary prospect. What? That's not possible. But the point is, we don't have an answer to that. What's our plan for that? I mean, it's a difficult one because you can hand people checks, but jobs are about more than paychecks. You know, jobs are about dignity.

They're about self-worth. This is a major challenge for our country. And I saw Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, say, well, automation's not on our radar screen. That's pretty scary. And I think Democrats need to say, what are we going to do in this new economy? How are we going to make sure that people have meaningful employment, get compensated fairly for it, have the education and training they need to fill the jobs of the future? So I think there's a great big open space there.

And it may not be as sexy as China and Mexico, but it's much more important. How do you think Democrats should think about, like, there's sort of a choice here, it feels like, like McConnellism, right, worked for winning the 2010 elections, right, against us. Right. But it clearly has had some long term consequences for them. Do you think trying to take the House back is important enough to spend some long-term political capital to have a shot at gaining seats in 18? as McConnell did to produce failure or the perception of failure or to exacerbate people's frustrations and create a better climate for change? Is that what you're suggesting? Yep. Yep.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's the big question, is if the Republicans aren't going to cooperate in the first place. You know, it was hilarious to hear Trump go out and say, well, Democrats, you know, killed this bill because we didn't get one Democratic vote. They didn't ask for one Democratic vote. They didn't try to get a Democratic vote. They didn't want a Democratic vote. And that's a big difference between Obama and Trump because we spent a full year on health care trying to involve Republicans. There were over 100 Republican amendments in the Affordable Care Act.

There was none of that. So there's a real impetus to say, fine, you want to run it, you run it, and let's see how it goes. And that's a respectable theory. The exception is, Dan, if something surfaces like an infrastructure bill, do you say, no, do you say, I'm not going to take this chance to put, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions of people to work because it'll create a more favorable environment in 2018? That's a very tough call.

And I may be soft-hearted, but I feel like it would be turning our backs on those people. And I'm not sure it wouldn't backfire on us, because Trump would surely use it in 2018. So I just don't know. But I know that it is the debate. It is the debate right now. So you guys will be interested because of the enterprise that we're involved in that I sat down the other day to do a sort of podcast on TV with John McCain. Oh, nice.

It's really interesting. It's airing this Saturday night, right, on CNN? It's going to be on CNN on Saturday night. Excellent. Opposite the Oregon-North Carolina game. it's going to be on CNN on Saturday night opposite the Oregon North Carolina game so I know you guys

probably won't be watching so DVR is a four man but the it was interesting how nostalgic he was for the days when he could work with a Ted Kennedy, when you could have, you know, he said we'd have titanic fights and call each other all kinds of names, and

then we'd walk off, and Teddy would put his arm around me and say, well, we did pretty good, didn't we? Or he talked about his relationship with Mo Udall, who predates you guys, but was a great towering liberal leader in the House from Arizona in the 70s and 80s, early 80s. And Udall died of Parkinson's disease and was quite debilitated at the end. And I asked him, because someone told me that he used to go over and read the Arizona clips to Udall at the end of his life, even though Udall couldn't respond, because he

loved him. And yet they disagreed on everything, you know, or most things or many things. They worked together on some. And it was interesting to hear him talk about that. He also, by the way, you know, every time I tried to get him a comment on Trump, he'd say, well, I have confidence in his national security team. So what about him? Well, I don't know who he's listening to.

So finally I said, you were the face of the Reagan Republican when you got elected. You were sort of the poster boy for the Reagan generation of Congress. A lot of people who support Donaldald trump uh... assign the reagan tradition and i say he's he's like reagan he's a disruptor like reagan that was the one place where uh... mccain just couldn't he couldn't restrain himself and he said uh... uh... not not at all no comparison and then he went off on you, how can you compare a guy who calls, who says the United States is like Putin, with a guy who said tear down that wall.

And he went off on this long riff about that. So he kind of left it, he let his cards down there. And obviously no love lost. No, I'm sure. So when we ask people for questions for you, some version of this question came up quite a few times. And I thought it would be an interesting one to ask. Someone said, why is he so damn reasonable? Doesn't he realize what's at stake?

Which I thought was an interesting way to phrase it. Now look, I've known you for a long time. And you are a proud liberal. And you're a political fighter. And if I was putting together a campaign team to go against anyone, you'd be like the top draft pick. But I think you're a commentator now, too. And if you ran, John, I would get out of what I was doing, and I would be drafted. Perfect.

I've been working on a draft Favreau campaign for a long time now. Yeah, there's a lot of podcasts. Favreau would be a. Perfect. I've been working on a draft Favreau campaign for a long time now. Yeah, there's a lot of podcasts. Favreau would be a great candidate. Yeah, it's a West Wing pout line, Sam Seaborn. Maybe we could work that out now. Yeah, well, we'll see. No, but I mean, I guess the question is,

you have been pretty reasonable over the last year or so since you've left the White House. How do you deal with that? First of all, my job, know what i found that i did not want to be in those little cable tv boxes you know fighting with some uh... simply faced uh...

you know republican firebrand over planned parenthood you know that's not the role i want to play my life at this point uh... i've been involved in this in forty years i've seen a lot and parenthood. You know, that's not the role I want to play in my life at this point. I've been involved in this in 40 years. I've seen a lot. And I try and bring the perspective of those 40 years, you know, and I know people were annoyed with me when I was critical of Hillary's campaign during the election. I think I was right about those criticisms. They were criticism based and born of my years of experience. And, you know. I think I was right about those criticisms. They were criticism based and born of my years of experience. And, you know, I think the result spoke for itself. You know,

there's no doubt Jim Comey heard her candidacy. The Russians were outrageous and subversive of what they did. But it takes work to lose to Donald Trump, you know, and I tried along the way to say, you know, I don't think this is the right thing to do, and that's the role, and I was obviously quite critical of the Trump campaign and other campaigns as well. That's the role that I'm playing at CNN. There are plenty of people there to be surrogates, you know, and I can get quite passionate, They're to be surrogates. And I can get quite passionate, as I did over the health care debate.

You guys both know I'm very emotional about the Affordable Care Act because of the experiences I had in the health care system with my kids. But I think it's good to have some perspective, and it's good to say, yeah, these institutions matter. have some perspective and it's good to say yeah these institutions matter uh... and uh... the institute so the survival of our institutions is uh... important because there will be a democratic president again there will be a democratic congress again i believe

that the progressive message will prevail uh... you know because we've got the nature of our system. It's, you know, we go in cycles, and I think there are good progressive answers to a lot of the, you know, I don't think you can solve a lot of the problems that we face today without a government and without us working together as a society to face them. But, you know, my job there is to bring some historical perspective, to bring the

perspective of someone who's worked in 100, whatever, 50 campaigns, who's worked in presidential campaigns for a long time, who's been in government, about how this all works and doesn't work. And I know that frustrates folks sometimes, but it's a role I'm comfortable in playing. Cool. All right, Axe, let me ask you one last question. Let's hypothetically say Donald Trump calls you up and says, I gave you $100,000 and played a prominent role in getting rid of your mustache. I need you to give me advice.

You can be the Mark Penn to my Bill Clinton. What advice would you give Trump to get out of the situation he's currently in? I don't know about that Mark Penn analogy, Dan. Just stoking the fires. I would say, first of all, I would say address the things that I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation. Get rid of some of the folks you have. Bring in some people who can actually get things done, who know how to get things done.

And, you know, the thing that you can't do, though, and the thing that I don't know how to solve is if you don't have a worldview, if you don't have a philosophy, if your only philosophy is sort of self-promotion and self-perpetuation and branding and all that stuff, you know, our experience was with a guy who came to office with a worldview. He understood where he wanted to lead. There were things, values, and there were things that were important to him, and it

drove everything. Everything flows from the top. How do you say to a guy who doesn't read and doesn't really have much intellectual curiosity, you know, here's how you should drive your administration? It's pretty hard to import perspective, conscience, vision, you know. But I think that's where he's left to. That's where he's left to, so he's got to find some people around him who have both experience and perspective and try and make something coherent out of it.

I'd also kind of lay off the tweets, you know, which I know he loves and he thinks it drives. And, you know, it does probably drive his base. I mean, it does keep him afloat with those folks. You know, I saw 47% and 67% of Republicans said in the CBS poll yesterday they thought he was being bugged during the campaign. So he's reaching some people, but at some cost, you know, in terms of diverting attention from the thing that he should be relentlessly pursuing, which is jobs, jobs, jobs, the economy, the economy, the economy, which is why people in the main elected him.

Axe, thank you so much for joining us. Guys, let me say, I am proud of what you're doing. I'm proud of what you've put together. I am proud of what you're doing. I'm proud of what you've put together. I think one of the great honors of my life has been to be associated with all you guys, and that includes with Lovett and Tommy and the whole Crooked Media crew before you were Crooked Media. And I really look forward to seeing what you guys do in the future.

Well, I appreciate that. And, you know, along with Barack Obama, I don't think I've learned more about writing and politics and communication from anyone but you. So I appreciate that. That's why I'm going to be chairman of your campaign, man. That's right. We're getting the gang back together. I can't wait. Barack told me he's coming out of retirement for it too, Fav.

We're all coming out of the woodwork. Listen, all you people out there, all you Pod Save America people, if you want Jon Favreau to run for public office, tweet, email, text, do whatever things you do on social media. Get something going here. I am happy with my podcasting career for now. I'll tell you that. Axe, everyone go subscribe to the Axe Files

and tune in to CNN Saturday night at 9 p.m. to watch Axe interview John McCain. Axe, we'll talk to you later. Thanks for coming by. All right, brother. Thank you. Okay, that is our show for today. Thank you, David Axelrod, for joining us.

And we'll see you again very soon bye guys you