Indictment Eve

Matt Gaetz foils Kevin McCarthy's plan to protect your gas stove. And later, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients stops by to talk to Dan about the debt ceiling deal and what's next on Biden's agenda. But first, if you are in the San Francisco area, June 22nd and 23rd sounds like sounds.

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Also, Crooked's newest limited series podcast, Dreamtown The Story of Adelanto, has premiered, with two episodes out now. Dreamtown is the story of a small California city named Adelanto in the desert that is about to go bankrupt. Until a stranger comes to town with a pitch to make Adelanto great again by becoming the first city in southern California to legalize commercial weed cultivation, it's a great story, wild local politics, with a lot of national political themes in the backdrop.

Search for Dreamtown, The Story of Adelanto, and listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the news. So, we are currently on Trump indictment watch again, with multiple reports suggesting that the twice impeached criminal defendant could be charged any day now with violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice. In connection with classified information, he refused to give back to the government. We also got reports that, in addition to the grand jury in D..C. special Counsel Jack Smith has a second grand jury in Miami, where he is expected to possibly bring charges. And that he also let the former president's lawyers know last week that Trump is in fact a target of the investigation.

Dan care to comment on the unverified report that Jack Smith has delayed the indictment. So that it comes right after we hit publish on this episode of Pod Save America, I just hope.

I got the afternoon.

So maybe they could get it done by then, just maybe it would be nice if that. Who will think of the content, Dan?

Our content, specifically, our content. Yes, okay. So can you use the legal degree that you got from Twitter and strict scrutiny to explain what? The flurry of developments over the last few days in the classified documents case?

There's one in Fulton County, there's the one in New York with the Manhattan DA. There is what Jack Smith is doing, and so let's go back. After there were, it came out that Donald Trump was hoarding classified documents at his beach house. Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel named Jack Smith to investigate all Trump investigations because Trump was running for president against Joe Biden.

It's pretty typical to have a special counsel when there could be allegations of political interference. This is exactly why the Republican, why the Republican deputy Attorney General appointed Bob Mueller, our hero and savior, to investigate Donald Trump and the Russiagate stuff. So Jack Smith impanels a grand jury in Washington, D.C. to start hearing from witnesses. We don't know what time. Every once in a while, something leaks out. Or a Trump witness goes out and says that they got hauled in so that they can get their story out there before Trump hits truth social to attack them for whatever. And we kind of know that they are looking at at least two things one is classified documents.

The other is what role Trump may have played in trying to overthrow the election, either through violence on January 6th, or through a cock and maybe scam of fake electors. As you mentioned in your thing, a couple important things have happened the last few weeks. Apparently, at some point in May, Trump got what's called a target letter, which is when a federal. An investigator tells someone that they are the subject of the investigation. They're not a witness, they might actually be the person charged.

That is often followed by a meeting with the investigators. Last week, Trump's attorneys went in there to meet with the Department of Justice to try to suss out the nature of the charges. The state of the case, based on Trump's all caps truths. After that, it appears the meeting did not go well. And so here we are. We are now waiting to find out if and when the, at least in the classified documents cases, is when we understand, according to reporting, that.

You don't want a target letter, you don't want a letter letting you know that you're the target of a federal investigation. Just I have no legal degree, but that's just something that you want to avoid. What do you think is going on with the second jury in Florida? It is an opportunity for everyone who is a lawyer.

It also can happen a little bit more outside of the view of the press than when they all get marched in front of the stakeout of cameras at the D.

C Federal Courthouse. The other, and I think more likely reason, based on some reporting from Carol Lenning at The Washington Post, is that if Jack Smith is going to try Trump, he wants to do it in Florida. Because even though he legally could, because of the of the nature of a crime like the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice, he could charge it in D..C. But the argument for charging in Florida is, if the case is charged in D..C. The very first thing Trump's attorneys will do is run to Fox News.

After that, they will then file a motion to try to object to the venue and try to have it moved to Florida, which will take a bunch of time. And it is very much in Jack Smith's interests for the country for the state of the case to get it resolved as fast as possible. Especially before Donald Trump can pardon himself, potentially in January of 2025. And so this, this, while this, probably there's some legal risk to this. You different jury pool that may be more favorable to Trump in Florida than Washington, D..C. Certainly based on partisanship. If you, if you want to look at it that way, you could get one of those crazy judges like the.

But to be extra cautious, Jack Smith may bring charges in both D.

C and Florida, just to make sure he's doing right. But he may bring the bulk of the charges in Florida. Just because he wants to play it safe and does not want any risk. Of some judge saying, by the way, it shouldn't have been in D..C. And now the whole case is gone, so there you go. We've learned a lot about the law.

Is what I would say. We learned a lot about the law, I'll just say my Twitter list of legal experts. They have a they have a lot to say.

People seem very sure that he is getting indicted, more sure than they were before the Hush Money case. And partly, that's based on just the mountain of evidence that we know about over the last several months in the Mar-a-Lago Documents case. Both on the taking the documents, withholding the documents, potentially obstructing justice, potentially disseminating classified information. It doesn't seem great, it doesn't seem great for him. Yeah, there are three pieces of evidence that have.

Some were even saying it was bigger news than any of the Mar-a-Lago stuff that happened this week. What do you think? I have the same list of Twitter.

This is not a novel legal theory. This is pretty straightforward. You can't steal classified information and then hoard it in your beach house and then pass it out to whoever you'd like. And then obstruct justice. When they ask for it. Back, pretty easy, all right, well, let's talk about the rest of the field.

Mike Pence, Chris Christie and my man, Doug Burgum, are officially running for president. The former vice president, who was nearly killed by his own voters after Donald Trump attacked him for not overturning the election, had some choice. Words for his old boss in an announcement speech where he let it all hang out. I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the.

I mean, he said that he said he should never be president, I think you were grading him on.

Since 2016, we've been on a big old curve that we're bringing all of them on. And you know what, Mike Pence, good for you, good for you. Yeah, I was a little surprised, I was a little surprised, but I guess if the the guy you're running against almost had you killed. And your whole claim to fame was that one time, at the very end of the first term, doing the right thing might as well say something about it. Sure, kudos, right? The Wi-Fi password at his event at his announcement event was kept his oath.

That's the wi-fi, How do I get on this wi-fi? It's kept his oath, so. Pence was later interviewed by Dana Bash during a CNN town hall. On the plus side, he said that, unlike Trump, he wouldn't pardon the people convicted of crimes in connection with January 6th. And he thinks that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, not a genius, as Trump said.

On the minus side, Pence refused to say whether he would pardon. Donald Trump doesn't think that Trump should be indicted in the classified documents case. Because, even though he supports the rule of law and thinks that no one should be above the law, he thinks an indictment would be too divisive. And then he said this to Dana Bash about, uh, whether.

I don't think he's going to be the nominee, what if he is? I have great confidence in Republican primary voters. We have a we have a field of strong and experienced candidates that grew by one today.

And morally, that is in an abhorrent position. Strategically, it's kind of brilliant, because here's what you want if you win the nomination. You want Trump to have some serious skin in the.

Uh, he tried to square the circle by saying that the RNC should change the pledge so that you only you don't have to support the nominee. If they've been convicted of espionage or another serious felony, which you could happen to anyone, yeah, I mean, also, it's just.

Not that they've conducted, they've been shown focus groups where Republicans agree with what Pence did on January 6th after they hear him lay out his side of the story. And Mark Short's argument is voters have only heard the mainstream media side of the story on January 6th once they hear the conservative side of the story from Mike Pence. That's going to be our, that's going to be our ticket, ticket to the nomination. Do you buy that?

And in general, like, what do you think Pence's theory of the case is here? Well, let me answer.

If we do, it'd be cool. I I do think it's possible that there have been focus groups that show that you can convince Republican voters that Mike Pence's refusal to commit treason is an acceptable thing. Because, even even if, even for all the Republicans who only believe that Trump won the election, there was fraud, etc. Most of them still don't like what happened on January 6th today. So I think you can probably sell people that I think it is.

He says a lot about the party. That in the Con column for Mike Pence, for most voters, is that he didn't commit treason. But you?

He's going to stake everything on Iowa and hope that Trump and De Santis just kind of cancel each other out. And that's it, that's his, uh, that's, that's.

No big teleprompter speech, just a town hall where, as promised, he kicked the ever living shit out of Donald Trump. Let's listen, a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving.

The person I am talking about is Donald Trump, I am going out there to take out Donald Trump.

That's your money. He stole and gave it to his family, you know what?

It's an RT based allocation of delegates, so we'll see. Okay, he's got a shot. Then. I loved it, of course, of course. How could you not love that?

Christie was later asked by, Uh, Brett Baer, to reckon with his past support of Donald Trump. Uh, and here's what he said. What changed? He changed, he changed.

Yeah, right, I mean, Mike Pence probably has the best version of this, which is he tried to kill me, and that really opened my eyes to the problem. I guess, Christie.

Yeah, he's a minus 51 percent net approval.

No, he won't even consider 60. That's tough, that's a tough.

You can win so.

And I especially don't care about Chris Christie because he's not going to be president, he's not, he's not going to win this nomination. And if he wants to go down just every day, kicking the shit out of Donald Trump and actually criticizing him like he should be criticized and not doing the whole. It was also funny listening Christie to this like mocking thing about the other candidates, being like, there's someone that I won't name, who's, you know, is not good, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, making fun of that, I like that.

Good go for it, you know? And if that gets a bunch of media attention, um, because the media likes conflict and someone actually kicking the shit out of Trump, then great, perfect go for it.

You know, the liberal media that can't be trusted. Yeah, he absolutely needs to be on the.

I mean, I don't think Doug Bergham, your boy's making the stage. So, yeah, I mean. It's better TV for all of America and more challenging for Trump if he gets there, so I hope he gets there.

So do you think that, like? Part of a strategy for Christy, could be getting Democrats and independents to vote for him in the primary? Just as a way to?

Uh, yeah, that how the role they play in an individual party's primary is dictated by what's happening other side of the ballot. One of the theories for why Obama under underperformed in New Hampshire in 2020 in 2008 is a lot of independent voters thought that Obama had it locked up. So some of them voted for McCain because they had previously supported there was some overlap in Obama McCain voters. You know, you could see, so you could see a world in which, if Christy, I mean, look, what are we?

What are we talking about here? This is insane, this is a stupid thing to talk about. Well, Christy or.

I think that's all on the margins. I think the increased number of independent voters who will be voting in the Republican primary in New Hampshire will have an impact. I don't think it's part of a specific strategy, it's just the fact that there's not, uh, a demo, a competing Democratic primary, happening. So, but I don't think somebody, I don't think there's going to be.

You can already see these people like re-registering as Republicans to vote for Christy or some dumb shit like that. That is, even if that happens, that's not gonna. I don't. I think that is not mathematically significant.

It was an incredible, uh.

There were a bunch of deals before. But this president's operating in sort of a different kind of politics than we've had, or a worse, maybe a worse kind of politics. Just what does it say about Joe Biden and how he goes about politics? That he's able to strike deals like this with a Republican party that the vast majority of whom refuse to acknowledge that he even won the presidency legitimately, they go after his family, they go after his health.

What was his approach to getting this done with this group of people?

So those few days before the State of the Union, when Ron was winding down as chief of staff and I was cranking up. I spent time, uh, in the rehearsals for the State of the Union. Dan, you remember those those sessions? I do, I do, yes. The State of the Union is a big deal because it brings together the priorities for the upcoming year or two of the presidency. So you can imagine the process that goes into figuring out what the most important priorities are, how to frame them for the people.

So I sat in on a couple of those sessions. And central to it was Social Security and Medicare. And the fact that we were not going to undermine the Social Security system. Or Medicare, which tens of millions of Americans rely on now, we didn't know that, you know, someone would shout out from the Republican caucus that the president wasn't telling the truth when he pointed out that some Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare? But the great news is, within a matter of a few weeks, the Republicans had taken Social Security and Medicare off the table. So the president's leadership, uh, I think on the debt ceiling, really began that night at the State of the Union, when he protected Social Security and Medicare. And throughout, it was his strategy and his leadership and our teamwork that I described earlier that enabled us to get to this point.

You know, at the end, Dan, those last several days, you can imagine if you were in your old job as communications, UH director, um, leader of the White House. The pressure that Anita done and team were under to punch back, um, as Republicans were criticizing the president as they were declaring victory. And the President's instruction to all of us was let's give this negotiation the space that it needs. I think we're headed to a good outcome, particularly in this context of divided government for the American people and for Democrats. Let's be patient, let's play the long game. And that's what led to that discipline that, um, I think, was hard to to implement, but was absolutely hard to be disciplined about at times. But I think we did a really good job of implementing.

It really mattered, and again, that was the president's direction. You know, in the middle we were under a lot of pressure, Dan, as you know, to negotiate. McCarthy kept saying, It's been 50 days since we've met. Um, it's been 70 days. Well, the president was very clear when they first met. And that was also just around the state of the union that he was going to put out his budget, which would show our plan for deficit reduction.

It had over three trillion dollars of deficit reduction. Importantly, it had new revenue corporations paying their fair share. Wealthy individuals. The average billionaire pays eight percent, the idea of a minimum tax on billionaires, so billionaires pay their fair share. The way. Same way teachers and firefighters do, who now pay more on a percentage basis, by a multiple than the average billionaire.

Having revenue in an equation when you're putting together a budget is really important, it's not just about spending, the Republicans only want to focus on spending. So, having the Republicans. Asking McCarthy to first put forward his plan for deficit reduction before in a budget and priority so he can contrast our priorities, our values, with the Republican values. Was something the president said in that very first meeting, and we kept insisting upon that. And then, you know what, it was. Three months later, they passed the bill, which showed their priorities and their values, and they're very, very different than our Democratic values and the president's values.

And at the end of the day, making sure that they put their priorities on the table before we begin to negotiate was hard day-to-day. Absolutely right answer that the president had, and the team executed well against that, too. Was that the pivot?

Was that the point? And when they put their budget out, like, how did you? How did that pivot happen? Look, the president always had a.

Once we got, uh, the so-called plan of the Republicans on the table, there wasn't a lot of detail, um, but there were. It certainly gave a direction of where they wanted to head. At that point, we entered into the budget negotiations, you know, clearly, having the debt ceiling created pressure to get to the budget agreement. We did, um, and we talked more later about, you know, that's not a great system, uh, to govern or legislate in this country. And how do we change that going forward?

But I think where we've come out of here. Which? Which is a two-year extension of the debt ceiling with all the President's priorities, from infrastructure to the Chips and Science Act to clean energy investments. To reducing, uh, prescription drug costs and reducing Medicare prices, not coverage prices or costs for the government, is really, really important. All of the president's priorities were protected, even though the Republicans wanted to undo a lot of those things. Now I know two years is a long.

Because the outcome you got, both in terms of the substance of the deal and avoiding the damage. The economy was great this time, but we may not happen next time. I agree with you, Dan, I mean, you know?

Um, and uh, we will be looking at that. You know, you mentioned the 14th Amendment. what other legal or constitutional, uh, avenues should we look at in addition to potentially the 14th Amendment? Are there legislative fixes? But, uh, you know, whether it's a Democrat in the White House or a Republican in the White House, independent of what the composition is of the senator of the House.

We should get out of this. This is not a good way to run a country or to legislate.

How are you? How are you going to use that running room? It's a good question, Dan, and we're really.

Uh, so it's a lot of continuation of of what we've been doing, but we can now focus on it even more so. With these historic pieces of legislation, it creates this enormous opportunity to invest in America. New bridges, new factories, more prescription drug cost, uh, decreases, pricing decreases that benefit the American people. There's so much to do that is enabled by those historic pieces of legislation.

Our job now is to implement, execute, get things done, and then show the American people how this is changing their lives day to day. Better jobs, less expensive health care. And, you know, at the same time, uh, there are, uh, there's things like junk fees, you know. We talked to the president, going back to the state of the union, called for, UH. Families to be able to sit together when they travel on an airplane without having to pay more money.

That's happened. We're going to continue to make people's lives better with issues they deal with every day. Uh, the cost of things. The ability to get from point A to point B without sitting in a lot of traffic, having better transportation options in their cities and towns across the country. You know this, this manufacturing renaissance is real.

The amount of investment in manufacturing that's happening across this country is completely unprecedented, and that's enabled by the president's leadership in this historic legislation. But it's very much, obviously a public private partnership that's working. So we've got a lot to do, um, and we're doing it, and we've got to just keep pushing on all fronts.

How are you guys going to approach making the case for additional funding to support Ukraine against Russia? Look, Ukraine is so important.

Uh, for for the president, and I think Congress will continue to support it. There is support, you believe there's.

You know, in the the the agreement that we started talking about at the beginning. Which is so important in protecting the President's priorities and Democrats priorities, and is so good for the American people. Was a bipartisan agreement. Now, at the end of the day, Dan, I do want to put the data on the table, which is, uh. 75 of the House Caucus supported the budget agreement. 90 of the Senate Democratic Caucus supported the agreement. I think if we were talking four or five six weeks ago, or four or five, six months ago, you probably would have said, good luck with that one, right? I did say that, yes, yes, but. But at the same time, you know, there were Republicans supporting, uh, both the in both the Senate and the House. And it was a bipartisan agreement, the same way the infrastructure Historic Infrastructure Agreement law was bipartisan.

So there are bipartisan opportunities. There's been bipartisan support for Ukraine in our efforts to support the people of Ukraine, and I believe that'll continue.

That's really important. And you know, at the same time I was, I was with the president yesterday and we were talking about this very topic. Dan, the importance of student debt relief. And he brought up the the, you know, the the. The loans that people got, or the or the grants that people got for the PPP program and how how that went to many people who are now voting or or pushing against student debt. And you can't help but to contrast that and how important this is for working class Americans, middle class Americans. The president has done historic work on student debt relief with the program that you're referring to. That's in front of the Supreme Court, where again, we hope that the court does the right thing. You're right that that's likely to come in the next week or two or three, so we're watching very closely there.

At the same time, he's put in place income-based repayment program, so you're only paying a certain percent of your income. An affordable amount of your income each month. On student debt, and no more. And that program is really important and is taken off. Also, relief student debt relief for public service people who participate as teachers, or in the federal government, or in state government, really important. And the President's going to keep fighting for student debt relief. And we will do that in any outcome in the Supreme Court, but again, we're cautiously optimistic that the court will do the right thing. Last question for you, one of the issues.

Corporations, the leading corporations, need to do the right thing, and they're stepping forward with commitments that we're working on right now. That will be announced relatively shortly. We're working across all agencies of the federal government to figure out what we can do from a regulatory perspective so that we can do appropriate smart regulation here. One of the things that's really challenging, you know, Dan, when you, when we work together, um, a decade ago. The regulatory process can be relatively slow, and here, we cannot afford to wait a year or two to figure out what makes sense. What smart regulation that balances the hot, the potential of AI to make our lives better. But at the same time, make sure we're managing the risk for it to do things that would not be good for us here in our country or across the world.

So getting that balance right, being smart, but moving really fast because AI changes every day, so it's not the standard regulatory process of months or years. We've got to act in a much quicker time frame and we're geared up to do that. And you'll see that the president will continue to to lead on AI. We'll do all we can with our executive branch powers and also work with the Hill to advance smart legislation. Well, we'll keep our eyes on that. Jeff, thank you.

So screw the kids with asthma. Problem is, McCarthy's vote failed because 12 of the biggest mega Republicans decided to tank the bill as retaliation for the speaker negotiating a bipartisan deal with Joe Biden. To save us all from default. And apparently they're going to keep tanking bills, Matt Gates tweeted House leadership couldn't hold the line. Now we hold the floor little.

I'm the captain now for Matt Gates, and, uh, and here's Gates on. Uh, why they're so pissed? McCarthy has to decide.

What? What we're not going to do is, uh, hang out with him for five months and then watch him go jump in the back seat with Hakeem Jeffries, you know, and sell the nation out and and underwrite.

What do you think of this whole mess? Enjoyable.

So what do they do? First of all, they set up a like fake vote. That doesn't really matter, because it's just a messaging bill that will die in the Senate anyway. So there was no, there was just no danger of this ever becoming law.

Also, Joe Biden's the president, right? So it's never going to become law. But of course, it's so important to them that that they protect us from the federal government stealing our gas stoves. That they kill the vote because they're pissed at Kevin McCarthy. It's, it's.

They don't give a shit because they got to own the Libs, they are now treating the. What you can see when you walk around New York, just the pictures are like you can barely see five feet in front of you. And they've all decided that this is the media and Democrats using the fires to hype up climate again. This is one of the.

This is one of the Uh clips on Fox News.

This doesn't make anybody cough. This is not a health event. Particular matter is very fine soot. Um, we don't want to breathe. That in all these carbon particles are innocuous, uh, Lancet study said that pollution.

9 million Indians in 2019 alone. Uh, and that's just not what that, like, this is. This is their, this is their standard line on this, this is the Republican standard line.

It's smoke, no one.

In fact, go breathe smoke to own the.

Congratulations Real, but anyway, great stuff in the house, they're, they're. I don't know how this is going to end because they said that they're going to block a bunch of shit. Until what? Until Kevin McCarthy goes back in time and undoes the debt ceiling deal? Like, I don't know what they're hoping for here, I think, what? There, there's a.

It was a similar thing that came on the heels of yet another fiscal deal that led John Boehner to appoint the Benghazi Special Committee. Years after, every government agency and and the Republican House committees had already proven all the.

That's what you should know. Despite what they say, they care more about sticking it to Kevin McCarthy, who, as you said, is the hostage. That's our show for today. Thank you Jeff Zeitz for joining everyone. Have a fantastic weekend. And, uh, Monday night, Uh is going to be the next pod Save America.

We are live, uh, in New York City. Alex Wagner is a co-host. We got Roy Wood Jr. we got Tish James and Hillary Clinton. Dan will be there.

JOHN Tommy Me, we're all gonna be there to be so fun. So that show will come out, uh, Tuesday morning, and it will be recorded Monday night, so, uh, we'll talk to you then. Everyone. Have a great weekend bye everyone.

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