Two Strikes. Is Hegseth Out?

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about the latest drama with Mike Johnson and House Republicans after their way-too-close-for-comfort win in Tuesday's Tennessee special election, as well as Donald Trump's promise to come to their rescue.

with a nationwide messaging blitz on affordability, the issue he calls a con job. We'll also talk about Trump's especially disgusting, even for him, comments about Somali immigrants and how the Pentagon press corps has now officially been replaced. with intrepid journalists like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz. Then Dan talks to Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries about Trump's pardon of Congressman Henry Cuellar, Mike Johnson's headaches, and lots more.

But let's start with the new developments and what is still the biggest political story of the week. Had to do it. Had to do it. Because he is. Because he is. Hexeth continues to live up to the song. A new independent investigation of Signalgate from his own Department of Defense found that his actions put American troops at risk. We'll talk more about that in a bit. And...

He was defiant this week about the Pentagon's decision to murder the survivors of a September strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat. Here's Hegseth during one of those 24-hour cabinet meetings where everyone takes turns glazing Trump while he catches a few winks. Got another use of glazing, huh? We've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco terrorists...

at the bottom of the ocean. I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire. It was exploded and fire, smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital, this is called the fog of war. This is what you and the press don't understand.

You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody. I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we've got a lot of things to do.

So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. It didn't stick around for that second strike because I had to go back to my air-conditioned office, which was much like the air-conditioned set on Fox News where I was previously employed before this job. Like...

What the fuck is that guy doing? It's his first strike on a boat, on a Venezuelan boat, and he had to go somewhere else? What was he doing? Was he going to fucking take some kind of Department of Defense nameplate off a door so he could put Secretary of War back on there? Like, what the fuck? I assumed that in the room in which you watch these strikes live, you can't bring your phone. As we know, this guy's got a lot of group chats happening. And so we had to go back and check in.

Other meetings. Okay. On Thursday, Admiral Frank Bradley, who gave the order to kill the survivors and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Raisin Cain, briefed members of Congress about their rationale for the second strike in a classified closed-door session that included... included video footage of the attack. Republicans left the meeting.

Largely satisfied, Tom Cotton called the strikes, quote, righteous and entirely lawful. He also said, quote, I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight. Democrats, unsurprisingly, had a completely different take. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told Greg Sargent at the New Republic, quote, This did not reduce my concerns at all or anyone else's.

calling it a, quote, highly questionable decision that these two people on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind of fight. And here's Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, speaking to reporters after the meeting. What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion.

with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States. So we have moved from fake news, it didn't happen, to where we always seem to end up with Trump, which is... We did it and we're proud of it. Now that Republicans in Congress seem satisfied because it did seem like there were some...

some cracks in the support among Republicans and some questions that Republicans in Congress had about this. But now Tom Cotton and the rest of them seem like they are on board again with the administration's explanation. Where does this story go from here?

I think the question is going to be if and when the video is released, because based on what Congressman Himes and others have said about the video, it is quite disturbing. Based only on the description. Obviously, we haven't seen it, of course, but it seems to completely undermine what Hexeth has said. The argument here, because the rationale, and this is important, the rationale is that this lethal strike was necessary because...

These two people on a destroyed boat were either going to reenter the fight. We don't know what fight that is or how they would conduct it. Or more ridiculously, continue the effort to deliver the drugs. Were they going to paddle with their hands? Like, how are they going to get it? It is absolutely absurd. If the video says what these Democrats say, it says it completely exposes.

The fallacy at the heart of the entire Republican argument here of Trump's defense, of Hexed's defense, of the military's defense. Yeah, they were trying to say that they were going to radio or somehow call for help to other. You know, quote unquote enemy combatants, part of this drug smuggling ring that's heading to the United States, though they at least Adam Smith told Greg Sargent that in the briefing.

The official said there were no records of any kind of communication. So this is just a guess on their part. And he also said that from what he saw in the video, that it was just like two shirtless men. sitting on a capsized boat. He's like, what you would expect from survivors of wreckage like that. And even though Adam Smith said he believed them that there were drugs originally on the boat, he said once it was hit, there is no proof.

that the drugs were still on the boat. But, like, that aside... Even if they were, what were they going to do with the drugs? I thought about this when we first started talking about this story about the second strike. Like, the focus on the second strike, which is completely understandable, because that's... been the big story of the week. It's making the first strike somehow seem like less of a war crime by comparison, but it's just as horrifying.

and likely just as illegal because the administration has offered no justification that the people they are murdering because they say they're part of a foreign terrorist organization that threatens the United States. They have no evidence that they are other than the existence of cocaine on their boats. So you are part of a foreign terrorist organization that is threatening the United States, the safety and security of the United States, because you happen to be on a boat.

with drugs that is that is what the u.s government has decided now with cocaine and that is insane it is insane to say that people who are on boats with cocaine are enemy combatants who can be murdered by the U.S. military with no arrest, no trial, no conviction, no due process. It's like, it's insane. It is insane. And in that boat...

Even if you that boat wasn't even headed to the fucking United States. It started to turn around when the strike hit. It had already started to turn around. You raise a really good point here, which is it's easy to get like once you start talking about war crimes. You start talking about this from the context of this happening within a lawful war. Right. This is not a lawful war. There is no justification. There is no congressional authorization. There is no evidence. It is just murder.

Right. It is pure murder under the argument of self-defense. But the argument for self-defense seems absurd. These are not. people taking bombs to the United States or anything like that. There was not an imminent threat to the United States that would require these people to be killed. Why couldn't they be arrested? Why couldn't we stop the boat? How come, like, when Hegsef ever testifies, or any of them testify in open, but for Congress, and it's public, like...

I want someone to answer the fucking question why the Coast Guard can't do what they always have done in the past and interdict these ships and arrest these people. And the military could do it because they're in international waters. Of course. Right.

But yeah, that's what we've always done to stop drug trafficking is you have stopped the people, seized the drugs, arrested the people, sent them back to where they came to be prosecuted, brought them to the United States to be prosecuted. And none of that is even on the table. And it is. The whole thing is so bizarre because it's not even clear what the end game is other than just death for the sake of death. I think they probably believe.

that it is all much like their immigration policy and the horrors they're carrying out there, that it's all about deterrence. And that if people in Central and South America who are smuggling drugs here, that boats are getting blown up by the United States, they won't even try. And so they think this is.

some kind of deterrent and because they think it's a deterrent, they feel like it's completely justified just murdering people left and right who they happen to believe are on boats with drugs. That's it. If there's one thing the war on drugs has taught us, it's that harsh penalties and deterrence work. Right. Yeah. Oh, wait, no, no, no. That is the opposite of what has happened. And the other thing on this, on the call, I think this is also just notable because the-

Original order that Hegseth signed off on said that essentially there could be a second strike if there was some sort of hostile act. And included, according to the story of the Wall Street Journal, among things that include a hostile act is calling back to the cartels. Which is why they cited that here, even though there was no evidence of it. A call for help being the equivalent of shooting at American troops or an act of war.

is an absurd proposition. I do understand that if these people were called back to the cartel and you had reason to believe that other members of the cartel were coming to the scene of the wreck. uh by a boat with weapons or whatever else that you would not then it would be risky to send american troops to rescue those shipwrecked traffickers but there's no evidence of that and also we had full surveillance on the area so you would know where

whether there was other people coming or not it's just this was this was just to kill people for the sake of killing people it is also worth repeating as we have said a couple times in talking about this story that this was the first strike on september 2nd there have been Many strikes since then. There have been about 80 people that we know of killed. And in a subsequent strike, when the first strike did not kill everyone on the boat, the survivors were picked up by the Coast Guard.

not tried, not arrested, sent back to their countries where they were just let free. So these enemy combatant terrorists who pose such a grave threat to the United States were just freed and sent back, which shows you.

how dangerous they really are or how little how little evidence we had to um prosecute them if we wanted to right and and obviously the president cares a great deal about drug trafficking which is why he pardoned the former president of honduras who was involved in one of the big biggest drug trafficking rings uh in modern history um so he cares a lot about that there's a story in the new york post

before we started recording, that there's a Long Island drug dealer who was freed by Trump because, of course, had connections with the family, I think with Kushner's dad, who was freed by Trump. They met in prison. Yeah, probably. Freed by Trump. Now convicted again of molesting his kid's nanny and threatening a synagogue congregant. That's the headline in the New York Post. So again, this is an administration that cares deeply about prosecuting drug crimes. We know that. We know that.

Did you see the reporting from the Wall Street Journal on Hegseth forcing out the commander of U.S. Southern Command back in October? I did. There's an anecdote at the beginning of that story that talks about Hegseth's first conversation with this.

with this commander and where he basically says on the secure call basically all right but i give you an order you do it fast you don't ask questions this guy is a four-star head of the military operations in the caribbean less than a year into his tenure he leaves It's from the Journal, because they say he had concerns about the legality of the strikes. And this is someone who, during his Senate confirmation hearing in September, argued for a more muscular approach to dismantling drug cartels.

And talks about how, you know, when he first started his career, he started doing sort of anti-drug trafficking operations. So this is not like someone who wanted to crack down on the drug cartels. But for him, who was like going to.

be confirmed to work in the Trump administration once he got there and heard from Hegseth, thought it was too much and was worried about it. And the fact that he left at the height of the military buildup in a lot of military experts say is very, that's highly unusual and very telling.

And imagine this guy. I mean, also, this guy served his country for his entire life. His first job is to get his first interaction in this job is to get yelled at by a cable news host. And then his second task is to devise war plans for seizing the Panama Canal. Oh, yeah, that's right. And he wasn't moving fast enough on that, so that was one of the early strikes against him, according to Hegseth.

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So in some really exquisite timing for Pete, the Pentagon inspector general's report on Signalgate went public just as the commanders were on the hill trying to explain away the double tap strike. Hegseth tweeted, total exoneration case closed, which of course...

is not true. The report actually said, quote, Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send non-public DOD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DOD information, which could cause harm to DOD personnel and mission objectives. In other words, Pete Hegseff, by running his mouth too much on signal with all of his buddies in the administration, put American troops at risk in that operation when they were bombing the Houthis.

So in one week, we have learned that the guy who runs our military may be responsible for war crimes and put American troops in jeopardy by talking about sensitive information on an unsecured device, which, of course, a mistake that we know. our president cares about deeply. Again, it was, you know, back in 2016, cared about it deeply. Do you think that Hegseth's job is still safe because Trump just doesn't want to show weakness, doesn't want to give?

Doesn't want it to be seen giving his opponents a win. I do think it's Jabbos safe because in Trump world, the only mortal sin is disloyalty. So you can be corrupt. You can be incompetent. You can be a anti-vax wackadoodle. It can be all of those things as long as you are loyal to Trump. And so this will just, I mean, I guess you're right. Like if the video is released and that causes more of an uproar.

maybe there's more pressure, but I don't know. The pressure will be on the Admiral, right? It's like every other scandal, they just weather it. And they don't care. They figure everyone's attention is going to go somewhere else. And so Pete Hegseth continues to just fuck up his job as the top official overseeing the most powerful military on earth.

And also, I think Trump likes it when his staff members, his cabinet members feel like their job is at risk or they're in trouble because that's more leverage. Because what Trump wants is someone who's going to do whatever they say.

and not disagree at all, not push back at all. And PTXF has no position, is in no position to push back on anything. So no matter how illegal the order, no matter how absurd the request, he will do what Trump says. And that's what Trump wants at the end of the day, above all else. Yeah, you can be.

You can be as incompetent as you want. And plenty of his cabinet officials have taken him up on that. Pam Bondi, for example, over at DOJ. I don't know if you saw just before we started recording. The brilliant legal minds at the Department of Justice have failed to secure an indictment of Tish James 10 days after a judge threw out their first indictment.

Just absolute confidence. They're 0 for 2 on trying to indict Tess James for mortgage fraud. They are 0 and 1 on trying to indict James Comey for mortgage fraud. And, wouldn't you know... We also learned today that the Government Accountability Office, which is a independent organization, but under the purview of Congress, has opened an investigation into Bill Pulte, the federal housing official who.

spends most of his days, I guess, accusing politicians the president doesn't like of mortgage fraud so far unsuccessfully. So they're crushing it. It's, I mean, it's, you always just have to sit again. That's the easiest thing to do. in our criminal justice system is to indict someone. I think it's a flaw in our system, but the saying is you can indict a ham sandwich and these guys cannot indict a ham sandwich. They're too dumb. The cases are too spurious. The evidence is too thin.

And they keep failing, falling flat on their face. Do you think they try again? I guess they can try again. How many times could you just keep trying to indict someone over and over? Yeah, you're only freed of this when you get acquitted. Yeah, I was going to say something. Man, they are. Starting to think that maybe these charges aren't on the level about the mortgage fraud. I mean, pot seems possible. All right.

You and Lovett already did some reaction to Tuesday's special election in Tennessee 7, where Afton Bain didn't pull off the upset, but did hold Matt Van Epps to single digits. What was it, like nine? Nine points? Nine. But we now have some more reaction from Republicans. They aren't encouraged, to say the least. Here's Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett, who's about as conservative as they come.

Evangelical Christians, which I associate with, 45% of them don't go to the polls. 30% of gun owners don't go to the polls. Yeah, we got a real problem and we better wake up. What do you think? You think he's speaking some wisdom there?

I listened to the full clip and I don't think he fully understands the scope of the problem, but he is correct that there is a problem. So give him credit for that. Yeah. You've written a couple of message boxes about this now. What are your big takeaways from Tuesday night now that we've all had a... a few days to process. So throughout the course of the year, Republicans have dismissed the...

previous special elections by pointing out, somewhat correctly, that Democrats always do well because it's a low turnout special election. So it's not really indicative of things. And we know that because we did well in special elections in 23 and 24, and we did not win the presidency.

Then they sort of dismissed the victories in Virginia and New Jersey and elsewhere, saying these are taking place in largely blue states. Here you have an election that took place in a deep red district, and it was not low turnout. The turnout on Tuesday night was. Just as high as it was on Election Day 2022 in the last midterm. So this is as good a dry run as we're going to get to understand how voters are interpreting the economy. Trump.

backlash to the extremism, all of the above. And so this is very hard to, you can't dismiss this. And so I think the main takeaways are the Democratic base is fired up. Afton Bain received 20% more votes than the Democrat who ran in 2022. While Republican turnout was high for a special election, Matt Van Epps, the Republican who won, received about 9,000 less votes than...

Mark Green, who was the incumbent in 2022. So Democrat turnout is way up. Republican turnout, not the same. We don't have exit polls here. So we can't know for sure. like we did in Virginia and New Jersey, about how many Trump voters or Republicans voted for a Democrat. But the math in a district this read suggests that certainly a lot of this has turned out, but some of it is also persuasion. So there are some people who...

Probably similar to New Jersey and Virginia who are soft Republican voters who voted for Trump because of prices or whatever else voted for a Democrat this time. That's a very positive sign. The other thing that I think is really interesting here is the absence of Trump.

Trump did a couple like fake teletown hauls, which is always what they do to let him say he did something. His only other appearance in the race was he happened to call Mike Johnson when Mike Johnson was at a press conference and Mike Johnson put him on speaker. Classic. But interestingly enough, Trump showed up in no ads, not even like GOTV stuff down the stretch. And that's really, really interesting because in a, like this was a swing district.

You understand that decision because Trump will gin up Democratic turnout more. But here's a race in a district so Republican that if you turn out every single voter, you gin up everyone, Republicans win by a lot. And so they made a decision that they decided not to use Trump. That was a conscious decision. They did it for either one of two reasons. The first being they thought he wouldn't turn out voters that much. It's interesting. And the second.

is that he was so toxic to swing voters to independence that it would push more people into Baines camp. And there's reason to believe the latter one is certainly true. Because in the Gallup poll that came out recently, Trump's approval rating among independents is 25%. On every single issue, a majority disapprove of what he is doing. And independents tend to make up in the 2022 midterms, they made up basically a third of voters.

And so if you are losing three of every four independent voters, you don't want Trump anywhere near the race. I think that has real implications for what the midterms look like and how Democrats can use Trump and how Republicans can't. Do we know? that it was the Van Epps campaign's decision not to have Trump come? Or could it also have been the case that Trump was just... lazy and didn't care. I think Trump visiting would be a relatively extreme measure for a special election.

But they didn't even use him in ads. He didn't record one of those weird videos that you put out. I've seen no reports of Trump robocalls at the end. He just was... Did he even post? Maybe he posted. Yeah, I think he posted. But he posted on Twitter. That's a fake thing to do. It doesn't really affect. What percentage of people in the 7th District of Tennessee are seeing his tweets on the ninth most trafficked social media site?

That's where he calls for Democrats to be hanged. Yes, yes. I mean, not that his tweets don't matter. They do matter. But it's not a particularly effective or efficient GOTV tool. Have you...

so obviously this is like a rough calculation but what uh it was a trump 22 district she lost by nine so that's like a 13 13 point swing yep have you done the math where like if uh in the midterms it was a I don't know, 10 plus point swing, like, you know, 10 and change if you're sort of, you know, approximating it, how many seats we'd win. Yeah. So there are four Republicans in seats Kamala Harris won right now. There are.

I think 10 Republicans in seats that Trump won by five or less. And then there's another 14 or so that are in seats that Trump won between five and 10 points. And so that gets you to 28 seats. Now, there are some Democrats in seats that are... Jared Golden's seat. Jared Golden.

Who's now running again? Henry Cuellar, Don Davis in North Carolina, who are a handful of people who are in very gerrymandered seats. They're Democrats who are in either lean or solid Republican seats, according to the Cook Political Report ratings. But the question- None of them are in Trump, like over Trump plus 10 seats, right? No, no, no, no. But they're, no, they're all, I think they're all under Trump plus 10.

The question – and then you have Don Bacon who is one of those four who's actually in a lead Democratic seat in Nebraska too. The question will be about the size of the Democratic majority to get to something that looks like a – you know, 2018 style majority, you're going to be able to get to those districts who are between Trump 10 and Trump 15. You have to put some of those in play.

because you're not going to win all the Trump plus 10 ones, you know, just because of their, you know, it depends on who our candidates spends on their candidate. Like we actually only won, this is political report data that Amy Walter and I talked about on last Sunday's pod, but I think we won like a third.

of the trump five to ten districts in 2018 there just were so many more there were 19 republicans in districts that hillary clinton won that time around and so there's just it was a wider playing field but

With a plus 13, plus 10, you can have a majority much larger than what the Republicans have. So you mentioned that that certainly depends on the candidates that run in each party after the results came in on Tuesday. Since the results have come in on Tuesday, I should say, there's been a lot of conversation online about whether Afton Bain was the right candidate for the district and candidate quality generally as we head into the midterms. Would you like to weigh in?

Yeah, I think this is a really hard. Instead of just posting on Twitter like Elijah, I know Elijah's weighed in. He's having a great time on Twitter. He's doing a hundred retweets on that last time I looked. That's a lot of engagement for an Elijah tweet. He hasn't got that much engagement since he got to a Twitter fight with Jamie Harrison. It is hard to, like, there's a counterfactual here, right? Which is, to her credit, Afton Bain drove up.

Democratic turnout in Davidson County, which has Nashville in it. She won Davidson County by 58 points, which is 20 points better than Kamala Harris did in 2024. So that's a significant gain. That's obviously a significant gain. It's probably fair to say that she is not the best ideological fit for a district that Trump won by 22.

had a lot of positions on defunding the police, a lot of video about saying how much she hates Nashville. She was a very prominent organizer with a robust social media history. And endorsed by the DSA in the primary when she ran for state rep, that's easily weaponizable against the Republicans. And when you have to do the math and you have to win a significant number of Trump voters, that's probably not your candidate.

Would someone else have won the seat? Probably not. I haven't looked at the other – there were four people in that primary. Hard to know that someone else would have won. I think this debate is really hard because, yes, of course you want candidates who are good fits ideologically and culturally for the district.

That seems obvious, right? Even though he didn't win, you want someone like John Tester running in Montana. Jared Golden, who's obviously retiring, was an excellent fit for his district. But the question is, how do you... execute that do we really want folks in dc to decide

who the most electable candidate is. You're having this, we're having the same conversation because it seems like Jasmine Crockett's going to throw her hat in the ring in the Texas Senate race in the coming days. And a lot of people are saying, well, she's the least electable of the three candidates. And so do you want...

the DSCC or the DCCC to come in and say, no, this is the most electable candidate, which is the exact thing that we're very pissed about happening in Maine and Michigan. Well, it's not just, do you want them to do it? It's... Do you think that will be effective? Well, that's my point. I think there's a lot of, like...

Oh, we can just move around pieces on a chessboard. Those of us who play pundits on Twitter. And it's like, yeah, I totally agree that like you want a candidate who fits the district for sure. But what? Five people ran in that primary or four people. I think four, yeah. Four. Four or five, yeah. And she won. So she ran. She took a chance. She ran for office. She beat everyone else in the primary. The voters decided.

The Democratic primary voters decided they wanted her over the other candidates. And then she went on. And so, yeah, was she the strongest candidate? Maybe not. But like. That was democracy. It played out. So like you can talk to all the candidates who ran against her in the primary and ask them like, why did you fuck up and not beat her if you were a more electable, more moderate candidate? And I realized that, you know, some of the discussion online is like, well.

you know, Republicans in 2010 nominated a bunch of like Tea Party doofuses and that's what cost them the Senate. It's like, yeah, they did. But I don't know that the NRSC could have really done much about that. Well, they have. You can try, right? It's like someone can – if people think that Colin Allred is the best candidate, say, in Texas, people can – party leaders can call James Tallarico and call –

Jasmine Crockett and try to tell them, hey, look at the polling. This is it. You shouldn't run. They can try to do that, but they can't force them to do anything. They can try to put their thumb on the scale like they're doing in some other races.

And that could easily backfire as we predicted it might in some of those other races. So you can try to do that stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like it's up to the voters in the district and the candidates running. And as much as I. understand the concern among more moderate-minded strategists and pundits that you need a candidate to fit the district and that some candidates are either, and I would say

either too progressive or it's always like talked about in terms of ideology but i don't even know if it was her ideology as much as some of the some of the things she said in the past and then chose not to really explain This wasn't a race that was based on her positions necessarily. When I saw the clip of Catherine Rampell of MSNBC interviewing Afton Bain and asking her about some of her...

tweets from 2020 when she said that the Nashville Police Department should be dissolved and that, you know, good morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified. So it's like, whatever, you have tweets, everyone has.

tweets I don't like and then she didn't explain them and she's like I don't remember those tweets and she's like oh what do you think about those do you have a position on that and she's like well I'm not really focused on that and I'm like you know Zoran Mamdani DSA socialist

had some positions and tweets in the past that he and his campaign decided that they were going to clean up, that they were going to say, no, this is the position I hold now. I am strongly in favor of X, Y, and Z, even though I said that in the past. So some of this is ideology. Some of it is just like how you decide to campaign. And so I think like that's a big thing. But regardless, I also think that moderate candidates, candidates that do fit the district.

have a responsibility to figure out how to beat some of these other candidates who they think are too progressive or too far to the left or not good fits for whatever reason. And if the moderate candidates are either too bland or boring to gain any traction or to like beat these candidates, then who the fuck's fault is that?

Yeah, it's – I mean, there is a world where you can – if this party apparatus were to choose, decide that they knew who the best candidate was, they can play a real role here. And the Republicans – Lost the Senate in 2010 because they nominated a bunch of knuckleheads. Lost the Senate in 2012 because they lost a bunch of knuckleheads. Even lost Indiana and Missouri in that cycle because they had terrible candidates, Todd Akin included there.

By 2014, they decided we're not doing that again. And the NRSC and the Republican version of the Senate majority PAC, Republican super PACs, basically nuked anyone who was not. They did not think was, was electable. They shut off their access to money. They would run ads against them. They would put pressure on them to drop out. They would play with the field. So like what happened in, as I understand it, what happened in.

Tennessee 7. Now, obviously, no one thought this was going to be a real race, so it's not like anyone should have been involved here. But as you had a progressive and a handful of moderates, what the NRSC and the problems they've done in the past is they've tried to get out the other moderate.

Right. So that it's moderate versus progressive. Now, the problem with that is, is I don't really trust the people in charge to do that correctly. And so it's sort of as we live where we have. I think I think the responsibility all of us have to talk about and write about politics is to. Be as honest as we can be about our assessments of the candidates and what it takes to win and have humility about what makes someone electable in 2025. Yes.

And that it is the – and also I think it's the responsibility of both sides of this debate to field candidates and support candidates that they think can win. And it's the candidates in those campaigns' responsibility to win in these primaries.

Yeah, it's just there's this assumption that there's a bunch of people on the left in the middle who are like their puppet strings picking the people. It's really just a bunch of local candidates deciding to run. And then maybe some DC groups get involved and support them. It's a much more organic process than I think the conversation about Tennessee 7 allows.

We should say that there's some breaking news before we leave the midterm map here. The Supreme Court has permitted Texas to keep its newly redistricted GOP favorable congressional map in 2026. Kyle Chaney from Politico just tweeted this. decision. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissent. Although Kyle also points out that it's notable.

that Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch say they view California's new map as indisputably driven by the pursuit of partisan advantage as opposed to impermissible race-based goals, which bodes very well for. Newsom in California in that legal challenge. Because partisan gerrymandering is allowed by the Supreme Court. Of course. But it's also interesting, though, that they're saying as opposed to impermissible race-based goals when we know that...

the section two of the VRA is very much up for grabs. So I don't know what that says about that, but that's what we got. Yeah. And they had to make this decision now because the filing deadline's in five days, I think. Right. Now, I think, I don't know, with everything we've seen, like, I still think, and I know you talked to Amy Walter about this on Sunday's episode, but, you know, even with Texas keeping their gerrymandered plus five map, I don't think Democrats are in terrible shape.

I mean, the Speaker of the Virginia House just said that he was contemplating a 10-1 Democratic-Republican map in Virginia. How many seats does that net us? I think the map in Virginia is like 6-5 right now. Oh, wow. Look at that. Pod Save America is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Tommy, what's your favorite holiday movie? Saw. Saw. OK, yeah. You know, it's about a person who hides a present inside a stomach of someone in a sense.

That's something that happens in there. And, you know, and then also spoiler for Saw, it looks like somebody is dead. And then have you heard the good news? He is risen. So that's also that's a good idea. to say that um but here's the thing tommy to make a holiday movie it takes a team of talented people that's what we're getting back to from actors to editors to props

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So Republicans aren't waiting for the midterms to knife Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, who's becoming less and less popular with some of his MAGA members. Elise Stefanik, who's been performing the role of MAGA attack dog so she can get a better job. She's currently gunning for governor of New York. Good luck with that. Is out there calling Johnson a serial liar who's in league with the deep state and said that he wouldn't win the speakership again if the election were held today.

Nancy Mace, who seems perpetually unwell, told the New York Times, quote, I stand with Elise. and is reportedly considering following Marjorie Taylor Greene into early retirement because of her anger at Johnson's treatment of Republican women. What is all this about? Can you tell us what all the anger at Johnson is about lately? Well, I talked to Leader Jeffries about this and you'll hear his comments on it. But I think there are a couple of things going on here. One is Mike Johnson's a doofus.

He just, I mean, he just is. He just happened to be the least offensive person when they needed to get, desperately needed to get to 218. And so he got the job. He is not a policy wonk. He's not a strategist. He's just a guy. And being just a guy in charge of the nearest majority since the Great Depression is probably – he's punching above his weight. He's not doing it well. The second thing is he has – he owes his entire job to Donald Trump.

And so he's always one Trump truth away from being ousted. And so he has put Trump's interests in his own job security over the interests of the caucus. And I think you saw that most vividly during the Epstein files. Basically, he made these Republicans go months of asking, answering awkward questions, being on the outs with the base, because that's what Trump wanted, even though it was bad for.

the members themselves. It was bad for the caucus. It's probably bad for their attempt to actually have the majority. And then I think the last thing here is just they're all feeling the pressure. They see these results in the elections. They see the poll numbers. They see that Trump's numbers are in the toilet.

And they're all starting to look for the exits. They figure out what's going on. They're nervous. They don't want to lose. And so they're starting to act out. It seems like with Elise Stefanik, she's just pissed that, remember, she was up for the UN job. Yeah. and then um trump and johnson basically told her no you got to stay in congress because the number the margin is so slim and so we need you in congress so she loses that job and then she's running for governor

And her whole gubernatorial campaign is that, you know, Hochul is too tied to Mamdani. And then Trump yucks it up with Mamdani in the Oval. So it's possible that she's just... pretty pissed at mike johnson she's taking out her anger at donald trump on mike johnson because obviously she can't be angry at donald trump i see i think it's more political calculation than pure anger you think she just looks like a like a

I mean, what is the political calculation there that just helps her with the base? Well, no, I think it is. So just, I don't think she has any sincere moments in her life. She was anti-Trump when that was good. She was pro-Trump when that was good. And now she wants to be governor of New York. And so like she has to she has to see and she is in the worst position possible. She is the in the leadership of a Congress that is at its second least popular time in the history of Gallup polling.

And so she's trying to separate herself, seem like an outsider, but do it without actually pissing off Trump or the base. And this is a way to do it. Yeah, I guess. Because the actual substance of what she's pissed about is supposedly this provision that would. force the FBI to notify Congress if they ever open another investigation of a political candidate. And so she's alleging that Mike Johnson is in league with Jamie Raskin in the deep state.

Yeah, I mean, like it's absurd, but I think she is looking for places to distance herself from her own party without upsetting the base before a primary. Now, I mean, it makes for... interesting conversation about the drama with mike johnson but he doesn't seem like he's in any real trouble like it's a it's a year to the midterms what are they going to hold the vote a new vote for speaker and someone else is going to get the votes i mean i could see him

exiting after 2026 but I can't see him getting ousted before then can you No, I would be shocked if he was ousted before that. It just seems no one wants the job. The process before was so painful. They've tolerated having this doofus in charge for years now because they don't want to revisit that process.

I think it's highly likely if they lose the majority, which I also think is pretty likely, that he will get tossed aside then. He doesn't even really want the job. I can't believe I did this, but I watched several minutes of his and his wife's interview with Katie Miller.

Because you're a big Katie Miller fan. Well, it's like I'm always looking for content out here, right? Just to try to help Elijah in his job. And the whole thing is a sob story about how hard the job is and how he doesn't like it. So sad for you.

Yeah, so hard. Well, luckily for Johnson and all of these very anxious Republicans, Trump is reportedly planning to tear himself away from ballroom renovations. midday naps long enough to hit the road for the next year so he can sell Americans on everything he hasn't done to bring down the cost of living. We're already getting a preview of how that's going to go. Take a listen.

Affordability. They don't say anything else. Everybody says, oh. This fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. The word affordability is a con job. by the Democrats. Affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea. Their prices were much higher. You think that was on the message calendar for that day? No, I don't think so. I think that is possibly the worst message you could possibly design.

Ever. A new Politico poll has 46% of Americans and a slim plurality of Trump voters saying the cost of living is the worst they can remember. where they live. Asked whether Trump bears full responsibility for today's economy. Almost 20% of Trump voters said yes. Obviously, a big majority of all voters said yes.

What are your thoughts on the affordability pivot? Will we even get one? I don't think we're going to get one because when Trump hits, if you read the Axios story that previewed his upcoming event and Trump has been so.

I don't say lazy is the right word, but he really hasn't done any domestic travel at all as president. He really just he does foreign trips and he renovates ballrooms. And that's like the full extent of his duties. But if you read the story preview, it says that Trump is going to hit the road to talk about his economic accomplishments.

Which is the exact wrong thing to do. You're going to call it Trumponomics? Exactly. I mean, we talked about this, there are parallels to Biden, but it's like 100 times worse than Biden at this. And Trump is going to fail at this.

Because to admit that prices are still high is to admit that he failed. And he can't admit failure. He's never done it in his eight decades on the planet. So he's not going to do it then. So instead, he's going to go out and do what he did in those clips we just listened to, which is this. poke voters in the eye every single moment. It has to make it as being an absolute political disaster, which I plan on enjoying. The other big difference is Trump has like at least two very

easily doable options in front of him to help with the cost of living. He could get rid of the tariffs that everyone knows he put in place on his own. and have hurt the economy and have made things in their lives more expensive. Or he could do something about the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are about to expire and the premium hikes.

that are coming for 20 million Americans and he is thus far refusing to do anything about that. So people are going to know that there are just options that he is just saying, no, thank you. And he's just going to go around talking about the tax cuts that he passed from the big, beautiful bill.

And then talk about how he lowered drug prices 5,000%. Now he's paying people to take their drugs. Mike Johnson went out and said, he was trying to put a brave face on everything that happened on Tuesday. And he said, well. When the big, beautiful bill kicks in, people are going to feel better. They're not. He's just extending tax cuts that people already had. They're not going to.

I guess that some of the smaller tax cuts, like the no tax on tips, are going to affect some people. That's a small percentage. Yeah, maybe a small percentage of people will maybe see a slightly higher tax refund. uh in the spring but i don't know when you've got the the tariffs hitting the economy like they have been the premium hikes everything else i i don't really i wouldn't count on that if i were the white house no i would not

One tried and true option for Trump is to just tell everyone that the real blame for all their problems lies with immigrants. I'm certain he'll do that. He's already doing it this week. He put a... Really disgusting new spin on this while talking about enforcement operations in Minnesota, which is home to a large population of Somali Americans. Let's listen.

We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go, come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. They come from hell. And they complain and do nothing but bitch. We don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.

Just really sick stuff. For people who don't know, the reason he was even talking about the Somali community in Minnesota. is because there was a uh those fraud charges uh brought against uh an organization a couple organizations i think that were basically you know stealing taxpayer money And I think a lot of Somali Americans in Minnesota were charged, though.

The ringleader, the person who ran the whole scam was a white person. So Republicans, right-wing media, everyone is using that case as a reason to say, you know, we've got to... kick all of the Somali Americans out. Never mind the fact that

The vast majority. So Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the United States. The vast majority of Somalis in Minnesota are U.S. citizens who've been here for over a decade, who have jobs. Just so everyone knows, there's only a small percentage that have temporary. protected status or refugees or, you know, applying for asylum or whatever it may be. And I don't know. What do you think of the tried and true tactic from Trump on this one?

Just so people know, that sound you heard at the end of the clip was J.D. Vance banging on the table in support. Was that J.D. Vance? Yeah. Of course. In the past, Trump has somewhat effectively changed the subject by making these outrageous sort of statements. This is they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats from 2024, you know, various attempts during His first term where he was able to just focus people on something else through offensive, jingoistic, racist remarks.

And sometimes that would be effective. I think that is doomed to fail this time around because every single – now there is – unlike in Trump's first term where things were kind of just like proceeding at pace in life, now there is one central issue that everyone cares about.

and everyone's mad about, and it's cost of living. So every time Trump is doing something that's not affecting the cost of living, he is not helping himself. You can't really distract people from the price of groceries, utilities, and housing.

They're just, you're not going to convince them that that's not a big deal and a big problem. So when you're trying to distract them, it's very, they can see the cards up your sleeve. They know what you're doing. And I think it's going to be incredibly ineffective. Yeah. The big problem for him here is that. He's in charge. Like you could imagine a scenario where Biden was president. Trump's running against Biden. And he's saying, oh, you know, this.

The reason that we still have high prices and inflation is because all these immigrants are stealing government benefits and Biden's letting them because he let them all into the country. And you could say, OK, I could see that, unfortunately, being politically effective. But in this instance, it's like, OK, you're complaining about small.

immigrants who the authorities in Minnesota, a state mostly run by Democrats, are they've been charged. Governor Walz was like, good people who are criminals should go to jail. I don't care. what nationality they are. I don't care where they come from. If you commit a crime, you go to jail. And so I don't really understand the argument there that like, oh yeah, prices are high.

Costs are high. You're having a tough time. Also, I'm in charge. I'm going to blame immigrants. I am deporting immigrants. I am cracking down on them. But what's his excuse? You know, there's just not a it just doesn't it doesn't work as well.

OK, one last thing before we get to your conversation with Hakeem Jeffries. You may remember that back in October, basically the entire Pentagon press corps, including Fox News and Newsmax. gave up their badges and walked out of the building rather than agree to a list of new rules from Hegseth that basically amounted to a ban on real reporting. The Times announced on Thursday they're suing Hegseth over the policy.

But fear not, we've got a new crop of defense reporters on the beat, including 9-11 truther Laura Loomer, ladies' man Matt Gaetz, the National Pulse, the Post Millennial, Turning Point USA, Tim Kast, and the Gateway Pundit. all of whom agreed to the reporting restrictions and they're already hard at work holding DOD accountable. Sorry, DOW. Here's conservative influencer Cam Higby just grilling Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. who no one even knew existed until this week. Let's listen.

What was the environment like here with the old press corps? There's a lot of talk online about us and our level of professionalism. I'm interested to hear what the level of professionalism was like before. I've heard stories about ambushing people outside their offices, making a hospital.

style work environment for everyone who works in the DOW. What was that like? Oh, it was absolutely crazy. My first weeks here, they just waltzed in my office, rang my doorbell literally nonstop. My doorbell was going off probably every single second. There were instances where they were hanging outside of the...

secretary's office trying to see who he was meeting with in your mind what is the purpose of the Pentagon press corps because it seems to be that a lot of people online including the former press corps who have been tweeting at me that the purpose

of the press corps is just to gather classified information and release it to the public. It seems like that's, if you're an American journalist, I mean you're not a Chinese spy. Holding us accountable I think is very important, but also communicating to the American people all of the work.

we're doing and all of the work that our warfighters are doing every single day. That is the role of the press corps is to communicate to the American people all the wonderful things that the government is doing. It's one of the most honest things any Trump flack has ever said. I just, like, thank God, her poor ears having to hear her doorbell ring from these reporters.

That just, they were trying to reach her. She is the press secretary. That is the job of the press secretary to talk to reporters? Am I right? Those reporters hanging outside trying to... See who Pete Hexeth is meeting with in public spaces in the Pentagon? Bunch of fucking Chinese spies right there trying to suss out a meeting at the Pentagon.

I mean, this whole thing was so comical. These people were so embarrassing. You know, I think it was Cam Higgby, one of them tweeted. I just had a great off-the-record conversation with- John Conrad. John Conrad, right? Great off-the-record conversation with Pete Hegseth. He said great things. He says, Hegseth answered my questions. It's off the record, so no details. But I am very pleased with his leadership. It's so good. He works for the world's top maritime news website.

And then in his bio, it says blacklisted by Wikipedia. So you know it's good. And then they all took – everyone's mad at the Washington Post because they wrote the original story about the second strike. All these people took pictures at different desks.

saying that they were at the Washington Post desk. But they couldn't even figure – they couldn't even suss that out. So it's like Dan Lamothe, the Pentagon reporter for the Post who wrote the original story, he tweeted out pictures of all of them.

at the various desks saying, I'm at the Washington Post desk saying, you have to figure this out amongst yourselves. This isn't really important, but do you think there are other maritime news websites that aren't the top maritime news website? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Do you think there's a number two, number three, number four? I think you are dramatically underestimating the vibrant maritime press that exists.

To be honest, there's a lot going on in the Caribbean right now that someone could be. Maybe Cricket should have a maritime reporter. You know what? Let's send Elijah. Put Elijah on a boat. Get him off Twitter for a little bit. Get him on a boat. Get him doing some real reporting. This is a great idea.

Elijah, you're going to the Caribbean. Okay, when we come back from the break, you'll hear Dan's conversation with Leader Jeffries, but two quick things before we get to that. Strict Scrutiny is coming to the West Coast. Join Kate, Melissa, and Leah in San Francisco on March 6th at the Herbst Theater. and in Los Angeles on March 7th at the Palace Theater. Grab your tickets before they sell out at crooked.com slash events. Also, go get your holiday shopping done with a visit to the Crooked store.

I know a lot of you are looking for the right Epstein files related Christmas present. May I humbly suggest, I don't even know what, I have not read this copy as always. May I humbly suggest our release the naughty list sweatshirt. We got ornaments too. We decorated our Christmas tree this weekend and we were unpacking the boxes and I found the offline ornament from a few years ago.

That's a good one. I like that one. I was like, what is, oh, this is from John's other podcast. That's what this is. Anyway, go check out offline. Don't be that guy on Amazon on December 23rd. Head to cricket.com slash store to stock up on gifts now. Posse of America is brought to you by Z-Biotics pre-alcohol Christmas parties, holiday dinners, late night gift wrapping with a glass of eggnog. It's the season for celebration. Just don't forget the Z-Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink.

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Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Joining us now is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, welcome back to Pod Save America. Great to be with you.

Let's start with some good news because that's what we need these days. But so on Tuesday night, Democrats, although we didn't win, had a very good night in the special election in the Tennessee's seventh district where Democrats outperformed. Kamala Harris's performance there by 13 points. I take it you see that election as a positive sign in your quest to retake the majority? And why do you think the Democrats did so well? Well, I think it's another positive sign.

On a trajectory that we've seen from the very beginning of this year, the first special election of this year took place in late January, a state Senate seat in Iowa that Donald Trump had just won the previous November. By 21 points, Democrats won it by four. That was a 25-point overperformance. We flipped that state Senate seat. And we've been winning special election after special election after special election ever since. And if we've...

failed to win, we've overperformed dramatically, as we just saw in Tennessee. And of course, during the off-year elections that occurred in early November, We saw decisive Democratic victories all across the country in New Jersey, in New York, in Virginia, in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, in Mississippi, and of course in California with Prop 50 up and down the ballot.

at all points in between i think that the thing that unites these consistent democratic victories or if we fall just short our dramatic over performance numbers are that The American people are tired of the extremism that they've seen from Donald Trump, the failure to do anything meaningful to make their life better, and Democrats, of course, leaning in aggressively and consistently on two messages.

affordability, we're working hard to drive down the high cost of living, which is out of control, and health care. We want to fix our broken health care system and, of course, deal with the Republican health care crisis that's crushing the American people.

So affordability was a big part of this campaign. It was the central focus of Afton Bain's message to the Democrat in that race. In New Jersey and Virginia, where Democrats did well earlier this month. The Democrats not just ran on saying prices were too high, but because they were governors, had specific proposals about what they would do to lower prices. You know, Mikey Sherrill, the governor like New Jersey, talked about freezing utility rates. As you think about.

in the midterms. Do Democrats need to have some specific proposals about what we would do to lower costs, not just what Trump has failed to do to lower costs? Yeah, I think that is going to be important. as we pivot from 2025 to 2026. And listen, there are a variety of different ideas that we've already begun to articulate. We need to repeal the Trump tariffs. These tariffs have actually increased costs.

on everyday Americans, buy thousands of dollars per year. That's both groceries and its goods. And the American people are feeling it right now in a significant way. Congress needs to reassert its authority in this area because Donald Trump has usurped. The congressional power over tariffs claims some emergency authority. And as a result, he's adversely impacting the American people. So one of the first things that Congress can do is to repeal the Trump tariffs. Absolutely essential.

if the Supreme Court doesn't beat us to it. I think with respect to health care, and when people talk about the affordability crisis, the three things that I hear the most from folks as I travel across the country, it's housing, it's health care. And of course, it's groceries, goods, utilities. And in terms of health care, one of the more immediate things that we need to do right now is to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits because the failure to renew them.

It's actually going to result in tens of millions of people experiencing dramatically increased health care costs. We're talking about $1,000 or $2,000 per month in some instances. This is unaffordable. for working class Americans, middle class Americans, and everyday Americans. It's a big difference between what Democrats are all about and what Republicans are all about. I think on housing, we need to use the tax code.

to both incentivize increased production to deal with the supply problem that we have. And if you increase the supply of housing, you bring down housing costs, both on the rental side and on the homeownership side. But also, I think, use the tax code to incentivize and make it easier for first-time homebuyers to be able to purchase a home and get their piece of the American dream. This was done previously.

under President Barack Obama, as you know, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and it was successful, I think we need to look at that type of initiative. What Republicans have done... is use the tax code to provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors while leaving everyday Americans behind. Could you see...

the Democratic leadership putting together an equivalent of what the Democrats did in 2006, which was a six for six, like a set of policy ideas that would be that most Democratic candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, could run on? Is that one of the things you guys in your...

leadership team are thinking about? Yeah, it's definitely under discussion. And we've been in conversation about that. Initially, we wanted to make sure that we just articulated a framework around three different issues. The economy, affordability, issue one, issue two, healthcare. And issue three, corruption. And to make clear to the American people, listen, what we'll focus on as House Democrats are driving down the high cost of living because America is too expensive.

We're focused on fixing our broken health care system, which Republicans are destroying. Largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Hospitals, nursing homes, community-based health clinics closing. all across America because of their one big ugly bill. Their refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, that's a disaster. They're attacking the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health.

making it harder for people to get vaccines, including children. It's an all-out assault on the health care of the American people. We need to fix our broken health care system. And then third, deal with the corruption that exists in the Congress, in the courts.

and of course with the administration, the most corrupt presidential administration in American history. Now that we've got a framework of the issues that we want to work on, economy, health care, corruption, I think... the logical next step for us is to begin to articulate to the American people some more concrete ideas as to what a Democratic majority in the House would look like.

On the Obamacare tax credits, Senator Schumer is reportedly going to propose a three-year clean extension and try to force a vote on that. You guys have been pushing that.

Where does that stand? And are you open to negotiating with Republicans on it? Or is the three-year extension your bottom – clean extension your bottom line? Well, our view is that the most urgent – An important thing that we can do right now is to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits and the legislation and the path to getting something toward an up or down vote in the House right now runs through the House Democratic proposal in our discharge petition.

All 214 Democrats support that discharge petition, which means, as you know, Dan, that all we need are four Republicans. There are 219 of them. Dozens of them have said. that they know we need to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, or we need our four to join us. And then, of course, in the Senate, let's see what happens next week. Now, months have gone by, and we've repeatedly said to our Republican colleagues, we...

are willing to work together to find a bipartisan path forward, find some common ground, but we have to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits on a multi-year basis. And Republicans have...

talked a lot and done nothing. So I think time is running out to do anything other than a straight extension. But when we return to Washington next week, if there are traditional Republicans... who put a proposal forward in good faith will certainly evaluate it, but their leadership has shown no interest in doing anything, which is why we launched the discharge petition.

and are working hard to get four house republicans to join us The other big news happening on Capitol Hill today is the Trump administration briefed senior members of Congress, Intel, the Armed Services Committee leaders about this very controversial boat strike. Venezuela that involved a second strike that killed two survivors. I understand they showed the video. Have you been briefed on that by your team? And what's your reaction to where this stands right now?

Yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to go down to the skiff to view the video during the time that the Admiral was there. But individuals who have seen the video have made clear it's very disturbing. Certainly demands further investigation, which is what I expect, you know, will take place. Pete Hegseth clearly is a disgrace. Called for his resignation months ago.

The sooner he's gone, the better off for the American people. And I think the American people increasingly know that. The question for us is, you know, why is it that we have a president? who claims to want to stop the flow of narcotics into this country, is engaging in what appears to be extrajudicial killings. We've yet to see any authority.

or evidence presented to the Congress, either in a public way or in a secure location, to justify the strikes that have taken place, including this horrific one. And yet, same period of time, Donald Trump... pardons one of the biggest narco traffickers, narco terrorists, the former Honduran president in the world. And so it's very unfortunate. that the administration can't really be taken seriously here. And now we've seen efforts by them to obfuscate the fact that...

The buck should stop with the leadership, and that certainly means the so-called Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Earlier in this, as reporting came out about this with the Big Washington Post story and some subsequent reporting, there seemed to be... an appetite, at least in the Senate, but maybe in the House too, for bipartisan investigations into this bipartisan oversight in the way in which Congress used to operate before these Republicans got in charge.

Do you see any chance of that in the House? Or was this briefing probably enough to get sort of the lemmings back in line? Well, I got to be honest that I'm very skeptical of the Republican willingness. to actually act like a separate and co-equal branch of government. Because what we've seen from the very beginning of Donald Trump's time in office is that they're just sycophants. And when he says jump, they say how high. They're nothing more than...

your reckless rubber stamps for his extreme agenda. But it has been interesting to see Republicans, certainly in the Senate, and even Mike Rogers, who issued a strong statement. calling for an investigation and then followed it up by opening up the investigation and demanding that the Admiral come to Capitol Hill as part of the process of that ongoing investigation.

So now it remains to be seen when Donald Trump cracks the whip, what's going to happen. But this issue is now broken into the public domain. And it's going to be hard for them to try to... misdirect the attention of the American people at this point because it's horrific what has occurred. And as you know, the American people overwhelmingly are not interested in another foreign war.

It's deeply unpopular, including with elements of Donald Trump's MAGA base. So I think it may be the case that some Republicans are both repulsed by Pete Hegseth and also understand. that parts of their base aren't necessarily interested in the path that Donald Trump seems to be dragging us down as it relates to Venezuela and the possibility of another failed foreign war.

I assume that if the Republicans, if there's no bipartisan oversight of this, the Republicans do not do their duty here, that this would be a ripe line of investigation for a Democratic majority in 2027. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But listen, the line is also very long. We've got an out-of-control Homeland Security Secretary, an out-of-control Attorney General.

You know, an out of control secretary of health and human services, all doing great harm to the American people, to due process, to the rule of law, to law abiding immigrant families and communities because of what has been unleashed by. ICE in the Department of Homeland Security in ways that are turning off the American people significantly. And then, of course, we've got the most unqualified so-called secretary of defense in American history.

From an oversight standpoint, there's going to be a lot to do. Yes, I can imagine. And we are prepared to do it all. Going back to the Tennessee election for a second.

The Democrat did overperform by 13 points. That's a few points less than Democrats have traditionally been – have been performing in these congressional special elections this year, about five points. Part of the discourse that happened afterwards among a lot of sort of political strategists and pundits was –

The candidate, the nominee, who I think ran a vigorous race in terms of turning out the base, particularly in Davidson County, where Nashville is, but was probably not the best ideological fit for the district. Quite liberal, endorsed by the DSA, you know, had been a very active organizer who had a lot of videos of the Republicans sort of weaponized. I don't know that another candidate would have won that race. I'm not arguing that. But as you think about.

In 2026, to win the majority and especially win a sustainable majority where you actually have a margin for error, you're going to have to win districts that Trump won by five, six, seven, eight, nine, sometimes more than 10 points. How are you thinking about candidate selection there? And are you and the DCCC planning on getting involved to sort of ensure that the candidates that you think are the best fit would be nominated? Well, it's certainly the case that we want to make sure that...

There are Democrats whose life experiences and whose perspectives match the districts that they're hoping to represent. That's the reality all across the country. And that will differ from place to place in the Deep South. It differs from the Midwest. In the Midwest, it may differ from the coast in terms of the type of candidate, type of life experiences, the type of perspective. We've got to make sure that they're authentic, of course.

That they're communicating on the issues that matter, as was done in Tennessee in terms of speaking aggressively to the issue of affordability. But that, you know, there's a sense. that they can connect to the broadest possible swath of the electorate. And there are always two things that have to be done, as you know, to win these elections. Energize the base.

And then move swing voters who can go either way in your direction. And we certainly, I think, are going to make sure that there are as many candidates who are able to do both. as possible. Everybody at Capitol Hill, whether you're a progressive or a blue dog or a new dem, knows to win these tough seats, you got to do both things. Energize the base and move swing voters.

Now, a lot of that has to do with speaking to the issues that matter authentically around driving down the high cost of living and, of course, addressing the health care crisis that exists in America and just generally. Wanting to make life better for the American people. But, you know, I think what was successful for us in 2018, and there were new Dems, and there were Blue Dogs, and there were progressives.

Katie Porter, who won swing districts. But what they had in common was that they spoke authentically. They were from their communities. They had a real close, authentic, affectionate relationship that was developed with the people that they were hoping to represent. And they had life experiences that made clear to folks that, you know what? I'm not a career politician.

I'm interested in serving the people. Your counterpart, Speaker Mike Johnson, has been having a tough week. Seems like chaos is breaking out across the Capitol. You have members of his own leadership team attacking him.

There were brief fears that there was going to be members just retiring left and right, even further narrowing this incredibly narrow majority. I don't know how much scuttlebutt you're picking up or what you're able to observe on the floor, but what is happening over there in the Republican caucus right now? Yeah. I mean, it's the GOP civil war that is raging. The bottom line is they can't stand each other. And a lot of them hate Mike Johnson. We have that in common. This is somebody.

who apparently has repeatedly lied to them, and we know he's repeatedly lied to the American people. And they're falling apart over there. They have no affirmative agenda. They've done nothing to make life better for the American people. And I think... We kind of reached a boiling point to some degree this week because, again, you've got them not doing a damn thing to even pretend like they care about dealing with the high cost of living.

or addressing the fact that the Affordable Care Act tax credits are going to expire in just a few weeks. And I think a lot of Republicans, like Elise Stefanik, who I've never really agreed with on any other issue before, But clearly she can't stand him at this point. And, you know, believes that they're rudderless. And then you've got a group of other people who are like.

Why have we continued to castrate our majority and not even pretend as if we are a separate and co-equal branch of government? And I think as Donald Trump's approval ratings continue. to speed rapidly toward the basement. He's at 36 in Gallup. Maybe it in fact is the case that some House Republicans are like, yeah, do we have to agree with him on every single thing?

Can't we find some space, particularly now that we're heading into an election cycle that looks increasingly difficult for us? So it's going to be very interesting to see how things unfold in the next. week or so, they already have such a narrow majority. And this, I think, was underappreciated heading into this year that it was a tough cycle and it's very bitter.

all of us to have to absorb that we're dealing with this guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again. And that, of course, we fell just short in the House of Representatives. But the reality is that when Donald Trump came into office... In 2017, he just lost the popular vote, but he walked into a Congress with a majority of 241 House Republicans and only 194 Democrats. This time around...

Donald Trump wins the popular vote and unfortunately does better directionally in every single state in the union. And yet he doesn't walk into Congress with a big majority. He walks into Congress with the narrowest majority that any party has had since the Great Depression. 220 House Republicans, 215 Democrats. And so things are very fragile for them.

That is also why we're starting to see the cracks really emerge, because just a handful of Republicans who express dissent can collapse the whole situation.

Last question for you, Leader Jeffries. You talked about how corruption is part of the message. You brought up Trump's pardon of the narco, the drug trafficker. I want to talk to you a little bit about the Trump's...

Pardon of your Democratic colleague, Congressman Cuellar, who serves in one of the most endangered districts in the country. You told CNN you thought that was probably the right outcome. Is that really the right outcome here, or would it have been better to go through the actual court process? Yeah, here's what I thought. You know, what Donald Trump has done in other instances is actually pardon people after the fact who've already been convicted by a jury of his or her peers in a court of law.

That's completely and totally unacceptable. Now, I don't know why Donald Trump actually decided to go down this road, but it is my view that the charges that have been brought against... And he's innocent until proven guilty. And whether you're a member of Congress or an everyday American taxpayer, hardworking American taxpayer, you're entitled to that presumption that.

The charges that had been filed, to me, read as very thin. Now, there may be members of the Department of Justice who brought this case, who take a different perspective, and that's certainly fair for them. to take that perspective. But what we've also seen is that these type of cases have repeatedly been thrown out by the Supreme Court. Now, this has happened over and over and over again.

by people on the Supreme Court who don't otherwise agree with each other. Literally, 8-0, 9-0 decisions. Everyone from Kentonji Brown Jackson to... Elena Kagan to Sonia Sotomayor, joining with John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh and others, repeatedly throwing out these very cases. And so that's the perspective that I articulated.

And it wasn't just based on the specific facts connected to that case that was brought, but the pattern that has repeatedly appeared over and over and over again, ultimately resulting... and public servants being exonerated by the Supreme Court, whether they were Democrats or Republicans. But, I mean, so I'd say a couple things here. One is...

Yeah, everyone, you're exactly right, is presumed innocent, told proven guilty. There will never be an opportunity to prove someone guilty here. But it's also in many of these cases, and as you say. He's presumed innocent right now. But many of these cases, it's not that the conduct was actually not corrupt.

I'm not talking about this specific case involving Representative Cuellar, but in the cases that have been thrown out by the Supreme Court and other courts, it's that the Supreme Court has just raised the threshold of what an actual – crime of bribery is is so high that it's hard to meet. And so under this current threshold, you're getting there's a lot of corruption that's happening that is not criminal.

Having said that, I think the question here is, you know, I'm not a legal scholar. I can't argue that case, so I won't. But from the political perspective here, like corruption is one of your. The three pillars, as it absolutely should be, I 100% agree that this is the most corrupt administration in history, more corrupt than Nixon. And there's nothing that better embodies that corruption than Trump's pardon process, where he's just doling out pardons to crypto.

people who have given his family money, to people doing business deals with his son, to these drug traffickers. Do you think it makes it harder for Democrats to run against those pardons or criticize those pardons when the one pardon we're okay with? is the one that happens to be for someone on our side. Well, there actually, I think, have probably been a few other pardons that he's issued in the criminal justice area related to people, African-Americans largely. And a lot of this happened.

during the first Trump administration. And I, of course, worked with some parts of the administration to enact the First Step Act, the largest, most successful criminal justice reform legislation to merge through Congress. in a century, and it in fact has resulted in tens of thousands of people being released from incarceration because of the failed war on drugs that we've finally begun.

to turn around in some way, shape or form. We still got a lot of work to do to deal with mass incarceration and particularly its impact on black and brown communities. So I take your point, you know, more broadly on the corruption. I think that our view on corruption is that we've got to clean up the mess in every single institution. So that means the Congress, that means the courts, and that certainly means the administration.

In that vein, I think the one piece of legislation that we've united behind as House Democrats and Senate Democrats is that we have to prohibit congressional stock trading. And that... You're right. If we're going to go after corruption, we should go after it wherever we find it, which is why out of the gate, our view is we need to ban congressional stock trading.

It should not happen. There's no justification for it. It also shouldn't happen in terms of judges or justices who get to decide cases before them where they may actually have a financial interest. connected to stock that they own. And it also should never happen with the administration. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, president, vice president, cabinet secretaries. It's insane that Donald Trump has actually most recently purchased.

hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, in Warner Brothers stock at the same time his administration is deciding on a potential merger that would be a financial boon to the company and therefore any stockholders. On this issue, the corruption issue, we've intentionally decided to start by addressing the mess that exists in our own house. And that's why we've led to your point.

to make sure that we maintain the high ground on banning congressional stock trading. And will you guys sign the discharge petition that a Republican representative has put forward to try to bring this to a vote? Yeah, so I am scheduled to talk with a few of the leaders on that issue over the weekend. And that includes, you know, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of course, Pramila Jayapal, Joe Morelli.

Seth Magaziner, whose legislation is connected to the bill that may be discharged, to figure out what path we want to take and whether Republicans are serious. Part of the challenge that we have here is Mike Johnson immediately said, We're not bringing that bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. And so we haven't had the opportunity to even talk to our Republican colleagues about, okay, what's the strategy? We can try to discharge this bill.

But then are they going to stick with us when Mike Johnson erects these other procedural obstacles that he could erect to try to prevent the bill from getting an up and down vote? So we just want to make sure. that we've got reliable, at least I want to make sure, we've got reliable partners on the other side of the aisle so we can see this through and make a clear promise to the American people that we're going to deliver it. Now, I can guarantee you.

When House Democrats take back control of the majority, if this issue is not resolved, we are going to resolve it and make sure that we ban congressional stock trading and then move on to the other aspects of corruption that exist in the other branches of government. But we're going to start by making sure we address the challenges that we have in our own house. Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for joining us. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks so much, man.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Hakeem Jeffries for coming on. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a discussion with the Atlantic's Michael Shearer about the rise of RFK Jr. Check it out. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone.

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