“Xi likes me!” (LIVE from Orlando)

Welcome to Potsave America, I'm John Favreau. I'm Alyssa Maastronico. How lucky for you. You don't always draw Alyssa.

I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Zizor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We have a great show for you tonight.

A little later, we'll be talking to the representative from Florida's 7th District right here in Orlando, Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy. But first, some news. President of the United States spent his weekend reacting to various Fox and Friends segments with a series of Twitter rants, because that's how he rolls. Lot of news, as always, on Sunday from his Twitter feed.

First, he accused his own Justice Department in the FBI of corruption for not doing more to investigate Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration. Does that every once in a while. Then he defended the alleged corruption of Washington DC's worst tenant, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Said Pruitt's doing a great job.

This is after Democratic and Republican members of Congress have called on the EPA administrator to resign after reports that he spent billions of taxpayer dollars on a 20-person security detail, first-class flights, private phone booths, and then demoted staffers who complained about this. Plenty of this thing. That's right. Alyssa, Trump obviously isn't afraid to fire cabinet secretaries, fired the Secretary of State, while on the toilet.

Fired. You should be clear about that. He wasn't on the toilet. We don't know.

We don't know. Overports. Sorry. We don't know who was on the toilet.

Multiple people. People may or may have not been on the toilet. As many as two, as few as one. That's right.

Fired the VA Secretary. Why is Mr. Dray in the swamp holding on to Scott Pruitt, perhaps the most corrupt cabinet official of all? I mean, we were talking about this earlier.

And I think the last time that EPA Secretary had security, like what he has, was right after 9-11. So. And like what? And did the end of that, EPA Secretary of 20 people on a security detail?

No. No. That's because of he's getting death threats. And then someone tried to ask the EPA, OK, could you provide examples of the death threats that come to the end?

I said, sorry. You haven't. How sad that his self-esteem is so low, he's like fabricating death threats. He's like, please, someone does want to kill me.

I'm relevant. But I think that Donald Trump keeps him around, because he's like such a sad soul that he's like so indebted to him. He's like, please, I love you, please. I'm sorry.

I tried to get a private plane charter. And I've fired these people. And I've literally violated 14 rules of being a cabinet secretary in Trump's like, that's my guy. Enjoys it.

Tell me what do you think. Why is Scott Pruitt still here? Why is he hanging on? I think there's a couple of reasons.

One, Trump is actually a coward. Despite being the fire guy, he doesn't actually have the balls to fire people. He has his cheapest app, do it. Or he just maligns them in the press until they resign.

There's also a functional reason for that, which is that if a cabinet secretary resigns, you can appoint someone as a temporary replacement. Regardless, they're going to have to go to a brutal confirmation process. But then there's also the point that a lot of big money, special interests that cook brothers, industry, lobbyists, et cetera, likes got through it. And they're all telling their buddies, and their lobbyists friends, and their PR firms behind the scenes to keep them on board.

Because they think that ultimately he's going to gut all the environmental regulations that they hate. And to them, that's worth all the corruption. I think that is the reason. But it's so strange, because it's not like there's a shortage of that guy.

No. It wasn't that guy. He wasn't hired for his expertise. No.

Yeah. He's the particular like planet destroying powers. Like, and you don't do that job. Yeah.

Well, I noticed that on one of the Sunday shows today, Senator Mike Rans, who from Nebraska, said, yes, he's engaged in potential corruption, and some of these activities he's been doing, they've been wrong. But he's got to be there because he's carrying out Donald Trump's agenda. And that's important. Which seems like it's basically admitting that the Republican Party position right now in the Trump era is you can be as corrupt as you want.

What's important is that you pass the policies we believe him. Yeah, he accidentally told the truth. He was not deft enough. What he was supposed to say is, he is being targeted by the left.

Because he's such an effective administrator for the Trump agenda. He's going after these regulations. He's going after the clean air rules. And therefore, he's become a target from the fake news.

And that's why we're standing by him. But he forgot to do that part. He just said what they really think, which is, why would we get rid of Scott Pruitt? He's doing such a wonderful job.

Well, here's the other thing about this. He's actually not doing that good job. Because he has gone about trying to repeal all of Obama's planet saving initiatives in order to destroy the planet. He's in such a hand handed way that most of them instruct on my court.

So most of the environmental rules that Obama put in place, they were in place when Obama left 2016, are still in place today because Scott Pruitt is actually not that good at his job. In fact, all of them, he hasn't successfully repealed a single Obama regulation that he's gone into the fact. Now, he's still, of course, down damaged because EPA is also about enforcement. And he hasn't enforced a lot of the laws on the book.

So obviously, that's not good. He's not good. But he's bad. But he hasn't been able to successfully repeal the regulations, which is good.

You should say, yes. Yes, but that's why they want to keep them in there. They want to keep them at it, you know? Yeah.

I'm just saying, it takes time to undo eight years of progress. That's right. It does. Give him time.

So, Trump also tweeted about the trade where he's trying to start with it. Yeah, turtle in the hair. You got anything else? No, I want to leave the people wanting more land up.

No. Not the first time you're going to hear that. Trump also tweeted about the trade where he's trying to start with China, telling everyone not to worry because the Chinese president is a good pal of his. I believe he said, we'll be friends no matter what.

And he predicted that eventually the Chinese president will drop all of these tariffs and they'll make a deal. Dan, what incentive does President Xi have to do that? Is there in what world does President Xi say, you're right. We're good pals.

Let's cut this whole thing. I think President Xi will respond to Trump when he stops laughing. He didn't know. She has every advantage in this fight because he doesn't have to worry about politics.

He doesn't have to worry about a Congress. If a bunch of farmers in China want to complain, they can't. It's not allowed. And so this is why Trump is very envy-ous.

Yes. But how do I get that? It's a great deal to Trump. And so Trump is in the middle of a game of chicken, but he doesn't know the part about turning at the last minute.

And he's putting us in a very precarious situation. Yeah. How does this trade war thing get resolved, what do you think? Oh, a couple of different roots it could go, I think.

I don't want to predict. But we have been out of disadvantage that Dan has been talking about with China for longer than the Trump administration. There are disadvantages that come along with being a free and open society and the democracy that changes its leaders and often its parties every four years in the White House every two years. In the Congress, right now, for example, China's actively expanding infrastructure.

They have projects to build economic zones that span the Middle East all the way to Asia, to put themselves in a position to dominate the global economy for the next 100 years. That is their plan. Now, we have been at a disadvantage because we don't do 100-year plans. We do, at best, four-year plans.

If you're lucky in an eight-year plan, which put us at a disadvantage. But now, we have someone who has a two-day plan or a Fox and Friends plan. And so this tit for tat, you can be sure that there are smart people sitting around the table gaining out around the Chinese president, thinking through, if they do this, we'll do that. If they do that, we'll do this.

And I don't know about you. I have less confidence that Donald Trump and et cetera are as thoughtful. I mean, Xi Jinping's literally had his name added to Communist Party doctrine and will be there in perpetuity. He changed the rules so that he can be essentially emperor for life.

So he's all set. He has no politics to worry about. He's not worried about college towns and swing states coming out for him and the numbers he needs. So when he sees Donald Trump very obviously preparing a series of moves and attacks on China, they can sit back and prepare, OK, what are the responses we can make that will cause him the maximum political harm?

So they targeted Paul Ryan's district. They targeted Mitch McConnell's district. They got the motorcycles. They got the bourbon.

They targeted farmers. And this is how they're going to play this game. They can move quickly and absolutely. And they have no politics to fear.

So that's why these tit for tat trade wars are not smart in any way. That's why we're not going to Michigan. He's going to Michigan. That's why we're not set up to win these things.

Like, there's international police. Hillary had thought about Wisconsin. That's why he's the Chinese president. What?

I said wait five seconds. I don't hear it. Michigan picked his hired camera, Jan, Olivia. So we're going to go.

It is funny about how the Chinese pop-hole French-American culture was like whiskey, motorcycles, and a farm. It was a good news. All right, so Scott was doing a great job. The president, she's going to be friends for life.

So he's got those taken care of. I don't want to move past the friends for life thing. We just gloss right over it. It is as if that should be reassuring to us, like, whatever happens to our economy, she and I are going to be OK.

No, pass. Thank goodness. I was worried about their friendship, because people grow apart. And it's hard when you work with somebody your friends with.

We have that. We work together all day. Do we go out to dinner as much as we use to? No.

Why wouldn't we spend all day together? We have differences of opinion. Does that bleed over to a Sunday night game of thrones thing? It does.

Sometimes it does. Monday is an angel. Thank you. Go on, John.

It's the easy applause lines that really drive you. OK, so to top it all off after the first few tweets, Trump finally tweeted about. Let's grow up. You're absolutely your children.

You guys laugh like you're not tall enough for the rights. All right. Hey, there's a kid in the world. How old are you?

13. Good, great in that shirt. We have talked about Syria now, so it's more serious. So Trump tweeted about an absolutely horrific attack in Syria, where it seems as though Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons to kill civilians, including children.

Trump issued a vague threat that Assad would pay a big price. Didn't say what. He specifically called out Putin for supporting Assad, which is the first time he has called out Putin for anything, except congratulations. And then he attacked Obama for his Syria policy, saying, if President Obama had crossed his stated red line in the sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago, mixed a few metaphors there.

But not to be. Not to be. Not to be. At least to the problems.

All of this comes a few days after the Trump administration said they're planning on removing all US troops from Syria. Tommy, what are our options in Syria at this point? And what is allowing Assad to continue these horrific attacks? Well, first I want to point out that the Syria tweets came at the end of the series that started with flagging something Jesse Waters, one of the dumbest people at Fox, said, followed by a complaint about his coverage, then we got to the war crime.

So that is the, literally he shows us every time he tweets what things are the most important to the least. The options in Syria, I mean, like the last time he used chemical weapons, used sarin gas, killed 3,000 people, Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles, struck an airport that was essentially back up and running the next day. But what it did do was get the entire pundit class in Washington, DC to say that that was the night he'd become president. And I don't mean to be glib about this, because Barack Obama, the Obama administration, the international community, handed Trump an incredibly difficult situation in Syria with no great options.

But the reality is Assad has been killing innocent civilians with impunity for six or seven years now. The fact that he used chemical weapons speaks to the fact that they're trying to take out one last rebel stronghold, and they use chemical weapons to terrorize people and try to scare them into submission. Basically, it's like they just escalate until they get to the worst. OK, so there's two things they can do.

They can respond militarily. Ideally, you would go to the UN or some international forum and try to rally the international community in the world to do something in response. But that gets increasingly difficult when you have fewer and fewer friends and allies left to make your case. Is that because Russia refuses to do anything?

Russia refuses to do anything, but it's not like anybody else is stepping up and acting completely heroically here. So in light of all these tweets, there's another Washington Post story that said John Kelly, Chief of Staff and the White House, has been basically threatening to quit once a week. Alyssa, do you think it matters at all? No.

No, I think it's like if you threaten once and you don't go, OK, you're never going to go. You're just like, eh, I don't want to be here. And then you say, and everyone's like, he's a loser. But I think he's just alone in his office.

And so whether he's there or not there, I don't think it really matters. It sounds like it's just Trump, Jared, and Scott Pruitt. She's just hanging out. She's hanging out.

Why hasn't John Kelly been able to restore order to the White House? I thought that was supposed to be the whole. Because they didn't take away Donald Trump's Twitter account. I mean, that seems like a thing.

That seems like a thing. Let's talk about the midterm elections a little bit, because Florida has become one of the key states that will decide to control fires in 2018. You have a couple of competitive house races, including two of the country's top pick up opportunities for Democrats in the Florida 26 and the Florida 27th. You have the chance to elect a Democratic governor for the first time in a while.

And you absolutely have to send Bill Nelson back to the Senate. Let's start there any day now. What could be as early as tomorrow Governor Rick Scott is expected to announce that he's running against Bill Nelson. I thought we were going to have more Rick Scott fans.

So for some reason, Rick Scott has a 58% approval rating, a shitload of money. And he's going to try to run as a more centrist Republican. He's going to say he's presided over job creation, buck the NRA to pass a modest gun control bill. Dan, how does Bill Nelson run against Rick Scott?

Rick Scott is going to go to Washington to be Trump's right hand man. He's going to fight for the Trump agenda. He's not going to stand for Florida. He's going to support taskers for the wealthy paid for by cutting so security, taking health care away from Florida and taking years from everyone in Florida has to run very aggressively against Trump.

And Bill Nelson has the advantage of being someone with a longtime record in Florida who will be very hard for Rick Scott to sort of separate Bill Nelson from his Florida roots. But I think the argument here is about a check on Trump. And Bill Nelson will offer that. And Rick Scott will do the opposite.

And I think the other piece of it is health care. I think Rick Scott is someone who came to prominence as someone who campaigned against Obamacare. Answer to Crook. Oh, so I understand Crook.

Is that Crook? Yeah, so I mean, what was it? 1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. But on health care, he came to prominence saying that he was going to fight for repeal Obamacare, fought Obamacare every step of the way, refused to expand medic medic aid in this state, even though he said that because of the death of his mother, caused him to change his mind and realize that the medicaid expansion was a good idea, and then changed his mind again.

And it was very similar to what he did on the federal money for rail. He just out of pure ideology turned out money that just would have come to this state to provide money for infrastructure, provide money for health care, purely out of ideology. But on the health care front, he is slippery on this because he knows that now a majority of people in Florida believe Obamacare should either be kept in place or expanded, and only a small, small fraction of the state believe it should be repealed outright. And so he is trapped in that position, and he knows his liability, which is why he's trying to run away from it, or at least back away from it a bit more, and we just cannot let him.

His position on medic aid is despicable. When Obamacare was passed, there were estimates for how many people would receive health care in states like Florida. And Republicans have said for years, you can't trust these projections. But one of the things Democrats and Republicans and analysts and nonpartisan people couldn't believe is how far Republican governors would be willing to go to hurt their own constituents, to hurt their own people in order to be anti-Obama.

Because this was money that Florida would have gotten as a check. No, no, you would not have to pay a dime more in taxes here in Florida. You already paid for it. You already paid for it with your tax dollars to the federal government, and he turned it down, purely out of partisanship, and it hurt a million people in this state.

It hurts the state every day. It's basically just like sending Florida tax dollars to other states. So basically Floridians are paying for other people to be insured on Medicaid because Scott wouldn't take the money. So that's great.

So Dan, you talked about tying Scott to Trump. There's been this debate about how much democratic candidates should make these races about Donald Trump in 2018. There's a piece of the New York Times today that says one of the messages Republicans plans to run on now is if you elect a Democratic Congress, they're just going to focus on peaching Donald Trump. Here are the problem people.

That's awesome. We should run on that. What they're saying is Republicans are excited about this because they think this is the one thing that will excite their base that will unite conservative Republicans, Trump fans, and just regular Republican voters. They'll say maybe we don't like Trump that much.

But if those people, if all they're going to do is impeach them when they come into office or try to impeach them, then maybe I don't want a Democratic Congress. What do you think about that? They're definitely going to do that. And it's probably not going to work as well as they think.

But they really have no good cards here. Maybe the Republicans are demigods. Yes, the Republicans were going to have no good cards to play. They don't pass one piece of legislation.

It's the most unpopular piece of legislation ever passed by a sitting legislature. And so they're grasping for straws and they're getting their ass kicked all up and down the ballot all across the country. Now, that's great. That's cool.

Now, the question for, it is a red-haring issue because if we elected 300 Democrats and they went in and impeached Trump, there is zero chance that a Senate, two-thirds of the United States Senate, is going to convict Trump. That is not going to happen. And so I think Trump is definitely committed offenses that are worthy of impeachment. I have no doubt of that.

But what we need to run on, what we're going to do to check the corruption in Washington that is done by Trump, done by people at Scott Prote, and enabled by this Republican Congress. And there's no better example of that than the tax cut bill, where they give a massive tax cut to billion of the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers receive that check, turn around, and write a half million dollar check to Paul Ryan's pack to thank and put it back in that bill. That's the sort of things that we should be running on.

And each individual candidate should decide whether they're going to talk about impeachment. But I think the core message, we can get to go down a rabbit hole if we focus on that. What do you think about it? What do you think about it?

I really don't want Democrats to talk about impeachment. I think it's just such low hanging fruit. It's such a red meat for the Republicans. And if I'm a Democrat that made it through 2016, I'm like, tell me what you're going to do for me.

Tell me about health care. But if I hear one person talk about impeachment, I'm not going to be happy. I think it's a very easy answer if you get asked about do you think Donald Trump should be impeached. I think you say, we want to Democrat a Congress so we can finally fully investigate this president and hold him accountable because the Republican Congress refuses to do that.

And when we do that, if we uncover crimes and misdemeanors, yes, then we will start impeachment. But don't elect me because I'm going to go there and only try to impeach him. It's just like that's. It's so funny that you see all these a couple of days earlier in New York Times with a story about all these members of Congress resigning because they're like, all that anyone talks about is Trump.

There's nothing we can do. Nothing breaks through. It's a referendum on Trump. And then some Republican strategist calls Jonathan Martin and he says, hey, we're going to make this a referendum in a Trump.

It's like everyone's coalescing around the same strategy. So they can sell this all they want. I don't think Democrats should go out there and beat the Trump impeachment all day every day. But I think this is going to be a wave election that's about Trump.

Hopefully we will benefit enormously from that wave. But good luck, guys. I like our strategy better than yours. So there's a headline in the Tampa Bay Times last week that read a Democratic wave from Younger voters in Puerto Rico.

Don't bank on it. And the piece argues that despite all the students who've become politically active after Parkland, and despite the 100,000 or so Puerto Ricans who've moved here after the government's fairly disastrous response to Hurricane Maria, that these voters may not turn out or swing the election. Dan, what do you think of this? That is correct if you based on history.

But something different is happening here. Like we just met backstage. We just met backstage with a group of students, high school students and some UCSF, who helped organize the March year in Orlando, including some alumni of Swimming Douglas High School. And they have a plan like you would not imagine.

They are not fucking around. They organized this March. They left the March over burgers, organized their next 10 steps where they're doing town halls where they're judging students to vote. And so there is something very different happening here with young people.

And we had a lot of times the election people got to keep working, keep organizing, keep staying focused. But I've never had more confidence that young people will come out than I do right now. All right. We're going to end the news with a new segment called Under the Radar where everyone gets a pick a story that people aren't talking about enough and talk about it.

Very simple. Alyssa, why don't you start? I didn't want to get anything wrong. So I wrote some things down.

But I don't know how many people know maybe not enough about the Office of Refugee Resettlement. And this has been a story going back for about six months and every couple of weeks it pops. And the Office of Refugee Resettlement has the following mandate. They are meant to help assimilate people who have come here from difficult places and help teach them about our country and make sure that they're like good to go.

And what the Trump administration has done is picked the former policy coordinator for the Knights of Columbus to run this. And the one qualification he seemed to have was that he takes credit for the late term abortion ban in six states. And exactly. And has made it his business as the head of this office to monitor unaccompanied minors, women, who want to get an abortion.

He tracks them. He gets updates on them. And luckily, I mean, he continues to pursue this agenda. But every judge has blocked what he's wanted to do.

But he's still there. And we have to talk about it more. Oh, his name is Scott Lloyd, by the way. Just the worst people.

The worst people. The worst people. They have. Love it.

I don't think we're focusing enough on the fact that not only was Scott Pruitt not paying fair rents, he also didn't pay the $50. That's amazing. The landlords had to change the law. Yeah, he went what about Bob on these people.

He got an EP administrator in your house and he got that kind of cool. What a fancy guy. Oh, my God, the EP administrator. And they can't get rid of them.

And they have business before the EP. No, so Oklahoma teacher strikes. We've seen walkouts. We've seen walkouts in Oklahoma.

I can talk to you West Virginia. And this is about salaries. This is about pensions. It's about human decency.

Thank you. I just want your mic is not working. It's about keeping the literally keeping the lights on and keeping the heat on in classrooms where some schools have set their thermostats at 57 degrees. It's about four-day school weeks instead of five days school weeks to save money.

But this is, I think, it's really important because it's the culmination of an ideology that said, cut taxes, give businesses breaks to come to your state, strip down the budget, and growth will come. Revenue will come in some distant future. But it just hasn't happened. And it's got basic services.

It's for teachers to get second jobs. It's for huge turnover. It calls a huge turnover in Oklahoma schools. And what we're seeing is in Kentucky, we've seen something similar, West Virginia similar.

Oklahoma teachers haven't gotten a raise in a decade. Their pay is ranked 49th in the country. And I think these teachers coming out and taking to the streets tells us that, first of all, this ideology has a logical conclusion. There's only so much you can cut.

There's only so much you can take from the people that keep your community running before they say enough is enough. I think it's a lesson for us for politicians in Washington, because that's exactly what they're doing on the corporate tax cut. You cut revenue. You give money back to corporations.

You give money to wealth to the wealthy. And then you come back a year later to cut basic services to cut social security, to cut Medicare, to cut Medicaid. And I think there's a lesson for Democrats looking for how to compete, because what we see is people taking to the streets in bright red states, telling us that they don't feel like they have people advocating for them in their state legislatures, in their governors' mansions. And that tells us that as much as we think these places are lost, they're not lost.

There are people there who are looking for someone who will fight for working people, who will fight for teachers and nurses and doctors. And basic government services. I think Democrats have been cowed for a very long time to not just defend basic good government, the kind of thing that stitches the community together. We have to do that more, because I think if we do, there are a bunch of people in Oklahoma and Kentucky and Western Union elsewhere that are ready to vote Democrat again.

So, I mean, before the horrific chemical weapons attack that refocused our attention on Syria the other day, there were a series of reports that Trump told his generals, basically, that he wants out, whether it's six months or a year, but he wants out right away. But you're not allowed to call it a timeline, because that's what Obama had, so that's how he defined and thought through the issue. There was a similar report from the same set of meetings that someone from the CIA showed him video of a drone strike. And they were telling him how they created a new munition that was smaller, that limited civilian casualties, and could really only take out a certain area.

They said, look, watch this video. We wait until this person walks away from innocent civilians, and then we took a shot, and he said, why did you wait? So a few things. One, that is pathological.

That is stone cold, evil murder. And it is so wrong, and insane that he would think that way that it's deeply troubling. Two, it shows that he has no broader understanding of how you actually succeed against terrorism. You don't do it by indiscriminately killing innocent people.

You do it through a whole series of tools that involve some military action, some development, some diplomacy. But you actually have to care about and focus on all parts of the problem. Three, it shows that he is zero interest in expert advice from the advisers he has, the generals that are important, and that he no longer cares what they think. And lastly, I think what frustrates me the most is there's so much noise in the press and media that we're reading about Stormy Daniels or this or that, that we actually don't focus on these issues nearly enough.

And they don't get a public debate in the press in Congress or anywhere else that actually focuses our attention, makes people care, makes people pressure their representatives to try to do the right thing. So I don't have an easy answer to this. I come to this with a lot of humility of someone who worked in the Obama administration and knows that the outcome in Syria is horrific. And it's not something any of us are proud of, and it's something we'll all be thinking about till the day we die.

But there is a better way to run a railroad. There's a better way to work on these issues, try to develop policy and actually demonstrate to people in Syria, to your own military, to the world that you actually care, and are trying to fix things, and not just solve a political problem. And that's not happening right now. Yeah.

I know there's a Q&A in this part. It's a softball. Did Donald Trump tweet today blaming Obama for this, because Obama didn't quote, respond when the red line was crossed. Red line in the sand, he said.

Red line in the sand. I was trying not to let you down in the mid- fall of a path, but go ahead. But then, rounds, I mean, the press said red line in the sand. So now that's something we're going to have to deal with.

People saying red line in the sand. No, at least of our problems. I think Syrian's 2013. He posted it down.

He said we would be stupid if we were to attack Syria. So giant hypocrites. It's not on the level. All day.

Everybody pop. The old tweets are there. They don't go away. I also bet Trump would fail a pop quiz on his 2013 position on a bomb in Syria.

Stand what you got. So we have another election coming up. Two weeks from now, there's a special election in Arizona for a congressional seat. So a few months ago, a Republican congressman named Trent Franks had resigned, as many are want to do, for some pretty shitty things he did and said, and allegations of sexual misconduct towards the staffers.

What's that? Nothing going on. And so the race is two weeks from tomorrow, April 24. And there is a very good Democratic candidate running to his emergency room physician named Dr.

He Rawls-Ampradani. And this is a district that is very Republican. It is just as Republican as the one that Connor Lamb won at Pennsylvania last month. And so this one has gotten less attention because after getting his ass kicked by showing up at Pennsylvania, repeatedly, Donald Trump is pretending this one is not happening.

And frankly, Washington Democrats are trying not to shift the narrative here. So they're focusing on it less. Now it is most definitely a tougher race than the one at Pennsylvania because even though Trump won it by the same margin, there are 80,000 more Republicans in Democrats in this district. But if we are going to build a sustainable majority in this country and build a strong electoral advantage, so we're not just deciding the president based on 70,000 votes in three states, we have to run hard in these races.

And the fact is, no one knows what's going to happen in this race. Not a single media poll has happened. We don't know. We're just guessing based on past performance.

And if we guess on past performance, then Doug Jones wouldn't be in the Senate. Connor Lam would be in the House. And alarmingly, Donald Trump wouldn't be president. So if you have any interest in this race, you can go to Dr.

Hernandez website. You can donate on act blue. And whatever happens here, the Democratic Party is going to be better off because we ran a well-funded, well-organized campaign in a strong Republican district. And that's going to help.

And that's not just going to maybe get delivered this seat for the Democrats. It's also going to help flip Arizona blue and win Jeff like seat. And Arizona is going to be a core battleground state in 2020. And we will benefit from the work that is done right now.

So I encourage people to look up that race, get involved, see if you can help. All right. So I got one. We talked about how Florida is one of the 18 states that rejected the Medicaid expansion.

Commonwealth of Virginia was another one of those states. But because Democrats won 15 House of Delegates seats in 2017 in Virginia and because they won the governor's ship, 15 seats was a number. No one expected. No one thought 15 was possible.

They thought they'd get a couple. They never thought 15. They'd get 15. Because they did, the Virginia legislature is now on the cusp of expanding Medicaid to 400,000 Virginia.

70% of Floridians support a Medicaid expansion. So if you need another reason to vote in November, there's your reason right there. Can I offer a suggestion, Dun? Florida is one of the handful of states where you could actually put Medicaid expansion on the ballot through the ballot initiative process.

So what we need? I think two state senators have tried to introduce this. Yes. And so if that is something that I think progressive groups in the state should be working.

We need to elect the governor for the first time in this fucking century in Florida. And then, and if you can't get it done through what is already Republican legislature, put it on the ballot, this will be something that will turn people out. And you could get help here to a million people. What better investment of time, energy, and money is there than a ballot initiative like that?

It's also why all these state legislature races are so important. Every single race matters state, local, national. Not for a game we call OK Stop. Here's how it works.

We roll a clip. When we feel like it, a bit of peak, a moment of hope. We say OK Stop, and then we talk about it. Last week, a video went viral showcasing how Sinclair Media was turning their local news channels into conservative propaganda machines, forcing all the networks to run the exact same promos with right wing talking points.

On top of that, these local channels are also being forced to run mandatory political commentary from the chief political analyst of Sinclair Media, former Trump aide Boris Epstein. No, Boris, it's your night. They know all the hits. I mean, I know.

Boris, let's roll the clip. President Trump continues to reshape his administration. In the past few weeks, the president has announced a new Secretary of State, CIA Director, top economic advisor, national security advisor, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs. OK, Stop.

There are two ways to look at this. I know. One of them is he did a really shit-a-down on hiring the first time. And his administration is in worldly complete chaos.

Yeah, you listen to this and you're like, oh, did he just become president? He's announcing all these people now. No, he fired all their asses. That's why he's announcing these things.

Yes, that's all good administrations do with a 13 or 14 month mark. You're a place half the cabinet. I also just, this is not the most important part, but I do think it's interesting that Boris can barely enunciate that he has a marble mouth hard to under, like take out your mouth guard, man. It's like, he's so fundamentally inarticulate and he has zero TV charisma.

And I think that's actually subtly important because this is very banana republic, right? This guy's not here because he won the audition. You know, they're not 40 people. Try.

It wasn't bottom line with Steve and bottom line with Sarah. And then I'm like, Boris, why? We did it and Boris was the best at this. No, he's just a crony.

Like, this is how you know he's a crony. Because look how bad he is. More changes are always possible. So why all the turnover?

Well, the president deserves to have staff around him who support his agenda and are doing a good job. OK, stop. Quick reminder that Boris got fired from the White House for doing a bad job. Like in record time.

So by this point, the reason Boris got this job is he was the first dude fired. He was the first person available that worked for Trump. This is Boris soft landing. But also, it's like, oh, he gets to have the people he really wants now.

Did he not know what he believed in when he became president? I mean, why was this turnover necessary? This is the person we're trusting with problems in Syria. And he's like, I really don't know how I feel about the B.A.

He hired all the people to begin with. It's like they're all his. Yeah, it's also just like, who is this for exactly? Like, who is like, oh.

Well, love it. That's why. Now I get it. It's the new season of the apprentice.

Yeah. It is also important that an agency is not bogged down by infighting and alleged ethical shortcomings, aside of virtually becoming case with veterans affairs in the last few months. Langelini in a position does not always equal success. OK.

He better hope. I have to say, I have to say, I was also not romantic. You know what I mean? Just take a second.

You can imagine other set. You know what I mean, John. I think we got it. John.

I think we got it. I think we got it. I think we got it. I think we got it.

I got it. Roll the cliff. I had just two secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Secretary Clinton's four years on the job left us with a total nut down in the Middle East.

OK, so that was quite a detour. He took a second. He only had two secretaries in state. One of them sucked.

Now I will talk about it. Look at the Sinclair B-roll. It's just like when you talk about Trump, you show him at the cabinet room, you show him in the overly-shroom shaking hands, and you say the word Hillary, and it's just ISIS. There's Hillary troops.

Yeah, there's Robbie Movements. You know what people at home, there's ISIS, all right. In the rise of ISIS, an American ambassador to Libya was killed on Hillary Clinton's watch. John Kerry also had four years running the state department.

His big accomplishment, the Orandia, which not only still allows Iran to work in nuclear technology, but also gives Iran billions of dollars, which of God's soldiers. There's people listening at home, there was literally just a briefcase full of money that they showed. A brief full of cash. Now there's a man walking in a burned car.

Like, doesn't this? They're just like, play the scary break hits. He's looking for the briefcase of money. I think it's worth noting that 40% of American households had the opportunity to see bottom line with force.

How many? 40%. Soon to be up to 70% once and clear, makes them agree. So bank, property.

Instead of all households, we'll see this. Too big to down. Don't pay attention to the fact that Donald Trump goes through cabinet officials, like Harvey Weinstein goes through PR firms. Talk about Hillary.

Tonight? Remember Benghazi? I assume in Boris' contract, it says two things. One, simple sentences, and you must mention Hillary within five minutes.

Yeah. Organizations such as Hamas, and Hezbollah. Here's the bottom line. Why do you see a different secretary of state every week that has anything like the Orandia?

How about the other guy? OK, stop. He may get his chance. So with the rate we're going, it's still yours.

This is Boris Lanchas. He knows what's coming here. Have to call staff or cabinet members. The changes we made are all done in order to keep our country on a path of success on the economy and national security.

Hey, friends. Hope you're having a great day. For more of my content, please go to breakfastwithborris.com. I'm sorry.

I can't say Boris. Oh, Boris. When this clip went around to our team to decide if we're going to do it for OK, stop, we're all looking at Boris' YouTube and he had 136 subscribers. So there's not a lot of hunger for Boris' content out there.

Don't you wish you had a tagline that was for more of my content. Go to breakfast with Tommy. Breakfast with Boris. Again, it's not the most important part.

But you just actually don't see people that inarticulate on television. You really don't. I mean, it's not just the quality of his voice is very bad. It's gargling.

It's a hard voice to understand. It's not clear. It doesn't have a good tone to it. What is a bad propaganda?

I mean, a little like Scott Ferment and the Obama EPA rules is we are blessed by the idiocy of our enemies. And there could be someone who was really good at propaganda, who was doing propaganda in 40% of American homes. Well, that's Paul Ryan. They got hired at Fox.

OK. When we come back, we'll have our interview with Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy. She represents Florida's Seventh District, has an F rating from the NRA, and is the first Vietnamese American woman ever like it to the United States Congress. Please welcome Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy.

Thanks for coming. All right. So two years ago, you'd never run for Congress before. And then you ran against.

Or any student office. Or any office. And then you ran against the Republican, who represented this district for 25 years, and you won. Why did you decide that running was something that you wanted to do, and how did you pull off the upset?

Well, first, let me just thank you for having me on. I'm so excited to be here. I'm a huge fan. And I'm also excited that you're here in Orlando.

As you've seen tonight, this is Orlando United. So I ran because I'm a patriot. And I believe that people who love this country can make it better if they're willing to serve. And so as you all may know, I am a refugee and an immigrant.

My parents got on a boat when I was six months old and escaped communist Vietnam. And when we were adrift at sea, a US Navy ship rescued us, and allowed us to make it to a Malaysian refugee camp. And then from there, we were relocated to Virginia. And so I grew up in a working class family.

But I had an opportunity to go to college. It was the first woman in my family to go to college. And then work in the corner office that my parents spent nights cleaning and had the opportunity to go on to work for the Secretary Defense. And I really just feel a debt of gratitude to this country.

And so in the 2016 election, you may remember the rhetoric. It didn't comport with America, I knew. And then on June 12, a gunman walked into a nightclub in my community and took the lives of 49 people. And I felt like you can't have people spewing hateful rhetoric at the highest level, and not expect to see it manifest itself in your own community.

And then the man who had served this community for 20-some-odd years took a check from the NRA two days after the Pols nightclub shooting. And I just really felt like, you know, if you're going to change what's going on in Washington, you have to change the kinds of people you're going to send there. And so I ran a campaign on change, security, and equality. And just really got my message out there.

I ended up running a four-month campaign and unseating a 24-year incumbent. Wow. One of the things that I admire so much, and why I'm obsessed with this woman, is that when you look at her career, she's always running towards the problem. Right?

So many people are like, oh, I see something. I'm going to go over here and ignore it. But after 9-11, Stephanie saw our country be attacked, and she's like, I'm going to go to the Department of Defense and serve. And so I just don't know if everybody knows that part of her story, but like, you know, I just love it.

And I think that she's wonderful. But my question for you is, you know, you have done that. Now you're in Congress. There is terrible shooting.

Well, there are shootings all the time. There's a terrible one, not far from here. And you actually have met with President Trump several times to discuss this. And so how would you, I think that in our hearts, we all want to believe that there's some compassion and awareness in our commander-in-chief.

But what would you and of course, we know you're a discreet person. But what do you feel like you could share with us about what happened in some of those meetings? So let me first say, and I'm going to quote an old boss of mine. Rumsfeld used to say, you go to a war with the army, you have not the one that you want.

And I believe that you legislate with the government, you have not the one that you wish you did. And obviously, I have voted for a different person to occupy the White House. But I feel like in the two years I've been given, I have to work with the folks who are there to try to advance the interest of my constituents. So I have been over to the White House a number of times.

I was really hopeful when the president called that meeting. It was bicameral, bipartisan. He was giving it the level of importance it deserved. And during the meeting, he agreed to a bunch of things.

And you could almost see staff in the background cringing. We're going to have to unwind this. But I was really hopeful. I thought, maybe finally, we have broken through.

And then within 24, 48 hours, despite talking a big game, he backed away from a lot of that. So the best thing that came out of that for me was that I had an opportunity to press this issue about lifting the ban on gun violence research that has been in place for 22 years. And with the help of, so it gave it a national platform where people who didn't know that existed before did. But it also was fueled by the energy that the Parkland students provided this issue.

And so when we got to the spending bill, I was able to press the House appropriators to consider including it. And so I'm really proud to say that about two weeks ago, we lifted this 22-year ban on gun violence research. How does your own story and your own family story shape your perspective on refugee policy and immigration policy? And how do you talk to people, to constituents, who are uncomfortable with our immigration policy, who might hear what Donald Trump says and feel more comfortable with that?

I think, of course, having served at the Department of Defense, I believe that we should secure our borders and have a strong and smart national security. But I feel like the conversation that we're having on immigration is disconnected from America that I know. We have always been a place where we have provided opportunity and refuge. And yet we are having this conversation about immigrants that just isn't connected to the reality of what immigrants have contributed to this country.

And I'll share a story with you. I was doing coffees with your congresswoman around the district last week. And I had one woman who had bought into this narrative and was conflating the idea of the word immigrant with criminal. And I just had to say, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sit here and let you do that.

There's a very big distinction. And I think we are a country of laws, and we should do what we can to ensure that the rule of law is in place and that we have processes and procedures. But we should not allow the rhetoric to drive us away from our American values. And then I think the final thing I would say about that is that we all know we need comprehensive immigration reform, but we can't do it in the context of all of this vilification and rhetoric that is disconnected from reality.

Do you? You mentioned the coffees with the congresswoman, which I'm obsessed with because one, I think that women do these things more than men do. And so I'm just curious, if over the past two years since you've been in office, do you notice a change in the tone of them? What are the issues that pop up the most?

And do you feel like in this really divisive political system that maybe people are a bit more unified? Or are they more sort of antagonistic? So to answer your first question about what you hear the most, I hear about gun violence the most. Unfortunately, I'm hearing it from constituents as young as nine.

And that's really hard for me as somebody who has a seven-year-old to see a child not much older than my son, ask me what I'm going to do to help him be more safe in his school. But I also hear from moms and dads. I mean, that is a unifying issue that I heard overwhelmingly over the last couple of weeks. The other piece, though, is that the divisive piece.

I have to tell you that my constituents, the thing that they're most grateful when I mention that I've done is they're most grateful that I can tell them that based on an outside organization, I've been named the seventh most bipartisan member of Congress and the number one most effective member of the freshman class of 50 years. And it doesn't matter what our political positions are on a variety of issues, because we don't always agree 100% of the time. They just want to know that there's somebody up there representing them who's willing to work with other people to get things done. So you probably just started talking about Democrats in 2018 and trying to figure out as you run your races how much of the race is about President Trump, is about tying your opponent to President Trump, is about even talking about impeachment or not.

How do you sort of navigate trying to talk about what you're for and what you want to do for your constituents with, talking about how the opponent you may be running against may be supporting Donald Trump? I think based on my experience that the most successful path is to find candidates that fit their district and run on issues that are important to their district. And I'll give you an example. When I got into this race at the end of June of 2016, I was polling down 22% and I had 6% name ID.