Pod Save America - “Fox’s Insurrection Group Chat.”

2021’s Congressional Clusterfu*k barrels to a close as the House reveals new details about the right-wing plot to destroy democracy while the Senate tries to save it with a last-minute attempt to pass voting rights legislation. Then, former Biden Senior Covid Advisor Andy Slavitt joins to talk about how we can prepare for the Omicron wave, and Dan and Jon discuss the media’s role in defending democracy.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.

Duration: 1h 20m
Broadcast on: 16 Dec 2021
Audio Format: other

We only have 100 days left until the 2022 midterms, and we need to make every one count. We know how high the stakes are in these midterms. Abortion is on the ballot. Climate is on the ballot. Our basic freedoms and ability to make our voices heard to protect them are on the ballot. Head to votesaveamerica.com/midterms to take our Count Me in pledge to volunteer the weekend of July 31st and become part of our midterm madness program to get involved in the most important elections in 2022, from the Senate to your local school board. Welcome to Podsave America. I'm John Fabro. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, 2021's congressional clusterfuck barrels to a close as the House reveals new details about the right-wing plot to destroy democracy while the Senate tries to save it with a last-minute attempt to pass voting rights legislation. Then, former Biden White House COVID advisor Andy Slavitt joins to talk about how we can prepare for what the Biden administration believes will be a large wave of omicron infections, and Dan and I discuss the media's role in defending democracy. But first, if you're excited for the release of Spider-Man No Way Home, then you have to check out Crooked's podcast X-ray Vision, host Jason Concepcion and Marvel's Superfan Rosie Knight, or recapping all the previous Spider-Man films, breaking down all the returning villains and sharing their wildest theories about the future of the MCU multiverse, new episodes of X-ray Vision drop every Friday wherever you get your podcast, and you can now binge the entire second season of Unholier Than Thou, where host Philip McCarty explores the wisdom of everyday people falling down and getting back up again. All right, let's get to the news. We will have a few special episodes for you guys over the break, but this is our last regular pod of 2021, so we thought we'd take stock of what's happening right now in Washington, the beating heart of our thriving democracy. Let's start with the House. Over in the House, the January 6th committee ended the year by not only voting to hold Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress, they have released some of the text messages that he turned over to the committee, including this one, which was sent to Meadows by an unnamed Republican member of Congress before the polls closed on the night of the 2020 election. Here's what it said, "Here's an aggressive strategy. Why can't the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other Republican-controlled state houses declare this is BS and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the Supreme Court?" Dan, who do you think that was and what the fuck? Here's the sad thing. It can be honestly almost anyone, anyone not named Adam Kinziger, Liz Cheney, maybe a Romney, maybe a Murkowski, everyone else is a viable suspect for that text. And I think in the answer to your question of what the fuck is, what the fuck? I mean, this is ultimately like the underplayed or undertold story about all of this is just a general Republican disdain for the idea that voters should get to pick their politicians. This is what happens when you're a minority party in a country with a theoretically majoritarian system, is you want to do everything you can to prevent the majority from having the role of voters. So this one, it is, I would say, an accurate description to call it, an aggressive strategy. Let's just stop counting the votes. Well, while we're at it. You know, we talk all the time about the big lie. This is like, put the big lie aside. Put the allegations, the false allegations of voter fraud that no one's been able to find aside. This proves, at least for this member of Congress, this Republican member of Congress, that all of the voter fraud allegations were completely bullshit because before there were any voter fraud allegations, before any of this, this person was just like, you know what? Let's just fucking overturn the election. You people don't get to pick who represents you. Republican politicians get to pick who represent you. That is their platform. That is the belief, at least of this one Republican member of Congress, that we should just overturn the votes of Republican Democrats, independents, whoever, because the people who should get to decide who are in power in this country or Republican politicians and not the American people. That's it. There are only two kinds of elections. The ones Republicans win

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