Designated Survivor (TV Series)

Suckers (2017)

Italia Ricci: Emily Rhodes

Photos 

Quotes 

• Carson Kramer : Senator, you've been highly critical of what you term "government handouts". So, what about the pension bailout bill?

  Senator Alan Rouse : Another handout.

  Carson Kramer : But the President's a big proponent.

  Senator Alan Rouse : Yes. And, um, to be frank, I'm not quite sure why. I met with him to discuss it, and he called the American people... suckers.

  Carson Kramer : Excuse me, Senator. He said what?

  Senator Alan Rouse : His exact words were "I'll make a stipulation that the American people are suckers."

  Carson Kramer : Wow. It looks like the President's the one who may need a bailout.

  Senator Alan Rouse : Yes, Carson. I was pretty shocked when I heard that myself.

  Lyor Boone : [watching on TV]  That disloyal, treacherous, lying...

  Tom Kirkman : He wasn't lying.

  Emily Rhodes : Sir?

  Tom Kirkman : He betrayed my confidence. He took me out of context. But he wasn't lying.

  Lyor Boone : It doesn't matter. Sir, you have a very distinct brand. You're Honest Tom. Man of the people. If that's compromised...

  Seth Wright : Lyor's right, Mr. President. This goes to your core identity. We can't spin this.

  Lyor Boone : Exactly, 'cause it's a middle finger aimed squarely at your base. And I don't like to traffic in overstatement, sir. If this sticks, it's political Armageddon.

  Lily : [entering]  Mr. President, you have calls from the Senate Minority and Majority Leaders, the House Speaker, and the House Minority Leader.

  Lyor Boone : The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  Tom Kirkman : Put them through. One at a time, please.

• Lyor Boone : [leaving the Oval Office]  If you'd have told me he was this honest, I never would have taken this job.

  Emily Rhodes : You realize that's bananas, right?

  Lyor Boone : I don't like scruples. They're impractical.

  Emily Rhodes : His scruples are the reason why everyone in this building would run through a wall for him.

  Lyor Boone : Tell me that when our agenda's dead because America thinks the President is an elitist hyprocrite.

• Sasha : Aaron says he'll have an update on the Thorn investigation shortly. And per your request, I moved up your meeting on judicial appointments with Senator Krantz.

  Emily Rhodes : Good. We need a win.

  Sasha : And I want to talk to you about the lobby.

  Emily Rhodes : Okay.

  Sasha : There are candies there. Hard candies. Some might call them "suckers". And so I wondered if I should remove them.

  Emily Rhodes : You're kidding, right?

  Sasha : Right.

  Emily Rhodes : [from her tone, she can tell she's serious]  Remove them immediately.

• Senator Linda Krantz : When we had preliminary discussions about judges, the President was in a very different position. His centrist politics were gathering steam. We thought he was a man who should be listened to.

  Lyor Boone : Well, he is. He's the President.

  Senator Linda Krantz : Of a country of suckers.

  Emily Rhodes : Really, Senator Krantz...

  Senator Linda Krantz : I know how that remark played out in my state. Not as bad as my following his lead now will play.

  Lyor Boone : Senator, put politics aside for a second. You're an attorney. You know every name on our list is eminently qualified.

  Senator Linda Krantz : Yes. But so are these.

  [she hands him and Emily each a manila folder] 

  Emily Rhodes : None of these people have President Kirkman's endorsement.

  Senator Linda Krantz : Exactly. So none of them are toxic. Let me know what you think.

  Lyor Boone : [Krantz leaves]  I think I hate lawyers.

• Senator Alan Rouse : You say you're not a politican, then you coerce me into backing a bill you know is anathema to my party.

  Tom Kirkman : [talking over each other]  Asking for your support is hardly coercion!

  Senator Alan Rouse : It is if the person asking is the President, sir. But more to the point, I have an obligation I owe to my constituents.

  Emily Rhodes : Which should include an obligation not to misrepresent the President's words.

  Senator Alan Rouse : I stood up to those words. My office received over 1,500 calls today thanking me for that. I cannot defend you, sir.

  Tom Kirkman : Senator, I'm not asking you for your defense. I'm asking you for your honesty. You're out there portraying me as an enemy of the people. That stops now!

  Senator Alan Rouse : With respect, sir, if you don't want to be the people's enemy, you need to start talking about them as if they were your friends. I'll see myself out.

• Lyor Boone : So, in the last eight hours, we've lost Congressional support for our judicial slate. Your pension bailout bill, that's gone belly-up.

  Emily Rhodes : And the only topic of conversation at the G20 conference is the murder rate in America.

  Tom Kirkman : What's the press coverage?

  Seth Wright : Uh, the "Post" and the "Journal" have hit out at you over Suckergate. The "Times" is running an op-ed on the administration's failure to rein in arms dealers.

  Lyor Boone : We're looking at a perfect storm, sir. So we have to take emergency action. Finding Thorn's killer, that's part of the solution. The other part is cauterizing Suckergate.

  Tom Kirkman : Look, I understand we've taken a hit for this thing...

  Lyor Boone : No, no, sir. It's much more than that. This thing, it's made you radioactive. And the fallout's just gonna get worse.

  Tom Kirkman : Fine. What do you suggest?

  Lyor Boone : [handing him a folder]  Oppo research on Senator Rouse. It's a silver bullet. It'll stop the bleeding.

  Tom Kirkman : Lyor, bullets don't stop bleeding. They start it.

  Emily Rhodes : We need to stabilize your base, sir.

  Tom Kirkman : If I go down this road, there's no turning back. We will find another way.

  Lyor Boone : Mr. President...

  Tom Kirkman : We will find another way.

• Emily Rhodes : So, Halloween's just around the corner. You know what I don't like?

  Kendra Daynes : Candy?

  Emily Rhodes : Tricks. I do like treats, though. And a great treat would be confirmation of the President's slate of judicial nominees.

  Kendra Daynes : I laid the groundwork for your meeting with Senator Krantz from the Judiciary Committee. She promised a rubber stamp.

  Emily Rhodes : Good.

  [Seth joins them] 

  Emily Rhodes : Hey. Halloween's coming up.

  Seth Wright : [to Kendra]  Did she give you the whole "trick or treat" spiel?

  Kendra Daynes : Yes. She doesn't like tricks.

  Seth Wright : No, she doesn't like candy.

  Emily Rhodes : I like candy fine.

  Seth Wright : No. Only Necco Wafers. The pink ones.

  Emily Rhodes : Okay, Willy Wonka, are you ready for your auto exec meeting?

  Seth Wright : Yep. Ready to hawk the President's Clean Air Initiative. Only one problem.

  Emily Rhodes : What?

  Seth Wright : I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

  Emily Rhodes : You're a senior staffer pitching in on the policy side because we're shorthanded. Suck it up.

  Seth Wright : More like I'm gonna blow.

  Emily Rhodes : [joining Lyor]  Lyor, did you know that...

  Lyor Boone : If you do the Halloween thing again, I'll murder you with an axe.

• Tom Kirkman : I would like to do an OTR.

  Lyor Boone : An "on the road"? I like the impulse, sir. What I don't like is the risk. Just too many variables we can't control. We should do a one-on-one.

  Seth Wright : With Carson Kramer. Same forum as when Senator Rouse made his accusation.

  Lyor Boone : Release the oppo on Rouse right before you go on just to set the stage.

  Tom Kirkman : Lyor, I'm not interested in the politics of personal destruction.

  Lyor Boone : Respectfully, sir, this is not something that...

  Tom Kirkman : Look, if the problem is that I've lost the people, I need to take my argument to the people. Show them that I'm fighting their fight. I want to do an OTR. Shoot for lunchtime.

  Emily Rhodes : Yes, sir.

• Emily Rhodes : Okay, lunch. That gives us three hours.

  Lyor Boone : I want every detail stage-managed. A diner. He'll order a hamburger. I don't want anything foofy on the menu like Dijon mustard or profiteroles.

  Seth Wright : Diners don't have profiteroles.

  Lyor Boone : Yeah, exactly.

  Emily Rhodes : We should hand-pick the audience.

  Seth Wright : Yeah, we'll stock 'em with salt-of-the-earth types. Folks who've been victimized by the pension fraud.

  Emily Rhodes : Kirkman fans.

  Lyor Boone : All right, I'll get started on the vetting. Emily, you're logistics. Seth, do your thing with words.

  Seth Wright : Yeah, I got a word for you.

• Lyor Boone : [watching Kirkman]  I've never seen anyone this good with crowd work.

  Emily Rhodes : That's because it's not work for him. It's who he is.

• Emily Rhodes : It wasn't that bad.

  Lyor Boone : No, she's right. It was catastrophic.

  Tom Kirkman : Yeah.

  Lyor Boone : So... you've already lost cachet with Congress. Stonewalling your judicial nominees was the canary in the coal mine. Your whole legislative agenda's at risk now.

  Tom Kirkman : It was one word. I was being sarcastic.

  Lyor Boone : Not to put too fine a point on it, but the rule is things last one news cycle or ten. We kill this story today, sir, or it kills us.

  Tom Kirkman : Emily?

  Emily Rhodes : The business community is jumping ship. The media is turning on you. If we wake up tomorrow and Suckergate's the lead, the spiral may be irreversible.

  Tom Kirkman : This is ridiculous. I mean, there has to be a solution.

• Carson Kramer : It's been a rough couple of days, Mr. President.

  Tom Kirkman : Yes. Yes, it has. But you won't hear me complain. Not for a second. Because I know that there are people out there who are really having a rough time right now.

  Carson Kramer : Now, I know you want to address Senator Rouse's, uh, incendiary claim that you called the American people "suckers". The floor is yours, sir.

  Tom Kirkman : Thank you. I think that there is something the American people should know about Senator Rouse. And that is...

  Lyor Boone : [watching on TV]  Go there. Please go there.

  Tom Kirkman : ...that he is telling the truth.

  Lyor Boone : Oh, my god.

  Emily Rhodes : What is he doing?

  Tom Kirkman : He took my words out of context, but he is quoting me accurately.

  Seth Wright : This is bad.

  Carson Kramer : So you really think the American people are suckers?

  Tom Kirkman : Yes. I guess so. Because they believe in the American dream. This idea that our best tomorrows are in front of us, regardless of what today might be saying. And if that makes you a sucker, then count me in.

  Emily Rhodes : Less bad.

  Tom Kirkman : The great American generations that have come before us...

  Lyor Boone : Bring it home, sir. Bring it home.

  Tom Kirkman : ...have always managed to pull together when times were tough. We cannot be the exception. That's why it is so important that Congress gets behind the pension bailout bill. Too many Americans have had their security and their dreams snatched away from them.

  Lyor Boone : Trending good.

  Tom Kirkman : It's our turn to fix that. So I am promising the American people that I will not rest until that security and those dreams have been restored.

  Lyor Boone : I'm calling our pollsters. Our boss may have just pulled off the great escape.

• Seth Wright : Man, our boss has more lives than a cat.

  Emily Rhodes : Good thing for us kittens.

  Seth Wright : So, since we're not burning the midnight oil...

  Emily Rhodes : Oh, come by anytime. I'll put out a bowl of milk. We can torture metaphors.

  Seth Wright : Sounds good.

  [Lyor enters] 

  Seth Wright : Hey.

  [he holds out his hand for a fist bump] 

  Lyor Boone : What is it? Is that like a mannequin challenge thing or something?

  Seth Wright : Never mind.

• Lyor Boone : Our latest, uh, poll numbers.

  Emily Rhodes : Hm. Our boss did okay tonight, huh?

  Lyor Boone : He did okay.

  Emily Rhodes : You think he's weak for not using the oppo, right?

  Lyor Boone : No. I think he's the President.

• Aaron Shore : Why was a Member of Parliament jogging in Rock Creek Park this morning?

  Emily Rhodes : Charlotte Thorn was the British rep at this week's G20 conference. They were touting her as a future PM.

  Aaron Shore : What do we know about this?

  Hannah Wells : Well, right now, not much. One to the head while she was jogging. D.C. Metro says there's no witnesses.

  Aaron Shore : Did she have any enemies?

  Hannah Wells : Oh, plenty. She was outspoken on everything, from women's rights to illegal arms dealing to corporate responsibility. You name it.

  Aaron Shore : Well, we're already fielding calls about safety concerns from jumpy foreign leaders that are threatening to pull out of the G20 conference.

  Emily Rhodes : No. That can't happen. Not when the Kirkman agenda is to take a bigger role on the international stage with the IMF, the environment, arms control. We need this.

  Hannah Wells : All right. I'll keep you posted.