Jon Favreau
Appearances
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
yeah if you really wanted to focus on inflation and take it seriously you would and you wanted to you know indirectly or even directly blame the last administration say i inherited this mess the costs were high and now i'm going to take it seriously and you know scott besant said on this treasury secretary said this weekend i think on the sunday shows we're creating an affordability czar or something like that which is of course but
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
In a State of the Union— You could say that. Yeah, you could say that, and then you can add some policy around it. You can do this thing. He just—he kind of— He didn't even try. I mean, he—we'll talk about the tax—he talked about the tax cuts. I guess we can talk about that now.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Yeah, but also the tax cuts. He's like—he did the no tax on tips. He did the no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security benefits. He added no—the loans on a car loan, the interest on a car loan will be tax deductible. Keep in mind, none of this— None of that is in the Republican budget that passed. So, like, it's Trump's party. He's like, maybe they'll get in later. Maybe the Senate will do it.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
But none of the stuff that he talked about, the tax cuts for, like, actual working people, middle class people, are in the budget that passed. It's, like, largely tax cuts for rich people.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
And just like all of these things, no tax on tip, the social security, making social security tax deductible, all these things are ways of saying you're doing a bunch of middle class tax cuts when in actuality you're going to do a giant tax cuts for the rich and only bring down rates for the middle class a tiny bit and spend a little bit extra if you do it at all on some of these other ways of lowering taxes.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
His speeches are always long. They're always long, yeah. I mean, look, it was a greatest hit speech peppered in with some new stunts and interesting, scary moments. But like a lot of what we've heard before. But he's really relishing in it. He's really enjoying his time up there.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
But of course, like, OK, so you've decided you're not taxing tips for somebody that's a waiter. But if you're a barista and you don't make as much on tips, you still pay the rate you paid before. Like, why do those people not deserve a tax break? Right. Like I'm fine. Cut the taxes on tips.
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But like you're choosing between different working class people to make that part of the bill cheaper while doing a massive multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the richest people.
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Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash cricket and use the code cricket at checkout for 15% off. Thank you. So the big news today leading up to the speech was that the long-awaited tariffs on Mexico and Canada that he had paused for a while finally went into effect. It is 25% tariffs on everything from Canada and Mexico. It was an additional 10% on everything from China.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
The stock market did quite poorly today. I have two days in a row that it did quite poorly. And Trump talked about it a little bit tonight. So let's listen.
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Feels like that's going to come back to bite him in the ass. The tariffs? The little disturbance line?
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Yes. It's very like Doctor Strange, though. I'm not saying we won't get our hair messed a little bit. You know, like very like, you mean the disturbance being like a possible recession, rising costs, people being unable to afford like the basic cost of life. Like that's the disturbance.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Not only that he said disturbance, I hadn't caught until we just heard it again. The second line, we're okay with that. It's like, are we? Who's we?
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
I can't – so Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary today was like, you know, we're talking to Canada and Mexico and we might as early as tomorrow announce that there's a reduction in these tariffs. Not a pause but maybe a reduction or whatever. Like I – do you guys think that he's going to keep this going, this trade war?
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Because after the stock market today – there was like a segment on Fox yesterday. of some reporter, Fox News, some reporter at, like, a car dealership, and the guy that owns the car dealership is like, yeah, I got this truck sitting on the lot. It was $80,000. Now it's going to be... I'm not sorry. He did say it was $80,000. It was $80,000, yeah. This truck on the lot is $80,000.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Now it's going to be another $20,000. No one's going to buy it. And, like, I think this could be really bad for him. I know we say that about everything with Trump, but, like, I don't know. Prices getting jacked up that high for a long time seems...
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Yeah. Right. I would say it was not surprising in any way. No, nothing really new. Like it felt – What I expected, we said this before in our livestream, like a lot of accomplishments for most of the speech, very little news, new policy, and we'll go through some of it. I think what was notable is at the beginning, you know, he did his,
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Right, but it's still like energy prices already went up.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
And it's not just about what we import. He's obsessed with this trade deficit. We have a trade deficit with Canada because of oil, because we use an incredible amount of oil that comes from Canada. If you put that aside, we have a trade surplus with Canada. Canada is our biggest customer. They are our biggest client. They buy a ton of stuff from us. They are a customer for everything.
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Put oil aside, they are a customer. We need them. In terms of what we trade, they buy more from us than we buy from them, which means we need them. And so it's all, it's all farce. That's why, you know, Canada's like, fuck you, you know? So yeah, like, I don't know how bad this has to get. What kind of like, whether he wants a fig leaf on this.
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I do think if he, if he does, if he does lift it, like, that's the thing. If he now lifts it really quickly, he looks pretty weak for having put it on for a couple of days. And like, so these tariffs were always more powerful for him prospectively than they are now that they're in place. So I just have no idea. Yeah.
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I also think that, like, the polling on this, you know, you get some polls that show that people are somewhat favorable to tariffs on China, on Chinese goods. But the Canadian tariffs are very unpopular. Mexico's pretty unpopular. Like, they're not popular now. They're going to be even less popular when people are paying a lot more for shit. We'll see how the stock market does, but, like...
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And, you know, maybe he reduces the Canada and Mexico ones, but he spoke at length in the State of the Union tonight about the reciprocal tariffs that are going to affect on April 2nd, not April 1st, because he didn't want everyone to think it was an April Fool's joke. That's what he said.
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Yeah, it's crazy. So then he gets into, starts talking about the rest of the world. I guess that was a segue, talking about Canada and Mexico and the tariffs. And, you know, he had a little bit to say about all the important problems in the world right now.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
uh we've had the greatest month in any from of any president in history number two was george washington bob us he's bragging bragging and then early on um there was a little bit of an interruption uh at the beginning of the speech so let's listen to that we won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
was the gaza section it's in depth yes made this point but just that like if you showed this to republicans five ten years ago and said this is going to be what you'll be applauding i feel like you're you're full of no way this is the dumbest i've ever seen it's gonna get greenland one way or the other uh attacked elizabeth warren um on ukraine and then uh the middle east is tough neighborhood
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We didn't get there, but he also talked about getting the Panama Canal back as well.
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Yeah, well, he talked about getting the Panama Canal back. And then that segued into some love for his secretary of state. Let's hear that clip.
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Right. Has he even talked about that story? That's what I've seen. It seems like he's getting what he wants before it became a whole thing. That was a great story. I thought it was perfectly timed for the State of the Union.
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That's why they rolled it out. I thought the Rubio shout-out was notable because I think that Rubio is his patsy on foreign policy. It's so great. He said it tonight, and I think he means it. When things go wrong, he's going to blame it on Trump. Yeah, he's completely on Marco Rubio. And so like, you know, his planned annexation of Panama, Canada, Greenland, Gaza. Yeah, it's all on Marco.
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Marco fucks it up and that's it. There were a couple of stories about Rubio feeling like, you know, he's got his magaminders around him. And there was another story about how he's worried that he's not getting the influence he thought he was going to have. And part of me thought this was a little bit Donald Trump, at least seeing those or hearing about those and kind of like –
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bucking them up, you know, kind of giving a little shine in the State of the Union. I felt like it was Michael Corleone kissing Fredo.
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The Danes are shitting their fucking pants right now.
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He started that section on Greenland by saying, we support whatever the people of Greenland want to do, but we're going to get you one way or the other. Yeah. That's how we ended it. And there was some stuff in between about how he was going to take Greenland to new heights.
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the green he that's it's real he really he's it's one way or the other so that was foreign policy and then he did a bunch of he called out people in the guest box he does that a couple stunts um what else stood out to you guys in the speech and then there was like an there was like five endings that were like literally copy pasted from other trump speeches it's about like crossing new frontiers and going to the moon and all that bullshit
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We should talk about the stunts a little bit. Some of the stunts, right? So we had, there was one moment that was actually like kind of sweet where there's this boy that had had some kind of cancer And it's like wanted to be a police officer. And clearly they didn't know how long he was going to live. So he became honorary police officer.
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And then he made him an honorary member of the Secret Service. And he had a really sweet look on his face. And I found that moving. And then some more cynical people ripped me to fucking pieces. But then it became an actually RFK Jr. is going to look into the chemical causes of various illnesses.
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And by the way, we're going to go after autism. He insinuated that it came from chemicals, which Maha's got to fix. And then we got to go to autism. It was a really weird transition.
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And then you remember that he's currently gutting the National Institutes of Health. That's where the transgender mice research was done, but also some cancer research that you might've been familiar with. And he's going after Medicaid and he's going after... And by the way, he launched an insurrection against the police at the Capitol in which this event was taking place. So...
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Yes, it is a cynical thing, but the moment did work on me. He did admit one guy to West Point, too? Yeah, that was good, too. That was good, too.
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Want to rank the stunts? I can't remember the specifics, but I remember him doing this in his previous State of the Union, during his first terms. They weren't just calling out people in the box, in the First Lady's box. It was like... like announcing something for them, some kind of award. Not just the Rush Limbaugh. He gets very Oprah here, right? Yes, it is. He signed an executive order.
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Yeah, J. Mark called it his Ed McMahon section of the speech. Really dated cultural reference even for us.
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And then there was like the slightly, not slightly, then there was like the darker version of it, right? Which is like kind of, going through people that have been grievously harmed by whether it's immigrants or a trans athlete and then, like, naming a national preserve after the victim of a terrible murder and, like, to draw attention to, you know, anti-immigrant sentiment and all the rest.
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So, like, that was pretty ugly. But, like, the most, I mean, because a lot of the speech was, like, sort of a mix of, yes, it's sort of normal, normal speeches as president and his stump speech, his sort of grievance stump speech, like, the kind of the parts that did stand out other than, like, Greenland was, were these stunts.
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Only time Medicaid was mentioned the entire night was Al Green. Donald Trump never mentioned Medicaid or Medicare, which I thought was kind of interesting. Usually he'd do the, I'm going to protect it and I'm not going to cut it in this budget, but he didn't even mention it at all.
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Well, but it makes sense when you realize that he is not trying to make a case that wins him any kind of public opinion. He's not trying to pressure these people in public because what the White House does, what this White House does, is just like threaten them in private.
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And so he probably thinks, I'm going to talk about my accomplishments and have a good time, and I'm going to deal with getting the sausage made publicly. with my people on my own.
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Right. I think, right. I also, it's just like, it's sort of, it's an unsolvable problem. There's no like rhetorical fix for it. Like the circles in the Venn diagram do not overlap. Like Tom Cotton stood up at some Senate Republican caucus meeting today. And it's like, Hey guys, like we're far apart from what the house wants to do. We're talking about all these tax cuts for the rich.
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We've got to focus on the parts that are for the working class. Like there's like a real, there's no solve right now for this. So what's he going to say? He's not persuading people to anything.
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And it's because Thune said before Tom Cotton got up, the House is asking for a trillion dollars in cuts. We've never done that in a reconciliation bill. The most we've done is like $400 billion in cuts. And I still think that they are going to try to...
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The easiest thing for them to do is not go deep on the cuts and say that the bullshit doge cuts, you know, puff them up and lie about how much money they saved. Do a huge tax cut because they can get everyone on board with that. Figure something out about the debt limit, which I don't know what it is.
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And maybe he's going to fucking mint the coin or get rid of the debt limit or say it doesn't matter. And then just pass something that just, you know, adds to the deficit, a couple trillion dollars, gives rich people a tax cut, and then cuts where they can't. That feels like the way that they'd get out of this or the whole thing falls apart.
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So that was something. So Donald Trump does his whole, you know, we won seven swing states, greatest popular vote victory ever. How much you even bench, bro?
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Or they can just fucking lie and just put some, you know, do some gimmick in there about, yes, the doge cuts, but say, like, we're going to do this amount of cuts in the coming years, right? They can do some trickery with math. Well, they could also sunset some of the tax cuts to keep the costs a certain way down, right?
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Push a decision on tax cuts, like, you know, do cuts over 10 years, do the tax cuts over three. Like, there's games they still have room to play with.
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Right, and they can't. They can do all their games, but someone's going to report that. Yeah, math is math. Any other things that stand out to you guys from the speech?
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A bunch of Democrats start making some noise. Al Green of Texas starts interrupting him. And then, you know, Mike Johnson was ready for it and decided he was going to tell the sergeant of arms to get rid of him.
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Should we talk about the Democratic response? Oh, yeah, the Democrats. Alyssa Slotkin, new senator from Michigan. She gave the Democratic response. And then there were other Democratic responses. We already talked about Al Green leaving. There was also a bunch of Democrats that held signs up that said false. They were dressed in different ways.
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yeah what did you guys think of that so his line right is you have no mandate to cut medicaid that's what he that's what he was that's what that was the message of his protest so at least you know he's trying to make a moment about medicaid that's what that's all that's just to quote the man yeah and to you know it was an act of protest yeah like it didn't bother me it didn't not like it wouldn't it's not what i would have done but it didn't bother me i kind of
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And then a bunch of people, just a couple people left the speech.
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I was going to say, I think Maxwell Frost and someone else left early, and then later Bernie left, and then a couple other people left. There was no specific words that triggered them leaving. I think if I were them, I would have left just because I was very bored, and it was very long, and I was tired. We're on West Coast time, and we're tired.
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Leaving early is like walking out of a movie just to show you hate it. I walked out of a pretty bad production of Rent once, but it wasn't a protest. It wasn't a good production. I was ready to go home. Got it.
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I think Alyssa Slotkin did a good job. I think those speeches are the hardest ones to give of any speech. I don't even know why people still do state-of-the-art response. They are remembered if you fuck up, and if you do well, they're not remembered. I think it was short. She delivered it well, and she hit the message that I'm sure is going to poll well.
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I bet the speech did well with whatever focus groups of voters were watching it. And then there's this debate that's happening online right now about, like, should the Democrats have gone at all? Should they not have gone at all? Which we sort of started talking about.
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Yeah, I feel like there's, yeah, I think there's sort of three things. One, if you're gonna go all the way to Michigan to deliver it, like why are you standing in front of like a kind of a standard American flag set that could have been a closed room anywhere. So I sort of was like, didn't understand the setting.
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I thought the speech was solid, but like, and it's not even a criticism of her or the speech. It's like, yes, there's the question of like, well, is, you know, this is, it's a television format, not a social media format. But then there's just this part of it.
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And I don't have an answer, but it's like, we just watched a carnival barker lie and kind of squeal for 90 minutes, vilifying all kinds of people, willfully lying, making things up about social security, kind of attacking president, bragging about his electoral record, just sort of like, just showing like utter contempt for the country.
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And then we do kind of what is the kind of the adult in the room standard. Here's the response, the message that tests well, the proper kind of- Reagan references. And just sort of like, this is designed to meet, to appeal to a broad range of people. We do normal politics, right? And I don't know like what the alternative to that is that works. But there is just something dissonant about it.
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There's something wrong about it. Like Donald Trump does what Donald Trump does. And then we get up there and we do what we would do if Mitt Romney had won or if Marco Rubio had won or whatever. And I – yeah. I know.
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half the country thinks that we are in normal politics right the guy's got a you know approval rating of at worst depending on the poll you look at 45 best 51 50 so that's like a whole bunch of people who if she had gotten up there any democrat had got up there and said something like this is a moment of urgency and can you believe that or just that guy was crazy or he was a carnival barker all the stuff that we've been saying with a lot of people would land like yeah
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But I know that's what I'm saying. So I think there could be room for that. But then the question is, what is the goal of a response? This gets to the heart of the entire Democratic response, the people on the floor, Al Green, everything else. What is the goal of what we are trying to do in responding to Donald Trump's speech? And who are we trying to reach and who are we trying to convince?
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You mean when a bunch of protesters were in the chamber desecrating, breaking down the doors of Congress, and then Trump pardoned them all?
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think then i feel like i feel like i'm going crazy having this debate over and over again because we like keep going on both sides of it like kamala harris loses the election and we're all like there's too much democracy too much scary this that the other thing authoritarianism people don't care about that should have talked more about cost inflation stuff like that and then okay great so now all the democrats are like we got to talk about the price of eggs we got to drive a message about inflation we got to talk about cost and then
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Donald Trump does what he does over the last month. And it's like, we can't fucking talk about that. We have to talk. And I'm, I'm there. I'm like, we have to talk. I'm with, I would talk, I would respond to it like Chris Murphy has responded.
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But I think this is where, this is how you square the difference though. Kamala Harris has been in a very difficult position because she only had 100 days. Like, she couldn't... Like, a third of the country completely woke up to the threat of Trump. A third likes it. A third was more concerned about their daily experience, what was happening in their lives.
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And waking them up to the threat of democracy just wasn't going to happen. We didn't have the credibility. She didn't have the credibility, right? So you have to... So that's where the mistake there is, right? But now, like, let's try to wake some more people up, right? Like, yes, we should talk about the price of eggs. But, like, we have to... I think we should, like... Yes, I think that...
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We can't just assume that this is static. Like Donald Trump is an authoritarian threat. Not enough people care about that. Not enough people care when he sides against Ukraine, when he pulls all these stunts, when he talks about evading Greenland. Right. Like too many people are kind of inured to it or asleep to it or not paying attention. And that's part of why we're in this mess.
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Yeah, I thought there would be more of that, more January 6th.
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Yeah, and I thought that was strong. It's funny because as I listened to that speech, I thought the strong part of the speech was the end when she talked about democracy. And then there's the little part of my head that's like, probably not the most popular part of the speech, but I was like, I feel like that resonates and it was true.
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But I do think part of that, too, is we're so far from an election that Democrats getting up there and saying, here's exactly what I'll do to help on the economy just rings a little hollow right now. So we've got to get closer to the election where you can have an agenda. You back up a corruption message with we're going to make white collar crime the priority of the Justice Department again.
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We're going to go after these tax cheats. We're going to go after the crypto fraudsters. You need that kind of energy and a kind of list of things that you can do.
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Yeah. Although the thing I saw a lot of media outlets, and God bless them, this is their job, they're supposed to give us the facts. There's, like, a lot of fact-checking after the speech, and I was like, I can't do the fact-checking. I don't think fact-checking him is... I mean, it's helpful to point out that he's bullshit, but, like, I don't know where it's getting us.
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It's also, by the way, like at this point, like I agree, like these stories specifically, I don't know what they get us, but then like. We just don't really know or have a good way of measuring, like, okay, some creator somewhere is going to take that and make a TikTok or make a video that kind of walks through the ways it was alive. One of them will take off.
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And this is where I was at the beginning where you're talking about algorithm, and I was like a little flippant and being like, I don't think it matters either way. I guess... We're having this debate over, like, what's the most effective message? What's the most effective Democrat? I guess I don't blame any of them for trying, right?
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Like, if you wanted to hold a sign, if you wanted to walk out, if you wanted to stay, if you want to give Alyssa Slotkin's type speech, if you want to do something else, like, whatever. Like you said, the election is not till 2026. Everyone should try. Some stuff's going to take off. Some stuff isn't going to take off. As long as people are, like, you know, going out there.
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That's actually not that, for a State of the Union, that doesn't matter. He has traditionally had positive reviews of his States of the Union that aren't as positive.
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Yeah, this also, by the way, goes to like... This is what I was saying on the live stream about the protest walking up, because like, you know what? People thought Joe Wilson was an asshole when he said to Barack Obama that he lied. People thought Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were assholes when they interrupted Joe Biden.
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Like, when you interrupt someone, most people think you're an asshole.
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But this is part of the thing, when you're like... If the message – Donald Trump did not bring up Medicaid. Al Green brought up Medicaid, right? Sometimes – we're not – no election for two years. Sometimes the shit that's going to drive an important message maybe doesn't make you look good for a beat, right?
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Like it doesn't always have to be like we're down to Al Green's – Al Green's in a safe district.
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Like he got people to talk about the Medicaid cuts. I think that's a good thing.
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No. Well, I also have very little patience for people like Al Green's outburst. didn't help Democrats as if like a Democrat who's not Al Green is going to somehow be hurt by what Al Green, like I have no. Do you think it'll be more or less impactful than Donna Brazile's book right before the Virginia governor's election?
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I don't even remember what it was about. I know. I don't even know the full story. But do you remember it? Yes, of course I remember it.
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God, I do remember that. But what was it? We'll talk off mic.
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All right, before we go, we did the live stream before and we all bet on how long the speech was going to be. And so we had Price is Right rules. And let's see. Tommy guessed 62 minutes. The next person was me. I guessed 81 minutes. Dan guessed 85 minutes. But the winner...
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is love it i won with 86 minutes wow i know we thought originally it was dan but adrian corrected me and we have a trophy oh my god look at that wow love it figured out wow i've i've never done well in uh any kind of uh game show before uh famously so this has been great congratulations what it would have been like to me make it through one vote who were the big winners of donald trump's speech tonight
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According to the polls, Donald Trump. But according to us, John Lovett.
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Yeah, thanks a lot. No, that feels really good. It feels really good.
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All right, everyone. We'll be back with an episode. Dan and I will be back with an episode. What day is it? Friday. Friday we'll have an episode. We'll talk to you then.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Toles.
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Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Well, we should tell the backstory. The reason they planned for this moment is all bad things start with Axios. Had a report that Democrats were going to like bring eggs in pocket constitutions and try to disrupt the speech. And there was a couple of reports and it was like sourced to unnamed Democrats.
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And so then Republicans, some Republicans were like, there's a report from Axios that Democrats are going to throw eggs at Donald Trump, which... People were saying that was not a report at all. And so then the House Freedom Caucus had a post that was like, if Democrats interrupt this speech, we will censure them. Which, by the way, now they're saying that Al Green could be censured. Oh, no.
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Yeah, I know. What's that going to do? A censure, by the way, is the House votes and says, you're bad. Seems very quaint.
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And so they were clearly all ready for this, which is why, which is when this happened.
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But they were very much ready to do like a kind of hand gesture of like, get him out. They're like, we want to do a hand gesture and like applauding, restoring order. I guess like what I can't, I feel like I feel conflicted about it. Right.
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Because, you know, like there are people joking like, oh, Democrats, if you really think Donald Trump is an authoritarian menace, wearing different colored hats is a very silly thing to do. Right. Like, you know, in response to the authoritarian menace, we coordinated our outfits. That sounds ridiculous. And we didn't because there were people in purple, people in white.
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He thought he was going to lie, but we had signs that said false.
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Right. And then some people coordinated pink and purple and white. And then it's like, well, that's just a bunch of different outfits. But like the... Then you think, okay, so what should Democrats do, right? Should they just, like, this, you know, don't lend Donald Trump the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union, or really a joint address to Congress, to be exact.
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Call it State of the Union. But, like, then you say, all right, Democrats either walk out or they don't show up. Like, what does that get us, right? Like, we kind of look childish. We look like we're not being, like, we look partisan. So I don't know what the right thing to do is. Like, I don't know if protesting is. I don't know if sitting there is.
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It's tough because it's hard to feel because we don't have a lot of power.
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Yeah, but he also didn't want, like Marjorie Greene didn't, she sat down, Al Green didn't. The thing is also Trump didn't have like a whole exchange. He kind of didn't.
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As we know, Lovett set up a SimpliSafe all by himself, figured it out, and it has protected him and Pundit for years now. So, endorsed by John Lovett. What more could you want? Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
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Yeah, I mean, getting up there, President of the United States, getting up there to talk about the seven swing states you won, the popular vote, saying that the president who was before you was the worst president in history, like, that doesn't rate high on the decorum scale.
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He sticks a violent mob in the Capitol. What are we doing? None of this, like, it's... Was it effective? Was it not effective? It doesn't matter. It's where we're like, wait, we're through the looking glass now. Al Green getting kicked out or not. It's like, it's not even who cares.
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I think, but well, I guess the reason it's like, I know I have the same, like we're through the looking glass when it's like, okay, well, what do we, what should they do?
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We're on the other side of the looking glass. We're on the, we're on the wrong side of the fucking mirror. We're still here. So what do we do all day?
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Well, you, you, you, you stand up, you get kicked out or you don't like, I really don't think either matters. I don't think it either has an effect. I don't think we're going to remember this much longer, is I guess what my point is. Okay. So then he keeps going. He does the accomplishments. He does keep going. He does the accomplishments. He gets to, and then he gets to Doge.
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And when he gets to Doge, first of all, he says that Elon Musk is the head of Doge, which is interesting because in court they're arguing that he was not the head of Doge. He's just support staff. That's what he said at the cabinet meeting.
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So some plaintiffs in a lawsuit immediately, you know, filed to the court and saying, oh, by the way, Donald Trump, the president just said that Elon Musk is head of Doge. And then he went through some of the Doge cuts.
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8 million to make mice transgender and 8 million to turn them back. And some of those mice, by the way, what's so fucking terrible is that some of those trans mice then like kind of defeated a bunch of other mice in all these mazes. And it's like, is that fair to have trans mice competing against cisgender mice in a maze?
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Well, you know what's nice is that he brought one of those trans mice to the State of the Union sitting right next to Melania. Yeah, made him head of the Park Service. And that's all you need to know about the speech. Oh, my God. Sign the EO right there. Stupid speech. Yeah, so, first of all, like, I haven't looked all this up. I'm guessing a lot of that probably isn't true. For sure.
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The reason I know that is not just because I'm guessing. Then he did the long thing about Social Security where he repeated the whole thing about like 150 year olds and 300 year olds getting benefits and this and that. None of which is true.
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Not only has it been fact checked by like every media organization, but Donald Trump's head of Social Security, the administrator, the person that's now the administrator after everyone else resigned, was like, oh, by the way, 200 year olds aren't getting Social Security. That wasn't. So even his own administration has said that's wrong.
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And he just went through the whole thing, did the whole thing. 200-year-olds are getting this and this, which went on and on and on.
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He did every age bracket. He did every group. The doge cuts that he mentioned are probably not accurate either. But I don't know what you guys thought about that.
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Yeah, I mean, people go into this thinking that there's a lot of waste and inefficiency in government. And so when he lists those programs, people are probably like, oh, my God, I thought it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad. That's probably the normal reaction to that. I'm sure that's not so – If you don't know that it was all bullshit or exaggerated or whatever.
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It's also – look, again, it's like – you know, defending these programs is always a trap. And it's like, fine, we live in a world where defending really good things is a trap. But a lot of science sounds ridiculous until it makes the world a much better place. You could probably go back and describe research into stealth airplanes.
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It's like they're trying to make invisible airplanes so you can come up with- You're for the mice. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm for a process of assigning grants that allow you to do medical research in all kinds of ways. Like we study all kinds of things in mice before we study them in people. And like, of course, of course.
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We did a few of those lines in Obama's State of the Unions. Got the salmon, got the milk. Right. We were talking about this earlier, that it is like a central conceit of the movie Dave.
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Tommy Vitor. So that was the speech. It was the longest. Donald Trump just gave the longest State of the Union in history. What was the final count? The final count was 99 minutes. So that's the longest speech in history. It was... I don't know. Anyone have thoughts off the bat? It felt longer than 99 minutes. It did.
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Yes. And in Dave, right, he goes through and he says, like, we're spending money to convince people they were right to buy a car they already bought. And it's like, isn't the government stupid? And that's what the 90s did. And now we live in the fucking aftermath. Yeah.
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Stupid 90s. Yeah, here we are. So it took him a while to get to the central concern of most voters, which is the cost of everything and affordability. The first issue he talked about in depth was trans athletes, talked a lot about that. And then finally, somewhere in the 30-minute mark, 40-minute mark, I don't know what it was, I lost track, he got into inflation.
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And he did mention the price of eggs, but he had someone else to blame.
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Yeah. What do we think about the inflation stuff and the cost stuff? Did he... Well, he's just sort of like he's still in a window where it is like plausible to blame your predecessor. Like I think it's ridiculous.
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It's no longer apparently ridiculous and embarrassing to brag about your political victory and then spend a few minutes blaming your predecessor for all of your problems in like such explicit detail.
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It used to be that that would have been seen as ridiculous and beneath the office and contemptible. But we don't feel those things anymore, I guess. But like, okay. All right. Still Joe Biden's fault. Is that going to be true in three months, in six months? I mean, not a guy who's known to lean into challenges.
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Well, let's see if you can break that record. But like, you know, he's he has only been president for a month. So he has some leeway to say I am still taking like that's not not that he's a ridiculous person, but that's not a ridiculous position.
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And then later, you'll hear my interview with Cecilia Munoz, a 20 year veteran of the immigration fight, about why she thinks Democrats lost their way on the issue and how we can build a majority for real reform. But first, we have talked a lot in recent weeks about Trump's revenge tour and how scared his critics should be. Looks like we're starting to get our answer.
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Can I just say Nancy Pelosi obviously has still, even though she's not speaker anymore, a lot of sway over Democrats, but she's not speaker anymore or minority leader in this case. 181 Democrats voted for Connolly. And, you know, if you're sort of a younger, newer Democrat to Congress, is it really like lobbying from Nancy Pelosi that's going to sway your vote?
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Like, do you think there was anything else at play here?
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I mean, I think this is crazy as do you. But let's give the arguments for Connolly. They're due here because there's plenty of Democrats talking about why the party did what it did. Retiring Representative Annie Custer, who heads the centrist New Democrats group in the House.
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said some of her vulnerable members had concerns about AOC's record of supporting primary challenges to her colleagues, even though AOC promised to stop doing that as part of her campaign for the role. There also was a fear, apparently, about her going too hard at divisive cultural issues, according to Politico. Majority leader Steny Hoyer, age 84, made the case for seniority on behalf of Pelosi.
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And basically his argument was being senior shouldn't mean you automatically get the job, though it should at least be a tiebreaker between qualified candidates. Congressman Lloyd Doggett, age 77, said, I think that there are challenges in totally abandoning the seniority system here because if seniority is not the rule, money becomes the rule. What do you make of all those arguments?
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On Wednesday, House Republicans released a 128-page report that unsurprisingly tries to pin the blame for January 6th on Democrats instead of Donald Trump. People would be surprised to learn that. But Republicans, quote, top finding... was this, quote, former Representative Liz Cheney colluded with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson's attorney's knowledge.
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I was going to say, I have nothing negative to say about Jerry Connolly because I, like 99% of Americans, have no idea who he is.
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I will say two things here, too. I think there is some angst among a lot of House Democrats that I think is quite misplaced. Where, you know, I think they're like, oh, squad, unpopular with the broader electorate, you know, DSA, all that kind of stuff. I would say that AOC... particularly over the last several years.
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I'm not going to say she has moderated her message or anything like that because I do not think that. But I think she has been very smart, especially in recent years, on which battles to pick, how to talk to voters, open to people who have different opinions. I think that she's very, very thoughtful. And she's like, really?
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I mean, I was always impressed with her, but she's impressed me even more the longer she's been in Congress. So that's number one. Number two, I think from her perspective, whether she's the top Democrat on oversight or not, she's going to get hurt. Right. Like there can be a fucking five hours of hearings on C-SPAN that no one will ever see.
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And if AOC picks up her phone and does an Instagram live, she's going to reach more people. And she's still going to be on oversight. Right. Because she was on oversight before. And if they're fucking smart, Jerry Connolly and others on oversight, you know, during these hearings, she'll be given plenty of time to speak. So that'll be OK.
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What really bothers me about it, right, is that it just this gets to your point. It reveals a mindset among Democrats that they are missing that attention is the only thing that matters right now or not the only thing that matters. But attention is the first thing that matters, because if you cannot get attention in this media environment, your message cannot be heard.
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And if your message cannot be heard, you cannot persuade people. If you can't persuade people, you can't win. If you can't win, you can't cover. So I think that the Democratic Party has still not figured out how important it is to get attention and what is required to get attention.
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And even if you're a more moderate member, what's required to get attention is not, I'm sure some of them think, just yelling and screaming about Republicans and showing the most outrage and this or that. Look, it's tough. You've got to be creative. You've got to talk like a normal fucking human being and not like a politician who's been there for 40 years.
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Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering by the FBI and might have broken, quote, numerous federal laws. Cheney called the allegations, quote, defamatory and said that no reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously. Someone who is taking it seriously, Donald Trump, who posted at 3 a.m.
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And by the way, I don't just want to make it an age thing. There's old politicians who know how to communicate. There's young politicians.
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And there's plenty of young politicians who are unbelievably boring and do not. Just to be very honest.
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So it's not necessarily about age, but everyone needs to know that like if you cannot get attention and attention is not like putting out your press releases and giving your board and press conference and doing something at the whatever, like then you're just not going to be heard and we're just not going to win.
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So even though Democrats don't control the White House or Congress, we may actually have more leverage to fight back than people might think. As we've mentioned before, Speaker Mike Johnson will have an incredibly narrow margin in the House next year, which will require nearly every House Republican to support him on nearly every vote.
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if Trump and Republicans want to get anything done, at least legislatively. And right now, Johnson is already struggling to get that support. He is currently trying to pass a bill to keep the government funded for just three months, giving up on a full year. He's just trying to do three months.
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But all the usual MAGA troublemakers in his caucus are once again threatening to oppose the bill because it's not crazy enough for them. Unfortunately, one of those MAGA troublemakers, unfortunately for Johnson, one of those MAGA troublemakers is now Doge Master Elon Musk, who weighed in with a tweet saying this bill should not pass and another with a photo of a huge stack of printed out papers.
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There's supposedly the bill with the caption ever seen a bigger piece of pork. It's also funny, by the way, that Fox and Friends broke this news about Elon Musk to Mike Johnson live on air. And Johnson had to say, well, I know where Elon stands on this and he knows where I stand. And they called me last night and he knows what what a tough spot I'm in.
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And we just need to wait till Donald Trump is in charge next year and and then everyone will get in line. But the question is what Democrats will do. Not just in this fight, but in next year's funding fight, the fight on taxes, immigration, energy, all the fights that are coming up in Congress next year.
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Do Democrats use their leverage to extract concessions from Johnson, in this case in exchange for helping him keep the government open, or... Do Democrats just sit back and let Republicans fail? Because, you know, like I said, even if he gets the votes for this three month funding bill, which he may in the end, he's going to have to do this many, many more times when Trump is president.
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a statement that started, Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble. So this is obviously bullshit. And we know that it was Cassidy Hutchinson who reached out to Liz Cheney, not the other way around. Cheney talked to her in her capacity as a member of Congress, not a lawyer.
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And we should say why there's an argument for paying them more. And it comes from like some Democrats, liberals, progressives. And it's because basically we have a system now where because members of Congress are paid the salaries they are, you have to be like... independently wealthy, which especially many members of the Senate are, in order to run for Congress.
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Because a lot of these guys, it doesn't matter that they have a low salary for Congress because they're rich otherwise. But if we want people to go to Congress who are working class, who represent the incomes of most people in this country, then it needs to be a little more attractive as a salary.
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Yeah. But anyway, so that's one thing that's in there.
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Or, you know, look, I am usually... Are you calling for a shutdown?
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I'm not going to shut down the government. But just for discussion purposes, right? Okay. We've talked about shutdowns and what Democrats can do and using their leverage in the context of Trump's president, Democrats control the Senate, Trump's president, Democrats control the House, Biden's president, Republicans in the Congress.
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We are now going to have a situation where Republicans control everything. They control everything, every level of power. They are in charge of the House, the Senate, the White House. Donald Trump has more power than any president has ever had. Got a Supreme Court that he has shaped.
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And I wonder if next year when some of these bills come up, I'm thinking of especially like the tax bill, which I'm sure most Democrats will vote against anyway. But again, you can imagine a scenario where, you know, the tax bill is going to be a must pass bill. Right. Because the Trump tax cuts are set to expire next year. And so.
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Trump wants to, of course, double down on his tax cuts, not just renew the tax cuts, but also like make the corporate tax rate even lower, give a bigger tax cut to corporations. You could imagine a scenario where because Mike Johnson may need Democratic votes that we extract some concessions and get some good middle class tax cuts, right? Beef up the middle class tax cuts.
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And most importantly, when Republicans criticized Cheney for this meeting months and months ago, maybe years ago, they merely said that she had a, quote, ethical responsibility to have Hutchinson's lawyer present for the meeting. Didn't say anything about any laws being broken.
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Or you can imagine Democrats saying, look, you guys run Washington. You have all the votes. You have powerful Donald Trump here. And we're not going to sit here and help you gut people's health care, take away their health insurance so you can give tax cuts to rich people. You find the votes for that because we're not going to stand for that.
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Well, I mean, I think I think it depends on what's in the funding bill, too. But if that funding bill, which I imagine it will be under full Republican control, is gutting a bunch of priorities for Democrats and it's going to hurt a lot of people.
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If they they throw like Medicaid funding in there and they got Medicaid funding or they got the subsidies for the ACA that Democrats got to do instead of getting like compromising. So you get a little bit more of the subsidies and maybe you save a little bit more of the Medicaid cuts. I also think you could be like like they look, they want to fund the government.
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They want to pass something that's going to keep the government open but screw people who are going to lose their fucking health care? Go for it. You find the votes.
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He's the one who put out the report to Target Cheney.
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I know what you're thinking. Dan and I together on a Wednesday, not a Friday. Is there a polling emergency? Turns out only for Ann Seltzer.
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But that, of course, was before Donald Trump and Kash Patel, the person he wants to run the FBI, campaigned on locking up Liz Cheney and the rest of the January 6th committee. Dan, how serious do you take this threat, not only for Cheney, but for all of Trump's critics?
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No. Yeah. Look, I've been I've been thinking about this because you can see even with the government fund. That's correct on the tax bill for sure. Even on the government funding bill, you can see a situation where Democrats are like, well, we want to want to work with Republicans where we agree and and, you know, extract some concessions and then stand up where we don't agree.
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And then Republicans end up keeping the government open, but they do a bunch of bad shit in the funding bill. And Democrats go, well, we got this concession and no one knows because no one pays attention to Congress. And all the people maybe understand about Congress right now or Washington in general, forget about Congress, is, oh, Donald Trump controls all of Washington.
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Donald Trump's in power and anything that goes wrong, it's Donald Trump's fault. But in order for that to happen, Democrats have to be like, yeah, no, they're doing it all themselves.
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Yes, totally agree. All right. Finally, we like to cover good news when we see it, which isn't all that often right now. Something that caught our eye this morning, a piece from our friend Sam Stein at the Bulwark about more than 100 Democrats pushing for reform at ActBlue.
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ActBlue is the main online engine for small dollar donations to progressive candidates and causes and Democrats and all kinds of the whole broader Democratic universe. It is also, these Democrats argue, a key culprit in all of the fundraising spam movement. and grifty no-name appeals that drive us all crazy in our text messages, our emails, everything.
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Some of the changes this group of Democratic operatives and staffers all want to see. No more solicitations from shady groups pretending to be official party entities when they're not. No more outlandish promises of a 500% match. If you give now and it's so urgent, you must give now by the deadline. They also want to see changes to the ways ActBlue sells or shares donor information.
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What do you think? I think this is the least we can do on this.
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Yes, I will just I would go beyond this, too. I mean, yes, let's get rid of all the scam packs and, you know, not have not as many of those texts. But like, we got to really think about, you know, the people who are writing these fundraising emails, these texts, like that strategy from the campaigns themselves.
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And by the way, sometimes the campaigns outsource it to like some digital fundraising, you know, firm or whatever else, like, just the language that's used. I mean, I fucking start from scratch here. It's Some of the appeals seem ridiculous.
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We've done this through Vote Save America here, but we believe that there is a way to help direct people's donations and figure out where to give that's smart and where it's needed.
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even in a way that makes sense to people, that doesn't sound like a fucking bot blowing up your phone, and is actually a real fundraising appeal, and maybe even use some humor, and maybe just sound a little more authentic. I just think that the entire business of democratic digital fundraising, it could use a real overhaul, and that goes just beyond the scam packs.
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Yeah, well, you know, I know. I know. They test the open rates, and so when they say, like, Matto segment freaked me out, and everyone, like, opens the fucking thing, and I get that, but, like, I don't know. I... I think that the testing is different from the like, okay, it's going to get some money, but how many people is it going to turn off?
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It's a good idea. Okay, when we come back from the break, you're going to hear my conversation with Cecilia Munoz about what it's been like to watch from the inside as the immigration conversation drifted farther and farther to the left. Quick plug before we do that. I know a lot of us have holiday trips coming up, maybe long flights.
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If you're traveling or you just need to escape from your family for a bit, I don't know why that would be. A reminder that you can binge Crooked's award-winning limited series. Podcasts like Dissident at the Doorstep about the shocking transformation of a Chinese civil rights activist into a MAGA figurehead. Killing Justice, which digs into the mystery of the death of a prominent Indian judge.
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I also think it's interesting that they singled out Cheney. She's a former member of Congress and they didn't single out yet all the other members of the January 6th committee. And I think part of that is like that. What's scaring me most about it is that it is a concerted strategy to not like if they came out and said, we're.
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AOC Loses to the Gerontocracy
And our most recent, Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD about the secret history of America's largest police force, which was named one of the top podcasts of 2024 by Time Magazine, Vulture, and the New York Times. You can find all these limited series at cricket.com slash limiteds or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Cecilia Munoz.
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Joining us today, she spent two decades focusing on civil rights and immigration at the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy organization before overseeing all domestic policy in Barack Obama's White House, the first Latina to do so. Cecilia Munoz, welcome back to Pod Save America.
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It is good to see you. Good to see you, too. You wrote a piece in The Atlantic called How Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration with Frank Sherry, an advocate like you who ran pro-immigrant organizations for more than three decades and also advised the Harris campaign. I think the piece is very much worth a read, and I want to talk to you a little bit about the piece itself.
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But first, for people who don't know your background, can you talk a little bit about what led you to immigration advocacy and ultimately the White House?
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In your piece, you and Frank write, quote, Now, I've seen I shared the piece. You can imagine a lot of response. I'm sure you're getting a lot of response to it. I've seen a lot of activists and a few immigration reporters argue in response. Wait a minute. Biden relied on some Trump era policies to keep out the huge influx of migrants and asylum seekers during his first term.
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And then Kamala Harris ran on a border proposal so tough that it was written by a conservative Republican. So how does that qualify as elected Democrats following progressive advocates to the left?
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we're going after every member of the January 6th committee and all the staffers, and we're investigating all of them, then you would have more of an uproar. But to go after one person who's not in Congress anymore and is now just a private citizen shows that they're going to try to do this so that it doesn't garner a lot of attention, I think.
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So what do you think President Biden and Vice President Harris could have done differently over the last four years to deal with the border in a way that more Americans would have supported?
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It's funny because last night as I was preparing for this interview, I sort of went back on the whole timeline of everything that happened in the Biden administration around immigration. And because, you know, some people are arguing, look, they use Title 42, which Trump had used right from the beginning of the administration.
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Title 42 is a public health provision that allowed both the Trump administration and Biden administration to turn away migrants and asylum seekers because of covid. And so they had that in place. And then after that was taken away, then they tried to do the border bill.
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So Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut agrees he had a compelling, if alarming, thread on all of this. He painted a picture where Kash Patel and the DOJ charged Cheney, right, because they have the power to do that. And then are the courts going to save her? Judges going to save her? Well, they can find a jurisdiction with a MAGA judge to try her.
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And then after that, they finally arrived at the executive action that essentially closed the border that resulted in many fewer crossings. But when I look back at like Biden's statements and speeches and remarks, it really there was almost nothing.
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I mean, when he announced a new measure, he would talk about it, but like not much in the State of the Unions, not not like any kind of big immigration speeches. And it does seem like even as we talk about what the right message or wrong message was, there just wasn't much of a message at all.
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And on an issue that ended up being, you know, the number two issue for most voters and not just Republican voters, that seems like a missed opportunity to say the least.
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Yes. And I want to get to that. But first, I want to go back for a second, because I think a lot of our listeners, a lot of Democrats, a lot of people who just sort of been involved and paying attention to politics sort of started at 2016 when Trump won. And I think the history and the context is really important to this debate to understand where we've been.
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The most common reaction when I shared your piece was activists on the left who said something to the effect of, well, you and Cecilia, you both worked for the deporter-in-chief, so we don't really trust you on this issue.
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Can you talk a little bit about the politics of immigration when you were in the Obama White House, sort of your reaction to the deporter-in-chief criticism and what you guys in the policy part of the White House had to deal with there?
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And then Murphy tied it to Trump's larger effort to stifle dissent by, he's now officially sued Ann Seltzer in the Des Moines Register. He is, of course, intimidating media outlets. ABC News, we talked about on the last show, settled for 15 million dollars. Murphy talks about how Trump has and his new potential FCC commissioners threatened media outlets take away their broadcast licenses.
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Yeah, and I know you and Frank have both made this point, but look, the job of, as you know very well, the job of an advocate and an activist is to push on politicians, right? Yeah. It's also the job of the elected leaders to take in that advice and that pressure, but also do what's best for the country and for their other constituents and to continue to garner support so they can govern.
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And one... The moment that I sort of realized that things had really shifted in a way that could potentially down the road be troubling is in that 2020 primary. Now, you know this because, you know, how many speeches do we work on? Immigration speeches in the Obama White House where Obama would always say we are a nation of immigrants. We are also a nation of laws.
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And then he would say, we really want people who have been here in the shadows for decades, who were working hard and paying taxes and contributing to the community and have families here. We want to give them a pathway to citizenship. And we want to say that if we're going to give you this path, then there's a lot of other people who are going through the legal processes to become immigrants.
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And so you'll have to pay a fine, get to get to the back of the line, and then we'll give you the pathway to citizenship. So he said that all the time. And there was no controversy around that at all. At least the way he said that. And then in one of the primary debates, Joe Biden uses that language about getting to the back of the line.
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And there's this outcry that it was offensive, that he shouldn't say this. He had to meet with immigrant groups and and Latino groups. And he had to, like, apologize and do these roundtables. And I remember thinking, like, this is like so just standard language.
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He's threatened other lawsuits against media figures, media outlets. Whether or not any of this succeeds is beside the point, Murphy points out, because now, you know, everyone will be scared to say or write anything that Donald Trump doesn't like, including put out a poll where he's not ahead or is approving his law. What did you make of Murphy's threat?
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And also now, after we just went through this last election and we heard from so many people in focus groups and voters and just, you know, interviews, Latinos, immigrants, recent immigrants who are saying, look, the one thing that bothers me is it took me years to become a citizen in this country. And now someone just just came over the border last week and suddenly they get all these benefits.
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And I'm still been waiting for citizenship for 10 years. So I wonder why do you think the immigration activist community sort of went this route after 2012, I guess?
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Well, you mentioned that a lot of this was sort of in relation to the response to Trump when he won the first time. I think the reason why it's so important now is because there's going to be another Trump term and another potential reaction from Democrats. He seems pretty intent on carrying out mass deportations.
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He's threatened to use the military, especially in blue states and sanctuary cities that may refuse to help ICE. He will try to end birthright citizenship. He seems ready to go far beyond only deporting undocumented immigrants who've broken the law while in this country or pose a threat to public safety or just arrived here recently.
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We're looking at deportations of people who've been here for decades, who work and pay taxes and contribute and have family who are US citizens. How do you think Democrats should react this time around? And what lessons do we learn from last time, knowing that this time could be far more extreme than what we saw last time?
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We are here together because Friday's episode is our annual Pundi show where all four of us debate the worst takes of the year, including ours. Then we're off for the holiday break. So Dan and I thought we'd do one last normal episode here in the very abnormal year of 2024.
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Yeah, my fear is that they are going to start by, they would love nothing more than to pick fights with blue state governors, mayors over deporting undocumented immigrants who are threats to public safety. And obviously this is a tiny percentage, but they have made these folks famous in the last campaign. And they would like nothing more than for Democrats to react
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with outrage to the deportation of either recent arrivals or people who have broken laws and potentially violent criminals here in the United States. And I do wonder how we...
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Part of what I think this conversation requires is us to sort of have the discipline and wherewithal to think about when these horrific stories, much like the ones you just mentioned, when that happens, that we lift up those stories and that we don't necessarily overreact when they they try to, you know, deport violent criminals that they should deport.
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Because I think that, you know, they're going to try to make this about what they've just made the last campaign about.
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Yeah. Well, to that point, I mean, we are so last question on this, like we are so far from having the votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And, you know, if if if the filibuster is still around, we would need 60 votes in the Senate. I don't even know how Democrats get 60 votes in the Senate at this point with this map. If we get rid of the filibuster, we still need 51 votes.
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That's still a challenge at this point. When you look at the states that are up in the next two elections. What do you think a Democrat running for president in twenty twenty eight? can realistically promise and what should they run on, knowing that part of the challenge has also been Democrats running on comprehensive immigration reform, making these promises, and then they get into power.
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We don't have the votes, can't pass immigration reform because of the Republicans, and then Democrats get blamed for it.
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Yeah. No, I completely agree. And it's not just something that's happening here. We're seeing it all over the world as we're seeing mass migration, especially from the global south to the north. And so I think a lot of countries in Europe are dealing with this exact same thing. So this is not just a United States problem. Cecilia, thank you so much for joining.
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Thank you for writing that to try to start this conversation, have an honest conversation. I know not easy for you as someone who cares so much about immigration and has been an advocate for so long. But I'm really glad that you and you and Frank started the conversation as contentious as it may get, because I think we need to have it. So thank you. And it was it was good talking to you.
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All right, that's our show for today. Dan, Tommy, Lovett, and I will convene on Friday to hand out this year's pundies, our awards for the very worst takes, and tweets. Talk to everyone then. Bye, everyone.
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AOC Loses to the Gerontocracy
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Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
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Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
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Yeah, there was a New York Times story as well today that sort of dug into why Disney decided to settle. And they listed a couple of reasons. One, as we've been saying and you just said, that $15 million for Disney is like chump change compared to what they would have to potentially pay if Trump won and they just didn't need the headache.
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And so in some ways it's a business decision and it almost makes sense as a business decision, right? But then... They were worried about a jury in South Florida and a judge in South Florida because that's, you know, MAGA territory now. So they were worried that they wouldn't get a fair hearing. And then they were worried reportedly that it would go all the way to the Supreme Court.
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And, you know, you've had Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and others say maybe the Supreme Court precedent on press freedom, like the foundational case, Sullivan, would that allows for freedom of the press and has the standard of actual malice for libel and defamation suits, that maybe it could get overturned.
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And I think that just shows not only how screwed we are with Trump and what he's doing, but with the fact that the judiciary has been tilted so far right over the last several years.
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I mean, it was interesting to me that Senator Murphy did this thread because he's a U.S. Senator, Democrat. It's not like us talking about it on Pod Save America. I sort of wonder, there's a lot of people sort of sounding the alarms, raising awareness for all this. Like, I don't know what to do about it. You know, like, I mean... There's obviously just thinking about Cheney again, right?
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I think this is obviously another argument in favor of Biden issuing preemptive pardons, not just for Cheney, but for other members of the January 6th committee and staff, as well as potential Trump targets, the Department of Justice. But I think there's like a broader strategic question here.
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We have talked a lot since the election about how Democrats in the broader pro-democracy movement can't just spend our time being defenders of institutions and that we have to talk about things that directly impact voters' lives. I can't imagine a fight to defend Liz Cheney or ABC News or the Des Moines Register fits into that category, but...
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I think we would also agree that a show trial against one of Trump's opponents or lawsuits that are completely frivolous and baseless against media companies is crossing a pretty dangerous Rubicon. So what do we do? That's a very tough question, John. I'm not going to lie. I know.
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Because I wanted to use the example because I feel like, you know, we've all become very comfortable to be like, Democrats can't defend the status quo and we can't defend institutions and we got to be the party of reform, blah, blah, blah. And then something like this happens. It's like, okay, so do we just say, well, that's pretty scary, but I'll see you later.
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So we are going to talk about how House Democrats voted to pass over AOC for the top job on the Oversight Committee and whether it says anything about the party's broader strategy over the next few years. We also potentially have some good news. There's reportedly an effort afoot to stop Democratic fundraising spam. How about that?
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Well, I completely agree. And on that note, I also think it matters how we frame these fights when we take them on. And so what does the average person care about the Des Moines Register or ABC News backing away from Trump? What do they care about Liz Cheney on trial or someone at the DOJ or Merrick Garland or whoever?
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Well, Donald Trump over the next couple of years is hanging around with a bunch of billionaires and they are going to try to enrich themselves at every possible chance. They're going to take every possible chance to enrich themselves and they're going to try to screw everyone else, take away your health care so they can pay for tax cuts for rich people, all kinds of corruption.
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You're going to have to pay more in prices and they want you not to know about it. They don't want any critics. And then when they do this, when the press tries to report about it or when someone tries to complain, a Democratic politician or anyone else, they want to throw them in jail or they want to sue them.
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And so they want a country where they can get away with whatever they want and enrich themselves and screw you and have no one find out about it. And I do think that like just it's subtle and it's nuanced, but I think how we frame these fights matters.
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And so that it's not necessarily about our democratic institutions under attack, but it's about Trump trying to get away with a lot of shit with a lot of with Elon Musk and all of his billionaires around him. Yep. Let's talk about Democrats who are dealing with their own congressional drama.
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On Wednesday, House Democrats voted to give 74 year old Jerry Connolly of Virginia the top Democratic spot on the Oversight Committee instead of 35 year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, widely regarded as one of the party's best messengers, certainly the one with the biggest reach. The vote was 131 to 84.
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Connolly has been a longtime member of Oversight, which is primarily responsible for investigations, though he did sadly announce in November that he has esophageal cancer. This means the Democrats will be replacing 61-year-old Jamie Raskin, who will now be the top Democrat on Judiciary, with someone even older.
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Though, as Connolly ally Congressman Don Beyer said, Jerry's a young 74, cancer notwithstanding. It's quite a quote. Dan, on last Friday's episode... We were both encouraged by reporting that AOC basically had the votes to get the gig, and we're pretty excited about it. What do you think happened?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. When locking up each night, traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late. SimpliSafe's active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash cricket and use the code cricket at checkout for 15% off. Let's talk about Secretary of State, little Marco Rubio for a minute, who looked not excited to be in that meeting. As a reminder, here's an example of what Rubio used to say on Ukraine and what he's saying now.
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Well, and that's what he that's what he looks like in all these pictures. He does sound like he's trying to sell this new Marco Rubio and how he thinks. I think we have a clip of him, what he says now.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Ukraine-splain? The Ukraine-splain. Like, again, it's like, it's so emotional, right? Like, oh, he should have been more, he should have shown better manners. Like this fucking Emily Post thing. Bullshit. I went back and looked at Rubio's, the Senate confirmation speech that he gave. And he says, the post-war global order is not just obsolete, it's now a weapon being used against us.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And this is him, again, trying to find a way to make sense of his involvement. And I do think that... there is a critique of the way in which the Biden administration didn't wanna lose, but didn't wanna win in a bunch of different ways all around the world.
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And by the way, for decades about an America that's just slowly watching China grow more and more powerful as we welcome them into the economic order, which are things that he talks about, right? But the other side of that is meant to be a stronger, U.S. Right. Like a more like like a more full throated, less morally relativistic defense of our values, of our principles. Right.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like some kind of a strategy. But but then you like you look at what's happening. It's like we're capitulating to Russia. And they're like, well, actually, it's because, you know, we're not going to worry about what's happening over there. We're going to worry about what's happening in our own backyard.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And then as Donald Trump prepares to give his big speech to Congress Tuesday night, we'll talk about the new debate on the left about how Democrats should be pushing on Trump and whether they should be pushing back at all. But first, guys, we got to talk about the absolute shit show of an Oval Office meeting on Friday where Trump and J.D.
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OK, but we're also basically threatening Canada with invasion, threatening Panama with invasion, throwing tariffs on our neighbors like there's no logic to any of this. And Rubio is Because he is just the fucking world's biggest weasel is just trying to figure out what he can say day to day just to just say, get him into, I guess, a bed.
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So I kind of think that there might be a logic to it. Can I give you my like, I think that Trump and look, I don't think this is like he has. Trump has planned out everything and has been really thinking deep about this and writing it in his memoirs, you know. I think he respects rich, powerful, ruthless leaders.
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And it seems like he wants to carve up the world with Putin and Xi and maybe you got your Kim Jong-uns in there or your BBs, anyone with nuclear weapons, right? He knows that if you have nuclear weapons, then you're pretty powerful. And he knows they're bad guys. He knows they treat their people horribly. He doesn't really care about that.
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He likes the idea that he can deal with a few what he views as tough leaders directly. He thinks he's a great negotiator. He doesn't like the idea of the U.N.,
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and nato and places where you have all these voices in some countries that he doesn't think should have a seat at the table an equal seat at the table with everyone else because they're weaker than the other countries because that's too democratic and he doesn't like democracy that much and the idea of him
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This is like when he always brags when Xi came to Mar-a-Lago and then he gets to wine and dine him and impress him. And I'm good with Putin and Kim Jong-un likes me. I think he loves a world where he can deal with a few tough bad guys. He's a good negotiator. And he looks at... And they do all want client states. He's like, Putin wants Ukraine. Putin may want Eastern Europe. Xi wants Taiwan.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And he's like, well, I better get some client states of my own. Maybe I'll go after Canada. Maybe I'll go after Panama, Greenland. Like, It feels like that's his vision of the world. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Vance ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an ally whose country has been fighting off an invasion by Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator who used to be our adversary. Hopefully you all got a chance to hear the bonus episode Tommy and Ben did about this over the weekend. A lot has happened since then. After Zelensky was basically kicked out of the White House because J.D.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
This is how Trump operates domestically. This is how Trump has operated in business his whole life, right? Like it doesn't, you don't have to have some grand theory of international order to just view the world as he does as like, there's people I think are tough and powerful and there's people I think are weak. And why should I give a shit about the weak people?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I think what you were describing is like the end result of what happens when someone like Trump is just sort of emotionally, um, instinctively driven towards relationships with Russia and Putin with, with she, that he like finds that easier and less of less of a headache. But like, where are the iPhones from? You know, like where are the chips from?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like all of this is like, the idea is like, oh, you're just going to carve up the world. There's stuff moving across those lines already, right? Like the amount of chaos. he's going to be like, yeah, I can, I can deal with you directly.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I'll keep the iPhones coming. Yeah, sure. Oh, I realize it's all bullshit, but I think he believes it. I,
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I think that it's a J.D. Vance view. Like, I don't think it's just Trump. I actually think he now has an Elon and J.D. Vance in like I think he has a movement of people around him and they're all you know, they look to Orban, they look to Hungary and they're like, this is the way.
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I think they look, I think they see, I mean, just take them at their word.
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Like the UN, World Trade Organization, like these are institutions that have become sclerotic the same way they, and they don't see the benefits of or live in a kind of glib luxury of the security and stability these institutions provide while attacking what are genuine excesses and problems of working within those organizations.
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And rather than doing the hard grinding work of reforming them, they want to burn them down. But we will live in the dangerous situation kind of poor world that results when they're long gone. And Donald Trump doesn't know better, but Marco Rubio knows better because he used to say it out loud. Oh, for sure.
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And again, yeah, I completely agree. And in his mind, it's like, and I deserve that because I'm the one running everything. And I got my other rich friend Putin over here, my other rich friend Xi, and they're tough guys, too. Look how tough. How many times are you talking about how tough they are?
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But sometimes the way that I think the left has framed it is, oh, that Donald Trump is like a supplicant to these guys or he's like a stooge for them. And like that, I think Putin and Xi probably think that about Trump. But I think Trump thinks they're his buddies. They're all a bunch of tough guys, you know, standing across the globe together.
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Yeah, this is why it's like, look, I... You know, the U.S. sides with Russia at the U.N. against our ally. And, like, how many people in the U.S. actually know about that? And how many people in the U.S. actually care about that?
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Vance didn't think he was sufficiently grateful for U.S. support, didn't say thank you enough. Zelensky flew to London to meet with European leaders about negotiating a peace process that doesn't entail just giving Putin everything he wants. Meanwhile, the Russians could not be happier.
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And, by the way, notable that Orban and Bibi joined, too, in the new club there in that vote.
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But I do think, like, some of this is, like... You know, I was thinking about this before we recorded. It's like... You know, the democratic legitimacy of these institutions, right, like were in the post-World War II era came from Americans having a fear of the Soviet Union drilled into them by propaganda, but also the actual threat posed by the Soviet Union that people lived with. Every day.
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And then the Cold War ends and we kind of just continue with these institutions, never really making a kind of coherent argument for them, why they're important, why we're doing this, why we spend this money. Right. Kind of we were resting on the kind of goodwill and legitimacy that came from generations before. And now Trump puts these things under attack.
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And in the same way, we're told it's a trap to talk about why USAID is a good thing. We're now once again in the trap of trying to defend this order because it seems like what what what Trump and these guys are daring us to do is say, all right, fine, burn it down. We'll prove you right when everything is terrible.
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Yeah, we're just out in the streets chanting rules based order, rules based order.
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I'm sure MAGA base thought it was awesome, right? Of course, we know that. They've been saying that. I agree, Tommy. Like, I think I had some people text me who are not political junkies like us and are just like, that was so embarrassing, awful, scary. What the fuck is happening?
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that the Trump administration is, quote, rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision. Hard to argue with that after Axios reported that Trump was set to hold a meeting with J.D.
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Yeah, that's right. All right. Turning to all the damage that Trump is doing here in America. The AP reported last week that the Social Security Administration is preparing to lay off at least 7000 people, close multiple field offices and could get rid of up to half its workforce. Most of the agency's senior leadership is already gone.
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Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor who ran the Social Security Administration under Biden. just told CNBC that with this level of cuts, quote, you're going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits within the next 30 to 90 days. People should start saving now.
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We also found out what Doge master Elon Musk thinks about the program during his latest Joe Rogan appearance last weekend.
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Seems like the task of making the 2026 campaign ads just got easier.
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It's also just like, ugh, Social Security's a Ponzi scheme. It's just like mid-90s Republican talking points is where we're at. It's actually a Ponzi scheme. The trust fund runs out in 2050. The trust fund's always running out.
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I imagine they'll do whatever it takes to avoid Social Security benefit cuts because they know how unpopular it would be. But I also think they are some combo of idiots and liars all the time. So people do need to be on alert for any story about retirees who couldn't get their benefits on time because...
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You lay off that many people at the Social Security Administration, which I'm sure wasn't the model of efficiency before that.
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Yeah. Those Social Security checks gets paused, you'll see a geezer insurrection that makes it fucking January 6th. Look like a PTA meeting.
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Vance, Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to talk about the idea of cutting off American aid to Ukraine altogether. Waltz told Fox News, quote, the American people's patience is not unlimited, their wallets are not unlimited, and our stockpiles and munitions are not unlimited.
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Yeah. And to that point, people aren't going to even if they don't cut benefits like, oh, we missed it. We missed all the checks for Wisconsin this month.
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Or sorry, everyone in Kansas, you're not getting or like you do that for a month. It's mayhem.
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the yeah the again it's like i sound like a broken record but like you know before social security the poorest people in the country were old people and social security changed that forever we live in a world that is different because social security uh lifted millions of people out of grinding poverty and like you play with that for you play with that for a week and they show people's ability to feed themselves to take care of themselves and they showed their gratitude by voting for donald trump yeah wow
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Social Security field offices are not the driver of our national debt or deficit. These are tiny, tiny costs that provide basic services. It's all fake. It's all bullshit.
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We're going to take a quick break, but one announcement before we do that. The first State of the Union address of Trump's second term. No, it's technically an address to a joint session of Congress.
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It's tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. We used to believe in things, have grammar and stuff.
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6 p.m pacific one hour before that at 8 eastern 5 pacific the three of us and dan dan is back here again this week we make dan fly down all the time we'll be live streaming a preview of the speech on the pod save america youtube channel we'll be talking about what we can expect from trump and how democrats should respond and talking to democratic members who are there we'll also be taking questions from friends of the pod subscribers it's going to be fun it's going to be a great time then at 9 eastern 6 pacific
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Head over to the Friends of the Pod Discord for subscriber-only live chat where you can process this freak show in real time with people who get it. No deranged Facebook uncles. I don't know how we can promise that. No screaming into the void. Just a space to vent, fact check, remind each other that reality still matters.
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It's going to be some jokes about the speeches. I did not write that. You can tell. To ask us questions during the live stream and for access to the Discord, sign up for Friends of the Pod now at crooked.com slash friends. It's the best way to support Crooked in everything we do. Pod Save America is brought to you by Lumen.
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If you're wondering how Republicans are feeling about all this, especially previously pro-Ukraine Republicans, here's a sample of their reaction to Friday's blowup.
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Then Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time. And Lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game. Yeah, it's all the craze here at Cricket, the Lumens.
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Get yourself a personalized nutrition plan for the day. It's great. Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, and more. Lumen gives you recommendations to improve your metabolic health.
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Take the next step to improving your health. Go to Lumen.me to get 20% off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N.me. Me slash Crooked for 20% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. So same weekend, Elon called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Trump announced a safer place to invest our tax dollars. Crypto. He posted that in order to, quote, make sure the U.S.
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is the crypto capital of the world. He's creating a crypto strategic reserve that would stockpile five cryptocurrencies, XRP, Solano, Cardano, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. Don't even know what half those things are. Tommy, care to explain what this is all about?
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NAMBLA. Bitcoin. I was trying to follow you as you were saying it. I'm like, ooh, get it, get it, get it.
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Well, I was going to say, what are we stockpiling? Well, this is the thing that's so fucking stupid. It's not gold.
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It's not a, like, what are we, it's not a, we're going to run out. Like, yeah, we have a strategic reserve of oil. We're going to run out of the fake money. Yeah, look, if the government ran out of crypto, what happens? What happens? Nothing. Nothing happens.
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We're going to go stockpile some grass. Yeah, it's...
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It's so outrageous on its face. Also, I know it's almost quaint now, something that should probably take an act of fucking Congress. I think it would require one, yeah. And even just the announcing of the specific currencies, again, if there was an actual strategic crypto reserve is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard of. It's not strategic. It's not a reserve.
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It's just a bank account that we'll be owning that we just put U.S. dollars into, I guess, hoping that... And then one of the other rationales you'll hear is like, well, it will benefit taxpayers because taxpayers would then own a share of cryptocurrency as it rises. And like, you know, I hate to be a small-c conservative here.
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There's a great way for taxpayers to benefit from cryptocurrency if they'd like. They can buy cryptocurrency with their own fucking dollars.
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Yeah, take the money in treasury that you're going to put in the reserve... And hand out some tax cuts. I don't know.
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No, I don't want a sovereign wealth fund. I don't want any of this shit. Yeah.
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Did that start and end with Stephen Miller?
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Yeah, I thought the whole reason we're doing crypto and the blockchain is because we don't trust central governments and banks around the world. And we want like, what was that whole thing?
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And also, also. If the U.S. government suddenly has massive holdings of bitcoins, that's stuck. Because if the U.S. announces that we're selling off our bitcoins, suddenly the price of bitcoins will fucking plummet. Some of these currencies that Trump is talking about buying, if the U.S. has any meaningful stake in it, we own a huge share of the global supply of these coins.
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You know, like with these Trump meme coins, right? All these people that put money into it. They can only get that money out if somebody's willing to buy it at that price. Now, Trump makes money on the transaction fees. And if you want, you could probably, you know, show your crypto wallet to Trump and say, look, I'm on all your fucking coins, you know, just to get a great deal out of it.
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Relax. These real housewives fucking... Luann wasn't grateful enough for the invitation.
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But like, so what this is, is like this first, is there so many, there's like so many, it's like a Russian nesting doll of corruption. Trump made this, Trump has these allies who are in the crypto business. He's doing a huge favor for them. Trump himself is making a ton of money off of crypto, right? And so he wants to have, crypto succeed.
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And on top of all of that, you have this now this this legitimated scheme where foreign leaders and governments and anybody who wants a government contract can basically put money virtually directly into Donald Trump's pocket. It's untraceable, but you can still show him you can prove it to him.
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Do you think after Trump and Elon and the Doge boys go to Fort Knox to check out the gold, they'll check out the... It feels like the Doge should kind of check out the crypto reserve if it ever gets off the ground.
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The Fort Knox stuff. That's a good place for Doge.
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Well, now I'm starting to understand where it's coming from because basically they're trying to equate having a holding, like a reserve of crypto to having a reserve of gold. And they're trying to make the argument that Gold is somehow just as insecure or dangerous or a risky asset to hold as these digital mining bucks.
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Yeah, don't trust anything except that which makes us money.
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Yeah, like I don't care about the gold at Fort Knox, but I like it's not like you have oil because in an emergency, if suddenly oil supplies are cut off by our adversaries or there's a price or whatever, you need oil to have the economy functions of the strategic helium reserve because it's fun to use at parties.
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But like there's lots of but like you have a reserve of something that you need in an emergency.
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I love Tommy Tuberville there. I'm assuming that was him who said, yeah, it's going to be Trump, Putin and everyone on our side deciding. It's like, what? What are we? Our side? Tommy, now that you've had more time to process what happened on Friday, do you have any other thoughts on the fallout and whether things have gotten better or worse since then?
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They must have just woken up one day and decided they didn't have a case.
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If you go to the World Liberty website, it's just Donald Trump on the front. He is called their chief crypto advocate. His sons are ambassadors in other fake roles. By the way, the SEC also paused a lawsuit against Binance. It stopped an enforcement action against Coinbase. They are stopping the SEC's crackdown that was led by Gary Gensler under the Biden administration. So basically they are
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removing any brakes. They're removing any guardrails, any transparency. They're going to make this, make it basically impossible to detect fraud, to detect corruption. Like that is the plan. That is the plan.
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Just, you know, they're just bringing more efficiency to government.
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They're not batting 1,000 these days. The Times has a truly humiliating story about Doge taking credit for saving $53 million, supposedly, by ending a Coast Guard contract that lapsed 20 years ago and was only ever worth $144,000. Yeah, cry me a river. Tons of examples like that. Justin Timberlake song. Go on. There's a lot of examples like that. They're just all over the place.
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Some of them, they're correcting their mistakes, but they keep mistaking millions for billions. They're saying billions when they're actually cutting millions. It's a mess.
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Yes. So this is what's happening there. We also got word that Trump fired one of the last remaining career officials at USAID, Nicholas Enric, who just wrote a series of memos to sound the alarm that despite Marco Rubio's promise...
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To unfreeze all life-saving humanitarian assistance, the agency was, quote, never actually given the opportunity to implement life-saving humanitarian assistance, thanks to Doge canceling contracts, blocking payment systems, and just putting a bunch of obstacles in the way of getting the money out the door.
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Enrich projected another 166,000 deaths per year from malaria, another 200,000 children per year paralyzed with polio, more than 28,000 new cases of deadly diseases like Ebola and Marburg each year, and another million children per year who won't be treated for severe acute malnutrition, which often kills them. So on this last point...
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I saw this CNN story over the weekend about this company in Georgia. What they do is they make this peanut paste. And they give this peanut paste full of vitamins and nutrients. And they basically give this little packet to a child who's suffering from severe acute malnutrition. And they can survive. It's this miracle thing. USAID has been handing it out for years and years and years.
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The company that produces this had enough... peanut paste for 400,000 kids to save 400,000 kids ready to go right on it. They said like from the American people, USAID, all in these packets ready to go. The United States government had already purchased them $10 million. We already paid for this and was informed by Doge that the contract was canceled.
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And the guy's like, I have all this peanut paste now that's just going to go to waste. I can't I can't send it anywhere because it's got USAID all over it. They told me not to do it. and that's it. So now all these kids aren't going to get the life-saving nutrition. So I see this thing. I get really annoyed.
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I tweet about it, and I was like, I tweet about Elon doing this with not even saving us money, just like not sending this stuff out. We already paid for it. And it's Saturday night. It's Saturday night, yeah. It was right before I saw you on Saturday night, and I was on the way. I tweeted, and then I got home, and I'm in bed, and I was like, oh, oh, he responded.
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I was home alone. You were home alone. You were home alone. And so Elon responded and he called me dollar store Jon Favreau and said, I'm an imbecilic propagandist who lies to score cheap political points. And then he said, that said, I will investigate this. Yeah. So he's got you dead to rights.
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He's still figuring out the comment card thing.
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And we'll fix it if so. And so then the next morning, so I decide, you know, it's late at night. Had a few drinks. I'm not going to reply now. So I just went to bed. That was smart, right? Woke up in the morning. He has replied again. And he was like, the contract has been reinstated. It was already reinstated last week. They should get the payment soon. And then he lists the company.
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I'm like, what company is that? It's another. peanut paste company in Rhode Island that he had also canceled the contract to it. And so I wrote back to him like, actually, that's great. But the company was in Georgia. It was CNN. It was this company.
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And then later Sunday night, MJ Lee at CNN, who broke the original story about the Georgia company, was like, I just got a call from the guy in the Georgia company. And he said it was the contract was reinstated just minutes ago.
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so so then so this morning elon was like uh he said he replies to me again and he was like so just so you know uh it wasn't because of the legacy media or or kmart favs he got upgraded he upgraded me is kmart better than dollar store yeah yeah well i had said that i would at least want to be target john factor when i reply to him because i thought i would you know so now it's like a will there won't i think with these i was trying to be constructive sounds basically big how do you
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tweet this much from a k-hole yeah exactly and um and he was like it wasn't that it was just uh we just needed a brief pause and no one has died yet and what i said in the oval about ebola protection was right that what it was it is turned back on and it just takes a while for the money to go through all the systems and blah blah meanwhile as he's tweeting this i'm looking at this guy from usaid who just left and writing a memo like no rubio gave all these waivers to the life-saving assistance and no none of them could be implemented
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The yeah, the the the no one has died is like not the defense. Like it's like if you're out there being like, I want to reassure everyone. No one has yet died. As far as I know, as far as I know. You know, like, first of all, great posting, by the way. Yeah, good shit. Great posting.
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My New Year's resolution really coming in handy.
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You know, remember when you and I were, like, when he said his resolution was to post more and we, like, scoffed because, like, why? What's the point? Paid for itself. I mean, good for you.
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I'm doing a late 40s pivot to TikTok. I'm dead serious. And honestly, don't let anyone tell you it's not going great. It's going great. It's going good. 43 is the year of vertical video.
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I thought we were the same generation. But you go back to Elon in the cabinet meeting where he spoke to the cabinet before anyone else got a chance to speak. And he said, you know, I'm here to support you. But the reason we're doing this is because We're in an emergency, and we have to cut. If we want to hit my goal of $1.x trillion of cuts, we've got to cut $4 billion a day.
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That's the only way to do it. You've got to cut $4 billion a day. All of this is just exposing how that is stupid at every level. First of all, actually, you don't have to cut $4 billion a day. You don't have to scramble through the agencies finding little bits to cut every day. If you have a goal for a giant budget cut you want to make, you can propose it through Congress. And you can do it.
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And oh, and by the way, go even one step further. Let's say you don't want to do it that way. You just said you have all these cabinet secretaries. Go to the cabinet secretaries and say, I need this. I need a proposal for this many cuts by this date. And I know it's going to be hard and I'm going to be driving you guys every day and I'm going to be meeting with you. But you tell me what we can cut.
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But no one fucking adult tech bro cannot oversee these cuts across every layer of our government.
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It's going to lead to kids fucking dying. Well, I had a friend ask me, reading about all this, and he was like, well, but isn't it possible that there is a lot of waste that we can get rid of there and that we also want to send out life-saving assistance? Isn't both right? And I'm like, here's... If they wanted to do that, they could have audited USAID.
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If someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, those agents see and talk to them in real time, activate spotlights, and even contact the police all before they have the chance to get inside your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees. Monitoring plans start affordably at around $1 a day, 60-day satisfaction guarantee, or your money back.
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They could have used the authority that they have to trim where they could. And they could have then sent Congress a list, which they control, a list of cuts, a list of layoffs that they wanted to do. They could have done all that if the whole thing was about efficiency. I mean, Pete Hegseth...
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Remember when he got to the Defense Department and was like, I want to cut the workforce by 8% at the department. So send me ideas for this by whatever. I'm not saying that Pete's exit is strategic. I was like, well, if you want to cut your agency, that's one way to do it. Just like put out a goal. What they have done, this is not what they were doing at USAID.
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Like, that's the reality of what's happening. It's like, you know what? We are the richest country on Earth in the history of the Earth. And we are not... Elon Musk is worth $400 billion. This is not like, hey, middle class family in Ohio, we got to raise your taxes to help feed starving people in some other country.
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We have billionaires running all over this country and we're talking about 25 cent fucking peanut packets and malaria nets and HIV medication, which is now pretty cheap now that we've had it. What are we talking about right now? We can't fucking afford this.
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And by the way, The end result of this is not reducing the deficit by whatever trillion dollar goal Elon has set. They want to take that money. They want to put $100 billion of it into a crypto reserve. And they want to take the rest and they want to divvy it out to Elon Musk and all these people through a gigantic tax cut for the rich. And by the way, all the cuts Elon is making.
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would never, even if he were to hit his goals, which he can't because he's doing this in such a chaotic and terrible way, even if he did, it would be obliterated by the cost of the tax cuts, which is why they have to go even further and look to cut Medicaid or look to cut Social Security or whatever they're going to do to try to pay for these giant tax cuts.
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So none of this results in any kind of tangible benefit for actual American citizens, right? And by the way, none of this was part of like, this was not the core of their campaign. They campaigned to lower the cost of goods. We are getting a dismantling of the federal government.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Trump said late Monday, which is when we're recording this, that a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian goods and an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods will go into effect on Tuesday. He backed off these tariffs at the last minute once before, so who knows if he'll do it again.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Who knows why he changed his mind, but either way, stock market had the worst day of the year on Monday, and a lot of shit is about to get very expensive. Unless, of course, you're listening to this Tuesday morning and he backed off last minute again. According to Bloomberg, for example, car prices alone would increase by $12,000 if the tariffs go through at the levels Trump is promising.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
This comes as the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's estimate now predicts the economy to shrink by 2.8% this quarter. And a wave of new polling from CBS, Marist, CNN shows that people think that Trump is not doing enough to focus on the economy and inflation.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
His approval rating keeps dropping, but the weakest spot is economy and inflation, which is ironic because those used to be his strongest issues. It sure seems like a lot of flashing red lights for the Trump administration that they're just ignoring. Do you think they don't know? Don't care? Do you think they think it's just temporary? What do
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, and when he was first talking about the tariffs a couple weeks ago, he said, I look at these deals and I'm like, who negotiated these deals? You did. These are your deals.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
These are your deals. He wants to squeeze our allies. He wants to squeeze them and get a better deal out of them and just keep squeezing them and squeezing them until they become the 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th state. I really think that this is part of it. I'm sure that's right. He wants an economic war against Canada to just beat them into submission.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And he's stupid because, like you said, it's going to hurt us.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
He might be, you know, Trump might lead to a resurgence of the center left all over the world, except here, I guess. That'd be cool.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. Well, here we've already been sort of beaten to a bloody pulp. I was thinking about just sort of Trump as this negotiator, right? And like, it's kind of an old saw at this point that he'd be richer today if he had just taken his inheritance and putting in the S&P, right? Because he's just not a very good businessman.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And like, you kind of see in how he is president why he was such a bad businessman, which is he just he can't think long term. He can't think strategically. And so like very short term, you know, you look at like like tariffs and you say, all right, your goal was to build up domestic manufacturing and you want tariffs to are one lever in doing that. Right.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Well, some of the things you're tariffing. Right. It would take a decade to build a steel plant. Right. Take a decade to improve our capacity and in whatever it might be, refining oil, whatever. Right. putting on the tariff doesn't result in that at all. We're actually completely dependent on Canada and Mexico for a lot of parts, a lot of supplies, a lot of materials, right?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And so like all of this is so, it's just not, it's a strategic, it's just a guy who had an idea about what makes an, okay, you put on the tariffs, the manufacturing comes back. maybe there's some deep, some like very raw sense in which that's on some level true. But in the meantime, there's just a decade of pain of economic stagnation. And then the question is if that does come, right?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like, you know, we're gonna talk about the Democrats and I believe that's how you pronounce it. But like we, like what happens when we move from things could get really bad to things are really bad. And right, like how does that change Trump? And then how does that change how the American people feel about our response?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Love it. What was your take on the meeting? There's been a lot of speculation that Trump and Vance plan to ambush Zelensky. Maggie Haberman and other journalists who cover the White House are reporting that the Trump people are saying it was spontaneous. What do you think?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Well, Democrats are continuing to workshop their response strategy in public, as we like to do. Great. One spicy take on this came last week from the raging Cajun himself, James Carville, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed, quote, Unsurprisingly, actual elected Democrats have thoughts on this. Here's Bernie Sanders on Meet the Press this Sunday.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Just right down the middle for Bernie Sanders.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, she's sort of like, oh. Oh, what a question. Are you kidding me? Should Democrats fight or give up? Bernie, what do you think? Your take?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
What do you guys think about Carvel's prescription?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So, first of all, so... When I was reading it, I sort of asked myself a question before I got to the answer. And the question was, does a strategic retreat mean we help them fund the government? Or does a strategic retreat mean we don't help them fund the government? That's a good question. And then you kind of get to it. He says, actually, we should hang back for a while.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It's not totally clear, but kind of come in at the last minute when they've already shown themselves to be terrible and failures and chaotic, and then come into the last second and say what we stand for and help reopen the government, for example.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And it sort of gets at, I think, the problem here, which is I think when you talk about, like, should the Democrats fight or should they retreat in an abstraction? Like, I don't really know how you, like, act on this. Right. Like, he's doing terrible things. Should Chris Murphy not go to the floor and talk about them? Yeah.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like, should we like, like, I have no I have no comment on the dismantling of NATO. Like, that's just not how it works. So I don't tape your mouth. And I don't think that's what James meant. No, of course not. And so, like, what I took it to mean is like kind of sensationalistic way of saying Democrats have to be strategic.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But like all in all, where I land after reading it is like, I don't I don't know what we get by hanging back. It's not like we get credits later when we speak more forcefully for the times we were quiet earlier on.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I have no idea. Like part of this is just like, none of this makes sense, right? Like none of the, none of like what they're saying aligns with what they're actually doing, right? Like I'm trying to like separate The meeting is disgusting, right? Like this is fucking disgusting. This is a guy flying from a war-torn country.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And let's get to that. There is a long tradition in politics. And I think this is both parties do this, which is like when, you know, your opposition is fucking up, you just stand back. And if you put out an alternative, then the opposition, you know, then the other party is just going to start taking shots at your alternative.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And then people aren't going to like your alternative and blah, blah, blah. And why don't, why don't you just stand back? And I get the reasoning behind that. But I also think that we are at a moment now where people are so cynical about politics, tired, beat down and unimpressed with the Democratic Party to say it nicely. Like we have the party has one of the worst approval ratings it's had ever.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And I think it is incumbent upon Democrats right now more than ever to offer a vision, offer an alternative, say what we would do differently.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I don't think we need to have a blizzard of policy plans out there at all, but I think we need to, as we critique Trump, lay out how we would govern differently, how we treat people differently, what our vision of the country looks like, what our vision of the world looks like. I don't know. I mean, look, we've tried... well, we're not Trump and we're not MAGA a couple times now.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It didn't work in 2016. It barely worked in 2020. It didn't work in 2024. It might work in 2026 because it's a midterm electorate. But we got to think about 2028 here. And we also got to think about just expanding the map in general because we're never going to win this. Going the way we are, we're not going to control the Senate with the states we have.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
He basically saved his country in part by like sheer force of personality and personal bravery. He flies across the world to the United States, our ally up until three months ago. Now he's trying to grovel for his country's life to sign a mineral deal. That also doesn't make any sense. That doesn't include any security guarantees.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
The Electoral College could shift and we're going to need to pick up more states. And we're just going to have to compete in tough places, which means you're going to have to give people an alternative.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. I mean, Trump, like before the election, Trump went to New York and said, I'm going to win New York. And obviously that was ridiculous. But you had a Republican politician saying, I can foresee a day where we win in this state. Right. And like it's similar, honestly, to like the kind of managed decline globally. It's like there's sort of like a managed decline to the Democratic.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
brand like, oh, we just we'll we can't win a state like Wyoming. We can't win in a state like Nebraska, even though in those states, minimum wage bills, union bills, marijuana bills, abortion bills, they pass. Right. And so that tells you that there's this big delta between what people actually want in their lives and the Democratic brand. And we won't make that brand better. We
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Now, what I do think is also true is we won't fix it by just being kind of like whiners on the sidelines. And I think that's the point he makes that did resonate with me, which is like Democrats are powerless. It sucks. We're telling the truth about Trump. He's fucking terrible. But we've been saying it for years.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And by the way, the part of the problem is we were warning for years about how bad it could get. It is now as bad as it could get. And it's no longer a warning. But it sounds like what people have heard before. That is not our fault. That is a collective problem with our democracy, a weakness Donald Trump exposes.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But it is the reality of like and which is why I think where you get to is like we just need to offer an alternative. We need to we need to offer something that isn't about Trump. And like I am even open to some of the more kind of like kooky ideas of like of of people saying this is what our cabinet would be doing right now. Right. Like I'm like a shadow cabinet. I'm not against you.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I do think like it is. I agree that we shouldn't overpromise and pick fights that give people the impression that we have power we don't have. Right. Because that is that is that is a problem, too, is you're like, we're going to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. We're going to stop. We're going to stop them.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And then it's like, obviously, we knew we couldn't stop them because we don't have the votes for X or Y. Right. So I agree that's it's important not to overpromise. But I still think like you need to fight when you can and just be honest about what power we have and what power we don't.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
He's agreeing to do it because he's just trying to get through another day with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. He's sitting there. He's getting questions about why he's not wearing a fucking suit.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
No, I mean, look, I do think that the budget fight is the fight. For sure. But I also I'm already like. We're heading into the budget fight and I'm already feeling like the most popular testing message is just coming right back up and everyone's just going to be like, tax cuts for billionaires to cut your health care. And it's the right message.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But I think we have to be creative in the way we talk about it. Like, we just can't sound like we have sounded like the last 20 years. So it is the right argument. You know what I'm saying? When I say the right message, that doesn't necessarily mean the right words.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I know. I know. It's hard. Can't you feel it already? I know. Well, it's hard, right? Because it's like... part of it is like, you need to be doing two things, right? You actually do need to use the messages that resonate with people because we're in a short-term fight and you're trying to make the argument that resonates with people.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But at the same time, we're trying to make up for what is like ultimately like a huge credibility gap. Like we warned the country for several elections in a row about how dangerous Donald Trump was. It was very, very clear. People did not, not enough people believed us, not enough people cared. Either we didn't reach them or if we did, they didn't take it at face value.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And so that like requires like a deeper understanding You start telling a deeper story about what you believe about the world. And it's going to challenge people's assumptions. It's not going to be exactly what they expect to hear from you.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. Or, I mean, Tommy, you've made this joke many times, which is like Democrats have been using the line. We're going to stop tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. And we're going to give those tax breaks to companies who create jobs in America for 20 years more. And so is that one of the best polling testing lines? Yeah, I bet it is.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And I bet when you ask people about it, they'll be like, yeah, I really like that. It's not just polls. Work hard and play by the rules. If you say it for 20 years and it doesn't happen, and you just keep saying the same line, it's not going to land well.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. That was before. That was before the meeting. And so, like, he's in a waking nightmare. Like... The question I have is, OK, let's say all this played out behind the scenes, right? Like not in front of the cameras, like take away the aesthetics of it.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Everything the tech oligarchs have done in the last 10 years does not suggest that they do not care about their wealth.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
well there's yeah these people cannot get enough and it's fucking sick but like I don't know this is where I kind of come back like I see what Carville's getting at right because like what he's saying is like we kind of need to step back from the daily grind to figure out what we mean and what we stand for and I guess like where I land is like
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
There's a lot of different Democrats that need to do a lot of different things. We need the people out there fighting every single day. The days of everybody driving towards one single message are probably over. There's maybe a core message we're driving, but there's a bunch of different access points to it.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And some people, like Jasmine Crockett, are going to be better at just sort of going for the fucking jugular. And some people are going to be a bit more academic, like a Pete Buttigieg, but also in a really effective way. There's just going to be a bunch of different ways to talk about this.
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And then you've got your Gen Xers pivoting to vertical video and TikTok.
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Like we need to read stronger and more respected in the world and opportunity for all and bottom up, middle out. Strength plus experience equals change. Middle out, bottom up.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
This is like... Mega, mega. Mega, mega. W stands for wrong, John. But that's an old deep cut. But this is like... Bill Maher left, so we didn't really get into it. But it's like... Everybody in the... When you make the argument... Was it as sexually charged as it felt? I mean, I came. But you made like... Don't push me. Don't push me. You came, he left. Yeah. You don't think 69 exists?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It's like, you know, in the morning, Marco Rubio thought signing this mineral deal and ostensibly becoming more entwined with Ukraine was a good idea. By the afternoon, it's no longer a good idea. And everything Trump is doing is making sense.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But like- A little treat for all of you who stayed for an hour 20. We're having a great time.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
We're having a great time. But the point is- But the, like this idea that like, ah, you know, once you've made the argument and they don't want to push back in there, it's like, oh, you're going to cost Democrats elections for 20 years with this pro-trans stuff.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And it's like, Donald Trump put a pro-choice environmental lawyer at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services because he had built up so much trust and credibility with his base. And he has so much power within his party that he had the space to operate, to challenge orthodoxies in a bunch of different ways, both before he became president and after.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And as a Democratic Party, to Tommy's point, we need to have a core set of beliefs, of values that are so clear, that make so much sense to people, that you then have the space to challenge people on an issue they may not agree with you yet, to actually lead.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I'm laughing because I thought about on the Democratic side, and I was like, Kamala Harris did three events one day with Liz Cheney, and we're still hearing about how it was, that's what caused the end of the election.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
She didn't even say, you'd think she was barnstorming with Liz Cheney and promising her a cabinet seat.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, we're gonna, yeah, honestly- It's more like what if Kamala Harris said, I'm going to make Mike Pence my secretary of health and human services. Could you imagine it? But like, why is that so inconceivable? It's because honestly, Kamala Harris, the most work she had to do was not just prove she had to prove to every single group of people what she believed in. Right.
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She had no she had no trust with the left. She had no trust with the center. She was starting from fucking scratch.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Well, on the other side of it, too, just to prove I'm not a Liz Cheney fan, you know, AOC, one of the best messengers in the party, and we couldn't even get her a ranking member slot on the oversight committee.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
There's all these sort of like post hoc rationalizations for Donald Trump, like even in the days that have followed, like you go like try to read about this meeting and it's people saying, is Trump abandoning the World War II order for spheres of influence? Like, no, he's just a careening asshole. And there's this whole intellectual framework like evolving around him to justify what he's saying.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
When you have a talent like Connolly, when you have a once-in-a-generation communicator like Connolly just waiting in the wings.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It sounds like what you're saying is we need a Joe Rogan of the left. Of the right.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
All right. We're going to end this thing now. That's our show for today. Reminder that we're going to be live streaming our preview of Trump's address to the joint session tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. We'll have a bonus reaction show in your feed tomorrow morning. Talk to you all then.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like even Vance in the meeting, he says, we tried the pathway of Joe Biden. I'm of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States' words matter more than the President of the United States' actions. And so therefore we're capitulating completely in our actions, right? Like why does what follows from there a kind of diplomacy in which the aggressor is ignored, right?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like let's say they do want peace. They do want a deal at all costs. Wouldn't that involve putting pressure on Vladimir Putin as well? Where is that? Like you can't really make any sense around this because it's a bunch of people acting emotionally, trying to rationalize Donald Trump's various like ego-driven, grievance-driven, assumption-driven foreign policy.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And so we end up like having these serious conversations about these like fundamentally despicable and unserious people. That was my reaction.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. Like, I don't think it was an ambush or planned. I think what was planned is both Trump and J.D. Vance don't like or respect Zelensky that much because, as Tommy said, they just wanted to get a deal. And I think they are just annoyed at the whole situation that they have to, like, go through all the motions here and they have to deal with him and treat him like he's an ally. Right.
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Or that, like, he's an equal partner or even a partner at all. Like, I don't know if you... I'm sure you guys did this. I'm sure you did this, Tommy. Like, I went back to the transcript and read it, like, so many times to see where it went off the rails. Because it all... Like, it was going fine. And then... It was at times a little bit chummy, even. Yes. They're joking about their disagreements.
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And it starts... The bad part starts with the reporter asking Trump if he's too aligned with Putin, which is obviously a trigger for him. Right? Like, that's just going to set Trump off. And, like, that couldn't be preplanned, right? And then Trump says... Oh, you see the hatred he's got for Putin pointing to Zelensky. It's very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.
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He's got tremendous hatred. So like we start the meeting by Trump scolding the guy. Keep in mind, scolding the guy that he had just called a dictator twice over the past couple of weeks. We're like complaining about Zelensky not saying thank you. And Trump has called this guy a dictator twice.
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So then he scolds him while he's sitting right there in the Oval Office for having too much hatred to do the deal. But then even Trump sort of like, you know, he's like, I just want to get a deal. I'm aligned with Europe. I just want to get something done. And the whole thing probably would have gone away then if fucking J.D. Vance didn't jump in after Trump finished his answer.
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No one asked J.D. Vance for a follow up answer on that. J.D. Vance just jumped in after Trump win and did this whole thing where you said where he also just gets the whole timeline wrong. He's like Putin invaded Ukraine after Joe Biden like just tried to talk tough and didn't engage in diplomacy. So Zelensky is like, well, that's not the timeline.
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Like Zelensky's basically like, yeah, well, he's been trying to invade the country and he's been like at war with us since 2014. And then he also throws in, by the way, during the first answer. And God bless. Now, President Trump will stop him.
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Yeah, there's one moment where Zelensky calls him JD, and then JD calls him Mr. President. And so, like, you feel like it's quite personal, but, like, None of this should be personal, right? Like it's not just about Trump calling him a dictator. The United States sided with Putin a week earlier at the UN. Like these are supposed to be, it's all like Vance and even Rubio.
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Like you go look, we'll talk about Rubio more in a minute. These guys were all like the end of America's namby-pamby, soft, emotional foreign policy is over. We're doing hard-nosed decisions based on pure rationality. And it's like, if that's the case, a fit of pique in a meeting shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter at all. They are allowing this to be 100% personality-driven.
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I liked David Sanger's piece on this, which is he's basically arguing that the overall goal here is that Trump wants to normalize relations with Russia, and Ukraine is standing in the way of that. Zelensky's standing in the way of that.
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So with that larger context, any meeting, it could have gone better in terms of the theatrics of it, but it was always going to be Trump being like, this guy is an impediment to normalization with Russia, which is what I want.
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It's actually really, really strange. It's kind of like a Stockholm syndrome. Like this is like, you're saying like, why would the U.S. want to normalize relations with Russia? And again, this is why like this is none of this makes sense. And like all these sort of pathetic weasels around Trump trying to make it make sense are obviously part of the problem. It's like, no, of course not.
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It's a fact. failing petrostate, right? That it's been depleted. It's like, America, it's so fucking pathetic that because of Donald Trump as a figure, a singular figure, we're now becoming a vassal state of this tiny, weak country because Donald Trump has these ego-driven, psychosexual, personal issues with this one dictator who on his, in his bones, he knows is so much tougher than him.
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And by the way, Zelensky too, right? Like part of this resentment is that JD Vance and Donald Trump know that like Zelensky is a stronger and tougher man than they are. And you can just feel the seething kind of like weakness of these two human beings in front of this actual leader.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
He also, when he gets mad, when Trump gets mad, he just has like conspiracy Tourette's and he just like goes through the, that's where, that's where that came from. Like where he just went down the road of like Putin, Russiagate, Hunter, laptop, bathroom, video. Yeah. He's just, he doesn't know at that point.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. Yeah. He always got to the, the, this was the, what do you always call the FBI people that were sleeping together?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Lisa Page and the lovers. Yeah. Adam, I'm surprised you didn't mention Adam Schiff and.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
There were a few incursions on there, but I don't think it had anything to do with what we're talking about. Five more seconds, he would have gone there. He would have gone there. Pod Save America is brought to you by Z Biotics pre-alcohol. Tommy, Z Biotics. It's the best. I mean, don't drink without it. What more can we say to people on this one?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And even if you're under 30, you know, if you just want to feel better the day after drinking and not feel like shit, Z Biotics is for you. Like I said, the only challenge is just remembering to take it. Yeah, running out. Yeah. Z-Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by a PhD scientist to tackle rough mornings after drinking.
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On today's show, we've got Elon Musk calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme on Joe Rogan. The same weekend Donald Trump announces he wants to spend our tax dollars on a strategic crypto reserve, which is definitely not a Ponzi scheme. No. We also got new tariffs coming. Just as a bunch of new polls show that people actually don't think Trump's doing a great job bringing down inflation.
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Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. As a Pod Save America listener, you know as well as us the dark chapter we're stepping into. Oh, we're in it. We've already stepped. But no matter what's happening outside your four walls, your home should always provide a safe sanctuary for your family.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
On today's show, we got Donald Trump and Elon Musk seizing control of the federal government's money spigot, accessing all of our private information like social security numbers, purging federal law enforcement of nonpartisan FBI agents and prosecutors who aren't loyal to Trump, and shutting down multi-billion dollar agencies...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Just hanging out. During the press avail, they asked Trump about the Wall Street Journal saying that this was Trump's dumbest trade war.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And he didn't like it. He said he's going to have to bring that up with Rupert. And I guess he really meant it that day. Rupert was sitting right there with a question with us.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
yeah there were yeah we didn't talk about that there i did i did wonder if some of the market stuff and and rupert and wall street journal and like the the old establishment republicans that basically no longer exist started getting him like hey the markets could be here well this was the whole thing the whole first term his china policy was flip-flopping back and forth between hardline hawks and the market whisperers like manukin and others who were saying don't do it you don't want a dow to go down you want the s p to drop
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So anyway, so Elon and all of his fucking nerds, they're running throughout the federal government now. They demanded and ultimately won access to the Treasury Department's payment system, which is how the government pays its bills and delivers benefits to people that are already mandated by law. So by the time it gets to the payment system, it's all a bunch of career officials.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
They're nonpartisan. They're just like, it's just the spigot. They're just turning it on. All right, now we're just paying the bills. Um, so now this means that Elon and his, his crew has access to the personal information of every us taxpayer, social security numbers, all of it.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Elon then claimed without any evidence whatsoever that treasury, he discovered the treasury was making illegal payments, including to some terrorists and that he was shutting them down. Uh, seems bad. What's, what's your level of alarm on this one, guys?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Presumably we're mailing the checks to those terrorists, so probably see that address go there. Yeah, Uncle Sam's Venmo, do we have the ISIS account? It just sort of seems like you're kind of over-promising and under-delivering. If you found terrorists in the payment system, we'll see where the checks are going.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
When they originally demanded access, they were told no by the career official in charge of the payment system at Treasury, who was acting Treasury Secretary at the time before Besant was confirmed and had been appointed, I believe, by Donald Trump in the first administration. So this is no crazy Marxist lib. And he said, no, that's crazy. You can't have access to the payment system.
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that they're not legally authorized to eliminate starting with USAID. We'll hear from a USAID vet about what is actually happening and what it means. We'll also talk about the Democrats who seem like they're trying to get off the mat. Over the weekend, the party elected Ken Martin as its new chair and Democrats in Congress are starting to use the limited power they have to fight back.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
You're not like this group of kids that you brought in from Silicon Valley. They're not even government employees and they don't have security clearances. No, we're not giving you access to the sensitive payment system that distributes trillions of dollars every year. And then he had to step aside. They got him right out of there.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's also, you know, it's obviously like the most sort of sensational example, but But it's also just... If your goal is getting government spending under control, obviously, this is dangerous and unhinged. It's also very stupid.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Because if you're trying to get overall government spending under control, I don't care how many 19-year-olds you brought with you from Doge, and I don't care how many fucking sofa beds you bring into the OMB, you're going line by line through the fucking ledger. Like, this is a vast apparatus. There are... But also...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's the wrong ledger. You didn't need access to the payment system. There's the federal budget that you could just go line by line through.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But that's my point. These people have so little knowledge or respect. I want to get to the danger that this poses, the moral and ethical danger risks that this poses. But let's just start by pointing out, like, this is a stupid thing to do. This is a stupid way to try to achieve what they want to achieve because it is not actually about results. It's about being the stars of a drama.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
The drama of reforming the government from the inside with our daybeds and our doge and our hardcore and our emails and our exciting, exciting progress. And that to me is driving all of this, not the actual practical realities of what anything, on their own terms, what they want to do.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, but that's the key on their own terms. If what they want to do really is cut spending in the government and that's it, then the whole thing is really stupid and they're going about it the wrong way. Maybe that's not what they really want to do, and that's why they tried to get access to the payment system in the U.S. government.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And where the shit really hits the fan is we're going to go into probably a debt ceiling crisis in March when they're trying to raise the debt ceiling. And Treasury already is using extraordinary measures to keep us from hitting the debt ceiling. because we should have raised it. As always, we're raising it late, as we have for the last two decades.
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And Treasury and that department are responsible for making sure that the U.S. keeps paying our bills and that the full faith and credit of the United States government is respected and counted on all over the world.
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And later, Lovett talks tariffs with our old friend Brian Deese, who was a top economic advisor to Presidents Obama and Biden. But first, America's dumbest trade war, with two of its closest allies and biggest trading partners, seems to have ended before it even began. We started today ready to talk about a trade war.
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The U.S. attorney for D.C. now, who used to be the guy who defended all the January 6th rioters. He's a big guy. He was now made the U.S. attorney in D.C.
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So much of this, too, like how Trump is threatening tariffs, how Elon is operating Doge, it is all kind of childish stuff.
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of buffoonish people drafting off the the like stability and success and institutions that they don't respect at all like elon and this group of people they don't care or know why we make why we did things the way we did for a long time they don't know or care why we had these independent parts of the government they don't haven't thought deeply about why it's actually a very good thing that when the treasury says hey we have four months until we're out of money that both democrats and republicans that are negotiating over spending in congress
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And more broadly, they don't respect that, like, yeah, cutting the budget, finding waste and fraud. Like, these are time-consuming and difficult projects that require audits and negotiation and compromise that are slow and annoying and frustrating and imperfect. Like, they don't respect or care about that process at all. It's not hardcore.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's not how they do it in business because they don't understand the value of it. of like democratic legitimacy. They don't appreciate or care about these institutions and the fact that they belong not to like Elon or Trump, but they belong to us. And that basic lack of respect that like humility is, is, is, it's just absent. It's absent.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I know it like kind of almost goes without saying, but I think it's worth saying.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Well, yeah. I mean, cause billionaire tech founders don't run their businesses like a democracy. That's the whole point. They're like, they're authoritarians in their own little fiefdoms. And they look at the federal government and they're like, oh, it's so wasteful and inefficient. And why don't, why can't they just run?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Why can't the person in charge just make all the, make all the calls there too? Oh, wait a minute. Right. We tried that. We tried that. The system that we have here, democracy, this seems, I don't know about this.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And a lot of people thought it was stupid to do it the way we decided to try to do it. They're like, what do you mean? You don't have one person making all the rules. Isn't that going to be messy? Yes. Yes. But it turns out it has some perks. Yeah.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
When Besson found out about the whole thing, apparently he told the Journal, the Wall Street Journal, or sources told the Wall Street Journal that they have only read-only access to the payment systems and that they cannot cut off any payments themselves, which, you know, contradicts Elon's tweet where he said, we are stopping these payments immediately. So a little unclear what's going on there.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
We have no idea. Doge also busted into the USAID building this weekend. That's the agency responsible for humanitarian assistance around the world. And they demanded access to classified information and personnel information. When USAID security officials resisted, they were put on leave.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Elon then tweeted that USAID is an evil criminal organization, a viper's nest of radical left Marxists who hate America, and that it's time for the agency to die. This was quite a tweet spree Sunday. USAID's website and Twitter account were then taken down and staffers were locked out of the building in their email accounts.
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Even staffers all over the world in some very dangerous places could not access USAID contacts, their emails, nothing. Then on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID would become part of the State Department and that he was now acting administrator. Trump also weighed in on all this insanity. Let's listen.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And then just before we started recording, first Mexico goes down, then Canada goes down. Trade war is over if you want it. So over the weekend, Trump announced 10% tariffs on Chinese goods and 25% tariffs on goods from our toughest adversaries, Canada and Mexico. That would mean every time a U.S.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's interesting that he says he loves the concept there. I don't think you do. Of course, you do need a law passed by Congress to completely defund and eliminate an agency. Anyway, it's obviously not how the people who actually work at USAID see it, the way that Elon sees it.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
We talked to Brittany Brown, who's a former division head at USAID, right after she got back from a protest outside the agency's headquarters in D.C. on Monday. Let's listen to Brittany.
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So it seems to me, again, that if President Trump and Elon Musk wanted to root out wasteful spending at USAID, they could have just conducted an audit of the agency's budget and then asked their Republican-controlled Congress to make a bunch of cuts. Clearly, that's not what happened. Tommy, what do you think is going on here and how big of a deal is this?
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company imports products from those countries, food, cars, medicine, electronics, they would have to pay an extra tax to the U.S. government. And then most companies would make up for the added expense by raising the prices they charge American consumers.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And, you know, you said maybe they're looking for a fight that they can take to court and win. The thing that has been keeping me up at night for months is that they go to court with some of these fights and then they lose. And then Donald Trump says, fuck you, John Roberts and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, what are you going to do about it?
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And I think that this was corrupt and the justice system is wrong and I don't agree with them and I'm going to do what I want.
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Bob Bauer, who was a White House counsel for, And the Obama administration and Jack Goldsmith, who was in the White House Council for a Republican administration, they both wrote this and they said that Russ Vogt, who's going to head up OMB, like his view of the Constitution is that you should try to
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push the court and maybe defy court orders because you want, or you want the court to give you favorable rulings because the court is afraid that if the court gives you, gives Donald Trump like rulings that he doesn't like, then he'll say, fuck you. And then that'll be it.
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The tariffs were scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday night, but then Trump agreed to last minute deals with both Canada and Mexico to pause tariffs for one month. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to send 10,000 additional troops to the border to help with illegal immigration and drug smuggling. which Mexico also did at the beginning of Joe Biden's administration.
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Right. That the court needs to balance its constitutional prerogative with the fear that Trump will break the rules. And so they negotiate, they negotiate against themselves, allowing Trump to be unconstrained without him ever having to break a rule, by the way, not dissimilar to what
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
news agencies are doing when they capitulate to Trump on lawsuits that they're afraid to fight all the way to the Supreme Court. There are two pieces of it that I think are worth splitting up.
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One is what they're doing around these firings or the National Labor Relations Board, in which they are basically asserting that any bounds on Trump and his ability to decide who works for him and where in the executive branch are unconstitutional, which is not a theory that Donald Trump invented. It's called the unitary executive theory. It It precedes him.
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And it is the way in which Trump's instinctive strongman politics merge with the Republican desire for an imperial presidency. Incredibly dangerous in part because that ideological desire for an extremely powerful presidency is not just in what Republicans in Congress want or what previous Republican presidents want. It's what the Republican courts seem willing to go along with.
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The other part of this is the power of the purse. And it is interesting that Trump... Whether it is because they didn't want to have the fight on this issue or they do think they would be constrained by a court ruling that they withdrew the federal funding freeze and were willing to kind of give on that, right?
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It points to the places in which they're still responding to kind of the old rules at least a little bit. At least that's maybe a glimmer of hope.
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One of the federal judges that tried to freeze and issued a restraining order said just today, Monday, that she doesn't believe that the Trump administration is abiding by the restraining order and ordered them again to stop the freeze.
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There's well, there's and they're just they're benefiting from chaos and incompetence, right? Like Cassidy, Bill Cassidy, Republican senator put out a letter today saying PEPFAR still seems to be on hold. Just PEPFAR was a Bush initiative, Republican initiative. to spend vast amounts of money to combat HIV and AIDS in Africa. I remember when this was a debate at the time, Bush didn't like USAID.
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And so he set it up separately because he wanted it to run through the State Department because of the previous Republican problems with USAID. That's still being held, even though they're claiming that these things have a waiver. But on the power of the purse,
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What Trump is doing here is he's basically saying, I have the latitude to turn off everything and then by noblesse oblige, turn it back on, right? And I don't, We have spent a long time watching as the presidency kind of encroached upon Congress's prerogatives. Like that's something that was happening under Democrats and Republicans. And it's gotten complicated.
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And when Obama is president, a bunch of Democrats are defending certain things that now we would not defend. And Republicans are doing the same in Republican administrations. But this is as basic and core to the Constitution as it gets. If the president can decide what to spend or not to spend based on what Congress has passed, the Congress is no longer determining how the money is spent.
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The president is. That is one of the core dangers. That is one of the core reasons we have a constitution. And I agree with you. Like my concern too is that they're going to obliterate, that they're going to bash through a court ruling at some point. I think the question is like, how long do we hold that off, right? Four years ago, what Elon Musk is doing, impossible to imagine.
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Eight years ago, impossible to imagine. Four years from now, I have no idea.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would implement the $1.3 billion border plan that it had already announced in December, launch a Canada-U.S. joint strike force to fight drug smuggling and money laundering, which it also announced in December. And the new thing, appoint a fentanyl czar, a Canadian fentanyl czar. That guy's always late for work.
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And it's also important that this isn't just about norms and institutions and theories of government and all that, which are incredible dangerous threats to the system of democracy. But this is just causing needless suffering and death. Because again, what they're going to do is they're going to, I'm sure, come out with programs and spending at USAID that seem ridiculous or wasteful.
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They already have. Again, there's probably plenty of that, right? And no one is saying we shouldn't go through the federal budget and go through the federal government and eliminate wasteful spending and try to find more efficiencies.
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But pausing it the way they did, cutting it off immediately, like people, children, a lot of children are going to die because they can't get the medication they need in other countries, right? For what? For nothing. We're not going to save money for this. This is, you heard from Brittany, this is money that was already out the door. This isn't new money. So no one's saving.
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This is just, you know, there's, I think there was guards, prison guards that were guarding ISIS prisoners that just had to walk off the job.
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There's USAID people in dangerous areas around the world that now can't get access to help if they need it. All kinds of health programs we're funding around the world that are just going to lead to more suffering and death. I mean, it's fucking ridiculous. It's inexcusable.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
That's just how it is. And I get the domestic politics on all this. I get that no one likes foreign aid. Most Americans don't like foreign aid. And you tell people it's like 0.7% of the whole budget, and that still doesn't matter. They think it's 10% is the big problem. Yeah, that is a big problem.
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But I do think for most Americans, you tell them, hey, this kid showed up at a clinic today, like they have every day for once a month to go get some medicine, and now it shut down, and now this kid could die. Like, for what? For what purpose? So that Elon can post about, like, vile communists, Marxists?
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It's, um, there's a There's like a way in which their kind of base incompetence and then their kind of like viciousness work together here, which is they didn't know or care very much about what USAID did. They didn't care very much or know very much about what PEPFAR did before. They have an ideological set of assumptions about nonprofit work, about foreign aid, that it's all bullshit, right?
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It was so easy to do, and you can customize it, and then it comes. The setup is really fast, and the app is fantastic, and the customer support was really great, and I highly recommend it.
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I wonder if Elon Musk knew that USAID played such a big role in fighting apartheid in South Africa.
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Well, I mean, but the only, just the point that I'm only making is that like the way in which these things work together is they're so fucking careless. They're so, and like, they're just careless people. It's so, it's a, it's a glib carelessness that is just like, it's beneath contempt and the stakes are so high.
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We're just, yes, there are many ideological kind of warriors, but a lot of the people at the top of this are just capricious. precious glib fools that don't understand, that they just don't care that they're playing with matches.
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As far as we know, as of this recording on Monday afternoon, the tariffs on China are still going into effect as planned, though we're keeping a close eye on Xi Jinping's Twitter feed. Just got to keep a close eye on that while we're recording. Now, why was Trump doing all this in the first place?
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And again, you have the richest man in the world with one of the biggest platforms, now one of the most powerful people in government, just accusing entire organizations of being criminal enterprises. And you can see the slippery slope, right? Like you can see where now, you know, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel get in there and they start processing, well, this is criminal activity.
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We're going to investigate it. Like this is how it goes. Unless anyone thinks this is just about foreign aid, The Trump administration also pushed out the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, and ordered the agency to stop all investigations and enforcement actions against banks and payday lenders and credit card companies. They have saved just consumers'
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billions and billions and billions of dollars in refunds to consumers. It's a great agency.
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There is no simpler... The delta between what Republicans claim that CFPB is and what CFPB is, that is one of the biggest and starkest gaps in politics, is an agency that has such a singular, simple purpose, which is to go after big corporations that are defrauding and fucking over consumers and getting them money back.
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It is being punished because it, well, it's being punished in part because it was originally Elizabeth Warren's idea. That's its original sin. But it is so fucking effective. It is such good government. They put Mick Mulvaney in there the first term to try to destroy it. Biden was able to put in Rohit, who did an amazing job, and now they're going to try to destroy it again.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah. And as Tommy mentioned, Wall Street Journal reports and now the Washington Post that Trump and Elon are preparing an executive order to try to shut down the entire Department of Education. This was the campaign promise from Trump. They acknowledge in the order that they can't shut the entire thing down by executive order.
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They want to go to Congress to do it, but they want to move some of the functions out of the Department of Education. Of course, you know, most schools are funded by local and state taxes. But You know, for poor schools, get a lot of Title I funding from the Department of Education. All of student financial aid, the federal financial aid program is run out of the Department of Education.
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Students with disabilities are funded through the Department of Education. It goes on and on and on.
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The New York Times reports that more than 8,000 federal government webpages have been taken down, including thousands of research papers that were available on the CDC website, informational IRS videos about how to avoid tax penalties, and the state-level hate crimes data on the Justice Department website. Speaking of which, there is an ongoing purge at the DOJ and FBI.
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Here's a sampling of the explanations he's offered over the last few days, including threats to start trade wars with our European allies as well.
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Trump is firing any prosecutors or FBI agents that had anything to do with any of the criminal investigations that led to his indictments. Well, in fairness, that's because they were also incredibly ineffective.
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Got to get some good prosecutors in that can get a fucking conviction and get them in jail.
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At the FBI, employees were given until 3 p.m. Eastern time on Monday to fill out a questionnaire about whether they were involved in any way in investigations into January 6th.
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That's such a funny trap to set for prosecutors. Should I fire you?
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Y or N? The FBI has estimated that the number of people who were agents and staff could be about 6,000. This comes after DOJ fired about 12 prosecutors in D.C., who had been brought on to investigate January 6th cases.
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And by the way, that's the real concern is that so many of these people are like career officials who've been at DOJ or the FBI for a decade. Some of them are very senior people with like counterintelligence experience and they're going after national security threats and they've been working on all these cases and now they're just going to be gone.
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Right. There are seasoned prosecutors who have no reason to be fired. And it's not as though America is short on white-collar crimes to prosecute. So it's fucking terrible.
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So, I mean, you talked about the unitary executive theory. J.D. Vance tweeted today. you know, look, unelected bureaucrats should not be resisting the President of the United States. They work for him. He gets to staff his government with who he wants, and then he is answerable to the people.
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So the people elected Trump, and Trump gets to have the entire government he wants, so everyone else should just shut the fuck up, basically. Why is that wrong?
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You know, I was thinking about this earlier, which is just that We are watching these guys make these kind of simple arguments against these hard-won institutional protections, right? Some of which are imposed by Congress. Some are just norms that evolved over decades, if not centuries.
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And a lot of those norms, institutions, processes that are designed to constrain the executive were put in place long before the internet. And they were put in place... when you had a kind of like elite bipartisan set of actors that didn't feel like they had, that kind of established this order long ago. And it's sort of been in place in a way that was like never really defended, right?
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We took no one really making the argument for, why the DOJ is separate from the presidency and why that's a good idea and why that's important. There's no real... There hasn't been a real kind of, I don't know, like legal, broad-based kind of public legal argument against originalism and kind of the values of what we've learned about constitutional governance over the last 200 years.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But what we do have is just... example after example after example of why we put these restrictions in place. And they were meant to stop presidents from abusing power. The reason we have bureaucrats who are not accountable to the president, can't be fired by the president, is because of the spoil system.
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And because when the government was filled with cronies, it didn't fucking work and it was a corrupt bargain. Why is the DOJ separate from the White House? Because the presidency is too powerful. And when the DOJ isn't separate from the White House, it means the president is not accountable to law. There's an answer to every one of these questions.
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But, you know, it's like they're relying on the fact that we're, like, fighting these guys on every fucking front. And they can just spout off and say, make these sort of claims to the power of the people. Well, we're left kind of falling behind. Well, actually, there's a good reason. You know, RFK was actually Attorney General.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I do think that, you know, people don't necessarily love bureaucrats. Even the name has a connotation that's not too positive. And I don't think, like, you know, even during the campaign, we didn't want to talk a lot about Schedule F and how we wanted to replace all of the government workers with loyalists, because we knew that wouldn't really pop in the polls.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I think that as he's doing all this, you know, those of us who are paying attention are rightly freaked out. I think what's going to have to happen is adverse consequences from having a government completely gutted and really good professional people who've been there forever and not there.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And, like, when something happens, it's going to have to be like, well, Donald Trump, it's your government. You and J.D. Vance said it's your people. You get to pick who you want. You're running the whole thing. You don't have the deep state to blame anymore. So it's your fucking fault.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, they have to... And I don't know what else to... Yeah, there's just... There's just like, I don't know what the equity is and just a defense of the annoying, difficult, hard work of like democratic governance. And like, you know, I think about like just the prospect of the trade war and it's like, it's not good TV, right?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Like the, the, like the difficult work of diplomacy behind the scenes to gain contentions without threatening your partners and without creating a scandal. Like it's just, it's just not good TV.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And like a lot of, you're not sticking around for the readout of the bilat.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Right. It was just like democracy has like what Trump figured out is that democracy isn't good TV. And like I like it's incumbent on on us to figure out how to make it more like good TV. But it's hard. It's hard.
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Maybe maybe next Democrat should try to take over Greenland, you know. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to research, a major challenge that many employers face is the pressure to hire quickly. And it's a tough hurdle to overcome because it's so time-consuming to search for great candidates and sort through applications.
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See for yourself. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked right now to try it for free. That's the same price as a genuine smile from a stranger, a picture-perfect sunset, or a cute dog running up to you and licking your hand. Oh, that's nice. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.
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Speaking of Trump getting to do whatever he wants, one more Mad King move I want to talk about here that was just drove me crazy. So Trump apparently ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to begin releasing water from two reservoirs in California's Central Valley because he mistakenly believes the water from the Central Valley will flow three hours south to Los Angeles.
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Yeah, some people do say that's a long shot. He said something so bizarre right after that, which was if people were smart about the pain, they'd be for it, but they're not smart about the pain. He said something deeply... Deeply troubling.
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I think people, I think people cause, cause South is down. Yeah. South is fucking down.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I guess, I guess what's supposed to, you're supposed to release the, the water from the reservoirs up there and then it'll flow right into the hydrants in the Palisades.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So he mistakenly believes it will flow down here to Los Angeles, helping us put out fires that are now 100% contained in advance of an atmospheric river event that's predicted to dump 10 feet of snow and up to 20 inches of rain in the area this week of the Central Valley, where he just dumped out all that water.
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According to the Washington Post, Trump released enough water to supply as many as 7,000 households for a year. And now that water won't be available to Central Valley farmers who... really need it to irrigate the fields later this year. Trump talked about this quote, long fought victory at the White House on Monday. Let's listen.
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He's being very presidential this morning. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think Gavin Newsom was probably too happy about this.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
What the fuck, guys? He makes up a problem and he solves a problem. We're going to be living with that over and over again, but he doesn't care about the... Apparently, was it Padilla who was saying that he wanted to open it up even further in a way that was extremely dangerous?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, no, he wanted them to release a ton. They only gave the local officials hours notice. Usually when you do releases like that, you prepare with local officials and farmers and everyone else for many days to make sure there's no flooding. So they almost had to just open it up and cause a whole bunch of flooding. And then finally, last minute, they were like, can we just do a little less?
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Sir, because this is just for your fucking adult mind about what has nothing to do with anything.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's very Stalin being like, well, double the wheat. We plant all the wheat much closer together. You know?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's just so fucking dumb. So fucking dumb. Yeah. So the question again becomes, what are the Democrats up to? Yeah. Good news is we're getting some signs of life from the opposition party. Democrats elected a new DNC chair over the weekend. We, of course, were supporting Ben Wickler, but a big congrats to Ken Martin, who we also interviewed and are very much rooting for. He's my enemy.
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All right. What do you guys think? Did Mexico and Canada cave to Trump's pressure and just his tough negotiating tactics? Or are these just fake concessions that just let everyone save face?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
He's John's enemy. On Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laid out a 10-part plan to fight back against Trump that includes using the March deadline to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling as leverage. Stay tuned for that.
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Our pal Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, says that he's placing a hold on all of Trump's State Department nominees until USAID is open and functioning again. And just a ton of congressional Democrats actually held a press conference outside USAID after trying to enter the building themselves. Spoiler alert, they were not allowed in. Our sweet little insurrectionists.
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What do you guys think? Democrats doing enough? Are they making the right moves? What else could they be doing? What's our latest feeling on this?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So Bernie Sanders put out a video over the weekend that I really liked. It was everything you want out of Bernie Sanders. And I think like speaks to his sort of moral leadership. He just, it's just a camera. It's like, this is a very dangerous time. There are three things we got to do. One, we got to accurately describe what's happening. Two, we need to fight in the short term.
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And three, we need to fight in the long term. And in the short term, I think he was talking about what Tommy was talking about. I think there's any importance of fighting Trump wherever we can. Ezra, Klein made this point about sort of also just not taking Trump at his word, right? Like when he claims certain authorities, we shouldn't concede to it. Trump today.
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That's what he wants. He wants everyone to see him as a strong man. Trump today announced a sovereign wealth fund. He can't do that.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Uh, he does not have the authority to create a sovereign wealth fund and we shouldn't, uh, lend him, we shouldn't do what we're afraid that what, what legacy media companies are doing or what, uh, judges might be doing, which is because we assume Trump will break the rules to not uphold the rules, right? We should just uphold the rules.
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It seems as though Trump really enjoyed beating the ever-loving shit out of the Colombians. And now he's like feeling tough and he's ready to move up the chain of regional economies. And he's taking that quick victory out for a spin.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Uh, and, uh, uh, and then three, what, what Bernie talked about was building this, uh,
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long-term political power and making an argument for a positive vision and look i don't think it's revelatory but just the the kind of clean simple to the point direct way talked about it how serious this moment is how dangerous it is without hydrogen without kind of theatrics but just to camera explaining it uh i thought was really powerful
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I, along with you guys, have yelled about Democrats needing to do more on this very show. Still think we haven't quite found our footing just yet. But I do think just seeing a lot of people on Twitter and Blue Sky, got to check the skeets too these days. I do not. Over the weekend. There was a lot of anger at the elected Democrats.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I think we should level set on how much power Democrats have right now, which is almost none. And that is just a consequence of the election. And we probably have less power now as a party than we have any time I can remember. Because... Trump's got the courts. He's got the executive branch. He's got billionaires all around him. They all own media platforms like they have. They got Congress.
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They have a lot of power and Democrats can yell and scream. And, you know, Tommy, I had the same thought about the USAID press conference because of the politics. But then I started thinking to myself, you know what? We told them to go fight. They're out there fighting. It's an election's not in a couple months. Like, let them do it for today. You know, they'll get used to it.
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And then maybe they'll go to the Department of Education next. Maybe they'll go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau next. And they'll find more politically popular things to yell about. But I'm glad to see them do it. And, you know, Schatz is going to hold up these nominees.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But everyone should realize with that too, like that's going to eat up a lot of floor time and it's going to slow things down, which is great. But John Thune's going to be able to get those nominees through. Like Democrats don't have the power. We have the power to slow things down in Congress. We don't have the power to stop a lot of things. We just don't.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I think everyone should realize that. And, you know, as we... criticize Democrats rightly for a lame tweet here or a lame speech there or whatever else. We should just know that, you know, everyone should be suing the Trump administration on everything. The Democratic AG should be out there. We should take him to court on everything. That's a lever that we can pull. We can do everything.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I do think, like, we're going to have some leverage on funding and the debt ceiling because... Mike Johnson is going to need democratic votes on those things. They're not going to be able to get Chip Roy and all the Republicans to get together and vote to raise the debt ceiling and vote to this. So like that is a choke point for us. Um, but there's not a lot more. There's just not a lot more.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I always struggle. I never got the timing right. I never got the timing right. Who's the first person?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah. The part that I'm like a questioning that I find myself like feeling like unsure about is, uh, you know, uh, uh, don't get distracted by USAID. We got to talk about the impact of terrorists and don't get distracted by the impact of terrorists. We've got to talk about the oligarchs and don't talk about the oligarchs. We've got to talk about the price of eggs.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I like, I, I then, and then I turn on, uh, the television, and there's Trump every day for a couple hours a day just hitting whatever he's going to hit. He's talking about it all. Talking about it all. And, you know, Trump declared that he was going to create a sovereign wealth fund, I mentioned, right? It is not. It's barely news. It's barely news. It's a big fucking deal. It's a big deal.
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It's not a bad idea either. Well, I think it's a bad idea to have Trump basically create an administrative-led investment vehicle.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, I don't... Listen, I would rather put the money back in the hands of the American people, but that's just me. But all it's a way of saying maybe even that is kind of overthinking at this point. Fight everything everywhere. You want to fight USAID, fight USAID. Take some reps.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Get out there and take some reps. I want them to show passion. It was funny because a lot of people were making fun of Chuck Schumer because he had this series of tweets over the weekend where he was like, you're going to watch the Super Bowl next weekend and beer's going to be more expensive. You're going to be trying to buy avocados and those are going to be more expensive.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Those were his tweets and everyone's like, there's a fucking emergency. Elon's breaking into USAID. What are you doing? And I'm like, yeah, Chuck Schumer's tweets are dumb. There's an expectations management problem. But it's like, but if Chuck Schumer's tweets were amazing, what would that have done?
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Well, there's a funny moment where Schumer gave friends comments. He's like, I've never seen people more aroused than they are right now. And everyone's like, ah, no, he's saying they're aroused. It's like, who cares? That's how Chuck Schumer talks. What's the difference? We played that on Pod Save America. It was really funny.
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No, for sure. But it's just sort of like... Arousal. They're also not going to become different people. Chuck Schumer is going to be a senior citizen Jewish New Yorker out there talking about whatever he's going to talk about the way he's been talking about it for 50 fucking years.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, I totally agree with all of that. And I just want everyone to know, even if the Democratic Party was perfect and fucking nailed it every single day, there is a limit to what we can stop right now because we fucking lost the election. And I say this because people are like, oh, now Democrats are just going to tell us to vote for them in 2026. Yeah. Yeah, we are.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Because that's the only way to stop legislation from happening.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I took Twitter off my phone again. I think it was good. I think it's good not to have that on my phone. Yeah. You don't want to get into the skeets. I can't. I can't do it. I can't. I can't take it anymore.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, it's like you talk about like... You know, we need, we need to be nimble. We need to be out there like media here. Well, there's that, but then it's also like journalists themselves are struggling to cover all of this. And so now you have the president of the United States who is lying and making shit up and completely misconstruing his various policy proposals on a daily basis.
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And if anybody covering him slips up for even one fucking second, he's going to be the president suing these people into oblivion while they're where they're, where their parent companies have business for the government. It's, it's, it's terrifying.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
The media point is really important also because sometimes I feel like all of us are having, you know, there's like 500,000 of us that are all having a conversation about strategy with each other. And then there's like a country of 300 million people, most of whom aren't paying attention and can barely get some of this information from news sources that are now under intense pressure.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And so like one of the things we all have to think about is not just making sure that Our other tweeters and other Democrats are saying the exact right message, but like, you know, getting it out there to more people.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Also, he said some number... I think he said there were 200,000 fentanyl deaths, but the number is actually lower and had been dropping, and so he's already going to be able to declare that he's brought the number down. He can already... From his fake number?
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Got to put some kind of message at the bottom of the Costco samples. Got to get creative people.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, we can still go to Costco. Got to get messages to those rotisserie chickens. Get the messages to the chickens. Just saying.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And then we're like, what's breaking through? None of this is breaking through. And then I listened to Sarah Longwell. Not with all those condoms. Condom bombs. Breaking through. Then I listened to Sarah Longwell's focus group this weekend. And she's got first-time Trump voters, Biden and Trump voters, asking them how they're thinking about Trump.
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And they're, like Tommy said earlier, like they're all, oh, he's taking action on stuff. He's taking action. And then.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Like he promised. Hamas is raw dogging again. Promise made. Promise kept.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
No, one of the people's books. He's like, I haven't heard much, but I heard about these condoms that they're spending. He's like, I'm glad they're cutting all that. The condoms for Hamas? That's crazy. And I'm like, oh, that fucking broke through. Of course it did. That broke through.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Thank you, Sequoia management partner. I know you know a lot about the federal government, you fucking asshole.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Deleted the app? Downloaded the New York Times cooking app instead. That's good. We may live in a fascist state, but I'm making marry me chicken.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And you know what? You're making it with ingredients? No tariffs. That's right. No tariffs. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. All right. When we come back, Lovett talks to the deputy director of the OMB in the Obama administration and director of the National Economic Council under Joe Biden, Brian Deese.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And just so you all know, we talked in between the Mexican tariffs being paused and the Canadian tariffs being paused, but we talked about it both as a negotiating tactic and what it might look like if these tariffs are ultimately implemented, including the Chinese tariffs, which as of this recording are still, we believe, going into effect.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So obviously... Trump thinks this is a big win. He'll get some coverage that says it's a win from regime media. And his people, his supporters will all say it's a big win. Maybe some low-info voters out there, if they're paying attention at all, will see headlines and think, oh, maybe Trump won. But
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Joining us today for a quick and dirty breakdown of Trump's trade war, he's the former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and director of the National Economic Council under President Biden. Brian Deese, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
As of this recording Monday afternoon, 25 percent tariffs are set to go into effect against a broad range of Canadian imports, with the exception of a 10 percent tariff on Canadian oil, though There are last minute negotiations that could push this off another month. There will also be a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports.
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Trump and Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum negotiated a deal to delay tariffs by at least a month against Mexico, with Mexico promising to send more troops to the southern border and Scheinbaum securing some sort of a promise over guns flowing south from the United States into Mexico. Let's start with this. I woke up this morning and I just opened my phone and I just checked the Dow.
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I don't live my life yoked to what the Dow does, but I was like, are we in an economic crisis or not? And what I saw was that the markets dipped a little bit. And then upon the news that Trump had this deal with Scheinbaum, they went back up.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Does that tell you that there is still a kind of belief that Trump is just negotiating, that even as we're recording this, he's threatening these massive and terrible tariffs, but is ultimately just in some way negotiating?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So let's talk about what the impact could be. Again, these tariffs against Canada may go in effect tomorrow. They may not. But if they did, some estimates found that they could cost a typical household about $2,600. But that's an average. It'll affect certain goods more than other goods. And because of the
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unique interdependence of Canada and the United States, it would affect some parts of the country more than others. What do you think the, I want to just divide it half. First, what would be the biggest price impacts? And then I want to talk about the broader economic impact.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
As you heard in the clip, Trump's problems, at least his stated problems with Mexico and Canada, and especially Canada, is that they have abused us. They've treated us poorly economically. He's got all these economic concerns about both of them. He doesn't like to trade. He says that we don't even need Canada for all the stuff that we buy from them. We can make it all here. This is ridiculous.
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So then what could be the job impact? So that's the kind of the consumer price impact. But there's a lot of interdependence between. So some of the goods that could be tariffs are products that are brought down into the U.S. to be part of domestic manufacturing here. Who are people? What jobs are at risk? because of these tariffs?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And... Yet all he got from either of them were announcements about border security that they had already made or already implementing or had already implemented in the past without threats of a trade war. So I don't know what he got at all or what he's doing.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
In the previous Trump term, there was a lot of big talk on imposing these kinds of broad tariffs, but he ultimately did a set of targeted or more targeted tariffs. The Biden administration actually left some of those tariffs in place and then imposed a bunch on their own. There was a tariff on electric cars, batteries, certain metals, certain minerals, even certain kinds of cranes.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Can you talk about the difference in the logic between the Biden administration's approach to tariffs and the Trump administration's approach to tariffs?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So Trump bullies Columbia. He gets a quick win. Uh, the damage to our reputation as a safe and reliable trading partner takes a hit, but that's like very hard to measure. Trump is now, obviously he's threatening Canada, he's threatening China, he's threatening Mexico. He's also today, uh, was talking about, uh, the European Union, uh, What happens if the U.S.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
tries to fight these different trade wars on multiple fronts? And how could not just one country independently, but how could countries together respond in a way that harms our economy, that harms our influence on the world stage?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
There's a potential that as he tries to renegotiate trade deals with Canada and Mexico, because he's going to open up the trade deal that he himself negotiated with them last time, Um, but maybe he'll try to bring up some of these issues again. You know, he's, he's upset about a trade deficit, I guess. Um, but I don't know. I don't think he, I don't think he got anything.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Is there any part of you that sees how Trump is kind of wielding America's economic power and think, obviously, this is dangerous, this is reckless, this is careless, but there are ways in which Democrats were not as aggressive as they should have been, that President Biden wasn't as aggressive as he shouldn't have been? Like...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Is there a is there some middle distance between Trump's kind of careless and stupid wielding of America's power and our kind of debt, not just Democrats, but a bipartisan consensus that's been kind of a little bit more deferential and a little bit more built around consensus?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah. There was a moment he did a, yet another press availability from the oval this morning, sort of his daily ritual at this point. And he said, who the hell negotiated these deals? You did. Yeah. Jared Kushner did. We're in your deals. These are all your, these are all part of your deal. Yeah. It's hard to, it's like,
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Before we let you go, you were the deputy director of OMB. Elon Musk has basically helped lead a hostile takeover. OMB was the source of that federal funding freeze memo that sowed a bunch of chaos last week. What is your reaction to what's happening at OMB? And... What is the power that OMB has if it is not restrained by either deference to political impact or deference to other agencies?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
You know, we've just been in this endless... We were right before recording, so I was like, I wonder what Trump is thinking about this, which is always just sort of a fool's errand to try to figure out. So you never know. But one that we've faced much of this show around. And that's the contradiction at the heart of this show. But it's...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, said like a guy that didn't move a sofa bed into OMB to go hardcore.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
If you were hoping Democrats were out there saying one thing about the tariffs, about the trade war, what would that one thing be?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Brian Deese, so good to see you. Thanks for doing this. And I know you worked hard. I worked with you at the time. I worked with you when you were not in that role, but when you were at NEC, and you were always, you always were so tired looking. God, you always looked exhausted. That old nickname, nights and weekends love it. I think that's what we called you. All right, this interview's over.
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Before we go, two quick things. Love It or Leave It has some great shows coming up, I hear. This week, Love It will be at the Dynasty Typewriter in LA with great guests, including Andy Richter, Paula Poundstone, and Jason Isaacs.
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That's a great episode. Solid, man. Tickets? Go get them at cricket.com slash events. And if you can't make it, you know, Saturday morning, you can listen to Love It or Leave It. No big deal. Also, Vote Save America this month is making donations as part of their anxiety relief program to black-led organizations and candidates of color, helping them gain ground at the state and local level.
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Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Janelle Bynum has a couple of McDonald's franchises. Really? Which is an interesting fact about her. That's cool.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Are we like and I think there's always a mix right between his sort of feral desire for just news cycles. Right. He's just he's ravenous for news cycles and he's he got a great one out of Columbia. He's going to declare that this was where he feels this is a great one for him. Right. He threatens these tariffs. The media goes nuts. He gets these concessions that he can brag about, declare victory.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And we're on to the next fight tomorrow. But then part of it also is he is, this is now a cycle, right? He has said, I will tariff you unless you come to the table and negotiate, right?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
They can, he's showing that, you know, they never apply this on sanctions, but they do on tariffs, which is the way you prove that if you concede something, you might be rewarded by Trump is he withdrew them, right? He's showing, he says.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
He's willing to be capricious and put in place these disastrous tariffs that would harm both countries, but he's also willing, at a moment's notice, to withdraw them. So he's setting, now we have a 30-day cycle. We're going to do this again in 30 days, I guess.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I think, though, that you just have to ask yourself, like, Justin Trudeau and Claudia Sheinbaum right now, what are they thinking? Are they thinking, oh, he really got us? No, probably not, because they didn't have to give up anything. Well, Trudeau's out of a job, so he's thinking... Right, but I was going to say, like, it's not...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Sure, everyone can say whatever they want, and he can say whatever he wants about how he pulled one over on people, but the two countries he supposedly pulled one over on are probably pretty happy right now because there's no trade war and they didn't have to spend any more money than they were going to.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I clicked on over to CNBC to see what those guys were up to. I don't really check in with them very much. I thought today was a great day. They're there every day, you know, which is crazy.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, Jim Cramer this morning said it's really bad and it's going to be a really long, bad day.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But they had the oil industry types on to talk about what they thought about. All of a sudden, they were all being very, very careful not to say anything to offend Mr. Trump. But they talked about how they had negotiated, basically from their own pressure, they had pushed for Trump to lower the tariffs on oil, right? So it's, you know, like, why is he doing that?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, he's facing, the lobbyists are getting through, which is just a reminder, by the way, that tariffs are a great mechanism for Trump, not just to have news cycles, but to to keep American industries in heel.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But you say it's like a, you know, I'm sure they're relieved that these tariffs aren't going into effect, but like the auto industry that is incredibly interdependent is jeopardized by the threat of these looming tariffs that will hang over these companies for months to come.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Based on these free to trade agreements, build a whole bunch of interdependent industries, oil refineries and all the rest that depend on the United States not being a malicious actor that suddenly on a dime decides they're going to throw a giant tariff on on our closest neighbor. And so, like, yeah, like we're on the other side of this right now. But the threat is still there.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And Trump knows that the prospective threat of tariffs is more useful to him than ever implementing them. Sure. But I don't know how you get out of a cycle where people start to decide the United States is not worth doing business with. Right.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
No, no, I think the whole thing is damaging, for sure. And damaging to us, probably, as people want to do business with us. Because at some point, someone's going to say, well, I'm going to call this bluff. Because so far, all he does for his first term and now this term is he threatens and then maybe he slaps a small tariff on something or targeted tariffs here, but it's not really a big deal.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I also think that... You know, there was this whole debate. Is he using the tariffs as a negotiating threat, or does he just really believe that tariffs are good? And by nominating and then confirming Scott Besant for Treasury Secretary, he seemed to be of the view that tariffs are just a good negotiating tactic. But then, of course, over the weekend, when it seemed like it was going to happen,
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
All of the MAGA people are all arguing Trump's point that tariffs are actually great. And this is, you know, Trump himself posted, we should get rid of the income tax and just have tariffs. And these tariffs are going to fill our coffers and we're going to have so much more money and we're going to show these countries, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, what happened to that now?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, I talked about this with Dees briefly, but like when I woke up, I was like, let's see what's happening with this trade war. And I just checked the Dow. I don't normally check the Dow in the morning. I'm not a Dow checking guy. But then you look and it's like the people that are so keyed into this are not that afraid. It went down a little bit.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Then they saw the Mexican deal and it kind of ticked back up again. So They all like there is a kind of collective belief that at the moment in the morning, I was like, it's either a delusion or not that this Trump is just bluffing. He doesn't actually want to do this. But Trump is so emboldened and gained so much power from the fact that we don't totally know what he'll do.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And we're not really sure what he means. And like we pay for that. We pay for that by the fact that the whole the whole world today was focused on whether it's going to happen today.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah. I also don't, I don't really understand. I know how he thinks about it, but I don't really understand what kind of political win he thinks he's getting two weeks into his administration in one news cycle. It's like, great. Everyone's going to forget about it in three days until we get, unless we get 30 days from now and then.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Plus, two free dream pillows with mattress purchase. helixsleep.com slash crooked. All right, let's talk about Trump's war at home. against the government he leads. The president has essentially given Elon Musk the keys to the kingdom, and the world's richest man is now acting like he's the one people voted for. Here's the headline from the libs over at the Wall Street Journal.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Musk moves with lightning speed to exert control over the government. Elon and his gang of Gen Z dogebros, got a couple of 19, 20, 21-year-olds right out of college, fresh out of college, and now they are just running around the federal government
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You know? At the keyboards. All those billionaires sitting behind him, all merit-based. So that seems to be a reference to both the Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in 2023 in college admissions and And Trump's promise to eradicate diversity, equity, inclusion programs, also known as DEI, wherever they exist, but especially in the federal government.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
On Monday, Trump signed more of these anti-DEI executive orders, this time targeted at the military, which is now led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. who squeaked by in a Senate vote where J.D. Vance had to break the tie on Friday night. Those EOs included one that looks like it will ban transgender Americans from serving in the military based on military readiness.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
This is according to the New York Post. Dan and I went through some of the executive orders from the first week on Friday's show, but there's some other moves we should mention. On Friday night, Trump also fired more than a dozen inspectors general. Those are independent watchdogs whose job it is to root out waste, fraud and abuse in government agencies.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
He has frozen most foreign aid, even aid in the process of being handed out, with the notable exception of military aid to Israel and Egypt. He also said of Gaza that we should, quote, clean out the whole thing and have Gazans move to Egypt and Jordan. Trump also put a pause on all travel communication and meetings at the National Institutes of Health.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
including grant review panels that greenlight funding for critical research into cancer and deadly diseases. Though apparently the acting NIH director sent an email today and a memo trying to clear things up, said that clinical trials are still ongoing and that the restrictions don't apply to clinical trial participants or purchasing supplies for ongoing research.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
But there's some confusion among researchers over what that means. So there's a lot of just mayhem going on at the NIH. Was this incompetence? Were they trying to put a pause on this? No one knows. But I guess it was a really rough week for NIH researchers who were doing everything from you know, looking into cancer research and all kinds of other diseases.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And they had to sort of pause everything during this chaos. And the CDC, as I just mentioned, has also been ordered to stop working with the World Health Organization, which we pulled out of thanks to Donald Trump. Trump also fired or reassigned hundreds of government officials and is making others take MAGA loyalty tests in order to keep their jobs.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
A bunch of people who did not pass the loyalty test, all the people involved in investigating him for both January 6th and the classified documents case. Yeah. In the Department of Justice. They were all fired just today on Monday.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You think it would be that hard to just make it through one episode of Gutfeld? Is that the test?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
1454 till inauguration day. Nothing much happens between the election and the inauguration as we've found. This is good content. We should use it for the show. All right. I think we're rolling. Let's do it. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Your eyes just pried open like clockwork orange? Yeah, exactly. Tommy passed the loyalty test through a Jesse Waters interview.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Get on that team. You can sneak Tommy in. Where to begin? What's most alarming to you guys of all that?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
There's an EO that was about federal contracting and making sure there's no discrimination in federal contracting that was signed by Lyndon Johnson that was part of the Equal Opportunity Employment Act.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
I think why the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling comes into play here too is that some of these companies that are now sort of rolling back DEI programs are and have been concerned for a little while since the Supreme Court decision, which was about universities and colleges and admissions process, that maybe their policies run afoul of the Supreme Court decision.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Did you see the Trump team set up like an email account where you can snitch on whatever entities, companies, whatever.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
That are still promoting DEI, but now it's getting mass spammed with just nonsense and bullshit. Love it.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah. That's great. DEIA truth at OPM. A is accessibility as well. It's DEI. Be a real shame.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
It's also, it's like you have to... They are now, a lot of people on the right, including a lot of people in the Trump administration, you know, they've started to like, it's a slippery slope on how they're defining DEI now. Now it's like, oh, that the head of the Coast Guard is a woman? She's too focused on DEI. Get her out of there.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah. The U.S. military, though, is a good example of an organization that needs an effective DEI program, because if you look at across the U.S. military, the proportion of black service members, it's well over represents the total U.S. population. But they are wildly underrepresented at the general officer level, especially like the three star, four star level.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
It's extremely white and extremely male at the very top. And that's because of overt racism in some cases or just like structural problems or cultural challenges in other cases and should be fixed and could be fixed. But like Tom Cotton is mad that an army unit had to read a Robin DiAngelo book one time and they are just like throwing out the entire program.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And the result is we're not allowed to teach people about the Tuskegee Airmen anymore for like 24 hours. It's just a stupid overreach.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah. Well, maybe no more Robin DiAngelo books. It's probably... It's just like... It's like, look, this is... You can throw them at the enemy. It is clear that in workplaces, in government, that people of color and women are just... have not been represented because of historic racism and structural inequality, right? That we have faced for decades and decades.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And then I think what happened is a lot of these DEI programs not only sort of focused on making sure that there were diverse workforces and that we're focusing on diversity in hiring and pay and promotion, but also these like unconscious bias training programs, which I think is what rubbed quite a few people the wrong way who aren't just MEGA.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
For sure. It's just the proportion of time spent on those programs in the U.S. military compared to everything else they're doing is zero. And this is just a wild overreach.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
It's very stupid. Well, that's what Chris Ruffo and all those assholes, they decided to highlight all that stuff. And so that made people think the DEI is that and not just trying to have equitable workforces, which we've wanted to have for a long, long time and have it.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
they they they banned di then all of a sudden the tuskegee airmen are out of some uh uh training we should tell we should explain that a little bit because you you just kind of mentioned it quickly but it's the the tuskegee airmen um because of the just let's eliminate all dei there was a directive sent out that people that that people in the military could no longer even learn about the tuskegee airmen um or other groups of uh underrepresented people who have done like
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
On today's show, Trump is making good on his promise to go to war with the federal government. From loyalty screenings to dismantling diversity programs to pausing cancer research, we'll talk about which moves are more performative and which you should actually worry about. Democrats are finally beginning to talk and argue more openly about how to respond to all this craziness.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
World War II heroes, right? There's also the Women Air Force Service Pilots or the WASPs. That video was gone for a while too. And then after like 24 hours, everyone was like, oh, I guess that's okay to teach. I guess we could bring that back.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Well, but importantly, I think the effect is that it's going to make people feel like here's the long term. It may be invisible to most Americans in the short term, but long term, this is going to bite us in the ass because who's going to want to work in government now? Who's going to want to work in the federal government and not like. Women are going to feel like they're not included.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
People of color are going to feel like they're not included. Black people, Latino people, this is going to go... But also, there are people at every level of the federal government who are being fired right now, who are experts in their field, but because they're not MAGA loyalists, they can't work in the federal government. Who's going to want to work at the National Institute of Health?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
A lot of these people can go get private sector jobs, pay them a lot of money. Who's going to work? We're going to hollow out the federal government now, which a lot of... I realize a lot of voters think, eh, federal government, what does it do for me? It's big and bloated and wasteful and blah, blah, blah. These are people who are funding.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
These are people who are doing important research, medical research. These are people, lawyers at the Department of Justice. There's a program where people out of law school were getting really good law school students in their third year at law school. They got grants, and they had jobs in the Department of Justice, and they just froze all of those jobs, and all those people are out of work now.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
We'll go through what we think is productive, what's a waste of time, and how the race for DNC chair... plays into all of it. Some news on that front. Stay tuned. Then Dara Lind, longtime immigration journalist and now a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council stops by to talk to Tommy about what's really happening with deportations and immigration policy and why it matters.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah, it's just broad. They're just sweeping everything off the table. They're freezing all foreign aid except for things that directly support Israel's security. Well, that means that, you know, the Times had a piece over the weekend about how the State Department office that funds the cleanup of unexploded bombs all over the world now has to cease operations.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
So what happens usually when you have a cluster munition and 10% of it doesn't go off, it's called a dud. They just sit around and you know who finds them? Little kids. And they pick them up and they fucking play with them because they look interesting and they blow off their arm. And that's who's going to get hurt by these programs.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And it's like, why did we need to pause on the cleanup of unexploded ordnance? Like there's no, there's no ideological viewpoint on that. It's crazy.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
How about everything we're funding overseas for like helping with disease and HIV and all this? Oh yeah, the PEPFAR. PEPFAR. Frozen. Just frozen.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
One of the most successful Republican initiatives ever.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Who knows? You know, it's early and maybe this all gets started back up and the pause ends in like a couple of weeks. But what was this for? Right. We're just going to hurt a bunch of people in the meantime.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
No, it was. I forget what it was. Some U.S. senator found out that like some tiny fraction of money, like six grand out of like tens of billions of dollars was used for abortion services. And I think that led them to just unravel the entire program.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
It's crazy. Apparently they just put all the top officials at USAID on leave. Just got rid of all of them. Like career people, not even political appointees.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah, it was Jim Risch of Idaho figured out that something like $4,100 had been spent by the government in Mozambique on abortions. That money was all refunded, but they put the entire PEPFAR program in jeopardy.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Yeah, so we're going to pick out the worst, but it's pretty much all of them. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad, the war on the government. It's so frustrating and infuriating because I do think this is a hard one to break through to most people, right? Like, you know, in the what's going to be most effective to talk about politically pile, right?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Like his war on the federal government, I don't think is going to be high up there, but it is extremely damaging. And again, next time there's a pandemic, what's going to happen? What's going to happen?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Or some other crisis or some other disaster where we need the federal government to protect Americans.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
But first, let's talk about the brief skirmish our president got us into with the Colombian government on Sunday. One of our biggest allies in South America. Basically, Trump tried to send a few military planes carrying deported migrants to Colombia. Colombia's leftist president, Gustavo Petro, said not so fast. His country would stop accepting these flights until the U.S.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Apparently there is another political party in this country. They're known as the Democrats. Democrats. That's right. I've never heard it said. Though we haven't. We haven't. I've read it. We haven't heard much from them lately. Politico had a good piece about how much more low key the resistance to Trump is this time around.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
It noted that almost none of the top early contenders for the 2028 Democratic nomination had put out statements about the January 6th pardons or Elon Musk's. Salute, whatever it was. Lots of quotes in the story, mostly from anonymous strategists. Great. About how Democrats are, quote, rudderless and overlearning their lessons.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
In general, there is still a lot of backward looking recriminations about what we did wrong in last year's election, as evidenced by this viral clip of Stephen A. Smith on Bill Maher the other night. Let's listen.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
could guarantee a process where the migrants were treated with dignity. Apparently, this was all in response to Trump's use of military aircraft for these transfers. Colombia has allowed hundreds of flights carrying deported migrants on civilian aircraft under the Biden administration. Trump was not too happy about this, so he announced that the U.S.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
So what did you guys think of Stephen A. 's argument there?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
I get why this went viral. I get that it resonates on an emotional level for some people because we're all mad at Democrats because we got our asses kicked and we're mad about the election. We're mad about Joe Biden. But he's just so wrong on so many different levels. I mean, Republicans, Democrats didn't make the whole election about trans rights.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Republicans ran tens of millions of dollars of attack ads on TV attacking Kamala Harris on this issue. That's why it was salient. And then Stephen A. Well, because of what she said. In 2019, not in 2024. And then Stephen A. 's definition of Trump keeping his promise is putting forward an executive order on birthright citizenship that he knows will get struck down in court.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
That is not how Joe Biden was judged. Like when Biden put forward a student loan forgiveness plan and it got struck down by a Republican Supreme Court, everyone got mad at Joe Biden and said he was feckless. Like I'm not here to make excuses for Democrats or Biden or Harris or say the campaign was good, but it's like it's a 50-50 electorate There was an anti-incumbent wave.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Trump is not delivering for the American people in some profound way right now. It's just all vibes. And like, I get the vibes and the anger driving them, but it's just like, he's like, he points to Ro Khanna's like, you might know all the details of the things Joe Biden promised and did deliver on. I didn't bother to Google them. And it's just like, come on, man.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Well, I was going to say it would feel different because she would have taken office not after four years of the other party.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You just unravel what the other guy just did. That's what all these EOs are.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And there was a little bit of that when Biden won, right? Yes, tons. And then remember the first week Biden did a bunch of- He got back in Paris.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
would be retaliating with a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Colombia, which would rise to 50% in one week. Just a reminder, we buy a lot of coffee, a lot of flowers, oil from Colombia, so that would likely mean higher prices on those things. Petro then threatened retaliatory tariffs of 25% on U.S.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Where are we? Here's what I found frustrating about the Stephen A. Smith thing is it... It sort of pulls you in, and your first instinct is to tick off all the reasons it's wrong, right? Because you want to defend, right? And then suddenly you find yourself defending Joe Biden's record for four years, which, by the way, there was a lot of good things. We've said this.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
guess what joe biden didn't really couldn't really control inflation right that was that was you know and also republicans picked out a bunch of culture and identity issues that yes democrats gave them some ammo on but they get more attention in this information environment culture and identity issues than the fights that we want to pick as democrats right so you can explain away why this happened and yet that perception is real about the party and so you don't want to just be like running against the perception that's there and so like
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
I don't know. All you can say to Stephen A. Smith is like, you know what? Yeah, we want people want Democrats. People don't want excuses. They want politicians who are going to actually go out there and fight for them and like and give a damn and look like they give a shit and not look like they are reading. I said this on Friday's pause Dan's line, but like reading the fucking stage directions.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Already, I feel like sometimes giving messaging advice to Democrats is like giving fucking kids matches. You know, it's like you say something about like inflation and the cost of living and suddenly they're all out there being like, that's not going to do anything to lower the price of eggs. It's like, come on, make it fucking believable, guys. It's not believable right now.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
No one is out there thinking that Donald Trump was going to lower the price of eggs or lower the cost of everything after a fucking week.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
I think that... What was annoying about some of the statements you guys talked about was you're right. You don't have to combine the cost of eggs and January 6th pardons. It's bad to pardon insurrectionists that beat up cops.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
What I think I found so annoying about Stephen A's kind of the end of his rant is he was criticizing Democrats for criticizing Trump or trying to block Trump or being an opposition party. And it's like in 2008, when Barack Obama won 365 electoral votes, did the Republicans just like lay down arms and give up? No, they filibustered every single thing we did. That's the role of an opposition party.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You're going to disagree with the president and you're going to talk about it. And he makes them sound like they're just out there carping when the reality is that they're not really actually saying much.
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goods imported to Colombia in a very long post, where he also referred to Trump as a white slaver. said that he'd rather die than give in, and confessed that although he finds the U.S. a bit boring, he does like Walt Whitman, Paul Simon, and Noam Chomsky.
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been the case for decades. This used to be the case with abortion, right? When abortion was, when the pro-choice position was not as popular as it is now, and there were Democrats who would be in red or rural districts, and they'd say, Sherrod Brown always would tell stories like this. He would tell you about guns, right? He has a story in Ohio where he
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He was talking to these people and they're like, you know, well, I don't like your position on guns, right? I think, you know, I want to keep my gun, but I like you because you're for me and you've been fighting like hell for me, you know? And so, like, you're absolutely right about that. It's like right now it is overthinking every single thing.
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I also think that part of the whole price of eggs thing is Democrats aren't saying what like we want Trump to do or what we would do. And, you know, when they spent four years attacking Joe Biden for all kinds of bullshit, they would say things that, you know, I didn't believe like Trump would say, I'm going to do tariffs and that's going to fix this. I'm going to drill, drill, drill.
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If we cannot go around for the next year, just saying that did not lower the price of eggs, that is not fucking sufficient. And you know why it's not sufficient? Because people aren't going to believe it because it's not believable to just go around saying that all the time.
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Like have a have a story you tell about what working people are facing in this country, what we should do for working people, how we're going to make sure that everyone who works and actually like pay their bills and like have a whole fucking story about it.
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It's like people are not stupid. He's been president a week. You know, it's going to take a minute. Like, I have a little more sympathy for Democrats. He just took office. We're probably not hearing, like, Pat Ryan did a bunch of Twitter threads, talked to Playbook over the weekends, Congressman from New York, saying some smart, thoughtful, interesting things, good framing, good focus, right?
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Yeah, and then on Sunday evening, he did give in. Yeah, he did. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt put out a statement saying Colombia had completely backed down, that the tariffs would be held, quote, in reserve, and added, quote, today's events make clear to the world that America is respected again. Love it or love it. And included...
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People are saying the right thing. There's just no leader. There's no megaphone. Nobody's getting picked up. No one's getting hurt. It's just the Trump show all day, every day.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
But there's also not a lot of emotion, you know, like I've seen Democrats, you know, or you give like a floor speech in the Senate. That's not going anywhere. Or you're doing a video where you're talking about why this is. It's like even the it was interesting, even the way the Politico story was framed, how it's like they didn't.
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Democrats didn't do statements on the Elon Musk thing or the J6 pardons because they connected those both. And I'm like, those are nothing alike. It's like one matters and one doesn't.
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The Elon Musk thing, it's like, we're going to say you did a Nazi salute. He's going to say, no, I didn't. The conversation dies there.
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It's like, you're going to win the great debate about whether he did the Nazi salute or not. Then what happens? He goes away. He disappears.
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Talk about his AFD rally. That's a lot more relevant. Also, I just saw a Times story. The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop dispersing HIV medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics. What are we doing?
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Atul Gawande, who led the health programs for USAID, he tweeted this long thread about all the consequences of both freezing foreign aid from a health perspective and having the CDC not work with the World Health Organization. And that was part of that. This is just PEPFAR.
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PEPFAR saved 25 million lives. And we're letting these drugs just sit on a shelf?
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Yeah. I do want to say like the January 6th pardons, though, like not speaking about that is crazy to me because like most importantly, they are dangerous and that they give right wing extremists a green light to go commit political violence, even against law enforcement, because, hey, Trump's got their back. Right.
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But they're also extremely unpopular, even if you just want to be political about it. Right. So why wouldn't you go out to the microphone somewhere and be outraged about that? And then I know that I'm glad all the Democrats are signed on to a resolution condemning the the the pardoning for the J6. It's like it's like a minute. It's Monday. Yeah.
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Well, it... Also, you know, when they when they had this story this morning about the resolution, every Senate Democrat had signed on except John Fetterman. And at first there was a lot of criticism. I was like, what the fuck? What's wrong with him? He's not signing on to this. So then he signed on. So it was fine.
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And then someone asked John Fetterman, I guess, just just a couple hours ago, why didn't you sign on at first? He's like, no, no, no. I was like, look, he was like, I've been against pardons for January 6th. Insurrection is forever. I've been on record. He goes, but I do think what we need is another another performative, more performance art where we pass another resolution.
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That'll really that'll really get him. And it's like. Yeah, okay.
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Okay, buddy, your life is performance art. You wear shorts and hoodies to the Senate floor to send a message. Come on.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
But I do get where it's like, I would rather have Democrats have gone to the mic the morning after it happened with the January 6th thing, and all of them with Capitol Police officers, with everyone else, and shown some real emotion, than I would an official resolution that passed. Well, I just think it's very easy to do both.
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Included a warning to all other countries not to make the same mistake. I think the Colombians did say we did get some promises for better conditions for the for the migrants coming back. But they got nothing. They got nothing. What do you guys make of this as a governing strategy, a foreign policy strategy and a political strategy?
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And really what we're saying, it's like it's reading the stage directions.
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This is terrible. I'm going to go to the microphones and bring some people out. Is that too much?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Not everything has to be planned. Perfect. Thought out. Just go fucking do stuff, guys. And, you know, forget it. It's just... We probably hammered this point a little. Okay, we're just... No, no, no, I'm clapping. I do think one of the other very funny things that I just want to bring up before we go is CNN did a story on this.
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And they talked about how this was all in the... They had this meeting in the Senate Democratic Caucus about how to go viral and the media environment, all that. And the CNN story said...
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One of the, they call this a bright spots, the Democrats highlighted, according to a source familiar, was a viral video from the pandemic of Mark Warner making a tuna melt in his kitchen that led to the lawmaker being cheered and jeered by people who questioned his culinary leanings. That was the bright spot. That's the Senate.
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Going back to 2020, be like, hey, remember when Warner had that viral tuna video or grilled cheese tuna melt video?
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It was a microwave, right? Wasn't it a microwave tuna melt? He did such a bad job making this thing that people got excited about it.
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So, all these questions loom especially large in the DNC chair race. DNC members will vote for the new chair on Saturday. As you all know, we here at the show, big Ben Wickler fans and supporters for a long time. We've talked about it in this pod a million times. But,
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we wanted to talk to any of the candidates who wanted to come on uh i interviewed ken martin and ben uh dan interviewed uh faz shakir on a friday show i personally think all three of them would make great dnc chairs um but maybe unsurprisingly we were almost impressed with ben's vision and his plans uh and you know maybe we're all just hopelessly biased because we have known him and worked with him now since basically we've started this podcast but even putting that aside i think
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Wisconsin was the most Republican-leaning blue wall state in 2020, the third most Republican-leaning swing state of all in 2020 after Arizona and Georgia. Everyone was worried about it in 2024 because it's a very rural, non-college-educated state. It ended up to the left of the national vote. That means that Kamala Harris did worse in the national popular vote than she did in Wisconsin.
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And the operation that Ben built was a huge part of that. So If we were voting members of the DNC, which they will probably never make us, he would get our vote. But what do you guys want to add?
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
I mean, it's like classic Trump, right? He's the arsonist and the firefighter. You know, it's like Petro is an interesting guy. He was a he joined a Marxist guerrilla group as a teenager and then transitioned to politics. So he's not someone who's scared to fight.
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Yeah, I mean, we're biased. I met Ben in 2006, so it's like I had nothing against anyone else in the race. But I think one thing that we've all noticed about Ben is he has no off switch. You're getting texts from him 24-7, 365 days a year about races big and small across Wisconsin, and he was able to raise money and awareness there.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
and build a state party organization that was always doing work, always organizing, always building and trying to get power back. And they started from a serious deficit in Wisconsin. And that doesn't mean they won every race, but that's not a fair expectation. But they didn't sit out any races. And I think like that's the kind of mindset you want at the DNC.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
And it's also just like a vibe and a tenor and a tone. Like Ben, we went to lots of events and organizing sessions with him and trainings. He's always preaching like an inclusive, empowering form of politics that I think would help out the party and translate well to the DNC and make people want to be a part of the Democratic Party. So I think he'd be great at it.
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All right. Well, and you know what? If you're listening and you're a DNC member and you're going to be voting and you like Ben or you think that Ben should be Ben should be the chair, then, you know, I think it'd probably help in this last week to go public and, you know, making it probably more helpful than us because we're not voting. And probably has turned off a few people.
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Hopefully net positive. But if you're out there listening and you're thinking the same thing, you know, go with Ben. Go with Ben. After the break, you're going to hear Tommy's conversation with Dara Lind of the American Immigration Council. But two quick things before we do that. Latest episode of Assembly Required.
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Yeah. Yeah. No, we were wild. Wild group. This table. A couple of left wing guerrillas.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
Stacey Abrams is joined by Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray to dissect the impact of Trump's sweeping executive orders from renaming Denali to ending birthright citizenship and what we can all do to protect our democracy. New episodes of Assembly Required drop every Thursday. Find them wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.
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Also, we're out with our first post-election episode of Polar Coaster, Dan's subscriber-only show. In this episode, Dan takes a look at the early polling from Trump's return to office, unpacks the chaos that got us here, and tackles listeners' questions.
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To access this exclusive subscriber series, enjoy ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and more, subscribe now at cricket.com slash friends or directly on Apple Podcasts. When we come back, Darland.
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Patsy of America is brought to you by Fatty 15. That was my nickname in high school. I did that same joke last week. The same exact joke. Have you heard about C15? It's an essential fatty acid that's naturally found in whole fat dairy products. But over time, our intake of these foods has decreased.
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My mentions I sometimes have. I do think Petro screwed up here. He gave Trump a win. He overreacted. I think he claims that there was a video.
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So the Trump administration has been firing off executive orders left and right. Many of them seem extremely consequential. Some are glorified press releases, but many of the more consequential seeming EOs focus on immigration policy, which is why I am so excited to have Dara Lind on with me today.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
She's a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an immigration policy expert, an excellent journalist. Dara, welcome to the show.
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Well, there was a deportation flight to Brazil that went viral on social media where people were handcuffed. And then there was the news that the U.S. is going to use military aircraft to fly these deportation flights. And I think a couple of Latin America experts I talked to think that Petro decided he could pick a fight here and it would help him politically.
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Yeah. Yeah. Very much so, because it is quite confusing. And we're going to talk through some of the complexity and uncertainty of this moment, especially when it comes to immigration. So first question is just big picture. I mean, what do you think are the most important things that Trump has done so far when it comes to immigration policy?
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I want to ask you about that logistical point, because you wrote in this Great Times op-ed after the election, but before inauguration, that the largest constraint on mass deportation is logistical and that deporting 1 million people per year would cost an annual average of $88 billion.
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Can you kind of unpack those logistics for us and explain whether you think there's kind of anything in that insight that opponents of Trump's immigration policy could use to fight it?
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And then when people in Colombia realized that this might mean economic damage from tariffs or no visas for them to travel to the US, they decided that was way worse. And he backtracked very, very quickly.
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But I do think broadly from Trump, like we're going to see a lot of this picking fights with Democrats or leftists on immigration, bullying small countries to get little wins and then acting like that wasn't a strategy available to every U.S. president ever just to be a dick to Colombia. But ultimately, I think it's counterproductive and it raises questions about the U.S. as a long term ally.
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And just your point for I think, like, we don't have the best relations with Venezuela. For example, there are a lot of folks who have left Venezuela over the past decade or so, and made their way north United States. What happens if Venezuela just says no, American C 17s will never set down in our territory? I mean, do we have to get to a point where we're like, having to coerce that militarily?
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Of course, Bukele is willing to take whatever number of people Trump wants to send to El Salvador. It seems to me that a lot of what's happened so far is PR and for show, right?
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I mean, I think the Trump administration is talking about the number of deportations over the weekend that may or may not be all that much above kind of the average you might have seen in terms of total deportations under the Biden administration this I suspect part of it also is they want to pick fights with like Democrats in liberal cities.
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I mean, what kind of strategies do you think these progressives can take to push back that doesn't play into this sort of PR effort, but actually is impactful for people in communities that are being harmed?
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The Chinese are already trying to capitalize on it. So it's just stupid.
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Right, right. Because a lot of the cooperation you've seen in the past has been federal officials going to local, state, and county jails, right, and then picking people up there for deportation. One other element of this is Trump is trying to end birthright citizenship. So that would end the practice of giving automatic citizenship to the U.S.
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born kids of undocumented immigrant parents or to the kids of foreign workers or students. So I think it's important to note that that latter category is people here legally. When I talk with, you know, smart lawyers about the birthright citizenship EO, they say this is clearly unconstitutional. But if it gets to the Supreme Court, like, God help us. Does that sort of jive with your sense?
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I thought that too. At the White House, they must have been like, are you fucking kidding me? This is awesome.
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Yeah. I mean, you mentioned there was this one ruling already from a judge who I believe was a Reagan appointee. He said, I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.
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Got it. Got it. Congress is also getting in on the act here. So they just passed a piece of legislation called the Lake and Riley Act, passed on a bipartisan basis. The bill got 64 yes votes in the Senate, 263 yes votes in the House, including 46 Democrats in the House. Can you give us just like a quick overview of what the Lake and Riley Act does?
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Yeah. And just to dig in on those two sort of pieces. I mean, look, I'm not a lawyer, but I thought that undocumented people had due process rights under the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendment. This bill says if you're just accused of basically petty shoplifting, you can be deported. I mean, that does not seem like due process to me. Am I wrong?
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God, that's terrible. Part two. I mean, so like the attorney general in Oklahoma can tell Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, that he's no longer allowed to issue visas to a random country because, I don't know, it helps this attorney general in Oklahoma politically to demand that the federal government, even the Trump government, be tougher on immigrants. That seems completely unworkable.
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You're going to get to liberal attorney generals in blue states just suing the State Department over nothing for fun. I also saw that I said the bill would cost 26 billion to implement in the first year. So back to your resourcing and logistics question. It seems wildly difficult to do this without, I guess, an appropriation of new money.
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Okay. So you mentioned also temporary protected status. On the way out the door, President Biden granted an extension of temporary protected status or TPS to nearly a million immigrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, Ukraine, and Sudan, which should protect them from deportation through, I think, the fall of 2026.
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I know the Trump administration is not a big fan of TPS or lots of pathways of legal immigration. Can they just rescind that extension? Or what do you think happens to TPS?
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Man, I mean, just to underscore how cruel it would be to start sending people back to Sudan, which has been in the middle of a horrific civil war for well over a year now. There's accusations of genocide against the rebel forces and even some of the Sudanese armed forces. I think half the country is at risk of starvation, millions of people being displaced.
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I mean, the idea that you would just put someone on a plane back to Khartoum right now is just like unthinkable from a moral level.
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I did see some people on social media, various social media platforms, like cheering on the Colombian president and quoting from his statement and being like, uh, oh, he's throwing down with Trump and look at this. I'm here for this. This is great. And it's like, guys, this is not the way to respond to this.
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Yeah, absolutely. Do you think, is it now kind of all about enforcement and, you know, the kind of memos to agencies about how to implement these policies? Are you expecting more executive orders and major policy changes? We just don't know.
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The one thing I just haven't heard much about is any kind of increased penalties or scrutiny of employers versus individuals. I mean, for a long time, that was kind of the approach of a lot of immigration policy, right, which is to make it really hard for people to work by punishing their employers if they hired undocumented people. But I'm just I don't think I'm hearing much about that.
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I do want to talk about it in the context of Trump using tariffs as a threat to get what he wants from other countries, which... You know, this situation made me realize, oh, this is why he loves tariffs so much, because, yeah, it's leverage. And he thinks he's going to this is how he's going to get his foreign policy objectives achieved.
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Got it. I mean, just finally on the politics, I mean, curious how you think or why you think the politics on immigration policy changed so much over, I don't know, let's say the past decade or so. I don't know if it was just generally more migration, Biden's policies, like the relentless busing from states like Texas to blue states. I mean, what's your big picture sense of that?
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Yeah, very good point. Well, Dara, thank you so much for coming on the show. Final, final question. You got the band back together with your old crew from The Weeds with Ezra Klein and Matthew Iglesias the other day on Ezra's podcast. Is there any chance of a comeback tour where you hit a few kind of the nerdiest cities? You know, we could sell out some stadiums.
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According to Trump advisers who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is, quote, very serious about hitting Mexico and Canada with 25 percent tariffs this Saturday, February 1st, even before any negotiations, just wants to hit him with the tariffs. Just to prove that he's not bluffing, apparently.
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I'm not even sure what you're referencing. And I love that. We're going to leave it there. That is perfect. Dara, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.
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That's our show for today. Thanks to Dara Lynn for coming by. And Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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The journal also reports that Mexico and Canada, quote, are quietly expressing confusion and bewilderment because they aren't even sure what Trump wants. What do you think's going on there?
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Yeah, that's currently what's happening to Canada. Oh no, Justin Trudeau. Yeah. Dustin Hoffman could be Trudeau in a movie. You see it? Yeah, a little short. Grow your hair out, get some lifts. Look enough like Castro. Yeah, you know, a Castro guy.
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The Journal story mentions also that Canada has already pledged to spend nearly a billion dollars to harden its southern border with us, which is one of Trump's big demands. And then Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, has cracked down on migration through Mexico to our southern border and done a bunch of high-profile drug seizures.
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So Trump is getting what he wants from both of these presidents already, and I guess, and he's just going to tariff them as a negotiating position. I guess my reactions to this were one, we probably shouldn't underestimate that there's a bunch of people in the White House that are bullies and assholes and want to wield power for the sake of just showing that they can.
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And that could be what's happening here. Tell us what you explain. not telling someone what you want from them before you punish a sovereign country. I also think it sounds like Trump is going to try to renegotiate the USMCA agreement, which was what they called the renegotiated NAFTA.
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Yeah, which is just renegotiated by a horrible president. Who let that get renegotiated? Donald Trump. It's Trump's
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And I think they're mad about it because they feel like, I don't think Jared Kushner got that much out of that deal. And then finally, it's probably not a coincidence that we're talking about Trump messing with leftist and liberal governments in Colombia, Mexico, in Canada. In Canada in particular, Trump is trying to soften up the liberal party as much as he can because they have an election.
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any of them and so i the broader question is is is he going to whatever he announces on february 1st if he announces anything at all is it a big show with targeted tariffs more like what we saw in the first term or is he serious i just think we don't know my reaction is i wonder what's going to happen when someone calls his bluff says like all right let's do it like tariff us and we're gonna we're gonna do retaliatory tariffs and trump's bet is the political pain that he will face here
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from all of us having to pay higher prices, because that's who will pay for a trade war, us, will be not as great as the political pain faced by the other leaders at home for the higher prices and the economic damage that they'll have to deal with from the trade war.
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And that maybe the political pain here that he'll face will be short-lived because eventually those other countries will give in because they're probably smaller countries or at least have a smaller economy because most countries in the world do, right?
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Or the people just want to see him fight. They don't necessarily care about the impact.
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Whatever weird thing he asks for, right? Like who knows what he's going to ask for, but I think he just, it's just a show, it's a show of strength. But I do think like... I think at some point when you start pushing, you know, all of these allies and countries around, you start like beating the shit out of them on tariffs.
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Like you're going to like push them into the arms of China, into the arms of like other countries. Like it just at some point losing a bunch of allies is going to come back to bite you in the ass. It is the type of thing for Trump that like, yeah, maybe not short term, short term. And everyone be like, oh, this is funny. He like won a new cycle against Colombia. Right.
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But like, you know, at some point you're going to need those allies.
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You're beating up Colombia. You're going to try to annex Panama. You're going to try to steal Greenland. I mean, people are going to notice this stuff. They don't they don't love it.
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I mean, that's going to be limited by people paying higher prices. Right. If like if suddenly they this gets out of control with one of these countries and people start paying a lot more for whatever good is affected by the tariff, then that's going to then, you know, it doesn't really it matters less what the what the media environment is. Right.
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And, you know, as we just found out over the last four years.
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Yeah, well, we also pulled out of the World Health Organization and can't even work with the World Health Organization anymore. So one of the things that we're not going to get anymore is alerts from around the world about the developing avian flu pandemic in other countries. Well, the good news is we're the epicenter. Yeah, well, as it mutates, that's what you get.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
You get memos from other countries and you get alerts, and we're not going to get those anymore.
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Trump's also fighting a war at home, mostly against the government he now leads. He capped off his first week in office by meeting with hurricane survivors in North Carolina and inspecting the fire damage in California, a trip where he floated eliminating FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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Has Anyone Seen the Democrats?
On Saturday, he held a thank you rally in Las Vegas, where he congratulated himself and the MAGA faithful on everything they were accomplishing together, including notably this.
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Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. Marsh isn't just for college basketball, it's also when property crime tends to rise as people travel or are out celebrating. Whether you're heading to a watch party or a vacation, SimpliSafe ensures your home is protected while you enjoy life. Love it. Remember you set up a SimpliSafe?
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We'll also cover the ongoing, enraging legal drama over Trump's new policy of declaring people terrorists and sending them to a foreign gulag without due process. We'll talk about the disturbing trend of legal and academic institutions capitulating to the Trump regime.
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Which is why I think that what we all did this weekend and everyone who came out, this is why that's important too. We're the only check left here, right? The institution, and especially corporate media outlets, we've talked about that, these law firms, they have... they feel like they have responsibility to their employees, to their shareholders. They are businesses.
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They are trying to make a profit. We would like them all to take on the hard fight and do the right thing. But for some of them, they're just like, look, I'm just trying to live my life and run my business here.
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And so I think that it is incumbent upon every single person in the country who is scared about this and worried about what's happening to start organizing so that some of these firms and some of these corporations become a little less scared of fighting because there's actually a popular movement behind it.
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Right, or scared of the backlash when they do the wrong thing. I will just say, like, I think one of the other things this exposes, right, it is a collective action problem, but also like at these firms, right, like, uh, uh, the head of Paul Weiss, big, big Democrat, right. But whose biggest clients are one of the biggest oil companies on planet earth.
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There's kind of always been this sort of dividing line between like how corporate lawyers make their money and what these firms actually do. And then there are good works, right? How they involve themselves in politics. Some of their pro bono cases. And I just, it's, it's nuanced, right? Because some of the most important, uh,
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uh cases before the supreme court have been by uh litigators who like cut their teeth or are at these firms representing clients as part of their uh ethical pro bono work that they do to uh pay back god for what they did during the rest of their fucking time uh so that the pearly gates they can explain and by the way if you're a corporate lawyer who may one day represent me i'm especially grateful didn't realize you were doing this for poverty wages
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I'm not saying there's, that's not the point, right? I think we don't read X on mobile ads, but they do. They sure do. You want to do, we could do X on mobile ads, but we say no to those things. We make ethical choices within a complicated and gray system. Anyway, all I'm getting at is these guys are now being put to the test. Of course, they're not going to pass this test.
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And then later in the show, you'll hear my conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a potential 2028 contender, about how Democrats can win in red states and fix the party. But first, the three of us briefly escaped our liberal L.A. bubbles this weekend. Lovett, you went the farthest.
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Well, that's of course the big problem, right? Like in the long term, it is bad for the American economy to shift into a kind of pay the regime a corruption fee in order to do business. The better you know Trump, the more likely you are to get the deal. Like that has not been good for the economy of Hungary. But in the short term, they think they can make some money and avoid some of the fallout.
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And we all collectively will slowly watch as opportunity and and business go elsewhere because it's just not worth the risk of starting here when the Trump eye could come for you at any moment.
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So colleges are becoming a problem too. On Friday, Columbia University ended up giving in to Trump's demands in order to regain $400 million in federal funding.
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This includes adopting a definition of anti-Semitism that satisfies the administration, hiring 36 new special officers that can remove people from campus or arrest them, banning the use of face masks during protests, and appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern South Asian and African Studies Department.
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It's worth noting that in its March 13th letter to the school, the administration called its demands a, quote, precondition for formal negotiations to maintain a, quote, financial relationship with the United States government. They're fucking easier on Putin than So we'll see what comes next for Columbia. Meanwhile, Trump is still threatening the state of Maine.
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You might remember that back in February, Trump called out Maine Governor Janet Mills for failing to comply with his executive order banning trans athletes from women's sports teams. Mills piped up that she would comply with state and federal law. And then Trump said she'd better fall in line or quote, you're not going to get any federal funding. Mills replied, see you in court.
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In response, the Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the University of Maine system. one of which led to the Department of Agriculture temporarily blocking millions of dollars of federal funding for Maine's farmers and foresters.
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Then on Saturday, Trump claimed on Truth Social that while the state has apologized, he is now demanding, quote, a full-throated apology from the governor herself and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the federal government again before this case can be settled.
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Mills told reporters on Monday, I don't communicate with public officials by tweet or Instagram or social media and said the EO was unconstitutional and the fight isn't about transgender sports before hitting Trump for not having an economic plan beyond tariffs. What do you guys make of the college, the college stuff?
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You went to Wisconsin to campaign for Judge Susan Crawford, who's running to keep the liberal majority on the state Supreme Court against an Elon Musk-funded opponent. You saw our pal Ben Wickler. How was it?
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You have to meet certain thresholds to earn negotiations at Columbia University.
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I'm sure the anti-Semitism definition also specifically excludes any anti-Semitism that comes from the Trump right wingers.
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So, yeah, I mean, just like stepping back government like this is as brazen and unconstitutional step that Donald Trump has taken since he became president. Look, the federal government is a behemoth. It sends money to all kinds of institutions, hospitals, colleges, private companies for contracts. The money goes to a lot of different places.
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It is a bedrock principle that when the federal government writes you a check, that cannot become a cudgel by which they can control your speech. Now, if the money is for something in specific, they have a lot of say as to how that money is spent. Even then, even then, there are restrictions on how the federal money can be used to demand certain speech, right? There's just a lot of examples.
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Supreme Court, left, right, center, well-founded. What is, of course, unconstitutional is that because we are giving you money for research over here, that gives us basically a board seat at Columbia to have protest policies where we're inserting.
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This is the president of the United States making a administrative decision about how to run a specific department at a private university in New York City. That is beyond the pale. It is obviously something Columbia should have fought. It is like I. I the Paul Weiss thing, you know, I'd expect, I guess, not very much from a corporate law firm on this front.
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So we had a great time out there. Tons and tons of people came out on a Saturday and Sunday. We did six kickoffs, a couple hundred people over the course of the weekend knocking on doors. It was good to be out there. I know that a lot of people feel a little bit discouraged about what the value is of getting out there and doing the phone banking and the texting and the calling.
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And I actually can see the argument for why they did what they did, even if I think it's wrong. This is ridiculous. Columbia should be fucking ashamed of themselves. They had such an ironclad case about how much of a violation of of the First Amendment this is and the fact that they chose to capitulate. is such a disgrace, especially when they are sitting on a 13 point some odd billion endowment.
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When this 400 million, it's a lot of money, but it's less than the amount they receive from just in gifts that go towards paying for school. It's less certainly than the interest that they get on that endowment.
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I saw somewhere, someone made the case like Columbia just did what the university wanted to do anyway on some of this stuff post protests and just felt like, okay, then it's a, you know, they can do that and they can do it under the cover of Trump doing this.
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And I also think that to your point about the federal funding, it's $400 million now, a quarter of all of their like annual operating budget is federal funding. And so Trump could have come after more, right? It's basically- And they threatened to do that.
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And I only say this because I think it was a huge mistake that they did this, but to me it is similar to the Paul Weiss thing in that in the context of Columbia University deciding what is good for Columbia, right? Which is if we lose $400 million in federal funding and then we lose even more and more and more, it is a death blow to the university, right?
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We're gonna have to lay off professors, raise tuition, all this kind of shit.
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And yet they had such a good case, like you said, that like if if if Columbia reached out to Penn, which lost one hundred and seventy five million dollars because of, you know, a trans swimmer who graduated three years ago from Penn, if they had all stood together, every college in the country and was like, hey, fuck you, we're not going to take it, you know, take direction from the Trump administration.
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That's more powerful than each one individually thinking that you're going to save yourself because they're going to they're going to come back for more in Columbia, too.
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This is where too, it's like, this is the culmination of like, the right has been Fighting the liberal universities for half a century, more, more. Never in their wildest dreams could they have ever imagined it would be this easy. That just by threatening funding in an unconstitutional way, all of a sudden, all of these schools will capitulate. And I'm sorry to harp on it, but it's like...
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Because these are the schools that are being basically victimized by the Trump administration. But Donald Trump takes advantage of a lot of weaknesses, right? He's taking advantage of the fact that people aren't going to respond as strongly as they should. They're not going to band together. The firms aren't, the schools aren't.
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But he takes advantage of something else, which is he is able to see the place where these liberal institutions haven't really lived up to their liberal values all the time, right? And that...
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that that they haven't had their assumptions really tested like this like columbia is many things it is a giant institution it does a ton of amazing research it has a lot of academic excellence it also has masters programs that are basically scams that saddle people with it is like it is it's just
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But being out there, it's a reminder that it is valuable for you to be among like-minded people who are fighting. You get something from it. You learn something from it.
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It's a bunch of different things, some of which is really good, some of which is, I think, pretty fucking shitty. And because the left-right debate has been basically the right attacking the ideology of these schools, while the left is basically trying to play defense and has been for a very long time, we just haven't talked enough about what is the purpose of higher education?
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why are these institutions getting so much money? Why are so many people going into debt, getting degrees from this place, not just undergraduate, but like masters in journalism or masters in social work and never ever being able to earn enough, right? Like why do the schools not reform that? Why do they not address these things?
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And then you see like, because these places have not really been living up to their liberal values on the whole, These moments happen. They are tested and they're just completely caught off guard because they're not passionate. They have no great ideological defense. They don't know why they do half the shit they fucking do. And like Donald Trump takes advantage of that weakness.
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And like we collectively need to like reassert what we believe are these basic values. And some of it is by not just fighting against the right, but fighting to make sure these institutions actually live up to what they claim to profess to believe in.
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What's to stop the Trump administration from, you know, next year or even a couple months from now being like, you know, we looked at all the social media of all the professors at the different Ivy League colleges or other institutions. And we think that there's too many liberal professors. And unless there's this balance, you're going to take more federal funding. Right. So now it's the protests.
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But it could be they could do this for anything. It is that we are setting precedents now that are going to come back and bite everyone in the ass later.
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knocking on doors and just talking to people a lot of it was just trying to remind people who are already pretty progressive in places like Madison to turn out to vote most of them already had but it was kind of a it's a reminder that like so much of our politics is asymmetrical right like it is Totally normal for J.D.
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And then it's like, where are the wealthy Columbia graduates, alums, right? Coming out and saying, I'm not giving Columbia one more dime unless they fight this, right?
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And this is to your point that he, the administration sort of picking their battles, right? They know a lot of the wealthier donors in Columbus, they're mad about the protests. And so they're probably like,
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I did set up Simply Safe. Incredibly easy to do. Works great. Looks great. Out of the box. The app is easy to use. Highly recommend it.
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i don't like donald trump but good i'm glad they did this yeah right so that yeah this is what they're doing everywhere and and so that like he is finding that fissure where these liberal institutions are not quite as liberal as they say right that's what he's doing with these law firms that's what he's doing here and uh gonna try to i'm gonna try to make it about the worst venezuelan gang members gonna try to make it about like they're just this is how they're this is how they're playing it
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That's rocketmoney.com slash crooked. rocketmoney.com slash crooked. Speaking of which, one person who isn't yet capitulating, D.C. District Judge James Boasberg, the judge who Trump, Elon and many others have threatened with impeachment for trying to block the administration from sending Venezuelan migrants to be tortured in an El Salvador prison without due process.
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At a Friday hearing, Boasberg said the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act was, quote, incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning. and said he'd get to the bottom of whether the executive branch was intentionally defying his orders.
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Vance to go on television and insult liberals and the and the people that live in cosmopolitan liberal cities. But it's so inconceivable to have that in the other direction. Right. Imagine Elizabeth Warren going on a bunch of fucking trash idiots down there and down there in Alabama. Like it's not possible. So we just take a lot of hits.
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On Monday afternoon, Boasberg issued a decision refusing to lift the temporary restraining order he'd put on the administration's use of the law, saying he believes the people deported are likely to win their lawsuit on due process grounds, meaning they were entitled to hearings about whether they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua before their removal. The proceedings happen on Monday.
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It looks like we'll get a ruling maybe Tuesday, maybe later this week. But one fun quote from one of the three judges on the D.C. appeals court, Judge Patricia Millett, quote, Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here. Meanwhile, as far as we know, all these migrants are still sitting in prison in El Salvador.
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Time had an incredible, horrifying account of their intake detailing how these guys were being slapped and shoved, head shaved. Some of them were sobbing, pleading that they aren't gang members. This, to me, seems like a five alarm fire. What do you guys think?
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And there are so many there's this there's woman that really stuck with me. She's an older lady. And she was gardening, and she's like, they ran out of signs for Judge Crawford, so I made my own, and I made some for my neighbors, and I just can't believe what's happening to our country, and I'm just so scared, and I'm just so sad. And we've taken a lot of fucking shit, and we don't deserve it.
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And just being out in the world with people who feel the same way was really inspiring. And a lot of people are really pissed about Elon Musk dumping $13 million into the race.
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I bet. Did you encounter anyone who's not supporting Susan Crawford because she's not burning enough Teslas? So I will tell you the number that didn't burn enough for her.
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Also, now they got that active guard outdoor protection. They can help prevent break-ins before they happen. If someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, those agents see and talk to them in real time. Activate spotlights. Even contact the police. All before they have the chance to get inside your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees.
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A couple undecided people we met knocking on doors was me and Nina from the Vote Save America team. And one woman was like, I'm really not sure, but I'm kind of on the phone. And we said, all right, we'll be back in 20 minutes. And so we left and came back to kind of talk to her some more.
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uh yeah yeah yeah you'll vote correctly or you'll hear from us again uh but so we talked for a while and like it's amazing how much the tesla's being lit on fire has broken through for like non-partisan non-political people and i remember we just started saying like well We're not in favor of setting Teslas on fire, and Judge Crawford's not going to set any Teslas on fire.
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We don't really have anything to do with that, but here's why it's important for you to vote in this race and why it's a bad thing that Brad Schimel is fully funded by Elon Musk.
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Yeah, right. At some point, too, like, the things go really off the rails when, so they're all added to this chat. And then at some point, Vance replies with something like, I don't agree with this decision, just flagging, basically, some version of that. Like, I don't agree. And that's the moment at which, you know, look, we talk a lot about meetings that should be emails, right?
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That was the moment this became an email that should have been a meeting. Because then all of a sudden, they're having a policy debate over Signal. Over Signal. Now, the question I have is, so Marco Rubio is added to this chat. It's not clear what participation Marco Rubio actually had, because I don't see very many messages from him.
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And Jeffrey Goldberg judiciously avoids publishing the actual classified information or the names of the guy at CIA, the active intelligence officer that was added to the fucking chat. But I wonder, too, if some of this is like, Marco Rubio, who's a more serious person than Pete Hegseth, being like, these fucking jagoffs, I cannot believe they're discussing this.
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No, no, no. It really did make me, it did just a reminder. Even in Dane County, where Democrats get Putin margins. I will say, though, there are very funny people on the street. People just are bringing up the Teslas being lit on fire. It's just like fully broken through. And because we talk, like Elon Musk is dumping all this money into the state.
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I know. I did take that as like, you know how this is around this most senior levels of the White House. Everyone's like, well, I took what the president said to mean this. And then someone else is like, oh, well, I was meeting with the president afterwards, and I took what the president meant to say this. And they all try to like, you know, it's a big, it's a dixie in context.
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In reality, Trump's like, what's a hoothy? Right? Well, no, in reality, when they asked Trump later that day at a press availability, he goes, oh, this is the first I'm hearing of this. That was very funny.
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Well, that was just about the threat itself, right? Yeah, he was like, I don't know anything about that.
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Well, that was the part of it that was interesting, which is like, so I guess... Does that mean he was in Walt's phone? Who's JG? Who do you mean to add? Who was JG? Who did they think they were adding? Why did nobody notice that that guy never applied? Why did they not need his way in?
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So there was either another JG or I was thinking, let's see, J.D. Vance was on there and there was another J on there too. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director. So unless, you know how when you're in your phone, you do one letter and someone's name comes up. So maybe it auto-populated with Jeff Goldberg and he didn't realize it. I don't know.
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I wonder, what a world we're in. I wonder, too, like somebody like they're like when when that time story came out and we had this sort of blow by blow of that that closed press cabinet beating. It's like, well, somebody's leaking this pretty good. Sounds like somebody might even be recording it.
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And then you see this and it's like somebody's Jeffrey Goldberg is popping up so quick on the fucking thing that you're like accidentally adding him on signal.
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Let's the J.D. Vance part is interesting in that. So as you said, love it. He was like flagging. I'm against this or at least at least the timing. Why do we have to? Can we wait a little bit? And but can you talk about why he was against it?
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He seems to make is the Europeans are worse than the Houthis.
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Well, I think, yes, sure. I guess. No, he's saying, well, if we're arguing that Europe should be responsible for its own defense in Ukraine, it's sort of it's it's inconsistent to then have our Navy do their bombing for them when we're only getting three percent of the trade. But they are about to what, 40 or so percent of it.
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And then Stephen Miller jumps in and he's like, yeah, I mean, if we do this, Europe's going to have to give us something for this.
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And somebody was like, and I'm setting all the Teslas on fire, which is not something I agree with, but I'm not losing sleep over it. Jesus Christ.
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One of the arguments they make for doing it now is being afraid that if they don't, Israel will do it for them. Yeah. And so it's like, well, we don't want Israel to do it. We'd rather have Europe do it, but Europe doesn't seem to have the Navy for it. So I guess we have to do it, but don't worry, we'll get something after for it. We'll get a payment for it.
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And also he, he finds it quite frustrating when people are confused between our two shows. I not in like a fun way. Like he gets like a little bit mad. Remember that? Yes.
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Nice. So Tommy and I drove up to Norco, California, or out to Norco, California, I guess. Yeah, I guess east. East of here, to be part of a town hall put on by our friend Rokana, part of what he's calling his Benefits Over Billionaires Tour. Ken Calvert, the Republican congressman who represents the area, he isn't doing town halls. So Rowe decided that he would.
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Look, I've been, I've been, I've been sent notes on the Mandalorian. That's right. My favorite. I was thinking about when we were in 07, when Obama first announced for president, there was some email chain where we were talking about the first couple events of the campaign and we like looped in a reporter.
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And the reporter was like on the chain. I think I remember Bill Burton like replying on being like, take the reporter off again. Take the reporter.
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yeah it was about it was about dinner but the the yeah the uh i remember one of my favorite all-time email fuck-ups was and i actually i i don't want to say it was in the hillary campaign and you know the classic is you want to talk shit about someone but they accidentally forward it to that person because that person's on the mind and someone forwarded an email from someone right back to them and said i want to kill this fucking bitch
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That was brutal. That was brutal. Not as bad as this. Not as bad as this.
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I mean, and so, so Jeff Goldberg probably can't believe his fortune here. And then he leaves, leaves the group chat, which is also funny because you get some kind of, at least the person who started the group chat gets a notification of someone left. So can you imagine the feeling in your body when you see Jeff Goldberg left the chat?
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I can't like it. Yeah, I don't know. Do these people have feelings in their bodies? That's the question. I was like a little bit bummed that he left. So he in the piece, he talks about how he just once he couldn't he wasn't sure if it was really thought it wasn't. Then all of a sudden they're bombing Yemen. And it's like, well, that's pretty conclusive.
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Right. So it seems confirmed for him. So then he feels like he has to withdraw himself from the trap, which is a bummer because we're denied the third act, which would have been either somebody catching it. or everybody just leaving in about a 15-minute span, which have also been awesome. But I get why he had to take himself out, because at a certain point, you've confirmed this.
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You're now aware that you're receiving classified, deeply sensitive government information on your private cell phone.
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It would have been awesome if he just responded with a poop emoji and then left the chat.
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Also, once the Houthi strike is over, don't they disband Houthi PC small group?
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You think there's a whole bunch of PC small groups on Signal? I bet there are.
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War in the Group Chat
He went to Bakersfield, then he went to Norco, where we were, and then he went to Anaheim. So he had three events yesterday. What did you think?
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War in the Group Chat
Well, so we already know that they're breaking the Presidential Record Act left, right, and center. We already had tons of reporting about that. This is as sensitive a conversation as government officials have. I don't know what could be more sensitive than this. Like the name of a source. Right. This is a group of government officials planning an imminent attack. military operation. Right.
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War in the Group Chat
That's as sensitive as it gets that they are doing this on a public platform as opposed to like in the actual protected, secure government facilities is absurd. But it means that think about all the the chats that Jeffrey Goldberg isn't in right across the government. They are all doing this on signal. They're all they're all they are they're
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War in the Group Chat
the classified part aside, none of them want any of what they're saying in the presidential to be captured under the presidential record act. They all want that shit to disappear. These messages right away were set to disappear. I don't know what the timeframe was, but it's pretty short. So I assume he was screenshotting as he went. Oh yeah. Yeah. Big time.
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War in the Group Chat
And given Steve Witkoff's fucking guileless, credulous conversation about Vladimir Putin giving Donald Trump a portrait and just coming across like a fucking stone cold moron, I do not believe his IT security is state of the art. No fucking way. These guys are getting a link telling them that they owe money on a toll. They're clicking that link and they're paying that toll.
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War in the Group Chat
Hey guys, nobody is texting you to pay a toll. I wasn't going to fall for it or click it, but the first couple of times I was like, oh, maybe I did blow through the toll. I don't, I want to. I know someone who got got. Yeah. All right. So that's that. So, you know, don't plan wars on. Don't plan wars on signal. Do other things on signal.
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War in the Group Chat
OK, when we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Governor Andy Beshear. But one quick thing before we do that. Love it or leave it. We'll be live in Washington, D.C. for one night only.
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April 24th at the Lincoln Theater. Love it. We have some awesome guests lined up that we haven't announced yet. We're putting the dot in those T's, crossing those I's. But it's going to be a great show. It's mostly now sold. So please jump in, quickie.com slash events to get tickets for that DC show. We're going to be coming to DC because that's the weekend of the Correspondents Dinner.
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War in the Group Chat
We always like doing a show around that. We also have, there's a Q&A before if you want to buy some of those fancier tickets, you know, get to yell at me in person. But it's going to be a great time. Everybody should come. Nice. All right. When we come back, Andy Beshear.
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You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash crooked and using code crooked at checkout. Governor Andy Beshear, welcome to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me. So you are the Democratic governor of a state where around two out of every three voters supported Donald Trump last November.
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You were first elected towards the end of Trump's first term. So you have more experience than most elected Democrats representing and working with people who support Trump. How are you feeling about his second term so far? And how are the folks you're talking to in Kentucky feeling about it?
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Are you hearing from any folks in Kentucky who may have supported Trump who are now like, what's going on with these tariffs? What's going to happen with my Medicaid?
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War in the Group Chat
So obviously, you know, his economic policies are inflationary. This is what people are going to feel more than anything else. If you poll people, they're going to be more concerned about Medicaid. They're going to be concerned about the tariffs. There's also some pretty, I think, alarming, scary things that he's doing as well.
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War in the Group Chat
So in the span of just one week, the New York Times reported that Trump administration believes ICE agents can now enter people's homes without a warrant. All they have to do is claim they're looking for Venezuelan gang members.
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Monitoring plans start affordably at around a dollar a day. 60-day satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor.
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The president himself has called for the impeachment of a Bush-appointed federal judge who blocked his administration from jailing people in an El Salvador mega prison without due process.
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This morning, we're speaking Friday afternoon, Trump said that Americans who vandalize Teslas are domestic terrorists who should be sent to that same foreign prison in El Salvador where people have been starved and tortured.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah, that's the new thing now. You're a lawyer. You served as attorney general. Is this a five alarm fire for the country? It feels like that to me. I don't like alarming people unnecessarily. And I realize that this probably isn't the highest polling issue right now, but it seems pretty scary what he's doing.
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War in the Group Chat
You mentioned our children. I have two kids, four and one. The oldest is very aware of Donald Trump, starting to ask questions here and there.
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War in the Group Chat
How do you talk to them about what's going on in politics in the country right now?
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War in the Group Chat
There seems to be broad agreement from across the political spectrum that Democrats need to do a better job of fighting back right now. There's less agreement as to how. What are your thoughts on this?
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War in the Group Chat
wanted to be there you know it's an important moment but it also ties the work that you do and the progress that's occurring out there in a much more real way than say a signing in in the rose garden do you think that a problem for the biden administration was that they didn't do enough to sell the accomplishments of biden's presidency or do you think
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War in the Group Chat
That, you know, we've had an affordability crisis for some time and they just didn't do enough to fix the affordability crisis.
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War in the Group Chat
And, you know, we talked to a lot of people before the event started and we were asking them, like, why'd you show up? And the answers were usually I just wanted to be around other people because I follow the news on my phone and at home and it's like freaking me out and it's good to be around people. And the atmosphere just felt different.
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War in the Group Chat
I mean, as a governor, you've obviously had a lot of experience with this. Is it mostly a story of regulations getting in the way? Is it special interests? What is preventing when we pass something like the IRA and we want to deploy all of this rural broadband or clean energy, can't get it done fast enough? Same thing with housing, right? I'm sure you've had housing issues as well.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. How do you think Chuck Schumer handled the fight over funding the government?
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War in the Group Chat
good you know like it didn't feel as scary and heavy as it does when we're just sitting here recording and reading the news what did that lady keep saying to us action better than anxiety or something yeah actually yeah exactly and people were like and i just want to know what the plan is i'm just here because i want to know what the plan is and i'm like well you're gonna have to keep waiting for that uh people want to do something i should also say thanks to a lot of the friends of the pod a lot of friends of the pod
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War in the Group Chat
Look, former speechwriter, no argument from me there, banging this drum for a while. Language aside, would you have supported keeping the government open like Schumer did, or would you have voted against it?
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. In my life, the Democratic Party has never been viewed as less favorably by Americans as it is right now. Why do you think that is and what do you think the party should do going forward to change the brand of the party?
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War in the Group Chat
One big challenge here is communicating and communicating in a way that's on our terms, right?
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War in the Group Chat
Right. Well, you mentioned that last ad. And, you know, Kamala Harris, probably most of the money in that campaign was spent on economic ads. And this happens most Democratic campaigns. And then you don't always get to choose what the...
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War in the Group Chat
media focuses on i was just like prepping for um this interview and and reading up about you and most of the stories are that you issued the executive order to ban conversion therapy just great it's the right thing to do the the fact that you vetoed that bill that you're just mentioning um the anti-lgbtq bill and a lot of your and i know you have this whole economic record because i looked it up and stuff like that but those stuff does that doesn't make headlines i
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War in the Group Chat
showed up they just heard that it was happening and then and then they went so we love that we love rokhana for doing it like good for him i hope every democrat in congress goes out and does a bunch of town halls either in in your district in the nearby republican district anywhere you can it's just it is it is good to get out and be with people
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War in the Group Chat
And so most of the stories about you, you would think that like, that's what, that's the only thing that you were focused on when clearly it's not right. And I wonder if you thought about as the party, you know, when you're governor of a state, you probably have like a little bit more leeway to sort of shape the narrative and, and, people know you in Kentucky, right?
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War in the Group Chat
Because you've been everywhere. You've been all over the state. And as you've said, you've had a lot of- They call me Andy, which I love. Right. And you've had these natural disasters in the state. And so you've gotten to go see people.
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War in the Group Chat
But nationally, it becomes really tricky to build a brand for a party, to stand up where you have to stand up, even if it's unpopular, but to also focus, to make sure people understand that you're focusing on cost of living, inflation issues, when those don't break through as much. Have you thought about that?
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War in the Group Chat
You mentioned we need to be talking about what we're for, not just who we're against. I'm not asking for a laundry list of policies, which I think sometimes is a challenge for Democrats as we start just talking about policies. What's your best sense of an overall vision for the party that you think would be compelling to folks?
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War in the Group Chat
Can I make just one note just on the Wisconsin race, which is a lot of this is about building long-term momentum. This is a really short-term fight. Voting is through April 1st, this coming Tuesday, so we're in the final week when you're hearing this. If you know people in Wisconsin that can cast a ballot, make sure if you have friends in Wisconsin, call them, make sure they're calling people.
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War in the Group Chat
You made some news recently when you said that Governor Newsom shouldn't have had Steve Bannon on his podcast. You said, you know, we shouldn't be afraid to talk to and debate just about anyone, but Bannon espouses hatred and anger and even at some points violence, and I don't think we should give him oxygen on any platform ever anywhere.
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War in the Group Chat
There are quite a few Republicans who espouse the exact same views as Steve Bannon. They appear on his podcast. You probably have a lot of people you represent who listen to Bannon, even like him. Why is it a bad idea to challenge and debate Bannon's views for the benefit of the people who may find them persuasive but are not sure?
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War in the Group Chat
There's been a lot of speculation that you'd be a top presidential contender in 2028. Obviously, we're far from candidates making announcements of any kind, unless you'd like to make one here. But I'm curious to get your thoughts on what kind of a leader you think the party needs next time. And also, you know, you're going to be the head of the DGA, the Democratic Governors Association in 2026.
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War in the Group Chat
What kind of candidates are you hoping for that the party runs?
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War in the Group Chat
One of the arguments that I felt like the most response to in this race is You know, Wisconsin has been on the bleeding edge of this fight to preserve democracy. But right now, like all these Republicans that are seeing these these these town halls in their district, they're seeing a lot of this energy.
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War in the Group Chat
They just genuinely don't know in their most cynical, weaselly souls whether or not it is smarter for them to stick with Elon. or to buck Elon vote against a bill that's unpopular and stand with their constituents. And basically, does Elon Musk's money in Wisconsin buy a Supreme Court seat? If it does, they'll say, fuck it.
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War in the Group Chat
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. C. K. G. K. K
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War in the Group Chat
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War in the Group Chat
I can stick with him and I don't have to worry about a primary and he'll protect me in November. But if it doesn't, all of a sudden, they'll start to have more questions. So like the stakes in the Wisconsin rate are incredibly important in Wisconsin, but they're very, very big beyond Wisconsin.
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War in the Group Chat
And if you want to get involved, either by campaigning in Wisconsin or attending a town hall or a rally near you, tons of helpful information on VoteSafeAmerica.com, so check it out. All right, let's get back to all the terrible news out there. Trump, like most authoritarians, has been using the power of the state to weaken and punish any potential opposition.
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And more of his targets are unfortunately choosing to capitulate instead of fight. Last Friday, the law firm Paul Weiss struck a deal with Trump to stop an executive order designed to cripple the firm's ability to take on clients and cases involving the federal government, even to step into a federal courthouse. The cost?
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Paul Weiss is committing to $40 million worth of pro bono work across four issues favored by the Trump administration. In an email to colleagues on Sunday, the head of Paul Weiss, Brad Karp, defended the deal by calling the executive order an, quote, existential crisis that could easily have destroyed the firm.
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At least two other law firms, Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling, are also staring down executive orders. But in a sign that appeasement never works...
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Trump then released a memo Friday night directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to, quote, seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the federal government, essentially trying to choke off the inevitable and already numerous suits filed against his legal actions.
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War in the Group Chat
So this seems absolutely insane. What do you guys make of Brad Karp's explanation for his firm's capitulation?
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War in the Group Chat
It reminds it's oddly similar to Chuck Schumer's explanation for why they're voting for the CR, which is like, yeah, no, we understand this. So this maybe that's a good reason to fight them. Right. If they're using their levers of power to in these sort of unconstitutional, extra legal ways that maybe you should fight them.
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War in the Group Chat
But I like, you know, you look at what they actually agreed to do and it's like 40 million dollars in pro bono. This is a firm that makes two point six billion dollars a year. They don't actually spend that money. They just that's they assign the value of the time that the lawyers spend on it.
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War in the Group Chat
We should also say that it's not that the Trump administration gets to pick the pro bono cases. They just said in these areas and then Paul Weiss gets to pick the cases. So they're like veterans and it's not like stuff that they might have wanted to do.
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War in the Group Chat
Right. And so there's a version of this where you read it more like the way you read when Mexico or Canada came up with a list of fake things to appease Trump to get rid. The fentanyls are right. Like all that stuff. So like that's sort of how I read it. But the fact that. We're still in a position where a law firm just have the ability to practice.
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War in the Group Chat
I mean, this is such a fundamental violation of the First Amendment and several other amendments along the way. But they're basically saying that we're going to make it nearly impossible for you to do your job on behalf of your clients, up to and including making it impossible for you to enter federal buildings. If they sued, they surely... You know, they surely would have won.
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War in the Group Chat
But what you then read is that there are a bunch of litigators inside of Paul Weiss that want to fight this, but a bunch of corporate lawyers inside of Paul Weiss are saying, even if we fight and even if we win, the corporations we represent, companies like ExxonMobil, will all of a sudden be afraid of having a law firm that is seen as persona non grata. with the White House.
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War in the Group Chat
So they were looking for some kind of piece of paper that they could sort of use to kind of put this scandal behind them. And it's just yet again, Donald Trump inventing new authorities that the president has. And then those authorities become real because they're not actually challenged. Vexatious litigation.
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War in the Group Chat
On today's show, we're going to talk about one of the most insane stories of the year, which is saying quite a lot. The highest-ranking Trump officials used a group chat to make war plans and accidentally included the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg. Polarity ensues.
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War in the Group Chat
But then it's also like... You know, the attention span of the Donald Trump evil eye is quite short, and it's going to turn to something else. Is there going to be somebody in the bowels of the OEOB that's going to be like, now it's my day to follow up with Paul Weiss to make sure they spent the $40 million here, they spent the $40 million there?
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War in the Group Chat
Maybe, but I... I get the sense that what everybody's trying to do is just get that evil eye off of them, and then they can go back to business as usual. That's what I think they're thinking they're going to do.
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War in the Group Chat
I agree with that, and I think that there's a collective action problem here, which if you look at Brad Karp's letter, and we just talked about this, the individual details do not seem as alarming, what they had to give up, right, as sort of the overall headline. The problem is, and I think that the memo Friday night
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War in the Group Chat
that's basically for everyone makes this clear, is these firms would be in a better position to fight this if they did so together. Each individual firm is like, well, if I become the target, I'm going to lose a bunch of clients. This is what Paul Weiss was saying, right? And you mentioned ExxonMobil, but plenty of regular clients who weren't ExxonMobil were like, no, no, I'm out of here.
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War in the Group Chat
Because any client that they had with a federal contract, the Trump administration would have pulled the contract if they kept Paul Weiss as the firm. So if you're one of those clients now, you're like, well, I want to keep my federal contracts. I like the firm, but I'm not going to do...
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War in the Group Chat
you can see where each individual and each individual firm makes a decision that, okay, to save myself from this, I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to give up too much anyway. And this, I was going to do the pro bono work anyway, so it's not a big deal. I'm just going to capitulate. But the problem is Trump smells blood and then they're just going to keep going.
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War in the Group Chat
And like, if now the problem with what happened on the Friday night memo, if someone wants to sue the federal government for violating their rights or anything else, uh, They're going to have a harder time finding a law firm to do so if law firms are worried that they will be investigated or punished for bringing a case that Trump just decides he doesn't like.
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War in the Group Chat
Where is Paul Weiss? Where is Paul Weiss? The guy's in hiding.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. Here's a chilling fact. Homes without security systems are 300% more likely to be broken into, but securing your home doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. SimpliSafe is changing the game with innovative, affordable protection for every family. I can endorse SimpliSafe. Endorse! I endorse! I used it. It was great.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It is the things they will not care about, the things they will ignore, the things that this sends a message to people around the country that they don't care about that is so incredibly fucking dangerous in ways we may not know. We may not know for years, we may not know ever the damage that this does.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Former senior FBI official Christopher O'Leary told NBC, we now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency. One FBI official told NBC, I didn't sleep and I want to pack my desk today. And another said it's like bringing on Alex Jones or Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes. Nice.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And by the way, Dan Bongino has supported the Oath Keepers in the past.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Before we go on, did you see that the U.S. attorney for D.C., who is also Trump's former lawyer, put out this- Ed Martin put out this ridiculous statement saying, as President Trump's lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
First of all, I just want to note, he puts the apostrophe on the wrong side of the fucking S. So it's Trump S apostrophe, which is the least offensive piece of the statement. Obviously, he's not Trump's lawyers.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
This guy to me went from scary, and I think he still is scary in that position because that position holds a lot of power, to like, he's like a little thirsty for Trump to see him and be like, hey, look what I'm doing. I'm posting quote graphics on Twitter all the time telling you like, hey, Mr. Trump, I'm here for you.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I think that there are probably like Trump supplicants in his administration who are looking at Ed Martin's tweets and statements and are like, honestly, that's too much. That's too much.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
All Quince items are priced 50% to 80%. I'm literally buying stuff on the Quince website right now. I need some new running shirts. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.com slash crooked for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crooked to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash crooked.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
So in case Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino isn't enough nightmare fuel for you guys, Trump is also busy purging the highest ranks of the military. On Friday evening, the president fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General C.Q. Brown.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth then announced the firing of the chief of naval operations, the Air Force's vice chief of staff, and the top uniformed lawyer in each of the main service branches, the Judge Advocates General, or JAGS. Trump didn't give a reason for firing Brown, who was the first black American to serve in the role.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
But Hegseth had previously said that Brown was too focused on DEI, of course. As for the Jags, Hegseth said they, quote, existed to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens. In his book, he called them Jagoffs and blamed them for being a bunch of prudes who insisted on rules of engagement he didn't like.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
On today's show, Dan Bongino, a MAGA podcaster who says his life is all about owning the libs, is now the deputy director of the FBI. We'll talk about why we've always been big fans of his. And we'll cover Trump's Pentagon purge of top generals and military lawyers who he viewed as insufficiently MAGA, I guess.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks wrote a Twitter post that's making the rounds where she says firing the Jags is, quote, even more chilling than firing the four stars. It's what you do when you're planning to break the law. You get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down. Any concerns here, guys?
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Look, I've always said the rules of engagement are for fags, but... Look, you could put these two things together. It's just fucking terrifying, right? This is about... You're talking about the possibility of deploying the military in ways that are illegal on U.S. soil and then not having anyone at the FBI or the DOJ that's willing to investigate or hold them accountable.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
You're just... We don't know how far they'll go, but they're setting up the possibility that they can go as far as they want. And that is terrifying.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It's MAGA DEI all across the government. It is the deepest and most infuriating irony that they are filling the government with people who have no qualifications for the job, save that they are unquestionably loyal to Donald Trump.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It is the only hope right now that... And the federal government, we'll talk about what Elon's doing in a minute, but the federal government is a big, complicated beast. And you're putting in these people like Dan Bongino and Kash Patel and you're at Pete Hegseth that are just unqualified and don't have the organizational experience to actually change these places.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
We'll also get into Elon Musk's mass email to every single human employed by the federal government demanding to know what they did last week or else risk getting fired. And later, I'll talk to our friend Daniela Diaz, now a congressional reporter at notice about whether Trump's legislative agenda is running into trouble with Republicans. But first...
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
That is going to be part of the hope that their inability to do what they want to do and the chaos in which they do it is a kind of protection because they are putting unqualified people in whose only qualification is that they're willing to do whatever Donald Trump wants.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
He's going to have to go hide with Mark Caputo. I'd watch that show.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I'm sure people have listened to this section and are like, why the fuck are you bumming us out so badly? And what the hell are we supposed to do about it? Because these are appointments that, unlike...
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
some of the doge cuts and the town halls that we're seeing like it's going to be hard to reverse those i i wonder what the 38 000 employees at the fbi the uh the the united states military the all the people who serve honorably in this country like what they do And like, I don't know, do you leave? Do you stay?
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Do you wait for these unqualified assholes to actually do something bad to make a bad decision to speak out? Like, I just don't know what you do at this point. But I feel I really feel for all these people, because I do think there are enough of them that if they, you know, if they stand up to some really unlawful or un-American orders, then, you know, they could make a difference.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah, I mean, you know, Americans love a tragedy with a happy ending. Yeah, like it would be nice if there was some resolution we could talk about here. It's a very terrible situation. We're going to be in it for some time.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
One of the reasons you have to talk about it is we have to make sure we're talking about this and and representing what the truth is here, because there are tens of thousands of people serving under these leaders who need to know that they're not crazy. The world has gone crazy.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And that there will like just because every Senate Republican has failed the greatest test of their life, even though they've ever gone to fucking every vacation of, you know, every Republican senator, every vacation they've ever had. They've read a read a World War Two book and a Churchill book. And they're in the test of their lives. They don't see it like they may all be failing.
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But there's going to be other times we're going to expect or hope that that people in roles like this don't fail. And it sucks that that's where we're at. But that's where we're at.
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Or there's malicious compliance, which is a term that the MAGA folks have invented for people who are saying what they aren't able to do anymore. Like, you know, there's like, oh, we had a Black History Month celebration that we weren't allowed to have anymore. And they're like, that's not true. That's malicious compliance.
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You're just saying that you had to cancel it even though you didn't really have to cancel it. This is their new thing. Every time something happens that's really unpopular, that's due to something that the Trump administration did, they're saying, oh, these employees are doing malicious compliance.
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Donald Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed.
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That is the world we live in. He's always a victim. Yeah. All right, let's talk about the fourth branch of government, Elon Musk, who was last seen wielding a chainsaw at CPAC while wearing sunglasses indoors and mumbling about how he's, quote, living the meme, living the dream, and has helped legalize comedy again. He sure has. Sure has.
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Trump posted on Truth Social that he thinks Elon is doing a great job, but that he wants him to, quote, get more aggressive. Musk then tweeted a screenshot of that post with the message, Will do, Mr. President.
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Donald Trump held a press conference Monday afternoon with French President Emmanuel Macron on the three-year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine, which, to be fair, was asking for it.
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Three hours later, Elon tweeted that all federal employees, all two million of them, would be getting an email asking them to explain what they, quote, got done last week, and that if they didn't respond, it would be considered a resignation. By Saturday evening, that email had gone out, giving people until midnight on Monday night to respond with five bullets about their accomplishments.
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But almost immediately, the heads of some major government agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department, the Justice Department, and Kash Patel, started telling employees that they didn't need to respond, or at least not yet. NBC News reported that Elon's plan is to feed the responses into an AI system to determine which jobs should be eliminated.
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But right before we recorded, the White House Office of Personnel Management notified all agencies that actually responding to the email is voluntary and employees won't be fired if they refuse to answer. What do we think happened here?
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It's going to look at the five bullets and be like, I saw a D, I saw an E, and I saw an I. You're out. Have you guys ever heard of something called Roko's Basilisk? No.
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So Rogo's Basilisk was a post on a web forum, and the post said the following. If at some point in a distant future, there is a super intelligent AI that is ultimately benevolent and wants the best for us, it will also believe that the sooner it is invented, the better. But it can't go back in time and make us invent this AI faster.
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But what it can do is if in this future, it can see who helped bring it about and who didn't. And the people who brought it about will be rewarded. The people who didn't bring it about will be punished. You can introduce that into the past by having someone like me at this table explain this.
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According to our new administration, Trump refused to call Putin a dictator, telling a reporter that's a word he doesn't take lightly, also a word he's now used multiple times to describe the democratically elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said over the weekend that he'd step down if it meant peace for Ukraine. Doesn't really sound like something a dictator would do. The U.S.
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Now that I've explained it, you know that in the future, the super advanced AI will punish all those that didn't bring it out into existence. And so because you now know that, you now face your test. And your test is whether you will do everything you can to bring it about. Now, the problem is you don't know whether what you're in right now is real or a simulation of that test.
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But either way, either way, you now know that you either have to choose to help bring about this AI or potentially face an eternity in some kind of simulated hell.
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It is very clear that you have not been raised Catholic because this is the basis for my religion. The point being... And I wish the Pope well. I think this... How is the Pope doing?
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Slight improvement today. We can't lose the woke Pope. Not right now. I know. The alternatives are not good. And so every once in a while he refers to people as some kind of like Fracciaccini or something. Whatever he was referring to us as. So do you. So do I, yeah. So me and the Pope. Woke Pope.
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Three pods in a row now. Really? I think so, yeah. Wow. Keeping track. When do I get my free sub? Anyway, the point is, when I saw they were feeding this into AI, I thought, Elon knows what Rokos Baskalos is. And I think that if you are going to respond voluntarily, I think you should talk about the fact that you're open to bringing about the super intelligent AI.
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It's easy to set up, and once you set up, you can really rely on it. It's such peace of mind to be able to check the app and see that your home is... locked up and that the alarm is on, especially when you're traveling. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late.
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I listened to our friend Sarah Longwell's Focus Group podcast this weekend, as I always do. She had our other friend Kara Swisher on. And Kara floated a theory that now is keeping me up at night, which is that the real reason that Elon wants access to all the data
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all the data in the government the personal data the personal info the social security numbers the employee data is because he wants to feed it into an ai llm because he has fallen behind the other llms and the only data left because basically a lot of the ai systems now have run out of data because we fed them all all the data that there is publicly available
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And that the two entities with the most data left over that haven't been fed into AI is the Chinese government and us, the U.S. government. And so ultimately, Elon and the Doge boys want to export the data to an AI machine. And I was like, that sounds like something out of a fucking...
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also joined North Korea and other pro-Russian countries, our new gang, in voting against a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for all of its territory to be returned. Not even China or Iran voted against the resolution. They at least abstained. I miss the old days when we only used to do that for the death penalty. At the U.N.? Yeah.
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horror movie but and I want to say obviously that's crazy but I don't I don't know look at look at everything we've talked about today so we can make better pictures of fish I don't like no I look I'm sure there are terrifying ways in which that could I think the data can be exploited in a million terrifying ways I didn't know to be afraid of that one and I guess I'll figure out why to be more afraid of it but I'm much more afraid of him just digging around looking for information on people that have tweeted negative things about him than I am about him feeding it into fucking grok just so that I can pump out an answer about why why Parcheesi exists
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But Elon has talked about Rocco's basilisk. It's tied into this idea of whether or not we live in a simulation.
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It's interesting that the agency heads, the cabinet officials, who are all as MAGA as they come, obviously, push back on this one a little bit. I saw some reporting from Jeff Stein at the Washington Post that it, you know, It's not necessarily like they disagree with Elon's overall vision or tactics here.
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They just are sort of like, maybe we slow things down here, and maybe this isn't the best way to cull the workforce with an AI LLM that's just kind of... It's self-evidently stupid.
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Well, there's a legal part. There's also they know that they have been firing people, that Elon's been firing people so far that they've had to rehire, like the people who secure our nukes and the people who are fighting bird flu. Like there's just agency after agency now. They are firing people.
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Elon and Doge are going there firing people who then later they all realize, oh shit, we actually need those workers. And They can't hire them back because they can't find their fucking contact info. And the email this time went, it not only went to everyone in the federal government, like in all these agencies and in the Trump administration, it went to everyone in the judiciary.
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It went to like judges got this email. Federal judges.
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You can't fire judges yet. Wild. But yeah, it does seem like. It does seem like just like a little bit of normal politics is poking through. Like these Republicans are getting hammered at these town halls. Like there's clearly interior like Republican blowback from the agencies. Right. They're saying don't respond to this. I mean, the other thing about this, too, is it's like.
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part of it is like, you can imagine like a more, like competence does matter. Like not doing this in a chaotic way does matter. This is something that the Trump administration, well, they did try, they did learn this, right?
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Project 2025, one of the lessons it was supposed to learn from the first Trump administration was that they really paid for some of the chaos because doing things in a hectic way without being fully baked, got them pushed back in the courts, got them blow back in the press, and they were going to do this better.
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And I do think Russ Vogt would do this better than Elon Musk, but Elon Musk is doing it like this. You can, like Mark Warner even posted this, like, There is a way that you could do a, hey, we're doing a review of what different agencies are doing. We're going to interview everybody or get information from everybody about what they're doing.
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But it's in this sort of cavalier and careless and mean-spirited way. It just seems like he accidentally replied all.
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Yeah, maybe he didn't accidentally reply at all.
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I do think these, you mentioned the town halls, like people are wondering what to do. Like the town halls, the, this guy, Rick McCormick, who's a Republican house member in Georgia, deep red district. I think it was like a Trump won it by 20 points, 18, 20 points. People were just like filled the town hall yelling at him. And this is in like a very, very Republican district.
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And then after, and then the video went viral. Everyone's talking about it. And then today, apparently he was like, you know, I think some of this doge stuff is, They need to slow it down a little bit. Lisa Murkowski responded to Elon Musk's email about tell me what you did last week with like this is this is outrageous.
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Trump was asked about this and other topics and appearances with Macron on Monday. Let's listen.
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She was she's got really mad about she spoke out probably more forcefully than any other Senate Republican. There is another Republican in Ohio, Troy Balderson. He has an R plus 18 district. He was like, yeah, I think we need to be careful with the cuts. So I do think that like showing up at Republican House members, especially Republican House members in some of these more competitive districts.
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Bernie Sanders was on a tour this week. He was in Iowa and Nebraska. Part of the reason he picked those two spots was he picked two districts where there are Republicans sitting in districts where it's very competitive in 2026. So I think putting real pressure on these frontline Republicans in the House and in the Senate is going to be really important. And it actually can work.
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Trump's goons are also aiming to make even bigger cuts to health care and other services people count on by passing actual legislation. I'm going to talk to Notices Daniela Diaz about all that in just a minute. But one last thing I wanted to hit.
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A week ago, the Department of Homeland Security released two new taxpayer-funded ads featuring Secretary Christine Ohm delivering a message to undocumented immigrants that started with this powerful and important tribute.
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Guess how much we all paid for that? $200 million. That's on the taxpayer dime, talking about weak politicians.
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They were running it on Fox. Like, oh, is that where all the undocumented immigrants in the country and the ones who are thinking about coming here, they're tuning into Fox for Christine Omad? I know who's watching Fox.
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Exactly. I know who does. It's for him. It's for fucking him. It's...
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It's for him. And I think it's for their base to be like, look, we, you know, promises, promises made, promises kept.
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Yeah. I mean, it's just like we're so, you know, that's that adds a crime. That's a that's a crime. It's a it's a political ad. It's a misuse of government funds. Remember that? Yeah. The Hatch Act. There's a whole whole bunch of ways in which I'm sure if we had a DOJ that was going to be run by. Other people might have been something he would look into, but oh well.
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You don't think Dan Bongino is going to be all over that? Dan Bondi? Here's the thing. People will surprise you. Cash Patel? People will surprise you. Who's going to be the hero? Somebody. Somebody's going to surprise us. Maybe. Not Emil Bove? Not him. Mr. Bove?
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She's going method. Yeah, she's going method. Maybe there'll be more ads. $200 million. I wonder if Doge is going to take a look at that. That's going to be a line item Doge is going to be upset about.
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Yeah. That and the fucking Tesla armored trucks or whatever the fuck. You guys know what Newcomb's paradox is? Jesus Christ. It's all those. So Newcomb's paradox. Here's the idea. All right. You're presented with two boxes. All right. One has $1,000 in it. The other is either empty or has a million dollars. Okay. Okay. You have a choice.
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You can take just box B that's either empty or has a million dollars, or you can take both boxes. However, weeks ago, a supercomputer that knows everything.
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Jesus, I thought we were so close to the choice.
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A supercomputer that knows everything predicted which box you would choose. If you choose both boxes, if it predicted you'd choose both boxes, the million-dollar box is empty, the second box is empty. But if you just pick the one that's supposed to have a million dollars or nothing in it, it always has a million dollars, okay? Now, you're at these boxes.
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The choice was made long before you got there, so you should take both. But if you take both and the machine is always right, it means that the second box is empty, so you should just take the one box, which means you're leaving $1,000 behind.
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And then the other point is you should probably take— Was this on the card you didn't get to for Bill Maher?
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The way that everyone talked about it, I was waiting for it to be more Huffy, and then I listened, and it was pretty clear he was late.
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he wanted to leave he wanted to leave at some point he decided he was done and then he left it was it was it was like halfway between I don't know I wish I had I was like I was if I knew if I knew he was about to walk out I would have gotten to the trans debate sooner because I was really interested in that topic and he's like sorry I gotta go and you previewed that you were gonna get there I did I had a card what are all those cards for and you're like this one's got trans written on it it's coming this one's coming later I think yeah and it did and it did and it did and
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And it did. And as he discussed, yeah, nevermind. I'm done.
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Okay. We're going to take a quick break.
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That's a good Fox pickup. Yeah, it did. Although they're only using, it's so funny. It's such classic. They're just, they just play his one line. They're like, got him. It's like, I'm in there too. Yeah.
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It's so weird. They didn't do that in a fair hearing.
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But the fun, there was a clip from apparently on Fox this morning where the guy doesn't just say that I got annihilated.
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obliterated he's like check out this guy in his in his t-shirt and sweats those are called off-duty pants from bonobos sir they're the bonobos off-duty pants he also accused you of not showering you look showered in that picture shiny is hot in the studio yeah that's yeah i could use one of those i gotta be yeah i gotta maybe some maybe some powder before you thanks
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The last part is true. Bill Clinton had a pretty good month during that shutdown. Wow.
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I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt at four o'clock. You're wearing a suit at 4.30 in the morning. Who's winning?
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Jesse Waters looks like he's in a coffin.
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They have fucking makeup artists at Fox and morticians.
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Jesus Christ. Makeup artists are very nice. Jesse's like this. Jesse's like this. And then Gutfeld is just basically like... Fucking woke bitches. Not that we watch it.
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All right. We're going to take a quick break. But a reminder before we do that, if you're in L.A., come see Love It or Leave It live.
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We just added 12 new show dates through May. This Thursday's show at Dynasty Typewriter features special guests, Liza Traeger and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Grab your tickets now at cricket.com slash events. And if you're not in L.A., there will be a fresh pod in your feed or on YouTube every Saturday morning. When we come back, Daniela Diaz.
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That took me a minute. Okay. Leave it to love it to do a callback to the 90s. The simpler time. Tommy. Yeah. You know about this stuff. Sure. Which stuff? The real stuff. Trump made it sound like they're close to a deal that would end the war. There's also been some reporting that maybe Zelensky will accept this agreement to give the U.S.
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Joining us today from the Capitol, our friend Daniela Diaz, now at notice. How are you?
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It is wonderful to have you back. So the big question this week is, can Mike Johnson get all the Republican votes he needs to pass the $4 trillion budget resolution that's essentially the blueprint for Trump's entire legislative agenda, which is massive spending cuts and tax cuts? What are you hearing?
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Yeah, I'm I'm wondering on this one, which group he has the bigger problems with right now. Is it House members who are in competitive districts, maybe more moderate, worried about cuts to Medicaid? How many of them are there that he might have problems with? And then how many of the hardliners in the Freedom Caucus does he have problems with the Chip Roy's and all those folks?
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50 percent of its mineral rights in perpetuity forever, you know, in exchange for a it seems like a vague security promise. Awfully vague. What do you make of all that?
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Yeah, he does. He has a tricky situation in terms of getting the votes. He also has a really tricky situation in terms of like getting the math to work for all of this. Like, I don't know. It seems like he's either going to go ahead and the Republicans are all going to.
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hold hands and jump and pass a resolution and then maybe a final bill that actually does cut Medicaid by quite a bit, way past just adding work requirements, by the way, right? It's like $880 billion, which is quite a huge cut.
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Is there a version of this where they just decide they're too nervous about the cuts because there's too many frontline members worried about Medicaid cuts and they end up just passing a like last time in 20 in the first Trump administration, they just end up passing a huge tax cut that adds to the deficit and they really don't get into all the cuts.
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Like, I just don't know how the math works out on all of this.
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So that people know it could look very, very different, the final bill from whatever budget resolution passes. And, you know, I think the Democrats did this with Build Back Better, which is you can get all the Republicans potentially to vote for it by saying maybe you don't like some of the numbers in there now, but you know what? We can change it later. Let's just keep the process moving forward.
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What are you hearing from both House and Senate Republicans in terms of how anxious they are over the size of these cuts, particularly the Medicaid cuts? Do you think that is something that they could eventually live with? Or are there some people who are like, no, I'm not going to vote for huge cuts?
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it's like what if i'm vladimir putin why don't i just i would make this deal and then what's to stop him from like a couple years later just saying all right i'll go in and get the rest of ukraine and uh first i'll just talk to my new buddy president trump and be like hey you can keep the mineral rights i'll let you keep those and i'll just uh go into ukraine does that that sound good
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So the government also runs out of money in a few weeks. Do you think Republicans can pass a continuing resolution that keeps the government open by funding it at current spending levels, which is just kicking the can down the road again? Do you think they because otherwise they need Democratic votes? We can talk about that in a second.
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But what do you think the prospects are of Republicans being able to keep the government open on their own?
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Do you think that Hakeem Jeffries has his whole caucus unified in not giving Republicans votes for this? Or do you see are you hearing anything from the more conservative House Democrats or the House Democrats in frontline districts or the Problem Solvers Caucus or any of those characters? Like, do you think that the Democrats are seem unified on this so far?
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Yeah. Republicans holding town halls last week were flooded with constituents angry about Elon's Doge antics, among other things. I saw your former colleague Rachel Bade write that Republicans aren't at all nervous about these town halls, at least on the Doge stuff, maybe a little bit more on the Medicaid side. Is that your sense as well?
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Yeah, it seems like they're all in favor of cutting government and making government more efficient and even getting rid of some of the federal workforce. In principle, it does sound like the ones who are facing town halls and facing angry constituents or the ones who have constituents who are affected by these cuts are starting to get maybe a little wobbly. Is that fair?
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Last question and I'll let you go. I just was wondering, as a reporter, you've been watching the last month unfold. The Trump White House has booted the Associated Press out of the White House for not calling it the Gulf of America. Just today, we're talking Monday afternoon, Trump did a joint press conference with Macron and the
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AP reporter based in France was allowed to ask a question because the French decided that would be their first question. So that was the decision by the French. The AP reporter based in the U.S. that's supposed to cover the White House was not allowed in. Again, Trump also posted this morning about how MSNBC is illegal reporting.
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and should be shut down and should have to pay a lot of money and for I don't know what. Has there been like discussions between outlets like yours and other outlets about like how to handle this as a sort of as an institution? How are you dealing with it? How is notice dealing with it? What are your thoughts on all this?
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Yes, I think that's very well said. Daniela Diaz, thank you so much, as always, for joining us on Pod Save America. And congrats on your new gig at Notice. And keep in touch.
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That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to you then.
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At least our stalwart ally Israel voted with us as well.
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You guys have a better plan to get all the graphite we need. I'd love to hear it. Wasn't there another resolution that the U.S. had proposed that was sort of like there's been blame on both sides that we had to withdraw?
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Yeah, it was like we very much mourn all the deaths in the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine or something like that.
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Very Charlottesville coded. Definitely. There were also German elections on Sunday where the extreme right AFD party, which Elon's been boosting and J.D. Vance met with, came in second place with a little over 20% of the vote. Tell me, what's your take on the results there?
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And it seems like their far left party, which I think got like 9%, which was like, it had crushed the 5% threshold and it like more than doubled its support from last time. And they're sort of, they seem, they're skeptical of NATO and supporting Ukraine, just like the AFD. So you can see some horseshoe stuff happening there.
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So now that we've covered authoritarian movements abroad, let's talk about our authoritarian takeover here at home. It's just like our- Just the State of the Union transition. Just like our State of the Union transitions from- Yeah, sure. As the United States is strong at home, so are we strong abroad. As the social order collapses around the world-
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New FBI director Kash Patel has named Dan Bongino as his deputy director. In case you aren't familiar, Bongino is a former Secret Service agent and New York City cop who hosts a popular MAGA podcast dedicated to owning the libs and spreading conspiracies about the 2020 election. COVID vaccines, all the favorites.
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He's called the FBI irredeemably corrupt, accused the FBI of rigging the 2020 election. and 2016 elections, got to get both of them in there, suggested that the FBI played a role in the pipe bombs that were placed outside the RNC and DNC on January 6th and said it's time to, quote, clean house at the bureau. You'll be surprised to know he doesn't seem like the world's nicest guy.
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Here's a selection of a recorded phone interview with reporter Mark Caputo now at Axios.
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Well, enjoy that investigation, Mark Caputo. What do you guys think? Right, man, for the job? First of all...
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Dan Mangino to be deputy director of the FBI feels like a bad joke from like 2015. No doubt. It's like out of, it's just like, it's beyond parody. So this job is, is not only not Senate confirmed, it's the highest ranking job of the FBI the president doesn't appoint. It's a job, because it's a real job. It's a real operations job. It's not like a glad-handing press conferences job.
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It's a COO type job. You oversee- This is why you need Dan Bongino. This is why you need Dan Bongino. Look, I'm preferring to see the word podcaster rather than MAGA podcaster.
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Yeah, why aren't we standing with podcasters? We could get any job we want now, next administration.
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We couldn't even get them on the fucking show. They got podcasters in the fucking FBI now. We couldn't even get a guest. Yeah, we blew it.
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Next time, I don't care what's happening with the Democratic nominee next time. We are just... Absolutely.
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That's right. Yeah, we're not in the tank enough. So the other thing, too, is this is a job where you're involved in investigations earlier and in more detail than the FBI director, which is why it's been a job that was traditionally for... a career FBI official, right? And it's a job of someone you've never heard of the people that have done these jobs in the past.
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The only two that you've heard of are Mark Felt because he was deep throat and Andrew McCabe because he got fired. And that kind of tells you where we're at, right? Because Donald Trump wants someone loyal to him in that job.
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even if it means not having the kind of person who knows how to run an investigation at the FBI, when it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with investigating your enemies, just the day-to-day work of investigating terrorist cases and other crimes and corruption and all the other cases that the FBI has to get behind.
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We know this because Kash Patel, who of course we also love and have always loved.
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told the FBI Agents Association, according to CNN, a bunch of woke libs, that he was gonna put a career person in that job, that he was gonna choose from the FBI ranks for that job until the FBI refused to go along with Emile Bove's witch hunt of agents at the FBI that were involved in the investigations around January 6th.
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Once the FBI refused to coordinate with the Trump DOJ, by the way, Bove is not just a Trump appointee. Bove, is it Bove? Is it Bove? Is it Bove? Apparently, yeah. That's what Andrew Weissman says. That's very French. Unbelievable. But he was Trump's lawyer. Now a DOJ trying to demand these names.
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And the second they had this kind of resistance, all of a sudden they're like, oh, we need somebody that's not a career official. We need Dan motherfucking Bongino.
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Right. Well, as you said, also, think about malign foreign actors or terrorists or criminals, right, who now see that the FBI is led by the two least experienced people in the Bureau's history, that it is probably consumed with political ambition. How much are they going to be able to focus on domestic terrorism, crime, all the other things that they're supposed to be doing?
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There are 38,000 employees at the FBI. They couldn't find... One person, let alone two people to run the thing that had been agents before. It's an $11 billion agency that now two people who have never been FBI agents. One was a New York City cop and the other was a lawyer at the Justice Department for a time.
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Yeah, the only thing I'm mad about is it's not a cricket.
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That was it. I remember after 9-11, it was a very big deal that the FBI and the DOJ moved terrorism ahead of corruption as the number one focus. It was a big deal. And it's a reminder, too, that outside of politics, how much... We rely on just the fear of an investigation by the FBI into public corruption. Like corruption is a cancer. Donald Trump is a cancer.
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The corruption that they are, that is already sort of gonna make America worse for decades. But all across the country are people seeing that now this FBI is gonna be beholden to the most corrupt president we've ever had. And even if you put aside all the ways in which they could be proactively terrible, proactively going against their enemies, which I'm obviously afraid they're going to do.
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On today's show, we're going to cover the Supreme Court stopping Alien Enemy Act deportations for now and bring in strict scrutiny's Leah Lippman to tell us what it all means. We'll also talk about Pete Hegseth's second signal chat scandal and the mutiny against him from within the Pentagon, how the White House started its war with Harvard by mistake.
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and the passing of Pope Francis, who held on just long enough to dunk on J.D. Vance. But let's start with the biggest news from the weekend, which is that the Supreme Court has inched even closer to a full-blown confrontation with the Trump administration over their use of the Alien Enemies Act to deprive people of Any due process before disappearing them to prison in El Salvador.
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The court issued a highly unusual emergency ruling in the middle of the night that specifically ordered the administration to halt their plans to deport a group of Venezuelans, at least temporarily. Only Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. In just a bit, you're going to hear Lovett's quick interview with our pal Leah Lipman from Strict Scrutiny about what the ruling means and what's next.
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Before we get to that, the three of us haven't had a chance to talk since Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen returned from El Salvador after his last minute surprise meeting with Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who had been transferred out of Seacott to a new prison. Bukele and the Trump White House, of course, attacked Van Hollen for meeting with Abrego Garcia.
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You might have heard us talk once or twice about how John Lovett set up a SimpliSafe. He loves it. And you can...
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All right, so if you're wondering how MAGA types are taking the news of the Supreme Court's intervention, Georgia Congressman Mike Collins retweeted the New York Post headline about the order with the words, let them enforce it. A Trump official named Paul Ingrassia, who's the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, posted on Truth Social that the court—
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quote, including three members appointed by President Trump, no less, is, quote, infected with a parasitical ideology and has, quote, absolutely no understanding of law and its proper function and role. The CEO of The Federalist said, quote, if the Supreme Court is going to ignore the law and the Constitution, then the president is obligated to ignore the Supreme Court and put it in its place.
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And MAGA radio host Jesse Kelly wrote, quote, ignore the Supreme Court. Arrest anyone who tries to enforce this. Dissolve the Supreme Court entirely if they push. Nevertheless, as lawyers were arguing to halt removals in court, ICE buses in Texas carrying detainees were seen turning around. Totally normal reactions from MAGA World. How are you guys feeling about all this? On one hand, 7-2 ruling.
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We like that. On the other... The calls from Trump's base to defy the court, and by extension, the Constitution, seem to be getting louder and more numerous.
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Cool, cool, cool. Also, if you're using the word parasitical, you're just trying too hard, in my opinion.
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Yeah, it's like you're like the White House liaison to Homeland Security. It's not like you got to get some attention there.
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Salvadoran officials even placed two fake margaritas in front of them to make it seem like everyone's having a good time down there. When Van Hollen returned home. Two margaritas. I'm going to open the jail. All right.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
I also think it's important to note that before this ruling, Trump was planning to openly defy the Supreme Court by deporting these men without giving them due process that was ordered by the Supreme Court. And they were given a piece of paper in English only, told to sign it, and then loaded on buses.
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And thank God the Supreme Court was working weekends this week or else these men would almost certainly be in El Salvador right now. God bless the ACLU, by the way, for these lawyers, like, you know, sprinting through courtrooms and filing emergency injunctions and doing everything they can to protect these people.
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I understand why there's been so much focus on Abrego Garcia, because that is the one case where the government admitted in court multiple times that it was an error. But when you really dig into a lot of these folks who are getting deported under Alien Enemies Act to El Salvador...
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you know, the administration's putting out like, here are six people and all of the most horrible things they've ever done that we're sending there. It's like, okay, fine. There was like 200 something that have been sent there. And, you know, the New York Times did a story on this about the What led to the late night ruling and sort of the scramble by the ACLU.
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And they said one of the men, last name Prieto, said, quote, there had been no order for his deportation and that his immigration documents were in order. He said, I have American children. They brought me here and I'm innocent. They arrested me without any warrant for nothing, for nothing. They brought me here.
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Like and then, you know, they mentioned this story Tommy told about the guy who was forced to sign, you know.
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There's another guy who had TPS. The ice broke into his house and was about to deport him.
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They held him for a couple months. We've talked about Andre, the Venezuelan makeup artist. We've talked – and there's just so many stories like that that it's – and some of these people have even less of a connection than Garcia was alleged to have by some random cop somewhere.
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They never wanted – no one, no one on Fox, none of these people will grapple with the fucking gulag part of this. None of them will defend it. They act like, well, we just dropped them off in El Salvador and suddenly they ended up in the jail there, which is just not what happened. We're paying them to house them.
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I don't know that song. It's okay. I thought we'd go with like a wasting away in Margaritaville. Nope. No? Okay. When Van Hollen returned home, he did all the Sunday shows. Here he is patiently answering questions from Fox News anchor Shannon Bream that might have caused me to burst a blood vessel.
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What's confusing about this is politically speaking, there seems to be a much easier, much smarter path for Donald Trump, which is to say the borders lockdown, take the win there and then slowly methodically deport people. I mean, the proximate reason why they are deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador is Venezuela won't take back Venezuelans. Right.
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So but that doesn't mean that has to happen tomorrow. or the next day. I assume that they're shredding the Constitution because this is Stephen Miller's passion project. Donald Trump cares a lot about it too. There's an element of their base that loves it.
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There's probably a deterrent effect for others who might come here if they see the United States being just unbelievably cruel to everyone, no matter what. But politically speaking, I do think there is some risk that people are going to say, why are you doing this? Why are you so focused on this stuff? Why are we not allowing people a day in court? Like that doesn't seem that hard. Like J.D.
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Vance's fucking Twitter op-ed screed about how sometimes it's inconvenient to allow for due process or it costs too much or it takes too many resources. Like I don't think anyone believes that.
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Well, it's true that there is a large backlog of immigration cases because we don't have enough immigration judges and we just our system has been broken for a long time. There's a way to fix that, which is pass legislation that funds more immigration judges. Oh, by the way, that was the legislation that Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress and a bunch of conservative Republicans tried to pass.
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And then Donald Trump killed because he wanted the issue. Right. So that tells you a lot about. if they're really interested in actually solving the backlog of immigration cases. Also, there's way to – there's plenty of ways to expedite deportations if you need to. If there's a public safety threat, you can. Like there's a million different ways to deport people. They've done it before.
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Joe Biden has done it. They're doing it now since they became president. Barack Obama did it. George W. Bush did it. It's complete bullshit, this whole like if we cannot throw people in the gulag, we don't have a country anymore.
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Yeah. So like you said, this is not just about – It's not just about other immigrants who came here illegally. So far, more than a thousand foreign students have had their visas canceled, including many who aren't political activists, haven't even publicly shared their political views. We're also seeing more horror stories about the government throwing people behind bars for doing nothing wrong.
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We learned on Friday that Jose Hermosillo, an American citizen from New Mexico, was arrested by Border Patrol while on a walk during a visit to Arizona and was then detained in an ICE facility for 10 days, 10 days until his family was able to prove his citizenship and get him out.
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We also learned that in mid-March two teenage girls from Germany were detained at the Honolulu airport after saying that they hadn't booked accommodations for their entire five-week stay in Hawaii. They were held overnight in what they said were appalling conditions and then deported to Tokyo.
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DHS says they were kicked out because they said they told CPB agents that they planned to work while traveling. which they didn't have the right visa for, but the students say that when they were pressed on this, they simply told the agents that they sometimes do freelance jobs online for customers back in Germany. Feels like this probably isn't helping the huge drop-off in tourism to the U.S.,
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Yeah, I mean, in 2023, international visitors spent roughly $225 billion in the US. So if a big chunk of that goes away, that's gonna be not a tiny hit to GDP, and it will have the potential to decimate specific communities that are tourism destinations. And we're already seeing this with Canada. because this precipitated immigration questions.
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This was about Trump threatening to annex the country. Canadian car trips to the U.S. are down 32% last month compared to March 2024. Air travel is down 13% year over year, and airline bookings are down 70%.
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And so if you sort of like extrapolate that out, if people around the world are just like, I can't go to the United States, they're going to fuck with me or treat me horribly or, you know, God knows. Like Goldman Sachs said, There's a worst case scenario where the U.S. could lose $90 billion in revenue this year from a decrease in tourism and people just choosing not to buy American stuff.
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I saw a couple of people pointing out that we're supposed to have an Olympics here in a couple of years. We're supposed to have the World Cup here. And other countries are issuing travel warnings to the United States, like our allies or former allies.
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And the soccer, the World Cup, it's supposed to be a pan-North American games. So if we're still fighting with the Canadians and fighting with the Mexicans, it's not going to be good.
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Yeah. Multiple U.S. citizens now have gotten these random emails, letters from ICE, from the CPB saying you have to leave the country now. And maybe they were in error. Maybe they weren't. Another U.S. citizen was detained in Miami. For a while, four students at Case Western Reserve were told their visas were revoked and that they needed to leave and then they had to go to court.
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And the government was like, oh, maybe we screwed up. We're not sure. The judge was like so angry. He was like, this is Kafkaesque. I can't believe it. He's like, the government's telling me they don't even know if these people are here legally or not. You can't even tell me this, the government counsel, but you just arrested them. And the other thing that I think –
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What's happening here is these agents, whether they're ICE agents or CPB agents, like they're lying. And I don't want to impugn all of them, right? But like the Hermosillo, the guy who was detained in Arizona, like he was arrested in Tucson. The agent says he was actually in Nogales, which is an hour south of Tucson. And that's where they picked him up. So we know he was lying about that.
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So the rest of the lie, which is like, oh, he told them he was here unlawfully, and that's why they detained him, which is now what fucking DHS is saying.
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Tricia McLaughlin, the spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, tweeted that this 19-year-old American citizen walked up to a Border Patrol agent and said, hey, I entered illegally from Mexico. that he offered up this information, and she tweets this thinking that this is a credible story in any way. She doesn't think that maybe fact-checking?
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It happens all the time. You get caught by a federal agency. You're like, I'm here illegally. I came from Mexico.
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arm it remotely and you have cameras and uh it's great with simply safe millions of americans enjoy the new standard in home security and greater peace of mind every time they arm their system when heading out in the morning or when locking up each night traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in that's too late simply saves active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen
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The kid was in jail for 10 days before they sorted things out. The government couldn't call the government to figure out if he was a citizen?
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Because I think it was like what Tommy was saying. I think they just want to scare the shit out of people.
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And I also think they have a one million deportee quota that Stephen Miller is pushing them to meet over the course of the year.
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Minnesota, look, last week, there's a guy from Indonesia who's here on a student visa working at a hospital in Minnesota. His student visa was revoked. Four days before his arrest, but he wasn't told. He wasn't notified that the visa was revoked. And so then they just arrested him because he overstayed the visa for four days after not telling him. They asked why. He doesn't understand.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
He has an eight-month-old daughter, American wife, citizen, doesn't understand, has been here since 2015, came legally. And they said, oh, he's a threat to public safety. So then they looked into his background. In 2022, he pled to a misdemeanor for spray painting graffiti on a bridge.
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And then the big one, he was charged with unlawful assembly over a protest around George Floyd's murder that was later dismissed. Not violent, not nothing, no property destruction, no nothing, just showing up there. And so I do think that on student visa stuff, they're starting with the Gaza stuff, but they're just going after, and they're doing this with like AI too.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
They're looking through anyone who's here on a student visa. If you've ever had any run-ins with the law that aren't political, or if you've ever shown up at any kind of political protest anywhere, That's how they're targeting people now. It's just gross. Not January 6th. Right, yeah, of course. Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. Tariffs are trending.
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Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from our show. One sign that the deportation stories are starting to break through in a way that the White House can't be too happy about is that they're losing Joe Rogan. Here he is talking about it on his show.
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You guys have reactions to the meeting and the aftermath. The Trump folks seem to think this is a winning issue for them and that people will believe that the story is about Democrats trying to bring an MS-13 foreign terrorist back home.
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I think Rogan weighing in on this really is meaningful. I mean, it also just reflects the reality that there are like, we hear the MAGA dead ender crazies that you read out, like they get quoted, they get picked up in the media. But most normies are like, of course, I believe in due process. Of course, you should have a day in court.
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The idea of like hurting an innocent person, you can empathize with that easily. And it's offensive to you. So it's great to hear Rogan talking about this to his audience. I hope he keeps doing it. I also think it reflects the reality that Trump is good as an opposition leader, but he fucking sucks at governance.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah, and to your point, there's also this, like, well, the Trump White House thinks they're winning the issue because they love talking about this. One reason they might be talking about it so much is because they're worried that the narrative is going to get away from them and that they're going to lose the argument. And that's why they have to lie about everything and talk about it nonstop.
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And that's why, like, Stephen Miller is screaming. Which, by the way, did you hear the strict scrutiny hosts call him Pee Wee German?
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I think Van Hollen did a good job of making it about bigger principles. Like he did exactly what I want Democrats to do in this moment, which is he stepped up. He flew down to El Salvador. He took personal political risk, knowing Bukele would try to humiliate him, which he did with this. It wasn't even a good margarita stunt. It was like a cherry or something.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
But I also think that they are genuinely – there is a concern that they're going to lose the narrative here. And right before we recorded, I don't know if you guys saw that Trump posted about the court in the 7-2 decision. And it was a very uncharacteristic Trump truth because he was like, I have great respect for the court.
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But even the Supreme Court I have great respect for are now saying that I can't deport Venezuelans or anyone back to their country even if they're violent. And I don't like that and blah, blah, blah. But he's like, at least Alito understood that.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah, which is why I think you have Stephen Miller just like lying about the decision. Although, you know, you did have J.D. Vance said many times before he became vice president, he did the whole Andrew Jackson quote. You know, the Supreme, the justice, the chief justice has made it, has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. So that's where he is. Other big news from the weekend.
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The Times reported on Sunday night that a second signal group chat has hit the Pentagon.
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So I did a video on this yesterday. Elijah recommended that as the title and we decided not to. I like that you read it out.
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You know, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly shared those same Houthi war plans in a chat called Defense Team Huddle, made up of 13 people, including Hegseth's Fox News producer wife and his brother, who's now one of his advisers.
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A couple hours after the Signal story posted, newly resigned Pentagon spokesman John Uliot published a Politico piece describing, quote, a full blown meltdown inside the Pentagon, which he called the month from hell. before citing rumors of more bombshell stories to come. Jesus, what's left? And predicting that Hegseth will be out soon. Literal bombshell stories.
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No one's drinking margaritas with cherries. What are you doing, dude?
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He did make sure to say of Hegseth, I value his friendship, and we accomplished a lot together.
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It's a little confusing. Predictably, Democratic lawmakers are back to calling on Hegseth to resign, and so is at least one Republican member of Congress, Don Bacon of Nebraska, who happens to be a former Air Force general. He said that if the Signal report is true, it's, quote, totally unacceptable, and that Hegseth is, quote, acting like he's above the law, and that shows an amateur person.
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Today, NPR reported that the White House has already begun the search for his replacement, but Caroline Levitt quickly shut that down as fake news.
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It was foolish. And then he knew, obviously, that Republicans would attack him as like a fan of gang members. And sure enough, the White House photoshopped a photo of Van Hollen with like gang tattoos all over his face and stuff. So it's just childish nonsense. But Van Hollen used what little leverage he had as U.S.
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Anonymous sources like the guy who was your spokesman until he quit and published an op-ed about it under his own name.
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There's nothing better than like statements of grave national importance made next to a giant bunny.
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Well, he's going to the funeral with Melania and he's excited that he is looking forward to being there. Exclusion.
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He just wants some good pasta. Tommy, anything new and interesting in terms of the details that Hegseth shared here in both Signal and I thought the op-ed from Politico was wild, but why don't you?
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I mean, it sounds like he was sharing the same basic information, like the F-18s are going to bomb this target at this time.
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I mean, the difference here is the first Signalgate group chat was started by Mike Waltz, a national security advisor. And that was a group of people with whom one should discuss whether or not to bomb Yemen. This was a group started by Hegseth himself. And it was created on his personal phone, which is a very, very big no-no.
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I mean, I think there's probably a half dozen Intel agencies that have tried to break that phone. A few probably have succeeded, and he's just sharing classified information on it.
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senator to get the only results we've seen outside of a of a courtroom, which was to get access to Ebrego Garcia's. And I also think, you know, he's someone who's shown a lot of courage on a bunch of issues lately on Gaza, a whole bunch of other host of other things. And I think that's what we want from someone like him in a safe seat like Maryland to do, like put your neck out there.
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Weekend. Can we talk about the chaos in the Pentagon that this guy wrote about who used to be spokesman? They're trying to brush it off as a few anonymous sources, but it seems like there's a mutiny going on in there.
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What's weird about this is they've already purged the Biden-era professional people, right? C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, out. Lisa Franchetti, who is the director of the Navy, out. And they're slowly starting to replace them. But the people we're talking about Hegseth firing here or they're getting pushed out in this leak investigation or whatever are like his guys, right?
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Like Dan Caldwell, the dude who was his senior advisor, he was his friend of over a decade. They worked together at that nonprofit. He was the point of contact on that original Mike Waltz signal gate being like, if I can't be around to talk about this issue, Dan is my proxy. And now they're forcing these guys out. So Hegseth is missing.
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Now he no longer has his senior advisor, his chief of staff, his deputy chief of staff. And I think there's some other officials that have been pushed out. So it just sounds like it's chaos over there. I mean, the spokesman says it's chaos.
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And it is the Defense Department. Right. He's running the U.S. military.
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Shit could go down. We don't know what's happening behind the scenes. We don't know what debates might scare us if we were aware of them. But again, CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chief, got pushed out. The new guy, Dan Cain, was just confirmed the other day. Raising Cain. Raising Cain. And he had been retired for like a year or so. He's kind of getting back up to speed.
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And also, there is this battle in Republican foreign policy between the more isolationist wing of the MAGA world and the more traditional neocon hawkish types. You're seeing it really play out in this debate over the Iran nuclear talks that are happening recently. That Steve Witkoff, the actual Secretary of State, not make a wish Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So, I mean, it's just interesting.
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Like that's kind of the backdrop is these guys are still figuring out what they believe and what they're going to do. And now the Pentagon was just purged.
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And it does feel like we're once again in a situation where maybe if this didn't break in the news and was all over the place that Donald Trump might like quietly get rid of him. But of course, you got to dig in. Everyone starts. Now, who knows?
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Because like there was a room, you know, the NPR had that one source that said they're looking for someone new and that everyone fake news to death, you know, but.
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And by the way, he'll be out by the time we are done recording this.
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Terrible press. I mean, well, what he's got. Yeah. What he needs is if he's going to replace him, he's got to find someone else who can get confirmed, who will be absolutely loyal to Donald Trump over the Constitution, the military and anyone else.
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Yeah. That clip of Hex F was so unconvincing. He's like shouting at a C-SPAN camera. He's pointed to his own children, kind of like using them as a. from the media in that moment. And he just had the look and the feel of a man who is in so far over his head and he does not know how to get out of it. It seems like a bad dream.
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You guys have any thoughts on why Bukele allowed the visit last minute? These are all educated guesses because we don't know for sure.
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And you've got your spokesman out there being like, oh, there's so much worse stories are going to drop this week.
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But just to be crystal clear, if any uniformed member of the military did what Hegseth did with Signal, they would be fired if not court-martialed. Any normal administration would fire him on the spot and refer to DOJ for prosecution. And the fact that we're even talking about this, like there's also reports that Pete Hegseth was bringing his wife to his meetings with like the NATO counterpart.
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Like these are defense minister to defense minister talks.
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You need a Fox News producer there at all times to get you some good content.
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There was a not at all veiled threat that not allowing that access was a violation of international law and could lead to cuts to future U.S. assistance.
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If Hannah was like, bomb Poland, yeah, we'd have a real problem.
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Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to a recent ZipRecruiter survey, 76% of employers plan to expand headcount for 2025. Hey, I'm going to redo that survey after this.
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Speaking of chaos, in the category of serious news that's also funny, the Times reported on Friday that Trump's war on Harvard started by accident. The original letter demanding concessions received by the university a week before apparently was sent without proper authorization at the White House.
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At the time, Harvard was engaged in what it thought were productive talks with administration lawyers from the White House's anti-Semitism task force, which is how they're laundering their attacks on academic freedom and free speech. Harvard was expecting a letter from the task force with some details about their concerns.
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What they got instead was the nuclear option, an email from one of the task force lawyers making a whole host of crazy demands, including federal oversight of admissions and hiring. That is fucking nuts. Eradication of all diversity efforts and the disbanding of pro-Palestinian groups. Some of the anonymous leakers who talked to the Times said the guy who sent the letter did so prematurely.
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Others said he'd meant to send it around internally for review. Ugh, hate when that happens. Anyway, it caused Harvard to publicly reject the demands the following Monday. As we discussed last week, the administration then froze more than $2 billion in funds, threatened Harvard's tax-exempt status, and threatened to shut down its ability to enroll any foreign students whatsoever.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that, of course, doubling down again, the administration is now planning to pull another $1 billion in research funding. Administration admits they sent Arbrego Garcia to El Salvador in error, but then they refused to correct the mistake, and then they dig in even further.
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They accidentally sent a crazy letter to Harvard, then they refused to correct the mistake, and they dig in even further. You guys notice a pattern here?
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I thought they were much worse, but... I think some of them are worse.
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But it does sound like the sourcing on the story is the administration sent a letter in error and then someone from the administration called Harvard to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Right. Delete that, delete that, delete that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's confusing.
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I mean, we should also be clear that, you know, the grant money that's getting cut off to Harvard, it's not going to like caviar for the kids. It's mostly like research for medical, you know, cancer research, Alzheimer's research, like cutting edge scientific research. It's a contract. It benefits all of us. Well, and it's a contract.
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It's a government contract. The government pays our best institutions to help do medical research, scientific research to benefit the country. That's the whole deal. Anyone else notice that one of the lawyers that Harvard hired to deal with this is Robert Herr? Sure did. Coming back for the new season.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Robert Herr getting hired by them is interesting. Clearly like a, you know, very conservative lawyer, well thought of, you know, worked at DOJ for a long time. Though... As a choice to make Donald Trump happy is an odd one because he did not prosecute Joe Biden. Right. Yeah. We remember he was he wasn't a hero on the other side either. No, they hated him, too. Yeah. Well, whatever.
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There's so much about this in Jake Tapper's book that I can't talk about yet because there's still an embargo. Conversation for a month from now.
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Yeah, exactly. All right. Before we go, we're recording this on Easter Monday, less than a day after the passing of Pope Francis. Francis took a visit from J.D. Vance on Sunday morning. Talk about your last day. And apparently that was enough to put the ailing pontiff over the edge after allowing himself to be photographed shaking Vance's hand.
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The Holy Father then blessed the crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square and had one of his deputies read what would be his final Easter address.
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in which he implicitly blasted Vance and Trump, decrying, quote, how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants and saying, quote, I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear. He also reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
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and a return of all the hostages and for an end to the war in Ukraine. A day earlier, Vance had a longer meeting with the Pope's number two cardinal, and the Holy See's readout of that meeting mentioned, quote, an exchange of opinions on, quote, migrants, refugees, and prisoners. That topic was not in J.D. Vance's readout of the meeting.
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The Pope in the past had called Trump's immigration policies, quote, a disgrace and not Christian. Legend. What did you guys think about the Vance interaction?
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We're all going to make the same joke because we deserve this, but there's got to be a little piece of them who thinks, did I kill them?
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I will say I loved this Pope Jesuit first Jesuit Pope I remember when Benedict is picked step down and Francis picked and I was like a Jesuit from South America I know who was like all about social justice I'm like is this real is it is the church gonna make him now now that he's gonna be Pope is he not gonna be like that and he ended up being every bit the the person he was when he was in South America and
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He's just a troll. Like, that's the point. He likes to troll the left. He's on Twitter all the time. He's super online. So he's saying, oh, you're calling me a despot and a dictator and that we're torturing this man. Here he is having a margarita.
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But yeah, after Ratzinger, he was a tough one. I'm just like, very much hoping that we we don't go back to that. And I don't know that anyone can, you know, fill the shoes of Pope Francis, but still need we need a woke Pope. We also need like one world leader insulated from politics who is willing to speak about compassion and empathy and justice in a way that, you know, J.D.
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Vance's of the world and the right will probably shit on that person, but at least they can do so with some sense of moral authority.
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Yeah. Look, I'm Episcopalian, so I'm a lazy Catholic. And I'll be honest, I don't love the Catholic Church as an institution.
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I don't feel like it's always been a force for good in this world, especially some of their social views. But I think like Benedict Cardinal Ratzinger was – Like he was kind of he had that Opus Dei vibe, you know, that was when that Dan Brown book was really big. Those expensive red shoes. Right. He was like kind of scary guy.
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And then Francis came along and a lot of what made people love him was his tone. You know, he couldn't fully moderate the church's anti-LGBT views. Right. But he could be decent when he talked about them. As you mentioned, he cared about poverty. He cared about refugees. He cared about migration. He cared about climate change. He was a huge critic of all wars, including the war in Ukraine.
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He helped facilitate the Cuba normalization deal between the US, the Obama administration, and the Cuban government. So he used his office to bring about change and facilitate good works. And he was from the global south and I think brought that perspective to the job of understanding the horrors of colonization and, you know, when great powers act in ways that are brutal and selfish.
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Yeah, he has risen. He made some jokes. And here he is enjoying a margarita.
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And I don't know. I think we will miss him on the global stage.
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This guy, a guy who washed the feet of AIDS patients back when it was not a very popular thing to do.
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His Twitter bio used to say world's coolest dictator. He just loved to be a troll like this.
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But also, you know, the other thing he did was some people thought that he was going to snub J.D. Vance. That was the first thing because J.D. Vance got the number two the day before. And then Pope Francis was like, I will meet with him. It's the vice president of the United States. I will meet with him. I will criticize him to the people.
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But like because I show compassion to everyone, I'm also going to meet the vice president, which was nice.
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There's some, I tweeted it so you can see it on X, but there's this beautiful video of a young kid, I don't know, he's like five, six years old, eight years old. He had just like lost his father and he was so nervous to ask Pope Francis a question and he goes up to him and Pope Francis was like whispered in my ear. He whispers it in his ear. He goes and sits down and the Pope said,
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his father is an atheist even though he baptized his three children he wants to know if his father's going to go to heaven and he gives this whole speech about how he's like the god that i believe in has a father's heart and a father's heart would never want to keep his his children uh too far away and it was like a really like because the catholic church i grew up in you'd go to church and they'd and you know like my mother was greek orthodox and they'd be like if you are not catholic do not come up for communion sit in the bench rat singer's like sorry kid he's burning
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It's like that, you know, and it's just being able to do that in an institution that's hard to, hard to change is, is, is laudable.
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I will say next Pope, we're going to have all the speculation of who it may be. There's a lot of choices out there. There's one who would be like the first Asian Pope from the Philippines. And he spoke out a lot against Duterte. Probably doing horse race.
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Right. And he would be like- Where is he with the swing cardinals?
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Well, Tommy, I'm good. And so he's like the furthest left I think you'd go. But then there's the only one that really scares me is there's one from fucking Hungary who Orban likes and conservatives all like. At the same time. And he thinks that they need to like pull back the whole church. So that would be bad. And then there's a bunch of other like sort of centrist leftist centers types.
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I haven't seen it either. I'm going to watch it. I'll watch it before this thing.
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I'm going to watch it. The real deal. Tommy's a very religious person. That's why I made him godfather to my child.
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He's got a Jewish godmother. That's true. Tess is his godmother.
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Yeah, that's Bukele. And then I think the Trump White House is just like they're going all in on the message. Democrats love MS-13. No other facts can penetrate this message. The idea that we just want people to have due process, that the Trump administration already admitted in court multiple times that they made an error.
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Give me a fucking break. I'm glad you pivoted this back to you. You're right. Fucking Pontifex over here.
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There's no Pope, I'm free. It's really beautiful. Okay, before we go, one quick housekeeping note. LGBTQ people are under attack and this year Pride is more than an excuse for Levitt to talk over us a lot in June. What a segue! It's life or death. Well, that didn't really come out as serious as it should have. So grab a join or die T-shirt or sticker from the Crooked store.
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This design is a nod to the famous historical political cartoon, but we updated it to meet the moment and stand for LGBTQ resistance. Love it.
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That's pretty good. Get that on a shirt. And by the way, that reminds me because Sarah McBride said this. Listen, if you haven't and you're like, oh, the Sunday interviews, who knows? The Sunday interview with Sarah McBride was like maybe my favorite conversation I've had with a politician and I can't remember how long.
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Seriously. I think I was just like staring at her at one point. Just like, wow, this is amazing. How do we have a politician like this? Anyway, check it out. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. We will be live from D.C.
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And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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They haven't given any justification for why we're jailing people in a foreign prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives. None of that matters at all.
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And also, just I want to point out that another story that was, I think, broke late last week. So— Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act requires him to claim that Trend de Aragua is invading the U.S. at the behest of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Most legal experts believe that kind of linkage is necessary for an Alien Enemies Act declaration.
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Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the National Intelligence Council, which is like the board that brings together the consensus opinion of the 18 component intelligence agencies, have determined that the Venezuelan government does not, They're not directing trend to Iroquois. They're not directing an invasion of the United States.
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So that undercuts Trump's public statements and the already shaky legal basis for the entire Alien Enemies Act invocation.
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Yeah, and a reminder, the Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act. So that could come back to bite them in the ass. And again, there's no legal justification and nothing in the Alien Enemies Act that says you're not just able to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act.
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You're able to send them to a foreign prison and pay a foreign country to jail them. There's no justification for that anywhere.
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Monitoring plans start affordably at around $1 a day. 60-day satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
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Well, I mean, this is not a politically unpopular but courageous and morally right thing to do. It's also politically popular. All the polling that's coming out so far is very clear that most people think we should not send people to a foreign prison without a trial. I have not seen a single poll yet that has argued otherwise.
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There are some polls that people are saying, oh, well, Trump's overall favorability on immigration is still the strongest issue. Yes, when you just scratch one inch beneath that surface, all the polling says otherwise.
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But I'm saying that's important because that's why the consultant brain is especially dumb on this one. It's like trying to figure out why Bukele put the margaritas on the table.
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So apparently the list of MS-13 Trend de Aragua enthusiasts has grown to now include John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, who joined the liberal justices in a late-night emergency ruling over the weekend that blocked the deportation of a group of Venezuelans in North Texas under the Alien Enemies Act.
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The court ruled so quickly that the lower courts hadn't yet ruled, the Justice Department hadn't yet responded to the challenge, and Sam Alito hadn't yet finished his dissent. Which, very rare that the court releases an opinion without the dissent, if the dissent is still being written.
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I was. I assume they're alerted, but then their clerks do most of the work? Yeah, I think it was the... That's a good question for our strict scrutiny.
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Well, the important point here is that the government claimed or tried to claim that it didn't have any imminent plans to deport the immigrants. And the court's ruling, when it came, as fast as it came, showed that clearly they do not believe them. At least seven justices were not willing to trust the government and take their word for it. Wild stuff and also a bit complicated.
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So, Lovett, talk to Leah about this ruling and Judge Boasberg's contempt finding. Here's the interview with Leah.
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Well ... he's back.
Do a lot of eggs go through the Panama Canal? I'm just wondering. Through the price of eggs? The price of eggs? Is that how we're lowering inflation? I guess so. Speeding more things through the Panama Canal?
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Well ... he's back.
Listen, Donald Trump is pretty clear about this. He is very comfortable with the Chinese government controlling the brains of America's young people, but not the canal.
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Well ... he's back.
What a country. What a time. Dan, what do you think, just from a public opinion perspective, how do you think the country is clamoring for a new name for the Gulf of Mexico? He also said it's going to be Mount McKinley again. It was Denali, Mount Denali for a while.
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We're saying Mount McKinley again. We're saying Merry Christmas again. We're saying Gulf of America for the first time. We're seizing Panama, hopefully not by force if necessary. But we're not ruling it out. But we're not ruling it out. Greenland. Greenland got the shaft in this speech. Didn't hear anything about Greenland. Nothing about the 51st state either.
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Well ... he's back.
And Justin Trudeau, outgoing prime minister. Dan, what do you think? Is this what people wanted when they voted in November?
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I heard a talk once about Greenland and how the harsh and unforgiving climate there, obviously. It isn't green, and I hope someone tells Trump that soon. But that the person in this sort of Danish accent said, describing the mile-high glaciers and the impossible conditions, and was asked what would happen if someone invaded Greenland.
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Well ... he's back.
The lame duck presidency of our oldest and first criminally convicted chief executive has begun as former President Donald J. Trump just became current President Donald J. Trump during a ceremony held in the very place the mob he incited four years ago tried to overturn the election he lost. What a country. Tommy Lovett and I are here at the Sirius XM studios in snowy New York.
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Well ... he's back.
And he said, if someone were to invade Greenland, we'd immediately rescue them. Yeah.
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Well, it sounds like they're already going to be down in Panama, so kind of a pincer move.
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It's also adjacent to- Elite Tommy Vitor just watching his prestige TV. Sorry.
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It is also the plot of Clear and Present Danger. That's a great one. Which is a movie where the whole plot revolves around once the American people find out, they'll be hell to pay, which is a simpler term.
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Article's offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash crooked and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Tommy, just to put in a button on the whole Panama thing, how does this work? What are the options here outside of the military force?
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He tries to levy tariffs on Panama, economic pressure. I don't understand.
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And there is a company based in Hong Kong that won a bid to control some aspect of shipping. And they charge everybody. I think this is all kind of a bullshit way of describing what is ultimately a commercial debate, right?
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Dan is joining us remotely from rebel-held San Francisco. Obviously, lots to go through here, but let's just start with the speech. The inaugural address was moved inside the Capitol building because of extreme cold, and maybe as a result of that, the whole thing felt a little bit more like a State of the Union address than a traditional inaugural. Let's listen to some of the clips.
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Yeah, and there was a mention of Manifest Destiny in the speech again. That was about we're going to Mars. Sick. Elon was very excited behind him. We're going to Mars. We're taking Greenland. We're taking Panama. You can tell that he is serious about... All right. I'm a lame duck president. What's my legacy going to be? I want to I want to name I've named buildings Trump my whole life.
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And I want to name large land masses Trump and take take them over for America. That's it seems like that's a vibe that he's quite serious about.
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And I think it's the kind of thing where like like a like a studio during a studio during pilot season, he's going to throw a couple pitches out there and hope hope one becomes a hit.
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Yeah. Much like Linus season two. Tommy, what's the process for renaming the Gulf of Mexico?
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As I said to that professor on the phone beforehand, it seems like he can unilaterally name things, but other countries don't have to recognize them. He can just order the federal government's maps and so forth to identify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. But that doesn't mean other countries are going to suddenly print Gulf of America.
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Good for her. Trump did spend a lot of the speech laying out his plans for signing a slew of long-rumored executive orders, which he described this way.
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I think Biden chuckled at that one, the common sense, which good for him. He should. So here are just a few of the ones he talked about and the ones that have been reported. Some he has already signed. Some he's in the process of signing. Hard to tell.
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Eleven executive orders on the border alone, including ending birthright citizenship for the kids of undocumented immigrants, reinstating the remain in Mexico policy, laying the groundwork to send troops to the border. As Tommy mentioned, designated drug cartels for as foreign terrorist organizations and
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And also invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of foreign-born criminals. That's immigration. He also is going to sign an executive order, quote, declaring that there are only two genders, aiming to end trans protections and the idea of gender identity within any kind of federal government office, service, etc. So, for example, passports will only be two genders.
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He'll also require the prisoners in the federal system be housed according to their sex age. birth, he'll be declaring a national energy emergency, whatever that means, in order to expedite more drilling and fossil fuel production and ending the electric vehicle mandate that wasn't really a thing that he says is killing America.
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He's signing an EO, creating the Department of Government Efficiency, or as we've all come to know and love it as DOGE, which by the way, Vivek Ramaswamy, he's out at DOGE because he's running for governor of Ohio. Good luck, Ohio.
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Yeah. Or it's just think about how bad your fucking personality has to be that you are co-lead of something with Elon Musk. And everyone's like, one of these guys has to go. And it's you, Vivek.
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That's my spot. That's my spot. They got him a governorship. I think he's just ambitious and wanted to be an elected... He's dying to be an elected politician.
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There's been a ton of leaks out of the Doge people that this guy... They don't like him.
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Yeah, and also he was telling... Yeah, anyway. Well, I'm sure the people of Ohio... He's also begging DeWine to make him the senator. Yeah, that didn't work out either.
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Ending all... Allegedly. Ending all federal government DEI initiatives, including in the military. There was also an order saying in order to bring down inflation. It's a whole of government approach to bringing down inflation because that's how it works. You just have to sign an EO and then the inflation comes down. Inflation is quivering in its boots. Inflation is quivering in its boots.
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What do we know about what here is real? What's new? What's impactful? What's just for show? What do you think, Dan?
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Trump says it's liberation day. And then you look at this swath of EOs and yes, there's sort of these fake censorship ones, but for the most part, there's nothing you weren't free to do yesterday that you're free to do today. There's nothing. I don't, I love to see the list of things that Trump MAGA people would like to be free to do that.
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They're not currently able to do under the, under the yoke of Joe Biden. And so really what liberation day. You can buy a Trump shit coin and a, and a Melania shit coin. Right. But you, Those were for sale before Trump even took office. But but it's more that like, well, what does it really mean? What does Liberation Day mean?
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It means you get to watch on television all the people Trump has said are your enemies finally get their due. It's sort of a it's like you're it you're nothing good is happening to you. Nothing better is happening for you. You're not free to do anything different. It's that Trump is targeting the enemies he's promised he was going to target.
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Yeah, you could have saved a lot of time by just signing one EO on liberal tears. Just to watch the libs cry.
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Can't spell Liberation Day without lib. That's right. That's right, you can't. That's what I'm saying. Can't spell a lot of things.
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Yeah, I don't, I mean, like the Doge thing, I know they're trying to do like shock and awe, like a ton of executive orders. A lot of the birthright citizenship, even conservative legal scholars don't think this stands a chance.
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And the only reason we're even entertaining it is because the Supreme Court has lost its mind. But it is a ridiculous, it is completely blitheringly obvious that this does not make sense, that birthright citizenship is not something the president can eliminate with the stroke of a pen. The 14th Amendment is crystal clear.
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I mean, who knows? Because it's the Supreme Court. They can always surprise you. But I'm watching more like, do we get three votes for this? Do we get two votes for this? Do we get one vote for this? I don't think Roberts goes with this. I don't think Barrett and Kavanaugh go with this. But Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas, you never know. And who knows?
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Maybe we also thought this on the fucking criminal immunity case and got surprised there. So who knows? But it seems this one is pretty clear.
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I think he and Hegseth had a night. That's a joke. That's a joke.
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It could have been a night of just dancing. Revelry. Fellowship. They might have danced a lot. Trump did not mention the TikTok ban in his speech. But he previously said he would sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the law, banning it in the U.S.
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This after TikTok users spent the weekend with access only to messages from the app praising President Trump, even though he wasn't president yet, for his valiant efforts to save the service. Trump truthed. Save TikTok. Of course, he was once for the ban. Now he's trying to save it. Then TikTok's now back for people. It's all in limbo right now.
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But basically, the law says it gives the president the authority to delay the implementation of the ban by 60 or 90 days if there is a potential deal in the offing. It doesn't seem like there is a potential deal, but it seems like they're just going with us anyway. The Biden administration had said in their final days, we're not going to enforce the law so TikTok can remain operational.
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Right. And then TikTok being like, we don't want Biden to say that we can... be operational and not get people's attention. So we're going to do a stunt and shut down. And it worked, of course, because everyone got everyone's attention, everyone at TikTok who hadn't been paying attention about that. What do we think about this, Trump being the savior of TikTok? Dan, I know you wrote a box on this.
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And so did TikTok and the many Republican and Democratic lobbyists they hired that have been working full time for them.
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Yeah. I think that they, I don't even think it's, I mean, I'm sure there could be a money angle to it, but like, I'm sure Kellyanne Conway, like, talked to Donald Trump and was like, hey, one of the reasons you won is because of TikTok and they love you on TikTok now. And TikTok's a great place to get your message out. And he's like, really? What's a TikTok? And they're like, well, here it is.
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And he's like, you know what? Sure. Yeah, I'm into it now. Right.
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It really is to me, as Joe Biden goes out the door, it's just these three big problems. One of them being the reason they did this was never communicated and Joe Biden could never communicate it. They never made the case. They passed it too quickly. It was always these kind of vague... invocations of national security without explaining why then the same spyware was fine in the hands of Americans.
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It's a perfect example of institutional failure. Yes. It's everything. Yes. It's everything. Donald Trump doesn't care what the fuck people think about Republicans either. But for the mass in Washington, the establishment in Washington that tried to work together in a bipartisan way to do the right thing, it's just the same story over the last however many years, which is we know it's right.
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Here I am. The American people have spoken. Can't argue with that. Dan, let's start with you. Thoughts on the speech?
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It is the right thing. And they could be right, right? I'm persuaded that there's some national security threats here too, right? But we don't need to tell you. They never trust us. Trust us. No one trusts them, but trust us.
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So that so that's one. So then you have to, you know, Donald Trump teaches all these Republicans that you don't need to have shame, that you can live without shame and they embrace it. And it is amazing how few guardrails there are. Once the shame guardrail was gone. Now, this moment is everybody outside of politics learning that lesson for themselves.
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All these tech companies and these guys realizing, wait, if I just kiss his ass, I get a bad op-ed in the Washington Post and then I get everything I want. I don't care about the Washington Post. I don't care what the elite says anymore. All I have to do is ignore it or pretend it doesn't bother me.
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He's got the power. They don't have the power. They can't hurt me with their words.
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And so there was a time when people had a certain amount of dignity where you might not, if you lead a company, go into a room full of people that work for you and say, put up a little supplicating message that says Donald Trump has a huge penis and how beautiful it is. And then we'll say that we saw it ourselves and then he'll be happy.
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But like that TikTok is willing to put up a ridiculous message like this and say, thank you, Mr. Trump. Like we used to make fun of the people that said, thank you, Mr. Trump. Now the biggest leaders in the American economy are doing it.
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Who I'm sure did not come up with the idea on their own, which is not a really brilliant idea to come up with. But again, they have had. Republican and Democratic consultants, lobbyists. Of course. Everyone in Washington is on TikTok's payroll. They hired them all. And it is the easiest fucking money to make to go in there and be like, hey, I got an idea. Just say thank you, Donald Trump.
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And so then the third piece of it, though, the third piece of it, which is, I think, about the difference between what it is like to be a Democrat online versus a Republican online is... when Democrats do something bad or Republicans criticize Democrats, when they achieve something, when Democrats achieve something, Republicans attack Democrats. When a bipartisan bill like this happens, right?
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The online left attacks Democrats and it's not, oh, this is actually Donald Trump. There's no one making that argument. It's a bunch of people declaring, this is why Democrats are terrible. This is why Democrats are terrible. And I agree they're terrible. But if we want, like I agree with all of that, but like,
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So much of the time that you see these two things side by side, which is how do Republicans get away with this stuff? Right. How do they do it? How do they do it? And then you look at our media and it's a bunch of people that are much more interested in being part of the discourse of strategy than actually doing the attacking. Right.
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There's a lot of people saying, oh, Donald Trump's going to get credit for this, as opposed to a bunch of people saying Donald Trump doesn't deserve credit for it. And here's why. Right. Like we don't have there's like Republicans have so many more soldiers in the social media wars than we do. We have analysts and we have observers.
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And and like if you want to talk about how Donald Trump managed to change politics so much over the last eight years and how things are possible now that weren't possible for it was that slow and steady work of those people making acceptable things that weren't acceptable. We just don't have those people fix bayonets. Love it. Yeah. So on the internet, social. I will. I'm ready. Digitally.
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But I'm also somewhat like I'm in complete agreement with Dan's message box that the politics are what they are for Democrats. And also I'm for the ban. I think the ban is a good idea. I think that having the CCP control one of the largest media platforms that 170 million people in the United States are on that is like melting their fucking brains, our brains.
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I'll include myself there, too, just to not I don't want to offend the youth. We're all part of it. Again, I think it's bad.
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Everyone just read the Supreme Court opinion, the 9-0 Supreme Court opinion. ByteDance is collecting the content of private messages on TikTok. It is also collecting the email and contact info of anyone in your contacts if you're using TikTok. And their emails, too.
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So now the Chinese government, when they want to, can have the names, location data, like what you're buying email of every single American. So, like, again, maybe you're fine with that, but it's also a legitimate concern to address.
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Right. But this to me is so I this is the problem. Right. And all of that would be OK if it were in the hands of an American. And to me, like the what I take away from it, we're a nation.
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Right, but if we're talking about it, yes, it is worse when China does it.
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But we have accepted an incredible level of invasion by these companies, which also should not be allowed. We went through a cycle of this with Facebook in 2016, and then...
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Elon Musk's Twitter and how that's changed and misinformation on TikTok and whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or the Russians or the Chinese communists, what all these people have learned is that like if you throw a bunch of throwing stars and nunchucks and bayonets and knives into the center of a digital circle, Americans will pick them up and kill each other with them.
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And that to me is still the problem, right? And so like I like whether people go from TikTok to fucking reels like I don't like that this like the problem, the law remains the law, right? Donald Trump's allowed to extend it, but they have to put it in other people's hands. But like the problem of misinformation and the way in which these technologies are fucking terrible for us continues.
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And by the way, you know, no one has Joe Biden to kick around anymore. And the people who are now most opposed to Trump saving TikTok, Tom Cotton, Republican senator, has already posted. Mike Johnson on Meet the Press was very like, we're going to try to, you know, the law is the law. Like, I do think he's going to have at least at the beginning, like always, some Republican pushback on this.
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But anyway. Yeah. How about people try something? Make the case for why it should be banned. And declassify or make public some of these actual arguments that have clearly scared members of Congress behind the scenes that we are still not seeing.
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And again, Katonji Brown-Jackson and Sam Alito. Agreed. Pod Save America is brought to you by Vaya. The holiday season mess with your routine, looking to take charge of your life with full mental clarity this new year? Enhance your sober January and embrace CBD awareness month with Vaya to experience the powerful benefits of hemp without the high.
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And they're fantastic. CBD helps you sleep. At least I find that to be true. So it's really great. Highly recommend. If you're 21 plus, go to via.co slash crooked and use the code crooked to receive 15% off. And if you're new to VIA, get a free gift of your choice. That's V-I-I-A dot C-O slash crooked. Use code crooked. After you purchase, they ask you where you heard about them.
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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Again, V-I-I-A dot C-O slash crooked. Use code crooked. This year, enhance your everyday with VIA. One last unintentionally funny clip from Donald Trump's inaugural address. This one in honor of Martin Luther King. It's Martin Luther King Day. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone.
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Merit-based. Did you see all the billionaires clapping behind him?
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They're ready for this merit-based future. Yeah. Do you think it was merit-based that they got those seats?
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And how Laura Trump became head of the Republican National Committee.
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You see that the billionaire's got the second row behind Trump, and then the cabinet gets the third row behind Trump.
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Yeah, when Donald Trump went to the overflow, he started talking about Texas, and somebody shouted, he's here, he's here, he's in the room with you now.
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It's merit-based now, guys. That's one thing you should remember about the second Trump term. Speaking of merit-based, I alluded to this earlier, but Trump did launch a Trump coin over the weekend, and then Melania launched a Melania coin. Like Kennedy and Jackie O. Does anyone want to explain these meme coins, what they are, why they're a scam, what's going on?
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Oh, well, yeah, as a speechwriter, I was disappointed. So there was a moment when, before Trump even got up there, when Franklin Graham got up there to give, I don't know what it's technically called, invocation, convocation.
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No, we're all crypto friendly now. The SEC or the SEC? The war against crypto is over.
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Well, during the next financial crisis, which is caused by a crypto meltdown that has infected the entire economy and banking system, we'll be able to look back on that moment.
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A couple years from now, AOC's campaign for president being like, would you believe how many Melania's eggs cost?
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You know what I did enjoy, though? There's all these crypto bros online who are self-described huge Trump supporters, and they're like, this is stupid. Why did he do this? This is going to sully our reputation. As an industry. And one crypto lobbyist was quoted as saying, like, this is not going to help our reputation as hucksters and scammers.
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And he said, the last four years have been very dark, which is just not what you would typically say in a moment like this, especially since Joe Biden is sitting right behind him.
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And now people are going to think that we're just a bunch of fraudsters because Trump did this. And, you know, I was a big Trump supporter, but this is really disappointing that he's doing this.
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No, I say I say good for them because you're right. You can make arguments in favor of it. But but to trust that Donald Trump is if he just like just emerged out of nowhere, like, oh, yeah, this guy has our best interest. This guy's going to this guy's going to put the proper guardrails on this on the agents.
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Well, and look, where did all that money, right? Where does that 50 million in the pockets of this entity come from? Or the people who bought in a too high a value before it collapsed, like where does that money come from? Like it may be, a lot of it may be from MAGA supporters, people that don't know any better and are just sort of following the trends.
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People, you know, you can't count an honest man, people who think they're going to get one over and try to get in early and fall prey to this. But this is also a vehicle for all kinds of corruption that we may not be able to see. We have no idea who's buying this. We have no idea who's sending 30 million or 50 million dollars to Donald Trump via this kind of foreign actors, foreign adversaries.
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They can all just sort of curry favor with the president of the United States now. Just it's just easy. I mean, they could before because it's Donald Trump, but this is just sort of an easier way to do it. All right, let's talk about the outgoing president, Joe Biden. Here's how we greeted Donald Trump at the White House before the inaugural ceremony. Welcome home. Welcome home.
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It did. And- And you had... Just kidding. No, he was up. He was up. He was focused. But it's very... Look, the inaugural address is meant to be... I mean, he kind of tilts at it being this unifying event. But first of all, this is a speech taking place in a weekend of political rallies. Mm-hmm. And was immediately politicized by the reverend meant to be doing a kind of religious invocation.
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Okay, that's a tough one. I thought a simple hello would have sufficed. I don't think he needed to punch him in the face or anything or be mean. I think he could have just been like, hello.
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Do you think it's the same mattress? No. You think they get a new mattress in there?
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You think it's a Don? Very good. Yeah, that's good. Call it out. They have a new elite collection. Maybe they went for that. I bet if Donald Trump gave Helix a shout out, they'd send him a free one.
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Biden also made some last minute moves. He issued preemptive pardons for Liz Cheney, members of the January 6th committee, the staff, Benny Thompson, Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, and then his entire family. So his brothers, sister, in-laws. Dan got one. The whole Biden crime family. Dan pointedly did not get one.
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Pelosi didn't get one because they're not speaking. She's getting a different something from Donald Trump. Biden made sure of that too. What did you guys think of the last minute pardons?
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I like the ones for the people that tried to protect democracy. I'm confused by the ones for his family members. There are people that I didn't even know they were on Donald Trump's radar. I think Kash Patel is going to find out some about these people existing via these pardons.
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Stocking stuffer? It was one of those things where you pull it and it... It's a gender reveal.
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Right. Yeah. But like a lot or just like everyone who was involved in investigating Donald Trump, Judge Marshawn, Cassidy Hutchinson.
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No, that's a good question. I don't think so. They said some of the things they did for the Capitol police officers that testified. Right. So I don't know about Cassidy.
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Yeah. But people in DOJ, people like Alvin Bragg or, you know, Tish James, like all those. I mean, I guess you have to draw a line somewhere.
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He should have put something up by the auditorium like like everyone's finding out if they made cheer squad.
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I will just say, though, that when he did the Hunter pardon, I said then that if he does the preemptive pardons, it will at least put the Hunter pardon in a better light. I still disagree with it, but I am good for Joe Biden. I think the preemptive pardons, it is sad that he has to do preemptive pardons for a bunch of people who committed no crimes.
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But when you have a person who just became president who literally almost every day of his campaign threatened to prosecute people for no reason because he was mad that he was being investigated for his law breaking, then, you know, I would have I probably would have done the same thing.
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It's an umbrella. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. It clearly annoyed Donald Trump, and we'll get to that speech. But, you know, Donald Trump is pissed about these pardons. Yeah, it is just a strange list. And it is funny to also throw in your whole family. It's funny to do the Hunter one in advance.
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And so he gave basically a version of his stump speech. And yes, it was the stump speech version when he takes out all the stuff that they beg him to take out, which they successfully got him to take out, which he does later. But it was still a stump speech, still a deeply political and small speech for inauguration.
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I mean, this is clearly the family influence has its fingerprints all over this one. Right.
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I know. I know. And I still don't get that because it's like, say Hunter was sentenced, then there's still the pardon is the pardon or the commutation is the commutation, you know?
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And I think he's not completely freed. I think he's now on a home confinement. It moved him to home confinement.
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I don't care about the only reason this matters is Chip Roy was out of the gate saying, OK, well, now that they're all pardoned, we can haul them all before Congress and they can't take the fifth. And so either they tell us the truth or they lie and then we can get them on perjury.
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Well, look, Joe, we can't stop the fact that they've taken over the government. We can't stop them from abusing their offices on a going forward basis. And we can't stop them from, in bad faith, interpreting this however they want. But I think I would rather have a pardon in my hand and Rand Paul yelling at me than neither, I think.
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You know what else we can't do? Fake declare a new amendment to the Constitution.
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No, no, no, no, Jonathan. You go outside and you say, I declare the Equal Rights Amendment as the law of the land.
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This happened on Friday. Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was now the law of the land, even though basically no one else agrees. Lovett, you want to unpack this one for us?
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So the Equal Rights Amendment, the original draft had a deadline, I believe, of 1977. It was extended to 1982. It was passed by almost enough states to become a constitutional amendment. It was one away. Then in the years that followed, several states rescinded their ratification. And then Virginia became- No takebacks on amendments. No take back.
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And then Virginia became the 37th state to ratify the ERA. And there was a movement to say that Congress setting a deadline is not constitutional because the Constitution doesn't make any provision for deadlines for ratification of amendments. And therefore, that part of the amendment doesn't matter.
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And the National Archivist, who is somehow, for whatever reason, very important in this process, should declare it part of the Constitution. They said no.
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Right. Yeah. And the big ones. And the big ones. And the big ones. She's got all of them. All sizes. Yeah. Yeah. You can do all this. Yeah.
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But Biden could have ordered her to do it, and he did not. Well, right. He could have ordered her to do it. It's not clear what happens after that. And... It would then end up before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has in the past ruled on these kinds... The court has found that setting deadlines is a reasonable thing to do under the Constitution and that they have every right to do it.
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To me, what I was comparing it to is like, okay, so Joe Biden is doing this kind of vaguely extra-legal thing on his way out the door, and Donald Trump is doing this extra-legal thing coming into the door of declaring that the children of undocumented immigrants are not citizens. And it's just... I feel like we were like, you know, Joe Biden is the institution guy.
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And there's a bunch of critiques of Joe Biden from the left saying he defends the institution, but he should use his power and he should go further. And then he does something like this. And it's like he does it. And the archivist says no. And then he's out of office and it's fucking dead. And it just felt like a strange, I don't know, like kind of statement of principle or a fuck you out the door.
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It didn't lead to anything. It was purely ceremonial. It was very strange. Yeah.
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The substantive case for trying to weigh in on this, let's say, would be that the supporters of the view that the amendment has been ratified say that the president putting his weight behind it lends some credence to the legal case should it go before the courts, right? Fine.
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But in that case, maybe Joe Biden goes up and gives a statement that says, like, while I don't know if I can do this, I believe it is. And actually explains this. What made it sort of mocked, what led to it being mocked is, you know, just like a graphic that he tweeted that is like, I declare the amendment is the law of the land.
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Once again, the way they went about it was just sort of like, what?
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Or by all the alternative, by the way, he's right at the other door. He orders the National Archivist to print to do it. The Archivist is like, no. And then where are we?
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And again, this is not just like beating up on Joe Biden as he goes out the door that this was a weird thing to do. It's like, this is a good lesson for the future for Democrats. Don't do shit like that. Don't just declare stuff. It's symbolism, performance of stuff. It just doesn't matter. What matters is explaining to people why you can do something and then actually getting the power to do it.
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whether it's the pardons, whether it's TikTok, whether it's this, we have paid, so last time I'm going to say it for a while, we have paid so dearly for having an empty bully pulpit for a long time. And that is the sad end to the Joe Biden presidency, despite a lot of good that he did.
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helixsleep.com slash crooked. Speaking of someone who really knows how to command the bully pulpit, Donald Trump, even though he gave the longest inaugural address in modern history, decided he was not done yet. Went to the overflow room and spoke to that crowd in Emancipation Hall. 33 minutes and basically it was like, it was the director's cut. from the inaugural address.
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All the things he wanted to say. It was the drunk DVD commentary. Exactly. All the things he wanted to say but couldn't say in the speech. Let's listen.
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It certainly was a truer speech to who Trump is. That's sort of the moment I think we all heard this was going on. We're like, this is the next four years. This is what we're in for.
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Well, part of it also, like this was supposed to be 10 minutes. And so, you know, it's a little bit like they're like, OK, so Trump's going to be a little toast to say thank you to all the people in the overflow because we couldn't do this outside.
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And then we'll go do the parade and and whatever other and the heinous executive order ceremonies and all the other things we've got big plans for the day. And so they're just standing behind him. They wouldn't have stood behind him if he was going to speak for 30 minutes. So part of it is sort of like. Can I shuffle to the fucking side here? I'm standing right behind him.
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He's supposed to be a greeting. He's doing he's doing a tight 15 on how the border wall was going to be made of cement. But there's acid that goes through cement. And I didn't think it was going to be pretty. I thought it was going to be ugly. There's Greg Abbott. There's this guy. There's that guy. And they're standing behind him.
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Yeah. But it was like to Dan's point about the communications piece of it. He basically, you know, takes us all behind the scenes because he gets up there and he said, these are the parts I really wanted to say, but they told me I couldn't say today that I should save it for tomorrow. But I'm not going to save it for tomorrow. I'm going to do it right here, right now. And you know what?
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Well, that's his. He said, he said, I don't think it's going to affect the coverage because the coverage of my main speech is already out there and it's looking pretty good, but maybe I'll get in trouble.
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Well, you know what? It will affect some of the coverage. We're going to talk about it. MSNBC is probably flipping out about it. New York Times will mention it. Right. And then it won't fucking matter because most people that voted for him don't pay any attention to any of those media sources. And so it's like they just pay attention to Donald Trump, what Donald Trump says.
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So if he wants to do his fucking tight 33 on on his his stump speech revised one last time, you know, that's that's what he's here for four years for.
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Right. And I assume all the headlines, even the mainstream headlines that will be slowly that people will catch and see disperses are things like America's decline or over America's golden age. They are the headlines that Donald Trump would want it to be. And by the way, that's not a criticism of them. When a president gives an inaugural, the headline should be the headline line from the speech.
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That is what it should be. So, of course, he's free to fucking do this. And by the way, all of his he's going to do all of his biggest fans are going to see this. They're all going to see. Don't worry. The real Trump is still there. We're going to get exactly what we want from this guy.
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Yeah. Just to end, Dan, you wrote a message box on Monday today, this morning. Is it Monday? Today is Monday, yes. We're recording this on Monday, as you all know, because we're talking about the inaugural, about how to survive the Trump presidency. What are some highlights? What are some tips for everyone on how to survive the Trump presidency?
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He said that in his speech. He said, actions matter more than words. I think that was right.
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Yeah, he's a strong silent type. Just two thoughts. One is things change less than you think in a year and more than you think in five years. And I think today to me was like a reminder of that. We wonder, like, how did we get to a place where corruption doesn't matter? Like, how did we get to a place where Donald Trump can abuse the office in this way? Well, it took time.
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Gracious, gracious. It does feel like this speech, as much as I didn't care for the content that much of the speech. I kind of like the trend overall of getting away from the sweeping rhetoric of an inaugural address that's like meant for the history books and just like getting right to business. He didn't quite do that completely. Like half of it was the Stephen Miller sort of
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It took a slow degradation of basic values, of the Republican Party being slowly and steadily corrupted. But it did change, and it changed a lot. But it did it in a matter of just a few years. And we shouldn't be so cynical or apathetic or resigned to believe that it can't change just as much in the other direction. In another couple of years, we have to slowly work
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Towards that in all the ways we can. And that's a very big goal. And then that's a hard goal and it's hard to think about. And then when you get anxious or bored or frustrated or mad about thinking about that big problem, you can focus on the very concrete of just winning the house.
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Yeah, I think, you know, it's it's taken me 43 years to do this, but I don't doom about the future as much anymore because not because there's nothing to doom about, but because nothing we can do. Like worrying about it is not going to change it. So really trying to take the Trump presidency one day at a time and focusing on like what we can control and what we can't.
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And also recognizing that to Dan's point, you know, he won by 100000 plus votes in all the swing states. And we should also recognize, though, like why he won. And it seems like the, you know, not the Trump fans, but the additional people that got him over the I got him over the hill that got him over, you know, they got him close to 50 percent and won in the swing states.
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They were pissed about the cost of living. And they didn't think that the Democratic Party gave enough of a shit about them. And, you know, right now, price of eggs, $4.15 price of eggs. Mortgage rate is 7%. Gas is $3 a gallon. So we're just going to check back in on those because let's just take Donald Trump at his words. We've tried resistance politics. Let's try normal politics.
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Normal politics is he made a bunch of promises, big promises that he was going to do. He's going to fix the country. We're not going to be in decline. Everything's going to be great. It's going to be affordable. Prices are going to fall. You're going to be doing great. OK, if that happens, good for Donald Trump. But if it doesn't happen, we should point it out.
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We should point it out along the way when he breaks his promises or when he declines to fulfill them.
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Yeah, there's a moment in the speech where he says that the country is unifying behind my agenda. It is not. That is wish casting, that is hopeful thinking. But the policies that are deeply unpopular a week ago remain deeply unpopular today. No, the country doesn't want giant tax cuts for the rich.
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No, it doesn't want a president who's focused on bathroom policies and ridiculous right-wing grievances over their basic day-to-day concerns.
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And we'll be here with you guys the whole time. We're not going anywhere. So stick with us. And our friends at Vote Save America are going to be here. You can sign up at Vote Save America to figure out how to get involved. We're giving everyone a break for a little bit. But you know what? There's going to be 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
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Then there's going to be the midterms before you know it. So we're going to be... It's going to be busy again. And also, you know, we'll be here on Pod Save America and all of our other pods. And you can sign up at Friends of the Pod to be a subscriber. And we have a great community. And everyone is good to each other and shares their ideas.
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And we want to hear from you guys as well because the Democratic Party has a lot of work to do. We are at rock bottom.
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Let's hope. Let's hope. And as Dan said- Well, at least we're still a party.
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For a party, for sure. Maybe not the country, but for the party, we're pretty much at rock bottom. So it's going to take everyone to figure out how the hell to get us out of this.
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And as Dan said in his message box, got to support progressive media. We got to have some alternative to this. Yeah.
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All right, everyone. Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday, and we will see you then. Bye, everyone. Bye. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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cliched fascism I'll call it that's the sort of Stephen Miller style it's like proud boys crossing the Delaware it's a fishistic rhetoric that's not like we've all heard before and it's not a lot of creativity behind it it's just sort of lame and then it just got like very specific very very quickly but to me that's like a little more modern you know like I next Democratic president I'd like them just to get to business just talk to just talk about what they're going to do for the country
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Yeah, what I was really feeling when I was watching him speak is, oh, eight years ago when Trump addressed the country, he did it really kind of unsure of what it meant to be president and what rules he had to respect and what rules he didn't, what customs he believed in and had value in, which customs he didn't.
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And now I do think he, like, these speeches that are for everybody, he just doesn't give a fuck about them. He doesn't care what the media says. He doesn't care how they're covered. He doesn't really see much of the value of it. Donald Trump gave two speeches. He gave his inaugural and then he went to this overflow. His speech at the overflow where he really let rip was over 30, right?
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That was the real Donald Trump. This is the Donald Trump he has to do once in a while for the squares.
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Not for nothing. It was also the most like self-involved, self-referential inaugural of all time, maybe. I think that beats his first. But I don't know, Tommy, you just listen to the first one again. So you tell me if I'm wrong, but like talks about the assassination attempt. Fine.
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But then, you know, it is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.
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Yeah, he starts talking about swing states, his election results. They tried to take away my freedom and my life. Again, he conflates him breaking the law and then people trying to investigate him with an assassin that had apparently no political leanings, really, that just tried to take his life. So it's very, you know, he's focused on what's important, which is him.
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You think, yeah, so you want to say there's a dose of humility. Yes, yes, exactly. No, I thought so. Speech wasn't the only component of the weekend's big celebration. He also did a big victory rally at Capital One Arena on Sunday.
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That also served as the overflow room for most people to watch the address, unless you were, you know, a member of the incoming cabinet, leadership in Congress, former president, and of course, a billionaire tech guy. founder or CEO. Those are the people who got the good seats. Trump swung by the overflow room afterwards to say hi, signed some executive orders. We're going to talk about that.
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We're going to talk about the 33-minute speech he gave to the overflow room, which is longer than the 29-minute inaugural address, which also, by the way, I guess is the longest inaugural address since Roosevelt in the modern era, which is wild. There were also a lot of balls, big parties, Snoop performed, Peter Thiel held a ball, Mark Zuckerberg held a party, CEO of TikTok had a party.
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What do you guys think of this, the weekend in general and sort of the optics of the event, the vibes, the vibes in Washington this weekend? Anyone have any thoughts?
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And look, if history is any good, you want to keep those folks busy, especially in D.C. That's true.
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this weekend is the the you know he's about to take office it's his final chance to do open corruption before he's actually president so that the corruption he can do while president begins but it felt like the end of any kind of pretense that he's not going to just be openly corrupt and basically sell access to the white house to these people i mean that's what this weekend was it was a big sale
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And I was thinking like, oh, like maybe he's maybe he's sort of empathetic to people who like waiters and servers who work for tips because he's going to be the first president that does work for tips, which I think is something that is exciting. Yeah. Don't forget to tip your president, which is, I think, the motto of this weekend. That's right.
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He just wants to be a host. Yeah. That's it. He loves it. Just the tip presidency. Yeah, that's right. Okay. It's just the tip presidency. Pod title? Workshop in that. Stan's idea. Workshop in that. One other notable moment to that end in the speech, he referenced the fires in Los Angeles at one point. Apparently he's going to Los Angeles on Friday. And, you know, he brought up the fires.
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He also brought up Hurricane Helene because he wanted to basically show that leadership that's not him is incompetent and all that kind of stuff. But he also said this when he was talking about the fires.
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That is interesting. Who was he talking about that lost a home that was on the dais?
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Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess it's somewhat reassuring to know that we have oligarchs in Los Angeles, because at least that means we'll have to get some protection from the federal government if we need it. Yeah, someone's summer house in Malibu probably got hit. I don't know.
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Oh, I don't think we're getting protection from... I think they're going to hire their own protection. No, that's right.
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What I took away from it was there's some rich person there who may have lost their house, which is terrible. And this is how Donald Trump governs. Someone nearby him told him this story, and now he is recounting it.
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He literally thinks it's interesting. Maybe we're reading too much. He just thinks it's interesting that some rich people lost their homes.
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Flipping on TikTok or any other policies that are going to come out of this administration, they are going to run through a gauntlet of rich people talking to Donald Trump directly about them casually in the places Donald Trump hangs out with his biggest backers. And that's what I took from this.
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We're going to get to the overflow room speech at the end. It's a good one. So speech is pretty light on foreign policy. Trump welcomed the Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal, said the usual stuff about defending our own borders instead of other countries' borders and blah, blah, blah. Nothing new there. But he also made what sounded like some conflicting promises. Let's listen.
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so i guess i'm for this i think we should take the panama you want it back by force let's let's let's not let's hope it doesn't come to that but that's not really up to why do you want it back we built it and then jimmy carter may his memory be a blessing just gives it back because of some protests we're taking it back what if france takes the statue of liberty back they can try what are they gonna do what are they gonna do
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I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We did it, guys. We did it. It's Monday afternoon, East Coast time, and in the words of Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, Daddy's home.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. Daylight saving time means longer days, but unfortunately, burglars take advantage of that too. Wow, that's great. FBI crime data shows break-ins are more likely during daylight hours than under the cloak of night. Protect your home with SimpliSafe's proactive security that helps stop threats before they happen.
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Well, also, it's like, what does he mean there? Right. The courts can't stop us as in what we're doing is legal. Right. The courts can't stop us because the courts don't have jurisdiction. The courts can't stop us because we're going to ignore their rulings where we don't believe we have to follow them or there's no way to stop us if if we don't.
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On today's show, Donald Trump keeps taking this country to darker places, and the Democrats are, per usual, in disarray. We've got an exclusive interview later with Hakeem Jeffries about the fallout from the shutdown fight and his break with Chuck Schumer. The three of us will also debate what could have been... And talk about what's next for Democrats.
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I think part of this is like it's worth separating out. There's where they're taking the law. the letter of the law and using it in novel or kind of aggressive ways that haven't been used before, the ways in which they're just breaking the law, right? But fundamentally, this is about intent, right?
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There was a lot of what we have in our immigration systems, a lot of people who have skirted the law or ignored the brokenness of the system. But there was an understanding on green card holders that, like, yeah, everyone knows that they are not citizens and there are ways in which they can lose their right to be in this country.
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But for the most part, if you had a green card in this country, no, you can't be on a jury. No, you can't vote. You can't run for office. But other than that, you can work. You can apply for jobs. You're protected by the First Amendment. You're living here on the path to becoming a citizen. And we all collectively respect that.
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If you were born here, right, even if your parents weren't from here, you had the protections of – And what they are trying to do is slowly undermine that basic assumption, right? Like my friend, they have relatives from the Middle East that are here on a green card and they were going to go home because they have life there and they're only here part of the year.
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And they're just like, no, they're going to have to stay. They're afraid because they're afraid that if they go to the airport, they're going to touch that system. Right. That system that nobody has any confidence in. I think they're right. And that's already happened.
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We're already through whatever the legal justification, whatever the case is, where they're going to follow the law or not follow it is no longer. You can no longer trust that the government will respect that you have a green card.
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Or they're trying to get a case to the Supreme Court that is the best possible case for them in front of the Supreme Court, right? Because there's varying degrees of this. So the hearing today, we're recording this Monday afternoon, Judge Boasberg, who is the judge involved in the Venezuelan gang case.
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basically said to the government, to the DOJ, like, isn't the better course to just return the planes to the US and then figure out what to do? And if you don't like my order, you can challenge my order and it can either be amended or changed or whatever else. By the way, the DOJ before the hearing or during the hearing tried to have him removed from the case.
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We'll also talk about Trump's claim that Joe Biden's preemptive pardons for January 6th committee are void and vacant, which followed a speech at the Department of Justice where he again threatened government officials and journalists. But first, we have to talk about the biggest and most alarming development from over the weekend.
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They asked the DC Circuit to have him removed from the case. And then the judge asked the government details about the flights. How many flights left? When did they leave? And the DOJ response was those are operational issues and I am not at liberty to provide information. So the judge was like so exasperated at the end of the hearing. He said, I want a written like I want information immediately.
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I want you to tell me information about all this. And so I'm guessing that that's going to get now, you know, appealed up the chain.
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Two other moments from what that judge said is one, he said, I'm sorry, are the words I say out loud less impactful to you? Do you have to follow them? Because I didn't write it down. And the lawyer to their, I guess, credit or detriment said, I'm not willing to say what our position is. I'm not quite yet because I feel like I'm over my skis.
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And then the other part of it, which is happening, by the way, to some of these lawyers. And you're seeing this in some of these cases, in some of the Doge cases, too. The judge is getting like exasperated at the government and the government's like, I'm just trying to do my job.
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Which I would just surprise a lot of judges who treat their courtroom like a place where they are fucking God. And the other the other part of it is and I was is just the lawyer saying, well, we were over international waters. And so the judge is like, I'm sorry, can you explain that to me? Does the president have extreme other powers over international waters?
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Yeah, can the president just put a bunch of people on planes, put them over international waters and then have them executed? Is that the new thing now? Also, you can track all these flights.
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So last thing before we move off this, I saw a lot of MAGA pundits on social media like CNN's Scott Jennings gloating that Trump has once again goaded Democrats into taking the losing side of an 80-20 issue. You guys think that's right?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Look, I think more I'm like, so I guess due process is a 20-80 issue now? That's probably a big fucking problem for us, right? Like they're just sort of – this is indefensible. It's indefensible to not put this before a judge if you believe in sort of the basic tenets – of the American judicial system, of the Constitution.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
You understand that, yeah, of course, you have the right to deport members of a dangerous Venezuelan gang back to where they come from. Fine. But you have to go through a judge. You have to go through the courts. They don't want to make the argument that the president is a dictator. So they're like, this is the hill you're going to die on. And it's like, well, you know what?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Maybe we'd like to live on it. Maybe we'll go up top of the hill and see if we can survive up here.
Pod Save America
A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
which is that the Trump administration is now rounding up deporting and jailing people in foreign prisons without due process, no evidence, no hearings, no judges. The president has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a law which was last used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II,
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah. You know what? They're going to do a bunch of polls. You can show me all the polls with. Do you support deporting violent criminals? Do you support deporting gang members? And it's going to be an 80, 20, 90, 10 issue, whatever. I support that, too. Right. Let me write the poll question like any of us could write a poll question that would get a different result. Right.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Which is like, do you support the U.S. government rounding up people and jailing them in foreign countries without a hearing? I bet that's an 80-20 issue. I bet that's a 90-10 issue.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah. The other part of it is, too, is, you know, they're just deporting criminal aliens. And I do think they are relying on the fact that when most Americans imagine – They imagine people who don't speak English. They imagine people who look like immigrants, right? They're not picturing a Norman Rockwell painting, right?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
There's a lot of American citizens that don't look like a Norman Rockwell painting.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That's why I mentioned the German guy, the German citizen who looks just like Tommy. And by the way, there's...
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
You're deporting people. Nine. Yeah, sleep herself. But like, there are a lot of people that vote over Donald Trump that don't look like a Norman Rockwell painting, that didn't think this would apply to them. There have been stories already. We were like, wait a second. When he said he was going to go after undocumented people, I didn't think they would come for my wife.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, Trump voter, I think he was also in Wisconsin and he's marrying a woman who was going through the process to get legalized. Like literally like had the papers going through the whole process and then they just took her away and that's it.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And even despite all that, we got a Senate minority leader that everybody hates. Yeah.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
to deport 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are being held in a mega prison that's been accused of human rights abuses. The Trump administration claims it has the authority to deport these migrants due to their alleged membership in Trende Aragua. a Venezuela-based gang that Trump's Justice Department has labeled a terrorist organization.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Pod Save America is brought to you by Uplift Desk. Muscles are vital for movement. That is true. And play a key role in supporting the vascular system. The calves, often called the second heart, help pump blood against gravity, aiding circulation throughout the body.
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By using a standing desk and incorporating movement accessories, you are more likely to engage these muscles, promoting improved blood flow and overall health. How's your calf pump? Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I think Tommy was going to get calf implants, right? I did in the 90s when I got rid of them. And then instead we both got uplift desks.
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I mean, well, the thing is. You're a big fan. I walked in one day and Tommy and Lovett had the Uplift Desk. And I didn't. And I made a huge mistake. Started with FOMO. I didn't respond to an email in time. So it got an Uplift Desk. And now I'm the one who stands the most. You love it. But you can, you know, they go up and down. You just hit a little button and you go up.
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And then when you get a little tired, you go down and you sit. It's great.
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I love that. A desk should fit the user, which is why Uplift Desk has a lot of customization options so you can build your perfect workspace. With more than 200,000 configurations, Uplift Desk allows you to tailor your workspace to perfectly suit your style and needs, empowering you to create an environment that inspires productivity and creativity. These are beautiful-looking desks.
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They're very nice, yeah. Standing aside. It's got a cool cup holder. I was never a standing desk person, and I am such a convert now. So if you also have looked at standing desks and you're like, eh, I don't know if that's for me, give it a whirl.
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Stand, move, thrive with Uplift Desk. Lest you think Trump is only going after immigrants, consider his late Sunday night Truth Social post where the president declared that the preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave to the members of the House Select January 6th committee are, quote, void, vacant and of no further force or effect because of the fact that they were done by auto pen.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Joe Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he did not know anything about them. End quote. I'm glad that more importantly is there, to be honest. That's going to actually be quite important later, I think. Trump went on to say that the J6 committee members are now, quote, subject to investigation at the highest level, end quote.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Those claims followed a vengeful speech delivered at the Department of Justice on Friday. Here's a clip.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But the administration has offered no evidence of this, which is one reason why a U.S. district court judge temporarily blocked the deportations and ordered the flights carrying the migrants to return to the United States.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Ninety seven point six percent. Very specific. Let's start with the pardons. What do you guys think? Did Trump figure out a way to prosecute Liz Cheney by discovering the classic auto pen loophole in the president's pardon power?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
First of all, I first saw, you know, Trump posted something on one of his various platforms that had the three previous presidents. And it showed his portrait from 2017, then showed a picture of an auto pen. And then it showed Trump in twenty twenty five. And when I saw that, I saw and I went, huh, Joe Biden was so old, it was an auto pen that was president.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And I was like- That's what I thought too. And I saw that and I thought, ugh. you know, I want to laugh at this, but I bet this portends something fucking awful. You know, I really did. I was like, what is this going to be about?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And sure enough, and sure enough, the next day it was that Joe Biden used the auto pen to sign these pardons and didn't know about them, and therefore they are void, which ultimately will not stand up as long as somebody can get Joe Biden in front of a fucking camera or microphone in the next couple of days. I saw he tweeted about St. Patrick's Day today, so... Great. Hope and history rhyme.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But the real issue is what this is going to do is force a bunch of people who receive lawful, legitimate pardons to defend themselves in court. This is about wasting the time and scaring a bunch of people that Donald Trump considers enemies.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But, and here's the kicker, two senior officials told Axios the Trump administration ignored the judge's order because the flights were already over international waters when the ruling came down. The White House posted footage of the immigrants landing in El Salvador, and the country's president posted a story about the ruling with...
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Given because you know who asked for that opinion, George W. Bush asked his DOJ for that, and it has remained ever since 2005.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And also, by the way, they've been claiming, oh, if you look, all the signatures are identical. Therefore, they're from an auto pen. But actually... It turns out that the way these things are uploaded into the Library of Congress, it may automatically put the auto-penned version of the signature in the signature position. So we actually – we don't even know, right?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They're assuming because I believe Trump and somebody in the Trump White House saw that the Heritage Foundation has something called the Oversight Project. That pulled up all the signatures. They did a kind of red string kind of –
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The National Archives came out and said that the digitized version of official documents in the archives use the same image of the president's signature, regardless of who's in office. So at the beginning of every term, they get a digitized version of the president's signature.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And in the archives that you go online to see, they put that on every single document, whether that's the actual signature or not. So that's so they're just looking at the wrong thing. And also, there's plenty of photos of Biden signing laws by hand in person.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Executive orders, laws, the whole thing. There was a controversy about this. Obama did. Yeah, Obama, when he was in Europe and they used an auto pen to sign a law.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, and I remember at the time, just to be honest, I was like, eh, I kind of want the president to get his hands on that pen for laws. I do think that, like, this is all obviously ridiculous. Now... Everybody, everybody took that memo as being correct. Presidents can affix their signature.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
By the way, like there's nothing magical if a president uses a pen or president like let's say a president uses a pen or president uses a device that has a pen still signing the fucking document. But, you know. I would like Joe Biden to come out there.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Now that we've dug into the calligraphy, just like zooming out on this DOJ speech, this thing, it does, you know, Trump said America's success will be my retribution. It feels like that might not be the case.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It seems like that was a little in joke for them. Yeah. Just to be clear, like, yes, we are. Again, Donald Trump introduces the auto pen thing and everyone's like, well, who did sign it? How did they sign it? You have to kind of chase all these things down.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But if they didn't have the auto pen nonsense, they'd find some other fig leaf to go after these people some way outside of the pardon to go after Donald Trump's enemy. This speech was a speech about targeting all of these people, regardless of what their pardon says.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
quote, oopsie, too late, laughing emoji, which then got an RT from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Isn't that great? I want to get into all of this, especially the Republicans' roundabout claims that they didn't violate the court's order. But first, general reactions from you guys.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And by the way, they will find presidents don't give political speeches at the Department of Justice. Presidents don't give many speeches at all at the Department of Justice. I think Obama went at the very end of his term. But you don't give a speech at the DOJ that's about like targeting your enemies unless you're trying to send a signal.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Lovett set it up himself, so anyone can do it. You can do it. And he's a big SimpliSafe fan. With SimpliSafe, millions of Americans enjoy greater security and peace of mind every time they arm their system when heading out each morning or when locking up each night. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Well, you know what? That's a good segue to the Democrats. Nice. Oh, yeah. The Democrats.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We're absolutely crushing it, guys. So after Dan and I last spoke on Thursday, 10 Senate Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted to break the filibuster and allow Republicans to pass their six month spending bill to keep the government open.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Schumer's decision to let the bill pass came after a week where just about every Senate Democrat voiced opposition to the legislation, which boosts defense spending and makes cuts to programs like Head Start, community health centers, and after nearly every House Democrat had voted against it. All but one, in fact. As you might imagine, the backlash has been fierce.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's come from elected and non-elected Democrats across the ideological spectrum, moderates, progressives, the whole group, including Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi. And it's mostly been directed towards Schumer. We've been going back and forth here for weeks on the right shutdown strategy.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Dan has written several message boxes about it, which is why you know it's both important and tricky. So we thought just as an exercise, just as an intellectual exercise for all you listeners, we'd kick off the conversation about this by presenting the best argument in favor of what Schumer did and the best argument against what Schumer did.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And then we can all get into how we really feel and where we ultimately come down. So Tommy's going to take the pro Schumer argument. Lovett's going to take the anti Schumer argument. I'm going to play moderator and give each of you guys follow ups. And again, a disclaimer for anyone who wasn't paying attention or may see these clips out of context on the Internet.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
These roles were assigned in advance and do not necessarily reflect the views of the people making the argument.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Tommy, take us away. Pro Schumer? Why are you so happy with Chuck Schumer?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So here's the problem. And I think you are. I think that is accurately characterizing the argument that we heard in favor of voting for this. But I think embedded in that argument, like I didn't understand why voting for the CR was so wrong until I heard these arguments in favor of it. And the argument you heard from Chuck Schumer is basically there is no off ramp.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
that there could be a prolonged shutdown that lasts between six and eight months, and it will allow Trump and Doge to accelerate the lawless cuts that they're already making. It is a way for Trump and Musk to kind of complete their Doge agenda without the protection of the courts, without the protection of Congress deciding how the money is spent.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And to me, the problem with that is it basically, it shows two things. It says, one, Republicans do not need to negotiate with Democrats because they know that Democrats are so afraid of the consequences of a shutdown that they will vote for something even though they had no say in what it was. Right.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
What you're talking about, the reason Chuck Schumer was bluffing is that he was hoping that there would be some resolution of a bipartisan process. There wasn't. That came to nothing. So what they were hoping, right, they were as they were observers hoping that the Republican only bill wouldn't be able to get through the House.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That ended up not being the case and that something would come of these bipartisan negotiations. That was not the case. And so what happened? Democrats had to choose at the end of this process between basically voting for a bill that was negotiated without them, for which they got nothing. Right. They had demands. I mean, I don't think they were clear about that, but they had demands. Right.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
First of all, clean CR, which this wasn't, right? This increased defense spending and cut a bunch of programs, cut funding for D.C. And that Congress does something to reassert its supremacy over spending in this country, right? Over the basic constitutional principle that Congress controls the purse.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And what Republicans were counting on was that Democrats would cave and that they were so afraid of Elon Musk and Donald Trump that they wouldn't be willing to endure a shutdown. Why is it that Chuck Schumer is afraid a shutdown could last six months?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's because he believes that Republicans will not care about the consequences and he believes Republicans will not worry about the political fallout of those consequences. So they don't care about hurting people and they don't think they'll pay any price, even though the polls, I don't disagree with you, Tommy, that over time, Republicans might be able to successfully blame Democrats.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But at the outset of this fight, Republicans who control the Senate, control the House, control the White House, were the ones voters were more likely to blame. They were more likely to blame Trump and Republicans than they were to blame the Democrats. Stepping all the way back.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The fundamental challenge of fighting democratic backsliding is Donald Trump has the power of lawlessness and he has the power of institutions.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
In this case, what Chuck Schumer is explicitly saying is my fear of the way Donald Trump abuses his power in this arena actually makes him even more powerful, gives him even more leverage in the legitimate institutional arena where he has constitutional authority. That is incredibly dangerous. There's an opening scene in the movie Lethal Weapon where a man is threatening to jump off of a building.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
and Mel Gibson is trying to negotiate out of it and he realizes there's no way to do it. He has to throw his handcuffs on the guy and jump with him and aim him toward a soft landing. That the only way to fight someone that is crazier than you, that cares about the consequences less than you, is to show that you're a little bit crazy too.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And until we figure out how to, like, Republicans count on Democrats to be responsible, and until we're willing to show that we can take some pain, that we're as tough as they are, that they don't get to count on us to protect them from their own decisions, we will constantly, constantly lose these fights.
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Plus, switch therapists at any time. Your well-being is worth it. For a limited time, visit BetterHelp.com to get 90% off your first week. That's BetterHelp.com. I have been thinking about this a lot because when the election first happened and we knew there was going to be a government funding fight after it was punted the first time in like December or whatever, I was like, this is it.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
This is the only leverage Democrats are going to have because we're not going to be able to stop reconciliation, right? Because they have the votes. We're not going to be able to stop everything else. We're going to have to rely on the courts. And this is it. This is the big one. So obviously we have to use our leverage here.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And yet the arguments that Tommy was making, I've been thinking about because I'm like, all right, let's say that Schumer says, let's go for it. Let's shut this thing down. what is the ultimate goal of a shutdown? And then what makes us think that Trump will cave to any kind of public pressure or sort of political pressure at this point?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
When he, we just spent quite a bit talking about how he is defying court orders, rounding up people and sending them to El Salvador and all the other shit that he's done and all the stuff that Doge has done. And I think that I would bet that there's a pretty good chance that Trump and Elon, and Elon is excited about the shutdown, that they supercharge everything.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They start firing a bunch of people. They keep a whole bunch of agencies closed. Where there is potential for political pain in some agencies, they send out payments and they keep those agencies running and they keep those people on staff. And then all the other stuff that Democrats want, they just shut down indefinitely and
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
legally then you have much less leverage in court because during a shutdown the executive branch basically has all the power and can do whatever they want which is what donald trump and elon musk really want and so then i don't know what makes them actually open the government again and by the way democrats at that point could say all right we're going to cave
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We'll open the government again because 800,000 people are without pay right now. Probably half of them are working, which is what happened in the last shutdown. There was 400,000 working without pay and 400,000 that just weren't working and still didn't get paid. And so Democrats tried to cave. And then Republicans could say, no, we actually, you can't decide that the government's back open.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We decide when the government's back open. And now Donald Trump just sort of runs the government. So I think about that. And then I'm like, but to your point, Lovett, Like, OK, are we in an emergency or are we not in an emergency? And if we're in an emergency, then maybe we think, OK, that's all going to happen. What I just laid out and that they don't want to open the government again.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But we have to do something to grab people's attention and grab the country's attention and say, like, this is an emergency. And this person is seizing control of the government and destroying democracy. And then that's the only way to do it. But we should be clear eyed that I do not I would not expect Republicans to cave very easily or maybe at all if we went into a shutdown.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But that but to me and I and I want to also say that, like, we live in the luxury of the timeline when Chuck Schumer did this. Right. And and for a lot of and for it is probably the easiest politics to say Chuck Schumer was wrong to be a hundred to be a fighting Democrat and say Chuck Schumer sold us out.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I would have gone all the way like I would love I would love to have just been able to come on and just say that. And that's it. Right.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And I still think that's where I probably come down. But I don't I just don't think it's as easy.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But I don't I and I don't think it's as easy. But where I finally land is like this. All of the arguments to me against, right, like are basically arguments that we're already in some kind of a dictatorship, right?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That either democratic accountability is not possible, that not enough people care about having a functioning federal government on everything from Veterans Affairs to TSA, or that the law is so weak and the courts are so weak and Congress so weak that Donald Trump will be able to do whatever he wants during a shutdown, however long it lasts.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Like all of these are arguments for saying, well, hold on a second. So then we just... turnover. That's the only option we have. If we are signaling to Republicans that we are so afraid of the consequences of what happens during a shutdown because we don't trust the American people to figure out who's responsible, we don't trust the American people to care enough to take their country back.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We've kind of given up the game. And by the way, even if that is what we were afraid of, even if we were completely correct in that fear, all of that, I'm not sure that's the right message that Chuck Schumer should have been saying. Right. But like just admitting that, like, I'm sorry, Trump is too powerful. He's going to do too much damage. Therefore, we're just going to capitulate and roll.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And we're never going to make a clear set of demands. And we're not going to make those demands our vote contingent on those demands. Yeah.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So far. I just want to note for the producers of the interview, that music cue was fucked up. All right. It came in way too early. It was way too soft. It was weird. I paused, rewound it. I thought there was something wrong. I was in my kitchen. I thought there was like an alarm.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Part of the challenge, too, is maybe the biggest that I've been thinking about is Democrats didn't know what to ask for. And we've all kind of allied at this when I say we, I don't just mean the three of us, like everyone, because everyone's like, well, there's a lot of things we could have asked for. It's like, no, no, let's go through them. Right. Because it's what we're saying.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's not we could ask for a clean CR. Right. Dan and I talked about this a little bit. And then you go around and say, no, no, no.
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We will only keep the government open if you reverse the cuts to I guess it's community health centers and Head Start which are popular things but in the context of all we're talking about right it's like the end of democracy everything Trump's doing seems a little small right. The DC cuts, there's like a billion dollars from the DC budget is horrible. That's already getting fixed.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And it looks like the house is now they're saying the house is likely to take that up. The Senate has already did a standalone vote to fix that and to restore the DC budget cuts. So once that's gone, and then I saw Dan say this, that there was like a, it basically Congress now can't even vote on the tariffs on Trump's tariffs, but it's like, they weren't going to do that anyway.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's a Republican controlled Congress. They were going to let him do whatever the fuck he wanted on tariffs. So that doesn't really make it for me. And then there was the, oh, we should ask for guardrails around Doge. And I never really got that either because it's like Elon Musk and Doge right now is all over the place illegally cutting government.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And now you're going to say, here's another law that you can break by putting some Doge handcuffs on it. So I don't know that anything, any of the specifics we're asking for would have worked unless... I've come back to the accelerationist argument unless or you're just saying like, no, no, no, it's not about anything.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's about the fact that since he has taken office in the second term, he has broken the law. He has taken our tax dollars and done whatever he want with them. We did not vote for this. Half the country didn't vote for this. We're not being represented in this government. He's breaking the law. He's just trampling on our rights.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
He is he's destroying like cancer research and health care and all that. And then just make it a huge fight about everything. Like, that's the only thing I can think of, because I do think making a shutdown about a specific issue here or there is just not really going to work.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I also think you could imagine two scenarios that are completely different that would have been better than where we're at. One scenario is Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer early on say, you know what? Like weeks ago, maybe months ago, said Elon Musk right now and Donald Trump, they want nothing more than a government shutdown and we're not going to give it to him. So we're just going to pass.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We're going to keep the government funded and we're just going to keep fighting whatever. Right. I don't think it wouldn't be his headspin. Right. Or they could have joined together in the same press conference months ago and said, you know what?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
watching what Elon Musk is doing right now, watching what Donald Trump's doing right now, Democrats are not going to give one vote ever to fund a government that is doing this kind of damage to the country. And again, prepped everyone in advance. The head spinning shit was the worst.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I mean, I would go a step further than that and say, even if you're not Venezuelan, I think this should terrify every single person in the country. Oh, absolutely. I'm just talking about the current young.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The other, so I think this too, yes, I don't even think you need to go that far, right? You say like, we will support funding the government, the whole government. That means restoring the social security offices. You make a whole list of the things. Right. And the Democratic goal right now isn't to prevent short term pain. It's just not. The stakes are too high.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We're not getting to the end of this with a lot of terrible pain. Like we are not getting out of what is a fascistic right wing authoritarian government and a pliant Republican Congress without a lot of pain. It's coming one way or the other. And so the goal is to preserve these institutions. Right now, one of our great challenges is waking people up to the threat.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We had an opportunity to wake people up to the threat. And it says something about the politics of this moment that a lot of Republicans, even when they're trying to be at their most craven, say we would rather a fight over reconciliation where we're powerless than a fight over the CR where we actually have power.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And I just, like, if that is what we're saying, that we would rather just kind of be yelling passengers, because I think that's gonna put us in a better position for 2026, I think that's pretty dangerous, especially when there's no guarantee we're gonna get another reconciliation. There may be another CR fight down the road, We may like we don't know what the future holds.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So I mean, this is we should talk about moving forward. So there's a couple of things moving forward. There is what happens to Chuck Schumer, his position. There is what happens in the next time we're here, the next funding fight, which is the end of September.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But I'm saying, the reason why I think everyone should be terrified by this, I think when you first hear about it, Your reaction, total understandable reaction is, oh, this gang is a violent gang. They've done horrific things. Of course we don't want these people in our country, right? Absolutely. No doubt.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And then there's the debt ceiling, which we don't know how that's going to come, because they could either try to do the debt ceiling in reconciliation, which means they wouldn't need Democrats or if they can't get the. Freedom Caucus to agree to that. They would need Democrats for a standalone vote on the debt ceiling.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I should just say, by the way, because we haven't covered this, the hope that Democrats wouldn't be in this position that we were just in because the hardline Republicans in the House wouldn't pass a CR was always a little crazy to me because we are in this scenario where people do whatever Donald Trump says.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And the idea and like, yes, the hardliners have caused trouble before, but that's when Joe Biden was president.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
By the way, okay, I hope that too. I hope the hard choice isn't coming. But let's assume it is.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Let's assume it is. So let's start with Schumer, right? Do we think his position as a leader is safe and should it be?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah. I also, like, I didn't realize that Chuck Schumer was about to supposedly go on a book tour, right? That this was a vote that was going to lead into his book tour on his anti-Semitism book, which is now put on hold. And it's just a little business as usual. Like, they are... They are unilaterally dismantling federal agencies. We are in a crisis.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
By the way, even if you say they fucked up by not having a message leading all the way up until 48 hours before the vote, there's a lot that could have happened in that 48 hours. They could have taken a stand. They could have held the floor.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
for Social Security offices saying we are filibustering this vote and we're going to make you all stay here all night and all day tomorrow because we don't think it's right that seniors can't get a hold of their Social Security officials and we don't want to shut down. We don't want this, but this is wrong.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I'll also say, I think the House Democrats are genuinely outraged at the Senate Democrats. They have every right to be. And I say this not to either absolve Chuck Schumer or to blame other Senate Democrats, but this was more of a group decision than it appears in a lot of the coverage. And you can tell that by the votes and who broke.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But if they are going outside the legal system here and there's no hearings and no judges and no opportunity for evidence, like an ICE agent can come to your door. Say you're a citizen. They don't let you prove you're a citizen. You can't contact a lawyer. They take you away. You don't get a hearing. You don't see a judge. No one knows where you are. You end up in El Salvador.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Like the people who voted with Schumer were people in leadership.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
and people who are retiring and don't have to face the anger voters and some of the some of the members who were in the toughest states and the purple states who have to face another election like they came out in opposition to the bill but like they didn't really want to shut down and i think it was more of a group thing and i only say that because as people start talking about oh should we have another leader i think one of the reasons that you're hearing from senate democrats who
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
voted a different way than Schumer, that they still respect him, is because they know that they all thought about this, but they all kind of decided to jump together on this one.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But I do think that points to, like, they all came to a decision. Let's say most of them came to a decision that this was the right thing to do, even though the politics were kind of shitty. But part of the reason the politics were shitty is that nobody really made a good argument for any of this.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I also think, like, they just, they can't... they've got to be honest with us. Like part of this is they meet behind closed doors. They're like, oh God, we know that the base is going to be angry with us, but we also know that a shutdown is bad. So we got to go out there and get on our, do our videos where we say this is a horrible CR.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And then suddenly we can just, and then Chuck will take all the bullets for us, you know? And I like,
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I get the strategy there, but if you don't want the backlash that's happening right now, just talk to us all like we're adults and be honest with us and be transparent about what's happening because people could still be disappointed, but it will be a lot better than what people are feeling now, which is that they were hiding the ball the whole time.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I found that when there was all these... When they were putting out these videos that were like, this is a terrible CR and we're voting no. It's like, well, okay. On cloture? It fooled me for a while.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I had this... I was writing the script when I was going with Dan that I'm like, it looks like we're heading for a shutdown. And then Schumer came out and I was like, oh, it was all bullshit?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And it just feels like... I'm sorry, like... The videos about cloture versus – that is not for the – that is for the 500,000 freaks. For nobody, yeah. Who are the people that – like the five – you know what's – That is – that's for the freaks. When we were coming up in Politics Boys, there was something called The Note. Remember The Note? And there was something called – what was it called?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The Gang of 500. Remember that? And The Note would always – Big Mark Halpern fan over here. I'm just – but they – I know, I know. But they would talk about the Gang of 500, that basically politics was this insular discussion amongst these 500 people that all made the decisions or like got the – they were the ones that mattered. And obviously now we've moved beyond that.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But like I do think now there is this hyper-engaged group of 500,000 that are the people that are going to understand what's happening, really paying close attention. And I feel like –
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We're all a pain in the ass too. For sure. And like, it is a real bitch to govern where 500,000 people are always on your ass. There's a lot of board members. Yelling about everything. There's a lot of shareholders. I get that completely.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's tough. But like, I would like just, I just think like as an experiment, like, you know, talk about it in front of us the way you talked about it behind closed doors. I think people can fucking handle it.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Well, I do think now that we know the end of September is coming up for where we're going to be in this position again, maybe they should figure it out now and maybe make some, you know, decide now and talk about now what the strategy is going to be and whether they're going to, because look, I'm sure Republicans right now are like, oh, they're going to fold again.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The government claims you're a member of a domestic terrorist organization. A lawyer for one of the deported migrants, she posted a thread on Twitter. And she said her client fled Venezuela, sought asylum in the U.S. ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence that he's Tren de Aragua. That was before Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act. So that's when we were still doing hearings.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So maybe they come out right now and say, guess what? We're not voting on this again. We're not voting to fund the government again.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The other part of this too is, And the debt ceiling, I don't even wanna start on that. We keep discovering we're further down the kind of the authoritarian track every single time, every single time. If Democrats knew how bad things were right now,
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
would in in september october of last year the election would have felt different people would have talked about it differently then imagine where we will be in a year right like the point that uh that the times reporter made about uh by the time you realize uh you've you've you've done this authoritarian side you realize you're irrelevant we are headed in that direction it's happening it's it's happening right in front of our eyes
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And six months from now, I don't know how much power Congress is going to have as Donald Trump is slowly dismantling the government and ignoring court orders. But I don't want us to look back and wish we had fought harder now.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Don't they pull Secret Service from president's kids after they're out of office?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I think we're not going to get out of this without some kind of like mass mobilization. Yeah. And I think, you know, we I saw a quick preview of Dan's conversation with Hakeem Jeffries, and he sort of talked about people protesting peacefully, of course. But I do think and, you know, as Democrats think about their strategy going forward, like they need to ask people to, like, get involved, too.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Right. It's not just them. Like, we can't we're not going to we're not going to get out of this with even if there are great press conferences in front of buildings and just in the best videos that go so viral. Like, we're not getting out of this with that. Right. And I do think if you're going to build a move like this is why I like the town halls. I like this idea.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
If you're going to build a movement and a real opposition, like you need more people than just elected Democrats anyway.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And by the way, that also, I think, does argue. for the more accelerationist position, which is the base of your party, the people that you need to knock on doors, forget even knock on doors, the people that you count on, the people that are gonna march with you, they're the people clamoring for more fight, they are. And they'll be the ones that'll talk to their friends and neighbors.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They are gonna be the ones having these arguments in their homes, with their colleagues, with their friends, with their family, and they're begging you to fight harder. And I agree, I have this, I don't even know whether it's something to hope for or worry about, but I do see this. We are heading towards millions of people having to be in the streets.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That, to me, is one of the ways that this all comes to a head. And sometimes I worry about how soon that will be, and then sometimes I worry that people aren't going to show up. And I think, what is a democratic politics that slowly builds the momentum for that kind of a mass mobilization? And it is certainly not approving this CR. the way that they did.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And I think that's why you've got to fight on every front. And I get that we all know the polls, right? I get that like protecting Medicare and Social Security, the most popular things. But You know, when the government is now rounding up people and then deporting them without a hearing, I realize that immigration is not our best issue. And right now it's his best approval, right, of any issue.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But then he signs it. So the attorney for the migrant planned to introduce evidence at trial that he's not actually a member of Trend de Aragua. Had a whole bunch of evidence of why he's not. Said he's an LGBT guy who was in the arts in Venezuela and the tattoo meant something else, whatever. Never got the chance to do this because there was no hearing.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It's immigration. But that's also because people aren't making noise about what's really happening. And they're not just, you know, deporting the worst criminals.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And we have to fight on every issue that's going to get people organized and out into the streets. You just have to. All right. To continue the conversation about the fallout from the government shutdown, Dan sat down with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday morning. We're going to get to that. Before we do, some quick news from Crooked Media.
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The first two episodes from Crooked's newest podcast, Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker, are out now. This is the type of true crime drama you actually want to hear. It starts in the summer of 1982 when the Vatican's top money man was found dead. His death was ruled a suicide, but the evidence tells a different story.
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Journalist Niccolo Mainoni is following a new lead that could finally answer the question, who killed God's banker? Listen to the first two episodes of Shadow Kingdom, God's banker right now, wherever you get your podcasts or better yet, join our friends of the pod community to binge all the episodes today at cricket.com slash friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple podcast feed. Also love it.
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Yes, we are. For once. We are coming back to the Lincoln Theater in D.C. on Thursday, April 24th, the weekend of White House Correspondents Dinner. We're going to have a pretty exciting show lined up. More about the guests coming soon. But those tickets are going to go on sale for Friends of the Pod first starting, I think, today when you're hearing this.
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The pre-sale is for Friends of the Pod. You can get that if you're a subscriber. That's where you can get the code. It'll be in the Discord. It'll be on Terminator Online. And if not, on Wednesday, the general sale will start.
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As always, go to cricket.com slash friends to join, become a friend to the pod. And you can get tickets for Love It or Leave It starting on Wednesday at cricket.com slash events. When we come back, Hakeem Jeffries. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. What if I told you the most important part of your spring cleaning routine is your sock drawer? Yep, you heard that right.
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I mean, I walked right out of the studio. Bomba socks are great. I actually need some.
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Yeah, because I wore the ones I have so much that there was like little holes in them. Wore them into the ground? Yeah, that's the problem. But they're so comfy. Like five years later. And everyone in our family has them. We're a big Bombas family. Bombas is going international. Enjoy worldwide shipping to over 200 countries.
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Disappeared from the online detainee locator. The lawyer couldn't contact him, was deported. Now no one can find this person. This person is in a – you should talk a little bit, Tommy, about the prison in El Salvador because it is just a huge, huge prison and the conditions there are very bad.
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Well, to come back to the video, like, People like Tucker Carlson have been holding up El Salvador as a model. The far right has been holding up El Salvador as a model. The reason Trump is doing this is because A, these are people who are, the people Trump claims to be targeting are the kind of people that the Republicans view as indefensible.
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Thanks to Hakeem Jeffries for joining us today. Everyone have a great day, and we will be back in your feed with a new episode on Friday.
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And tell us what you thought of the new studio setup. Look at this. We moved some things around.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
You don't wanna be caught defending Venezuelan gang members who are here in this country illegally. And B, they want to hold up El Salvador as an example of what happens when you really bring the hammer down, if you really wanna address crime. They're going to start by eating away at due process for undocumented immigrants, visa holders and then green card holders and ultimately citizens.
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Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
You know, you talked about the Marco Rubio example. Marco Rubio is claiming, oh, I have broad powers. I have broad discretion. Look at what the law says. You got to go in front of a judge and prove that a student protest a year ago. is a current threat to the United States, right? You can't just claim it. You have to go in front of a judge and prove it.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That's what they're afraid of doing, or when they do it, that's what they're trying to ignore.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Also, to the extent that there are criminals in the United States, undocumented criminals, violent criminals, The reason they are here is not because the government is losing in court. These are not even traditional courts. These are immigration courts. And so the standard by which you can deport someone is much lower.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And the president already has broad, broad powers to deport people in this country. The government could have very easily... apprehended, detained, deported these migrants by bringing them before an immigration judge and providing evidence that they are who the government says they are. You could easily do that. There's no public safety rationale for doing what they did.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
You could keep people safe, keep these people detained, and then deport them without doing it this way. And the problem with doing it this way, again, is we are basically just taking the Trump administration's word for it that these are all members of the Venezuelan gang. We're just taking their word for it with no judges saying anything.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And by the way, like even on their own terms, look, we may get to the point where these judges are going to rule and we are so far down the fascist path that they're going to just ignore those rulings and ignore the rulings of the judgments that come after that. But a lot of these people are going to have claims in our courts. for being abused, for being mistreated, for being denied their rights.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
The same thing is happening more broadly with Doge. There's a lot of people who are being unlawfully fired, unlawfully removed from their jobs. Their First Amendment rights are being Normally, they would come up with some pretense for why they're kicking people out of the country. They're just outright saying we're going to do not we're doing it based on their expression.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And these people are going to have claims in the future. So Doge is going to cost the country money. These these are like if you do it, if you follow the rules, even in their own terms. Right. They would be able to deport a lot of these people without having to claim they have some extra judicial, extra legal authority to do so.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But one of you said it. This is the whole strategy of the Trump's immigration policy this time around, right? Which is to try to hold up the most indefensible examples. And by the way, this is happening not just with the Venezuelan gang. This is happening now. There's a whole bunch of these cases popping up. There's a New Hampshire man who has a valid green card from Germany.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
He's just a German citizen. Violently interrogated at Logan Airport, stripped naked, put in a cold shower, denied access to his medication, food, water, all because he had a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession from 2015, which had since been dismissed. Mother of five from Milwaukee who has lived here in the United States since she was eight months old.
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She was deported to Laos where she's never been. And now she is stranded in a house surrounded by military guards, again, because of a marijuana-related conviction.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
There was also a kidney transplant specialist and a professor at Brown Medical School with a valid visa who was deported back to Lebanon because she had attended the funeral of the Hezbollah leader, who she said she's not into politics, but is a spiritual leader. I don't know if you want to explain more about that. That's a weird move. Great.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Here's the problem with that one is like you can take away her visa if you want for attending that funeral. Again, you can argue if that's fair or not. But the judge said, no, I want a hearing first. They said, no, the plane already left. And that was that.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
But even that one too, they're claiming, oh, like, yeah, you would rule, but oh, we couldn't get it to the, it was too late. The plane was already going. And it's like, Zach, it's very, by the way, one thing that's just happening right now, and I just, it's worth saying, like, we'll talk about it, but like, they just are trying stuff, right? Because they don't care about the rules.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They don't care about the law. And what happens? The people that do care about the rules that do care about the law are left scrambling to figure out even what the facts are. Right. So did the Trump administration know when this person was on the plane that they were already under order to not allow them to leave? We don't totally know. It seems like they probably did.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I'm not totally sure because what's happening is they don't care. Right. They're just moving on to the next thing. They're pulling this all over the place. And the people that care about the rules, they care about the facts. Are left kind of crawling behind trying to sort through what's going on. You know, did Joe Biden sign this with an auto pen?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
What was the cause of the you know, like all these like all of these ways in which Trump is stretching his authority? There really are also stretching our ability kind of collectively to keep up with what he's doing.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Brown University has since told all their international students, like, don't travel. And look, I remember when Trump won again and I talked to some people who are legal residents but not citizens who were very – like should we be worried? And I said, oh, no. Like if you have – if you're a legal resident, if you have a green card, if you have a visa, like that's not who they're going after.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They're going after undocumented immigrants. I don't think that's true anymore. Again, there's 17 million people in this country who are legal residents but not citizens who have gone through the whole process. And I think that what the Trump administration has been doing right now is like saying that none of those people are safe. And they are – by the way, they are within – the laws give –
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
the administration enough power to take away a green card or a visa. But again, through a hearing, they didn't give the hearing to the woman from Brown. They didn't give a hearing to any of these people that went to El Salvador. And then the White House now is going back and forth on whether they actually defied a court order or not.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Attorney General Pam Bondi put out a statement accusing the judge who tried to turn the plane around of siding with the terrorists over the safety of the American people. Terrorists, that's what the attorney general said. The White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, said the federal judges, quote, have no jurisdiction over these deportations.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And here's how Borders are Tom Homan reacted on Fox News.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
It seems like the administration's response amounts to, we didn't ignore the courts, but the courts have no right to stop us.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Also, all their complaints about free speech are such fucking bullshit. Like, they're sitting here in the United States banning the Associated Press. Elon Musk was tweeting today that 60 Minutes deserves a long prison sentence. What? Yes. I missed that. I guess the whole show. Every episode? Leslie Stahl? Leslie Stahl. She's a treasure. All of them are going to jail.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I guess not. It's just like, it's such fucking bullshit. They do not give a shit about free speech. Speech they don't like.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
What? Is there an explanation for this you can think of that is not J.D. Vance thinks it's cool to align ourselves with a far, far right German party that is like the successor to the Nazi party?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Before we move on, your thoughts on the whole AP Gulf of America debacle? Because this has become a whole thing now here. But it seems like some press is pushing back. I saw the White House Correspondents Association has put out a couple statements. Were they strongly worded?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I did read them and I thought about in the first Trump term, some of the statements from the WHCA were like pretty just terrible, I would say. Like pretty limp. And this one was strongly worded, but I don't know. I don't know how the Associated Press gets back on Air Force One, gets back in the White House briefing room. They had to turn in their credentials.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And this is all because they refused to call Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America, even though they are a global news organization. And no one fucking owns the Gulf of Mexico. It's an international water. So other countries are calling it the Gulf of Mexico.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That was complaints about a single interview. A treasury aid interview. Yeah. One interview. Not like we didn't try to kick Fox out of the White House.
Pod Save America
Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. Lovett is taking President's Day seriously, I guess.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah. There's already enough of Cat Turd types in there. So you don't want that. And but I'm wondering, like, what else what else you do? What you could do is next time you're in the Oval or next time you're at the White House briefing room, just like pepper Carolyn Leavitt or Trump when you see him with questions about this. And like, don't stop.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Don't move off the topic until they do something like just make it a bigger deal.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, I think it is indicative of a collective action problem in dealing with Trump like writ large in this in this term. Right. It's for the press. It's for Democrats. It's for like business people standing up like no one wants to get out there ahead of everyone and potentially put themselves at risk either financially or their safety.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Or I mean, it's like, you know, it's heading into bad territory here. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. Love Helix mattresses. We have a Helix mattress in our guest room and Charlie has a Helix mattress. Tommy, I think you have a Helix mattress.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
The truth is, we didn't bother to know where he's going. We could have asked him. That would have been nice.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
All right, back here in the United States, Trump celebrated President's Day weekend, a holiday dedicated to a man who believed America should never have a king and another who saved the union, by declaring that it's okay to break the law as long as you think you're doing it to save the country.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
This is the quote attributed to Napoleon that I mentioned earlier, which was not only posted by Trump, but by the official White House account, just in case we weren't sure if they really meant it. Of course, actions speak louder than words, and there were plenty of those, too.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Last weekend, Trump and Elon continued to carry out legally dubious mass firings of nonpolitical federal workers charged with frivolous jobs like keeping our nuclear weapons secure and making sure it's safe for us to fly. And in case you find it troubling that two brain-rotted billionaires are destroying the government we pay for, take it up with Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So on today's show, Trump and the White House spent the weekend promoting a quote attributed to Napoleon that, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law and then set about proving they believe it by indiscriminately firing thousands of workers, including hundreds of people who oversee our nuclear weapons and handle air safety for the FAA.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
This is not the biggest problem here at all, but does Brian Kilmeade think that Trump and Elon are hot? No.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
We don't want Napoleon. Again, watch what he does, not what he says. If he wasn't...
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
acting in that manner it would be one thing it would be a troll but he's trying to break the law now look i will say on all the um on the doge stuff and all the cases that are going through the courts right now the justice department the trump justice department is in their filings basically saying like yeah we're going to follow the rules we're going to follow the The law is here.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Whatever the court decides, that's great. So they are so far abiding by the law in their filings. I think the shit hits the fan when a Supreme Court ruling comes down that Trump doesn't like. Then we'll see if he still abides by the Napoleon quote that he's stealing. Let's talk about the firings.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Maybe you think these workers are just paper-pushing bureaucrats or lefty political hacks or just people who weren't needed or doing a good job. Nope. They fired hundreds of workers at the Federal Aviation Administration over the weekend, the FAA, including people responsible for radar, landing... and navigational aid maintenance. That's according to the AP.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Trump and Elon have also fired more than 5,000 employees at our health agencies, according to Forbes, including people who run Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 3,000 people at the Forest Service and Politico reports that, quote, fire safety projects are already frozen and being canceled all over the West.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And maybe the most telling news, Trump and Elon fired about 300 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the assembly, storage, and testing of our nuclear weapons. About 30% of the layoffs were at the Pantex plant in Texas, which is where warheads are actually assembled. That's the bad part of the nuke. That's the bad part. Yeah, you don't want that part.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You want to keep eyes on warheads. You want someone to be watching the warheads, for sure. So this happened on Thursday evening, and a lot of the workers didn't even know they'd been fired until they showed up at work the next morning and couldn't get in. But here's the worst part. There's actually a worst part. The guy who brought a new comb to work on it after hours. Now he can't get back in.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
We'll talk about all that and why I'm never flying again.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So once the absolute fucking morons in charge of our government realized that maybe they shouldn't have fired the people who oversee our nukes, the Trump folks tried to rehire them. But according to NBC, quote, struggled to find them because they didn't have their new contact information. And they had completely deleted all of their email accounts and information.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, I'm no pollster, but I have a feeling that the voter support for a more efficient government doesn't extend to the mass firing of the people in charge of our nukes and our air travel. But I don't know. What do you think?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, we were prepping for this while one happened, another one from a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Toronto.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, we need to, everyone's always wondering like, what can I do? What can I do? Tell people these stories. Like I, you know, I feel like Twitter is now just like pissing in the ocean posting on Twitter because it's like a right-wing hellscape, but there's still journalists there, so I keep doing it. And I started, like, posting some of this on Instagram. Oh, look at you.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Which I'm just like, any platform that's there, like, go fucking tell all your friends about this. Because it's not... First of all, I mean, like, the press is already struggling for some of the reasons we just mentioned and just larger financial structural reasons that we've talked about for years. And also, even if they... weren't struggling with all that. There's just so much of this happening.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Like you can miss the news for half a day and suddenly realize that, oh yeah, the nuclear weapons people were fired. And also FAA people were fired. And oh, there was another plane crash. Like it just is happening so fast and there's so much of it that I think it's really hard to keep up with. I agree.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I don't know. I guess there's bad winds, but I don't know. We'll talk about why the FAA is being hollered out at this moment. We'll also talk about how Donald Trump now essentially owns the Democratic mayor of New York City thanks to a corrupt deal that led even Trump appointed conservative prosecutors to resign from the Department of Justice.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So my pessimistic fear, if you mind, is that I think when when when government services that people count on break down, they will want to blame someone. I think Trump and Elon and the doge bags and all the rest of them have become very skilled at. at just blaming Democrats. Right.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And even though Democrats don't control everything, there's always some deep state puppet somewhere that they haven't gotten rid of that they can blame. There's always a Democratic governor somewhere or a Democratic mayor or a Democratic... Or Joe Biden. Or Joe Biden, right, that they can blame.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So they will... Bad things will happen, and I worry that they will continue to blame whoever they can who's not them. Because I think there will be anger when a lot of this stuff happens. And look, there's...
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
there's already stories about federal workers which trump and elon and everyone assume are all like big libs and there's some who you know because federal workers aren't just in dc they're in every state in the country and there's like this one guy from kentucky who like posted on facebook or linkedin or whatever it was like i voted for trump three times and i just had a great performance report i've been at this agency forever i'm trying to help people out and i can't believe that this president that i trusted would just fire me for no apparent reason it's
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That's the thing is like there's no – it's not like these people are getting notices. They're like, hey, we have decided to reduce the federal government. And we have decided to get rid of parts of different agencies that we don't need. And so in 30 days, you won't be needed anymore. And here's severance.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And then it gives the agency time to make sure, oh, was that person providing critical services? If so, we got to have someone else cover that. No, no. It's like middle of the night. One woman said that – She's pregnant. She's six months pregnant. And she was one month away from leaving her probationary period. By the way, all these firings were probationary employees.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And what that means is if you've only been a federal employee for a year, you don't have the same civil service protections that others have. So they went after the probationary employees first. That's 10 percent of the federal workforce. Now, you might think, OK, well, that's just someone who's new anyway. So maybe they have a big job. Some of the probationary employees are.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
are probationary because they move from another job within the federal government. So some of these people are extremely senior and have been there a long time, but just because they move. But of course, Trump and Elon, they don't know any of that, right? So this woman is six months pregnant and was one month away from having civil service protections.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Then Tommy talks to Stephen A. Smith, the legendary sports commentator turned political pundit, now one of the Democratic Party's top critics about what he thinks the party needs and why he hasn't completely ruled out running for president. That's right. Is that right? That's right.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And at 1230 in the morning, she was just alerted that she wouldn't be working at the FAA anymore, where she was helping protect our safety.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yes. And it's really. Russ Vogt said in that video that he wants to make them feel traumatized when they come to work. And that is what they're doing. Like they did this. It is not about fucking government efficiency. And I'm like, I am done doing the throat clearing at the beginning. That's like we all want an efficient government. And that's what people want. Because it's not that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Like I know the White House has a clip of us, you know, profoundly misleading people. You found a misleading clip of us talking about government efficiency, but they didn't include the part where we were saying that this is not government efficiency?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
A couple more examples before we move on because it's just making me so angry. They laid off energy department staff who handled homeowners' electricity bills so there's no one to take the money that keeps people's lights on. The FDA, a lot of food. You like your food inspected for safety? Well, a lot of cuts at the FDA.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Women are being turned away from domestic violence shelters in West Virginia because they're all full and they've had to close those down because the funding freeze that was supposed to be unfrozen in practice really wasn't unfrozen. Yeah. All but two employees in one state who headed up an agriculture program that was assisting poor rural communities.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
These are all Trump voters that are getting cut now. And then the reason you know that it's not about government efficiency or like making government smarter or whatever, the IRS cuts. And we're going to talk more about the IRS in a second. But...
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Joe Biden hired all these extra IRS agents because all these rich tax cheats were getting away with not paying their taxes and the IRS didn't have enough staff to do it. So they did it. They started collecting billions more in revenue from rich people who were trying to cheat on their taxes. And they are laying all these people off. Right.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So it has nothing to do with efficiency. No. In addition to the mass firings, the dogebags also keep trying to gain access to government systems and databases so sensitive that only a small number of career civil servants have ever been allowed to handle them. We saw this play out at Treasury. Now it's playing out at the IRS, where Gavin Kleiger...
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
who is the Doge guy who's retweeted white nationalist Nick Fuentes, is apparently about to get access to a system called the Integrated Data Retrieval System, or IDRS, which includes all of our tax returns and bank account information. It is so sensitive that even IRS commissioners, the people who run the IRS, haven't been able to access the IDRS.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's apparently this initiative, which is being laid out in a memorandum of understanding that isn't finalized yet, rests with just two people, a Doge employee, which appears to be Cliger, and an IRS employee. What is the administration saying is the justification for this?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, and again, just like the Justice Department, we've talked about Kash Patel, the FBI, the Justice Department. One way they can get revenge on people they don't like us, of course, you know, criminal investigations and the IRS is IRS is another big one. Right. And it has been used in the past in our country to go after people.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So now we're giving this random fucking guy who likes Nick Fuentes access to all of our bank information and our private tax returns.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's about just destroying the U.S. government. Democrats are trying to make noise about this. Congressman Jimmy Gomez, who sits on Ways and Means, called it a five alarm warning. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden wrote a sternly worded letter to the acting IRS commissioner about it. How do you feel about this? Like, are the tweets and letters enough? I appreciate them.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm glad that they are fighting. But like, doesn't it? And I know I have said the Democrats have limited power. We do. That's just the reality of the situation right now. But it does feel like. we should be making more noise?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah. And also, I mean, we've said this and we've seen this throughout history. When there's a government shutdown and government services are cut off, people get mad. And it's always true that the party in control of the White House that shuts down the party responsible for the shutdown ends up getting blamed by the public.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And stories about the national parks and food safety and all this other stuff like that resonates with people. And I do think lifting up the stories of both
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
The workers and the services that are cut and the benefits that could be cut and the and the safety and security that's being put in jeopardy like that should be like the the top top priority for Democrats and they should be telling the stories everywhere they can on every medium they can on every show they can go on Fox go on anywhere like media.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
hold events with some of the people who've been affected by the cuts in services, some of the people who've lost their jobs. People are losing their jobs in the federal government and the excuse is you've had poor performance and they're like, what do you mean I had poor performance? This is my first day on the job and you just cut it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And then some people had excellent performance reports and they've been told that they have poor performance. There's just no rhyme or reason.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah. I just think that they, um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's the tone. I don't know if it's the style, but like they really just got to be out there and, and, and, and be louder.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
run it back at the irs yeah just do the execution a little better yeah it's time to get a little creative i think all right one more purge we should talk about this one happening at the department of justice so obviously they were trying to purge uh doj prosecutors who were involved in some way into the january 6 prosecutions but now we got a whole nother scandal here just got kicked up a notch thanks to the case against uh new york mayor eric adams
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
As you all probably know, last fall, Adams was charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes and illegal campaign donations from the Turkish government in exchange for allowing a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection. Trump said at the time that he thought Adams was getting a raw deal because of his views on immigration. Adams then attended the inauguration and met with Trump.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
On Monday of last week, Emile Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, who you may remember as Trump's defense attorney in the Hush Money case, ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop Adams' case based on the argument that his bribery trial would interfere with his efforts to help carry out Trump's mass deportations in New York. The prosecutors refused, and on Wednesday, the acting U.S.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
attorney at SDNY, a Trump appointee who clerked for Antonin Scalia, resigned.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
A number of her colleagues then resigned as well, including the lead prosecutor on the case, who wrote in his resignation letter that the move was an illegal effort to influence Adams and, quote, I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
On Friday night, Bovey gathered the attorneys from DOJ's Public Integrity Unit and gave them one hour to figure out who would sign the dismissal motion or that they would all be fired. Eventually, one senior attorney agreed to do it to spare his colleagues. A few hours before we recorded, four of Adams' remaining staffers resigned in protest.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And in case the quid pro quo between the Trump administration and Adams wasn't clear, here's a clip of border czar Tom Homan on Fox & Friends sitting next to Adams in a joint interview.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
if he doesn't come through i'll be back in new york city and we won't be sitting on the couch i'll be in his office up up his butt saying where the hell is the agreement we came to so what a embarrassment when pressed about this home and said he and adams were talking cop to cop and that the press was making too much of it what do you think would you say it's good for democracy that the president united states uh essentially owns the mayor of our largest city it's a real bold move to shake down the doj public integrity unit you know
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean that, yeah, and I should have mentioned that in the prompt, but it was, there's two sets of resignations here. There's one at SDNY, the Southern District of New York. And the woman who was running SDNY, she was a Trump appointee. She had just risen to the ranks, to the top of the ranks at SDNY. Again, clerked for Scalia, Federalist Society member. So this isn't some like liberal squish.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And the fact that she finally gets this, a dream job, what I can only assume is a dream job, and then resigns because it's this bad.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah. Well, that's and it's not so it's not even technically a pardon. Right. It's like it's dismissed without prejudice. They could have gone with the pardon or dismissed with prejudice, meaning they couldn't refile the charges. But obviously, the reason they don't want to do that is because if Adams doesn't do what Trump says, they will charge him again. They'll go back.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You can't Daniel Dale everyone throughout the interview, you know. Otherwise, people aren't going to get a long interview. Also, it's impossible to interrupt him. I went on his podcast before the election, and that was slightly different because he had to ask me some questions because he was hosting the podcast. But it was the full Stephen A treatment. And it was just.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Also, and I... You would think that the resignation of those four deputies to Adams would put more pressure on Governor Kathy Hochul, who, by the way, has the authority to remove Eric Adams. And the fact that she hasn't yet is baffling to me. Me too. I mean, it feels like it's going to happen, right? Every Democrat's kind of lined up saying she should. And you get all these resignations.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I will say, though, when we were just talking about collective action problems and people being afraid to step up, like Danielle Sassoon, who was the prosecutor that was running SDNY that resigned, and then Hagan Scotton. Hagan Scotton. I mean, if that name doesn't sound like a conservative to you, this guy was graduated top of his class.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Harvard Law is a one to bronze stars in Iraq and clerked for not just Roberts, but Kavanaugh. Solid. Yeah, that's the guy who said, like, you'll find a fool, you know, you'll eventually find someone who's enough of a fool or a coward to follow your motion, but it's never going to be me.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Like, those two stepping up is, I'd like to see a little more of that from some people, you know, who are Republicans in Congress who just aren't doing anything or basically like they... Ezra Klein had a great column over the weekend. He called them NPCs, non-player characters, the whole Congress. Republicans have just decided, like, no, we're not going to do anything.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yes. Well, you heard, I mean, Trump's like, I don't know anything about this. And then Beauvais was trying to walk back the initiative. He was like, this isn't a quid pro quo. It's like the original memo says that, oh, he can't stand trial because then he can't help enforce President Trump's immigration policies. I mean, it's like, of course, it's a fucking quid pro quo.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That's right. That's right. Donald Trump has let out of jail people who've tried to commit homicide, who were plotted to commit homicide.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And sexual predators. Child sexual predators. One of these guys had a literal kill list. Coming to a community near you, thanks to Donald Trump. Yeah. Because he wanted to pardon his Jan 6 buddies. And we got, you know, people who, you know, getting caught up with a lot of child porn and plotting murders. Those are the kinds of people that Donald Trump is releasing into your communities. MAGA.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
MAGA. All right. When we get back from the break, you're going to hear Tommy's interview with Stephen A. Smith about why he thinks we're all so wrong and whether he's going to run for president himself. Two quick things before we do that. If you're an offline fan, heads up. Starting this week, you will find new episodes of the show in your feed every Thursday. Oh, changing. Nice.
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Instead of every Sunday. Because, you know, we have the special Pod Save America every other Sunday now that we're doing the interview. And so now we're trying to move offline to Thursday. That means your parasocial relationship with me and Max just got a new time slot. You can catch new episodes of Offline every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
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Perfect. I can't wait to listen. We are recording this Monday afternoon on President's Day, soon to be known as President Trump Day, probably. I'm shocked he hasn't renamed it.
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Our dear leader has sent a US delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin negotiations with Russia to end Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which over the last three years has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, the kidnapping by Russia of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
and a global alliance led by the US and Europe to isolate and deter Putin from expanding the war and potentially using nuclear weapons, both of which Russia has expressed interest in doing at some point during the conflict. Ending this war is, of course, a worthy goal to pursue. We all want that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But what's scaring the shit out of Europe and Ukraine is that Trump has so far excluded them from the negotiations with Putin and hinted that, wittingly or not, he may give the murderous dictator most of what he wants. Meanwhile... French President Emmanuel Macron called a last minute meeting of European leaders in Paris to talk about how to handle all this.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I guess they'll just be watching Twitter for updates like us. Yeah. Is that about right? Tell me, what did I miss there? How big of a deal is this? And why are Europe and Ukraine so freaked out right now?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
This is the first time a U.S. president has spoken to Putin since the war began. Since the invasion.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And then Trump said he potentially supports readmitting Russia to the G7. Yeah, G8. We're G8ing it up. Bring it back. He said many people on both sides were to blame for the war in Ukraine. Just a callback.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That's our show for today. Thanks so much to Stephen A. for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Toles.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I also thought it was amazing that I'm sure you guys talked about this. I don't know when it happened, though.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
How about the fact that Trump was going around being like, OK, OK, I know that I'm it seems like I'm going to give Russia what they want. But hey, Zelensky, if you give me half of your minerals, maybe. Maybe I'll give you more of what you want. There's a deal to be done there.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He's really focused on these rare earth minerals. I noticed that too. Again, like a feudal lord.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
He wants them from Greenland, Canada, Ukraine.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I thought we hated electric vehicles now. I thought we were able to drive our gas customers.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Okay, so why should Americans care about all of this right now?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I saw in the Financial Times, too, that some of the Europeans think that Trump wants to potentially remove U.S. troops from places in Eastern Europe, some of the Baltic nations.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And so this seems like the broader danger beyond just the danger for Ukraine, right? Which is just signing some kind of settlement where they lose some of their territory and they don't have, they don't get the security guarantees from the United States so that Putin could just reinvade.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But that now Eastern Europe, now Putin thinks, okay, well, I got my way here and Donald Trump's a pushover and is just going to give me what I want, either a pushover or a fellow autocrat, right? And then starts menacing Eastern Europe, and then we're off to the races.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Good times. Yes, good times. Well, we should also dig into J.D. Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference, which is a big part of what has freaked out Europe over the last week. So instead of talking about America's commitment to European security and a free Ukraine, he said that the real threat to the continent isn't Russia or China.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's that Europe's leaders aren't welcoming enough to extremist parties like Germany's AFD and aren't sufficiently committed to free speech. A statement made without a hint of irony from an administration that has banned the Associated Press from covering the White House for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. So stupid to even say that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And is currently investigating media outlets for coverage that makes Trump mad. Here's some of Vance's speech.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
A stirring defense of freedom from J.D. Vance.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
What was your reaction to the speech? And what do you think Vance was trying to do there?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'm going to go to my safe space, which is whining about mean people on social media, which is what he actually, it seems like that's what his job is because he's just posting all the time.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, it seems like there's two different parts to the speech and what we just heard in the clip. The first is he is very upset about the content moderation laws that the EU has passed and adopted. Right. Though I think he is overstating the case of what the enforcement mechanisms are. And look, they are much stricter.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
certainly than anything we have in the United States because we don't have anything.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Right, no rules, right. But the EU will define sort of hateful speech, a speech that is inciting violence or hate in sort of an immediate sense. Like that is the definition that they've done. And so what they can do is find social media platforms and demand that social media platforms take down the free speech.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But what he laid out there was like, you know, they're going from house to house and you're not allowed to say anything bad. Right. Yeah, right. Jack booted Facebook thugs.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Remember during the Obama transition, how many times Barack Obama said the words while he was announcing cabinet appointees and staff, which was the only time he really went out? One president at a time, one president at a time. That was like the whole that was the whole theme. And he's not the first to do that. That's that's what they usually do.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
There was a couple of White House officials that went on background to Politico for the story. And some Biden aides acknowledged the president's absent from the broader discussions about how to address Trump's coming presidency in the future of the party. They say that they say it's rooted in two factors. One, Biden's own recognition that few are eager to hear from him.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
and his own lingering personal belief that he doesn't owe much more to a party that unceremoniously pushed him aside and then another white house official former white house official said he's been so cavalier and selfish about how he approaches the final weeks of the job which is a lot for a former white house official i mean i like i get the recognition that maybe people aren't willing to hear from him is understandable that he might think that right the party thing i hope is not true because i don't know what do you guys think he could be doing quiet quitting
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That seems to be what he is doing. Yeah. Oh, instead. Yes. Got it. You know, but instead of just complaining that he's not out there, I'm wondering what we think.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I said this on Friday, but I also hope that he there's 30 or 40 inmates, federal inmates on death row. He could reduce their sentences. He could save them from the death penalty and just reduce it to life in prison without parole for those federal inmates. And just more broadly, like.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He could be giving a series of speeches or press conferences where he talks about the importance of defending democratic institutions, which was very... I know that's not a political winner, but it was important to him for his presidency. It seems to be the... And also, more specifically, he could talk about, like you were saying, Levitt, actions that he's taking to do that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Now, maybe he still may do that, right? And if he does, wonderful. We'll be the first to praise him. But it's just... It's odd that... You know, he talked about Donald Trump being an existential threat to democracy for so long.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And I wasn't necessarily critical when he like met with Donald Trump and smiled for the cameras because he's clearly he wants to prove and show that he believes in democracy and the transfer, the peaceful transfer of power. I totally agree with that. But he could still sort of speak to the angst a lot of people in the country are feeling. It seems to be a good role for a president.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That seems like that would be a good question for someone to ask in a press conference.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Speaking of the pardon power, Dan and I praised Biden on Friday's show for the single largest act of clemency in modern history. But over the last few days, we've all learned more about the big batch of commutations that the White House announced last week.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Some of them aren't looking so great, including a former judge in Pennsylvania who was serving a 17 and a half year sentence for getting kickbacks from private prisons in exchange for giving more than 2,500 juveniles the harshest possible sentence, even though most of them didn't deserve it.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So the private for-profit prison gives the judge money and the judge says, I'll fill up your prison with juveniles whether they deserve it or not.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's a cartoon evil scheme. It came to be known as the kids for cash scandal. And some Democrats have blasted Biden for the decision, including Governor Josh Shapiro. This was in Pennsylvania, of course, who noted that some children took their lives because of this. What on earth do you think the White House was thinking?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I think that's probably what happened. Yeah, the CARES program under Trump sent 12,000 prisoners to home confinement, right? And the vast, vast majority of them were convicted of white collar and other nonviolent crimes. So for the last several years, you've got all these white collar nonviolent criminals serving out home confinement. And so you're right, they must have just did a blanket...
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I just want to note that there's nothing defamatory about 60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris, where Donald Trump was not part of his problem in the interview.
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But like, I don't know. Obviously, that's the council's office, the lawyers. You'd think a few political people would have eyes on that just to comb through the names. I don't know. I mean, it is. I will say there was I saw this on Twitter. There was like a bunch of people who are prison abolitionists who were complaining about Biden releasing the kids for cash guy and some other people.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And I was like, that's interesting, because if you're a prison abolitionist. I mean, it does speak to their challenge that you're bringing up, Tommy, which is like part of the reason you do a pardon is because you're like, yeah, someone did something bad and we want to we don't believe they should be and everyone should be in jail for it.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Let's start with ABC then. What was your reaction to the news that they settled, and why do you guys think they did?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, and if you listen to some of the families of those kids, especially the kids who took their own lives, it's fucking heartbreaking. So Kamala Harris was at the DNC holiday party, too, where Biden told her, quote, Mood was festive, I'm sure. Biden told her, quote, you're not going anywhere, kid, because we're not going to let you go. Okay. We haven't really touched on this on the pod.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Speaking of home confinement. What are we talking about here? What do you guys think Harris's next move should be? There's a couple stories. There's one in the Washington Post. There's one on CNN about how she's trying to decide right now between, according to her advisors that talked on background,
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
uh whether she will run for governor california in 2026 or not run for governor in 2026 and run for president in 2028 and it is unclear right now which way she is leaning and i guess there could be a third option which she doesn't either yeah i'm interested in that third option the uh
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I think you should sit down and think to yourself, and I would give this advice to her or any politician, really. What do I really want to do? What issues do I care about? Where can I make the biggest difference? And, you know, she at one point, I think they said this in The Washington Post story.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
She was trying to decide when she was attorney general of California whether she wanted to run for Senate or run for governor. And she made a list of pros and cons. And she decided that her skills were better suited for the U.S. Senate. Right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
She should look at the California gubernatorial race and if she feels like she can really make a difference and she loves the idea of being governor of our state and wants to tackle these issues, she should do it. If she really truly believes that she should be president again and she has a strong theory of the case on why she should and how she can contribute, then she should do that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I'm not saying she's doing this, but sometimes advisors do this and fundraisers do this and everyone else. I don't think doing... Should I be in this slot or that slot or what's better or what can I win? Like, that's obviously a consideration. But I think from the candidate themselves, you got to really think about what you want to do.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And she's run statewide in California and been the top law enforcement officer.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Can I share with you guys a quote from a Harris campaign advisor in the Washington Post story? Please. It's almost Shakespearean that Joe Biden didn't just kill his own campaign, he killed hers too. So no love lost there. What about that is Shakespearean? It's not particularly Shakespearean, honestly.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Anyway, if you're the Harris campaign advisor, please tell us what you meant. We'll keep you anonymous. It's almost Shakespearean. Almost. OK, two other big things people are talking about that are more politics adjacent. Drones and daylight saving time. Oh, yeah. Let's take drones first.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Joe Biden yields the spotlight to Donald Trump in the final weeks of his presidency. We'll dig into the strange dynamic and talk about what Biden has and hasn't been doing.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
As you probably know, since the middle of last month, lots of people in New Jersey and some other states now have reported seeing mysterious drones like things flying in the night sky. No one has been able to provide any definitive answers. The Pentagon says they're not U.S. military officers. or enemy drones. White House says they're mostly manned aircraft.
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A finding that incoming New Jersey Senator Andy Kim confirmed after going out drone spotting himself. Good for Andy Kim. Love Andy Kim. He's the best. But like a lot of other people, he's also expressed frustration that the federal government hasn't done more to alleviate people's concerns.
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Kim wrote on Twitter on Saturday, quote, I think the situation in some ways reflects this moment in our country. People have a lot of anxiety right now about the economy, health, security, etc. And too often we find that those charged with working on these issues don't engage the public with the respect and depth needed.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Case in point, Donald Trump, for his part, said in the Monday morning press conference, the government knows what's happening and that something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell people and they should. Before adding that maybe he didn't want to spend the weekend in Bedminster after all.
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And then when he was asked also, have you received an intelligence briefing on this? He said, oh, I shouldn't comment on that. Love the restraint.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
shoot them down it's like they're on chinese shoot them down another uh it might have been the same republican house member from new jersey that you just mentioned but he does a press conference with local police officers and he's like i want to give local police the authority to shoot down the drones now we're just telling police to just shoot things in this That's right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, he's like, we don't have to get them. No, a mayor said that when some mayor in New Jersey like we don't we don't have to shoot them all down. Just one to see what's going on. Yeah. So John Kirby. Seems smart to me. John Kirby at the briefing on Monday. What's Kirby's title?
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He said, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopter, helicopters, and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones. Well, it seems like we have a great.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So now on a limb after that, you guys pay the big bucks for that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, they did say that like there were thousands of tips and out of all those tips, only like a very small percentage turned out to be anything in the sky. Right, right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Speaking of mania that has you losing your mind, Daylight Saving Time. By the way, when Reid wrote this, and then he asked me, and then he's like, did you know it was called Daylight Saving Time and not Savings Time? And I was like, I learned that just in this moment when you sent me the script.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Anyway, Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would try to end it, which seems like he probably means make it permanent. You can get into that. It's a move that has support in a lot of quarters, including top flunkies like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marco Rubio, and most importantly... Our own John Lovett. Take it away.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
One can only hope that when Mr. Trump and his lawyers are reviewing the part of this episode where you accused him of killing JonBenet Ramsey, they continue listening. to this part so they can understand the best solution to daylight saving time.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I don't know what it's called. Elon will tell us. All right. That's enough for that, I guess. Do you want to put a button on this? Yeah.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Okay, when we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna about his promises to work with Elon Musk on the Doge agenda, what worries him most about his second Trump term, and more. But one quick thing before we do that, if you've been wondering what the hell is going on in Syria and how the U.S.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
government is approaching it, or want to understand many of the other major international stories happening around the world... Check out Pod Save the World. I got you. Hosted by this guy over here, Tommy Vitor. Fancy title here. Former Deputy National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Look at that. Pod Save the World drops every Wednesday. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. When we come back, Ro Khanna. Ro Khanna, welcome back to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So you've been out there a lot since the election, and I want to start by asking about your approach to politics, which seems to be more economically populist than most Democratic politicians, but also more willing to talk and work with people Democrats disagree with, whether it's Republicans, Fox News, Elon Musk. I feel like that overall approach is...
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
popular with most voters, but a harder sell with left-leaning politicians, pundits, activists, and otherwise very engaged liberals and leftists who help drive the debate. The people who favor reaching out to the other side usually aren't that into economic populism, and the progressive populists aren't that into reaching out to the other side.
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How do you break through all that, and how do you arrive at this approach?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I've heard you say that when it comes to Elon Musk, Democrats have to get back to celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation because the average American thinks it's pretty cool that someone like Elon can send rockets into space. I take that point. I think Elon is clearly smart and successful in certain areas. And I have plenty of liberal friends who can't understand why I don't really like him.
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But I just wonder if... Yeah. It just feels like all of that goes beyond policy and political disagreements. I know you've known him for a long time. What do you think happened to him? Is going on with him?
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On Doge, I like your idea of trying to work with Musk and the Republicans on that commission. Have you and other Democrats thought about proposing your own list of budget cuts and government reforms that Elon and Trump and the Republicans would then have to respond to?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
We'll also talk about the great drone mystery that's taken the nation by storm and Trump's promise to make daylight saving time permanent, which might not be such a crazy idea, according to noted circadian rhythm expert Jon Lovett. That's right.
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Ted Sarandos is on his way there now to Mar-a-Lago to meet with him.
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Do you think from your conversations that those guys are willing to play ball on Doge, like that they're going to take your ideas and compromise? Or do you think it's just kind of, you know, I know that they're sort of welcoming your ideas. They've welcomed your ideas, other people, Bernie.
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But I wonder when push comes to shove, if it's more for show or they're really interested in working together.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So I dug into this just to see if I was missing something about the case. So what happened is Trump said that the damages were too much money and he shouldn't know that much because he didn't rape her. That was his contention when he filed a second suit. Judge Kaplan said... The finding that Ms.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I don't know if you saw that Senator Mike Lee and Elon just today both called for repealing the Congressional Impoundment Act so that Trump could unilaterally decide not to spend money that Congress appropriates by law. Does that worry you? Do you think that they could have the votes for that?
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Obviously, the margins are pretty close in the House. Do you think there are enough of your Republican colleagues that wouldn't want to give up their own power to appropriate money?
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Do you have faith that the judicial system, as conservative leaning as the Supreme Court is, will act as a bulwark against that?
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Carroll failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of the New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped her, as many people commonly understand the word rape. Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that. That then led to a Washington Post headline saying,
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I want to ask you about what health care looks like in the next four years. Last time Trump was in office, he tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Probably doesn't have the votes to do that this time around, but he could certainly cut Medicaid in a budget and the ACA subsidies that you all expanded in the Inflation Reduction Act.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He was just asked about the murder of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, which he rightly condemned, but he didn't say anything else about the need for health care reform or the anger people have towards the insurance industry. You've had some great ideas on how to prevent insurance companies from denying so many claims. You talk a lot about the need for Medicare for All.
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It seems like not only are we years away from any kind of reform, but we may be in a situation where millions of people are losing their health insurance and paying higher premiums over the next four years. What, if anything, do you think Democrats can do about that?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That said, judge clarifies, yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll. Then Stephanopoulos does the interview with Nancy Mace where he said, oh, he was found to have raped her. And Mace says no. And they go back and forth. And George says, oh, let's put up the Washington Post headline on the screen.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, I wish I could say that I expressed it more succinctly or at least more compellingly, but a lot of people are mad at me for how I've talked about it. And, you know, I've talked to some of our listeners about it, and I very much understand the rage and the anger towards the insurance industry. I totally get that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
what i've been trying to figure out is you know a lot of people said to me here's the thing we you know we vote for democrats we organize we go out there every election we volunteer and then we put democrats into office and it just never seems like we make any progress on health care reform and you know they'll say i know that you worked on the aca and that improved that improved things somewhat but uh it's still hell the the insurance system is still hell and i'm i'm losing hope
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
that we can make any kind of progress on health care reform. And that's why, you know, I don't think people who, you know, are celebrating the murder or at least excusing it are shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be like, you know, what are we going to do to change the system?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And it's to me, it's like a really hard thing to explain to folks that, no, you got to keep organizing and you got to keep voting and you got to keep working towards a better solution here because, you know, You know, it's been many, many years and it seems like the best we could do was stop Donald Trump from repealing the ACA.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You know, Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress, you guys beefed up the insurance subsidies, which is great. But clearly there's a lot of pain and anger out there. And I don't I don't really I'm sort of at a loss at this point what to tell people about the best path forward.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So with all that in mind, the standard of actual malice is you need to, one, make a demonstrably false statement of fact, two, know that the statement was false or either know that it's false or had reckless disregard for its falsity, and three, damage his reputation. I got to tell you, two and three.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, one thing I always think about is, you know, we often say that Democrats, we don't want to be Republican light on policy because that doesn't give people a real choice. Why wouldn't they just go with Republicans instead of Republican light? And then when we talk about our approach to politics...
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I kind of think it's the same thing, because if we're going to act just like Republicans, then it's not really giving people much of a choice. Because why wouldn't they just go with Republicans? Because they're going to be tougher and and they're going to slash and burn and they're going to play dirtier and they're not going to follow the rules or follow the laws.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So I might as well just vote for Republicans instead of if Democrats are going to do the same thing. So part of me thinks that, like you said, we're trying to build our job is harder in a way because we are trying to restore people's faith. or at least buttress people's faith in the power of collective action and a government where we take care of each other and look out for each other.
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And I just think it's a harder thing to do now, partly because of the problems that you've talked about, which is... you know, we have economic inequality and people are feeling isolated and they're feeling left behind. And, you know, it does feel like these two things are connected, right?
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Which is the economic inequality and then sort of the cynicism people are feeling towards government and the possibility that we can actually build something better. Is that something you worry about as well?
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The path back to power for Democrats doesn't just involve winning some combination of the seven swing states that Kamala Harris lost. It also involves winning 51 Senate seats. We currently have 47. If you look at 2026, a majority will require flipping Maine, which is doable, but then you need North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska to get to 51. Wow. 2028, just as bad.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You need Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alaska, the only real pickup opportunities. I wonder, like, what kind of Democratic candidate do you think could win in states like those, knowing that Sherrod Brown, one of the most successful, respected, progressive economic populists the Senate has ever had, just lost his seat?
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You mentioned 50 state strategy for for DNC. Do you have a favorite candidate for DNC chair yet?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you, as always, for joining Pod Save America and come back soon.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
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Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
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Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Then Congressman Ro Khanna stops by to talk about collaborating with Elon Musk and Trump and how Democrats in the upcoming Congress should strike the balance between resisting and getting things done. But first, Donald Trump unexpectedly took questions from reporters Monday morning at Mar-a-Lago. As he usually does at these things, he talked about all kinds of shit without making too much news.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah. Like one possibility is if there was something in all the documents where someone at ABC News, one of George's producers was like, hey, by the way, you're not supposed to say rape. You know, I don't know if that's true at all, but I'm just saying like that's one possibility where because Trump was set to be deposed. Stephanopoulos was set to be deposed. They settled before.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Also, head of ABC News was at Mar-a-Lago also a week before meeting with Susie Wiles. They said it didn't have anything to do with the settlement.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, and look, I think you could make an argument that it was the best business decision for Disney because it's chump change to them. But what happens when you are a journalist or media outlet that doesn't have ABC's resources, doesn't have the backing of Disney, right? Also, you know, the New York Times reported over the weekend that...
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Trump, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel have threatened other journalists and pundits with defamation lawsuits, including the New Yorker for their Pete Hegseth story that ended up going to print anyway. And, you know, for Patel, it was Olivia Troy, former Trump administration official who was on TV, said something about him that he was lying or something like that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And then, you know, and now you got Trump out there saying, I'm going to just going to just going to sue Ann Seltzer for giving me a bad poll, which I mean, I don't I don't think that's that's going to fly.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The Pulitzer Organization for giving the Post and the Times Pulitzers for the Russia reporting, Russia investigation.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Even when I was like taking notes on this and thinking of like rereading what Judge Kaplan said, I was like, can I do this? Is this like it's the chilling effect is real because you start thinking, oh, shit, I don't want to get even if you can win the defamation lawsuit. You want to spend however much money on lawyers to go to to go to court.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But one thing that got a lot of attention, including ours, was his response to a question about lawsuits against media figures. We found out over the weekend that ABC News will contribute $15 million to Trump's post-presidency foundation and pay another million in legal fees to settle a defamation lawsuit the president-elect brought against them.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I don't know him. Parody. I was. He's just a guest on the show. Get his get his emails just only. Anyway, it is chilling. It is very chilling. I wouldn't worry so much if I was Ann Seltzer because I think that's fine. Shouldn't we be suing Ann Seltzer for giving us false hope?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You better get the 14th key and get the fuck out of here. I want to sue the American people.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's coming for you, Andy. Anyway, it's bad. It's bad, guys. So the purpose of Trump's appearance at Mar-a-Lago Monday morning was to announce a $100 billion investment from SoftBank, the hugely influential Japanese bank in American AI projects. What an American story. It was more or less a standard presidential policy announcement. The main difference being Trump isn't president yet.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
A fact that's getting easier and easier to forget as Joe Biden seems to be disappearing from the public stage as his term comes to an end. Over the weekend, Trump took his new bro squad to watch the Army-Navy game at the Commander Stadium just outside D.C., an event that the president sometimes attends and Biden has attended himself in the past.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
No sign of him this year, though he did apparently appear at the DNC holiday party. The White House put out a memo on Sunday hinting that in the coming weeks, Biden will be announcing more pardons or commutations, doing more to protect federal land and trying to forgive more student debt, rein in AI and award more CHIPS Act and IRA money.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
No details on what we can expect or when. What do you guys think is going on here? Has Joe Biden stepped out of the spotlight or has the spotlight just moved away from Joe Biden? And what do you think it says that they had to put out that memo at all?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And so it is like- Sounds like it was pretty smart of that guy.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The lawsuit came after George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said on air that Trump had, quote, been found liable for rape in the E. Jean Carroll case as opposed to mere sexual abuse and defamation. A reporter at the Monday Presser asked Trump whether he's considering expanding his legal strategy to include other media outlets that he believes defamed him. Let's listen.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
plotting out strategy like everyone's having a good time i mean well they all not i feel like none of them want to be too far from trump like mike johnson goes because he's everywhere they're about to do the vote for speaker and yeah he feels like he's got it but he doesn't want he wants to make sure you know and elon he can't shake elon no matter where he goes now um i do think it was i think it was probably probably not ultimately helpful when pete hexeth uh streaked towards the end of the game
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That's right. So, you know, get it while you can. I don't want to see it to seem like we are harping on the Army-Navy game attendance of Joe Biden or non-attendance of Joe Biden is like the issue here. Politico did a story about this last week. They said it crossed nearly two weeks abroad since the election when he went abroad to Angola and other places.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Biden spoke just seven words to the media traveling with him the entire foreign trip. Go fuck yourself. He has yet to schedule a post-election press conference as both President Obama and President George W. Bush did when they were on their way out of office. He went to the Rose Garden to publicly praise a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. And he spoke to the press about Assad fleeing Syria.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Hey, Cricket listeners. There's a new show hosted by Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov that we think you'll enjoy. It's called Raging Moderates. I was just on it a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. We talked about the election and what's next for Democrats. And Scott and Jessica are just fantastic. It was a really fun conversation.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think the firefighters are some of the most courageous people in all of public life. And the fact that they do this day in and day out, and like you said, love it. I mean, these guys were, men and women, were working 30-hour, 40-hour shifts straight, battling fires in this extreme heat. In some cases, they didn't have water. Now, I do think... Some of them haven't slept in a week.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Days. We were with Newsom at the command center, talking to some of the firefighters there, and they're like, this is... One guy was like, I've been doing this for 40, 50 years. This is the worst week of my life.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
More than 12,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed. That's just so far. That number will probably go up.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, and that's why when you have Don Jr. tweeting that DEI initiatives and the firing of a couple white male fire chiefs is the reason, that's so insulting to all these firefighters out there doing their job.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Now, I do think there is a debate that should be happening about the speed of the response, pre-deployment, why some of these fire hydrants ran out of water, and I think Newsom is trying to get to the bottom of that, but other people need to too. There's also an argument about the
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
the fire department's budget, whether it should have been 800 million, 900 million, like I have no idea, but it's a huge problem for Karen Bass that the fire chief is saying they needed more money and they were refused. Again, I'm also sympathetic to the idea that no fire department in the world could deal with
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
four massive forest fires at the same time, especially in a hundred mile per hour winds. But clearly there were some decisions made that hindered the response. And I think we need to get to the bottom of them. And I also think there has been a void in terms of just local communication.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
and the fires have taken the lives of 24 angelinos fortunately that number uh is expected to go up as well as we are recording this the winds have subsided which has allowed firefighting crews over the weekend to contain more of the blaze but really bad powerful new winds are expected throughout the week especially tuesday and wednesday creating dangerous conditions and the possibility of new fires of course the continued danger has not prevented republicans from politicizing recovery efforts and spreading misinformation such as
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Like, I don't know about you guys, but like the 700 person press conferences just don't really do it for me when I'm looking for clear leadership. Neither did the several, uh,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
false emergency alerts that went off on our phone. In fact, when we were recording an episode of something on Friday or Thursday, a bunch went off and it was like terrifying people. One went off at four in the morning. Terrifying. For people who were like in Pasadena area, right near the zone. So like it could have been them evacuating.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Here's my thing. Like, of course, when a disaster strikes, there's going to be plenty to criticize about. There's going to be plenty to praise, plenty to criticize about the response. And as you guys both pointed out, there are plenty of debates to be had in Los Angeles and around Los Angeles and state of California about water, fire, all that stuff.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The challenge is like we can't have those debates publicly in an information environment where you're getting these bad faith attacks from the right and all this misinformation. And so it's so difficult to have like rational conversations. And look, this is we're going to have more. There's going to be more disasters and they're going to be more frequent now because there's climate change.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And if we are not able to win the disaster hits forever. First, focus on, OK, how do we put out the fires? How do we take care of everyone? Then figure out, OK, what happened? What did everyone fuck up? Who's who's to blame? Right. Like, I don't want to make the seem like we are. I'm certainly not interested in being partisan or not criticizing someone just because they're a Democrat.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I don't give a shit. Right. Like if it turns out that like Karen Bass really fucked up or Gavin Newsom fucked up, whoever it is, be the first to criticize that person. You know, but like you do have to figure out the information and it's hard to do in the fog of war, which is where we're at right now. And I don't know. You just got to like, well, it's just so hard to do that in this environment.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I mean... I have been looking for this too.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So far, I haven't seen anyone with experience in fighting fires or dealing with water issues make the case that extra firefighters or one more water reservoir, one was offline at the time being repaired, would have done anything to change the fact that it was mostly severe winds and the inability to get the helicopters in the air that were primarily responsible for the devastation, the palisades, and the
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
in altadena right like it i'm open to if someone can make that case like maybe that's wrong but i haven't seen that and so that's that's the main thing right that's the main problem and then everything else are really is really important to figure out as we move on but in the interim you're seeing tweets with millions and millions of views saying because karen bass was out of town
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The acting mayor didn't declare an emergency declaration, which is why Biden didn't get the water dropping Navy helicopters into the air until Wednesday. And you read that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I got friends were like, why weren't the helos there? Why? Why? Why? Why went the Navy dropping planes there?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And you read it and you think, okay, this is a person who seems to have had a big job in local LA politics. And then you think for five seconds to yourself and you're like, Joe Biden doesn't have access to special magic helicopters that can fly around with tons and tons of water and a hundred mile power winds. This is clearly nonsense. And the disaster declaration stuff,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
99% of that is about getting resources or funding to an area hit by a disaster after the fact, not before.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's Elon Musk who has been doing some good stuff and like setting up Starlink and helping around here with some of the cleanup. But at the beginning, the beginning of this was going on, Alex Jones did this whole video, this like 40 minute video where he said that the fires were part of a larger globalist plot to cause the collapse of the United States. And Elon responds to him, true. Yeah.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance's claim on Fox News Sunday that some of Los Angeles' reservoirs have been dry for decades. But the worst reaction has come from Trump and a growing number of Republicans in Congress who are already talking about placing conditions on disaster relief sent to California.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Which is a very human impulse. And I think it's just magnified in an age where we just see way too much information and way too many people who pretend to be experts.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And just bad actors and people who should know better. You know, Elon Musk knows better. He understands the impact of climate change. For him to reply to Alex Jones and boost that guy, it's indefensible. Pod Save America is brought to you by Haya. Typical children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Here's Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty, and Speaker Mike Johnson.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Monday afternoon, President Biden kicked off his final week in the White House with a speech before the State Department defending his foreign policy legacy. Biden made the case that the United States has strengthened its alliances in the face of authoritarian aggression and weakened its greatest adversaries, Russia, China and Iran.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Raging Moderates is a podcast for those who reside somewhere between the center left and the center right. And it can be found wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The speech marks another stop on Biden's farewell tour, which included an exclusive interview with USA Today last week and an upcoming televised address to the nation on Wednesday evening. Here's a clip of Biden's foreign policy speech.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Tommy, what'd you make of the speech? Anything surprising or missing that was notable?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So I think, I'm curious what you guys think. I think even pretty highly engaged voters are going to remember like two to three things you did on foreign policy. I think for Obama, it's going to be Bin Laden operation. Probably maybe the Syria red line. The more charitable version is, you know, Paris Climate Accords or the Iran deal. Right? Like a few things. Big things. I think like Bin Laden.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
For like most... Bin Laden's number one. For medium info voters, yeah. Bin Laden's number one. I think... So I wish it was maybe Iran deal different. I wish it was winding down the new start or a Cuba normalization or some of the other stuff we did because, you know, but I think it's probably those bigger things.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And for Biden, I think the list of things that he's going to be remembered for on foreign policy are the Afghanistan withdrawal. Gaza, and then something about Ukraine. And I think what's hard for Biden in this speech is that while I think that ending the war in Afghanistan was objectively the right thing to do in a risky political decision, it will be remembered as a failure.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But the Gaza piece- Because of the withdrawal. Because of withdrawal. But the Gaza piece- The war is an unmitigated disaster. And despite Biden's sort of bigger picture claims in the speech that we've, you know, he's restored our standing in the world and diplomacy, I think Gaza has hurt our diplomatic standing and it's made us less safe.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Like his own NCTC director, the National Counterterrorism Center said, anti-American sentiment driven by the war in Gaza is at a level not seen since the Iraq war. And groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting on that sentiment, issuing the most specific calls for attacks on America in years.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So it's like this speech seemed like they kind of wanted to pull out Gaza and make it an afterthought when I really think It's going to be the center of his foreign policy legacy, especially when, you know, there's reporting last week, the Lancet, very prestigious medical journal.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
They did a study of the death toll in Gaza in the first nine months, and they found it to be 40% higher than the official count from the Hamas health ministry. So I think like the story about this war is going to get worse and worse over time. And there's just the tone and tenor of how they talk about it has not changed.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think obviously you do these speeches because you want to change that narrative. You want to talk about the investments in technology and alliances and climate change and rallying the world on Ukraine.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I think he deserves a lot of credit on Ukraine, but even that section felt a little bit divorced from the current reality, which is that Russia has gained momentum on the battlefield and the Ukrainians have a very uncertain future with Donald Trump coming in. So I get why you do this speech, but I think, you know, it didn't, I'm not sure that it's going to be effective.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think that Joe Biden and his administration are not the first to want to hammer home their accomplishments. Every administration wants to do that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think what they have done is a lesson for future administrations, hopefully future Democratic administrations, that ignoring reality and just sort of like not wrestling with the challenges that are still there at the end of your presidency, your mistakes, your failings, your shortcomings, some maybe which even if you don't believe you were at fault for them,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
acknowledging them wrestling with them in a speech talking to people about them is still the best way to either change people's minds or at least let people know like where you are on the issue to me it felt like there's there's no theme there's no story to this speech there's no it was like a senate floor speech to his senate foreign relations committee uh you know colleagues and it just it it struck me to what you said love it it's like since the election
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
we're all in a bit of denial that Donald Trump won, right? We're all sort of, it's very different than in 2016. We've talked about all the reasons, but we're all in a bit of denial. We're all sort of, we haven't quite grappled with it yet, but he's the president of the United States and he hasn't grappled with it really. It's a weird, and I don't think Kamala Harris really has either.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Like no Democrat really has. It's just very, it's a weird feeling to have the president of the United States give a, and maybe, maybe the speech Wednesday night, the Oval Office address will wrestle with some of this and sort of the future of democracy. But I, I was trying to, I'm like, what would a speech have been that really would have sort of addressed some of these larger issues?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I think it would have been him like talking about Gaza and what happened in Gaza and making his case on Gaza and talking about The fact that as proud as he is of what we did with Ukraine, the future there is very uncertain. And talking about how he's so proud of making the decision on Afghanistan. But, yeah, the withdrawal and the way it went, he's always going to think about that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
He's always going to remember that, you know, like there's just there was no nuance or subtlety or even just like a little daylight. And like, yeah, we had some problems.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's a refusal to give critics an inch and entertain their criticism as valid. And just on Gaza, it came up first obliquely in the context of him talking about how the administration rallied a coalition to prevent attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea. And it's like- Mr. President, why are the Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea? It's because of the war in Gaza.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And then when you finally get to the Gaza section, 20 minutes into the speech, he says, Palestinians suffered terribly in this war. They've been through hell. So many innocent people have been killed. And there's just no effort to sort of contend with the fact that they were killed mostly by American weapons that we gave the Netanyahu administration.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And while you could defend a military intelligence response to the war in the very early months, 15 months later, we're still, you know, just hoping for a ceasefire that has been eluded his grasp over and over and over again. So yeah, I think there's a divorce from kind of the horrors of what people see.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
You could have done, and even if you wanted to not get into the Gaza of it all. You could have done a speech about sort of the rising authoritarian movements around the world. What you learned over the last few years. Bring in Trump. Talk about like you could have done a whole. There could have been a number of interesting speeches that weren't just like, here's all the amazing things we did.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
You're all wrong. We did some. We did the best we could. We did great stuff. And that's it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. And just look, any sort of conversation about legacy or accomplishments. is impossible to really have right now. The end of the story is unwritten. Donald Trump might unwind some things. He might not. I mean, a lot of this happened to Obama. The Iran deal went away. The Cuba opening went away.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Tommy Tuberville, a real expert in putting imbeciles into office from the state of Alabama, which I believe is the state that is, it's number 12 in states that are most dependent on federal aid. Small state of Alabama compared to the 40 million people in California, which I do think contributes quite a bit to the country's gross domestic product.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's a lot of things that we're really proud of that Donald Trump fucked up and that could happen again. And so I understand taking a swing, but I agree with you. I don't think it's convincing to talk about sort of AUKUS and, you know, alliances in the face of, yeah, in the face of, you know, handing the keys over to Donald Trump.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's a lot of talk about alliances, but alliances are a means to an end. And it's not just like we have alliances and alliances are great for that reason, right? And so like, what are the larger goals? And I was thinking about as he prepares to deliver this final farewell address, like how he could do that in a way that I would find interesting.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Or at least comforting, you know, I do think like he could frame it as like, here are the fights that I took on. Here's where we made some progress. Here's where we weren't able to. Right. And then here's a path forward for everyone. Here's why I'm still hopeful. And some humility, some recognition of where we are now, you know, like you could imagine. And look, it is a.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
like you said, he's just, he's in a tough, tough situation right now because Donald Trump won and it was a fucking mess. And so I get that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's some things that we all know are kind of stump speech lines, though. And the conclusion about how he's never been more optimistic about the future for the United States and the kind of whispering and the yelling about how there's nothing beyond our capacity as a country. He must believe that in his bones, which is why he says it all the time.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But boy, it could not have felt more hollow in this moment, given what we're about to go through.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I'm a pretty hopeful, optimistic person. I can tell you, I've definitely felt more optimistic. Many, many times. At several points. 43 years on this earth, I could tell you, most of the years I felt more optimistic than this one.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And part of the reason this is not just to beat up on Joe Biden. We do that a lot now. But like this is for other Democrats, by the way, who are going to run for president again next time. Like we cannot just do the happy talk here. And that's not to like we don't want to bring everyone down.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But in order to inspire people and to get everyone to be hopeful again, you have to acknowledge the reality. You have to grapple with what we're dealing with right now.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And far more tax dollars leave California, go to the federal government, then come back.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Also just so racist. These inner city woke DEI initiatives like, well, what are you trying to say, Senator? I can't tell.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Okay, before we jump to the interview, some quick news about our new MAGA oligarchs. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg followed up his announcement that the company would abandon fact-checking, content moderation, and DEI initiatives by sitting down with, who else, Joe Rogan.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
If you really listen to the criticism, I was just listening to our good pal Chris Christie. He was on Brian Kilmeade's radio show, going off on Newsom and the fire response. None of these people have any, they haven't really paid attention to any of the details. So they don't have any actual criticisms. They're just like, it's a disaster and the woke policies did it. It's a woke fire.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It was a wide-ranging two-hour interview that included plenty of Trump ass-kissing and complaints that content moderation is just too difficult. Let's listen.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
tommy you listened to the interview over the weekend first why and second what started to you yeah long drive time to kill my takeaways were this was it was an interview for an audience of two joe rogan and donald trump uh i think in that sense it was a very effective one for in terms of his spin but it was just so fundamentally dishonest i mean zuckerberg acts like he is a brand new ceo who just took charge at facebook
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
and is mopping up all the slop created by his predecessor, not the guy who founded the company, right? He's like a newborn baby viewing everything with fresh eyes and his new stylist. And it's just this idea that he was not involved in content moderation decisions for the first decade. I'm sorry, what were you doing then? That is such bullshit. Or the idea that Facebook was founded on free speech.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
No, you were ranking hot girls in your dorm and then you wanted to get rich. Like, well, we can't stop with these fairy tales. But mostly he's mad about government regulation and he points it to inflection points as really, being kind of like learning moments. One is the 2016 election and Facebook's role in the way they got criticized for Russian disinformation on the platform and then COVID.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And on the 2016 election, it was instructive because he talks about, he says, upon reflection, I gave too much deference to people in the media who said there was misinformation there. Because, you know, and I wish I hadn't done that. The point being that he believed the media when they said that only through misinformation could Trump have been elected.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But those of us who were paying attention at the time, remember, that's not how it all went down. Like his response two days after the election was to call it crazy. to suggest that Russia could have influenced the election. And then fast forward to October of 2017, Facebook then says that the Russian posts could have reached up to 126 million Americans.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And just to be clear, I don't think Russia is why Hillary lost, but the strongest data point that they were a factor came from Facebook. So his whole narrative there is total bullshit. He's obviously very mad about whatever the Biden team did during COVID.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
He's very mad about Biden saying that people were getting killed because of information on Facebook that was leading to vaccine hesitancy or whatever. But the whole thing is just a naked attempt to position the company for the Trump era. And more broadly, he says zero self-awareness. He criticizes Apple for not innovating since the iPhone.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
This is a company that just steals features from Snapchat and then buys them. Instagram.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
If you want to, if you want to count the, the goggles or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Those are going. That's I guess he's innovating doc. Yeah.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And then at one point he's complaining about like trust in the media and influential people. And he says, quote, the whole cultural elite class needs to get repopulated with people we actually trust. We agree, Mark. That's why we want you to go away. So it's a very frustrating listen, but he wins over Rogan like that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's shorthand, lazy bullshit. And as we're going to get into, there are absolutely real critiques that you can level towards various officials about the fire thing, but they're not interested.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
He also had some interesting things to say about masculinity, a subject on which he is of course the foremost authority. Let's listen.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I just wish we could beat each other more.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
post I know this is like post me to post BLM but it's also very language backlash part of it Mark Andreessen Peter Thiel sort of like techno authoritarianism like you must the strong must survive and we and we a few really smart people must run the world and they have to be strong and masculine and smart and
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Who decided that Facebook was going to do content moderation and monitor COVID and COVID vaccine misinformation? They said they were going to do it. And then when the government reached out, the government was saying, hey, you have a policy on this. So we wanted to point out things that are violating your policy. They came up with the policy.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Nor does Mike Johnson or any Republican.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Also, he's getting rid of content moderation at the time that they also announced that they're bringing back politics on Facebook. They're turning the politics knob on again.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And they're getting rid of all their DEI initiatives and stuff. I mean, what's so frustrating about this, if you've been paying attention to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook over the last 20 years, like every few years he does something like this, he apologizes for something and he has a new revelation. And basically they turn like happy to glad in some corporate governance policies and
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
kind of like bend whichever way the political winds shift them. But we also know that, you know, there were most of the moderation was done in the United States. There were other countries where there was no moderation, like in Myanmar, where Facebook was used to foment a genocide and played a pretty key role in horrible ethnic violence. So
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Um, the idea that there's some revelation that they should just do less. I mean, I, I, I wasted a lot of time today in my prep and I read his 6,000 word letter to the community, Mark Zuckerberg's from 2017, where they talked about how accuracy of information is very important.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers dispute and items, accuracy, blah, blah. It's like, I guess he wasn't really involved in that. Well,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, they algorithmically made it so they were less shared. But they also got yelled at for taking down newsworthy videos related to Black Lives Matter. They took down a famous photo of a little girl who had been hit with napalm in Vietnam, remember? So they overcorrected in some ways. And so I have sympathy for just how hard
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
this problem is, but I just have no sympathy for how transparent this is, an attempt at getting just in Trump's good graces.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
To our previous conversation about Biden acknowledging reality, this is also happening right here, right? Like, content moderation is difficult. Like you just said, we talk about this on Offline all the time. If he had come out and said, hey, we've tried all these different ways to moderate content. None of them please anyone. It's too hard. We're going to try this.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It is. I mean, is this we've come to expect this from Trump. I do think it's alarming that Republicans are now just open to punishing disaster victims unless the elected Democrats who represent them just embrace Republican politics. Is that what we're in for for the next four years?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Acknowledge that you just couldn't do it, that the problem is too hard. Probably would have still gotten criticism from all sides. I get that. But like this is all just bullshit. This is just like Donald Trump. Don't throw me in jail. But also like maybe I've been red pilled.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And, you know, Kevin Roos in The New York Times, his piece on this suggested that maybe like Zuckerberg's views have been like have changed. Maybe he has been radicalized since 2020, which, you know, good for him.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think there's some evidence in Kevin's piece from sources he talked to that maybe Mark Zuckerberg is becoming a Republican. But there's also just a wave of tech giants like the Daily had a great piece on Mark Andreessen today in Silicon Valley generally and how they shifted away from Democrats to Republicans.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And the gist of it is, like you're saying before, Love, to be a part of the MAGA movement, you have to jump through one hoop, which is to say you support Donald Trump in everything he does and says. The Democratic Party, we set up an infinite number of hoops that you also have to jump through. And if you screw one up, we'll slap the shit out of you.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And all these guys got the shit slapped out of them. Multiple times publicly for things they said, things they did. There's this piece in the Andreessen story about when Zuckerberg and his wife announced that they were giving away 99% of their money to charity and they were criticized for doing it through, I think it was like a for-profit entity or something.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I don't even remember all the details, but they all feel like- Yeah, but right. You know, they all feel like, you know, we want to be called geniuses. We did the right thing. We played by your rules. We used your language and we did your training initiatives. And, you know, you still hate us. And so, OK, now we're going to try something new.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. Like in some cases, there's obviously there's a competition with China. I don't like the Chinese Communist Party. I do think they lean on that as a as a cudgel. Like Mark Andreessen isn't as worried about, you know, the AI race with China as he is about making a lot of money off of Bitcoin. Right. Yeah.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Sure seems like it. I remember there's the story from 2018 where a bunch of Trump's national security staff had to show him vote totals from Orange County, California before he would agree to funds for fire relief. So this is not surprising for Trump. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Republicans are following suit, especially the worst of the worst like Tommy Tuberville. It's a problem.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I think with Zuckerberg, I do think there is a lesson in this story, in this broader flight of tech people to the Republican Party that Democrats should learn and maybe about how we talk to people we disagree with. Because I was talking to another tech person back in the day, and I remember this person telling me, that he had been protested during COVID. And I said, why did they protest you?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
He's a pretty big, low profile tech guy. And he's like, well, you know, billionaires shouldn't exist or something. And I think that that moment where a bunch of people came to this person's house who founded a pretty prominent tech company that I knew like kind of tangentially radicalized him. And this guy ended up giving tens and tens of millions of dollars to the Republican Party.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I think there's probably a pretty direct line between his perception of how he was treated by Democrats and where he ended up.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. Again, there's a difference between what might be the morally right or feel like the right thing to do and what is the most effective thing to do for the larger cause. All right. Before we jump to the interview, some housekeeping. Crooked's friends at Vote Save America Action and Crooked Ideas have set up a disaster relief fund to benefit those impacted by the horrific wildfires here in L.A.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's super easy for you to make one donation that's split among incredible charities doing... Really important work for our neighbors and our first responders. If you donate to the fund, it gets split between the Latino Community Foundation, offers financial assistance, housing assistance, emergency translation for people in heavily Latino communities here in Los Angeles affected by the fires.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. There's the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. There's the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. There's the California Community Foundation Wildfire Relief Fund. Those are the five organizations we have now. Usually in these relief funds, sometimes we change out the organizations. Or add. Or add, right? We talk to the local partners on the ground.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Thanks to all of you, we have raised nearly $100,000 for these groups so far. Nearly $100,000. We've done relief funds just like this before. Most recently for Hurricane Helene relief. We also did it during the pandemic. We've done it many times.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
For some reason, a bunch of right-wing media people and Republican operatives spent the weekend accusing us and Vote Save America of running a scam and stealing money from fire victims in our own fucking city and soliciting people's contact info so we can do political fundraising. All of which... has made me angrier and more upset than anything in a really long time, and that's saying a lot.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Their claim is that because the relief fund is run through ActBlue, which is also a democratic fundraising platform, that ActBlue takes 4% of the donations for themselves and then uses your contact info to spam you for candidate fundraising. This is complete bullshit, and anyone who bothered to do even the most cursory Googling would have found that out.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The relief fund is run through ActBlue Charities, which is a tax-deductible charitable organization. That is a 97% rating on Charity Navigator, by the way. The 4% fee goes to the banks and credit card companies for processing your online donation, a type of fee that every charitable organization has to pay banks and credit card companies if they accept online donations.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The only way to avoid that fee is by dropping off cash at the organization yourself or writing a personal check. And your contact info, which you obviously have to provide if you're making a donation, is never used by us to solicit donations for candidates. We don't add you to the Vote Save America list. You opt in to Vote Save America or you sign up for Vote Save America. That's it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Could you donate directly to the organizations I just read by going right to their websites? Absolutely. You're free to if you want. they would, by the way, still be paying the processing fee.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And you would like to think that doing something like this, exploiting people in an ongoing disaster would be seen as beyond the pale, or at least there'd be some kind of like mutually assured destruction, lest the next Democratic president say, actually, no one should live on the coast of Florida ever again. And unless you agree to my random policy areas, we will not fund any insurance for you.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And we talk to the groups. The reason the groups like it is because we have a big platform and big reach. And a lot of times for local orgs, not for like the Red Cross or something like that, but for local organizations, whether it's in North Carolina for Helene or here, they appreciate that we have this big reach in this big community, right? Millions of people listen to this podcast every week.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And so they're like, oh, this is great. Yeah, this helps us.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
That was what I thought as I was loading my two small children into the car and escaping Los Angeles because I was worried that we might burn. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. What scam could we set up? But we use ActBlue because our audience is used to using ActBlue. And reducing friction in these things and making it easy for people to donate is a great way to get them to actually donate.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
If you're sending people to a bunch of different websites, they're just going to tap out and not end up completing it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I just want to say the reason we even bring this up, it's not a bunch of like random MAGA trolls online like this. The number of accounts, right, that like National Review, the Free Beacon, the Washington Examiner, all the right wing rags were all over this. Republican operatives who should know better because they've been in politics were attacking. It was insane.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It made me actually think is like a longer conversation, but just Twitter has really become like something that it was not before with the right wing accounts there. And when they jump on to something, it like goes so far and so fast that it's like it suddenly goes beyond your control.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Here's the good news on all this. Is that most of the money, I just said almost $100,000 was raised. Most of the money came in after Saturday, which is when this whole thing got kicked up online.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
They're great organizations. And so please. Donate votesaveamerica.com slash relief. Or if you're scared off by that, you can go to the individual organizations. Write down the names and go to their website. Just donate because people need the help here. That's all. Don't care how you donate. Just if you can do.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. All right. When we come back, chair of the Minnesota DFL, Ken Martin.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, of course. When did Joe Biden ever attach political conditions to disaster relief or Barack Obama or George W. Bush or like any president before Donald Trump? In addition to that 2018 episode, I had forgotten that in October of 2020, Trump did deny a federal aid request from California. At the time, there were 21 active wildfires in the state. Four million acres had already burned.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Ken Martin, welcome to Pod Save America.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So people who listen to this show know that we're all longtime friends and fans of one of your opponents, Ben Wickler, but we really want to get to know you and make sure our listeners get to know you and know why you want this extremely challenging and thankless job as DNC chair where everyone seems to blame you when things go wrong and credit someone else when things go right.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So what made you decide that's the job for me? I want that job.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So there's a story you can tell about 2024 that Trump's win was narrow. Kamala Harris came close in the battleground states. Democrats in the Senate and House and down ballot did better than you might think, given how most people say they feel about the economy and the direction of the country.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
31 people had died. And Newsom had asked for federal aid. Trump rejected it. And then Newsom called Trump and pleaded his case. And I think Kevin McCarthy, who at the time was, you know, Republican leadership in the House and from California. I think he got Trump to turn around and then Trump signed the signed the disaster relief assistance. But he tried to do this before.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And then there's a story about how Democrats lost ground with nearly every demographic group in nearly every state, especially Latino voters and voters who didn't go to college. And because of that, lost for the second time to a convicted felon who tried to steal the last election. Which of those stories sounds more right to you?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Well, obviously, you know, we need to wait for more data to sort of dive into the national picture. From your perspective as someone who's been on the ground in Minnesota for the last decade, obviously these trends have happened in every state in the country. Minnesota is no exception. You guys have fared, I think, a little better. You have...
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
probably higher percentage of college-educated voters than some Midwestern states. So you would imagine Minnesota does a little better. But you've probably seen the attrition with voters without a college degree in your state. What do you think has caused it, just from your perspective in Minnesota?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Nine House Republicans. They better speak up.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I know you've talked a lot about how the Democratic Party has a brand problem. You were just explaining some of what it is. How do you go about fixing a party's brand problem? You know, I've heard you say you reject the idea that Democrats need a wholesale change in our message. It feels like the different levers you have to pull in changing a party's brand are message, candidates.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
sort of messaging infrastructure. What do you think, how do you begin to fix a branding problem?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem as well, because I do think the Harris campaign told us this, that they had a lot of influencers and influential people who were privately for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but didn't want to come out publicly or have them on their platforms or host them on their podcasts. And the reason that they don't is it's a brand issue, right? Yeah.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I wonder how you get more – you basically got to get the party's brand to be more popular, more accessible, and cool, really, for a broader array of people in order to get on these platforms. And I wonder how you think about that. And also, like – Part of this is, you know, the debate about Joe Rogan could go forever and it can be very annoying.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I will say so far, the only Republican I've seen that has opposed attaching any kind of conditions is Tom Tillis, Senator, Republican Senator from North Carolina. And he said, just before we started recording, put yourself, he's like, put yourself in their shoes. We were just dealing with a hurricane here. We wanted relief. Like, so would they, which is a completely normal thing to think.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But do you think it was a mistake for Democrats to when Bernie Sanders went on Joe Rogan to criticize him for going on Joe Rogan and to to not send people on Fox News and to criticize people for going on Fox News? Like, do you would you like to see? Do you think that was a mistake?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
You're not just a state party chair yourself. You're the president of the Association of State Democratic Committees. What can state party chairs teach national Democrats about winning elections that they're currently missing?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
He's a decent person. The other thing is, it's not just like you're punishing all the libs in California. Donald Trump got 6 million votes in the state of California. That's a lot of votes. That's probably more votes than he got in a lot of different states that he won.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Why do you think Minnesota got bluer since you became state party chair? And how much of that do you take credit for?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Cool. On today's show, Joe Biden delivers his final foreign policy address to kick off his last week as president. We'll talk about the speech and his farewell tour. I can't believe it's the last week.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
What specifically would you do differently than Jamie Harrison over the last four years? How do you want to change the way that the DNC operates?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Well, presumably he'd like the Republican Party to do better in California going forward. So maybe don't punish it now.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
What is the permanent campaign in the year-round organizing? Could you give an example of what it looks like structurally in practice and also where the money comes from? Because I feel like I've heard a lot of DNC chairs come in to –
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
the job saying like we need a 50 state campaign we need to focus not just on national races and federal races we need to do down ballot and then when the time comes understandably the money ends up going to the biggest most competitive races in the most important states and that's just the way it is so how do you is that do we need to more money is it just where you put the money and then how does that year-round organizing actually look in practice
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Right. Also, say Gavin Newsom personally went to every reservoir and drained it so he could drink all the water himself. Thirsty boy, yeah, sure. So he could keep it by his house so he could have extra water. Why does everyone else get punished for that? It is fucking insane. It is an insane thing to do. One condition the Republicans are discussing is tying wildfire aid to the debt ceiling.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
How do you feel about the ban on corporate PACs and lobbyist donations to the DNC?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
On Monday morning, Politico reported that over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, a group of House Republicans and President-elect Trump explored tying disaster relief with extending the debt limit as a way to overcome internal Republican divisions that would likely sink any bill containing a debt ceiling increase.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So who are some elected Democrats, local, state, national, who impress you right now? Who should we be keeping an eye on?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Last question. There's been sort of two models for this job. There's a like someone who's going to focus on organizing and being behind the scenes and featuring a lot of the structural issues, which you have talked a lot about.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's also the need for a party spokesman, particularly in this moment where we don't necessarily have a leader of the party right now as President Biden gets ready to exit. Would do you think that if you get this job, you'll be doing TV and podcasts and everything and be out there all the time being a messenger?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
They, of course, don't think that they can get the debt ceiling increase with just Republican votes because you get the Chip Roy's of the world who like want trillions of dollars of cuts before they ever vote for a debt ceiling increase. Apparently, House Speaker Mike Johnson was not in attendance at the dinner, so no final decision has been made.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Ken Martin, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America and good luck to you in the race. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, John. That's our show for today. Thanks to Ken Martin for stopping by. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Stay safe, everyone out there in Los Angeles.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
but wouldn't be surprised if they move forward on this. What do you guys think of the idea? Do you think Democrats, House Democrats would support it?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I was relieved that we could help Donald Trump solve a political problem for himself. You know, as I watched the flames creep closer to my home and my business and where all my friends live, I thought to myself, I really hope there's any silver lining here. It can be that we solve this Freedom Caucus political problem for Donald Trump.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Some of them ran for Congress just to oppose debt ceiling increases.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I made it more of like, oh shit, Trump's coming. It's happening, it's real. We'll also talk about the latest in the precarious marriage between MAGA and Big Tech, with Mark Zuckerberg doing more Trump ass-kissing on Joe Rogan, and Steve Bannon making new threats to Elon Musk.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, I reached out to a couple of members of Congress to see if this was gaining currency. And they were like, I'm not sure about the debt ceiling piece of this, but they do think that conditioning aid is gaining a lot of momentum, even though no one seems to know what the conditions are.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I mean, we're like half joking, but like if you look at Twitter, it's like half of the attacks are Donald Trump Jr. saying that like DEI initiatives are the reason there were 100 mile per hour winds. And then there's the Trump stuff, which is like forest management and the smelt fish, which I know you and Dan talked about Thursday. And I refuse to learn more about because it's so stupid stuff.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
That's all you need to listen to. Even Gavin Newsom said, all you have to do is listen to Pod Save America to find out about the small fish.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's a hope there, which is like, so now Trump is expected to come out here next week and he's going to talk to Newsom. You could see a situation. We're in the stupidest timeline we have been for a long time where all of this is bluster. Republicans go on shows. They have to sound tough. That's what they do. Trump goes out. He talks to Newsom and he's like, I knew some was OK.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And we came to an agreement and they're going to and the condition is like they're going to they're going to study force management or they're going to make some bullshitty thing to like.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Gavin should make a giant faucet and do like a grand opening, like key to the city, ribbon cutting type thing.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, so that's the best case scenario. And by no means clear that that will happen.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. They just want to say that they punished the libs in California. That's, that's what they're going to do. They now control everything. They control Washington Republicans. So they need enemies. They need villains. That's their reason for being. And so California is going to be a big punching bag. Probably New York's going to be a big punching bag too, right?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
They just got to find the libs wherever they can. And that's going to be, uh,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Greenland, Panama, California, California.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, that's that's about right. Yeah. All right. Let's let's talk about Los Angeles. Yesterday, The New York Times resurfaced a 2021 interview with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, where she promised to, quote, not travel internationally. Very specific pledge that Bass broke last week when she was in Ghana as the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out in Los Angeles.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
This comes after Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristen Crowley told Fox 11 Los Angeles on Friday that under Bass's leadership, the city had failed her and her department by not providing enough funding to her department. Curious what you guys think of the local response so far. Do you think the anger is warranted towards L.A. officials and Mayor Bass?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Then I talked to Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota DFL, that's the state's Democratic Party, about his bid for chair of the DNC. But first, the fires in Los Angeles are still burning. As of this taping on Monday afternoon, the Eaton Palisades and Hearst fires have burned over 36,000 acres. To put that in context, that is a larger area than the entire city of San Francisco.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think 90% of being mayor is showing up. And when you're out of town, when something like this happens, you are going to get people very angry. And I think that's pretty justifiable anger, especially when this was not totally predicted, these fires, not the scope and scale, but the conditions that led to them were known in advance.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And some of the reporting on Mayor Bass's absence notes that Mayor Hahn, who was the mayor of Los Angeles on September 11, 2001, was in D.C. when the 9-11 attacks happened. He got stranded there for three days and voters punished him for it. And he lost free election.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I had no idea about that story because I didn't live there at the time. But he got the first flight that left the East Coast back to the West Coast after 9-11. He was on that first flight. He was gone for a couple days. He says 60 hours. 60 hours. And it was still like one of the reasons he, it was used against him for like the rest of his career.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Do you know who became, who was the acting mayor in his absence? Who?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Alex Padilla. Huh. Our senator. Look at that.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, she left Saturday. The extreme warnings were Sunday. There were warnings before that on Friday. There were some pretty dire ones on Saturday too, yeah.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Me too. And I do think, whether it's the law firms, whether it's what they're doing to some of these Gaza protesters, like...
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Everyone just has to be aware that this is going on and that the more people who speak up and the more people who stand in solidarity with the people who are targeted, whether you disagree with them or not, whether you're like them or not, whether you think that you like the harder it's going to be for the Trump administration to pull this off.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
They win if they start doing this and picking out people up there. And then everyone else is like, well, I'm not going to say anything. There was this whole New York Times story over the weekend, too, about like how all these people who spoke out in the first term against Trump are quiet now and a lot of them went on background. A lot of people wouldn't say anything.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And yeah, I like it's the wrong way to handle this. Yes. Well, it's also just take a step back. Why do they think it's such good politics to chill free speech and go against protests? Like, why do they think it's such good politics to go against foreign aid?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Why do I think it's such a good politics to pull these just like completely like these moves are just like completely anathema to what America is supposed to represent? It's because they don't believe that there's enough people that are going to make the argument successfully to the country and that people will go with their kind of base gut animal instincts on issue after issue.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. Tell your audience about your experience with Helix mattresses. Don't mind if I do. I have a Don Lux. It's a super comfortable mattress. Look, maybe it's because Donald Trump is president. Maybe it's because I'm just getting old.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But man, nothing makes me happier than having a dinner that's over by like 6.30 and knowing that I can watch one hour, two hour, three hours. Four. Four hours of fucking excellent content from the comfort of my Helix bed. It's a dream. It is a great dream. So comfortable scrolling on my computer, watching a screen, watching another screen all because of Helix.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Then we'll cover Democrats' debate over the party's shutdown strategy and basically everything else. And speaking of Democrats, Lovett will regale us with tales from his weekend trip to Michigan where he caught up with Bernie Sanders on his fight oligarchy tour. Hell yeah, I did. Look at you. Feeling the burn. Quick little trip to Michigan. One day. One day.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Plus, your personalized mattress is shipped straight to your door free of charge. Go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off sitewide. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off sitewide. helixsleep.com slash crooked.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
During that Maria Bartiromo interview, Trump also got lots of questions on the economy, especially about his on-again, off-again trade war. Let's listen.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Someone's out of the prediction business. So on Friday's show, we talked about how Trump backed down for now on most of the tariffs against Canada and Mexico, though he's apparently sticking with tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum that are set to go into effect on Wednesday. China's retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural products have now gone into effect.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The Canadians are also hitting us with some retaliatory tariffs. And their new prime minister, Mark Carney, said in a speech Sunday that America wants to, quote, destroy our way of life. Reaching for a hockey metaphor said, quote, we didn't ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. He found it. He found it. He wasn't reaching. He got that one.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The market seemed less enthused by this trade war and continued a three-week sell-off on Monday amid fears of the recession that Trump has refused to rule out. What do you think, guys? So Trump and his team have now called this a transition, an adjustment, a disturbance. And Scott Besson called it a detox period.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We need a few months of just sort of clean economic recession to kind of just get a lot of these growth toxins out of our body.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But first, we try not to alarm you all on this show unless it's necessary. But there are a few stories out there about the Trump regime cracking down on dissent and opposition that make you wonder how we'd react if this was happening in another country.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Icing and offsides have never made sense to me. Offsides are different policies.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I thought Trump was supposed to be especially sensitive to stock market fluctuations. Oh, he is.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
What do we think happened here? I'm a little, honestly, like my, like... late night worry is that like he's so now heavy on fucking cryptocurrency that like the more unstable the American economy gets, the more he's sort of hedged against it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yes. I'm just trying to explain why he seems to be a little less worried about the markets these days. I think he's full of shit.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think it's very funny that on the same day that he does the Bart Romo interview, Howard Lutnick's on the Sunday shows and said, this country would absolutely not have a recession. Absolutely not.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
If you say there could be one, you're sort of inviting one. One person close to the administration talked to Politico for quite a while about all this. And they said he has to acknowledge there's going to be some pain. He can't say everything's perfect. If he said everything's perfect, people would think he lost his mind.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The other part of this, too, is I talked about this with Bernie just a little bit, but when the Bush people did their tax cuts, they were smart enough to understand that politically, you finance it with deficits, and then you use those deficits to later claim you need to cut spending. It was called starving the beast.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
They understood that going out there and saying, we're going to cut taxes for the richest people in America, but in a deficit-neutral way, which means cutting a bunch of services, also just makes your job that much harder.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, they're not politically or economically doing the things that you think they would do if their goal was ultimately to get the economy hot so that they can kind of have better politics to pull all the other shenanigans they're trying to pull. Hot-ass economy. Hot-ass economy.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
it's also possible that they don't know what the fuck they're doing yeah because it's not just the tariffs themselves that is causing the markets and businesses to start freaking out a little bit it's the uncertainty around the tariffs like he he threatens tariffs on again imposes tariffs yeah right and then he takes them back clearly like he backed away from them on friday thursday whenever it was because he you know saw the reaction was like all right i'm gonna back off but
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
It didn't really calm things because everyone's like, well, who the fuck knows what's going to happen next?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So over the weekend, ICE agents with the federal government detained a legal permanent resident in New York, took him away from his very pregnant wife, threw him in a detention center in Louisiana, all despite the fact that they have not charged him with a crime. His name is Mahmoud Khalil, and he's a Columbia graduate who's been the leader of the university's pro-Gaza protests.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Here's the thing is, Lovett and I would have gone with Ross and Rachel because we're millennials. I went with both. But he's Gen X. He's Gen X. Because it's fun. He's Gen X. He and Dan will be talking about Sam and Diane.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Dan's like a real Dan, actually. Look, here's the thing. This show is about a cross-generational conversation between Tommy and Dan as kind of our elders. By the way, what's crazy is we grew up learning from them, and now we sit at this table with them. It's wild. It's really cool.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Imagine if if Biden could have called a snap election during Bratt's summer. We had a couple of those. Yeah, somebody lost. It depends on the poll. There was like one week where they were ahead.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The other part of this, too, is it's like even like take Trump like on his own terms. Like, OK, somebody out there was like thinking about where they're going to put a factory to make some kind of a widget. And it's like, you know, originally I was going to embark on a 10 year project to build a factory abroad.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But now that there were tariffs on Canada for 36 hours, I think I'm going to put it in Ohio. No. Makes no fucking sense. No one can plan anything.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The funding cuts, right? Like there's a lot of businesses that have federal contracts. They get funding from the government, right? And so you have that. You have the tariffs. No one can plan anything. Of course there's uncertainty.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah. Trump also retruthed a piece by Charlie Kirk over the weekend titled Shut Up About Egg Prices. Yeah. So that's where we are now. Shut up about egg prices.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I have to say, that was the kind of, in the liberal commentary, that was a bit of an argument made on the left for quite some months before the election. Shut the fuck up about the egg prices, and we'll be all right. Look how well that, look where that got us. And now here we are, debating the finer parts of immigration status.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And then we were like, if Joe Biden did that, we're like, yeah, no, the problem is we're... Shut up about egg prices.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You know what? We're just going to leave it there. That's it. That's a perfect segue. Beautiful button on that one. Trump's other big economic policy, destroying the federal government, also hitting some speed bumps. We talked about Trump reigning in Elon on Friday's show, but that was before we got all the juicy details about the cabinet meeting where it all went down.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report that Elon accused Marco Rubio of not firing enough people at the State Department and insinuated he's good on TV, but not much else. Marco got mad. Said Elon was lying and then went back and forth until Trump had to jump in and defend Marco. Elon also fought with real world road rule star turned transportation secretary Sean Duffy.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Who, by the way, is the hero in this piece. Yes, the hero who accused Doge of trying to fire air traffic controllers. And then Elon's like, that's a lie. We did not try to give me the names. And he's like, I can't give you the names because I prevented you from firing them. Idiot. He didn't say it, but he should have. Should have.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Trump is bragging about the arrest and said that it's part of his promise to find and deport any student protesters who he believes have engaged in what he's calling, quote, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity. The Trump administration also cited anti-Semitism as the reason they're canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
This all ended with Trump announcing that cabinet secretaries, not Elon, decide who gets hired and fired at their agencies. And then they all tried to make up and pretend they're best pals on social media. Now, I initially thought Elon would be asked about all this when he sat down for a Fox business interview with Larry Kudlow on Monday.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
My original segue into this was, and here's what he said when asked about it today. But there is no question. It was just a 15-minute tongue bath from Larry Kudlow.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I don't like the term tongue bath. It was a tongue bath, but it's an uncomfortable phrase.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We should feel uncomfortable. I don't like it. Try watching the interview.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He did not seem like... Yeah, he's on the wrong curve of whatever's going on inside of that fucking body.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I know, it's a long way from the chainsaw and the legalized comedy and all that kind of stuff. He was very subdued.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, he did try a little bit of meme-ification at the beginning because little intranet jokes because he was like, and you know, your businesses have been targeted. There were shots fired at Tesla dealerships and all of a sudden, Elon just interrupts and he goes, shots fired, but not that. Like, get it? Like on the internet? Shots fired?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I missed that because Pundit took an Austin sandwich off of his desk. That's why I missed the first few seconds.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
How fun was that New York Times story? We deserve every word of that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
First of all, I love that story. Everybody should take a moment and go.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Good for Maggie, good for Jonathan. So there's just one point I wanted to make about the story, which was excellent. It was written in a really strange way because there's lots of what seem like direct quotes from the piece, but they're not in quotes. It's like, It's not written like a New York Times story. It's written like a book. And it made me think two things. One, could there be?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Works right out of the box. Very easy to set up. And once you do, completely reliable. Great app. Highly recommend it. We simply say millions of Americans enjoy greater security and peace of mind every time they arm their system when heading out each morning or when locking up each night. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Could there be? And two, are these people already recording each other? I hope so. And if I was somebody in that room reading that story, I would be very paranoid about how that story was written basically as if somebody was in the room transcribing it without any reference to a recording or who the... There's no like... Some sources say Duffy said this and some sources must say that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
It is a narrative as if they were in the room. And I just love that for them and for us.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
No, it's White House staff. It's all White House staff. Yeah. They leak. It's usually like senior staff and then the staff around the table.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
As a note, more than a quarter of the school's operating budget comes from federal grants. So this is going to have a real impact on faculty, on students, on tuition costs, all the rest. They could spend a little bit of that fucking endowment, though.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And this guy still works at the State Department? There was a moment, people just need to understand, there was this brief frenzy on the internet that Marco Rubio had attended gay sex parties. Which is just not true. Foam parties. Foam parties.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
There's a picture of him with foam around him and some men. Now apparently that was just a regular foam party. They just tried to insinuate it. Foam parties are disgusting. Yeah, they are. Disgusting. That foam is so dirty. No one needs to be at a foam party.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Look, this is an episode about freedom and not judging, not yucking other people's yum. Go anywhere you want. Whether it be a foam party or an anti-Israel protest.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think that our secretary of state is the result of an elaborate prank. that the whole Trump MAGA world has been playing on him. Like, we're going to make him Secretary of State. We're going to make him think he's got a big job now. And then we're going to put all the people who hate him as his staff. And then we're going to sick Elon Musk on him.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We're going to make him prom king and he's going to walk out on that stage, pig's blood.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I feel like we are not even at the beginning of the humiliation of Marco Rubio.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You know that some people made this point. I don't somebody on social media was making this point. I'm sorry to whoever it was that both J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio have like fundamentally changed their worldview to fit with Donald Trump. But J.D. Vance does it in such a convincing way. And Marco Rubio just can't. And he can't because you can just see it in his eyes.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The person in there that doesn't agree, he can't kill that part of himself. And I don't know that it speaks well of him or poorly of him, but I'm loving every second of it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I don't agree with it, I'm just saying. Anyway, continue. Hope they don't come after Williams. Listen, first they came for Columbia and I did not speak out. For I went to a small liberal arts college in northwestern Massachusetts that few people have heard of.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
My view on this is that, and I've changed my view over time, I think J.D. Vance believes it. I think J.D. Vance is entirely bought in. He's got all the authoritarian tendencies. He loves Orban and Hungary and all the rest of it. He's part of the project. They all do love Mr. Orban.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I do think that, yeah, with Vance, there's this sort of great salesman quality that he has. He always has this tone in interviews like, I don't understand how anyone could be so stupid as not to understand why we are right. And he was doing it about why the mineral deal in Ukraine weighed more. He got in trouble for it. Of course it's crazy.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He got in trouble for saying, for insulting French and British troops. But the point he was making, he was making was such a kind of strident arrogance.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You can tell he used to be an establishment cuck because he's very scoldy.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, but I always just, I think he's a salesman at heart selling, and I think he, like any great salesman, he sells himself first. And so I do think he like starts to really adapt these views.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yes. He's running for president, so no matter what, he won't be a dictator unless our republic completely crumbles, which I don't anticipate it will. And if you listen to the way he describes himself and what he's going to do, he's going to single-handedly do this and do that without regard for whether it's legal or not.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
No matter what happens in this election, for years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media, and voters at large that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump, because this is not going to end well one way or the other.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And I'll just say this, that... I don't let Cybertrucks in. I just don't let them in. Into where? Into your lane. Into my lane. I'm not kind to the Cybertrucks on the road. I don't break any rules. You used to own one. I had a Tesla.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Of course I also have a Cybertruck. Until Tommy and I put graffiti on it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, it couldn't fit in our compact spaces, so I had to get rid of my Cybertruck. You guys ought to say that John Tommy and I, we park in these three tiny fucking spaces, and every morning, someone comes in and is like, hey, hey, too close. Too fucking close. And you're like, I thought I parked. No, you got to park a little bit further, because I couldn't get out of the fucking car.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Tommy leveled an accusation once, and I actually, when I went out to get coffee, I took a picture just to prove that I had actually parked far, far away from the line.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Trump also signed an executive order on Friday that orders the government's public service loan forgiveness program. You get help with your student loans if you go into a career in public service. It's been around forever. That's a good point.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Maybe one serious discussion in this section? Yeah, for sure. So Jeff Stein and Dan Diamond had a good piece in the Washington Post. Not as gossipy as Maggie and Jonathan's, but a good piece. Good reporters. It was good. They made the case that Trump actually does appear to be susceptible to political pressure on things like tariffs and doge cuts. Walked back the tariffs now a couple times.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He has now reined in Elon a little bit. What do you guys think? Do you think that this is him feeling some political pressure? Do you think it's something else?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
No, I think he does. I think he actually does. I think he's hearing it. I don't think he faces political pressure and that he cares about blowback in the mainstream press. I think he hears it from the congressional Republicans. And I think behind closed doors, there are more honest conversations with Mike Johnson,
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
uh with John Thune about what they're hearing and where it's like hey man they're like kind of the kind of thing that's like hey man they're with you but you got to give them this or you got to you got to slow down on this or I'm getting a lot of about this whatever it may be because I think actually where the political pressure is right now like really does boil down to whatever happens yes with the CR that's coming but ultimately with reconciliation and whether or not they can
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
get a all-Republican bill through the House. And if the economy is going down, if there's a bunch of blowback around Medicaid cuts, all of a sudden- Planes are going down. Planes are continued to touch, which they're never supposed to do. They're bumping. Then all of a sudden, they're not able to count to a majority in the House, and his whole agenda is in jeopardy.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He also, he likes being liked. That's like his big, he's important. And he is, I think more self-aware than he lets on. And he, he knows, right. The stock market's been terrible, right? Like he's not, he watches the TV and so he knows what's going on. And I think he does not want to be hated. Yeah.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but two announcements before we do that. We got a new podcast from Crooked that we think you'll love. It's called Shadow Kingdom God's Banker. I'm going to set the scene. It's the summer of 1982. The Vatican's top money man was found dead.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He was at the center of a prolific money laundering scheme that put him in the crosshairs of the Sicilian Mafia, a secret far-right chapter of the Freemasons and the Catholic Church. Forty years after his death was ruled a suicide, Shadow Kingdom host Niccolo Mainoni got a tip that there was more to the story.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Check out the trailer for Shadow Kingdom God's Banker right now wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe for episodes starting March 17th. Better yet, join our Friends of the Pod community to binge all the episodes that same day at crooked.com slash friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple podcast feed. Also, merch store news. Oh. We got some new products here.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Trump has blamed DEI for everything from wildfires to plane crashes to inflation, and the Crooked store has new merch to help you embody Trump's new favorite boogeyman with a DEI hire shirt from the Crooked store. Hell yeah. Nice. Hell yeah.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Head to crooked.com slash store to pick up yours today. Isn't it crazy that Shadow Kingdom is about 1982 and you and I were babies and Tommy was in high school? I should go get kicked out of another rally.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
All right, let's talk about what Americans really care about, whether the looming government shutdown can be averted. On Saturday, Speaker Mike Johnson put out the text of the continuing resolution he's going to bring to a vote Tuesday night. It turns out it's not exactly a clean continuing resolution as promised.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
It increases spending on things like defense and border enforcement while cutting spending by greater amounts in other areas, including zeroing out a lot of health care programs in states. Trump is whipping support for this one. He wrote on Truth Social, all Republicans should vote in parentheses, please exclamation point. Yes. Next week.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So far, we've only got one Republican hard no from Thomas Massey. If that holds, this thing will pass the House. Big if. Then it will go to the Senate where the funding bill can't pass without support from at least seven Democratic senators and probably eight since Rand Paul seems like a no. Democratic leaders say this is a power grab by the White House and a, quote, slush fund for Trump and Musk.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Last month, Trump signed a similar order canceling security clearances for anyone at the law firm of Covington and Burling because they did some work with Jack Smith. Here's Trump talking about this decision with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, there's no control. Like he's Donald Trump is treating every dollar Congress has ever appropriated as money. He can decide whether to spend or not. Republicans have acted as though putting into the law controls on what Trump does to protect Congress's authority under the Constitution is like like like so unacceptable.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So, yeah, I mean, if we if Donald Trump believes he can just cut or spend however he sees fit, then we're no longer appropriating money for the administrative branch. We're appropriating money for Donald Trump to spend.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So our pal Alyssa Slotkin, the fairly moderate new Democratic senator from Michigan, said on Sunday that she's withholding her vote to fund the government until Congress gets, quote, assurances the administration will actually follow the law and spending the money. So it's not a slush fund. That seems to me like Senate Democrats might actually be willing to vote down this funding bill.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Though then they asked Mark Kelly and he was sort of saying what Slotkin said, but then he was like. But shutdowns are bad. We don't like shutdowns and the CR isn't great, but shutdowns are bad too. Tommy, what do you think? Can you see a possible compromise here? Is this a good idea to go forward and withhold votes? Bad idea?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've talked about this on too many episodes, but, you know, Dan has made the point, like, know what you're asking for. Ask for something if you're going to go through this and, like, make it specific. Make it clear. Make it under, you know, and look, will they, if you get it, are they going to abide by it? Who the fuck knows?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But if we're going by what they're going to abide or not abide by, then we might as well just give up. You're right. Then there's no Congress. We might as well just give up.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We're afraid of the politics of what happens when Donald Trump doesn't follow the law we've lost already. We're afraid of the politics if Donald Trump does follow the law. Well, that's ordinary politics we've done a million times. And then if they need our votes to pass something, then you should get something for your votes. Yeah. Right.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Like they're just going to do what they would have done if they had a 60 seat majority. Well, that doesn't make sense.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So, of course, government funding isn't the only thing Democrats are arguing about. Excellent Wall Street Journal headline here. Democrats are busy fighting over what to fight over on their list, whether it was good or bad to interrupt Trump in his joint address and whether we should be blowing up members' phones in town halls to get them to fight the Doge cuts.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Tim Walz was also out there this weekend saying that the Harris campaign played it too safe during the campaign and should have done more town halls where they got tough questions. For good measure. We also had a bunch of stories over the weekend about Democrats starting to swear more, talk more about sports, and podcast more, which of course we love. How about football? You like?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
How are you guys feeling about the party's very public therapy session slash nervous breakdown? Par for the course, huh?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You know, it's sort of like, hey, everybody, just stop.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Do less. Remember that from Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Do less. Don't burden yourself.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I guess I'd like a little bit more, a little less discussion of the strategy types that are available to us and a little bit more of, if you think this is what we should do, why don't you do that? And if you think there's something else we should do, you do that, and then we'll just take a look at it. Yeah. You know, let's just throw some spaghetti against the wall, you know?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And if that spaghetti looks like a years-old trend on TikTok, the choose your fighter thing. I didn't love that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I didn't love that. But it's like, I don't think Democrats have paid too great a price for Al Green going, meh. And like, I don't, you know, but I, and like, I don't think the color coordination was particularly effective.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Cool. Very cool. Let's start with the Columbia situation. And I should note that right before we recorded, a judge has temporarily blocked Khalil's deportation until there's an actual hearing, which I believe is scheduled for Wednesday, at least the first of maybe a couple. How big of a deal is this?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah. The the the being afraid of taking on some of the more controversial like policy issues that the Trump campaign was making big under the assumption that under the hope that you ignore that, you push that down, you campaign in your most effective on your most effective messages. That was like a smarter, safer thing to do. Like it turns out that didn't work.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Was that the wrong decision at the time? I don't know. But like right now, like there's a I feel like in that piece, like there's a lot of like abstraction and like I don't sometimes I don't know what is fighting voting against the CR is fighting voting for it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But being angry, like like sometimes like very confused and but only but focusing on reconciliation, like what like I don't often know how to apply the abstraction. But like the core point, one of the core points made in the piece is there are some more moderates that are basically saying our constituents that we need, our moderate constituency to think of us as.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
even killed fighters who will work with Trump sometimes and oppose him where he's wrong. While there's the, well, I'm just like trying to make the most generous version of it. And then, but the left says Trump is threatening the Republic. We need to fight these people at every turn.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And by the way, that will bring out the people we need when they see us becoming champions for them and the working class. And that means, that means giving no quarter, and trying to stop every one of these doge cuts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And like, I think probably that may make sense in Tom Suozzi's district, but not make sense for others and not make sense for the party as a whole.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think there's been, it's odd to say this as three founders of a media company here, there's been a bit too much focus on what mediums and formats to communicate and get the message out. I get it, it's a crazy media environment right now and you can't do just television anymore and put out a press release. We've talked about that a million times. But there should be a little more focus on just
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
be yourself, you know, do what's comfortable to you in your own skin. And then the fact that you have to do it on a new medium, right? Like you have to be on TikTok or you have to do a podcast like that shouldn't change your style, your message, who you are. Like I feel like there's a lot of trying to fit themselves in like boxes that they don't really belong in.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Just because either their younger staff or consultants or anyone else is telling them, like, this is what's cool. This is what you got to do. Like, you just be yourself.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think this is where we're like, do we applaud or not applaud? Like, why is that even an issue? It's just a silly thing the media focuses on. No, I know. But what I'm getting there's like it's like all of this feels like it's trying to make up for some deeper problem, which is about like, what do we stand for? Why don't people believe us?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
How do we like there's a kind of bigger problem inside of like democratic politics that we all On some level, no. And we're sort of grappling with it. And like in the short term, like no one's going to solve it. It's going to take a lot of time.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, again, elections will come and you need to strategize around an election and figure out what the best measures are for like the next for at least this year. Just do your politics like you're not going to look at the reaction or you're not going to read advice. You're just doing it based on what you think and believe and and how you feel about things.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Just like try that for just try it for a little bit. It'll work for some people, and some people it won't work for, and then, you know, get another job.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yes. Politics like no one is watching. In this case, no one is.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
No one is. Here's the thing, for most people, nobody is.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You go to that... If a podcast dropped on a feed and no one heard it, did it really make it?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Did those three guys say anything? No. Did those three white guys say anything? Yes. My answer is yes.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah. But, like, you know, I saw the difference between, like, there was, like, this whole... I, like, I posted a picture of the Bernie rally and said, like, I thought this was inspiring because it genuinely was.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I saw you quote tweet it and I was like, oh, he must be shadowboxing his mentions on this one.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You bet I was. You bet. Not shadowboxing. Boxing. But... There is every reply under the book in the sun to explain why it wasn't actually inspiring and actually quite bad. What? Yeah. Just sort of like why is Bernie alone? Why aren't other Democrats doing this? Bernie's too old. Why isn't he with somebody else? This isn't.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Sometimes I feel like we're running a political campaign with 5000 people who all have an equal say in the campaign all the time. And they're all strategists.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But the thing about it, well, online, but the thing about it is there was none of that feeling in the actual event. Of course not, because it's real life. And in real life, what was there at that event? It was very diverse, age, all demographics. And there are people there that have been Bernie fans forever. There are people there that had never been to a political rally before.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
They were all very excited to be there. They weren't checking to find out how long they'd been a Bernie backer of any Pete Buttigieg supporters and managed to sneak in. Right. Like none of that exists in the real world. Right. There's nobody like, oh, you like Bernie.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Bernie now, but you were part of the DNC coup in Iowa in 2016. Yeah, that's right.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
It's like, that's not fun for anybody. The two positions can't be, why isn't the Democratic Party embracing Bernie's message? And, oh, sure, you like Bernie now. Where were you before? It's like, well, those two things are in opposition.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I also I agree with that I also think there's like I'm watching The Real Housewives From the beginning a lot of them and honestly Everybody was right. I can't believe I waited this long. It's a dream. It's better than any drama Severance can eat shit compared to The Real Housewives in New York but Got some nodding heads over there.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But there was a moment during a reunion where Andy- The reunion episodes are the best.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, Andy turns to all the gals and says, would you come back for another season? And Alex said, I would love to. And Jill said, I'm not so sure. I bet Jill got more money. After that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And I just like there's a there's a downside to Democrats constantly hand wringing in public about how terrified they are of looking like they're obstinate or like worrying about how they need to show that they that they're some of their constituents want them to kind of coordinate with Trump and not be so opposed to him while opposing the bad parts is it sends a message that they're that they're.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
fucking, that they'll bend, that they'll give up. And if like Democrats were a little bit more like, we will support bills that do the right thing and we won't be ransomed into supporting continuing resolution.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yes, absolutely. Like Trump is a negotiator. He's not a very good one, but he thinks about it. He cares about it. And it's like, maybe like, Let's think about that a little bit.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think that's great. In House districts that Republicans won by only a few votes.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And more Democrats should be doing that. Absolutely. Whether you like Bernie's politics or not, here's a guy who has not changed anything in
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
about himself and doesn't want to doesn't care how you feel about it is completely comfortable in his own skin and he's going around drawing these big crowds just just old traditional style just go and do a rally and you talk to people and everyone's like this is great he didn't figure out like the tick tock trend he didn't figure out exactly how to like do an explainer video that's vertical video he's not like we got to stop the oligarchy no cap
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We sat down with Bernie after, but we were supposed to talk to him before the rally. We only talked to him after, which was after his third rally, and he was pretty well cooked. So we got a good conversation, but I will say it was also awesome just getting to talk to a lot of people. And if you go to Crooked Socials on Instagram, on X, On TikTok, you can see all the conversations.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And we walked to the end of what was one of the longest lines I've ever seen in politics of people trying to get in. And it was really fun. So check it out.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, so it's a small detail, but they didn't have to send this person to Louisiana. There's detention facilities, there's ways of processing him in New York, New Jersey. So this is like- And originally they did have him in New York, New Jersey, and then they transferred him to Louisiana. And so it's meant to be punitive. He's a lawful permanent resident for very good reason.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, I saw he was throwing anchors off a steamship. It's incredible. Kid's strong. He just made a supercomputer, some sort of quantum thing?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
All right, enough of us yapping about it. Let's hear your conversation with the man himself, Bernie Sanders.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Senator, welcome back to Pond Save America. Good to be with you. We were just talking about this. We're in Warren, Michigan. It is not an election year. There are 10,000 people here.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You said something yesterday in Wisconsin. You said we're no longer moving toward an oligarchy. We are living in one. Yeah. Which I hadn't heard you say before.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
There's this, you know, you made this video after, I think two weeks into Trump's term. And it was really meaningful for me just personally because I found it very helpful to think about how to fight back. You talked about needing to define what's happening, needing to fight back in the short term, and then needing to build a progressive movement and agenda in the long term.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But there was also like a, there was a gravity in your voice. and a sense that, in a way that I maybe hadn't heard before. I don't know if you agree with that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Lawful permanent residents are protected by the First Amendment the same way we're all protected by the First Amendment. There are ways in which the government can revoke somebody's immigration status, but it's not as punishment for speech you don't like.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
There's this strange contradiction in fighting back. Because on the one hand, you have the kind of brazenness of what Trump is doing, as if he won't ever have to worry about Democratic legitimacy at all. That they're not worried about being held accountable, or they're not worried about people paying attention, they're not worried about what could happen.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But then we're here in a district that Republican won by a few points, right? These people still care about their jobs, right? This is a place where normal politics just seems still be possible to practice. And I'm just curious how you think about that, that on the one hand, we're facing this unprecedented brazen power grab by the richest human beings in the history of planet Earth.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And by the way, it's not even as punishment for speech you don't like that may be associated with protests in which some people broke the rules or broke the law or what have you. You charge somebody with a crime.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And on the other, we got to knock on doors and turn people out to win by a few hundred, maybe a thousand votes in a district like this.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
If he broke the law, you charge that person with whatever that crime is, that due process then may ultimately result in somebody losing immigration status, something that happens all the time if you get fraud when you apply. There's lots of ways immigration status can be revoked. But no, you can't just say, oh, this person is participating in protests. And there's very Orwellian language.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
What does that argue for doing even before we get to that reconciliation vote? Because right now they're trying to jam through this continuing resolution just to keep the government open, to give them time to negotiate with each other to figure out their tax cuts and Medicaid cuts.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You know, I remember when the Bush tax cuts were on the table and they talked about starving the beast. I'm sure you remember. And but but the reason they said that is they were kind of attenuating the connection between massive tax cuts for the richest people and inevitably what they would try to do next, which was privatizing Social Security, cutting health care.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
They understood that there was like a political risk in doing that. Can you remember a time when you have had, at the exact same moment, an active proposal to cut $1 trillion worth of taxes for the richest people, to give people making over a million dollars an average of $70,000, just in cash money, while also firing 80,000 people in the Veterans Affairs?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So there was a report out of the Times about basically a fight in the cabinet room or in a cabinet meeting between Musk and Rubio and Duffy and Trump and all these characters because they're feeling the political consequences. The attention on long hold times, people just trying to find out what happened to their Social Security checks or veterans being laid off.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Most of the 25 percent of people that work at VA are veterans. So they are firing veterans who take care of veterans. I can't think of a less popular. You got it. Decision. What what is there? Is there any hope in the pressure that's taking place inside of the Trump administration?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I know we want to beat these people, but in the meantime, we've got to figure out anything we can do to stop these decisions.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And I'd never say Orwellian because it's been such a fucking... cliche and just overused phrase, but to say it was for protest aligned to terrorist organizations, deeply strange.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And that's that. So we talked to a bunch of people in the line that were excited to be here. And one thing we heard was just people saying how much they believe in you. They're here because they want to do what you think is best. And they view you as like a moral leader of the movement. But they also are feeling... worried and nervous that you're a little bit out here alone.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And, you know, you said that you may not seek reelection. I didn't make that definitive. I said I didn't make it definitive.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I'm not. Listen, I think there's a lot of ways to be 89. There's a lot of different versions of 89. You're Sprite. You're Sprite. Rolling Stones. They're still touring. But do you think about a successor?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
One of the ways that you can revoke a green card, and by the way, like you said, the State Department cannot just revoke a green card on its own. It has to go through a hearing. There has to be an immigration judge involved. One of the ways you can revoke a green card is if someone is a member of a terrorist organization or an extremist organization or has provided
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Here's my last question for you. You want to talk about the future. Would you ever take an edible with me and sit down and just have a conversation about the future? Just get really stoned on marijuana, really brainstorm? No.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I don't need to do marijuana to talk. Okay? What happened? What happened to... What happened to the radical? What happened to the Bernie of the 60s? Let's get stoned. Are you serious?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Support, right, is a threat to the United States because they're providing support to a terrorist organization. So clearly the White House wants to say that anyone who participated in these protests is Hamas or providing support to Hamas.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But again, no crime has been charged and no evidence has been provided that this person provided any kind of material support to Hamas or was part of Hamas or anything like that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And by the way, the way this happened is he was coming home and outside his apartment, there were four plainclothes agents And they identified themselves to him and his wife. They asked who he was. And then they said, you're coming with us. His wife, who's eight months pregnant, ran to get his green card because they said, oh, we're taking away your student visa.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And she's like, well, he's not a student visa holder. He's a green card holder. And then the ICE agent is on the phone with someone who's like, oh, we're taking him in anyway. They're doing this on the fly. Yeah.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
60-day satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Well, imagine if an Israeli citizen was here and has a green card, is a legal permanent resident and said, you know, I hope Netanyahu finishes the job. I hope they kill everyone in Gaza. And then that person is just deported or detained in the middle of the night. Sent to Louisiana and we just don't hear from them. We don't know.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And now imagine there's there's over 13 million legal residents in America of all nationalities from all backgrounds. And so if you play this out, then you imagine ICE just going up to legal residents because now they all know who they are, where they are. Right. You go to a legal resident and you say. It depends on what their background is. Oh, you're Ukrainian?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Oh, you must be with the Nazi group in Ukraine that Elon Musk is always talking about. Or, oh, you're Latino? You must be with Trendyagra or whatever, one of the... Cartels, Tren de Agua, that they've now labeled terrorist organizations. And now we have legal permanent residents in this country who've done everything right, who are applying for citizenship, just like you're supposed to do.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And send them away? And allow me to put on my Jew hat for a moment. This is an accident. I'm actually wearing a Delhi hat. Oh my gosh, you are. I'm literally wearing a Jew hat today. I condemn that speech. Yeah, condemn it all you want. But look, Tommy's point. Let's say that this person had a bunch of anti-Semitic comments Protected anti-Semitism is protected speech. I don't like it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I don't like a lot of what I heard at some of these protests that I do think go from anti-Zionism into pure anti-Semitism on the regular. But like to see the Anti-Defamation League put out a comment with this sort of to be sure at the end about everyone deserving due process, but ultimately coming down on the side of what the Trump administration is doing is so fucking stupid.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The idea that like, oh, yeah, like, you know, be a kind of a patron to what Trump's doing. Be like a good Jew who supports the regime. That'll protect us in the end. The thing that like protects Jewish people from anti-Semitism is the culture of freedom, a legal order that protects freedom, including the freedom of
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
green card holders, not just citizens, but non-citizens in this country, that protection is ultimately what makes Jews safe in America.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The idea that going down a road in which people think it is defensible for the Trump administration to come knocking on somebody's door who has not been accused of a crime to revoke their immigration status for speech and protest you don't like is so, it's obviously morally reprehensible, but it is so fucking stupid in the long term. That makes every Jewish person in America less safe.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Think about the road we're going on. It's like, there are posters in the schools They say, first they came for the socialists. What do they think comes after that? And then they were cool? It's so stupid. It's so obvious. There's all these people that have pretended to care about history and to learn from history and think about history. And it's happening right in front of our faces.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And they're too either cynical or naive to realize that they're the people not doing the right thing in the moment when they're supposed to.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I would also say that this is why, right? I would guess this is why the Trump administration singled this man out and started with this conflict. Because Donald Trump doesn't actually give a fuck about Gaza or the conflict. It's just another thing he's dealing with. But they know that tensions are so high around this that they can get a ridiculous fucking reaction like that from the ADL.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And then... they will limit the protest, the breadth of the protest in this country about what they're doing, and then they can go to the next step, right? That's why. They're like, well, this is sort of a lightning rod.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And the way we know that is the White House, not only did Donald Trump brag about it on Truth Social, the White House, the official White House account tweeted, Shalom Mahmoud, and is bragging about it, which is also, you know, to chill other speech from anyone who opposes the administration on any issue, right?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Maybe the people engaging in the direct talk should be deported.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
That's right. So what do you think the whole crusade against the law firms is about, huh?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, I think the worst case scenario for the Trump administration is this gets shot down pretty quickly while costing Perkins Coie a bunch of money having to hire another law firm to represent him. All this is expensive. All of this makes life more difficult. He's just punishing his enemies. And he doesn't need to go further than this for it to have been effective.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump may plunge the country into a recession, but seems oddly okay with it, which seems like a problem for all of us that we'll talk about.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But I think that the point that Tommy just raised is it's going beyond... The intent is to go beyond punishing his enemies, because if other firms that are not his enemies end up taking a case that is suing the government, then Trump can go after them. Or the other thing can happen is so there's a big law firm. Right. And they take a case suing the government.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And the big law firm also has other clients that are big corporate clients that have business before the government. And now they're like, do I really want to take that case that's suing the government because the Trump administration might come after us or I might lose this corporate client because now our firm is lightning round as well.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
That's what a lot of these lawyers are, at least that's what they were telling the Wall Street Journal. But they were saying it quietly because now they're all afraid to speak up.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think they got to see how it plays out, right? Because Perkins Coie hired Williams & Connolly, which is a bipartisan firm that has some Trump people in it. And some of this is like, does our law firm have a guy that can call a guy to say, leave us alone? You know what I mean? There's like sort of like, There's a relationship thing. There's a relationship thing here.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So some of this, I think it's like it is. Yeah, I think we just have to see how it plays out.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And again, we just talked about people being detained. So you get, you know, the Trump administration comes after you for whatever, a defamation case of this or that they're trying to take, whatever they do. And you try to find a good lawyer. And now some of these big firms are like, do I want to take this case on? I don't know. And that's, that's the effect of this. Yeah.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And good for Williams and Connolly for jumping in to defend Perkins Coie, because a lot of these law firms should like band together and make a public statement. And there had been some, the journal reported that there had been some attempt to do that. And
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
they haven't wanted to do that yet because they were a little nervous yeah i can't believe these lawyers are looking out for their own interests against these other law firms that they compete with on a daily basis on behalf of the sleaziest corporations on planet earth i i do worry about this politically i mean on its face it seems like such a brazen first amendment violation but
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We'll also get into the throwdown between Elon Musk and Trump's cabinet during a meeting where Elon reportedly fought with Marco Rubio over not firing enough people and Sean Duffy over Musk's attempt to fire air traffic controllers. Excited to fly this week.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And it is true that there's no, nothing in the constitution that requires people want to become a state before we make them one. Right. But it's just sort of the way it's often, at least at its best been done core values, core values.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But, but the other piece of this too, is it's like that. I feel like what's under assault is this, like this idea of like, there's a stability premium we pay and it's expensive in a lot of different ways, but we get a lot for it. Right. It's like, it's like America, we have a make America premium and for America premium, you don't have to worry about a war with Canada and you can,
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
kind of trust that there aren't going to be a 19 year old political apparatchik in the payment system. And you know that there's some kind of divide between the military and law enforcement and the political appointees of the government, even if we've not always honored that. And like we can have an extremely trusting relationship. which creates a lot of economic benefits for everybody.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And now we have these doofuses running around the government being like, what are we paying for? Why are we doing this? What is the value of all this?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And our two options right now are to convince people that the benefits of kind of common sense and stability are worth it, even though you don't feel the pain, or allowing these guys to rip things to pieces so terribly that we start to experience what America, how bad America could get to prove to everybody, I guess, that we were right the whole time as we slowly claw our way back.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Believe me. I've been thinking about a third option, and I don't know if we have it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think they threw him a goodbye party at Treasury at the systems office.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Hey, take a couple of these Social Security checks with you for all your service.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The other thing, like, to Tommy's point, it's like severance, like, just turn your turn off.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Just four people there, and then suddenly, well, I know Big Balls is different than the other one. Everyone know that, right? That Big Balls was the one who was fired for leaking information. He's not the racist.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We'll also talk about how Elon's wrecking ball is putting everything from cancer research to consumer protection at risk. So much so that even some Republicans are starting to speak up just a little bit. Just a peep.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
All Doge bros look the same to you. But, like, I was also just sort of taking a moment to think about it. It's like, okay, what is he complaining about exactly? Like, to Tommy's point, we actually, if you take out oil... We don't have a trade deficit with Canada. They buy a ton of stuff from us. We get more out of it than they do.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They are our biggest export partner, which means that they are our biggest customer. 17 percent, 70 percent of everything the U.S. sells around the world, we sell to Canada. They are. And like, no, I'm glad we've moved beyond a society that believes the customer is always right. But as a rule, like you don't like fucking try it out.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You don't like poke your biggest customer in the eye over and over again. It's just fucking stupid.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, now we'll see what happens because some real news from Trump was the announcement that he's putting 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, including from Canada and Mexico. So he did this in his first term. Trump announced similar steel and aluminum tariffs that were meant to target China, but ended up impacting U.S.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
businesses that rely on those materials, whether they get them from other countries or not. Trump later carved out exemptions to the tariffs for the rest of his term, and Biden rolled them back even more when he got into office. The tariffs reportedly just went into effect right before we started recording. It's Monday afternoon. And apparently there are no exemptions this time. So I don't know.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It seems like these are not just a negotiating tactic and it's real since they have now been levied, just like the China one.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I have the same reaction to it. Because the economic... It's like... If you're probably it's going to be felt by like people who are in these industries and then consumers will have will pay higher prices for things that we buy that are made from steel and aluminum that are not made in the United States.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And in case you were wondering whether Trump and his family are still shameless grifters, it now looks like they've made $100 million in trading fees on the Trump meme coin while a lot of investors got screwed.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Right. And there was some of them were interviewed and they were like, I like I liked his protectionist instincts. But the first time around, it just ended up making everything more expensive. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. Pots of America is brought to you by Haya.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Go to h-i-y-a-h-e-a-l-t-h.com and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. It turns out people's views on Trump's tariffs are mixed at best. A new poll from CBS over the weekend about Trump's first few weeks in office show a slight majority favors tariffs on goods from China, but even bigger majorities oppose tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and Europe.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Maybe because most Americans see those countries as our allies. The poll also shows that 66% of voters... think that Trump is not focusing enough on lowering prices, though his approval rating is at 53%, with around two-thirds of voters describing the president as tough, energetic, focused, and effective.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
What do you guys make of the poll, and especially the discrepancy between how people feel about Trump's economic agenda and his focus on lowering prices, and how they feel about Trump's presidency overall?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It doesn't wear that well in this poll. In this poll, there's a lot of people who are looking at this and saying, I would like less or none of him. Thank you very much. A billionaire interceding and having so much sway over the government, which I also took as a good sign. Yeah, like I think like we have a lot of ideological criticisms, obviously, with what Trump is doing.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We don't like the way that he's doing it. But if you're not like kind of Thinking about like the value of forbearance and the ways in which it has been done in the past and why a government that moved more slowly and deliberately is ultimately more valuable because over time we all benefit from that, the safety and security of that kind of a system. Trump is like he is moving so fast.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They are doing a lot. It doesn't it's not just the perception of it. They hit the ground running in a in a serious way. It's like genuinely impressive, impressive in a dark and sinister way, but it's nonetheless impressive.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And if you're turning on the news every day and hearing about all these different things Trump is doing and all the different criticisms coming out of it, you may not like all of it. But like in comparison to how people felt about Joe Biden earlier. Being basically absent.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I imagine for a lot of people, it's a welcome change, even though you're like, I didn't want like I was I wanted the border under control. I wasn't in this for some kind of for cuts that I don't totally understand.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I was in this to get the economy in better shape and prices under control and to feel like I understood what my president was doing so that I think it kind of reflects what we've been talking about.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think the normies just aren't paying attention and the normies are most of the country. And we just had an election where we learned this, where despite billions of dollars being spent to get people to pay attention to the 2024 presidential race, there was still a good chunk of Americans that barely paid attention. They tended to vote for Donald Trump.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The Americans who did pay close attention to the news tended to vote for Kamala Harris in these polls, even like, you know, His approval rating among Democrats isn't like especially high, right? Like Democrats are still outraged by Donald Trump. And I think to your point, the energy and he's signing things and he's effect all that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think that is playing extraordinarily well with the people who voted for him. right? With most people who voted for him. I think they're excited. I think most people in the country still aren't paying attention. And I do think I buy the approval rating at 53% for sure. Or at least in that neighborhood, right? Like I think these polls are all legitimate.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I wish pollsters would start asking more questions about like people's views on actions that he's taking or proposals that he's making on some of the cuts that are going to happen under the Doge, you know, regime, all this shit. Like, I just feel like asking about presidential approval and what do you think he's like and is he energetic at this point?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I just think it's of limited value right now in the first hundred days and that we actually need to, you know, like those descriptors of Trump, tough, energetic, focused, effective, like, yeah, they make sense. I get why people would say that about him. Like, I get why, you know, he's in a honeymoon period. It's the beginning of his term.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Again, Joe Biden had higher approval ratings at this time, too. So it's not super surprising, but you kind of got to dig in because... Most people aren't paying attention. Well, here's the problem, though.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Most people are never going to... Right. They're never going to pay attention.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
This is why I think it's about what happens when people start feeling effects. But I do think we should assume that the way people are consuming Donald Trump right now is not going to change that much until a few months before the midterms, right? Or, I mean, think back to the first term.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
His lowest approval is January 6th. Everyone's like, obviously, of course. And tied, maybe even lower in one of them, is ACA and tax cuts. Because in ACA, the country was like, oh, we don't like paying attention to the news, but you know what? We might lose our health care.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And all the other shit that we obsessed about and we talked about on this podcast and everyone else in the media talked about didn't really make that much of a difference in his approval rating. But those things that were going to affect people actually did.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So we're waiting for acute moments of focus around big signal political events, either crises or legislative moments. Fine. But my point is only that day to day in between those, this is the kind of Trump we're going to get. A Trump that's kind of everywhere, swamping the news. And we need to be able to figure out how to make an argument during those times.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Because if we're just waiting for things to either get bad or for them to actually try to pass something terrible, we're kind of just... yoked to his news cycle.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Or, I mean, this is, again, the Gulf of America thing just keeps popping up in my head. That would be stupid. Right? Like that's something that breaks through because it's so weird and different and like a cultural thing. And people are like, I don't know, that's stupid. Yeah.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. I look, I think I think about that, like that group of people. Right. Because, like, yes, I think there's Democrats that are inoculated against Trump forever. The Republicans that will love him forever. There's this group of people, independent people, like when they see Trump saying Gulf of America, when they see him talking about making Canada a state, maybe they don't like it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
in the moment, but it's also, like, it's hard not to imagine the idea of Trump just, like, out there every day being, like, a pro-America guy is not, like, there.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
One last thing that we should... I just, I don't know. Before we leave this, like, the 66% who think that Trump is not focusing enough on lowering prices, that is a big deal.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And I... I want to note this as well because there was a long-running debate just on our side of the spectrum about is it the economy, is it vibes with voters being concerned about inflation and high prices during Biden? And there's a lot of people who said, well, no, actually the economy is wonderful and the only reason –
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
that people think that complaining about prices is because they're either partisan Republicans or the media is fucking up. And as soon as Trump wins, oh, it's going to be different. Everyone's going to be wonderful. Well, actually, no, Trump has won and 66% of voters think he's not focusing enough on lower prices. And consumer confidence came in last week and it was down.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So here's what's interesting. I think I agree with you. I think that that will largely be proven correct, that it was like not some media-fueled or Republican-fueled notion. I think that's probably true. Wasn't headlines? But there's two... It was not the phrasing of AP headlines, but I do think that there is a two-step process to this, which is... Trump is it. People are correct.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It's forget having an impact on Trump is not focused on it. He's not talking about it all the time. He's not thinking about all the time. He's not addressing it all the time.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He's actually not doing it the way he's trying to use tariffs as a substitution, which is a real fucking energy.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But like when Trump wants to hammer something, he wants to hammer something. I think the bigger test is actually when Trump doesn't magically have the ability to lower prices, but starts figuring out a way to either to blame people or to declare victory. Then what happens? And like, I think largely like this will be proven to be a serious political problem for him, but he has another turn of it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. I just, I think that material, people's material conditions are still, they still drive a lot of public opinion. Hunter Biden gave all those birds the flu.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
No, I'm just kidding. You can't surprise us at this point. There's nothing that would surprise me. No joke. All right, let's talk about our brewing constitutional crisis that Elon Musk and his dogebags have started. By the way, I said dogebags on Thursday. Yeah, I'm with dogebags too.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And a source very high up at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert alerted me today that actually they did something on Thursday. They did something before Thursday.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So I just want to say, it's all yours. We walk in your footsteps and I'm glad we're on the same page.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
No one's ever called us pod bros in a complimentary way. Never been complimentary.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Always condescending. How many skirts I have to wear and how many lockers I have to get shoved into to stop being called a fucking bro. Not enough.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So keep wearing them and keep getting in those lockers. Unbelievable. Anyway, on Monday afternoon, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration hasn't fully complied with multiple orders to unfreeze federal spending. That followed a ruling on Saturday that Doge can't access Treasury's payment systems. Only trained civil servants are allowed. Elon and MagaWorld are furious over this ruling.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Elon called for the judge to be impeached, also proposed annual elections to eliminate the worst judges. I don't know if you know that's his new thing. But the most alarming reaction, I think, came from Vice President J.D. Vance, who tweeted, quote, Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
When Trump was asked about this by Brett Baier during his Fox News interview and then again on Air Force One, here's what he said.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
J.D. Vance said judges aren't allowed to control the executive power. What's your take on that?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Small thing there, but... When Trump was talking about Elon and he was like, I don't know where he finds the time for this. I know. It just portrayed just a hint of, Trump always is very good about like, I know where the American people are. I know what you're thinking. You're like, what's going on with this guy? I gotcha.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Not the first dad to stay late at work because he doesn't like his family and won't be the last.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Trump's also like, I mean, there's no bigger poster than Donald Trump. And he's probably like, this guy is posting even more than I am. He's just in awe.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So I talked to Leah about all the legal implications of this, which you'll all hear in a little bit. But just a little spoiler for you guys. Even though judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power, guess who decides what constitutes the executive's legitimate power?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, sure. I had this moment over the weekend. I had this moment over the weekend where I was just sort of like, I can't believe I have to go back and try to remember what the fuck Marbury versus Madison was about. I did too.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I went into chat GPT and I was like... Oh, great. Fucking great. Go to a different oligarch to get your answers to how to fight... This oligarch's fucking career... stolen IP machine is going to help me figure out the answer how to fight this other oligarch.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I said this on Offline, but part of it is Google sucks these days. And so I actually asked Jeff to be like, can you give me a copy of the Constitution? I thought that was going to be faster than Googling, and it was. Oh, wow. I actually read, because I'm like, all right, what does Article 3 actually say? Yeah, the whole thing. Believe me. Robert Byrd over here. Yeah, exactly. Robert Byrd.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But so, I guess like I... I am curious what Leah has to think about this. And I do think some of this is posturing and some of this is what presidents of all stripes and all administrations have said, some version of these courts. I am a constitutional officer. I have the right to say what I believe the Constitution is to be. And they are not the sole arbiters of what's in the Constitution.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But to me, like some of this is negotiating. Right. They are sending a message to courts saying, to trim their sails and to be mindful that they're not afraid to push it to the limit. The point that Liz Cheney made this point, several other people made this point, which is you don't just get to ignore court rulings you dislike, you have to appeal them.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Is that what it is? It's a light? A light over the United States? American people are taking solid shits. They're sleeping through the night.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Now, on a lot of issues, that's what they're doing, right? They are appealing them. Including this one. Including this one. And so they are appealing them.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They are seeming to have some respect for the process, though there are some signs that that is, if not fragile, temporary, like different memos from legal officials inside the DOJ and other parts of the administration explaining why this court ruling doesn't need to be followed in certain ways. To me, I have two broad categories that I'm concerned about.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
One is they take a signal case, they take it all the way to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court rules against them, and they violate it. Either they violate it explicitly or they violate it implicitly by putting some kind of a legal, some kind of way of claiming to abide by it, but actually ignoring it. Very worried about that. That is terrifying. Day to day, what I've been thinking about is...
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know, Trump is trying to do all this activist shit inside of these agencies. That's his prerogative as president, right? To put people in place. They're going to execute what he wants them to do. And inside these agencies, they're putting in place Trump loyal lawyers. Some of them are going to be better than others. Some of them are going to be more conservative than others.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Where to begin? Where to begin, guys? I did find it notable that Trump was somehow able to insert himself at the center of one of America's last and certainly biggest monocultural moments. He sat down for an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, part of which aired before the game.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Conservative small c. And the question is, how much are those lawyers, outside of the spotlight, in the day-to-day work, grinding work of these agencies, how much are they going to worry about legal challenges from states, attorneys general, from outside advocates and groups, from individuals, from employees? How much are they going to make decisions the way previous administrations would have
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
in one way or another, being guided by the fear of lawsuits because they know practically they just can't fight everything all the time all at once. They have to make decisions about where they're going to push harder and where they're going to be willing to not take legal risk.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And what I don't know in watching this right now is over time, will they become less concerned about those kinds of risks because of rhetoric from J.D. Vance and because of the actions of the higher level people inside the administration? I think right now we don't know. And that's really nerve wracking because that
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
daily check on the power of the administration, that kind of risk aversion of lawyers is like really, really, really important.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
i mean they have vanquished congress right congress has given up any kind of resistance to the president just abdicated power because it's controlled by republicans and so they've got congress and you know they're feeling pretty good about the country and where public opinion is and i think they have decided that the judiciary is the last obstacle, the last villain left.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You missed one, which is the media, which they now view as an unnecessary, sort of like a kind of ignorable component. Yes. Just for sadness' sake.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Right. And some of that is, look, the, you know, the... attacks on the media, but some of it is just the balkanization of the media, which we've talked about a million times. So yeah, definitely. Offensive word.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He also became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl, where he was cheered on his way in and left before the second half. What do you guys make of him going and basically just being on our screens and in our faces even more than he was during the first term?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Balkanization. Shame on you. It's Trump's president. It's fine.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And so they're going to... It's interesting there's two tracks here, right? There's the legal track where Right now, they are trying to come up with an agreement, the defendants and the plaintiffs here, and trying to work out who gets access, all this. And the judge is like, I'll give you until Monday night. You can do that. So it's proceeding along normally, right?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But the public relations component of this, the messaging component is – Everyone in MAGA world and Doge world and everything just attacking the shit out of these judges and saying that they're corrupt and they're awful. And we shouldn't Elon Musk being like, we should vote judges out. I mean, it's so the danger to me is maybe not necessarily in what happens in this individual case. Right.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Although maybe it is. But the now we are turning turning the guns toward the judiciary system and turning everyone's fire towards the judiciary system on the right. And on the end, like that's where.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think it's dangerous. I think it's, look, I think there's, I mean, judges have been murdered.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. I would add you're less physically scared. Romney talked about it. They are physically scared.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think that's real. I think that they are being cowed into making more, less far reaching rulings. Yep. But then you look at Elon. It's just also some of this is just like, God, the combination of just like the malevolence, but the idiocy, it's like they should be impeached. And it's like, Do you know that that word is just to launch a trial? You understand that the Senate won't convict?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Have you thought about it? Do you not care? Are you just firing off notions in a fit of pique? Because these judges will not be removed.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There's no two-thirds vote to remove these senators. Willful ignorance. He doesn't care. He's like, I'm smart about rockets and cars, and so I must be smart about everything else. And if I don't know about it, who the fuck cares?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
If I don't know, it doesn't matter. It's not important. And actually, it shouldn't be important. Right. It's embarrassing that you care about that. There's this back and forth between Elon and Lawrence Summers, who was a treasury secretary among those several treasury secretaries that wrote in the New York Times declaring that democracy is under siege because of what they're doing.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Institutional move of the week. Yeah, sure. And then institutions defending institutions inside of creaking institutions. Institutions and institutions getting institutions. Right. But the Atlantic was like, damn, we should have got that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. God damn it. That's just the Atlantic and the New York Times. That's it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
This is where we eat. But like watching them go back and forth, it's like Elon, it's just like kind of falsehood that he probably believes, you know, like if we don't get this out of control, spending under control, America will be bankrupt. And it's like, well, first of all. No, actually, if we don't get USAID under control, we'll be fucking fine because that's not where spending is.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And also, OK, let's say there is fraud. You know, there's this little bit of like Lawrence Summers has to do this. There's something to do this where he goes like some version of like, I love your passion, hate fraud myself. And it's like if you like if you show up at a police station and say, I was really worried about crime in my neighborhood. So I arrested some people. They're all in my trunk.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The cops aren't like, love your passion. They're like, you're arrested. Because that's not how we do it. The cops are like, I also think crime is important. Just letting you know. Thank you so much. I don't want you to think that we don't respect how much you take crime seriously because we do too. You'd be like, are you insane? That's not how we do this.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And this idea that because there might be fraud somewhere in the government, you can send a group of fucking neophytes deep within the bowels of government to cut off individual payments is absurd on its face. Anyway. We have to indulge this idea that now we all take stopping waste, fraud, and abuse very seriously.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just lamenting our situation.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Me too. No, I love it. I felt the same way because I've seen the messaging memos and it's like, you know, the young people, Gen Z, they like Doge and what Elon's doing because, you know, they see government as sclerotic and inefficient and they like the move fast and break things ethos and they want to get stuff done and they like the results. And it's like, yeah, yes, of course, we all want that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We all know that government is slow. We all know that government can be inefficient. We all know that the bureaucracy can be bloated. We all worked in the fucking White House. We tried to reorganize the government. We tried to find efficiency. It's hard to do.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And honestly, some of this is pretty annoying because it's some of the stuff we should have done. Right, yeah. You could do some of this.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They're just not going about it the right way. Yeah, I'm going to throw a no cap on the internet. No cap.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Fuck. Anyway. Fuck. This is why we're losing. Fuck. Yeah. The technology in the federal government, at least when we were there, sucked. Yeah. It was gateway computers. Gateway computers. Remember healthcare.gov? Gateway computers. And you had no, there was no service in the basement of the West Wing. No, you can use your phone because there's no service. The gateway computers.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So you just have to sit there. Five bars of the OEOB though. But anyway, the fact that you're right, that the fact that you have to do that now, all of that throat clearing before you're like, but you know what? It is bad that when everyone has signed off on a payment, Congress has mandated it by law and everyone's fine with it. Then some random 19 year old racist, maybe 26 year old.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Big balls is not racist. 26-year-old racist, 25-year-old racist, whatever it was. The guy who thinks that all the Indians should either go back to India or be automated out of a job. Sorry, that guy. Yeah, they're in charge of just cutting off payments now. That's how we fix waste and fraud?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, the reason I bring it up is only because I do think like... as we talk about how to talk about this, part of it is that like we have a, like there's a lot of ways in which we're kind of doomed to speak this way right now because we all kind of understand that there's a lot of people that just don't trust Democrats at all.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And so like we have this like extra step we need to take to kind of like, I don't know, figure out over time to claw back some credibility. But like Trump doesn't have to do that when he talks about a Democratic prerogative, right? He's always like, no, they're making some good points. No, he just says they're fucking criminals.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Apple, Google are changing the name. It's all over the place. As he said, it's an even bigger deal than the Super Bowl. And guess what? Everyone thinks this is stupid. Of all the shit, the polls... It's not popular. Which surprised me. I thought people would be like, Gulf of America, cool. But it turns out even American voters are smarter than that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Don't forget to mention that we sent you to show your support for the show. Terms and conditions apply. Well, the Washington Post had a pretty eye-opening piece about Elon's big picture plans. They quote an anonymous U.S. official as saying, quote, the end goal is replacing the human workforce with machines. Everything that can be machine automated will be. Yeah, it seems like that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Doge is also trying to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. Newly confirmed OMB director Russ Vogt installed himself as head of the agency and immediately shut down the building, told staff to stop pretty much all of their work and suspended its funding.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health or NIH announced on Friday that it would be making huge cuts to the grants they provide scientists, researchers and universities to come up with all kinds of scientific and medical breakthroughs. The spokesperson for Doge called this, quote, doing away with liberal DEI Dean's slush fund.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The former dean of Harvard Medical School, who was not a squishy liberal, said the move would cause, quote, harm and chaos and that, quote, a sane government would never do this. That's correct. That is very true.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Even Senator Katie Britt, a Republican who flew with Trump on Air Force One on Sunday and whose state hosts major research institutions, told a local reporter the next day that, quote, this is a great quote, quote, A smart, targeted approach is needed in order not to hinder lifesaving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
She really stepped out of line there. That's pretty courageous. That's bold.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I will say, though, if I were to think of the places that would like it the most, it would be that ring of kind of... Red America that runs from like Clearwater, Florida, through the Panhandle, down on the Texas. Greater Tampa. Greater Tampa for sure.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
She's in that kitchen. She's like, oh, you're losing your state's largest institution. They're getting budget cuts. And she's like, oh, we might need a smart targeted approach. Not even like the one that we have. She didn't even say this approach is wrong and we need a better one. We just we need a smart targeted approach, everyone. Thanks, Katie. Just want everyone just want to flag that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And right before we started recording, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the NIH cuts. So we will now see if the Trump folks appeal that ruling. So we know that most voters generally support cutting government waste, trimming federal budget.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It does seem to me like gutting cancer research and a consumer watchdog that takes on big banks and credit card companies is potentially the first really unpopular fight that Doge has picked. What do you guys think?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
This is part of the problem, too. This is obviously not considered a distraction, according to the experts. so we're allowed to talk about it. But this is the problem where we're like, you're only supposed to talk about things in the prescribed correct ways because you never get into like the deep substance of the argument.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Like this, I imagine, like, for example, like, hey, Bunsen burner fucking overhead costs, not a problem. This was not a problem we had. Overhead costs for scientific research, scientific research that can be described as being silly, this is just not a problem America has. Some money that goes towards scientific research is going to come to nothing. That's the point of it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That's why you do experiments. Some of it doesn't work. Some of it sounds silly and then leads to amazing and magical things. Like if you were starting a rocket company and some of the rockets exploded in the air and didn't reach the moon. If you're not, listen, if you're making every flight at the airport, you're going to the airport too early.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I'd love to know whoever thought of that before this became a thing with Trump. You know, like, I'd love to know the... Someone should do a history, an oral history of how Gulf of Mexico became Gulf of America in a Trump proposal.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And if all your scientific research is producing positive results, you're not taking enough risk on scientific research. Isn't that from Larry Summers? That is a Larry Summers thing. Yes. And I've heard that from him in person.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I was thinking over the weekend that I would love someone to describe to the doge bags in Elon that they have found this loan guarantee for this green new deal DEI car company that we need to cut immediately. And it's basically just the Tesla loan. Let's see what would happen. They would have killed it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Sam Stein at the Bulwark. We're really Bulwark freaks today. But he had a story that basically a lot of these Republican Congress people who are not saying anything publicly, their constituents, many of whom are federal employees, others just have concerns about what's happening in their districts, are getting letters from Republicans saying, I too am concerned.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
about the way in which this is being implemented. I too have concerned about the freeze. I too am worried about your privacy. And there was a Republican member of the House today that I think for the first time making the point that Congress's approval on certain decisions isn't just a good thing to have or a nice thing to have.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It is a legally necessary thing to have, whether it's cutting budgets or eliminating the Department of Education, that the president simply does not have the right to do anything. So I do think that like... The first step is not like I agree with you that Republicans in Congress have largely just sort of given up. But I think we have to just continue like that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There are going to be some places where normal politics is still working. And those letters to me are a sign that like there are Republicans in closely divided districts that are worried about this shit, that are worried about losing their jobs. And that's important.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That's good. That's a good thing. Like, you know, is Katie Britton any danger in Alabama? Maybe not. But there's this woman who is a research professor at University of North Carolina. And she was posting over the weekend that this could like decimate their children's hospital, their outpatient care.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
She said the first canceled grant hitting our department that I've heard of was for new intervention supporting NICU patients and parents. These are like newborn babies in the ICU. Like just the idea that this like the damage that this is going to cause. And I do think, you know, Tom Tillis, he's up in 2026. He should fucking care about that. He's in North Carolina.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
but I do think that everyone's like, what do we do? What do we do? I think elevating more of these stories as we find them. And I would suggest like everyone out there who has these stories, whether it's about medical research, whether it's about any of the other, the funding freeze that has been unfrozen, but it's not really unfrozen and headstart programs.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
People are still having problems with like, just, you know, you gotta tell your stories and pass on the stories, send your stories in. Because I do think the more we make this about like,
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The people who are feeling these effects or who are worried or who are experts in these fields, scientists, teachers, all these other, you know, instead of just like federal bureaucrats, which, of course, you know, don't have the best approval rating, then the more it's going to hurt.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, the other part of it too is like- Politically. Yes. Well, both. But the Inflation Reduction Act freeze is starting to hit farmers who decided to take a chance on one of these programs, right? There's all kinds of conservation programs that involved required investment. They made the investments and now all of a sudden they're not getting the payments they expected. It's risking their farms.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It's risking their families' livelihoods. And like that's that's a real consequence. And there are plenty of partisan people who are pretending it's actually not Trump's fault or trying to elide the fact that it's a political decision made by Trump and that it's the government that's failing them.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There are a lot of I think people that want that to be the case, even though everything on some level one understands what's going on here. And like you can't deny like there's only so much Trump can do to deny that reality. And so making sure people understand that reality. is really important.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That was maybe... It was definitely number one for a while, that song, in 1994, 93, 94. I can't remember exactly which year. I was in eighth grade, so I think it was 94, 95.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There's another one more point I wanted to make about this, which I like is like, how do we talk about the fact that they're doing this? You know, CFPB, one of the most effective government agencies, has done an incredible amount of good. $800 million budget, by the way. $20 billion returned in...
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Like exactly what you would want government, not perfect, makes mistakes, I'm sure, but like exactly what you would want your government. Just a tribune for working people against the rapacious giant financial corporations. Trump has sent all those people home. They're still getting paid.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So Donald Trump's cost efficiency is he's basically given a snow day to federal officials because they don't like certain parts of what the government is doing. Because they attended a diversity training in 2014 somewhere. And so right now, the American people are paying government workers
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
to sit at home instead of go after big banks, try to cure diseases, try to prevent diseases in foreign countries, whatever it may be. Those people are still getting paid in their houses. Like, I do not understand.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That to me is worth mentioning. At least they're not tainting our federal government with their wokeness.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I saw people referring to the halftime show as a DEI halftime show, which is sort of drawing a little too much attention to what the word DEI is really standing in for.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, no, now it's just any person of color or woman who has any kind of position of authority or influence is DEI. That's the new thing now.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Forever? Yes, Batman forever. That's how I know it. And then all these years later, 30 years later, 30 years later, he's a seal that made me a communist on the spot.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
If they have nothing to complain about, they have nothing. If they can't complain about how they've been put upon. You're in charge, guys. You're in charge. You have all the money, all the power. Two last things here, both related to worthless coins.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Trump announced that he was ordering the mint to stop producing the penny on the grounds that it costs well more than a penny to produce them and no one likes dealing with them. Our future 51st state, Canada, banned the penny in 2014. Everything seems to be fine there, except for the fact that America is going to take it over.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Separately, the New York Times did an investigation into the Trump meme coin and how early investors in the Trump family made millions from the meme coin while everyone else lost tons. Let's start with the penny. Love it. Thoughts on the demise of the penny?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
shocker, I have previously held deep thoughts about this, which is not only, so obviously people are pointing out that the penny costs four cents to make. That's obviously stupid. Nickels cost 14 cents to make. Now, yes, probably a percentage of the penny is more expensive per penny, but just for each nickel, it's a nine cent loser. Here's what we should do.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
What we should do is we should go what we have now. You have to go a little bit further. Just stick with me. Don't take my quarter. We should go from penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and we should be moving to a 10-cent piece, a 20-cent piece, and a 50-cent piece. That is the correct denominations. And then all prices should no longer be to the 100th place. They should be to the 10th place.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That is the answer. Trump is doing a kind of compromise. but leaving the dumb nickel in place, which has the most overrated founder on it, who is Thomas Jefferson. Now, here's what's interesting. Until 1857, there was a half penny. That was when we had the half penny. Then the half penny was gotten rid of. So the penny's been our smallest denomination for a very, very long time.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
From 1913 to 2024, inflation has increased the value of the dollar by 30 times, right? Which means if the penny was the lowest denomination in 1913, we could get by with a 30 cent coin today, right? I don't think that's necessary, but we should go to a nickel, a 20 cent piece, and a 50 cent piece. That's the answer. And that's how Democrats can have their own positive agenda.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I haven't consumed the ads. I was making a delicious orange cake based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson. And then I got a text from my father saying, what is this? Which led me to believe that the halftime show had begun. So I did turn that on. And then I went back once the oranges were done steeping to making my cake. That's what I did.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know, if you pass that idea along to Elon and the dogebags, you might end up being in charge of the U.S. Mint. You might be able to mint all the money yourself. You could be there in Norman Mineta.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I'll get in there, and I'll put an op-ed in about it. Did you say Norman Mineta?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I thought he was the transportation. Oh, yeah, he was the token. He was a token Republican and a Democratic administration. Who would I be? Yeah, Ray LaHood, sorry. Oh, yeah. No, but who is the token?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You're Tulsi Gabbard, that's right. RFK Jr. Listen, I got a lot of good ideas. And I can show myself able to work with some pretty bro guys.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The whole thing would save you like $80 million, the penny thing. I know.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I don't know how they're netting that out. 85 million each year. Huh.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We mint 3 billion pennies. That was one of my mistakes.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Obama wanted to do this. Obama expressed his support for this in a 2013 interview. Yeah, he got cowed by the fucking deep state. And he said, this is not going to be a huge savings for government. He was right. But anytime we're spending more money on something that people don't actually use, that's an example of something we should probably change. He should be in Doge, huh?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Look at that guy wanting to cut costs. Leave a hero, live long enough to become a villain. I don't know how that whole thing went down. I remember, I think Cody Keenan, speechwriter after we left, was on this very podcast once telling us about how there was a... a request to get it into the State of the Union, the penny thing. Yeah. It was like a whole thing.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, there's a, I think there's like a, there's a, there's a, there's a few, there was a couple hiccups. There's an Illinois problem. I think the nickel thing comes up. The nickel thing comes up. There's a, there's a, there's lobbyists involved. Eh, you know, government doesn't work. Tommy, tell us about...
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, you know who it works for. Works for Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Tell us about the shitcoin, the Trump shitcoin.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
A rug pull is basically you launch the thing, the price skyrockets, you get out when it's high, and then the whole thing falls off.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Dad's a great guy. Yeah, there were a few questions from parents in our home. Is there going to be another act two? Is this just... Is it just this guy? Anyway, I really... My thought about... first of all, you know, Trump likes to flood the zone and he's out there all the time and that's helpful. And everyone's made that point.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But do the big banks still, they're still regulated by Dodd-Frank stuff, right?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, there's a lot of the consumer protections run out of CFPB. And if the CFPB is no longer enforcing those laws, the other agencies that have purview over the banks don't suddenly pick up the slack. They are not in charge. They do a lot of the other systemic regulations, but they're not going to be in charge of that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Don't worry, they also want to get rid of the FDIC. So that's on their agenda as well.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
financial institutions are raptors testing the fences and they see this happening. And no, I think a lot of the more serious and big financial institutions are not, some of them do just explicitly break the law as they see fit. But in most cases, what they'll do is be like, huh, that thing we were going to maybe try, but we're afraid the CFPB might stop. Let's just fucking go for it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Let's offer a new product that has lower interest, but not tell our customers about it. So they don't accidentally have more interest. Like there's a bunch of shit that these banks can pull. Yes.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I got hit with so many overdraft fees when I was a Senate staffer, not making a lot of money. Happened all the time. I am just thinking about... Donald Trump and Melania launching a shit coin that made them $100 million. Well, a bunch of people got screwed.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And I do think it's a lesson for, for Democrats going forward who are running for president. But he really does seem this time around, like he is more of a, a King in like the ceremonial sense. And like Elon now is the prime minister just doing all the work. And Trump is just, he's just posting, talking. He's like a little more relaxed. You know, he's, he's holding court. He's hosting.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And then there's that professor at UNC who's like, oh, we're trying to do research to make sure we can keep babies alive in the NICU, but no more. Can't do that anymore. And then the fucking $2 malaria nets that we're not sending to protect kids in Africa anymore because we've destroyed USAID and the $400 million in food assistance that people are just going to starve. And they're like, what?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
the fuck well also it's like even just do that do you like the apples to apples right now they're figuring out how to extend the trump cat like what is the cause of america's budget deficit the cause the american budget deficit are the bush tax cuts the trump tax cuts the military social security medicare medicaid that's it wokeism and wokeism but like fucking you know dei expensive chemical showers at the fucking scientific institute is not our problem yeah
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It's all the money we're spending to turn animals trans in India.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That's what Senator John Kennedy. Too many non-binary frogs. In India. That's the problem.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Why did you give him that, liberals? Fucking paper straws.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We've beaten the... They're cellulose straws. Paper straws are terrible.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I'm going to do the centrist position here. Oh, my God. You don't need a straw? I know. I'm fine. I like the paper straws. The no straws. The... And no straws at all.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Can't say I'm surprised on that one. No, that one was coming. If you're a criminal, but you say nice things to Donald Trump, you're not a criminal anymore.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I want to go find my prediction that he's going to end up as Homeland Security Secretary. I just want you to go. I predicted that last year. I see you, Kristi Noem.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So this is just kind of wiping the record clean. He's on the apprentice. Because he let him out. He let him out. What is this? At least one dead after two jets collide on a runway at Scottsdale Airport in Arizona? What? The air travel, guys. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it. He'll be driving around the country on a bus, guys.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know what? Tune in. Dana and I will cover some of this on Friday. Everyone else? More as the story develops. Everyone else, enjoy your Tuesday. Okay, when we come back from the break, you're going to hear my conversation with Strict Scrutiny's Leah Lippman about how the courts might or might not be able to stop Trump and Musk. Two quick things before we do that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Crooked Media Reads is proud to be publishing Woodworking, the fantastic debut novel from Yellow Jackets writer and culture critic Emily St. James. It is out March 4th. The story follows a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows, one of her students.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Woodworking is, it says right here, woodworking is your much needed breather from everything else. Yeah, that's good. I remember when our CEO Lucinda first read Woodworking as we were thinking about like, do we want this to be part of Crooked Media Reads? And she was like, read it in a day and was like, this is one of the best books I've ever read. She like wouldn't stop talking about it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, I also do think, too, like, how much trans attention you see on, like, Fox News versus how many trans people you see on Fox News. And the answer is none, ever. And, like, this is just, like, the term woodworking is, like, the description of this character's experience of being trans.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You always say he, And then, like, meanwhile, Elon's just running around breaking the entire federal government, eliminating services for people.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And I think it is worth spending time thinking about the perspective of trans people because so often they are objects of our debate.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And look at this. If you're in L.A., Love It and Emily are going to have a conversation about woodworking and a book signing at Skylight Books on Friday, March 7th. Hell yeah. Love Skylight Books. Where is Skylight Books? It's in Los Feliz. Oh, okay, cool. You can learn more at crooked.com slash books. And speaking of L.A. events, Love It or Leave It records live every week right here in L.A.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
12 new show dates from now through May at crooked.com slash events. We are having such a good time with these live shows. Come say hi. We have some really big guests lined up and you'll, you just, the stuff we cut. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Where do people get tickets? Oh, crooked.com slash events. There you go.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
When we come back, Leo Lipman. Pod Save America is brought to you by PolicyGenius. Talk about the importance of planning for the future and ensuring your legacy. What financial life goals do you have? Just getting to the end, you know? Sharing any planning tips that could resonate with your audience. So here's the thing.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think it's the worst model, by the way. Well, like next, like, I would like to have a Democratic president maybe next time who is out there all the time. And, you know, just talking to the country the whole time. And then there's a whole bunch of people doing the work.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Some options are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. I got life insurance. Again, I thought it was important to put off. Don't want to do it. Don't want to think about it. And then you get it. You're like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. You got to have it. And the good news is PolicyGenius makes it super easy. Everybody dies, at least for now. For now. For now. That's right.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Compare quotes from America's top... Until we all get the Neuralink or something. Yeah. I'm ready to be uploaded. Elon helps us live forever. He's not going to help us live forever.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Secure your families tomorrow so you have peace of mind today. Head to policygenius.com slash crooked or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash crooked. Joining us today, our friend Leah Lippman from the best legal podcast on the planet, Strict Scrutiny. Welcome back.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Look at your book behind you, for those of you just listening. Leah has a new book coming out. It's called Lawless. You want to give us a little quick plug?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So we're we are still very much in the honeymoon phase. And I think this is really effective for a couple of reasons. One point that Dan and Ben made when they were talking or the wedding was a point that Dan made in that conversation was that this that Trump paid for being with Ben Smith, which is a great episode people should check out. But Trump paid for being compared to Obama.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Go pre-order it, everyone. Do it now. Speaking of bad vibes, I want to start by teeing you up to respond to something that I just know you have strong feelings about. Here's the headline. Trump is testing our constitutional system. It's doing fine.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I know, I know. The piece is by Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman. And here's the part I'd love to hear your thoughts on. Quote, Trump, who did not ignore court orders in his first term, is unlikely to defy a judicial decision. No matter how conservative the justices in the Supreme Court majority might be, their primary identity comes from their role as interpreters of the Constitution and laws.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They might tolerate a lot from Trump, but they won't tolerate defiance of the authority of the judiciary. What do you think? How's your blood pressure?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You bet. I set up a SimpliSafe. Very easy to do. You customize it on the website. It comes to the mail. You can get help to install it from SimpliSafe, but you can also just do it yourself. And then it works perfectly. The app is great. The customer service is extremely reliable. Highly recommend it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
J.D. Vance's tweet, and we'll get into the case in a second, but his tweet, the money line was, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. Now- I didn't go to law school, nor did I even take the LSATs and get a good score like John Lovett. But I guess that is maybe technically true in that if the power is legitimate, they can't control it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He's now benefiting from being compared to Joe Biden. being out there more and active. And we'll get into the politics of all these different moves and what people know is happening, what people don't know is happening. But fundamentally, he looks extremely active. He's everywhere. He's doing things. He seems dynamic.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I'm not going to ask you to predict what the Supreme Court might do, but how do you think J.D. Vance's tweet or his view of the power that the executive holds will land with even this Supreme Court? And I'm thinking particularly of like Roberts, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, like who knows what Alito and Thomas are probably like, yeah, you're right. You got it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
We'll just we'll go on vacation on our private jets. Yeah.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He seems like he's having fun because I think actually for the first time as president, he is genuinely having fun because he doesn't feel bound by any of the advisors who are telling him the rules that he didn't care about in the first place. But let's see what happens when there's two ways in which this eventually has to, I think, give. One...
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So the ruling that seems to have really set them all off in MAGA world over the weekend came from U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in response to a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general over access to the Treasury payment system. The judge issued an order that said only career officials who've had the proper training can access the system, not Elon and the doge bags.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And some Trump folks interpreted the ruling to mean that even Treasury Secretary Scott Besant wasn't allowed to access the system, though it seems like at least as of this recording, then another federal judge has given the Department of Justice and the state AGs some time to work out an agreement regarding over who gets access to the payment system. And the DOJ says that so far, despite J.D.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Vance's tweets, they are abiding by the order. Is this a case where the actual legal process looks different, or at least I wouldn't say it's proceeding normally, but is at least proceeding on a different track than the political conversation?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
At a certain point, they won't be able to keep up with their own pace. I'm sure they're thrilled with themselves that the press can't keep up and the Democrats can't keep up. They can't keep up with this. That's the first. And the second is, you know, he called off that first round of tariffs. We are still he is still able to deny tariffs. that he is responsible for a plane crashing, right?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, on that note, there are some actions the Trump folks have taken, like birthright citizenship, right? Which seems obviously illegal or unconstitutional enough that it feels like they are just throwing them out there on the chance that maybe they get five justices to agree with them at some point, or they just want to throw it out there, right? Just flood the zone.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Then there are examples like... The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for example, right, which is they know it is against the law to just eliminate an independent agency that was created by Congress. So instead, they just put Russ Vogt, the new OMB director, in charge and like told everyone to stop working.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
How much functional dismantling of the federal government do you think they can do within the bounds of the law?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Even as he's getting rid of air traffic controller boards, whatever. So let's see what happens when there start to be consequences for governing or consequences of just reality and the crises that happen to any president, right?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Right. And as you point out, at some point, the fact that government services that people depend on and benefits will be so disrupted, whether or not a court decides that the administration took an action that was illegal or not, like the results seem like they could be similar.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Obviously, the Supreme Court has an expansive view on executive power, at least when it comes to Republican presidents named Donald Trump.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
What do we know so far about their views on how much power the president can wield over the federal government, particularly civil servants and spending that's been appropriated by Congress?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
All right, let's go to the dark place for a second. You may be like, we haven't been in the dark place yet.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, I've heard some people say, OK, in the minds of the Supreme Court, they must be thinking, OK, if Trump just refuses to comply with a ruling or defies a court order, like what recourse does the Supreme Court have?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And if they think that the answer is not much at all, will they in advance be wary of delivering a ruling that they think Trump will defy, in which case it's functionally the same thing?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I mean, there's a recent potential example of this, even though it may seem smaller scale, which is like it seems like the Trump and the DOJ are just ignoring the Supreme Court's ruling on the TikTok ban, which is like they've given themselves an extension to get some kind of a deal done.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The law says an extension is only allowed if there are already, quote, binding legal agreements in place for TikTok to divest of Chinese ownership. Which there are not. There is not a deal in the offing. They're not just figuring out crossing the T's, dotting the I's, negotiating and needing an extension for that. So is that right, first of all? And why does no one seem to care about this?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And no one has brought suit saying, hey, this is a law. The president is not in compliance with this law. What are you going to do about it? Like that hasn't happened yet.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Obviously, a lot of Americans aren't paying much attention to what Trump's doing to the federal government. And I'm sure one response from people to Trump trying to fire government prosecutors, lawyers, FBI agents who aren't loyal is, well, maybe that's bad. But like, you know, he's the president. Maybe he should get to hire the people he wants.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. Or, you know, when they say things like, oh, don't worry, we're going to replace all of the Indian Americans with AI and send them back and normalize Indian hate. You know, it might cause you to wonder, are they going to prioritize government services for certain people and not others? Right.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I just think he's forget about comparing him to either Biden or Obama, like just aside from that, which are all good comparisons, just compared to himself in the first term. Right. Which is I am wrestling with the fact that we he is he seems to be having more fun and is in more places and is more culturally accepted.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Last question. Maybe the worst thing Trump did over the weekend doesn't even have to do with the law. I know what you're going to say. He said he was rooting for the Chiefs, praised Brittany Mahomes, only to then attack Taylor Swift for getting booed by Philly fans. I mean, I just feel like it was a real bummer of a postscript on the Errors Tour. Just the whole way everything ended.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
on him as her Drake and yeah maybe maybe maybe Reputation Taylor's version when it comes out will have some of you know the original was a was a sort of a Kanye Kim thing maybe this will be this will be Trump or this is the secret hidden album Karma right where she just unleashes karma on him All right. See, we needed to end this with some hope and optimism.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Leah, thank you so much for joining us as always. And everyone, go pre-order Lawless. It's out in May. And then, of course, if you're not already, listen to Strict Scrutiny every Monday.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That's our show for today. Thanks so much to Leah for joining us. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everybody. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
and is part of, you know, right, Fox News is always going to attack everything that a Democratic president does for sure, but just people who don't tune into Fox or the more liberal parts of the media but are just normies in the country. You know, you see the Super Bowl and There's Brad Pitt and there's Taylor Swift and there's, you know, New Orleans.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And then and there's Donald Trump and he's just there and he's part of it with everyone else. And it's also yet compared to the first term, much more dangerous. And everything he's doing is much more lawless and there are much more consequences.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And it just seems there is this sort of disconnect between how he is in the second term and how he appears and how he's being received and what is actually happening.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
though I will say that I think he always would have been welcome in New Orleans at a Super Bowl to be honest in the first term just in terms of culturally and people liking him and stuff like that yeah of course but I'm just saying like it was I don't know if he was there the first term there would have been some I mean there were companies boycotting stuff it was a whole different scene there it was just it was very very different but yeah no I just think it's
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There's a way there's look, I think it's just there's a way in which he is right now, like ascendant and feeling strong and that like that crowd feels happy to happy to cheer him and then boo Taylor Swift and that like everybody knows that that's what's going to happen. Yeah. And that's what we're going to do together. And that's part of the fun.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He used to get booed. One of the most unpopular presidents in American history. I mean, he was booed everywhere he went. He was booed at tons of games.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. But I do. I think like, look, at this time in Joe Biden's first year, it was like 60 percent approval. And his staff was like pushing around that he was the second coming of FDR. And it was like that was taken, you know, somewhat seriously by various outlets. Yeah.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
right so that's just i mean it's true you know and when we were sitting there like joe biden's doing great look at that so i guess we'll see and he was and joe biden was in the ca box i think he was in the ca box yeah uh so we heard trump once again talking about making canada our 51st state though every time he brings this up it sounds like it started from like joke
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
to maybe he's serious, to that one that we just heard, that sounds like a threat. I mean, that was, it's good for them to do this, but also they wouldn't have a country without America. And with one stroke of the pen, I can make sure the cars are made in Detroit, which I didn't mean.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Tommy, how are our poor Canadian friends taking all of this?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Sketch comedy in Canada, what's that like? Sharp comedy? Do we like sketch comedy? Oh, they're famously good.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, we owe a lot of our Canada. We stole it from them. We stole it. That's one of our biggest imports. What was the famous one? This is killing me. Kids in the Hall came from Canada. But a ton of like Jim Carrey, a ton of SNL people, everybody's from Canada.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But Gaza is another example where he has the press conference, says that they want to own Gaza, doesn't rule out sending troops. The next day... He walks back the troops. The White House tries to walk the thing back. Then he gets asked about it on the plane on the way to the Super Bowl.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And he's like, own it like owning a resort, like like we're going to own it and develop it like he just he doubled down.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Also on the Canada thing, I saw a piece that last week Trudeau was caught on a hot mic telling people that Trump is serious about Canada and that he thinks that Trump wants their minerals. What are we doing? Are we like a feudal lord now?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It's really hard to think about how to talk about this. I saw Tim Miller make this point over the weekend. I thought it was a good one because he pointed out that Trump talking about Gaza in this way, I assume Trump talking about Canada in this way, it's breaking through, right? It's the kind of thing that gets beyond where conversations around USAID and NIH grants and- I mean, I would hope so.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, well- The President of the United States talks about annexing the country to the North, yeah.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But like, so, but then like, you'll sometimes see from Democrats, like, this is a distraction, right? And like, I agree, right? Ultimately, like, if this is just part of, Trump's kind of malign trade war to kind of bully Canada into accepting certain terms.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
On today's show, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance hinted over the weekend that they may defy the courts after a few federal judges have started to put the brakes on Elon Musk's hostile takeover of the federal government. We'll talk about the brewing constitutional crisis in a bit. And I'll dig in on the legal issues later in the show with Strict Scrutiny's Leah Lippman, who joins us.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Like it is in some sense a distraction, but I do think it's worth just like taking a beat and saying, well, so everyone gets to find out about it. We don't address it because it's a distraction. And so then all the culturally relevant conversations are, happen without Democrats offering a serious response beyond like... Distraction. Distraction.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
That's what we're saying when everyone's like, what is this Gulf of America Canada thing? It's a distraction.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Distraction from what? It won't help egg prices come down. And like, it's hard. It's hard to deal with and it's meant to be. But the answers that we seem to offer most often are like, distraction, boy, this is crazy, and constitutional crisis. Yeah. As if if you add the word constitutional, it unlocks a new set of controls. I don't know.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But I do think it's worth just being like, hey, we really benefit from the fact that the world's largest border is safe and that there aren't skirmishes between us the way there are in the Himalayas between China and India. Or Europe. Or Europe.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Even more basic than that. Canada doesn't want to be the 51st state. It's not popular. No one there wants to join the United States. I thought that as the United States, we believed that people get to determine how they are governed. That seems to be a fundamental value in the United States. So what are we talking about? And it is true. What are we even talking about?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We'll be right back. when heading out in the morning or when locking up each night. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late, obviously. SibleySafe's ActiveGuard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Trump apparently said he was, quote, not joking about serving a potential third term. When asked why he wanted to do that, Trump said, quote, I like working. Yeah. He also talked about this in that press avail on the plane. Let's listen.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The Supreme Court will decide whether he can round up people without due process and send them to a foreign gulag, which apparently ICE agents are now doing based on tattoos that they think might be suspicious. The first pair of elections that could give us a hint as to how voters are feeling about America's golden age or Tuesday.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Please, please, sir, run again. More tariffs and run again. Here's the 22nd Amendment. Quote, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. Trump fans are pointing out that the amendment only refers to being, quote, elected and not serving. Welker also said she floated to Trump the idea. Like, why did she do this? But she floated to Trump the idea of J.D.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Vance running with Trump as his running mate, winning and then passing the baton off to Trump like a little Putin medvedev.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Trump said that that was one method. He acknowledged that was one method, quote. But there are others, too, which he then refused to elaborate on. I should note here that the 12th Amendment states that, quote, no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president. shall be eligible to that of vice president of the United States.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So the whole swap thing doesn't seems like it would fly with the 12th Amendment either.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But it does fly with the 12th Amendment because he is eligible as long as he's not elected. If he's not, that he can become president.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I think it's just you and Larry Tribe think that.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I just think we should assume. The two greatest legal minds.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Last time we were on the opposite side of the issue, and I won in front of the Supreme Court.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Larry Tribe, zero. Lovett, one. Are we taking Trump seriously and literally on this one?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Absolutely. I think, like, I think Trump is, first of all, I think he's having fun with this. He's enjoying this, right? You know, the idea that we're in a place where Trump is so resoundingly popular that the country is clamoring for yet another turn is, of course, ridiculous and exists only in his mind.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
For what it would take for Donald Trump to become president a third time is a kind of Medvedev as president, Putin as prime minister, a
Pod Save America
Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So an actual campaign in which Republicans are fully admitting that they are just vassals for a Trump dictatorship or some other ridiculous scheme in which he is made speaker of the House or some other cockamamie shit in which the whole the whole Republican Party is now completely given over to the idea that Donald Trump is a dictator. But we don't really need to worry yet.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
about the possibility that Trump is going to behave like a dictator three years from now because he's behaving like a dictator right now. We probably should focus on that. And our job is to make Trump so completely unpopular and unpalatable to the American people that this becomes a joke.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We'll talk about Elon's last minute Wisconsin trip to quite literally buy people's votes. Then you'll hear my conversation with newly minted Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona about how he's feeling about Trump's second term and what more Democrats can do to fight back. But first, by the time you're hearing this, we'll just be one day away from Liberation Day. Big day, guys.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Those bills aren't going to go anywhere anyway. Just so people know, how this would work if it happened is he would try to seek his party's nomination, which the party probably would just let happen, maybe. Let's say the Republican Party doesn't stop him there.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He eventually would need to get his name on the ballots in all the different states, and certainly the blue states wouldn't put him on the ballot, so then it would go to the Supreme Court, and then we'd hear what the Supreme Court said, and then the Supreme Court would either Be like, obviously, this is fucking crazy. You can't do it.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Or they would do what sometimes they've done in the past and surprise us all and say, go for it. Right. But if they tell him no, and then we're getting to the point where he clearly does not give a fuck about the judiciary. Right. They are testing this out. As you said, like, we don't have to think about this four years from now. They're testing it out right now.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And they're going to they're testing it out with birthright citizenship, which they'll get a ruling on. Right. Like there's going to be a whole bunch of things like this. But yeah, I mean, I forget which one of you said it, but one scenario is he just doesn't leave office, which is basically the scenario he tried last time.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So we don't have to think about a campaign or handing off to J.D. Vance. You could imagine a scenario where he either says, I'm not leaving office and I'm staying, or there's an election between J.D. Vance and some Democrat and it's close enough and it's like a 2020 situation.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And he's like, oh, well, while we do a recount and while we fix this out, I'm just going to stay in power for a little while. And then it just goes and goes and goes and goes. So, yeah, I think everyone should like be. I don't think we should like laugh about it. Right. But I do think we should be like, fuck you. You're not doing this. It's it's.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, I just think he would do it. He would love to do it. I think he would do a fucking make J.D. Vance his little puppet. That's a fun way for there's a lot of methods that look that you don't believe in the Constitution. We should also say like it is a like we're so used to this now saying this is disqualifying. It's despicable.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The clear intent of the 22nd Amendment is that that he should not be able to seek a third turn. The language is not. like the language leaves like a loophole for him to seek the office in some ridiculous roundabout way.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But there's lots of ways that if you just, you know, if you don't believe in the Constitution, don't care about its precepts, there's all kinds of workarounds, including with the pardon power that he uses every every fucking day lately. So this is a vaguely this is like on the verge of an impeachable offense to claim you're going to kind of not leave office. But it's not our job to kind of
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You know, let's leave it at that. Obama should run.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Right before we recorded, Trump was doing an avail in the Oval Office again for another one of fucking executive order. I don't know what it was. Kid Rock was there. He was asked about the Obama thing because Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, was asked about Trump running again on CNN. And instead of just saying, no, of course not. That's crazy.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He was like, well, we wouldn't want Obama to run for a third term, would we? So that was so then Trump was asked about it. He said, I'd love it. But I think if he's going to try to, you know, bait us and make us freak out and have some fun with it, we should have some fun with it every time. Like, number one, we should just say, yes, Obama's going to run and mop the floor with him.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
That's what Trump is calling Wednesday, April 2nd, the day he's expected to announce a set of reciprocal tariffs, which are tariffs on other countries that impose tariffs on us. But in remarks aboard Air Force One on Sunday, he indicated that he'll be going much bigger.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We should also reporters should be asking JD Vance about this, because if I was JD Vance, I'd be pretty pissed. Yeah. Right. Like there was a story today that J.D. Vance is doing his first fundraiser tonight by himself and he's getting this network of donors getting ready for 2028. So cute. Yeah. I would ask J.D. Vance and even better if J.D.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Vance and Donald Trump are ever together and do a joint interview. I would ask them together so that J.D. Vance could be really sad when when Donald Trump is like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to do it. Like there's so much we can do with this. There's there's got to be a little bit of a yes, we don't freak out, but we also don't say like, oh, we can't talk about it. Like, let's fuck.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Fuck them. No, you're not going to run again, you asshole.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Mock him back. You chill out when Barack Obama is the nominee against him.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I do like thinking about the scenario where like J.D. Vance has just won and been elected president of the United States and it's now like kind of the deal. The deal is that he's supposed to resign. Right. Yeah, good luck. And like, yeah, what are we talking about here?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He's like, no, no, my loyalty is to the guy that I once called Hitler. That's no, I'm sorry, sir. I got to I got to I got to stay here and go be, you know, take go take over Greenland.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And presumably, unlike some of the reporting we've seen, unlike Biden, Trump believes his vice president's actually up for it.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Well, he was asked, is he the heir apparent? Remember, like a couple of weeks ago, a month ago, and he was just like, no. He could be, couldn't be. So maybe more like Biden than we think. So as we were saying, Trump's already in his dictator era. One sign of that is the administration is seeking to dictate which media outlets get to cover the president and how.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
On Sunday, Axios' Mike Allen wrote that the White House plans to hijack the White House briefing room seating chart from the White House Correspondents Association in the coming weeks. Back in February, of course, they took control of the press pool, another historical prerogative of the Correspondents Association.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And separately, they barred the AP from the pool and from covering White House events, which the AP is now in court over. Seating chart, big deal, not a big deal. Tommy, what do you think?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
canceling amber ruffin yeah canceling the comedian at the correspondence center yeah fascism is rising no jokes but the the yeah like the like the one impact of this is you know we're used to like sometimes the questions are funny they're famous like you know reporters shouting questions like what about your gaffes but like when when when the when questions were shouted at the president they would be substantive questions about and now some of the questions coming from these people starting to
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
They're like, how long have you been this handsome? What are we going to do to stop these liberals from stopping you from protecting our citizens? Zelensky, why aren't you wearing a suit? Right. Zelensky, why aren't you wearing a suit?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And you still get, at least at this stage, you're still getting some tough questions here and there. But you can already tell that the balance between the softballs and the ridiculous ones and the tough questions is way off at this point.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And like he the that the question, right, is like who owns that briefing room, like who owns that space? Right. And Trump wants to control it. He wants to own like it's it's what he's doing with Doge. It's what he's doing to colleges, what he's doing to law firms. He's exerting control. And it starts with seating charts and like fucking cares about seating charts.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But it ultimately ends with like, you know, you see, you know, AP is having to fight to get their way back in. You slowly but surely have fewer and fewer major outlets with access and with regular frequent ability to ask questions of the White House, of the press secretary, the president. And then now that briefing room is just another kind of another place controlled by Donald Trump.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I think What About Your Gas was a great question. I agree. Shout out Ashley Parker.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Next thing you know, we're going to have like NBC and CNN sitting in Greenland asking questions.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Vance's speech in Greenland? I saw the photo of him standing sadly in front of a group of people that have to be there because it's an order. And I.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And he was sort of, he had like a little Zelensky outfit on. Yeah, he did. But the creepiest thing that he said, because someone asked him a question like, what are you doing? Saying that you're going to take over Greenland. Like, what's going on? And he goes, we can't just ignore the president's desires. It's real fascism. Also just like creepy and weird. We can't ignore the president's desires.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
That's why we're in Greenland today talking about taking it over.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
It's really strange, right? It's, it's what he's saying, right? Is that like, I am a representative of the president. This is the policy of the president. I'm not going to ignore that. But it's this deep, the, the, the way in which it's all revolves around Donald Trump's psychology.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, they couldn't find a person who wanted to talk to Usha Vance.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Did you see JD Vance with his tray getting a meal with the service members there? And you can just feel him having no place to sit at lunch in high school. You just see it in his face. I related to him. I felt it.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I felt it. I was just trying to make sure he listens to the president's desires. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. One more update on our budding dictatorship. After the D.C.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Court of Appeals ruled that Trump can't just ship people to El Salvador's torture dungeon without due process, one of the judges actually said that, quote, Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration asked the Supreme Court to settle the matter.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We're going to boom. It's going to boom all right. We're going to boom. So no one seems to know what Trump is actually going to do here, including his own advisers. There's been a bunch of reporting that he may just do blanket tariffs of up to 20% on all imported goods from everywhere, which is what he talked about during the campaign.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Should see what happens when they visit Mar-a-Lago. Get a full meal.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
If you've been following this, you might have come across the heartbreaking story of Andre Hernandez Ramiro, a gay makeup artist who came to the U.S. legally to seek asylum, but is currently being held in that Salvadoran prison after the government decided he's Tren de Aragua.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Well, we know from court filings that the government's only evidence are tattoos of crowns on his wrists, one with the word mom under it and the other with the word dad, which a random ICE officer decided were Tren de Aragua tattoos, even though Hernandez Romero repeatedly denied any affiliation with the gang.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We also learned from this about the existence of the so-called Alien Enemy Validation Guide, which is a checklist that ICE agents use to assess whether someone is a TDA member, which includes whether the person's friends say they're in the gang, whether they're thought to associate with known members of the gang, and of course, whether the person has tattoos that could indicate gang membership.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I think what's most alarming about the story is how hard the administration is also fighting judges who... who are merely asking for evidence and due process here. Nothing more at this stage. Stephen Miller posted a fucking hysterical rant over the weekend. Part of it said, quote, America voted for liberation.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
If every foreign trespasser gets to have their own federal trial prior to removal, then there is no liberation. There is no restoration. The invasion will be made complete. What do you guys make of all this? And why do you think it isn't a bigger story right now? Why aren't like more elected Democrats talking about this?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
What do you mean? Where is that? Join a community theater troupe. Yeah. It's the actual specifics in the documentation. It's so paltry and so pathetic and so damning. And you look at this guy, Andre, who did truly nothing wrong. He applied for asylum at a port of entry, seized, not deported, but kidnapped.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Legally showed up at the port of entry like you're supposed to.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Another there's another report out of Miami of a Venezuelan who has been going to his appointments, had an appointment on February 25th. It got moved up, gets grabbed, was showing up, was doing what you're supposed to do. Applied for asylum was was was and then sees because he had a tattoo, that tattoo, that tattoo he got with his ex-girlfriend. Again, a crown.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Then you look at some of the documentation that ICE has used, at least in the past. And the symbols are just random tattoos taken from what looks like a Google image source, including images. A known gang symbol being Jumpman. Jumpman being the Air Jordan symbol with the 23 above it. Pretty popular guy. Which means a lot of kids in my middle school were in Trendyaragua. Yes. Where are they now?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Peter Navarro, Trump's trade guy, told Fox over the weekend that the tariffs will raise six trillion dollars over 10 years only, which experts say would be the largest tax hike in American history. Although Peter Navarro calls them tax cuts. Sure.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Based on their shoes and t-shirts. They didn't have the tattoos. The Jewish mothers would never allow it. But nevertheless, yeah, where are those guys? And and then you see all I think, look, look, obviously, this is horrible on on its own. But then you see Republicans refusing. You know, they go right to the politics. Democrats are defending gang members, which, of course, not what's going on.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
They go right to these sort of Kafkaesque evasions, which is there can't be due process for invaders. Well, how? First of all, that's ridiculous. But also, how do you know they're fucking invaders without the due process? That's the whole point.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Victoria Sparks, who's a congresswoman from Indiana, had a couple of rowdy town halls over the weekend where people were just yelling at her the whole time. They were complaining about this and asking her about this. And she yells at one point, you violated the law, so you're not entitled to due process.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And when Kristen Welker at NBC asked Trump about the 25% auto tariffs that are scheduled to go into effect this week, he said he, quote, couldn't care less if car companies raised their prices. Couldn't care less was the quote.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Sure enough, the S&P ended March with its steepest monthly decline since the Fed raised rates in December of 2022 and the worst quarter at the start of a president's term since the financial crisis in 2009. Not good moments. Right. What do you guys think? How's America's golden age looking right now?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Pod Save America
Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
That's exciting. That's great. They know that we have this sort of We have this midterm advantage, this hyper engaged advantage. And so they're they're assuming that Elon Musk, as much as it does damage from to be in Wisconsin to them, which I think it does, that they need him there to to make this a Trump referendum, because that's their only hope of getting enough of the Trump people out.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And when you look at what the Republicans are putting on doors in Wisconsin, it like the Democratic flyers, the pro Crawford flyers are. Crawford and Schimel and their two sets of positions. The Republican flyer is just a big old picture of Trump. And it just said that Trump is winning for America and radical judges are trying to stop him.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, they need the Trump voters. They usually only vote in presidentials.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You see, one of the million dollar checks went to the chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans. Nice.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He was a Turning Points USA ballot chase representative in 2024.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Well, everybody's talked about the illegality around buying votes, but in the run up to the election in November. there were questions about whether this was a true random drawing, and it's clear that it wasn't. This is why the joke is, oh, liberals, sign up, sign up. No, they're not choosing at random. You can't win.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
They're going through and finding ideal candidates to give this money to, which again feels completely ridiculous. The image of a billionaire who is also one of the most powerful figures in the government, flying in on a private jet to throw shekels down in front of people to come crawl and grab them to get votes for people is so fundamentally un-American.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
It's so disgusting to see this guy who's basically now acting as like the grand vizier to the sultan. And, you know, we just if you have a friend in Wisconsin, text him. If you like you can you can go to votes of America dot com slash Wisconsin. They still need some cash. They still need people to make calls.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But I do think right now the most important thing, if you're in Wisconsin, if you're near Wisconsin, text friends, text people in that state. We got to get every last vote out because it will be a lower turnout election. And it's just this has to be stopped.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah. What do you guys, I mean, while we still don't know the results of any of these races, what do you think they will say about how people are feeling about Trump 2.0 and Republicans? Do you think like, what are your expectations?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Oh, I'm like so afraid. So we went through this cycle and Judge Janet Protasewicz beat the Republican. Crushing that name now. Yeah, I'm a Protasewicz. Takes a Protasewicz to say Protasewicz. But I think what's what's interesting, right, is that we're already seeing the impact. Like Elise Stefanik is not going to be ambassador to the U.N.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
because even in her deep red district, they're not they're not sure they can hold it.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
She gave up her leadership job. She gave up her leadership. That job has been filled. It's awesome.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I will say if we lose Wisconsin, I think it will rightly be quite bad for us.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
This is all politics. Substantively, very bad, obviously, right? But not like we should win this, but if the margin is the same as 2024, then it's going to be like the general election in 2024, then it's just fucking frustrating. But if everything that's happened over the last couple months and then we get that result, Wisconsin...
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I mean, pretty devastating. Yeah. It also just would tell us about the Trump base and their willingness to do what they're told. Right. And to show up, um, which would be make them more formidable than we thought.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And I will say if we win and we win by, you know, a couple of points here and there, like Elon Musk going there and then dumping $26 million and then coming up short, uh, is then we should feel pretty good, you know? And then I'll be looking at the margin in, uh, in that Florida race too, to see if, uh,
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You know, if look, if a 33 point district and he only loses by like four or five, that's fucking that should be a huge siren for all Republicans going into midterms.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I will say, too, that the timing of these races, the week that they are going to be debating this tax bill in Congress, so if it is bad for Republicans and Randy Fine barely squeaks it out or whatever...
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You're going to see like the Mike Lawlers and some of these Republicans and swing districts in the House, like they're going to be thinking twice about how many Medicaid, you know, how much in Medicaid cuts you want, what to do about the tax hikes, what to do about some other budget cuts. Like they're going to be thinking about that.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Absolutely. Look, I mean, yeah, if in the same week they learn that Republicans have lost like 10, 15 or more points in the generic ballot and they learn that Elon Musk's money can't protect them if they vote for Medicaid cuts, tax cuts for the rich, that's pretty damning.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
All right. When we come back from the break, you'll hear my interview with Senator Ruben Gallego. But first, one big announcement. For the month of April, we're offering a 30-day free trial for if you want to subscribe to our Friends of the Pod community. As you hear us say all the time, joining Friends of the Pod is the best way to support our work here at Crooked Media.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And we just made the experience even better. You can now enjoy offline and love it or leave it ad-free in addition to the ad-free versions of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World. Wow. We're not going to let Tommy have all the... The ad-free fun, you know?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You'll also get exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan, and you'll get access to our amazing Discord community where you can process the news with other people who feel as crazy as you do when you read the news. Sign up today at cricket.com slash friends or through Apple Podcasts to start your 30-day free trial. When we come back, Ruben Gallego. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
We love Helix mattresses. I got a couple in my house. Charlie's got one.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site wide. helixsleep.com slash crooked. Ruben Gallego, welcome back to the show. First time on since I've been able to call you Senator.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Considering how Trump's second term is unfolding so far, would you say your win was more of a blessing or a curse?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Right. They can be reciprocal tariffs if it's tariffs on the whole world. The other fundamental problem is the more money your tariffs are raising, the less your tariffs are working to produce the result that you claim they're going to produce. Putting tariffs on the world leads to a boom, a manufacturing boom domestically, then the revenue coming from those tariffs should slowly tick down.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
How does what we've seen from Trump in the last few months match up with your expectations for what a second term would bring? Are you more alarmed, less alarmed, or is it about what you expected?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I mean, what's most alarmed me in the last month has been what they're doing on immigration. And like, you know, I'm good with deporting criminals. I get that any president has quite a bit of power over immigration and deportations, even if I don't agree with the policy. But they are grabbing students off the streets, detaining legal residents.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Jailing people in this foreign prison in El Salvador with no due process, no trial, in some cases based on guessing what tattoos might mean. And then when a judge asks for evidence, they are threatening him with impeachment. Mike Johnson's talking about eliminating district courts. And I guess I'm just wondering, like, why more Democrats aren't hair on fire about this?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So I get that. And I was one person who, after the election, has been fairly critical of Democrats' position on immigration and letting people know, by the way, most people in this country want people to come here legally. They don't want people to come here. illegally, they are, you know, more likely to be in favor of deportations than not.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
It just, this to me feels like something so much different than just deportation.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
If tariffs really are raising $600 billion a year consistently, it means we are still importing huge amounts of goods. The other part of this that's confusing is on the one hand, you have Navarro out there saying this is going to raise vast sums of money, the greatest tax increase in history, which would be extremely disruptive to the economy.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But do you think there's – I haven't seen – I've been pleasantly surprised. I have not seen a lot of Democrats in the last couple weeks sort of just be fighting the deportations in general. I actually think that the people who have raised alarms have been over these specific cases where people just aren't getting any due process.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And I guess one of the things I worry about, and I do think this would be appealing to a much broader part of the electorate, is – Now it's, you know, Venezuelans that they think are gang members and a foreign student who they say, you know, was participating in pro-Hamas protests. But like, if there's no due process, where does it end?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
How do we even know someone's a non-citizen that they're rounding up?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah. We're talking at the beginning of a week where Republicans in Congress will be figuring out how to pay for the massive tax cut that Trump wants.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Senior White House official told Axios that they're actually discussing getting rid of the tax cuts for the top one percent because, quote, if we renew tax cuts for the rich paid for by throwing people off Medicaid, we're going to get fucking slaughtered. Do you think your Republican colleagues would ever give up on tax cuts for the rich and Medicaid cuts?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And then today you watch as the markets kind of flit around, but still are behaving as if this is sort of an idle threat. We're not seeing the kind of like chaos in the markets you would expect if we thought we were going to see the biggest tax increase in history and some of the most, some of the greatest disruption to trade that we've ever seen?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I'm not going to relitigate the politics of the shutdown fight, but one takeaway seemed to be that Democrats in Congress need to do a better job of communicating their strategy. Obviously, you guys don't have the votes to stop this tax bill from becoming law. But what are you thinking in terms of the strategy around this fight?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
It's interesting you say that because I've talked to some of your colleagues, particularly your younger, newer colleagues, who also seem a little frustrated that there's not been enough conversation about a sort of an alternative vision and agenda from the Democratic Party. Is there resistance to that from leadership? Not anymore. That's good.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
What do you in terms of that alternate sort of vision agenda? I know you mentioned the child tax cut, but what does it sound like to you? Like, what is the we haven't had a lot of debate about what sort of that forward looking vision in the party might sound like? You know, I just sat down with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I mean, I think that the markets are pretty, the fact that we had the steepest decline since in a couple of years and in just one month of the first term, and it's like entirely self-inflicted. I think I think that obviously there's some uncertainty on what's actually going to happen here.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
What lessons do you take from the Biden administration, which obviously passed quite a bit of significant legislation around infrastructure, climate, and then didn't really get much credit for any of it? Even if you put the worries about cost of living aside, which was hard to put aside, but not a lot of people sort of felt in their lives any impact from the Biden administration's legislation.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But I think most of the economic indicators and most of the people, like everyone's raising the recession risks.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I'm not saying the signs are good. I'm not saying the signs are good, but like the Dow is still up year on year. The S&P is still up year on year. NASDAQ is still up year on year. Like everybody is still behaving as though Trump is going to do these kind of chaotic tariffs. He turns off, turns on, he turns off. No one is behaving.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I don't know if you saw over the weekend, Gavin Newsom was on a Bill Maher show and said that the Democratic Party's brand is, quote, toxic. And then Ro Khanna responded and said, it's not toxic and we shouldn't be sort of joining in the chorus of people attacking the Democrats. We should be unified against Trump. Where do you come down on that?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So one story I wanted to bring up, I've lost track of how many stories keep popping up about the wildly corrupt relationship between the Trump family and the crypto industry. Just today, I saw that Don Jr. and Eric are starting a Bitcoin mining adventure. So congrats to them.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I've always been a bit of a crypto skeptic since the industry is largely unregulated and seemingly rife with corruption. I know you're one of the more pro crypto Democrats in Congress and are the ranking member of the Digital Assets Subcommittee. Why should I not be skeptical of crypto if it is if it is better regulated than it is now?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The markets aren't behaving as if what we're about to see is like a fundamental shift in U.S. economic policy that's going to.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
so uh last question last time democrats uh were completely shut out of power in dc which was after the 2004 election one of the party's only new senators went on to become a history-making president after just a few years in office how are you thinking about your role uh in the democratic party right now uh in your future oh well i mean like for me i feel like
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I know it's early, but how are those conversations going so far? Are you feeling more hopeful or are you feeling more frustrated?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Not just about president, not just about president, but just the conversations you're having with people about what's wrong with the Democratic Party and where we need to go.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Sure does. Winning is much better. Ruben Gallego, thank you as always for joining Pod Save America and come visit us next time you're in LA. I will. Adios. That's our show for today. Thanks to Ruben Gallego for coming on. Dan and I are both off later this week, but fear not, Tommy's going to have a new show for you on Friday.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Oh, sorry. This is the way we tell you about those things.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Thanks, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He also said over the weekend that these – someone's like, are you going to lift them at some point if something happens? He's like, no, these are permanent now. I have been trying to envision a scenario where this trade war doesn't ultimately inflict real political damage on Trump and the Republicans. I am coming up short.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I think that there have been certainly many times in the first term and even at the beginning of this one where he has gone forward, backed off, delayed, backed off, but like – I think that it is I don't I think that he believes that and his advisors believe some of his advisors, at least most of them, that they are sort of restoring economic nationalism to America.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
John Lovett did, and he loves it. Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And they're going to remake somewhere that he thinks he's going to remake the global economy, not just for years or decades, but maybe centuries later.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I love a century. I love it. I love a time horizon on Trump on Trump. That's centuries.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And so I do feel like it's more of an ideological project, a crazy one, but an ideological project than I had originally assumed, just based on what Navarro saying, what Trump's been saying, what Vance has been saying and Bannon and all the and all the big economic nationalists. I think it's fucking crazy. And I think they're going to find out like pretty quickly that it is very damaging.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You also have Politico was reporting this, that Republican House members, industry groups are scrambling right now for exemptions, like to the point Tommy made earlier, that they are desperately trying to exempt.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Farmers are already being hit hard by the impact of tariffs, that there are tons of industries in Republican districts that these Congress people are worried are going to be adversely affected. They're industry groups desperately trying to figure out how to lobby. And so now, look, maybe they are doing some grand ideological realignment. But one way to make sure,
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You are in control, able to do the kind of corruption you want to do where companies and Republicans have to come and pledge fealty to you is by being deadly serious right now. So you can then claim you've put on these big tariffs while there's tons and tons of holes cut into them for which you've gotten God knows what concessions, promises, etc. ?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The legal basis for many of his foreign policy decisions is quite fragile. Not there.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
They're not going to be good. I know. I was going to say, not only are prices going to go up, and he doesn't care about that, but the stated goal of the tariffs to bring back production and manufacturing in the United States isn't going to work on a whole host of industries because it's not the way the world works anymore. It's cheaper to move stuff overseas.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And just even on its own terms, like look at cars, right? Navarro's out there saying it's going to generate $100 billion. Let's say there's 8 million cars imported that were sold, right? That's over $10,000 per car. There's not some immediate increase in the supply of American-made cars to make up for the more expensive cars that would be coming from abroad. The cost of all of these cars goes up.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And for the American car companies, the cost of the materials to make the car is going to go up because they rely on materials from overseas.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I've heard a lot of people make the argument that the Trump tax bill that we're going to be debating soon is going to be like when Bush tried to privatize Social Security in 2005. I actually think that Trump's tariffs could end up being the more apt comparison here because he is he's just sending out a lot of signs that he doesn't really give a shit about the prices.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And, you know, there was this thing that like maybe the stock market, he cares so much about the stock market and like that'll be, you know, I kind of bought into that, too. It doesn't seem like that he cares about that either. Yeah, it's but it's only been a 10 percent correction.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I mean, like that's that. We haven't felt real pain in the stock market yet. But I think the bigger, the thing he cares about more than that, right? Like if you watch Fox right now, they're like, Donald Trump's approval rating has never been higher because it touched like 49, right? And while his approval on the economy has gone down, his approval on immigration has never been higher.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And you watch his immigration number. He is at the lowest he's ever been on economic approval since he's been president. His approval on handling inflation is going down. These are Fox polls. Like those are numbers he does care about. And those are ticking down and down and down.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The Fox poll said that 53% of people said that tariffs will hurt the economy versus help the economy at only 28%. 69% accurately say it'll make products more expensive. So it's not like people don't understand tariffs or don't get what's going to happen here. They're pretty sophisticated in these answers. Very sophisticated.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And the new AP poll in the economy does have him at 40-58 on the economy and trade even lower at 38-60. And his approval is sitting at 42%. There's also now talk about stagflation, which he was asked about, which is when you have both inflation and weak economic growth. Seems bad. And high unemployment. Yeah. Ask Jimmy Carter how that went for him. Can't ask him anymore.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
On today's show, Trump says he's not joking about trying to serve a third term and that there are, quote, methods to get around the very clear constitutional amendment that prevents him from doing so. Of course, Trump's already acting like a dictator.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah. And also like stock market aside, just if economic indicators outside the stock market keep getting worse, then it's just going to be bad for everyone and his popularity. Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. We get some Article furniture. Sure do. We've had it in the office for a while. I have some patio furniture at home. It looks great. It's really affordable. It arrives quickly.
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To claim, visit article.com slash crooked and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Let's talk about the other news Trump made on Sunday that I referenced at the top of the show in his call with Kristen Welker, which sadly there is no audio of.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Yeah, well, what I'm also interested in, the ways in which the reaction that you're dealing with when you're trying to get these stories are fair, a reasonable reaction to how the government is covered, because there is a bias on the part of mainstream press towards negativity and scandal. That is usually why, if the government is calling about the FAA, it's because planes are touching.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
That's right. And so that is a reasonable result. The other is government. Somebody that's not trained in politics is going to be a little less savvy about how to engage with a reporter may say the wrong thing. Right. And they don't trust correctly that that that interesting but poorly phrased sentence won't be taken out of context.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And then the other piece of it is there's a lot of scientific research that sounds silly and. that sounds ridiculous, that ultimately saves lives. And if it gets in front of the right-wing press, suddenly you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene waving a copy of your abstract in a congressional committee, and that's never a good idea. So there you go.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And then the question, right, is sort of why is that good politics? And there, I do want to, we like to take a moment to blame Democrats here when we can. And some of it, right, is just viewing a lot of what the government does as self-perpetuating, that you don't have to defend it because it's what the government has always done. But in a deeper way,
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
We pay for a lack of collective memory of what life was like before the government collected this data, right? Before, you know, not a lot of people left who remember when the rivers caught fire and all the people that were old enough to know what life was like before Social Security and Medicare are now dead, right? And so I guess I'm wondering what you've learned about how to...
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
convey and really kind of fight that stereotype to allow the idea of government as good to reenter our collective imagination. And maybe it is just through a book like this.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
It's a... Just that we all live, like we live in a world that government has made safer, healthier, freer, cleaner, and it is so taken for granted. It is the status quo ante. And we can't imagine things getting worse again.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Right. We just did that. We just did that. And by the way, we created a vaccine. The government led the charge to create a vaccine miracle. One of the greatest achievements in human history is the rapid... scientific breakthrough that was mRNA vaccines. And the president responsible is now realizing when he's talking to his own crowds that they don't like it.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett. For this week's Sunday show, I'm sitting down with author Michael Lewis. Michael's most recent book, Who Is Government?, showcases the thankless, unglamorous work of doctors and engineers and civil servants inside the government at a time when the government is under attack.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I don't either. There is a kind of big difference between Republicans and Democrats. And I think it is in part because Republicans have always viewed themselves as against the mainstream political establishment inside the government, inside the media, and of course, against Democrats. And Democrats have a different relationship with those institutions.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
But, you know, it's not... I remember, you know, George W. Bush... Maybe it was Karl Rove or one of his advisors talking about that they were in the reality distortion business, that they were going to change reality. Remember this?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And Republicans are much more comfortable understanding that for them to get the world to look the way they want the world to look, they're going to have to change how they're going to say what they're going to say. And their job is to change the perspective, change how people see it. And Democrats are a bit more afraid of that, right?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Right now, poll after poll shows that people don't think the government works. They think the status quo is failing them. There's a lot of truth to that, by the way. And that's one place I want to get to, right? One part of this, why don't people like the government? One aspect of it is they don't think the government works. And maybe parts of it, they're right.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
But they look at that and they say, oh, people don't want me to defend the government. They want me to say, I hate the government. I think the government's bad but what we are but but there's a kind of a failure imagination I
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
to think about what it would look like if Democrats collectively decided to try to persuade people, and not just on the margins on a specific policy question, but to have a vision that fundamentally alters the perspective the American people have on an issue.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Republicans have been much more willing to do that, in part, I think, because Republicans understood that some of their positions were far more unpopular, right? Like being pro-life,
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
was unpopular being for tax cuts for the rich is deeply unpopular being against environmental regulations are fundamentally unpopular they they know they start from behind they may you know dissemble about the media or blame bias or whatever it may be but then on some level they know that they're fighting for unpopular policy and democrats are just i think more afraid to do that and also i think some of them it's just not there they are institutionalists they are kind of establishment types and they don't like bucking the trend you know you think about you
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Anyway, I don't know the answer, but I do think that's part of it.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
We'll talk about that and what he's learned by looking at industry contrarians and brilliant freaks. Michael Lewis, welcome to the pod. Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be back. So... There's something that you've been talking about as you're sharing stories from this book, which is about how good the government is at counting things.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Right now, in just the past couple of days, one example, Doge has shut down the research arm of the Department of Education.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I do think there's a nuance because you're right, right? The examples that you're talking about are people that are able to operate outside of the kind of evil eye of politics. But then I also think of moments when government has worked well or better because of politics.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And what I always I remember when, you know, right now there's a bipartisan fury at the idea that we're not going to fund PEPFAR. And I remember when Bush was setting up PEPFAR, he stood it up outside of USAID because they understood that USAID was a bureaucratic mess, had tons of problems.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna stand this up outside so it can be efficient and effective and move quickly. It's gonna be more political. You look at what happens when the Biden administration goes to implement the CHIPS Act. They look for a bunch of exemptions to a bunch of government rules so that it could be run quickly and move quickly, right?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Sometimes political passion and attention can help and make things happen. And I think that comes back to the kind of a problem from both directions, which is you catalog... this is in the premonition, this is in the fifth risk, and you and your fellow writers in this book, these sort of heroes inside of a machine, but there is often a machine, right?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
This is the entity that collects all kinds of data, including data that presumably you would want if you were studying government efficiency, because it collects data on what kinds of schooling are effective, what kinds are ineffective, including a bunch of longitudinal data. So this is data that's collected over years that that that is basically now being flushed down the toilet.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
There is often a slow moving kind of feckless bureaucracy that they're trying to fight against. And I'm just wondering if you have any reflections on not the heroes, but the water they're swimming against.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
It really irks a lot of reviewers.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Can you just talk a bit about this role that the government plays in just keeping track of the numbers and how important it is and why it gets so little attention?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Thank you.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Thank you. Thank you.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
You look at people who, for various differing motivations, some good, some not, look at a consensus in an industry, inside an institution, and decide that they see a better way to do it.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And they're willing to take a risk, whether it's risking their professional lives or risking financial success in order to pursue something that a lot of people are telling them is either dumb or wrong or going to hurt them in some way. And I'm wondering if you, like, look, I'm not... high-frequency traders with like a Pepsi Rolex are not the same as Charity Dean.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
You know, these are not the same kinds of people. But I'm wondering if you see a connection between the kinds of people that are willing to say, hold on a second, the way we're doing things doesn't make sense. I see a different path.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Well, there's the it's guessing. But then it's also like even if you look, it's I think there's like sort of an original sin here, which is thinking that one person can do any of this. Right. Like forget going to the inspector. Like if you were trying to go in and say, let's cut. We need to cut a trillion dollars from this budget.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
You would go to the department heads and you'd say, you have a month. Come to me with cuts. You know your agency better than me. I don't care how you do it. I need to see results. But he doesn't do any of that. He fires the people that do that. Right. And he thinks he's smarter.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
We haven't heard it.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Right. And it's not clear. Right. It's not clear when he makes up stories about how the Democrats are using Social Security to bribe people to become voters. It's not clear whether he genuinely believes that or if he believes that that's valuable, a valuable way to describe what would be ultimately seen as a deeply unpopular gutting of the federal government.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I think the reason I was asking about that, though, is putting Musk aside. You write about people that go inside of institutions and say, I'm going to do this a different way. And I look at the Republican Party.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
And if you would have sent gave me a list of of 100 Republicans in 2007 and said, hey, 10 of these people are going to blow up their lives because they believe Donald Trump is a threat and 90 of them are going to go along. I probably would have picked the wrong people. Oh, you know. But like you write about people that are inside- Wait, let me stop you on that. Who would you have picked?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I have no I have no idea. I have no idea. But I don't think I would have expected like Bill Kristol to be applauding Bernie Sanders. Right. And I and I would have been, I think, surprised by the number of politicians that acquiesced and the number of consultants who actually showed great courage. Right.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
It's been a number of Republican right wing political consultants that have refused to go along while all the kind of politicians have caved. I probably would not have picked Dick Cheney. Yep. I wouldn't have picked Liz Cheney when Liz Cheney ran for the Senate in Wyoming. I thought she was disgusting because she was campaigning against what they called the ground zero moss. Right.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Like she was, to me, the Republican Party at its worst. And then here she is campaigning with Kamala Harris, which obviously worked pretty poorly. But you never you never know who's going to be brave.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Yeah. Right. And I'm curious what you look, but like you, you know, charity Dean had post-it notes, right. About how to be brave. Right. And, and that's, you know, that's a shameful thing, right. It's, it's shameful for a system to require bravery in order to do the right thing. That's a, that's a problem.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
But I'm wondering what, what you learned about what, like, why are some people brave in these moments and, and what do we do to encourage that?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Yeah, no, I think there's something deeper to what you're saying too, right? Because implicit of what you're saying is, I don't live in a society that rewards bravery anymore. You can't win by being brave, right? And that does seem to be part of what Trump is doing as well, right? When you fire the inspectors general, when you shut down the CDC's FOIA office, right?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
When you make accountability something you'll never have to face, right? When there's no price to doing the wrong thing, Suddenly it becomes an advantage and he wants everyone to think people think and act like him and one way you do that is making Bravery a bad investment.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
One aspect of trust in a society is journalism. And I was thinking about how much the ability to report on powerful figures has changed since you wrote, say, Liar's Poker, right? And I'm wondering... If you feel that change, right? Today, there would be non-disclosure agreements. Today, you'd be getting phone calls from lawyers. It's really changed. And do you feel that?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
You feel that when you're doing work?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Last question, and I have no knowledge, but I was thinking about this before the interview. And if I were a betting man, and I am, I'd bet you're interested in artificial intelligence. That would be what I would bet you're interested in. And I'm wondering if that's true, and I'm wondering if you have questions about the way
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Artificial intelligence companies are kind of recklessly putting this technology into the world while behind the scenes lamenting that it may lead to the destruction of humanity. And what, whether it's Flash Boys or Going Infinite, leads you to wonder about what these companies are doing.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Fascinating. The book is who is government. There's a lot we need to do to figure out how to kind of repair trust, especially in institutions and people. I think one good place to start is throw in jail anyone who asked Michael Lewis who should write my biography. I think that's a good starting place. Michael Lewis, thank you so much for your time. It's been great to talk to you.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
John, totally enjoyed it.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Right. This is where I kind of like, do they, or do they just think that's a land they like to be in? Well, that's a good question. Because no, but this, I've been, this specific example that you mentioned about the panels of people that help make sure that our understanding of, of inflation and other metrics are accurate. Right.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I understand why they think they will benefit from politicizing these figures. You know, they don't mind if we live in a world where where, you know, every chocolate prices just keep falling, you know. Right. But they also benefited from a society that was built on this reliable data. And there is something deeper here more than just the politicization, which is our collective belief.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
taking for granted of what the government does day to day. And I just want to open it up to you to talk a little bit about what led you to want to examine some of these sort of unsung heroes inside of the government and what you took away from it. Can I have five minutes?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Great. It's going to sound like I'm droning on and I don't want a monologue. We just need enough to get to the next mattress set.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Too slow.
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
Just to come back to what you were saying here, that these are the kinds of stories that just aren't being told. Why? You find these fascinating characters that are doing incredible and important work. You talk about, as a society, we're more interested in politics than government. How do you explain that?
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Michael Lewis on Bravery in Politics and Why Elon Musk Seems so "Disturbed"
I'll take a stab, but I think you should take a stab, too, because you probably thought about this at least as much as I have.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Pod Save America is brought to you by Quince. Vacation season is nearly upon us. This year, I'm treating myself to the luxe upgrades I deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices, like lightweight shirts and shorts from $30, pants for any occasion, and comfortable lounge sets with premium luggage options and durable duffel bags to carry it all. The best part?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Abundance is a new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. It is a book about governance and in large part how governments Blue states and cities need to govern better and deliver more. It is about envisioning a liberalism that builds, that actually delivers on the promises Democrats make, particularly in places that Democrats control fully. The book is fascinating. It's very thought-provoking.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
It's interesting you brought up cost of living and the affordability crisis, because clearly when you talk to voters, especially in the last election, but in every election I can remember, cost of living issues are top of mind.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And when I think about – there's like an extra step with abundance on some of this where it's like when you start testing a bunch of policies that Democrats have proposed for the last, I don't know, however many years, the stuff that does well is –
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
You know, in the ACA, it's the insurance protections, you know, protection for pre-existing condition or the protection or expansion of retirement and health care benefits or a middle class tax cut or a child tax cut or something that people are just going to get. And with housing... You still have to make this up.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Okay, we're going to build more housing, and then that's going to make housing cheaper. I remember when we were doing the Affordable Care Act. Me too.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Remember that? A simpler time. And what Obama was always very excited about were the cost-cutting measures in the Affordable Care Act and bending the cost curve in the out years, which is a line that I would try to get out of every single speech. And that is clearly very important, but that's not what people cared about, you know?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And I'm wondering how you think about like connecting abundance to the affordability crisis, like directly.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
So obviously it's become the subject of a lot of online controversy and debate. Ezra and Derek were in LA this past week to talk about the book. So sat down with them here in the studio. It was supposed to be a quick interview, but it was such a fascinating, fun conversation that it went long and we decided we're just going to make this its own bonus episode for all of you guys.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
So without further ado, I hope you'll enjoy. And as always, if you're a member of the Discord community, I hope you'll let us know what you think. Would love to talk about it more there. Here's my conversation with Ezra and Derek. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, good to see you guys in person. Thanks for having us. Great to be here. So your new book, Abundance, has been out about a week now.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
So you mentioned some of the critique from the left. I'm sure you've read all of it, read most of it. I'm sure you've talked about the Zephyr Teachout review of Abundance. I wanted to get your reaction to one part of that because I think it summarizes a lot of the criticism on the left. I mean, you mentioned the Bernie side. There's also sort of like a Warren-esque critique as well.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And she writes, I still can't tell after reading Abundance whether Klein and Thompson are seeking something fairly small-bore incorrect—we need zoning reform— or non-trivial and deeply regressive, we need deregulation, or whether there is room within abundance for anti-monopoly politics and a more full-throated unleashing of American potential. Matt Brunig has a similar critique.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
He says it would be a huge mistake to sideline whatever focus there is on welfare state expansion and economic egalitarianism in favor of a focus on administrative burdens in construction. Obviously. Now, in the book, it's not a book about monopolistic power practices and corporate concentration, so I get that.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
I guess to the question that Teachout asked, is there room in abundance for a critique of concentrated economic power and anti-monopoly politics and all that?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And the sure sign of its importance is that there is a full-blown abundance discourse that's going on in an online debate where people are tearing each other to shreds. It's great. So I am excited to come in a week later to talk about the debate about abundance.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
It's a discourse generating machine, as one person called it. It's perfect. Before we get into it, though, I should say I am a full-fledged abundance pilt. I'm in. I would love for you to sell me on abundance like I am not a partisan political junkie, but a skeptical, casual news consumer, which is most Americans.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Thank you. Thank you.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Pre-Trump, I think the challenge was a lot of this, when you're actually talking about reforming government, making government more efficient, making it work better, it wasn't as sexy as some of the other stuff, right? And Obama was very focused on this, and we'd always be like, well, it's too much of that in the speech and the efficiency, and people don't care as much about that.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And then there's the inertia of governing in the bureaucracy, right? Like there was always a proposal to combine education and labor departments. But then it was like, well, which secretary do you keep? And then is Congress going to let us do this?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And all the things where, you know, like you said, now that we have a doge that's awful, but like you could imagine one where, you know, they're just shaking some things up within the law and actually making some change. I think post-Trump and as the country got more polarized,
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
I think among democratic strategists and politicians, there is this feeling that because we are in such an existential crisis for democracy, if we admit failure or focus on our own failures, then we are just wasting time and energy and attention that could be going towards the big fight. I don't agree with that.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
No. Yeah. Like, I don't think it's right. I think that is what I think that is at the core of some of this is that and you can see that with some of the criticism of the book, too. It's like, well, you know, Donald Trump's destroying democracy and Doge, blah, blah. And they're and they're giving like they're offering Doge light. Like, what is that?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
You know, it's like, well, no, but actual voters, they they don't like the Democratic Party right now and they don't like the Republican Party much either. But in order to like the Democratic Party again, they want to hear an alternative and they want to hear that you made some mistakes, that you actually believe that you made those mistakes.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
But they also, you know, Bernie's criticism is coded as from the left, which then people on the left like that. Any other criticism is coded as from the right or centrist, which then freaks out all the... Let's run the experiment of criticizing the Democratic Party from the center.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
I mean, it's coalition politics in the most like in the messiest way.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Which is like we need every single person we can get in this fight against Donald Trump. So I'm going to say this is your, you know, everything bagel. I'm going to say yes to everyone and make everyone happy and keep the coalition together, which is a very sort of Biden thing to do just personally. And. Then we ended up with nothing.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
So I'll ask you, in the same character as someone who doesn't really know all this, why have liberals failed to do this?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Which is what Trump ran against, Obama ran against, Bernie Sanders ran against, three of the more successful-liked politicians of the last couple decades. Which Democratic politicians seem abundance-pilled or at least abundance-curious to you guys?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
On our favorite platform, formerly known as Twitter, there's been quite a bit of chatter, even some AI-generated images that suggest the presidential candidate most suited to run on the abundance agenda is you, Ezra. Care to comment or announce anything? God help this country if it turns to me. Some good AI. Grok is making my life worse on the daily in so many different ways.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson. The book is Abundance. It is fantastic. Like I said, I'm abundance-billed. You don't have to convince me. I think because I read it through the political lens. And I do think it offers a very useful frame. I heard you, Derek, say that It gives us another axis to think about that's left, right and scarcity abundance. And I think that's well said.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
So everyone go get the book. Thanks for coming by. Appreciate you guys.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
That's our show for today. Thanks to Derek and Ezra for coming on. Tommy, Lovett, and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherland is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Segland and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, Kenny Moffitt, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Abundance is clearly a governing philosophy. To what extent is it also meant to be a campaign platform or the basis for a grassroots political movement?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
You're the political professional, man. Most of my questions are like this because as I read the book, I got excited about it, but I started thinking, like the wheel started turning and I'm like, all right, how do you sell this? How does this look like in a campaign? Is this going to appeal to regular normie Dems?
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
But it's funny. You clearly did because the book is like I was saying that I was talking to Ben Rhodes, my former speechwriting colleague in the Obama White House. And I was like, they wrote the book. Like it was a speech that a politician could give a lot of it. Like it's not like two in the weeds.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
I also had this experience reading the book where I would, you know, get excited about the possibility for this to be a democratic platform. And then I would go back to my job of mainlining the news, which is mostly about how, you know, a bunch of corrupt oligarchs are, you know, turning America into Hungary and shipping off people into foreign gulags.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. We have a special bonus episode for you today. If you're someone who spent any time wading into the debates within the Democratic Party about why we're doing so badly, why we have done so badly, which I'm sure you are if you listen to this show, you have probably heard about the Abundance Discourse.
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Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on How Democrats Can Build Their Way Back to Power
And it makes me wonder, like, how do you think the politics of abundance meets the gravity of the political crisis we're in right now?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Sean Hannity did this event last night where he's interviewing Mike Johnson, but he's got all the other Republican House members sitting there. And he basically talks to them like they're kindergartners. And he was like, now you all know you're not going to get everything you want out of these bills in the first year.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Could you imagine you doing a show where you're like interviewing Hakeem Jeffries and all the other House Democrats are there and you're just like wagging your finger at them and telling them like this is what you can expect?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I just think they've all decided to like become supplicants to Donald. Like they don't, I don't know that I hope that shame works, but I don't know if there's any of them left that have that, that have shame.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. So, this is our first Sunday show of the new year. We are going to be doing one of these every other Sunday for 2025. Exciting. On each of these shows, We're going to talk to someone really smart in politics or media.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
You're a student of history, especially as it relates to authoritarian movements in other countries and in our own. If you're listening, you haven't already, you should go listen to Rachel's podcast, Ultra. We'll read a prequel, both of which tell the story of a fascist movement in 1930s America. Excellent. Both excellent. Thank you.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
What are you seeing right now that feels like history is repeating itself? What feels new? And any lessons from all your research that could be useful to us right now?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And the idea is to sort of step away from the churn and the breaking news and to have interesting, thoughtful conversations about the big ideas and forces and trends shaping the news, shaping politics that we are all scrambling to digest every day, as I'm sure all of you are as well. I am thrilled that our first Sunday guest is Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah. I'm interested in how you're thinking about covering Trump 2.0. I saw you say that you're trying to follow a watch what he does, not what he says mantra, which we're trying to do on this show as well. It's hard. It's hard to know when he's being serious, when he's trolling. It's hard to know what matters, what matters less. It's hard to know where to focus people's attention.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
How are you thinking about navigating all that?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I'm still working it out right now. I'm trying to focus on like... What the effects of his policies on people, because I'm thinking just from a political perspective that we need to persuade people that maybe people who voted for Trump for the first time or people who didn't vote at all, that he's not what he promised is not going to happen. Right. He's not going to make their lives better.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And I don't think that just means sort of kitchen table issues, though it does. I think it also means like making sure people know that now there are these violent criminals who are convicted of assaulting police officers out on the streets. And that's what he's doing too. So I think that I'm trying to do less of what was the salute that Elon Musk gave, right?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Like, we can have that debate, and then maybe everyone in the country can say, oh, yeah, no, it was a bad salute. And then what happens? Well, we didn't vanquish Elon Musk. He's still around. He still bought his speech now.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
He gets to do all the things he does. So I'm trying to focus on, like, what actually affects people that Donald Trump is doing and making sure that we're clear about it and also making sure that, you know, I'm trying not to make – I feel like if you turn the dial, the outrage dial to 11 all the time, then it sort of numbs people.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And then when something's really serious, they'll be like, oh, you said that before. And, you know, it didn't come true.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Like, how are you thinking about that? I'm thinking that. He seems pretty serious about Panama. I mean, you put something in an inaugural address and he seems pretty serious about Greenland too. So I think you got to watch it. Like I don't subscribe to that's just a distraction and we can't talk about Greenland and Panama, especially because it involves, potentially involves military force, right?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Anything that involves like, again, this is affecting people's lives, right? People in the military here, people at home, our safety, our security, the alliances that we have, like that does affect people. I would love to talk about it and cover it in a way that people can say, all right, this is how it matters to me. But I don't think you can just wave it away as a distraction.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Rachel is back to anchoring the 9 p.m. hour every weeknight for the first hundred days of the second Trump administration. They somehow got her to come back and do five nights a week. Poor Rachel, but lucky us. On day three of the administration, on Wednesday, I sat down with Rachel here at the Sirius XM studios in New York, across from MSNBC's offices at 30 Rock.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah. And that's, again, back to that's something that people should care about or because if the, you know, at a time when we have Putin and China and Iran and North Korea cooperating more, it is a dangerous world.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah. And it's a question that Americans should get the answer to from Donald Trump, right? Like, this is a dangerous time. What are you planning to do to keep us safe? Is it just to take Greenland and Panama? Is that going to keep us safe?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
You can try. That's a new twist on the road. Okay. Sure. Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist or maybe there's a part of your story you've been wanting to revise. Life isn't about resolutions that fade by February. It's about picking up the pen and becoming the author of your own life.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Oh, yeah, yeah. Seven years ago. Seven and seven is 24, it's now 25. Yeah. I forgot the year changed. Yeah, it did. It really changed on us. Whew. Whew. Anyway, we've been using stamps.com for a long time. That's all you need to know. Forever.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
No doubt by the time you're hearing this on Sunday, a ton of crazy new shit will have happened. But already, by Wednesday, things were feeling not great. Pretty surreal. Here's a sampling of some of what's happened this week.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Just go to Stamps.com. Code CROOKET. When you look back at how you covered the first four years of Trump, anything you would have done differently?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Do you intend to continue selling products that benefit yourself personally while you're president?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah, that is hard. I mean, I struggle with and I heard this from people during the course of the campaign. People I know were like, look, I don't love Trump, but we survived the first Trump term. And everyone, you know, everyone was hair on fire and saying it was going to be the end of democracy. And here we are. We survived. There were bad things that happened.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
You know, there were some bad things that have January. These are people like January 6th. Awful. He's a bad person. But like, how bad can it be? We survived the first time. Wow. I know. And it's hard because I'm trying to like, I'm trying to figure out how to calibrate, like, because I do think that this time, this time it's actually much more serious.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And I'm like, I think the threat is much more dangerous. Yes. Than it was in the first term. And I'm trying, it doesn't seem like most, well, clearly because they voted for him, but it doesn't seem like most people in the country believe that.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I mean, you can just tell yourself a story, put out a hypothetical about how this could work, right? Which is we have the 2026 midterms and Democrats maybe take back the House. We get to 2028. Let's say Democrat wins in 2028 and Donald Trump's still in the White House and he's leaving or he's supposed to leave. And he says, no, J.D. Vance actually won. This was fraud.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Several billion dollars it seems like in the last several days.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And now he controls the whole government. And he has lessons that he's learned from failing to, you know, stay in power forcefully in 2020. And, you know, when you say, oh, this could lead to the end of democracy, people are like, oh, you're exaggerating. But like what I just laid out, couldn't we see that happening? Do we see Donald Trump now that he already did that once?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Do we see him just saying, oh, no, J.D. Vance lost. He's a loser. That's fine. I'll let the next Democrat in.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Or maybe I'll stay. Or maybe I'll stay until we settle this.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
There was some fraud, and I know the Constitution says, but you know what? It's instability right now. I'll leave eventually, but I'm just going to stay for a little bit.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Real workman-like. He hates giving speeches that are written for him because he just wants to be a host and just do his thing. His real speech was the speech he gave after. It was like a 33-minute speech to the Republicans where he just got to do all of his stuff.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah, well, he doesn't care. He's not an orator. He's just trying to like, you know, he's just doing his show. He's a host.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
You were talking about the press and obviously, you know, Trump's suing everyone now. Yeah. Poor Ann Seltzer and the Des Moines Register and ABC settled. Are you afraid? Do you worry?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Get $5 off your next order at magicspoon.com slash crooked or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magicspoon.com slash crooked for $5 off. There's a larger challenge with media that I think about a lot, which is that most Americans aren't paying attention to anything we say and aren't following much news at all.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And Kamala Harris does really well among people who don't just tune into MSNBC and Pod Save America, but just follow the news.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
In any venue. Trump did well with people who don't follow the news or who follow some news like on social media. Right. And those people care a lot more about cost of living, safety of their communities than they do, you know, the threat Trump poses to democracy. Right. They feel like that's sort of esoteric.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And it makes me wonder if we're all just like sitting here talking to ourselves and to an audience that's already been convinced. And I wonder how we break out of that so that, you know, more Americans know what's going on.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I am. And I just, I think that, I mean, a lot of this is the way technology has changed the way that we talk and communicate and interact. And if this is all going to be done on social media... I don't know. I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm still hanging around on X because like, you know, I don't love it. Not a great platform. It was never a great platform. Now it's a really bad platform.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
But, you know, there's part of me that I'm like, oh, we're all going to go to blue sky and then we're all just going to talk to each other in blue sky. And then we're going to talk to each other on pod, save America. And we're going to talk to each other on this NBC. And it's like, we all got it. I mean, maybe we're like, are we coming up with a plan altogether?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Like how are we going to get outside that bubble? And, um, I don't know.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Well, community is important too. Building community is also important.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Do you ever think about like going into the lion's den, going on some of these other right-leaning shows, some of these other right-leaning podcasts? Not necessarily like go on Hannity and have a debate kind of thing, but like the Joe Rogans of the world. That's shorthand for all of those because I don't want to get into another debate about Joe Rogan. But do you ever think about that?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Like that's one way to start. How do you think about persuading people?
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I know you're not a democratic strategist, you're a commentator, but you are a close observer of democratic politics.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Also someone who is very studied in how pro-democracy movements and parties have succeeded in the past. When you look at the Democratic Party right now, What do you think it has to change going forward in order to defeat or at least marginalize the anti-democratic faction in this country?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And so it really isn't a question beyond just the Democratic Party, though that is – we have two parties and that's the party right now that is the pro-democracy party. But what do you think needs to be different?
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
The tech billionaires and the base of the party.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah. We've talked a lot about what we're doing. What's one habit or tip that you'd give to anyone for maintaining their sanity through these next four years? And we started off you saying that maybe, you know, hydrate better, take better care of yourself. Is there anything you do? I mean, you're working all the time, so I can't imagine.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I got to figure that out. I mean, I'm playing with my kids now, you know, you know, I have to I have a four year old and a one year old. So that's a full time job. It is a full time job. I'm better now about when I'm with them to like I put the phone in another room.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And I'm like, I don't need to I can't do the news all weekend long. Yeah. You know, so I'm trying to do that. But I don't know.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Rachel Maddow, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. And we are so glad you're back.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Five nights a week. Me too. I know you tried. You tried to escape. You just couldn't do it.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
That's our show for today, but two things before we go. So the next four years are obviously going to be a challenging, disorienting time, to say the least. We just want you to know that Crooked will be here to help you distill what truly matters, to understand what's at stake, figure out what we can do to make a difference.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Vote Save America will be creating opportunities for you to recharge, find community and also take steps to protect the people who are most at risk from a second Trump term. And then as the elections come. Both in 2025 and the midterms and beyond, there will be a ton of opportunities for you to be active and help out and see what we can all do together to stop Trump and his agenda.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I wanted to talk to Rachel for this first Sunday show, not just because, like us, it's her job to cover this day in and day out, but because as listeners of this show know really well, she thinks about things and talks about things and crystallizes things in a way that no one else does. Here's my conversation with Rachel Maddow. Rachel Maddow, welcome back to Pod Save America.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
So go to votesaveamerica.com and sign up for their email list to learn more. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Thank you to Rachel Maddow for coming on. And Tommy Lovett and I will be back in the feed on Tuesday. Talk to you then.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Toles.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Think of therapy as your editorial partner helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story. You deserve to live. I have benefited from therapy. It's great. Everyone should try therapy. You get someone, you sit down, you talk to them for an hour a week, and boy, do you feel better afterwards.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
That works too. Thank you so much for taking the time during an especially busy week for you now that they have pulled you back in into doing five nights a week for Trump's first hundred days.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
This is our inaugural Sunday show. The idea is to have a weekly conversation with smart people in politics and media. It lets us sort of step back from the breaking news coverage, focus on the big picture. Love to start with how you are processing the return of Donald Trump. I think we've all learned in the Trump era that it's possible to be shocked even when we aren't surprised.
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
There's a difference between fully expecting what will happen and then experiencing it as it happens. So what's been going through your mind this week?
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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
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Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I feel the same way from the perspective of like me covering politics and talking about it on Pod Save America. Has there been a moment where it's like hit you personally where you're just watching it? You're like, oh, yeah, this is going to we're going to be doing this for four more years now.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah, there is a valve in Northern California that if you just turn it, we will get water in Los Angeles. Sure.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah, he was a plumber, a hug from dad, something like that. We're recording this on Wednesday, so who knows what else will happen over the next few days.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I haven't been able to get past him pardoning supporters of his who were convicted of violent crime on January 6th because of the message it sends to other Trump supporters who also want to commit political violence because only around 20% of Americans support the pardons. And because... Somehow it's not the only thing or even the main thing that everyone's talking about. Why do you think that is?
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
And what is your thoughts been on the on the pardons?
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
It's wild because I thought your monologue about this and about sort of the use of shame as a tool for elected Republicans who have to defend this was wonderful.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
I noticed right before we started recording today, Mike Johnson got up and was asked about the pardons. And he said, well, look, it's Donald Trump. He has the authority. And all along, the case has been that people who protest peacefully shouldn't be punished. And then announced that they're going to investigate Joe Biden's pardons.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Without even commenting on the people who are convicted of violence.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Yeah. Apparently, according to reporting from Axios and Notice, J.D. Vance saying on the Sunday shows before Donald Trump was inaugurated that obviously we shouldn't pardon people who committed violence. It was the response to that. that finally led Trump to say, apparently, according to a source, according to Axios, fuck it, let's let them all out.
Pod Save America
Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Because the Trump-based people were mad that J.D. Vance thought that they were going to go one by one. So that was basically a trial balloon.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I want someone to tell me what I need.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I love that question because it assumes what a high class problem. But you know what? I like the optimism. It's good. It's fun to think that I think they could be hamstrung. Dan and I talked about this a little on Friday's pod.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Which is I think that the next Democratic president, probably even when they're running, is going to have to like issue a call for the best and brightest in every expert field and to join government again because Trump and Musk have taken a chainsaw.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
uh to the government and i think it'd be hard to recruit and retain people in a government where you know if they'll think to themselves oh if a republican wins again i could just like lose my job like i think that the next democratic president will be able to get fantastic political appointees i think the civil service is going to have to rebuild be rebuilt and it could
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
hamstring the next uh democratic president but i also think that one potential benefit of trump doing what he's done is he's showing what you can change and get away with within the confines of the law or what the courts will allow oftentimes outside the confines of the law but i'm sure there's a lot that he's doing that is actually going to be legal just that we might not want to wouldn't have done ourselves
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So I think the next Democratic president is going to be liberated in some senses of like reorganizing agencies and cabinets in a way that's going to make government most effective for people.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Well, you and I were talking about this yesterday. Ice. And look, we went through the whole abolish ICE cycle back in 2017, 18. But I do think that there are like a lot of these ICE agents and we're hearing about this in these stories where people are getting detained and deported based on like, you know, misidentifying tattoos and bullshit like that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's like these are probably some pretty partisan, pretty MAGA people that like a Democratic president is going to have to like clean out that agency and rebuild it from scratch.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Every year around the State of the Union in the Obama administration, there was a proposal to reorganize government somehow. And there was one to merge commerce and small business administration. There was one to merge education and labor. And so it's not like Democrats are just against reorganizing and making government more efficient because we tried to do it. And the problem was
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Like we had two cabinet secretaries. We want to get rid of one. And Congress would have not gone along with it because everyone has their fiefdom. And so there are obstacles like making government more efficient that he might be clearing out of the way for us. So I'm not saying that like all government efficiency is bad. So that that might help us.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But I do think just getting the people in is going to be really tough.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's a real thing. I think part of the problem is algorithmic. This is where young people are spending more time on their phones and on their screens than any other generation, though we all are. And the algorithm is sending young men one place and young women another place.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And so that's going to make a bigger gender gap than older generations who are still getting more of their news from the same place. Which is to say not on social media. So I think that's a challenge.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I also think for a lot of these, I saw somewhere there was a chart where Gen Z kids who did not spend their formative years in high school and college in the pandemic are still voting pretty democratic. And it was the younger Gen Zs who had been stuck home during key years in high school and college that are the ones who were swinging the furthest to the right.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So I think the pandemic fucked a lot of people up and we're still dealing with that. I'd be real pissed too if I missed my senior year of high school or college or anything like that. And I think it fucks you up in a specific way politically, which is not, I'm gonna be more conservative in the traditional sense, but the more MAGA style of politics, which is the system sucks, burn it all down.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I can't, everyone has let me down, you know? And I think rebuilding that trust with that generation is gonna be, it's gonna be hard, but I think that's sort of the task for Democrats.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. People look back at the Tea Party and the Tea Party successes and say, oh, well, it's a model. But it was helpful for them in 2010 in a midterm electorate. It wasn't helpful for them in 2012. In fact, Mitt Romney, I think, was probably hobbled by the fact that he had to take And I think that's thanks to the Tea Party. Absolutely.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You know, if you're going to run against a Democrat in a primary, go for it. But like have a theory of the case of why you want to beat them. Like if it's someone who voted, if you're going to make your whole race about they didn't vote to shut the government down and they wanted to vote for the CR, like you can. But I think in 26, that's not going to be a great basis for a campaign.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
What are you talking about? Right. So you sort of have to find other issues. I think if you're a younger person running against an older person, that's generational change. So you can do that. So I do think it's case by case.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I think he's kind of a loser. Do you know that it's actually two last names, Paul and Weiss? Oh. Yeah. I only got that when I was finally reading it this morning. No clue at all.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. It's there. It's in the back of my mind. It's weird. I worry about it all the time, but it has not changed my behavior.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Emily doesn't love it when I get in fights with Elon Musk. It makes her a little nervous. But I don't know. I think on the defamation thing, I actually think that there's another silver lining in this and how it –
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
how it shapes your criticism, which is, like, defamation is accusing someone of being something or doing something that, you know, they can argue that they didn't do, right? And, like, do we really need to label people or...
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
you know raise rumors about elon musk doing this or donald trump doing this like you don't need to do that to level a really persuasive critique about the person all you have to do is talk about what they're doing just play footage of them talking right exactly and you can call them if you want right like you don't have to call them something that's debatable whether it's true or not like that's just not necessary it's not politically necessary it's less politically effective i think than actually just making a case against their policies and their behavior
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So, you know, it's a it's almost a good reminder that like we don't really need to call people all kinds of names just to make a devastating case.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I read... JVL's triad and the bulwark. Great one. Unlike Sarah. Yeah. Sarah's not ever read that. I listened to a lot of the bulwark pods. I listened to Ezra's pod. I listened to Kara Swisher's stuff.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Right. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. I listened to their stuff.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, I have them all flagged every morning. Subsects that I subscribe to and I have them all flagged like I'm going to read them later. And then I, like I said, I read the message box and I read JVL and I sometimes read a few others, but it's hard.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
well and some of what makes like fights on cable so awful is the format of television where it's like you get a sound bite you get a sound bite you're going to yell at each other and then you're going to go to commercial and i don't find that all that valuable but the whole beauty of a podcast is it's long enough that you can have
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
like debates and tough conversations, but you can do it with like nuance and not like, I'm not looking for headlines out of Gavin's podcasts that are like Newsome slams, destroys Bannon. Like that's not what I'm looking for, but I'm looking for like a real debate about their differences. And I think so far he has not really done that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
He's kind of just playing host and just listening to what the hosts, what his guest says. He's being polite. Yeah, he's being polite, which I think you can disagree and still be polite. There's just not a lot of disagreeing. And I kind of want a little more debate because I think that's more interesting.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And I don't know, like if, if when we started, you put us on like a interview with a Steve Bannon or someone on the right at the beginning, I think I would have been fucking horrible.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
When you're going into that, because I've done this too, it's like either people are going to think that you agree too much or they're going to think like you didn't challenge the guest on a specific point that was important to them. And I guess my advice would be if you're listening to these, These conversations are not like for, they're not gonna hit every point that everyone agrees on.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And when I'm sitting down with someone, I'm like, if I was talking to someone I disagreed with and I spent the whole time just fact checking them, that's not like really an interesting.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You don't wanna listen to that. And guess what? We can all fact check them on the computer.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It is difficult to do. And I think the more interesting conversation is not just calling out all the times they're lying or exaggerating or whatever, but getting to their worldview and then trying to pick apart that worldview if you disagree with it. And I think if you can do that, then that's an interesting conversation for people.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Saul Rubin, and Emma Illick-Frank. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherland is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Segland and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, Kenny Moffitt, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
My in-laws are staying with us and my mother-in-law opened the pantry and noticed just like eight boxes of magic spoon in a row. And she was like, so do people like this magic spoon? And I'm like, I love it. She's like, yeah, no, I know you love it because it's all over the house.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
It's good. A little celebration for yourself every morning. Get $5 off your next order at magicspoon.com slash cricket or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magicspoon.com slash cricket for $5 off. I ask you this because I know you've been someone who cares a lot about modernizing government, bringing technology to government. And this is an L.A.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
We are driving back from the Emergency Response Command Center in Malibu, where I just sat down with Governor Gavin Newsom to talk about the L.A. fires. The governor's team reached out to us earlier this afternoon on Friday and said that the governor wanted to answer some questions and that he would have a couple of announcements. He invited Donald Trump.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
County thing, but they have been sending out emergency alerts, evacuation alerts that are wrong. And most people in L.A. now have downloaded this this watch duty app. which is sort of up to the minute evacuation orders and people are relying more on this. And they've been doing great work. I don't know who's behind it, but it's a nonprofit.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
But I was struck by people relying on WatchDuty app and then we're all sitting there in our house and the emergency evacuation goes off and people are close to the perimeter and freaking out. And I'm like, how is that happening in 2024?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workouts, sleep, and even stress management. All you have to do is breathe into your Lumen first thing in the morning. and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
I want to ask about the rebuilding effort. The legislature just began a special session on Thursday to prepare the state for legal battles with the incoming Trump administration. Have you thought about calling a special session focused on recovery and rebuilding?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
to come to california to witness the devastation and called him out in the invitation for spreading disinformation from the sidelines so we talked about that the governor also announced an investigation into the water shortage that hampered the efforts to put out the fires in the palisades on Tuesday night. And so we talked about that. We also talked about the recovery effort.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Palisades alone has something like $6 billion of insurance exposure under FAIR, California's insurance program, not nearly enough to rebuild those homes. Should the state step in and help finance the rebuilding of these homes, or do the homeowners have to do it themselves?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
What's the future look like on insurance, though? I mean, thousands of people had their insurance policies canceled even in the weeks before the fire. I know the insurance commissioner came out and said moratorium for a year on any place that's been impacted by the fire.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
We talked about the rebuilding effort that's to come. And we talked about people's frustrations and hopes who are dealing with the devastation from these fires. Here's my interview with Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom, welcome back to Pod Save America.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
WUI is Wildland Urban Interface. You got it.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Down the road, though, how do you make sure that insurance companies will even insure people in places in California that are vulnerable to fight, that will be more vulnerable as climate change worsens?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Do you think people in Los Angeles need to think twice about living in the hills and canyons and people in places that are, you know, vulnerable to fires and other climates?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
More in common in that there are some regulations and environmental rules.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Very. We are recording this Friday afternoon at the Command Center in Malibu. Just before we started recording, you invited Donald Trump to come here to Los Angeles to see the devastation.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
You said the hundreds of thousands of Americans displaced from their homes and fearful for the future deserve to see us all working together in their best interests, not politicizing a human tragedy and spreading disinformation from the sidelines. So this is after Trump blamed you for the fires. He says it's the fault of water mismanagement.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
We have an affordability crisis as it is. How do you make sure that people can rebuild their homes as fast as possible without dealing with the usual red tape bureaucracy? How do you make sure this doesn't lead to California becoming an even more expensive state to live in?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Last question. Do you have a message for people who have lost everything in these fires and who are scared and angry and frustrated and concerned that the state's going to forget them or leave them behind or they're not going to be able to rebuild?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Your initial response to that was, I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say. I won't. It seems like you're trying to walk a very fine line here, extending an open hand to Trump as you signed your letter, but also calling him out for spreading disinformation. Is that because... you have concerns that he might withhold disaster assistance when he becomes president.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Then, Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time, and Lumen will give you tips to keep on top of your health game.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
What's the disinformation you were referring to in the letter, and what is the correct information?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
People are just devastated in Los Angeles. They're scared. They are angry. Some of that is directed at local officials, state officials, you. We talk about how some of that anger is based on, you know, inaccurate information from Donald Trump and others. But from your perspective, is there anything the state of California could have done to be better prepared for a fire like this?
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, a whole bunch of stuff. We had a couple folks here in the office using lumen. Yeah, they're using it. They are.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And is there anything the state could have done better or faster in responding?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
You just sent a letter telling LA and LA County officials that you're directing the state to investigate the causes of lost water supply and water pressure during the fires. I believe there was also a large reservoir in Pacific Palisades, the San Ynez Reservoir, that was closed for repairs during the fire.
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Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And, you know, all you do is a quick metabolism check in the morning. Gives you a whole nutrition plan for the day. You know, it keeps you on target. You blow into lumen before you work out to determine if your metabolism needs fuel to get through your training session. And then you can also check it after the workout to see if you need to refuel to keep your metabolism at the optimal level.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Local officials have said the demand for water was just too great to maintain the pressure in the hydrants, especially since aerial water support wasn't available immediately due to the high winds. Do you not believe that explanation?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
One of my best friends just lost his house in the Palisades. He just moved in a couple months ago. Was able to get his two kids and his dogs, and that was it. Lost everything else. He texted me the investigation announcement and said, what's going on here? Is he just trying to pass the blame? And just to your point about the finger pointing and the blame, so many people are so angry.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And, you know, how do you see that in a moment like this when you're trying to figure out, A, there's a... you know, governor of the largest state in the country and what happens in LA isn't always going to come across your desk, but also the ultimate, you know, you're ultimately responsible as the governor of the state.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
And you weren't getting straight answers from the local leaders.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Take the next step to improving your health. Go to lumen.me slash crooked to get 20% off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash crooked for 20% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Do you, as you were talking about sort of misinformation on how fast it travels, one thing I was saying on the show yesterday is I feel like in this age, politicians, elected officials need to almost over-communicate, communicate as much as possible. You've done that throughout your tenure.
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Do you think that Mayor Bass should have canceled her trip to Ghana when she knew that there were going to be an extreme weather event?
Pod Save America
Breaking: Gavin Newsom On the LA Fires
Pod Save America is brought to you by ZBiotics pre-alcohol. Let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I used to bounce back a lot. You were great at bouncing back. I was great. And you know what? 43, it's finally hitting me.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I wonder if some of these closed door meetings they've been having with Republicans, like some of the Republicans who are obviously too afraid to say anything publicly, or at least most of them are, are privately sort of pressuring the White House and Elon. I mean, I guess Elon met with the senators and gave them all his cell phone number. That's...
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Do you think there's any emojis? Who's using emojis first?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
We're going to talk about the Social Security Administration, but there's like they're closing offices left and right. And some workers are like working in closets now and sitting on the floor because there's no space to work. Apparently they put one of the this was on Bloomberg TV. They put a building up for sale in Virginia and by doing so accidentally revealed a CIA black site.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
No response from Ben and Tommy on that one. There were a couple people that made a great joke on Twitter about this, which is that they just assumed it was a DEI initiative. Okay.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The Atlanta Fed's forecast model now predicts that the economy will shrink this quarter. Consumer sentiment is at an eight-month low. Retail sales dropped by the largest amount in two years.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Think about your favorite leaders, mentors, and idols. Elon Musk. Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin. Right? These are all Tommies. Napoleon. Napoleon. Stalin. They don't have all the answers, but they do know when to ask questions or seek support from their community, which they don't do.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
In a society that glorifies hyper independence it's easy to forget that we're all better when we have a support system behind us. Therapy can be a source of support for any area of your life. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all to knowing that we're better when we ask for help. All those people I mentioned they could have used some therapy. They could use it right now.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
We'd probably all be in a better position. Everyone can use therapy. It is very helpful if you haven't done it yet. It is someone who you can sit down with. You talk it out. They listen to your issues, and they have to listen because unlike your friends, you pay them to do it. That's right. If you haven't tried yet, give it a whirl.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
So Elon's response to all this seems as though he's blaming the agencies for the cuts they're making. In a closed-door gathering of congressional Republicans, Elon reportedly said that while he, quote, can't bat a thousand all the time, it's the agency heads who are responsible for the job cuts, and sometimes they're doing it wrong.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report won't be out until you're listening to this, we learned on Thursday that employers cut more jobs in February than at any time since the last two recessions. I don't know, Dan, do you think any of those economic developments might have factored into Trump's decision to surrender to Canada and Mexico after just a couple days?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Not so, says Trump's handpicked acting head of the Social Security Administration, who apparently got the job as a reward for sharing sensitive information with Doge. That's how you move on up in the world in the Trump regime.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
According to the Washington Post, Leland Dudek, that's the new temporary Social Security Administrator, privately told senior staff and advocates for the elderly and disabled in a meeting that, quote, things are currently operating in a way I have never seen in government before. That, quote, Doge people are learning and they will make mistakes.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And, quote, I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. This is the this is the Trump guy. This is the guy they got from middle management who's been there for years, who decided to like, you know, hand secret information. So they're like, this is our this is our loyalist on the inside. And he's like, I don't fucking know what's happening. It's not doesn't seem great.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Other employees at the Social Security Administration tell the Post that some of the staff cuts, spending cuts and office closures are already leading to long delays in people getting their retirement and disability claims processed. Thought Trump was going to protect Social Security benefits and make government more efficient. What's going on?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I mean, again, it's supposed to be the Department of Government Efficiency, right? Like the whole idea is if this is a success, then they save taxpayers money and they make government work better for less money. But they are so far just making it work better. They are firing a bunch of people who they shouldn't be firing. They're already having to like hire them back.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
They're people who are counting on benefits and services aren't getting them. And this is why I think that Trump, you know, the whole Elon and Doge thing sort of reigning them in a little bit. It does feel like if you just have a bunch of stories about how everything's broken and people are pissed and things aren't working as they should. I don't know what good headlines you get from that.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah, it's also going to be hard to recruit people to work in government after the way that thousands and thousands of people have already been treated in this.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah, no, that's exactly what – and I think that's their intention, at least some of them. How much do you think this has to do with the legal challenges that they've been facing? Because, you know, if it's Elon and Doge doing all the damage – then as we're seeing in some of these legal cases, it's not going well for them.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But if it's an agency head deciding, hey, we're just going to reduce the workforce of my agency, that seems like it's a lot more legally viable.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
No, but maybe that's how she wants it. That's what they said about her in the campaign.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That's true. We should also note in the Department of Bad Things that haven't happened yet, but are probably about to. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was planning to sign an executive order as soon as Thursday that would abolish the Department of Education, which prompted Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt to post on X. More fake news.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
President Trump is not signing an executive order on the Department of Education today. Who knows? This is a longstanding campaign promise, so it would not be unexpected if it happens. Polar Coaster listeners will remember that this idea is not exactly popular.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Honestly, even if you don't listen to Polar Coaster, which you should, if you've paid attention to politics, you probably would guess that eliminating the Department of Education isn't popular. But would you care to elaborate on how unpopular this is?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That's what I don't understand. Like what? It's just it's it's got to take an act of Congress.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Right. But so far, you know. The courts have been stepping in. Yeah. So I don't know how that's going to work. And look, I think it's something like 90% of education funding is state and local, but you know.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The Department of Education does provide a lot of funding when it comes to student loans, federal financial assistance for college, also Title I, which helps students with disabilities in school. And so there's a lot of that funding that goes to public schools. So, you know, you're really playing with fire if you're going to start.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And, like, I think I've heard them say, well, if we shut it down, then the funding that goes to Title I and stuff like that, that'll just get devolved to the states. But, like, I don't really think there's a plan here. No, it's a good plan. One other sign of the times here with the deadline for funding the government coming up. Pardon me with the shutdown looming. We like to say shutdown looming.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Congressional Republicans are now leaning against including any of Doge's spending cuts in the continuing resolution, opting instead for a so-called clean CR, which would keep the government open through September 30th at current levels of spending. Chuck Schumer apparently supports this as well. because it would get enough Democratic support to avoid a shutdown.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I feel like we heard this from some of the senators who joined our live stream before the State of the Union. I've even seen an address for Joe. Nope, nope.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I even seen it from some more progressive Democratic politicians. It seems like just no one wants a shutdown, partly because what we have been saying, which is like, what do you what do you ask for and what can you expect to win from a shutdown? But what do you think?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Right. And probably they would say, OK, well, we're going to we're trying to shut down, you know, Elon Musk's sort of illegal destruction of government. And then you say, OK, well, the White House is not going to agree to that.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Also, you know, I think who knows, maybe that's another reason as they're approaching the shutdown, why Trump tried to say that they're putting some guardrails around Doge and it's going to be agencies like you do need you need a clear goal. And you need to believe that with enough pressure, Republicans will agree to that goal.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And then you've got to think that a government that is completely shut down will put pressure on Donald Trump and Republicans because they won't want that. But. everything they've done over the last two months suggests that they very much like breaking government.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And so it's, you know, and we, you know, when government is shut down, like people are still getting their social security benefits and stuff like that. So all the like most, you know, it's, it's look, it's not a, It's not a great thing when government shuts down and it's not usually politically very popular.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But right now, all of the bad that is coming from Trump and Elon destroying the government is like they're getting all the blame for it. And Democrats are getting none of the blame. And if we're shutting it down, then people say, OK, great. It's a fight. What are we fighting for?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That's what I was going to say. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think everyone's going to be like, oh, great. America's back. He did say he was asked. We're recording this on Thursday afternoon. He was asked in the Oval about this. And he said, you know, why do you think the stock market has been so spooked? And he said, well, a lot of these are globalist companies anyway. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Right. And yeah. And if you do decide that you're going to have the fight, you got to stick with the fight. Because if you do, if you pull a Trump trade war thing and you shut the government because we've been there in 2018 and you shut the government.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the Doge wrecking ball continues to swing, but it looks like the Supreme Court and maybe even Donald Trump might be clipping Elon's wings. We'll get into all the latest there. The government runs out of money next week, but Congress is busy scolding one of its members for interrupting Trump's State of the Union.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah. And you shut the government down for a week and then you're like, OK, they're not doing anything. They don't care. Now, what do we do? All right. We're going to open the government again. It's just the worst of all worlds.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
It doesn't mean the Republicans are walking away from the Doge budget cuts, though. Mike Johnson says they'll figure out a way to codify those in fiscal year 2026. So not till fall. Meanwhile, though, Congress has to move forward with the budget reconciliation process. This is the big, beautiful bill, whatever you want to call it, Trump's economic plan.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
As a reminder, the House has passed their budget resolution and the Senate will take it up later this month. And while they can do all this without any Democratic support, they need most Republicans, almost all Republicans. And so there will be pressure on vulnerable Republicans.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And it might be a bit higher now that the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the savings targets in the bill are we've all assumed this, but now you've got it from the CBO, nonpartisan scorekeeper of Congress, that the targets that they have in the House bill will not be possible without cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, or the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
How do you see all this playing out? Do you think the Senate's just going to look at what the House did and be like, yeah, that's too much. We're going to go with our own thing?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And they come up with some, you know, they make these cuts sound like a big deal, but they're really not mathematically that you like include a bunch of doge cuts and you include some like modest cuts here and there on spending, but you don't touch anything big. And you get your border, your extra immigration border enforcement funding that they all are going to want. And then you call it a day.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And some energy stuff. Yeah, you drill, baby, drill. That does seem like the most... the path of least resistance for them.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Well, I was going to say, provided that all the crazies in the House and some in the Senate, like the craziest Republicans, the hardliners, agree to that because they want much, much deeper cuts.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah, and at some point you say this is the only train leaving the station. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. If you're doing what you love to do, there's nothing better than being surrounded by people who love it as much as you.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I mean, it's the stock market. It's also an issue that, just aside from the stock market and aside from all his rich friends, just breaks through, I think, in the media in a pretty big way because you have impacts of tariffs on every different region of the country. And, you know, we talked about this after the State of the Union, I think. I can't remember what we talk about when.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
We've used ZipRecruiter here at Crooked Media. And it's great. It's hard hiring.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. So let's talk about Democrats. Love talking about Democrats. What they're doing so far this week is mostly voting against the Republican-led censure of Congressman Al Green for heckling Trump during the joint address.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Ten Democrats joined every Republican in passing the resolution, which a censure is basically just a public scolding. When a member is censured, they then have to present themselves in the well of the House, which is the front of the chamber, while the resolution is read out loud. And those words just sting when they hear them.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But Al Green, when he was censured, appeared with a gaggle of other Democrats, who then sang, We Shall Overcome, while Mike Johnson banged the gavel and eventually sent the House into recess. Dan, which kind of Democrat are you? Are you the kind who votes to censure a member of your own caucus for protesting cuts to Medicaid during the State of the Union? Or whatever the fuck it's called.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Or are you the kind who protests the kind who vote to censure the member? Or is there a third option?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Jim Hines from Connecticut was one of the members who voted for the censure. I saw a statement from him that he was like, you know, 10 years ago. No, not 10 years ago, much longer. I don't know how many years ago when Joe Wilson, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson said, yelled, you lie to Barack Obama during. Not a State of the Union.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
This is my stickler thing for everyone. They always say State of the Union. No, it was an address to a joint session of Congress about the health care bill, about the Affordable Care Act, and it was in Labor Day 2009. Anyway, and so he was like, I voted for that, and so I want to be consistent. Now, that wasn't a censure. That was a resolution of disapproval, which also is like –
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
So I don't know. I think it's so – I think the whole thing is so stupid. And also it's like my view on this is like if you're Al Green and you feel strongly about this and you want to protest during the speech –
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
then you know that that could come with censure it's a republican controlled house and as far as we can tell al green he said okay fine censure me i don't give a like i did it i'm proud i did it and was i trying to like win an election no was i trying to call attention to medicaid cuts yes did that is that what he did i think from the coverage probably not
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But, you know, there's like a clip on Fox News of some guy being like, I can't get these cars off the lot now because they're going to be so much more money. So I sort of also wonder if those stories started getting to the White House and made them a little scared.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
right because that's not what the coverage is about if you're a casual observer of politics you'd be like oh yeah there was a disturbance at the beginning of the speech they kicked some guy out then everyone got mad that some democrats weren't standing up and clapping for the the kid with cancer and blah blah blah if it and and that's actually being generous because i think most people who are casual news observer probably don't know any of this right
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
So did it achieve it? No. But like, you know, he wanted to do it. And if you want to protest, you protest. My thing is, if you want to protest and you want to commit, you know, civil disobedience and that's a stretch to say this is civil disobedience because it's not breaking any law. It's just breaking the rules of the House. Then you, you know, then you accept the consequences of that.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And that's what civil disobedience is. Then for Democrats to be like, oh, I got to vote to censure him. It's like, you know, censure is for like, if you look through history, you know, like way back when I think they've censured some people for like inappropriate language on the House floor in like the early 1900s. Usually it's like you committed fraud, you committed bribery.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I think Paul Gosar got censured for trying to incite violence against other members or something like that. You know, just... interrupting the president during the State of the Union. I don't know. It's all so fucking stupid to me.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
This is why this and I'm glad you brought up January 6th because this is when I get mad thinking about the whole thing because it was like the decorum. Why did he do this? And he stood up and this is why did Democrats do this? It's like, what are we all talking about?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Do we like we were all alive in January of 2021 when a bunch of fucking rioters went into the Capitol trying to kill a bunch of members of Congress because the current president United States sent them there.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Let's primary the 10 people and what the fuck are Democrats doing? And like, you know, I see some people, we need to start a third party, but it's like, everyone just calm the, like, come on. This is not the most effective use of our time or our energy. None of it. None of it. On any side of this. And I would definitely not have been one of those 10. Because I think that's a dumb vote.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But, like, again, I just think the whole thing is crazy. Our friends at Blueprint, apropos of a great segue, actually, our friends at Blueprint released a new poll on Thursday morning that found that regular Americans aren't exactly wowed by Democrats' performance in the new Trump term.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
40% of respondents chose the statement, the Democratic Party doesn't have any strategy at all for responding to Trump, as opposed to only 24% who think there is a strategy, but it isn't working, and a meager 10% who think there is a strategy that is working well. Who the hell are those people?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I want to meet the 10% who think there's a strategy and that it's working well, and I would like to know what the strategy is.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yes. So we can be constructive. What should Democrats be doing? Any other, not, if they're not protesting Donald Trump in the speech or singing, we shall overcome or voting to censure their own members, anything else?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I agree with all that. And one other idea that a lot of people have been floating, and I think some Democratic members have said they want to do this, but undercovered story this week was the head of the NRCC, its job is to elect a Republican House, reelect a Republican House in two years, basically told all of their members, no more town halls.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
All right. I got the toughest question of the day for you. If you had to make the case that Trump's trade war is an actual cogent strategy. How would you do it? I wouldn't. I have self-respect. Fair.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
No more town halls because you don't want people showing up at the town halls to protest you. And so now all these House Republicans are not going to have town halls probably next time they're all on recess.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I think that Democratic politicians, Democratic members, and all of us, like you just said, should be going to those districts where House Republicans or Senate Republicans who are going to be in competitive races in 2026 aren't holding town halls and hold our own town halls. Or go to their offices and and hold protests outside their offices or hold town halls outside their offices.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Or, you know, Democratic members, House members can go to the Republican House members districts that are maybe close to them in their states or the next states and say, I'm going to go. And you know what? And Republicans can show up to maybe Republican. You know, we can make it you publicize it. And if Republican voters show up and want to argue with you, that's great, too.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Like that's going to get people's attention. Like, you know, like have some have some verbal. exchanges with people who don't agree with you. Maybe even the members themselves, if you can find them. Again, I just think that, like you said, getting people to hear it is going to be the tough part. You have to get people's attention.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I do think there's a huge vulnerability now where there's going to be some bad news that's frustrating people from Trump and Elon. But in 2026... The people that we're going to have to get people to vote against are Republican politicians. And so far, they're doing a great job just kind of hiding. And now they want to hide more. And they probably want Trump and Elon to take all the heat.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And it's our job, at least from now until 2026, to make sure that those people are famous.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yes, that is a point well taken. Okay, when we come back from the break, you're going to hear my conversation with Sarah Longwell. Two quick things before we do that. And you know what? It's a Dan doubleheader. New Polar Coaster is out now. What did you and Caroline talk about this week?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That's good. Well, if you want to hear about that or polling analysis, check out Polar Coaster. You can get access to Polar Coaster and other exclusive subscriber series at crooked.com slash friends. Dan, I understand we've got a deal for MessageBox, too.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yes, we Dan is just my favorite. It's my favorite thing. I love it. Every morning. I have a mug.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
It's tough to implement that when what he wants is unknown. Yeah. Like this latest one he launched, the first one there was a few fig leaves that like no one really believed. It was like, you got to help more with fentanyl and you got to do this and trafficking and immigration and all that kind of shit. This time it was just like, I'm starting to trade war with Canada and Mexico and that's that.
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Receive 15% off your first order. Go to tryarmor.com slash crooked or enter crooked to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash crooked. Sarah Longwell, welcome back to Pod Save America.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I feel I can't. Have we talked since the election? I listen to you every week. So this is what people do to me sometimes. I'm like, I listen to you every week. So I guess you talked to Pfeiffer right after the election.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That is true. What do you think of the speech last night?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Because the cameras were just on the boys. I didn't see the crowd.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And then he does a call with, uh, Claudia Shane bomb, the president of Mexico. And I guess the call goes well. I don't know how the, maybe she flattered him. Maybe she told him the speech was great, uh, on Tuesday night and didn't even, I guess he didn't even have a good call with, with Trudeau, with governor Trudeau, uh, of our 50, 51st state. And, uh, And that's it. That was it.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And earlier in the speech. I had the same thought. The first issue that he went into depth on was trans athletes. And it was like a lot. And then he got to the economy and stuff like that. But it was very... Joe Biden did all the bad things to make inflation bag and eggs. And then I'm going to do great stuff. I'm going to drill tax cut. But it really is.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The scarcity point is interesting because it's almost like I'm going to get government out of the way with all the bad things the government's doing, all the crazy, corrupt, woke shit. And then once that happens, I don't need to do anything to the economy. It's just going to be great again.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah. How do you think it landed with voters? You were talking about audience. Like we always know that even the CNN poll and the CBS poll, I think it was like 20 percent of the sample were Democrats in both. This happens obviously when a Democratic president is up too. Mostly Democrats watch when a Republican – you know. So –
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The audience that we're probably concerned about is the audience of, you know, maybe first time Trump voters. I know you've been talking to them in your focus group podcast, Biden to Trump voters. What do you how do you think it landed? The speech landed with them.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I think he's setting up Rubio to be the patsy. I mean, he was almost explicit about it last night. But I haven't been thinking about this for a while. Like, something's going to go wrong in the world. And he's going to be like, oh, that's Marco Rubio's fault.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Which is great. It's one thing that we can all be excited about. I like that. What did you think about the Al Green interruption, the Resist T-shirts, I guess? There was the false thing. I came down on the side of like, I don't really think it matters either way. I wouldn't have advised people to do that. But then you have a lot of people online who are like, why did the Democrats go at all?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
He didn't ask for anything. He didn't get anything. And then he just stopped. So like when April 2nd comes around, do people take his threat seriously? Do they think it's really going to last? Do they really care that much? Other foreign leaders? I just can't tell.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And it just feels... It feels like there's there's a lot of debate about what Democrats should do among Democrats. And then there's a lot of different responses from Democrats that we saw last night. And none of it seems like it's necessarily valuable. I don't know that it's necessarily harmful either. I don't know. What do you think?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I know. Dan Pfeiffer said that there's a lot of like reading stage directions from the Democrats, which has really stuck with me. And there is a lot of that right now. And I'm trying to like give them some leeway because no one knows what we're doing right now. And it's a new world. And like, did you read JVL's triad this morning? Yeah. This is such a mean question.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
He was talking about how we are not in – Against normalism. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Well, I'm sure you know because he's your bestie. But it's like we're not in normal politics anymore. And some people are like in a normal politics scenario, you sit down, you clap, the Democrats have the right message, stuff like that. But we're not in that world anymore, which I agree with. Where then he didn't get to is like, so then what do we do?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Like, what kind of response do you have in a not normal world?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And that I haven't figured out yet. I don't know if you have thoughts on that.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
No, this is like I have been outraged by some of the specifics around USAID. It's like I get it. I see the polls. I don't even have to see recent polls. I know from years ago that like no one likes USAID or like foreign aid is unpopular.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But I also think like, you know, when the government already spends $10 million on like food for starving children and then they just like let the food spoil because Elon cancels the contract. I kind of think people would think that's fucked up. I kind of think they would think that's wasteful.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Right. Yeah. So it's like know the political context. But if it makes you mad, I think the passion is more important right now. We're two years out from the election than figuring out exactly the right message, which we need to do eventually. But like right now, we need the passion.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I also think that just backing off didn't necessarily work, at least with regard to the stock market, because it still closed down a couple hundred points again. Probably because a lot of businesses are now thinking, like, how do we plan for the future? How do we set prices?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I saw that you said Alyssa Slotkin's response was good. What did you like about it?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Speaking of which, I sat down with our pal Sarah Longwell from The Bulwark the morning after the big speech to talk about how voters are processing the first month of Trump 2.0. So stick around for that conversation later. But first, we have some important updates to share on how the golden age of America is coming along.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
This is my almost exact thought. And it's been like what has what I'm struggling with and thinking about what Democrats need to do, which is I would wager that if you had focus group dials of Alyssa Slotkin speech, that if you conducted a focus group and maybe you will, where you like play some clips of the speech, it would resonate really well with the swing voters, with people like that.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I think it was like – and I also think, in fairness, it wasn't just like it hit all the message points. I thought the end where she talked about democracy was it was stirring. And she even – she hinted at we're really going through something right now as a country. So I get that people would like it. But then I also struggle with like why in our party are all of the moderates who can win –
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
We don't know if there's going to be more tariffs again or if he's really going to go through with it with reciprocal tariffs on April 2nd, like he said in the speech, and unpause the trade war with Mexico and Canada or if he's just going to keep going.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
who are on message, like they don't really, they don't convey the urgency and the passion as much. And then the progressives who are not necessarily on the message, they have the passion, but it's not necessarily landing with the right voters. And I just, I want Democrats to combine both of those things. And it's just really, it's lacking right now.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Right. Right. And it's not hey, bud, because what people think when they see that or what I worry that people think is like, oh, it's all fake. Right. And what they're thinking, what I'm sure Joe Biden was thinking is like, well, if we're going to be the party that says like, you know.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
We need to be a big, diverse country politically and make sure that everyone gets along and institutions and laws. And like, I have to act like that. But also we're in a media environment now where an attention strategy to get people's attention is the most important thing.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But to get people's attention, it feels like you need to be more like a Trump or more like some of the bomb throwers on the left. And I don't know how you get people's attention in this environment being just a normal person. Who wants to like, you know, who has the right message and wants to be serious and sober like that. That seems to me the challenge.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
But it's now like you have this like very narrow, narrow spot where someone like it's really hard to find that person.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Also, we would never have elected Barack Obama if we were. And that was again, people were saying that after 2000 after 2004, like, oh, well, Barack Hussein Obama. No, we need like a white guy from the south. That's the only way that we're going to we're going to win again. So you've done a bunch of focus groups since Trump's inauguration. What are people saying?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Don't read JVL because I've been busy writing for The Atlantic.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And they're not, I don't think that they're brainwashed about this, right? Like they go to the store and see, there has been an affordability crisis Even before inflation, like there's been an affordability crisis, especially around housing.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I mean, I remember even before the inflation really took off, I did a bunch of focus groups for the wilderness and like every demographic group that I talked to in every part of the country, young people, old people, housing, housing was their number one thing.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
How are they feeling about Doge and Elon? I know that when you did some groups, I think before the inauguration, there was some, you know, worry about Elon, but also let's give him a chance. He's smart, whatever. How do they feel now? And is the I'm very curious of the incompetence and chaos of what's happening is landing with people.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
So fairly or unfairly, presidents are usually blamed when a recession or inflation happens on their watch, even if they inherited the problem. You know, people sometimes give them a little grace period if they've inherited it, but then eventually they get blamed if it persists. But it's not often you can draw such a direct link between a president's actions and an economic downturn.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I will just say, I know Kara gave you her theory about that he's just collecting all this data and information to feed into the AI models. I think there's something there. All the PSA hosts think I'm a little crazy, I think. Oh, really? No, I'm with you guys. I think it's like a real... It's funny.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
He's just, you know, he's like a. Well, the whole I mean, this was the case with Trump to the whole like he's so rich. Why does he need more money? He's already rich enough. He's doing this out of the goodness of his heart that that has some purchase, I think.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I do think, and you would know this better, but I think for no small number of conservatives, the idea that Elon Musk is poking around in all of our private data and information And not like the MAGA fans, but like some people have got to be like, and Alyssa Slotkin brought this up in her speech last night.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
I know she has said previously that she was hearing this in some town halls in some like rural parts of Michigan. People were like, what is he doing in our data? Like, I do think that has some that that could be an effective message.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Last question. I'll let you go. How are you guys thinking about fighting back at the bulwark? Have you had conversations post election? Like, OK, this is a new world we're in. This is pretty scary. And like, what's the best what's the best way for us to contribute?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The Trump regime is already trying to avoid the blame for the economic uncertainty we're facing right now. Elon Musk is saying that the U.S. should stop including government spending. in GDP calculations. Some Republicans are claiming that we shouldn't count federal workers who lost their jobs in the jobs numbers. What do you think? How big of a problem is this for Republicans?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
That's great. Because I think building trust, I mean, the lack of trust is what got us here. So I think building trust is really important. Sarah, thanks for coming by Podsafe America, as always. Thanks for having me. Everyone check out the Focus Group podcast. Tommy's on this weekend, I guess.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Check out all of your podcasts. Go to the Bulwark. Subscribe. It's fantastic.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
One last thing before we go. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Points USA, General Maga Goober. He was the first guest on Gavin Newsom's new podcast this week titled This is Gavin Newsom. We have a new pod competitor, our own governor. So Newsom and Charlie Kirk got into it. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, though. You know what? It's working. I'm kind of interested. I'm intrigued.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
It's piqued my interest to hear what Gavin Newsom and Charlie Kirk are going to talk about. But anyway, what's most important for all of you is that Charlie Kirk offered this assessment to...
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Now, I find that grossly unfair because we have kept this podcast just a hair under 90 minutes. I'm actually worried now that I'm looking at the clock that we didn't. It's going to be close. I think my conversation with Sarah was 30. We're like at 55. Ad breaks.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And do you think they'll be able to lie their way out of this one?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
You know what? We're not counting ad breaks. We're not counting ad breaks. Charlie Kirk. Spot the lie. Spot the lie.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
There you go. There you go. All right, that's our show for today. Tommy's going to be back on the feed on Sunday with an interview with Alistair Campbell, the top labor strategist in the UK, about how parties come back from the dead, his advice for Democrats, and the mess in Europe. It's going to be pretty interesting, so check it out.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And then we'll be back with another episode in your feed on Tuesday. Have a great weekend. Talk to everyone soon. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
A few days after launching an economic trade war against our fiercest adversaries in Canada and Mexico, Trump is... Already backing down. On Wednesday, the White House announced that their new 25% tax on everything we buy that's made in Canada or Mexico would exempt cars, preventing what analysts say would be up to a $12,000 increase in car prices.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And I don't – you know, there's obviously concern that they could fuck with the statistics and the numbers around GDP and the jobs numbers. The two that I just mentioned wouldn't be – I mean, you'd be able to see the GDP and then they're just subtracting government spending, which, by the way, our old colleague Jason Furman –
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
From Obama World, he said that if you stripped out the public sector production out of the Atlanta Fed's forecast, the GDP would be on pace for a 3.8 percent contraction this quarter, which is more than there is. So I don't really know what stripping out the government spending part is going to do that Elon wants there. I don't think it's going to help that much.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And you can say, oh, well, the jobs numbers are actually this because we're not counting federal workers, but everyone's also going to know how many federal workers lost their jobs. And even if you decide to go into the BLS, like Doge decides to go into BLS and the Commerce Department and fuck with the numbers, people are still going to feel that the economy is not... doing well, right?
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Like consumer sentiment, like if you see high prices, if your paycheck isn't going far enough, it's not going to matter what kind of headlines you see. We just went through this for the last four fucking years.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah. All right, Dan. So the Doge days are not yet over, but we're beginning to get some signs that Trump is finally realizing that he may be the Doge who caught the car. That's great. Great work. Look, I'm really proud of that. Really proud. In just the last week, the CDC asked almost 200 employees back after letting them go, including people who work on the 9-11 Survivors Health Program.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
The FDA is trying to reinstate staff involved in checking medical device and food safety. The General Services Administration, GSA, suddenly pulled over 400 listed government properties off the real estate market. And NBC reported that Doge is reversing course on axing several hundred veterans health care contracts after a, quote, revolt by frontline VA employees.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
although even more of the contracts remain on the chopping block, some of which are already paid for. On top of all that, Doge also keeps losing in court. A federal civil service board ordered the Department of Agriculture to temporarily rehire over 5,000 employees. A court told the Office of Personnel Management it could not directly fire probationary staff at other agencies.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
And here's the biggie. The Supreme Court narrowly rejected the Trump administration's attempt to withhold billions of dollars in payments that the government owes USAID contractors for foreign aid.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett sided with the court's liberals in the 5-4 decision, which left it to the lower court to, quote, clarify what obligations the government must fulfill since the original deadline for payment has passed. And what I can only assume is a response to all of this chaos and dipshittery.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Trump held a cabinet plus Elon meeting on Thursday where he appeared to put the doge back on the leash. I'm sorry. Sorry. No, it's good. It's great to do something to amuse myself. It's great stuff. Politico reports that the president said in the room that Elon is, quote, empowered to make recommendations to the departments, but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Then on Thursday, right before we started recording, obviously, Trump said, just kidding, trade war is basically off until April 2nd on most goods from Canada and Mexico. What changed, you might ask? Well... Canada didn't offer any concessions. Mexico didn't offer any concessions. But here in the United States, the stock market tanked over the last week.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Those decisions will be up to the agencies themselves. Following that report, Trump wrote a long post on Truth Social saying that they'll now be using, quote, the scalpel rather than the hatchet. And when he was asked by reporters about all this afterwards, here's how he described the new policy.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Okay, then. I like that this whole thing is framed as like, oh, yeah, everything's great. This is awesome. The cuts are going wonderful. Elon's doing great. Everyone loves each other. It's a golden age. There's just a little small change we're making, which is like, we're not going to fire all these people anymore. And you can keep the people that you want.
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The DOGE Who Caught the Car
Yeah. He's got to keep going back and forth. What do you make of all this? You think this is pressure? What do you think this is?
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
You know what he's worried about? He's worried about Binder 2 of the Epstein files. He doesn't know what... Pam Bondi, apparently... I don't know if we talked about this in the pod, but apparently there's a report that Pam Bondi, she presented that binder at the White House with the Epstein files, but that was all publicly available anyway, as a quote-unquote surprise. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The DOGE Who Caught the Car
You always want your chief law enforcement officer to be the one surprising you. At the White House. At the White House. Those are always good surprises from the AG. But yeah, no. So the deep state got to Trump, I guess.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
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That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-S-K dot com slash Cricut and use code Cricut for a special offer. And it's only available at our link. Start 2025 right. Stand, move, thrive with Uplift Desk. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, three of Donald Trump's most extreme cabinet nominees were peppered with questions at their confirmation hearings this week.
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And Elon was very pissed about that. He thought it was he thought it was regulatory overreach and said that he threatened he was going to sue the FAA. So, you know, that guy's out. So there's no FAA administrator. How do you think Democrats should handle all of this?
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Also, I think it's it is useful to our point that we've been making, which is like Democrats don't want to just defend institutions, but want to be the part we should be the party of reform, like have the investigation and whatever reforms need to be made to the FAA. They should be made and we should push for them.
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And if there are reforms that should have been made under the Biden and Obama administrations, then like, let's find that out, you know. And look, every single this was, by the way, a former FAA official sent this message to David Shepardson at Reuters who covers aviation for Reuters.
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And just so people know, we said every single air traffic controller candidate goes under the same rigorous testing. Very few applicants even make it to the training stage because the process is so difficult. And those diversity initiatives that Trump mentioned don't even apply to air traffic controller hiring. So that's a former FAA official. So that's just complete bullshit from Trump.
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And then, you know, Juliette Kayyem in The Atlantic, she's a former DHS official. You know, she pointed out that in 2023, FAA identified 19 serious runway incursions, which is the most in almost a decade. So this is not... like completely out of the blue. There was a series of close calls over the last couple of years that alarmed a lot of, you know, air safety experts.
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And the causes have been varied. It's either air traffic control staffing shortages, which by the way, the New York Times reports, there was one air traffic controller at DCA the night of the crash when there should have been two. Pilot inexperience, demand for air travel, outdated technology. And of course,
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Knowing all of this and knowing that that DCA is already a very crowded airport and there's also like military flights and training flights like the one that took place the night of the crash that happened. The FAA actually added flights to Reagan last year over the objections of a lot of local lawmakers. And why did they do that, Sean?
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But again, it's like... And you know what? So just find out what we need to have safe fucking air travel and do it. And it doesn't matter whose politics that fucks up. Just do it. But I will say that... In just two weeks, the Trump administration is, you know, we're going to talk about the freezing all spending. We're going to cut government.
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Elon Musk is telling people to quit and to take buyouts. And if you... There is waste in government. There is efficiencies to be had. There's an abuse. There's fraud. All that stuff is good, right? We should all clean up government. We should make it more efficient. But they are...
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gutting government and want to gut government so badly that it's going to get to the point where basic government functions that all of us depend on, like air safety, like the FAA, like air traffic control, are going to be in jeopardy because these fucking people don't think we need government.
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They think that government is there for them to get rich and for them to do favors for their friends and punish their enemies and they don't see a real use for government in helping protect the American people.
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Especially if... A lot of people who are training to be air traffic controllers who are in school to be air traffic controllers and the ones who aren't white men.
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What are they going to why are they going to want to be in the federal government when now anytime that they, you know, if they get the job of air traffic controller, the Donald Trump and his administration or potentially future Republican administrations are going to call them DEI hires. And if something goes wrong, they're going to get blamed because they're DEI hires. What the fuck are we doing?
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So let's talk about the freeze. The other big news this week was the completely out of the blue Trump administration memo announcing a freeze on all government grants and loans.
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The memo followed executive orders last week calling for the government to stop spending money on woke projects, not really defined well, and it immediately plunged nearly every function of the federal government into complete chaos.
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Democratic and Republican officials all over the country were fielding panicked calls from people in their states who were worried about not being able to access funding for Medicaid. The Medicaid portal was briefly shut down. Head start classes, free school lunches, college financial aid, medical research, and a lot of other programs at the White House said...
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were not part of the freeze, but somehow were still temporarily interrupted. A bunch of nonprofit groups immediately challenged the memo, and a federal judge agreed to put it on hold for six days. The White House then rescinded the memo after the judge agreed to put it on hold so they could comply with the judge's order. But then...
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White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt tweeted that they weren't actually backing down and that the rescinded memo was only intended to avoid confusion with the judge's order. Then a second federal judge, considering a lawsuit brought by the Democratic attorneys general, said of Leavitt's post, quote, I can't cross-examine the tweet.
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Not yet. But said he may need to grant a longer term restraining order because Levitt is making, quote, a distinction without a difference.
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We later learned from reporting in The New York Times and The Washington Post that the White House Office of Management and Budget put out the memo without getting approval from senior officials like White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles or even Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. And they were all pretty pissed about the fallout.
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We'll talk about the nuttiest moments and whether any of it will matter in the end. We'll also get into the nationwide chaos caused by Trump's spending freeze, which the White House backed away from after a judge blocked the order. But even as Trump cut bait on that dangerous and terrible idea, he moved ahead with...
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The entire episode gave Democrats a chance to show the fight that they'd been lacking over the last two weeks. And let me tell you, Dan, they were pretty happy with themselves. Let's listen to Chuck Schumer.
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Dan, I want to know, when's the last time you can remember being this aroused by a rescinded OMB memo?
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Wow. Wow. On the process point about how the White House rushed this decision and generally stepped on a rake, what happened to the whole, this is a professional White House now. Susie Wiles is running it like SEAL Team 6. Yeah. What happened? I thought this was the Trump White House that was finally figuring it all out.
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Not only Stephen Miller, who works in the White House, but Republican politicians all over the country defended the memo. The Speaker of the House. Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virginia, was like, this is misinformation spread by the media and partisans and all these Democrats. This is hysteria and blah, blah, blah. And then the White House was like, oh, yeah, we take it back, actually.
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But I do think that it is revealing about the argument that Stephen Miller was making and Russ Vogt, who is going to run the Office of Management and Budget, the man who authored Project 2025, they believe that the president does have the power to control all federal spending and decide who gets what money, even though it is the job of Congress, according to the Constitution, to appropriate funding.
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Many more, including forcing every federal employee to resign or face loyalty tests, and preparing to house thousands of immigrants at Guantanamo Bay. What a wonderful country. But first, we shouldn't have to talk about the plane crash in D.C. on this show, because there usually isn't an immediate political angle to a mid-air collision that hasn't yet been investigated. But...
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And... Donald Trump and Donald Trump's White House now believe that they have the power of the purse, not Congress, in contradiction to the Constitution, and that they get to just not spend money that they don't agree with that Congress has appropriate. So I do think that they are gearing up to eventually challenge the this is known as the impoundment act.
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which just makes clear because it was clear in the Constitution before that, but makes clear that presidents may be able to delay spending certain money or they can maybe not spend extra money if they have achieved the goals of the law with the with the money that they already spent. But they are not allowed.
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Presidents are not allowed to just not spend money because it doesn't comport with their political positions. If Congress has passed a law appropriating it. And Stephen Miller and Russ Vogt don't think that's – they think that the president is king and gets to do whatever he wants with his power.
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And so it's going to go – they're going to eventually challenge this, and it's going to go to the Supreme Court.
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They have all decided, except for, I don't know, maybe three Republican senators at most, four. And I haven't seen anything from any House members that Donald Trump, because he was elected, he can do whatever he wants. And that their role is just to cheer him on and go on TV, I guess, and on all their favorite regime media channels and talk about how wonderful Dear Leader is.
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Why do these people want their jobs? Just go make money somewhere. You could probably make more money in the private sector. What are you doing? You're not making any decisions on your own. You're just there to fluff Donald Trump.
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It's, you know, Chuck Schumer. Chase in your head, Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer's got you going. Unfortunately, unfortunately.
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So let's start with the Democrats now that we're back on Chuck Schumer's arousal. The Times had a story on Wednesday about how Democratic governors got on a call with Schumer to push him and the Democratic caucus to do more to oppose Trump and his cabinet nominees. More about them in a minute.
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Because, you know, things like the spending freeze are pummeling the states, but the governors themselves can't really take action to stop it. Presumably the details of the call were leaked, presumably by the governors or their staff to The New York Times reporter Reid Epstein. What do you make of this piece, the blame shifting and just zooming out sort of like the Democratic response in general?
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Half the voters decided to make Donald Trump president again, so here we are. The American Airlines flight from Wichita was about to land at DCA when it collided with an army helicopter on a training mission, killing all 64 people on the plane and three in the helicopter. Trump held a press conference the next morning before anyone had any real information about what actually happened.
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And, you know, it does appear like the party has found its footing on their response to the to the OMB spending freeze.
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Is that an ad you're going to run in your race about your bipartisan credentials? I did support Sean Duffy.
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So, of course, being president, he took the opportunity to console the nation and reassure the public that air travel is safe. Let's listen.
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I think a good lesson, too, is just say what you feel. Just go to the mic, get to your favorite platform, all the platforms, whatever, and just say how you feel about this. And there was plenty of things I heard Democrats say over the last couple days about it that... We're cheesy or made me cringe.
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I'm not going to criticize any of it because it is more important to get out there and talk quickly and show some emotion, show some anger over this on behalf of the people that you represent, not just anger at Trump of anger on behalf of people who are getting screwed by Trump. I think that's an important distinction and just do it. And sometimes it's going to hit. Sometimes it's not.
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Sometimes you're going to say things that, that resonate. Sometimes you're going to say things that make people cringe. It's okay.
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Like this is going to be, it's going to long for years, but I think just getting out there and talking and doing it, you always say like everything, everywhere, all at once, like that is better than sitting and waiting and thinking about where, how's this going to pull and what should I say? And we need a caucus meeting first and we need to just, just go out there, go out there and talk.
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And people are – we're flummoxed. We're all going to fucking die waiting for the catalyst results.
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Same problem with Biden over the last four years. I mean, let's not like if you speak every six months. Yeah, right, right. But yeah, no, it is a volume game. And just someone added this up, but apparently like in Trump's first term in his first week, he was in front of the press or in front of cameras speaking for like four hours the first week.
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Biden in his first week was a little less, maybe like three hours or something. The first week of Trump's second term, it was like eight hours. Yeah. He was in front of camera. I mean, he did that fucking awful press conference about the plane crash this morning, Thursday morning.
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And he did like another press avail as he was signing the more executive orders, blaming Biden and Obama for the plane crash later in the day. And he was taking more questions.
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Yeah. So the spending freeze fiasco has done little to slow Trump down. Keep signing orders and memos targeting immigrants, government workers, trans kids, educators, parents, just about everyone. In the past few days, he's issued the following executive orders that will deny federal funding for schools that teach kids about racism and discrimination.
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Penalize schools that don't teach content that is patriotic enough. I guess Trump gets to define what that means. An executive order that will deport international students who protested the war in Gaza will revoke their visas. ban gender-affirming care for trans children, and send tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants to detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.
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The White House also sent a mass email offering more than 2 million federal employees a buyout if they just reply to the email and write the word resign. We're going to talk about the email in a second, but on the executive orders, which one of these seems real? Which of them seem like bullshit?
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Yeah. And just another example that just popped up that I think is even more consequential, which is the the EO on banning gender affirming care for children. Again, the that is not something that you can do by executive order. I'm fairly certain, though I do not have a legal degree, but a children's hospital and health care provider in Richmond said,
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just said that they have suspended all gender affirming care for those under 19 years old because they feel like they have gotten very specific guidance on this from the state. I assume that means that a lot of these Republican governors who like Trump, like Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, probably see the federal EO, match it with a state EO. Now,
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What's ultimately going to happen with gender affirming care for children? It's a case at the Supreme Court right now. It's going to be decided there. I don't I don't have a lot of hope about how that's going to turn out. Also, Congress with the Republican Congress, I'm sure they're going to try to include. There's been some reporting that they might include like a Hyde like amendment there.
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in the budget bill that sort of you know threatens to cut off all federal aid to hospitals and health care providers that provide gender affirming care like they currently do for hospitals that provide abortions that's the Hyde Amendment so I don't think that like I don't think that's the last word here but you're right that the chilling effect is there's going to be schools and hospitals and organizations all across the country in red states and maybe in some blue states or red areas of blue states that
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Just take these seriously because it's a fucking executive order from the federal government on Guantanamo. Are we really going to build a 30,000-person detention facility in Guantanamo Bay? Just for context, the Cook County Jail in Chicago is one of the largest single-site facilities in the country, and it has an average daily population of 9,000.
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We're going to build a 30,000-person detention facility that who's going to run? And we're just going to send undocumented immigrants? We don't know where they're from, where they came from. We're just going to put them in a detention center for what? Indefinitely? Like, what the fuck?
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Which, by the way, they've been saying that. We thought it was going to be bullshit. It is bullshit. I think the rate for how many undocumented immigrants have been rounded up and deported with criminal records versus undocumented immigrants who the only law they broke was illegally crossing in the first place is like Joe Biden had a higher percentage of deportations that were actually
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immigrants with criminal records than Trump has in his first week already. So it's just the whole thing was bullshit. They're not just going after undocumented immigrants with criminal records. They're going after every undocumented immigrant that they find.
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Later in the day, he did a press event where he signed a memo to the FAA blaming the crash again on diversity programs under Obama and Biden and ordering the administrator to roll them back.
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Also, this just happened this week in a speech that Donald Trump gave, and no one paid a lot of attention to it. But after he finished his whole anti-immigrant thing, he was like, and then there's some people, and maybe they didn't come here illegally, but they're just criminals in this country. There's criminals, and they're here, and they're really bad criminals, and you know what?
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I think we're going to get approval to just deport them. We're going to send them to some other foreign countries. And I'm like, you're going to send American citizens who are convicted of crimes? You're going to deport them to foreign countries? When is the line that he's going to start trying to send Americans to Guantanamo Bay? American citizens to Guantanamo Bay?
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A big congressional debate. The courts will have a role as well. And look, I think that the scary moment here is what happens when the Supreme Court, if the Supreme Court, you know, hands down a decision that Trump is opposed to and what Trump does. And, you know, so far they, you know, the White House complied with the federal judge that blocked their spending freeze.
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So Trump has been president for two weeks, signed a record number of executive orders, fired a record number of federal workers, and is blaming his own FAA on the first fatal commercial plane crash on American soil in 16 years because the FAA says on its Web site,
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And, you know, I guess it was kind of a fuck up in OMB anyway. So whatever, they were fine with it. But You know, it's a very conservative court, and a lot of times they give Trump exactly what he wants, but they hand down a decision that he opposes, and then he says, eh, I'm not going to listen to the court. You know, J.D.
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Vance was on a fucking podcast a couple years ago that said, oh, my advice for Trump in a second term would be to fire everyone in the federal government and replace them with all your people. And when John Roberts tells you you can't do it, you say, yeah, you and what army? J.D. Vance is on the record saying that. So, like, what happens... That's the real constitutional crisis.
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That's when people start going to Guantanamo. So that's something to watch for. That's coming attractions, Dan. Cool, cool. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but two things before we do that. We all know the news is exceptionally shitty right now, but we really hope you find this show and all the shows we make here at Crooked helpful in sorting the facts from the bullshit.
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and maybe just staying a bit more sane. The best way to support our work is to subscribe to Friends of the Pod. You'll directly support our growth as an independent media company. You'll get ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World, access to our wonderful Discord community and exclusive shows, all while supporting our mission.
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That they want to make sure that people of different backgrounds have equal opportunity to get hired, including people with disabilities. Language that was there during Trump's entire first term. I mean, it seems like Trump got what he wanted, which was to, you know, pick a fight about whether the plane crash was caused by diversity.
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Let's start with the buyout. The email had the subject line, fork in the road, which was exactly what the email that Elon Musk sent to Twitter employees had said, fork in the road, right after he took over the company.
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Do you have a sense of whether this move is serious, whether the federal government is authorized to spend money on a buyout for federal employees who decide not to come back to the federal government to work?
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Well, there's also a video uncovered of Russ Vogt, again, Project 2025 guy who's going to be the OMB director, who basically said, we want to make working in the federal government as traumatic as possible for bureaucrats that we want to get rid of.
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And clearly that's what they've been trying to do the last couple of weeks is to try to make it so miserable for people that they just leave on their own.
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And so he got what he wanted because that is what everyone has had to talk about all day, arguing about whether the plane crash that has yet to be investigated, the investigation has just started, was caused by diversity. Dan, your thoughts?
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Yeah, yeah. And Social Security and Medicare probably come at the end. Yeah, that's the last thing.
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And by the way, I think this is part of the reason that they walked back the spending freeze, because it caused the kind of uproar around the country that they know is unpopular. And they want to cut government and cut all those programs and benefits in a much sneakier, quieter way than what happened with like an all out spending freeze that freaked everybody out. So it is it's something to watch.
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Speaking of way too much going on at once, three of Trump's most extreme cabinet picks had Senate confirmation hearings on Thursday alone. Health and Human Services Secretary nominee RFK Jr. in front of the Health Committee. DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard in front of the Intelligence Committee and FBI nominee Kash Patel in front of the Judiciary Committee. Let's start with Kennedy.
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This was actually his second hearing. The Finance Committee got its turn on Wednesday, and both days were contentious and fairly terrifying. Here's a sampling of some of the Q&A for RFK Jr.
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How much time do you have? So basically, these two days boil down to Democrats trying to paint Kennedy as anti-vax and also unqualified, which he is. Kennedy's trying to say, no, not anti-vax. I never was. I'm being misconstrued. Who do you think came out on top? And are we getting a we're getting a vaccines optional HHS secretary?
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Well, I thought some bad news on that front was he basically said that he would look at the safety of Mifepristone, the abortion pill. And so that's on the table. And then after the hearings, the Susan B. Anthony group, which is an anti-abortion group, said that they now favor RFK Jr. because they think he's going to help them pull Mifepristone off the market and ban the abortion pill.
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My only bright spot, we'll see what happens, is Bill Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, Republican senator from Louisiana, who's a doctor and who voted to impeach Trump, had some really tough questioning about RFK Jr. 's anti-vaccine stances and positions and what he said and basically ended the hearing, leaving it up in the air whether or not he was going to vote for him.
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Also, you could see Cassidy be a no, but then maybe McConnell doesn't vote no on this one, right? So it's tough to figure out. It's not like those are automatic no's at all. Yeah. But I guess Cassidy would be the hope there. We're not going to subject you to separate sections on Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel.
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Reminder here, if you need them, Gabbard is an Assad and Putin sympathizer with no intelligence experience. And Patel is a Trump adoring hatchet man with no FBI experience. Both hearings were pretty tense. Let's take a listen.
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I guess that the FBI is great. Man, sure. Sure, I don't know. So Cash Patel has just decided, like...
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the old cash patel is just gone he's gone there's i don't know what you're talking about i don't know this guy i didn't go on this podcast with all these white nationalist racists uh like with you know nazi sympathizing views didn't do any of that uh never heard of that person jan 6 choir i don't know what you're talking about he also he broke with trump on the january 6 pardons for the violent offenders the people who were there for he said i just disagree with that
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And he was very much like, you know, no retribution, not going to be looking backwards. So that's Kash Patel. I guess he's getting through.
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By just lying and just pretending or just saying like, yeah, I was just, I was just saying some crazy shit on podcasts, which I guess, I guess if, if we're ever confirmed, we can say that too, huh?
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Can we just play, let me just play something you responded to from John Lovett.
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No. Just be like, I don't know any of those people. I don't know what you're talking about.
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And then I guess Tulsi Gabbard then is the one who's in most jeopardy. Yeah. Because she wasn't mean enough to Edward Snowden.
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Yeah, she's actually she's actually not even like OK enough for Trump. Like she's actually a decent like like any Republican president who nominated her. Democrats would be like, wow, that's pretty cool.
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I mean, I understand why that makes... Plenty of targets there for Tulsi Gabbard.
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Yeah. And those are all the most controversial picks. I think Pam Bondi is also getting three, which is fucked up.
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One last thing before we go. So right before this recording, I interviewed Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, for Offline. which will be out this Sunday. It's a great interview. He wanted to talk about big tech and regulation. He's been talking a lot about social media and loneliness and all the topics we love discussing on offline.
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But because I had him for the interview, at the top, I asked him all about these last two weeks and how they were responding and how Democrats were responding. He's someone who has not been afraid to be out there being very forceful, sounding the alarm,
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and so i asked him about all that and uh i thought his answers were interesting enough that wanted to play it here on pod save america as a preview of um of sunday's offline episode so you'll be hearing that right now do you think some of the um reticence about speaking up has to do with the fact that some of your colleagues are just personally afraid like do you sense any fear among your either your democratic colleagues or even the republican colleagues
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So I walked into the office and saw that Tommy and Lovett suddenly have uplift desks in the office and I still have my lame normal desk and the desks are so cool. They look great. You can make it a standing desk, but you can also just make it a seated desk and And it's big and spacious. It's awesome. So I'm getting one.
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Those threats do not seem to have slowed you down. How are you personally sort of handling that?
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Good for Chris Murphy, huh? Yeah, Chris Murphy's great. First of all, terrifying that that's happening, that he's getting those threats and that other people are and people are scared now of speaking out. But I'm glad he's out there and I'm glad he's not backing down. So, all right. That is our show for today. Everyone have a great weekend because the news is so wonderful.
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And we'll be back in your feeds with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
Pod Save America
Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Sarah Longwell had done some focus groups last year early on, and she was talking to some voters in the focus group who said that they were they didn't like Trump, but they were going to vote for Trump. And I think there's this guy who said, you know, I'm just going to close my eyes for the next four years, not watch them on TV and just enjoy the Trump policies.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
And the reason that has never been a real option is because every president faces crises and disasters. And I started thinking about this when the fires hit L.A. a couple weeks ago before he was president. And as people are still fleeing from their homes, as we were all figuring out who should evacuate where and we were trying to get alerts, Donald Trump immediately said,
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
kicked off this whole thing, blaming Gavin Newsom for the fires, talking about fucking water in Northern California, all that bullshit. And I thought to myself, like, this is going to be the next four years. And even in the best case scenario that any of us can imagine with the Trump presidency, right?
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
He does a bunch of corruption, still pretty bad, but we all make it, we survive a second term, like... There are still going to be crises. There are going to be disasters. There's going to be tragedies. And when the country tunes in, we're not going to be able to get good information from him.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
He's going to pick fights with people he doesn't like and his political enemies and blame people and divide people and make people angrier. And he is going to compound every single fucking tragedy that this country faces. And God forbid, when there is a crisis that depends on all of us getting good information online, like there was last time he was president during the fucking pandemic.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
We're not going to know what to do because we don't have... The media has been splintered, balkanized. No one knows where to go for good information. We can't trust our president. We can't trust the government because there's a bunch of fucking bozos that are running the government now. And last night when this first broke, I was terrified, as you all know. Very nervous flyer.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
It's like worst nightmare. And I saw on Twitter immediately... Some people on the left were like, oh, this is Trump's fault because he got to the Aviation Safety Committee last week. And also that maybe the freeze affected this and that thing. And I thought to myself, look, maybe some of this could be true. Maybe it's not. But like, I wouldn't want to say this right now.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Like the plane just crashed. Let's just like have a fucking moment. Let's not be like him. And not because like we should be nice, you know, like let's if we want to present people with an alternative and with a real choice, then that requires not acting like Trump when a disaster happens and like immediately just throwing around accusations without knowing all the facts.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
And also, by the way, like let's give the country and each other a moment to collectively grieve and mourn and also like find out, you know, reliable information. And so I was like, oh, it's just like it's so annoying, but whatever. It's like random accounts on Twitter. Who the fuck cares? Wake up today, Thursday, and the fucking President of the United States is out there.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
The first thing he does is blame diversity. Doesn't even know who the air traffic controllers were. What caused the plane. Whether it was the air traffic controller's fault. Whether it was the FAA's fault. Whether it was the pilot's fault. The helicopter's fault. Or whether it was no one's fault. Because sometimes tragedies just fucking happen. Fires just fucking happen.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Sometimes just things happen. And like, it's just, it is... It's going to be a long four years, man.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Well, I mean, what they are saying now is the new thing now is if you are a woman or a black American or Latino or Asian or gay or anything but a white man and you have a job that is a senior position, whether it's in government or media or politics or anything else. You got there because of diversity efforts, because of DEI. There is no way you could have earned that job.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
They start with you got the job because of DEI, and then you have to somehow prove that you didn't get the job because of DEI, but that you got it because of merit. I mean, that's Kamala Harris, the DEI vice president. Right. That's where they are.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
Yeah. And he's got luminaries like Pete Hegseth and J.D. Vance and Sean Duffy, former real world contestant who's now the transportation secretary, you know, all parroting the exact same line. It's like all taken. They all have to take turns going up to the podium and just parroting exactly what Trump said.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
And, you know, idiots like Sean Duffy and Pete Hegseth, they probably they probably believe it, too. J.D. Vance, like he knows better. Like he knows better and he's just but he has signed up for it and he's just going to fucking parrot the line, the Trump line and just be the be the guy that Trump calls up and says, yeah, no, go ahead and say what I just said.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
So I wanted to ask you about the Democratic response. Pete Buttigieg, for example, he posted a tweet calling Trump's comments despicable, which they were, and pointing out that there were zero fatal airline crashes in the four years that he was secretary and then saying, quote, President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the president to show actual leadership. and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.
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Trump Heals Grieving Nation
And, of course, I mentioned there were, you know, pieces circulating among Trump critics about the gutted Aviation Safety Committee and also how the head of the FAA resigned last week. And this was after, you know, this... A couple months ago, Elon Musk went after him on Twitter and said he should resign because the FAA sort of demanded some kind of safety fix to a SpaceX rocket.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Yeah, it does. They are definitely flailing. It does feel like the kind of flailing you do when they've done this before, where it's like, all right, we just got to make it through a couple news cycles here. And whenever something really bad happens, this happened around January 6th, of course, a whole bunch of Republicans sort of go off the talking points and say things.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Lindsey Graham's like, I'm done. I'm done with Donald Trump. And Mitch McConnell's like, maybe he'll get prosecuted after he leaves. And then They're all on different talking points. And then it takes a couple of days for them to all coalesce around some bullshit excuse. And then they realize that all of our attention is going to get pulled towards somewhere else.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And as the administration continues its campaign of terror against legal immigrants, a campaign that now includes kidnapping college students off the streets and more propaganda videos from the government's torture dungeon in El Salvador. I'll talk to Jasmine Mooney, the Canadian actor and entrepreneur who was detained by ICE for 12 days with no explanation.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And then they're like, all right, we're done. Now, Axios pointed out that this is now the most read and shared story of the year. So this is definitely broken through in a way that nothing else has from Trump's second term. We also have new polling from YouGov. that shows 74% of US adults think that what Trump officials did is a very serious or somewhat serious problem.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And that includes 60% of Republicans. With that all said, can you make the case that this episode will do any kind of lasting political damage to Trump or to Republicans?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
about what it's really like to get swept up. It is a horrifying story. I hope you guys tune in for the end for that. It is wild. You'd be shocked.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And, you know, even though I do think we will all forget about this or at least move on from this as we do every Trump crisis. And even if this is not the thing that shifts it, it gives us an opening, I think, to start framing all of the other fuck ups as more and more incompetence. Right. And so it sort of gives us a door to push on as he continues to and his.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And I do think it's really important that it's not just about him. But it's about the fucking idiots that he has running the government right now and the fucking bigger idiots that are running Congress. We're going to be up in two years, less than two years now for reelection. So I do think that like these people are we're ruled by crooks and morons is is as good of a message as any at this point.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
But first, we got to talk about the continued fallout from the world's most famous group chat that included some of the most powerful imbeciles on the planet planning a military strike with emojis, classified information, and of course, the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
So Trump's comments on the group chat came during an Oval Office event where he was focused on his true passion, taxing most of the shit that we buy. The president has announced new 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars and car parts. That's not just cars from foreign automakers. It's also cars from American automakers who make certain vehicles in other countries or use imported components.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
It was nice. And now we're back into it. Either way, whether it's warm or cold, you know what you need? What? SimpliSafe. You do.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
How much will it cost us? It'll depend on what kind of car you buy and which auto parts are exempted. But several analysts told CNBC that prices consumers pay on the lot could increase by $4,000 all the way up to $15,000 per vehicle. One thing they all seem to agree on, the car company most insulated from the price increases will be Tesla. Tesla. Amazing. Amazing. And Trump's not done yet.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Here's the threat he posted on Thursday. Quote, if the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale tariffs far larger than currently planned will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Dan, all this comes as new polling from Navigator shows that Americans have a very negative view of Trump's tariff by a 20 point margin. Only 23 percent of voters now support Trump's tariffs. What do you make of all this?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Trump is apparently quite frustrated with the situation, according to The Wall Street Journal, but has decided he's better off handling the massive fuck up like he handles everything else.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Well, and he's also it is another example of of incompetence, too, because Trump doesn't know what the fuck he's doing with tariffs. He like there is a case for, as we've said before, targeted tariffs on certain industries in certain countries. All countries do that. We've done that before. But this idea of these like universal tariffs, retaliatory tariffs everywhere to everything.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And they're the most the most beautiful word. It's going to fix everything. No, most most people don't believe that. Most evidence doesn't show that. Almost all the evidence doesn't show that. He's got people working for him who are like, I don't think this is right, but what else are we going to do? Scott Besson, he's a fucking finance guy. He knows this is bullshit.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
He's got to go out there every day being like, yeah, the tariffs are going to fix everything. They're all fucking idiots. Everyone's going to pay more. They have no other plan to lower people's costs. They're talking a lot about, oh, we're going to give everyone a... you know, a Doge dividend or a tax cut or, you know, maybe we'll cut taxes on, you know, more and blah, blah, blah.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
It's like, but they don't know how to make any of it add up.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Well, it's also why the single issue that is dragging down his approval rating right now is the issue that was propping up his approval rating for most of the campaign and most of his first term, which is the economy. It's his worst issue right now. There's a new I think there's a new Gallup poll out today. His March numbers were like his approvals now at forty three fifty three.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
It was it had been at forty five and it started forty nine. So it's just it is dropping quite a bit. He's still sort of like it's weird that the way the press is covering this, that he's like because he's more popular than he was at some of the lower points in the first term. But he's pretty unpopular and he's getting more unpopular pretty quickly right now.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Yeah, right. And people aren't really pointing that out as much, but you look at all the different polls and it's happening.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Yeah. And you can just look. We don't have to exaggerate it. Right. It's not like his presidency is over, but he's you know, he's he started in the high 40s. He's then he's in the mid 40s and now he's heading towards the low 40s. And we're only, you know, a couple months in. So Trump isn't just threatening our allies with economic warfare, but full on conquest.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Lest we forget if for some reason you have you forgotten about his quest to take Greenland from Denmark. Still very much on. Trump said in the Oval this week that, quote, we'll go as far as we have to go to get Greenland. And that apparently includes what has become a very unwelcome visit by Vice President J.D.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Vance and his wife, Usha, who announced an impromptu trip to Greenland in two very normal, relatable videos. Let's listen.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
All that was missing from that Usha Vance video was her holding up a newspaper with today's date on it because it sounded and looked like a fucking hostage video. I mean, we know that she's such a huge... fan of dog sled racing, particularly in Greenland.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
So she must have been sorely disappointed when they were forced to cut back the cultural part of the trip after learning that no one in Greenland wants the would-be colonizers to visit. In fact, apparently before Usha's trip, the U.S. government was going door to door all over Greenland trying to find someone, anyone who wanted to talk to Usha Vance.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They couldn't find anyone, so they canceled that part of the visit.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
You know what? We should have all the fun. So now they're visiting a military base where I guess they can avoid any encounters with angry locals. Once again, you know, Danish prime minister said that the trip constitutes, quote, unacceptable pressure on Greenland and Denmark.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
No one in Greenland is too happy about the president of the United States continuing to say, oh, we get Greenland because you guys got some minerals. And so whether or not you want independence, whether or not you want to stay with Denmark. No, no, no. We're going to. What is this? This is crazy. And then Vladimir Putin today was like, Trump's pretty serious about the Greenland thing.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I don't either. Is he just going to send a bunch of troops there and then fucking have Don Jr. plant an American flag wherever there's grass and then just make everyone call it America land? Is that it? Right.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
It's all a witch hunt. It's all a witch hunt, but it's Mike Waltz's fault, and there may have been classified information or may not, but he doesn't know, but it's definitely not Hegseth's fault, but it's a witch hunt. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, it's clear as day. So... Yeah, how can you bring Hegseth into this?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
That's what we're going to call it. Sorry, right. So we're going to call it red, white, and blue land. And then anyone who doesn't will be sent to El Salvador or banned from the White House press corps. And then that'll be that. And then the Danes will be like, no, no, no, that's ours. And the Green will be like, no, no, no, we're independent.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And Trump will just be like, nope, nope, you're part of the United States.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I mean, hopefully we'll find out when David Remnick, who was accidentally added to Greenland's PC.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
All he did was provide a constant stream of operationally sensitive information about the attacks without checking on who he was sending them to. Dan, what did you make of Trump's latest comments about this in the Oval on Wednesday?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I think there's this one thing that- Everything's computer now, you know?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the second most powerful court in the country after the Supreme Court, has now ruled just this week. They decided to agree with the federal judge in a 3-2 ruling. One of the Court of Appeals judges actually said, quote, Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than these Venezuelan migrants.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And what's the administration's response to all this? They sent Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to visit the El Salvador prison so that she could pose in front of a crowded cell full of prisoners and make this propaganda video.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
wearing her $60,000 Rolex watch in front of those men in prison. I have been ranting about this on every platform I can find this week. I have run out of words to describe how disgusted and horrified I am. How is this not a bigger story right now? I don't know.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I just, it, everyone's like, oh, well, they're, you know, they're non-citizens. And if you're here and you're a non-citizen, even if you're a legal resident, like, you know, we can revoke your visa and blah, blah, blah. It's like, how do we know they're all non-citizens?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
We don't because the government now has decided that they can, plainclothes agents can pick someone up off the street, throw them in a fucking van, put them on a plane, send them to a prison in a foreign country where they could be starved and tortured and no one's going to know. No one's going to know. So, like, I just... It is un-fucking-believable.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I don't understand why... I was looking through, like, my feed of Democratic politicians to, like, see what is going on. And, you know, I see some statements from the usual people that you would suspect make statements. Your Chris Murphys and Veronica Escobar and other people who've been great immigration advocates. But, like... I haven't heard a lot of speeches about this.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I haven't heard a lot of events about this. I know everyone's fucking scared of their own shadow on immigration in our party. I get it. We have fucked up on immigration and like we have fucked up around the border. Totally get that. But you can't tell me that the American people think it's cool to just round people up with no due process and send them off to a prison because you know what?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Also, as we've talked about the whole campaign, if inflation gets worse, prices get higher, then the people who don't pay attention to politics that closely, which is unfortunately most voters, they're going to feel the pain of that and be angry, much like they were in the Biden administration. And they're not going to need a bunch of Democrats screaming about it to be angry about it. Right.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Like what we do need is a bunch of Democrats getting really angry and screaming about this. And there is a way to talk about it. Like, look, I said when Trump won that, unfortunately, on immigration, the president has a ton of power. That is just the way our immigration laws are written. That is the way that the courts were ruled about it. And you know what?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
deport gang members, deport criminals, like dangerous people should not be in this country, whether they are undocumented, like dangerous people should not be on the streets, whether they are undocumented or not, right? We should get criminals and we should prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, for sure.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And if unfortunately, if the president wants to revoke visas, wants to deport people, undocumented people back to their country, then like I'm going to disagree with some of that. But he's going to have the power to do that, too. A lot of these a lot of these people, a lot of their families were being interviewed.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They're like, we just expected them to get deported back to Venezuela or back to the country that where they started. Why is they being held in a prison? in some foreign country that is known for human rights abuses where they're not even serving a sentence because they haven't had a trial. I mean, this is insane.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And you're hearing like, look, if you think this is where it ends, then ask yourself, why? Why did Kristi Noem go to film that video? Why did they not correct the mistakes they're making with some of these Venezuelans who clearly are not members of Trend de Aragua? Why are they not presenting evidence to the judges?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Why are they not imprisoning or detaining these people in the United States in our very, very secure prison? Why did they have to send them to El Salvador and send the wrong people to El Salvador and then not correct themselves? This is not just like a bunch of oops. They're doing this on purpose because they want people to be afraid.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And it's not just Venezuelans getting rounded up by the government. As you said, some of you may have seen the footage of Tufts graduate student Rumesa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen here on a legal student visa, screaming as she's grabbed off the street by ICE agents in masks and hoods while on her way to break the Ramadan fast.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Last year, Ozturk co-wrote an op-ed in the Tufts student paper criticizing the university's statements on Gaza. So far, more than 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked in what the State Department is calling, they're labeling this as the program, it's called their Catch and Revoke program, which is focusing now, for the time being, on students who protested the war in Gaza.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
State and DOJ officials also told Axios that, quote, the Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides that too many are, quote, pro-Hamas. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he was asked about this on Thursday, and he openly defended the move.
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He basically acknowledged tacitly that they didn't have any evidence beyond the op-ed that this person wrote. But then decided to say, well, you know, he said, quote, if you invite me into your home and I start putting mud on your couch and spray painting your kitchen, I bet you're going to kick me out.
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We're going to do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus. We don't want it. Notice what he's trying to do here. Like, oh, well... You know, if you're vandalizing buildings or do all this, but there's no evidence that this person did that. This person signed their name to an op-ed criticizing the war in Gaza. That's it.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And instead of getting what they could have done, too, even if they still wanted to revoke this person's visa, which unfortunately they have the power to do. They could have sent a notice and said, your visa is hereby revoked. You have 10 days to leave the country or else then we're going to detain you. They could have done all that. They could have visited the dorm room.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I mean, are you saying that when the defense secretary puts in the signal messaging app where the editor of The Atlantic is watching the whole thing and has a specific time of day and then says, in all caps, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop? Are you saying that that's not just an expression?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They could have tried to contact them. No. Plainclothes officers with masks on jump her in the street? Why? Why did they do it that way? No answers from anyone? No one in the administration wants to know that? No one's demanding the administration tell them that? No one's asking the administration that? I don't know. What did you think watching that?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And they are starting with what they believe is the low-hanging fruit. And this is why Venezuelans with tattoos, that if you're not paying close attention to the news, you just assume are members of this violent gang. And college students who, if you're not paying close attention, maybe you think that they were burning down buildings or vandalizing them.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And so they're starting here, but then they keep pushing.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
and they keep pushing the bounds of the law and it keeps getting worse and worse and if you want to know where they're headed you know stephen miller has said many times that we started a denaturalization program in the first trump term that they didn't get very far on and that they want to do it again denaturalization so they want to take people who are immigrants who've become citizens
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and then denaturalize them. And usually people are only denaturalized when they have committed fraud, when they tried to become a citizen, or they have committed some heinous crime and renounced their citizenship or joined a foreign terrorist group or whatever it may be. Very rare that someone is denaturalized. Nazis were denaturalized in this country.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And now Stephen Miller wants to expand that program. The birthright citizenship thing. The idea that if you're born here, that's how you have citizenship. And they want to challenge that. Because what they ultimately want is they want to decide who gets to be a citizen and who doesn't. Whether you are a citizen now or you're not.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They're already talking about, oh, now if you vandalize a Tesla, you're a domestic terrorist. And if you're a domestic terrorist, then maybe you should lose your citizenship. Have you been an American your whole life? They don't really care. Maybe they'll send you to El Salvador. Someone asked Trump about that. What did he say?
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Did he say, no, of course I'm not going to send an American citizen to El Salvador. No, he didn't say that. He said, well, it's domestic terrorists. You shouldn't burn a Tesla. So this is why, like, if you think right now that this is just about students who were creating a ruckus, as Marco Rubio said, about Gaza, or gang members who were here illegally, that's how it starts.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
But they are rapidly moving towards trying to really target their enemies, their political opponents. And that, and I just... Again, I did a video for this on social, and 90% of the comments were like, well, what can we do? This is horrible. What can we do? And I don't know right now other than I do think that more...
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
leaders have to speak out and more of us have to be unafraid to speak out and and not like get all wrapped up in like what is the most you know politically viable message of the day but like fundamental rights are being trampled on here and like we all have to fucking wake up i don't know am i just going crazy no no you're right All right. So we wanted to spotlight one of these stories.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Canadian actor Jasmine Mooney was detained for 12 days trying to cross into the country. She had had work visas. She had worked here for a long time. It's a horrific story. I spoke to her Thursday afternoon about what happened. So you're going to hear that interview next. Pod Save America is brought to you by Aura Frames.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Jasmine Mooney, thanks for coming on and sharing your story. Thank you for having me. I'd love to start by asking you to just talk about the ordeal you've been through for people who aren't familiar. You're a Canadian actress, an entrepreneur who's spent a lot of time working in the U.S. You were trying to apply for a new work visa earlier this month. And then what happened?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And again, you know, there's a lot of, well, the mission was successful and no harm, no foul. We all learned a lesson. And what could have happened anyway? And no one was going to break into. The problem is not like this whole debate is signal secure, signal not secure. The challenge is these people were on likely their personal phones, not government phones. Right.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And their personal phones, particularly those of them who were outside of the United States at the time, are extremely vulnerable to hacking. And so there are all kinds of foreign actors, state actors, individuals, whoever, who have the capability to hack into your phone without you even knowing that they're in your phone.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I was going to say, so you're in the jail down in San Diego for 48 hours. When you asked questions, what kind of answers did you get? Were you able to contact a lawyer? What happened next?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And so one prison was a detention center near San Diego. Yes. And then that's when they sent you to the prison and you were like on a floor with a paper blanket.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Again, this is the Pegasus program, especially if you're outside the United States. And then once they're in your phone, they don't have to hack any app. They're watching everything that's happening. So there could have been someone
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And at this point, you originally contacted your best friend. Now you're not able to talk to anyone. You don't have your phone. You don't have anything. What is going through your mind at this point?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
and then I think I really would have lost it when I was, when you were transferred to a second, or I guess at this point it'd be the third, uh, detention center. And that one was in Arizona, Arizona.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
in one of those phones, hacked into one of those phones, just literally seeing everything that was typed in the signal thing and getting all the information about the attack.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
So, so what was that? So were you at, when they transferred you there, were you like, what the hell is going on? Why am I going to another detention center? Why am I getting shackled and thrown in a van?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And I think in your essay, you mentioned that the conditions in the detention center in Arizona were much worse.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
So after two weeks, one day they just say, OK, you're out. You're getting released.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
None of them are like... Well, it's the small group. What was the Hootie PC large group signal? Yeah. I mean, that's Facebook. It's like, was the entire fucking staff of the New York times on there?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
so horrifying since you've been released and have gotten back home have you gotten any answers or learned anything new about why you were detained why it took two weeks to get you out or or anything else about your case
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Well, so, you know, you might all be wondering, will anyone ever be held accountable for all of this? Well, a group called American Oversight is suing the administration over its use of Signal to secretly communicate about official business, which you're not supposed to do in the White House. That's another no-no.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Yeah, I was going to ask just how you're processing all this because you seem so calm and good natured about everything. And I think I would be in a constant state of rage every minute.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Not supposed to communicate about classified information, secret war plans, battle plans. Sorry, not a war, battle plans.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Attack plan. Right. Yeah. Not supposed to over a secure. You're also not supposed to use, you know, personal phones to talk about official business because that's evading the Presidential Records Act. Seems quaint now, doesn't it? But that clearly they're doing that. So anyway.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They sued the case randomly, but hilariously got assigned to Judge James Boasberg, the same judge that Trump and Republicans want to impeach for blocking them from jailing Venezuelans in El Salvador with no due process. That judge today told them all that no deleting any signal messages between March 12th and March 15th, which good luck with that. I'm sure they're all deleted anyway.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
If you want to find them all, Jeff Goldberg has them and now all of us do too. A few Republican politicians seem unhappy about the Signal scandal. Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, joined with ranking member Jack Reed to request an expedited investigation by the Defense Department inspector general. Does that person still exist? I don't know if they do.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I thought that Trump fired all the inspector generals, so maybe that'll be a challenging investigation to conduct. Lisa Murkowski is saying that she's quite concerned. You got some random, you know, like you said, MAGA pundits and supporters who are out there saying, I don't know about this one. I think they fucked up and they should just admit they fucked up.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
But most of Trump world is trying to blow this off as a whole lot of nothing. Let's listen.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
It's fucking preposterous. I know this is a small thing because he's just lying and we're just like, they all lie. They don't even try to lie well anymore because they feel like they don't have to. That's really where we're at right now. The lies have never been great. They've never been great liars. But now they're barely trying. So that was Mike Waltz himself, that last clip on Laura Ingraham.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
And yeah, I guess what he's trying to say is sometimes... You put a number in your phone and you mean to name it one person and then you accidentally name it another person with the same initials? It doesn't make any sense. Is it accidental or maybe Jeff Goldberg figured out how to do this? Jeff Goldberg hacked into the phone and made Mike Waltz add himself to the group? What is going on?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
So just to go back, the first voice we heard, that was Pete Hegseth, really leaning on. It was attack plans, not war plans. That was Pam Bondi.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
The attorney general of the United States, whose job it is to investigate potential violations of the Espionage Act, of mishandling of classified information, any kind of crimes involving classified information, and has basically said she will not be investigating, which I guess no one is surprised by.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
But, you know, in the past, that's what the attorney general is supposed to do, even if it has to do with White House employees.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Yes. Right, right. Or, I don't know, when James Comey, the FBI director, investigated Hillary Clinton under the Obama administration. Yeah. Remember that? I do. I do.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
But now... Thanks, Jim. And now we're here. Yeah. So now we don't we don't even there's not even like a. Oh, of course. Of course, the attorney general is not even going to investigate this because the attorney general is not an independent actor anymore. The attorney general is just a Trump flunky. That's it. So so that's done. And then there was Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
Wonderful, wonderful lady telling a BBC reporter to go back to their country. So that was cool. And then, of course, we heard Mike Waltz. So as for how this loser got on the group chat, it's now come to light through Waltz's public Venmo feed that he has several other journalists on his phone, including Judith Miller and Brianna Keeler from CNN, which MagoWorld is not at all happy about.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
This is what has got... Not the... classified info on the signal chat, not including Jeff. Like it is the fact that it was Jeff Goldberg and some of these unsavory fake journalists that hate MAGA. That's what they're mad about, that Mike Waltz might know them, even though he's pretending not to know them. What do you make of the Republican reaction so far?
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
On today's show, hope none of you are in the market for a new car because they're about to get more expensive thanks to Trump's latest tariffs. We'll talk about the president's ever-expanding trade war and his new threats against America's greatest foes, Canada, Europe, and Greenland, where J.D. and Usha Vance are headed for a trip that no one on the island seems to want.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
I mean, I think it is something even darker, which is that they just don't care. And the reason they don't care is because they no longer fear accountability.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They're not they don't fear accountability from Congress because Republicans control Congress and Republicans in Congress have shown that almost to a person with a very few exceptions, they will do literally anything Donald Trump asked them to do. They are in the middle of defying court orders. We'll talk about that in a bit around immigration.
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Trump 2.0's Biggest Scandal Yet
They have, you know, bullied the press into submission, law firms, colleges. And they know that, you know, about 40 percent of the country is going to be with them no matter what the fuck they do. And then a good chunk of the rest of the country is either not paying that close attention or that's it. And then there's just us.
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Like, is someone at the FAA going to come give a press conference, tell us about their fucking air traffic control communication system, or no? It's just Elon tweeting.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Well, luckily, he said we're a couple months away.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And so and he said, you know, this now he tweeted this in response to this story about Elon trying to push them to cancel the Verizon contract so they could do Starlink. And he said, well, no, no, it's the Verizon things on the brink of catastrophic breakdown. And I'm providing Starlink units at no cost to the taxpayer for now.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Then, it's an update for you, just before we recorded, he corrected himself and said, actually, the existing system that's on the verge of a catastrophic breakdown isn't Verizon's. It's another company. The new system that's not yet operational is Verizon, but now we're canceling that and giving Starlink the contract instead.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Un-fucking-believable. And this isn't the only government contract Starlink could be getting. The Biden-era Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. God, terrible fucking name. Bead. You know what? Some of this shit, I'm like, this is why. This is why we're doing it. This is why Doge exists. Yeah, right. It passes part of the infrastructure bill. He could have just said broadband.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
We're doing broadband. Anyway, they set aside more than $40 billion to improve broadband in rural areas by growing the fiber optic network. Didn't really happen that well. Again, that's another problem for Democrats to think about next time if we ever want to be in power again. But Elon, surprise, surprise, thinks that it should be satellite internet instead and that Starlink should run this show.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
I am shocked to find that out. So stipulating Starlink might be great to use. It might be the right solution for all of our connectivity challenges for air traffic control. Who knows? Still feels like a major conflict of interest at best that we're not having companies bid for these contracts. We're just going to have the guy that's running this single handedly cutting government, firing people.
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, nice to have you in L.A. In studio. Love that. Great. We're going to have a good time today. No, we're not. This is terrible.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
His companies get the contracts.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It feels like Democrats should make some noise about this. No. What do you think?
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Trump voters say he was a tool. Love that Trump voter.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It's funny because you've talked about chaos and corruption before this election.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
You love chaos and corruption. But I was going to say, you were ahead of your time, really, because if you thought that was chaos and corruption before, Elon Musk is... My problem is Donald Trump keeps becoming president.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
No, we're going to talk about Republicans in Congress moving forward with the Trump economic plan. which, among other things, would take away health care and food from kids in order to fund a huge tax cut for the 1%. So that's lovely. Democrats are also going to have to decide whether to use the limited leverage they have in the government shutdown fight that's rapidly approaching.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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I guess Hakeem Jeffries did a press conference today, I think, Thursday, where he mentioned that Elon Musk is making $8 million a day in government contracts. And the average person on Medicaid makes $65 a day because they're looking to cut Medicaid in the budget, at least if we're going to get to, at least if you believe the budget instructions.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So, yeah, I do think that's relevant that Elon Musk is making $8 million a day in government contracts. And wants more. And wants more while he's trying to slash government because he says it's wasteful and inefficient. Yeah, I think that's something to look into. Maybe something to talk about. And believe it or not, even bigger Doge cuts are coming.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Just one example, the Washington Post reports that the, as you said, the Social Security Administration has been told to start getting ready to cut its staff by half. Of course, cuts like this have already happened at places like USAID that we mentioned.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
In a court filing, the administration detailed this week that they have canceled more than 90% of USAID's foreign assistance contracts or about $16 billion in foreign aid across the government. A federal court had ruled the government needed to pay out assistance money that was already obligated by Wednesday at midnight.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
But a few hours before the deadline, the Supreme Court stepped in and said the deadline shouldn't be enforced, meaning the foreign aid freeze can stand for now. So this was a the SCOTUS ruling was pretty temporary and narrow. They basically, you know, there was a midnight deadline that said the government must pay.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And I think the court was like, OK, we can skip the midnight deadline until we have a broader consideration of this case.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Right. So, you know, I would not I would not call this a huge win for the Trump administration. But I do wonder if we're seeing the limits of what the courts might be willing or able to do to stop these guys from just destroying whatever they want.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
We'll get to that. We're also going to cover Jeff Bezos's decision to turn the Washington Post editorial page into the Wall Street Journal. Then we're back with our latest installment of, wait, did that really happen? Where we'll react to this week's most insane moments. It was a stiff competition. But I think we found the three.
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And I think back to the NIH example that we just talked about where, you know, there's even the lawyers, even the Trump administration lawyers in the agencies that are like, I think we should follow the court orders. And then some other jack offs are like, no, fuck it.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Well, that brings up another scenario, which could also happen here, which is Trump doesn't openly defy the court. And then the court issues a ruling. And then Trump says, I'm not going to follow this like this. They just don't, you know, right. They just don't. And they don't do it at the Trump level. Trump doesn't talk about it. But, you know, we have to wait for a piece in The Atlantic.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
But Catherine rooted to find out that all of these fuckers at HHS were telling the NIH to violate court orders. So like how many times across how many agencies could that happen? And then what remedies does the court have? You know, they can try to hold people in contempt.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
None of them have wanted to do that yet, and they haven't even wanted to word their rulings or decisions in a way that would suggest that people might face contempt charges, right? Because I think all these courts are nervous that if they hold someone in contempt in the administration and then they don't show up, what are they going to do? Send the marshals?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. And and part of what I wonder is like how to put it back together. You know, like if we like, you know, Democrats win the midterms, which we have to. But what's to say that whatever the Democrats do in Congress or try to stop in Congress, that Trump's not just going to plow ahead or the agencies aren't just going to plow ahead? You know, I mean, like this is a real we're in for it.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
That's rough. That's rough. All right. As much as it pains me to say this, let's talk about what the Republicans in Congress are doing, since it could end up affecting people's lives even more than Doge, believe it or not. We got two big fights brewing over spending, and they're both important for different reasons.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
First, we had the House budget resolution, or as Trump calls it, the big, beautiful bill. Mike Johnson got this thing passed on Tuesday after both the hardliners on the right and some of the more vulnerable frontline members both reneged on their pledges to oppose it. Under the urging of Trump. Under the urging of Trump. In fact...
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Well, it's back, okay? It's back.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And stick around later for a sneak preview of the excellent conversation that Dan and I just had earlier in the week with our pal Jen Psaki about White House press and communication strategy. That's on our subscriber-only show, Inside 2025. But... You get a sneak preview here. Lucky you. Yeah.
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There was a couple holdouts and it looked like it might not pass and they pulled the bill. And one of them was Victoria Sparks. Did you see the puck story on this?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Apparently Trump called Victoria Sparks and started screaming at her and said, you'll just be a fake Republican. I'm the president. Remember who I am? Started screaming and people were hearing him scream at her. And then she hangs up and Mike Johnson's right there and he pats her on the back and he goes, you know what you have to do now? Mob family. That's where we are right now.
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Yes. And so this this is going to matter for because the budget resolution is like the first step in passing the bill. Right. It's just it's basically like a shell of a bill. It's instructions to the committees, whatever, blah, blah, blah. You don't you don't really need to know. You just need to know it's the first step in the process.
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Right. Because if you're a Republican who is thinking of not voting for the final, you vote for the budget resolution because it's a step. It just moves the whole thing a step forward. We dealt with the same thing with Manchin and Sinema in Joe Biden's Build Back Better, which then became Inflation Reduction Act, is they were like, yeah, we're going to vote for the budget resolution and then we'll.
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Right. You have to pass laws that are just like, you know, famously, we couldn't raise the minimum wage through budget.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
But first, Donald Trump kicked off the first cabinet meeting of the second term with a special presentation from the most powerful member of his administration or any administration, special government employee Elon Musk, who showed up in his trademark dark MAGA hat and tech support T-shirt to reassure everyone that Doge isn't a complete clusterfuck.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And the important thing to realize here is that none of their math works and none of them have agreed on anything really. Because they have promised, and a lot of this is in the budget resolution, a couple trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, which you can only get if you really tackle Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Health Care.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They've also promised over $4 trillion in tax cuts. They want to make the Trump tax cuts permanent. They want new tax cuts. That's a lot. They want to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. None of this adds up.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And what everyone's focusing on is the House budget resolution instructs the committees to find $880 billion in savings from Medicaid. And yet all the Republicans, including Donald Trump, are out there and Mike Johnson saying, we're not going to actually touch Medicaid benefits that people are going to get. It's all waste, fraud and abuse. Right.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So, and the Senate is basically like, eh, too much Medicaid. We don't want to touch Medicaid. But if they don't touch Medicaid, then they need to find spending cuts other places, but there's just not a lot of money other places. What do you think is going to happen here? Is there a version of this that works that you can see?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
I mean, it's work requirements would save them a hundred billion dollars. There's also a bunch of Medicaid reforms that we proposed that I think didn't go through that for like target waste, fraud and abuse and tax stuff. They could throw those in there like I could see them getting to a point where they cut some Medicaid funds. that didn't necessarily get to people's benefits.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And they did some other stuff there just to say that they got some fraud and abuse, but they didn't cut the benefits here and there. And then they just add to the deficit, make the tax cuts permanent, somehow lie about the accounting.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And then when the hardliners in the House and Rand Paul in the Senate start yelling about it, and then Donald Trump just calls them and threatens them.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Which seems like no matter what they do, even in their own math, It increases the deficit.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And even if they don't touch Medicaid, it's important for everyone to realize nothing in this bill is for you. Unless you make over $750,000 a year, in which case you're in the top 1% and you will get a very substantial tax cut. It's about a trillion dollars in tax cuts just for the top 1%. And everyone else, yeah, maybe you get like a couple hundred dollars.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And they don't even think there's going to be room in there for his no tax on tips proposal. Although maybe someone will find out a way to get in there. But like, there's nothing else for anyone. It's not going to help fix the deficit or even lower the deficit. It's going to add to the deficit, make the deficit worse. And it's going to cut a bunch of other shit that a lot of people depend on.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. And again, the alternative is they don't touch health care, which is going to be really hard. And I don't believe that they'll be able to, but they don't. And then you go test this one, a tax cut for billionaires that just adds to the deficit.
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Yeah. And you know what? We got that one. We did pretty good. That was a fun election night. That was a fun election. Yeah. Okay. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
The other issue the Congress has to deal with much sooner is government funding, which runs out in about two weeks. So usually only two things happen with a shutdown. First, it looms, and then it's averted. That's great fucking writing. Reed gave me that line. That's good, Reed.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Anyway, so the way a shutdown's averted these days is by passing a continuing resolution, known as a CR, which just keeps the government open at current spending levels with the hope that an actual budget gets passed somewhere down the line.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So, unfortunately, for those of us who aren't keen on getting Ebola... What Elon said there is not true. Jeremy Kanondyke, who led Ebola response at USAID under both Obama and Trump, said the U.S. government's capacity to respond has, quote, been wrecked right as there's an Ebola outbreak happening in East Africa as we speak. That's not all. Kanondyke also says Doge has crippled the CDC.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Probably won't happen. Which never happens. We've been funding the government on CRs for like... CRs and omnibus spending agreements. Yeah, forever.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Right. And you know what? People in both parties are mad about it. They all complain about it and then it never changes. So, two problems for Republicans this time around. One...
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
The House doesn't know if they can pass a CR with just Republican votes since they have a few loony hardliners who have basically made a living saying, I'll never vote for a CR ever and I don't want to lift the debt ceiling and I don't want to do any of this shit because they think that they want to eliminate all of government. So they don't know that they can get all the Republicans.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Second, even if they can get all the Republicans and it passes the House, Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate because this is not the 51 vote budget resolution. It's a 60, which means they need the votes of at least seven Democrats. So the question becomes, what should Democrats do? Mike Johnson said on CNN this week that a CR he wants a CR to include language that codifies the Doge cuts.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
He has also rejected Democratic efforts to include some guardrails in the CR around Elon and Doge. What do you think Dem should do?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If you just start recording our conversations, it would be so much easier.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Or the text was in person? I don't know. Yeah.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Or if it gets to the Senate, Republicans are, I mean, the reason they couldn't get Democratic votes is because they are just blatantly destroying government with, like, illegally.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Also, the FDA this week just canceled their annual meeting to discuss next year's flu vaccines with no explanation. Catherine Wu reports in The Atlantic that the NIH is still violating court orders by refusing to restart most medical research.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
No, I was going to say, we have... said now many times that Democrats don't have much leverage and much power in this Trump presidency, at least for these two years. And that is true, except for moments like this, right? Moments where you need 60 votes in the Senate is like the only leverage we have.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And we've just talked about stories where the courts are issuing rulings that are not being followed, where Elon Musk and his people are going in, getting access to our private data and personal information. They are firing people that are providing services that are in some cases lifesaving that people depend on. And Democrats are complaining, sending letters.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
In some cases, Republicans are starting to complain and send letters. Those letters are not being responded to at all. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are basically saying, fuck off, as are the rest of the people they have in the government. There are nominees that were voted into the cabinet that just lied during their hearings, said they weren't going to do this, weren't going to do that.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And now we're just doing it anyway. So, like, yeah. Yeah. If you want our votes in the Senate, then you need to start following the fucking law and being responsible stewards of people's tax dollars and not cutting the services that they depend on.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, I think they need the fight, you know? Well, we'll be talking more about this in the next couple weeks. One more thing here on the serious topics list. It's a long list.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos sent out a memo to the staff of The Washington Post, which, of course, he owns, saying that from here on out, the opinion page would, quote, be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics, too, of course. But viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And the person now in charge of the nation's health, HHS Secretary RFK Jr., said during the cabinet meeting that the measles outbreak in Texas that has now killed a child is, quote, not unusual. In fact, it is unusual.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
He then informed staff that David Shipley, the opinion editor, would be leaving the paper as a result of his decision. Former Washington Post journalist Gene Weingarten today also reported that a piece about Bezos' new policy by Post media reporter Eric Wemple was killed. You wrote a message box about this on Wednesday. Give us your take.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They come up with a slogan, democracy dies in darkness, which- That was probably the beginning of the decline. It feels a long way away, doesn't it?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It's not died of measles in the United States for quite some time. Quite some time. Is this maha? Are we maha now? Have we mahad? I don't know how to say it.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Also, remember in the first term, Donald Trump just called it the Amazon Washington Post and threatened them all over the place.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And what they want- Which the new FCC chair has been carrying out.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
We've seen this at the New York Times, and there's been certain situations when- And probably, ironically, the Times or Politico or Puck or someone else will write the story about the turmoil inside, and now the Post can't.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Well, you know, Jeff Bezos just paid $40 million to Melania for a documentary three times more than anyone else had ever offered for a documentary that she'll be pocketing 70% of that. And $1 million to the inauguration? Yeah, $1 million to the inauguration, got to sit there. So no, I don't think they'd be publishing that.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And look, I know and I don't want a media world where it's all just, you know, takes flying left and right. And that's all that we have. Like we need to make journalism a viable business. But you're right that like independent journalism, which is, you know, there's not there's not enough of it right now. Like that is the that's got to be the future at this point.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And this is all true. And it is a story about corporate media and where it's headed. It's also a story just about like this is what happens in authoritarian governments, you know, and like this is hungry shit. This is like Russia. I mean, Peter Baker, the New York Times was talking about the as we were going to talk about this with Jen in the Inside 2025 episode, too.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
But the idea that the now the Trump White House is just picking the press pool. So they get to pick who covers them from the press and they have like, you know, Gateway Pundit and OAN there. And he was like, you know, I covered I was the Moscow bureau chief for a while for New York Times. And this is like Russia. Yeah. You know, it's not Russia yet, but it certainly looks like the beginning.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And the idea that now the now corporate America media, corporate media owners, whatever else, are now basing their business decisions and basing their other decisions on like what on how to make sure they either curry favor with Trump or don't piss off Trump is it's getting to a pretty scary place. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but two quick announcements before we do.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Trump's given his first joint address to Congress this coming Tuesday, March 4th. Come hang with us. We're going to be there. The whole gang, Tommy, Lovett, Dan, and I are going to live stream a preview of the speech on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific on the Pod Save America YouTube. Thank you. Thank you.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Stay tuned at the end of this episode for a preview of our exclusive subscriber series Inside 2025. As I mentioned earlier, Dan and I talked to Jen Psaki. We break down how modern presidents have used the press to their advantage, what it takes to control the narrative and how Democrats are doing in the early days of Trump 2.0.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
To get access to shows like Inside 2025 and to ask us questions on the State of the Union livestream and get access to our Discord and all our other great subscriber-only shows, join Friends of the Pod at cricket.com slash friends or directly from the Pod Save America feed on Apple Podcasts. You can get started with a free seven-day trial. Pod Save America is brought to you by Beam.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Here's the thing about sleep. It's the foundation of whole body health, Tommy.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It's like, you like hot cocoa? You like sleep? Why don't you have one before bed? I have two. Boom, you're out.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If you want to try Beam's best-selling dream powder, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash crooked and use code crooked at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash crooked and use code crooked for up to 40% off. All right. We have a new Friday show semi-tradition around here.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
You're going to like it. All right. We have a new tradition around here. It's our segment, Wait, Did That Really Happen? We're going to listen to the three craziest moments from this week. And look, if we missed a crazy moment and these aren't the three craziest, please let us know because there's a lot of crazy moments this week. These are just three that really stuck out to us.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah, you know what? Tweet at us. So we're going to listen to the three crazy moments, and then we're going to try to put the shattered pieces of our brains back together. All right, first up, this is an AI-generated video about Gaza that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, posted to his social accounts on Tuesday nights.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Because we pulled out of the WHO, the World Health Organization. Yes, pulled out of the World Health Organization. And now we're not communicating with them at all, even though it's the World Health Organization. And they could use the only superpower in the world to help them out.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Okay, for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, this is a good opportunity to just go to our YouTube channel and start watching here because you've got to see the video. And while you're there, like and subscribe. Of course, yeah, of course. Let me tell about the content. But the audio is pretty fucking nuts, but it does not do the whole thing justice.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
You've got to see the video, which involves... Elon Musk, many times dancing. AI-generated Elon Musk. Yeah, there's all AI-generated. Elon Musk, and there's cash showering down on him. A couple times, there's golden statues of Trump in Gaza, and everyone's very excited about the golden statues of Trump in Gaza.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
There's a Trump-Gaza casino. There's a shirtless Trump and a shirtless Bibi Netanyahu on the beach together. That's the last scene in Gaza. I mean... It's like you want to laugh. You want to be like, I can't fucking believe this is real. And also it's like just horrible and awful when you think about like what has happened in Gaza, what is happening in Gaza right now.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And just like the the death and destruction and starvation and everything that's happening. And then like the president of the fucking United States puts this video up. What is going on?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah, everything is just memes and fun and whatever else. And he actually, he probably, somewhere in his fucking deep addled mind, somewhere in his fucking addled mind, he probably actually thinks, I'm sure it's not going to look at the video, but yeah, I can remake Gaza as the Riviera of the Middle East, as he said in a fucking press conference.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
All right, second, we have Trump making an announcement in the Oval Office about a new immigration policy.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So much of the USAID clusterfuck has not been about saving money. And I can't emphasize this enough because people are like, well, voters don't like foreign aid and they want to spend money on other stuff. And some of it was wasteful and blah, blah, blah. No. No. There was money that was appropriated already. We're not getting it back.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
This is it. We want to be importing Russian oligarchs. Now, we're against immigration now unless it's rich oligarchs from abroad.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
That's what we're doing now.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Also, I'd love to know what the Steve Bannons and the hardcore MAGA people think of this, because they don't want any immigration.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They don't want any immigration whatsoever because they just don't like immigrants. Their problem is not necessarily what kind of immigrants are coming or how they're coming, whether it's illegal or legal immigration. They just don't like immigrants. And now Donald Trump is like, oh, for five million bucks a pop. First of all, like also and they're like, oh, they'll be they'll be carefully vetted.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Like this. This is so ripe for abuse, for sketchy people. I mean, like Jesus Christ.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Tate brothers accused of sexual assault. There's reporting that the Trump administration had leaned on Romania to let them leave Romania where they were under house arrest. And they were free today and ended up in Florida. And then Trump said he didn't know anything about it. Of course. Yeah. But that's what that's what we're getting now.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Well, even Ron DeSantis was like, I'm not keeping. No, I don't. I didn't ask for this. We're not. We don't want this.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
All right. Here's the last one. Oh, and by the way, the gold card's not. He can't do it. Trump is going to be passed by an act of Congress. You can't. You can't just unilaterally do that. Or can you, John? Well, where's the, I mean, who, what, maybe, who knows? I don't know. Yeah, you're right. Maybe, maybe it's 5 million bucks.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Is Assad going to come here? Putin? Maybe. Is that what we're going to get? We're just going to get all the oligarchs and autocrats around the world just going to come pay $5 million to come to America? Live at fucking Mar-a-Lago in Florida?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
You know? Trump's America. All right. Last one. And we have saved the best for last. Yes. Let me tell you. Here's a photo of... Of three people standing outside the White House, again, for those of you who aren't watching on YouTube, that's Chaya Raichuk, also known as Libs of TikTok. It's someone named DC Drano. He's a real meme guy. Jack Probosek, whatever his fucking name is. You know what?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Spent on, you know, $500 million in food that's just like sitting in docks spoiling right now. Like malaria nets that were already purchased. Like this stuff was already, the money has already been spent already. In a lot of these cases. And it's just now the life-saving food and medicine just isn't getting to people because they're all fucking assholes, incompetent assholes running the country.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Don't even try to do it right. Another right-wing influencer, Liz Wheeler, another right-wing MAGA podcaster. They're all right-wing social media influencers. They're holding up a binder. They're each holding up their own binder. that says the Epstein Files Volume 1 declassified.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
But alas, there was almost no new info about the Epstein trial in those binders, which made the MAGA internet very mad, especially when the Republican House Judiciary Account tweeted, in all caps, with the alarm emojis, Breaking Epstein files released with a link that when you clicked it led to this. That's right, Dan.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Rickrolled America. What the fuck? Would you like to talk? I don't even know how to get into this for people who are so confused right now.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. Do you want to ask me? Well, let me ask you a question. Because I've gone a little deep on this.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They weren't. That was just a lie. Okay, thank you. Now, keep in mind, so these social media influencers were in the White House With Pam Bondi, the attorney general, Kash Patel, the FBI director, I think Trump stopped by to say hi? Oh, of course. You think Trump's missing that meeting? Yeah. And because Pam Bondi had promised many times that the Epstein files would be released, right?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
There's this big thing. So then they get the Epstein files, and it's all stuff that has been released before. In some cases, years before. In fact, you can go on Amazon and buy an Epstein Files thing, which has whatever evidence they had that was publicly available, and it's basically what was in the binders. Okay? So now everyone's really mad about that.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So they're like, oh, fuck, what are we going to do? Liz Wheeler, one of the social media people, decided to tell the whole story. So she said,
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Last night, before the binders were delivered to all the influencers, a whistleblower contacted Bondi and revealed that the SDNY, the Southern District of New York, was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files, defying Bondi's order to give them all to her. We're talking recordings, evidence, et cetera, the juicy stuff, names.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
These swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi, Cash, and you, America. Be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be, because the evil deep state lied to your face. And so... Next thing that happens is that Pam Bondi sends a sternly worded letter to Kash Patel saying, hey, we have both been lied to.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And that the deep state FBI and the deep state goons at the Southern District of New York, the Justice Department that is now filled with Trump people, somewhere is hiding the real Epstein files. And she's demanding that they be delivered to her tomorrow, Friday, when you're listening to this today.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Also, it's funny. It's also about sex trafficking of children, this whole thing. And I don't know what people are looking for.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
All the MAGA people have gotten themselves into this space where they think that there's some Epstein files, I guess, is going to be like a list of high-profile Democrats and Democratic-leaning celebrities and media figures who have all helped Jeffrey Epstein traffic children. I guess this is what they're looking for.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They think it's like a Pizzagate thing.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Pizzagate Cuban on conspiracy narrative. This is what they think. And they think these files are there. And but it is. Here's what's interesting about it. Tell me. Well, I've been thinking about this for a while because they now have everything. They've won everything right. They got the they got the White House. They've got this right wing media apparatus. They've got the FBI.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
They've got they've got it all. They've won all the branches. But they still have a bunch of dumb conspiracy theories that aren't true. They're still going to fuck things up, as they have been in the last month. They're not going to get their way all the time. And so they are still going to blame, have people to blame.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Like, lest we think, oh, they own everything now, and now who are they going to blame? They always find people to blame. There's always deep state people out there that still haven't been, you know, found in the agencies, and they're still lurking, and the purge missed them. And so there's always...
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So are you saying that they're not showing competence and caring? That's what Elon said. He goes, competence and caring. That's what we're all about here.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
some kind there's going to be democratic governors who are villains or anything anywhere there's an elected democrat anywhere there's someone in the media who is not loyal to trump anywhere there's some bureaucrat who isn't a loyalist to maga they'll be blamed to blame to be cast yeah i mean that's the entire evil genius behind the deep state narrative is it allows republicans to control everything and have someone within their own government to blame now
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
You mean fucking crazy people? Yeah.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
I was thinking about the Pizzagate.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
No, it's not. You're right. I totally agree with that. I just think it is wild that the Attorney General of the United States sent a letter to the FBI director saying that there's a deep state hiding files that are going to expose corruption from Jeffrey Epstein, who is dead.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Anyway, that's our crazy shit for this week. That's our show for today, but you're about to hear a special preview of our subscription show, Inside 2025. This is Dan and Jen and I. We talked about White House communication strategy and press strategy. It's a great episode.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Again, sign up for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and all our subscriber-only shows, all kinds of other good stuff at cricket.com slash friends or through Apple Podcasts. Here's Inside 2025.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It's an interesting fight that the Trump people are picking. And I think part of the reason they're doing it is just for the sake of having the fight. Because Trump himself, it's not like he's not visible and not out there answering questions and doesn't like to mix it up with the press. He is in our faces constantly. way more than even his first term. And so he's willing to answer questions.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If he doesn't like your question, he'll yell at you, he'll lie, he'll do whatever. But he's answering those questions. So it's funny that they are kicking out press even though he is very available to the press. It's weird.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
That was the subject of a truth yesterday. We were.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. So before we go, Jen, you started to give advice to future Democratic presidential candidates, future Democratic comms directors, press secretaries. We have talked over the years about press strategies, communication strategies, message strategies. It seems like now we need attention strategies.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
What are some good attention strategies for future people who are going to sit where you guys sat? Hopefully Democrats someday. Yeah.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. No, I hear that because I had to become an expert in like 10 different – like every topic but like an inch deep, right? Like I didn't want to go too deep on it. Right.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
No, me and you both in 2009. Larry Summers had to teach us about that. And I was a great teacher. Dan?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah, I think use polling and research to help you find the most effective way to talk about what you already believe and what you care about and what you want to prioritize. Right. Like that's that should be the direction, not the other way around.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Talk to everyone all the time and just be fucking human. Just be human.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Talk like you're talking to people in your life. And if you talk to people in your life like you talk as a politician, then don't run for office.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe at cricket.com slash friends or through the Pod Save America feed on Apple Podcasts. Love it. Tommy and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Talk to everybody then. Have a great weekend. Bye, everyone.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So the NIH has helped fund 99% of the drugs that are approved in the last decade. Catherine Wu's story in The Atlantic, everyone should go read it. It will infuriate you. Basically, they try to freeze a bunch of NIH funding and then they go to court and the court says, no, you can't freeze it. You got to restart.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And people at the NIH want to start approving grants again because everything had been frozen. And then HHS says, The political appointees at HHS from the Health and Human Services, this is before RFK Jr. got there, they said to the NIH, no, you can't restart the grants. And then the lawyers at HHS and the lawyers at NIH was like, no, we have to. We are in violation of a court order.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And the political appointees at HHS said, no, don't do it. And so there's been this weeks-long thing now where here and there, some grants are getting approved because people are just doing their own thing. But everyone who works in the building is just like... They are demoralized. A lot of these grants aren't going anywhere.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
In some cases, there are critically ill patients enrolled in drug trials that cannot continue because of this. I mean, again, this isn't saving money. This isn't making government more efficient. This is just fucking ruining people's lives and denying us potential treatments and cures that we've already paid for, our tax dollars have already paid for. It's fucking nuts, man. It's nuts.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And, you know, sadly, the Doge chaos continues to pace across the entire federal government. I would refer you to this AP headline from Wednesday evening. VA pauses billions in cuts lauded by Musk as lawmakers and veterans decry loss of critical care. A lot of cuts hitting veterans, veterans health care, veterans with disabilities getting fired left and right, VA hospitals.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
the cabinet meeting trump touched off a fresh panic by saying that uh epa administrator lee zeldin is planning to cut 65 percent of the agency's workforce only to have the white house clarify later in the day that he meant epa is going to cut 65 percent of its spending not 65 percent of its staff still bad not good if you like clean air and clean water right yeah
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Then there's the fact that Elon and Doge have cut about 400 jobs from the Federal Aviation Administration, only to have Elon tweet on Thursday, quote, there is a shortage of top-notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so. Is that where we're recruiting now, air traffic controllers? On Twitter. On Twitter?
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
I don't know. Seems like there's downsides to the move-fast-break-things approach from Elon and the dogebags and the Silicon Valley types.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And that canceled meeting with the FDA was supposed to figure out the flu vaccine for next year. Like they don't have a lot of time before they have to start production of next year's flu vaccine. So like no one knows why it was canceled. No one knows when it's going to be rescheduled. And they're almost out of time to figure out next year's flu vaccines.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And we've now had the worst year for flu that we've had in decades.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
This is also a direct result of Elon trying to run the government like he runs one of his companies. And, you know, everyone's like, oh, well, he did this at Twitter. And then he made Twitter, in some people's opinion, work better or whatever. But like...
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If you cut a bunch of staff, fire a bunch of people at a company, and it degrades some services for a while, but eventually it becomes better run, more efficient, whatever, right? Like, if he took over Twitter, fired a bunch of people, and Twitter went down for a while, okay. Like, that's not great. Maha. That would be Maha. That would be Maha, right, yeah.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
If, you know, he's at SpaceX, and they have to delay the launch of a rocket because they fucked something up because they didn't have the right people, whatever, right? Yeah. With the federal government, they are breaking everything, firing all these people, gutting all these services.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
And like say they make it more efficient and better run years down the road, like millions of people's lives are at stake right now. And that is the difference between running the fucking federal government and running a business.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Yeah. It's like spammy ads, bullshit. Like, come on. Speaking of Elon and the FAA, because this is one I'm following closely. Why? I will say, as Dan was flying here yesterday, I was like sending a story about the near miss.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
I didn't know you were on the plane, obviously. But it's somewhat comforting in this time to know that other people who have not been afraid of flying their whole lives like you are now starting to get nervous as well. Misery loves company. I can still do the math. Yeah, no, I know.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
So he's forcing the FAA now to withdraw a contract they gave to Verizon to modernize communication inside the air traffic control system and to hire Musk's own company, Starlink, to do it instead. Now, Elon tweeted on Thursday that Verizon's existing system is on the brink of a catastrophic breakdown, which is comforting. He said, we're single-digit months away from a catastrophic breakdown.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
It's like, oh, is someone from the fucking FAA going to tell us that? Or do we just have to take the word of the ketamine-addled fucking billionaire who's running the government that, by the way, if we don't put in Starlink... air traffic control is going to have a catastrophic meltdown. It's like, is that what we're left to do to figure out whether we should fly or not?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash crooked. Code crooked for 20% off your first purchase. Bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked. One person who's not concerned about the impact of Donald Trump's trade war on their personal finances, Donald Trump, who's very busy abusing his office to make himself richer. That's right, Dan. It's time for another corrupt date. You think that's going to stick?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Then it would be there. We're in charge, sort of. If you have any questions or complaints, just direct them to John Lovett. On Wednesday, a website hyping the Trump meme coin announced that Trump would host an exclusive dinner for the 220 people who own the most tokens to be held at a Trump club in Virginia, followed by a private tour of the White House for the top 25 investors.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I'm here for the EO. Yeah, it's really exciting. No, we're just in town for a couple days to catch up with some people. I don't know. What do you think of D.C. since we haven't been here in a year? Seems more ominous, but maybe that's just my own.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
This caused the coin's price to jump 60%, which is money in Trump's pocket because his family's company owns a majority of the coins. The website announcing all this, gettrumpmemes.com, says it has a leaderboard going for the people who've bought the most so far. You have to register to see it, which I have not had the time to do yet. But the copy says, the competition is fierce. Own Trump.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
or watch from the sidelines. Josh Dossi at the Wall Street Journal reported that even White House aides were surprised by the promotion. And you've got some of the most corrupt goobers in the world in the White House, and they're like, I don't know about that. Are you in or are you on the sidelines?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
So I know that there's like a lot of people aren't familiar with how meme coins work. I was one of them until like, I don't know, a couple months ago last year. It does seem like this is a case, though, of like blatant corruption that's not too hard to explain and should make people, most voters, pretty pissed.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And one of them is John Lovett, who set up a SimpliSafe himself years ago and hasn't had to worry about a security system since. Not a care in the world. Not a care in the world. He and Pundit and Ari are all very protected.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I, I was just thinking about this, and we should ask one of our strict scrutiny pals, but the Supreme Court decision about how the president is immune from criminal prosecution for acts that could be construed as within his official duties as president feels like this is outside of that. I don't know how...
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
For now. For now. We haven't left yet. All right. On today's show, we're going to talk about Elon Musk, who is leaving the White House to spend more time with his ailing car company. We'll talk about what it means for his quest to break all the government services Americans rely on.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I don't know how you can make – because I think that one of the examples people brought up was like, oh, could you just bribe the president for a pardon? And you could say, well, the pardon power is his power as president. But this is like – how is any of this related to any official act of the president?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah, I mean, David Tax is going to get to work on that one. Yeah, this is bad. This is one that I think people should talk about.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Especially as you go to Target, the shelves are empty. You just lost your job at the manufacturing plant because they had to lay people off because all the uncertainty. And then you turn on the news and the Trump meme coin just jumped 60% because he's walking around the White House with the top investors. Just absolutely wild. I don't know. It seems like you could make something out of that.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
All right. Speaking of rich assholes, the richest and the biggest made some news this week. Elon Musk, the shit posting sperm super donor who Trump brought in to wreck the federal government, will be stepping away from his duties here in Washington, which is which is really why we're here for the party. We were invited. That's right. I mean, you and he do have an online relationship. We do, yeah.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
So it's good just to see him in person. Just heartbreaking. Heartbreaking that he's leaving. Such a loss. We learned this on Tuesday after the news broke that Tesla's net income for the first quarter fell 71% and revenue dropped 9% from the same period last year. Is that good?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Elon made an appearance on the company's earnings call to offer his best guess as to why that might be and what happens now. Let's listen.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
We'll also talk about Donald Trump's quest to make America poorer with his big dumb trade war and his quest to make himself richer with a new crypto scheme to literally sell dinners with Trump and White House tours to people who buy his meme coin. Shocking, but not really.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Poor Tesla. Tesla. Tesla. Note the past tense there. He was a tremendous help. We also learned that Elon and Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, apparently got into a shouting match recently outside the Oval about who would run the IRS because Scott Besson wanted a competent, experienced professional to run the IRS.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And Elon wanted the random quote unquote whistleblower that yelled something about Hunter Biden and some scandal that I can barely remember at this point. who was just some like mid-level flunky. He wanted him to run the IRS. So they fought about that outside the Oval. At one point, Elon called Besant a Soros agent. So welcome. Welcome to the club, Scott.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
First of all, how much of Tesla's problems, sorry, Tesla's problems are attributable to the blowback that Trump was talking about? And what other factors were in play? In other words, did we, the woke mob, just score a big win?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
We've also got our hands on some exclusive new polling that lines up with a lot of other recent polls that show just how unpopular Trump's illegal deportations are with the public.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah, these are the people who crawled across glass to vote for Susan Crawford in Wisconsin.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Well, and I think especially orders for Tesla from Europe were way down. Yeah, this is true about that home and abroad. Europeans, you think we're mad at Elon. They're pretty mad because he goes over there and he's like, hey, what about the Nazis? Did not really say that, but that was a shorthand for one of his many speeches over there in Europe. what do you make of Elon's departure?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
On the one hand, it was kind of expected. He, uh, was designated a special government employee, which you can only be for a certain amount of time. But if you're longer than that, then it triggers like, you know, disclosure, disclosure, ethics stuff, all the stuff that Elon would want to avoid.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
So we knew he was going to leave at some point, but, um, you know, on the other hand, Trump's cabinet and, uh, most Americans, uh, I really come to dislike Elon. So what do you think?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And then our good friend Amanda Lipman, the co-founder of Run for Something, comes by to talk about her new book for Crooked Media Reads, When We're in Charge, which is a fantastic guide for young people looking to get into leadership positions. But first, let's talk about the art of the deal, which hopefully all of you have read by now.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
We should also take a look at a Doge report card here. Elon, he originally set out to – he said he could get – he could find $2 trillion in savings, $2 trillion. Then he cut that down to $1 trillion. Now you know what they've saved? About $95 billion. Yeah. So much less than what he wanted.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Correct. Right. And so what did you get for $95 billion in savings that go into the taxpayers saving a lot of money, getting a lot of rebates?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
No, that means about over 200,000 people lost their jobs from federal government, including cancer researchers, veterans jobs, food inspectors, tax collectors, which is probably going to undo the savings from Doge because now a bunch of rich people are going to get to cheat on their taxes and not pay them to the federal government.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
So chaos around the Social Security Administration, which then they had to pull back. A bunch of people died all around the world thanks to him putting USAID in the wood chipper, which he bragged about. Nick Kristof was tweeting about how he tweeted at Elon this week about how there's a boy in Africa who was born with HIV, was kept alive by medicine that costs 12 cents a day. He's dead now.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And you can look at reports of this all over the world. People have already died because of this. More people will die because of medicine that we took away and food that we took away that cost pennies a day. Pennies a day. So this is Elon Musk's Doge legacy. Pretty good, huh? Yeah, not great. Did you see Steve Bannon was out with a statement on this? Oh, no. What did he say?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
It's required reading. Here's how it works. You win an election based largely on the perception that you'll lower prices and keep the economy growing. Upon taking office, you start a massive trade war with the entire world that panics the markets, sends investors fleeing from the United States, and threatens to plunge the economy into recession.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Elon Musk should be required to submit a certified inventory of all the fraud and waste he found while in government, and there should be full disclosure of any non-governmental entities to have obtained sensitive federal data through Doge. Sounds like a Democratic member of Congress. That's right. Steve Bannon. I agree. I agree with Steve Bannon.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Let's get a certified inventory of all the fraud and waste because it's also supposed to be the most transparent administration in history. Yes, of course. And they put everything on the Doge website only except when they don't. So good job at Doge, Elon.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
God damn it. That would be good. Does anyone do content around here? Elijah's just posting over here. That's right.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. Let's talk about deportations. There's been more churn in the courts on this. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Zinnis slammed the DOJ over what she called a, quote, Then on Wednesday...
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
In a totally separate case, a Trump-appointed judge, Stephanie Gallagher, ordered the return of another wrongly deported man. This time, it was a Venezuelan asylum seeker whose removal violated a court settlement. Another unlawful deportation. Gallagher cited the Abrego Garcia case in her ruling and called the government's actions, quote, a breach of a contract.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
But Trump's not just losing in the courts. He's also losing in the court of public opinion. Multiple polls now have Trump underwater on immigration, which was his best issue, including the latest Fox News poll that Trump was bitching about on Truth Social this morning. A YouGov poll found American support bringing Abrego Garcia back by nearly two to one margin.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Then you pause some of the tariffs, raise them on China, promise to make a bunch of deals, make no deals, and for good measure, threaten to fire the Fed chair who you appointed. If any of that sounds confusing, here's a sampling of what it was like to follow the Trump administration's statements on the economy just this week.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And only 27% buy into Trump's claim that he's MS-13, a claim that the administration still hasn't even tried to prove in court. And we were just given, right here at Pod Save America, Dan, we were just given an exclusive new poll from the Democratic research firm Tavern Research, which surveyed a huge sample of nearly 13,000 voters over the last few days.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
A couple of things that they found, the Abrego Garcia case has certainly broke through to most voters. Voters disapprove of how Trump is handling it by a 14 point margin. Only 25% of voters believe Trump is following the law. Only 25% believe that it's okay for him to defy the court's orders. Getting down to 25%. Usually he's got like 35, 40 with almost anything he does. So down to 25%.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And the most effective messages when talking about the case have to do with Trump defying the courts and in doing so putting the due process rights of all Americans at risk. Those were the most effective message. What do you make of those numbers?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah. I also think it's a good lesson in how polling should be used, because usually there's this argument like, should we follow the polls? Should we not follow the polls? And... as you know, like pulling is just another useful tool to use depending on how you use it. Right.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And it is still true probably that most Americans want a secure border and, you know, want people who are criminals deported. And there's a limit to how many even asylum seekers people want to take in because they saw over the last couple of years that a lot of asylum seekers were sort of stretching public services in cities all across the country.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And those views I don't think haven't changed, but that is entirely separate from also believing that we should send people to a gulag or we should deport people without due process or any of the stuff that he's doing. And there's a nuance there that I think sometimes the intra-party fighting among Democrats doesn't really work.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
get at least online, obviously, but that like two things can be true at once. And just because immigration is a good issue for Trump doesn't mean that no matter what he does around immigration, it's going to be popular.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I'm sorry, I think the reaction from Democrats in the 2020 primary to the prior four years was an example of misreading what the anger about Trump on immigration was all about.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Are you saying we're a nation of immigrants and a nation of loss? There's Barack Obama's message.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I think it's also a lesson for Democrats that, like, if you pick fights about issues where, first of all, you think it's wrong and it's urgent to speak out, but also you sort of sense that what the politician is doing, what Trump is doing, is unpopular, like, you can have these issues break through, right?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Like, there could have been... When he sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, to this prison, when he deported... We could have said, OK, you know what? Since he's so strong on immigration, we just shouldn't talk about this.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
But if we didn't talk about it, if Democrats all decided not to talk about this and not to make a big deal of it, then he probably still would be very popular in immigration because most people in the country wouldn't know that it happened. Yes, we have agency here. And the same thing happened, we just talked about Doge, right?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
At the beginning of Doge, it was like, well, we got to be careful because a lot of Democrats and Republicans and independents, most Americans, they do want government to be more efficient and that's what he's doing. So maybe we should just be quiet. And it's like, okay, yeah.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
That's true if Elon Musk was actually going in there and making government more efficient and actually saving money on things that were wasteful. He wasn't doing that, so we should talk about it. And I just think that Trump is not as strong as people think he is. And he still has a lot of power and he's still very dangerous, but the country right now is not particularly happy with him.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And his approval rating continues to fall. I think in the Pew poll this week, it was at 40. And that's probably an outlier. It's probably around 44, 45. But it's still, his approval rating is at a lower point right now than almost any president at this point in their first term in recent memory other than him.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And this is not to say, okay, he's getting more unpopular. Everyone can just be like, whew, relax and just wait for the next election and where it's thermostatic public opinion and everything's gonna be fine. It's to say that like, we don't need to be afraid or we shouldn't be afraid because the more we fight, the more unpopular he gets. And so like, you know, courage is contagious here.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
You should go speak out. You should go keep fighting because when we do, other people in the country who aren't paying attention realize like, yeah, this is bad. I don't like this. Which brings us to our last topic before we get to our conversation with Amanda.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
On Tuesday, the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, announced that he's stepping down, saying he can't run the show independently anymore. This comes, of course, after Trump called again for CBS to lose its broadcast license over some recent segments on 60 Minutes. And after he filed a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS for the way the show edited its interview with Kamala Harris.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And CBS News' parent company, Paramount, which is trying to close a major merger, is talking about settling. How big of a deal do you think this is?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And again, it's like, I mean, Sherry Redstone, who runs the Paramount, you know, trying to close a merger, so maybe it's just all about money for her, right? Maybe she just wants a deal. But I think it is for other media companies that can, for other people in media, for these colleges, for the law firms, like, people should fight. Because
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I think that all of the people that have capitulated so far are going to look, they're not going to be like, oh, that was smart. They got away early. It's going to look bad.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And if you, and again, just we were talking about the polling, like some of these media companies, if you ask people, oh, should the government be able to sue media companies into oblivion or threaten them or pull their licenses because they said things that our ruler, Donald Trump, doesn't care for, That's not fucking popular. No one's going to think that's a good idea.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
You got all that, Dan? One last kicker from this morning. A top Chinese official said there had been no talks and that the U.S. must cancel all of its tariffs if it wants a deal. He quoted a Chinese proverb. The person who tied the bell must untie it. Nice. Do you think Trump's going to untie the bell? And what do you make of all the back and forth?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah, I think that's right. All right. So as you heard, a new episode of Polar Coaster just dropped. Don't miss out on this exclusive series available only to friends of the pod. You can head to cricket.com slash friends and sign up today or subscribe directly through our Apple podcast feed. If you subscribe by the end of April, you'll get a 30 day free trial.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
When we come back, we will talk to the founder of Run for Something and the author of the new book, When We're in Charge, Amanda Lippman. Pod Save America is brought to you by Aura Frames. The number one thing your mom wants from you is to call her. This Mother's Day, you can give her a call and give her an Aura digital picture frame.
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The embedded speaker can play audio on demand. You have complete control over who has access to your frame and the Aura app lets you share photos more securely than with email, which many other digital frames require. If I had not already given my mom an Aura frame for Christmas, I'd be doing it for Mother's Day. I'm sort of annoyed that this idea is off the table. But you should get one.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
They are great. My parents love their AuraFrame. We are constantly uploading pictures of the kids to the frame at any time of day. It's very easy. You have an app on your phone, put the picture in, and boom, it's on their frame. It's a great, great gift. Aura Frames was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter and featured in 495 gift guides last year.
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I think Trump was asked again right before we were recording. about the chinese official who made those comments and he was like well there was a meeting this morning and maybe i'll reveal who it was at some point but there's a meeting so i think it's it's fake news the fake news the story about the fake news the fake news
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Amanda Lipman, good to see you in person.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
It's called When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership. We're also psyched you chose to do it with Crooked Media Reads because we've all been big fans of yours for a long time.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yes, it does. Well, so I want to spend time on the book. I thought we could start by checking in on Run for Something, which is the organization you launched after the first Trump administration with the goal of recruiting, training, helping younger candidates run for office. down ballot races all over the country.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I'll admit that I was worried that after all the despair and fear that accompanied Trump's second win, you guys would have a tougher time finding candidates to run. That hasn't happened.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Are you seeing a different kind of person stepping up, different kind of candidate or and where are they running?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I think they got to work on that. I think we should jack up the tariff a little more just for that.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
We haven't talked about this on the pod yet, but I'm sure you've heard about DNC Vice Chair David Hogg pledging $20 million to primary older Democrats in safe seats. What do you think of the strategy? Any risks?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I kind of think we should all be consistent on it. If you're for primaries and competitive primaries, that's true for if you're worried about what the result may be. It's true if you want the result to be a different way. And I think we're probably stronger as a party, especially the democracy party, if we're allowing this to happen.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
which has happened recently. Let's talk about your wonderful book, which isn't just advice for young people running for office. It's for young people who are stepping into leadership roles or planning to step into leadership roles across business, nonprofits. What made you want to broaden the focus?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I was going to say, how did your own experience with leadership roles at Run for Something and other places inspire what you wrote?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
It's a good bet. I mean, there's always been this axiom that the only real constraint on Trump is that he won't do anything that tanks the markets. But from Liberation Day onward, at least, that hasn't been true. What do we know, if anything, about why he may ultimately back down?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
You and I have talked about this before since we've both had similar experiences here, but can you get into some of the challenges you faced being a millennial at the top of an organization with a lot of Gen Zers?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yes. Yes. We could do a whole other episode on that. Love our Gen Z staffers.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Great lesson in the book. We don't dream of labor. Can you unpack that a little bit and how it applies to what we're all going through right now?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
It's hard, especially in the business that we're all in, in politics, right? Because it is a mission and you do care, but you've got to separate it at some point.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
You talked about being a working mom now. What have you learned about rest, not just for yourself, but as something leaders need to model for their teams?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah. Last question. You talked to more than a hundred young leaders for the book. Was there a moment or a conversation that surprised you or changed how you thought about leadership?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I'm sure that's one of the reasons that people appreciated the conversations with you and the questions so much because just being asked, how are you feeling? How are you doing it? What does it mean to you? You don't ever get that question.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Well, all the answers to all those questions are right in the book. It comes out May 13th. The book is When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership. It's a fantastic book. You can pre-order it now at Cricut.com slash books or anywhere you like to get books. Amanda Lipman, good seeing you.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Good to talk to you. That's our show for today. Before we go, there was one quick breaking news development that we got that we should just mention. What happened? Well, we learned the full Chinese proverb, which we did not apparently have. No. It is, whoever ties the bell on the tiger's neck has to untie it.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
I mean, I could do a five-minute thing on who the fuck is tying bells on Tigers next, but you know what? We're not going to do it because it's the end of the show.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
All right. Thanks to Amanda Lippman for joining us. Everyone have a great weekend. We'll have a new show in your feeds on Tuesday.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah, the first reaction from the White House when this started was like, oh, who cares about the markets? And that's just Wall Street, and we're focused on Main Street. And what they missed about that, aside from the fact that most Americans have at least some money in the stock market, most of their retirement, that the market is...
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
just responding to how they believe the economy is going to fare. And the economic damage is already begun, and we haven't even seen the worst of it yet. Even if the trade war stops tomorrow, by the way, some of this is priced in. But I do think that he met with, this week,
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
the CEOs of Target and Walmart and Home Depot, and they reportedly told him that we are a couple weeks away from empty shelves. Not just higher prices, they said that too, but empty shelves because there'll be such a supply chain issue, which is what we dealt with during the pandemic for reasons that weren't just some idiot's trade war.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And IMF, they had originally predicted the inflation rate in the US was supposed to be 1.9% this year, They've upped that prediction to 3%. There are truck plants in Maryland and Pennsylvania already laying off hundreds of workers because orders aren't coming in due to a lack of certainty. Manufacturers are already reducing headcount. Remember this whole thing?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
One of the rationales, one of the many, is that we're bringing manufacturing back to the United States, but it's actually making things more expensive and manufacturing is going to leave the United States or at least lay off workers.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
The other challenge I don't think they've really thought through is doing a full trade war with the Chinese. Chinese government, they've been authoritarian government for a long time. And so they can basically force their people to accept much more pain than maybe Americans are willing to accept.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Here we are in D.C. Back home. Yeah. Dan's delivering the big speech at the Correspondence Center. And you're the comedian, right?
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And so they can – I don't know that China is going to be – I mean from that wonderful proverb we heard, I don't know that China is going to be backing down anytime soon because Trump looks like an idiot. Like it's causing Trump political pain. And I think they can – like obviously China doesn't want to be in this trade war, but I think that they can probably last longer than Trump thinks they can.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Well, and already there's reports that Japan is saying they don't want to be part of any deal that screws over China because that's a market for them. China has reached out to the EU and has said, let's form an alliance against the United States.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Un-fucking-real. And again, this is like he could climb down from this whole thing tomorrow and pretend it's a big victory and say, they're talking about how they're weeks and weeks and maybe months away from actual deals, but maybe there's a memorandum of understanding they can have with India about the contours of a deal. So they could take something and say, oh, big victory, Trump wins.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Already economic damage. And I think it's going to be very hard to put this back in the box, even if he stops tomorrow. We're also seeing a lot of new polling now on how Americans are looking at all this. I think you guys talked about that this week on Polar Coaster.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
Yeah, short-term pain, long-term decline, long-term global economic collapse. And look, I think that people may say, let's give them some time, weeks, months. It's understandable. We're almost 100 days in if you're a Trump fan, right? But I don't think people have the patience that they even tell pollsters they have because none of us have patience anymore, most likely.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
because of our screens and media and the way the world works. So I don't think in like a couple of weeks, if the shelves are empty at fucking Target, people are going to be like, well, it's short-term pain. I just, I know something better is right around the corner.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
And just completely 1,000% self-inflicted. He could have just come into office and not done any of this and the economy would be just chugging along great right now.
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Elon Gets DOGE'd
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I know, I don't like it. Bombas makes all that too. I do love Bombas. I do too. Best part of all this, for every comfy pair you purchase, Bombas donates another comfy pair to someone facing homelessness. I need some new socks. I got holes in a bunch of socks. I do too. I don't know what happened. Yeah, you gotta just clean house every year or two.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
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That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash crooked for 20% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. Big day at the White House on Thursday. Trump signed an order eliminating the Department of Education, which has already seen its workforce halved. Promises made, promises kept.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
The MAGA position is apparently that the president should be able to lock up whoever he wants in an El Salvador mega prison run by a brutal dictator so long as he tells us they're a threat to America. We just have to take his word for it. So one of Trump's minions in Congress, Brandon Gill, introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
The AP notes that the department handles $1.6 trillion in federal student loans and billions of dollars in programs for colleges and school districts. It also accounts for roughly 14% of public school budgets. The White House claims that none of the department's services or benefits will be disrupted.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Though they aren't saying how they'll do that without, you know, an actual department with actual employees. Here's what Trump had to say at the signing.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So as you heard him there, they're acknowledging that they'll need Congress to officially shutter the department, though they certainly don't have 60 votes in the Senate for that. Republicans have already said they'll introduce legislation right after Trump's announcement. What do you think happens here? What do you make of all this?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah, I mean, you know, they keep I think they know how unpopular it would be to sort of cut the funding or disrupt benefits and services. You got student loans in there. You got the education of the federal education department is responsible for Title one funds for the state. Title one funding is for school, public schools and disadvantaged communities. So poor working class families.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It's for children with disabilities. And so you have kids with disabilities, low income schools and all the student loans in the country. And the Trump administration is trying to say, well, they're either going to move the distribution of those under other departments or they're going to have a smaller or they're going to have I don't know what they're going to do.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
But the idea that those services are going to be completely uninterrupted. just doesn't square with what most people in education believe, experts in education believe, and also how the entire Doge process has gone so far. That's the key point. That's the key point.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
They might think to themselves, genuinely, that they're not going to disrupt any services and benefits, but they keep firing everyone who knows anything about education.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Trump himself also called for the judge's impeachment. And here's what he said when asked about it by Laura Ingram this week.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
They think they're saving so much money just getting rid of all those employees, and they're not, because that's not where most of the money that the Department of Education oversees is coming from.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It seems like a good fight for Democrats to take on. What do you think?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah. I think along with some of the healthcare cuts, this is going to be probably what's going to piss people off the most, especially if and when we start getting the stories about people whose benefits or loans or whatever else or funding for certain schools was disrupted. Then I think it's really going to blow up.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So and Trump is also targeting colleges and universities he doesn't like. We have mentioned before the 400 million dollars in federal funding he's threatened to withhold from Columbia unless the school acquiesces to the administration's demands. The deadline for which is Friday when you're listening to this. Some of those demands are.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Banning masks because they were used at the protest last year, giving campus law enforcement wider latitude to arrest, quote, agitators who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment and placing the school's Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies in, quote, academic receivership, which means it's no longer overseen by the actual faculty who teach within it.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Now, Trump is also going after his own alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, where the administration froze around $175 million in federal funds because of a trans athlete and swimmer, Leah Thomas, who competed and graduated in 2022. The White House rapid response account posted a clip of Fox News announcing the move with the words, promises made, promises kept.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Given that Leah Thomas graduated three years ago, is this promises made, promises kept, or just another way to own the libs that's going to end up just hurting a lot of students at the University of Pennsylvania?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Alan Blinder at the New York Times reported on Thursday about layoffs, hiring freezes, lab shutdowns at universities across the country. What did you make of that story?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Well, and the two problems you just mentioned are undoubtedly going to get worse because of what the Trump administration has already done. Universities have not kept tuition down. They haven't done a good job.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And so, you know, therefore, we are subsidizing higher costs at universities through financial aid, student loans and all the other stuff that the federal government does to help students attend school. Meanwhile, the costs keep rising and rising and rising. So that's a huge problem. But gutting a bunch of federal funding at universities, do we think that's going to make tuition go down?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
That's going to help costs at college? Well, they're not interested. They want fewer people to go to college. Right. And then the other – and then the big one that you mentioned is between what the Trump administration is doing to colleges and universities, between what they're doing to the NIH –
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Trump Comes for the Judges
what they're doing to other public health agencies, other agencies that are responsible for medical research, for technological research. I mean, it's not – look, part of this is you've got research here and innovation and medical research and scientific research. There's going to be a huge brain drain, and a lot of these scientists and researchers and experts are going to go to other countries –
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And other countries are going to develop the breakthrough technologies and discoveries and cures that usually happen in the United States. And the industries and jobs and everything else is going to go overseas as well. And we're not going to have them here. But then there's a broader issue, which is like the United States is the place where a lot of these discoveries happen.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And if they don't happen here because we're gutting the funding for them, they're just not going to happen. And there was a diabetes study that was like a 30-year diabetes study that they just canceled the contract for. And you're not getting that back.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Or maybe it was both. I think there was an mRNA for pancreatic cancer.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So we are only about 60 days into Trump's second term and we are in a very dark place already. So dark, we even got this highly unusual statement from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts this week. Quote, for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
This is not saving us much money. This is not changing bloated budgets that needed to be changed. This is just destroying shit because they don't know what the fuck they're doing. They're going in with a sledgehammer. Elon Musk doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Doge doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. Donald Trump certainly doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I know I keep thinking about like the next Democrats running for president or, you know, God willing, the next Democratic president. And there's going to have to be like a sort of a massive nationwide, maybe even global effort to like try to recruit really good, smart people back into government and public service and researchers and scientists and medical and just like an experts. And
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It's going to be really fucking hard, too, because, again, why are you taking it? Like, maybe you want to work for the next Democratic administration. But what happens when another a J.D. Vance or another Trump comes into office and then you don't have job security anymore? Right.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about Donald Trump's probably unlawful order to kill the Department of Education and his move to starve colleges of funding that have political views he doesn't like. Doge is busy making it harder for seniors to get their Social Security, which seems efficient. And they literally staged an armed invasion.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
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Went into a party, took some Z-Biotics. I woke up Sunday. I felt fine. Once again, I was amazed at the product that I try to sell and tell people is great all the time. It still amazes me. I don't touch alcohol without a Z-Biotics. Yeah. It's just not worth it. We now keep because the hardest thing is remembering to take it. So now we have like little bottles all over our house just in case.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. What do you think? John Roberts, welcome to the resistance.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
That's good. Like if we're walking out the door, you're like, oh, yeah, I got to grab that before I walk out the door. I put some under a rock near a popular intersection. Yeah. But I sometimes frequent in case I need one on the fly. Smart. It's smart. This college hoop season, don't let anything sideline your celebrations.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off. Speaking of Doge, let's check in with the Doge bags and Trump's broader effort to destroy the federal government.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Politico reported Wednesday that the Department of Agriculture, USDA, is stopping millions of dollars worth of deliveries to food banks in at least six states. And earlier this week, the Social Security Administration announced that you can no longer apply for benefits or change the account where your benefits are delivered over the phone.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
You either have to verify your identity online or go in person to your local Social Security office, which will be tough because the AP reported that almost 50 Social Security offices have shown up on Doge's list of federal government site closures. Is this government efficiency at its finest, Dan? We're just making it harder for seniors to obtain their Social Security benefits.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
39 million people live in households without any internet connection 25 of americans 65 or older have reported never going online so and those are those are social security beneficiaries and like you said if you the the um low income areas rural areas people with disabilities people who just can't get around because they're older um those are going to be the people hurt by this and
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I don't know, maybe Mike Lawler, because he's a Republican in good standing, or will do something crazy. Maybe Mike Lawler will introduce a couple articles of impeachment against a federal judge, and then they'll open up the Hudson Valley office, and they'll close one down in a blue district. That's probably where we're headed.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I do think this is... I'm sure Democrats are going to be all over this one, because... Every single poll you see everywhere is social security is like the number one issue for folks. And it's probably the number one vulnerability for Republicans. And it's probably why Donald Trump has said over and over again, he's not going to touch social security.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Bring all your canes. Wave them around. Go from the Tesla dealers. To the social security offices, right? Fewer Tesla dealers, more social security offices. Again, peaceful. One last Doge item. Not so peaceful. We got to talk about Doge's armed invasion of the U.S. Institute of Peace. This is unfortunately a real story, Dan. Here's the short version.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Some dogebags gained access to the Institute of Peace on Monday night. The Institute of Peace, we should let you know, is a nonprofit organization. It is not part of the executive branch. It is funded by Congress. It was founded by Congress, funded by Congress. It's a nonprofit, but of course it has government money.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And the job of the Institute of Peace is to help resolve conflicts around the world, as the name suggests. So but Donald Trump decided we're going to zero out the Institute of Peace, a couple other agencies, just like they're doing everywhere else.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
OK, so the doge bags get access to the Institute of Peace on Monday night by apparently threatening the federal contracts for the outside private security firm that the Institute employed. This is according to Politico. Some of the staff at the Institute of Peace tells the doge bags that they're trespassing.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
But then they ignore the Institute of Peace staffers, the Doge bags, and they quote, proceeded to walk towards the gun safe. Then the Institute of Peace staffers contact DC's Metropolitan Police Department on the trespassers, on the Doge people. But in an alarming twist, the police end up detaining the Institute of Peace's head of security and lawyers instead.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
At the direction of a State Department flunky who has since been declared the U.S. Institute of Peace's new acting president and who by that time had shown up with even more doge bags, D.C. police said in a statement that they were contacted by the U.S. Attorney's Office, our pal Ed Martin, his office in D.C., eagle-eyed Ed. who's threatening members of Congress and everyone else. Crazy man.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
The Institute then filed an emergency request in court trying to deny Doge access, which Judge Beryl Howell denied, though she did question Doge's tactics. Good for her. Thank you. She said, quote, this conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigation and using armed law enforcement from three different agencies. Why? Just because Doge is in a rush.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Feels like all this could have been handled in a few emails. Like, I mean, hey, could you clear out of the office? We've zeroed out your budget. Like what? Or if they refuse to – like, hey, we're going to take you to court then because we believe we can shut your agency down and you don't think we can. But we – like, what did you make of all this?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah, and what's really, I mean, there's a lot of humor to that story because it's so fucking absurd. What's really worrying about it is like, so now we have the Department of Homeland Security and ICE agents deciding that they don't need a warrant anymore and that they can now go in and look for Tren de Aragua in any house that they want.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
We are flying people to prisons in El Salvador with no due process. We have a US attorney in DC who is now sending FBI agents and DC police in to detain these staffers at this agency who just didn't want to let a bunch of People in to shut them down. And it like who who what kind of like government bureaucrat or person at a nonprofit is going to want to live in Washington, D.C.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And you start thinking like, oh, yeah, that's what they're trying to do here. They're trying to make the city Trump city.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And they've had great success at that. They've had great success. And the number of examples now of using the power of the state, force, police, FBI, just against Americans, against immigrants, against people they don't like, it's very scary.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yep, yep. And it is, I don't know if it's like, part of it is the, I know part of it's the media environment. I keep wondering why there's not more alarm every day. And I don't know if it's just some people are like, I can't I can't tune in all the time. I can't, you know, get worried about this all the time. If it's just that people don't know if people aren't hearing about it all.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
If Democrats aren't fighting hard enough or making enough noise like I don't know what it is, but it feels oddly quiet for the level of insanity that's taking place right now.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Now- Think about the first week, the first week when people flooded the airports because of the Muslim ban.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
We should also say this about Judge Boasberg. He was elevated to the D.C. Circuit Court by Obama, but he was not appointed by Obama. That is incorrect from Trump, from the White House. Every Republican has been saying that. He's a George W. Bush appointee. Some of the things Boasberg has done, he dismissed Trump's tax return lawsuit so that we couldn't see Trump's tax returns.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I've been wondering if this also partly explains sort of the odd polling numbers for Trump that we've been getting, which is he's so underwater on the economy. And it's like the one issue that's dragging him down the most. And on a lot of other issues and his overall approval rating, it's not as low as you would think.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And I would I wonder if it's because the economy and inflation and cost of living is like the one issue that people are experiencing every day, even if they're not tuning into the news and the and the Trump show version two. And all the other stuff is just not breaking through as much because people aren't paying as close attention and because the media environment so diffuse.
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Okay, before we get to the new 2024 postmortem, it's time for our weekly corrupt date. What do you think, Dan? That's pretty good. I think that's pretty good. We've been through a lot of options here, and I think that's well done. That gave us corrupt date.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
He ordered the release of Hillary's emails, limited grand jury material disclosure in Trump's classified documents case. So not exactly. Maybe we should impeach him. Not exactly a radical left lunatic. He used to be the head of the FISA court, which is the court that approves surveillance warrants. So this is not some lunatic leftist. So the White House and Republicans in Congress.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick, who's become a real hype man for the administration's griftiest stunts, was focused this week on the only commerce that matters, the kind that puts more money in the pockets of the world's richest man. Here's Letnick on Jesse Waters with a free ad for Elon and free stock tips for all of us.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Here's a tough headline from Axios that followed Letnick's appearance. Tesla falls after Commerce Secretary recommends buying stock. That's a good headline. What do you think? Are we all idiots if we don't buy $30,000 Tesla robots?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
You know, you got $30,000 laying around. You buy a Tesla robot.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I mean, his boss was hawking Teslas on the White House lawn, so it's kind of all fits. Yeah. Did you see that Pam Bondi announced, quote, severe charges against violent Tesla arsonists who she's accusing of domestic terrorism now that vandalism against Tesla dealerships is domestic terrorism? Up to 20 years in prison for lighting Teslas on fire. I have three thoughts on this.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It's a good corrupt date. All right. So we're finally getting some higher quality data about what happened in the 2024 election, at least higher quality than exit polls. David Shore and the folks at Blue Rose Research combined precinct level data from across the country with the 26 million survey responses they got from voters in 2024.
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to give us a pretty clear picture of who voted and why uh here are a few of the big takeaways none of them too surprising but they really uh just sort of confirm some of the initial findings that we uh have been going over over the last couple months number one Hispanic, Asian, young voters, immigrants and politically disengaged voters swung towards Trump by significant margins.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
In fact, politically disengaged voters swung towards Trump by so much that if everyone who stayed home in 2024 had voted, Trump would have won the popular vote by nearly five points. Number two, Trump's favorability rating on Election Day 2024 was almost exactly the same as it was on Election Day 2020. The difference was that Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party were much less popular.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
They have to know that they don't have anywhere close to the votes needed to impeach anyone, let alone a judge. You need 67 votes in the Senate to convict. So why do you think they keep pushing this? Like, is the hope that the constant threats and accusations are just going to undermine the legitimacy of the judicial system? Is that the play?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And number three, the issues most important to voters were the issues where trust in Democrats were lowest. Cost of living, the economy, inflation, taxes, and spending. The next most important issue to voters was health care, which is the first issue where Democrats were more trusted than Republicans.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
In fact, the only five issues that were ranked important by more than 50 percent of voters where Dems were also trusted more than Republicans were health care, poverty, housing, mental health and Medicare. And by the way, except for Medicare, maybe mental health, health care, they weren't trusted that much more than Republicans.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
I mean, it's also the numbers around naturalized citizens.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Our best estimate is that immigrant voters swung from a Biden plus 27 voting block in 2020 to a Trump plus one group in 2024. He fucking won immigrants. Yeah. And they note here, this is not a small group either. Naturalized citizens make up around 10% of the electorate. Now, again, that is based largely on precinct data.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Do you think you're sure they know that it takes 67 votes? I mean, I don't think Elon does. He's been tweeting about it forever. And I think he's just a dumb shit who has not spent a lot of time studying up on the government he's trying to destroy. But that's him.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And of course, you can look at heavily immigrant precincts and look at the swings. Lovett and I were talking about this. You might also guess that, okay, maybe in these precincts where there are a lot of immigrants, Maybe the white voters swung more or maybe other voters swung more or Americans by birth swung more.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
But when you combine that with their survey responses and you look at the districts they looked at or the precincts they looked at, which were heavily, heavily immigrant, that can explain maybe some of it on the margins, but it can't explain the whole swing.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah. Are there any charts or other takeaways that jumped out at you the most? And we could always put the charts up on the screen because we have the presentation here.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Before we move on, overall, real quick, what kind of messaging strategy and attention strategy would you take from this data that you haven't already taken away from the results?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
on health care that's going to help us on the other economic issues right because it's going to seem like we're fighting for people and that's that's what we have to do almost as you were talking i was looking at some of the issues there's a cluster of issues in this chart where people rank them above 50 importance and they people trust republicans more but only slightly so those are issues that i think we could like and education is one we just talked about that housing
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Trump Comes for the Judges
We're slightly more trusted civil liberties and privacy, which they are destroying right now. The Trump administration, Social Security, which is talked about and and political division. So all issues that people really care about and they trust Republicans slightly more. Those seem like issues that we can claw back some some trust on.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
OK, so because we're nerds, we have a lot more we want to get into on this. If you really want to hear us go deep on this, you can listen to the rest of this conversation on Dan's subscriber-exclusive show, Polar Coaster. We're going to talk about it now, and then we're going to have the rest of the conversation on Polar Coaster.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So you can listen by subscribing to Friends of the Pod at cricka.com slash friends. So go check out the rest of this conversation because we have a lot more to talk about with these results. And we're going to answer some of your questions about them.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
two quick housekeeping notes assembly required with stacy abrams check out the latest episode stacy faces each executive order legislative policy and every news cycle no matter how terrifying or absurd by asking what can we do to learn more about what's happening what can we do to solve problems however small and how can we find the kind of hope that can sustain our work in difficult times listen to assembly required every thursday on amazon music
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Also, check out the latest episode of Inside 2025. Dan and Alyssa are on to break down what a government shutdown actually is, who's affected the political fallout, and what really goes down behind the scenes. To access this exclusive subscriber series, enjoy ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and more. Subscribe now at cricket.com slash friends or directly on Apple Podcasts.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
That's our show for today. Have a great weekend. Talk to everyone soon. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
of the U.S. Institute of Peace. We'll get to that wild story. And because we're nerds, we're going to dive into the election postmortem from David Shore and Blue Rose Research, which is notable because it includes 26 million survey responses. So lots of data to dig through.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
We should say that just before we recorded, Judge Boasberg just accused the government of evading its obligations and moved closer to holding them in contempt for not explaining. They still haven't explained why they didn't abide by his order to turn the planes around. So he is. Not backing down with all these threats, but he is he's pretty angry at the government and he I think he should be.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
This is the Trump administration thinks that they are on solid ground on this one because it's they think, you know, who really wants Venezuelan gangs in the United States? But the more we learn about this and the more information that's come out, not because of the government, but because of reporting and because some of these people's families have and lawyers have learned about where they are.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It is shocking, shocking what is happening. The New York Times reports that the Trump folks believe that the Alien Enemies Act, which is what Trump invoked to do this, allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So currently, immigration agents without a warrant can basically just knock on your door and ask to come in, and that's all they can do unless they have a warrant because of the Fourth Amendment.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
But Trump and the government are basically now saying, well, Alien Enemies Act, if we think that there's a Venezuelan gang in there and we've labeled them a domestic terrorist organization, then we can just send federal agents in, federal ICE agents into people's house without a warrant. Now you may say, okay, well, if I'm a U.S. citizen, then they're not going to come to my house.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Well, how is anyone going to know? How's anyone going to know? They can show up at a U.S. citizen's house and say they suspect that Trende Aragua is hiding in your house and then take you away. And who's going to know since we're not doing due process anymore? We're just fucking putting people on planes, sending them to El Salvador and locking them up for indefinite periods of time.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
But first, now that we have a Republican Congress that seemingly exists only to do whatever Trump tells them to do, the last remaining check on the president's power is the judicial branch. which Trump and Elon and the MAGA regime are now going to war with.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
they grabbed this guy who's a professional soccer player in venezuela this guy showed up at two protests you know to protest maduro uh the dictator in venezuela and um the maduro's regime tortured him and he got away he came to the united states he applied for asylum And they mistakenly think his tattoo is Tren de Aragua when it's actually a fucking soccer tattoo.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And so they got the tattoo artist to sign an affidavit to say this. And so the family was waiting for an immigration hearing and all this because the guy had been held for a while and then just woke up one day and was just taken to this El Salvadoran prison. So a man who was tortured by the Maduro regime
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Trump Comes for the Judges
which is now being held indefinitely in a prison in El Salvador because they mistakenly think he's a gang member. And then when DHS was asked about this, they're like, well, that's one tattoo. And there was also a social media post where he had a gang sign and that everyone's like, no, that's just a like a thumbs up like soccer sign that they have. I mean, it's fucking ridiculous.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
This is what's happening. No hearing, no evidence, no nothing. It's not good. It's not good. You see Elon's maxing out on donations to Republicans who support impeaching judges? Of course he is, right?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
He's also spent well over $10 million on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that could flip the state's liberal majority back to a conservative majority. So early voting is now underway in that race and the election is April 1st. Dan, you want to talk about the stakes here?
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Trump Comes for the Judges
So for several weeks now, the president's billionaire top advisor has been using his social media platform to call for the impeachment of judges that rule against the Trump administration. But the situation escalated last week when James Boasberg, the chief judge of the D.C.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
And Tesla is currently suing the state of Wisconsin. So the case may come to Brad Schimel.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah, and it's close, as they always are in Wisconsin, so it's going to be a really tight race. In order to tip the race, we're sending John Lovett to Wisconsin this weekend. He's doing six kickoffs, and he's going to be around Madison on Saturday and Milwaukee on Sunday, so go see Lovett if you're in Wisconsin. And he'll be with Ben Whitcliffe, so he's chaperoned on this trip.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Yeah, we don't send him to Wisconsin by himself. And you can also go to votesaveamerica.com slash Wisconsin, and there's plenty to do as we get to Election Day here. Also, Tommy and I are not going to Wisconsin, but we are going to Norco, California this weekend, Dan.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
It's about- It's about an hour and a half east of L.A. We're going to be with Ro Khanna, who's doing a town hall in the district of a House Republican who refuses to hold a town hall, Ken Calvert. We've already been to Ken Calvert's district once when we were trying to elect Will Rollins in this last cycle. So we're heading back this time with Ro Khanna.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Circuit Court, tried to block Trump from jailing people in a foreign prison without due process, an order that the Trump regime partly ignored, arguing that some of the flights were already over international waters when the ruling came down.
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Trump Comes for the Judges
Ro's doing, much like Bernie and AOC are doing these town halls, Ro is doing a series of town halls this as well. So that'll be fun. We're going out to see some folks. So come say hi if you're in Norco or come out to Norco if you're in LA. Pod Save America is brought to you by Lumen.
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Then Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals. So you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time. And Lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game.
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Lumen is great because when you blow into it and it gives you your personalized nutrition plan, that plan is not continue to walk to the front of the office and eat mini crackles. I've been eating those. That's not part of the nutrition plan when you actually blow into the Lumen. Jolly Ranchers.
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We'll talk about why these two men are so in love and why new polling shows problems for both of them. Then, hours after telling Hannity he'd never support cuts to Medicaid, Trump endorses the House budget resolution, which drastically cuts Medicaid, even as Republicans in Congress are starting to squirm about all the doge cuts and firings that are starting to hurt their constituents.
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Pod Save America is brought to you by Lumen. Did you know that when your metabolism is working properly, you will feel the benefits in literally every aspect of your life? Lumen is a valuable tool that can give you insights to create a healthy metabolism for your body. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath.
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And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workout, sleep, and even stress management. All you have to do is breathe into your lumen first thing in the morning, and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Then lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time, and lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game. Lumen's all the rage here at Crooked. Everyone's just blown into their lumen. They can't stop, won't stop.
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Figuring out what's going on with their metabolism, getting some nutrition plans, figuring out after their workout how much fats or carbs they're burning. It's great. We love it.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
That's L-U-M-E-N dot me slash crooked for 20% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. My main takeaway from the interview, besides, yes, that it was boring, yes, that Sean Hannity somehow managed to sit for an hour with these two and never brought up anything interesting. It was just a love fest the entire time. And it was nauseating to watch.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But as I watched it, I was like, I think I was completely wrong about... And I think all of us were wrong about all of the guesses about this relationship and like, when's the divorce coming? When's the falling out?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And like, I think you're right that Trump needs Elon and uses Elon, but Trump needs and uses a lot of people and doesn't love them or doesn't even like them or doesn't show that kind of affection for them. Like, I think they genuinely like each other because they're just, they're kindred spirits, right? Like Trump in his first term was extremely frustrated that he couldn't do whatever he wanted.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
You know, it was lawyers and his advisors and people in the federal government telling him no or this is against the law or this is a bad idea or whatever. And now he's got another famous rich dude authoritarian who doesn't care about laws anymore. doesn't care about other people's opinions, thinks he knows everything, and is willing to be his enforcer. And that's what he needed, right?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
No one else has been able to take what Donald Trump wants to do, much of it illegal, much of it corrupt, and do it for him. And I think the reason that Elon does it is because he's been radicalized. He craves attention. He craves recognition. Wants to be even richer and more powerful. And, you know, of course, also he confuses attention and recognition. And both of them, both of them do.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And later, Dan talks to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, about the purges going on at the Justice Department, the prospects for the corruption case against Eric Adams, and much more. But first, I know it's hard to keep up with all the news lately and that people don't tune in to this particular podcast to hear the two of us just riff on global affairs. Their mistake, not ours.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Both of them have this, like, this deep, bottomless need to be loved, right? And they can't get it. And neither of them are truly happy until they just keep wanting, wanting, wanting. They want more money, more power. And they found a kindred spirit in each other. I think they genuinely like each other.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
He's the only person... Especially a good point on the attention.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Small thing. But at one point, I think we played the beginning of it in the clip, which is when Hannity's like, oh, they're trying to get they're trying to drive a wedge between you two. And Trump responds by saying, like, I know I saw that. He's like, it's so because they're so bad at it. Democrats are so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're really bad at it.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And you know what? He's right. Yeah. Because it has been so fucking glaringly obvious. I keep thinking about what you said, which is like reading the stage directions, you know? And it's like, President Elon, President Musk, and time has them behind the fucking desk. And it's like, can we... Everyone's got to learn the art of subtlety just a little bit here. Yeah.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It's so painfully obvious and cheesy. Like, it's, of course... What the Democrats are trying to do by driving a wedge through them is obvious to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It's just embarrassing. One bit that did make a little news, Trump acknowledged, quote, inflation is back before saying, I had nothing to do with it and blaming Biden. Yeah. You and I talked about how some polling from a few weeks ago showed that most people don't think Trump's doing enough to bring down prices.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
There's been a slew of polling this week that basically says the same thing and also shows some deterioration in Trump's political standing. Trump's approval ratings are now underwater across the board. His economic approval notably is worse than his overall job approval. People like what he's doing on immigration.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Other issues are OK, but like he's actually underwater on economic even worse than his job approval. And Elon Musk's approval ratings are even worse. Pew has Musk at 42 percent favorable, 54 percent unfavorable. A new Quinnipiac poll has 55 percent of voters saying that Elon has too big of a role in the government, with only 36 percent saying his role is just right.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And a new Reuters poll shows 71% of respondents agreeing with the statement, the very wealthy have too much influence in the White House. Washington Post analysis headline on Thursday was this, polls show Trump's honeymoon is over. What say you, host of Polar Coaster and author of Message Box?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
I do think it's important for everyone to understand that this week, America has essentially switched sides in the war between Russia, a repressive, brutal dictatorship, and Ukraine, the neighboring democracy that Russia invaded. On Tuesday's episode, Tommy and I talked about how Trump and his administration have been speaking about negotiating an end to the war in a way that...
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Yeah. They had quotes from some of the respondents in the Washington Post poll about like why they, you know, supported Trump or opposed him or whatever. And I saw one woman who voted for Trump said, you know, Elon's a smart guy. And I think he's he's really smart with his companies. But I really don't like what he's doing, cutting all these programs. He's got too much influence in there.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
There's also something instructive in all these numbers for Democrats and anyone trying to oppose Trump right now and wondering, like, what we should do and does anything matter?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Which is like when you ask people, you know, there's been some analysis that Trump's approval ratings, at least for the last couple of weeks, have been relatively high, partly because he's taken action and he's doing stuff. And people like Trump. Presidents who take action. And I think that's right. That analysis is correct.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And when you ask people, oh, well, what do you think about him making government more efficient? People like the idea of making government more efficient. They unfortunately, you know, a slight majority likes the deportation agenda.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
That's also because they think he is deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, which he is clearly that is only a small portion of the immigrants he's deporting. We can talk about that some other time.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But when you get into the programs he's cutting, what Elon is doing, even with something like USAID, when we talked about this, 6 in 10 oppose closing USAID, even when it's talked about like that, which has now become famous. The reporting around Doge, what Elon has been up to.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Mass murderer Vladimir Putin couldn't have scripted better himself, including Trump's claim that Ukraine started the war, which the whole world knows isn't true, including the vast majority of Americans. Putin has said repeatedly that Ukraine isn't a real country, that it belongs to Russia and that Russia wants it back. That's why he invaded Crimea in 2014.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
What the doge bags have been up to, the cuts, the firings and what Democrats have been saying about this and the noise that people have been making just across the country about this. I think it is it's breaking through and people are hearing it. And so we're going to we're starting to see it in the polling that, yes, maybe people liked him taking action.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And yes, they want government to be more efficient. But the way that they're seeing it happen, they despise.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Who has one of the biggest megaphones in the world and is literally narrating what he's doing minute by minute, including many of his fuck-ups.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And I know you wrote another message box on this, like whether it's the right strategy for Democrats to focus on Elon Musk. I say yes. I mean, that's the conclusion you came to as well. But I don't see any downside to this.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And how it's affecting you. And like, you know, he's destroying jobs and he's breaking government services that people depend on and that keep us safe. And I think that like making that's why the whole, you know, the drama between Elon and Trump and the relationship and all that kind of stuff and.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It's just it's a it's a little bit of a sideshow because I think what's going to be most impactful is making sure that we connect all of the firings and all of the services that are cut to what Trump and Elon and the whole Republican Party are doing. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We love therapy, right? We do. Everyone needs therapy, even if you don't think you need therapy.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
That's why he invaded Ukraine three years ago. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gently corrected Trump on this point by telling reporters that he greatly respects President Trump, but worries that he lives in a, quote, disinformation space. Trump, of course, lost it. He posted an angry truth on his way to his beach club in Miami. Here's how he responded.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
The less you think you need it, the more you need it. It doesn't mean something is wrong with you. No. But it helps to talk to someone. You have to sit down and have someone who their job is to just listen and to give you advice.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
A lot of people that could use therapy in that White House. Yeah, and Congress. Including the two billionaires in charge of the country. Yeah.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Anyway, if you're listening, Elon, go get some BetterHelp.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And if you can't do that, BetterHelp is a good, good option. Just a government dad. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Try BetterHelp.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash P-S-A. In addition to all the polling, Axios reports that Trump and Elon face a growing doge revolt from GOP lawmakers who are, quote, growing unnerved by what they see as an imprecise exercise.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
I love that. Susan Collins suggested that it's unconstitutional for the executive branch to refuse to spend money Congress appropriated. No shit. and said the administration is, quote, moving too fast.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Lisa Murkowski told CBS News that the job cuts are hitting Alaska really hard and that a lot of the firings are, quote, flat out wrong because people are getting told they're losing their jobs for performance reasons when that clearly isn't true because they've had performance reviews that said that they are... doing an excellent job, and then they get fired.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Meanwhile, the Doge wrecking ball continues to swing with huge cuts and firings happening at TSA, the IRS, FEMA, HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the entire agency that helps respond to disasters for people's homes when a disaster hits, cutting like 80% of that. They're even cutting the NIH unit that focuses on Alzheimer's research. Wow.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
In the morning after Trump told Hannity that, quote, Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched. He weighed in to endorse the House Republican budget that would, in fact, cut Medicaid by $880 billion. Why would he do this?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
The Medicaid thing is gonna be a huge problem for them because either they don't touch Medicaid, like Trump said on Hannity, which means that if they don't touch Medicaid and they're not gonna touch Medicare or Social Security and they're gonna add to defense spending, there's just not enough money to cut anything else and also pay for a $4.5 trillion tax cut.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
So basically then you get down to drastic cuts to all the other spending in government
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
food inspection nih healthcare all this other stuff right and you still have just you just add a huge huge amount to the deficit because you just give a huge tax cut to rich people so that's one option the other option is an 880 billion dollar cut to medicaid which is what is in the house republican budget that trump endorsed so they talk about work requirements and
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And, okay, well, if you get Medicaid, you should work. Now, that's kind of bullshit because what happens when you institute work requirements in a state that is giving people Medicaid is you end up just a lot of people lose their coverage. And it's not like they're not working because they don't want to work. A lot of times they're not working because they can't work.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Regardless, if you instituted work requirements, it would save you about $100 billion in Medicaid. So they want $880 billion, so you still get $780 billion to go. Medicaid covers 72 million Americans. It covers nearly half of all births in this country. Half. Two-thirds of all nursing home stays. working class people who are just above the poverty line are on Medicaid.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
By the way, a lot of these people who are on Medicaid, probably most of the people who are on Medicaid now are in red states. And our Trump voters, which is why Steve Bannon's out there saying, why would we cut Medicaid? We can't cut Medicaid. They're going to have problems both on their right flank, I think, cutting Medicaid among some of the populists like Bannon.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And they're going to have a ton of problems, they already are, with Republicans, House Republicans and Senate Republicans who were in vulnerable districts and states in 2026. So I don't know how they're going to get all the math done here and get all these cuts done because you cut $780 billion, $880 billion from Medicaid. You are throwing millions and millions of people off their health care.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Maybe. Maybe Trump just is like, you know, do it or else Elon Musk will fund a primary challenge and I'll send my pardon January 6th goons after you.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And Bannon gets it and like Josh Hawley gets it. But then I guess they were in their their Senate caucus meeting and Ted Cruz was like Medicaid cuts must be on the table. And there was like a lot of applause because it's still a lot. It's still Paul Ryan's party. And I bet I bet we're going to see Elon Musk tweeting about how we need to gut Medicaid.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Oh, it's going to be a whole thing. I mean, he's already doing it on Social Security. So I don't think that's going to help their cause either. One thing that might help their popularity is the idea they're floating now to take some of the savings that Doge is allegedly making and return that money to taxpayers in the form of tax refunds or checks or something.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
There's this idea floating around that they take 20% of the savings, the Doge savings, and they use it to pay down the deficit. They take another 20% and they hand out refunds to everyone, a $5,000 check for every family. What do you make of that proposal?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
He's doing the math to get to $5,000 a family. Right. And first of all, they cut out everyone who doesn't pay income taxes, which is 40 percent of people in the country. Right. So then you're given five thousand dollars and it basically it's four hundred billion dollars is 20 percent of the trillion that they're thinking they're going to save in spending cuts.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But first of all, Doge has saved a couple billion so far. So the idea that they're going to get from a couple billion to a trillion and then give everyone a rebate seems a little fanciful.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day, the tax cut package includes something that they call a doge rebate that is some number much smaller than $5,000 that Donald Trump and Elon Musk both signed together with hearts over the eyes and their names.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Yeah. I mean, it's just it's it is it's too appealing to Donald Trump and to Elon Musk to avoid. So I could see some version of it ending up in the final, but it's certainly not $5,000 checks and they're certainly not finding a trillion dollars in Doge cuts that aren't incredibly unpopular.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Yeah, of course. That's Trump speaking in Miami at an investment conference organized by Saudi Arabia, because of course. Then on Thursday in the White House briefing room, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz got this question from Fox News' Peter Doocy.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
All right, one more thing before we go to your interview with Andrew Weissman. Right before we were recording, Elon Musk did take the stage at CPAC. He didn't make a lot of news, but the appearance was so special that I asked the team to put together some highlights so that you and I could react to them in real time for the first time. Have you seen any of this?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
I caught like one part of it maybe, but I was rushing and I just told Saul, you give us the super cut and Dan and I will react.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Amazing. Okay. I wish we could, we don't have any video, do we? That's okay. Dan's going to have to sit. The beginning part is amazing. I'll just tell you. He walks on stage and Javier Mille, the president of Argentina, hands him a chainsaw. And Elon Musk is waving. So the first thing you'll hear is Elon Musk waving around the chainsaw. And then we'll see what happens.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
So he walked out and he's got sunglasses on indoors and a heavy gold chain and he's holding a chainsaw. I don't think he was OK. He seemed really he seemed to kind of fucked up. I don't know if he was a little little punchy, a little silly, but he wasn't making much sense. Something else that happened while he's on stage, literally while he's walking out with the chainsaw.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
There is a tweet from Grimes replying to Elon, and it says Grimes is a mother of some of his children. Please respond about our child's medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly, but it is no longer acceptable to ignore the situation. This requires immediate attention. If you don't want to talk to me, can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move? That's heartbreaking.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Yeah. Dark. And this is now the second mother of his children this week that has reached out to him on his platform.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But this is what was happening while he was out on stage talking about how he is meme and we should legalize comedy and he's yelling and he's talking about his mind and going to the – this whole thing now that he and Trump have about going to Fort Knox to make sure the gold is there.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Anyway, in case you were wondering who the enterprising journalist that interviewed Elon Musk was, it was a Newsmax host.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Anyway, that's Elon at CPAC. All right, when we get back from the break, you'll hear Dan's interview with Andrew Weissman about Trump's attacks on the rule of law. One quick thing before we do that, a reminder that now through tomorrow, Saturday, February 22nd, you will get 25% off new annual subscriptions to Friends of the Pod.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It's the best way to support the work we do here, and you get access to special shows, ad-free episodes, our Discord community, and more. If you're a monthly subscriber, upgrading is quick and easy. Just visit crooked.com slash friends or subscribe through the Pod Save America Apple feed. When we come back, Andrew Weissman. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZBiotics pre-alcohol.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I got another satisfied customer. Hmm. My friend Bob. Bob? We were at a dinner party Saturday night and I told him about Z-biotics and he said, really? Is this because there was some extra Z-biotics floating around? Really? Is this a real thing? And the next day he texted me. He goes, man, you were right. They did it. Wow. I'm fine. Bob.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
That's for you, Bob. With pre-alcohol, I can stay on track and not let winter travel and celebrations throw me off course. I hate when celebrations throw me off course. It can't be thrown off by celebration. Not with everything that's going on. Go to zbiotics.com slash crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use crooked at checkout.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Zbiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Who's to say who's responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine? It's right there in the question, Dan. It feels like the absolute craziest resistance Russia conspiracies from 2017 have now come true. What is your reaction to all this?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
You like the ActiveGuard outdoor protection that can help prevent break-ins before they happen? Do I? Yeah. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees. Monitoring plans start affordably at around $1 a day. 60-day satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Named best home security systems by U.S. News & World Report five years in a row and by John Lovett eight years in a row. That's right.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And our safety and security. I mean, I'd say when the week started, my anxiety over this was at like a six or a seven.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Exactly, exactly. Last few days, bumped it up to a nine. And honestly, part of that was listening to Pod Save the World, which I know that's a tough plug for Pod Save the World, but you should all listen to this because Ben and Tommy did an excellent job with this this week. And I guess we both listened to it before bed, coincidentally. Yeah.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Cause it really stuck with me. Cause I was, I was texting you last night when I, after I listened to it, I was texting Tommy and Ben and you and being like, that is this scariest fucking thing.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
That's our show for today. Lovett's going to be back in the feed on Sunday with the one and only Bill Maher. Talk to you then. Have a good weekend. Bye, everyone.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Toles.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
But I've been thinking about it because, you know, we all know the polls. We've talked about it. You know, do Americans really care about foreign policy and even foreign wars that Americans aren't fighting in? And what does that have to do with us? And why are we sending money to Ukraine? That's crazy. We should spend more money home. And what do we have to care about that?
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And, you know, the global order and institutions like what does that matter? Putin wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He has for a long time. He has nuclear weapons. He almost used nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. We know that from the Biden administration, from what we learned in 2022 and 2023.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Putin is getting help from North Korea and China to other nuclear armed dictatorships. And now he knows and the entire world knows that the United States, the world's other biggest nuclear power, no longer has any interest in supporting Ukraine, doesn't seem to have much interest in supporting Europe either or defending Europe.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
wants to take over Canada, might bomb Mexico, is sending asylum seekers who are escaping persecution from China, Iran, Afghanistan, to a camp in a jungle in Panama, another country that Trump is bullying because he wants to take over the Panama Canal. And what does all that tell Putin? Do you think that makes him less likely to invade Europe?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Do you think it makes China less likely to invade Taiwan? The whole world now sees the United States and see what Trump has done and thinks, and all the bad actors in the world, all the bad regimes, all the nuclear-armed regimes are going to say, well, Donald Trump and the United States aren't going to step in. They're looking to take over a bunch of countries themselves.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
So why don't we do whatever the fuck we want? And once Trump and his new dictator pals, who all have nuclear weapons... have finished carving up the world, do we think that they're just gonna, like, relax and leave each other alone? Is that how things usually happen? When the world order is just a bunch of nuclear powers with fucking lunatics running them? Who are dictators? Like, what...
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Visit simplisafe.com slash cricket to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash cricket. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
And like the craziest thing, one of the craziest things Trump said this week, and it sort of went underreported in his, I think it was his post about his, it was like a readout of his call with Putin. Or maybe it was about Ukraine. I don't know what it was. But he was like, what do we care about this? We have a big, beautiful ocean to protect us in between. It's like... Do you see World War II?
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Do you see any war with boats? What are you talking about? It's fucking 2025. It could be fucking 1825. People have taken boats to war before. How many nuclear weapons could reach the United States? What are you talking about, you fucking moron? It is. It is really bad. And, you know, this whole thing through the campaign, isolationism, America first, we want to turn inward.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It's not turning inward at all, actually. It's Trump going out there and saying, I want to be friends with the other autocrats. And who has he bullied? He's bullied Canada, Mexico, Denmark. All our allies. Germany, JG Vance went to Germany and bullied Germany and tried to like bolster the far right party in Germany. So like, oh, then maybe we can have a far right arm to the teeth Germany.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Yep. And like even if that doesn't lead to another world war or nuclear war, that leads to a world where millions, billions of people all over the world are brutally repressed because they live under dictatorships and they don't have rights. And that's what Vladimir Putin is. And that's what Xi Jinping is. And that's what all of these guys that we're now in bed with are. It's bad. It's bad.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
It also seems like a fair amount of the motivation here is economic. In the press briefing, Waltz also scolded Zelensky for rejecting a deal where Ukraine would give us the rights to 50% of their rare earth minerals forever in exchange for U.S. support. that somehow wouldn't include any security guarantees.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
We talked about this a little bit on Tuesday's pod, but now they're like really mad that Zelensky didn't, like, what a deal. You give us half of your resources and we'll, what, say that we support you? We're not going to, you know, militarily support you.
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
We also know that the Russian negotiators made, of course, an explicitly capitalist argument to the American team that American corporations stand to make billions if the U.S. will allow investment in Russia again. Of course. So is the New World Order also going to be autocrats like Putin and Trump just carving up the world and plundering all the wealth?
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Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Well, yeah. And in corruption is a is a feature, not a bug of authoritarian regimes. Right. Like the only thing dictators love as much as they love power is money. And that's why they're all surrounded by oligarchs and they spend all the time stealing from their own people who then hate them and then they repress.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
On today's show, Donald Trump and Elon Musk make their bromance official during a joint interview with Sean Hannity, but is the honeymoon over for the American people? How's that for a cable-esque tease, Dan?
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Oh, you did. Okay. I'm glad. That's so nice. Donald Trump and Elon Musk sat for a joint interview with Sean Hannity that aired on Tuesday night, which didn't make too much news, but was mostly notable for how nauseating it was to watch. Let's listen.
Pod Save America
Is Trump's Honeymoon Over?
Fucking get a room, you two. What did you make of the interview and their budding relationship?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Pod something? Yeah, that's right. Podcast? You did a podcast? All right. All right. It's our last show of 2024, and that means it's our annual Pundies episode where we will rank the very worst takes from a very bad year, including our own, if they can find any. We'll also do our annual New Year's resolutions, which we always break and always forget.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's definitely the keys. That's where I was leaning. That's where I was leaning. I mean, like, Ann Seltzer is being sued and did have the biggest mist from the best pollster ever. But, again... She said, when she put out the poll, it could be an outlier and I'd be comfortable with that. She actually... She made a joke.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And now that's what the lawyers will do. So you know what? It's Alan Lichtman, hands down.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And honestly, Nate Silver, while spectacularly wrong about Florida and putting $100,000 on it, you know, I guess I have a little respect for putting the $100,000 on an event in public. I mean, I don't know if he actually did it, but even saying that.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Okay. So Alan Lichtman, winner. There you go. Congratulations. Or loser.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, I hope so. Is that the wrong approach? I think he'll end up being commerce secretary.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That is a key difference. Key difference. I think I was told by this person directly that I was January 6th thing, Joe Biden. As were all of you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got that too.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Chris Busey has quite a few followers, Dan. Quite a few followers.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, you know, if you think that trying to pressure Biden to step down was like January 6th, agree to disagree.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Not to suggest that anything is more important than dunking on each other's worst moments, guys, but as we're recording this on Thursday afternoon LA time, the U.S. government is basically in total chaos. And non-essential functions may shut down just in time for the biggest travel week of the year. All because Elon Musk tweeted us to the precipice of a government shutdown.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
This was so good. So good. I remember this one too.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, just trolling. Yeah. I remember being struck by who it was. So they might have deleted their account, but it was not some rando with two followers. It was being retweeted.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Wow, that's a deep pull. I don't know. I think it was like a K-Hive person.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. If the text exchanges between Elijah and I end up in Discovery, this is what it's going to show. Don't let them shame you, John.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I mean, I want to know, did Chris Boozy go first or did he go first? Did Seth Abramson go first? Because they're very similar.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I do think Seth Abramson's been on the mark, you know? Time for some game theory.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
He's Tulsi's deputy at DNI. Now it's really time for some game theory. Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think because he thought the funding bill had too many pages. He was upset with the height of the stack of paper. It was upsetting to him. Aesthetically not pleasing. So he started tweeting, and then Trump got involved, and then they killed this bill that had been negotiated with both parties very carefully. It was going to pass. Killed the bill. Then now, as we're recording, there's a new bill.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I mean, I will say, I'm not even going to name the person. There was a member of Congress who went on CNN and not only said that it was racist to call on Joe Biden to step down, but that it was ableist. Right.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
So so the discourse is the is skipping the debate commission.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Doesn't seem like they have the Republican votes for that or the Democratic votes for that. And the government runs out of money Friday night.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, now that we can look back on the race, I think we would all agree that celebrity endorsements were the difference maker. That's true.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
There was a statement from the White House on Wednesday evening. Right. That's all we've heard. President Trump's been doing some posting some truths. Elon Musk has been tweeting up a storm. J.D. Vance, I think, has been tweeting.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. I mean, look, I think I think when you look at Democratic consultants, most of them are like men over 40. Right. The under 40 men are usually operatives, staffers, stuff like that. But I don't know. I'm 40 now. Look, Travis didn't didn't word it artfully. You were 40. Yeah. I'm in my 40s. I should have said that's what I meant. But yeah, clearly we did have a problem getting men.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Well, guys, we made it. It's our last show of 2024.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I will say that the gender gap, at least according to the exit polls, ended up being not as large as the polls suggested.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That's what I was getting at, Dan. That's what I was getting at. We did worse with women. So I guess we had a women problem as well.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
human beings but i will say even among gen z where we also had a big problem the split was the biggest split was college educated non-college educated uh not men women right so it's uh and we'll see more when the data comes out but we have a problem with people who don't have college degrees and a problem with travis and we have a big problem with travis huge problem who does hate women yeah yeah yeah we'll appreciate you saying that
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I guess I guess in the old version and the new version, the new version of the bill, which doesn't know if it's going to go anywhere that that Trump and Musk approve of the big changes. They were able to eliminate funding for childhood cancer research. It's got to stop. So losers, kids with cancer. Winners, pharmaceutical middlemen, pharma managers, and China.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Like I think we talked- Boy, did we get one of those.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I just want to say one more thing here. Joe Biden, this decision was Joe Biden's and a very small circle of people around him. Mostly family. Mostly family. And Wall Street Journal was out today. He was more cloistered in these four years than he ever has been in his whole career. He had a small circle of advisors. Not a lot of other people got in.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And I remember when we did a crooked offsite like a year, more than a year before the election. And we did like a political section where everyone could ask us questions about the coming race and politics. And all you guys, our staff, like peppered us with questions like, why is Joe Biden running? Joe Biden's too old. And I think then we said, number one, no one is challenging him.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No one has decided to challenge him. And number two, like he is deciding with the people around him that he wants to run for president and he gets to decide. And people think it's like the party, this, that, the other thing. Like he was he wasn't even listening to members of Congress by the end. At the end, like Chuck Schumer barely got to his house to try to convince him.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
He was like, you know, he wasn't listening to many people. So.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The pressure came. But yeah, it was pretty close to pretty close to him not doing it.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
So that's what we're watching. Merry Christmas, everyone. Wonder how it turns out. Dan, what do you think? Anything?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Is it gay to wear pink, fellas? Can someone note when Jesse Waters' birthday is so we can all wish him a happy birthday from as many people as possible? It's a funny bet. That's good. I feel like, like Lovett said, I think he needs it. July 9th, we got a minute. Sounds like he needs birthday wishes.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Wow, that person is crazy. I was waiting for, what is the Trojan horse metaphor there?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
What's the alphabet mafia? That's gay people. That's LGBTQ. That helps a little bit. Yeah, we're the alphabet mafia. Wow, that's up there for me. That's a contender.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
But I don't think she also was sort of incomprehensible. Oh, absolutely.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You boys work it out. The new click. Okay. Anyway, let's get to the good stuff. So we have not seen any of the takes or categories in advance. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to our guest host, the Take Master General himself, Elijah Cohn.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, that's a great point, Tommy. It's not this is going to bug me because like the January 6th committee now all facing jail time. The January 6th committee, like, that was the first set of hearings where I was like, oh, they finally nailed it. They didn't go every member on the panel giving their big, long speeches, doing this, putting on their dog and pony show. That's so right.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's like they had a plan. They stuck to the plan. They got right to it. It was good TV. Wouldn't it be so nice if the Senate Democrats did this for all the hearings?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Do we think Mark Zuckerberg will put his hand on his heart for that one too?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
My dogs were so... 77 million people. Thumbs up. Thumbs up to that guy. Looks like we're the ones eating crow.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I mean, it is tough because it's like we're doing worst takes. It was like a bad take that won. But, you know. Yeah. Best worst takes. I don't know.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
there is an argument for vaccines just because now we're going to be living with that. Like, right.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Dogs and cats. All right. Cool. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but before we do that, a reminder that now through January 1st, we're offering 25% off new annual Friends of the Pod subscriptions.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Also, she did become the Secretary of Homeland Security. Yeah, she's DHS now. That's not nothing.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Abortion? Abortion? A headwind? No. Disagree. I'm for whatever you guys are all for.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I just think a lot of what I take- Sometimes it's like a shitty Polaroid, you know?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You've said this a few times. He's saying dog show.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I was so happy with that. I was so happy. And the appearance was not perfect, right? He still trailed off at times. He interrupts himself once in a while. But if you're someone who's wondering whether he's sharp enough for the job or knows his shit, more appearances like that should give you more confidence. I mean, he was pretty good on Seth Meyers. I don't remember that interview at all.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, I mean, I thought you should have gone with the State of the Union discourse, which I think was looking back at, talk about a grading on a curve.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Elijah, could you give us the... There was something missing from that take. What was the date of the take? February. February. February of 2000. 24, yeah. Okay, February 24. So after State of the Union. Okay, yeah. That's when he was cooking. He was off the seat.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Three dinners. I don't know. I don't know who to pick. Maybe we shouldn't pick. Maybe everyone else should.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Thank you, Dan. That's a good take. Yeah. Good take, Dan.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
If Joe Biden performed like he did on Seth Meyers the entire campaign, it would be a little different.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Probably not. I could name like five worst takes that I had. Go ahead. Yeah, do it. No, no, no.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The answer is worse. Well, let's kick things off then.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think now we can use a picture of Alan Lickman for the art.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Alan Lieberman, come get your keys. We've got one last order of business before we sail off into Crooked's holiday break. Our New Year's resolutions. As always, we'll be confronted with our resolutions from last year to see how we did. Unfortunately, I'm up first. Part of my resolution is similar to Dan's, which is my attention span's gone. I have a strategy, which is I want to take a walked
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
20 to 30 minutes a day, maybe a couple days a week, realistically, where I don't bring my phone and I don't listen to anything. This is big on TikTok, the silent walk. Yeah, the silent walk.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Not without my phone. But I will say this is what I did. I did every Tuesday. My Tuesdays in the middle of the day, I would take a walk and I would listen to a podcast, but I would not look at my phone. So exactly. I didn't do it, but I did.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Okay, how many years am I going to get the fucking volunteering one?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, my God. All right. Let's hear Tommy's resolution.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, wow. How'd you do? You get a lot of the tech consultants out of your inbox?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Okay, okay. Oh, oh, I guess I didn't do my resolution for this. Oh, let's do them all at the end. Okay, that's great, great. Dan, let's do Dan's.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, but like a weekly, a couple days a week? Is it every day?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. All right. Now we'll go around and do our resolutions. My resolution this year, this one I'm going to, I'm going to nail. I cannot fucking wait. More posting. Okay. I'm more posting, more Twitter fights. It's going to be Twitter. It's going to be Blue Sky. I'm jumping in the Discord. I'm posting, posting, posting, posting. TikTok stitches. TikTok stitches. Really? Is this serious? Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
More? I'm going to just say what I want. Okay. I'm getting in there. I'm getting in the Discord. You've all seen it. Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Since Biden had that great debate.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I will say that like in the in the in the month or two before the election, I kind of I kind of settled down a little bit on the post and I did a lot of checking, but not a lot of posting. I'm posting now.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It usually starts in the group chat. I usually test it out there and I'm like, oh, it's going to Twitter. What's the goal?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Part of this is that I can't stop it, so I might as well lean into it.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, it's a joke. It's a joke, guys. But I am going to... Well... The reason I'm going to post more is because I'm going to put out my thoughts, right? I'm not going to get in Twitter fights, stuff like that, but I want to write my thoughts down more. And if it's in posts, that's great. If it's in articles, that's great. But I realize that just talking is not good enough for me.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I want to actually write my thoughts down. And I really actually want to – I don't want to be on Twitter as much posting, but I do want to – I've been talking to our Discord subscribers, and they're great. And so I want to get in there more. They're nice. Great.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. And like some of it is, there's times where I've just been like writing stuff down that doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't go on Twitter. It doesn't go anywhere. But sometimes it actually just helps to sort of like, you know, type something out.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. That's, it'll be good. That'll be good. All right, Tommy, who's a, who's in your inbox that you're getting out this year?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's Grammy for spoken word. Sounds like, is that Adrian? That was Adrian, right? Wow. Voice for radio. EGOT.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
All right. Well, good luck, everyone. I'll be posting. That feels like a pretty good place to end it.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
As I mentioned, we're going to be on our winter break the next two weeks, but we'll be tidying you over here in the feed with special access to an episode of our subscriber show Inside 2024 with Dan and Alyssa, all about how presidential transitions work and an episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams about the Trump administration's plans for health care.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, no, no. But it's not like a guess who did the... It's not a guess who did it.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Big thanks to the Take Master General, Elijah, for hosting, to Hallie Kiefer for writing, and to our PSA staff for the hours they spent combing through the very worst of the internet and this show to bring you today's episode. You guys are fantastic.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Farrah, Haley, Saul, Adrian, Reed heard his voice there too. I'm guessing David was involved too. Who else do we miss from our producers? That's everyone. All right, guys. Everyone, have a great holiday, and we will talk to everyone in the new year.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hepcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I feel like there was a lot of that going around. A lot of that. Probably some on this very podcast. Yeah, for sure. Some wish casting.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
This is America. We don't care about cracks. I think we had like 45 episodes that had some kind of title about like, Trump grip on the GOP loosens. Question mark. We always put a question mark. That's true. To protect ourselves. And boy, was that answered. Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I mean, that is his brand. That is Elon's brand. That is the brand of all the bros, the billionaires who are running the government now. I don't know. Maybe they're smarter than they seem.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Again, on the way to a good take. I was going to say, I love these takes that are, like, mostly right and then... Yeah, you're like, crashes into a wall right at the end.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, well, I mean, look, her podcast has rocketed up the charts. What is her show called? I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Has anyone heard it?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, she's really kept up. Has she said anything since the... I mean, I guess it just shows her reach. LAUGHTER I cannot tell you anything that Nikki Haley has said or made news on her podcast. Anyway, we wish her the best. Nikki, come on. Come on, Pod Save America.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, it's called Nikki Haley Live. I think it's on SiriusXM. It's a show. It's a radio show. It's our sister show.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Trump's GOP is cracking. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, I think that has to be the... That's it. That's the one that we can be sure of.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Please tell me it wasn't an issue of Messagebox. And can you also tell us how many more takes from The Hill are we going to do?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, you know what happened is there was... This was revisited. I hate that I know this. This was revisited when the New York Times, the other Nate, dropped a poll about Florida, a Florida poll in the weeks before the election that showed Trump... I think up 13 in that poll?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I saw a picture of you embracing your nemesis slash frenemy, old friend, best friend turned frenemy turned what? Now we're friends again?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Nate Cohn basically nailed Florida. And so when Nate dropped this poll, then everyone started ragging on Nate Silver about the bet, but I don't think the bet had happened. Well, lucky for Nate. I don't think it's sufficient, but boy, is that a bad take. Yeah. God, just the confidence, too. It's like, how many of us have had takes that we were so sure of, we put $100,000 on the line?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Thank you to whoever found this one. You're welcome. Look, you know, to his credit, did not put $100,000 behind it. Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Race step. Race step for the real nerds. That's what they were all calling it, mockingly.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Although I think less racial polarization is helpful. I don't think we want to be polarized by race. It's not helpful for us right now. I mean, in the battleground states.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, just because we have trouble now getting white people to vote for us and black people and Latino people.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah. I mean, I think he is a tragic figure in that this is a man who persevered as a public servant through unimaginable loss until he finally achieves his lifelong dream of becoming president at almost 80 years old, an age where he was too old to do the part of the job that has become maybe one of the most important parts of the job, which is communicating effectively with the American people.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And he was always a mediocre communicator, you know, throughout most of his life. And then when, by the time he got to be president, he, his age made it even worse. And it's difficult because back to all of our conversations about how Kamala could have separated herself from Biden during the campaign.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Aside from Gaza, which we're about to talk about, I don't have a lot of critiques of Biden's legislative or policy decisions during his presidency. In fact, he did just a lot of things that I very much support. I'm very grateful to him for doing that.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But to my point about speeches and stuff, this job in this information age is a performance and it's about communicating and it's about telling people a story and it's about breaking through the noise and it's about commanding people's attention and everything. Joe Biden, because of his long experience in Washington, was very good at building coalitions and knowing how Congress works.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And that showed in his presidency. But the storytelling part of the job and the communication part of the job, it was never his strongest suit. And by the time he got there, he was, you know, he was slowed down by age and And then, like you said, couldn't see that it was time for him to step aside.
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Biden’s Final Warning
There's also a last minute scramble to save TikTok before the ban goes into effect this weekend. And later, I talked to Ben Wickler about his candidacy for DNC chair. But first, this is officially our last show of the Biden administration. And on Wednesday night, the president delivered his farewell address from the Oval Office.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And it's like he is the guy who saved the country from Donald Trump and the same guy who made it possible for Trump to return. And that is just, I mean, talk about tragic figure right there. You know, like he's got that achievement and then he has to live with the, and we all have to live with the other part. So it's tough.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But like you said, there are, you know, largest infrastructure bills since Eisenhower. It's a trillion dollars in spending. You know, unfortunately, all the projects... A lot of the projects haven't been completed yet, but hopefully years from now we'll look back at roads, highways, bridges, everything else and say, oh, that was like what Eisenhower did. Biden did that too.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Same thing with climate. If it's not overturned, $35 insulin and lower prescription drugs for seniors ended the war in Afghanistan, even though it was a chaotic withdrawal. Got us out of the pandemic. Got us out of the pandemic.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Well, and that's the other tragedy there, too, is that he he led us out of the pandemic, but he wasn't helped. He wasn't able to help us overcome all of the economic, political, cultural, even psychological consequences that came from the pandemic. Inflation, crime, migration, growing distrust of institutions.
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Biden’s Final Warning
All of those problems that were there before the pandemic, but the pandemic accelerated. And I don't think any I don't know if any president in his position could have helped us overcome that. But we are very much dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic. And that was an unfortunate place for him to be in. And again, not his fault, but.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah. But it was a like I said, it was it was a good speech last night. And there's a lot of good things he did for the country that I hope survive the next administration. And, you know, grateful that Joe Biden has given this country 50 plus years of public service.
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Biden’s Final Warning
The speech is a tradition for outgoing presidents, and so is including some kind of warning to the country. Biden certainly did that in his address. Let's listen.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Okay, so Biden opened his farewell address by talking about the ceasefire deal that was reached this week between Israel and Hamas that would lead to the release of 33 hostages in the first phase, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and allow for more humanitarian relief in Gaza 15 months after the war began.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Israel's cabinet will vote to ratify the deal, the first phase of which is set to start on Sunday, though there were reportedly some last-minute hiccups on Thursday. And since you may be wondering, why are John and Dan talking about foreign policy? Fear not. Our pal Tommy is here to set us straight.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, welcome to the Thursday pod. Dan, you want to riff on the Friday pod?
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Biden’s Final Warning
I have a series of follow-ups for you, so let me hear what you got.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Tommy, aside from what I just said, what else should we know about the deal and how it came together?
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Biden’s Final Warning
You said that a minister has said that he might remove himself from the coalition. Does that screw with the deal? Like, do they need everyone? How does that work?
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Biden’s Final Warning
So you mentioned Biden. He's taking credit for the deal. Trump is also taking credit for the deal. I've read reporting that suggests both deserve some credit. What do you think?
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Biden’s Final Warning
I was going to ask, from Netanyahu's perspective, why would he be more persuaded by Trump than Biden?
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Biden’s Final Warning
I would also imagine that Trump doesn't feel like Joe Biden is looming largest president right now. No.
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Biden’s Final Warning
All right. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you, Tommy. Dan, you want to riff a little?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Come on, man. You want to do a tight five on Biden's farewell address?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yes. And I wanted to make this point, though, that Biden opened the speech with this story about the Statue of Liberty. He came back and closed with that as well. I know that John Meacham has helped with Biden's speeches. It felt very Meacham coded, the Statue of Liberty open and close. But it also reminded me of Reagan's farewell address.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Reagan's farewell address is famous for the story at the end with one of the boat people from Vietnam who says like waves at an American sailor and says freedom man or something. It's actually a beautiful story at the end of Reagan's story. the end of Reagan's farewell address.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Joe Biden, come on offline. I was pleasantly surprised that Biden chose to focus on economic inequality, wealth concentration, took one last parting shot at our new tech oligarchs. What do you think about that choice?
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Biden’s Final Warning
And it seemed so much like that, that it's like sometimes when you're, and this is part of my point, when you're writing speeches only for history, and so therefore you look at older speeches from other presidents, the trap is, and we fell into the trap as well in the Obama White House at times, the trap is that you write in a way that sounds like an older speech and a president that's like a historic president.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And you know what? Everyone who goes to Pondahawk in Normandy, they do the same thing because there's a lot of Reagan cosplay and Kennedy cosplay.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Two quick housekeeping notes. Our friends at Vote Save America and Cricket Ideas have set up a disaster relief fund to benefit those impacted by the horrific wildfires here in LA. Super easy for you to make one donation that's split among incredible charities doing really important work for our neighbors and first responders.
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Biden’s Final Warning
We have raised almost $200,000 for these great groups so far, thanks to you. And you can learn more and make a tax-deductible donation at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. Also, check out the latest episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. You might have heard MAGA leaders blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion for the wildfires and basically for everything else lately. This isn't new.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Many companies are also rolling back DEI programs as the new Trump administration approaches. Stacey and NYU law professor Kenji Yoshino tackle the myths, legal arguments, and share why DEI isn't the problem, it's the solution. Tune into this episode now on the Assembly Required feed.
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Biden’s Final Warning
All right, the Senate has been busy this week holding confirmation hearings for Trump's cabinet picks. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth had his on Tuesday. Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi went on Wednesday, as did Secretary of State nominee Lil Marco Rubio. John Ratcliffe for CIA director. Former Real World star Sean Duffy for Transportation Secretary.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Oil industry CEO Chris Wright for Energy. Project 2025 author Russell Vogt for Budget Director. Billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent for Treasury. And so many more. But the main events this week were the Hegseth and Bondi hearings. Here are some highlights and lowlights.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, you know, showing up for a vote drunk. It's, you know, commanding the greatest army in the world and the nuclear triad.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Someone's going to be like, he doesn't actually command the nuclear.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But you know what? No one's asking me to be Secretary of Defense. Not yet. Not yet. An unconventional choice, Pete Hegseth. You know who else would be an unconventional choice? Someone I just meet on the street outside the studio. I'm not going to make them Secretary of Defense.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I read somewhere that she's been changing minds among Republican senators.
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Biden’s Final Warning
No one's asking tough questions. In the drinking on the job allegations, this is from like, like last I saw 10 sources talk to NBC or Fox employees who were saying that they were concerned about Hegseth being drunk in the morning.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, and yes, he served in the military, but he's not getting nominated for this. He didn't get nominated for this because he served in the military. He got nominated for this because he was on TV on the president-elect's favorite TV program.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It doesn't matter if it's week or weekend. He's watching the whole time. You think Donald Trump's missing Saturday and Sunday Fox and Friends?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Steve Doocy's, we should just refer to him as Steve Doocy's understudy.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And it's not all bullshit, by the way. It's like you've got China, Russia, North Korea, Iran all cooperating more than they have. It's a very dangerous time in the world. And... It's like we've been competing with China. It's pretty scary out there. And we're sending Pete Hegseth.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It's absolutely absurd. Which also, by the way, is the Democrats on the committee, like I thought we played, that was Alyssa Slotkin that you heard in the middle there. That was the highlight of our highlight and low light reel. The rest were low lights. But I thought she did a fantastic job.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And she talked about, you know, whether he would follow in order to shoot protesters, American citizens in the leg, as Donald Trump tried to ask his last secretary of defense to do, Mark Esper, around the George Floyd protests. So she had a great line of questioning. It was sober. It was calm.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It was, you know, but like they were getting into the questioning of him about the affairs and like Tim Cain's asking him about adultery. And I'm like, honestly, that's not my biggest problem with Pete Hegseth. My biggest problem with Pete Hegseth is he's not qualified to run the U.S.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Now, I do think that's only because of the way the votes are in the Senate right now. If Democrats had held the Senate and we had 51 seats, I think these hearings would be a bigger deal, right?
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Biden’s Final Warning
again, I don't think it works for everything, but a good rule of thumb is the line of questioning or the message or whatever it may be should have something to do with the person's potential effects on people's lives going forward.
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Biden’s Final Warning
So much, you notice, I mean, it's like, this is why the talking about how dangerous the world is and whether he is the person equipped to lead the United States military in a very dangerous world, that's something that would at least, if someone was paying attention, someone was forced to watch like us, we get them thinking, oof, this is kind of scary. Do I want this guy in charge of the military?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Because it might affect me, you know? And I don't know that we've quite gotten there yet. I think same thing with the Pam Bondi hearings. By the way, it's bizarre that Pam Bondi is now like, oh, she's going to be a slam dunk because Matt Gaetz, who is the only one who's gone down, and that's because the bipartisan House Ethics Committee concluded that he paid for sex with an underage woman.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, I know. But so now Pam Bondi seems great, even though she was like a... They were asking her about being a registered foreign agent for the government of Qatar. Cool. She still wouldn't say that Biden was legitimately elected. She just said that he is the president. She, you know, hinted that there's fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020. Just crazy shit for an attorney general to say.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Wouldn't promise anything. to not prosecute Liz Cheney or Jack Smith. She said she's not familiar with Donald Trump saying that the January 6th rioters are hostages or patriots. She wasn't familiar.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And she does all this and all the Republicans are like, yep, she's in. Slam dunk. Great.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But I do think even pressing her on the big lie stuff and you believe the elections, it's like, okay, you're going to say, hey, you believed that Donald Trump won the election. She's going to say, no, I didn't. Or she's going to not answer the question. And then we're going to go back and forth. What are we getting out of it now? I don't even know.
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Biden’s Final Warning
unbelievable and like Marco Rubio gonna sail right through yeah I mean that's like Marco Rubio but he's like a legitimate like a Republican wins and a Republican gets their cabinet Marco Rubio is a perfectly legitimate senators usually get confirmed yes exactly also by the way I said this to you earlier but
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Biden’s Final Warning
I was looking at the resumes of all these people because knowing that all the cabinet picks are getting in, you don't pay as much attention to it. But Chris Wright, this guy's going to be the energy secretary, literal oil industry CEO. It's on the nose. It's very clear. The treasury secretary is a billionaire hedge fund manager.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I was going to say, yeah, they're a workers' party now, the Republicans. Oil executives and hedge fund billionaires in the cabinet. All right. We'll see. Let's see. They've got it covered. They're going to fix the country. That's what they promised. They are selfless patriots who could be making even more money than they already have, but they have decided to take a leave to help fix the country.
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Biden’s Final Warning
For sure. All right. Before we get to my interview with Ben Wickler, we got to talk about TikTok. which is set to be banned in the U.S. unless the Chinese-owned video sharing app is sold to an American owner by January 19th, which is this Sunday. We are recording this Thursday afternoon. By the time you hear this on Friday, it's also possible the Supreme Court may have handed down their decision.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It does not seem like the Supreme Court's going to save TikTok from the oral arguments. We've talked about this before, but we shall see. The ban, which passed last year with a huge bipartisan majority, does allow a 90-day extension if there's a potential sale. Biden administration says they're not going to delay the ban because they don't think they can because they don't see a potential sale.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But the incoming Trump administration says they intend to find a way to extend the deadline and get that deal. This is according to Trump National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who said, quote, It's been a great platform for Trump and his campaign to get his America first message out. But at the same time,
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Biden’s Final Warning
Trump and conservatives don't want the Chinese communists getting their passwords, getting their data and being able to overly influence the American people. Again, horses out of the barn on that one. What do you think? Will Donald Trump protect the right of every American to have Chinese spyware on their phone?
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Biden’s Final Warning
You've got to hand it to Xi Jinping. You do. And the Chinese Communist Party. Because if this is an op, they fucking nailed it. They created an app. that has completely addicted young Americans. And when you try to take away something that someone's addicted to, they're going to be pretty fucking pissed. And that's what they're doing now.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, that's like middle of financial crisis after a bailout plus after years of the Iraq war.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And without a reason that, like you said, makes sense to people. And now what's happening is a lot of young people are like going over to, what is it, Red Note? Yes. Which is like... That's a little on the nose, if you will. It's like the servers are in China. It's like run by the party. It's not just influence, you know?
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Biden’s Final Warning
And they're over there, and now you're starting to see people be like, oh, you know, what's wrong with the Chinese government anyway? It seems like things are going pretty well over there, and food is cheaper than it is here in America. I mean, it's just wild. Tiananmen Square, eh. Was that real? I don't know if that was real. Are we sure that wasn't those weren't paid actors?
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Biden’s Final Warning
And the saddest irony is it's too hard to communicate to people how dangerous that might be because of the information environment that has given rise to TikTok. Yes. And the TikTok has been helped. I mean, it would be fucking hilarious if it weren't so scary. I agree. I totally agree in the politics. You're 100% right in the politics.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It's like if you're in the government and you're genuinely concerned about this. I don't know what else you do, but at this point, but say like, yeah, of course we want to ban this.
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Biden’s Final Warning
That's been floated. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, it does seem like the Trump administration is saying... I thought they might just say, you know, they could have Pam Bondi, Attorney General Pam Bondi could save TikTok by just not enforcing the ban. Now, that only lasts as long as the Trump administration lasts. I kind of expected that they might do that.
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Biden’s Final Warning
The fact that they are at Michael Waltz there on Fox and Friends, again, a show that gives us defense secretaries. said that they think that they're going to get a deal. Like, it does feel like they're going to try to.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But again, even if they get a deal, if the Chinese government doesn't allow for a deal, even though they would make, even though ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, would make a fuckload of money, if they still say no, should tell us something. Oh, yeah, for sure. Should tell us something about how the Chinese government, the authoritarian government in Beijing, sees TikTok.
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Biden’s Final Warning
If they're like, no, no, no, all this money? No, no, we're not selling. Why? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It's not great. It's not great at all. Well, good luck. Good luck, Donald Trump and the Trump administration. Hope you find a deal. If Elon Musk fucking buys TikTok, I'm going to lose it. We can't. We can't have Elon.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It's been a long week for you. Elon buying TikTok is just a distraction because they want to stop our bottom-up, middle-out strategy. Yeah, it's going to be a long four years, Dan. But maybe our next guest will lead us into the future.
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Biden’s Final Warning
When we come back, our pal and a candidate for Democratic National Committee Chair, Ben Wickler.
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
The three richest men in the world will be on the dais at the inauguration, like sitting there with members of Congress and the cabinet and the other presidents, just the three richest people in the fucking world.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Joining us today, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who is currently running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ben Wickler. Welcome back to Pod Save America, pal. John, it's great to be back. So as a Democrat, I feel grateful and excited that you're running for DNC chair.
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Biden’s Final Warning
As a friend, I'm concerned because it is a thankless job that makes you a punching bag for things that aren't necessarily your fault. You and I haven't talked about this yet, but what was your decision-making process that led you to run?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Even though you've been one of the most frequent guests on Pod Save America, I feel like a lot of our audience might think you emerged on this earth fully formed as the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Can you talk a little bit about what got you into politics in the first place and why?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Did you see Brian Stelter had tweeted that one of the top search terms after Biden's speech was, what is an oligarch?
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Biden’s Final Warning
You mentioned the high turnout in Wisconsin this time around and how it's slightly left to the popular vote. I've seen some post-election analysis from some folks on the left that argues Harris lost because too many voters in the anti-Trump coalition stayed home. It seems like that's not what happened in the battleground states, certainly not what happened in Wisconsin.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I know Harris got more votes than Biden in Wisconsin, but there were even more new Trump voters than anticipated. Given that, what does it tell you about why we lost and what we need to do going forward?
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Biden’s Final Warning
On a positive note, people were tuning in. Less positive, didn't know what all it was.
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Biden’s Final Warning
So I want to dig into that. It seems like, you know, there's like three components to a message. There's what we say. There's how we say it. And then there's how we make sure people hear it. Put the last one aside for a second. And the first two, what we say and how we say it. I've been banging this drum since 2016. I know you have, too. A lot of Democratic strategists and organizers have.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It seems pretty clear that the story we want to tell is the Democrats are on the side of working people and Republicans are for the rich. And we know from talking to people that that works well. We know from polling. We know from focus groups. Everyone knows it. And yet, it's really hard to get that message out.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And we are now in an era where the debates about culture and identity attract more attention than debates about economics and economic issues. Like maybe back in, you know, last time we had an election based on a debate about economic issues was 2012, maybe? I don't know.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But how do we, is it a problem with, is it about being more creative in how we talk about economic issues? Is it the language Democrats are using? What do you think?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, I think that the, I mean, it's a farewell address, so you can only do so much in a farewell address when you have a bunch of other territory to cover. But I do think that there is a, there's a roadmap there for Democrats. And, you know, and Biden, you know, was even able to say, we're not trying to like punish rich people.
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Biden’s Final Warning
In terms of how we make sure people hear Democrats' message, you laid out three steps in a post a month ago, I think. Build up progressive media, obviously. Love to hear it. I'm biased on that one. Number two, more media appearances on shows that have conservative or conservative-leaning audience.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And three, figure out how to reach people who aren't consuming political news or really any kind of news at all. You mentioned this earlier. To me, this is the most important one and I think maybe the most difficult. What are your thoughts on how to reach people who just aren't paying attention to any of this bullshit?
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Biden’s Final Warning
We're trying to make sure that they pay their fair share and that they don't like control everything.
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Biden’s Final Warning
You know, I mean, that seems like a, it seems like a message that people would be receptive to. What do you think about the speech overall?
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Biden’s Final Warning
When you do that audit, if you do that audit, what are you looking for? What kind of consultants, what kind of ad makers would you think are like, okay, that's good. The party needs that. I won't make you say which ones you want to get rid of, but what are you looking for from a positive angle?
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Biden’s Final Warning
What other changes do you want to make at the DNC? And what specifically would you do differently than Jamie Harrison has over the last four years?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Would you be in favor of reinstating the ban on donations from corporate PACs and lobbyists?
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Biden’s Final Warning
I asked one of your opponents, Ken Martin, the same question too, and he gave me a similar answer and also was saying that there's some people that would be classified as corporate PACs and lobbyists that are actually people on our side that we'd like, not just corporations that we'd like, but actual groups. Right. Like progressive groups, unions. Right. Like you just mentioned this, too.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I'm trying to figure out I'm trying to like read read between the lines here. Is it that we don't want to unilaterally disarm in the face of Republicans raising all this money? Or is it that we there are going to be places with PACs, you know, or entities with PACs and lobbying arms that are good progressive causes that will want to take money from? What's what's going on there?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Speaking to Ken Martin, your main competitor, we had him on the show, and I said this to him too. I said, you know, I didn't really know you before this. You and Ben have, you know, I'm friends with Ben, goes way back, but you guys have similar vibes. I like that. What's something you guys disagree about? How are your visions different?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Someday soon, I will have some constructive criticism for all Democratic politicians and staffers about speech writing and speech giving.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Last question. I'll let you go. I don't know if you noticed, but the vibes among Democrats are not great right now. A lot of anger, despair, fatalism. I've also noticed some like weird happy talk from a lot of Democratic politicians. It sounds like we just lost a normal election with normal stakes.
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Biden’s Final Warning
You just mentioned you've been a party chair in a state where for a while it seemed like extreme gerrymandering would lead to functionally the end of democracy in Wisconsin. Any lessons from that and how to inspire people to move from despair to action, which seems like what we need right now?
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Biden’s Final Warning
Watching Biden's speech, again, the reason I'm saying this is this is not a specific critique of Biden, but it's something that has been bothering me For the last several years and thinking about how we are now in a pretty awful situation, the Democratic Party, and there's a lot that the Democratic Party has to fix.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Ben Wickler, I started by saying that as a Democrat, I'm excited and grateful that you're running. I was a little more nervous as your friend. But you know what? You seem like you're really into this. And now as a friend, I'm very happy that you're running as well. Thank you, as always, for joining Pod Save America. And good luck out there.
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Biden’s Final Warning
That's our show for today. Thank you, Ben, for joining. Everyone have a great weekend. And we'll be back with another show on Tuesday about the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And I do not think if everyone in the Democratic Party started suddenly giving great speeches that all our problems would be solved at all. But. As you know, because you have written books about this, the way we communicate with each other has changed dramatically. The way we consume what politicians say has changed dramatically over the last decade even.
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
And the way that politicians speak has not changed. Just you talking about how, yeah, well, typical speeches, farewell addresses have followed this pattern. You're right. They have. But Donald Trump is about to be president for the second time. The country made its worst person president twice now. And so maybe, maybe it's time for some out-of-the-box thinking.
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Biden’s Final Warning
on uh on the way that we communicate and maybe the like stayed sort of his sweep of history uh speaking like we're trying to get into the history books and not like we're trying to communicate with people maybe that style of speaking is uh something that we should get rid of or something we should maybe think twice about and again again this is not just a joe biden thing this is the
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Biden’s Final Warning
Most Democratic politicians think. And I think if you cannot communicate effectively and capture people's attention, we are in a war for attention, for people's attention against figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who are so shameless that they will basically say or do anything. to get people's attention, to get people to notice them. So that's what we're competing against.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And we're competing against them with a bunch of Democratic politicians who still speak like they're press releases.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Well, but I think that, yes, in the way that you're defining speeches, I think that we need to, like Democratic politicians need to over-communicate, like need to communicate more. I think that for good or for ill, and I think it's probably for ill, Americans got used to, during the first Trump term, their president being in their face all the time.
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Biden’s Final Warning
A lot of people didn't like Donald Trump being in their face, but enough did that they... I think they felt like that in the Obama era, too. That what?
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Biden’s Final Warning
You remember times when the public and the pundits were like, we haven't heard from Barack Obama yet.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But even then, and Barack Obama was out there a lot, and it still wasn't enough. But the idea that we we're just going to keep doing the same thing, speaking the same way, using the same cliches, using the same poll tested lines, using the same phrase. Like we know that a message of sort of a harder edged populism talking about the tech oligarchy, like it's a good message.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But the way it comes out and I actually think Biden, I think that the writing around the. aside from the use of the word oligarch, the writing around that was strong.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And it didn't sound like if I hear fucking bottom up, middle out one more time, I'm going to throw my phone out the window because I don't think anyone knows what that means.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Not bottom up. Middle out. First of all, middle out doesn't make sense. Bottom up makes sense. Top down makes sense. Neither of them are very creative, but they at least make sense. Middle out doesn't make any sense.
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Biden’s Final Warning
No, we're going to go back and look at the speeches afterwards. Anyway, anyway. But that brings up a good point because I'm not saying this is like, oh, Barack Obama. If Barack Obama came back today and gave all the same speeches that he gave when he was president, when he was running for office, I don't think that would fit the moment either. Like, we just have to update the way we communicate.
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Biden’s Final Warning
We have to do it in a more... organic way, authentic way, conversational. It's just the style of political speaking. And honestly, for a lot of Republicans not named Donald Trump, they have the same problem. It's not just a Democratic Party problem, but it's just, you're not reaching people this way.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Look, my expectation was that he was going to go do his like, I'm the guy who did X, Y, and Z and did all of his accomplishments and that's it. And the fact that he took the time to do a warning to the country and talk about that, I think that surpassed my expectations. So again, this was not a critique of... Joe Biden specifically.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It's a critique of democratic speech giving, which is a problem that goes beyond Joe Biden now that he's off the scene.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, I mean, I'm good. So since this is our last time talking about Joe Biden for a while, how are you thinking about his legacy and how his presidency will be remembered?
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Biden’s Final Warning
That is true. Welcome to our beautiful city. On today's show, we're going to talk about the Gaza ceasefire deal that Biden and Trump are both taking credit for and whether it will actually hold. We'll get into the Senate confirmation hearings for Trump's impeccably qualified cabinet picks, especially Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
How do you message the we're for a clean CR, which obviously no one knows what the fuck that is. And it does seem like the changes they made to the CR are calculated to like, you know, our most it's horrible that they're going to cut a billion dollars from the fucking D.C. budget. are most people going to care about what happens in Washington, D.C., right?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
I do think people would probably fucking hate that they're going to add another $12 billion to defense spending for no fucking reason. The deportation stuff, I wish it was more unpopular, but it's the most popular thing he's doing right now, which is fucking gross. So I guess you would have to you would talk about like health care cuts and cuts.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
We're happy to negotiate with Republicans. We'll go to the table. We'll negotiate. And we can either negotiate the same levels of funding that we had and just keep the government open or we can, you know, compromise. We'll put proposals on the table. But like where you got to you need our votes. You're going to you're going to give us at least a clean bill.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So then why? So then. OK, now we're going to take from the other side. So then why? Why do you think that Schumer doesn't have the appetite to at least just fight for a clean CR?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And so, yeah, I do think you're right. Even if you're fighting for a clean CR and the government shut down, you do have then the possibility.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And there's been White House people saying this to reporters that nothing would make Elon happier and Trump happier than having the government shut down and them being able to pick and choose who gets laid off, who's on unpaid leave, which money they spend, how they spend it, and basically just be continued to be even more authoritarian than they have been in running the whole country.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
I also think to argue again now for shutting it down. Yeah. or at least demanding a clean CR.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So it shuts down, and it lasts a week, two weeks, and all the substantive risks that you and I were talking about come to pass, and it's mayhem everywhere, and people aren't getting their benefits or services, and there's hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed, and Republicans are just like, fuck it, we don't care, we're not negotiating, we're not opening the government back up.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Like, we could cave then. And that would still be better than not trying to fight at all. Like, it would be embarrassing when it happens and we'd have lost the fight. But, like... Might as well give it a shot. It's not worse, right?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Like having it shut down for a week or two and then saying, OK, well, Republicans don't care about the government, don't care about these workers and are just doing whatever they want anyway. We'll vote for a clean, you know, we'll we'll vote for the bill or we'll let you know, vote for cloture, whatever the fuck it is. We'll do that like that. That's not worse than just not fighting at all.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Well, the government shuts down. Trump will have more time to focus on what seems to be his true passion, which is tanking the economy with his trade war. Here's the latest.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Trump promised on Truth Social on Thursday morning to impose a 200 percent tariff on European wine and champagne, apparently as a retaliation for tariffs that the EU imposed on American whiskey, which itself was in retaliation for Trump's tariffs on foreign made steel and aluminum tariffs.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Meanwhile, a delegation from Canada was in Washington on Thursday, awkward, to talk about the trade war we're already in with them. Trump got asked about all this in the Oval Thursday. Let's listen.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Big show today, Dan. We got Trump coming after our booze in the next phase of a trade war that might cause a recession. We got his family looking to do business with a crypto felon who wants a pardon and the president himself hawking Teslas on the White House lawn.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Now, Dan, in one of our social videos that we're making now this week, I made a joke in the video that Trump wants Canada as a 51st state because he thinks it looks cool on the map. But apparently that is that is true. That is why it seems like that is why he he looks at the fucking globe. He looks at the map and he's like, which country is the biggest?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And he looks at us and he's like, well, if we had Greenland and we had Canada, look how look how big that would be. Look how big America would be then. And of course, he's probably looking at a map that's not, you know, the proportional. So he thinks Greenland is bigger than it is. I mean, I it's so fucking stupid.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Trump's approval rating is now falling quickly, driven mostly by people's view of how he's handling the economy, which are now at all time lows. 51 percent say Trump's policies have worsened the economy, while only 28 percent think they've helped, according to the latest CNN poll.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that CEOs and even some of Trump's own advisors are, quote, spooked by the way he's talking about tariffs. And here's just a sample of what smart financial folks are saying. This is from CNBC's Steve Leisman.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
That is fact-checked truth. So the comments in the Oval Thursday where Trump also... mused about sending troops to Greenland and said that he had invaded Los Angeles to turn our water on. He did not invade Los Angeles. There was no invasion here. And the water doesn't go to Los Angeles. And the water did not go to Los Angeles. It just nearly flooded a bunch of farms in the Central Valley.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Meanwhile, it was raining here while that whole thing happened. So none of that really happened either. He also in that same pool spray talked about the quote adjustment period that we're in. How do you think that's going for him, the adjustment period?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And as the 2026 midterm announcements begin, Lovett drove down to Orange County to chat with Katie Porter, who just announced that she's running for governor of California, possibly against Kamala Harris. But the biggest story right now is the looming government shutdown, which, as of this recording on Thursday afternoon, still hasn't been averted.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah. And you don't usually get that a lot. It's not like... No, no, it's very specific. How much control does the president really have over the economy? Well, when he launches a global trade war, quite a bit.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And look, the most generous interpretation here is that Trump genuinely believes he is pursuing a strategy that will bring back a man, your American manufacturing, bring in more tax revenue and force other countries to do what he wants. David Sanger had a piece about this in The Times this week. What do you think about that? That strategy?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And, you know, and he's basically saying, like, yeah, there's going to be short term pain and an adjustment. And he said in the oval, I'm sorry, but we just have to do this. We just have to do this. So but like even even taking him at his word that this is what he thinks is going to happen. Like, what do you think about that strategy?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
For Republicans to pass their shit sandwich of a funding bill through Congress, they need at least eight Senate Democrats to break a filibuster. They have Fetterman. And reportedly, right before we started recording, Chuck Schumer told his colleagues that he'll allow a vote on the bill.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
His reference point is like, you know, William McKinley did tariffs and that was successful. And then also like we should be, you know, I want to go back to 1950, the 1950s, where we were this manufacturing. Like the idea that you can just undo the entire global economy and everyone can go back to like what we were like 50, 60, 70 years ago.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
is completely insane like like any car is manufactured with parts from a dozen different countries and to try to like figure out where it's going to be made here and it's like it's just so stupid and he really thinks that he thinks they're going to unwind the entire global economy and that we are going to produce everything we need in america
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And that's it with like and not realizing that that's not just like a recipe for short term pain, which, by the way, when's the last time Americans have been like, you know what? I'm willing to sacrifice some of my own financial well-being for this larger dream of a wealthier America down the road. First of all, that doesn't happen. Second of all, that's not what's going to happen.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
It's just going to be short term pain, medium term pain, long term pain.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
The worst part of it all is him being like, well, we're going to be rich. It's going to bring in so much tax revenue. It's like the tax revenue you're bringing in is from American companies that are paying the tax. And the way that American companies are paying that tax is they're then passing the cost on to all of us.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
It's just like we're going to get so much more tax revenue from you, the American consumer, which is going to be a regressive tax because sales taxes are regressive taxes.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
There are also reports that six other Senate Democrats will follow Schumer, even though most of them have come out against the bill, which doesn't just keep the government funded at the same levels. It makes cuts to things like housing, health care, a billion dollars in cuts to D.C., And it also gives Trump more power to impose tariffs and basically spend our money however he'd like.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
You know, you remember during the campaign, I was big on the, we should talk more about the tariffs and the sales tax thing. You were. And I was very big, but... You were, you were huge on it.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
But I didn't, but I bought the argument that like, and I still do, I think, that even if we had, even if Kamala Harris had doubled down and talked about it every single day and ran ads about it, I think it might not have landed the way it does now because no one would believe that Donald Trump is fucking crazy enough to have done this. And like...
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
when he got the reaction he did, not just from the markets, but from companies from other countries, just continue to do it and then go back and forth. So maybe it wouldn't have been as believable a hit as it should have been.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah. OK, we're going to take a quick break. But before we do some cricket tour news, strict scrutiny. Our excellent legal podcast hosted by constitutional law professors Melissa Murray, Kate Shaw and Leah Lippman is going back out on the road. Tickets for the Bad Decisions Tour 2025 are on sale now. Great tour name.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
They've got three great shows planned May 31st in Washington, D.C. at Capital Turnaround, June 12th in New York City at Sony Hall, and October 4th in Chicago at the Athenaeum Center. Tickets are going fast. Don't miss out. Head to crooked.com slash events for more info.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Well, there's one group of people who'll be making money no matter how bad Trump fucks up the economy, and that's Trump, his family, and their friends. Just this week, as Americans everywhere were freaking out about our 401ks, Trump held an event on the lawn of the White House that doubled as an infomercial for his top advisor's car company, Here's a Taste.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Naturally, Trump's a fan. Here he is talking about the situation during a pool spray in the Oval Office on Thursday.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Tesla. I love Tesla. Clearly had no idea the Blade Runner reference just went right over his head. No, not at all.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So that was Trump and Elon Musk and Elon Musk's child once again popping up in the White House on the front lawn of the White House selling Teslas. Trump decided he said he's going to buy a Tesla. Sean Hannity said he's buying a Tesla. And so now we're all buying. Now MAGA loves Teslas and and they're doing it because the Libs. have been so mean to Elon Musk.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And now if you protest at a Tesla dealership and it gets out of hand, that is domestic terrorism. They are labeling that domestic terrorism if you fuck up a Tesla dealership. So please, peaceful protest only outside of the Tesla dealership. That may also be domestic terrorism under this department of justice. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So because everyone's so mean to Elon and Elon is just so hard up for cash,
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
just a guy who's just trying to make a living and he's sacrificed so much to just destroy government uh with his doge team we got to help him out we got to test the tesla you know the share price of tesla is just in the shitter so uh clearly the guy's boss who happens to be the president united states is going to be out there selling cars what can i do to put you in a tesla today that's not just selling cars he's buying cars he's buying
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
I also want to just make sure I have this right now. So now we love Teslas. We love using the power of the state to protect and build American industries. but we hate tax credits for electric vehicles.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Well, I'm sure that they just believe that Elon will give them their own private charging stations so they can drive their cars because they don't really give a fuck about anyone else. Love Teslas. Again, love helping American industry hate tax credits for electric vehicles and charging stations.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Representatives of the Trump family's World Liberty financial crypto business are reportedly in talks to take a stake in the disgraced crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges and whose CEO is now seeking a pardon from Trump. According to Bloomberg, World Liberty and Binance are considering developing a so-called stable coin.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Dan, I'm sorry to do this to you, but can you explain to listeners who may not know what's Binance and what's a stable coin? And I am one of those listeners who does not know what a stable coin is.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
All right. So I don't know from where we sit right now, 3 p.m. Pacific on Thursday. It feels like the shutdown may be averted, Dan.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Oh, interesting. That Hamas. So the Trump family wants to get into business with... with a convicted felon who helped launder money for Hamas, do you think that that possibly has adverse foreign policy consequences? Or are those just for people who peacefully protest and are immigrants that we are then going to deport? What do you think?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah, like literally terrorist financing. And Senator Warren has been working on that for a while too. And I think it was like a bipartisan bill at some point, because like one of the challenges, one of the many problems with crypto and the crypto industry is that terrorist organizations use crypto to launder money to hide it from, because they can't use banks.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And now this, now Binance that did this with Hamas, ISIS. Business with the Trump family. Business with the Trump family. Seems totally normal. There's a meeting with Steve Witkoff, the guy that's negotiating, the Middle East negotiator who's sitting down with Putin.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So let's take a step back and just talk about sort of the strategy around this, like the analysis of voting for a shutdown against a shutdown. You had a great message box Thursday about why Democrats shouldn't fear the politics of a shutdown. Can you walk us through that?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
I would say so. That's a big overlap. That's one you're going to want to watch. Remember back in Trump's first term when Kellyanne Conway got an official warning from the White House Ethics Office for casually suggesting that Americans should buy from Ivanka Trump's clothing line? Just so we know how far we've come.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Now we've got the President of the United States hawking Teslas and his family looking at business deals with a crypto felon.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
He was big on Twitter for a long time. He was big on Twitter. He was a character from the first resistance. Yes, for some time.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
People are going to care about this, right? It's just got to know about this. People have to care about this, particularly when the split screen is Trump hawking the Teslas and the crypto stuff with the markets tanking and risks of recession going up. I don't know.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
It wasn't Hunter Biden's Jeep dealership, you know? That's right.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Stupid. Are people going to care? It's so much worse than Hunter Biden because Hunter Biden wasn't in the government. It would be like Jeff Zients' Jeep dealership.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Okay, according to the beautiful gold-plated timepiece I purchased from GetTrumpWatches.com for just $799, it's now time to introduce our final topic. Oh my God, I'm so mad about this. So it's only been about four months since the last presidential election, and sadly... No, I don't know. We don't have to officially start talking about the next one. Read. No, we're going to.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Dan, didn't you just come from talking to some House Democrats in D.C.? I did. You know what they did?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So Democrats are making moves. We're not going to get into the presidential so much. But 2026 midterms are coming. And which means that the very least now candidates have to start announcing that they're running. Right. Because, you know, you have to start your campaign. Democrats are making moves.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Pete Buttigieg announced on Thursday that he will not be running for Senate in Michigan or governor, which leaves the door open for potential presidential run in 2028 for Pete. Tim Walz is out there. He's touring the country, distancing himself from the Harris campaign. We talked a little bit about that. Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast where, you know, he's raising his profile.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
He's talking to MAGA goons like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
uh that's happening we could do a whole episode on that definitely happening that's happening kamala harris herself is toying with a run to replace newsom as governor of california where she will face a formidable challenge from among others katie porter our pal katie porter who officially entered the race this week um we're gonna get to love it's interview with with katie porter uh he wasn't just gonna do some remote thing he drove down to orange county this week love it just got in the car just
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
He's all over the place. It's great. So before we get to Levitt's interview, is this all really happening now? Not just about Katie Porter. We're talking about presidential 26? No, we're not. Some people may, but we are not. We are not. And I think we should put- I have no, and I have no views.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah, I completely agree with that. OK, well, with all that said, we are going to get to love this interview with Katie Porter.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Unbelievable. And I know that you were speaking along with fellow 2028 hopefuls, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
This was the first cattle call of the 2028 season. You were first up.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
That's our show for today. Love it. Tommy and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Talk to you all then. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Yeah. So I completely agreed with your your message box. And especially like I think that any political benefit or damage will be short lived on either side, whoever gets it. And even if I'm wrong, which I may be like predicting who voters will blame for a shutdown is difficult, especially in this media environment. Which is not exactly friendly and conducive to getting a message out.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And especially since there's no way to know how long the shutdown would last. Right. These things tend to change over time, depending on if it's a short shutdown, a longer shutdown, when it's going to. So like putting aside for a second, just what voters might think about this. Like, we should just talk about what happens during a shutdown.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Because I do think this is, I think this is a harder vote for, a harder decision for Senate Democrats to make than it might appear to be. Because look, I love a good shutdown. We remember in 2018, there was a there was a brief shutdown before the longest shutdown in history that Trump caused at the beginning of Trump's term. Maybe it was like 17, 18. It was it was early 2018, early 2018.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Democrats decided they were not going to give votes for a funding bill. because they were concerned that Trump would deport the Dreamers and that he was going to get rid of protections for the Dreamers. And we, as a podcast and a company, did like a whip count and tried to pressure Senate Democrats into doing this because we really thought that they had leverage here. And they did it.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
On a Monday, yeah, then they caved. But I wasn't like disappointed in them caving at that point because I don't know, like Trump was basically like, okay, the government shut down. I'm not going to give you what you want. I don't care. And so now you have a bunch of furloughed workers who aren't getting paid in the federal government.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And it turns out like the Democrats didn't really have the leverage or at least they didn't try. Like maybe maybe they could have had it go on for a couple of weeks. But that made me rethink my priors about like what leverage really is in a shutdown, depending on which party it is. So like if if if we went through the shutdown, right. What would happen?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
So during the last shutdown, the longest in history that you mentioned during Trump's first term, about 400,000 federal workers were placed on unpaid leave and another 400,000 were forced to work without pay. This dragged on for 35 days. Longest shutdown ever. So more federal employees would be out of work than Trump and Elon already fired.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And a bunch of government services and benefits would get disrupted more than have already been disrupted. So then the question is, what forces Trump and Republicans back to the table to negotiate with Democrats once that happens? And then you have to ask yourself, OK, well, what do they actually want, Trump and Republicans? Well, they want to destroy government jobs, services and benefits.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Government shutdown gives them that. They want the power to spend our money however they'd like, even if Congress appropriated it in specific ways. Government shutdown makes that easier. And now, do they also want public approval? Yeah, maybe.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Well, that's my problem, right? Theoretically, a party wants public approval and wants to be popular so they can win reelection, particularly Republicans in Congress who have to face voters in 2026. But thus far, they have gone along with some Trump policies and decisions that are deeply unpopular. And so even if public opinion turns against them, do we think that will really pressure Republicans?
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Do we think Republicans and the Trump folks will feel pressure to then negotiate with Democrats? And then if so, what are Democrats asking for? And I hope, and we can't be asking for an agreement, a promise, because they're gonna break all of that. In fact, they're breaking laws right now. So it's just like, this is why I think it's tougher.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
And look, I still think you could say, whatever, let's roll the dice. Let's show that we're gonna fight. Let's shut this thing down and let's draw attention to it and protest them, blah, blah, blah. But like, you know, I just don't know. I don't know how it ends and I don't know what we're asking for. And I don't know what they'll give, what they're likely to give because they don't give a fuck.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
They do still care. They want to get rid of government.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. We love Helix. I think all of us have Helix mattresses somewhere in our house. And they're super comfortable. I have a guest mattress. Charlie has a Helix mattress. And, you know, they sleep soundly.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash Crooked. Code Crooked at checkout. So, you know, you raise a debate that's been going around in Democratic circles, and it's like, what do people really think of Elon? And how do we talk about Doge and cutting government, knowing that people do want to, you know, get rid of government waste, but maybe what Elon's doing isn't so popular and he's not so popular.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So I got some more data from Echelon on this right before we recorded. Trump's approval is at 52-46, right? So he is still above water. Elon's approval is 43-50. So he is underwater. They asked what you think about Elon's role in government right now. Only 40% approve, 51% disapprove. So that's underwater. Then they asked two questions. One, Elon is right to try and fix broken D.C.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Elon Musk holds an Oval Office press conference where he admits that he and the dogebags haven't quite gotten everything right while breaking our government and our laws.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
bureaucracies that waste hundreds of billions of dollars and spend taxpayer money on radical ideologies that most Americans don't agree with. Agree or disagree. And it was 50 agree, 42 disagree. Then they did a statement, Elon is wrong to dismantle vital aid programs and other agencies when he wasn't elected and has no expertise in government. And people agree with that statement, 57-43.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And then they asked, which of those statements do you agree more with? And by 50-44, people agreed with Elon is wrong to be doing this and not right. So it's, you know, one indicator, one poll, but it's an early indicator that like, A, it tells you, I think, how to talk about this.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But B, that, you know, while people don't like bloated government and do like cutting waste, they are not super excited about the way that Elon has gone about it.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And while they brag about finding a few billion in cuts, we'll take a look at the trillions that Republicans in Congress want to cut from the budget in order to help pay for their $4.5 trillion tax cut for people like Elon and Trump.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Now they're going to have to pay out of their own budget for the school buses, even though they were promised the money and now they can't hire the new teachers they needed.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Then, Lovett sits down here in studio with Rohit Chopra, who Trump forced out as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week so that banks and credit card companies can go back to screwing us. Great times. Great times. But first... Big congrats to Bashar al-Assad and the measles for getting Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. confirmed as cabinet secretary. Big congrats to measles.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, and to your point about like Elon being a drag on Doge or on the effort, Echelon did like a battery of approval, disapproval on various public figures and agencies. The least popular in the whole list was Elon, by the way, which is great. Doge was at 39.33 approve, disapprove. So like slightly above water for Doge, but Elon was very much underwater. And then even USAID was 39.28 approve.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And so I know everyone says that everyone hates foreign aid and it's bad and stuff like that. But I do think that it's been in the news. My guess would be it has been in the news so much that, you know, people are sort of hearing stories about the humanitarian assistance that's gotten cut and it's not as unpopular as foreign aid might usually be in a poll.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
All of the above. Good for babies and baby making. And babies. So how will you know which Helix mattress works best for you and your body? Take the Helix Sleep Quiz and find out your perfect mattress in under two minutes. I'm going to spice up that quiz after they hear this ad. Yeah, well, what did you get on the Helix Sleep Quiz? Did you get a Dawn Lux? A plus.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Wow. I just like that you really swerved to hit that. That's what I enjoyed.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Before we move on from Elon, did you see that weird-ass photo of Elon? So Prime Minister Modi of India is in D.C. I think he's doing a presser with Trump probably.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
He also, though, met with Elon Musk. And there's a picture of Elon shaking his hand, sitting down shaking his hand, like Elon's the fucking president. And then it's also very funny because when you zoom out, it looks like a traditional bilat with all of Modi's staffers and officials from India on one side. And then on the other side, it's just a couple of kids, a couple of Elon's kids.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
It's also just, and Trump has asked about it in the press conference that he did. And they're like, oh, do you know Elon met with Modi? And he's like, no, I'm not really aware. And he's like, well, do you know why he met with him? He's like, well, I assume he wants to do business in India. Do you know about one? He had no clue.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
just unbelievable it's like yeah he's Elon Musk so he gets to meet with all the people that President Trump gets to meet with only for him it's purely financial there's this it really is like White House Fantasy Camp
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
In the end, every Republican senator but resistance hero Mitch McConnell voted yes on Gabbard and Kennedy. So rest assured that our health and national security are in good hands, Dan. Things also look good for Kash Patel, even though he was reportedly purging the FBI before even being confirmed.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And he gets to break government and he gets to make sure that his friends and his allies, I mean, it's Trump's thing too. His companies. Everyone's friends, allies, ideological allies, they get stuff, right? They're taken care of for now. And then everyone else, yeah, go fuck yourselves.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
One outlet that was not in attendance at the Oval Office Presser or any White House press availabilities this week, the Associated Press. Why? Because the AP refuses to use Trump's preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico. the Gulf of America, even though the body of water doesn't belong to America.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
The AP put out a statement on Tuesday calling the ban alarming and a plain violation of the First Amendment. This comes after Trump's lawsuits against ABC and CBS. And as Trump's new FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, has launched investigations into NPR, PBS, and now NBCUniversal for... Of course, DEI. Carr said in a statement on Wednesday, I don't know if I've never heard the word invidious before.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And kudos to him for nothing else. What do you make of all this? All the AP thing, the FCC investigations? I mean, you know, they went after a local radio station in your hometown here, San Francisco, just for reporting on ICE raids.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But the big news this week, at least according to a very excited President Trump, was his announcement of reciprocal tariffs. He said this was the big one. This was the big one. He said, I had three great weeks, but this is the biggest one yet. He was asked about those tariffs after announcing them in the Oval Office. And here's part of the presser.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, I mean, just look at how many times Donald Trump, since he's become president again, has gone and taken questions from the press, right? Which is a lot of times. Yeah. And in some of those instances, and we've talked about them on the show, people have asked a challenging question or a critical question of Trump.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Like, if you get to the point where they kick out the AP, they kick out all the legacy media outlets or all the outlets that they think might ask difficult questions, and all you get is just fawning questions from Newsmax and OAN and, you know, the Ruthless podcast and all the other fucking idiots that they let into the briefing room now.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
If that's all the questions that we get, then it's going to just sound like North Korean television.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Go to tryarmra.com slash crooked or enter crooked to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash crooked. Let's talk about Congress, which apparently is still a branch of government, I guess. Republicans have begun their attempt to pass Trump's legislative agenda, and the cuts they want make what Doge is doing seem like couch money.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
The House's budget proposal would cut at least $1.5 trillion in health care, education, food assistance, and other spending in order to help pay for a small portion of of the $4.5 trillion Republicans want to spend on tax cuts, which would mostly benefit the biggest companies and billionaires like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and most of the cabinet.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And since they're not paying for all those tax cuts, they also want to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion. This seems like it should be a Huge political problem for Trump and the Republicans. But what do you think and how do you think Democrats should make sure that's the case?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
An announcement that lots of shit we buy is about to be more expensive. Just a few days after we learned that inflation is rising again, the biggest one-month jump since August of 2023. What do you think, Dan? Promises made, promises kept?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So I think I agree with all that. I want all that to be true. The things that worry me this time around that I think the advantages that Trump has that that Republicans didn't have in the past is. Number one, the information environment now favors them in a huge way.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And so we can all be screaming about all these cuts that we're seeing and numbers and look at this in the budget and it's crazy, blah, blah, blah. And he's going to be out there being like, well, what are you talking about? I'm giving everyone a tax cut.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I have this, you know, he's got some small provision here and there, like they might close the carried interest loophole or I saw something like, You know, they're going to take away tax breaks from billionaire sports team owners, you know, like flashy stuff that gets attention, right? That like breaks through.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And, you know, they're going to say we're not going to touch Medicare and Social Security like he promised. And then on Medicaid, all we want to do is just add a work requirement. Don't we think that people who get health care from the government, if they're able to work, should work? What's so crazy about that? That can't get you the numbers he needs, though. No, I know. I know.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But I'm just I do think that fighting this is going to be difficult and also really important to make this about, I think, people who are going to be hurt by these cuts and not just the numbers. And also, you know, I wouldn't underestimate like it's obviously difficult once you get to Congress and you have to deal with Congress. That's true for every president. But.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And they have a very narrow majority of Republicans, but also they have proven themselves to do whatever he wants and not oppose him on almost anything so far. So I do wonder about, you know, some of the troublemakers in the Republican House, like the Freedom Caucus and some of those people.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Like, I wonder if they'll behave this time around just because they're guys in charge in the White House and they want to show unity and get something done. I don't know. What do you think?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
That is why they're doing this. And again, everything has got to be a story and we've got to attach people to it, whether it's the cuts or whether it's the tax cuts.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And we should have which companies are going to be benefiting, how much they're going to get into the tax cut, how many billions they're going to get in a tax cut, which billionaires are going to benefit, and then which people are going to be hurt and how they're going to be hurt across all the different kinds of...
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
spending areas whether it's education whether it's health care whether it's food whatever it may be like we just have to be very vivid and detailed in order to like break through in this environment like fewer numbers more stories more people on everything that we do around around this fight I think yeah that's right
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Okay, before we get to Lovett's interview with Rohit Chopra, it's time for a new segment we're calling, wait, did that really happen? Just three quick, hard to believe, holy shit, are you serious clips from this week that you may or may not have missed. First up, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The nation's cultural center right here has a new board and a new chairman. Let's listen.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I'm going to make it hot. Just like the presidency. It's getting too wokey. Why was the Kennedy Center too wokey? He was saying something like no more drag shows. Were there drag shows at the Kennedy Center? That would surprise me. I don't know. But this is... It's so funny that he fires the whole board and the chairman and he makes – he names himself chairman.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And then he puts a post up that's like, congratulations, Donald J. Trump is the new chairman. Like, oh, wow. How did you get that? How did you finagle that one?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I like that he originally put Rick Grinnell as the acting director. Rick Grinnell, who some people thought was going to get Secretary of State. Man, what a consolation prize. Temporary acting director of the fucking Kennedy Center. Or maybe he's the permanent director. Maybe Trump's the chairman. I don't know. I couldn't keep track.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yes, obviously. Usha Vance. I think they got a whole—Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff. It's just going to be some great entertainment there. Great entertainment at the Kennedy Center.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
No, I think Donald Trump just wants to, he just wants to be a host, right? This is like the whole thing of this president. He just wants to have a lot of shows at the Kennedy Center that are extremely tacky and he gets to go on stage and welcome everybody. Like he's just, like it's just, you know, it's an apprentice thing.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Good luck, buddy. Good luck. Next up, the Kennedy Center's new chairman welcomes the anti-vax Kennedy in his cabinet with a brand new health conspiracy of his own.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Mitch McConnell, who voted against RFK Jr. and explained why. It was partly because he had childhood polio and he thinks that Kennedy's stance on vaccines is just outrageous and he couldn't do it. And Donald Trump is like, oh, he had polio? Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I don't know anything about that. Prove it. Prove he had polio. Prove he had polio. That is just fucking wild. Unbelievable.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Unbelievable. I hope all the Mitch McConnell lackeys out there that have become full MAGA bros are all happy about that one.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And finally, I saved the best for last. Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter gets in on the hot new trend of renaming places we don't own.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
The bizarre bill has been introduced in Congress to allow the United States to acquire Greenland and rename it Red, White, and Blue Land. The bill was presented by Republican lawmaker Earl Buddy Carter from Georgia. It's the stupidest fucking people.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Because it just sort of went under the radar, as it should have. And there's a lot of other important things and who the, you know, some fucking backbench congressman from Georgia, Republican Yahoo, decided to do it. But, wow. Red, white, and blue land. Okay.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Honestly, it's not going to sound so shocking to them now if they have paid attention to the news in the last several years. They'll think, oh, that seems quaint.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I'm telling you. What is he going to rename Europe? He's going to rename Europe like East America? Is that what it's going to be?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah, it's all of it. Everything is America. Everything is something about America and the world now.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
New Mexico, watch out. Okay, when we come back from the break, you're going to hear Lovett's conversation with Rohit Chopra, the now former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about why Trump and Elon... are so hell-bent on closing the agency. Two quick things before that.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
If you're wondering just how we let billionaires hijack the government, tune into the newest episode of Assembly Required. This week, Stacey Abrams talks with Wired editor Leah Fager about Elon and Doge's grip on the Treasury. Then, Strict Scrutiny's Kate Shaw joins to talk about the legality of it all. Listen to Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Also this month, Vote Save America's Anxiety Relief Program is donating to Black-led organizations and candidates of color, including Kimberly Pope Adams, who's running for a Virginia Statehouse seat this year, a prime opportunity to expand the Democrats' one-seat majority. Here's how the Anxiety Relief Program works.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned that people still think that prices are too high. On Tuesday's show, we talked about the CBS poll that showed 66 percent of voters think that Trump is not doing enough to focus on prices. Echelon Insights, which is a Republican run polling firm. They just came out with their latest poll right before we started recording.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You set up a recurring donation at any amount that feels right for you, and Vote Save America will use it to build progressive power in 2025 and beyond. Go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash donate to donate now. Paid for by VoteSaveAmerica. VoteSaveAmerica.com not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we come back, Rohit Chopra. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Joining us now, he was until being fired by the Trump administration a little over a week ago, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra. Welcome to Pod Save America. Thanks so much for having me. So weird week for you, I imagine. You're fired on a Saturday, I believe. I was. And what was the rest of that day like?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So two weeks before the election, the CFPB put out a rule to protect consumer privacy that led to praise by the Republican chair of the Financial Services Committee in the House, a foe of the CFPB for a long, long time foe, somebody who was, when the agency was first proposed, got into an argument with Elizabeth Warren before the agency even existed, and she was the creative founder of it.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
There was a moment where people thought, you know what, Republicans are actually going to become populist. Republicans are going to become... anti-Big Tech. And now because of what the administration is doing, there's a bunch of regulations that would have reigned in Big Tech on hold, specifically on hold at the CFPB.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Can you talk about the long-term impact of this Republican antipathy towards CFPB? And then how does that fit in with at least their public posture of claiming to be these economic populists?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
43% of voters said cost of living is either the biggest or second biggest issue facing the country. And the next closest issue was immigration at 29% and then political corruption at 23%. Seems like there's plenty of that these days.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Let's just talk actually about the specifics here. What happens when CFPB is in the middle of a bunch of investigations? There's a bunch of ongoing, very important investigations going on right now. What happens if those are just stopped in their tracks?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So Trump just announced the replacement, your replacement, somebody that was at the FDIC. Now, is there any hope that once that person's in place, some of these investigations can get unpaused? Or does the leader not matter when there's such a when you have, you know, the Doge boys scrambling around the basement?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
but number one 43 are still concerned about the cost of living so no it wasn't vibes no it wasn't just in people's heads it was a real concern about prices throughout the biden administration a real concern about costs and people are still concerned that donald trump is not focusing on costs and now these reciprocal tariffs which is basically any country that has uh levied a tariff on our goods now we're levying tariffs on any goods that are imported from them but again
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I think people, certainly listeners, have heard about the various successes of the CFPB of clawing money back. What is one of the most, like, just shocking and egregious kinds of fraud you've seen? Not from, I think, people who, just for lack of a better term, expect it from payday lenders.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
They expect it from sort of skeezy financial institutions, but from big blue chip companies that are supposed to be respectable. What's the most disgusting or outrageous thing you guys were able to find and stop?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Because I wanted something that felt firm. I like a firm mattress. Yeah, I like a soft one. Helix lineup offers 20 unique mattresses, including the award-winning Lux and Ultra Premium Elite Collections. Helix Plus is a mattress designed for big and tall sleepers. Helix Kids, a mattress designed for growing bodies.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And those rules, obviously, I think the future is unknown here, but like telling people to stay home, trying to gut the agency, are some of these rules still going to keep moving forward passively? Or does it require, are they, by sending people home, are they stopping those rules right now?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
It's just, it's the, like the- You know, we're in this moment where, you know, oh, Democrats are falling into a trap of defending institutions. And it's like, man, this is I know people don't don't believe government works for them. But I think a lot of that is people have no fucking idea that this is happening.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And like this to me is like if there's anything you would want your government to do, it is to have a consumer watchdog empowered with enough force and might to actually take on these institutions and win. It's an extraordinary story of government at its best. And. I'm glad to hear you still think there's value in telling that story right now.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Tariffs are charged to the U.S. companies that are importing the goods, and then the companies pass on the price increases to us. So we will be paying more. Someone said it's like we're shooting ourselves in the foot for other countries shooting themselves in the foot. That's what a reciprocal tariff is.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, I called the CFPB helpline before we recorded, and I called it during business hours, and it is no longer open right now. That number goes straight to voicemail. So they are trying to stop people from having that experience, which I think tells you a lot. Well, that sounds like censorship to me.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So nine days before Elon's Doge initiative got into the CFPB, Musk made a deal with Visa to add a digital wallet feature to X as part of a broader plan to turn it into an everything app. It seems like a lot of inspiration is being drawn from these Chinese super apps. There's WeChat, there's Alipay.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I want to get your sense on what the dangers are there, especially if there isn't an active CFPB.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So this would be like, just as people understand, like what's so bad about that, right? Like what's so bad about having like surge pricing for pizza or like Google knows based on my mood or whether or not I've had an edible, how much I want this takeout right now. Like what's the negative consequence of having these companies with this level of access to data?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
This is why they were afraid of you. You know, Mark Zuckerberg in a recent interview said, He did this kind of aw shucks routine about like it was so weird. All of a sudden CFPB was looking into into Facebook, which doesn't make sense because we're not a bank. And he kind of implies that what if he or suggests that it might have been political in some way.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You talked about the fact that they were introducing a currency, which would obviously be a reason for them to be looked at. But like. Beyond that, why would CFPB need to be a watchdog when it's supposed to be a consumer financial protection agency? Why would it have to go after Facebook?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And like you've been accused of being anti-tech or, you know, sort of anti-capitalist or whatever it may be because of this position. But you were a McKinsey person or. Yeah, it's funny. I think it's I actually think most business people. want there to be some rule of law. But that's what I was going to say.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Like, presumably these companies would like to compete on a level playing field in which they don't have to be in a kind of race to find the most kind of invasive forms of data monitoring or the most kind of rapacious kind of pricing.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Presumably some of these companies would be interested in having a clear set of rules that they know allows them to compete without having to do these kinds of things.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I think that's just fundamentally wrong. Are there any lessons you have from being at CFPB? You know, there's a way in which right now, I think it feels a little bit like, oh, Democrats are... We didn't know you could just dispatch your favorite billionaire into the bowels of every agency and start slashing and burning things that you don't like. Obviously, we...
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
have this very difficult challenge, the classic challenge of we are trying to defend democracy. And one of the ways we're trying to do that is to demonstrate why the rules are important, which means we're following rules that the other side doesn't. And we're trying to defend the game. And you can't defend the game while breaking the rules because then you're no longer playing the game.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But are there ways in which looking back, you think, man, if I knew how bad this was gonna be, I would have pushed harder here. I would have fought this harder. We were a little too conciliatory here. We were trying to reach compromise with the Republicans there. Are there any places like that where you look back and think the lesson for me here is we should have gone harder?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Right. So one aspect of CFPB that's hard to measure is where it has had an impact by scaring institutions preemptively from doing shady stuff with fees, misleading rules, interest rates, whatever it may be. What are you worried about right now that like, you know, banks that are that some of these that are like kind of raptors testing the fences? What is the next step?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And again, we're going to talk about the Congress moving, trying to move Trump's legislative agenda, which is just a giant tax cut. And that tax cut is not primarily for most people in this country who are concerned about inflation. Most of the tax cuts are going to billionaires, big corporations, the wealthiest people.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Are there ways you're worried about AI being used to harm consumers in a way that the CFPB could have protected against or could protect against in the future?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So when Elon Musk posted delete CFPB on social media, he replied to someone and it is an unfortunate reality of our current dystopia that I have to describe in detail the posts of this unelected billionaire. But he said with such generosity, CFPB has done a non-zero amount of good or something to that effect. Yeah. Have you considered trying to reach out to him? Have you reached out to him?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Have you spoken to him about this? And if you did or could, what would you want to convey?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And he's got his no tax on tips thing, if that gets through, that I guess is if you're in the restaurant industry or if you work on tips, right, anywhere, then that helps you. But there's nothing else in that agenda for middle class people. In fact, there's a lot of cuts coming to health care and education that are going to hurt middle class people. Something to watch.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, for sure. It's a pretty worrying time for people at the agency. What's your message to them? It's a group of dedicated nonpartisan people who are there to kind of protect the interests of consumers. It's returned an extraordinary amount of money to consumers. It's hard to come up with a better example of government that is currently being lied about and undermined by this unelected clique.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
There are people in that agency that are worried about, some people have been fired, they're worried about being fired. They don't know whether or not the right thing to do for their families is to try to stay and fight or leave if there is some kind of an offer to get out. What is your message to the people at your former agency?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
After you cracked down on ITT Technical Institute for its illegal recruiting tactics, the former chief executive called you an economic terrorist who should be sent to Guantanamo Bay for about a decade of R&R, which should include an aggressive regimen of water sports. So what is your favorite water sport?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Certainly something to watch. Any comment on the confirmations on Gabbard and Kennedy going through? I know you wrote a message box Thursday morning about what we can learn from the Gabbard vote.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You know, you just had this period of, you ran this agency that has been, that has survived from its inception, a concerted effort by major financial interests, lobbyists, right-wing conservatives, Republicans to destroy it. First of all, they tried to make it so it couldn't exist. They wouldn't let Elizabeth Warren run it from the jump.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
They have lied about it from the beginning, claiming it's a sludge fund, which is a lie, claiming it's trying to debank conservatives, which is a lie, right?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
What right now do you see as the most hopeful path for the CFPB to survive until a time in which we can put a leader in charge of it who believes in it?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I just think it's really impressive that you simply will not acknowledge how maybe cathartic it could be to tell Elon Musk to go fuck himself.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
That's our show for today. Thanks to Rohit Chopra for joining us here in L.A. We will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I don't really get what Murkowski and Collins were doing on these, though, either. Their statements are basically like, well, I got assurances from them and they've put my, you know, that both nominees sort of like put our concerns to rest. So I guess we'll just trust them. And I guess that means that Collins is maybe Collins is worried about a primary challenge.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So I guess that means she's probably she's thinking about running again and not retiring that she could very well retire. She's old enough. And Murkowski, too. Like, I just I the credulousness. I just can't believe it.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah. No, it's I mean, this is what happens in authoritarian governments. It's just exactly that. Right. Like he's got the whole the party belongs to him and they are scared of him, scared of both like their professional careers. And in some cases, people are literally scared of death threats. So, I mean, it's wild.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
It was another big week for Chancellor Elon Musk, who held his first Oval Office press conference while two fidgety toddlers looked on impatiently. Elon's four-year-old son and his 78-year-old boss, Donald Trump. Elon droned on about Doge in a weird, rambling monologue that did include one newsworthy admission.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Oh, well, nevertheless, you know. And sure enough, many things he has said over the last several weeks and months have been incorrect. Here's a real doozy from this week. The Justice Department had to admit in a court filing that one of Musk's dogebags didn't just have read-only access to Treasury's payment system, but was accidentally given full access. Accidentally.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
This is their best offer, exclusive to our listeners, and only available by visiting helixsleep.com slash crooked. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the free speech warriors in the White House are kicking out media outlets that still call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So all this time that Elon and Doge were like, no, no, no, they only had read-only access, no big deal. And then the Justice Department, of course, believes that. And then they file in court. And then suddenly the Justice Department talks to Treasury, talks to Elon. Oh, shit. Whoops. Our bad. So that happened. Doge is also, at least so far, having a rough go at it in court.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
They've been kicked out of the Treasury payment system. The federal funding freeze has been temporarily blocked. And the gutting of USAID and the National Institutes of Health have been temporarily blocked as well. Would you make of Elon's weird oval presser and all the latest Doge news?
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
He had on a hat and some sort of overcoat. That's his Make America Great hat, but it's in black. The dark MAGA hat. It's the dark MAGA hat.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
He did reply to my tweet. Yeah, no, he's about the story that the State Department looked like they wanted to buy like a couple hundred million dollars worth of Tesla, armed Tesla trucks. But apparently it was a request made in the Biden administration and it was to armor maybe electric vehicles that they already had.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But then someone in the State Department, once it was reported, changed it and erased Tesla. So they'd get in trouble and just made it like the whole thing. But Elon wanted to tell me that it was fake news. So there you go.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Though I will say, though, that he was sitting quietly, like surprisingly quietly for Trump. But, you know, we've all watched Trump enough now for the last however many years, decade. He looked like alternately sort of annoyed and kind of like, come on, hurry it up. He had to like interject once in a while. He's like, and tell them what you found. Tell them what your team found.
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Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Like he was you could tell. I don't know if Trump's going to let that happen again.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Gavin Newsom did that a long time ago. That doesn't bother me.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
My critique is with none of that, and I don't think that what you just said is necessarily reflective of what any of these fucking characters are doing or saying right now. I think Ro is my exception to this. Right. Ro is the exception, but I even think that
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
You don't need to call Elon Musk anything nice at all to be willing to play ball with the Doge thing and putting out a list of reforms that you want. I mean, I was saying this, but I think the Democrats should put out their own list before Elon and Vivek have their own list.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
And make it about the corporate subsidies we want to get rid of, the tax breaks we want to get rid of, other waste and abuse that we're comfortable getting rid of. Like, let's do our own thing. And then when they don't agree to it, then we can hit them over it, right? Like, let's be constructive on policy and governing when we agree. And let's be really tough on...
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
on policy and governing when we disagree. But like, we don't have to say nice fucking things about these people. We don't have to kiss Trump. We don't have to, we shouldn't, we shouldn't chase Trump down every rabbit hole for sure. We also don't need to fucking kiss his ass.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
No, no, no, not Trump. Elon Musk stuff. Dick Blumenthal? What the fuck are you saying? That's crazy. I don't understand that. He's a champion of free speech? He's not a champion of free speech.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
There are few humans more full of shit than Mark Zuckerberg for all of the values he professed that Facebook had and that his company has and all this bullshit. It's like Donald Trump attempted a coup. He attempted a coup. He incited a violent insurrection. All these people. How many companies after January 6th were like, never again. We're not going to donate to.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Some of them said they were going to donate to Republicans after that. Not just Trump. Everyone who believes a big lie. And here's the, I would not have even been this annoyed over the fact that Zuckerberg sat down with Trump and had dinner. It's like, okay, you want to have dinner? He's the president of the United States. You run one of the biggest companies in the world. Like, fine.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Make peace, whatever. Donate a million dollars to inauguration when Meta has not donated money to any other inauguration? What? What? Now you're like in the Trump business. Now you're just giving him money. You're not just like not saying mean things about him or even saying nice things. You're giving him money. A million dollars. I mean, it just so fucking it's disgusting.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
It is. It's outrageous. It's like, it's just, what is wrong with you? You have no self-respect? No self-respect. It's just gross. And also the Elon Musk thing, too. Tony Stark, he's successful. The thing that bothers me about that is, yes, Elon Musk is rich. He's worth $400 billion. $400 billion. Congratulations, I guess. But like, do we not remember?
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
It wasn't that long ago that he pushed a conspiracy online, said that he agreed with a conspiracy that Jewish communities push hatred against white people. Like just said so much truth. Yes, truth. When someone tweeted that.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
The conspiracy that then led a bunch of advertisers to stop advertising on Twitter because it was the same conspiracy that led the Tree of Life shooter to massacre a bunch of people. And now we're going to be like, oh, yeah, but you know what? He's like Tony Stark. He's like a really smart guy. Really smart guy. Really successful guy. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, really successful.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Again, it's just as easy to be like, Elon Musk wants to cut government. You don't have to say anything about him. I got a list of things for him to cut. And if he puts something on the table that's worth cutting, yeah, I'm right there with him. Like Bernie, he wants to cut defense spending. Yeah, I'm there for cutting defense spending too. I'll work with him on that.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
We do have one pretty good clue as to why the corporate types seem to be coming around so quickly. You mentioned this. It came at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday as Trump opened trading at the Stock Exchange. Let's listen.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
In the statement, Whitehouse also said that there would be further action in the days to come. The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Mr. Biden's term. In 2022 and 2023, he pardoned anyone in federal prison for marijuana possession.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Now, I didn't see this footage, but was the audience of people he was saying that to at the New York Stock Exchange, was that a group of working class voters who were upset with high grocery prices? Is that who he was talking to? No, it was a collection of CEOs and stock traders. Oh, those are the taxes he wants to cut. Yes, yes. Those are the taxes he wants to cut.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
So Trump lowered the corporate rate to 21% from 35% in the 2017 tax cuts. Now he wants to lower it to 15%. He says he wants to do it 15%. There's a new twist on it with like, if you invest in America, if you do business here, I don't know how that works. But in general, a 15% corporate tax rate
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
would give the largest 10 companies in America a $23 billion tax cut for 10 companies that reported more than $520 billion in profits. This was a cap analysis over the summer. Meta, his new pal Mark Zuckerberg, would get $1.4 billion just for Meta from Trump's plan. UnitedHealth, have you heard about UnitedHealth lately? No.
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UnitedHealth would get $1.3 billion, a tax cut, and five largest grocery companies because obviously Trump was elected to lower prices for people. That's what he told us. But he does want to give the five largest grocery companies $1.7 billion in tax cuts These are five grocery companies that made $29 billion in profits as a bunch of people could not afford their groceries.
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And now he wants to give them another $1.7 billion. You think they're going to use that $1.7 billion tax cut to lower the cost of food so people can buy their groceries? Probably, right?
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Yeah, they passed the savings onto their consumers and their employees.
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That's right. Yes, yes. So that is what Trump promised. Now, we knew this during the campaign. I think Kamala hit Trump on this a few times. The corporate tax cut obviously did not work, or at least it did not work well enough. What is your advice here to Democrats on how to make it stick in the next year in a way that we did not do as successfully as we could have during the campaign?
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He can also and has been urged to pardon or commute sentences of others convicted of nonviolent drug offenses who were in federal prison. Some people have urged him to commute sentences for the 40 people who were on death row in federal prison and reduce those sentences to life without parole so that they don't get the death penalty.
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I totally agree with all that. I also think we've got to be able to make this real for people and tell stories about it that are not just sort of the typical, he's giving tax cuts to the rich and not you. That's the message, but we've got to sort of add some color to the message so that it breaks through. I think a fair...
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A lot of critiques from the left about Kamala Harris and the campaign and all this. We've heard them all. We're not going to do it all here. I think one that is fair is I don't think she is someone who feels the populist anger. towards like companies that are price gouging and taking advantage of people and making record profits while people can barely get by.
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Like she doesn't really feel that in her bones. At least that doesn't come across during the campaign. I realize it was a short campaign. And to be fair, you don't get that from a lot of Democrats. And I don't know which podcast I said this on, but I've been complaining about the glorification and the hero status awarded to Luigi Mangione.
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But I also think there is a large space between that and... and saying, eh, whatever. Rich people are rich people. Healthcare companies make profits. That's what they do.
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I do think that people should be going out, Democrats should be going out there every day talking about these companies that are going to get a huge fucking windfall for nothing who have been gouging consumers, raising prices in a country where people are really struggling to get by with their costs and tell a story about it every single day, make it the message over and over and over again.
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And you've got to be creative and you've got to figure out ways to break through. And you can't just be saying the same fucking words over and over again that seem like they came from a poll that tested really well. Like you've got to really, you know, make it make it real for folks. And so that's what I'm kind of hoping Democrats do in this fight.
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Like it's not enough to just do the same old, same old.
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So altogether, he has issued, I think, 26 individual pardons and 135 commutations. So what do you think? What do you think is going to be next? What do you think should be next?
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People think it's like, oh, it's the corporate money that's doing this and it's the donors that have captured the Democrats. It's like, no, it's like the fucking wonks. They're like, no, that's not the reason. We know. We know. We know all the reasons that corporate greed is not the only reason that people are struggling to get by. We know that.
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But it is disgusting that people are getting tax breaks, CEOs, executives, shareholders, when so many people are struggling. And we're still dealing with high prices. It's crazy. But like it should feel crazy to the Democrats going out there and talking about it. And it should feel like it is a mission and that they are like offended on behalf of the American people by it.
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And that's the kind of energy I think we need in this fight.
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Well, look, I've seen the polling on this, right? Like tax cuts for the 1% for billionaires, like they are less popular sometimes than corporate tax cuts because what they try to do when they talk about corporate tax cuts is say, well, it's a lot of small businesses and when you give them tax cuts then they create jobs and so
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, everyone seems to be doing the Trump dance. As FBI Director Christopher Wray goes down without a fight, Democrats start flattering Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg sponsors the inauguration.
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if corporations are doing well then they hire more people and then wages go up and like they do this whole fucking song and dance.
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I really think you got to hammer the fact that like we're talking about some of the most profitable corporations in the country who last time they got this tax cut used it to enrich their executives and their shareholders and did not do anything about prices and did not hire more people and did not raise wages.
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Yeah, I agree. Well, speaking of that, so part of the time person of the year routine is you sit down for a lengthy interview with the magazine, which Trump did at Mar-a-Lago in late November. It just was released on Thursday, so it's a little dated, but the interview is very long. Most of it wasn't very newsy, but a few notable things we hadn't heard before.
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At one point, the reporters asked Trump, quote, if the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure? And his answer was, I don't think so. Look, they got them up. I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.
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And then he goes on to talk about his solutions, which are just fixing the supply chain, which Joe Biden has been doing for the last four years and lowering energy costs, which is involves drilling more for oil that won't do anything to lower gas prices for years. if they start drilling now, because also we're producing more oil than any time in history. Kind of a wow moment there.
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Trump's saying, I don't know if prices will actually go down. We find out on the day that he goes to the stock exchange and is like, but your taxes are going down, Wall Street.
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I say that because he was obviously not as pro-choice as he is now throughout most of his life, largely due to him being raised a Catholic.
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And I think we need to come out with some plans of our own to lower costs for people and do so in a way that is achievable, real, that are paid for, that isn't just government spending money, but also regulating companies and making companies actually do well by their workers. I think that there's a good...
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progressive populist agenda here that also, like, makes sense to most Americans that we should be pushing here. But I don't know. What do you think?
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Well, I think part of it is these ideas need to be paired with who we're holding accountable. Because I think that sometimes it's a positive agenda, which is great. But I think it feels more urgent and is more appealing to people when you also talk about how these big companies and CEOs and everyone are making money hand over fist and are more profitable than ever before.
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and you're still struggling, and so we're going to help you, blah, blah, blah, and make sure that they're paying their fair share, blah, blah, blah, you know? Yeah, we need an enemy. Reporters asked Trump whether it's a conflict of interest to let Elon Musk oversee the budgets of agencies that could grant huge contracts to his businesses.
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Trump said, I don't think so, and added, I think that Elon puts the country long before his company. I mean, he's in a lot of companies, but he really is, and I've seen it. Okay. You think this matters to people? Elon's getting to regulate his own businesses and some of his budget cuts might affect his biggest competitor, NASA?
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And it seems like from all kinds of reporting now, since last time we talked about it, that he's still considering preemptive blanket pardons for some folks on Trump's enemies list. And Trump has now talked about the January 6th committee, talked about Jack Smith. So I guess we'll wait and see if he does that. Did you see that Benny Thompson said he'd take one? I did see Benny Tompkins.
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I'm at the part where Rom is talking about the Bill Clinton 1992 New Hampshire. The hits I've taken are nothing like the hits your family's taken.
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I think there's something that we need to add to the corruption message because I think if you told most Americans that Trump and all of his goons in the White House are using it to enrich themselves, but also...
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you're getting richer too, and your costs are going down, or you're getting a tax cut, or you're getting something, then people will be like, yeah, it's not great that they're doing that, but honestly, I kind of figured that was the case when we elected him. It almost goes back to the famous ad, Kamala's for they, them, and Donald Trump's for you.
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We've got to make it seem, which is going to be the reality, that Donald Trump and Elon Musk and all these idiots, they're just there for themselves. They are just there to take care of themselves, their businesses, their people, and everyone else is getting screwed.
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Like that's the corruption I think that really gets people pissed and not just the like, yeah, we're making a lot of money, but so are you. Everyone's making money. It's great.
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Okay, we're going to take a quick break. A couple things before we do that, though. You've heard us talk about Crooked's limited Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD. It's been getting some really amazing year-end reviews. If you haven't started it, now's a perfect time.
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In just eight episodes, Empire City takes you back to the origins of the NYPD and completely reframes the way we think about policing today. You can listen to the series now wherever you get your podcasts, or you can binge all episodes ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app, or on Apple Podcasts.
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Also, Tommy recently joined Brian Tyler Cohen on his show No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen to talk about Trump's cabinet picks, Democrats' path forward, and lots more. Plus, exciting update, No Lie is now an official partner of the Crooked Network. How great is that? That's exciting. Love BTC. I know, we love BTC.
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You can hear Tommy and Brian's conversation in all episodes wherever you get your podcasts. One of the exchanges that got the most attention was a question about trans rights and so-called bathroom bills. The reporters reminded Trump that he said in 2016 that trans people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want and asked whether he still felt that way. And Trump said, quote,
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He'll take one. You know what? Which I respect. All these people playing coy, you know, Adam Schiff being like, oh, I don't think it's a good idea. Yeah, Adam Schiff's going to take it if you get it.
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Reporters then brought up the House bill to ban Sarah McBride from women's bathrooms. But instead of asking whether he supported that bill, they asked whether he agreed with Sarah that we should focus on bigger issues. And he said yes. And then they asked about the anti-trans ad that the campaign ran, and he didn't take the bait there either. What did you think about his answers on this?
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I will say, even if Donald Trump himself does not want to spend a lot of time focusing on trans rights and not a lot of time beating up on trans people like he did during the campaign, cynically, I do think this is an issue that's going to come to him and Democrats are going to have to still deal with. It's not just a, oh, we're going to argue about it past the campaign.
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We're going to argue about it in the context of the campaign kind of thing. I spoke to a Rolling Stone reporter, Giles Holzman.
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who wrote a really great piece that everyone should, and it's an important piece that everyone should read about how this is going to come up in Congress, which is that Republicans want to do a Hyde-like amendment that will withhold government funding from any healthcare provider that gets money from the federal government to make sure that they do not provide any gender-affirming care.
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I mean, not to dwell on this again, but it crossed my mind since we were talking about pardons and commutations today. Why do you think he didn't wait to do the Hunter pardon until after a move like this? We talked about this on a Tuesday show and Tommy mentioned that he wanted to do the Hunter pardon before Hunter was sentenced.
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So just like now, the Hyde Amendment is, you know, federal money cannot go to any provider, any hospital that performs abortions. That's why a lot of hospitals do not perform abortions, why there are abortion clinics, because of the Hyde Amendment. And they want to do something like that for gender affirming care. And the question will be, like, do enough Democrats stand up and stop this?
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And I think it could not just be done through reconciliation. I think you would need to overcome a filibuster in the Senate to actually get this done, because that's the same thing with the Hyde Amendment. You can't get rid of that through reconciliation either. So you can't just do 51 votes in a budget bill. So I think we would have votes to stop it.
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But you could imagine the argument from Republicans. And then you can see what Trump will do, which would be, you know, well, no, taxpayers shouldn't fund gender affirming care. Taxpayers shouldn't do this. And what do you think? Like, how do you think Democrats respond to that? Because I think this is one where fuck the polls on this. Like we just that is you got to stand up for it.
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And I think what we have to do is figure out a way to message it so that it is as popular as possible, even knowing that it may not be a majority position and that they might think that this is a wedge issue that that does that helps them politically.
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And I will say, in the piece, Holzman was expressing the concern of a lot of activists and groups that maybe there's not enough Democrats to stand up on this. I do think the one silver lining of the Democratic caucus right now in the Senate, which is- It's quite safe. It's quite safe. I was going to say, we lost Manchin, we lost Sinema. We also lost the majority, but the people left-
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Are like mainstream to progressive, you know, like we don't have a lot of centrists and center right folks in the caucus anymore. And so I do expect that the senators will say, yeah, but it's something but it's something that's coming and people should prepare for it so that they don't just it doesn't surprise everyone. And, you know.
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Though I guess I understand that, though, you could also make an argument that after Hunter was sentenced, perhaps commuting the sentence altogether would have been received better. Our old pal Anita Dunn, who's one of the was one of the closest aides to Joe Biden for not just his presidency, but like much of his career.
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Well, and this is an issue that's come up right now, even before Trump takes office, because the defense authorization bill, Mike Johnson slipped in a provision that says the children of service members are not allowed to get gender affirming care through the coverage that their parents get by being in the military. Most Democrats in the House revolted against this.
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Obviously, we didn't have the votes because the Republicans controlled the House. So now that goes to the Senate. And, you know, I don't know what's going to happen there. But So this is the kind of these are the kind of things they're going to try to do. They're going to try to chip away at trans rights and gender affirming care bit by bit.
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And then I think test Democrats to see if they stand up for it. And if they do, then say, oh, see, they're still obsessed with the trans issue. They lost on it and they're still obsessed with it. Like, that's what they're going to do.
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Yeah, that is correct. That is correct. Speaking of the House bathroom bill and its sponsor, Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Mace is now set on making sure everyone knows she's the real victim here. On Tuesday, she spoke at an event for foster care providers and alumni in one of the House office buildings. This is a wild story.
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A foster care advocate apparently came up to her after she spoke and said something about how trans kids need advocacy, too. What happened next is disputed, but a police report says that this person, quote, began to aggressively and in an exaggerated manner shake her arm up and down in a handshaking motion. The police report was filed by Nancy Mason, her staff, so this is their side of the story.
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The advocate has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault. Some of the people in the room say they didn't see anything out of the ordinary, just a handshake. regardless, Mace is now wearing her arm in a sling and making a big thing of it, publicly reassuring her many fans about her odds of survival and so on.
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She went on Benny Johnson show sling in full effect to accuse trans people of having a mental illness. If I didn't have a medical degree, I don't know if I would be accusing other people of having a mental illness if I was Nancy Mace, but that's just me. What do you think's going on here? Is this just like, I mean, I guess reporters have requested the security footage.
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So like, we're going to find out what the handshake was like at some point. And, you know, maybe Nancy Mace. Famous truth teller is just telling the truth about being assaulted with a violent handshake. Totally possible, Nancy Mace. But it's possible that it's also possible that maybe she was looking for attention. Who knows?
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It's crazy. No, no, no. I am not accusing her of that. I just want you to know. I'm saying it is a possibility that that could be one of the outcomes. It is also possible that someone came up and asked her a question and violently assaulted her hand.
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Yes. If I've seen it once, I've seen it a hundred times.
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It'll be the January 6th footage that Mike Johnson has been sitting on.
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She said recently at a New York Times deal book event when she was asked about the Hunter Biden pardon that. I don't agree with the way it was done. I don't agree with the timing. And I don't agree, frankly, with the attack on our judicial system.
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One of her former staffers posted on Twitter, this is the same woman who told staff, myself included, during January 6th, that she wanted to get punched in the face by a rioter so she could get on TV and be the face of the anti-Trump movement. That's back when she wanted to be a part of the anti-Trump movement and was so mad at him for the riot on January 6th.
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She wanted to get punched in the face. That story was first reported in the Washington Post, and that's now her former staffer confirming it on Twitter. So that's Nancy Mace. One last thing in the time interview before we go. They asked Trump all about his thoughts on his campaign strategy, the campaign in general, why he won, why Harris lost. He said his campaign was flawless.
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He didn't take any days off in the last 72 days. He called it, he's got a name for it, he said. It's called the 72 Days of Fury. He said that he thinks the issue of immigration was a bigger factor in his victory than the economy and that he won because the Republican Party has become the party of common sense.
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He also said Kamala Harris's worst mistakes were, one, taking the assignment because you have to know what you're good at, and two, not doing enough interviews. So that's his assessment. What do you think? Were we missing anything? Did you read that and think, maybe I was missing something there? Maybe he's got a point.
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Let me just tell... Everyone who's listening, we're doing it for you here. You do not have to go read this interview.
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Maybe it was post-debate, maybe? Or post-DNC? Maybe. I don't know.
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The argument is one I think that many observers are concerned about, a president who ran to restore the rule of law, who has upheld the rule of law, who has really defended the rule of law, kind of saying, well, maybe not right now.
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Maybe he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about because he just picked numbers out of the air. I'm going to go with that one.
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Yeah, I do. There's something to the people came to believe that the Republican Party was the party of common sense. I don't think they think that about the Republican Party necessarily, but they thought that somehow that Trump and what he was selling was a little more common sense. And I think it's hard to square, right, because you're like.
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common sense he seemed fucking nuts and look in exit polls more voters said that he was more extreme than kamala harris so there's that but when he was saying common sense he was talking about the economy he was talking you know he's like people realize that they shouldn't be paying so much for groceries and people think and on immigration right like i do think people probably saw his view on
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immigration as more common sense than where the Democrats were, even though I think I could make an argument that we're much more common sense on immigration, but I don't think that came through to people. We could spend a lot of pods and we will talking about why, but I do think there's probably some truth to that.
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Yeah, I think it would be fair to say that people perceived us as no longer or less of a party of common sense than he was more. I don't think they did anything to help themselves.
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Right, yeah, but we seemed like less of a party of common sense than maybe we had in the past. And look, again, it's not all Democrats' fault, but we have control over what we say and how we act and how we approach politics, so something to keep in mind. All right, that's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Everyone have a great weekend.
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We'll see you later. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump, meanwhile, admits he might not be able to bring down prices after all during his big-time Man of the Year interview, an honor he celebrated at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday by telling Wall Street he'd cut their taxes. Welcome to your populist realignment, Dan. But first, we have some actual good news. No, stop. It's real. I'm not a joke.
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Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
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Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
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Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
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Which is why I think most of them weren't involved.
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That's what I'm saying. No, I mean, most of the very smart White House staff that we knew did not know until it was happening.
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And I mean, I won't criticize it all over again. I already did. I will say that these pardons and commutations, they do make me feel better about the whole thing. Yeah, of course. I also think that if he, like I said, issues, you know, these preemptive pardons and blanket pardons and
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and makes them about sort of protecting people from political vengeance and retribution by Donald Trump, and the Hunter pardon sort of fits into that bucket, then I feel even better, even though I'm disappointed that he lied to us. All right. Elsewhere in the justice system, there is less reason for celebration.
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FBI Director Chris Wray announced Wednesday that he would step down at some point before Trump's inauguration on January 20th, paving the way for Trump hatchet man Kash Patel to take over as head of the world's premier investigative agency.
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Wray said in his statement, quote, In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work. A lot of folks aren't happy, to say the least.
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Jonathan Shade at The Atlantic in a piece called A Scandalous Resignation sums it up this way, quote, The president-elect had been facing the unpleasant task of firing a lifelong Republican whom he had selected himself, inviting the national media to raise ugly questions about his oft-confessed desire to turn the federal criminal justice apparatus into a weapon of political vengeance.
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Instead, Wray, like so many Republicans who couldn't stomach Trump's demands, decided to go gentle into that good night. Nobody except Ray will remember where they were when Christopher Ray resigned. Ouch. I mean, you can sympathize with Ray not wanting to just sit around and wait for Trump to fire him, but I don't know. What do you think? Was this the right move? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
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I think I agree, just for the sake of argument. Oh, let's hear it. No, I guess, what benefit to... the country, or politically, for those who oppose Trump, would have come from Ray waiting, getting fired, and then Kash Patel gets the job anyway, just a little bit later than he would have.
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The White House announced on Thursday that President Biden made history by granting clemency to nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others. The largest single day clemency action in modern history. The 1,500 number is people who had largely been living out lengthy sentences in home confinement because of the pandemic. and already had been reintegrated in their communities.
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And Donald Trump gets a couple days worth of very critical stories and commentary by all of us for firing the FBI director.
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My first reaction was like sort of the way he left, like less about I'm quitting, you're firing me and the difference between that and more about like Chris Ray, I think, has an obligation, whether he does it after he leaves or now or if he had waited and got fired. But he has an obligation, I think, to let people know that he did a good job and
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And the reason he's being fired is because he carried out his duties to investigate the president of the United States for stealing classified information. And that's why they went to Mar-a-Lago. And he, by the way, retrieved.
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classified information that the president had stole the ex-president at that point had stolen and refused to give back and obstructed justice like I do think that a little bit a defense of the bureau and the bureau's actions over the last several years and just making sure people know that they played it pretty fucking straight
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Over the last several years, after he was appointed by Donald Trump and is a Republican himself, I do think he has an obligation just for the public to know that. And if people don't care, then they're free not to care. But might as well tell that story. I'm sure we'll get to read it in a book coming out in October 2025. Maybe he can do a press conference with Jim Comey.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Also, I think there, and JVL made this point in his newsletter today at the Bulwark, that people who oppose Trump, or at least the people who want to defend our democratic institutions, anything they do to sort of delay... Trump and his minions from doing what they want to do is a good thing.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
And so Kash Patel getting in earlier than he would have if we had to go through Chris Wray getting fired, you know, it would have been nice. Any delay tactics here are probably helpful. So that's... I have not heard a really good argument for... for Chris Wray doing it the way he did, but maybe he'll speak up soon.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
One factor that seems to be making the Wray news tougher to swallow is that it's not just Wray. Obviously, you and Melissa talked about Wednesday. Jack Smith also made the decision to resign rather than get fired. And in general, it seems like a lot of big players, corporations, media outlets, even some elected Democrats, are employing a kinder, gentler approach to Trump's second term so far.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Here's an incomplete accounting from just the last few days. Meta gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration after Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Trump. Amazon giving a million dollars, too. Thanks, Jeff Bezos.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
The CEO of Time, the magazine which just named Trump person of the year, accompanied him to the New York Stock Exchange and started clapping and chanting USA, USA when Trump rang the bell. The fuck? Democratic Senator John Fetterman joined Truth Social and said that not only was the Hunter Biden pardon correct, but that Trump deserves a pardon, too, for his conviction in the Manhattan case.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
Those sentences were commuted. The 39 pardons went mostly to people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses when they were younger and who have since turned their lives around. What do you think of the move? Pretty good, huh? Love it.
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
And other Democrats like Congressman Richie Torres and Senator Richard Blumenthal have been praising Elon Musk, with Blumenthal calling him the tech industry's, quote, champion of free speech. Rokana has said he's been trading texts with Elon and called him an extraordinary entrepreneur. They said he also was clear with him where he disagreed. Fetterman compared Elon to Tony Stark. So...
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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off
A lot of cliches you could reach for here. If you can't beat them, join them. Discretion is the better part of valor. Better to be at the table than on the menu. What do you think is going on here? And obviously, all of the different people I just mentioned there, they could all have different motivations. There could be different degrees of kissing Donald Trump's ass and Elon Musk's ass.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
The only way I see they get out of this is, like you said, they do a couple deals. And then when people are forgetting about what they've promised in keeping some of these tariffs on permanently, they just get rid of all the tariffs. They claim victory. We did a big deal with Europe. We finally, you know, President Xi was like, thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you. This was a great deal.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
You're such a master negotiator. I could learn from you. That's what he told me. And he wrote me all these letters and he loves me now. So they do this whole thing. And then he's like, and so I'm getting rid of all the tariffs because it's a new American century and everyone loves it. You know, whatever. And it's not none of it's true, but at least he gets rid of the tariffs.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump ordering investigations into two former Trump officials for the crime of telling the truth about him and the 2020 election. We'll cover the vote in the House on Trump's big, beautiful bill and why passing it may be a bit of an uphill climb from here.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
No. Like, could we narrowly avoid a recession? Yeah, maybe. But I don't know. You know, chances of a recession went from only only dropped a couple percentage points, at least with JP Morgan's calculations based on the pause. So not out of the woods there at all. Thank you. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
I feel like the simplest and most effective message for Democrats here is that Donald Trump is single-handedly tanking the economy because he's a lunatic surrounded by sycophants. Am I missing anything?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Any more complicated than that? No, you got it exactly right. Because looking around, it seems like it might be a little more complicated than that.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
We've got just a little bit of good news on the fight against Doge and deportations. Then Dan talks to legendary physician and writer Atul Gawande about RFK Jr. 's mission to destroy the agency he now runs, which has already led to him forcing out the FDA's top vaccine regulator. But let's start with the latest on Trump's trade war.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
The only thing I would add about Democratic message is to make sure that we are bringing the rest of the Republican Party into this, Republicans in Congress and elected Republicans everywhere, because we just saw in Congress this week, they want to insert a provision into the budget resolution bill that we're going to talk about soon that basically ties Congress's hands so that they can't take back
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Trump's Art of the Fold
the power to levy tariffs from the president states because republicans they don't they don't want it they want to make sure that trump has all the power to do everything he wants so they are all in they are all in on the trade war they are tying themselves to donald trump i think people have to know that republicans aren't just like letting this happen they are actively making it so that only trump um can uh can you know levy tariffs and uh and continue to tank the economy
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Trump's Art of the Fold
So I just want to quickly walk through the facts of what happened this week. No spin on the ball here, so you can all make your own judgments about the strategic genius of our president. First, Trump announced the biggest tax increase in history on everything we buy from the rest of the world. Then the markets tanked and lost more than $6 trillion in value over the course of a few days.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yeah. And all the Republicans who might run in 2028, if he lets other Republicans run, if he lets us have a presidential election. It's a topic for another day. Yes. Right. It's a topic for another day. But like, you know, your J.D. Vance's, your marker Rubio's like reporters, if they talk to them.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Everyone should get on the record about how much they love Trump's tariffs because they're going to say it. And we want the video of them talking about how much they love this for when they try to run in 2028 and be like, what the tariff as the economy has cratered then and be like, what were you talking about? I don't know if I liked that at the time. I wasn't I wasn't saying that was great.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
I was quietly upset about it and trying to convince him to stop it.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yeah, I did it. Like standing on the rubble of Lehman Brothers with his megaphone. Too soon?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. So we've also heard some Democrats criticize Trump's tariffs, but also offer qualified support for some tariffs. This has sort of been a running theme here that people are getting mad about online. Gretchen Whitmer, most notably, gave a big speech in D.C. this week where she disagreed with Trump's tariffs.
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She was very clear about the damage that they're doing to Michigan right now. But she also said she understands the, quote, motivation behind them. And then she said, quote, I'm not against tariffs outright, but it is a blunt tool. You can't just pull out the tariff hammer to swing at every problem without a clear, defined end goal. What did you make of that and this message in general?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Why do you think some Democrats like Whitmer feel like they need to offer some qualified support for the idea of tariffs? What's going on here?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Most economists and CEOs said that a recession was much more likely. And Trump World responded by saying that they weren't backing down, that rumors of a 90-day pause on the tariffs were false, and that all the economic pain would only be temporary. Then there was a big sell-off in the bond market, which happens when people believe that U.S.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
I have a policy problem with this and then a political problem. I'll start with the policy problem.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
The policy problem is that there's not a lot of good economic data, and I'm being generous there, that suggests that tariffs work in terms of bringing back lost manufacturing, right? If you have a nascent industry that you're just trying to grow that's brand new, maybe tariffs can help grow that industry in the United States.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
If there are national insecurity implications and you want to be able to make sure that we have the capacity in the United States to produce something here and not rely on another country that may be an adversary, there's an argument for tariffs. Trump tried a bunch of tariffs in his not as many not as many tariffs as now, but some in his first term. Well, Biden kept them on, too. Yeah.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And you know what? And I remember headlines in 2020 and 2021 talking about how Trump's tariffs cost Michigan auto jobs. And so I do think that some elements of labor and some folks in the Midwest who are right that globalization has hollowed out manufacturing in the heartland of this country. I get that. But the remedy, tariffs as a remedy, has not proven to work very well.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And I look, I mean, we'll see what happens with the Biden's Biden's industrial policy with some tariffs, but also some like the CHIPS Act. Right. Like actually investing in manufacturing in this country, giving incentives and grants and credits to companies. We're going to create manufacturing jobs here and and all that. Right. So I'd like as as part of a larger industrial policy. Great.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Now, let's talk about the politics of all this, which is I get that right after Trump won. Democrats were like, well, he's more popular than he's ever been. And, you know, it was a definitive loss and all this.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
We are now at the point with Donald Trump where if you look down the road to 2026 and then 2028 and you think that Donald Trump is going to somehow regain the popularity he had right after this last election. then I can understand trying to tread carefully and saying like, well, here's where I agree with Donald Trump, but here's where I disagree.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
But if you're looking at everything that's happened over the last month and you're looking at what he's done on his economic policy now, which as you just said, he was elected to be the president to bring down prices. Now we're witnessing him becoming very unpopular on the issue that he's supposed to be like had the highest approval on. the economy. And that's just going to keep going down.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And so if you look ahead, like you have to imagine a world where if the economy craters or things keep going south, don't you want to be a Democrat who now was saying this fucking guy is tanking the economy and I want no part of this and I want no part of the policy. And it's absolutely crazy. And just like go at him knowing that even if You know, he's still sitting at 46, 45, 44 percent now.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Like it could get worse. And if it does, you want to be one of the Democrats who is saying now this is fucked up. Like it's very different, but it's almost like Barack Obama coming out against the Iraq war when the rest of the party was for it.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Treasury bonds, usually one of the safest investments in the world, are too risky, which drives up interest rates on mortgages and other loans, which could cause a global financial crisis.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And I'm just saying we should have an alternative vision, even if the easier political argument is just Donald Trump's take the economy. But I think that trying to message the nuance of tariffs as a tool, right? And actually Whitmer had a couple of lines like this in her speech, which I thought was good. It's like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Then on Wednesday, Trump suddenly announced that actually there would be a 90-day pause on some of the tariffs, but China would get hit with even higher tariffs, and there would still be a universal 10% tariff on just about every other country, though apparently he's going to spend the next 90 days negotiating trade deals with each of these countries.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
The markets recovered their losses, and this was the reaction from Trump World.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
We're so fucked. Biggest accomplishment of the second term. Wow, even bigger than Gulf of America. Now, some of you may be thinking, isn't it more likely that the bond market sell-off and the sudden prospect of a global financial crisis is actually what led Trump to back down? Well, if so, you are not the only one.
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Bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked. Okay, we got to talk about two more executive orders that Trump signed on Wednesday in the midst of all of this. He did it in front of the cameras, the press, White House staff, and for some reason, Gretchen Whitmer. The orders target two members of Trump's first administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.
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Trump not only stripped them of their security clearances, He also directed the Department of Justice to investigate them. Miles Taylor, you might remember as the Department of Homeland Security official who wrote the briefly famous and briefly anonymous op-ed in the New York Times in 2018 titled, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
He has since come out and he's been a vocal critic of Donald Trump in the press. Chris Krebs was head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and said in 2020 that there had been no fraud in the election, which Trump fired him for via tweet. Notably, Krebs later testified in front of the January 6th committee. Where to even begin here? That was wild.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yeah. And said that, oh, I think treason. It was treason. Yeah. Like just was saying, throwing that around.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yeah, that's it. And for telling the truth about the 2020 election. Yeah. And everyone's just like, okay, cool. We're just going to let that happen now. And if they do get investigated, hopefully they can find law firms that will take their case. Because I just saw in the New York Times too, he's on the cusp of making a deal with more law firms.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
In fact, he also announced that he's going to be forcing, and I don't know if he is able to do this or they will accept it, but he's going to force some of the law firms that he already made deals with to take on coal companies, to help defend coal companies.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
really let's let's play out um the investigation they are sort of investigated but you know the people either people are like i can't really do this there's nothing here this is ridiculous or a judge is going to throw it or whatever you know miles taylor and and chris krebs they both have jobs they have livings like are they gonna are people going to do business with them are they going to have clients again are clients going to be scared off of that like they they now lost their security clearances which i know a lot of people have but there's just there's a there's a
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Trump's Art of the Fold
whole host of second, third, fourth order effects here. Are they going to be threatened, intimidated by fucking MAGA crazies online or at their home? It is out-fucking-rageous. And it's pretty wild that it just hasn't made that much noise and that there aren't more people out there defending Miles and Chris and saying, no, this is too far.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Right. And it's also Trump's strategy and every authoritarian strategy to divide people and pick them off one by one. And, you know, I'll target a few law firms and then a few will make deals with me. And so then they'll be weaker because the other ones don't and the other ones will be scared. And I'll pick off a few colleges and I'll pick off a few politicians and a few...
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Trump's Art of the Fold
former administration officials to get investigated and I only and and everyone else is too scared and it's like a collective action problem and this is why like people need to this is why like the hands-off rallies were great this is why it was good that Obama went out and said something this is why it's good that Cory Booker did the the filibuster speech so it's good that more and more people are speaking out like
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Trump's Art of the Fold
there has to be some solidarity here because if his job is to pick people off and divide us against each other, then the antidote to that is for people to speak out with one voice and stand up for each other.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
even if you're worried about yourself or you're worried that it might happen to you or it's someone that you don't think it could happen to you, people have to start coming together and not be afraid because this is how he wins. This is how we continue our descent into authoritarianism. You think Gretchen Whitmer was looking around for a fire alarm to pull while this was going on?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
She was right in the Oval Office and her office, which I completely believe, her office came out with a statement afterwards that was like, And she had no idea that these EOs were going to be signed. She had no idea there was going to be a press avail in the Oval Office. She had met with Trump.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
She had criticized him directly or she told him that the tariffs were a shitty idea before he did the pause. Not that she like, you know.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Right, you never know. So she ends up in the Oval Office. You can imagine Trump doing this, right? He's nice to her in person, then he brings her in, and then she has to see this. And then he calls her out because he wants everyone to know that she's there and allowing this to happen. And then what do you do if you're Gretchen Whitmer, you know?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
But I do think I thought about this one for a while. Like there is a there's a sliding doors moment here for her. We're like, you know, she's taking some criticism now for the speech and everything and whatever. It's like people will forget about it in a while.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
It is just so classic that he has everyone go out there and say, Big win. We didn't back down at all. This was the plan all along. It's strategy, art of the deal. He's a genius. What are you talking about, fucking bond markets? That's crazy. Mr. Trump, why'd you do it? Oh, yeah, it was the bond markets. Fucking clowns. They deserve everything they get.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
But there's also a version of this where he signs the EOs, he says something to her, and she speaks out about it, like right there in the oval while the cameras are on. Like Janet Mills did. And suddenly, she's a fucking hero. And now look, the risk is she was trying to get stuff done for Michigan. They talked about some invasive species of fish and the president was going to help her with.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
It's the Asian carp, Dan. It's the Asian carp. We've been there. We all know. Yeah, we've dealt with it ourselves. It's the Asian carp. And I think I was dealing with this in the fucking Senate office.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
There was a military base she was trying to help keep open or whatever. And you can make the argument if you're her. My job is to represent the people of Michigan, and I want to help the people of Michigan. And so having a constructive relationship with the president is the best way to do that. Gavin Newsom did this around the fires, right? You can see the rationale behind it. But I think...
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Democratic politicians, particularly Democratic politicians who may want to be president or just run for high office, have to start thinking if this is not normal politics anymore, if this is not even the first Trump term anymore, but this is something much scarier and much more serious than do I need like is the best way to represent my constituents just like bringing home the bacon and talking about the economy or do I have to use my position and the platform that I have to
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Trump's Art of the Fold
to speak out and to fight this guy and to show that I'm not afraid to fight this guy so that other people won't be afraid to fight this guy, because that's what like a real leader will do. And I realize that that takes like it's a different thought process. It's not going to come to you from your consultants or polls or anything else. There's some risk to it.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
But I do feel like we're at a moment where Democrats who take that risk will be rewarded, certainly by the voters. At least by Democratic voters.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yes, I agree. Stipulating that most everything is awful right now, as we've made clear throughout the show and most shows, there are a few rays of hope. out there that we want to mention from this week. One example, after a huge public outcry, the Social Security Administration has decided not to move forward with Elon Musk and Doge's plan to cut its phone hotline service.
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This is a quote from the Washington Post story about this. Beneficiaries began lining up at field offices across the country, clutching driver's licenses and asking if they must prove who they were in person. Phone wait times ballooned and the agency's website started crashing almost daily under a crush of panicked callers and visitors.
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Besieged by angry constituents, lawmakers demanded that the acting commissioner end the chaos. Now, after nearly a month of chaos and backlash, the Doge plans are dead. How about that? That's exciting. Yeah. What do you think? Do you think this was a result of real pressure or was just a catastrophically bad idea destined to fall under the weight of its own stupidity?
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Yeah, I totally agree. On immigration, we got two good rulings from federal judges in New York and Texas pausing Trump's Alien Enemies Act deportations in their jurisdictions, or at least requiring hearings for detainees before they can be removed.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
So sure enough, the market's tanked again on Thursday. Dan, do you think the problem is just that not enough people have read the art of the deal? Like, have the markets not fully priced in the strategic genius of Donald Trump?
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Those rulings were directly the result of Monday's Supreme Court ruling, where the court overturned Judge Boasberg's pause on deportations to El Salvador, but more importantly, ruled that all deportations without due process are illegal. All nine justices agreed that every person has the right to ample notice and ample opportunity to challenge their removal. So not the huge win that Trump claimed.
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And literally, as we were recording, We just got the news that the Supreme Court has decided unanimously that the government must facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This is the Maryland father that they with. Basically, no evidence decided was MS-13.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And then the government admitted that they sent him to El Salvador in error where because he had legal protections not to be deported to El Salvador that a judge specifically gave him. And I haven't read the opinion yet, but yeah, they've told the government to facilitate his return. This is the case that J.D.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Vance tweeted at me and said that I obviously hadn't read the court document about this because he was MS-13. Well, J.D. Vance, I guess you didn't fucking read the court document because all nine Supreme Court justices, including Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, think that this guy should be returned.
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fuck you too to Stephen Miller, who also asked me if I wanted to live in neighborhoods with foreign terrorists. Well, the Supreme Court does not believe this is a foreign terrorist because they are telling the government to facilitate his return. So that is some pretty good news from the Supreme Court.
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I was going to say, it's good news for now. The truly dark and horrible news will be when the administration tells all nine members of the Supreme Court to fuck off. If that happens, then we're in really, really bad territory.
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Which they could, which they could. But it is, I do think it is good to know that even this Supreme Court and especially all nine members do not believe, as the Trump administration seems to believe, that they can round up people in this country
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and send them to a fucking gulag in El Salvador with no due process just because the Trump administration tells us, based on whatever evidence they feel like they don't even want to share and won't share, that these people are alleged gang members.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Yeah, no shit. And one more good immigration story. The other day we talked about how in a small town in upstate New York called Sackett's Harbor, ICE raided a dairy farm and and they had a warrant for one.
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undocumented immigrant, but then once they got him, they decided to just search the whole neighborhood and they seized a mother and her three kids, an 11th grader, a 10th grader, and a third grader, put them in handcuffs, sent them to a detention center in Texas. One of the kids' teachers called the principal, and together they got the whole town activated to protest and demand the kids' return.
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Teachers played a huge role, made calls to state officials between classes. So did the county Democratic committee. This is all according to the Washington Post. They held a rally. Like 1,000 people in the town showed up, got the governor involved. They finally got the family released, and the kids are now back in class again. And the best part of this story is that this is serious Trump country.
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Trump won Jefferson County, where Sackett's Harbor is, by 24 points. And this borders our Tom Homan's hometown. He owns a house in Sackett's Harbor, and he grew up there. And one of the marchers at the rally had a sign that said, humans up, Homan down. It's great work.
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Yeah. And I don't know. I just think it's look, it shouldn't have happened. And it's horrifying that these kids had to had to go to a detention center in Texas. And apparently like one of the kids was just fucking uncontrollably crying the entire time because he was, you know, it was a third grader.
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Third grader. Imagine a third grader going to Texas and then the other third graders in his class and his teacher being like, but the whole town, even though they voted for Trump, the whole town came together and rallied and protested. And I think if the people in that town can do it, then people all over this country should do it, too.
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They're going to send a copy of them before they start negotiating.
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Huge mistake. And again, there is it is a false choice to think that we we can't have a message on immigration that in a policy on immigration that emphasizes that, you know, we have laws in this country and we want people to come here legally and some people are going to be deported. And that's how there's no false choice between that and speaking out against what
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Trump's Art of the Fold
This policy, which is rounding up people who are legal residents and and green card holders and sending them to this fucking prison for the rest of their lives based on no due process like it is it is unconscionable. And if you as a Democrat can't draw the distinction between a normal immigration policy and this, then I don't know what you're doing in politics. All right.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Speaking of immigration, this week, Tommy sat down with Lindsay Teslowski, the co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. She's the lawyer for Andre Hernandez Romero, the Venezuelan makeup artist who's been disappeared to El Salvador for having tattoos that ICE mistook for gang symbols. The full conversation is on our YouTube page, but we wanted to play an excerpt for you all here.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
So to hear the full conversation, head to our YouTube page, youtube.com slash at symbol Pod Save America. And by the way, subscribe to our YouTube channel, Pod Save America, because we are now doing a lot of YouTube only content when news breaks. We're just like running into the studio when we don't have a pod and we're just going to do some YouTube content.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And it's really important because right wing media is kicking our ass on YouTube. And the more subscribers we have, the more subscribers that progressive media outlets on YouTube have. When people start searching for things, the algorithm is more likely to bring up the good content instead of just send them down the rabbit hole of crazy right wing content.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
So really important to go on and please subscribe to Pod Save America and we'll have all kinds of great content for you there. OK, when we come back from the break, you'll hear Dan's conversation with Atul Gawande about all of the deeply concerning things happening in our health care system. But two announcements before we do that. We got a new episode of Polar Coaster out, Dan.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Also, the issues in the bond market have not been solved, and that's going to push up the cost of borrowing. So if you want to get a mortgage, car loan, anything else, I don't know why you'd need a car loan because it's going to be pretty hard to buy cars. Well, that's why you need the loan because they're so fucking expensive. I mean, it's funny. It's not funny.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
But yes, it was it was the bond market that scared Trump. We know that there's a lot of other reporting aside from Trump just telling us the Wall Street Journal reported that he was Trump was willing to push us into a recession, but not a depression. That was what one of the sources for the Wall Street Journal article said.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
CNN found another source that said the bond markets did spook the president. So all the reporting matches up with, again, what President Trump just told us himself. Yeah, no, I think that what happened this morning is we're recording this Thursday. What happened this morning is even if. Which we can talk about the prospect of Trump making deals with every one of these.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
The White House wants us to think that all the countries now are just lining up to make deals with Donald Trump because he has all the leverage. And they're, please, Mr. Trump, please make us a better deal on trade. Say we make a deal with every one of these countries and get rid of the reciprocal tariffs that he imposed on them and somehow get a better deal there.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Kevin Hassett, as top economic advisor, was out today saying, but the 10% universal tariffs, 10% on every single country, just about every single country, he's never going to get rid of that.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
That's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And then you realize, apparently, the overall effective tariff rate for the United States, when you average out all the different tariffs he's imposed together, it was about 27%. With the pause, it's down to 24%. When he took office, it was 3%. So I think everyone woke up, saw that, and was like, oh, yeah, we're still pretty fucked.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
And on top of all that, there's the uncertainty of what happens over the next 90 days and whether he gets rid of the pause after 90 days. And so businesses were thinking about hiring or making investments or opening a factory, all that kind of stuff. They can't do any of that because there's no certainty. here in the United States or anywhere around the world.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
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Trump's Art of the Fold
I really feel like it's underappreciated that this 10 percent universal tariff is going to stay in place, too, because that is just I mean, like here's what I'm trying to figure out. We should talk about the politics now, which is say I'm trying to figure out like his way out of this, because I think what the White House has in mind is.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
you know they're gonna start announcing deals with countries right and whether or not we actually make out on these deals and it's a it's a good deal for the united states they're gonna pretend it is right they're gonna we've seen this with what they did with canada and mexico right like oh canada appointed a fentanyl czar and so they they've you know they've art of the deal again trump trump may bent them to their his will you know all that so
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
They're going to make any deal seem like it's a huge win for Trump, and they'll probably love the idea that he gets to go out and announce deals one after another. But the facts on the ground and the economic reality is only going to get worse as the automobile tariffs, the Chinese tariffs, which is huge. And I don't think that's going to get solved anytime soon.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And the 10 percent universal tariff, like all that's still going to be in effect. And so that's going to make the economic reality worse, even as Trump is going out there and touting whatever deals he may get with some of these countries. So I like I don't know how he gets out of this one.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Even the stated rationale for this trade policy, this trade war, which betrays a lack of understanding even of the basics of economics or how trade works, even the stated rationale, and again, they're in conflict. One is like, oh, we're going to bring in a whole bunch of revenue from all these tariffs, but if trade is rebalanced, the revenue goes down.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
And then the other is, oh, we're going to bring back manufacturing. We're going to bring back jobs to America. We're going to be boomtown, right? Even if that worked, it wouldn't be for years and years and years. So is the Trump administration's bet that the American people –
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
really have a stomach for economic calamity and sacrifice because they know that years from now, manufacturing will come back here.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Coffee, bananas, avocados, lots of other fruit and vegetables. Like it's –
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
The other argument they're trying to make is, oh, well, you know, Trump said do not retaliate and we won't retaliate. And because none of these countries except China retaliated, that's why we took off the retaliatory tariffs. And now we have isolated China and the rest of the world will join us.
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Trump's Art of the Fold
in uh in putting pressure on china to cave and it's like why is the rest of the world going to join us what makes you think that after you've threatened to you know take over greenland invade canada make the gaza strip into some kind of a resort you pissed off all of our nato allies you're beating up on europe every chance you can get and by the way they're already now talking to china about maybe like maybe doing a deal with them but yeah do you know why
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
was because at the time that budget was approved, the city was still negotiating with the firefighter union over their salaries, compensation, pay increases. So none of their salary compensation and pay increases appeared in that original budget. It only appeared once the deal was done later in the year.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And so lo and behold, instead of a $17 million cut, as it's been reported some places, it was actually a $53 million increase. Now, again, You can argue $53 million isn't enough. We should have even more firefighters.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We should have an even bigger firefighting budget in a state like California, in a city like LA that's vulnerable to wildfires like this, which is a totally fair argument if you want to make it. But the idea that there was a $17 million cut, it is just not true. Mayor Bass was also criticized because...
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
She was part of a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the inauguration of the new president. She left after there were warnings that there could be some pretty severe fires and weather conditions. And we knew that the winds were going to be bad. We knew there could be fires and she left. I do think that was a mistake. Oh, yeah.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
uh la fire chief kristen crowley said on thursday quote we are absolutely not out of danger yet been a pretty scary few days here dan i can only imagine a lot of crooked staff have evacuated a lot of people know people who've lost homes who've lost everything my closest friend from high school and college dan you know my friend josh he had just moved to the palisades
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Like, again, we didn't know for sure that the fires would break out. No one knew the extent of the fire. But I just think and look, we've talked about this before in terms of like optics. I actually don't think I think it's beyond optics. It's beyond politics. Like when a disaster strikes and you can feel this being in L.A.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
right now and trying to figure out when to evacuate, where to evacuate, how, what's what's real, what's not. What you want more than anything is a leader who is in constant communication all the time with people on whatever channel they can do that.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And that I think that is more important now in this like very fractured, more than fractured media environment where it's hard to get news from the same place. It's hard to get reliable information from the same place. In that environment, you want leaders who over-communicate, who are talking all the time, who are there, and letting you know what's going on, right?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And I don't know that – I mean, obviously, this is – we're talking about Karen Bass now, but in fairness, I don't know if a lot of leaders – have really figured that out, that we are in this new communication environment where because of what has happened to the media and social media and everything else, you just have to be out there all the time in a crisis talking constantly.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I mean, some leaders did this during the beginning of the pandemic successfully, but I do think that every time there's a crisis, especially if you're a local leader, you've got to be there all the time.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We just a month ago had a debate that probably very few people in the country were paying attention to because the federal government almost shut down and people were fighting to keep it open to make sure that the disaster relief, the added disaster relief funding that you talked about earlier was included in the budget and that the government didn't shut down because people in North Carolina and on the East Coast who dealt with Hurricane Helene
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
still weren't getting the funding they needed. And it doesn't seem as urgent or important to people after the fact as we're like, oh, well, yeah, disaster relief funding, whatever. And then when shit like this happens and people are dealing with on the local level, they're like, where's all the money? Where did it go?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It's like, well, these bigger fights that we have in Congress or people have in state houses or... city governments have, like it matters to have enough money so that you can fund emergency response like this and recovery, especially. I mean, the other reason that Trump's tweets or truths or whatever the fuck they are matter is because he's about to be president
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
The federal government typically provides around 75% of rebuilding costs after a major disaster. And Trump, many times, just did it during the last campaign, has just threatened to withhold money from California because he's pissed about Gavin Newsom or he's pissed about this Gavin Newsom not listening to him or about the smelt or whatever else.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
A couple of months ago, just got settled into a new home with his wife and two young kids, got a new baby. And he was able to grab his kids and the two dogs and left and lost everything else. And there are so many people like that. A lot of our friends out here who've grown up in LA just know countless people who've lost their homes. We have a couple of friends
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And there were all these stories that people in the Trump administration told about how he had to be shown that people in Orange County voted for him.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
how many people voted from orange county before he released disaster funds to california when he was president the last time so it's a very scary prospect that you know we're going to have other natural disasters have them here in california have them anywhere in the country and the idea that you're only going to get money from the federal government to help clean up and recover and to respond if you agree with trump's politics or you haven't pissed trump off lately is insane
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I will say one last thing about the information environment before we move on, because like when you're actually in it and you're trying to find information that could help you and your family and your friends, like I just, you know, in the 2010s, you could go on Twitter and one really good use of Twitter back then
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
was it can help it's probably the best platform better even than television news for like up to the second information to just help you in a situation like this right and now went on you know go on x the last couple days and it is just like littered with misinformation and conspiracies and people yelling at each other about politics and bullshit.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And I'm like, I just want to know where the fire is, what the update is. Thank God there is an app called Watch Duty, which people have been alerting everyone to here, which actually it's a nonprofit and it's someone who runs it that is It's constantly updated information about where the fires are, where the evacuation zones are. It's really, really helpful.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Everyone should go download it if you're in California or basically anywhere where there could be fires. But it's wild that we don't have that on X anymore. We don't have it anywhere. We don't have it anywhere. Well, that's the thing is like, and then you turn on national news and it's, I turned on cable and I'm like, oh, they got to be covering this, right?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And they're talking about, which we're going to talk about soon, which is like, Trump wants to invade Greenland. Let's talk to the former US ambassador to Denmark. And I'm like, what about the, you know, and local news has been good. I will say local news here in LA has been good and watch duty is amazing. And then, you know, LA Times has done fantastic reporting.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
They've lifted their paywall during this. And by the way, like they're, you know, they're, They're struggling just like every other media outlet, so good for them for the reporting they're doing, and they lifted the paywall for this. LAist, the Cal Fire Evacuation Guide, CalMatters, they're all doing fantastic work.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
But man, the one takeaway from this is we are going to face more disasters, more crises, and when people need information in a situation like that, it's really hard to get with the social media platforms we have right now and even the media environment we have right now.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I was going to say you wrote a book about it, yeah.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
who are in Altadena, who lost their home, who just moved in as well. It is it is terrifying. And, you know, you've experienced this where you live. Like, there's just there's something about the speed at which these fires sort of come at you and you get the evacuation notice and you see the flames and you have to make the split second decision. Do we go? Do we stay?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It didn't even used to be like this when we started this company.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Well, it's also it's like in order for the source to be credible in people's eyes, they have to trust the person. Right. And I do think that as you were just talking like progressives that figure that out. But, you know, when people are seen as like partisan Democrats or progressives, like people are going to maybe trust them less. Right.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And, you know, I was talking about all the bullshit that I've seen, mostly from like, you know, Elon Musk was spreading that maybe the one problem with the LA Fire Department is DEI. And that was somehow related to the fire. Libs of TikTok has been spreading all kinds of bullshit, right? So it's like those kind of people. But there's some left-wing craziness out there, too.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We've talked about this for the last several crises, incidents, whatever, over the news topics that we've talked about over the last year now. You know, there's... God, I fucking saw... I don't even want to give him the...
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
don't do it don't do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it anyway there's been a few uh left-wing crazy conspiracies too even even in this fire thing and so i do think you need you need credible sources of information that people are going to say okay even even if you even if you believe not what i believe politically i'm going to be able to trust you for at least giving me the information and facts um that uh that that i need
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It is it's a it's a fucking nightmare, man. It is a nightmare.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Speaking of good information, if you want to help people who are dealing with these fires right now, people who have evacuated, who have lost their homes, Void Save America and Crooked Ideas have put together a fund to support disaster relief efforts. It's going to help on the ground groups that include World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
and a lot more, you can make a donation today at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. That's votesaveamerica.com slash R-E-L-I-E-F. And we will, of course, continue updating the fund with different organizations. And we'll also put the link in the show notes. So if you want to help, that would be really fantastic. Pots of America is brought to you by Lumen.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
All you have to do is breathe into your Lumen first thing in the morning. and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. Then, Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time, and Lumen will give you tips to keep on top of your health game.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, a whole bunch of stuff. We had a couple of folks here in the office using lumen. Yeah, they're using it. They are.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And, you know, all you do is a quick metabolism check in the morning. Gives you a whole nutrition plan for the day. You know, it keeps you on target. You blow into lumen before you work out to determine if your metabolism needs fuel to get through your training session. And then you can also check it after the workout to see if you need to refuel to keep your metabolism at the optimal level.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Take the next step to improving your health. Go to lumen.me slash crooked to get 20% off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash crooked for 20% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. So by the time you hear this, the next president of the United States may have been sentenced for the 34 felony counts of fraud he was convicted of by a jury of his peers.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
As of this recording, Trump has asked his pals on the Supreme Court to block the sentencing, citing the presidential immunity they've given him. even though he's not yet president. And Judge Mershon said that Trump won't be getting jail time, so it's not going to interfere with him becoming president.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
In a wildly timed coincidence, the incoming president made what I'm sure was a perfect phone call to Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito just hours before Trump filed the appeal. But don't worry, Alito says he was just recommending one of his former law clerks for a White House job. and wasn't even aware of Trump's appeal at the time that they chatted.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Meanwhile, another one of Trump's favorite jurists, Eileen Cannon, remember her? She has blocked special counsel Jack Smith from making public his final report about his two indictments of Donald Trump, the classified documents investigation, and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
The Department of Justice has already filed an appeal saying they are happy to just let Congress view the classified documents part of the report, but want the election interference case and that part of the report to be made public. My question for you is, to what extent does any of this matter?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Clearly, Trump doesn't want people reminded that he's a convicted felon who's been charged with committing all kinds of crimes. But since American voters and their great wisdom gave all that a big thumbs up, is this just about it's important to uphold the rule of law and get the truth out there for people?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It's going to not going to affect what impact he's he's he's never running again.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
What do autocrats like Trump- Again, all things that voters clearly care about a lot.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
On today's show, we'll get into maybe the last round of Trump legal drama, which includes our convicted felon president-elect possibly being sentenced on Friday. We'll also talk about Trump's MAGAfest destiny plans to seemingly take over the Western Hemisphere and name more places America. And later...
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Or, by the way, use the lack of evidence to go after January 6th committee. Like if they end up going after Liz Cheney and the J6 committee and Jack Smith and all the other people, you know, in courtrooms, it could be harder for them to do that with all of this out there in public. So that's probably a good reason to have it out there, too. Here's some Trump news that probably matters more.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
During a press conference this week, the incoming president made it very clear that he is not joking. about his desire to play a real-life game of Risk and take over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada. Let's listen.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Well, and for those of you listening who don't know L.A. and L.A. 's geography, the reason that this fire in particular is is both so damaging and so shocking is, you know, I think we in L.A. are used to and people have lived here much longer than I have are used to fires up in the hills beyond a couple of years ago.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
New America. There it is. New America. Here's how Trump's planned invasions are playing with his fellow Republicans. This is a brand new Republican congressman from Texas, 30-year-old Brandon Gill. Just heard of him.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
What kind of feudal lord shit is, like, what is happening here? It's so stupid. It's all so stupid. Tommy and Ben did a great job covering all the national security and diplomatic implications on this week's Pod Save the World, so you should take a listen to that.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
But can we talk a minute about the politics here of our next president taking over Greenland, our neighbors to the north making Canada the 51st state, the Panama Canal? How do you think this craziness might land with people? Because I'm afraid of the answer.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Then it's too late. Well, I mean, I think we're going to get some warnings. Then we've already invaded Greenland, you know? Then we're sending troops to Toronto and suddenly it's... I will come... Sorry, it's just economic force with Canada. It's economic force.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I mean, it's hard to know whether to laugh or not with some of these things. First of all, the Gulf, I will say the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. Fucking knock yourself out, idiot. Whatever. That's that's definitely like chasing down the right. I don't go ahead. Say whatever you want.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
My parents who live in Thousand Oaks, they moved out here a couple of years ago and they showed up at our house at two in the morning after trying to escape a fire in Thousand Oaks. And that's sort of a place that you expect that there may be fires for the palisades to be nearly completely destroyed as it has been is unprecedented for Pasadena, Altadena, places around there.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Yeah, I was like, okay, are we going to rename Europe East America now? What else? Are we just naming everything America? Paris, Texas.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Like, whatever, man, go fine. But just I do think that there is you you you brought this up when you said rating the Social Security trust fund to buy Greenland. I do think there's an argument to be made to people like, do you really want your tax dollars raised?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
spent on buying greenland or buying canada or buying the panama canal is like that's what you think that's what you think you want your money spent on we're running a deficit in debt and you know we got like the medicare and social security you know might not make it we got we so we're gonna we're gonna spend billions and bill hundreds of billions of dollars on other countries is that we're gonna do
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
The Washington crossing the Delaware tone. It's like, stop. No, none of that.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Are we are we are we covering Canadians with Social Security and our new friends in Greenland? And is that what's happening, by the way? Are we are they getting taxed? How's this going to work? I haven't I noticed some Democrats to being like, well, he doesn't realize that they'd all be blue states, too.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It's like, oh, OK, do we really think he's going to give them voting rights or he's just going to pull a like, come on, we like we can't get we can't get Washington, D.C. to get representation, voting representation, right?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
But it's also, I think, important to be honest with people. And I think Ben laid it out well on Pod Save the World, which is this is what like aging autocrats are. This is what they do, right? This is what nationalism is. Literally the definition of nationalism. America must expand. And so if you're an American, you should be proud that we are going to expand our footprint to Greenland and Canada.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And, oh, you might think we're invading or that people want to be free and independent. No, no, no. We're going to go interview some people in Greenland and Canada and Panama who say, oh, we want to be part of the United States. Just like this idiot Brandon Gill. Like, what a...
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
oh what an honor that mr trump said that we could be part of the united states meanwhile like you know 95 of their populations don't want to become part of the united states but you know we're not going to publish those polls we're just going to uh we're just going to interview the other people on fox and newsmax and oan and greenland and canada who say how excited they are to be part of the united states of america like and they're going to like whip up this nationalist fervor i'm like this is this is what happens
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I mean, it is just we've never seen anything like this. And last night, Wednesday night, There was a fire broke out in Runyon Canyon. It got close to Hollywood Boulevard. That's when we were sitting like Emily and I were like, do we leave? Do we pack up? We packed up the car thinking maybe we should leave, but hoping that it wouldn't get further down.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I just think I think it does fit in in terms of how to talk about it. If he gets serious about it is like you said, this guy ran for president saying he would take care of Americans, make life more affordable for Americans and keep us out of wars. And now he wants to take care of Canadians and people in Greenland and Panama. And and if not, then maybe send our military. What what's going on?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We just want to make things cheaper for Americans. That's all. That's what we're trying to do here. Why is he trying to spend all our money on Greenland? That's ridiculous. But yeah, none of the... Our alliances are at risk. What would this do to the G20? Yeah. This isn't how a NATO member acts. Anyway, one last thing before we go. The funeral for Jimmy Carter, the U.S.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
's 39th and longest living president, was held on Thursday at Washington National Cathedral in D.C. Carter passed away before the new year at age 100. President Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's bid for the White House back in 1976, delivered the eulogy.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
which did include what may have been a reference to Trump when he mentioned, quote, the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power. The five remaining living presidents all attended with their spouses, with one notable exception, Michelle Obama, who cited scheduling conflicts.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
that seemed all the more urgent and understandable when footage from the funeral showed that her husband was seated next to Donald and Melania Trump. There were a few clips that showed Obama and Trump talking to each other, even laughing. Barack Obama was laughing at something Donald Trump said. But the most viral clip was George W. Bush's greeting for Obama. Walked by him, did a little belly tap.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So David and Austin, our producers, were both asking me before, what do I think genuinely that Obama and Trump are talking about? And like, no joke, I kind of think it has to be like president stuff. Maybe like president at a, like maybe they were talking about their own state funerals. You know, like it has to be the most surface level, what we have in common at a state funeral kind of comment.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And fortunately, the firefighters were able to put that fire out or at least contain it. Everyone's been dealing with that. The smoke is, you know, the air quality is just horrendous right now. It'll probably be like that for a while. And, you know, God bless the firefighters who are
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Like I can't imagine that those two could go into any other discussion topic. But what do you think?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I'm going to find this out. I really want to know. I want to know what he said.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Yeah, though, someone tried that with... When did they just do that recently?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And it was stupid. Whatever the lip reader said, I knew it wasn't possible. But they had a funeral? Yeah, they were in London for something, I think. Someone's funeral.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Yeah, that's a wild pairing. Just Barack Obama and Donald Trump just sitting together at Jimmy Carter's funeral while President Biden gives the eulogy on his way out and Donald Trump on his way back in.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Until it's one of theirs. That's dark. That's dark. That just had to be a funeral. It could be something else, too. When we come back, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy talks to Lovett. Pod Save America is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Hey, Magic Spoon's back. Thank God.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Magic Spoon has turned their super popular high protein cereal into high protein treats that are light crispy and taste just like those classic crunchy cereal bars. Magic Spoon's treats are so delicious and have already become my favorite on the go gym snack. Magic Spoon's also launching a brand new high-protein granola.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
unbelievably heroic and have been battling these fires and not just firefighters from los angeles from all over they've come from other counties other states and they have been working around the clock since tuesday without sleep to battle these fires in extremely difficult conditions the winds santa ana winds which are always an issue here are like
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Ooh, true to the Magic Spoon promise, it's packed with protein and so crunchy and sweet, perfect for breakfast or snacking. Magic Spoon's high-protein treats are crispy, crunchy, airy, and an easy way to get 12 grams of protein on the go. They come in mouth-watering flavors like marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter, and dark chocolate. I can't get enough of the chocolate peanut butter ones.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And Magic Spoon's brand new granola packs in 13 grams of protein and zero added sugars. They come in delicious flavors, honey, almond, and peanut butter. I can't wait to try the granola. Really excited to get that. And obviously, I love the treats. I often use them as sort of a quick protein snack during the day. And yeah, they're great.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
My in-laws were staying with us and my mother-in-law opened the pantry and noticed just like eight boxes of magic spoon in a row. And she was like, so do people like this magic spoon? And I'm like, I love it. She's like, yeah, no, I know you love it because it's all over the house.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
You know what I like? Birthday cake. Oh, nice. It's good. A little celebration for yourself every morning. Get $5 off your next order at magicspoon.com slash cricket or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magicspoon.com slash cricket for $5 off.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
like we've not seen in years and years and years 70 80 90 100 mile an hour gusts and You know, it's been The conditions have been very very dry Which is you know combines to make a real combustible situation that is very very dangerous and so you're not out of the woods yet Unfortunately, we have to talk about
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
the political fight that has already broken out uh even though again the two big fires are still zero percent contained and people are still evacuated and still evacuating um our incoming president has responded with a half a dozen posts blaming the fires on outgoing president biden governor newsom and los angeles mayor karen bass this is how newsom responded on wednesday
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down. This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say. I won't. I stood next to a president of the United States of America today and I was proud to be with Joe Biden.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And he had the backs of every single person in this community. He didn't play politics, didn't try to divide any of us.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So just to dig into the specific accusations here, Trump says Biden is leaving him, quote, no money in FEMA because he wasted it all on the, quote, green new scam. And he accused Newsom of refusing to sign a water restoration declaration that supposedly would have allowed more water to flow into California. from the North.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
You'll hear Lovett's interview with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy about what's next for Democrats and how they plan to respond to the Republican agenda in Congress. But first, I am recording this from our studio in Los Angeles, where we are currently surrounded by the worst fires the city has ever seen and certainly the costliest in American history. To the west,
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And the reason that Newsom allegedly didn't sign this, what is an imaginary water restoration declaration, is that he, quote, wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt. Do you have any idea what Trump was referring to with regard to FEMA or Smeltgate?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
That's our show for today. We will be back next week. If you live in Los Angeles or the surrounding areas, everyone, please stay safe. Follow evacuation orders. And if you want to donate again, that is votesaveamerica.com slash relief. Everyone take care and we'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It is so fucking stupid. I know, but we do. And look, if-
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
you're dealing with uh if you've lost your home or you're evacuated somewhere you're scared and you're wondering like how could this have happened right like how could we have not been prepared for this right like so it is it is natural to have these questions it is natural to be upset i do not think that state and local officials are beyond criticism by any means i'm happy to criticize them if they've done something wrong it is clear that here in california and all across the country we are not ready
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
More than 5,000 homes and other buildings have been lost in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood by the ocean that has been almost completely destroyed. To the east, around Pasadena, the Eaton Fire has destroyed at least another 1,000 homes. Six people have died, though the death toll is sadly expected to rise. More than 180,000 are under evacuation orders right now.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
for the extreme weather events that are going to happen now because of climate change. And this isn't to say climate change did it and blah, blah, blah. We've all contributed to climate change. We've all lived on this planet in this country, right? And we are now past the like, oh, climate change is going to do this. Climate change is doing it.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We are dealing with extreme weather events that would happen anyway, but are made worse and more extreme by climate change. That's just a fact. And we have to focus on climate resilience and preparing for disasters like we are seeing right now in Los Angeles. And to the extent that local, state and national officials of either party aren't doing that, they should be criticized for it.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And we should elect officials who do make sure that we are ready with every means possible to face down disasters like this. But you're right. The Pacific Palisades is.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
is there those water tanks are used for they're for residential use they are not for fighting urban fires in fact fighting urban fires is extremely difficult for firefighters to do they are especially in la and california they're used to fighting like wildfires but to have a neighborhood like the palisades burned down it's much more difficult to fight those fires And the officials in L.A.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
were saying a firefight with multiple fire hydrants drawing water from the system for several hours, let alone 15 hours straight, is unsustainable to known fact. Fire hydrants have also run dry like that in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, which is the situation, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, the 2024 Mountain Fire and 2023 Fire in Maui.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And so, you know, the reservoirs in California right now are full. They are well above historical averages. There is no shortage of water in California. And like you said, it is there was low water pressure because they use so much water. And because there's low water pressure, it doesn't push. It's harder to push the water uphill and the Palisades are on hills.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So the water wasn't coming out of the fire hydrants because of that. They went and they fixed the situation. They got the water. But the bigger point here is. I've seen a lot of firefighters say this on the news and quoted in stories. When you are fighting fires this big with winds this speed, even fire hoses are just not gonna get it done.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And the other big problem, the reason they were relying so much on the reservoirs and the fire hydrants is because they couldn't get any helicopters into the air, right? Usually you have aerial water supply that can dump water on a fire, which is exactly, by the way, what happened last night and why they got the Hollywood Hills fire out, or at least contained it so quickly.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Tuesday night, when this was happening, 60, 70, 80 mile an hour wind gusts. I mean, they were diverting planes from Burbank Airport because they couldn't land there. They were sending them to Phoenix even because the winds were so bad. And so they couldn't get any planes up in the air to drop water on the fire, which meant that they were using even more water from the hydrants, right?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And again, I know this is a detailed explanation, but there's just so much misinformation going around. And again, this is not to defend any official here or there. It's just people should know exactly what's happening. And there's going to be some things that we don't know the answers to yet because that takes time.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And I know that we're in the middle of a crisis and everyone wants answers right away. But that's why you have leaders who don't do this kind of shit like Trump's doing right off the bat as we're still trying to contain this disaster. I mean, it's just another four years of this we're going to deal with. I mean, we dealt with it the last four years, even when he wasn't president.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Pod Save America is brought to you by ZBiotics pre-alcohol. Let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I used to bounce back a lot. You were great at bouncing back. I was great. And you know what? 43, it's finally hitting me.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We are recording this Thursday afternoon. And the Santa Ana winds have made it very difficult for firefighters to contain all the fires. The two big fires in Pacific Palisades and the Eaton Fire are currently at 0% containment.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
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Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I got another couple converts to Z Biotics. Oh, yeah. Emily and I were away the other weekend. We were with a couple of friends. They didn't, again, they didn't believe, really? I just drank this and it works?
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And they drank it and the next day they were like, holy sh**. I can't believe this, and now they're subscribers to ZBiotics. That's great. Another satisfied customer. Go to zbiotics.com slash crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Crooked at checkout.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
ZBiotics is backed with 100% money-back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off. There was also a whole thing going around that Karen Bass has been criticized for budget cuts to the fire department. That was also not true.
Pod Save America
As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And perhaps this initial misinformation was based on just a misunderstanding, but there was actually a $53 million increase this year over the previous year in the LA City fire budget. The reason it didn't appear in the original approved budget, which is where some of these stories were based off of, the original approved budget from earlier in the year,
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
It's a slippery slope. No, I think that is the key question. But look, the platforms are legitimized. They are, you know, Donald Trump is normalized. It's all here. It's all happening. It's the reality we live in. Wish it weren't. But if you just put yourself in the shoes of someone who does not follow politics as closely as you and I do.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And someone who does not follow right-wing politics as closely as a lot of Trump fans do or a lot of right-wing folks in your country. Those folks, their view, their impression of politics is going to be based on who they are hearing from and where they are hearing them. Right. And if we are not in those places, they can't ever hear our side of the story.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And then filling the vacuum will be the Donald Trump's of the world. Right. And so we have to be in those spaces. To me, that's the only solution, because otherwise no one's ever going to hear us.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I guess one of my bosses. Management is not my strong suit. One of the three wise men that governs my destiny. Yes, definitely three men.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Look, I will say things are happening fast here. We've already got a bunch of people convicted of assaulting cops. They're out of jail now. People who are conspiring to try to overthrow the government, they're out of jail now. So Trump's got his – all of his favorite people. If you commit violence, but you do it in Trump's name, you're okay.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
That's the message that he started off sending to everyone. There's a bunch of other executive orders he's been signing this first week. Some are for show, some don't matter much, some do matter much. So I think everyone's trying to hear, everyone's trying to work through What what's going to have the biggest impact?
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I think the immigration actions that he's taking are all, you know, the presidents here always have wide latitude to direct immigration policy. So I think he's sending troops to the southern border. I just saw that he canceled all the refugees who are on their way here to be resettled. from Afghanistan, from other countries, just canceled all those.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
They're trying to end birthright citizenship here. But there's already lawsuits there. I don't know if the courts will uphold that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
No, I don't think that will go very far. But it does. It speaks to what their agenda is, which is to, you know, they want to decide who's a real American. who gets to benefit from living in America. And for them, it's people who agree with them and people who don't oppose them.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yeah, that's pretty safe to say that's corruption. And look, I think... It's it's it was funny watching a lot of the crypto supporters, Donald Trump, you know, a lot of people who are fans of crypto and the crypto industry. They all got behind Donald Trump and Republicans because Trump said we're going to make America, you know, safe for crypto and all that kind of stuff. They are a lot of them.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Some of them who are Trump supporters even voted for Trump are now criticizing him for this because they were like, oh, I thought he was just going to. I thought he was just going to put some good guardrails on the industry and let us – because there's some legitimate arguments for cryptocurrency. But that's not what he's doing. He's just launching a couple of shit coins.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Just a Ponzi scheme, legalized gambling, speculation. And also there's the potential for – Foreign actors, adversaries, governments that want to curry favor with Donald Trump to just, you know, invest in these coins. And so the avenues for corruption, grift, influence, both from people in the U.S. and all over the world are infinite. under this new administration.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Well, yeah. And you know, He always said on the campaign trail and has said for the last eight years, oh, you know, I could be doing – I could be just even richer right now and I could be taking a break, but I'm doing this for all of you.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I think he really believes that because he has sacrificed so much for this country and is going to be president for four years that he should be rich and his friends should be rich and his family should be rich. And that's just America, you know, and people like him because he's rich. And I think that –
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
viewing the entire presidency through the prism of, like, Trump cares about himself, he cares about money. He also cares about, you know, this is why he wants to rename, I mean, he's renaming the Gulf of Mexico. He wants people years from now to look at a map and be like, oh, look, Donald Trump got America this territory, right? Like he just, all he can think about is,
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
is his own legacy, his own power, and his own wealth. And for a long time, I think he was supported by some people who said, yeah, he does care about himself. He does care about enriching himself. But in the process, he will also make me richer. And so therefore, I'm going to give him a pass. I think the question now is, does he actually improve people's lives?
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Does he fulfill any of the promises he made? And if he doesn't, which I don't think he will, then will people say, not only have you not fulfilled those promises, but now you're making all this money, you're getting richer. So maybe this was never about us in the first place. It's the hope. That's what we're going to try to make sure that people understand.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Well, remember what Trump's first reaction to the war in Gaza was, which is Israel should be able to do whatever they want, but just don't do it so publicly. Just get it done fast. Trump doesn't like a mess, right? And he doesn't like that a mess is going to somehow reflect poorly on him.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
So he wanted the deal because he doesn't want to come into office and have this war in the Middle East that he's now involved in that may affect his popularity. So he wants a deal.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I think what Trump believes and what I'm sure Bibi believes is that now that we've had the ceasefire, you know, if the ceasefire doesn't hold, if if Bibi gets to, you know, annex the West Bank or whatever else, then Trump's thinking, yeah, maybe we just won't pay that much attention. Maybe maybe that'll be their problem to solve.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
But there was never any indication that he wasn't going to let Bibi Netanyahu do whatever he wanted. And I think Netanyahu knew that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And I do think that's why I mean, I think Trump gets some credit for the ceasefire deal, because I don't think it would have happened if Kamala had won, because I think Bibi wanted to give Trump this win so that conversely, Trump can then Trump can let Bibi do whatever he wants from here on out.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
What is the hard way with two nuclear powers? The scariest thing that happened, I think, in the whole Biden administration, and we found this out later, is that how close we were to Putin potentially, or how the Biden administration thought that Putin really might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And they were pretty concerned about that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And Trump just getting up and being like, yeah, no, I'm going to be tough I'm going to be tough and that's going to do it. And that's going to bring Putin to his knees. Now, I do think that to my prior point about Gaza, like Trump doesn't like a mess and he also doesn't give a shit about Ukraine.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And so if he can broker some kind of a ceasefire agreement that ends the war that, you know, leads to Ukraine losing a bunch of territory, he's not going to care. I don't think that he like really wants Russia to win either. I think he just doesn't want to have to deal with it. Doesn't matter who wins, who loses, what side gets more. He just wants it over.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
The thing that would worry me, if I were you guys, is just Elon Musk sort of training his sights on your prime minister. And so, you know, the way Trump is, he doesn't pay attention to anything unless it's in front of his face. And so if Elon talks to him and is like, oh, we're trying to get rid of this guy and he's bad. That is how, you know, Keir Starmer could pop up to Donald Trump.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And then, you know, he'll do his thing where if they have some interaction he doesn't like, he'll post about him, say bad things. And then, you know, maybe he'll then maybe he'll make a state visit to the UK or or Starmer will come here and then they'll talk and maybe then Trump will be like, oh. He's not so bad. He's not so bad. You know, it's just all transactional. It's all fleeting.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
But I do think that just watching Elon post this last month, like Elon is sort of dead set on, you know, Europe is next in his eyes.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I don't think that you kiss Donald Trump's ass. And I also don't think that you make him the villain. Yeah. Like the most important thing for any center left, left, non-autocratic leader, whatever you want to call it in the world. The bar has got lower and lower through the course of that sentence. Everyone who's not authoritarian, everyone who's left.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
The most important thing to do is to build trust with your people. And I think that's what we're seeing. That trust between governments and their people has frayed.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
in your country in our country in countries all across the world and i think that when there is such low trust in leaders it opens the door for demagogues and authoritarians to come in and say yeah everyone's corrupt i'm corrupt too but you know what i'm going to fix it all and i'm going to restore order and i think that we have not figured out partly because in this information age makes it very difficult i think you know rising inequality around the world makes it very difficult but
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I think the leaders need to earn the trust and hold the trust of the people they govern. And the way you do that is by taking action that's going to tangibly improve people's lives, telling them about it, talking to them. I think more leaders need to over-communicate with people. And when you couldn't do something that you said you were going to do, you're honest about it.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
You're in their face all the time. So they get to know you, so they trust you. And maybe you'll commit more gaps. And how do you...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yeah, I mean, the reality is that spaces owned by right-leaning billionaires are just, you know, dominated by right-leaning political figures. We just got to go into those spaces and talk, right? Like, we have no other choice. I think it's also important, as we're doing, to build up center-left, left media and build our own. And I think there's incredible value in that. But I also think...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
We have to be cognizant of the fact that people get their where people get their information from. Right. And if there's a whole bunch of people who aren't getting their information from us and also maybe aren't getting their information from, you know, right leaning media, we have to figure out where they are getting their information from and go to those places and communicate.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And that's like the best we can do. And I think we shouldn't be afraid of debate either, right? And talking to people whose views we may find odious or people we may find odious. But if they're in power and they have an influential following, then I think it's important to go in and debate and actually talk to people and communicate that way.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
You know, Josh Hawley's out there proposing like an expanded child tax credit. And then there's Elon and Vivek, the billionaires, who seem to be more libertarian. They just want to cut government, you know, people to suffer. Trump doesn't know, you know, whoever the last person who talks to Trump, that's how he believes how things should go. So, like, I think it's going to be a fucking mess.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I really do. And I don't think that that guarantees wins for Democrats or for all of us or that means everything's going to be great. But I do think when we when we look at the next four years and figure out like how to strategize, we should keep in mind that it is most likely going to be chaos and infighting and figure out how we can take advantage of that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
That's it. I mean, it's like own the libs and they owned the libs. So now what are they, what are they doing?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, me too. Me too, Tim. It's possible that happens. My philosophy on all this is we've got to take it one day at a time. You're so balanced. Well, you know, it's taken me like 43 years to get here. But I do think that if we all spend all of our time like dooming about the future and what might happen, like A, it's not going to change anything.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And B, it's going to take our focus away from like what we can do right now to actually fight these guys and also try to take power back by convincing people that we should have it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
The Atlantic, yeah. Widely read by the TikTok generation and the low information generation.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, so the thing about me and writing is I don't do it much anymore because it takes too much time. But the Atlantic reached out and they asked if I wanted to write a piece. And I was like, you know what? I should finally put some thoughts down on paper instead of just tweeting and skeeting and talking on a podcast. So I did. Really, this was just a piece for your pal Sarah Longwell. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Because, you know, it was inspired partly by focus group I've done, but also focus groups that she's done that I've listened to. And also just like knocking on doors and doing canvassing. Tell the knocking on door story that you started the article with for people who are not. We were in Vegas the Sunday before the election. We were in a very working class neighborhood in East Las Vegas.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Knocked on one door. I was with Tommy Vitor. Nina Harris, who's on Vote Save America. And it's like 72 year old on the list. It said, you know, 72 year old registered Democrat. It's like little old Asian woman comes to the door. She's like sort of tough to understand, but she's very sweet. And we asked her if she's voted yet. And she says, she's kind of confused that no, she hasn't voted yet.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And then she said, Trump, President Trump. And we're like, no, no, no, no, President Trump. And she's like, and she's like, and we're like Kamala Harris. And she's like, Didn't she let in all those illegals who killed all those cops? I saw that. And we're like, no. So then I was just like, what do you say? Right. And I imagined at the moment if this woman had posted that on social media. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Which is the first thing would happen is everyone should be canceled. People would scream things at her. Eventually, Trump would invite her to the State of the Union. Right. I think she'd have to kill a black person on the subway to get invited to the State of the Union, but okay. Yeah, that's true. So I stopped and I was like, here's the thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I'm like, actually, if Kamala Harris wins, she will pretty much close the border, especially when there's an influx of migrants that goes above a certain level. She's going to be tough on border. And by the way, she's also going to make your prescriptions cheaper. And then Tommy's like, and she's going to cut your taxes. And the woman sort of just looks at all of us and she's like, okay.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
She goes, and we're like, what do you mean? She's like, I'll vote for Kamala. We're like, really? She's like, yeah. She gives us a thumbs up. We give her a thumbs up and we walk away. And, you know, it was just most interactions, as you know, you've been in politics are not like that. Most they're not that satisfying when you talk to voters.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Some voters make you they say things that make you insane, as you know, by listening to all these focus groups. But. It is an indication that people are much more complicated than those of us who pay close attention to politics think. Because, like I said, we know what the MAGA diehards think. And we know what the leftists think. We encounter cohesive political identities all the time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And that's just not the case when it comes to most voters. And so I think that as we all talk about politics, as we all churn out our content or we're doing our posting and stuff like that, at some point...
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I will say it's the first time since the election, as I watch this unfold, I'm like, oh, I'm You know, everything's going to be horrible for sure, but kind of fun to watch. Funny and horrible. Funny and horrible. I mean, look, they... Kind of like love it or leave it. I've told this to friends who were like, you know, maybe it's not so bad that Donald Trump is running the country. Wait, hold on.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We have to think that the way people perceive politics, people who don't pay attention that much, is through this algorithmic mix of takes and opinions and pieces and cable hits and whatever else that leaks through the bubble that we're all in to someone who's just checking out TikTok a couple days before an election, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And there's a whole other conversation about how we reach these people, which is obviously not just happening on Pod Save America or The Bulwark or The Atlantic, right? But there's also a conversation to be had, not just in how we reach them, but when we reach them, how we argue and how we talk about politics. And I think that those of us who talk about politics a lot are a little more
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We're not using language that most people use. We don't have a style of argument or debate that most people find persuasive. And if we don't persuade people, we're not going to win. And the way that a lot of us talk about politics is we're trying to fight battles in order to make ourselves feel right about being right. And politics is not just about being right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
It is about persuading people to think differently and behave differently and And that's how you win an election. An election is how you govern.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
It is an entirely human reaction to look for simple, easy explanations and simple, easy answers. And so it is very easy and maybe somewhat satisfying to be like, okay, the problem is we need, you know, I've seen this a lot. We need more independent media, right? I got a lot of this from the piece.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
People are like, don't you know, the real problem is the information ecosystem and we need to build up independent progressive media. And I was like, you know, I'm like, you know, I do know that I did start a progressive media company seven years ago. So I am aware of that point, but that is necessary.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But like, it's all the search for, okay, well, you know, Hillary lost because of misogyny and racism. And everyone mocked, you know, working class voters for economic anxiety after Trump won in 2016. It was like, oh, well, actually, they were just racist. And it's like, yeah, well, the complicated truth is racial resentment definitely fueled a lot of Trump voters. But
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Okay, then we had a bunch of Latino voters who voted for Trump. And now Asian American voters are voting for Trump and black men, some black men are voting for Trump and young people, right? So it's like, we're out of excuses at this point. And unfortunately, we're also out of very easy answers on how to move forward and beat him.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And the real work of democracy is like talking to and persuading people that you don't agree with on everything. And like, I know that's a hard thing to hear. And it's not meant to be like, we should all be centrist and moderate and all that. Because some people who are classified as like moderate, as you know, have like extremely left views on some issues and extremely right views.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
views on other issues like people don't have political identities that make sense to partisans that's just the whole that's most of the electorate you know it's a message to that's part of the reason it was written in the atlantic it is a message to all of us who pay close attention to politics do you have any thoughts on the media side of things though is the answer to create more left media or pro-democracy media whatever you want to call it or is it actually trying to engage
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Which friends are those? You know, I have some friends who were like, I voted for Kamala Harris, but the Democrats do suck. You have to know that, you know, and maybe, maybe it's, I don't want four years of Donald Trump, but maybe it's not the end of the world. Maybe the other leaders of the other countries will be scared by him because he's so crazy, you know, that kind of thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I think three things we need to do. Ben Wickler, who's running for DNC chair, was just talking about this the other day. I thought it was really... You're such a Wickler stan.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
No, we're going to have, you know, whoever wants to come on Pod Save America, I think I'm supposed to talk to Ken Martin when we get back from the break.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Is that that state senator from New York? Maryland. I have no idea.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, no, that's what the people want. More corporate tax cuts, less funding for childhood cancer. So, three steps. One, and the third is the hardest, but one, I do think, like, I would love more independent media. And when I say progressive, great, but also, you know, I think of liberalism now as small L liberalism stretching from the far left to the center right. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
any kind of independent media along that ideological spectrum on four. I think we need more of it. I think number two is to absolutely go into these other spaces, you know, with people that we don't necessarily agree with, go on their shows, talk to them, try to expose their audiences to other views since they're not necessarily being exposed to other political views. So I think that's important.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And then I think the big challenge here is like, we have to figure out a way to reach the like people who don't consume news that much. not just political news, any kind of news. And that is the tough one that no one is, the nut that no one's cracked yet. And I think we need to focus a lot more on that. We think about that a lot here at Cricket Media, like how do we go beyond our own audiences?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I'm sure you guys think about that too. Yeah, all the answers for that have been, from the political class, have been awful.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Because the people thinking about it aren't low info voters. Right. Right. We like Democrats, we lean on identity as an explanation for all kinds of things, but we forget to lean on identity as an explanation for like why low information voters don't think like us because we're not in their shoes.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And so you actually need to talk to people who don't consume a lot of news and politics about politics to figure out what might persuade them.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And I'm like, here's the thing. Donald Trump is, he might have some political genius to him. He's an idiot, right? And when you have a bunch of idiots running things who don't know what they're doing, that's not going to lead to good outcomes for anyone. And that's sort of what we're starting to see here. Why did Elon Musk blow up the deal? Who knows?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I did a focus group with a bunch of young people in Orange County before the midterms in 22. And it was right after Dobbs. And one young woman was like, she was outraged by Dobbs. And she was outraged about the Supreme Court. She couldn't believe it. So she finishes her whole tirade about this. And I'm like, so were you registered to vote in the midterms? And she said, what's a midterm?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
What's a midterm? And I was like, okay, well, there we are. Upset about Dobbs. We like the sentiment there. Don't know if you register or not. Don't know what a midterm is. So we got some work to do.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Oh, really? This might make me cry, actually. Okay, great. So... I really thought a lot about the Luigi Mangione assassination thing. And it really bothered me. And I was trying to figure out why it really bothered me.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Did he see a tweet somewhere that pissed him off? Did he see some misinformation? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He's probably scrolling through his platform, saw something that got him mad, fired off a tweet, and then boom, whole deal blows up, government shuts down. For what? We don't know. There's no rhyme or reason to any of this. No ideology behind it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
The response. Because I am someone who got into politics 20 years ago because of healthcare. It's the issue I'm most passionate about. And I obviously... Worked for Barack Obama, went through the whole Affordable Care Act debate. I also think that insurance companies are awful. I would like something, if not Medicare for all, close to it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I like Pete Buttigieg's plan in 2020 about Medicare for all who want it, where you can, you know... choose Medicare. So I believe in all that. And then when I saw people who were like excusing or glorifying or celebrating vigilante justice, vigilante violence, extrajudicial killings, I was just like, what?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
At first, I didn't believe that it was, I was like, oh, it's probably like a few Twitter people. And then it just like, it grew. And then, I mean, you mentioned the Pets of America Reddit. There were some people on our, subscribers on our Discord,
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
who were like angry with me for my takes on this, which again, my, my centrist, my super centrist take is vigilante murder, bad insurance companies also bad. So that's my, that's my crazy take. Um, and people were not happy with me, but I, so I jumped into the,
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
into our discord and talk to our subscribers for a couple hours on Sunday, because like you said, yeah, because like you said, this is the kind of person I just, I just go right in there and I didn't yell at anyone. We had a good time. And by the end, everyone was like, of course we don't want this. Of course we don't excuse this murder, but you're not understanding like the rage that's out there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And They were mad that I think they think I called it performative at some point. And what I was calling performative was not people's rage towards the insurance industry at all or their anger towards the health care system. What I thought was performative was people like, you know, Taylor Lorenz was supposed to be a journalist, you know, posting memes, CEO down.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And, you know, she's got a headline, why we want executives dead. I'm like, OK, that you you're supposed to be in a position of responsibility that I don't think that's I don't think that's really wise. And I think that part of this is about trying to draw attention to yourself. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But someone out there who has been denied by an insurance company and has watched a loved one die or suffer or has faced bankruptcy, I get why they're mad. But my concern, and I'm sure it's your concern too, is starting to excuse this.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Or starting to think that maybe the political system is so broken and we're never going to get health care reform, we're never going to fix this, that you can understand why people would do this. That leads us down a path, I think, where the alternative to the right-wing authoritarianism that we are fighting right now is left-wing authoritarianism.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Where it's not about trying to persuade people or trying to make democracy work as broken as democracy is. It is about just, you know, force. It's about might makes right. And we can use force to do what we want. And if we believe something and we believe it so strongly, it doesn't matter if someone else doesn't believe it. It doesn't matter if it's complicated, if the issue is complicated.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
There's no, it's just, you know, it's just breaking things as we go.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We need to be right and we need to be right at any cost. And so it doesn't matter what we do because the belief and the ideology is more important than actually bringing people along. And look, I get the impulse, I get the frustration, but that path has never worked. That path has never worked. It doesn't lead to a good place.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Like when you start excusing political violence, that means that other people with political views that are very different than yours will also start excusing political violence and they'll be able to start committing political violence too. And then we have violence. Everyone's like, well, America is a violent country. I'm like, yeah, America is a violent country.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We don't need to make it more violent. That's not the answer.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I was, and then I used the civil rights movement as an example. And people were like, what are you talking about? The civil rights movement was incredibly violent. Like the state used violence against the activists and the protesters and civil rights. And I'm like, yeah, I know. Of course.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And you know what John Lewis did as he was getting his fucking head beat in on the, on the Edmund Pettus bridge. He just sat there because he knew and Martin Luther King knew that nonviolence, which takes incredible discipline.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
also has the power to persuade people to say oh my gosh these civil rights protesters they are like the state they are getting beaten to within an inch of their lives and this is awful blah blah and then suddenly the tide of opinion changes and you pass the civil rights act and you pass the voting rights act and does it fix everything absolutely not is the system still yes but like that's how change actually happens in this country that's how progress happens and and the non-violence of that movement that was the heart of the civil rights movement
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
was a strategy. It wasn't, it didn't just happen. It was a strategy. It took discipline. It took like, you know, responding to beatings and violence with peaceful protests is really fucking hard. And it took a long time, but it's a lot better than descending into civil war.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
A few things. One, I saw those polls and First, it could be the polling, right? Like sometimes people give trollish responses to pollsters and like, so you could have a polling issue there, right? And it's a subsample. Gen Z is most likely to troll. Right, well, it's like you got an Emerson poll and it's a subsample of how many voters in an Emerson poll that's 18 to 29. So like, whatever.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But what is different about Gen Z from all the other polls?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
generations in that poll which is those older generations like they remember domestic disorder and chaos and even violence in this country uh and elsewhere right like they lived through the oldest lived through world war ii then there was the cold war then there was you know the civil rights movement in this country right in the late 60s and the 70s so like
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Older people, they know what violence can do. They know what chaos can do. I think the younger folks, social media and their phones is a big part of this. First of all, that generation is, they are struggling with affordability and costs in a way that makes them feel a lot of despair. When you layer onto that, that everything they see on their phones, is outrage taking to an 11.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I don't do that, Tim. I have deep conversations and I have a lot of patience, which I don't know. I don't know why.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Everything's at an 11 all the time. It's doom. It's climate existentialism, right? We're not going to have a planet anymore. We shouldn't have kids. And this is what's showing up in people's feeds over and over and over again. And I think that puts you in a place of nihilism where you think, fuck it. Whatever problem there is in your life, it's magnified by what you see on your phone.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And then you think, okay, well, I have this problem. And also everything seems dark. Everything seems terrible. Like the, the, you know, we're all doomed. The apocalypse is coming. So like, you know, some insurance executive gets killed. Who the fuck cares? I like that. I think that's the sentiment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I mean, we ran a campaign like this in 2008 that worked really well. People look back on it as hope and change and all that, but there was a huge reform element to the way that Obama talked, his agenda. We talked about lobbyist money, corporate PAC money. We talked about fixing Washington, Washington being broken.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And I think that we can be a party that wants to reform and fix a broken system as opposed to the other party that seems intent on tearing the system down and then presiding over the ashes. Because I don't think that's going to work for anyone. It's going to feel good to just destroy the whole system. Maybe that's what you want. But in its place... you're not going to get anything.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
You're just going to get a bunch of people who are going to make themselves rich and do a bunch of corruption.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Get some alt coins. Yeah, and maybe it's going to be fun for people like Elon to watch the whole thing. Maybe it's going to be entertaining for you. It's going to be entertaining for them, certainly. They're going to get rich. You're going to be pretty fucked.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
So I think the alternative is just acknowledging what is broken about the system and pledging to fight relentlessly to fix it and to reform it. And this is what I think we have to do. And I think we've, you know, walked away from that at times. Like we have not had, the last four years, the message was not the system is broken and we're doing everything we can to fix it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
That was just, that was not the message of the Biden administration. It wasn't the message of the 2020 primary, really. Except for like Bernie and Warren and people like that. But that's not, it wasn't, it wasn't focused on the system and it wasn't focused on like, okay, how do we reform this so that it actually works for everyone?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I completely agree. with your ranking. I'm actually, I'm glad that you, you know, put Iraq and McConnell first. That was that, you know, you did some thinking there. I'm glad I didn't just fire off. Yeah. Of course it was the worst of my lifetime because I might've, I'm so mad that I might've.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I was like, yeah, like, This is right after Bush and McConnell. The key in that piece, too, everyone knows how I feel about Joe Biden at this point. I've been very open about that and his decisions over the last several years. The key line in that piece to me was, oh, he has some good days and bad days.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And I do think that the good day, bad day thing is why there was no moment where everyone was like, he's got to step down, he can't run again. Because every time he would freak people out close to him that dealt with him all the time. Then the next time they see him, he would be fine. And then they would tell themselves, okay, well, we should just keep moving forward.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But the people, look, there's a lot of people in the White House, a lot of people in the administration. The vast majority of them did not have a lot of contact with Joe Biden. You got to remember too, even the first two years of his administration, they were all working. A lot of them were working remotely. They weren't even in the White House because of COVID. But the small circle
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And the piece talks about this, the small circle of people around Joe Biden that did not push him and were not honest with him about how he was diminishing, about how he was making a selfish decision, about how he should have. Look, look, look what the polling says. Look what the bad news says. Like, that's who I'm I'm most angry at.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
When you are the president, you are sort of ensconced in this little bubble and you do rely on your advisors to tell you the truth about you, the truth about what the country thinks about you, what's going on out there. And those people did not do that. They just didn't do it. And now we're all going to, now we have Trump again.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Fundamentally, I don't think he gets it. And I just saw his interview with Midas Touch. He sat down with that podcast, Midas Touch. That's a big podcast on the left. It was a tough interview, but it was also, like, even if you get past the performance in the interview or, you know, did he do whatever, just his message is like nothing has changed, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Which is just, in his mind, I did some good things and I wanted to have America be more respected in the world. Check. Really? I wanted to... Unite the country. He gave himself a check on uniting the country. Yeah, unite the country. I wanted to just give... you know, working people on opportunity, more opportunity check.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And, and they've, they've, you know, convinced themselves that the chips act and the infrastructure bill, like fix the entire economy. And now there's, it's just, it's wild to me. And like, I think that legislatively they did some really great things, but, It's before the debate. And it's like, there was a time early on in that administration where they were already comparing him to FDR.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And they were like, we have learned the lessons of the Obama administration. And we're not going to make those mistakes. We're going to make the stimulus even bigger this time. And we're going to sell it, unlike those guys. And they did all that. And the thing that really got me was after the midterms,
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
They looked at the midterm results, and they thought that those midterm results pointed to Joe Biden winning in 2024 because Democrats did better than expected. Democrats lost the House popular vote. Lost the House popular vote, but because we hung on to a bunch of Senate seats. Lost the House also. Right. But because we lost by less, it wasn't a red wave. Right. Because we lost by less.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
It must be because Joe Biden is such a popular president that the polls are wrong. And and then we're going to run him again in 2024. And it is one thing for blue and on libs on Twitter to believe that. Whatever. Don't fault them for it because they don't have all the data.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
The people who have the data, who know, who know that a midterm electorate is nothing like a general electorate, they should have fucking known. And instead, they took those results as like, no, no, no. These results prove that Joe Biden should run again. I mean, that to me was the original sin. Do you wish you would have ranted about it more earlier? Do you think that would have helped?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We were talking about this on our last Pod Save America yesterday, and it's like... You go back, and the way that we would talk about it is no one is challenging him. Lovett and I had a pretty tough conversation with Dean Phillips here. Yeah, I had an apology to Dean Phillips. I did a public apology. I did too, and I saw him at the convention.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah. I was going to say that's the second part. Yeah. Cause they like Donald Trump, but they also just, they just want to win things and they, and they hate the libs. And Mike Lee, Senator from Utah was on the cable last night somewhere saying Mike Johnson can't be speaker anymore. It's gotta be Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy should be speaker.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But my point to Dean Phillips was like, your diagnosis of the problem is correct. I do not think that you are the solution here. because I just don't think that would have worked either. But like I said to Dean, I'm like, I share your concerns about his age, but like, look around, no one else is stepping up his advice. And it's Joe Biden's decision to make.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We can blame a whole bunch of other people. And I do blame like the, again, the close, close advisors, but like at the end of the day, Joe Biden had a decision to make. He's the president of the United States. He has free will. He as agency. He could have decided not to run. He chose to run. That's it. You're right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Well, you know what was most revealing was during that George Stephanopoulos interview after the terrible debate when Stephanopoulos was like, well, if you don't drop out and you run and you lose, how are you going to feel if Donald Trump wins again? And Biden said, I'll feel like I did my goodest. I did my best. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And when he said that I was like, oh fuck, really?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I feel pretty bad. Pretty bad. No, I really did do some thinking because this wasn't a surprise, right? Not that I expected Donald Trump to win, but because we all knew that it was a very real possibility. I genuinely believe this was a coin toss. I had an opportunity to really think about the reaction and what my reaction would be and how I would feel. And, um,
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I'm an Obama person through and through. And so I will always be hopeful. But I am much less hopeful than I was when I started that campaign or when I left the White House or even when I started keeping it 1600. And that is a hard thing to wrestle with the state of the world right now. But it's sort of like, you know, what I was saying to you before, it's the only way I
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We're like steps away from like Chancellor Musk dissolving Congress because it's just it's too messy. It did make me realize that like Democrats are going to have more leverage in at least the congressional fights next year than people might think. because they're going to have an even narrower majority Republicans in the House next year.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I can see through this is to take everything one day at a time and to believe that we still have the capacity to change, change our minds, change the way we behave, change the country. And that is, it's very possible that's just not true. But deciding it's not true now, like sends us into this nihilistic place where which I can't go to. There's no appeal to that for you?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
There's no appeal to that for me. Like, look, I have... I think since I was a child, I was always been like the, I've tried to be the diplomat and the peacemaker. I was like that in my family. It's probably why I worked for Barack Obama. Being a speech writer requires a lot of diplomacy and a lot of bring it. This person wants this edit. This one's the other edit.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
How are people going to think about the speech? How's it going to land with this group and that group? So like, that's just like, it's in my DNA. And if I give that up, I don't know what I have, man. Yeah. I don't have much else. It's been like a guiding principle of my entire life and career. And I feel like, I don't know.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I feel like the idea of America is, this will sound extremely cheesy, but like, I think it's worth, it's still worth fighting for. And it is an idea. It's an idea. You're sure?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I mean, look, the founders, you know, we're all created equal. Right. The idea that everyone is created equal, that everyone deserves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Like it sounds cheesy, whatever. It is a radical idea. It is a radical idea. And one of the reasons the radical idea is because the people who wrote it had slaves.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And so like so right off the bat, we didn't start off too well. in this country. We had this great ideal, and it was not matched in practice in any way. And throughout our history, we have fucked up time and time and time again. But there are also times when we have moved forward and made progress. It has happened over and over and over again.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And the idea that this founding principle is still the best way to organize society and organize a country, which I do believe, I still think it's worth fighting for. I still think that you can change people's minds. I do.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We just baptized my one-year-old, our one-year-old, Teddy. We got really lucky. The person who baptized Teddy is a guy by the name of Father Greg Boyle, runs Homeboy Industries here in Los Angeles. Jesuit. Jesuit, a great Jesuit. It's a rehabilitation program for former gang members and people who are incarcerated.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, I'm Jesuit. And so is Father Greg. So is the Pope now, right? We got a Jesuit Pope. Great.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And Father Greg, who, by the way, is a huge Bulwark fan, afterwards that we were talking, he said he's a big Bulwark fan.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But the saying that he loves is, we are more than the worst thing we've ever done. And that is a...
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
deep belief in the possibility of redemption of change of grace of being able to like we all have the capacity for good and the capacity for evil i do believe that and so i think there are evil acts but like you know people can always have their minds changed and some people might never have their minds changed you're going to get your Donald Trump's, you're going to get your Elon Musk's, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And, I mean, we're watching this play out now, and maybe they get the votes, and maybe they keep the government open, but they're going to have a government funding fight. They're going to have to deal with the debt ceiling. Again, it doesn't look like they're going to eliminate the debt ceiling or a debt ceiling hike in this deal.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
That's humanity. But I also think it is entirely possible to go out there and talk to people and change their minds. And by the way, that is the only option. To me, it's just, there's just two choices, right? There's giving up or there's trying and trying is, might lead you to failure.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And if you ask me to predict, is it more likely to lead to failure in this political environment in our country right now? I would say yes, for sure. But like, what does that prediction matter at this point? It doesn't matter. What matters is whether you decide to try or not try. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter what you think is going to happen or what you predict.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
All that matters is what you're doing right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah. And you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say that is America. And this other guy in between there, Barack Obama, he's America too. And John Lewis is America. And so is George Wallace. And we contain multitudes. And this is a country that has never lived up to the ideals of its founding that are still worth fighting for.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
They're trying to pass a tax package that they have to pass, energy, immigration, all this shit. Farm bill. Yeah, farm bill. They can only afford to lose...
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And there is pain in this country and there is misery and suffering and evil. And there is also good and kindness and compassion. And that is the country we are in. And by the way, you have a say in what happens because we have agency. And no matter how dark it gets, we have agency. And so that's what I want to teach my kids.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
the exceptionalism i feel is more for the ideals than it is for the country itself and i think that those ideals are it should be universal right in other countries as well treat your neighbor like you want to treat yourself as like a precept of almost every single religion through human history can't be a coincidence that they all came around to that one and so i think that these are like universal principles that aren't just about america that's about like how we organize the world
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We're here. We're here in Los Angeles. Charlie, Teddy, me, Emily. Emily's parents are in town. They're staying with us. My parents live here. So my brother lives here. So we're all going to do Christmas at the Favreau's.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah. Where are you going? You're going skiing? I'm going to Vail. You're going to Vail. Nice.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
i'm gonna be off it's gonna be offline with tim miller that's great we'll see are you i was gonna say you're not gonna be you're like you're as bad as the worst you're the only of all the people at pod save america ball where all the people we talk to you and i we're the we're the most online we're the worst how many times has somebody sent you a text is like hey have you seen this where you haven't seen it never never
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
We're not looking for big swings, just progress.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Thanks for holding space for me in this last Daily Bulletwork podcast for a while.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Not just in our government now, either. I mean, he's announcing that he's like funding Nigel Farage's Reform Party bid in the UK. This morning, he endorsed the AFP in Germany, which is, you know, the new neo-Nazi party there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, FD, sorry. The FD in Germany. Tommy would be very unhappy with you. I know, I know. I miss my world. I was railing about it this morning, and now I screwed it up.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is crazy. But what I'm trying to figure out is, like... Elon Musk, you know, I was talking to Ro Khanna about him this week on Pod Save America, you know, and he makes the point like a lot of Americans look at him and they're like, this guy puts rockets into space and he's really successful and they think that's cool. And I think there's something to that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Like you look at the polls, right? Like he is not the most unpopular figure in the country right now. And so the question is, how do we get people involved?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Most people to realize like what's going on a that Elon is basically running the government and be that there's so many conflicts that it's just a corruption play and also he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and so a bunch of people are going to get hurt by it and I do think we kind of have to focus on like what he does that actually harms people.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
And what he does to actually help himself, right? Because I think, you know, it's just like dealing with Trump. We can go on and on about all the crazy Elon tweets and this and that and all the shit that he says. But I think the effects of him running the country and maybe the world are going to be the most important thing for people to lift up.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Did you see Trump last night? I was asked about this somewhere. And he was like, you know, he's a good guy. He's trying hard. He's trying hard. I hope he's got to be strong. He's got to be strong. So it's not... Wasn't the full-throated Trump endorsement? But you can see this is why Mike Johnson is the lame member of their clique now. He's just like...
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
on board with, uh, on board Trump's plane with Musk. And then he's at the, he's at the army Navy game with them. He looks out of place. Like he's just, he's always in the back of the pictures. He's always in the back of the picture. He's like, who, he's like, who, who invited this guy?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
You know, he doesn't, I mean, whether he survives for a long term or not, like he might survive like the next couple of votes. I don't see how he or anyone survives in that role. It's the role more than the person.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
That's the problem right now, because they have no margin and you still have the chip Roy's and the, and, and this wing of Republicans in the house who are just going to like, just be crazier than even, you know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk and, and the mainstream mega Republicans and, And so I don't know how anyone survives in that position.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Wait, did Jesse Waters' show Lovett crying on your show? Did that happen?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But did you know that if they can't elect Mike Johnson speaker or they can't elect a speaker when Congress convenes in January, they can't count the electoral votes for Donald Trump? So if Kamala Harris has the courage? No, no, it's not even Kamala. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have to step aside by law. So you know what we're going to get? We get President Chuck Grassley.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Chuck Grassley. It's upset President of the Senate pro tem.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
How did I miss that? Why didn't you send that around?
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
wobbly and it's like well all right well we don't want people to not get their paychecks at christmas so we'll cut a deal that we don't really like even if children's cancer research we lose but we'll still go along with it because we got disaster relief or something they're not doing that last i saw hakeem jeffries did say the lines of communication with mike johnson are open again and they're starting to talk to them again of course this is friday morning that's the death note for mike johnson maybe that was a strategic move by hakeem yeah maybe
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
So yeah, but they're going to need some Democratic votes, and I don't know what Democrats vote for. I think they got debt ceiling out of this latest package. But you can imagine if it's a clean CR that's just like a patch that kicks it one more month down the road. Maybe the Democrats do it so we don't have chaos around Christmas. TSA.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I heard Bannon say this at the New York Young Republican Club thing this week, and his view on this from Mike Davis, noted legal expert Mike Davis, because in the Constitution, it doesn't say consecutive terms that maybe Trump can run again, in which case, let's do Trump-Obama 2028. Let's do it. Let's bring him back.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Yeah, thank you. Sign me up. I think he thought that was a neg. You think they're going to put Pod Save America and the Bulwark in the same prison? Do you think we're going to get to share? I hope so, John. I hope so, too. That would be fun for me.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
I think it could burn itself out. But I also think that Dems can't just stand by and let that happen because I think we got to let people know exactly what's going on.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
But we have for a couple of years now talked about the challenge of like Democrats being in power and having this big heterodox coalition that extends from, you know, Liz Cheney to Bernie Sanders and AOC and how that's difficult and it's tough to keep it together. Angela Davis to Bill Kristol is the version of that I like the best. Same idea. But at least we have a real platform.
The Bulwark Podcast
Jon Favreau: Funny and Horrible
Even Liz Cheney in the coalition, she wasn't asking anyone to change the platform, right? She just wants to stop Donald Trump. And Joe Biden, he came into office, he had things he wanted to do. And I think there is a split between... I mean, there's the J.D. Vance style Republicans who might want to be a little more populist, right?