Chapter 1: What are the highlights and lowlights of 2025 in politics?
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I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Tommy Vizore. And this is the Pundies 2025, which means I'm gonna throw it over to Elijah Cohn. Oh, thank you, John. Lovely throw. Great to be with you guys again for another edition of The Pundies, a time to stop and celebrate the last 12 hellacious months in America.
For those listening, not watching, I want to make sure you know that Elijah is wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie. It's a clip on We've Decided, but he looks fantastic. You should also subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube so you can actually see his pretty face. Yeah, so you don't have to just imagine Elijah in a tuxedo. You say fantastic.
I say it looks like if he pulls his arms up, there'll be two symbols attached to each hand. Well, thank you, Tommy, Dan, and John. This is the biggest night of the year for me. A chance to celebrate the pundits. It's like we've been treading quicksand since January 20th, but only some of us were able to poke our sandy little lips out of the quagmire and speak into existence.
A truly brain-melting take. You guys can tell which line's Howley wrote. This year, we've had a breadth of horrors from the Trump administration, so we have more than just takes to present you. It's a comprehensive, horrifying look-back show, but we're going to have fun. As horrifying as it is, we'll have fun. We're using the dog show format again, and boy, what a bunch of dogs it is.
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Chapter 2: Which political scandal was the most entertaining in 2025?
But would they have?
I mean, just for the sheer stupidity of Signalgate, there are 300 million people in America. And the one person they accidentally add to the group chat about bombing Yemen is the editor of The Atlantic, who's written more stories. It is so funny. Disclosures of Trump and national security than almost anyone else.
Yeah, and I'm thinking – The guy who did the – Because we just focused on Hegseth, I forgot that Hegseth isn't the one who added him, right? Mike Waltz got frog-marked out of the White House, sent to New York.
But Hegseth made it much worse by having that group chat – having other group chats on his personal phone where he was sharing this sort of – It's clear that, like, everyone in the government now is – they're all on Signal. Yeah, yeah. They're all doing this. Everyone is using government emails, right? That's long gone. Foy is dead. He's fucking dead.
Dead anyway.
Just stomping on the PRA. The PRA, that shit. All right, so how do we do this? How do we award it? Well, Pam Bondi accepts on behalf of Jeff Epstein. We don't do posthumous awards here in the Pundies. Well, do we know? That's true. And now the Epstein scandal moves on to the best in show category, which we will revisit at the end.
Got it.
Our next category. An inappropriate release about a bunch of inappropriate releases. Let that breathe. Okay. Or don't. Let's move on to our next category, Fluffer of the Year for Worst Trump Administration Official. This is a... It was more of a, it was a motif on, instead of choose your fighter, choose your fluffer in terms of the cabinet meetings, the lavish praise, embarrassing, obsequious.
Are we judging them on their obsequiousness? Well, I don't know.
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Chapter 3: Who is the worst official of the Trump administration according to the Pundies?
Yeah.
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Bloody Raw and Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to push Mike Johnson through a meat grinder to make it. Here are the nominees for best political beef.
Talking about zigging and zagging.
Best political beef of 2025. First up, God, I like this category. We have Elon Musk versus Donald Trump. Elon Musk crashed out at the White House. He got into a physical brawl with soybean farmer Scott Besson. Doge largely failed. He left and then went on a bit of a PR spiral, posting the following about Donald Trump. Time to drop the really big bomb at real Donald Trump.
is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
Okay. Trump responded by threatening to end government contracts with Musk companies. Next up, we have Scott Besson versus Bill Pulte. At a fancy dinner hosted by All In Chamath, things got heated between Scott Besson and mortgage fraud fanatic Bill Pulte. Here's a dramatic reading of an abbreviated version of the confrontation between Besson and Pulte.
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Chapter 4: What were the most memorable political beefs of 2024?
Tough name. I think it's Vance.
Call you a dipshit is great.
You get the vice president and I say let's call you a dipshit. That's impressive. Nice. I was ready to have him back, John. I'm pretty sure Joe Biden said that about all of us behind closed doors. There's some AOL chat rooms where he's doing it. And his son did it quite publicly. Alright, next up we have Well, I got to read the jokes first. I'm so bad at this. Okay.
Donald Trump is like the HBO series The Last of Us, barely watchable after the first season. I haven't watched the second season, but I like that joke. Also, he sees some sort of hideous fungus sprouting more and more moments of moral decay across our political landscape. Which of the following is 2025's most corrupt corrupt date? Stacked. First up, there's the Qatari jet.
Earlier this year, Trump accepted a massive plane from Qatar to be used alongside Air Force One. It could cost taxpayers over a billion dollars after it's re-outfitted. Here's Trump talking about the plane.
I think it's a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.
Not for you. Again, is that Ryan? Just take me inside. What was the thinking in which live video to have a producer read and which to use the live video? Most of the live videos we had, we went with the live video and then some we couldn't find the live video at the time. So we were like, well, this would be a good producer read.
And look, last year, the producer reads, they were just straight reads. They were great. Now we've veered into some theater I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. Got it. Just throwing your colleagues under the bus right here live on the podcast.
We throw Elijah under the bus a lot.
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Chapter 5: How did the Democratic victories impact the political landscape?
I'm going to blow my brains out before this happens. Fox hates that I'm America's favorite governor. Ratings king.
Saving America. While Trump can't even conquer the big stairs on Air Force One anymore, Fox is losing it because when I type America now wins.
Boombox? Yeah. With a very teeny tiny speaker. Austin shouting. Well, the post is in all caps, to be fair. Yeah. Thank you for picking that up. Austin, did you, did Austin do high school theater? No.
Okay.
The answer was no. Seems clear. Next up is Zoran's primary win. Mamdani completed one of the most innovative and interesting campaigns in recent memory to defeat Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. We have a clip of him kicking off his campaign by interviewing people on the street, but I don't think it's going to translate that well to audio, so let's skip it.
We've all seen it. It's a great clip. He ran a great campaign. That primary was cool.
Mm-hmm.
Next up is just election night 2025. We won everything. Zoran in New York, Spanberger and Sherrill in Virginia and New Jersey. We flipped those commission seats in Georgia. California got- Or did we? California got redistricting. That was awesome. We really needed it. And last, we had this nice little moment of Zoran Mamdani visiting Trump at the White House. Here's a clip.
He asked about your comment calling the president a fascist. And your answer was, both President Trump and I have been clear about our positions and our views. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist? I've spoken about... That's okay. You can just say yes. Okay. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind.
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Chapter 6: What were the funniest moments in politics during 2025?
Is that not coded language? Or therefore we are Jewish? Come on, Pierce, where are you? Where are you standing? God, you're so pathetic.
You better check your citizenship application and all the programs.
And all the programs were disgusting. That doesn't mean that...
Next up is Benny Johnson. Benny Johnson was already featured in the self-inflicted wound segment, and he had an awful clip in front of alligator Alcatraz, where he was talking about how awesome it was. Three, two, one. Welcome to alligator Alcatraz. I'm getting swarmed at my mosquitoes right now. And we saw at least 30 alligators on our way in driving.
And there you go, ladies and gentlemen, as far as the eye can see, you go in, you don't come out. Next up is Tucker Carlson, Tommy's pal. He had an up and down year where he ripped apart Ted Cruz in one of the most satisfying interviews ever, showing that he's capable of doing that. And then gave the softest, gentle embrace of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. Let's take a listen.
The main challenge to that, a big challenge to that, is organized Jewry in America. It's the most popular, self-evidently true idea you could have. Don't let foreign powers, especially tiny ones far away, control your country.
there's nick fuentes himself he's a gross neo-nazi racist anti-semite misogynist and he had a huge year unfortunately and if you dig into it a little bit he's just a huge loser here's a rare interview where he didn't get sucked off the whole time by the interviewer just to clear up one of the many theories about you i've no idea what the answer is and you haven't got to answer but are you actually attracted to women i am attracted to women you're not gay
No, but I will say that women are very difficult to be around.
Okay. So there's that. And do you think they should have the right to vote?
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Chapter 7: What are the worst takes by Pod Save America hosts this year?
Like he's going to like that makes me really nervous that someone like Cuomo is going to be able to win. And I was too and I was too cynical. Can I follow on that? Because mine is adjacent to that. Mine wasn't in like a tweet. It was in a meeting. I think we all talked about whether we should book Zoran Mamdani in a meeting. And I was like, no, because this guy's never going to win.
There's a thousand people in that race and then we're gonna have to have all of them on. No one wants to interview Andrew Cuomo because he's a total piece of shit. And in hindsight. Not the best take since, especially if I've been paying attention to the race, I would have known that Andrew Cuomo was doing zero interviews and that wouldn't have been an issue. So related. And Dan?
So my original take was, John's take was, I think I was, yours take was it should be on these things. And my take was that making it just about healthcare was a mistake. I disagree with that choice.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess I agree with you and. Yeah, it was more of a – yeah. Like I understood why they did it, but I thought that was a strategic error. I was sort of in the Chris Murphy camp there. Yeah, that's where I was. And that was 100% wrong. They were right. Schumer and Jeffries were 100% right about that.
And like all the data shows that they've made healthcare affordability a highly salient issue, which is a very – like just changing the direction of the issue of conversation in America is almost impossible for a part of the minority, and they did it. So full kudos to them. Yeah.
So I think my other take is that, I'm doing this on the fly here, but where I was wrong earlier in this year is, like, you and I have this conversation many times on the pod, but being very sort of dismissive of the people who are saying affordability, affordability, affordability. Like, the sort of the... data nerd argument message testing that affordability is a thing.
And my argument against it was like, yes, obviously everyone cares about affordability, but it's sort of impossible to make affordability the central issue in politics because it's not a... It's not the sort of culture identity issue that drives discourse.
And so that's why always the immigration stuff, the – just the general authoritarian anti-democracy stuff always trended more on social, got more coverage. But like Mondani showed that you can, if you are smart and good, make affordability the signature issue. And the shutdown showed that if you are smart and good, you can make affordability the central issue and that we have to –
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Chapter 8: Who wins the Best in Show Pundi award for 2025?
Pundi of the year. Pundi of the year, off year elections. The year ended better than it started. As I fucking said, Elijah, through your shit eating fucking smirk.
He quickly moved past his bad take. He goes on the attack.
Is that not another lesson of the era? We'll tell that to every kid who has measles, but okay. Not saying it's all good. Not saying we're not going to get our hair must a little bit. Not saying there won't be some fucking setbacks, like the measles making a comeback. The pundi of the year goes to living out over the 2025 elections. Credit to the PSA team for your wonderful voiceover.
What else do you expect from the pod, bros? That's beautiful. Beautiful. What gives you hope? All right, which one do you guys want to take us home? 2025, what gives you hope award? All right. Who's going to close us out with a reading from Abundance? No, we should do a reading from American Canto. All right. That's all for the pundies. Thank you, Elijah. Thank you, our staff, for...
Whatever that was. Hopefully we can keep you all and you're not going to leave to go join SAG. Fortunately for us, Hollywood's dying. Do some voiceovers. Yeah, the consolidation will reduce the number of opportunities for some of these actors, unfortunately. We'll be back in your feed next week with a holiday mailbag and some New Year's resolutions. We're going to do those too. Hell yeah.
We'll see you then.
Beautiful. Bye, everyone.
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