Latest / Pod Save America / Will Trump Bomb State of the Union/Iran?

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Will Trump Bomb State of the Union/Iran? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: at simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked.
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  Speaker 3: There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: On today's show, we're going to talk about Kash Patel's
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: make-a-wish trip to pound beers with the U.S. men's hockey team.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump saying he's suffering for all of us while
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: raising our taxes and potentially launching a war with Iran,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: which maybe he'll try making the case for during tonight's
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: State of the Union, which he promises will be long.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: What a preview. We'll also talk about what to expect
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: from the big speech and all the different ways Democrats
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: are planning to respond and pre-spawned, pre-butt, post-butt. Then our
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: pals Simone Sanders-Townsend and Eugene Daniels of MSNOW stop by
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: to talk with Lovett about their new podcast, Clock It,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: the upcoming Texas Senate primary, and more. And a reminder,
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  Speaker 3: if you want even more Pod Save America, more politics,
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  Speaker 3: more laughs with all your favorite crooked hosts, and I
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  Speaker 3: guess some of your least favorite, too. There's got to
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  Speaker 3: be some least favorite.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: doesn't take orders from Donald Trump or the Ellisons.
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  Speaker 4: There we go.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And once you get done subscribing to The Bulwark,
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  Speaker 1: come over here.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Cricket.com slash friends.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Cash Patel's Travelog. That could be a show.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: That's behind the paywall. We could do that.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Cash Patel's Some Reservations.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Pam Bondi's Things You Should Care About. That's good.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: There you go. Put it behind the paywall.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: None of you can listen unless you subscribe. Cricket.com slash friends.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the news. The president heads
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: into his State of the Union address on the verge
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: of a war with Iran that very few Americans want,
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  Speaker 3: an equally unpopular tariff regime that has been struck down
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: by the Supreme Court, and an approval rating that just
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: hit January 6th lows in new polls from The Washington
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Post and CNN. So naturally, he's in a great headspace
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: as he prepares for the biggest audience he'll get before
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: the midterms. Here he is at a White House event
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: on Monday.
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  Speaker 5: Polls are tough, you know, when you get a fake poll.
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: I get them today. I saw one today that I'm
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: at 40%. 40%. I'm not at 40%. I'm at much
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: higher than that. It just amazes me that there's not
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: more support out there. It's just, we actually have a
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: silent support. I think it's silent.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I suffer for the country.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: He suffers silently. Do you guys think he'll be able
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: to deliver the State of the Union with that cross
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  Speaker 3: on his back the whole time? I hope so.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's... He is going into this thing, the amount of,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: so he's going to be in the room. There's going
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to be all these Epstein people will get to it.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: He's going to have the Supreme Court in front of them.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: He's going to have these poll numbers in his head.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He will have been told who he shouldn't be talking to.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And it's going to take every, like he's going to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: be shaking with his desire to break the script and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: go after that. I think it's going to go all
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: at Epstein. Roberts in the Supreme court, all the energy,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: all the anger, all of it. That's what, that's my,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: that's my feeling.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: You don't think, you don't think Susie Wiles will have
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the shock collar, uh, like sort of amped up.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: She would like to, but I could also imagine a
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: scenario where cash Patel comes out in full hockey pads,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: who shotguns of beer personally arrests a bunch of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Supreme court justices and then frog marches them out.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: That's that's dramatic. It would be content.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Um, I don't, yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Cash Patel.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they make the, I guess you'd
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: get the teen size. Yeah, they make kids jerseys. Washington
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Post had them at 60% disapproval. CNN has an approval
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: at 36%. 26% with independents.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: That feels bad. Hot. Hottest president in the world. Marist University,
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: 57% of respondents said the State of the Union is
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: not very strong or not strong at all.
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  Speaker 3: I guess those are all fake. 32% says he has
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  Speaker 3: the right priorities in the CNN poll. 68%. He says
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  Speaker 3: he hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.
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  Speaker 3: He is crushing it.
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  Speaker 4: Let's go to work with Iran then.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while he references the actual poll numbers.
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  Speaker 1: And he has a sort of sad quality to him.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: And I actually prefer when he just makes up the numbers.
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  Speaker 4: Me too.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like he wasn't getting any information that was
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  Speaker 3: real for at least the first year. I feel like
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  Speaker 3: some real information has been getting through to him. I
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  Speaker 3: don't know who's delivering it.
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  Speaker 4: Who's slipping it there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Because he seemed genuinely like, why is it?
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  Speaker 3: Why isn't there more support? I don't understand. We're doing
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: amazing stuff. There was some thought that Trump might take
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  Speaker 3: questions at that event about the war he's reportedly ready
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  Speaker 3: to launch against Iran.
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  Speaker 4: You're mentioning the State of the Union. It would be
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: so funny if he just took some cues. I mean,
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: that's a good, we should talk about that later, but
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: that is a good strategy. Prime Minister question time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Just turning into question time.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: It would be better.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, instead of just like interrupting him, just keep asking
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: the question.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Do it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Anyway. But yeah, but people thought that maybe he would
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: take questions at that event. He did in the White
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  Speaker 3: House on Monday. maybe questions about the war he's reportedly
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: ready to launch against Iran. But the White House seems
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  Speaker 3: to believe that's none of our business. The latest on
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  Speaker 3: potential military action as of this recording Monday evening is
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: that the U.S. and Iranian negotiators are scheduled to meet
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  Speaker 3: in Geneva on Thursday for one last-ditch attempt at diplomacy.
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  Speaker 3: But Trump advisers are telling The Times that the president
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  Speaker 3: is considering an initial strike against Iran in the coming
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  Speaker 3: days to pressure them into some kind of a deal
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  Speaker 3: and may go for the full regime change operation later
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: in the year. You're going to want to save that
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  Speaker 3: for later. It's all very confusing, including these comments over
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  Speaker 3: the weekend from Trump's top diplomat, real estate buddy, Steve Witkoff,
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  Speaker 3: about an Iranian nuclear program that the Trump administration previously
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  Speaker 3: had assured us was, quote, obliterated.
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  Speaker 6: You know, they say that it's all about their civil program,
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  Speaker 6: and yet they've been enriching well beyond the number that
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: you need for... For civil nuclear, it's up to 60%.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: They're probably a.
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  Speaker 6: Week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And that's really dangerous.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: What do you think, Tommy?
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  Speaker 3: Were they lying before? lying now, or I guess you
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  Speaker 3: don't have to choose. They could be lying in both situations.
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  Speaker 4: So I actually reached out to a couple genuine experts
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  Speaker 4: on Iran just to be like, what do you guys
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: think he meant? And none of them were sure. They
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  Speaker 4: genuinely did not know. I think the most charitable reading
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: is he might be saying that Iran is a week
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: away from being able to enrich their existing uranium stockpile
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: to weapons grade, but that material is supposed to be
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: buried under a mountain with all the centrifuges because of
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: the last airstrike. So I don't know. Maybe Wyckoff doesn't
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  Speaker 4: know what he's saying. But it's super triggering because that
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: framing that like they're a week away or two weeks
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: away is what we heard from Netanyahu for decades, what
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  Speaker 4: we heard from Trump the last time we bombed Iran.
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  Speaker 4: And then afterwards, as you guys recall, we were told
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: the nuclear infrastructure was completely and totally obliterated. That's what
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: he kept saying over and over again. He even fired
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: intelligence analysts who said otherwise. And now here we are,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: not even a year later, doing this all again. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: I think Witkoff's comments speak to this broader problem, which
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: is why? Like, why is this urgent? Why are we
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: doing this right now? Like, what is the thing, right?
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: And it's also, what is the goal? Is it pressure
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: them into making a diplomatic deal? Is it adopting the
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: Israeli position that a deal has to deal with the nukes,
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: ballistic missiles, proxy groups like the Hezbollah and the Houthis?
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Is it retaliation for killing protesters? Remember, he said he
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: was going to bomb them for that. Is it full-on
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: regime change? We have no fucking idea. And it's not
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: clear that Trump knows or has decided. We also don't
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: know how Iran will retaliate. And so it just feels
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: like we're about to go to war but the reasons
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: for it and the scope of it are not only
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: not being debated, but they are secret from us. And
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: that is very weird.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I still feel like we should probably talk a little
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: bit about more about the, you mentioned retaliation, potential retaliation here,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: because it does not seem like this is without great
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: risks to American interests and American lives. I saw that
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: New York Times piece about how like Iran, I'm sure
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: you guys have been talking about this, Tommy, but like
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: how Iran may direct its proxies to attack American interests
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: in Europe, American troops. There could be energy disruptions, right,
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: throughout the Middle East that could really shake our economy.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is not a cost-free, let's lob in
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: a few missiles. Or if he is just going to
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: lob in a few missiles, then it doesn't seem like
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: that's going to do anything.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And just all the more sort of dangerous
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: when the people in charge of telling you what the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: policy is are in some measure incomprehensible or incoherent. They
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: have industrial-grade nuclear fissile material, as opposed to the farm-to-table stuff.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Of course, it's confusing to the experts. These people are.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: In over their heads. Meanwhile, you see the stories about
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Trump having these two phases in his mind are really
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: alarming because he's amassing a huge proportion of our military
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: around Iran. Clearly, he wants to do something. I am
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: sure behind the scenes, they are telling members of Congress
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and others, this is about creating pressure to get a deal,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what kind of deal they're trying
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to get. And then he says, actually, uh, I may
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: do a small war, a small set of strikes. And
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the big one will be later, right? Because what is the,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: he took the lesson, the lesson he took, right? He
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: took the lesson from the first strikes against Iran's nuclear
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: facilities as a huge success for him politically and without, uh, uh,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the negative consequences that many, uh, uh, feared. So he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: took that as a kind of win. So he, uh,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: imagines he could do that again, get all the plaudits, right?
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And Trump is not a guy that delays gratification. He
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: has put all of this military force in position. He's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: just going to withdraw. That isn't the tough boy, Donnie,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the guy that's so strong and so tough for America
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and for Israel that we've come to expect. So I
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: just think the whole thing is set up for us
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to be at the very least doing some kind of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a military strike against Iran with zero real debate in
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Congress and zero understanding of the strategy at all.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: It's shocking. And remember, last time Iran responded, they basically fired, what,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: like a dozen missiles at a base. They warned us
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: in advance. They knew we'd shoot them down. They wanted
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: to de-escalate through that escalation. There's a lot of experts
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: who now think Iran will decide that they need to
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: raise the cost for the U.S. or else they're just
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: going to get bombed over and over and over again
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: every 6, 10, whatever, 12 months. And so they could
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: respond with a giant salvo of ballistic missiles. They could
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: hit US bases in the Gulf. They could hit energy infrastructure.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: They could hit a Saudi oil depot and send up prices.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: They could hit Tel Aviv, the Israeli targets. All it
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: takes is one or two missiles to get through, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: something really bad happens, and you're on this escalation ladder.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: And then also, I mean, they have pretty advanced cyber capabilities.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: They could go after the US electric grid, or DHS, meanwhile,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: is getting rid of all of its cyber defense. So
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: It's just like, look, maybe there's a scenario where these
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: guys have been decimated and they will not get a
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: single missile off the ground because we are just so
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: much better than them. And that's what happened in Venezuela.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: But it's a pretty big bet.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: There was a line in the Times story that the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Ayatollah has instructed senior leaders to make sure the assassination
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: attempts don't work.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, man. Smart move.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good idea. Make sure they don't work
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: for you.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Not that we can ever know what's going on in
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's addled mind, but I genuinely... don't have any
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: idea why he's doing this because like, like Venezuela sort
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: of kooky, but you could kind of see like, okay,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: it was a Stephen Miller thing. It was a Rubio thing.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: He likes getting the oil, right? You think Greenland, even that,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: you know, it looks big on the map. He wants to,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: wants to take that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Like the around thing now at this moment with this
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: much firepower in the region is just baffling to me
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: because it's like, well, I don't know, like Lindsey Graham's
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: pushing him to do it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: But like who else is really jonesing for a war
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: with Iran in his orbit?
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham's like a pagan Shiite. I think I can
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: imagine a couple arguments. One is another oil-based argument, right?
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: Suddenly the U.S. controls like all the energy in the
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: world if we're controlling the Iranian oil infrastructure somehow and
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Venezuela and our own. It doesn't totally make sense, but sure.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: There's an argument that's like Trump no longer cares about
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: politics anymore. He just wants to be viewed as a
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: historic figure. And he's got Lindsey Graham in his ear
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: being like, sir, if you take out Maduro and the
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Supreme leader, you are like, you know, the greatest president
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: in history. And maybe he's listening to that.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Like pure appeal to vanity.
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: And like, look, there's a lot of long-term risks. Like
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: we're genuinely low on munitions, especially like air interceptor missiles
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: for the Patriot missile batteries, things like that. The Israelis
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: are too after the 12 day war. And so like
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: the Chinese are sitting there watching this being like, yes,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: fucking unload the clip. Have at it boys. Like, you know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: we'll just sit here quietly and see what happens.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It's nuts.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: But politically, it's crazy.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: The only other part of it, to make sense of it,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: is he wants to undo anything Obama did and do
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: better than anything Obama did. And so he is applying
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: pressure in order to get some kind of a deal.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Like the timing only makes sense, the aggressive timing in
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the context of trying to get some kind of a deal,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: whatever that would be. And he wants to go out
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: there and say, Obama sold out the country. I got
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the real deal. I fixed it. And I stopped yet
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: another war, right? Like that to me is, honestly, it's
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: a hopeful direction.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I do think that, you know, Venezuela, like
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: we know that it was a pretty close call for
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: the special forces. Like he has sort of danced through
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: the raindrops with a lot of these military strikes.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: And he's done that his entire fucking life. Right, of course.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: But it's like at some point, you know, Americans get
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: killed in this. These things can go south really fast.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: No one was killed in the Venezuela operation, but a
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: guy got shot in the leg, one of the helicopter pilots,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: and then nearly went down. And that was in part
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: because clearly the U.S., we know this from leaks that
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: we had someone on the inside that, you know, turned
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: on Maduro and set him up to get taken. I
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: do think there is this sense that the post-Afghanistan and
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Iraq conflicts have been largely cost-free and that we can
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: just bomb stuff with drones or B-2 bombers and call
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: it a day. Like, You know, the Qasem Soleimani operation
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: in the first term when Trump assassinated the then head
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: of the IRGC, they responded with a ballistic missile barrage.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Only by the grace of God was no one killed.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Like 100 service members got traumatic brain injuries. And that
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: sort of ended the escalation. But if, you know, one
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: guy dies there, it's up and up and up. You
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: mentioned the politics. Here's the way a University of Maryland
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: poll from a few weeks ago asked the question, do
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: you favor or oppose the United States initiating an attack
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: on Iran under the current circumstances? oppose 49%, don't know 30%,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: and support gets 21%. And yet, the War Powers Resolution
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: from Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, which would simply require
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: Congress to authorize any kind of military action against Iran,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: as it is laid out in the Constitution and the
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: War Powers Act itself, doesn't have the votes to pass,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: at least as of this moment.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Why do you think that is?
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Well, look, the Venezuela.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: resolution failed in house two fifteen to two fifteen that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was with the democratic unanimity we've already.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Lost josh gotheimer and uh... jared uh... moskowitz uh.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: who not only said they're pose it but put out
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a ridiculous statement claiming it was the ayatollah enabler.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: Actor protection protection act uh.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: which is just like pretty insulting to your to your
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: colleagues and uh.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: like uh.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: such a kind of like glib minimization of the role
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of congress in approving military force but Losing those means
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that even if you had basically every Democrat in favor
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: of a war powers vote, you would still lose because
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene is now gone and Thomas Massey is
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: not very persuasive with his caucus.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I think it's so embarrassing for any Democrat, really Republican too.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just don't expect as much from them.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: It's not to just say like, yes, I think we should,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: let's debate it. And I think Congress should vote to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: give the president authorization to like just Give up your
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: own power before there's even a debate. Just give to
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, of all people, like Josh Gottheimer, Jared Moskowitz.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: You trust Donald Trump. That's that's that's who you're deciding
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: to give your power that the Constitution has authorized you
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: with a way to to Donald Trump because you trust
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: him to do war the right way.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: They're not they're not proposing an actual vote to authorize.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: The use of military force.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: They're just standing in the way of.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: Of having a vote at all.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: And the excuse is, when you get further into that
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: crazy statement, this resolution would restrict the flexibility needed to
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: respond to real and evolving threats and risks, signaling weakness
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: at a dangerous moment. That is such fucking... Also, like,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: George W. Bush-era Republican bullshit.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: That was a lot of the justification people used for
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: voting in favor of the Iraq War authorization because they
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: claimed it was merely to give George W. Bush leverage
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to prevent the war in the first place, which obviously
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is not what.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: Came to pass.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like the debate is even worse than 2003 somehow.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: At least then there was a conversation about the underlying
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: reason why we may or may not go to war,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: which is this false claim of WMDs. That literally isn't happening.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: It's just like, hey, look, we've amassed a ton of
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: military assets in the region and what's Trump going to decide?
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Here's some leaks about the the menu of options before him.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Is he going to just have an appetizer? Is he
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: going to go with the full, like, you know, it's
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: just like a fucking video game. It's crazy. And like, meanwhile,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: like there, there's like a real human cost here. Like
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: the USS Gerald Ford has now one of the aircraft carriers.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: They've had their deployment extended twice. So they've been out
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: for eight months. They will possibly be out for 11 months.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: These are sailors with, you know, families, little kids, wives, husbands.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: They can only have sporadic contact with their family for
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: OPSEC reasons. Like they'll go into quote unquote ghost mode
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: for weeks at a time where you just like can't
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: contact people. And also the fucking toilets are broken on
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: the ship.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I saw that.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: And like to fix them full, you have to dock.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: So there's 45 minute lines for a toilet on an
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: aircraft carrier. Like imagine the nightmare for these guys. It's
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: like right before we record the pod.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: It's also yet another issue splitting MAGA world for various reasons.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: We just saw the debate play out during Tucker Carlson's
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: recent interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, which
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: produced this viral clip about Israel's role in the Middle
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: East that the administration has also been trying to walk back.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Let's listen.
• 20:08
  Speaker 8: I just read Genesis 15, as I have many times.
• 20:11
  Speaker 8: And that land, I think it says, from the Nile
• 20:14
  Speaker 8: to the Euphrates, which is, once again, basically the entire
• 20:18
  Speaker 8: Middle East. So God gave that land to his people,
• 20:21
  Speaker 8: the Jews, or he didn't, you're saying he did. What
• 20:26
  Speaker 8: does that mean? Does Israel have the right to that land?
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: Because you're appealing to Genesis. You're saying that's the original deed.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: It would be fine if they took it all.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: But I don't think that's what we're talking about here today.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: What would be fine? Well, it's exactly what we're talking
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: about today.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: But here's what I don't think you're... You think it.
• 20:44
  Speaker 8: Would be fine if the state of Israel took over
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: all of Jordan? They don't want to take it over.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: They're not asking to take it over.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I will say, beyond those comments, Huckabee's case for war
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: with Iran seemed to have quite a few holes in it.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: What did you guys make of that interview and the
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: broader intramaga debate over Iran?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: First of all, Huckabee just does such a terrible job
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in this interview. It's really sort of hard to watch.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Tucker just asks him hard questions, and he can't defend
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the position. He just can't defend the position. He can't
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: defend the civilian casualties in Gaza. He can't defend Israel's
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: conduct of the war. And Tucker really makes a meal
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of it. At the same time, Tucker is somebody who
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: has had sort of a slavish conversation with Nick Fuentes.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: He's had Holocaust deniers on. And so, like, you see
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Tucker give Huckabee a really hard time.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: And he is a.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Tucker is a very smart, very sophisticated interviewer.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: And it is.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I think, notable that he turns it on in this conversation,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: but doesn't turn it on in some of those other interactions, right?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And so it's hard. You watch this and you're like, yeah,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to see Huckabee face these tough questions in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this sort of very sort of tense way. But then
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: you think this is sort of Tucker with an agenda
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of his own. And Tucker actually starts, did he watch
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the beginning where he talks like 20 minutes about the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: circumstances of the interview in a kind of vaguely conspiratorial
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: way and the ways in which it was clear Huckabee
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: really didn't want to have the debate and they wouldn't
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: let them leave the the airport. The whole thing was
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: very strange. So I came away like kind of glad
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to see Huckabee put on the spot, but then like
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit uncomfortable with the kind of the fact
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: that it had to come from Tucker Carlson of all places.
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, Tucker's got some questionable motives, I think it's
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: fair to say, but just in terms of like pure performance,
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: like taking out the two individuals. I mean, it's a
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: fascinating interview because Tucker comes in with a plan and
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: he lays a trap, which is he knows He wants
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: to ask, why does Israel have a right to exist
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: and do all countries have a right? This is a
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: universal principle. And he knows that Huckabee will cite both
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: international law and theology, right? He'll say that, as he
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: said there, that the divine right that comes from Genesis 15.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: And Tucker is pushing on this because he knows that
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: those two arguments are fundamentally irreconcilable. And it culminates in
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Huckabee saying, yes, a literal reading would say Israel should
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: control the entire Middle East and quote, it would be
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: fine if they took it all. which is an absolutely
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: crazy thing for him to say. Obviously, it was not
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: his intention, right? But it led to this massive backlash.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: There were statements from Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, the UAE, Kuwait,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, OIC, the League of Arab States,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: like every country in the region. They were not thrilled.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: It simply would not be fine if they took it all.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: It would not be fine. It would be a real problem.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: But they're not asking for it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: It would be fine if they did, but that's not
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: what they want.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: That's not what they want.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: And it highlights... Actually, like how much of an extremist
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Huckabee is on all the policy areas he oversees, because
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: he says he opposed a two state solution. He supports
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Israel annexing the West Bank. He says there is no
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: West Bank. There's only Judea and Samaria. He says there's
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: no such thing as a Palestinian. And so like Tucker
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: is being a troll. We question his motives. But there's
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: also like I think from the countries that responded again,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: a lot of reasons they lash out at Israel, some
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: of its anti-Semitism, some of its bias. But some of
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: it is genuine anger about Israel's territorial expansion, and that
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: dates back to 1967 and the Six-Day War, but also
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: like settlement construction, the slow-motion annexation of the West Bank.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Israel has taken territory in Syria and Lebanon recently since
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: October 7th. So it was a riveting interview between two
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: pretty flawed people.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also think the situation with Iran sort of
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: combines the anti-war strain in the MAGA world With the anti-Israel,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: especially anti-Israeli government strain in Mago World 2. And at
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: one point, you know, Tucker goes in on, well, you know,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Bibi Netanyahu has been to the White House seven times.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: He's like, what other foreign leader has had a meeting
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: with Trump seven times in the last year? And Where
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: has the debate been with the American people over whether
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: we launch another war? And you could see a lot
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: of like the anti-war stuff that Tucker's doing. You could
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: see like gain a lot of traction, not just with
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: because it is how most Americans feel about war, especially
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: war with Iran that no one has told us why
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: we're waging or may wage.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: He also does some with Republicans.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: He also does this dual loyalty stuff with Tucker and Huckabee.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: He does kind of he goes into sort of DNA
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and who has the right to the land. And then
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: he does sort of America being sort of controlled by
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Israel and making decisions on behalf of Israel. And so, yeah,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: there is this, I would say like the alignment is
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: between sort of anti-war America first types and some of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the sort of the virulent anti-Semitism, anti-Israel.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's the other thing he does.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: He actually apologized for it, but he made reference to
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the president of Israel, Herzog. being on in the epstein
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: files and and herdstock like a set of a long
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: letter basically saying like this is false and like a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: complete fabrication and and tucker clearly i guess in a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: way that sounds like someone who's worried about defamation kind
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of came out and said i didn't know anything beyond
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: what i read i don't have any reason to believe
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it is true if you defame if you if you
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: malign somebody you should correct it so he corrects it
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: but clearly like he is swimming in the the kind
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of like conspiratorial waters.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: He goes off in the epstein files too and And
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Huckabee's like, well, I'm the ambassador to Israel, so I don't,
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: you know. And he's like, you haven't read the Epstein files?
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: He's like, you don't know what's going on in the
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Epstein files? You're not trying to tell me. It's so funny. Like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Tucker really does the, I'm so confused.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: I'm not mad.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I'm just confused.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, I don't understand. I don't understand. This sort of
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: like babe in the woods thing.
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: The interview starts quite hot. Yes. It's Jonathan Pollard, who
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: is a guy who spied on the U.S. on behalf
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: of Israel, who Huckabee met with for some reason at
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: the embassy. Then I think it's into Epstein. Or then
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: it goes into some Israeli official who is accused of
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: blessing kids. It's just kind of weird stuff. But on
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: the kind of intermega Iran split, there are some genuine
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Iran splits. It is very hard to deduplicate at times
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: the anti-Israel, anti-Semitism from the anti-war stuff. And that is
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: a troubling piece of this. I do think I would
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: divide it into elite opinion and to voter opinion. On
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: the elites, I still think when you're talking about electeds
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: and media types... the hawkish traditional neocons are still like
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: the majority. It's like the Wall Street Journal editorial page,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham, like those are the people I think in
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Trump's ear the most. Although Tucker- The Murdoch empire. Yeah,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Tucker was at the White House today, right? Wasn't there
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: a tweet about that? But unlike Iraq in 2003, you
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: now have this far right faction of people like Tucker
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: or Nick Fuentes, similar like- Candace. Overlap, Candace. And then
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: some folks who are very hardcore anti-war. And then there's
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: some folks, and I think like the podcaster- Manosphere ecosystem
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: who are more just kind of like why are we
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: doing this right? And then you have the people in
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: the traditional kind of more MAGA? Suck up a space
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: who are just like Trump hasn't made the case yet.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: They don't they're like where we are right now It's
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: just like why what why does he want us to
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: do that? And then there's voters who are like, what
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: what the fuck are you doing? Like I care about
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: Tariffs I care about inflation or whatever and I think
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: ultimately Some of these arguments are good faith, like, hey,
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: Iraq was bad. Why are we doing this again? Shouldn't
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: we spend money elsewhere? Some of it's kind of weird.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I think ultimately if Trump does like another, what, one
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: or two day bombing raid like you did last time,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: like they just won't care and they'll move on. That's
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: what he's counting on too.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: But if it's protracted, like it's a whole different story,
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: especially if, you know, the Iranians like blow something up
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: and the straight over moves and oil prices go through
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: the roof and then there's real economic fallout.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the one thing about wars, you can always
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: predict what's going to happen.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they end fast.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Now, I know everyone's accusing Trump of not focusing enough
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: on the struggles of everyday Americans, but that's clearly not true.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: He's passionate about making them worse by raising taxes again.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: After the Supreme Court declared his tariffs illegal on Friday
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: in a 6-3 decision, Trump almost immediately announced a new
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: 10% tariff on all foreign goods. which he then quickly
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: raised to 15% on Saturday. Outbid himself. The president has
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: been bitching about the court since Friday. This morning he
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: posted that from now on he'll be spelling Supreme Court
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: with lowercase letters based on a complete lack of respect.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Got him. Got him. Me too.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be doing the same thing.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Because he had been reading a lot of E.E. Cummings.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I also have a lack of respect for the Supreme Court,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: so I'm going to give him the lowercase letter treatment.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I love those.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: The news over the last couple of days, it's like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: In a historic blow to Trump's agenda, the Supreme Court
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: has removed his tariffs. The tariffs are back.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Trump officials are also out there expressing confidence that they'll
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: be able to use other authorities to keep most of
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: the tariff rates where they were before the Supreme Court decision.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And they won't be taking any action to refund the
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: illegal taxes we've all been paying since liberation. Day. According
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: to Politico, this commitment to fighting for tax hikes in
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: an election year has Democrats, quote, frothing at the mouth.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: For starters, Senate Democrats released a refund proposal on Monday.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Governor J.B. Pritzker trolled the administration by sending a letter
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: publicly demanding a refund check for every Illinois family. Newsom
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: said pretty much the same thing on CNN over the weekend.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Let's play a clip.
• 30:00
  Speaker 9: He needs to return that money. He needs to refund
• 30:02
  Speaker 9: that money with interest. He can do that in a nanosecond.
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: The problem is for families, it's been about $ 1, 701 a year.
• 30:08
  Speaker 9: That's a different requirement that I think he has to
• 30:13
  Speaker 9: pay the American people back. I saw Besant out there
• 30:17
  Speaker 9: almost gleeful. He was gleeful that, no, we won't be
• 30:20
  Speaker 9: doing it. This is dumb and dumber, Trump and Besant.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Is he doing this in a gallery?
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Isn't that Gustav Klimt behind him? Was that the kiss?
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: I couldn't tell if that was... He was in Nashville,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: so he was somewhere in Nashville for his book event.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: I only know that because I think Dana Bash said
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I talked to him in Nashville. I assume that's the only.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Has post-modernism reached Nashville?
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: Okay. I love that he could do that in nanoseconds.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Nanoseconds.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: Very fast. Very fast.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Also, it's like they're all one-upping each other. It's like,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: with interest.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: J.B.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Pritzker says refund. I'm saying refund with interest. So we've
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: talked about the Supreme Court decision a bunch from Friday
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: over the weekend. Everyone should check out our YouTube for that.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: But what do you guys make of Trump doubling down?
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And are your mouths as frothy as other Democrats's?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I love the refund proposal. I think we should just
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: be hammering the refund proposal. Everybody's entitled to $ 1, 700.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Where's my $ 1, 700?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Get me my $ 1, 700. I think that that is great.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: The other part of this is the leverage Trump clearly
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: is afraid he's losing because of this ruling, because he's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: posting these unhinged things about how I have license to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: destroy other countries.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: Be careful what you wish for.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And so he's sort of like, I think, worried about
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: what this will mean for his sort of effort to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: kind of continuously have news cycle after news cycle about
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: how he's sort of pummeling our our trading partners around
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the world, which he views as good for him.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think we should be hammering this all the time.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: He's fighting to keep taxes high and costs high for Americans.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: And by the way, he's keeping your money. It feels
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: like a no-brainer to me.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm frothing.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: I'm a walking bubble bath over here.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: I'm a cappuccino.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: This just occurred to me, though. I was going to
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: go more with the rabies.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: Rabies, your rabid record. So I feel like, you know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: at one point I was worried that he would give
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: everyone like a tariff stipend. Me too. Right, like a
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: tariff stimulus.
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: Still am.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Now, if we, are we not worried that that would,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: because this just occurred to me, like, what if he
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: did write everyone a $ 1, 700 check, as J.B. Pritzker said,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: would framing it as a refund, I guess, defang the
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: political values at the hope? Or the hope is that
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: he would just never do it because he'd feel like
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: he'd be under duress?
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I know, I didn't think about that. And then I
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: heard Jesse Waters be like, Democrats have stepped into a trap.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Now he's going to do a refund right before the election.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: But I was like, I mean, that would be the
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: smart political thing to do, but it doesn't seem like,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: first of all, I mean, he would have to just
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: do it illegally. like he does everything else because it
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: would never pass Congress because they don't want to... They
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: keep floating this in Congress and Republicans keep knocking it down, Thune,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: all of them. They're just like, no, we're not doing
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: a refund check. We have a deficit and everything's too
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: expensive and blah, blah, blah. So there's that. But they
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: also don't have the... I mean, I guess they could
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: do it, but they feel like that's maybe giving up.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's... I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. Well,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I think... I would, because I think this is... I'm
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: also frothing. I think this is incredible that he is
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: just going forward with this.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: I think there's no.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: There's no downside for Democrats saying every American deserves a
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: check from the illegally. This is basically money that was
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: stolen from you, from our country. We pay the tariffs.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: We're educating people about it as we go. Like, you're
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: all paying these fucking tariffs.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Look, we're educating you.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: But like, but it is. And if you don't get
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the money, it's because Trump pocketed your money. He cut
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: taxes for corporations. He's cut taxes for his wealthy friends.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: But they can't afford to give you the $ 1, 700 they
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: took from you illegally. And then if he does it, great.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Trump caves to Democrats and gives Americans money. I think
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we could make that argument.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Or he doesn't.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And that's something we can keep running on and hammering
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: through November. So I don't see the downside to pushing
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: really hard.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: You know, I agree on the messaging. I just wonder, like,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: what happens if we catch the car? It would be
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: an interesting situation. And like, but before, I mean, before
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: this ruling, Fox News had a poll where they found
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: 63 percent of registered voters disapproved of Trump's handling of
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: the tariff. So basically, he's just drawing more attention to
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: a wildly unpopular policy to begin with. It looks... weak.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: He looks angry. It looks chaotic. Like, and voters are
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: just like, it's not going to solve the problem, which
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: is voters are mad about costs and nothing he's doing
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: is going to fix it. It's going to make it worse.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: No more illegal taxes to pay for the president's illegal wars.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Just run around saying that for the next nine months
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: and the illegal taxes. They used to just be taxes.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Now they're illegal taxes. When is the last time either
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: party has proudly run on raising taxes on most middle-class Americans,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: working-class Americans, poor Americans. Not trying to say, we're not
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: actually raising taxes, even though it might be true or this. No,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: just out there being like, no, no, no. We are
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: fighting hard to keep this tax increase in effect. We
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: want to keep your taxes high.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Vote for Republicans.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And what are we using it for? We're going to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: use it to buy a plane. We're going to use
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: it to send Kash Patel on a whirlwind vacation.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Noam and Lewandowski are getting their fuck cabin in the
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: back of the, yeah. They're getting their jollies.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: They're in the Mile High Club. And by the way,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a bunch of wars never approved by Congress, never voted on,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: never debated.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Terrific, terrific stuff.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, and we're terrorizing various American communities that didn't vote
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: for the president by rounding people up and throwing them
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: in jail and sometimes killing them.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: Money's gone to that, too.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so. It doesn't seem popular. It doesn't seem popular,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: but we'll see. You may be upset that Trump's taxes
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: on all the shit you buy aren't going away, but
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: at least that money is going to a good cause,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: which is flying the FBI director to Milan so he
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: could pound beers in the locker room with the U.S.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: men's hockey team. By now you've probably seen the leaked
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: video of Cash Patel partying with the gold medalists, who
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: he calls his good friends in a way that's totally believable.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I'm sure they're buddies. You may also have seen the
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: vigorous denials from Patel's spokesperson that the point of Patel's
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: trip was to go to the Olympics. He obviously had
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: mission-critical official FBI meetings. It just happened to be in
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: Milan at the exact same time as the gold medal game,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: which unfortunately had to take the FBI director away from
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: lesser duties like keeping Americans safe or figuring out how
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: another guy with a gun got past the security perimeter
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: at Mar-a-Lago. So Tommy and I ranted about this on
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: YouTube on Monday. Lovett, did you happen to have any thoughts.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: On this one?
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, two points I'd want to make.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: One, I think the most pathetic part of the whole
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: thing is how often Kash Patel refers to the hockey
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: team as the boys.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: The boys.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: He calls them the boys. It's a very hockey thing
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: to talk.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: They're his friends. Oh, hanging with the boys. You're not
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: one of the boys.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: You've never been.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I think your whole life is a story of a
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: man desperate to be one of the boys who will
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: never be one of the boys. You look out of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: place in every.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: There's never been an outfit Kash Patel has worn that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't look like it doesn't belong on him.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: He just always looks... out of place and uncomfortable.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Too big, too small, too stiff, whatever it is. So
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the embarrassing thing of desperately trying to hang with the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: boys was interesting. And the other is a lot of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: pressing work in the Dolomites. A lot of important investigations
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: going on in the mountainous region of the Italian Alps
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: for the FBI director. Look, everybody out there who's traveled
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: for work knows that you can play some games and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: have a work trip that also is fun. We just
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: went to Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland. But we're not the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: FBI director.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Brisbane and Erasure.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Brisbane and Brisbane, of course.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: We don't have quite the same remit as Cash Patel.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: But the idea that you think people can't see through this,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that you created some silly cover meetings to justify calling
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: it a work trip.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: It's a joke. It's a fucking joke. Well, and again-
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: You want to expense it?
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: It's like if you're- if you're in the administration, obviously
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: everyone's jockeying to see who gets to go to the
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: winter Olympics. And there's always a delegation that they send.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: And so you're like, Oh, maybe Marco wants to go,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: or maybe JD Vance wants to go who win or
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: whatever else. But it's like, uh, On rare occasions, meaning never,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: is the FBI director one of the people jockeying for that?
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Because they should have shit to do.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And they're not part of this, like we in our system. Diplomats, ambassadors.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: The head of state and the head of our government
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is the same function. And so a lot of them
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: have to perform that function. We can say it's silly
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and maybe not worth their time and not worth the money,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: but we send... J.D.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Vance doesn't have anything better to do. Good for him
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: for going.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Dignitaries, like, you know.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: That guy doesn't have a job.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: And by the way, like, it is the Olympics and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: they do represent America and these people are our elected
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: leaders and I don't care for it, but that, you
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: can make sense of that.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: That's fine.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Like, he is the head of the FBI.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: He is a law.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Enforcement official, right? Now, but he's He's pounding beers in
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the fucking locker room.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: It's all so embarrassing.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: At least $ 75, 000 on our tab.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: At least. It's way more.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I guarantee it's more.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Because the FBI director is required by law to fly
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: on a Gulfstream G550 airplane. It's a private jet because
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: they need security and secure comms. So the cost of
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: just the gas alone has got to be like $ 5, 000, $ 10, 000
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: an hour. It's an 18-hour trip. Then there's the staff.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: So I got to steal the oil from Venezuela.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: They steal the oil. There's security. There's accommodations. There's God
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: knows what else. And so Patel, he'll pay back a
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: fraction of that. But someone in Congress just, I know
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: we can't, but it would be so great to subpoena
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: the actual cost of this, because I bet it's a
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: lot of money.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Great thing to promise for when we win the House.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Yes. But it also, it misses the bigger opportunity cost
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: of having this industrial strength douchebag as their FBI director.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: More industrial strength.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Not doing serious stuff. He's not qualified for the job.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: and he doesn't spend any of his time actually doing it.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: He's been to ultimate fighting events in Miami and Las Vegas.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: He went to a hockey game with Wayne Gretzky in
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: New York. I'd love to do that, but he should
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: have better shit to do. During the manhunt for Charlie
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: Kirk's killer, Cash Mattel was tweeting out inaccurate information from
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: some exclusive restaurant in New York City. He goes on
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: trips to visit his girlfriend. He went to see her
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: sing the national anthem at a low-rent wrestling match at
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Penn State. He took the FBI PJ to Scotland for
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: a golf.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Weekend with the boys.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: The boys again. He took it to a weekend vacation
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: at a place called, I shit you not, the Boondoggle Ranch,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: owned by a big Republican donor. Like, again, this guy
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: is a fucking clown and he's making a mockery of
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: everyone who voted for him.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Apparently, there's a lot of outrage inside the FBI about this.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why we've gotten all these leaks, the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: leaks of him sort of putting on his little coat
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and doing a performance of FBI director. So much of
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: what he thinks the job is, it's just sort of
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a performance. It's what's public facing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: It's the headlines. It's the stories.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Tweet out information mid-investigation that turns out not to be true.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Loves to do that. You can do that anywhere.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: We got him, JK.
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: Who knows what Trump will do or like if he'll
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: fire him. He doesn't fire anyone. He probably doesn't want
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: to go through another confirmation process. I guarantee you he's
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: seen these stories. I guarantee you he is pissed about it.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: We know there's been reporting that he was pissed about
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: the travel and the PJ to visit the girlfriend. This
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: will get onto his radar screen in part because it's
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: not just libs like us that are talking about this.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: It is right winger. There's this guy, Kyle Serafin, who's
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: a former FBI guy who's on InfoWars all the time,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: who goes after Kash Patel all day, every day. His
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: tweet about this stuff had millions of views last night.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: Like this will get to Trump. This is the kind
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: of thing that if you're Susie Wiles, the chief of staff,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: and you're watching this cabinet full of morons create bad
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: headlines for you, this will piss you off and you
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: will be like, rein it the fuck in.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Not one of them has made Trump look better. Like
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: the cabinet is doing such a bad job.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Doug Burgum-erasure.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Even if you're like, yeah, maybe Doug Burgum. He's probably
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: on the better end of this. The fucking labor secretary,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: she's got shit going on.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: What is that story with the husband?
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr., they're like, they're shaking up HHS. They're taking
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: away RFK staffers because they're like, hey, we're done with
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: the anti-vaccine stuff. Let's just have them go talk about...
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: raw milk and being healthy or whatever.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the White House had to get
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. to reverse a decision about a Moderna vaccine
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: that they weren't even going to allow.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Lutnick's on Epstein Island. Gnome's fucking in the back of
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: the plane.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: I tell you, Sean Duffy, former Real World contestant, he's
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the best fucking one.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: He really is. He's doing fine. Remember the planes were
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: crashing at the beginning, though?
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the planes were touching, and that was a huge problem.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: A lot of the planes are touching.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: They were going fast and touching, which is bad for planes.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Planes are not supposed to touch.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: You don't want to do that.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: But again, it's not his fault they still use floppy disks.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: Scott Besson's out there like fucking Richie Rich.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: He's just so mean to him. He's just, you know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: farming soybeans.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: He's just fucking drunk, blowing up boats.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: He's just posting photos of himself benching. Benching. The benching.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: The benching photo. Was it, they claimed it was like
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: 315 pounds or something like that?
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: No.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: That seems like a lot. It's a solid max.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And what is benching, what does that prove, do you think?
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: That you have male pectorals and triceps. Strong pecs, big
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: pecs for the other boys. Yeah, yeah. You know what?
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: He could strangle the mullahs with his bare hands.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you something.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you something.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Men bench press for other men. Men do Pilates for women.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: That's what I'll tell you.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: That's what I'll say.
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Anyway, where were we?
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Before we get to Leavitt's interview with Simone and Eugene,
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: let's talk a little bit more about the State of
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: the Union. You know, President, the expectation setting for him
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: has been just on point, telling us it's going to
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: be very long, which is what America craves. Democrats are
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: preparing to respond in all different kinds of ways, as
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: we are wont to do. If you're looking for a
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: more traditional reaction, you can tune in to watch Virginia
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Governor Abigail Spanberger give the official Democratic response. If you're
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: in the market for something a bit more ideological, Congresswoman
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Summer Lee is giving the progressive response. If you want
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: to watch what's going to make Megyn Kelly angry... you
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: can catch the Spanish language response from Senator Alex Padilla.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: I thought you were going to say all of the above.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: There's a State of the Union prebuttal from Congresswoman LaMonica
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: McIver and a post-speech rally on the National Mall called
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the People's State of the Union. Some Democrats intend to
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: skip the speech. Others have said they plan to go.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: And still others have said they plan to defy Hakeem
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Jeffries' instructions to avoid disrupting the speech. What do you think?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Anything else we're missing? Anything else they should throw in here?
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: The one thing I would just add is just the.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the guests that they're bringing is that Schumer and others
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: are bringing victims or people that have been impacted by Epstein.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I think that is an interesting way to respond to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: kind of put.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: That in Trump's face.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: To bring Trump.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: He's already going to be there.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, right.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: For sure.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: But like, I think that at least is using the
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: moment to kind of force Trump to confront something, or
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: at least the image will force Trump to confront something
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: or not confront something, which I think is Interesting. I
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: would just say if I were a member of Congress
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and you told me I could patriotically skip the State
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of the Union, it would be a me-shaped hole in
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the side of that fucking Capitol. Oh, you mean for
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: my country I can skip this fucking long speech? Okay,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I'll do it for America.
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: What about you?
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, on the pre-buttle things, if a so-to pre-buttle streamed
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: on the mall, does it even.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Make a sound?
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: I don't care. The idea of an official response was
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: always kind of dumb. It never worked. It never got covered.
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: I think in this media age, it's even sillier. And
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: so it's like, it's fine that there's like 25 of
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: them who cares. We're not, there's no coordinated message. Everyone's
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: just out there doing their thing. I think I would
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: skip too. Like what's the upside for going?
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: The upside for showing respect or the upside for going
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: is to, I mean, everything is a game for attention, right?
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: All of these are going to compete for attention in
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: a way that is probably most are not going to
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: be successful because like you said, you know, maybe people
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: who still have the TV on catch the, official response
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: after the State of the Union is done. If they
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: get up to go to the bathroom and they haven't
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: shut the seat. So there's maybe some of that. But
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: the people who are going to tune into the People's
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: State of the Union or to the pre-buttle or this
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: or that, it's basically like your own audience. If you
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: tend to follow those people, then you're going to follow
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: them on this maybe. So it's not like you're breaking through.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: So the only other option is to try to create
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: attention in some way at the State of the Union.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: So if you're going to go and either disrupt the
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: speech or you know, try to turn into question time,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: have a guest that somehow Trump notices or the media
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: notices and ask questions about, and then that becomes a
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: little story. So it's just like the only case for
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: going is to somehow create an attentional moment. Otherwise, like
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: why bother?
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I do think where we're at now, and I talked
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: about this a bit with Eugene and Simone, but like
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the idea that we should, that yes, it does seem disjointed,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: but that's fine.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: Who cares?
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: And really, yes, most people will be performing for their
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: own audiences, but you take that many shots on goal,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: you will end up with something hopefully that can get
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: beyond the bubble and like some clips.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Something that you can celebrate with cash.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah.
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: On the way, on the flight home perhaps. But yeah,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like I just think you can get like some viral
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: moments that come out of this. I don't know who
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: knows what they are, but like that, I think, I
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: don't know. Well, cause like Al Green stood up last
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: time and You couldn't quite understand him. He stood up
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: and he was saying something and kind of found out
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: later what it was.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Did anyone remember that Al Green was escorted out last
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: time until you write about it today?
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: Because I didn't.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I did not remember until I was reminded of.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: It today, for sure. I remembered it just now with
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: my memory. I didn't research this part very much because
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: I think it's fine. What was he yelling? Like, you
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: have no mandate to cut Social Security or something like that.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: It was something along those lines. Who's to know? Look,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: there is a huge incentive to be disruptive, get carried
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: out in some way, make that all about the speech.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: And you could make an argument that I wouldn't really
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: agree with, that it's beneficial. It's kind of, I don't know.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: I think people, who cares? They could all paint a
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: different letter of release the files on their chests.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: They could all put a mask on. They could put
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: a mask on.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Non-COVID edition.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: It says ICE.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Anti-mask mask protest, not pro-mask mass protest, just to be clear.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: It's also hard whenever a party is facing the president
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: giving a speech. It's like asymmetric warfare, right? Like the
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: president's got the microphone. The people in the chamber do
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: not have the microphone. So you're always going to sound
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: like you're yelling and you're interrupting. The president's going to
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: be able to just like do what he wants there.
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a little.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: The other side of it, though, is this is a
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: president uniquely disposed towards reacting in ways that rebound poorly
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 48:20
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: Like he has the ability.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Like if you can interrupt him and get into some
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: kind of a if he gets mad, all of a
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: sudden he's sort of he's you know, he'll break restraints
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: and he'll he'll. start saying all the crazy shit. He's
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: going into this thing on a hair trigger anyway.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, the other side of that is at 35,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: 39% approval, he's going to ruin the speech himself.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: He could give that speech and not a single Democrat
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: could be heard from for the rest of the night
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: and people would still be like, that sucked.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: If we were doing like a Super Bowl party squares
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: kind of betting thing, I think like the odds on
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: thing to happen are that he denounces the Supreme court
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: justices in a way that maybe gets some like scattered
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: murmurs and booze. Right. And like leads to some like
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: civility freak out. Um, there is another version of it
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: where he uses a speech to announce that like on
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: my orders tonight, we have commenced the bombing of Iran
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: and like he goes for the big dramatic thing. And
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: I could see him doing that again for just cause
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: he like is a drama queen and like likes attention,
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: but it would be the least popular thing you could
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: possibly do with the biggest megaphone.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: You don't think that was a stop in the affordability tour?
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: He's gonna, he's gonna, there's some line in there that's
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: meant to assuage him. That's going to be something about
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: like the shameful decision on tariffs. And it is shameful.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: It was very, you know, he's going to start talking
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: like he just, The fence around him is fragile when
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: he's up there.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: If I had to bet, it would be just lots
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: of stories of dead Americans killed by immigrants. Just hauling
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: all that out again. Yeah, Lincoln-Riley accident. They like to
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: do a lot of stories of very sympathetic Americans who
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: are somehow... I don't want to say they're good at that,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: but they are at least adept at... I'm trying to
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: find those stories. I'm sure Stephen Miller is all over that.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Those are going to be all the guests. They're going
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: to have random fucking people who are helped by Trump's
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: policies because you can't really find them in the polls anywhere.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: So they'll bring them to the State of the Union.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: He's already done the longest State of the Union history, right?
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: Was that him?
• 50:19
  Speaker 9: I'm sure.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Hour 40.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: It sounds like he wants to beat it.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: And I think he's going to want to beat it.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: So it's going to be a long night.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Fuck.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: It's going to be a long night. Well, we'll be
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: doing our, the Crooked Media official response.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: We will.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: We'll be doing, we'll have a pod out about it
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: after and we're going to be on Jimmy Kimmel.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Three of us and Dan.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: It's going to be late.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: It's going to be late.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway, when we come back, you'll hear a
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: love it's interview with Simone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: about State of the Union and much more.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Joining me today is MSNOW Simone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: who are the hosts of the brand new podcast Clock It. Simone, Eugene,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the pod.
• 51:05
  Speaker 10: Greetings.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: So, Heidi, you both, what are we clocking today?
• 51:12
  Speaker 7: Well, there's a long list. You want to talk about
• 51:15
  Speaker 7: the BAFTAs? You want to talk about the disrespect?
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Tony Gonzalez.
• 51:19
  Speaker 10: Okay, or do you just want to go with the
• 51:21
  Speaker 10: State of the Union? I mean, we can go.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Let's not forget to touch on the BAFTAs before we leave,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: because I actually, you brought it up, and I am
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: interested in the topic of the BAFTAs. I saw Astead Herndon,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: a journalist, was saying it feels like a test on
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: some kind of woke exam. So, all right, but we
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: got it. Let's focus on the news. State of the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Union is tonight for our dear listeners. Trump says the
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: speech will be very long. Are you excited about that?
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: And what are you both going to be watching for? Simone,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: why don't you kick it off?
• 51:55
  Speaker 7: Well, I guess I'm excited about the length because Eugene
• 51:59
  Speaker 7: and I will be watching the State of the Union
• 52:02
  Speaker 7: on YouTube on MS.Now's YouTube channel, along with everybody else
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: who wants to tune in with us. So if it's long,
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: the longer we'll sit there and watch and have our commentary.
• 52:13
  Speaker 7: What I am watching for is actually how many times
• 52:15
  Speaker 7: the president veers off script. Okay, because obviously he is
• 52:19
  Speaker 7: known to not stick to the teleprompter. His last address
• 52:22
  Speaker 7: to Congress went, I think it was over about an
• 52:25
  Speaker 7: hour and 39 minutes. That was the longest ever. Maybe
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: he's trying to beat his own record. You know, he
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: loves a fake trophy, child. So I'll be watching for
• 52:32
  Speaker 7: how long he goes. And then the lies he tells
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: about the economy. I don't have to caveat it. They're
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: going to be lies. He's going to say everything is great. Meanwhile,
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: it's like Hunger Games in the grocery store. I want
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: to know how far he's going to go tonight.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Eugene, what about you?
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: All of those things.
• 52:47
  Speaker 11: But also, I think the Supreme Court just struck down
• 52:51
  Speaker 11: his tariffs, and they're going to be sitting right in
• 52:53
  Speaker 11: front of him, everybody but probably Alito, who stopped going.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Years ago. So how does he engage with them? Right.
• 53:00
  Speaker 11: He last time he shook their hands and thanked Justice Roberts,
• 53:05
  Speaker 11: which was very awkward for everybody. How he's going to
• 53:08
  Speaker 11: talk about the economy, like Simone says about the lies.
• 53:11
  Speaker 11: But in his last joint address to Congress, what he
• 53:15
  Speaker 11: said was basically telling people like. Give us some time.
• 53:18
  Speaker 11: It's going to be painful. So like, is that the
• 53:20
  Speaker 11: message you want going into midterms? Is that what they're
• 53:22
  Speaker 11: going to go with? Because that's what they've been going
• 53:24
  Speaker 11: with so far. But I think how he interacts and
• 53:27
  Speaker 11: talks about the tariffs, because it is the center point
• 53:30
  Speaker 11: of how he thinks about the economy and his economic agenda.
• 53:35
  Speaker 11: And so how he engages with them is really interesting
• 53:37
  Speaker 11: to me.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's worth noting that the reason Alito stopped going
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: is because of a very mild comment about Citizens United
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: by President Barack Obama saying, Did you write that?
• 53:48
  Speaker 7: Are you the reason Alito no longer attends the State
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: of the Union?
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Man, but it's like, Alito, if you keep talking like this, I,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Samuel Alito, will stop coming to your events. It's like,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: you're threatening us with a good time here. But it is,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I am interested in what Trump is going to say
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: directly to them. He's already in the past week said, uh, uh, he's,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: he's said more vicious things about the Supreme Court than
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: any president in living memory. Uh, Now on to, there's
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: another group of people that'll be there. They're called Democrats.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: They plan to respond in a lot of different ways.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Some are attending in what Hakeem Jeffries calls silent defiance.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Democrats have also invited victims of Jeffrey Epstein to the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: State of the Union as guests. Other Democrats will be
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: boycotting and attending competing events. If I were a member
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of Congress and I could skip because I'm a patriot,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: I probably would.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: But what do you think?
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: Look, I have a piece up on MS.NOW right now
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: about this very thing.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 54:46
  Speaker 10: I understand leadership's position. I want to note that.
• 54:49
  Speaker 7: The leadership of the Democratic caucus, particularly in the House,
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: Hakeem Jeffries has said, we're not going to Trump's house.
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: Trump is coming to our house, and you don't let
• 54:56
  Speaker 7: somebody run you off your block, which is like, okay, I'm.
• 55:00
  Speaker 10: Feeling the Brooklynness of it all. I get it. I
• 55:02
  Speaker 10: get it. I'm not mad about that.
• 55:03
  Speaker 7: And I don't think that leadership should be encouraging people
• 55:07
  Speaker 7: to rush the podium, right?
• 55:08
  Speaker 10: That's not leadership's position.
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: But I don't think that the leadership of the Democratic
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: caucus writ large, not just Jeffries, like the entirety of
• 55:15
  Speaker 7: the leadership, and even the former leadership, okay, clock that,
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: should tamp down the ability for protest or disruption or
• 55:23
  Speaker 7: understanding the moment. I know that when Congressman Al Green...
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: stood up in the middle of Trump's last address to Congress.
• 55:33
  Speaker 7: It was not taken well, frankly, by Democrats in Washington.
• 55:38
  Speaker 10: He was censured.
• 55:39
  Speaker 7: There were members of his own Democratic caucus that voted
• 55:41
  Speaker 7: to censure him. But you know who understood the moment
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: and who appreciated what happened? The people outside of Washington, D.C.,
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: outside of the Beltway. That moment broke through. And that
• 55:51
  Speaker 7: moment preceded many more inflection points of civil disobedience and
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: people coming together in groups and protesting. And so I think,
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: you know, never let a good crisis go to waste.
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: Don't tamp down a good disruption is what I think
• 56:07
  Speaker 7: should be happening. And if I was a member of Congress,
• 56:09
  Speaker 7: I would not be attending. I would be on one
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: of the live streams. I would be coming to watch
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: it with Eugene and I on YouTube.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Members of Congress, for live stream, they'll skip the State
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: of the Union to do the live stream. I support that.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: I support that.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Eugene, I think part of the challenge here is—
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: It's always hard to figure out how to compete with
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the State of the Union.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: It's a classic dilemma.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Long before Trump, you have the national stage, you have
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: the podium, you have the pomp and circumstance. The responses
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: are often, they often feel flat in comparison. Protests can,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: they can get attention. My problem, if I remember when
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Al Green stood up, it wasn't totally clear what he
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: was protesting about. I think we had to find that out.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Didn't we have to find that out later? So there
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: are challenges here. in trying to kind of take the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: microphone from Trump. But what do you make of the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: decision to bring people connected to, affected by Jeffrey Epstein
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: to the State of the Union?
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's a great move, right?
• 57:06
  Speaker 11: I think it is something substantive that they have, Democrats
• 57:11
  Speaker 11: have been fighting for, making sure that there is a
• 57:14
  Speaker 11: real release of the Epstein file, something that Republicans used
• 57:17
  Speaker 11: to be leading on.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: They don't anymore, shocker.
• 57:21
  Speaker 11: But It is also part of, when you're talking about
• 57:25
  Speaker 11: the pompous circumstance of the State of the Union and
• 57:28
  Speaker 11: what do you do to counter that, this is one
• 57:30
  Speaker 11: of those things, right? Because we as journalists are going
• 57:34
  Speaker 11: to be trying to interview those women before, we're definitely
• 57:36
  Speaker 11: going to interview them after. Now the White House and
• 57:39
  Speaker 11: the administration have to figure out, Donald Trump have to
• 57:41
  Speaker 11: figure out, how do we, or if at all, engage
• 57:45
  Speaker 11: with these women? Do we talk about Epstein, do we
• 57:48
  Speaker 11: say anything about the women in there? He's probably not,
• 57:50
  Speaker 11: you guys, just to be very clear.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: It's very unlikely.
• 57:52
  Speaker 10: He's going to say he's been exonerated.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 57:55
  Speaker 11: He's up and through them files all over the place.
• 57:57
  Speaker 11: He's probably not going to say anything, but it helps
• 57:59
  Speaker 11: to create a dilemma. And I think when you are
• 58:01
  Speaker 11: on the outside looking in, as Democrats are, when it
• 58:03
  Speaker 11: comes to power in D.C., trying to force people to
• 58:07
  Speaker 11: make a move and getting them off the game is
• 58:09
  Speaker 11: very interesting. Like, you know, Donald Trump watches a lot
• 58:12
  Speaker 11: of TV, so it's very possible he has seen, you.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Before. So locking eyes with her, what does that do?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: It could create something.
• 58:21
  Speaker 11: And if it doesn't, there's a substantive aspect of this
• 58:25
  Speaker 11: where the DOJ has been holding back files. They redacted
• 58:28
  Speaker 11: more than the members of Congress are comfortable with. And
• 58:32
  Speaker 11: so it gives them a lot to talk about. I
• 58:34
  Speaker 11: will add just to folks not going, I was talking
• 58:37
  Speaker 11: with someone this weekend and they said that what they
• 58:42
  Speaker 11: should do is be there and be silent. I don't
• 58:44
  Speaker 11: know if that's helpful, but like all the Democrats be
• 58:47
  Speaker 11: there and be silent and then talk about it after,
• 58:50
  Speaker 11: because you could appear looking disjointed doing all these different things.
• 58:54
  Speaker 11: And this is one of the things that Hakeem Draftees
• 58:56
  Speaker 11: was so worried about, because now you have this, I
• 58:59
  Speaker 11: think it was like the We the People State of
• 59:00
  Speaker 11: the Union rally that's happening with Chris Van Hollen and
• 59:03
  Speaker 11: et al. And then you have the people that are
• 59:05
  Speaker 11: going to go there, the people that are just going
• 59:06
  Speaker 11: to skip completely. So it's kind of all over the place.
• 59:09
  Speaker 11: So it could appear to the American people as disjointed
• 59:12
  Speaker 11: when they want a democratic party that feels more unified.
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: Can I just say one other point about that? Because
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: in talking to some folks in leadership, people out of
• 59:20
  Speaker 7: leadership and some strategists, One of the things that they
• 59:23
  Speaker 7: have all said is that, look, we are on offense here.
• 59:26
  Speaker 10: Republicans are on defense.
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: And so we don't want to do anything that will
• 59:29
  Speaker 7: potentially knock us off our own game. And and we
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: want they said Donald Trump is going to lie and
• 59:34
  Speaker 7: we want people to hear the lies that talk about.
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: something else that could be a distraction. And I just
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: think that the American people are smart. Donald Trump lies
• 59:43
  Speaker 7: every day. Sitting in the chamber silently while he lies
• 59:46
  Speaker 7: about the economy and then hoping to get a cable
• 59:48
  Speaker 7: news hit afterwards or going live on your Instagram, I just,
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: I don't think that that meets the moment. Now, I
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: don't think, I think that some people going and some
• 59:58
  Speaker 7: people not It will seem disparate. I will also note
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 7: there's a weather issue here in the northeastern part of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: the United States, the DMV area. So some people might
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 7: just not be there because the flight won't make.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: It, child. And has anyone let the District of Columbia
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: know about the technology of snowplows? Or is that something
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: that is still.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: No, we're still trying to figure that one out. We're
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: waiting until we're.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 10: A state to be able to do that.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 7: I think the mayor's office has seen the remnants of
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 7: the last situation.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 10: And, you know, my street was quite clear today. So kudos.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Axios reported today.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: That this hidden autopsy report that the DNC has done,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: that one of the findings is that Gaza and the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: administration's position on Israel and Gaza cost Kamala Harris votes
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: in 2024. What did you make of that news? And
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: why is this?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 10: Well, welcome.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: Welcome.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 10: Did they need a freaking autopsy?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 11: Welcome.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Is it better to get the information? Why don't they
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: just release the fucking report?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: It's silly. This part is very silly.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you the tea.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 10: Do y'all want the tea?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. Yes, they do.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: The tea is the report is not being released, allegedly,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: according to people familiar that I have talked to. And
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: I want to caveat with this. I have not seen
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 7: the report myself, but I have heard all about it.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: It's not being released because they believe that it will
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: be a distraction and it's a distraction that is not
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: wanted by folks on the House side, the Senate side,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: Democrats writ large across the country in terms of like
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: the alphabet committees, as I like to say, the DCCC,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: the DNC, the DSCC.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 10: They don't want that out before the midterms.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 7: I think that we will see the autopsy, but we'll
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: see the autopsy in like December of 2026. Um, but I, I,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 7: because I think more eyes have started to get on it.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 7: That's how some of these things are, are leaking out.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: One could argue you should have just ripped a bandaid
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: off this summer. And we were last summer, like last fall, frankly,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 7: and we wouldn't even be talking about it later, but
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: that's how the ball bounces. I don't necessarily agree, but
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 7: I'm just telling you that's the tea.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: It's still February of 2026, still eight months until, uh,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: the midterm elections. I just find it hard to believe
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: that what's inside of this document is, so controversial that
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: it'll be felt in an election eight months from now,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: especially when we're getting the outcome of it. We're getting
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: the information.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: I mean, the same reason why Democrats are like, how
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: Kim Jeffries is like, either stay home or go and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 7: sit silently is the same reason why they're not releasing
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: this autopsy. Democrats feel like they are on offense and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: they do not want unforced errors. And they feel like
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: releasing this will be an unforced error.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 11: I think not releasing it as an unforced error. And
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 11: I think we probably all agree because you have, One,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 11: they promised to release it.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: So that's what's most important is.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 11: That when you were running, Ken Martin, who's now the
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 11: chair of the DNC, said he was going to release it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 11: Of course he would release it. Then they made a
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 11: different decision. So that just reiterates to voters within the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 11: Democratic Party that people who are elected, whether they are
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 11: actually in office or whether they're at one of these
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 11: alphabet committees... They don't follow through with what they say
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 11: they're going to do when they actually get the job.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 11: So that is one concern. Two is that we are
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 11: going to find out what's in here, right? Like Holly
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 11: Otterbein and Axios is not the only reporter sniffing around.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: We all are.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 11: And so she found this one. Someone else will find
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 11: another thing. We'll find out, you know, race. We'll find
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 11: out gender. We'll find out, you know, what was the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 11: ground game? What was the digital game? Like all of
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 11: it is going to come out. And so the ripping
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 11: off the Band-Aid should have happened because at this point,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 11: it's just going.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: To be like drip, drip. Drip, drip.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 11: And then in October, maybe something huge happens and now
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 11: you're really embarrassed before voters go and vote in November.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 11: And so I think at the end of the day,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 11: the party may have made a misstep here. And there
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 11: are a lot of people, especially the younger folks that
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 11: work within the party apparatus, who are frustrated with this
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 11: that I've talked to, who are like, we should have
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 11: just released it earlier. We would have forgotten about it.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 11: All the things that Donald Trump is doing every day.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 11: Release it, and then we would have bombed Iran, and
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 11: then everybody would have moved on. That is how you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 11: have to think nowadays. I don't know why. I know
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 11: they want to be on offense, but I played college sports.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 11: I know that's confusing for people, but I played college football.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 11: You have to play offense and defense. You have to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 11: do both to win the game.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Did you have a heated rivalry?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: I wish. I really wish. I really wish.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 11: That's like my only regret. Because there were a couple
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 11: moments where I feel like I could have, but I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 11: was too scared.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: My biggest regret. Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: On the autopsy.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: First of all, I want to know what we got
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: for buying that sphere. And then the other part of
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: it is, what did we get for the sphere?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 10: It's a waste of money.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: I'm sorry, but you can't have, as people would say
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: during that time, more money than God, because that's what
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 7: people in the campaign would say they had. And you're
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: advertising on the sphere, but organizers in Phoenix and Nevada,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: specifically Las Vegas, can't get money to do their GOTV
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: outreach efforts.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 10: There's a disconnect. And I just think, I agree with y'all.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 10: Ripped a Band-Aid off.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: I mean, to be very clear, the voters in the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: streets that are going to decide who the next Democratic
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: nominee is, they actually don't necessarily care much about the autopsy.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: I think we care about the autopsy, understandably so, for
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: various reasons. And we're not going to stop caring about
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: the autopsy. So release the tapes.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, like, you know, release the Martin files.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: Sorry. I don't know if that's now.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: Can I just say I have heard that it is
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 7: not Kim Martin himself that is independently saying I'm not
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 7: releasing it. There are lots of people that don't want
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: to release. But Kim Martin, I mean, he's the DNC chair,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: so he's he's the face of it.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: But I understand why what I just said is terribly
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: unfair in.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: A variety of ways.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: But the other it's also like it is being released.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to get the information. Just you're not releasing
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: it on your terms. You're putting it in the hands
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: of feckless reporters sort of. You know, people like Eugene.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: People like Eugene trying to get their hands on it.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Dirty, grimy little hands.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: They don't give a fuck what happens. They want the scoop.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, release the information to the people.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 10: This just feels so nasty. Like, what is this? It's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 10: very sinister.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Get them tapes.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 10: I love how we made them tapes. They are papers.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: They are papers.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Gavin Newsom, I want to cover him.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 10: Eugene has thoughts.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: I do have thoughts.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: He he had these comments over the weekend about his
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: son not wanting him to run for president. But obviously
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: he's running. He's sort of the front runner to be
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: the front runner right now. He's been trying to kind
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: of I think people have been impressed by his kind
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: of ability to kind of break through and get attention
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and going after Trump. Eugene, what do you what do
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's right.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 11: I think people are, especially the online people, and this
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 11: is where you have to live in, Twitter's not real life.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 11: But the folks online who are watching him, they're excited
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 11: about seeing someone fight back. That's what Democratic voters want.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 11: They want someone who's caught fighting. And that's something he's done.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 11: He's done it in court. He's done it on TV.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 11: He's done it in this book. He's on this tour now.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 11: But I also think that When you're a politician, you
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 11: got to be careful about how you're talking about things, right?
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 11: He was up there in Atlanta talking to the mayor
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 11: and he's doing his interview about his book and he's
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 11: trying to explain that he's just like one of the folks, right?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: But what he's saying- I'm just like you.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I'm just like you. I get what he's saying.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 11: And I think a lot of people understand what he's saying.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 11: But you're trying to run for president, like being like,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 11: I have a 960 SAT. I can't read, just like you.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 11: And it's like, wait a damn second, sir. We can read, right?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: So it's like, it's about being careful. He has said
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: it before.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: It's important to note that he said it before. He
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: said it in the interview he did with Charlie Kirk
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 7: on his podcast. But in that room that he was
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 7: in with Andre Dickens, the mayor of Atlanta... OK, within
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 7: that black room he was in, it didn't land well. OK,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: even the mayor, if you just watch the clip, the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 7: mayor didn't laugh at first. He was kind of like
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: it didn't land well. And I just think it's those
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: kind of things that we're going to see a lot
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: more of from a lot of different people, because this
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: is going to be 2020 on steroids. Everybody and their
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: mama wants to be the Democratic nominee.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: There's a there's sort of like and the response has
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: been blown up. by kind of right wing Republicans and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: right wing accounts. And I don't know how to there
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: needs to be some sort of a name for it,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: which is Republicans doing the kind of doing their impression,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: their kind of trolly impression of circa 2020 Democrats to
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: try to kind of like troll Democrats because they're the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: ones that really care about racism. And then and then
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: I saw I also saw Tim Scott post it in
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: this sort of.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: How dare you kind of a way.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 12: He just had two weeks ago to say the monkey
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 12: video was the most racist thing he's seen out of
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 12: the White House, which means he's seen other racist things
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 12: out of the White House.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: He didn't say this was.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 7: The first racist. This is the only racist. This is
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: the most racist thing yet.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 11: So let's be very clear. This does not touch what
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 11: you've seen come out of the White House.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 7: But they're going after him because they do see, I mean,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 7: just think about it. I just want to, I mean,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 7: you work for Obama. Do I even need to tell
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 7: you this? Like at this time prior to the 2008 election,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 7: people didn't think it was Barack Obama. They thought it
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: was Secretary Clinton. They were like, she's the front runner.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: There were other people that maybe also wanted to be president.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: Joe Biden was about to be on his second run
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 7: for president yet again. Like maybe that was his third.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 7: I can't recall. So he, there were lots of people,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 7: but no one would have said at this point in time,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: prior to the 2008 election, that Barack Obama was definitely
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 7: going to be the Democratic nominee, that he was the frontrunner.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: And so they're attacking who they quote-unquote think is the frontrunner.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: But I will just tell people, the things that are
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 7: going to make the difference or who actually shakes out
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 7: to the top in this Democratic primary when it finally
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: gets underway, and to be clear, we're in the early, early,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 7: as Lovett said, we're in the early days, but post-midterms, baby, we.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 10: Are kicking off. It's going to be the map. What
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 10: is the map?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 7: How does the map shake out for the primary? Because
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: the map is going to tell a lot. OK, the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 7: map can take some people out or it can boy
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 7: you some people till the end. And it's going to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: be the the reliable black voters choose the Democratic nominee
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 7: in this party.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 10: But you know what?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 7: Black voters do not make their do not make their
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: decision in a vacuum. They want to know what some
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: of the white voters are going to do. They want
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: to know what some of the Latino voters are going
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 7: to do. They might say, damn, these white voters, these
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 7: Latino voters, this is what the black voters want. The map, though,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 7: helps color that. The primaries help color that. How people
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: stand up in the bright lights, how they fail on
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 7: the debate stage.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 10: Let's be clear.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 7: Vice President Kamala Harris, then Senator Harris, she did very
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 7: well on the Senate confirmations and the judiciary hearings when
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 7: she got on the debate stage. You know, it was
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: a little bit of a different story in that 2020 primary.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 7: So the things that we see out here in the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 7: wild don't always translate when the primary gets underway. So
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: watch this space, as Rachel Maddow said.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: What do you think of there's a story in Axios
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: that that South Carolina is enlisting Joe Biden to try
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: to keep South Carolina early in the process.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure what that even means.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 10: I understand why.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Because.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: I understand why they would ask him because he has
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 7: no current dog in the fight. He loves South Carolina.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: South Carolina kept him afloat. I mean, the map mattered
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 7: for him. So I understand why. I believe and know
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 7: for sure he is not the only person that they
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: have enlisted. I don't think South Carolina is losing its
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: place in the top first five contests, I would say.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 7: But I highly doubt that they'll end up being first.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: I will say this.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 11: The idea, Joe Biden is a good choice to help
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 11: push South Carolina across the finish line.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: I get having that idea.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 10: Y'all some haters.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: No, I just think.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 11: The current setup of the Democratic Party is like, that's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 11: not going to be the push to keep South Carolina.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: I think that obviously, and I imagine... Mr.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 11: Clyburn is one of those folks that is at the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 11: top of that list who actually does have some still
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 11: pull and lots of respect within the Democratic Party and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 11: the Democratic Party apparatus, most importantly.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: To get that done. I think that.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 11: people are still raw about, to say the least, about
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 11: Simone's former boss.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: Which one?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: Well, the first one, the old white man. Which one?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: The second old white man.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: To be clear.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 11: And so I think the folks want, they desperately want
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 11: that pool to still be there that Joe Biden had.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 11: I think he doesn't have, there's still a lot of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 11: respect within the party, but I think like, Give it
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 11: some time.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: Because I don't know that.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 7: I will just say this as a former DNC member.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 7: I think the respect within the actual party apparatus is
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 7: what matters. It is the people within the party apparatus
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 7: that are going to make the decision about the map.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 7: Given the recent events of the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 7: the changes that Reverend Jackson pushed for to make sure
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: that black people had viable chances, frankly, within the party
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 7: to even become the nominee. Those kind of changes, the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 7: proportional representation, the map, those came out of 1988 Jesse
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 7: Jackson child. So if you think black people are about
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 7: to let their cachet slip away within the Democratic Party apparatus,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 7: you got another thing coming.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 10: DEI might be out, but out everywhere else.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: At Target.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: D.I.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 7: Might be out of Target, child, but what Black and
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 7: Latino and women and AAPI Pacific Islander and everybody that's
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 7: not a straight white man want and need, that is
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 7: very much so in inside the Democratic Party apparatus.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I do think, though, that, like, I agree how
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: early things come have been important, but I remember from
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: 2008 that once we got into the primary, it was
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: less about the sequence and more about the kind of
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: the makeup of.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: The state's electorate.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Like, the momentum was less important than the fundamental qualities
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: of what was happening in the state because we were
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: bouncing back and forth. You know, Hillary was winning in
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: the places she was expected to win, and that was
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: happening deep into the process.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 7: To be clear, had Barack Obama not done well in Iowa,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: we would not be having this conversation. So the demographics
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: of the state did in fact matter. The sequencing of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 7: the states matter.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: I think both really are important, but then with Joe Biden, right, he,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: you know, people are telling him to drop out, but
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: he's saying wait for South Carolina, and he was right
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: about that. So it was you know, I think it's
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: like a, it's a absolute, absolutely, absolutely. And, uh, I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: was going to, I was going to say, it doesn't
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: have a dog in the fight because the crispy gnome
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: killed that dog. But so, Oh, that didn't make sense. Uh,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: I want to, I want to land on the, but
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: I do want to ask about what's happening in Texas.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Just last, last sort of serious question, which is we
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: have this battle between Jasmine Crockett and James Tallarico. Uh, uh,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it, seems to be about what it means
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: to be electable in 2026 in Texas. And I'm curious
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: what you make of the back and forth between the campaigns.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 11: The fight is less ideological in the Democratic Party now,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 11: and it is about, do you fight and how you fight?
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 11: And I think those two people show you the different
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 11: ways in which folks are going to be doing that
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 11: throughout the year as we head through the primary season.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 11: I think that the When certain people say electability, it
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 11: is a dog whistle and it's very clear.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: What they mean, right?
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 11: Like we all know what that actually means. We know
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 11: what it meant when people said that about Barack Obama.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 11: We know what it means when they said about Kamala Harris.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 11: We know what it means when they said about Jasmine Crockett.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 11: But in Texas, And it's very unclear how this is
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 11: going to shake out. But if you look at both
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 11: of them were in Lubbock, Texas, I think over the weekend.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: And if you look at.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 11: Their crowds, the crowds are vastly different in the same city.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 11: And you have her crowd, which is super diverse, younger people,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 11: older people, lots of black and brown people. His not
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 11: so much. Now, Texas is a very diverse state. I
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 11: don't know if that bodes well for him.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: Who knows? We'll see.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 11: But I do not think the Stephen Colbert of it all.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 11: is going to change a lot of voters' minds. I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 11: don't think that there are a lot of Texas voters
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 11: who are like, oh, he didn't get to do, his
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 11: interview didn't get to air on Stephen Colbert, so then
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 11: I got to vote for him. Like, I don't think
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 11: that's how voters are thinking. And as a person who
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 11: graduated high school in Texas, I don't think, and I
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 11: have a Texas tattoo.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: It's very crazy.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 10: It's really insane.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: It is.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: We don't want to ask a follow-up question about the tattoo.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Don't do that.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Everything's bigger in Texas, they say.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: I do not want to address that comment. What I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 7: will say is this. I think that at the end
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 7: of the... I agree with what Eugene said about electability. Like, basically,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 7: are they electable? In Texas, we're asking, will white people
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 7: vote for Jasmine Crockett, right? Will black voters vote for
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 7: James Salarico? But the question is, will white people vote
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 7: for Jasmine Crockett? Will Latinos vote for Jasmine Crockett? Given
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 7: some of the things that she has in a general election...
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 7: giving some of the things she has said about Latino
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 7: and Hispanic voters literally in print and on national television.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 10: It's insane.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 7: That being said, the way you win a primary is
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 7: still a ground game. Early vote in Texas is happening
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 7: right now. If you talk to folks within the Texas
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 7: Democratic Party, they will tell you they are encouraged by
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 7: the numbers that they're seeing. Early vote by Democrats is
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 7: outpacing Republicans. There is energy in this race. We don't
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: know who those voters are, though. And I think that
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 7: the people that don't like the electability conversation, that feel
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 7: like they're trying to hang an elbow, they're trying to
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 7: put a, I don't want to use that term, but
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 7: they're trying to weigh Jasmine Crockett down and try to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 7: take her out of the race with the electability conversation,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 7: maybe who might not have really felt strongly about her initially,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 7: but like feel strongly about the fact that they try
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 7: to take her out.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 10: So like now we're going to vote for her. Maybe
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 10: there are.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 7: Enough of those voters, but I just, I just think
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: the kind of campaign that has been run, she didn't
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 7: run a traditional campaign. So if she is able to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 7: eke out in this Democratic primary and It won't be
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 7: because she ran a stellar campaign.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 10: I want to be really clear.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: It'll be because I believe that she had great name ID,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 7: she had a good message, and she was the kind
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 7: of fighter that Democrats in Texas want to go into
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 7: their general election. Not because the ground game is just
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 7: so great. And that's okay to say, because.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 10: It's the truth.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: And it's also, I think, worth saying that Tal Rico
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: has not been, I think, attacking Jasmine Crockett on the
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: stump that he has been saying. No.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: He's been sort of, I think, above board.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: You agree with that?
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 10: I think he's been overly above board.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: Agree.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: Agree.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 10: Operative in me is like.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 7: I'm not saying you got to attack her, and I
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 7: wouldn't have advised that of him, but I mean, he
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 7: has been practically out there saying, and to be clear,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 7: if she wins, I'm going to support her. Even at
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 7: his fundraisers, he's like, and I think you all should too.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 7: I'm going to campaign for her.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 10: He's like, either one.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: Either way is good. Just shut up. Hold up.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: You want to win?
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 10: Like, hold it. Just shut up. And when they ask
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 10: you on a debate stage about the racism, then you
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 10: defend her. But Jesus Christ, win the race.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 7: But, you know, I think this overly nice, these niceties,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 7: the Democrats are still scarred from like that. You know,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 7: Democrats don't actually like infighting unless it's a presidential primary situation.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 10: But Democratic voters, they really don't like that. Like, they
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 10: really just don't. They don't want people attacking people.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 7: They just want to talk about the issues until they don't.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 7: So I think Tom Rico has done the right situation.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: But that's to get at the moderates you would need,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the kind of less partisans that you would need, that
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: the argument would be, Crockett will have a tougher time with, right?
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Like that would be why he's sort of running it
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: in this sort of positive way.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 7: I think that, but I also think it's what he believes,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 7: to be very clear. And I think it's what he
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 7: thinks will get him, is what he thinks will work
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: for him. I think if you, I've asked Jasmine Crockett,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 7: we had her on our show like two weeks ago,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 7: and I asked her straight up, like, You know, do
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 7: you think white people will vote for you, essentially?
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 10: And Michael Steele asked as well.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 7: And she said that she has Republicans in her phone
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 7: right now who have told her that if she wins,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 7: they will support her. So this idea that she can't win,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 7: Republicans won't vote for her isn't right, which was also
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 7: a tone shift for Jasmine Crockett, who started her election
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 7: talking about, We.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 10: Don't need the reds. We just need all the blues.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 7: And I think, as my colleague Michael Steele would say,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 7: the former RNC chairman, which is crazy because now Democrats
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 7: are like, we need Michael to run the party. I'm like,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 7: Michael is the reason we are here. Y'all just, this
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 7: man has been branded well.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: Pay attention.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 10: Y'all need to clock that, okay? Y'all need to read
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 10: that bio. He said, you know what campaigns reveal?
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: They reveal.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 7: Candidates go on a journey in a campaign. And what
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: he said when he heard those comments from Congressman Crockett,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 7: he said she has obviously been on a journey in
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 7: this campaign and has arrived to the place where she
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: needs to be to try to win.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Well, we have to. I promise people the BAFTAs, but
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about the BAFTAs on our show.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: You're talking on your show. It's insane.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: We're talking about it on ours. It's insane. I want
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: to redo a black history month.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 10: Tune in on Thursday.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: That's what I damn want. Too much. It's too much.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 10: Every Black History Month, they trying us, Eugene. Every Black
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 10: History Month.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: And it's just 28 damn days. Can we just get
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: 28 days?
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 7: He did not go to the mat to get Negro
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 7: History Week to turn into Black History Month for us
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 7: to talk about this disrespect and racism during Black History Month.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 10: Not today.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: It's too bad.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Eugene Daniels, Simone Sanders Townsend, what a joy. New podcast,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Clock It. They were doing a live stream during the
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: State of the Union, you know.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: Join us.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 9: Join them.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to Simone and Eugene
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: for coming on. We'll be back in your feed tomorrow
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: morning with a bonus episode reacting to the State of
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: the Union. Everybody hang in there.
• 1:21:57
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• 1:21:58
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• 1:22:21
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