Latest / Pod Save America / MAGA: Defenders of the Epstein Class

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MAGA: Defenders of the Epstein Class · Pod Save America

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Alex Wagner.
1:40
Speaker 3: I'm Ben Rhodes.
1:43
Speaker 2: John, John, Tommy and Dan are in New Zealand on
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Speaker 2: tour and licking their wounds from the Patriots. Absolutely pathetic
1:50
Speaker 2: performance in the Super Bowl. And so Ben and I
1:53
Speaker 2: are here to hold down the fort and let's be honest,
1:55
Speaker 2: show them up. On today's show, Ghislaine Maxwell again begs
2:00
Speaker 2: President Trump for a pardon. The government inches closer to
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Speaker 2: a partial shutdown over Democrats' push to impose some kind
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Speaker 2: of checks on ICE lawlessness. and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's
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Speaker 2: absolutely disgusting Super Bowl snack lineup. But first, a New
2:16
Speaker 2: York Times report over the weekend offered another look into
2:19
Speaker 2: how Trump and his allies are turning America's 250th birthday
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Speaker 2: into a money-making, influence-peddling grift to promote right-wing policies and
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Speaker 2: inflate the president's very fragile ego. The story highlighted Freedom 250,
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Speaker 2: Freedom 250, a dubiously legal public-private partnership similar to the
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Speaker 2: one that Trump is using to fund his ballroom monstrosity.
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Speaker 2: Freedom 250 is the vehicle the administration is using to
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Speaker 2: stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. Yes,
2:50
Speaker 2: you heard that correctly, in celebration of, I guess, the
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Speaker 2: signing of the Declaration of Independence. Apparently, it also has
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Speaker 2: its hands in the 250-foot-tall triumphal arch that Trump is
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Speaker 2: hoping to build right outside of Washington, D.C., The Times
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Speaker 2: reported that Freedom 250 is offering, quote, bespoke packages that promise, surprise,
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Speaker 2: access to Trump. For a $ 1 million donation, you can
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Speaker 2: attend a private reception with the president. But for $ 2. 5 million,
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Speaker 2: you can speak at a 4th of July rally in D.C.
3:24
Speaker 2: because nothing says American independence like Saudi billionaires speaking on
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Speaker 2: the National Mall. Right, Ben?
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Speaker 3: Yes, that's how I always celebrate, actually, in my house.
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Speaker 2: I mean, if MBS isn't there, it's not really the
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Speaker 2: 4th of July. Anyway, Freedom 250 has also reportedly received
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Speaker 2: at least $ 10 million in taxpayer money, which they used
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Speaker 2: to build a fleet of, quote, freedom trucks that are
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Speaker 2: touring the country throughout the year. These, I guess we'll
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Speaker 2: call them mobile museums, were created in partnership with PragerU,
3:52
Speaker 2: which is a company that pumps out conservative textbooks that
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Speaker 2: celebrate colonialism and downplay the harms of slavery. And also
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Speaker 2: in conjunction with Hillsdale College, which is a conservative liberal
4:02
Speaker 2: arts college that is now at the very center of
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Speaker 2: a movement to de-woke-ify kindergarten through grade 12 education by
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Speaker 2: overhauling curricula and starting charter schools across the country. Here's
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Speaker 2: a little taste of how Freedom 250 is going to
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Speaker 2: be spending more of that donor slash taxpayer money per
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Speaker 2: their Super Bowl ad that you might have missed, but
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Speaker 2: that aired on Sunday. Generations ago, ordinary people risked everything
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Speaker 2: to begin it. 250 years later, the work continues because
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Speaker 2: freedom is worth it.
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Speaker 3: This year, America turns 250.
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Speaker 2: Oh, man. I didn't realize. I actually maybe had my
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Speaker 2: face too full of ribs. I didn't really realize what
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Speaker 2: I was looking at at that moment, Ben. But do
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Speaker 2: you have a spare $ 2. 5 million to borrow? Because it's
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Speaker 2: always been my dream to open up for MBS on
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Speaker 2: the National Mall.
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Speaker 3: I mean, just goosebumps thinking about this sincere and earnest patriotism, Alex.
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Speaker 3: I mean, look, the thing about this is like, first
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Speaker 3: of all, like everything else, like the grift is a feature,
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Speaker 3: not a bug, right? If there's anything that can be
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Speaker 3: monetized by Trump in some fashion, he's going to do it.
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Speaker 3: America's 250th anniversary is no different. And, you know, I
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Speaker 3: can expect that the roster of people lining up to
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Speaker 3: write those checks, while they won't include you and me,
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Speaker 3: are going to include people who, you know, are shopping
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Speaker 3: for pardons for their friends, people with business before the
5:26
Speaker 3: federal government, et cetera, right? So it's for sale. I
5:30
Speaker 3: think the other thing that is kind of grotesque about
5:32
Speaker 3: this is you have to see in the context of
5:34
Speaker 3: it's an election year, right? And so this is all
5:37
Speaker 3: going to be kind of part of one big campaign, essentially,
5:41
Speaker 3: that's going to be enormously funded to kind of buttress
5:45
Speaker 3: MAGA at a time when people are souring on it,
5:48
Speaker 3: where every public opinion poll shows like a precipitous drop, right,
5:52
Speaker 3: in support for Trump. Well, you know, he'll try to
5:54
Speaker 3: gin people up with a UFC fight on the South
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Speaker 3: Lawn and a bunch of patriotic displays. But I think
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Speaker 3: the serious part, Alex, like that I've been thinking about
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Speaker 3: a lot, is that this isn't like a coincidental or
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Speaker 3: secondary part of what's been going on. Because what they're
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Speaker 3: trying to do that's actually serious is take full custody
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Speaker 3: of the American story, right? So the 250 years of
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Speaker 3: this country, are really just about their story of what
6:23
Speaker 3: that is, right? Which, let's face it, excludes pretty much
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Speaker 3: non-white people, excludes the kind of agitators and activists and
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Speaker 3: people that pointed out inconvenient truths about the United States,
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Speaker 3: whitewashes our past, and glorifies Donald Trump as kind of
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Speaker 3: the inheritor of this 250 years of history, right? And
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Speaker 3: that's deadly serious, right? I think we should take that
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Speaker 3: that very seriously beyond just the tackiness and grift of
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Speaker 3: it all.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it bears some time. We should
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Speaker 2: spend some time talking about the involvement of Hillsdale College
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Speaker 2: and PragerU and all of this, because they are the
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Speaker 2: sort of for-profit arm of the whitewashing of America and
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Speaker 2: making it white again. But to just talk about, I
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Speaker 2: think as a public service announcement, we should, we should
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Speaker 2: delineate the difference between America 250, which is the nonpartisan,
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Speaker 2: congressionally run operation to celebrate America's semi-quincentennial. I learned, I
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Speaker 2: was today years old when I realized that's how you
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Speaker 2: call the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration
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Speaker 2: of Independence, the semi-quincentennial. That is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
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Speaker 2: that encourages Americans to do crazy shit like public service
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Speaker 2: in honor of the 250th anniversary. Freedom 250, which is
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Speaker 2: increasingly like the biggest big sort of organization that the
7:45
Speaker 2: Trump administration is spending most of its capital on, or
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Speaker 2: rather political capital on, and that they're encouraging to be
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Speaker 2: the sort of branding lead in all of this, is
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Speaker 2: the slush fund for Trump's triumphal arc, and also a
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Speaker 2: drag race throughout Washington, D.C., which sounds like a really
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Speaker 2: fucking bad, they all sound like really fucking bad ideas,
8:02
Speaker 2: that in particular sounds like a really fucking bad idea.
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Speaker 2: And I think just on the grift alone, the idea that,
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Speaker 2: I mean, we should just take a moment a solemn
8:13
Speaker 2: moment to look at the degradation of our legacy from
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Speaker 2: a country that would otherwise encourage civic participation and acts
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Speaker 2: of selflessness to one where the highest office in the land,
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Speaker 2: the person charged with shepherding the Constitution forward and our
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Speaker 2: democracy is looking at this moment, this 250th anniversary, as
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Speaker 2: an opportunity for personal enrichment and ego fluffing. I mean,
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Speaker 2: it's just So it's such a sad state of affairs.
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Speaker 2: Why did the universe have to have Trump in office
8:46
Speaker 2: when the 250th anniversary came around? Couldn't it have been
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Speaker 2: someone else?
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Speaker 3: Let me try to find a silver lining in this, right? Yes, please. Because, yeah, look,
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Speaker 3: the pay-to-play piece is going to be grotesque. The monuments
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Speaker 3: to himself are scary, actually. I mean, they're silly and tacky, but, like,
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Speaker 3: they're going to be real things that they at least
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Speaker 3: try to build. It reminds you of what, like, Kim
9:09
Speaker 3: Jong-un does in North Korea to like exalt himself. Like
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Speaker 3: we're kind of at that place. But I think that
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Speaker 3: the opportunity for those of us listening to this podcast
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Speaker 3: probably feel some ambivalence about the upcoming festivities in a
9:22
Speaker 3: way that we wouldn't have if, you know, Barack Obama
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Speaker 3: was president or frankly, any normal person was president. Because
9:28
Speaker 3: now it's a little complicated to look at some of
9:31
Speaker 3: these symbols of patriotism, right? Like the flag is being
9:35
Speaker 3: co-opted by Trump, right? The military flyover's feel a little
9:39
Speaker 3: different when there's like fascism in our streets, you know?
9:42
Speaker 3: It's okay for people to feel a little conflicted about
9:46
Speaker 3: celebrating this 250th birthday. But I think there's an important
9:50
Speaker 3: like debate that we have to be willing to have, right?
9:53
Speaker 3: And so this is an organic book plug. I have
9:56
Speaker 3: this book that's about the 250-year history of our battle
9:59
Speaker 3: over America. identity. And I start with J.D. Vance, who
10:02
Speaker 3: gave a speech a few months ago in which he
10:05
Speaker 3: talked about what does it mean to be an American?
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Speaker 3: What is American identity? And he said out loud that
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Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence and its commitment to the sentence,
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Speaker 3: all men are created equal, is not what it means
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Speaker 3: to be American. That that's too loose a definition because
10:22
Speaker 3: then it could encompass- It's an idea. Yeah, it's an idea.
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Speaker 3: And we're not an idea. We are blood and soil, right?
10:27
Speaker 3: We are a heritage-based nation, right? Which is, I think,
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Speaker 3: profoundly wrong. And it's a profoundly fucked up reading of
10:35
Speaker 3: American history, right? Now, it's also been a predominant story,
10:39
Speaker 3: but I think what people need to honor and celebrate
10:43
Speaker 3: is the alternative history of the United States- which is
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Speaker 3: people fighting against that idea for 250 years. So we're
10:51
Speaker 3: not just a history of presidents and monuments. We are
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Speaker 3: a history of activists, of agitators, of the civil rights movement,
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Speaker 3: of the abolition movement, of women's rights movements, of LGBT movements, right?
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Speaker 3: We are both of these things at once. And just
11:06
Speaker 3: because Donald Trump is going to try to ram one
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Speaker 3: version of this down our throats, that's all the more reason. Look,
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Speaker 3: people should go out and protest around the freaking UFC fight.
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Speaker 2: Which by the way- The semi-quincentennial.
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Speaker 3: Yes. Well, the UFC fight, which by the way, is
11:20
Speaker 3: coincidentally on Donald Trump's birthday too, which is a nice touch.
11:24
Speaker 3: Last year, we got a military parade. This year, we
11:26
Speaker 3: get like a Dana White sponsored UFC fight, right? So
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Speaker 3: I think that's what we all need to take away
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Speaker 3: from this is, sure, it sucks to see our institutions
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Speaker 3: co-opted like this, but The American story is like the
11:37
Speaker 3: parts of it I like are usually about people who
11:39
Speaker 3: are standing up to that. And now it's our turn, unfortunately,
11:42
Speaker 3: to do it in this particularly grim, what do you
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Speaker 3: call it?
11:47
Speaker 2: Semi-quincentennial. Semi-quincentennial, yes. No, I think you're absolutely right that
11:51
Speaker 2: the best way to celebrate the rebellion against tyranny is
11:54
Speaker 2: to rebel against tyranny, right? Yes. I will just say
11:58
Speaker 2: on the level of corruption, if you look not that hard,
12:03
Speaker 2: you can find a news story every day about the
12:05
Speaker 2: way in which this president is like the biggest grifter
12:09
Speaker 2: we've ever had in office. For example, I think the
12:12
Speaker 2: New York Times was reporting that Trump's Bitcoin— is largely
12:15
Speaker 2: floated by Binance, which is the crypto exchange that had,
12:21
Speaker 2: founded by, I believe it's Changpeng Zhao, who's a billionaire
12:24
Speaker 2: mogul who was in jail, who Trump pardoned. And now, oops, coincidentally,
12:28
Speaker 2: 85% of Trump's Bitcoin is held in accounts on Binance,
12:32
Speaker 2: even though the exchange's platform is available only outside the
12:36
Speaker 2: United States, right? That's happening and that's clearly corrupt and
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Speaker 2: craven and what I'd argue part of what would be
12:42
Speaker 2: a hallmark of kleptocracy is, And yet there's not real
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Speaker 2: discussion about it. The difference between that and this is
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Speaker 2: that people see the ballroom. People see the maybe plans
12:53
Speaker 2: for the arc to Trump. People will see presumably the
12:56
Speaker 2: drag race. People will see the UFC fight. And all
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Speaker 2: of this is an exercise in the worst, most inflated
13:03
Speaker 2: form of presidential ego, if not outright fascism. Like the
13:06
Speaker 2: investment is not in the country. It is in himself.
13:09
Speaker 2: And because these are such public spectacles, I am optimistic.
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Speaker 2: that the public pushback in turn will hopefully be more pronounced, right?
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Speaker 2: It's so awful. It's such an ugly degradation of everything
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Speaker 2: our democracy is supposed to stand for in the way
13:22
Speaker 2: that him just pocketing crypto funds surreptitiously while he sits
13:27
Speaker 2: in the Oval Office or having his lackeys do that
13:29
Speaker 2: is just not as transparent to the American public, that
13:31
Speaker 2: level of corruption. This is. The ballroom has not gone
13:35
Speaker 2: over well with the American public. And something tells me
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Speaker 2: an arc to Trump and a drag race and a
13:39
Speaker 2: UFC fight are not what people want on the cell
13:42
Speaker 2: phone of the White House. You know what I mean? Yeah.
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Speaker 3: You and I are old enough to remember the hip
13:47
Speaker 3: hop barbecue that Obama had on the South on the
13:49
Speaker 3: White House, which spawned the Dan Pfeiffer's favorite Fox News headline.
13:53
Speaker 3: Hip hop barbecue fails to create jobs. But this UFC
13:59
Speaker 3: fight is not going to create jobs. You know, that's
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Speaker 3: for sure. And look, I think you're right there. What's
14:04
Speaker 3: grotesque about the corruption is that Trump is actually leveraging
14:09
Speaker 3: like the United States government. for his own interests. So
14:13
Speaker 3: like the other glaring example that came out recently, right,
14:16
Speaker 3: was the story that lo and behold, shortly before the inauguration, right,
14:19
Speaker 3: that you had this massive UAE investment in Trump coin.
14:24
Speaker 3: And then lo and behold, Trump lifts off restrictions on
14:26
Speaker 3: American technology going UAE, right? That's him leveraging national power,
14:31
Speaker 3: national assets for his own personal gain. But it's a
14:34
Speaker 3: complicated story. And sometimes a ballroom or a drag race
14:38
Speaker 3: is a helpful way to just have a symbol that
14:40
Speaker 3: captures for people. how self-interested this is, how grotesque this is,
14:44
Speaker 3: how corrupt this all is. And there's something pretty un-American, too,
14:49
Speaker 3: about a living leader building monuments and arcs to himself.
14:55
Speaker 3: This is the kind of thing that we're accustomed to
14:58
Speaker 3: seeing in unitary dictatorial states in other countries. And so
15:03
Speaker 3: I think that the challenge is wrapping this whole story
15:06
Speaker 3: up for people They're not these separate categories, right? We're
15:09
Speaker 3: mad about corruption and we're mad that he's not doing
15:11
Speaker 3: enough to deal with affordability and we're mad that he's
15:15
Speaker 3: got fascist tendencies. No, it's all one big thing, right?
15:19
Speaker 3: All those things are related. He's not dealing with affordability
15:23
Speaker 3: because he's using the office to enrich himself, which he's doing,
15:27
Speaker 3: fueling an ideology that is fundamentally kind of fascistic and
15:31
Speaker 3: about himself and not the country, right? It's all one
15:33
Speaker 3: story about Donald Trump caring about himself and his rich
15:36
Speaker 3: friends and and not you. And he'll even kind of
15:40
Speaker 3: take custody of the most precious and shared history that
15:44
Speaker 3: we have as Americans to get that done. And he'll
15:47
Speaker 3: make use of this kind of infrastructure of right-wing PragerU
15:52
Speaker 3: or whatever it is to do so. That shows you
15:55
Speaker 3: this has been building for a long time. They built
15:57
Speaker 3: all this infrastructure. So that's the scale of the challenge
16:00
Speaker 3: we're up against. But the good news is if you
16:02
Speaker 3: can tell that story, I think a huge majority of
16:04
Speaker 3: Americans are either uncomfortable or outraged by that.
16:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just on the freedom truck front, I
16:12
Speaker 2: immediately thought of the mitzvah trucks. If you're a New
16:15
Speaker 2: York City resident, you know what I'm talking about. They
16:16
Speaker 2: come out during the Jewish high holidays, and they're these
16:19
Speaker 2: really loud trucks run in large part by the Lubavitch
16:22
Speaker 2: sect of Orthodox Jews, meant to convert unsuspecting bystanders on
16:27
Speaker 2: the streets of New York City, uniformly men. And I
16:30
Speaker 2: always kind of smirk at these things and think, are
16:33
Speaker 2: you really? I mean, it's not like a Mr. Softee truck.
16:36
Speaker 2: There's not like a line around the block. And are
16:39
Speaker 2: they effective? For those who don't have experience with the
16:43
Speaker 2: mitzvah truck, I wonder how convincing a freedom truck run
16:46
Speaker 2: by PragerU and Hillsdale College really can be. These guys
16:50
Speaker 2: are not known for subtlety. Like, espousing the way in
16:53
Speaker 2: which slavery was effectively good for black people and climate
16:55
Speaker 2: denialism is like a form of... patriotism and the way
17:01
Speaker 2: that colonialism had its benefits, all these things. I think people,
17:07
Speaker 2: it underestimates grossly the intelligence of the American public, but
17:10
Speaker 2: I don't know, Ben, how nefarious do you think these
17:13
Speaker 2: things are?
17:14
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think I won't be hitching a
17:18
Speaker 3: ride on a I think one of the things— You're
17:21
Speaker 3: not a freedom rider.
17:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not.
17:23
Speaker 3: That gives all new meaning to freedom rider, right? I
17:27
Speaker 3: think one thing where we and Democrats have to have
17:31
Speaker 3: more kind of confidence, right, is they've been wearing us
17:34
Speaker 3: down on the culture wars, right, for decades, right? And
17:40
Speaker 3: the reality, though, is that that whole mindset behind those
17:42
Speaker 3: freedom trucks and the anti-woke stuff and the anti-DEI stuff
17:46
Speaker 3: and the whitewashing of history kind of felt— to the
17:51
Speaker 3: intended audience, which admittedly is not you and me, Alex, counter-cultural,
17:56
Speaker 3: you know? It was like suddenly like this kind of
17:59
Speaker 3: blood and soil nationalist, like racist right-wing set of views
18:06
Speaker 3: was fundamentally counter-cultural, right? Because it seemed like, you know,
18:10
Speaker 3: they lost the culture wars. But I think part of
18:13
Speaker 3: what people are experiencing in the Trump years is, you know,
18:16
Speaker 3: particularly the second term is, That's not the counterculture anymore.
18:20
Speaker 3: They're in charge. And they are doing to us everything
18:24
Speaker 3: that they said we did to them. They're trying to
18:27
Speaker 3: ram their views down our throats. They're trying to stifle
18:31
Speaker 3: free speech, right? They're trying to say there's only one
18:34
Speaker 3: version of American history and there's no other version that
18:36
Speaker 3: can even be taught in schools. And ironically, it's turned
18:41
Speaker 3: out that their views were projection all along, right? That
18:45
Speaker 3: they were the ones that are fundamentally... kind of against
18:48
Speaker 3: the freedoms that they claim to espouse, right? So like
18:50
Speaker 3: I said, this kind of core argument about American identity
18:54
Speaker 3: is one I think we shouldn't be shy about having,
18:56
Speaker 3: because as we've seen in Minneapolis, like that's what it
18:59
Speaker 3: looks like, right? I mean, on the one side, you
19:01
Speaker 3: got people trying to ram it down everybody else's throats
19:03
Speaker 3: and they're heavily armed. And the other end, you got
19:05
Speaker 3: people exercising what Americans think of as pretty core freedoms.
19:09
Speaker 3: And like that's what's going on in the whole country
19:13
Speaker 3: right now. And Every time I see a Freedom Truck, like,
19:16
Speaker 3: that's what I'll see.
19:18
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and the whole concept of, like, a Freedom
19:19
Speaker 2: Truck being run by Hillsdale College is not, like, a countercultural, like,
19:23
Speaker 2: own-the-libs phenomenon. It's, like, the most sort of, like– it's, like,
19:28
Speaker 2: an incredibly hands-folded-in-the-laps, scoldy kind of version of conservative ideology
19:33
Speaker 2: that does not resonate with, I don't know, Logan Paul, right? Like,
19:37
Speaker 2: they've so– like, at this moment of– terrorizing black and
19:43
Speaker 2: brown communities and like insulting Bad Bunny, right? Making clear
19:48
Speaker 2: they're just, avowed white nationalism and white supremacism, they're sending
19:54
Speaker 2: these trucks out to sort of like seal the deal.
19:56
Speaker 2: And I just think nobody's buying it. I think people
19:59
Speaker 2: see what's happening. They see what the ultimate objective is.
20:02
Speaker 2: And like, you can drive a bus around town as
20:04
Speaker 2: much as you want playing a Trump video. I just
20:06
Speaker 2: don't think that's, I just don't think that's the way
20:08
Speaker 2: you gain converts. And if anything, they should be excusing,
20:10
Speaker 2: they should be offering. some explanation as to how they're
20:13
Speaker 2: not white supremacists and going after Bad Bunny at the
20:15
Speaker 2: Super Bowl. It's just like there is no argument to
20:20
Speaker 2: be made that this is anything other than white supremacists.
20:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole thing feels akin to like a pre-taped
20:27
Speaker 3: kid rock halftime show set against the Bad Bunny one, right?
20:32
Speaker 2: Exactly.
20:33
Speaker 3: We can win culture wars, people. We don't necessarily have
20:36
Speaker 3: to hide our heads in the sand about them and
20:38
Speaker 3: repeat dutiful talking points about middle-class economics. That's important. But fundamentally,
20:44
Speaker 3: all of this is about what does it mean to
20:46
Speaker 3: be American? What should our government be focused on? And
20:51
Speaker 3: Trump is giving us plenty of arguments for why he
20:55
Speaker 3: is not the answer to those questions.
20:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'll just say one thing I think that
20:58
Speaker 2: we should all learn from Bad Bunny. And I know
21:00
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl was on Sunday, but his lessons live
21:02
Speaker 2: on through the week. To make the argument for a multiracial,
21:06
Speaker 2: inclusive America... using joy as the vehicle is real effective. Yeah.
21:12
Speaker 3: Show don't tell too, right? Exactly. You know, he didn't
21:14
Speaker 3: have to give it, he didn't have to say ice
21:16
Speaker 3: out or something during the Superbowl. Like he, it was
21:19
Speaker 3: an affirmative positive thing. And look, this is something again, like,
21:24
Speaker 3: you know, Obama didn't do everything right. You know? But
21:28
Speaker 3: one of the things that he did right is he's
21:32
Speaker 3: multiracial case was one of affirmation. It wasn't like America's horrible.
21:37
Speaker 3: We must, you know, acknowledge how horrible it is in
21:39
Speaker 3: order to fix it. That may have been a subtext
21:43
Speaker 3: of progressive politics in this country for a long time.
21:45
Speaker 3: But Obama would say, this country is so great that
21:47
Speaker 3: we've been able to change before and we can do
21:48
Speaker 3: it again, you know. And look at what, you know,
21:51
Speaker 3: the promises of multiracial democracy. And like the bad bunny thing,
21:55
Speaker 3: like it showed that, you know. And I guess apart
21:59
Speaker 3: from people having to listen to Spanish, like it's hard
22:01
Speaker 3: to find anything else threatening in that presentation.
22:04
Speaker 2: I'd way rather be at Bad Bunny's Rum Bar than
22:07
Speaker 2: anywhere with Kid Rock, and I'll leave it there.
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25:07
Speaker 2: Talking about other places I don't want to find myself,
25:10
Speaker 2: the Epstein Files.
25:11
Speaker 3: Yes.
25:12
Speaker 2: On Monday morning.
25:13
Speaker 3: So far, so good on that front, Alex.
25:14
Speaker 2: Congratulations. I feel confident. On Monday morning, the lawyer for
25:19
Speaker 2: Ghislaine Maxwell, that's, of course, Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein conspirator,
25:22
Speaker 2: currently serving 20 years in federal prison. The lawyer said
25:26
Speaker 2: that Maxwell is ready to speak fully and honestly and
25:29
Speaker 2: deliver a complete account that could possibly clear both President
25:34
Speaker 2: Trump and President Clinton of any wrongdoing. Her only condition, Ben,
25:39
Speaker 2: President Trump must first grant her clemency.
25:41
Speaker 3: Hmm.
25:42
Speaker 2: Points for ballsiness. That offer came during Maxwell's virtual deposition
25:46
Speaker 2: on Monday before the House Oversight Committee, where Ghislaine Maxwell
25:50
Speaker 2: pleaded the fifth over and over again. Now, both Democrats
25:53
Speaker 2: and Republicans on the Oversight Committee criticized Maxwell's refusal to
25:57
Speaker 2: answer questions, and Democrats, no Republicans, immediately condemned Maxwell's offer. Meanwhile,
26:04
Speaker 2: members of Congress are set to get their first look
26:07
Speaker 2: at unredacted versions of the Epstein files this week. perpetual
26:11
Speaker 2: thorn in the side of the Trump administration, Thomas Massey
26:14
Speaker 2: and Ro Khanna were the first to view the files
26:16
Speaker 2: on Monday afternoon. I read this, lawyer says complete exoneration
26:22
Speaker 2: for Trump in Epstein files if Maxwell granted clemency. And
26:27
Speaker 2: I thought, I mean, even for Ghislaine Maxwell, this is
26:31
Speaker 2: pretty like, there's not even, what do you call a
26:34
Speaker 2: quid pro quo that's just like public extortion? I don't
26:38
Speaker 2: even know Like what was– first of all, what do
26:41
Speaker 2: you make of the offer then?
26:45
Speaker 3: Well, you know, what's so funny is that like the
26:48
Speaker 3: interest of Maxwell and Trump so obviously converge too. Like
26:53
Speaker 3: the quid pro quo is so evidently in both of
26:56
Speaker 3: their interests, you know? Right, right. Because like she wants
26:58
Speaker 3: out of prison.
26:59
Speaker 2: Well, I think he would– Although I do think he
27:01
Speaker 2: would face some blowback if he just pardoned Ghislaine Maxwell.
27:04
Speaker 2: I mean, his own people would not be that happy
27:05
Speaker 2: about that.
27:05
Speaker 3: He would, but this is what's been so strange about
27:08
Speaker 3: this whole thing all the time is that none of
27:10
Speaker 3: what he's tried to do in this account has worked, right?
27:14
Speaker 3: So nobody believed when Todd Blanche, his personal attorney, become
27:17
Speaker 3: Deputy AG, met with Maxwell and said, oh, you know,
27:21
Speaker 3: she exonerated Trump. Like, it made it worse, right? When
27:24
Speaker 3: she was transferred to this kind of country club prison...
27:28
Speaker 3: After that meeting with Todd Blanch, it made it worse
27:31
Speaker 3: for Trump, right? And so his efforts to kind of
27:34
Speaker 3: get himself out of this through the normal obfuscate, find
27:37
Speaker 3: someone to lie on your behalf, tell your followers there's
27:41
Speaker 3: nothing to see here, that's not working in this case
27:44
Speaker 3: because of MAGA's long-term commitment to this issue, because of
27:47
Speaker 3: the underlying grotesque nature of the crimes being exposed. And look,
27:52
Speaker 3: I just I don't think anybody's going to buy this.
27:55
Speaker 3: You know, I can see why she's trying to make
27:57
Speaker 3: this play, but there's no way that she's credible. Like,
28:01
Speaker 3: why would anyone trust someone who is kind of central
28:04
Speaker 3: to a child sex trafficking ring for this long? And,
28:08
Speaker 3: you know, she can try to do what she wants.
28:09
Speaker 3: But I think the other thing that's interesting here is
28:11
Speaker 3: that this kind of combination of Clinton and Trump is.
28:15
Speaker 2: Interesting to me. Can we talk about that?
28:17
Speaker 3: Yes.
28:18
Speaker 2: They're not usually part of the same two for one deal.
28:20
Speaker 3: Well, I think, again, like, just to be blunt, Alex, like,
28:25
Speaker 3: Republicans or Trump, at least, seem to overstate the extent
28:29
Speaker 3: to which Democrats, like, want to somehow exonerate Bill Clinton
28:32
Speaker 3: in all this, right?
28:33
Speaker 2: Do they?
28:34
Speaker 3: Well, they don't. And the way that Trump talks about this, like, recently, like,
28:38
Speaker 3: he had, you know, this thing where he said, oh,
28:39
Speaker 3: you feel sorry.
28:40
Speaker 2: For Bill Clinton. Oh, Republicans, sorry, I did not mean
28:42
Speaker 2: to react that way. You're saying Republicans overestimate how much
28:45
Speaker 2: Democrats actually want to clear Clinton's a good name.
28:47
Speaker 3: That's right.
28:48
Speaker 2: I say good in quotes.
28:49
Speaker 3: And so Trump's kind of hugging Bill Clinton, like, you know,
28:53
Speaker 3: look at what they're doing to both of us. You know,
28:54
Speaker 3: it's unfair, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what
28:57
Speaker 3: he's misreading is that like, you know, Democrats are not
29:00
Speaker 3: like blind followers of a cult of Bill Clinton in
29:03
Speaker 3: the same way that, you know, Trump has had that
29:06
Speaker 3: kind of support in the Republican Party. We're certainly not
29:08
Speaker 3: willing to kind of trade away our concerns about Trump
29:11
Speaker 3: being in these files tens of thousands of times, right?
29:15
Speaker 3: And clearly being witting Based on at least what's come out,
29:19
Speaker 3: the creepy drawing for the birthday book, the creepy back
29:24
Speaker 3: and forth between the Mar-a-Lago spa and the Epstein network, right?
29:29
Speaker 3: The fact that Trump believes that we Democrats are willing
29:32
Speaker 3: to kind of put that all aside to defend you know,
29:35
Speaker 3: Bill Clinton is such a bizarre reading of politics, you know, and.
29:39
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party. And also, I mean, independent of Bill
29:43
Speaker 2: Clinton's tarnished legacy within the Democratic Party, Democrats genuinely, I believe,
29:48
Speaker 2: for the most part, give a shit about holding to
29:52
Speaker 2: account people in power who were involved in the predation
29:55
Speaker 2: of children, right? So there's a genuine, like, ethical fiber
30:00
Speaker 2: that still exists, a moral fiber that still exists in
30:03
Speaker 2: a shared fashion inside the Democratic Party. And on that note,
30:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's really important that Democrats be seen,
30:10
Speaker 2: I mean, not even just be seen, that Democrats hold
30:12
Speaker 2: Clinton to account. When he and Hillary have to go
30:15
Speaker 2: testify in front of the House, as we expect them to,
30:18
Speaker 2: though they're still negotiating the terms of that, Democrats should
30:22
Speaker 2: robustly question him. And we're going to take this opportunity
30:25
Speaker 2: to talk about the relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and Bill Clinton.
30:29
Speaker 2: The New York Times has some, I think, important reporting
30:32
Speaker 2: about how instrumental Ghislaine Maxwell was in the creation of
30:35
Speaker 2: the Clinton Global Initiative. She took part in budget discussions
30:39
Speaker 2: related to the first CGI conference. She talked through challenges
30:43
Speaker 2: about it with Clinton aides and the Publicis Group, which
30:45
Speaker 2: is the company that produced that event. And she arranged
30:48
Speaker 2: to wire $ 1 million to pay Publicis for its work
30:52
Speaker 2: on the, quote, Clinton project. And then, Ben, there's the most...
30:58
Speaker 2: Cringy part of all of this, the relationship between Ghislaine
31:02
Speaker 2: Maxwell and longtime Clinton aide Doug Band, who had very
31:07
Speaker 2: flirtatious exchanges that I think our listeners want to hear about.
31:10
Speaker 3: I think they need to hear this. I think this
31:12
Speaker 3: is what happens when those guys are in New Zealand.
31:15
Speaker 2: That's what happens when John, John, Tommy, and Dan are gone.
31:19
Speaker 2: When the cat's away, the mice will role play. That's
31:21
Speaker 2: what we're going to do. I'll just read a little
31:24
Speaker 2: excerpt of these emails between Doug Band and Ghislaine Maxwell,
31:26
Speaker 2: and I'll play the part of Ghislaine Maxwell if you, Ben,
31:28
Speaker 2: will play the role of Doug Band as a role
31:30
Speaker 2: I know you were destined to play.
31:33
Speaker 3: Thanks for that, Alex.
31:34
Speaker 2: You can do it. Here we go. Here's Ghislaine Maxwell
31:36
Speaker 2: to Doug Band via email. Boo-boo, are you around? I'm
31:40
Speaker 2: very ill and require immediate medical attention. I'm suffering from boo-boo-itis,
31:45
Speaker 2: a very serious condition. Without a boo-boo fix, the symptoms
31:49
Speaker 2: become very pronounced.
31:52
Speaker 3: My boo-boo-itis is also reaching epic proportions. Lots going on,
31:57
Speaker 3: but we'll be in boo-boo-ville the second you arrive.
32:04
Speaker 2: They insist. They have never, Doug Band insists, he has
32:07
Speaker 2: never had relations with that woman. Just kidding, that's what
32:09
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton said. But he does insist that he had
32:12
Speaker 2: no physical relations with Ghislaine Maxwell, which makes me wonder
32:16
Speaker 2: what's Boo Boo-itis and where is Boo Boo-ville? Can you
32:19
Speaker 2: locate it on a map?
32:20
Speaker 3: I'm very pleased that I could not identify Boo Boo-ville
32:24
Speaker 3: on a map, Alex.
32:25
Speaker 2: Gives me some hints about future correspondence I might want
32:28
Speaker 2: to have one day. But anyway, everyone's welcome for that.
32:30
Speaker 2: The point is Ghislaine Maxwell interacted significantly with those in
32:36
Speaker 2: President Clinton's inner circles. There are a lot of questions
32:38
Speaker 2: and I hope Democrats do not flinch in asking them
32:41
Speaker 2: because this is very much about the truth and it's
32:44
Speaker 2: also about keeping the victim centered as well. You know, Ben,
32:48
Speaker 2: you said that Democrats need to figure out a way
32:51
Speaker 2: to tie all of this together, everything from the corruption
32:54
Speaker 2: and the grift and the slush funds to the Epstein
32:57
Speaker 2: files and the inaction on economic concerns, all of it. Like,
33:02
Speaker 2: is there a rubric under which it all fits? And
33:04
Speaker 2: I was struck by comments from Georgia Senator and candidate
33:09
Speaker 2: John Ossoff on the campaign trail this weekend. He went
33:12
Speaker 2: viral after he was speaking about both MAGA and the
33:15
Speaker 2: Epstein Files at a campaign rally in Atlanta. And he
33:18
Speaker 2: coined a new phrase that I think we should be
33:21
Speaker 2: hearing a lot more of in the coming months. Let's
33:23
Speaker 2: listen to John Ossoff.
33:24
Speaker 4: Now, you remember we were told that MAGA was for
33:27
Speaker 4: working class Americans.
33:30
Speaker 3: You remember that?
33:35
Speaker 4: But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich.
33:39
Speaker 4: It is the wealthiest cabinet ever. This is the Epstein.
33:43
Speaker 3: Class ruling our country.
33:47
Speaker 4: Trump was supposed to fight for the working class. Instead,
33:50
Speaker 4: he's literally closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes
33:54
Speaker 4: for George Soros and Elon Musk.
33:56
Speaker 2: Okay, the Epstein class. I just feel like you hear
34:00
Speaker 2: that and you think, rich people corrupt people. lying people
34:06
Speaker 2: and Trump's people. And I just think it's a very
34:08
Speaker 2: useful label to affix to all of this that brings
34:12
Speaker 2: home a lot of the issues altogether. What do you
34:14
Speaker 2: think of it, Ben?
34:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really liked it. And I think, you know,
34:18
Speaker 3: we've seen all these different people trying different formulations and
34:20
Speaker 3: that one hit. And it hit for a bunch of reasons,
34:23
Speaker 3: including this one. Let me unpack this, you know. The
34:27
Speaker 3: Trump side of the Epstein class, right, is pretty clear, right?
34:31
Speaker 3: Beyond Trump's own predatory behavior, you also have the fact
34:36
Speaker 3: that there are a bunch of fabulously wealthy and unaccountable
34:40
Speaker 3: people on the right who essentially care above all about
34:45
Speaker 3: dismantling the government, kind of creating chaos and profiting off
34:48
Speaker 3: it themselves, right? And we don't even have to detail
34:52
Speaker 3: chapter and verse what those people do. It's on display
34:56
Speaker 3: every day in our lives, right? And it's everybody... you know,
34:59
Speaker 3: if you just look at the Epstein files, sure, like
35:01
Speaker 3: you can find some people on the right, but it's
35:03
Speaker 3: also just kind of the broader milieu, if we will,
35:06
Speaker 3: of the people around Trump, you know, the kind of oligarchs.
35:09
Speaker 3: I think the challenge we have as Democrats that Ossoff
35:11
Speaker 3: offers us a way out of though, is the reason
35:14
Speaker 3: the Epstein files are also very damaging to people, a
35:18
Speaker 3: certain kind of person on the center left, is that
35:21
Speaker 3: it encompasses a lot of people, right? And we should say,
35:24
Speaker 3: we don't know, there's a gradation of of crimes and
35:28
Speaker 3: misdemeanors in those files, right? There are men that clearly
35:30
Speaker 3: participated in preying on girls in the absolute worst way.
35:35
Speaker 3: Then there are people that were just kind of cozy
35:37
Speaker 3: with Epstein or part of his network or informally helped him,
35:40
Speaker 3: and we don't have yet to see that they directly participated.
35:44
Speaker 3: But if you look at all of those people, I'm
35:46
Speaker 3: just talking about some people, prominent names in there, right?
35:49
Speaker 3: Some of those people, and CGI is a part of this,
35:53
Speaker 3: were the kind of people that went to Davos or
35:57
Speaker 3: went to the Clean Global Initiative or went to whatever conference.
36:01
Speaker 3: And they kind of talked about fixing globalization and trying
36:05
Speaker 3: to help cure diseases in Africa or trying to virtue
36:11
Speaker 3: signal about fighting climate change and sustainable development, all these things.
36:16
Speaker 3: But at the same time, they were perpetuating a system
36:21
Speaker 3: that was fundamentally rigged. for the wealthy and well-connected. And
36:25
Speaker 3: some of them were even flying down to Epstein Island.
36:28
Speaker 3: And it's everything that people don't like about the kind
36:31
Speaker 3: of globalist elite of which the Democratic Party has been
36:35
Speaker 3: pretty cozy with over the years. And so what Alsace
36:38
Speaker 3: formulation does is it loops together. It's a clean break.
36:41
Speaker 3: It's saying, we're not just against the right-wing oligarchs or
36:44
Speaker 3: Trump when he does these bad things. We're turning the
36:46
Speaker 3: page on kind of this era of capitalism run amok,
36:50
Speaker 3: of powerful people, usually men, thinking that they could act
36:55
Speaker 3: without accountability or with impunity, or they could say one
36:58
Speaker 3: thing to virtue signal at a conference and then behave
37:01
Speaker 3: a certain way in their private lives, on their private
37:04
Speaker 3: planes and private islands. And so this kind of ties
37:07
Speaker 3: it all together, right? Because it's the corruption, it's the inequality,
37:11
Speaker 3: it's the excesses and extreme inequality in our economy. All
37:17
Speaker 3: put together into this Epstein class, which by the way,
37:20
Speaker 3: Democrats can say like, we need to clean house too. Like,
37:23
Speaker 3: you know, we need to leave that behind. If we
37:25
Speaker 3: lose certain political donors, fine, right? If we don't get
37:27
Speaker 3: invited to certain elite conferences, fine. Like we actually want
37:31
Speaker 3: to fight for a different America.
37:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really emphasizes the filthy part of the filthy rich, right?
37:40
Speaker 2: The Epstein class. And it gives up an opportunity. I
37:43
Speaker 2: don't mean to sound dismissive, but it gives Democrats the
37:48
Speaker 2: opportunity to wear the hair shirt as well and say, like,
37:51
Speaker 2: we have work to do. It's not just, you know,
37:54
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon and Donald Trump who are in these files.
37:57
Speaker 2: It's also Larry Summers and Bill Clinton. And we're going
37:59
Speaker 2: to clean house, as you say, as we should, because
38:03
Speaker 2: I think it's important to, you know, make sure that
38:07
Speaker 2: it's not doesn't seem partisan, right, that the anti-corruption zeal
38:10
Speaker 2: is nonpartisan. Yeah.
38:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Can I offer one other thing, Alex, here, like
38:14
Speaker 3: on this? I don't normally do this, as listeners of
38:17
Speaker 3: Pods of the World know, and I'm willing to be
38:20
Speaker 3: very self-critical about things in the Obama years. I only
38:24
Speaker 3: use this as an example of a political message that worked,
38:26
Speaker 3: which is in 2008 when he was running for president.
38:29
Speaker 3: The thing that resonated was that we wanted to turn
38:32
Speaker 3: the page on the failed politics of the past. And
38:34
Speaker 3: the leading example of that at the time was the
38:37
Speaker 3: Iraq war. But the turn the page frame that Obama
38:40
Speaker 3: used was about not just George Bush taking us to war,
38:42
Speaker 3: but all the Democrats who voted For the Iraq war, right?
38:45
Speaker 3: Which included Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and a whole
38:48
Speaker 3: roster of people, right? And because it was a bipartisan critique,
38:52
Speaker 3: it had more credibility, right? It was like, well, this
38:54
Speaker 3: guy's not just limiting his concern for corruption or for
38:59
Speaker 3: bad mistakes to the other side, right? And that's what
39:02
Speaker 3: I think we need to do with this kind of
39:04
Speaker 3: Epstein class point is that because we're willing to include
39:08
Speaker 3: parts of our team in this, we have more credibility
39:11
Speaker 3: to say we actually want to change things.
39:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think the Epstein controversy, scandal, saga, whatever
39:20
Speaker 2: you want to call it, is alive in voters' minds,
39:24
Speaker 2: which sort of brings me to what's happening in Europe, right?
39:27
Speaker 2: Because there it's very much alive and it's very kinetic
39:34
Speaker 2: and it holds a lot of electrical power, if you will.
39:37
Speaker 2: And I tend to think the same is true regardless
39:40
Speaker 2: of what the media coverage of Epstein is in the U.S.,
39:43
Speaker 2: but I want to get your thoughts on this and
39:46
Speaker 2: contrast sort of how the British political infrastructure is responding
39:50
Speaker 2: to Epstein files versus how we're responding in America. And
39:55
Speaker 2: it's a good Pod Save the World tease for listeners
39:57
Speaker 2: because everybody should be listening to Pod Save the World
40:00
Speaker 2: as often as they physically can. Sometimes listen to the
40:03
Speaker 2: same episode twice a week if possible because you get
40:04
Speaker 2: something new out of each episode. But anyway, over the weekend,
40:08
Speaker 2: Morgan McSweeney, who's Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer's closest advisor, resigned. Now,
40:14
Speaker 2: McSweeney had advised Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador
40:18
Speaker 2: to the United States, and it turns out that Mandelson
40:20
Speaker 2: was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein. He maintained contact
40:23
Speaker 2: with Epstein after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from
40:27
Speaker 2: a minor. So this is a quickly moving weather front.
40:32
Speaker 2: But at various points today, Ben, it looked like maybe
40:36
Speaker 2: the entire labor government could fall over these Mandelson revelations.
40:40
Speaker 2: Starmer may have bought himself some more time here. But
40:43
Speaker 2: it is a stunning contrast with what's happened here as
40:47
Speaker 2: these names have come out. Like, the only Republican to
40:50
Speaker 2: say boo about Epstein is Thomas Massey. And that's happening well.
40:54
Speaker 2: The president is mentioned, is it, 38,000 times in the
40:57
Speaker 2: Epstein Files? Steve Bannon is mentioned multiple times. Howard Lutnick
41:01
Speaker 2: is the latest person to make headlines. He's the Commerce Secretary.
41:04
Speaker 2: He's all over the Epstein Files, despite protesting that they
41:07
Speaker 2: had stopped contact much earlier. President Trump's former sidekick, Elon Musk,
41:11
Speaker 2: is in the Epstein Files. Why do you think that
41:15
Speaker 2: the UK acts so much more swiftly on the Epstein
41:18
Speaker 2: stuff and it's so much more of a liability overseas
41:22
Speaker 2: in the UK than it apparently is here? Is it
41:25
Speaker 2: just they have higher standards? I mean, don't even answer
41:28
Speaker 2: that question. I know they do. But what's the difference?
41:30
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, just to illustrate the point. there are
41:33
Speaker 3: two institutions, the British royal family and the British government, right? So,
41:36
Speaker 3: you know, the two most powerful institutions in the country
41:38
Speaker 3: that have been absolutely rocked by the presence of two
41:43
Speaker 3: individuals in the Epstein files, right? So famously, like Prince
41:46
Speaker 3: Andrew is no longer Prince Andrew. King Charles today said
41:49
Speaker 3: he would support a police investigation into his brother, right?
41:53
Speaker 3: I mean, the guys losing titles and land and whatever
41:58
Speaker 3: the hell they give the royals over there like, you know,
42:01
Speaker 3: at a dizzying pace.
42:03
Speaker 2: Free dental care.
42:04
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure the benefit package is out,
42:06
Speaker 3: the 401k. And then Peter Mandelson, who was this kind
42:10
Speaker 3: of labor insider, ambassador to the UK, he's all over
42:13
Speaker 3: these files and he's cozy with Epstein and he's sharing
42:16
Speaker 3: like sensitive market-based information with him. And it almost brought
42:20
Speaker 3: down Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the country, even
42:22
Speaker 3: though Keir Starmer is not even in the files. And
42:24
Speaker 3: Morgan McSweeney, for people, you know, who follow British politics,
42:27
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy is like the chief political operative
42:31
Speaker 3: and chief, you know, of staff for Starmer, like indispensable
42:34
Speaker 3: to cure Starmer and his politics of last few years.
42:37
Speaker 3: Like losing him would be, you know, akin to Trump,
42:40
Speaker 3: you know, losing like Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles, you know.
42:44
Speaker 2: We can dream, can't we?
42:46
Speaker 3: We can dream. That's what I was trying to do. Now, like,
42:49
Speaker 3: why is that? And also, where does this go from here? Right.
42:52
Speaker 3: Because Starmer survived today, but he's weakened and labor could
42:55
Speaker 3: suffer an election loss. in upcoming elections, and then there's
42:59
Speaker 3: a pretext to remove them. We'll see what happens. I
43:02
Speaker 3: do think that in British politics, there has not yet
43:07
Speaker 3: been the same removal of shame as a potential source
43:12
Speaker 3: of accountability.
43:14
Speaker 2: They still feel shame. Oh, I see what you're telling me.
43:16
Speaker 2: They still feel shame.
43:18
Speaker 3: They can still be shamed. Boris Johnson resigned over COVID
43:20
Speaker 3: parties that he was in. That's unthinkable with Trump. Trump
43:24
Speaker 3: has so removed shame as a source of accountability. They also, frankly,
43:28
Speaker 3: just have a system where you got to face the
43:29
Speaker 3: music more, right? Keir Starmer had to go and do
43:32
Speaker 3: question time, right, where the opposition basically yells at you
43:34
Speaker 3: and you have to respond and he didn't have good answers,
43:37
Speaker 3: including about Morgan McSweeney. Like Trump never has to face
43:39
Speaker 3: that accountability. In our system, Trump is both the prime
43:43
Speaker 3: minister and the king, right? Like rolled into one and frankly,
43:46
Speaker 3: more and more, he's the king. So like, it's depressing
43:52
Speaker 3: to see that there's been more consequences in the UK
43:55
Speaker 3: over two individuals than there has been in the US
43:58
Speaker 3: over not just Trump's presence in these files, but all
44:00
Speaker 3: these other people. However, I think that part of this
44:05
Speaker 3: furor in Europe is going to be the perpetuation and
44:08
Speaker 3: investigation of these files. And this is something people should realize.
44:11
Speaker 3: In the UK and in several other European countries, investigations
44:15
Speaker 3: are being opened into the people in these files, including Americans.
44:19
Speaker 3: Investigations are being opened into Epstein's connections to intelligence agencies, right?
44:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:25
Speaker 3: Like they're going to pull these threads Even if Republican
44:29
Speaker 3: committees in Congress aren't, other countries with lots of resources
44:32
Speaker 3: are going to do so. Just like in this country,
44:34
Speaker 3: I think journalists will too. So I think the people
44:36
Speaker 3: who are breathing a sigh of relief that maybe the
44:38
Speaker 3: last dump of these files has happened are sorely mistaken
44:41
Speaker 3: because it has shaken up these other countries and they
44:45
Speaker 3: have the ability to do some of the follow-up that
44:47
Speaker 3: is not being done in this country.
44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we won't do it, the Polish prime minister will, right? Yes.
44:52
Speaker 2: I feel like Donald Tusk, who's the Polish prime minister,
44:55
Speaker 2: is like, we need a fulsome investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's
44:58
Speaker 2: ties to Russian intelligence, please and thank you, right? Yes.
45:02
Speaker 2: The thing about being in the middle of a cabal
45:05
Speaker 2: of global elites is that when that cabal is revealed,
45:10
Speaker 2: the rest of the globe has an interest in getting
45:11
Speaker 2: to the bottom of it. And that's the rub for
45:13
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and his 38,000 mentions.
45:16
Speaker 3: And a lot of them would like to see Trump
45:19
Speaker 3: cut down to size, too. Wait, why?
45:21
Speaker 2: He hasn't been good for the global community?
45:23
Speaker 3: Yeah. He's been so respectful of those European countries.
45:28
Speaker 2: It's just like the term wrecking ball, I think, was
45:31
Speaker 2: what was used to describe Trump today by Europeans. And
45:34
Speaker 2: turns out when you go around giving the middle finger
45:36
Speaker 2: to all of Western Europe, there's such a thing as comeuppance.
45:41
Speaker 2: And perhaps he is in line for some of that.
45:53
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47:03
Speaker 2: Heard of him.
47:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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47:32
Speaker 1: How cool is that?
47:33
Speaker 5: It's very cool. I'm really excited to see it. I
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47:39
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Speaker 2: Less attractive somehow.
47:48
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48:05
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about other sort of reckonings
48:08
Speaker 2: on the horizon because over in Congress, back in Washington, D.C.,
48:13
Speaker 2: before the drag race that will hit the city streets
48:16
Speaker 2: in some certain amount of time, There is the clock
48:19
Speaker 2: is running on a deal to fund the Department of
48:21
Speaker 2: Homeland Security. Democrats are pushing for immigration enforcement reforms, including
48:26
Speaker 2: upholding use of force guidelines, ending racial profiling and requiring
48:32
Speaker 2: judicial warrants when agents go onto private property. You know,
48:35
Speaker 2: the kind of normal constitutional stuff that Senate Majority Leader
48:38
Speaker 2: John Thune called unrealistic last week. I wish he would just, like,
48:42
Speaker 2: go through the Constitution and highlight the parts he thought
48:44
Speaker 2: were unrealistic. Yeah, it's the actual law.
48:45
Speaker 3: It's just telling them to follow the law.
48:46
Speaker 2: It's just like, I am afraid of him speech. Really?
48:49
Speaker 2: Can we really do that? Anyway, on Monday, Thune said
48:52
Speaker 2: that there is, quote, a possibility of a deal, although
48:55
Speaker 2: we are going to see if Democrats are on the
48:56
Speaker 2: same page. As of this recording, everyone is very interested
49:01
Speaker 2: in this, but they're going to have to wait and
49:03
Speaker 2: see what becomes of Trump's personal paramilitary organization, a.k.a. ICE.
49:07
Speaker 2: And they're just going to have to sit tight and
49:09
Speaker 2: watch Jake Sherman's Twitter feed for the red siren emojis.
49:13
Speaker 2: I am interested to know what you think. That's no
49:15
Speaker 2: diss on Jake Sherman. When I see those red siren emojis,
49:19
Speaker 2: something in my head. deep lizard brain starts pinging. What
49:24
Speaker 2: do you think of their strategy here? With the benefit
49:28
Speaker 2: of hindsight, I think the shutdown strategy over healthcare premiums
49:34
Speaker 2: obviously did not get us anywhere near a resolution. 22
49:39
Speaker 2: million Americans, 23 million Americans saw their health insurance premiums skyrocket.
49:43
Speaker 2: We did an awesome episode of this, awesome in the
49:45
Speaker 2: sense that it's compelling, not that it was good news.
49:48
Speaker 2: On my podcast, Runaway Country, just the economic hardship people
49:52
Speaker 2: are facing, the very real choices they have to make
49:56
Speaker 2: about whether they can afford to go to the doctor
49:58
Speaker 2: or send their children to the doctor, that is a
50:01
Speaker 2: real concern across this country, and it ties into this
50:04
Speaker 2: issue of affordability because If you don't have money for
50:07
Speaker 2: the doctor, you probably don't have money for bacon. Or
50:10
Speaker 2: if you do have money for bacon, it might be
50:11
Speaker 2: going towards paying for the doctor. Whatever it is, it's
50:14
Speaker 2: an issue of pain. And I do think that Democrats,
50:20
Speaker 2: in hindsight, are probably going to gain something from their
50:23
Speaker 2: standoff with Republicans over this issue when it comes time
50:25
Speaker 2: for the 2026 midterms. But what do you think about
50:28
Speaker 2: the fight? And it's a smaller fight because it's just
50:31
Speaker 2: DHS funding we're talking about here. What do you think
50:33
Speaker 2: about this fight over ICE reforms?
50:36
Speaker 3: I think that the health care thing is illustrative in
50:39
Speaker 3: the fact that they had that fight. They didn't win
50:43
Speaker 3: in restoring the ACA subsidies, but they won in drawing
50:47
Speaker 3: extraordinary attention to it and making it very clear what
50:50
Speaker 3: they were for as against what the Republicans were for.
50:53
Speaker 3: And then ultimately, a bunch of Democratic senators got cold
50:54
Speaker 3: feet and the government reopened. But to fast forward to today,
50:57
Speaker 3: I don't think that they should be shy at all
51:00
Speaker 3: from being just as aggressive about ICE as they were
51:03
Speaker 3: about health care. Oftentimes, it's Democrats who would rather talk
51:06
Speaker 3: about health care than ICE. I don't think Americans like
51:08
Speaker 3: what ICE is doing. The polls indicate that. The kinds
51:12
Speaker 3: of reforms that the Democrats are advocating for, like people
51:15
Speaker 3: not wearing masks, people following the law, these are things
51:18
Speaker 3: that are broadly popular. And I would not vote to
51:21
Speaker 3: provide a dollar funding to DHS if all those demands
51:26
Speaker 3: are not met. And if that causes some kind of
51:29
Speaker 3: paralysis and shutdown or something, fine. Then let the spotlight
51:33
Speaker 3: be on the fact that these people are defending the
51:36
Speaker 3: necessity of having a paramilitary force in this country that
51:41
Speaker 3: is allowed to be masked and detain American citizens without warrants.
51:45
Speaker 3: Because that's fundamentally the position that John Thune is taking
51:47
Speaker 3: in support of Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, right? Why
51:51
Speaker 3: not have that fight? And it may be that you
51:54
Speaker 3: grind it out for a few weeks and you know,
51:57
Speaker 3: ultimately like they, they, they, they wear you down, but
52:00
Speaker 3: then you will proven. like just the lengths to which
52:03
Speaker 3: these people will go to perpetuate something that I think
52:07
Speaker 3: most Americans are deeply uncomfortable about. I obviously, like we're
52:11
Speaker 3: going further. Like I want to get rid of ICE.
52:13
Speaker 3: We can talk about ways that you could do that.
52:15
Speaker 3: But I just don't know why you would fund this.
52:18
Speaker 3: It's Kristi Noem's DHS, you know, for God's sakes. It's
52:21
Speaker 3: what's been going on in Minneapolis. And frankly, I think
52:24
Speaker 3: there's opportunities for Democrats to reach some other voters, some
52:27
Speaker 3: of the don't tread on me crowd that are not
52:29
Speaker 3: comfortable with this either.
52:31
Speaker 2: Well, and I was struck by this, and I wrote
52:34
Speaker 2: about it for my sub stack, How the Hell with
52:36
Speaker 2: Alex Wagner. The symmetry and the don't tread on me
52:39
Speaker 2: flags that were both outside of DC jail on January 20th, 2025,
52:43
Speaker 2: when I was waiting for Trump to pardon January 6th
52:46
Speaker 2: inmates and that whole crew, and the don't tread on
52:49
Speaker 2: me flags that were outside of the Whipple Detention Center
52:52
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis as I was in Minneapolis like a week
52:57
Speaker 2: and a half ago, waiting to see what happened to detainees.
53:00
Speaker 2: There is a real sense that this is the jackbooted
53:04
Speaker 2: government thug that has been war, you know, that has
53:07
Speaker 2: been conjured in, you know, conspiracy fantasies at the other
53:11
Speaker 2: end of the snake's tail. And like, I agree with you.
53:14
Speaker 2: I think Democrats could pick up some support from libertarians
53:17
Speaker 2: who look at this and are like, this is not
53:19
Speaker 2: the fucking United States. And this has to end, which
53:21
Speaker 2: brings to mind you know, how Republicans conduct themselves. There's
53:25
Speaker 2: a DHS oversight hearing on the calendar, I think slated
53:28
Speaker 2: for Tuesday of this week. And that includes the head
53:32
Speaker 2: of ICE, the acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons. Now,
53:36
Speaker 2: my expectations for Republicans doing anything in the true fashion
53:41
Speaker 2: of oversight, my expectations are low. I would say the
53:44
Speaker 2: bar is buried deep in the ground near a well.
53:47
Speaker 2: But the guy running this hearing is Andrew Garbarino, who
53:52
Speaker 2: is a moderate Republican from the south shore of Long
53:54
Speaker 2: Island and has been known to take on the GOP
53:56
Speaker 2: at some points. I mean, like, do you think both
53:59
Speaker 2: as a matter of political survival and, I don't know,
54:01
Speaker 2: interest in making sure that this ICE doesn't act unlawfully,
54:04
Speaker 2: we might expect some real questioning from Republicans?
54:09
Speaker 3: Yes, but it connects to the previous question, Alex, for
54:12
Speaker 3: this reason, right? It is clear that Trump would like
54:15
Speaker 3: to get this off the headlines, right? So when he
54:20
Speaker 3: finally kind of stepped in and sent Tom Homan to
54:24
Speaker 3: take over for the kind of lunatics that were running
54:28
Speaker 3: the operation in Minneapolis, he didn't change anything fundamentally about
54:31
Speaker 3: how ICE is operating, but it was meant to be
54:33
Speaker 3: this kind of pivot point, you know, meant to kind
54:35
Speaker 3: of show, like, let's all move on from talking about this,
54:38
Speaker 3: because frankly, talking about this has not been good for
54:40
Speaker 3: me or my politics. I don't think he sincerely gave
54:43
Speaker 3: a shit about what happened to Alex Preddy or Renee
54:45
Speaker 3: Good or what's happening in the streets of Minneapolis. He
54:47
Speaker 3: just wanted to change the PR around it. And where
54:49
Speaker 3: they're going to try to park this thing is they'll
54:53
Speaker 3: have to continue what ICE is doing because it's so
54:55
Speaker 3: fundamental to Trump and his project, right? But they'll want
54:59
Speaker 3: to kind of park it like, let's get our funding,
55:01
Speaker 3: keep this thing going, let the occasional moderate republic who's
55:05
Speaker 3: in a tough race say some moderately critical things. And
55:10
Speaker 3: it then looks like, you know, Trump has kind of
55:12
Speaker 3: lowered the temperature on this stuff. And, oh, there might
55:15
Speaker 3: be these GOP guys who are like a little bit
55:18
Speaker 3: more reasonable than, you know, Stephen Miller is on this.
55:21
Speaker 3: And that's where they want the issue. That's all the
55:23
Speaker 3: more reason for Democrats to pick and continue to pick
55:25
Speaker 3: a fight about this. Like Trump is retreating tactically because
55:30
Speaker 3: he knows this is a loser for him. So keep
55:31
Speaker 3: at it, you know, keep after the funding, keep after
55:34
Speaker 3: Kristi Noem, like keep after like the Republican Party.
55:37
Speaker 2: Do you hear us, Gene Shaheen? Do you hear us,
55:39
Speaker 2: Gene Shaheen? Yes, the Republican Party is.
55:42
Speaker 3: Not some moderate from New York. It's Stephen Miller. Like
55:45
Speaker 3: that's what it is. And make that your foil here,
55:48
Speaker 3: you know. And by the way, the more you do that,
55:49
Speaker 3: if what you're interested is in substance, which I am,
55:53
Speaker 3: the more you're going to force other Republicans who are
55:57
Speaker 3: nervous about their own races to potentially agree with Democrats
56:01
Speaker 3: on these issues. This is the only way that the
56:03
Speaker 3: Democrats of any power whatsoever in the first two years
56:07
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration is kind of commanding attention, using
56:10
Speaker 3: like the minimal leverage of your votes to fund the
56:13
Speaker 3: government and making it as uncomfortable as possible for Republicans,
56:17
Speaker 3: including people you're running against in the House, to continue
56:20
Speaker 3: to stand with Trump. And then that either like is
56:24
Speaker 3: going to be something that achieves that list of ICE reforms,
56:27
Speaker 3: or it's gonna be something that all those Republicans are
56:30
Speaker 3: gonna have to own heading into the midterm elections, no
56:32
Speaker 3: matter what they say in some hearing with.
56:33
Speaker 2: The head of ICE. As much as we talk about
56:37
Speaker 2: Trump's retreat on this and the fact that he pulled
56:40
Speaker 2: 700 ICE officers out of Minneapolis, we should not lose
56:44
Speaker 2: sight on, you know, the way the tactics have changed,
56:48
Speaker 2: but are equally as brutal and pernicious According to the AP,
56:54
Speaker 2: people have reported that ICE agents are, quote, impersonating construction
56:58
Speaker 2: workers and delivery drivers and, in some cases, anti-ICE activists.
57:03
Speaker 2: And then there's the just abomination of what's happening inside
57:07
Speaker 2: the judicial system itself, which is less seen but no
57:09
Speaker 2: less worse. The New York Times is reporting that the
57:12
Speaker 2: lead ICE lawyer in the state of Minnesota just left
57:16
Speaker 2: his job, and he is not the only one looking
57:18
Speaker 2: for the exit signs. Government lawyers like the one John
57:21
Speaker 2: and Dan talked about last week and the court system
57:23
Speaker 2: in general are entirely overwhelmed with immigration cases. For my podcast,
57:29
Speaker 2: Runaway Country, we heard about the very specific hell these
57:33
Speaker 2: immigration judges work in and the fact that many of
57:37
Speaker 2: them are just getting fired with little explanation from the
57:40
Speaker 2: Trump administration. And now the White House, with the blessing
57:44
Speaker 2: of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals— is seeking to
57:48
Speaker 2: sideline immigration judges and just deny migrants bond hearings in
57:51
Speaker 2: order to hold them indefinitely or at least until they
57:53
Speaker 2: can be deported. I mean, it just feels like there's
57:56
Speaker 2: ice on the outside and then the inside. So they
57:59
Speaker 2: sort of break the will of the public on the
58:00
Speaker 2: outside using anti-constitutional, lawless, brutal tactics. And then on the inside,
58:05
Speaker 2: it seems like the design is crush the system, overwhelm it,
58:09
Speaker 2: and otherwise fragment it so it's no longer functioning. And
58:11
Speaker 2: you basically just militarize this part of the judicious system
58:15
Speaker 2: to get people out regardless of whether they're citizens and
58:18
Speaker 2: or whether they actually belong here. What do you think, Ben?
58:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And if you actually look at
58:24
Speaker 3: the history, this is actually not even a particularly new
58:26
Speaker 3: tactic for the Republicans. So over the course of the
58:29
Speaker 3: last 10 or 15 years, one of the things that
58:32
Speaker 3: Republican majorities constantly did in Congress, particularly around any failure
58:37
Speaker 3: of comprehensive immigration reform, remember those ideas, is that they
58:40
Speaker 3: would pour money into enforcement and then they would starve
58:44
Speaker 3: money for immigration judges, right? So at the precise time
58:47
Speaker 3: that you, and this is even predating the second Trump term,
58:50
Speaker 3: at the precise time that you are rounding up more
58:53
Speaker 3: people and putting them in detention centers, you are starving
58:56
Speaker 3: the funding for the immigration judges who can adjudicate those cases.
59:01
Speaker 3: And it's ultimately in service of this final endpoint, which
59:03
Speaker 3: is you're kind of completely federalizing the whole thing and
59:07
Speaker 3: you want to get to a place where you can
59:08
Speaker 3: bypass the judicial system and just deport people. And we
59:10
Speaker 3: saw this test of strength at the beginning, right, when
59:13
Speaker 3: they were deporting people who had not had a hearing
59:16
Speaker 3: or at least trying to do so and were occasionally
59:18
Speaker 3: stopped by judges. So we have to understand this is
59:21
Speaker 3: the playbook to stress and ultimately break the system and
59:25
Speaker 3: assume total executive control. But that's why it's so essential
59:30
Speaker 3: to spotlight this thing because it is not popular. It
59:32
Speaker 3: is not something that people are comfortable with just getting
59:35
Speaker 3: rid of the rule of law. you know, getting rid
59:37
Speaker 3: of the rule of law for people who could be U.S.
59:39
Speaker 3: citizens or could be children, right? And that's why we
59:42
Speaker 3: have to continue to follow the lead of the people
59:44
Speaker 3: in Minneapolis who spotlight these things. We also have to
59:46
Speaker 3: kind of be for fundamental reforms, knowing that, you know,
59:49
Speaker 3: the bigger reforms are unlikely to happen when Trump is president.
59:52
Speaker 3: But I mean, if you look past that, like, you know,
59:55
Speaker 3: there are things that need to be on the table.
59:57
Speaker 3: Like if we actually get a normal Department of Justice again,
1:00:00
Speaker 3: like getting rid of ICE and moving immigration enforcement back
1:00:02
Speaker 3: to DOJ. where actually it's under the rule of law
1:00:05
Speaker 3: instead of being separate and militarized from it.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't know that. And Ben,
1:00:11
Speaker 2: you wrote an amazing op-ed about this, a very useful one, enlightening,
1:00:14
Speaker 2: I should say. I think a lot of people don't
1:00:16
Speaker 2: understand the bifurcation of the system, that some of the stuff,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: immigration naturalization is housed at DHS, but then the immigration
1:00:23
Speaker 2: court judges are all appointed by DOJ and are literally
1:00:26
Speaker 2: under the purview of the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who's
1:00:29
Speaker 2: not exactly known for being I don't know, the paragon
1:00:31
Speaker 2: of lady justice, blind justice. Anyway, I digress. Continue forward.
1:00:35
Speaker 3: No, but that's the problem is it used to all
1:00:36
Speaker 3: be a DOJ, right? So immigration enforcement was there and
1:00:39
Speaker 3: the naturalization process was there, right? And it was done
1:00:43
Speaker 3: under the rule of law, right? And the agency was
1:00:47
Speaker 3: equally committed to enforcing immigration laws, but also adjudicating citizenship
1:00:51
Speaker 3: claims and managing that process. I think if you can
1:00:55
Speaker 3: rebuild DOJ, like put it back there, get rid of ICE.
1:00:58
Speaker 3: but have immigration enforcement by all means, but have it
1:01:00
Speaker 3: be done by DOJ, which is technically supposed to enforce
1:01:03
Speaker 3: the laws in this country. And there are other reforms
1:01:05
Speaker 3: Democrats can be talking about. And you've talked a bit
1:01:08
Speaker 3: about this on Runaway Country, Alex, but these private prisons, right?
1:01:12
Speaker 3: I mean, you want to talk about corruption where we started.
1:01:14
Speaker 3: You literally have people profiting off of these grotesque detention
1:01:19
Speaker 3: centers that children are being sent to. We need to
1:01:22
Speaker 3: get rid of that too. I don't want people profiting
1:01:24
Speaker 3: off of the detention of children who've been separated from
1:01:27
Speaker 3: their families. So there are bigger reforms that candidly need
1:01:30
Speaker 3: to await the end of the Trump administration. I think, though,
1:01:33
Speaker 3: you can simultaneously have the fight on these common sense
1:01:36
Speaker 3: reforms that are very popular, spotlight the absolute abuses of
1:01:40
Speaker 3: power that Trump is engaged in, frankly, reverse the politics
1:01:44
Speaker 3: of immigration, as polling shows it has been shifting over
1:01:47
Speaker 3: the last few months, and then have a bigger vision
1:01:50
Speaker 3: for what can replace a system that is so fundamentally broken.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: Also, just read your op-ed because it lays out a
1:01:55
Speaker 2: lot of this. And it's just like, make it pocket-sized
1:01:58
Speaker 2: and give it out to members of Congress.
1:02:09
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1:03:38
Speaker 2: You talk about the detention centers, Ben, and the news
1:03:42
Speaker 2: we get out of these detention centers is sporadic but
1:03:45
Speaker 2: almost uniformly awful. We have reports this week that at
1:03:48
Speaker 2: least two people at an ICE detention center for families
1:03:53
Speaker 2: have the measles. What do we know about the measles, Ben?
1:03:55
Speaker 2: It's highly contagious. We also know that immigration attorneys, at
1:03:59
Speaker 2: least one, has told the Washington Post that his clients
1:04:02
Speaker 2: at that same facility had not been given measles vaccines
1:04:04
Speaker 2: or been asked about their vaccination status. And to me,
1:04:07
Speaker 2: this is like the mashup of like Stephen Miller's grotesque,
1:04:13
Speaker 2: abusive story immigration policies with RFK Jr. 's grotesque, barbaric, anti-scientific,
1:04:20
Speaker 2: anti-vax bent. Like, OK, here you go. Like a terrible,
1:04:24
Speaker 2: overcrowded detention center plus an unvaccinated population. Cool. That's Trump's America.
1:04:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just one big, broken, corrupt enterprise. And inevitably,
1:04:34
Speaker 3: it was all going to converge. And like, what is
1:04:36
Speaker 3: more of a sign of convergence than detained immigrant children
1:04:41
Speaker 3: getting measles because of you know, Stephen Miller's racism and
1:04:47
Speaker 3: Kristi Noem's nihilism and Robert F. Kennedy's fanciful conspiracy theorizing, right?
1:04:52
Speaker 3: Like this is all fundamentally, you know, coming together in
1:04:55
Speaker 3: a way that we're not even, we're just over a
1:04:57
Speaker 3: year into this, Alex. So like, God knows where we're
1:05:00
Speaker 3: going to be in a couple of years, you know,
1:05:02
Speaker 3: when you add a little Hegseth to the stew and
1:05:05
Speaker 3: Howard Lutnick, another Epstein buddy to the stew here, it's
1:05:08
Speaker 3: not great.
1:05:10
Speaker 2: I do have more to say on RFK, and we're
1:05:12
Speaker 2: going to, I don't know, do we call this an
1:05:15
Speaker 2: up note? It's a vehicle for me to just talk
1:05:18
Speaker 2: about the grossness of RFK, although it does conjure some visuals,
1:05:23
Speaker 2: and I apologize in advance. You may have thought that
1:05:27
Speaker 2: trashing Bad Bunny was the most appalling right-wing attack on
1:05:31
Speaker 2: America's Super Bowl.
1:05:34
Speaker 3: No.
1:05:35
Speaker 2: The most appalling right-wing attack, and I'm going to call
1:05:37
Speaker 2: it attack on the Super Bowl, That dubious honor belongs
1:05:42
Speaker 2: to Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., who, unfortunately
1:05:45
Speaker 2: for us, described his Super Bowl Sunday snack lineup to
1:05:50
Speaker 2: Peter Doocy of Fox News. And this is what it is.
1:05:54
Speaker 1: What would you have as a Super Bowl snack?
1:05:58
Speaker 2: You know, I am on a carnivore diet, so I
1:06:01
Speaker 2: just eat meat and ferments.
1:06:03
Speaker 5: And I'm very happy with that, so I'm going to
1:06:05
Speaker 5: probably have yogurt.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: What?
1:06:08
Speaker 3: What?
1:06:09
Speaker 2: He just said, first of all, there's a lot to
1:06:10
Speaker 2: unpack there. He's just going to have yogurt. Yogurt at
1:06:14
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. I also had yogurt at my Super
1:06:16
Speaker 2: Bowl party, except it was mixed with onion dip and
1:06:21
Speaker 2: sour cream, and I put potato chips in it. Or
1:06:24
Speaker 2: I mixed it with blue cheese and sour cream, and
1:06:28
Speaker 2: I dipped my buffalo wings in it. What's more disgusting
1:06:31
Speaker 2: than creaky-ass Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eating a bowl of
1:06:35
Speaker 2: yogurt at the Super Bowl?
1:06:39
Speaker 3: First of all, Alex, I never use ferment to apply
1:06:43
Speaker 3: to a delicacy.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: It's a noun.
1:06:44
Speaker 3: It's just not something you're ever going to hear me do.
1:06:50
Speaker 3: And the second thing I have to say is I'm
1:06:53
Speaker 3: out here in LA, transplanted New Yorker, very much miss
1:06:57
Speaker 3: my hometown. And to me, I'm trying to get my
1:07:01
Speaker 3: head around the kind of wellness, maha universe. To me,
1:07:07
Speaker 3: I thought it was like, I don't know, kombucha or
1:07:11
Speaker 3: like the, the supplements aisle where I don't know what
1:07:13
Speaker 3: it is that I'm looking at the powders at like
1:07:16
Speaker 3: Erewhon or something.
1:07:17
Speaker 2: Um, peptides.
1:07:18
Speaker 3: I didn't realize it was like, you know, meats that,
1:07:22
Speaker 3: you know, you, you, you, I don't know how, I
1:07:26
Speaker 3: can't imagine how he prepares his meats. I made chicken
1:07:28
Speaker 3: wings last night, Alex. Uh, I would do chicken wings
1:07:31
Speaker 3: two ways. Uh, so I had teriyaki and Buffalo. I mean, um,
1:07:35
Speaker 3: and this kind of like on, you know, pasteurized, disgusting.
1:07:39
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to picture the spread.
1:07:42
Speaker 2: It's definitely chicken on the raw side. I'm thinking he
1:07:45
Speaker 2: wants his meat largely undercooked, right?
1:07:48
Speaker 3: Exactly.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: And ferments. Nobody calls them that. You can have kimchi, fine.
1:07:54
Speaker 2: You can have sauerkraut. You can even have kombucha, high
1:07:57
Speaker 2: sugar content. But to go around classifying, suggesting to the
1:08:01
Speaker 2: American public on Fox News, no less, That you consume
1:08:05
Speaker 2: only meat and ferments is a betrayal of this republic.
1:08:08
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if Barack Obama had said, remember when
1:08:13
Speaker 2: Barack Obama was found to have eaten five almonds and
1:08:16
Speaker 2: it was like a national crisis? Like, who the fuck
1:08:18
Speaker 2: is this guy only eating five almonds? He's not a
1:08:21
Speaker 2: real man. He fucking sucks. What's wrong with him? He's
1:08:26
Speaker 2: too tightly wound. Something's wrong with his mental attitude. Robert F. Kennedy, like,
1:08:32
Speaker 2: He's eating ferments and a bowl of yogurt. If I
1:08:34
Speaker 2: ever see someone next to me at a Super Bowl
1:08:37
Speaker 2: party eating a bowl of yogurt, after I finish puking
1:08:40
Speaker 2: into the trash can, I'll leave.
1:08:42
Speaker 3: I mean, it is one of those weeks where, you know,
1:08:45
Speaker 3: when you wrap up the discussion this way, Alex, you're like,
1:08:48
Speaker 3: all right, we got like an 80-year-old narcissist building a
1:08:55
Speaker 3: ballroom to himself at a time of a cost-of-living crisis.
1:09:00
Speaker 3: running interference over his presence in the Epstein files and
1:09:05
Speaker 3: his connectivity to potentially a child sex trafficker, and health
1:09:11
Speaker 3: secretary giving our kids measles and recommending or boasting about
1:09:17
Speaker 3: his Superbowl diet of ferment and uncooked meats. And I mean,
1:09:25
Speaker 3: if we can't win a debate, like if we Democrats
1:09:30
Speaker 3: and everybody else that doesn't like this can't somehow figure
1:09:33
Speaker 3: out how to craft political arguments that, you know, are
1:09:37
Speaker 3: for chicken wings at the Super Bowl and Alex Wagner's dip.
1:09:42
Speaker 3: And no ballrooms and holding pedophiles accountable and bad bunny crushes.
1:09:51
Speaker 3: We're standing on the right terrain here in this country.
1:09:56
Speaker 3: We just have to beckon people over here with a
1:09:59
Speaker 3: message that works. And I don't know whether it's John
1:10:01
Speaker 3: Ossoff or anybody else, but someone's going to put this
1:10:03
Speaker 3: thing together for us.
1:10:05
Speaker 2: My ferment is beer. And I think a lot of
1:10:08
Speaker 2: other people out there like it too.
1:10:09
Speaker 3: It's quite a good ferment. Yeah.
1:10:11
Speaker 2: Ben Rhodes, we're going to leave it there, my friend.
1:10:14
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to leave everybody with a visual of Robert F.
1:10:16
Speaker 2: Kennedy eating a bowl of fage or fayet or whatever
1:10:20
Speaker 2: you call it. But sometimes weeks are like that. And
1:10:23
Speaker 2: I apologize to everybody.
1:10:25
Speaker 3: Do you think he buns it? Do you think he
1:10:26
Speaker 3: puts the meat in the ferment?
1:10:28
Speaker 2: I mean, that would almost be like a Middle Eastern delicacy,
1:10:31
Speaker 2: like a shish kebab and yogurt, but I don't think so.
1:10:34
Speaker 3: But something tells me it would not be as tasty
1:10:36
Speaker 3: as the Middle Eastern preparations.
1:10:38
Speaker 2: There's nothing that's happening in RFK Jr. 's kitchen that's tasty.
1:10:41
Speaker 2: I think we can say that quite definitively. Oh, God. John, John,
1:10:46
Speaker 2: and Tommy, and Dan are going to be back with
1:10:49
Speaker 2: Australian accents later this week. I kind of want to
1:10:53
Speaker 2: close out the show speaking in an Australian accent. So
1:10:56
Speaker 2: I'm going to do one line of this script with
1:10:59
Speaker 2: my best Australian accent. And if it doesn't work, we'll
1:11:02
Speaker 2: fix it in post. Some quick housekeeping. Lover to Leave
1:11:06
Speaker 2: It is returning to Washington, D.C. Did I do it?
1:11:09
Speaker 3: That's good. Yeah, keep that. You crushed it.
1:11:12
Speaker 2: On April 23rd, John Lovett and DC's funniest people, yes,
1:11:16
Speaker 2: DC has some funny people, will be live at the
1:11:19
Speaker 2: Lincoln Theatre. Tickets are on sale now. Grab them at crooked.com
1:11:24
Speaker 2: slash events. That's our show for today. John, John, Tommy
1:11:28
Speaker 2: and Dan will be back in your feeds on Friday
1:11:31
Speaker 2: live from Melbourne. Given the time change, you should expect
1:11:34
Speaker 2: that show in your feed a little later than usual.
1:11:36
Speaker 2: They'll be eating crocodiles and kissing eels in the meantime.
1:11:39
Speaker 2: See you soon. Thanks, everyone. G'day.
1:11:42
Speaker 3: Why didn't they bring you, Alex? I mean, with an
1:11:44
Speaker 3: accent like that.
1:11:44
Speaker 2: I'm the designated survivor. I'm the designated survivor.
1:11:50
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