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Law and Odor: Trump Trials · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:25
Speaker 2: I'm Erin Ryan.
0:28
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:31
Speaker 1: Thank you all for coming. Thanks to the LA Times
0:33
Speaker 1: Festival of Books for having us. And thanks to everyone
0:36
Speaker 1: who's already pre-ordered our book, Democracy or Else, How to
0:39
Speaker 1: Save America in 10 Easy Steps. We'll be talking a
0:43
Speaker 1: bit more about the book later. And if you haven't
0:45
Speaker 1: ordered yet, you can do so at crooked.com slash books. Okay,
0:49
Speaker 1: let's get to the news. Now that we got 12
0:52
Speaker 1: jurors and six alternates, opening statements are set to begin
0:56
Speaker 1: in the criminal trial of the Republican nominee for President
0:59
Speaker 1: Donald J.
1:00
Speaker 4: Trump.
1:05
Speaker 1: I mean, the end of the sentence was, who could
1:06
Speaker 1: face up to four years if convicted? I figured like
1:09
Speaker 1: that would be, yeah, there you go.
1:11
Speaker 3: Don't clap till we have a verdict.
1:13
Speaker 1: Right. So New York Times reports this morning that the
1:17
Speaker 1: prosecution is planning to call former National Enquirer publisher David
1:21
Speaker 1: Pecker as their first witness. Could be as early as
1:25
Speaker 1: tomorrow if opening statements are quick enough. Pecker is expected
1:29
Speaker 1: to testify about his agreement with Trump to buy and
1:31
Speaker 1: hide stories that would be politically damaging to him. which
1:35
Speaker 1: is known as Catch and Kill. There was plenty of
1:38
Speaker 1: drama last week in the trial, which ended with a
1:40
Speaker 1: man who tragically lit himself on fire outside the courtroom,
1:45
Speaker 1: while inside, several potential jurors broke down in tears over
1:49
Speaker 1: the risk of serving. On a lighter note, there are
1:53
Speaker 1: unconfirmed reports that Trump has been farting in the courtroom,
1:59
Speaker 1: which we are, of course, repeating purely for entertainment value.
2:03
Speaker 1: We would never traffic in such rumors. One thing we
2:07
Speaker 1: can confirm is that there is at least one gag
2:09
Speaker 1: order in place that the defendant continues to whine about.
2:13
Speaker 1: Let's listen.
2:14
Speaker 3: The gag order has to come off.
2:16
Speaker 5: People are allowed to speak about me and I have
2:18
Speaker 5: a gag order just to show you how much.
2:21
Speaker 3: More unfair it is. I have a lot to say
2:24
Speaker 3: to you, and I'm not allowed to say it. And
2:26
Speaker 3: I'm the only one. Everyone else can say whatever they
2:28
Speaker 3: want about me. They can say anything they want. They
2:31
Speaker 3: can continue to make up lies and everything else. They lie.
2:34
Speaker 3: They're real scum. But you know what? I'm not allowed
2:38
Speaker 3: to speak.
2:39
Speaker 5: And I want to be able to speak to the
2:41
Speaker 5: press and everybody else about it.
2:43
Speaker 3: So why am I gagged?
2:45
Speaker 1: It's so unfair that the judge won't let that guy
2:48
Speaker 1: speak because now we have no idea what he thinks
2:50
Speaker 1: about stuff. It's just... Brutal. So Trump has nonetheless spent
2:56
Speaker 1: the weekend accusing Judge Mershon of having a conflict of interest,
3:00
Speaker 1: calling the district attorney corrupt, and threatening to prosecute Joe
3:03
Speaker 1: Biden if he wins. Tommy, do you think Trump is
3:07
Speaker 1: helping himself here, legally or politically? You can pick either. Sure,
3:12
Speaker 1: I'll take both, John.
3:12
Speaker 6: 500.
3:13
Speaker 7: We could do a whole episode on this farting allegation because...
3:18
Speaker 7: It is hilarious. It is believable. It's probably not true,
3:22
Speaker 7: or at least not confirmed in any way. But also,
3:25
Speaker 7: he'll probably comment on it.
3:26
Speaker 5: Yeah.
3:27
Speaker 7: And it tells us a lot about the media ecosystem
3:29
Speaker 7: that we all live in.
3:30
Speaker 3: But back to your question.
3:31
Speaker 7: So I think legally, it seems like he's probably just
3:35
Speaker 7: mostly pissing off the judge and potentially putting himself in
3:39
Speaker 7: jeopardy of getting fined for contempt. And then the punishment
3:43
Speaker 7: for contempt could get escalated to potentially jail time if
3:46
Speaker 7: he continues to do it. I think he's viewing this, though,
3:50
Speaker 7: primarily as a political fight. He is trying to not
3:53
Speaker 7: only shape the opinions of the jury pool, which is
3:56
Speaker 7: a process that started many, many years ago, but also
3:58
Speaker 7: sort of shape the opinions of the electorate who will
4:01
Speaker 7: ultimately vote to make him president or not. So I
4:04
Speaker 7: think he has one speed in politics. It's attack, attack, attack.
4:08
Speaker 7: It doesn't matter if it's a campaign. It doesn't matter
4:10
Speaker 7: if it's hurting his interests. He just thinks that he'll
4:13
Speaker 7: be able to impact public opinion and, you know, In
4:16
Speaker 7: the past, he's been pretty good at it. Propaganda doesn't
4:18
Speaker 7: have to be believable or savvy to be effective.
4:21
Speaker 1: You just need to repeat it relentlessly. Yeah, it feels
4:25
Speaker 1: too early to tell, but I do wonder if any
4:28
Speaker 1: time voters turn on TV or read the news and
4:32
Speaker 1: see Donald Trump just whining like that about a gag order,
4:36
Speaker 1: at some point, I don't know if that helps him.
4:40
Speaker 1: Some people could say that the trial's unfair, but it's
4:43
Speaker 1: the middle of a presidential campaign. It's going to go
4:45
Speaker 1: on for six to eight weeks. And if all we
4:48
Speaker 1: get from Donald Trump is just him complaining about the trial,
4:50
Speaker 1: I don't know. Erin, what do you think? And do
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Speaker 1: you have any other takeaways from the first week of
4:55
Speaker 1: this trial and thoughts on the fart?
5:01
Speaker 2: I don't want to think about him farting. I truly don't.
5:06
Speaker 4: I think that I've seen enough Mueller time t-shirts out
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Speaker 4: in the wild that now are mysteriously vanished that I
5:14
Speaker 4: am not counting on.
5:16
Speaker 2: The justice system to deliver.
5:17
Speaker 4: Any we got him kind of a moment. The first
5:21
Speaker 4: week of the trial did kind of make me worry
5:24
Speaker 4: about the safety of the jurors as a lot of
5:27
Speaker 4: jurors were worried about their own safety. It seems like
5:30
Speaker 4: there are some media outlets that are really bent on
5:33
Speaker 4: doxing them Or getting their personal information out there, possibly
5:37
Speaker 4: intimidating them. I've heard Donald Trump has been trying to
5:40
Speaker 4: stare people down. He was like glowering at them. But
5:45
Speaker 4: I think he has like rusting, glowering face. So I'm
5:49
Speaker 4: not sure if that's just like how his face goes
5:52
Speaker 4: when he's not doing anything. But still, I mean, it
5:54
Speaker 4: would be intimidating. You're coming in, you're supposed to be
5:56
Speaker 4: a juror. And you've got the former president with this
6:00
Speaker 4: like army of Wahoos who will do basically whatever he
6:04
Speaker 4: says and he's giving you the stink eye.
6:07
Speaker 2: Like that's not great.
6:07
Speaker 7: He was doing little fist bumps if you read Art
6:10
Speaker 7: of the Deal too.
6:11
Speaker 4: Yes.
6:12
Speaker 1: Oh God.
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Speaker 3: According to the New York Times.
6:14
Speaker 4: One thing that I am a little bit worried about
6:17
Speaker 4: is that this is a great event for like New
6:19
Speaker 4: York media because they know where it's happening and it's
6:22
Speaker 4: in New York and it's easy for them to cover
6:24
Speaker 4: and And I just don't want this to suck all.
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Speaker 2: The oxygen out of the room when we should be also.
6:28
Speaker 4: Talking about like what a nightmare it would be if
6:31
Speaker 4: he were reelected and how low quality GOP candidates are
6:36
Speaker 4: across the country.
6:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan, our friend Anat Shankarosorio has a new piece
6:42
Speaker 1: in Slate titled The Trump trial is already influencing public opinion,
6:46
Speaker 1: and she's got a polling memo that finds a majority
6:49
Speaker 1: of voters already see this trial as evidence of Trump
6:52
Speaker 1: engaging in a, quote, long-term criminal conspiracy. Do you think
6:56
Speaker 1: that damage is already being done here, or do you
6:58
Speaker 1: think it's sort of too early to tell?
7:00
Speaker 3: You're not going to ask me a fart question?
7:02
Speaker 1: I mean, that was going to be my follow-up, Dan.
7:04
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry. Sorry, I didn't read the script this week.
7:10
Speaker 1: Also, apparently he was farting because he was falling asleep.
7:12
Speaker 1: We know he's falling asleep, right? That's like, Maggie Havenman
7:16
Speaker 1: reported that, that's true. And the rumor is that as
7:19
Speaker 1: he was nodding off, then I think he was maybe,
7:22
Speaker 1: you know, farting.
7:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, but who does that? Who farts as they're falling asleep?
7:26
Speaker 3: Is that a thing?
7:26
Speaker 1: Oh, let me tell you. I mean.
7:31
Speaker 7: Look, I talked to Maggie today.
7:32
Speaker 1: Maybe wake himself up, you know? I talked to Maggie today. Oh, wow,
7:35
Speaker 1: you did some reporting. I did some reporting on this.
7:36
Speaker 7: She told me she could not confirm that gas was
7:40
Speaker 7: passed at this trial, so... It seems to be potentially
7:43
Speaker 7: fake news. Dan, you have something smart to say.
7:46
Speaker 1: Some resistance account got hashtag odor in the court trending
7:52
Speaker 1: on Twitter.
7:54
Speaker 3: That's pretty good. I'm not going to lie.
7:55
Speaker 1: Because I love it? Could be worse. Could be worse. Anyway, sorry.
7:59
Speaker 1: Did I steal your pun?
8:02
Speaker 3: What was the question again?
8:05
Speaker 1: Do you think the damage is already being done?
8:07
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes, damage is being done. I think ultimately....
8:12
Speaker 8: And Aaron is right to be worried that the media
8:15
Speaker 8: is going to focus on this trial to the expense
8:18
Speaker 8: of so many other very important stories in this campaign
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Speaker 8: and in this country. That's definitely going to happen. There's
8:23
Speaker 8: nothing the media likes more than to cover something in
8:25
Speaker 8: their backyard, and New York is their backyard. However, it
8:29
Speaker 8: is meaningful that last week Donald Trump spent eight hours
8:33
Speaker 8: a day, four days a week, in a courtroom in Manhattan,
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Speaker 8: alternately sleeping and farting, while Joe Biden was in Pennsylvania,
8:41
Speaker 8: in a battleground state that is a must-win for both candidates,
8:44
Speaker 8: talking about the economy.
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Speaker 3: And that is really going to... There is a massive
8:48
Speaker 3: opportunity cost for Trump here.
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Speaker 8: Now, we also know that Trump being in the news
8:55
Speaker 8: is bad for Trump.
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Speaker 3: He is... I mean, there's a huge irony that he.
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Speaker 1: Are you saying he doesn't comport himself well?
9:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm saying he is not his best messenger, per se.
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Speaker 4: And.
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Speaker 8: You know, there's an irony to that because Donald Trump
9:09
Speaker 8: won the White House for the first time by dominating media.
9:11
Speaker 8: And he may win it a second time by not
9:14
Speaker 8: being in front of the cameras all the time. Or
9:16
Speaker 8: at least living in a media environment where being in
9:18
Speaker 8: front of the cameras is a less dominant experience than
9:20
Speaker 8: it was before. It's just people don't see him as much.
9:23
Speaker 8: And the fact that there's a high-profile trial of a
9:26
Speaker 8: former president happening in New York, he's going to dominate
9:29
Speaker 8: the news. And that is not good for Trump. Ultimately,
9:33
Speaker 8: all of that is going to matter much less than
9:36
Speaker 8: what happens at the end of this.
9:38
Speaker 3: Is Donald Trump convicted of a crime?
9:40
Speaker 8: Because the polling shows that there is at least some
9:42
Speaker 8: number of voters, including a significant portion of people who
9:46
Speaker 8: voted for him in 2020, that would make them much
9:49
Speaker 8: less comfortable voting for him again. And if he's acquitted,
9:51
Speaker 8: he would have the opposite and less exciting effect. And
9:55
Speaker 8: so this is going to dominate time, but what's going
9:57
Speaker 8: to matter is what happens in the end more than
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Speaker 8: anything else.
10:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do think, I mean, this was of the
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Speaker 1: four trials, the one that people thought was the weakest case.
10:07
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean it's a weak case, but it's been talked
10:11
Speaker 1: about as a hush money case. There's a lot of
10:13
Speaker 1: people who talk about it as an election interference case.
10:15
Speaker 1: In fact, the judge said to the instructions to the
10:18
Speaker 1: jury was, He's being charged with falsifying business records to
10:22
Speaker 1: cover up trying to unlawfully influence the election. And I
10:26
Speaker 1: do think the more, I mean, having David Pecker go first,
10:29
Speaker 1: who was at the National Enquirer and did this deal
10:32
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump where it was basically like, any story
10:35
Speaker 1: that's bad for you, we'll buy it, we'll bury it. Like,
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Speaker 1: making the argument that he was trying to pay money
10:42
Speaker 1: to keep damaging information about himself from the electorate so
10:46
Speaker 1: that he could win I think it's a stronger argument
10:50
Speaker 1: that it's a hush money trial.
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Speaker 8: I mean, it just also speaks to how severe the
10:55
Speaker 8: other crimes were, that this is the weak one.
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Speaker 1: Right. It's like, wait, which election interference trial is this? Oh,
11:01
Speaker 1: this was the 2016 one, not the 2020 one.
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Speaker 8: But also, if you say this paragraph to yourself out loud,
11:07
Speaker 8: that the presumptive Republican nominee is on trial for a
11:12
Speaker 8: felony crime of falsifying business records to cover up an
11:17
Speaker 8: extramarital affair with an adult film star weeks before the election,
11:20
Speaker 8: and you're like, oh, that's not as serious as the
11:22
Speaker 8: other two criminal trials, is wild, right? And it seems
11:26
Speaker 8: like David Pecker, the National Choir guy testifying, you wonder
11:31
Speaker 8: if also part of that conversation or part of that
11:33
Speaker 8: testimony will be the allegation that Donald Trump was able
11:36
Speaker 8: to basically write fake headlines about his opponents, such as
11:40
Speaker 8: Ted Cruz's father killed JFK.
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Speaker 1: Allegedly fake.
11:45
Speaker 3: Allegedly fake prove it didn't happen to me.
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Speaker 8: Right so i mean it's just typical typical liberal media
11:51
Speaker 8: guy here donald trump definitely farted but maybe ted cruz's
11:53
Speaker 8: father didn't kill him.
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Speaker 7: It will be a fascinating look into the way that
11:57
Speaker 7: organization worked.
11:58
Speaker 1: Yes um all right so dan and i talked on
12:00
Speaker 1: thursday's pod about biden world's decision to steer clear of
12:04
Speaker 1: talking about this trial uh other than a few jokes
12:07
Speaker 1: and puns here and there um last week The president
12:11
Speaker 1: was out in Pennsylvania, as Dan mentioned, contrasting his plans
12:14
Speaker 1: to help middle-class families with Trump's plans to help the rich.
12:17
Speaker 1: He was doing the Scranton Joe versus Park Ave Trump thing,
12:21
Speaker 1: which I think is great. This week, Biden's going to
12:24
Speaker 1: focus on abortion with a big speech in Florida on Tuesday,
12:28
Speaker 1: hitting Trump for the state's six-week abortion ban. This is
12:31
Speaker 1: after Kamala Harris gave a similar speech in Arizona last week.
12:35
Speaker 1: But it's not just speeches. So far in 2024, 90%
12:40
Speaker 1: of the Biden campaign's television ads have focused on abortion,
12:45
Speaker 1: and the most aired ad is one in which Trump
12:48
Speaker 1: takes credit for killing Roe, and Biden promises to pass
12:52
Speaker 1: a federal guarantee to protect the right to choose. So, Aaron,
12:56
Speaker 1: Republicans are arguing that even if they have the politically
13:02
Speaker 1: weaker argument here, that they don't think enough voters who
13:05
Speaker 1: are up for grabs rank abortion as their top issue.
13:09
Speaker 1: What do you think?
13:10
Speaker 4: I think that all you have to do is take
13:13
Speaker 4: a look at election results since Dobbs to find that
13:17
Speaker 4: that is not the case.
13:19
Speaker 2: Abortion has been kicking ass.
13:21
Speaker 4: In the ballot box, and it's an extremely important issue
13:25
Speaker 4: to a lot of people. I think it's a motivating
13:27
Speaker 4: issue to some people who would otherwise not be excited
13:31
Speaker 4: about voting for Joe Biden. We're seeing polling that shows
13:34
Speaker 4: that since Dobbs, people are still just as mad about
13:39
Speaker 4: Dobbs today as they were the day that Sam Alito's
13:43
Speaker 4: smug ass handed down that opinion on the Supreme Court.
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Speaker 2: And, you know, it's a winning issue.
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Speaker 4: It has been demonstrated over and over again that abortion
13:58
Speaker 4: is a winning issue. And I think that Dobbs also
14:01
Speaker 4: helped people who didn't otherwise think too deeply about abortion,
14:05
Speaker 4: who are trying to think of themselves as moderates, it
14:08
Speaker 4: is deeply weird to have the government involved at all.
14:13
Speaker 4: It is deeply weird for these people to be making
14:15
Speaker 4: rules about women's bodies when I don't think they know
14:19
Speaker 4: the difference between the sizes of tampons. Like, I don't
14:23
Speaker 4: think these people should be making rules. And it's something
14:26
Speaker 4: that a lot of people are seeing more clearly now.
14:28
Speaker 4: Exceptions don't really, in any practical way, People who think
14:36
Speaker 4: of themselves as pro-life who would never get an abortion
14:39
Speaker 4: are finding that actually it's not such a black and
14:42
Speaker 4: white issue. You don't know what medical care you're going
14:46
Speaker 4: to need and it is fucked up that state legislators
14:51
Speaker 4: get to make that decision for you.
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Speaker 2: This is something that people are realizing across the country.
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Speaker 4: It is a, I would take that bet, it is
14:59
Speaker 4: a winning issue.
15:06
Speaker 1: It has been wild watching some of these Republicans who
15:09
Speaker 1: are now backing away from their more extreme anti-abortion stances
15:13
Speaker 1: that they've had in the past, like almost tumbling into
15:17
Speaker 1: the pro-choice position, like Carrie Lake, right, who had said
15:20
Speaker 1: that she supported the 1864 Arizona ban, you know, that
15:26
Speaker 1: was a complete ban. And then she's like, well, now,
15:29
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I might be personally against abortion, but
15:33
Speaker 1: I don't think I should make the decision.
15:35
Speaker 2: That's called pro-choice, Kerry.
15:36
Speaker 1: You're almost there. You're pro-choice. You're almost there. So, Dan,
15:41
Speaker 1: you were the one who pointed out that 90% number
15:43
Speaker 1: on the Biden campaign's ads. That seems like a huge
15:46
Speaker 1: amount of their ads, even for an issue that they
15:50
Speaker 1: do want to make central to the election. What do
15:52
Speaker 1: you make of that decision? And do you think they
15:55
Speaker 1: will sustain that level of spending on abortion-related ads?
15:59
Speaker 8: I'm not sure it'll be 90-10 by the end of
16:01
Speaker 8: this campaign, but I'd be willing to bet that at
16:04
Speaker 8: the end of this election, the issue that the Biden
16:07
Speaker 8: campaign will have spent the most money on will be
16:08
Speaker 8: abortion and it probably won't be close. And I think
16:11
Speaker 8: the reason for that is exactly what Aaron said, is
16:15
Speaker 8: it is a motivating issue.
16:18
Speaker 3: For a lot of voters.
16:19
Speaker 8: And ultimately what campaigns are about is trying to, everything
16:22
Speaker 8: they do, the ads, the speeches, the tweets, the social
16:26
Speaker 8: media strategy is about trying to influence what issues are
16:30
Speaker 8: top of mind when voters make their decisions starting in October.
16:34
Speaker 8: And if what people are thinking about when they make
16:38
Speaker 8: that decision is the price of groceries or the border,
16:42
Speaker 8: that's probably good for Donald Trump. If they're thinking about
16:45
Speaker 8: tax cuts for the rich, abortion bans, and violent insurrections,
16:49
Speaker 8: that's probably good for Joe Biden. And There was a
16:52
Speaker 8: very interesting poll that came out today from NBC News
16:54
Speaker 8: where they asked two questions. One, what's the most important
16:57
Speaker 8: issue facing the country? And only 6% of Americans cited abortion.
17:02
Speaker 8: It was like fourth or fifth.
17:03
Speaker 1: On the list.
17:04
Speaker 8: Then they asked a follow-up question, and this is the
17:05
Speaker 8: most important question from the perspective of a campaign. What
17:10
Speaker 8: issues are so important to you that they could influence
17:12
Speaker 8: your choice? And 19% of people said abortions. And so
17:17
Speaker 8: what the Biden campaign wants to do is make people
17:20
Speaker 8: think more and more about abortion as they're making a
17:22
Speaker 8: decision and what the very real dangers of Donald Trump
17:24
Speaker 8: with a Republican trifecta would do to the parts of
17:27
Speaker 8: this country that don't yet have extreme abortion bans or
17:30
Speaker 8: what President Biden and a pro-choice Democratic Congress could do
17:36
Speaker 8: to pass a law federally to stop these abortion bans.
17:40
Speaker 8: And so I think it's going to be a huge
17:42
Speaker 8: part of the campaign. It should be a huge part
17:43
Speaker 8: of the campaign. And it is going to be one
17:45
Speaker 8: where you're going to have to put money behind it
17:49
Speaker 8: because the press is not going to cover it continually
17:52
Speaker 8: this whole time. It's like what you're exactly talking about.
17:54
Speaker 8: What is one of the issues that's going to get
17:56
Speaker 8: lost because of this criminal trial? We're talking about abortion
17:59
Speaker 8: demands in Idaho and Arizona and Florida and places like that.
18:03
Speaker 8: And so spending money on this is quite smart in
18:05
Speaker 8: my view.
18:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, I also want to jump in and add that
18:09
Speaker 4: I think something the Biden administration hasn't been hitting as
18:13
Speaker 4: hard as they should is that if Republicans take the
18:18
Speaker 4: White House, the House, and the Senate, we will get
18:21
Speaker 4: a federal ban. That affects us in California. That affects
18:26
Speaker 4: people in the bluest blue states who think they're safe,
18:30
Speaker 4: who after Dobbs were texting their friends and saying, oh,
18:33
Speaker 4: it's so terrible what's going to.
18:35
Speaker 2: Happen over there. No, it's happening here.
18:38
Speaker 4: And there are a lot of races here in California
18:41
Speaker 4: that could determine the balance of the House of Representatives.
18:45
Speaker 4: And I think it is really important for us Californians,
18:48
Speaker 4: maybe some people who didn't vote in the primaries, to
18:51
Speaker 4: think about how important these local elections are.
18:55
Speaker 2: We can determine who keeps the House.
18:59
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
19:04
Speaker 1: I also think, I mean, you have Republicans out there
19:07
Speaker 1: who are trying to back away from their positions and
19:11
Speaker 1: sort of muddy the waters, and they're like, well, there'd
19:13
Speaker 1: never be the votes in the Senate to pass a
19:16
Speaker 1: national abortion ban, and then you have Donald Trump saying,
19:18
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pass. Even if Democrats keep the
19:22
Speaker 1: House and the Senate, or flip the House and keep
19:23
Speaker 1: the Senate, he could, just through executive action, ban Mifepristone,
19:29
Speaker 1: ban abortion medication, which is responsible for, what, like two-thirds
19:32
Speaker 1: of abortions in this country. So even just Donald Trump
19:36
Speaker 1: in the White House alone with no Congress could be bad,
19:39
Speaker 1: let alone what would happen if there's a full Republican Congress.
19:42
Speaker 1: I do wonder, too, Dan, like if part of the
19:45
Speaker 1: reason that they're spending so much now on these abortion
19:48
Speaker 1: ads is to define Trump before he tries to like
19:53
Speaker 1: back away from his position, like him saying, oh, I
19:56
Speaker 1: don't like the Arizona ban and I'm not going to
19:58
Speaker 1: sign a national ban and just reminding people that he
20:01
Speaker 1: was the one who did this in the first place.
20:03
Speaker 1: Do you think some of it's that?
20:05
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think obviously you want to fill a vacuum
20:08
Speaker 8: and Trump's not on the air. He doesn't have as
20:10
Speaker 8: much money. This is the time to pressure advantage. And
20:12
Speaker 8: there are a couple other reasons for this, too. One
20:15
Speaker 8: is voters do not think, they think Trump's extreme, but
20:19
Speaker 8: they don't think of him as extreme in a religious
20:22
Speaker 8: right sort of way. We've said this many times. He's
20:25
Speaker 8: this rich guy from New York who cheats on his wives.
20:29
Speaker 8: He is not in the mind of voters who think
20:31
Speaker 8: about the sort of right-wing, religious, Mike Johnson-esque Republicans.
20:35
Speaker 3: Donald Trump belies that notion. So you want to define
20:39
Speaker 3: them that way. And that's going to take money.
20:40
Speaker 1: Just because he compares himself to Jesus Christ being persecuted
20:44
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean people see him as so religious.
20:47
Speaker 8: But even like, no, there's not a person alive, not evangelical,
20:50
Speaker 8: not anyone else who believes Donald Trump when he talks
20:53
Speaker 8: about his favorite Bible verse or he's selling Bibles.
20:56
Speaker 3: It's all wink, wink, nod, nod.
20:57
Speaker 8: But the other thing is, and this is something that's
20:59
Speaker 8: very interesting that happened since Dobbs, is Dobbs really was
21:03
Speaker 8: a singular believer tectonic shift in American politics. And one
21:07
Speaker 8: thing it shifted was, if you talk to people who
21:09
Speaker 8: are working on 2022 races, the thing that Democrats have
21:13
Speaker 8: been talking about this MAG extremism argument for a long time,
21:15
Speaker 8: MAG extremism, MAG extremism, we want to pay for Republicans
21:17
Speaker 8: as extreme. Dobbs happened and that opened a door for
21:22
Speaker 8: people to see Republicans as more extreme on a whole
21:24
Speaker 8: host of issues other than just abortion. And even on
21:28
Speaker 8: something like cutting Social Security and Medicare, right, because of
21:31
Speaker 8: what happened with Dobbs, people, they were more open to
21:34
Speaker 8: the idea that Republicans would actually do these really extreme
21:37
Speaker 8: things that they usually are pretty skeptical politicians will actually
21:40
Speaker 8: do because they think it's kind of a bullshit political
21:42
Speaker 8: attack or they don't think they can actually accomplish it
21:44
Speaker 8: to take this freedom or this thing away from me.
21:47
Speaker 8: And so establishing Donald Trump's responsibility for Dobbs opens the
21:52
Speaker 8: argument to a whole bunch of other things about how
21:54
Speaker 8: extreme he is.
22:07
Speaker 1: On that note, Tommy, the AP just reported that ever
22:10
Speaker 1: since Dobbs, complaints have spiked that pregnant women facing medical
22:14
Speaker 1: emergencies are being turned away from ERs in states with
22:18
Speaker 1: abortion bans, even though that's against the federal law. Do
22:21
Speaker 1: you think stories like that have the potential to broaden
22:25
Speaker 1: the coalition of voters who might choose Trump or Biden
22:28
Speaker 1: based on this one issue?
22:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think what those stories shows is
22:33
Speaker 7: that having a patchwork of state-by-state abortion bans that include
22:38
Speaker 7: laws passed in the 1860s puts all women, all pregnant women,
22:43
Speaker 7: at risk. And the story Donald Trump wants to tell
22:46
Speaker 7: about abortion, literally, is he says Democrats want to abort
22:52
Speaker 7: babies after they're born.
22:54
Speaker 1: Which is.
22:55
Speaker 2: It's illegal. It's already illegal.
22:56
Speaker 1: It's called murder. We're talking backstage. Murder?
22:59
Speaker 3: Murder, yeah.
22:59
Speaker 4: I can't do that.
23:00
Speaker 3: That's the narrative he wants to.
23:05
Speaker 3: Portray about Democrats.
23:07
Speaker 7: And the reality is that abortion is an incredibly complicated
23:12
Speaker 7: and painful decision.
23:14
Speaker 1: And when.
23:16
Speaker 7: You create these laws in places like Texas or Idaho
23:20
Speaker 7: and North Carolina, where you have doctors or medical organizations
23:23
Speaker 7: worried that they could lose funding or be prosecuted or
23:26
Speaker 7: lose their accreditation if they treat patients, You read stories
23:30
Speaker 7: about women who are pregnant being turned away or told
23:33
Speaker 7: to drive to another facility nearby and losing children on
23:37
Speaker 7: the way or being denied an ultrasound or not getting
23:40
Speaker 7: care that put their lives at risk.
23:43
Speaker 1: And it's just like, it's.
23:45
Speaker 7: So, the abject cruelty of putting someone through that undercuts
23:51
Speaker 7: the idea that there's anything about this decision that is pro-life.
23:54
Speaker 7: It is about controlling women and telling them how to
23:57
Speaker 7: live their lives.
23:59
Speaker 3: And like, you know.
24:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do think, I mean, the stories that
24:06
Speaker 1: we've already heard since Dobbs and the Biden campaign has,
24:09
Speaker 1: you know, I think one of their first ads on
24:11
Speaker 1: abortion was a story of a woman in Texas. And
24:14
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to, there's so many of them.
24:17
Speaker 1: And telling those, that's going to have an emotional impact
24:19
Speaker 1: with voters that I think you can't necessarily measure in
24:23
Speaker 1: a single poll or just by like looking at a
24:26
Speaker 1: big sample and saying, oh, 19% say this or that.
24:28
Speaker 1: You have those ads running between now in November and
24:32
Speaker 1: the whole country is hearing these stories, I do think
24:34
Speaker 1: that's going to have a bigger effect than people.
24:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I also think two things.
24:39
Speaker 4: First of all, abortion isn't always a complicated decision. Sometimes
24:42
Speaker 4: it's the right decision and it's obvious and it's no
24:46
Speaker 4: going back. But if you're going to an emergency room
24:50
Speaker 4: and the treatment that you need might include abortion, then
24:54
Speaker 4: it is almost certainly a complicated and heartbreaking decision. So
24:59
Speaker 4: States like Idaho and Texas, which have laws that ban
25:04
Speaker 4: essentially abortion at any point in pregnancy up until the
25:09
Speaker 4: point that the mother is about to die, they are
25:12
Speaker 4: arguing that abortion is actually not medical care. And like
25:17
Speaker 4: they're arguing over the expertise of doctors and they're arguing
25:21
Speaker 4: over the expertise of women. So if you show up
25:23
Speaker 4: as a pregnant person at an ER need an abortion.
25:27
Speaker 4: These are the people where it is absolutely, like you said, Tommy,
25:30
Speaker 4: the most cruel and tragic circumstances that abortion occurs under.
25:34
Speaker 7: Yeah, what I was sort of trying to get at is,
25:36
Speaker 7: for a long time, the line from Democrats on abortion
25:39
Speaker 7: was safe, legal, and rare, which I understood the messaging politically,
25:43
Speaker 7: but it made it sound like this was a choice
25:45
Speaker 7: that people were making, that we wanted to prevent that
25:47
Speaker 7: choice from being made through whatever policy. And I think
25:50
Speaker 7: that that is just wrong, because like what you were saying,
25:54
Speaker 7: often it's a medical necessity. And it's often someone whose
25:56
Speaker 7: life is at risk or someone who needs abortion care
26:00
Speaker 7: because if they don't get it in that moment, then
26:02
Speaker 7: they won't be able to have another kid in the future.
26:04
Speaker 7: And as someone who has sat through an ultrasound where,
26:07
Speaker 7: you know, you thought there'd be a heartbeat and then
26:10
Speaker 7: there isn't, to take that moment and then deny a
26:15
Speaker 7: person medical care is so unbelievably cruel to me that
26:19
Speaker 7: I almost can't fathom it.
26:23
Speaker 1: All right, so we have... Two fun things to end
26:26
Speaker 1: the news section. Because you've all been so good.
26:30
Speaker 7: I brought the tone up. I wanted to lighten it
26:33
Speaker 7: up for you guys.
26:33
Speaker 1: That's what we do.
26:34
Speaker 3: Fucking relax.
26:35
Speaker 2: The abortion disco siren.
26:37
Speaker 1: We get some serious. We get some funny. It's the show.
26:40
Speaker 1: All right. The first... Tommy picked this clip out. It's
26:43
Speaker 1: a clip from Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez, who basically, I think,
26:48
Speaker 1: cut one of the best ads for the Democratic Party
26:51
Speaker 1: that I've seen this year. So he was... On CNN Sunday,
26:56
Speaker 1: talking about how the House of Representatives beat back the
27:00
Speaker 1: MAGA hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to
27:04
Speaker 1: pass aid and support for Ukraine, Israel, the Palestinians, and
27:07
Speaker 1: Taiwan with a huge bipartisan majority. And Representative Gonzalez said this.
27:13
Speaker 5: I served with some real scumbags. Look, Matt Gaetz, he
27:18
Speaker 5: paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties.
27:21
Speaker 5: Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people
27:25
Speaker 5: used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now
27:27
Speaker 5: they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime.
27:30
Speaker 1: I mean, wow.
27:33
Speaker 3: It's a Republican.
27:34
Speaker 1: Republican. Tony Gonzalez, he voted for impeachment, right? I think
27:40
Speaker 1: he was one of the I think he's one of
27:42
Speaker 1: the few. I don't think he's on Donald Trump's short list.
27:47
Speaker 3: Well, not to get ahead of our next segment, but.
27:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was wild. That was wild. Great clip. Good
27:54
Speaker 1: for Tony Gonzalez. We've seen that in battleground districts before long.
27:58
Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to wrap up the news
28:00
Speaker 1: section with some wildly irresponsible Trump VP speculation. Just as
28:07
Speaker 1: a little treat. So Tommy and Lovett and I covered
28:10
Speaker 1: this a few weeks ago. Since then, we learned some
28:13
Speaker 1: new information. First, according to the New York Times, Trump
28:18
Speaker 1: is focused on a candidate who can help him raise money,
28:21
Speaker 1: since he seems to be a little short on cash
28:23
Speaker 1: right now. Two, according to RFK Jr., Trump's team asked
28:29
Speaker 1: him to consider being his running mate, though Trump's team
28:34
Speaker 1: says that's not true. Hard to tell. All these people
28:37
Speaker 1: are liars. And lastly, according to Puck, Trump has removed
28:43
Speaker 1: from his shortlist governors from states with the most restrictive
28:46
Speaker 1: abortion bans because he's worried about the politics. If true,
28:50
Speaker 1: that would probably eliminate South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who
28:55
Speaker 1: just said this today, Sunday, about her position on abortion.
28:59
Speaker 6: Do you think there should be exceptions for rape and incest,
29:02
Speaker 6: for example? And I think that every state's going to
29:05
Speaker 6: look different. That's what's different, Dana, is that I've constantly
29:08
Speaker 6: looked and we rely in South Dakota on the fact
29:11
Speaker 6: that I'm pro-life and we have a law that says
29:14
Speaker 6: that there is an exception for the life of the mother.
29:16
Speaker 6: And I just don't believe a tragedy should perpetuate another tragedy.
29:19
Speaker 2: Can I just say she's not used to her new
29:21
Speaker 2: teeth yet? That's mean. It's mean, but she's a bad person,
29:27
Speaker 2: so I can be mean to her.
29:30
Speaker 4: But this famously got some new veneers in the Veepstakes race,
29:34
Speaker 4: and they're not quite taking.
29:37
Speaker 8: I think if you get the joke about Chrissy Noem's
29:39
Speaker 8: new teeth, you reach a certain level of political junkie
29:42
Speaker 8: that's very impressive.
29:44
Speaker 7: She cut an ad for the veneers company.
29:47
Speaker 1: She's hawking veneers. She's the governor of the state. Is
29:49
Speaker 1: that what happens? I don't know. Anyway. Dan, what do
29:52
Speaker 1: you think? We haven't talked to you about your VP
29:55
Speaker 1: speculation yet. From a political standpoint... who do you think
29:59
Speaker 1: would help Trump the most? And, separate question, who do
30:02
Speaker 1: you think he's most likely to pick?
30:04
Speaker 3: I promise you those will not be the same people.
30:09
Speaker 8: I think it's important to note, just, I know our
30:12
Speaker 8: speculation's irresponsible here, but I think we should just at
30:14
Speaker 8: least note for the record that there is almost no
30:16
Speaker 8: issue in American politics that has talked about more but
30:19
Speaker 8: matters less than who someone picks as their VP nominee.
30:22
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, it matters.
30:25
Speaker 1: That's why it's last on the list. That's why it's
30:26
Speaker 1: our fun segment.
30:27
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
30:29
Speaker 8: I mean, who becomes vice president certainly matters, particularly for
30:33
Speaker 8: a candidate like Donald Trump, who can't stay awake in court.
30:38
Speaker 8: But in terms of how much it changes the race,
30:40
Speaker 8: I think it's on the margins at most. I think,
30:46
Speaker 8: if I was thinking about this from the perspective of
30:48
Speaker 8: Donald Trump's campaign, I would think, what segment of the
30:53
Speaker 8: population can I separate, what segment of the Biden coalition
30:57
Speaker 8: do I have the best chance of bringing some people
31:01
Speaker 8: over with me? Ultimately, we're an anti-MAGA majority in this
31:05
Speaker 8: country and in the battleground states.
31:07
Speaker 3: So in order for Trump to win, he has to
31:09
Speaker 3: fracture that coalition.
31:10
Speaker 1: And the answer is voters with veneers.
31:15
Speaker 8: People with insecurities about their teeth. And so I think
31:18
Speaker 8: he would look at the place where, at least in
31:20
Speaker 8: the polling thus far, Trump has had the most success
31:23
Speaker 8: bringing over or at least separating from Biden are men
31:28
Speaker 8: of color, right? So I would be looking at a
31:31
Speaker 8: black or Latino man as my running mate. And now
31:35
Speaker 8: there are some constitutional complications to this. But if you
31:39
Speaker 8: really wanted, I think, the pick that would be most impactful,
31:42
Speaker 8: you would pick Marco Rubio.
31:44
Speaker 1: Wow.
31:45
Speaker 2: Damn.
31:46
Speaker 8: And now this would require Marco Rubio to resign from
31:48
Speaker 8: the Senate because he'd have to change his residency to
31:51
Speaker 8: somewhere else. because they can't both be from the same state.
31:55
Speaker 8: I mean, we can applaud for Marco Rubio resigning from
31:57
Speaker 8: the Senate, but he would be replaced.
31:59
Speaker 1: No, no.
32:00
Speaker 3: And then you don't pick him, and it's hilarious.
32:02
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. I love this plan.
32:04
Speaker 3: So I think you would do that, or you would
32:06
Speaker 3: do Byron Donalds, I think, the congressman.
32:09
Speaker 1: Who would also have to move.
32:10
Speaker 3: He'd also have to move.
32:11
Speaker 1: From Florida.
32:12
Speaker 3: Less consequent.
32:13
Speaker 8: We actually can't even afford, as of right now, Mike
32:15
Speaker 8: Johnson couldn't afford losing that seat, because that would go vacant.
32:18
Speaker 3: But- everyone I.
32:19
Speaker 1: Think thinks where are you on Tim what about Tim Scott.
32:21
Speaker 8: I think Tim I think this is where you get
32:24
Speaker 8: to who Trump would actually pick I don't think Tim
32:28
Speaker 8: Trump I think let me make the case for Marco
32:31
Speaker 8: Rubio from Trump's perspective at least Trump loves a power
32:34
Speaker 8: dynamic and he knows that he has bent Marco Rubio
32:37
Speaker 8: to his will he's basically destroyed him and he thinks
32:41
Speaker 8: Marco Rubio is kind of a chump and he definitely
32:42
Speaker 8: wants a chump I think the problem with Tim Scott
32:44
Speaker 8: is Tim Scott is just a little.
32:47
Speaker 3: Too Mike Pence for him Yeah.
32:49
Speaker 4: Yeah.
32:50
Speaker 8: To... I think when push comes to shove and you
32:53
Speaker 8: need someone to overthrow the government, I think he knows
32:56
Speaker 8: Tim Scott's going to turn to his Bible like Mike
32:58
Speaker 8: Pence and not be there for him.
32:59
Speaker 7: You can't have a VP that bows to a higher God.
33:01
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? It's got to be.
33:03
Speaker 8: There's only one God Trump wants them to worship.
33:05
Speaker 1: Only one God.
33:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:07
Speaker 4: You don't want a VP pick who people would trust
33:09
Speaker 4: to babysit their kids.
33:10
Speaker 8: So....
33:15
Speaker 1: There was more reporting on the Marco Rubio possibility, especially
33:19
Speaker 1: because I apparently think that he could raise a lot
33:21
Speaker 1: of money because he ran for president and has a
33:23
Speaker 1: network of donors, some of whom are still on the sidelines, whatever.
33:27
Speaker 1: So to the point where they were talking to Trump
33:29
Speaker 1: about what they do about Florida, and they were like, well,
33:32
Speaker 1: it's easy for Trump to just change his residency to
33:36
Speaker 1: Bedminster in New Jersey, where he's got a golf club there,
33:40
Speaker 1: or Westchester, or any of these places. And apparently Trump
33:43
Speaker 1: was like, I will not do that because I don't
33:46
Speaker 1: want to deprive the citizens of Florida from having me
33:50
Speaker 1: as a resident.
33:52
Speaker 3: Or he would.
33:53
Speaker 8: Prefer to deprive the State Treasury of New York of
33:55
Speaker 8: the additional tax dollars that would cost him to be
33:57
Speaker 8: a New York resident.
33:58
Speaker 1: Exactly. What was your idea about what he... Tommy, this
34:01
Speaker 1: is a prank for Rubio? Oh, yeah, no.
34:03
Speaker 7: You tell Rubio to resign and then move and then
34:06
Speaker 7: you don't pick him.
34:06
Speaker 1: And it's hilarious. Honestly, it would be incredible. Somebody needs
34:11
Speaker 1: to get that idea to Donald Trump because I think that's... Fantastic. Erin,
34:15
Speaker 1: what do you think? What are your thoughts on this?
34:16
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so Trump needs money, right? And he never
34:22
Speaker 4: has any original ideas. Everything is sort of derivative. Even
34:25
Speaker 4: Make America Great Again was stolen from what, like Charles.
34:27
Speaker 2: Lindbergh or Ronald Reagan? Who stole it from Charles Lindbergh?
34:31
Speaker 4: Anyway, I think he should pick Paul Ryan.
34:34
Speaker 2: LAUGHTER Paul Ryan, good at making, good at raising money.
34:41
Speaker 4: Somebody else already had the idea.
34:43
Speaker 2: It's like the perfect Trumpian. It's the perfect Trumpian pick.
34:47
Speaker 4: I think that he has bandied about the idea of
34:51
Speaker 4: picking a woman as VP because I think that he thinks,
34:55
Speaker 4: I don't know, there's a whole like, I'm not a psychologist,
35:00
Speaker 4: but I need one to like break down all the
35:02
Speaker 4: reasons why.
35:02
Speaker 2: He would pick this type of woman.
35:04
Speaker 4: He will pick a woman who, who is a Miss
35:07
Speaker 4: America type. He will pick a woman who he thinks
35:11
Speaker 4: that other women want to be. He'll pick the type
35:14
Speaker 4: of woman who would show up at like a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser.
35:18
Speaker 4: And I would normally say like a Kristi Noem, but she's.
35:22
Speaker 2: Kind of like flailing.
35:23
Speaker 4: Also like everyone kind of missed out on that New
35:25
Speaker 4: York Post report about her and Corey Lewandowski having.
35:29
Speaker 2: An affair, which is like kind of wild. How does
35:31
Speaker 2: he keep getting such beautiful people? I'm just, Hope Hicks.
35:37
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. It's weird.
35:39
Speaker 4: I think he's going to pick somebody who looks like
35:41
Speaker 4: someone who would be in a Miss Universe pageant.
35:43
Speaker 1: And you think it'll be a woman?
35:45
Speaker 2: I think it'll be a.
35:46
Speaker 4: Woman because he needs a woman to go out there
35:50
Speaker 4: and be his attack dog on this losing issue of abortion.
35:54
Speaker 4: He needs a woman to be like the one speaking
35:58
Speaker 4: out in favor of common sense bans, which we all
36:02
Speaker 4: know are not common sense. So I think he's going
36:04
Speaker 4: to pick like If there is a Kristi Noem approximate type,
36:08
Speaker 4: he's going to pick her.
36:09
Speaker 7: And that's why Katie Britt would have been great until
36:11
Speaker 7: she did the Union response and scared the hell out
36:15
Speaker 7: of everybody.
36:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
36:17
Speaker 1: Although now I think because Alabama was where the horrendous
36:22
Speaker 1: IVF decision went down, he probably is maybe a no
36:25
Speaker 1: on Katie Britt.
36:25
Speaker 4: And Carrie Lake is out too because of the Arizona thing.
36:28
Speaker 4: So like all the Miss America ladies are just one
36:31
Speaker 4: by one getting knocked out of the semifinals. Tough.
36:34
Speaker 3: Nancy Mace.
36:36
Speaker 1: What's that?
36:36
Speaker 3: Nancy Mace.
36:37
Speaker 1: Nancy Mace.
36:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a liar, though.
36:40
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good thing for him. It's a
36:45
Speaker 1: selling point. Tommy, last time we talked about this, you
36:49
Speaker 1: had sort of like an outside-the-box idea with J.D. Vance.
36:54
Speaker 1: And since then, there's been a lot of reporting that
36:57
Speaker 1: Trump is moving closer to actually doing the J.D. Vance thing.
37:02
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I mean, I think if he just wants
37:03
Speaker 7: to bro out, he'll go J.D.
37:05
Speaker 3: Vance.
37:05
Speaker 7: I thought the one that was sort of the most
37:08
Speaker 7: interesting in terms of just the narrative and the story
37:11
Speaker 7: you get to tell is Tulsi Gabbard. Because because you
37:18
Speaker 7: can say you guys call me partisan.
37:21
Speaker 1: She was, you know, she was a Democrat. She was
37:24
Speaker 1: elected Democrat. And I picked her. So it would be
37:25
Speaker 1: an interesting, splashy thing. But then she's a weirdo. Well,
37:28
Speaker 1: that's hard. That is a great segue to my question
37:31
Speaker 1: for you about the RFK Jr. story. What do you
37:33
Speaker 1: make of this whole RFK Jr. saying, yeah, the team
37:37
Speaker 1: called me, he wanted to pick me? I believe it.
37:41
Speaker 7: I mean, I really do believe it.
37:43
Speaker 3: You've never disbelieved a single thing RFK Jr. said. Yeah.
37:48
Speaker 2: I think it could have been a prank call.
37:49
Speaker 4: Somebody could have been doing their Donald Trump impression, called
37:52
Speaker 4: RFK Jr.
37:53
Speaker 2: and he was like, yeah, that's RFK.
37:54
Speaker 3: That's Donald Trump.
37:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, he just completely buys it. Yeah, no, he's like
37:57
Speaker 7: DTaP vaccine. Why would anyone take that? I'm like, oh,
37:59
Speaker 7: write that down.
38:01
Speaker 1: So RFK Jr.
38:02
Speaker 7: obviously the only reason anyone's talking about him is because
38:05
Speaker 7: of his name, right? But also the conventional wisdom was
38:09
Speaker 7: someone named Kennedy, someone with the record as an environmental
38:13
Speaker 7: lawyer might draw from Democrats. As time goes on, it's
38:17
Speaker 7: becoming more and more clear that Robert F.
38:19
Speaker 1: Kennedy Jr.
38:20
Speaker 7: Is drawing more votes from Trump than from Biden. There
38:23
Speaker 7: was an NBC poll out today people who were supporting
38:26
Speaker 7: Trump in the head-to-head were twice as likely to support
38:29
Speaker 7: RFK if he was included in the poll than Biden.
38:33
Speaker 7: And on top of that, if you just sort of
38:34
Speaker 7: look at issues that RFK is out there talking about,
38:37
Speaker 7: it's anti-vaccine stuff. He's more hawkish than Trump and Biden
38:42
Speaker 7: in support of the Israeli war in Gaza.
38:46
Speaker 3: He is in all.
38:47
Speaker 7: The sort of right-wing paranoid spaces, Joe Rogan all the time.
38:51
Speaker 7: He's talking to Tucker Carlson. So you can imagine Trump
38:55
Speaker 7: wanting to sure up his base through an RFK Jr.
38:57
Speaker 7: pick and have a dude on the ticket named Kennedy.
39:00
Speaker 7: For low information voters, that's a big news story.
39:04
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
39:05
Speaker 7: It makes him sound more willing to reach across the
39:08
Speaker 7: aisle than I think the pick actually exposes him to be.
39:11
Speaker 1: So you can see it happening. Yeah. I mean, if
39:14
Speaker 1: those numbers, this is like the NBC poll from today
39:17
Speaker 1: is like the first time, first major poll I think
39:19
Speaker 1: we've seen RFK take more from Trump than Biden.
39:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
39:23
Speaker 1: If that continues, you could see Trump starting to panic
39:25
Speaker 1: and wanting to bring him into the fold.
39:27
Speaker 7: All the little right-wing kind of influencer types who used
39:30
Speaker 7: to have him on their shows, kind of Charlie Kirks
39:32
Speaker 7: of the world, et cetera, now viciously attack RFK Jr.
39:36
Speaker 7: Trump's calling him kind of a radical left socialist Democrat
39:40
Speaker 7: in tweets, so getting nasty.
39:43
Speaker 4: But do we really want someone with such strong Leland
39:46
Speaker 4: Palmer vibes on Second on the major party ticket. All
39:51
Speaker 4: the Twin Peaks fans, all five of you, laughing at that.
39:56
Speaker 1: Dan, what were you going to.
39:57
Speaker 8: I mean, I don't know what you think, but I
39:58
Speaker 8: would be scared shitless of a Trump-Kennedy ticket.
40:00
Speaker 3: That'd be very worrisome, yeah.
40:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think it would be.
40:03
Speaker 3: Because if you listen to.
40:05
Speaker 8: I would encourage people who are sleeping too well at
40:08
Speaker 8: night to listen to the Focus Group, Sarah Longwell, the
40:13
Speaker 8: Bulwark has this Focus Group podcast where she listens to
40:15
Speaker 8: Focus Group.
40:15
Speaker 3: She did one with RFK....
40:18
Speaker 8: People who voted, one group of people voted for Biden
40:20
Speaker 8: in 20, one group of people voted for Trump in
40:21
Speaker 8: 20 who are open to supporting RFK Jr. And the
40:24
Speaker 8: reasons are crazy, but there is this sense among voters
40:30
Speaker 8: that because he's a Democrat or was a Democrat and
40:32
Speaker 8: because he's a Kennedy and he doesn't like either party
40:36
Speaker 8: that he has this like independent streak. And if you
40:38
Speaker 8: put that with Trump, that would like the one, there
40:42
Speaker 8: are two issues in all these.
40:43
Speaker 3: Polls where Biden outpolls Trump. It's uniting the country and abortions.
40:47
Speaker 3: And I think this would help Trump.
40:51
Speaker 8: Trump's divisiveness is one of his greatest weaknesses with a
40:53
Speaker 8: lot of persuadable voters, and this would address it.
40:56
Speaker 3: The good news is.
40:57
Speaker 8: There are two upsides to this scenario. One, it is
41:02
Speaker 8: highly unlikely to happen because they're both megalomaniacal narcissists.
41:07
Speaker 3: And two, if it were to happen, I do kind
41:10
Speaker 3: of think the debate with Kamala Harris would be excellent television.
41:15
Speaker 6: Oh, wow.
41:17
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one.
41:20
Speaker 7: Yeah, that would definitely be like the burn it down ticket.
41:22
Speaker 7: And you could see a lot of people, especially young people,
41:26
Speaker 7: being open to it.
41:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I would worry about, is that in
41:29
Speaker 1: an election year where probably more people than usual are
41:32
Speaker 1: sick of both parties, and when you start polling voters
41:36
Speaker 1: who haven't showed up in previous elections, they're Trumpier, or
41:41
Speaker 1: they're more willing to go third party. And you wonder
41:44
Speaker 1: at the end of the election whether those voters are
41:46
Speaker 1: going to stay home or turn out. And you could
41:48
Speaker 1: see if it was Trump and RFK Jr., you could
41:50
Speaker 1: see a little bit of those voters peeling off. Okay,
41:53
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to talk about democracy
41:56
Speaker 1: or else, how to save America in 10 easy steps.
42:02
Speaker 3: Thank you.
42:14
Speaker 8: Okay, we are here at the LA Times Festival of Books.
42:21
Speaker 8: My friends and co-hosts here, along with John Lovett, who
42:25
Speaker 8: has a live show today so he can be here,
42:26
Speaker 8: they wrote a book, Democracy or Else, How to Save
42:29
Speaker 8: America in 10 Easy Steps. Everyone here has obviously pre-ordered it,
42:33
Speaker 8: so I don't have to tell you to, but on
42:34
Speaker 8: the off chance you forgot or have not yet pre-ordered
42:37
Speaker 8: your second and third copies for your friends and family, please.
42:39
Speaker 3: Do so now.
42:41
Speaker 8: I've also, I would say John, John, and Tommy, they
42:45
Speaker 8: have a long history of doing a lot of writing.
42:47
Speaker 8: They're excellent writers. They're very humble writers. They have not
42:51
Speaker 8: talked about this book very much. They wrote it kind
42:54
Speaker 8: of quietly. Now it's here.
42:56
Speaker 3: You didn't know it was coming.
42:57
Speaker 8: And so now is the time in which you're going
42:58
Speaker 8: to talk about this book, sell this book, explain this book.
43:02
Speaker 8: Our first question comes from Erin.
43:04
Speaker 4: Okay, so trees had to die for this. Can you
43:10
Speaker 4: justify their death?
43:13
Speaker 7: That's a great question.
43:20
Speaker 1: Audiobooks are a thing. No, we read the audiobook. We
43:24
Speaker 1: recorded the audiobook.
43:25
Speaker 7: We recorded the audiobook, and I had to read a
43:27
Speaker 7: lot of jokes that Lovett wrote, and it's not going
43:29
Speaker 7: to end well for.
43:30
Speaker 3: Me, let me tell you.
43:32
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
43:34
Speaker 3: So, after the 2016 election.
43:38
Speaker 7: I'm sure all of us got a million texts from
43:41
Speaker 7: your friends saying, what do we do?
43:42
Speaker 1: How do we fix this? This is so fucked up.
43:45
Speaker 1: You worked in government. What do we do now?
43:47
Speaker 7: And the honest answer was there was no one thing.
43:51
Speaker 7: There was no easy answer. It was a million little
43:54
Speaker 7: things over time. It was being more engaged in democracy.
43:57
Speaker 7: It was paying more attention. It was volunteering.
44:00
Speaker 1: It was donating.
44:00
Speaker 3: It was voting.
44:01
Speaker 1: It was getting your friends to vote.
44:03
Speaker 7: And so that's what the show became is trying to
44:07
Speaker 7: help people figure out how to become an activist in
44:09
Speaker 7: your own life. And over the course of doing this
44:12
Speaker 7: Paz de America for what's seven million years now, we've
44:16
Speaker 7: talked to some of the smartest politicians, organizers, activists, and
44:22
Speaker 7: they've taught us a lot.
44:24
Speaker 1: And we wanted to put all of that in.
44:25
Speaker 7: One place to help people figure out your media diet,
44:29
Speaker 7: how to get informed, how to vote, how to figure
44:31
Speaker 7: out where to donate, how to figure out where to volunteer.
44:35
Speaker 7: maybe run for office, maybe work in politics. So, you know,
44:40
Speaker 7: one other option besides buying the book is going back
44:42
Speaker 7: and listening to seven years worth of Pod Save America episodes.
44:45
Speaker 7: You're welcome to do that as well. We thought putting
44:48
Speaker 7: it all in one place was important, especially as we're
44:50
Speaker 7: heading into this election where the stakes just couldn't possibly
44:54
Speaker 7: be higher.
44:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:56
Speaker 3: So talk to us a little about the process of
44:58
Speaker 3: writing the book.
45:00
Speaker 8: John, you're a speechwriter. Lovett was a speechwriter. Tommy, you've
45:03
Speaker 8: done a lot of writing. How did you divide up
45:06
Speaker 8: work here? What was the process?
45:08
Speaker 1: Well, since Lovett's not here, let's talk about the real process.
45:14
Speaker 1: So we worked with a fantastic writer as well, Josh Holloway. Josh,
45:18
Speaker 1: are you here? Yeah, there he is.
45:22
Speaker 3: He's handsome too.
45:23
Speaker 1: There he is. Josh is a real comedy writer. He
45:28
Speaker 1: writes for Jimmy Kimmel. So we had a ringer. So basically,
45:33
Speaker 1: we came up with the 10 steps, because we know
45:36
Speaker 1: we want it to be a guide, and we want
45:37
Speaker 1: it to be useful for people. And then I think,
45:41
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of the process. I think Josh
45:43
Speaker 1: and Tommy and I would sort of write out the
45:47
Speaker 1: different sections, and then Lovett would go through about a
45:51
Speaker 1: week after the deadline we set for him. A week
45:56
Speaker 1: is generous. A week is generous. and then would edit,
45:59
Speaker 1: and then we would all take another pass. There was
46:01
Speaker 1: a Google Doc involved, which is always, you know, I'm old,
46:04
Speaker 1: I wanted to write in Microsoft Word, but then there's
46:07
Speaker 1: a bunch of people fighting each other in the Google Doc. Honestly,
46:11
Speaker 1: a great book came out of a process that was
46:15
Speaker 1: rough to do with four people, one of them being
46:18
Speaker 1: John Lovett. Who, by the way, I can say this,
46:21
Speaker 1: because it reminded me of us being in the White
46:24
Speaker 1: House when Lovett worked for me, He does not work
46:28
Speaker 1: for me anymore, I'll tell you that much. But in
46:30
Speaker 1: the White House, he worked for me, and editing Lovett
46:33
Speaker 1: speeches and working with him on speech edits was fucking brutal.
46:37
Speaker 1: But he always made them a lot better. And his
46:40
Speaker 1: jokes are very, very funny. So that was the, what
46:43
Speaker 1: do you have to say about the process? I think
46:45
Speaker 1: you nailed it, John.
46:46
Speaker 7: I think, I mean, my job, my job in campaigns
46:50
Speaker 7: in the White House was, you know, fighting with Jake.
46:53
Speaker 1: Tapper all day or whatever I did back then.
46:54
Speaker 3: I was not a writer.
46:55
Speaker 7: So my advice for people who want to write a
46:59
Speaker 7: book and are not sure if they're able is partner
47:02
Speaker 7: with two of the best speechwriters in the history of
47:05
Speaker 7: democratic politics. Then partner with someone who writes Jimmy Kimmel's
47:09
Speaker 7: monologue every single night.
47:11
Speaker 3: And it turns out it's pretty easy.
47:13
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
47:15
Speaker 3: You sit back and relax.
47:21
Speaker 4: My podcast, Hysteria, I have a co-host, Alyssa Mastromonaco, who's written.
47:25
Speaker 1: A couple books.
47:25
Speaker 3: Incredible podcast.
47:26
Speaker 8: Yeah, Alyssa.
47:28
Speaker 4: And she and I have just, I haven't written a
47:31
Speaker 4: book because it sounds awful. But she and I have
47:34
Speaker 4: discussed how sometimes once your book is cooked and out there,
47:38
Speaker 4: there are things that you're like, oh, I wanted to
47:41
Speaker 4: put that in or like I had to cut that.
47:43
Speaker 4: Was there anything that you personally fought for or that
47:48
Speaker 4: you personally wish was in the book that isn't in
47:50
Speaker 4: the book?
47:52
Speaker 1: We really, I think we got it all in there.
47:54
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's nothing I fought for that I wish I'd
47:57
Speaker 7: gotten in. The minute the PDF is locked is when
48:01
Speaker 7: you start thinking of far better stories than you thought
48:03
Speaker 7: to include in the moment. So that's the kind of.
48:06
Speaker 7: agita I have now, but it's not that we didn't
48:09
Speaker 7: include it, it's just you come up with things later.
48:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is a guide, so there's 10 steps
48:13
Speaker 1: on what you can do to help improve politics, save democracy,
48:18
Speaker 1: and then we have a lot of personal stories.
48:20
Speaker 3: Save America. Not stopping with democracy. The entire enterprise.
48:24
Speaker 1: It's right here, people.
48:25
Speaker 3: Save the whole thing, yes.
48:27
Speaker 1: But yeah, we have a lot of personal stories from
48:29
Speaker 1: both our time in the campaign and the White House,
48:33
Speaker 1: and we also interviewed a lot of the people that
48:37
Speaker 1: if you've listened to the pod, you've come to know
48:38
Speaker 1: and love. And so we talked to Latasha Brown on
48:41
Speaker 1: why organizing matters and Congressman Maxwell Frost on how to
48:46
Speaker 1: persuade voters and Ben Wickler on state parties. So we
48:48
Speaker 1: included a lot of those interviews in there, which is great.
48:52
Speaker 1: But it was hard figuring out which stories from all
48:55
Speaker 1: of our funny stories, which we don't find as funny anymore,
48:58
Speaker 1: but they are. There's some good ones. You find out
49:01
Speaker 1: in the book a couple of interesting things. Which one
49:04
Speaker 1: of us ran over a moose while campaigning? Which one
49:08
Speaker 1: of us performed secret gay weddings at the White House
49:11
Speaker 1: in the Rose Garden? And you find out who Obama's
49:15
Speaker 1: favorite staffer is. Also, which is... It's a good tease.
49:20
Speaker 1: The big tease, yeah.
49:21
Speaker 8: Now, 10 is a very round number of lessons. So
49:27
Speaker 8: what I want to know is, and I refuse to
49:29
Speaker 8: believe that you guys all sat down and you're like,
49:31
Speaker 8: here's how we save democracy and just end it at 10,
49:33
Speaker 8: just by chance. So just for this audience, they're not
49:37
Speaker 8: going to tell anyone, What was the 11th lesson that
49:40
Speaker 8: didn't make.
49:42
Speaker 5: It?
49:42
Speaker 1: I think we actually had nine and we needed an extra.
49:46
Speaker 7: I mean, the original sketching out of it was like
49:48
Speaker 7: literally we, um, the, the early, early, early concept that
49:53
Speaker 7: we got a little bit away from was kind of
49:54
Speaker 7: a boy scout manual type vibe. And I think we
49:58
Speaker 7: were just all in the conference room drawing. We don't
50:01
Speaker 7: have a whiteboard for some reason at our office. We're
50:03
Speaker 7: drawing on a window. And it was a little sort
50:05
Speaker 7: of like elevator of going up the mountain. And I
50:07
Speaker 7: think we got to 10 in those early steps.
50:10
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're right, Dan.
50:11
Speaker 7: It's a round number that might seem artificial, but it
50:13
Speaker 7: was the right number.
50:13
Speaker 3: I mean, it was an actual edict.
50:16
Speaker 8: You would know this, Tommy, from working in Iowa, that
50:19
Speaker 8: round numbers are not real numbers.
50:21
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:22
Speaker 8: If anyone ever comes back from canvassing in their report
50:24
Speaker 8: that I talked to 100 voters, you know they're lying.
50:26
Speaker 3: It's never 100, right? It's 101. It's 97.
50:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, 19 steps to state democracy.
50:31
Speaker 6: You're right.
50:31
Speaker 1: That is more believable.
50:33
Speaker 2: You know, as you were talking, I just had a thought.
50:36
Speaker 4: Like, what if the Constitution started off as, like, a
50:39
Speaker 4: Boy Scout manual?
50:41
Speaker 2: Like, how to democracy in the colonies?
50:44
Speaker 1: I'm sure... That's probably pretty close.
50:48
Speaker 3: Do you consider yourselves equivalent to the founders, based on
50:50
Speaker 3: that question?
50:53
Speaker 1: We do talk about the founding a little. No, we
50:55
Speaker 1: talk about the different... We write about the different parts
50:58
Speaker 1: of the political system and, like, talk about sort of
51:01
Speaker 1: how easy it is to change each part of the system.
51:05
Speaker 1: The whole purpose of the book is really for people
51:07
Speaker 1: to focus their time and energy on what is going
51:11
Speaker 1: to be most useful and most likely to make a
51:12
Speaker 1: difference in politics. And so it can answer questions like
51:16
Speaker 1: is it realistic to expect that we'll ever get rid
51:19
Speaker 1: of the electoral college? What do we do about the Senate?
51:22
Speaker 1: What do we do about gerrymandering? And if you're going
51:26
Speaker 1: to donate to candidates, who is worth donating to? Which
51:29
Speaker 1: causes are worth donating to? Which aren't? if you're going
51:32
Speaker 1: to volunteer, what's the most effective way to actually persuade voters,
51:38
Speaker 1: which is sort of the best way to organize, how
51:41
Speaker 1: to give a good speech at a local meeting if
51:43
Speaker 1: you're going to get involved in local politics. So if
51:47
Speaker 1: you are just starting out and just wanting to get
51:49
Speaker 1: involved in politics, definitely a book for you. But even
51:52
Speaker 1: if you have listen to us, God love you, since 2016,
51:57
Speaker 1: there will be a lot of interesting things in there
52:00
Speaker 1: to help you become a better organizer, volunteer in this
52:04
Speaker 1: election cycle, and hopefully future elections if we have them.
52:09
Speaker 4: Speaking of 2016, if you had written this book in 2016,
52:14
Speaker 4: how would it have been different? What have you learned
52:17
Speaker 4: since then that you included in the book?
52:20
Speaker 1: I mean, The one theme that I think we tried
52:24
Speaker 1: to get through the book is the goal of politics
52:30
Speaker 1: isn't to make you feel better about how right you are.
52:35
Speaker 1: The goal of politics is to get other people to
52:39
Speaker 1: see things your way. And I think when 2016 started
52:43
Speaker 1: and we were all sort of shell-shocked from Trump winning
52:47
Speaker 1: and scared and wondering what comes next, there was a
52:51
Speaker 1: lot of, and I know because I engage in this too,
52:53
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sound and fury and people went
52:55
Speaker 1: online and they were yelling about this and, you know,
52:59
Speaker 1: and what we have learned over the years is the
53:02
Speaker 1: most important thing that you can do in politics, the
53:05
Speaker 1: best way to change the system is to change people's minds.
53:10
Speaker 1: And whether that means, whether you're persuading a Republican, an independent,
53:15
Speaker 1: a Democrat who's sort of sick of politics right now,
53:18
Speaker 1: or someone who hasn't ever voted before or might not
53:21
Speaker 1: want to vote, figuring out the best way to bring
53:25
Speaker 1: them to our side, to welcome them in, to give
53:29
Speaker 1: them the grace to change their mind, that is probably
53:32
Speaker 1: the most important thing you can do in politics. And
53:35
Speaker 1: I felt like that's what we learned from all of
53:38
Speaker 1: the organizers and volunteers and listeners that we've talked to
53:41
Speaker 1: over the years. And I think the skill set for
53:44
Speaker 1: doing that is different than the skill set that's required
53:48
Speaker 1: to win an argument on social media. It just takes
53:52
Speaker 1: a different skill set, and that's sort of a big
53:55
Speaker 1: theme throughout the book.
53:56
Speaker 4: So we were serious about inviting Carrie Lake to participate.
53:59
Speaker 1: Correct, correct, yeah. This is an olive branch to Carrie Lake.
54:02
Speaker 7: Bring that soft, gauzy filter you use on all your
54:05
Speaker 7: web videos.
54:06
Speaker 8: Okay, so if you are, as you should be, freaking
54:12
Speaker 8: the fuck out about this election, and you are trying
54:15
Speaker 8: to find ways to channel that anxiety into productive action
54:19
Speaker 8: along the ways John said, buy this book.
54:21
Speaker 3: I have read this book. I've read it twice. It
54:24
Speaker 3: is excellent. I highly recommend it. It is constructive. It
54:27
Speaker 3: is hilarious. There are drawings.
54:30
Speaker 1: Dan likes it because he's referred to as a sex symbol.
54:35
Speaker 3: Which is the one edit of mine they actually took
54:37
Speaker 3: in the process.
54:41
Speaker 1: So yeah, please buy our book. Democracy or Else, How
54:43
Speaker 1: to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. Crooked.com slash books.
54:46
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming out today. Thank you to Aaron
54:48
Speaker 1: Ryan for joining us. Go listen to Hysteria wherever you
54:51
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Thank you to LA Times Festival of Books. Thanks, Dan,
54:55
Speaker 1: for coming down. We'll see you guys later. If you
55:06
Speaker 1: want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider
55:09
Speaker 1: joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
55:12
Speaker 1: slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to
55:15
Speaker 1: follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and
55:17
Speaker 1: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
55:22
Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
55:24
Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
55:28
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
55:31
Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira
55:34
Speaker 1: Wakeem is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive producer.
55:38
Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
55:41
Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle
55:44
Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
55:48
Speaker 1: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
55:51
Speaker 1: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
55:54
Speaker 1: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
55:57
Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kiril Pelleviv, and Molly Lobel. Thank you.