Latest / Pod Save America / “Planes, Trains, and Matt Gaetz.”

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“Planes, Trains, and Matt Gaetz.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, your infrastructure week joke has already been made,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but Biden's plan is finally here. Republicans continue their quest
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to rebrand themselves as a working class party. And human
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: frat paddle Matt Gaetz is under investigation for sex trafficking.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Then Tommy joins to talk about the next round of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: our March badness tournament, the fascist four. But first, Dan,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: welcome back. How's Jack Pfeiffer and how awake are you
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Jack Pfeiffer is great. He is a... very, in my
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: very unbiased opinion, very sweet, cute kid. And things are,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: everyone is happy and healthy. Uh, he's sleeping like a
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: baby as they very incorrectly say. And Kyla is, despite,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I would say some outsized expectations about what newborn babies
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: could do. Since she told me, she told me for
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: weeks that the first thing they would do when he
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: came home was do a puzzle together. She has, uh,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: fully embraced big sisterdom, uh, And it's constantly making sure
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: that every time he cries that Holly and I are
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: taking good care of quote her baby. So we are good.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I have spent really cute.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It's very nice. It is very, very sweet. We have spent,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time on the internet between
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the hours of like 12 and five, uh, which I
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: would let you know that Twitter is much better in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: those hours. The worst people sleep as if, as it turns.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Out, it is funny, like sleeping like a baby. I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: don't know why people have said that for so long.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, once I, once we had a baby, I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was like, what the fuck are they talking? Yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's like a cool joke that people forgot
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: about at some point.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Is it like, so Charlie is now at eight months
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: sleeping through the night and it's almost like easy to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: forget those first couple months. It must just come roaring
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: back really fast.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is remarkable how quickly you can transition to
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: a place where like two and a half consecutive hours
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: of sleep feels like 14. Uh, so you do, it's
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a very familiar feeling to be sitting in that chair,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: holding a baby in the middle of the night. Uh,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and if you're lucky watching TV and if you're not,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: you're just rocking furiously until someone falls asleep.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Well, congrats to you and Holly and, uh, and, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Kyla and, uh, and welcome back. Um, few quick promos
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: before we begin, uh, check out this week's pod, save
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the world where Tommy and Ben dig into the results
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of the Israeli election, Biden's policy towards Cuba, the politics
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of space exploration, uh, And what makes a bald man sexy?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I just read what I'm told, folks. I don't make
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this up. I don't make it up. In the latest
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: episode of Take Line, host Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: talk all things Elite Eight with Tate Frazier, who also
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: happens to be the original producer of Keepin' It 1600,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a little podcast we did before Pods of America. How
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: about that, huh?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It's amazing. Big day.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Big day. And as always, check out Keep It, but
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: especially now with the Oscars just around the corner. So
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to stay in the know, tune into the hilarious award
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: season experts on Keep It. Recent guests have included Oscar
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: nominee Reza Med, Tony Award winner Delroy Lindo, and WandaVision
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: star Kat Dennings. All right, let's get to the news.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: President Joe Biden announced his American jobs plan in Pittsburgh
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. Two trillion dollars aimed at rebuilding the country's infrastructure,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: tackling the climate crisis and reducing inequality that would represent
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the most significant federal jobs investment since World War Two.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So what's in it? The White House says the plan
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: has four parts. One. Investment in transportation infrastructure like roads, highways,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: public transit, and electric vehicles. Two, investment in home infrastructure
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: like affordable housing, universal broadband, clean drinking water, and a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: better electric grid. Three, investments in what the Biden folks
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: call care infrastructure, which would help seniors, people with disabilities,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and the workers who care for them. And four, investments
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in the kind of infrastructure that makes America competitive like
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: research and development, manufacturing, clean energy, and job training. Finally,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Biden is proposing to pay for all this by partially
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: rolling back Trump's tax cut for corporations, cracking down on
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: foreign tax shelters and ending subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: All right. That's my best shot at a quick summary
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that still captures all the major elements of the plan.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: But tell me if I miss anything. And on that note,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I guess my first question is, what do you think
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: about the size and scope of this plan?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: In some ways, the size is surprising because this Congress
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and this president just passed a very large American rescue
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: plan that also came on top of trillions of dollars
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: in pandemic relief, economic stimulus during the last year of
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration. But it is ultimately a price tag
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: that is very commensurate with the challenge we are facing.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, every president has been talking about doing something
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: about infrastructure for a long time. It was the one
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: thing that even when the parties were divided, they would
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: come together and pass a highway bill or roads bill.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: And then that fell by the wayside as Republicans decided
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: that they cared passionately about the deficit, but would not
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: raise taxes to pay for spending. And so our roads crumbled.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You know, it is listening to you talk about the
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: care infrastructure shows just sort of the sort of maybe
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: the perils of broadening that term to mean so many things. Like,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: should we just add in democracy infrastructure as well and
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: throw in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act? But, you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: it's a big, it is a big, bold bill. And
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about this very, not just substantively necessary, but
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: politically popular.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, talk about putting everything in this bill. Like,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: there is going to be another bill coming, we're told,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that's going to include some of like, you know, education affordability,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: health care, other stuff like that. So even with that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: other bill coming, they still included like the care infrastructure
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: stuff in here, which just goes to show, I think,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: how much of Biden's agenda, domestic agenda, he feels that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: he needs to include in this reconciliation bill, the one
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that was just passed, and perhaps one more now, because he,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I think, correctly realizes that if you don't get everything
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you want done or as much as possible done before
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the 2022 midterms, you may never get it done, particularly
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: if you get a Republican Congress after that.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And your point about reconciliation is really important. There's
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: only one and maybe two more trains leaving the station
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: before then, if the filibuster remains in place and Republicans
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: continue to oppose everything. If you want to deal with
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: quote unquote care infrastructure or other things involving healthcare, it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: got to be on this bill or it is not
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: going to happen. And so that lends itself to Instead
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: of several bills of moderate size, you end up with
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: a couple of bills of very large size, even if
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the overall price tag of spending is not higher than
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: it would be in a normal functioning Congress. It's just
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: it has to happen in these big chunks because of
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: how broken Congress is thanks to the Republicans.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: What do you think about the decision to include tax
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: increases as opposed to just spending $ 2 trillion over eight years?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely the right thing to do substantively and politically. It
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: is– You know, there was a story in the Washington
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Post that said that originally it was going to be
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: almost all spending. And then they came back and decided for,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: according to the Post story, primarily substantive reasons to put
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: these tax increases in to show that we were not
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: being fiscally irresponsible in just spending, spending, spending, spending without revenue.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: These are not outlandish revenue requests. We're raising the corporate
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: rate to something it was very recently before Trump undid it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: You're raising the capital gains rate to– in a way
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: in which people have been talking about for a very
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: long time to try to bring into balance investment income
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: versus income from labor. And so all of that makes sense.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It certainly does help on the politics, too, because raising
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: taxes on the wealthy and the corporations is every voter's,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Republican and Democrat's, first choice for how you pay for
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: government spending if you think it needs to be paid for.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would argue it makes sense even more politically
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: than it does substantively because Theoretically, you know, $ 2 trillion
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: over eight years is a couple hundred billion dollars every year,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: especially with infrastructure spending. You can get away with not
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: actually financing some of that. But tax increases on the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: wealthy are popular. We have both seen polls over the years.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're even more popular than actual spending and investments.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Because people think that the wealthiest individuals and corporations in
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: this country should pay their fair share. And you're right.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not even fully rolling back the Trump
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: corporate tax cut. I believe the corporate tax rate was
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: at 35%. Trump took it down to 21%. This would
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: take it back up to 28%. So corporations are still
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: paying less than they did before the Trump tax cut. So,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you know, these are not crazy tax increases. The Republicans will,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of course, paint them as crazy tax increases. But most Americans,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: when you explain them to them, are in favor of
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: tax increases like this by healthy margins.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, hugely healthy margins. I think on the substantive point,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I am less– I think it makes substantive sense less
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: because– and I am so far out of my depth
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: here– because of dealing with the federal balance sheet and
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: interest rates over the long time, but more dealing with
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: the problem of widening economic inequality in this country. Corporations
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: should pay more. The wealthy should pay more. Capital gains
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: should be taxed at a higher rate. That is good
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: broadly and less about specifically trying to avoid a bunch
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: of people screaming about America becoming Greece or any of
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: that stuff. I think it's the right way to bring
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: a larger, very troubling economic trend a little more into balance.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: So American Rescue Plan had a lot of different parts
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to it, but it boiled down to shots in arms,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: checks in hands. Simple, immediate, tangible. This American jobs plan
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is a bit more complicated. I will say that when
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I was prepping last night for the pod, it took
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the longest time to go through the plan, the White
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: House talking points, the pieces about the plan to boil
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: down to that paragraph that I read at the outset
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of the pod. It reminded me of writing a State
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of the Union and trying to get all the policies
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: into the State of the Union in a way that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: still told a story and people could understand. If you
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: were still sitting in the White House being communications director,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: senior advisor, how would you sell this plan? What would
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: you focus on?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Jobs paid for by asking the wealthy to pay more
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: in taxes. I mean, I think the actual physical infrastructure,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: rebuilding roads, bridges, airports, and the jobs that come from
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: that is something that is commonly understood by voters. It's
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: something that government should do and taxes should pay for.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It's what they experience in their daily life, in their
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: city taxes, in their state taxes. And so focusing on
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: that part makes the most sense. And then taking the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Republican opposition to this and putting it around, they would
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: rather have crumbling roads, fewer jobs, because they don't want
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: to ask the wealthy to pay more. to ask Amazon
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: or Facebook or ExxonMobil to pay more in taxes is
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: a very powerful argument. I would say as narrowly focused
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: on that part as I possibly can, just as in
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: a very different way in which the American Rescue Plan passed.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: It really was. There are a lot of things in
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the American Rescue Plan. Some are all very good, some
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a little harder to understand. But what was it about?
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Shots and checks. And so I would keep this about
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: roads and bridges paid for by asking them if they
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: pay just a little bit more in taxes.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: It's tricky, too, because I think for a lot of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: progressive groups, there's a lot to like in here. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: we can talk about this in a second. But like
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: there's a lot a lot of Biden's climate agenda is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in here.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Not just on the spending side, but he has a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: clean energy standard in here, which requires a certain percentage
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of Americans of American energy to be. clean and renewable
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: by 2035. There's a lot for the labor movement in here.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: He's calling on the PRO Act to be passed, which
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: makes it easier for Americans to join a union and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: collectively bargain. That's part of this bill. So there are
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of elements of this bill that I think
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: could excite progressives. And there's just a lot of different things.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, from You know, the care economy stuff, helping
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: seniors and people with disabilities, getting rid of lead pipes
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: so there's clean drinking water, electric vehicle charging stations. I mean,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: there's something for everyone in here. And it could be
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: very easy, I think, to get lost in the different
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: elements of this plan. And I imagine the White House
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: will probably do discrete events to highlight different parts of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: this plan. But I do think if you're just selling
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it quickly, which is the way that most Americans will
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: probably process things, the American jobs plan jobs is the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: way to focus.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And I don't think you should shy away from climate
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: and the environmental impacts of it at all. I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: that that should be part, you should wrap that into
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the real rebuilding bridges. Bridges. We're going to rebuild in
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a way that is cleaner, better for the planet and
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: safer as a way to do that. It's just, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: this is an interesting bill because lots of bills are
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: filled with some, some Things that are very good policy
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: and very popular politically and then other things that are
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: very good policy and less popular politically. Most– the overwhelming
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: amount of this bill that we have seen– and we
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: keep saying bill and it's actually just a plan. The
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: bill still has to be written, which is a big
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: hurdle that we will talk about, are all popular things.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: They are– like all the care economy stuff is good
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and people are going to like it. It's not particularly partisan.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: But you're just going to– you need your 280-character bill.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: tagline for what the bill is, or the forest is
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: going to get lost for all the very popular trees. Right.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And that is the challenge. The other big challenge, as
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, is passing this thing. The White House says
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: they'll invite Republicans to talk about the plan, but they
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: already seem pretty opposed, especially to the tax hikes. That
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: means Biden needs just about every Democrat in the House.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: and every single Democrat in the Senate. So on the left,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you've got progressives like AOC and Pramila Jayapal saying they
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: think the plan should be bigger, that they like the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: direction of the plan, they like the spirit of the plan,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but they think there should be larger investment on just
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: about everything in there, particularly around climate. In the center,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you've got moderates like Josh Gottheimer saying they won't support
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the deal unless Biden restores the state and local tax
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: deduction that Trump took away, which mostly benefit the wealthy.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So how does this all get done?
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: This is a very different process in the American Rescue
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Plan in two ways. The first is the American Rescue
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Plan was built on the structure of the CARES Act,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: CARES II. Maybe there was a CARES III. I can't
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: really remember. But we already sort of economic aid, UI extension, PPP.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And then they added some things to it, but it
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: was built on an existing structure. So you didn't have
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: to reinvent the wheel to start it. Second, it was
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: on a ticking clock. In addition to just the general
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: momentum of passing the newly elected president's first piece of legislation,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: you had to get it done before unemployment benefits expired.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And so there was less time for jockeying. There was
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: less time for intra-democratic party negotiating and posturing and all that.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: If the train was going to leave the station, you're
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: either going to be on it or you're going to
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: get run over by it. And every single Democrat except
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: one got on board. And This is going to be harder.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It's a longer process. There isn't an immediate clock. There
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: isn't sort of a cliff, as we like to think,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: as sort of legislative people like to think about it.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And so you're going to have a whole bunch of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: committees doing their things. You're going to have a House
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: bill that's probably going to look different than a Senate
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: bill because the progressive voices in the House have more
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: sway and power than they do in the Senate necessarily,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: where it everything comes down to Joe Manchin. And I
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: think it is something that is likely to get done.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: How much it looks like what President Biden announced earlier
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: this week is an open question. How long it takes
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: and how messy the process is, is an open question.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: But it is going to be a challenge to get done.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And so one of the catch-22s of being president is
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: you really want to get things done. You have to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: get things done through Congress. And the more the process
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: goes through Congress– the more politically problematic it is. We
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: went through this many times. And so this is going
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: to have a lot of twists and turns and be
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: somewhat messy. I don't think it's going to look anything
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: like the Affordable Care Act, uh, for a whole host
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: of reasons, but mostly because healthcare is so personal to people.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: And so every little change that was happening in that process,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: people view through the, through the question of whether they
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: could keep their doctor, how it would affect their premiums
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: and roads and bridges is, is a little more, a
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: little more disconnected from everyone's personal life and therefore a
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: little less, uh, about insecurity. But yeah, there's going to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: be a lot of jockeying, a lot of work, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: it's going to move at a very different timeline than
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the American Rescue Plan is my guess.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think if you're the White House, you need
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to both create and maintain a sense of urgency about
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: why this bill is needed. And you want to move
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: quickly because I think the longer the negotiations drag out,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the more politically problematic this can become. I think for
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress, the key is going to be like,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Don't draw lines in the sand just yet until like
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the very end of this, because if you start saying
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: this must be in here or I'm going to vote
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: no or this must be, then you're going to start
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: tripping everyone up early on, which I should say progressives
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: haven't done. Progressives saying they want it to be bigger,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: but they haven't drawn lines in the sand. The fucking
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: problem solvers caucus are the only ones who've drawn lines
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: in the sand so far. Gottheimer and a couple others
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: who said that they said no salt, no deal. Salt
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: is the acronym for state and local deductions, which is
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: sort of like, look, there is some way to reform
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: the state and local deductions so that the benefits that
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: don't go to millionaires and the wealthy can return to
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sort of the more middle class people who benefit from
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that deduction. So there's a way to reform it. But
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I think getting, you know, restoring a tax deduction that
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: mainly benefited millionaires. And I know that some Democrats tried
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to do this in the House before. I think it's
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: politically insane, personally. Like, Republicans are out there trying to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: say that we're actually the party now of the wealthy,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that we, you know, are in the pocket of our
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: wealthy donors, and we're going to give them a talking
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: point that we tried to restore a tax cut that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: mostly goes to the wealthy. What the fuck is that?
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem politically wise, no.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: No, it's stupid. So Mitch McConnell is calling the plan
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a Trojan horse for tax increases. Some Republicans criticize the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: size of the plan. Others said it's not just about
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: traditional infrastructure. There's too much focus on climate. It's a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: progressive wish list. Donald Trump released a rambling six paragraph
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: statement that hit all of the above, plus called the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: plan a giveaway to China lobbyists and special interests. That
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: man really needs an editor now that he's off Twitter
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because his statements are long and boring. Which of any
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: of these attacks should the White House be worried about?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Definitely not the Trump one, which I could not get through.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: I would like to say that I've dedicated enough to
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: this podcast that I could read all six paragraphs for it,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: but I could not. It was unintelligible.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Some people are like, why are you signal boosting the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Trump statement? Because no one fucking cares what's in that.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I dare anyone to get through the statement and think
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that there's anything in that statement that could cause anyone harm.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: It's a fucking word salad that is one of the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: most rambling statements I've ever seen.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And just, if you want us to read a six
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: paragraph statement, post it online. Like I'm like on my phone,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it's a screenshot from Josh Dawsey and I'm expanding it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Fell asleep after the first one. I'm like, I don't
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: want to read this.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Who cares?
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Anyway, go ahead.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: It's not great. It's not tax increases. I think it
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: is the most risky thing will be over the course
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: of time, Republicans picking out things that seem disconnected from
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the actual intent and are sort of the typical special interest, um,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: you know, insider dealing Washington shit, right? Like the very
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: famous from, well, it's probably only famous people our age,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the bridge to nowhere, uh, that was being built, uh,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: during the Bush administration that, you know, those were the,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: there was some things in the stimulus, uh, that, that
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: money went to that became very easily understood talking ways
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: is sort of the equivalent of the overpriced hammers in
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: the Reagan administration where you, can find these, it's those
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: sorts of anecdotes. And this is where there's this balance
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: for Pelosi and Schumer in doing what you can to provide,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to entice moderates or anyone, frankly, to get on board
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: with sort of local projects and not tumbling into this
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: looks like a bunch of quote unquote earmarks that is
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Washington corruption. And so the The bigger–
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: this is a very, very, very popular thing at 10,000
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: feet talking about the overall intent and how it's paid for.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's in the details where it gets in trouble. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: am not worried about Mitch McConnell complaining about tax increases
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: on the wealthy and corporations. Do that all day. Signal
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: boost the shit out of that. Yes. That– like if
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell– what he's doing when he says that is
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: he is basically sending a public email to his corporate
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: donor friends. But from a broader macro political perspective, he
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: is doing us a favor and keep doing it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we should say, you know, Politico and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Morning Consult had a poll from last week before Biden
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: actually announced the plan. They just polled a theoretical $ 3
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: trillion infrastructure plan paid for with higher taxes on the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: wealthy and corporations. 54% approval, only, you know, 27% disapproved
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of the tax increases. Additional pieces of Biden's plan, including
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: boosting electric vehicles, universal pre-K, low-income housing, and more. That's,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of course, some of that could be in the next
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: bill as well. It's not all in this bill, but
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: that also pulled very well. I completely agree that sort
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic wish list is probably the most it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: could be the most effective part of their argument because
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: it comes down to they are spending a bunch of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: money on their friends, their constituents, their lobbyists, their special interests,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and they're not spending any money on you. And so
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I think the Biden administration, it's going to be incumbent
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: upon them to really emphasize the parts of the bill that,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: which is most of the bill, in fairness, that benefit everyone, right?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: They've got broadband for inner cities that don't have high-speed
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: broadband and rural areas that don't have high-speed broadband. I mean,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: they did this really well with the American Rescue Plan.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: They said, you know, they define bipartisanship as both what
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: people in the country thought of the plan, including Democrats
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and Republicans, and also who the plan was benefiting, which
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: is Democrats and Republicans. So if I were the Biden administration,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'd talk about all of the Republican constituencies who would
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: benefit from this plan just as much as Democratic constituencies are,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: because the Republicans, their mission is going to be to say,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: this bill is not for you, it's for their people.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And they're going to try to turn it into a
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: culture war and take it out of the frame where
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it's a bill that raised taxes on the rich to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: help create jobs for everyone, because that's not a frame
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: that they can win.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: One more question on this before we move on. What
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: does the focus on the American Jobs Plan mean for
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the passage of the For the People Act? Does it
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: make it harder to pass? How do Biden and the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats do two things at once here?
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: This is something I am worried about. In an ideal world,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: we would not have to choose among any of these things.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: You would pass the American Rescue Plan, you'd pass the
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: American Jobs Plan, you'd pass the H.R. 1, you'd pass
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: guns and you would just go on down the wish
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: list up until the moment the polls closed in 2022, right?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: But that's not how it works. And as we know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: the congressional will to do hard things is often sat
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: before the public appetite for those hard things. And if
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: we are doing this on budget reconciliation, it is going
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: to be a very tough vote. They're going to do
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: everything they can to hold on to that very narrow
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: group of folks in the House, both the quote-unquote problem
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: solvers caucus, which is about as ironic as sleep like
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a baby, and progressives who want very important things, many
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: of which we agree with in terms of the climate spending.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: And you still have your Joe Manchin problem in the Senate.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: And that is going to be hard. And so every
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: hard thing you do makes the next thing harder. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: so how much political will, political appetite, political capital is
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: there left to push through a change in the filibuster
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: rules to allow the Voting Rights Act and H.R. 1,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: et cetera, to pass? And that is a real open question.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: And I think you don't have to choose between those
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: things right now. The process that we mentioned for this
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: plan is going to– there's a lot of committee work
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and bill writing and all of that. But all of
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: us who care so passionately about all of these democracy
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: and voting rights reforms have to keep the pressure on.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: We can't get distracted by what's happening because– Congress can
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: walk and chew gum, but they will only do that
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: if forced to do it. And we have to keep
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: that pressure on going forward.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I read that Pelosi said she wants
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the American jobs plan to pass through the House by
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: around the 4th of July. So obviously there's going to
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: be a lot of time. You know, Biden introduced the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: plan yesterday. It's going to be a lot of time
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: between now and July where committees are just doing their work,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: writing the bill, passing it through committees. During that time,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that's where the fight over for the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: People Act happens. And hopefully it gets through committee and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: there's a fight on the floor during that time before
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: we even consider the American jobs plan again. So Republicans
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: are opposed to Biden's tax hikes on big corporations, but
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: they're still trying really hard to rebrand themselves as working
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: class heroes. Axios reported on Wednesday that Representative Jim Banks,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: who leads the right wing Republican Study Committee in the House,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: sent a memo to Kevin McCarthy titled, quote, cementing the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: GOP as the working class party, where he argued the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Republicans need to embrace Donald Trump's opposition to illegal and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: legal immigration, embrace Trump's protectionist trade policies and go after
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: what he calls wokeness, which he claims was cooked up
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: by elitist college professors and big corporations, go after big
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: tech for censorship and anti-competitive practices, and go after Democrats
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: for COVID lockdowns, arguing that they hurt working class Americans
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: but helped wealthy Democratic donors. He also argued that Republicans
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: should learn to rely on small dollar individual donations so
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that they can attack Democrats as in the pockets of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Wall Street and big business. So what do you think
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of the memo and the strategy?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I am in, what's this guy's name?
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Banks. Jim Banks.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Had no idea this person existed before this.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Me neither. But the Republican study committee, we should say
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that's like the, that's like a pretty far right caucus
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: in the house. We should just set the scene on that.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: The, having said, I mean, having the fact that I'm
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: now introduced to the existence of Jim Banks and, literally
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: one day ago, I will say that this plan is
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: exactly what Republicans on paper should do. This is their
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: best plan to build a majority and sort of push
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: back against the demographic doom they are facing as their
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: base becomes a shrinking part of the overall American electorate.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Just because it's good on paper doesn't mean it's possible
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: in practice, but this is This is actually a game
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: plan for what a coherent Republican Party should do if
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: it wants to have power.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we should take it very seriously as Democrats,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: because I do think, look, we have seen this because
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of Trump. Populism is a very powerful force in politics.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm not just talking about economic populism, which was
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: pretty fake coming from Donald Trump. It turns out when
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: he was President didn't really follow through on any of that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But a cultural populism too, right? This idea that big, special,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: powerful interests in distant places are against you, are preventing
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you from living the life you want to lead. They're
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: helping people who aren't like you, who don't look like you,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: who don't talk like you, who don't come from where
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: you come from. Whether those people are rich and wealthy
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: or whether those people are immigrants or people of other races.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: It is a very powerful force in politics. And what
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Republicans are trying to do now is say, OK, we
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: kind of had cultural populism down by railing against immigrants
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and black people and a whole host of other groups
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: in this country. that they have attacked over the years.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And now, because we know that we've been in the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: pocket of Wall Street and we've been the party of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: big business, but we know that's sort of a powerful
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: argument for Democrats. Now we're going to turn that on
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: them too. Now it's not easy for them to do
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: because they're out there fucking, you know, opposing tax hikes
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on corporations and the wealthy. Their big proposal so far
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: in the Biden administration has been to fully repeal the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: inheritance tax, which goes to multimillionaires. So like their policy
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: isn't lining up with this. But I do think Democrats
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: should be aware that if they. if they really go
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: through with relying only on individual donors, small dollar donations,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and Democrats continue to take money from corporations and PACs
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and to the Democrats credits, they have, a lot of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: them have stopped doing that. Thanks to a lot of
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the progressives on the left. If they continue to do that,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: they're going to be able to make at least to
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the country a more plausible case that they are on
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the side of working people even though their policy is not.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, there are– as you point out that this is
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: a plan that does not deal with the actual– massive
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: contradiction at the heart of republicanism, which is a party
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: whose base is largely working class and their donor class
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: is corporatist. And they have– Trump was able to obscure
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: that contradiction through just being a bloviating bigot with like
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: real messaging power. And it's not obvious that anyone else
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: can do that.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And because he was a– Yeah, he was a self-funder,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: which is partly why he was a billionaire. So he said,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be in... He's a fake billionaire, right?
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But he was able to say, I'm not in the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: thrall of donors because I don't have any, I don't
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: need them. Now, of course, he had plenty of donors,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: but that was his message.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: A serious version of this memo would wrestle with the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: contradiction between building your margins with working class non-white voters
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: and a lot of the very racist rhetoric that is
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: taking place at the top of the party. There is
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a larger reform project than just putting in some anti-big
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: tech tweets with the traditional racism, if you want to,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: because there is like while Trump made gains, there is
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: a ceiling on that with the way in which the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: party is currently and sort of actively perceived.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And the way they're going to handle that is I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: imagine what they did at the Republican convention in 2020,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: which is look at these black Americans, Latino Americans who
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: are prominent members of the Republican party and And we
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: will put these Americans on display to show that we
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: are not racist or, you know, in fact, and that
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the real problem is just wokeness in America.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Like that's going to be their argument on that part.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And then they're going to show sort of increasing margins
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that they had in 2020 among some black Americans and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: especially Latino Americans. So that's going to be their play
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: for that. But the donor thing, I think, is really
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: interesting because, you know, Jim Banks says in this memo,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Eli Lilly, the big drug company, Blacklisted him because he
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: tried to overturn the election. And what he did is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: use that to his advantage. He and he suggests send,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the following message from Republicans. You should say,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I'm asking for small donations so I can continue to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: represent your values, not the values of liberal multinational corporations.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And he told Republicans to advertise how much corporate cash
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: their opponent, their Democratic opponents received. So you can see, too,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: where like like, yeah, it's good that Eli Lilly, of course,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: blacklisted him after trying to overturn the election. But like
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: who's going to really if he wants to be against
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Eli Lilly, massive drug company, multinational corporation, that's going to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: be pretty popular. People don't like drug companies. They don't
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: love big multinational corporations.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting because I would imagine Eli Lilly
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: is by far the largest drug employer in his district.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: It's the largest employer in the state of Indiana. And
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is– we've seen that shift over time
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: as sort of all politics has become nationalized where even
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: being supportive of unpopular industries within your state is bad politics.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: The question here for Republicans is do they have the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: grassroots fundraising muscle to make up for the– very large
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: super PAC and 501C4 contributions from billionaires and corporations that
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: fund the party and keep the two parties in balance
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: from a fundraising perspective. You are also, I think, seeing
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: a little bit of generational shift that happened in the party,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: both in one iteration in 2008 and another iteration in 2016,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: where a younger generation of Democrats forswore lobbyist contributions and
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: corporate PACs and others, largely the Clintons, Hillary Clinton, both
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: in 2008 and 2016, sort of did not want to
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: take on that sort of reformist mantle when it came
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: to contributions, and therefore raise less grassroots money than Obama,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: No Way, and Sanders in 16. And McConnell is just
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: swimming in the trough of every gross special interest in Washington,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: and Kevin McCarthy is as well. And then you have
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: this younger group of people who've seen the power of,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: if you say you're against these corporate donations, these lobbyist donations,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: you will raise more money online than you would just
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: raise from the corporations to begin with.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Also, there's a middle path that they can take here, right?
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: You could swear off corporate donations from big blue chip,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: very recognizable companies and big tech companies and then go
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: for small dollar donations and still have the conservative billionaires
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: who are all you know, in the shadows, the Sheldon
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Adelson's and stuff like that fund a lot of the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Republican party. So you can still have really rich donors
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: who just happen to be right wing assholes who the
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: base loves fund the party while you tell all the like,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: you know, other corporations that most Americans know to go
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: fuck off and say, oh, they're in the pocket that they're, uh,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: they're in the pockets of Democrats.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: I think getting Sheldon Adelson to fund the Republican party
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: would be quite a feat since he died. Oh, that's right.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I do that all the.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Time with the Cokes. Whatever Sheldon Adelson's of the world
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: are still breathing.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I guess the wife is still funding it, right? There
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: was a good example of this happening this week. In fact,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: just Wednesday night. The Georgia House... voted to take away
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: a tax break for Delta to punish them for speaking
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: up against the voter suppression law. Now, it died then
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: in the Georgia Senate. The Republicans in the Georgia Senate
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: didn't want to carry through on this, but the Georgia
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: House decided to do this purely to punish Delta. And
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: one of the lawmakers said, quote, you don't feed a
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: dog that bites your hand, which is just like, It's
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: not just like sort of this new working class populism
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: from the Republican Party. That's just like fascism now, right?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Like the Republican Party is basically just going to say,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: if you're not with us, if you don't do us favors,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to use our power to punish you in
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: any way that we can.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, like this all comes down to the Trump,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the Jim Banks, whoever you may be. Your memo was
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: all performative populism. It's all the same because– Ultimately, like everyone,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: like Josh Hawley included, like we are against big tech.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Like we're going to take on big tech because they're
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: woke and they cancel us and shadow banning, blah, blah, blah.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: But also we want to cut the living shit out
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: of Mark Zuckerberg's taxes. That's not a coherent message. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: that is one that Democrats can drive a truck through.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And so up until- And I think the point is
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: we have to remember to do that, right? Like we
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: have to keep the frame against them in the realm
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of they are for They're wealthy. They are for big corporations.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Look at their policy. Look what they fight for. Look
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: at Mitch McConnell. He's still running the party. He's still
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the most powerful person in the party who's elected. And
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: all he wants is to cut taxes for rich people
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and gut Medicare and gut health care. That's what's on
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: his agenda. And we have to keep up that message
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and not sort of get lost in all of the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: details because they are going to be trying to flip
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: this on its head.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Speaking of working class heroes, let's talk about Matt Gaetz.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: You might remember the man described as Trump's best buddy
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: in Congress from such moments as kicking the father of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: a Parkland victim out of a congressional hearing, bringing a
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Holocaust denier as his guest to the State of the Union,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: appearing on Infowars, trying to overturn the last election, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: blaming the ensuing insurrection on Antifa.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: On Tuesday night, shortly after Axios reported that Gates was
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: telling people he might not run for reelection, the New
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: York Times reported that in the final months of the
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Trump administration, the Justice Department opened an investigation into Gates
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: that is still going on today about whether he had
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: to travel with him in violation of federal sex trafficking laws.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: So very serious charges, very serious crime. We have no
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: idea what the investigation will find. But, believe it or not,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: story gets even crazier when Gates goes on a publicity
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: tour to deny the charges, which includes the claim that
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: he and his family have been victims of an extortion
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: scheme involving a former DOJ official seeking $ 25 million to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: make the sex crimes investigation go away, and that his
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: father has been cooperating with the FBI to catch the culprits.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Part of this unfolded during a truly bizarre Tucker Carlson interview...
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: The New York Times is running a story that I
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: have traveled with a 17 year old woman and that
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: is verifiably false. People can look at my travel records
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: and see that that is not the case. I'm not
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: the only person on screen right now who's been falsely
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: accused of a terrible sex act. You were accused of
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: something that you did not do and so you know
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: what this feels like. You know the pain it can
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: bring to your family and you know how it just
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: puts people on defense when you're accused of something so
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: salacious and awful. I only know what I've read in
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: the New York Times. I can say that actually you
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: and I went to dinner about two years ago. Your
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: wife was there and I brought a friend of mine.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: You'll remember her. Again, I really saw this as a
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: deeply troubling challenge for my family on March 16th when
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: people were talking about a minor and that there were
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: pictures of me with child prostitutes. That's obviously false. There
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: will be no such pictures because no such thing happened.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: But really on March 16th was when this got going
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: from the extortion standpoint.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: If you just saw our Matt Gaetz interview, that was
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted. I'm not
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: really sure where to begin here. What's your reaction to
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: this story?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of mad about it. And here's why. There's
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: just not time to go down every rabbit hole to
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: learn about everything. And Matt Gates is one of those
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: things that just decided not to learn about. Like I
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: was aware of his existence. I knew he was a
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: MAGA buffoon, seemed like a fraud, but I didn't really
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: dig deep into him until we decided to put this
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: on the pot agenda. And I read all the stories.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Holy shit. Like it is, it is.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Do you have, is, I don't see the bulletin board
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: in your background with a lot of red screen.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It's not even conspiracy.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: It's just, that's what you need. No, that's what you
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: need to just keep up with all the different twists
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and turns. And like, apparently the extortion scheme also involved
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: like the, the people that, that, uh, approach the Gates's
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: saying that the $ 25 million would be, um, for information
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: regarding the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, who's a former FBI agent,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: DAA official who had been captured by the Iranians and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: presumed dead. Like, there's so many different twists and turns
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: to this story. It's bizarre.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: I was just shocked to learn so much about Matt Gaetz,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: like that he created an entire internet controversy by putting
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: quasi salacious comments on Tiffany Trump's Instagram page. He was
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: dating a 21 year old who posted a lot of photos.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: There was some pretty amazing texts that somehow ended up
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: in the press from his aides to him about what
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: was on that Instagram page, the gas mask, the, I mean,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: it is a wild thing. And that he is the,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: basically the son of a like Jeb Bush establishment Republican,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: former Florida state Senate president.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, Matt Fuller, the daily Matt Fuller, the daily
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: beast wrote a story today. And he said, he's been
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: sort of wanting to write the story for years about
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: how other Republicans have always sort of looked askance at
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Gates and worried about his alcohol use alleged drug use and,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: The women he's been with, like, so these were like,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the point of the story, to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: me at least, is that the Republican Party continues to
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: tolerate people and not just tolerate, but embrace and elevate, right?
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: People who are just the fucking scum of the earth.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is, and it's not tolerate for the
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: purpose of this person is an effective person. legislator in
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the way that sports teams will keep people on the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: roster who are terrible people because they're good at their job.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: It is actually that being a terrible person are the
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: exact skills you need to rise to fame in today's
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Republican Party. So he's not a terrible person who happens
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: to be a powerful Republican. He's a powerful Republican because
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: he's a terrible person. And that is sort of played
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: itself out when you read about everything he's done. But
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: this entire situation, as you point out, we have no
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: idea what is actually happening. There are some things that
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I think worth sort of trying to unpack from this
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: from based on what we know from news reports. The
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: extortion scheme is, if it is true, and we obviously
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: do not know that, is not what the investigation is about.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: I think you said this to me in text. It's
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: like a C-plot to the story. He was under investigation
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: for sex trafficking. Someone found out about it and then
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: tried to extort him. The fact that he is being
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: extorted is not the reason why he's being investigated. He's
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: being extorted because he was being investigated already for something
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: which he didn't really deny. It seems like.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the point is the extortion scheme part,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: if true, in no way exonerates him from the larger
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: investigation into sex trafficking. That is the important point. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the New York Times reporters that wrote the story made
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: that point. The Washington Post has confirmed that point. So, like,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the investigation has been going on for quite a while
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: beyond the extortion scheme, the alleged extortion scheme part of
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: this story. And again, just because, you know, his first
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: instincts would probably be like, oh, that's the deep states
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: after me. The investigation... started in the Trump administration. Bill
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Barr knew about it. The president at the time, Donald Trump,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: was briefed on it. And Bill Barr and everyone let
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: it keep going. So this was not some partisan witch
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: hunt against Matt Gaetz, whatever it comes up with.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, in fairness, are there two people who
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: are more hands-off in a political investigation than Donald Trump
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: and Bill Barr? I mean, they would never just interfere. Also,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I just want to say, too, like, I'm no lawyer.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Never went to law school. Apparently Matt Gaetz is a lawyer.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I think he's his own lawyer. But like, I don't
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: know if I would be giving a client of mine
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: advice who's under investigation for sex trafficking to just start
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: tweeting about whatever and going on Tucker Carlson and also
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: like volunteering more potential crimes. He's like, some people say
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: there might be pictures of me with trial prostitutes. That's
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: crazy too. Like just volunteering stuff on Tucker, trying to
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: rope Tucker into the whole thing was also, I have
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to say, of all the serious things in this story,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: very funny to watch tucker carlson do his sort of
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: stupid confused face but this time really mean it He's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: talking about Tucker being at a dinner with him and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Tucker's been accused of a sex crime himself once. And
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: even Tucker Carlson, who was reportedly furious about this interview
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: after the fact, has to throw him onto the bus
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: after commercial and say, yeah, that was pretty crazy.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: If we were to find out a week from now
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: that Tucker Carlson is now under federal investigation for murdering
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: a booker, I would not be surprised because that whole
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: time he has this look on his face like. How
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: did this happen? He's like, Tucker, you met her at
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: that dinner we went to. And he's like, I want
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: to be very clear. I have no recollection of what
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: you're talking about.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I've never had dinner with you.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I don't really have dinner. I stopped eating at three.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: The first time I've ever met you, Congressman. Anyway, wild story.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I would say one thing that is funny about it
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: is there are all these stories. There's one in Politico
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: that's like Gates leans into the Trump playbook for scandal
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: and crime management. And it's like, stop, read your lead, pause,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: think about it for a second. Do you think one
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: of the differences between why certain things would work for
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Trump and they may not work for Matt Gaetz is
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: the Department of Justice has an actual legal opinion that
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: says Trump can't be indicted. So all he has to
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: do is go on TV and convince Fox News viewers
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: to convince their elected representatives not to remove him from office,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: while Matt Gaetz is actually building a body of evidence
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: could be used against him by prosecutors and a jury
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: who are not necessarily members of Congress? It's like, yeah,
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: it's not the same thing. They aren't the same situations.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And it may have worked for Trump, but it's fucking
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: insane for Matt Gaetz to do it.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Sadly, I do not think he's going to be getting
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: that Newsmax job that he was thinking of taking instead
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: of running for Congress. So that is unfortunate for Matt Gaetz.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: All right, in addition to not getting that coveted job
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: at Newsmax, Matt Gaetz also did not make Pod Save
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: America's first ever March Badness Tournament. But here to tell
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: us who made the fascist four and hash out the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: championship game, our own Tommy Vitor.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, John and Dan. John, thanks for
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: stepping on my joke for later. But welcome back to
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: Crooked Media's first and probably final March Badness Tournament. In
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: case you didn't listen to Monday's pod, you don't know
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: what the hell we're talking about. We rank the eight
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: worst Republicans in the country, the awful eight. And then
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: we had Lovett and Favreau vote on who advances to
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: the fascist four. Today, John and Dan will pick two
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: god-awful people to compete in the national championships.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: You ready?
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I just, I want everyone who's just listening to this
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: podcast and not watching it on video. Tommy is in
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the office standing up, holding a microphone.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: You guys, I have, um, I have like a coffee
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: table on top of a desk with like three shoe
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: boxes to make this work. So, uh, good stuff.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Very real here.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: Very real.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: It's also amazing that in it's, we should know that
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: your backdrop is cut out pieces of paper taped onto
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: a wall and In 2021. Yeah, Dan, this is Super Tuesday.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was Super Tuesday for you. That was the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: last time we were all in the office.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: How dark is that?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Very sad.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: It is Chernobyl in here. It is Pompeii. It is
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: a time warp. Okay, so again, this is not a
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: serious competition. We're just trying to make you laugh, so
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: please don't yell at us on Twitter.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Good luck with that.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: Tommy, here's who made it into the awful eight. The
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: eighth seed was Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. The seventh seed
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The sixth seed was cocaine
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell. Five seed, Senator Cancun Ted Cruz. Four seed
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: was Tucker Carlson. The three seed was unemployed white nationalist
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Stephen Miller. The two seed was George W.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Bush.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: The one seed was Donald Trump. So, Dan, what I've
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: learned since Monday is that a lot of people are
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: suffering from recency bias and have forgotten how bad George
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: Bush is. And as John mentioned earlier, Matt Geitz was
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: a glaring omission from this tournament. Do you have any
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: hot takes on the awful eight before we get to
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: your fascist four vote?
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: I thought you did a great job. I'm 100% with
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: you on George W.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: Bush.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Everything bad that has happened in the 21st century can
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: be traced back to George W. Bush, Donald Trump, the
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: economic crisis, which is also George W. Bush's fault. George W.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Bush should have succeeded. But as we know from March Madness,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the best team doesn't always win. Sometimes there's an upset.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Dan's standing for Ted Cruz. How do you feel about that?
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to say something about this. You don't
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: pick your bracket. based on which team has had a
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: historically excellent basketball program. You pick it based on who's
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: been the biggest threat that season. And in the case
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: of George W. Bush versus Ted Cruz, it's Ted Cruz.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Who's George W. Bush hurting at this point? He's painting
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: some pictures. He's giving Michelle Obama some mints. He's releasing
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: statements that obliquely criticize insurrection, shit like that. He ain't
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: hurting anyone now. Ted Cruz is a threat. He could
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: be the Republican nominee in 2024. That's why I picked him.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Is that the judge? Is that our standard here? I
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: feel like maybe I don't.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Understand the rules.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: That's my standard.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: That's how I'm looking at this tournament.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Dan, none of this makes sense. I thought it was,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: who's the worst person? I was like, who's the worst person?
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Or who's done the worst things?
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Your mistake was thinking this as well thought through. Favreau's
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: point is, you know, you go to the brackets with
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: the Republicans you have, not the ones you wish you had.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: So, okay.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: But let me get to the point here. So after
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: votes from Lovett, Favreau, and like 25,000 people on Twitter,
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: including whoever runs Ted Cruz's Twitter account, the fascist for is,
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: out of the West, Mark Zuckerberg. In the East, Tucker Carlson.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: In the South, Ted Cruz. In the Midwest, Mitch McConnell.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: So our first.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: Fascist four matchup is Mark Zuckerberg versus Tucker Carlson. So
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: the question for you guys is, who is the Gonzaga
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: of this matchup? Is it Zuck with his global platform
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: that supercharged the spread of fake news and QAnon? Or
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: is it Tucker Carlson who radicalized millions of boomers who
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: then share Tucker's clips on Facebook?
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Dan, you go first. You go first since I've been
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: talking about this for a couple episodes now.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I think this is about as obvious as it can be.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Four to five million people watch Tucker Carlson on any
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: given night. Billions of people around the world are on Facebook.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg is not just the Gonzaga of this tournament.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: He is the 1991 UNLV running rebels of college basketball.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: CBT.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Most dominant team in history by far. This isn't even close.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson, very, very bad, had a good season, went
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: as far as he could go, but he is outmatched
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: by the tremendous talent of terribleness of the Mark Zuckerberg team. Wow.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: John, do you want to embrace debate? Do you think
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: that Zuck can avenge Adam Morrison? That's a deep cut
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: for the Gonzaga fans out there.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: What do you think? I'm going to go with, this
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: is a matchup that's sort of intention versus impact, right? Obviously,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg like Dan is correct. There's, there's more people
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: that are on Facebook. But, but intention wise, like Tucker
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Carlson has a path to becoming the 2024 Republican nominee,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I believe. And if he is successful. there is a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: chance he could become a more dangerous Donald Trump. I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: think he is more dangerous than even Mark Zuckerberg because
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I think Mark Zuckerberg is kind of goofy and has
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: no fuck idea what he's doing half the time. And,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you know, you can sit down, he can sit down
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of Republican strategists and Ben Shapiro and
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: they can convince him of one thing and then a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: bunch of establishment people can convince him of something else.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think he knows what the fuck he's doing.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I think he's just sort of a sad goofball who
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: let everything get out of control. Tucker Carlson, he knows
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: exactly what he's doing, and he is very dangerous to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: this country, I think. So I'm going to go with Tucker.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Here, can I push back on that briefly? Please.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: So yes, it is possible that Tucker Carlson will be
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the 2024 Republican nominee. Not if Matt Gaetz has anything
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: to do about it. Fair point. But I will say
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: that Mark Zuckerberg has greater control of whether Tucker Carlson
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: is a 2024 Republican nominee than Tucker Carlson does. And
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: for that reason, you have to pick Mark Zuckerberg.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Well, once again, we are laying bare the fact that
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: I didn't think of a tiebreaker mechanism that we can
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: do live. So we're going to have to throw this
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: one to the people for their votes. Right? We're all
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: in bad engagement here.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: This is great.
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: This is a win for Elijah. This is a win
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: for our social team. This is a win for everybody.
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: So our second fascist four game is Ted Cruz versus
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell. Again, Ted Cruz is such a desperate troll
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: that he voted for himself to advance in this tournament
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: in the Twitter poll that I created that is almost
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: as sad as endorsing Donald Trump after he accuses your
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: father of killing JFK. Now, Dan, as you know, Mitch
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: McConnell is the Dikembe Mutombo of the U.S.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Senate.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: He just swats everything. The rumor mill in Kentucky is
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: that Mitch was cleaning the glass for a variety of reasons.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: So again, he's subjected to a lot of PED testing.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: But where do you guys land on this one? Mitch
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: McConnell versus Ted Cruz?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Well, first, I will be forever banned from any sort
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: of Georgetown basketball game where we ever do return to
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: sporting events if I do not point out that it
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: is horribly offensive that Dikembe Mutombo and Mitch McConnell be
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: using the same sentence. Although I do understand that the
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: point of the sports metaphor you were using, but I
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: think it has to be Mitch McConnell.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: And without a question, Ted Cruz, when it comes to terribleness,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz is like that Butler team that made it
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: to the final four. He doesn't have a lot of
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: natural talent, but he works really hard at being an asshole.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell just doesn't even have to work for it.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: He just shows up on the court, laces up his shoes,
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: and is just an asshole. Ted Cruz has got to work.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: He's practicing in the mirror, as we know from every
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: interview he does. He's practicing saying asshole things in the mirror.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: I promise you he wrote 17 versions of that very
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: sad Pod Save America tweet just to try to get
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: it right. He is the typical Bill Raftery, in the gym,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: gym rat sort of guy. But Mitch McConnell's got the
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: talent to blow him out of the water.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he called us Marxists, which is funny for all
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: the people who call us neolibs. Yeah, Ted Cruz is
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: that Duke schmuck, that kid who used to slap the floor.
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: What was his name?
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Well, he's probably Grayson Allen, who I think actually looks
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: a lot like Ted Cruz.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, of course.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, he's Grayson Allen.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the perfect Ted Cruz Duke basketball metaphor.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: What's his face? Steve Wojcicki.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Woj.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Is the floor slapper, I believe.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: Before the good Woj. So, John, sorry, your take here.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I do not think we're going to have to pull
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: this one because I think Mitch McConnell is the easy
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: answer here. And I think this is like a one
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: seed finally rolling over a worst seed that had a
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: few upsets early on in the tournament. This is just, it's,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: there's no contest at Mitch McConnell, much more powerful than
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, much more dangerous than, Got to give.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: It to Mitch.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: You know, this is the eye test. You know what
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: I mean? A lot of people want to fall in
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: love with a UCLA or a Michigan, but it's like, look,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: you've been watching Mitch steamroll people all season and like,
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: what are you going to do? So, okay. So Dan,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: we're going to vote on the national championship on Monday.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: It's going to be Mitch McConnell versus either, you know,
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: I wanted to get your take on this today. We
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: obviously have some indecision here, but it's going to be
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell versus either Zuck or Tucker. I mean, do
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: you think that Mitch is such a runaway favorite that
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: he is your champ?
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I think he is the favorite in this situation for
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: some of the reasons that John articulated in his very
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: vehement defense of Mark Zuckerberg's goodness.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: They hang out a lot, yeah.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Do not tweet at me that I like Mark Zuckerberg.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: John's trying to get invited to the- Elijah, I think
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the clip you- Elijah, I think I found your social
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: clip to put out on Snapchat.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: John wants to get invited to the house in Hawaii. Yeah, right.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, maybe Crooked Media doesn't work out. I'm going
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to need a job.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I think Mitch McConnell is the favorite, but it, this
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: is a, this is a close matchup. I think if
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: we were looking for a recent, uh, final two analogy,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: it's probably that Villanova UNC game where Chris Jenkins hit
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: the three to win it. These are two very terrible
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: people with very similar talents of terribleness, but I would
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: pick Mitch McConnell as the favorite in that. Wow. Okay.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: Well, that's exciting. Well, what I think we'll do here
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: is we'll throw up another poll. Uh, we'll, we'll let
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: the people decide and then, you know, we can, we
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: can walk through this again on Monday, but you know,
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: I think it's been a great tournament. Uh, you know,
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: I just want everyone to remember like these are amateur
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: unpaid athletes, you know, you can't come down too hard
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: on them. So, you know, don't, don't yell at us
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: on Twitter again, but, uh, thanks for playing.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: That's where we're headed.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: There we go. Back to you in the studio.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy, thank you. Thank you for that. That was a
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: great time. Thanks for having me. We'll talk to you
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: on Monday. And everyone else, have a great weekend. Dan,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: welcome back. And we'll talk to you Monday. Bye, everyone.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos every week.