Latest / Pod Save America / “Live, from the Tulsa overflow” (with Jon Stewart!)

Transcript

“Live, from the Tulsa overflow” (with Jon Stewart!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are coming to you live from the overflow crowd
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Big pod today. Jon Stewart is here
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to talk about politics and his new movie, Irresistible. Very cool.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Before that, we get to talk about quite a lengthy
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: list of bad news stories for Donald Trump, his disaster
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of a rally in Tulsa, his former national security advisor
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: exposing a few more impeachable offenses, what looks like a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: botched attempt to shut down investigations into his allies, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: another loss at the Supreme Court, this time over immigration.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: But first, love it. How was the show this weekend?
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: We had an awesome love it or leave it. Nicole
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Byer was so funny in the monologue. Adam Serwer came
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: by to talk about the DACA decision. And Juneteenth, Phil Picardi,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: who has a new pod with us, came to talk
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: about faith and spirituality and Lindsey Graham. So we had
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: a great episode. Also, we quizzed some organizers in our
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: six adoptive states.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: So it was a great episode.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: You should check it out.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Also, join us on Wednesday night for Crooked's first and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: hopefully last annual at-home pride parade, a live virtual event
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: featuring Crooked hosts and special guests to raise money for
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: LGBTQ organizations. The fun begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Pacific on YouTube.com slash Crooked Media.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I hear you're going to bring glitter.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I bought some glitter.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: But it's going to be great. we have an amazing
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: lineup of people.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: It's going to be very fun. It's all for a
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: good cause. So check it out.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Very cool. Also, before we get to the news, let's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: talk about Tuesday's big primaries in New York and Kentucky.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Three races we are watching in New York's 15th district.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: We're trying to stop a very Trumpy Democrat named Ruben
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Diaz Sr. from winning the primary. He has a history
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of homophobic and anti-choice statements. but he has very high
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: name recognition. He is bad. A recent Data for Progress
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: poll has the progressive New York City councilman, Richie Torres,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: right behind Diaz. There's also plenty of other good Democrats
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: in the race, including our friend Mike Blake, who's a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: New York assemblyman. But the most important thing is we
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: need to coalesce behind one of these Democrats because Ruben
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Diaz Sr. was in the lead, at least in the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, and he is very Trumpy for
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a Democrat. So that's important. Also, in the New York 16th,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the Democratic incumbent Elliot Engel is in a very tight
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: race with a progressive school principal named Jamal Bowman, who
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: is an incredibly impressive candidate. Tommy, you and Ben talked
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: about Bowman on Pod Save the World. You want to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: say a little more?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a cool race that's worth watching.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, Elliot Engel is a nice guy. He's been
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: a rep for that district for, I think, 16 terms.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: But this really has become a generational fight. I also
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: think people are concerned that Engel has been a little
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: too conservative on foreign policy. He heads the House Foreign
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Affairs Committee. He voted against the Iran nuclear agreement, and
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: that really hasn't pressed the Trump administration hard enough at
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of things. So a lot of people are
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: excited about Jamal Bowman. He's young. He's an educator. He's exciting.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Some people have called him the next AOC. So check
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: out that campaign. Go to bowmanforcongress.com. You can still get involved.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: You can still donate money. You can still help them
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: with turnout efforts. It's an exciting race. He is the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: kind of person I think we need in Congress. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: check it out.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Check it out. One last race. The Kentucky Senate primary,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the winner of which will take on Mitch McConnell himself,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: has turned into a real race between former fighter pilot
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Amy McGrath and Kentucky's youngest black lawmaker, the very progressive
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: state representative Charles Booker. Again, you know, he released a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: digital ad a few days ago. It's up on his
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Twitter feed. And it has to be one of the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: most impressive videos with one of the most impressive messages
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I've heard in a while. So check that out. That
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: is a race to watch. So that is Tuesday. Races
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to watch.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Races to watch.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Races to watch. We're going to have a key race
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: alert here soon. I mean, unfortunately, one of the big
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: things we're watching.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Wolf Blitzer is going to pop out of that closet. Yeah,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Wolf Blitzer, he's in my yard. One of the scary things, though,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: is that this is going to be a test for
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: whether states and municipalities can get it together to do
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: vote by mail in time. And there's a little concern
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: right now that New York State has not gotten everybody
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: their absentee ballots. So we'll be watching that closely. We
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: need to get this right, everyone. Come on, be competent here.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. So guys, you know,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: it's been a pretty rough 2020 so far. We've covered
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of sad news, some scary news, some very
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: serious news. That's why today, For just a short while,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: just a short while, we're going to let ourselves savor
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: every moment of the humiliating fiasco that was Donald Trump's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His campaign told reporters
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: that this was their big general election kickoff. Just last week,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was bragging about how nearly
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a million people had signed up for tickets. I think
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: he said over a million. It got to over a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: million by the end. And here's what Trump said to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: reporters as he was leaving the White House for the rally.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: The event in Oklahoma is unbelievable. The crowds are unbelievable.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: They haven't seen anything like it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Haven't seen anything like it. The crowds are unbelievable. Well,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Bank of Oklahoma Center can hold 19,000 people, but the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: fire department estimated that only 6,200 showed up. At the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: last minute, the campaign was forced to cancel the remarks
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that Trump and Pence were scheduled to deliver to the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: overflow crowd outside. because there was no overflow crowd outside. Instead,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the New York Times reports that Trump, quote, gazed at
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the empty arena in horror while yelling at his staff
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: for the endless rows of empty blue seats. He was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: also reportedly furious that it was reported that six of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: his staff tested positive for COVID. Tommy, before we even
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: get to the speech, how did this event turn into
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: such a clusterfuck?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Well, Let me count the ways, John. So to Trump's
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: point that you've never seen anything like that kind of
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: crowd in Oklahoma, somebody did a nice list of all
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the other artists and acts that had bigger crowds in
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the same exact venue, and it included John Tesh. So
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: you would have seen something like that crowd if you
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: had been early to the John Tesh show before it
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: actually filled up. But I really would start with two numbers.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: One is 2.32 million. The other is 122,000. That's the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. And so Trump
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: has decided to restart the campaign and pretend the coronavirus
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: is over and that we're all moving on. But people
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: are scared about getting sick. They're scared about going into
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: an enclosed arena with no social distancing or mask requirements.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And they should be, right? Because six Trump staff members
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: working on this event got COVID in the process. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: it came out that morning. So people were nervous. Even
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Steve Doocy, who if you don't know this guy, he
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: is one third of the dumbest anchor desk on television,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Fox and Friends. He said this morning, like, who thought
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: it was a good idea to put 20,000 people in
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a room with masks optional? He's, you know, overselling there. So,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: you know, the pathetic turnout is a sign that people
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: are worried about getting sick and that Trump's momentum problems
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: are probably real. It also shows to me that the
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: campaign staff, especially Brad Parscale, the campaign manager, are bad
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: at their jobs. An ironclad rule of politics is you
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: under-promise and you over-deliver, right? That's why politicians always hold
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: events in small venues where they cut off half the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: gymnasium to make it look small and then make a
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: show of putting down more chairs right before the event
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: starts and the press is watching. Instead, the Trump campaign
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: was hyping the fact that they would have 19,000 people
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: inside the venue and and then 40,000 at a special
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: outside stage. And then they were saying that a million
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: people had registered for tickets. And like that on its
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: face should have told them that maybe something weird was happening, right?
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Like why would a million people register for something that
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: they can't go to? It turns out that it could
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: be because K-pop fans and like prominent TikTok users helped
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: inflate those numbers by falsely registering. If that is true,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: you guys are heroes, I love you. But like, regardless, 6,200
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: people showing up in a Trump plus 36 state is terrible. And,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: you know, Brad Parscale is blaming the Tulsa Police Department
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: for making it too hard to get in. They're trying
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to blame like Antifa and outside agitators. So they're just
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: spinning for their jobs. But it was a catastrophic error
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: by the campaign. Well, I love that they they're blaming
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: also the media too. for warning people about the possibility
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: that they may contract a deadly virus if they go.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: That was one of their, that was also, the media
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: got some of the blame. What did you think as
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: you were watching this shit show unfold?
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: So first of all, I was sort of like, oh, well,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: what if we create a test to prove who are
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the true Trump sycophants really the worst of the worst
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: of the Trump believers who will do anything he says,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: no matter what, how many people- Rain, shine, or plague.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And it turns out it's about 6,200 people in Oklahoma.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: And so we know that. Hillary Clinton might put them
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: in a basket of some kind. But I found that
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: really reassuring. It's like, okay, it didn't fill up all
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the kind of bluster, all the kind of punditry that's
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: hard to piece out in polls because people tell pollsters
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: what they think will help their side. People's actions tell
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: you a lot.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And whatever the reasons, a lot of people looked at
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: this and say, I don't care what Trump says. I
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: don't care about helping him. I don't care about politics.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: I'm not putting myself at risk. That's not about believing
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the Fox News versus the mainstream media that is people
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: looking at something and making a decision for their own
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: lives and deciding that regardless of what Trump says, they
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: know what's real, which I understand must be pretty frustrating
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: for people like Brad Parscale because they've invested a lot
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: in a whole apparatus supported by billions of dollars and
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: corporations and billionaires to convince people not to listen to CNN,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: to convince people not to listen to mainstream news outlets
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: about virtually any topic, including the virus. That isn't working.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: That just didn't work.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: And that's a really good thing.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, we should throw a big to be
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: sure in here about crowd sizes.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Like you can over interpret what a crowd size means,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: whether it's a big, excited crowd, whether it's a small crowd,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: what it means for actual electoral chances. But I do
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: think a couple of things here, like the coverage has been. devastating.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And just the Trump campaign, I mean, Donald Trump is
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: down right now, right? Like, he could come back, he
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: could win the election, he could close the gap, all
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: these things are possible. But right now, at this moment
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in time, he is down. And the days are counting
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: down until November. And every day, he gets really bad
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: coverage is another day that is a missed opportunity to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: sort of gain ground on Joe Biden. And if nothing else,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: now he has had another He said, Saturday, Sunday, today
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is Monday, another couple days of looking like a weak loser.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: And I'll add another sort of to be sure, which is, look,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about this last night when we were
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: talking about crowd size. Arguing with Donald Trump makes you
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: dumber even when you're winning, right? You know, it's dumber
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: when you're losing and it's dumber when you're winning. Talking
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: about crowd side is very silly. Talking about the ramp
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: is very silly. It is not important, but he brings
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: us to these conversations and you have to win those conversations.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: But it's, you know, once we, I want to, we'll
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: turn to the substance of the speech, but yeah, people
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: didn't show up in Oklahoma, right? That's a big problem.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: They made the story about people showing up for some reason,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: because they don't have a message.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about that.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: But 7.7 million or some huge number of people watch
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the speech on television, right? So you could actually imagine
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: if they hadn't focused on crowd size the way they did.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And by the way, if you're watching a video, I
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: got the one guy in the crowd behind me. But
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: if they hadn't focused on crowd size, we'd be talking
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: about the fact that almost 8 million people, maybe more,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: watched Donald Trump's kickoff for his reelection campaign. The problem
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: is when you get beyond the fact that nobody showed up,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: what really matters is what he said. And he didn't
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: have much to say either, right? Like there's no good
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: story for him coming out of this event.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Look, I do think like the crowd size thing can
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: be overstated, but I think for Trump, like big rallies
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: are his whole strategy. It's the thing he enjoys the most.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: It's the thing he points to as his proof point.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And if they can't pull big crowds because of COVID,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: they're going to need to fundamentally rethink how they run
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: this campaign, which is not ideal in June. I also
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: think like the press loves a good comeback narrative, right?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And if Trump had packed the box center and then
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: spoke to 40,000 people in the overflow, it could have
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: driven that narrative that the base is still there. He's
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: coming back. People want to see him. Bad polls are
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: a blip. Instead, this turnout shows that things are even
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: more dire than we thought. And like, yes, there's a
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: lifetime until the election.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: We're basically at the midpoint between the Iowa caucuses and
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Election Day, which is unbelievable if you think about where
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: our brains were in the Iowa caucuses. But like like
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: John said, like every day counts. People want to support
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: a winner. And then, you know, if you're an at
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: risk Senate candidate like a Joni Ernst right now, at
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: some point you're deciding, like, how fully Trumpy am I
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: going in this race? And you're looking at that event as.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And thinking, oh, shit, maybe it's time to cut this
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: guy loose, right? Like he had a whole parade of
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: sycophants with him, like Elise Stefanik, right, who became famous
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: because of her garbage at the impeachment hearings. And she's
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: got to be looking around thinking, oh, my God, 6,200 people.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: What does this translate to in a sort of moderate-ish
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: New York district? This ain't good for me.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: It's also amazing that after this event, he's going to
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: go on like a COVID hotspot world tour. Like he's
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: going to Phoenix this week. He's going to end up
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, Florida for the convention now since they moved.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about that for moving from Charlotte.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: So I'm sorry, but on the Jacksonville front, though, it's
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: just worth pausing. Like, I think that there's something to
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: be drawn from what happened in Tulsa, which is all
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: this hype, all this propaganda.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: People don't show up.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: You know, he moved his acceptance speech for the nomination
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: to Jacksonville because he wanted to give this big speech.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Now polls come out of Jacksonville showing that nobody in
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Jacksonville wants this. And a place that voted for Trump
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: is going to turn against him because they're like, do
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: not bring your fucking plague bomb to my fucking town.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Well, you can bet that in the future events, like
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: they are going to do everything possible to literally drag
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: people kicking and screaming into these events.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: To fill it up.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: If they have to have like cardboard cutouts in the audience,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: they're going to do it. They are not going to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: repeat what happened. Let's talk about the speech itself where
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Trump basically rambled on for nearly two hours about things
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that made him mad. Including, as you alluded to, Lovett,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a 15-minute rant about the media coverage of his West
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Point commencement speech where he actually imitated himself walking down
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: a ramp and proved to the crowd that he could
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: drink a glass of water with one hand.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: They, of course, applauded.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Trump made no mention of the recession or the double-digit
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: unemployment rate, no mention of the more than 120,000 Americans
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: who've died from COVID-19, no mention of George Floyd's murder
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: or the protests against systemic racism. The president did refer
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to the pandemic as the Kung Flu virus and said
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the following about testing.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: You know, testing is a double-edged sword. We've tested now
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: 25 million people. It's probably 20 million people more than
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: anybody else.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: Germany has done a lot.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: South Korea has done a lot.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: They call me.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: They say, the job you're doing— here's the bad part.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: When you do testing to that extent, you're going to
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: find more people.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: You're going to find more cases.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So I said to my people, slow the testing.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Down, please.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So the Trump campaign has later said that he was joking.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: But the Biden campaign has told reporters that they'll be
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: focusing on these comments all week. Tommy, how damning do
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: you think these comments were?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I think it's pretty damning. I mean,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: you can't like he's not kidding. He wasn't kidding. They're
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: trying to pretend he was kidding. He was not. He's
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: downplaying the coronavirus. He's trying to act like it's gone away.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: And he's repeatedly made this kind of comment that, boy,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: if we didn't test so much, it wouldn't be a problem.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And that's a scandal. I mean, this is criminal negligence, right?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, when COVID reemerged in Wuhan, China, the government
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: tested all 11 million residents. That's how you effectively handle
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: an outbreak. You don't hide from it. And so instead
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: of coordinating this national response, John, it's like you said,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: he's going to go do more campaign stops. He's And
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the whole event, like it flailed around like this, right?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, clearly their core message is suggesting that Joe
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Biden is old or not like totally with it. I
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: don't think you draw a great contrast there by telling
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: a 12 minute story about how a ramp was too steep.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: That is not an effective, vigorous sounding candidate. So the
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: whole thing was just a fucking mess.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Well, you've written your share of stories. Rally speeches, campaign stumps.
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Could you detect a re-election message in that speech?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a negative message. There's a negative message about Biden.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: There was no positive message.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Right, that Tommy was just talking about.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: So there was a negative message about Biden. I mean,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: what I found just like looking at it as a speech,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: which is hard to do, right?
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: A work of art, really.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: It was a work of art.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And it is best to be approached as a work
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: of art. Each of us can draw our own conclusions,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: find our own meaning in it. But first of all,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: I think we were talking about this on Slack that like,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: it's jarring to see one of these things again, because
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: we're all out of practice of seeing him like this.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: He's also rusty, which is great. He's definitely like got
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: up there and like, oh, like where's the, where was
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: his usual kind of, he really struggled. But you put
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: all that aside, like, So I just want to say
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: on the testing thing, the context, right, is I think
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: as of today, cases are rising in 23 states. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: it's not just because of a rising amount of testing.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: That's just not true because we're also seeing rising hospitalizations.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: The testing isn't exaggerating what we're finding. It's actually showing
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: that this is spreading.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: It's real.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And it shows us that Donald Trump is the obstacle
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: to us taking on this pandemic. He is not only
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: not helping, he is an active hindrance. He was asked
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: today in an interview about those comments. The White House
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: has been saying he's joking. Pence has been trying to
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: dismiss it. He was asked directly. He refused to disavow
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: it and just restated his thesis that the testing is
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: showing the cases that the testing is the problem. When
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Trump goes and gives a rally speech normally, and you
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: look at how the media covers it for like, not
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: for cable news, but just sort of the local news
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: or an AP write-up or the kind of summaries, usually
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: those help Trump because they take two hours of rambling
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: and they crystallize it down to his core message, right?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump came to Wisconsin to argue for his economic
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: vision and attack Joe Biden, right? Now, in reality, there
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: was no coherent anything. It was two hours of insanity
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: that most people won't see because most people are busy
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: and not watching cable news on Sunday like us because
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: we're psychos. But in this case, he never did that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: He never got to the part of the speech where
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: he argues for his reelection. It just didn't come. He
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: did the 15 minutes about the ramp. He did a
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: whole diatribe about Joe Biden. He went in various tangents
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: over the course of two hours. He talked about the
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: different names for COVID-19, but he never actually said, I'm
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: running for reelection because here's how we have to make
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: America great again. He never did it. Or here's how
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: we keep America great. Never said it. No slogan, no nothing.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: It was completely absent. And absent that core thing, it's
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: especially damaging for him because all that's left is two
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: hours of rambling. And there's no easy way to summarize
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: that for people. So you're just left with the very
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: fact of it being chaotic, the fact of there being
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: no message, the fact that people didn't show up.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, in 2016, all of his speeches had plenty
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of crazy anecdotes like this, plenty of tangents like we saw,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of lies, a lot of racism, a lot
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of offensive comments, like all of it was there. But
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: there was a core message there that he was this
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: outsider who was going to, like, fight the corruption in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Washington and restore America to what it looked like in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the 1950s, whatever. You could disagree with it, but there
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was a message that came through over and over again.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: What has been absent from this entire reelection campaign, and look,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it's harder for presidents running for reelection now. To have
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a message when you're not the challenger and you're the incumbent,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: especially when you're the incumbent at a time when 70
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to 80% of the country thinks that it's going in
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the wrong direction, right? So you defend your record and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: then you sort of paint sort of like a, you know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: two different visions, the vision that your challenger represents and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: then the vision that you represent. There is no vision
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that he represents, at least not that he has articulated yet,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: not that his campaign has articulated yet. It's just not there.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And then as Tommy was talking about, you know, the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: message we should tell with the message about Joe Biden.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Which is basically Trump said Joe Biden is not the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: leader of his party. Joe Biden is a helpless puppet
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of the radical left. If Democrats gain power, then the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: rioters will be in charge and no one will be
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: safe and no one will have control. So it's basically like,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Joe Biden is too senile to stop Antifa
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: from burning your house down. That's that is the and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I just I wonder if it's just a few too
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: many dots. He's asking people to connect there about Joe Biden.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: My reaction to the Joe Biden portion was, oh, they're
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: really struggling. They have polling. It seemed to me that
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: it revealed polling that showed direct attacks on Joe Biden,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: calling him a leftist. calling him Antifa, calling him an
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: AOC type Democrat, saying he's too far to the left,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: don't work. Because he made a point of saying, Joe
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Biden's not the issue, right? Basically saying that like, he
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: might as well have said, I like Joe Biden, you
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: like Joe Biden, we all like Joe Biden. The problem
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: isn't Joe Biden. The problem is these other people, right?
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: That was sort of like baked into it. And then
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: of course, attacking him as senile, saying he's not up
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: for it. Trump made a point at some point in
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: the speech saying something like, basically saying Joe Biden is senile.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And that's not something you can overcome, right? There's no
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: way to argue against it. There's no way to fix it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Because I think there was this, there's a, inside of
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: what he was saying is a realization that they're really
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: struggling to find something that sticks to Joe Biden, that
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: works on Joe Biden. And I think that's, that's, that
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: to me was, was interesting. Yeah, it's just, you know,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: if radical leftists.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Were in charge, Biden wouldn't be the nominee. So it's
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: sort of confused. It's like they did a control F
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: for Biden and replaced it in their like Bernie message
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: they had at one point. And, you know, there's a
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: more potent message in there somewhere that was, you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Biden's been in D.C. for decades, but he hasn't fixed
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: all these problems we're talking about. And that's why you
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: need me. I can see that maybe working. I do
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: worry about the smear campaign of calling Biden old and
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: infirm just because it's simple and it can get in
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: your head with misleadingly edited videos that Facebook giddily allows
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: you to run on their platform. But again, he did
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: a 15-minute bit about how hard it is to walk
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: down a ramp. That's not the contrast I would have
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: drawn if I were Donald Trump in that moment.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: No, it's exactly what you said. I think you tweeted this, Tommy.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It was very funny. It was like calling your opponent like.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Senile or saying that he's suffering from suffering from dementia
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: when you sound like a fucking you know old guy
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: who just uh left the escape from the retirement home
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: telling the stories he does he doesn't he doesn't present
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: him like mental acuity is not really the issue that
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: donald trump should be seizing on yeah when talking about
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: joe biden chief just threw the water cooler through the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: window and you ran out after him like that was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the vibe i took from that speech and it was
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: not well And like, it just, look, it's a hard
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: thing to, you're right, like it could, with misleading videos,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: misleadingly edited videos, right, you can make an issue of this.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work well if Joe Biden just shows up
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and acts like a normal politician. That's where the strategy
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: falls apart.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So the law and order president also had quite a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: few legal issues over the last week. On Friday night,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: there was somewhat of a botched attempt to replace a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: prosecutor who's been investigating Trump's allies with Trump's SEC chairman. First,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Bill Barr announced the resignation of Jeff Berman,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: who's the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: He managed the Michael Cohen investigation and has reportedly been
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: investigating Rudy Giuliani. Then Berman announced he wasn't going anywhere.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So legally, the only option was for Trump himself to
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: fire Berman. But that meant that Berman's deputy, Audrey Strauss,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: will take over instead of SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Barr and Trump initially wanted. Tommy, what did you make
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of this debacle? And how big of a deal is it?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, we had a little mini constitutional crisis on
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: our hands for a few hours. It was quite exciting.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I think people should know like Berman's not some deep stater, right?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Like Yosemite Sam, Jeff Sessions named him to this job temporarily.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: He's a registered Republican. He gave money to Trump. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I think the obvious tie here, the reason Bill Barr
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: went after him, is that SDNY has been investigating a
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: bunch of sensitive cases that are linked to Trump, right?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: He went after Michael Cohen in Berman's office, named Trump
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: as individual one in that document. They've been looking into
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani. SDNY issued an indictment last year of a
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: state-owned bank in Turkey for allegedly violating US sanctions against Iran.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And according to John Bolton's book, which is very exciting.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Trump promised President Erdogan of Turkey that he would shut
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: down that investigation, but he couldn't immediately do it because
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the SDNY folks were not his people. So that brings
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: us to today, right? So that gets us like this
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: bizarre moment over the weekend where the attorney general at
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: best was just brazenly lying in a press release saying
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: that Berman had resigned and literally naming Trump's golf buddy
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: from like two weekends ago to replace him. Pretty clearly
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: the fix was in here. And we know that Berman
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: wasn't getting fired because he was bad at his job
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: because Barr floated a promotion for him. He said you
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: could lead DOJ's civil rights division, right? So this was
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: about protecting Trump. And so it was an attempted Saturday
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Night Massacre, which was a moment in the Nixon administration
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: people can Google. But it shows me that like this
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: ongoing effort to punish enemies is still happening. It shows
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: that Barr is willing to lie repeatedly and publicly. It
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: shows that DOJ is just fully a tool for Trump.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to wage war personally and politically against people he doesn't like.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: And they're trying to make it impossible for SDNY to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: operate independently, which it historically has done. The good news
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: for those who care about law and order, as John said,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: like his Berman's deputy is going to take over. It's
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: not the person Barr wanted. So hopefully she can protect
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: some of these investigations. But it's just it's very frustrating
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: because D.C. people treat like Barr and Mike Pompeo with
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: respect because they're viewed as competent. But this was wildly incompetent.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: You don't want to create a massive public fight with
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: your own U.S. attorney and lift up these cases. He's
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: just a right wing hack. And Bill Barr is as
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: dangerous a person in this administration as we can find.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And this was, I think, a very scary, very fraught
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: moment for several hours over the weekend. Love it.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: It does seem like in the ongoing battle between incompetence
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and malevolence in the Trump administration, incompetence won this round,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: which is which is unusual for Bill Barr, because like
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Tommy said, he is I believe he's the most dangerous
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: person in the administration.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean, look, this was a week where
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: incompetence saved us. Incompetence saved us on DACA. Incompetence saved
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: us here. It's also just worth remembering that, you know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: to Tommy's point, Bill Barr has been sorted into the
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: non-Trump serious category because he's soft-spoken and he crosses his
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: T's and he dots his I's and he speaks in
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: the language of Washington. He speaks in the legal language,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: the serious language. He chooses his words very carefully. That said,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: he gave a speech outlining his sort of overarching view
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: of American politics. And it was a radical speech in
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: which he basically viewed the left as a threat to
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the United States against which really all means were at
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: his disposal, all means were necessary. He views liberalism as
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: something that's attacking the core institutions of the country and
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: therefore justifies, I think, some of his more egregious pro-Trump,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: pro-executive actions. Beyond that, you know, Thank goodness this guy
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: refused to go along with it. He called out the
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: game and it worked, right? I mean, there was an
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: alternate reality where Barr's statement was taken as fact and
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: they were able to put whoever they wanted in this job.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: And Clayton, a guy... with absolutely no experience in prosecution,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: who's just a Trump loyalist, could have been put in
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: this job to protect Donald Trump. Instead, there was a
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: few hours where he thought, okay, we got some legal
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: wrangling and there's a chance through that wrangling we'll be
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: able to have a real prosecutor stay in that job.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: But because he spoke out, we now have somebody more
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: We have somebody kind of who can continue those investigations.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: But the fragility of these investigations, the ease with which
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Barr is able to do this is chilling.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: It's chilling.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And one more point that should encourage you all to
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: go register some voters and donate to some candidates. Like
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: William Barr tried to do this in June of an
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: election year. Imagine what's going to happen if Donald Trump
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: does not have to face the voters in a second term,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: what Bill Barr and other people like that are gonna
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: do in this administration. Imagine, this is what he did
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: with just a couple months to go until the election.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: It's stunning. All right, let's talk about new resistance hero,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: John Bolton. Over the weekend, Trump lost a legal battle
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to prevent the publication of his former national security advisor's book,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: The Room Where It Happened, though the judge also noted
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that Bolton is not immune from criminal and civil liability
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: for publishing classified information. It's what we call a win-win
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: here at Putzave America. So Bolton's already been on his
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: book tour. Here's a clip of his first sit-down interview
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: with ABC's Martha Raddatz.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: You described the president as erratic, foolish. behaved irrationally, bizarrely.
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: You can't leave him alone for a minute. He saw
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: conspiracies behind rocks. He couldn't tell the difference between his
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: personal interests and the country's interests.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: he has the competence to carry out the job.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: Yikes.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what was your reaction to the book? What parts
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: jumped out at you?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: The beautiful, the writing. I know you joked about him
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: being a resistance hero. I do think people should just
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: remember that John Bolton sucks. Don't pay him money for
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: a shitty book. Thank God he's good at taking notes,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: but that's like the only thing I respect him for.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't read the full book, but the
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: excerpts in that interview, we just played a piece of
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: pretty much confirmed the worst case scenario about Trump. Like
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: there is no foreign policy vision. All of his decisions
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: revolve around whether or not they'll help him get reelected.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Bolton paints a picture of a president who has no
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: interest in learning even basic facts. He doesn't read. He
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: only gets his intelligence briefing maybe once or twice a week.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: And in that briefing, he spends most of the time talking,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: which is not how it's supposed to work. That means
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: that right-wing zealots like Pompeo or Bolton fill in the rest, right?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: They fill in the rest of the policy and that
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Trump can be manipulated by people like Vladimir Putin. Bolton
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: talks about a 90-minute meeting with Putin where Trump just
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: sits there and takes notes and does whatever he says.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And the example that most thoroughly upset me that has
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: come out of the book was one about China. So
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: the Chinese government is building massive concentration camps in Western China.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: They have forced an estimated one or two million Uyghurs
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: into these camps. It's a minority group. And the only
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: crime they're accused of basically is being Muslim. So these
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: people are ripped away from their families. They're indoctrinated. They're beaten.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: They're tortured. They're often disappeared. The Chinese government is trying
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to eradicate their religion and their culture. And they've created
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: this dystopian surveillance state hell in Western China. And Bolton
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: quotes Trump telling Xi Jinping, the president of China, that
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: he should build these camps and that it's the right
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: thing to do. And so a lot of people have
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: noticed that Trump has not spoken out about this horrific
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: human rights violation, but the truth is so much worse
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: in that he was actually encouraging it. So that excerpt
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: won out in terms of the worst thing I'd ever
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: heard in my life, but it was just over saying,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Trump saying it would be cool to invade Venezuela. That
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: was a close second, but supporting the construction of concentration
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: camps is just like historically evil stuff. Love it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Agree or disagree?
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, also just adding to that, that the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: China conversation also included him asking for help on trade
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: so that he could win reelection. And it's also worth
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: putting in context the fact that Xi was able to
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: kind of praise Trump and kind of butter him up.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: And that may be part of the reason Trump was
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: so open to praising China early on, in their response
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: to the pandemic. These things are all connected.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, we've gotten very used to Trump assholes.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: John Bolton is a Bush asshole. Okay. And one of
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: the lessons of the last four years is that Bush
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: assholes and Trump assholes actually don't do that well together,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: but they're both still assholes. And so that's all, that's
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: all I have to say about that.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: It was a very team America.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: I like it. Yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, I thought it was going
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: to going even further. I mean, I think John Bolton
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: just made so many ads for Joe Biden, and you
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: can see them all in the Martha Raddatz interview. Like
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: there was the clip that we just played, which was,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty devastating. He also said, there really isn't
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: any guiding principle that I was able to discern other
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection. And to me,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that sort of sums up the whole thing. It fits
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: with the larger message about Donald Trump that Joe Biden
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: has been delivering, that we have been talking about for
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a while. He is an incompetent goon who cares only
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: about himself and not about you. And that clearly is
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: how he has approached foreign policy over the last several years.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, Bolton goes into this whole thing about China
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: where he's like he would just keep talking about a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: deal with China. He didn't care what the deal was,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: what was in the deal. He didn't know about trade.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: He didn't know about it. Like he only wanted a
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: deal because he thinks a deal looks good in terms
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: of media coverage and photo ops. Same thing with North Korea.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Same thing with. It is the same thing he got
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: impeached for, trying to get Ukraine to help his re-election.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Now he's doing the same thing with fucking China. I mean, like,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: this guy just goes around the world, meets world leaders,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: sucks up to dictators, not even because he's necessarily some secret,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: scary authoritarian, because he just wants to win re-election. He
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: only cares about himself, which is, in a way, stumbling
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: into authoritarianism, which we've talked about before. But that's who
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: he is.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: On the North Korea example, Bolton gave another interview where
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: he talked about the fact that Trump had absolutely no
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: aptitude for why we were in the negotiations, what the
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: goal of the negotiations, whether we should be entering a
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: summit with North Korea at all. All he wanted to
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: make sure was that if somebody pulled out, it was
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: us pulling out, not the North Korean pulling out, because
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: it's better to dump someone than to be dumped. That's
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: the sort of level we're operating at. One other just
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: point about all this is, you know, there's that famous
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: SNL sketch, where a kind of dopey, out of touch
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan closes the door to the press and he
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: turns on and he becomes incredibly on top of his shit,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: calling out orders, being really fast moving. What we have
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: learned from all of these different sort of internal deliberations,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: these books, these articles, when Trump shuts the door, there's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: no other guy, there's no other type of Trump. What
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: we see is what we get. He is as unhinged, chaotic,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: disconnected from the facts, ignorant, selfish, self-serving. When the door
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: is closed is when the door is open. There is
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: no better version of him. There is no secret group
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: of people who have figured out how to get what
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: they want out of him. It is chaos all the
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: way down.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't get, it's on the level of like,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: why do you want to get reelected so badly to
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: a job you don't even like doing? It's just, it
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: annoys me. Also, I saw Jerry Nadler say on the
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Sunday shows that they weren't going to call Bolton to
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: testify before Congress. Why not, man? Why not do a
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: full day on these books? Let's talk about all these
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: comments about China. Trump is trying to make this the
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: focus of his campaign to say that Biden is soft
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: on China. We have volumes of evidence now that Trump
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: has caved to the Chinese, that he's begging them for help,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: that he literally asked them to help him get reelected.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Put him on the stand. Put him under oath. What
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the fuck are we doing?
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: At the very least, it's another day or two of
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: coverage about how the president of the United States is
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: unfit for office as we are, again, heading towards this
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: election and Trump needs every day to come back.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Do it in October, for God's sake.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Also, remind everyone about all the Republicans who said we
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: don't need to hear from John Bolton before we make
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: up our mind on whether to convict the president of
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: high crimes and misdemeanors. We don't need to hear from
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: John Bolton. Well, here he is.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: The final legal debacle for Trump last week was also
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a victory for American immigrants in a 5-4 decision. The
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court blocked the administration's plan to end DACA, which
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. Chief Justice
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: John Roberts joined the court's liberals and wrote the majority decision,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: which he said was not about whether or not DACA
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: or its repeal were sound policies, but about how the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security failed to consider quote, what if
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients if
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the program was eliminated? Trump responded, these horrible and politically
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: blasts into the face of people that are proud to
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: call themselves Republicans or conservatives. And then he followed up with,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: like me? Again, it's just all about him. Tommy, what
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: does this decision actually mean and what can Trump do
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: about it now?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think Lovett made the point earlier that
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: this is a week where we are just saved by incompetence. Basically,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: this ruling doesn't weigh in on whether DACA was sound policy.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: It basically says that the agency didn't comply with a
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: bunch of procedural requirements that require them to provide an
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: explanation for their actions or think through all the ways
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: that they might create hardship for the young people affected
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: by this hearing. So what will likely happen is the
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security cooks up another memo, tries to
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: end the DACA program all over again. It gets hung
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: up in court for a couple of years, but it
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: does speak to the absolute necessity of winning this election
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: if we want to protect hundreds of thousands of kids
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: who came to the United States because their parents brought
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: them when they were very small, have never lived anywhere else,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: maybe don't speak the language, have served in the military,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: have gone to school, have gotten jobs, are a key
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: part of the society. If we want to help them
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: remain in the U.S., we have to win re-election because
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Trump will make another run at this. Love it.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: What was your reaction to the decision?
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: It was incredible relief, right? I mean, this is, people's
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: lives are on the line. So the decision, the outcome
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: was the most important thing. I'm glad it landed where
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: it did. It is Another example of us being, as
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: we said, saved by incompetence, that is true of the
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: first time Trump took a run at his Muslim ban.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: That was true in the census decision in which basically
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: the court said, you can't lie to us about your
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: reasons because they were so ham-fisted in trying to add
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: a citizenship question to the census and their arguments were
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: so obviously false on their face that the court wouldn't
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: allow it. That happened in this case too. It's worth
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: remembering that the Roberts court has participated in a bunch
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: of right-wing decisions on immigration. So there's nothing stopping Trump
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: with this court Going back and figuring out how to
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: do this. That's what they did with the Muslim ban
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: as well. You know, Sotomayor in her dissent made the
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: point that basically you need to look at the racial
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: animus that propelled this decision, the rhetoric Trump uses, the
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: rhetoric people around Trump use. as one of the justifications
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: because it raises an important equal protection argument under the Constitution.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's really important. It's really important
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: because what I think Sotomayor is saying in that opinion
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: is a more competent version of this decision is still
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: really dangerous. And that is something that I think the
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: conservatives are actually right about when they say that Roberts
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: sidestepped the big questions. He did. The opinion does sidestep
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: the big questions. And it just does raise the stakes
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: of the election. I also do think... you know, we're
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: happy with this outcome and we should be happy with
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: this outcome.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: It's very important.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: It helps a lot of people.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: What Trump was trying to do is incredibly dangerous.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: But I do think it's worth remembering, we're not happy
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: because we have some philosophy as liberals around the Administrative
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Procedure Act, right? There's no deeper liberal philosophy at stake.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: And I do think one thing liberals need to be
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: thinking about more is when we talk about judges, not
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: just talking about outcomes, but making sure we're doing what
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: conservatives did for 30 years, which is build a framework
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: for their legal arguments around originalism that gives them a
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: kind of larger base from which to operate their arguments
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: around the court that I think liberals have not always
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: done a good job at.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think there's any evidence from this that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: John Roberts is some kind of moderating force on the
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: court at all. I think that he is an institutionalist
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: who takes a dim view of sort of the incompetence
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: in the Trump administration. He basically held the same view
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: in the census case. That's why we won the census case.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: just because they're a bunch of incompetent buffoons. And Levitt,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like you said, I mean, you cited Sotomayor. She was
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the only one that raised the equal protection concerns. Even
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the other liberal justices didn't. So I do think we are,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, we don't talk about the court nearly enough
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: in why it's so important to win in November because
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Trump looms so large. But it is very likely that
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the next president will appoint one, at least one, if
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: not two or more Supreme Court justices that will shape
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: whatever legislation comes out of Congress and whatever executive orders
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: come out of the presidency for a generation, for a generation.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: And I do think we may be saved for now
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: because Trump could have DHS turn around a memo tomorrow
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and try to start this process again. I do think
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: they're sort of sending mixed signals on this. They're talking
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: about wanting a legislative fix from Congress. Part of the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: reason may be the popularity of DACA by 78 to 12.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: This was a June 2020 poll from Politico and Morning Consult.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Americans want dreamers to stay and receive legal status. That
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: includes 68% of Republicans. So again, in June of an
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: election year, do you want to actually end this program
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: on a 78-12 issue?
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Trump's an idiot, but that's where the politics are. Okay,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: when we come back, I will talk to Jon Stewart
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: about his new movie, Irresistible. Joining us today, the Emmy
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Award-winning former host of The Daily Show. He's also the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: writer and director of the new movie Irresistible, which is
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: out June 26th. Jon Stewart is here. Jon, welcome to
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: Hello, Jon. Thank you for having me, and thank you
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: for spelling your first name correctly.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's... Hate those H's.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Hate the H's.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: We were so poor growing up, we couldn't afford one,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: but it's always.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Nice to be with you.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: To see a fellow John.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: So you have emerged into our current political hellscape with
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: a film. It's about a raging inferno.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: And I'm in the corner like, anybody want Fresca?
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: It's great. So I watched it this weekend. It's about
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: a mayor's race in rural Wisconsin that becomes nationalized when
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: this small tout is invaded by a bunch of super
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: PACs and DC consultants. So, um, I will say you
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: really captured the dickishness of the consultant class quite well. Um,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: to what, to what extent do you hold what, what
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you've called the industrial political complex responsible for the, uh,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: absolute shit show that we're living through right now?
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: Um, you know, it's certainly not that there's The reality
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: of the world is it is a complicated place where
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: divisions are real. You know, I think where I hold
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: it responsible to some extent is that I see it
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: as an incredibly valuable tool that could be utilized to
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: our benefit. And it's unfortunately too often gets tangled up
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: to our regret. And maybe that's what it is. I
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: certainly don't view it as, you know, if this whole
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: problem would be fixed, if only the media wouldn't, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: generate clickbait. It's not that. I view it as kind of,
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: and always have, kind of like an immune system. And
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: in a time like this, literally a pandemic, Uh, we
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: need all the tools to fight ills that we can get.
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: And I've always been a firm believer in that system.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: I think what I believe is that like any system that,
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: that makes money, it tends to propagate the parts of
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: itself that make it the most money and grow. It's like,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: so if you own a football team, right. You know,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: and you start out and you're playing like 12 games
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: and it's fine. And you're making good money and the
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: guys are getting paid. Well, now it gets a little
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: more popular and the TV comes and you're like, I
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: have an idea. Let's do 14 games. And you know
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: what else would be really cool? Wild card. Let's throw
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: a wild card in there. And then that goes for
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: a while and you're like, I think 16 games makes
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: a lot more sense. And why don't we add 10 teams?
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: And why don't we have a longer play? And maybe
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: 18 games. And the players are like, you know, this
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: hurts our brains, right? Like the more we do this,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: the more our brains die. And the owner's like, I
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: totally get that. That's very cool. 17 games. What about 17?
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Systems that are incentivized for how they make money tend
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: to just, and so, and especially with Citizens United, the
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: political industrial complex has grown. You know, when Eisenhower said,
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: beware the military industrial complex, I don't think what he
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: was saying is that you know, war profiteering and all
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: that is the cause of war, but it makes slowing
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: conflict down that much more difficult. Yeah. And I think as,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: and by the way, the billions of dollars in our
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: electoral system is the least of its corrosive effect because
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: that's not factoring in how that money changes the way
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: people govern. and the amount of time that they have
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: to spend raising money that could be spent, and the
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: incentives in their careers to maintain accessibility to those that
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: they think will keep them in power and keep the
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: status quo. So it ripples through the entire system.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned Citizens United. Obviously, a constitutional amendment
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: or a new Supreme Court would be the ideal way
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: to start fixing this short of that. Um, it seems like,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the best we can do right now is
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: maybe a system where you have more candidates like Bernie
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who, you know, are funding their
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: campaigns with, with small donations only seen other down ballot
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: candidates do this too. Um, and then of course you
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: have like Republicans doing exactly what they're doing right now still. Um,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: do you think that would still make a difference if
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: we just had more candidates sort of deciding to swear
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: off big dollar donations?
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: Well, sure.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, but again, it's sort of an
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: unfortunate situation that, you know, swearing off big influence is
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: considered like a bold move against the system. Like that's
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: sad that a system is built that way. I think
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: What I would love to see is to not make
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: the system permanent. Like, don't make it 7-11, where it's
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: always open and we're in a constant campaign scenario. At
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: this point, I think quarantining it would actually be maybe
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: a better move for us. There's no other country in
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: the world that I know of that engages in the
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: permanent campaign like we do.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: It's just electioneering and the powers that be, and it's
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: all working together. We've set up, and by the way,
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: the pandemic kind of blew out what would have been
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: an incredibly tedious past few months, where the narrative that
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: would have been set up is Sanders against Biden, and
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: will the Bernie bros forgive? And you notice that without it,
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: it's kind of fine. We're not less informed because they
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: haven't fully embraced like a runaway narrative that doesn't really
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: exist and didn't hammer it into the ground. There's certainly
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: vestiges of it. But the point being, when you create
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: a permanent campaign, like expanding football, like it's there to
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: continue to make money and it's going to keep pouring
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: money into this system. And so it's not going to end,
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: but they don't realize that the effect of it is
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: we never get a chance to take off the uniforms.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: So we remain enemies all year long. Talk radio, 24
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: hour networks, constant barrages of things. It entrenches those divisions
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: and it is not incentivized to ever fix them. Because
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: if you start to problem solve, your moneymaker diminishes.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: So we're stuck in a place, you know, what I
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: find that's always shocking in the world that you inhabited
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: with some of the political stuff is there's no accountability, like,
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: at all. You know, they still call in Bob Shrum
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: and go, what do you think? And you're like, did
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: that guy ever win in a life? Like, what are
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: we doing?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: There's always, there's always a green room waiting for you somewhere.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: Always. And so it's musical chairs. And when the music stops,
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: nobody ever takes away a chair. And so everybody is,
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: I used to say at the daily show, we'd be
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: sitting in the writer's room and I go, just remember
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: when we leave here, the only friends you will have
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: are in this room because we tried very hard not
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: to become a part of a complex. Now, We were parasitic.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: We were still making money off of that carcass. But
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: the intent was to be some of that immune system,
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: to be some of that filter.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we talked a little bit about
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: sort of fixing it on the political side with too
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: much money in politics. Where do you even begin on
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the media side? Because I feel like, you know, since
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you've left The Daily Show, the media has more than
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: proven your point that the entire business model the punditry,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: the conflict obsession, the algorithms, like none of it is
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: designed to give us the information we need to make
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: educated political decisions. How do you start to change not
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: just individual behavior, but the entire incentive structure?
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: Well, so it's a generational project. The right has done
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: a really impressive job over a 60 year period. You know,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: they got to a point where they thought, you know what?
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: The institutions in America that people rely on for clarity
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: and for authority are not comporting to our point of view.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: There's too much the best and the brightest going on
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: and not enough love it or leave it. We would
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: very much like some more love and relief. So for
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: 60 years, what they decided to do was we will
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: build an alternative structure. We will build, you know what?
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Academic institutions are rotted to the core with liberalism. We
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: will build our own academic institutions. Think tanks are rotted
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: to the core with liberalism. We will bring our own
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: think tanks. We will bring our own media. And this
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: was a conscious strategy. Some of it real, because they
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: thought a point of view needed to be served. Some
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: of it cynical in that part of the design of
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: the project was to discredit the institutions that other, so
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: they were comporting, it's like they do this today. You know, sure,
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: we have Limbaugh, but you have NPR. And you're like,
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: they are not even in the same universe of activism.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: They used to say to us all the time, the
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: Daily Show, what's your responsibility to the, you know, Donald
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: Trump is your fault because you made fun of Republicans
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: for so long. They get tired of it. I'm always
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: being asked to be introspective about my impact on the discourse.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: I have never seen any moment of introspection from the
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: right-wing media and the right-wing institutions that were built that
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: corroded the authority purposefully of maybe liberal leaning, but certainly
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: not activists. And to that extent, you know, did we
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: make fun of conservative causes? Yeah, I'm sure we did.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: But for 60 years, if you have an AM radio,
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: 24 hours a day, They preach Democrats as enemies. Oh, yeah.
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: In no uncertain terms, they are raising a generation to
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: feel as though those people are enemies. And it blows
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: my mind that they play victim to this day. But
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: disassembling that, you're not You're not going to. You're not
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: going to be able to, you know, look, even in
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: this moment, how hard is the right working to make
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: sure they're seen as the victims of this moment of
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: racial injustice? What's the real tragedy of this moment? We
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: might lose a statue or two, which are on the
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: cusp of having slaves. Or the liberal mob will come
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: for you and call you a racist. If you're more
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: concerned in this moment about the language police, I mean, and.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: By the way- It's grievance. It's pure grievance. That's all
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: they got.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: And it's bullshit. Look, I get it for Trump. What's
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: he going to run on? His record? Come on. But
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: talk to Mitt Romney about cancel culture. There's a pretend
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: amongst the right. And I can't tell how much of
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: it is cynical and how much of it is Religion
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: and when I say religion, I don't mean Christian religion.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: I mean the religion of the right That Has them
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: give no introspection to you know, Eric Trump in the
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: middle of a pandemic in Tulsa the site of a
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: worse one of the worst massacres in United States history
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: of black people in 1921 the day after Juneteenth, was
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: railing about, we're going to finally be able to say
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: Merry Christmas again. Merry Christmas. The phrase in the English
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: language that is said maybe more than any other phrase
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: other than with cheese. Like, what are we doing? And
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: yet we still pay attention to that. So my feeling
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: is we've got to stop reacting to this nonsense because
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: it's nonsense. And start building a culture that earns that
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: editorial authority back from the audience. That isn't just responding
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: to the moment of what they've done. Right now, it's
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: purely reacting.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: It is. I mean, I think about this a lot.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: We think about this here at Crooked Media. Like, how
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: do you build sort of a progressive counterweight to what
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: they have? And what's always on my mind is you.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, like how do you get
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: beyond the endless political warfare, that sort of permanent campaign
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: you're talking about where we're always divided against each other
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: with the version of the Republican Party we've had for
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the last few decades? Like I don't like spending my
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: time like, freaking out about what a lunatic Donald Trump is,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: reacting to his bullshit. I would love to have, like, honest,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: thoughtful disagreements with Republican politicians on this show. I can't
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: really find them. And I think that they know that
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: they benefit from the cynicism that's generated by all the
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: partisan conflict. So they keep luring us into it. Like,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: how do we break that cycle?
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: So what I truly believe is You disconnect from it.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: So the business, look, you're also producing content. And production
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: of content, one of the main things that it has
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: to be is sustainable. And when you produce content at
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: the rate that it's being produced, right now the news
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: media has taken on the circadian rhythms of Twitter as
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: though that's the heartbeat of what news is. It's sort
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: of like mistaking the Dow Jones Industrial Average for our economy.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: It's one of the more superficial indicators of it. And
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: Twitter is one of the more superficial and volatile indicators
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: of news. But that's what the news reacts to now.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: And if you go now and you watch the news,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: they're just trolling Twitter, picking out what's trending, and then
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: coming out. And nobody's stopping, but they're picking it out.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: We've let the right dictate the terms. And they've dictated
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: a terms of conduct that they don't abide. They don't
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: abide by the, you know, all this nonsense about freedom
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: of speech, like they're defenders of freedom of speech. How
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: dare the left mob is coming for you. And they're
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: going to call you a racist because they hate America
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: and they won't stop till you're silenced. So, so I
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: can take a knee at a football game, leave the country. Okay,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: happy holidays. Damn you, atheist. Like, it's completely and utterly
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: full of shit. And they won't accept any kind of,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: you know, introspection on it. They just hit that hobby
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: horse that they're the real victims here, that they're the ones,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: the left polices language and polices conduct, but they don't.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: They're all for freedom. Really? Tucker Carlson called the Nike
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: Colin Kaepernick ad as an attack on America. And that
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: if we let it go, it will be the end
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: of this country. Like, so you have to, you know,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: they're the slippery slope people. If we allow this to occur,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: what's next? They'll topple this statue. Okay. It's a statue. Uh,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: they'll call you a racist. Okay. It's like in the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: black lives matter movement. It's all about the slippery slope. Well, okay.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: Let's play out your slippery slope. So if you get
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: to the bottom of that slope, what is your life?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: Are people now following you in stores, making it harder
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: for you to get a mortgage, maybe redlining your neighborhood.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: so that the value of it goes down. In other words,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: their worst case scenario is still better than how many
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: people are living right now in this country.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: And by the way, for all the free speech complaints,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: they have a couple of the biggest megaphones in the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: country to blather on every day.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: They're trying to censor us, and you can check me
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: out on my podcast, Muzzled, and you can then go
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: to our website at you won't stop me.com. And also
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: I'll be on Hannity. You know, it's, it's nonsense, but
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: they have to play the victim because they don't have
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: another card to play. So my advice is do not
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: buy into the paradigm. Don't talk about, I want to
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: set up a progressive network, say, I want to, Think
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: about setting up a network that understands the difference between
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: corruption and clarity and integrity, because that's what will improve things.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: I tend to think that progressive politics are more on
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: the side of integrity, but that doesn't mean you have
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: to be willing to know when the people you believe
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: in are also corrupt. And you will gain credibility by
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: pursuing that with the same intensity that they are pursuing victimhood.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, you told the New York Times last week
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: that one of the things you hope people take away
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: from Irresistible is that participation in this corrupt system is
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: inherently a corrupting process. So one of my biggest concerns
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: over the last several years is that this younger generation,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: which I think is overwhelmingly progressive in its values and
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: its activism, will look at electoral politics, rightly sometimes, and say,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: you know, if this is such an inherently corrupting process,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: why even bother participating? How would you answer that?
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: So the process is designed to keep you out. It's
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: designed to be exclusionary. And that's what's corrupt about it.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: So the answer to that corruption is not to reject
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: that system, but to take it over. To insinuate your
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: values into it and change it from the inside. That's
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: where we will begin the process of, when I was
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: in Washington trying to lobby for legislation, I was stunned
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: by the cluelessness on the right and the left of
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: how their insular system is so, looks so cancerous on
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: the outside. You know, we went down to this hearing
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: and it was a subcommittee, but within that subcommittee hearing,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: there's supposed to be 14 members. 12 of them were
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: marked present. But there were never more than like four
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: or five of them in the room. And I was
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: trying to figure out like, A, why is no one here?
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: And B, why does it count that they're here? So
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: in that hearing, if you come in for a minute,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: you're counted. And then you can leave. Oh, yeah. That's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: what Jim Jordan and Louie Gohmert did. They came and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: they sat down for a minute and then they left
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: before hearing anybody.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: They got to go make a fox head probably.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: So they've got to what? Help their brand. Because this
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: is a business now. And it's money and it's branding
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: and it's all those other things. So Louis Alvarez, who
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: ends up passing away two weeks after testifying and who
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: that night his liver shuts down and he ends up
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: in hospitals, gives this incredibly powerful, moving plea to no one.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Four or five people. And when I point that out,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: the head of the committee, the Democrat, maybe it wasn't
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: the head of the committee, pushes back, Steve Cohen, and says,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: you know, I take exception to that, you know, members
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: are very busy. Now I'm sitting next to a man
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: who's literally died and who's come down with oxygen tanks
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: and all kinds of things, because he was invited to
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: make his plea, not for himself, because he knows this
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: is the end, but for his brothers and sisters and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: cops and firefighters and other people suffering this. And you
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: have the balls to say, hey man, our time's very
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: valuable here. So you can't expect us to be in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: the room. And in that moment, you realize They are
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: fucking lost. Yeah. Because a part of why you're so
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: fucking busy is because you got to raise so much
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: money and do your hits and you scheduled eight meetings
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: when you should, then don't schedule it. You, if only
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: a legislative body could get together and make the rules
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: more manageable so that members could actually attend hearings that
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: they think are being called. Like that's the part. it's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: incredibly isolated and insular in Washington. And the one thing
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: that does give me hope is you're seeing at the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: grassroots level people coming up not as uh organized like
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: the right's very good about they've organized their activism You
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: go to work for the right, they've got a feeder system,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: and there's money there. You want to go work for them,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: there's money, and there's a system in place. Minor leagues
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: are there. You can play single A, double A. They'll
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: move you up to triple A at Regent University before
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: you know it, you're on the Supreme Court. They've got
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: a whole feeder system. They've built this parallel universe, and
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: now they're running people through it to create the pillars
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: of power that they need to put in place. The
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: left is getting somewhat wise to that. But what I'm
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: seeing from them is a real authentic grassroots. Fuck this.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: I'm going to run. And it may be a little
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: more chaotic and harder to wrangle, but I love it. Yeah.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: You can't, you can't, uh, manufacture the energy. So the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: fact that the energy is there is the most important
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: part of the whole thing. Um, You've said that the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: enemy is noise and the goal is clarity, which I love.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: Who in the media or politics or anywhere in public
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: life do you look to for clarity these days?
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think that, so I don't look
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: to any individual for that. I look to individual works,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: an article I'll read or an analysis that I'll see,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: you know, things along those lines. And there are certainly
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: really incredibly talented people that bring things to the fore,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: but it can come from anywhere. The problem isn't that
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: there aren't talented, smart, and people that are not cynical,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: that are idealistic in the media. The problem is the
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: weight of the noise. Like, We just need, it's bigger
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: than individuals. We need systemic filtering. And that only occurs
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: from a left. It's like when you need government action
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: on certain issues that just won't be effective as individual action.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: And which is why the right is so successful at it.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: They work systemically. Fox news works systemically. Now, Admittedly, like
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: you almost feel bad for them now because for eight
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: years they had you could almost have pretended that there
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: was a principled opposition to Barack Obama. And now that
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump is in the contortion, I mean, it's like
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: watching some sort of pathological Cirque du Soleil to watch
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: them now justify executive power or ego or anything that
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: he does. Morality, immorality. Rule of law. He's the rule
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: of law guy who just fired the head prosecutor at
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: Southern District of New York. You know, law and order. Yeah, right.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: He's law and order unless he's not. So what you
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: realize is, oh, they're now completely just a subsidiary of
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: the Trump organization.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: And.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: There is no principle but power. That's just that's just clear.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, they can talk about, you know, we're we're
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: for the Constitution and except maybe right of assembly. Yeah,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: that part, I don't know. So it's all nonsense now,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: but at least we know who they are. But what
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: they do so effectively is they provide the infrastructure for
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: that propaganda, and they do it really, really well. Now,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying take that bait and react to that
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: with the opposite. Well, we'll do the same but for
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: the left, I don't think that's what's needed. Right. What's
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: needed is a Fox news for clarity and integrity with
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: the same, uh, you know, kind of the same energy
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: and weight and effort behind it. I think we're building
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: the wrong thing.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that is a very good mission. And, uh, I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: will say that, you know, when we started this, I
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: took a lot of inspiration from you and what you
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: guys did in The Daily Show. So I appreciate that.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you for coming by. And everyone go watch Irresistible.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: It is out June 26th, both on demand and in
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: some theaters. So thanks for stopping by.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Much appreciated. Good luck to you guys.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Jon Stewart for joining us today, and we
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: will talk to you guys later.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: Jon, now, I didn't hear the interview, but I understand
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: he had some specific words about a podcast. Is that true?
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: Is there something he might have said in the interview?
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: I just, I don't know.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: He did use the phrase, love it or leave it,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: at least four different times.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, did he?
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. He knew he was referring to you
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: or your podcast.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Did he think he was on the wrong show?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: No, no.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: He was basically referring to like America, love it or
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: leave it. You know, that kind of things. But he
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: said it a couple of times. I smiled. I do
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: think we should clip it. I think we should clip it.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I think we should use it as promo material forever.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Because he actually said the words, we need more love
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: it or leave it. I think at one point.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: But it might not have been about the podcast. Maybe.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: That's what some people are saying that. But you could
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: interpret it many different ways. Many different ways.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: Bit of a downer.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: every week.