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"Spar-a-lago: Ron v. Don." · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump's Arizona rally offers a preview
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: of the 2022 midterm campaign and perhaps a 2024 rivalry
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: between him and Ron DeSantis. Martin Luther King III joins
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: to talk about his father's legacy and what's next in
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: the fight to protect voting rights. And Democrats and Republicans
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: debate banning members of Congress from trading stocks while in office.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: But first.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Check out this week's Offline right here on the PSA
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: feed where I interview novelist Chimamanda Adichie about her viral
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: essay on why she believes the tenor of conversation on
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: social media is obscene and what that means for literature
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and politics. Also, we've got something exciting coming up on
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Pod Save the World. Tell us all about it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: We've got Secretary of State Tony Blinken on the pod.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: We're interviewing him tomorrow.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Big get.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I haven't written a single question for a little behind the.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: No, it doesn't matter.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Say it again.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Blink it or you'll miss it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Okay. Just what? John's been on a big run of
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: puns since we sat down in here. They don't know that.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Two minutes ago, they do now. Anyway, what are we
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: going to talk about Tony with? I don't know. I
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: haven't written questions yet, but I'm excited about it. So
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: check out the Tony interview. Subscribe to Pod Save the World.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: And also, Pod Save the World is on Snapchat, guys.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: If you thought to yourself, Snapchat's fine, but I wanted
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: some Ben Rhodes and Tommy talking about foreign policy. You
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: got it. You got it. It's actually very fun. It's
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: one little issue. It's very funny.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Check it out.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Let's get to the news. Arizona will be a central
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: battleground in 2022 and 2024, which is why it was
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: the site this weekend of activists marching for voting rights
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: and a Donald Trump rally that drew over 15,000 people,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: including the leading Republican candidates for governor and secretary of state,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Carrie Lake. who has called for the imprisonment of Arizona's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: top election official, and Mark Fincham, a January 6th protester,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: who's running to be the state's next top election official. Wonderful.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Per usual, Trump spent most of his 93-minute speech lying
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: about the election he lost, but he also had a
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: couple of new riffs on Joe Biden and the pandemic
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: that came just days after sniping with Ron DeSantis over
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: which potential 24 candidate is the bigger COVID hawk. Let's
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: take a listen.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: The big lie, the big lie is a lot of bullshit.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: That's what it is.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: We all knew that Joe Biden would be not so good,
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: but few could have imagined that he would be such
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: a disaster for this country. We never even heard the
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: term supply change. You know, if you talk supply chain
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: is not something that we even talked about. There are
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: four times more COVID cases.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Remember, I'm going to get rid of COVID.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get rid of COVID.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: Instead of letting our and letting us resume.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: And that's what we want to do. Our normal lives.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: Biden's trying to bully and intimidate people with his. See
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: how angry he gets?
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: Anger.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: You've got to listen to me. Listen, listen. Where am I?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Where am I?
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Where am I?
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, where the hell am I?
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: The left is now rationing life-saving therapeutics based on race,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating white people to determine
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: who lives and who dies.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: If you're white.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: You don't get the vaccine. Or if you're white, you
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: don't get therapeutics.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: They're so confused at the end there. Cause they're like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: if you're white, you don't get the vaccine.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yay.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Wait, we're not supposed to cheer.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Wait, I was white and I didn't get the vaccine,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: but I'm happy.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to make me get it. I
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: don't want it. But if I want it, I want it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: And if it's not, it's not.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Fair that I don't get what I don't want anyway.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: If they want it, Then I want it. God, they're children. Well,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: let's start with the speech, which I believe we all
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: watched on 2X speed this morning. 2X.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: 1.75 sometimes.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I went straight with 2 today. I thought it was...
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It was 93 minutes. Too, too, too long. That's a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: long speech.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: It's also getting hard to find. These big tech monopolists
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: are striking.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Down, censoring our president. Yeah, all the libs have canceled
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: all of his speeches.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: C-SPAN.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: It's a service provided by the cable companies. I found
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: some dude's upload of a pre-recorded Rumble video.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Anything newsworthy or notable stand out to you guys in
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: terms of Trump's midterm messaging?
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the line that really worries me was we gave
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden every tool he could want, yet he still
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: completely failed. The virus evolved and the strategy failed to
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: evolve and it didn't just didn't evolve with the virus.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: He's incapable of keeping up. It goes on from there.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: But that really worried me. It seemed like it was written.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: You could tell he was reading it. Yes, and he
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: struggled because it was a sophisticated bit of wordplay. And
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: he did later criticize the teleprompter operators for not buttressing
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: them enough against the wind. But yeah, that was the same.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: That actually is what stood out to me, too. Yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: we're now on the sixth variant. I wonder which one
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: is coming next. I mean, it was effective.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: What about you, Lovett?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I wrote down. The one piece was
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the COVID messaging. I also, it's, you know, we can...
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: he does it in his, you know, buffoonish way, but
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Biden promised to end the pandemic. He didn't, and nothing
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: he's doing is working, uh, is going to be pretty
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: damning if we're wearing masks in November of 2022. And
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: certainly if we're wearing them beyond that.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, Biden had this message early on about, this
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. There's a lot of
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: emphasis in his messaging about the vaccines at the time.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: And even later, and even now, uh, I think, some liberals,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: some public health experts criticize that for overemphasizing the vaccines because,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you know, breakthrough cases and all the rest. There's a
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: reason that Biden did that. And I think it's because
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: of this kind of thing, because I think the retort
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: from Biden on this is to the extent that this
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: pandemic is still killing people in this country, it's overwhelmingly
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: over 90 something percent people who were given access to
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: a free vaccine and chose not to take it. And
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the further you get away from that message, the easier
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Trump hit like that is to land.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I do.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: You know, Joe Biden is president in part because there
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was a bigger coalition of people who kind of trusted
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the science, believed in following the rules, believed in doing
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: their part, were worried for their parents, worried for themselves,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: worrying for their kids, and who felt like they needed
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: somebody in charge who was going to be more responsible,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: who could get us out of this. And if we
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: start losing those people, people who have been doing the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: right thing all along, but don't see enough progress, Donald
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Trump will be president.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: That'll be that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: We joked about it at the top too, but the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: naked appeal to racism at the top, to claim that
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: white people can't get the vaccine was just a lie.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: The truth is that New York State has a policy
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: that allows healthcare providers to consider race as a risk
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: factor when administering antiviral drugs because the CDC found that
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: black and Latino people are twice as likely to die
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: from COVID as whites. But he made it into this
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: gross appeal to race and grievance policy for a vaccine
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: that his base could get for free, but doesn't want.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: It was very, I mean, no, it's not surprising in
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: any way, but it's, it was twisted.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Well, he did it in both a gross way and, um, a, uh,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: dumb way. He fumbled the hit too, but there's nothing,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with vaccines. Um, it was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: only about treatments, right? It's about the antiviral treatments and
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, about using, uh, race as a factor
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: and giving, uh, the, uh, the antiviral treatments, you know,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, You could make an argument that it would
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: have made that if you're going to list socioeconomic factors
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: as one thing to consider when prioritizing who gets very
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: limited treatments, they're currently limited first. But then you would
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: have to also add the economic part in as well.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And the reason that black and brown communities are experiencing
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: such high rates of COVID and have for a long
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: time is, you know, there's a lot of other factors
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: involved there like poverty, income level. housing problems, uh, healthcare
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: access and stuff like that, which are also faced by,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, less affluent communities of all races. Um,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: so there's like per usual, there's like a hint of
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: something in there that he exploited in the most racist
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: way possible. Um, but of course, because it was Trump
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: did it in a clumsy way that some other Republican
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: might've done more adeptly.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I think it just confused everybody.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Um, but I do think like we were talking about
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: this before, like, hearing him talk about the supply chains
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: or the supply changes he could talk to them and
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: talk about, and just being like, we never talked to,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: we never had to worry about supply chains before. And
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: now Joe Biden's there. I mean, it reminded me of like,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Trump is most comfortable as a challenger and his formula
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: is very simple. It's, it's, you can call it genius,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty fucking simple, right? It's like, here's something
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: on the news that pissed you off. And, uh, you
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: can blame the people in charge. That's it. That's all
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: he does.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: But also, no supply chain challenges? Nurses were wearing trash
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: bags for like six months. What are you talking about, dude?
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: There was no PPE in the entire country.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: You didn't hear about inflation when I was president. Now
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you hear about inflation. It's that kind of thing. You
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: have to overthink it.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: It's nonsense. But I think part of the appeal is
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: just nostalgia. It's like any kind of reboot these days,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: whether it's a comic book or Fresh Prince. They hear
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Lee Greenwood come on and everyone's just sort of happy
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: to be there again. It is. They were pretty happy
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: to be there again. The.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: There was another piece that stood out to me. It's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: not the most important thing politically, but pretty menacing directed
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: at the person who shot Ashley Babbitt.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Really terrifying, basically saying this person should, really threatening them
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: in a very similar way to when he would do
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: his threats against Hillary Clinton. Basically saying that, oh, if
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: this person had protection, they'd be in a pretty bad situation.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Like basically kind of suggesting that that person should be
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: killed the way Ashley Babbitt was killed.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It was dark. It was really dark.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And then, but the reason I brought that up is,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of obvious extremism in this speech, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: so much of it is devoted to the big lie.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It's obviously where he's the most comfortable. It's where he
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: leaves the teleprompter behind. It's where he has the most fun.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: It's where the crowd is most excited, actually, which is,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I think, worth noting. But if you put aside the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: pieces of it at the big lie and you kind
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of blur your eyes, you can see the message that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: his more sophisticated advisors want. And it's pretty... It's like... It's... Uh,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: not to be taken lightly, right? There is a very
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: sophisticated hit into Joe Biden and Democrats inside of that speech.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And I think the, the focus on the big lie
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: is valid and important, but we should make sure we're
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: paying attention to the kind of argument he's making against Biden,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: because I think it is a smarter one than the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: rest of the wrapping.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's a New York Times piece. It
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: was the piece about DeSantis and Trump that we're going
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: to talk about in a bit. But there's a line
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: in there that says, Mr. Trump and his aides are
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: mindful of Republicans' increasingly public fatigue with the drama that
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: trails Mr. Trump. And I do think, to your point, Lovett,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the danger for Trump here is that it is all nostalgia, right?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: And that might work for the 15,000 people that showed
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: up at the rally, but in a general election against
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, like, The one thing that would stop people
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: from people who are deciding between Trump and Biden potentially
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: from from pulling the lever for Trump again is like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: you know, there's some Republicans will say this and dependents
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: say this like, yeah, I've been disappointed with Joe Biden.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: But like, do I want to deal with all the
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: drama of the Trump years and go back to all
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: that bullshit and stuff like that? Like, isn't there another choice?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And the more Trump leans on the big lie. yeah,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: it rallies the party faithful, but it doesn't necessarily win
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: him points with people who might be disappointed with Joe Biden,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: but yet are kind of like sick of the Trump
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Act and the big lie shit.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump's entire, his campaign, if he runs again,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: will be entirely predicated on people's short memories. Yeah, of course, Tommy,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: people didn't have PPE. Of course, their testing situation was
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: completely abysmal. He abandoned science in favor of whatever he
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: could say to kind of solve his ego during this
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic. He's relying on people to forget the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: fact that he is, the fact that his popularity has
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: gone up over the last several months is because people
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: have forgotten what it is like to be exposed to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: him on a semi-daily basis, as we've noted and as
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Dan noted in Messagebox. Like, his being off Twitter has
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: been very good for him.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: His take on the supply chain crisis was, there's no
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: merchandise in Tiffany's. You can't buy a ring. You can't
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: buy a ring. So relatable.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So funny.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: John, I saw that line in the New York Times
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: story that there's fatigue I don't see signs of fatigue, really.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's Liz Cheney, but I don't know. I
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: don't know there's some broad sense of fatigue among the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Republican base.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I hope there is. I want there to be. I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: would like to see it, though. I mean, the reason
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I know... We're not seeing it, but what are we seeing?
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's their advisors are looking into
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the polling and looking to the focus groups, and they
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: don't care about the... Look, there's like 30% to 40%
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: of the party in a lot of these polls that
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: are saying... We love Trump and we want him to
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: run again and we're going to vote for him for sure. Like,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: that's it. There's a small percentage of Republicans that's like,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: we don't like him. We don't want him to run again.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: And then I think there's a middle percentage that's like,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: we really like Donald Trump. we're open to another candidate.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And we don't know if he should run again. And
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I think those are the people that those advisors are
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: probably worried about.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Sure, of course. I just don't think there's any signs
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: of fatigue. And I'm sort of surprised. I don't know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: it's interesting to see it written, like sort of stated
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: as fact in the New York Times story. Gave me
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: a little hope, frankly. Well, it made me think that
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: there's something that Trump advisors know that we don't. I
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: also like how they talk about Mike Lindell. They praise him.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: He said about Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, I always
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: say Mike is the single greatest purchaser of ads in history.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: They praise him, but they're just mocking him for getting
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: bilked by everyone in the MAGA movement. Just a goofball,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: a kind of wacky goof.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: So Arizona will be a hugely important state in the midterms.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Democrats need to re-elect Mark Kelly if they want to
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: keep the Senate and win the races for governor and
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: secretary of state. They want to prevent Trump loyalists from
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: overturning the next election. Here's a taste of what they're
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: up against from some of the Republican candidates who attended
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: the rally.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: There's a car out there and we think the registration
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: lights are on.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: The registration seems to belong to Les Go Brandon.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Les Go Brandon.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Anybody here know Les Go Brandon?
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: We must decertify.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: The presidential election of 2020.
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: And if our founding fathers were here today, they would
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: be Trump Republicans. I can see it right now, Mr. President,
• 15:02
  Speaker 6: George Washington crossing the Delaware with a Make America Great
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: flag at the back of the boat. And Teddy Roosevelt
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: would have his Make America Great cowboy hat.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I feel like that Let's Go Brandon joke was one
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: of those that just looked much better on paper than
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it ended up landing. Yeah.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: It's sad. You know, he tried to kind of tag
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: it with the same joke again. It doesn't really make sense.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: The registration says, let's go, Brandon.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: What, the registration?
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I think he meant license plate. It's a mess.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, the guy was a January 6th protester
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: who's now running for Secretary of State. I don't think
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: we can expect too much.
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: Out of him.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Who was that?
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Was that Kosar?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: No, that was Mark Fincham. Okay, got it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. He sounds great. He went to the
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Capitol riots.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: He's running to replace Katie Hobbs, who's the Democratic Secretary
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: of State. So he can help overturn the next election.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And then Katie Hobbs is running for governor, who her opponent,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Carrie Lake, wants to imprison. So she wants to imprison
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: her opponent, who also happens to be the top election
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: official in Arizona. And she's in the lead. I wasn't
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: even going to talk about Carrie Lake because I'm like, oh,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: this is just the Trump candidate. The latest poll has
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: her in the Republican primary way out in the lead.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: She's also a former TV news anchor, I believe.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Which is why Trump loves her.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: He said he's like, she got great ratings, great ratings
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: on television.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: There was a line in the Times piece looking at
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the kind of tensions over the Trump candidates. And it said,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: as popular as the former president remains with the core
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of the GOP base, his involvement in races from Arizona
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania and his inability to let go of his
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: loss to Mr. Biden has veteran Republicans in Washington and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: beyond concerned. They worry that Mr. Trump is imperiling their
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: chances in what should be a highly advantageous political climate.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: which is like watching a murder and saying you're getting
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: blood all over the carpets.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh, is that?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Notice that they got a lot of quotes in that story.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: No one who would back up that assertion. No names.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Not even an anonymous quote from someone who was worried.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: They're like, Mitch McConnell expressed concern the other day. What?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: That's all you got?
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: It's wishful thinking. It's wishful thinking.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're a Democrat running in Arizona right now,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: how do you handle what's happening in these Republican primaries?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: We got candidates who are saying we should lock people
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: up who were involved in the last election. Paul Gosar
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: is up there on stage saying a storm is coming,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: which is a shout out directly to the Q people,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: the QAnon people. How do you run against that?
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I think you're running against extremism. I mean, it's important
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: to remember that Congressman Paul Gosar is so out there
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: that his own siblings cut an attack out against him.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: They all got together to run ads against him. And
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I think like There's an extremist. There's a special brand
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: of extremism that exists in Arizona right now that I
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: would be talking about a lot. I mean, Ali Alexander,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: the organizer of the Stop the Steal rally, was in
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: touch with several of the members of Congress from Arizona, right?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's sort of the norm there.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: When I was doing open mics in New York, I'm
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: pretty sure this was at the Comedy Cellar, and there
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: was always an eclectic lineup of people. And I remember
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: there was one night where this middle-aged woman got up
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: on the stage and she seemed perfectly, uh, in charge
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: of her faculties. And then she started grunting and yelling.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: She had a bunch of high pitch voices. She briefly
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: started eating the microphone. Then she humped the wall. There
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was a painting on the wall. She started kind of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: pretending to make out with the painting. And then she said,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: thank you. And she walked off the stage. And I
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: remember the next person up, uh, came to the stage
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and he goes, uh, Is it all right with everybody
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: if I just tell some jokes?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Was it your normal crew? Like Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Tim Allen? Well, it was always a mix.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: It was anybody who had $ 5. So it was always
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a mix. But I always think about that because... There's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: this a little bit of this like, hey, I'm gonna
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: try to solve some problems in maybe your life.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: If that's interesting to you. Look, if you want to
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: rehash the 2020 election and argue and yell and have
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: the Internet spill all over your state, that's fine. We
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: can do that.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: But actually, I'm just here to do a couple of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: things and I'm not going to really pay attention to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Arkansas health care.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I think this is the danger of
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: overlearning the lesson of Virginia and Glenn Youngkin.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Which was that. okay, Democrats, Terry McAuliffe tried to say
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: that Glenn Youngkin was a Trump clone and it didn't
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: work and, you know, he exaggerated too much and all
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Well, Glenn Youngkin is different than
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: some of these Republican candidates in Arizona. We can still
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: dislike Glenn Youngkin, think he's horrible for Virginia, work against
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: him and say that he is not as extreme as
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the people we just spoke about. And I think that
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: running against Kerry Lake and Mark Finjam as Democrats extremists,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: like you have plenty of ammo there when you're running
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: against them to talk about. You have plenty of quotes
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: that they gave about locking people up that you'd ever
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: had with Glenn Youngkin.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: My guess is the lock them up, lock him up,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: lock her up chance don't go over well with a
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: broader set of the electorate. There was a lock him
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: up chant about Dr. Fauci. That's new. That's weird. That's
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: that's scary.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Even if you're not a fan of Dr. Fauci or
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Katie Hobbs or random Democrats and public health officials that
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Republicans now want to lock up, they're saying things like
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: anyone who was involved in the 2020 election should be
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: locked up. Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, said we should
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: lock up 300 million people in the country for fraud.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Which is inspired.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Which doesn't leave a lot of people left. Talk about
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: overcrowded prisons.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: And that's kids, too. That's got to be like.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of year olds yeah who were the
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: 30 million left behind i don't.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Know hey like i look i i like that they're
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: appealing to pocketbook issues but i also don't want to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: go to jail so i'm not going to be with
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the lindell guy the uh yeah there is a like
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: kind of uh past future thing too it's just like
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: hey these people are really angry and they seem out
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of it and they're kind of focused on something that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: happened a couple years ago doesn't do anything for you
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: now and it won't help anybody except trump seems like
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: we should have somebody that's focused on actual issues in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the real world, not conspiracy theories.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: We always go through things like, do you want to
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: root for these extremist candidates to win the primaries? And
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: of course you don't want to root for any extremist
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: candidate to go far at all. But when I saw
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the news last week that current Arizona governor Doug Ducey
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: might jump into the Senate race, I got more nervous
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: than when I saw some of the things that these
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: candidates at the rally said, because Doug Ducey is, again,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: not someone I'd ever vote for, but not as extreme
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: as some of these other candidates are. you know, resisted
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the big lie. And if he somehow gets through a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Senate primary and challenges Mark Kelly, I think that's a
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: much tougher race for Mark Kelly than a Kelly Ward
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: or some of these other lunatics in Arizona.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Hey, speech guys. Trump had a line about Arizona where
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: he said it was where the great American West became
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: the American dream.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Good?
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: You like that?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, God. Is Stephen Miller still writing these fucking speeches?
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: It's really bad. Who's writing these speeches now?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Where the American West became the American dream.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: It's not... Doesn't make any sense. No.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: No sense whatsoever.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: That was right after he floated a soft boycott of
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: AT & T. A dream isn't a place.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: It's something you have.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So look, you know, a lot of talk about Trump.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: 2024 is far away. What can people do to help
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: in Arizona in 2022?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Just turn your faucets on in California. There's only so
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: much water left.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, there's a lot of races
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: to focus on.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's right.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Elections.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Which ones, John? Which ones? Well, look, there's been a
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: lot of focus on Kyrsten Sinema and primary in Kyrsten Sinema, which, great.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Let's go for it. Just want everyone to know she's
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: not up until 2024. Let's play a long game. It's 2022.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: We have an election in November before we get to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Sinema in 2024.
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: And....
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Her colleague, Mark Kelly, who has not been a pain
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: in the ass about the filibuster or anything, is up
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and is going to have an extremely tough race.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: He went out of space.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: He went out of space and now he needs some
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: money and he needs your support.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Or Kyrsten Sinema gets her ideas.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: To make sure that Mark Kelly wins. Because if Mark
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Kelly doesn't win, it's going to be very hard to
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: keep the Senate. Arizona Secretary of State, two candidates, Reginald
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Boulding and Adrian Fontes, who are running. Uh, Arizona governor again,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Katie Hobbs, who's the current secretary of state is the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: leading candidate on the democratic side. You also have Marco
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Lopez and Aaron Lieberman as candidates. Um, if you want
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: to run for a whole bunch of local and County
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: offices in Arizona, it's not too late. The filing deadline is, uh,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: still a ways away. tweeting about Run for Something over
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the weekend. Who could you support? They help local candidates
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: all over the country run for office. It's a fantastic organization.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Elections in Arizona are run on the county level. And
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: some of those county, like county recorders especially, run elections
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: in Arizona. Some of those positions aren't up until 2024,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: but you should check to see the ones that are open. Again,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: local and state elections, especially ones that involve the administration
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: of elections, which is what Steve Bannon and the Republicans
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: are targeting. Like, look at those offices, and if you
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: live in Arizona, yeah, you should think about running from one.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: And if you live in Los Angeles, what you do
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: is you get on the 10, you head east, you
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: go past Silver Lake, and then you stop at Phoenix.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: And that's how you get there.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: And between Silver Lake and Phoenix, it's just a couple minutes, right?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, it'll take you a couple minutes. Perfect. And you
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: can knock on doors, you can make calls from another state, which,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe that's fun.
• 24:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hey.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: That'd be fun. I'm excited to go actually canvas in
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: person again. Absolutely.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I'm doing it. I don't care what Dr. Fauci says.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: I'll say this. I've said it before. I'll say it again.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I am much more worried about long Trump than I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: am about long COVID. That's my official position.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Hey, it's pretty good.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: It's a good line.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: It's a good line. I like that line too.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: So Trump's main focus at the rally was, of course,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: his own political future, not 2022. And right now it
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: appears that the only potential threat to him winning the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Republican nomination is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, Unlike most
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: of the other potential candidates, has refused to say that
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: he'd stand aside if Trump runs again. The only other
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: one who's refused to say it is Pence. But like,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: no one's really worried.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: About Mike Pence.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Jeb hasn't ruled it out either.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman just wrote a great New
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: York Times piece about the growing rivalry between the two
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Florida men, which quotes Trump telling advisers, I wonder why
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the guy won't say he won't run against me. Why
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: do you think, guys?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I think DeSantis is the smartest of them. And saying,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: conceding to that is so pathetic, is so limiting to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: your own ambition, to your own sense of yourself, to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the kind of like pride and like guts that human
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: beings want to see in other human beings that it's like,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Seems like he's smart enough to know how dangerous a
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: thing it is to say.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I'd forgotten that they got into a tiff in 2018
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: about the death count around Hurricane Maria. I remember Trump
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: was trying to claim it was overstated and DeSantis pushed
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: back on that. And Trump basically, Trump didn't concede anything,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: but he was furious, but he still had to campaign
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: with DeSantis because Florida was so important. So it's an
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: interesting example of someone who stood up to Trump along
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: the way and kind of live to talk about it.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I'm very eager to see how this plays out. I
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: can't tell if it's just ego or a real political
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: consideration because it does seem like the outcome is kind
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: of binary. If DeSantis decides to run, it will be
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: a fight to the death between these two guys. If
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: he doesn't, I'm sure they'll be able to paper over it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: So I don't know, as much as I'm enjoying this
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: on a personal level, it doesn't make me feel good
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: for the world that The space to run against Trump
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: is to the right of him on vaccines. That's not great. Yeah,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: it's well, it's funny, too.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: It just goes to like if either you run or
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you don't, if you run, then you are willing to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: run against Trump. If you don't, you don't need to
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: have ruled it out.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I think all those people that have ruled it
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: out are serious about it. I think if you talk
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to Nikki Haley or Mark or Ruby or any of
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: those people, if Trump Donald Trump runs, they're not even
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: going to try. Um, and I think DeSantis is the
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: only one who's willing to actually make it a primary,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: maybe Mike Pence, but I think he'll probably come to
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: a census. Uh, but like this, you could see, and
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: DeSantis is looking around at all the rest of them.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: He's like, Oh, they're saying they'll bow out if Trump runs.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: So if Trump runs, I get a shot at him myself.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And, and it would be the first time, right? That's
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: like the, the, the crowded field is partly why Trump
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was able to become the nominee of the politics has
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: changed since then. But It certainly wouldn't matter that there
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: was one alternative as opposed to five.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sure DeSantis is believing his own hype a little too.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Reading his own clippings, seeing the polls, thinking I can
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: do this.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: He's thinking that I can give you Donald Trump without
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: any of the drama or any of the baggage. That's
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: his pitch.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: We have talked about this around various tables for a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: very long time, that one of the great safeguards we've
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: had over the years was Trump being too stupid and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: too buffoonish, too egotistical, too narcissistic, too undisciplined to not
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: get in his own way. And DeSantis is seeing the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: exact same thing. We are a smart person.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: How much of a threat to Trump do you guys
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: think DeSantis is?
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I think that he's more of a threat to Trump
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: than anyone else in the Republican Party that I can
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: think of. Certainly more than like a Mitch McConnell or
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: a Liz Cheney or like a swamp kind of resistance Democrat.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: He scratches all the culture war itches, which I think
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: are the most important thing. But also he's the standard
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: bearer currently when it comes to fighting against anything to
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: do with COVID overreach or lockdowns or whatever. And I
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: think he thinks Trump has some vulnerability there, not just
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: with the vaccine, but also with sort of the early lockdowns.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I also didn't realize that DeSantis has $ 70 million in
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: the bank. $ 70 million. So I think he's dangerous, but
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: I think this is getting overstated because... DeSantis is described
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: even by his closest friends, in this case, Matt Gaetz,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: closest friend in Congress, as basically a weirdo loner with
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: no friends and no emotions. There was an anecdote in
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: a Washington Post story that when DeSantis played baseball in college,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: when he was playing catch with a catch partner, instead
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: of asking the person to back up, he would just
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: chuck it over their head and make them run and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: get it. He's just like a guy who has no emotions.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: He doesn't really empathize.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Trump has the Trump thing.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Axios got a source. close to Trump saying that, um,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Trump has been saying DeSantis has no personal charisma and
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: has a dull personality, which you could see. So does,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: does Trump need an issue or an ideological wedge to
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: run against DeSantis? No, all he does is need to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: say like, that guy's fucking boring. Don't you want the
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Trump show? Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: And the, the, the, um, yeah, right. Two, two, right.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: The two words, right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: We've heard from Trump about DeSantis or something like boring
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and gutless, right. It's interesting on the vaccine thing that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Trump basically kind of put it out there that he
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: got the booster has been more responsible than most Republicans
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: in Congress about about vaccines and the booster. And when
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: DeSantis refused to say that he was boosted, he saw
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: an opportunity called gutless, right, which is a way of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: turning an issue in which he's clearly to the, it's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: so funny to say left and right, to closer to
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: reality than the base. And DeSantis, he tries to make
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: it about gutlessness, about being boring. The idea that like,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you know, when Trump says he thinks DeSantis is boring
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: or has no charisma, he is wish casting, right? He
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: wants that to be something that DeSantis gets hard with
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: because actually You know, Ron DeSantis is a leading Republican figure.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: He's polling at 40% if Trump is not in the race.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: That is not because he is boring. It's because he
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: is interesting to a lot of people.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Look, I've never watched a DeSantis rally or a DeSantis speech, but...
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I've seen on Twitter a couple of times and Republican
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: strategists and other people say, you know, the only thing
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: close to a Trump rally is a DeSantis rally in
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: the size of the crowd you get and the reaction
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: that you get from the crowd. So I don't know.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I'll have to watch one myself someday because I don't
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: know what all the fuss is about. Maybe as we
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: get closer to 2024.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I'll say, I'll say the one thing that I, the, the, the,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: like when you see Josh Hawley, when you see Ted Cruz, uh,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: these are guys that kind of reek of their pedigree.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: You know, they just, they, They seem like they're faking it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: They're putting on their boots. Like, you don't realize that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: DeSantis is smarter than he seems until you look at
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: his Wikipedia.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Like, you don't realize this is a Harvard-Yale guy.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: This is a guy that has been plotting and planning
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: for a run for president since he was a teen
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: until you look at his actual experience because he doesn't
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: give away the game the way those guys do.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Certainly Trump's team is worried. Right before we came in here,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Roger Stone was tweeting, or I guess this must have
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: been like Getter or something. A tweet that ended hashtag
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: fuck Ron DeSantis. It calls him more of a scalpel
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: than a. Yeah. Yeah. It gets better. He called him
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: a quote Yale Harvard fat boy. I'm not sure if
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: that was supposed to say frat boy. He also said
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: he was an unknown congressman with a bad haircut and
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: an ill-fitting suit until Donald Trump made him governor. I
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: know where he was when he was missing. Ask Emerald Robinson,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: who is the I think like a. Former Newsmax, White
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: House Correspondent. This is great.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I love it. More, more, more, more, more.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: It's also like, I'm sorry, ill-fitting suits, like that's a
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: prerequisite for winning the fucking straw poll.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Trump's not wearing like Italian tailored suits. Those are hot
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: air balloons around his legs.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Another piece of info that made me think like maybe
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: DeSantis is onto something reading up on all this is
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: how he's courted so many right-wing media folks. and that
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: he gets softball questions and they love to book him
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: on all the shows. And he's like the new favorite.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Like that actually, that helps way more than what Republican
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: candidates tried to do in 2016, which is like court
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: elite Republican strategists and members of Congress was like, who
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: the fuck cares? They don't control anything. You know, it's like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: it's the right-wing pundits on Fox and Newsmax and OAN
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: that control everything.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And he is so, and he's just as slimy, slimy
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: enough to do this too, because it's like, He's going
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: out there pretending like my only regret is in March
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: 2020 that I didn't tell Trump to kill more people.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I did my best in Florida to kill as many
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: people here as I could, but I couldn't get it
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: done because I had the White House in my way,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: not letting me kill more people in my fucking state.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: But I think it is like, look, all this said,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I still think Trump has a huge advantage here. But
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: if you're going to make the argument for DeSantis, I
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: think that the COVID thing isn't necessarily like an ideological fight.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I think what he's trying to do is say, like,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: you make the fight about Trump's presidency and the drama
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: around it. They screwed up on COVID by locking down
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: too much. They screwed up the election by letting it
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: get too close. Trump is yesterday's news. I'm younger. I'm
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: the future. You make it a past future thing.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I was 43, by the way.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: That's pretty fun. If you put some city miles on
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: that chassis.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I was going to say like 43.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: It's starting to be wild to see. He's our age. Almost.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: You could see a message where DeSantis is like, Trump,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: listen to Fauci. You know what I mean? There's all
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: these gross things he could do. Trump is not wrong, though,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: that DeSantis basically owes him his political career. He was
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: a backbench congressman before. Who became a governor because Trump
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: endorsed him and gave him all kinds of backing in
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: that primary.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know how that goes over with voters, but yeah.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know either. It speaks to the sort of
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Shakespearean element to this grudge match. It's the closest thing
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: to an adult relationship in Trump's life. This is a
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: great anecdote for that same Washington Post profile. A colleague
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: recalled being on a long-distance plane ride with DeSantis and
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: watching as the congressman spent the entire flight twirling his hair,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a habit he has had for decades, not even stopping
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: to read a book or listen to music.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Total weirdo.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Sociopath, American psycho fucking moves.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: He's got that. You need to be somewhat of a
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: sociopath to run for president.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: He's got that yell to Harvard, to reserves, to Congress,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: to governor. This guy has been running for president every
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: day of his life. It is the only thing. That's
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: what he's thinking about when he's twirling his hair.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: He's writing inaugural addresses. He's going to state dinners. That's
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: what he's been doing.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I can see that. I'm looking forward to this rivalry. Okay,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: when we come back, I'll talk to Martin Luther King
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: III about his father's legacy and the struggle for voting rights.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and unfortunately, the
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: backdrop of this year's remembrance is the Republican filibuster of
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: legislation that would protect the right of every American to
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: vote and have that vote counted, the same cause to
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: which Dr. King devoted his life. Here to talk about
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: his father's legacy... And the fight for voting rights today
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: is Martin Luther King III. Thank you so much for
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: joining today. It's an honor to talk to you.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: So I think when it comes to protecting the right
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: to vote, the question on everyone's mind at this moment is,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: what now? Where do we go from here?
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: Well, of course, yesterday we had observed the King holiday
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: and we had been saying, my wife and I and
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: those who work along with the organizations that we were
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: able to assemble over a hundred organizations, all of the
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: labor unions, over a thousand ministers who have basically been
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: saying it's time to deliver for voting rights. And the
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: holiday in terms of how it was observed was a
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: day of action where people were calling on their senators,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: people were signing the petition. And today, in the Senate,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: the hope is that there will be some kind of
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: vote that affirms the right to vote. Now, you know,
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: as we know, at this moment, there are two senators
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: on the Democratic side who have not been willing to
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: come forth and say that they support, excuse me, they've
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: said they support the legislation, but yet they have not
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: supported a pathway to getting it done because they believe
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: that it alters the the filibuster. But of course, those
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: senators also realized that they had no problem altering the
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: filibuster when it came to raising the debt ceiling. They
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: had no problem when it came to budget reconciliation issues.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: So it's very interesting that we selectively decide when we
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: want to modify the filibuster. In this context, when we're
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: talking about democracy, this is not a partisan issue. This
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: really is about all Americans. And 19 states, as we
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: perhaps know, or as may be known, have passed excessive
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: laws to make it harder for people to vote. 19
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: states with 34 pieces of legislation. And as legislatures gear
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: up now, again, state legislatures, there could be another 20
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: states that may create these draconian laws. So here's my point.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: The first thing is we've got to see what the
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: senators do today. If the legislation does not pass, I
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: think that we've got to look at some different kinds
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: of tactics and techniques to use, including going to businesses where,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: for example, in Arizona, businesses or West Virginia, obviously that
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: evidence steal and maybe a few other things. But Arizona
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: is a different animal. So my point is, we've got
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: to look at every tool in the arsenal, because we're
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: not going to give in, we're not going to give up,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: we're not going to give out. This is so, so
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: important for protecting, preserving, expanding the right to vote, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: also saving our democracy.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: When you talk about going to businesses and different tactics,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: do you mean in order to then have different entities
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: pressure Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin or just other ways
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: to protect the vote?
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: That's certainly one option. But I think an additional option is,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: you know, we could even get to the point where
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: there are some people that we have to think about boycotting.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: That is certainly not something that anyone wants to do.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: But I think it needs to be factored into the
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: discussion and the equation. Because if businesses are not inclined
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: on their own to take strong positions to help influence
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: these senators that seem to be unwilling to take a
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: posture for what I, again, we characterize it as saving democracy.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Of all the Republican efforts to make voting harder, or
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: take over the administration of elections, which are the greatest
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: threats to democracy in your mind that you've seen proposed
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: or passed over the last year?
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Well, so the first and foremost, I think just making
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: it harder to vote, period, is egregious. In my own
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: state of Georgia, there are 159 counties. If the Republican legislature,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: majority Republican legislature in Georgia does not like the outcome
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: of the election, they can change the nonpartisan election commission
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: to put people in place who are going to be
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: favorable to what they want to achieve. That means they
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: can invalidate the votes of people who have voted for
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: one candidate or another. I mean, to me, that's just draconian.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: There have been, of course, ballot box closures. There have
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: been suppression of voting by saying, okay, instead of, let's
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: say you had 25 days to vote. Now you have 15.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: So these are things that are making it harder. And then,
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: of course, the fact that if someone or anyone could
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: change an election, that's almost dictatorial control. That is not democracy.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Democracy allows the voters to be heard and wherever things
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: lay or where the chips fall is where they fall.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: Not someone manipulating, moving vote Votes off the rolls. You know,
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: in the older days, there were Jim Crow provisions in
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: the law. And what I mean by that is when
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: African-Americans came to register, they would ask questions like how
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: high is up or how many bubbles are in a
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: bar of soap? I mean, all kinds of questions that
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: no one could ask. Or can you tell me a
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: specific area of the Constitution? Recite that. And if you
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: recited that, they would go to another area. So all
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: these techniques were used to suppress the vote. And what
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: we're saying is these new techniques, although not the same,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: which basically kept people from being able to register, they
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: will make it harder for people to vote. They're not
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: just downright you know, putting provisions in place where you
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: can't answer questions. They're doing things like limiting drop boxes.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: They're doing things like curtailing hours that you can vote.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: So all of these things, it seems to me when
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: everything we do today by automation or technology, we handle
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: our business affairs, our banking online. Why could we not
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: even vote? I mean, we have the system to be
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: able to develop where it's fair for everyone. who is
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: a citizen, voting should be as simple as can be,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: not complex as people are trying to make it.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: You attended President Biden's speech in Atlanta last week. He's
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: obviously tried privately pressuring Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Then
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: he gives that speech publicly, again, came out in favor
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: of making an exception for voting rights with the filibuster.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: That didn't work. Joe Manchin said, oh, it was a
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: good speech, but it didn't change my mind. He went
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: to talk to the Senate Democrats. Kyrsten Sinema didn't even
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: let him go talk to the Senate Democrats before giving
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: a speech about how she was in favor of keeping
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: the filibuster. What advice would you give him about how
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: to handle the fight for voting rights going forward if
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: you were giving Joe Biden advice?
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: Well, I would, number one, first of all, say what
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: we've been saying, and that is you were able to
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: get an infrastructure bill used because you use the full
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: faith and credit and the power of the White House
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: to get a bill done. That's whatever you did. You
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: never deterred from whatever you believed, even if it looked
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: like it wasn't going to happen. You stayed vigilant. And
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: that same thing must be done in terms of voting rights.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure that over the weekend, you know, that
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: there have been calls that have been going on. And
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: so that's why it's going to be interesting today to see,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: you know, what happens in the which is really most
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: critically important. It would seem like most senators would want
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: to have debate on the issue. The fact that the
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: filibuster has been used to even keep the bills from
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: coming to the floor so they can be debated is
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: a very sad commentary in relationship to where democracy is
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: at this point.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: What did you make of the decision by several voting
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: rights groups to boycott Biden's speech?
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Well, we actually are in touch with everyone. Well, many.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: I won't say everyone, but many who are involved in
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: the discussion. And I thought it was appropriate. I understand
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: the frustration that some people have who've been working on
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: these issues 24 hours a day or 24-7. I certainly
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: understand and support that. But I also felt that someone
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: needed to be engaged in terms of speaking to you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: to the White House and to others. And so while
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: we employed and support, we also need to keep being engaged.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: And at the end of the day, the legislation is passed.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: If legislation is passed, we all are joined together.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: It's obviously been, you know, an incredibly tough couple of years.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who worked hard to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: get Donald Trump out of the White House, are feeling
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: exhausted and disappointed and frustrated that the anti-democratic forces that
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: gave rise to Trump are still very much on the march.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And I always think about how it was 10 years
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: between when your father led the Montgomery bus boycott and
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally passed. Do
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: you have a pep talk for people who are frustrated
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: with the pace of progress right now and might want
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: to give up?
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: Well, the thing that I would say is I have
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: to look at things that create change that we may
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: or may not understand before they happen. Many years, I
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: encouraged the state of South Carolina, for example, to remove
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: the Confederate flag. It was not until the tragedy occurred
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: of Reverend Pinkney and eight of his members at Mother
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: Emanuel Church were killed that within weeks or days, the
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Confederate flag came down, that those in power begin to understand, okay,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: my gosh, if this is a symbol of hatred and
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: not unification, it needs to come down. I can never,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: we will never ever forget about a tectonic shift in
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: this nation in 2020 after the tragic death of George Floyd.
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: And in all 50 states, there were demonstrations, 90%, well,
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: certainly 89% of them were nonviolent demonstrations or peaceful demonstrations.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And yet that energy, for the young people is still
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: in place. The challenge today is we live in a
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: microwave kind of society where we want things to be instant.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately, it's not always instant. It does take time.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: And I think your example of 10 years from the
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: Montgomery bus boycott to the passing of Voting Rights Act
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: in 65 is one example. I'm not suggesting that it's
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: gonna take 10 years But I think this has to
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: be done very shortly and soon. You have midterm elections
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: coming up and that's gonna determine who is in charge
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: in the House as well as who is in charge
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: in the Senate. So all of these are reasons that
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: a legislation needs to be passed and needs to be
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: passed now. And it's probably the thing that's most perplexing
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: to me is that you have two senators who say
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: they support this legislation, but yet they don't support a
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: pathway to get it done. You can't be for everything
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: or for legislation and not have a pathway to get
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: it done. That's, to me, somewhat inconsistent and disingenuous for
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: whatever reason there may be.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Your father might be one of the most quoted public
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: figures of all time. You often see people especially on
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: days like today, cite a specific quote or speech from
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: him to support whatever political argument they're making at the time.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Of all the things your father said in his life,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: what do you think most captures who he really was
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: as a person?
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Wow, that's a question that is very, very difficult to answer.
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: But I'll try to answer it this way in one
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: of his own quotes. And that quote was, the ultimate
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: measure of a human being is not where one stands
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: in times of comfort and convenience, but where one stands
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: in times of challenge and controversy. He went on to
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: say that on some questions, cowardice, ask, is a position safe. Expediency, ask,
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: is a position politic. Vanity, ask, is a position popular.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: But that's something deep inside called conscience, ask, is a
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: position right. He went on to say, sometimes we must
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: take positions that are neither safe nor popular nor politic,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: but we must take those positions because our consciences tell
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: us they are right. To me, every day we have
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: to make decisions, any of us. And in my experience, generally,
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: if we listen to our consciences, we make the right decision.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Very well said. Very well said. I know you were
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: only 10 when your father died. Is there a memory
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: of him you think about on days like today?
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Well, certainly days like today after the holiday and during
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: the holiday period, I have just been thinking about just
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: how far we as a nation have come in spite
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: of the moment we find ourselves at now, meaning a
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: very divided nation. which is certainly unfortunate and certainly against
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: what he would want us as a nation to be
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: engaged in. And certainly thinking that we should be further along.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: But I think about the fact that whether it was Montgomery,
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: the bus boycott, or whether it was Birmingham right before
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: the Civil Rights Act, which was passed in 64, whether
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: it was Selma in 1965, where the Voting Rights Act
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: was passed, or the fair housing legislation in 1968 after
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: his death, just a couple of months after his death.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: He always understood that strategy. He and his team had
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: a plan of execution. And they executed, not necessarily perfect,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: but they executed that plan and ultimately it yielded results.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: So what I'm thinking about now is we've been involved
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: in a plan. We back in August of this year
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: on the anniversary of the March on Washington, we did
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: over 100 marches with almost 400 organizations in one day
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: in 41 states. And it was all around voting rights.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Yesterday in Washington, D.C., we marched across the Frederick Douglass Bridge.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: And on Saturday, we marched in Phoenix across an overpass.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: And we're saying, Mr. President and the Senate, you did
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: it for infrastructure. That is wonderful. You now must do
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: it for protecting, preserving and expanding voting rights. And so,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: you know, as I as I was over the weekend
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: thinking about dad, you know, I'm thinking, what would he
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: tell us at this time?
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: What would he?
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: Well, and first of all, I must add a trajectory
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: because had my father lived, we as a nation and
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: I think Robert Kennedy as well. He was running for
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: president at the time he was killed, you know, in June.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: Dad was killed in April. And if those men had lived,
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: we as a nation would be dealing with different issues.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: We'd be on a different trajectory. If dad came today,
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: he would look at what he sees and he'd be
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: greatly disappointed in our political leadership and the political discourse.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: But that would not deter him. He'd be so excited
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: about the engagement of young people who are on the
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: battlefield many days. Young people are engaged in activism, whether
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: it is environmental justice, whether it is, you know, Women's rights,
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: all of the things that are happening around women's rights,
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: whether it is the LGBTQIA community. I mean, all of
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: these issues that we look at. He'd be so proud
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: of the young persons who are engaged in leading to
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: change our nation and our world. to make it better
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: for all of God's children. And so I think that's
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: all of that I've thought about over the last few
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: days and contended to think about it. And this morning,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: as we're preparing for the day, I am hoping and
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: praying that our senators will do the right thing.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: I have the same hopes and prayers. Martin Luther King III,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: thank you so much. for joining us, for taking the time.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: And thank you for all the work that you're doing
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: to carry on your father's legacy and fight for voting
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: rights and civil rights in our time. I appreciate it.
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for the opportunity. And thank you
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: for what you all do every day.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, before we go, we want to talk about Congress's
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: renewed interest in banning its members and their immediate families
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: from trading stocks while in office. You might remember that
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of the pandemic, Senators Richard Burr, Dianne Feinstein,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: James Inhofe, and Kelly Loeffler were investigated for selling off
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: their stock after getting briefed about the damage the pandemic
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: might do to the economy. Burr is still under investigation
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: by the SEC. Well, last month, a Business Insider investigation
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: found that 54 members of Congress and at least 182
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: of the highest paid Hill staff have violated the Stock Act,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: which makes insider trading illegal and requires members of Congress
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: to file financial disclosures. This has led to a big
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: bipartisan push to ban stock trading altogether. It has the
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: support of everyone from AOC and Abigail Spanberger to Josh
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Hawley and Kevin McCarthy, who says he'll push for a
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: ban if Republicans win the House. One of the only
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: leaders in Congress against this idea, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: who recently said this about the ban.
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: We have a responsibility to report in the stock market
• 54:21
  Speaker 7: on the stock, but I'm not familiar with that five-month review,
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: but if people aren't reporting, they should be. Because this
• 54:33
  Speaker 7: is a free market and people, we have a free
• 54:36
  Speaker 7: market economy, they should be able to participate in that.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I think it's weird that she said that while having
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: white truffles shaved over her naked body.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Boy. I disavow that.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Disassociate myself Disavow I don't know Disavow the comment I
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: disassociate my relationship I disavow the.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Show Halfway through Why naked?
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Right The truffles You had me with the truffles You
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: know what it.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Is I didn't have something better There's colors Different colors
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: of truffle There's white and I don't know I found
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: it all disgusting That's a small point I found it
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: frankly all disgusting.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: What was she thinking there? Let's get to the point.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: What was she thinking? She was thinking she's got a
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: lot of fucking stocks in her portfolio is what she
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: was thinking. She's a fabulously wealthy woman married to a
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: venture capitalist.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: She's one of the truest legislators of the century. What
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: was she thinking there?
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: So, right. If you're a lawmaker or a staffer who
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: makes more than $ 132, 000 in 2021, you have to report
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: stock trades of more than $ 1, 000 within 30 days. And
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: if your spouse does it, you have 45 days or like, yeah.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: You're supposed to pay a $ 200 fine if you fail
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: to meet that deadline. and then increasingly higher fines if
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: you keep missing the deadlines to file these reports. But
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: there's no way to figure out which lawmakers have actually
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: paid fines. There's no reporting. There's no accountability. There's no transparency.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: And this isn't just a Congress problem. The three members
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: of the Fed had to resign because they were selling
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: stocks at the height of the pandemic as they're making
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: decisions about whether to open the spigot and choose the economy.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: This is a huge problem.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: So it's very simple. If you're a public official, No
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: one's saying you can't participate in the free market economy.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Put your fucking stocks in a blind trust.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know about the fucking blind trusts.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: That's what all these bills are that everyone's talking about.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: No, all of them are doing that.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: If you own a huge amount of ExxonMobil or something,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: and then they put it in a blind trust, you
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: don't forget you own ExxonMobil the next day. It's funny,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: because the trading.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: There's like, it combines, this issue combines a bunch of
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: different things. One of them is like the trading on
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: inside information, right? And that's something that Richard Burr did
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: so brazenly and despicably. That's something members of Congress do
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: because they do have access to kind of special information.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: But there's also just holding stock and making decisions based
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: on wanting those companies to do better or worse. And
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: that's not about trading. That's just about having things in
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: your portfolio. And that continues even if it's a blind trust.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: There's no like, perfect answer for any of this. I
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: just don't know how the blind trust works.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you have to liquidate your holdings and
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: then hand it to an advisor and they invest it
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: for you and you just get like.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: A yearly report? That would take care of Lovett's problem.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: That would be great. Or I would, I mean, I
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: would advocate that you can only own index funds or
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: only own mutual funds. Like, so what Pelosi's husband does
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: is he was buying millions of dollars of call options
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: in like Alphabet, Roblox, Salesforce, Disney. And like the key
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: to understanding this is these are not long-term investments. This
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: isn't like putting, you know, two shares of Apple in
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: your IRA and holding them for 10 years and feeling great.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: You are, these are risky trades that have expiration dates.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: And basically it's gambling. Like you're betting a stock's going
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: to go up and there's huge upside there. And I
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: just don't think you should be doing that. And like
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Pelosi's husband is making millions of dollars on tech stocks
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: before antitrust meetings. There's literally like TikTokers and YouTubers who
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: track Pelosi's holdings and try to match her investment strategy
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: because when you look at the holdings of members of Congress,
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: they beat the S & P in the short term,
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: in the medium term, in the long term. And that's very, very,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: very hard to do.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Here's what annoys me about the whole thing the most.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: I don't want this to become another what the fuck
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: are Democrats thinking story because you read all the stories
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: about this and like every Democrat in the House and
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: the Senate whether it's, you know, AOC on the left, Spanberger,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: who's more of a centrist, John Ossoff and Mark Kelly
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: have a bill about this, right? Like, Like, Democrats from
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: across the ideological spectrum are like, yeah, we should ban
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: trading of stocks among members of Congress and their immediate families.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Ossoff and Kelly have a bill that would ban members
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: and their spouses and children from trading stock. So it's like,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: you know, because she is one of the most high-profile
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Democrats in the country and the Speaker of the fucking House,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: it's obviously going to get a lot of attention, as
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: it should. But, like... Is there any reason the Senate
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Democrats shouldn't just hold hearings on the Kelly Ossoff bill
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: and try to pass it immediately?
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: Do it right now. And again, not... Because it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Might be hard getting one through the House is why
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: I started with the Senate.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: You should increase the political pressure. I mean, look, and
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: we're not trying to pick on Pelosi here. So Rand
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Paul and his... wife had not bought an individual stock
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: in at least a decade when his wife bought up
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: to $ 15, 000 worth of shares of Gilead Sciences, a pharma stock,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: in early 2020, right after they started a clinical trial
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: for remdesivir, which is one of the COVID treatments. That, like,
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: Paul is on the Senate Health Committee. He disclosed the
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: trade 16 months late. The fact that he, like, that
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: should get some sort of, I'm not saying criminal charge,
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: this should be a huge fine. He said he's got
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: to pay $ 200. You shouldn't have to, right, you shouldn't
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: be able to reap the benefits of, right, there's no
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: penalty that makes not breaking the rules worth it. But
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: if a stockbroker did that, they would go to jail. The, yeah,
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I, like, The blind trust thing, how it
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: works exactly, I don't know. But for the most part, traditionally,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: it has been, all right, my lawyer is now in
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: charge of this.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: It's in a blind trust. We've changed the ownership and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: We've kind of done it in a way that it's over.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: But wink, wink, by the way, I can call my
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: lawyer anytime I want to find out what's going on
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: Here's the cheat. Like Richard Burr, right? He called his broker,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: dumped all his stocks right before the pandemic hit. Then
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: he called his brother-in-law. Then his brother-in-law dumped all his stocks.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: So like- Shouldn't be able to do that. Shady people
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be able to do that. Bad people can get
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: around this. And it's also worth noting that Chris Collins,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: a member of Congress from New York, maybe?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Jersey?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: He's a Republican. Went to jail for insider trading. Was
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: parted by Trump. So, you know, there's- not a lot
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: of people are taking this seriously enough, but I do
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: think this is appalling to your average voter.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: And by the way, is it, let's see what percentage
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: of voters, what percentage of voters approve of members of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Congress trading stocks?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: Ready?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Five. Five percent. 76%. You're on the other side of
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: a five percent issue.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: One of them was Nancy Pelosi with a little mustache.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Fucking unbelievable.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: This is a poll by the Convention of States. I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: don't know what that is.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: It's the most accurate poll I've ever heard.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: 76% of Americans think Congress has an unfair edge in
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: financial markets. I mean, yeah, just look. I'm skeptical when
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: anybody is like, I own individual stocks. I'm trading stocks.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Like these are people with insider.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Anyone. No, I am.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: I'm saying that like anybody outside of like the financial
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: services industry, anybody who's not doing this for a living,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: like all of these, you know, there's all these ads
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: all over television. You should be trading stocks. Everybody should
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: be trading stocks. Everybody should move. Like people should be
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: in fucking index funds.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: My money's under my mattress.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Normal people should be in index funds. I mean, I
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: can like, look, one of the reasons Pelosi and her
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: husband's portfolio have done really well in fairness to them,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: is because a long time ago, they bought like Amazon
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: and Microsoft and Apple and stocks that have just ripped
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: the last five, 10, 15 years, right? So that's probably
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: why they're beating the market. Again, but that's like long-term investing.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: When you're talking about trading call options or trading puts,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: like I, that's gambling to me. And it is gambling.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: I think the point is, it's like, it's not about
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: public officials shouldn't be able to accumulate wealth or accumulate savings.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: It's the public official's should not have a fucking conflict
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: of interest over between the money they're making and the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: laws they're passing and the industries they're overseeing. That's the
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: core of this.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Even if you have a situation where members of Congress
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: are required to be in funds that are diversified so
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: that they're not in any specific company too much, whatever
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: the rules would be, even then you're still having a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: situation where members of Congress... are dependent on the stock market, right?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: And the stock market is not the economy, right? It
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: is still a conflict of interest for members of Congress
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: to care more about the stock market than they do
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: about the economy as a whole. There's limits to what
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: we can actually do without just having people with integrity
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: in Congress. But the idea that even like, okay, over
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the last kind of decade, Nancy Pelosi and her husband
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: have had a lot of money in tech stocks. There's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: also been a time when those companies have accumulated a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: great deal of power where we've been unable to find
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: ways to regulate them successfully. That's a conflict of interest.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Even if you ban trading, even if you put things
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: into blind trust. Like that is a conflict of interest.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: It's like, we're, we're like wasting our breath. What articulate
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: the downside? The members of Congress are sad that they can't.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: And by the way, the other thing too, is it's.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Like, they would say that, you know, this is, please.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I hate this.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: I hate this. Forget this.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: Forget the intro. Forget the throat clearing clip. What's next?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: There's probably, there's probably some argument that, and this isn't,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: the conflict of interest stuff I think is, there's no,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: you know, that's the most egregious. But, like, you want
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: people in public service, right? You have to take a
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: vow of poverty to be in public service. That's the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: bullshit that you get.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Part of the problem here, though, is.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what, well, Lovett was getting close to, like,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: you know, no wealth accumulation anywhere.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, I wasn't saying that.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: An index, or retirement, and stuff like that. I'm saying
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: even that is a compromise. I think you want to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: design this in a way that you can build your
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: retirement like normal people... but you can't be fucking trading
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: stocks and making a lot of money, especially, you know,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: with industries that you have something to do with as
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: a public official. Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: The point, the point, of course, I'm not saying that
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the point is that even if you allow members of
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Congress to own a mutual fund or index funds, that
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: is still creating a kind of underlying conflict that we
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: have to, that, that probably is something we have to accept.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: But like the piece of this about like, oh, they're
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: going to have to plead poverty to go into Congress.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: It's like, The wealth of members of Congress has been
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: growing year after year, and the number of super wealthy
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: people in Congress has been growing year after year after year.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I think the average net worth is like $ 1. 6 million,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: which is well.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: Over the average. They're all doing fucking fine, especially the senators.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Some people make the argument about staffers. That's another fucking story.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: These are fantastically rich senators, especially.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: I just think that... look, okay, maybe there's challenges with
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: the blind trust stuff. We can work through that. I mean,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: the current system just creates no penalty for breaking the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: rules over and over and over again. And I just
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: think that people look at the way Congress polices itself
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: through the ethics committee and see that it is utterly
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: broken time and time again. Yeah.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Like we're, We're talking about all these like mutual fund
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: versus the average voter is looking at this and they're like,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: these people are fucking crooks. I send them to Congress.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I find out they're making a lot of money on
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: the side. They're supposed to be working for me. They
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: don't do anything. They haven't fixed any of these fucking problems.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: And now they're saying that they want to keep trading stocks.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: It fucking makes people mad. And I do think like, look,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: as the Democratic Party, as we head into the midterms
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: or any time, you want to draw the clearest, cleanest
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: possible line between a Democratic Party that uses its power
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: to fight for everyone and a Republican Party that uses
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: its power to fight for themselves and their rich friends.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Like, we cannot be a party of highly educated, affluent
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: voters who are only progressive on social and racial issues.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: We can't be that party. We will get killed.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Right now, Kevin McCarthy is to the left of Nancy
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Pelosi on stock trading.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: Right now. At this exact moment. It's a one.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: And it's slimy, but he knew.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Of course he was going to say that.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: As soon as she made that comment, Kevin McCarthy jumped
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: right on it.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: She is the smartest... She's one of the smartest, most effective...
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: speakers in history. This is a real blind spot. And
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: it's also frustrating because like, listen, she's, she's had an
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: amazing career. She's probably retiring in the next two, four,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: six years, right? I mean, she's worth $ 114 million. This
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: is not going to be a big personal sacrifice.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: But the reason, the reason I wanted to talk about
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: this is because it might sound like a small issue
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: is just one thing Nancy Pelosi said, but it's that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: larger point about the party being a party of working people.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: And like, to a lesser extent, you saw this in
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: the debate over salt, right? And which is like a
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: tax cut that would go disproportionately to a lot of
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: very wealthy people. I know, I know, before we get
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: all the comments, there's going to be some middle-class people
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: who would benefit from salt for sure. But like this,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: we just, we have to remember our roots as a
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: party of working people and act like it. And this
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: is a perfect issue to do that on. So they
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: better pass the bill before the midterms.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, it does sort of seem like it
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: does not matter what leadership wants on this. This train
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: is coming. Yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: And like Pelosi hasn't said that she opposes any of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: these bills or she's going to try to block them.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that at this point, after all
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: the furor, that she will.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: I guess part of this could be feeling like you
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: were being accused of doing something wrong in the moment
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: in that answer and being defensive because you didn't and
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: your husband's just good at his job or whatever.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: But yes, if she were to come out and say, no,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: I will block this bill from passing, that would be
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: a real problem.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: That would be a whole different level. I will wager
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: a bet that she wouldn't do that.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: Now, excuse me, I have to. restock my ice cream
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: only freezer.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: It's funny you started with the truffles. I thought we
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: were going to get the ice cream.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I forgot about the ice cream until now.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: I forgot about the ice cream.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: Well, just ensure we never get our calls returned by
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: anyone in Congress. Good for us. Maybe some of the
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: poor ones.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: If you're poor, let us know. Well, that's it. That's
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: all we have for today. Thank you to Martin Luther
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: King III for joining us.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I made that joke about Nancy Pelosi right
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: after an interview with Martin Luther King III.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's something that you're going to have to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: live with. That's all we have. We'll talk to you
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: guys later. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.