Latest / Pod Save America / The Audacity of Pope

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The Audacity of Pope · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: at simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Detour.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about J.D. Vance's global face
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: plant from Budapest to Islamabad. Trump's new ploy to reopen
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz by blockading it, his new war
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: with the Holy Father, and his blasphemous depiction of himself
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: as an AI Jesus. How's that for a sentence?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Fucking, what a stupid era.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Then we'll get into the big news in the California
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: governor's race as horrific sexual assault allegations end Eric Swalwell's
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: campaign in his time in Congress. We'll also talk about
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the latest encouraging sign for Democrat Senate hopes. Gotta throw
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: some good news in there, right? Then Love It sits
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: down with our pal Nithya Raman, the LA City Council
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: member who launched a last-minute surprise challenge to Karen Bass
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: about why she's running for mayor on a very yimby platform.
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  Speaker 1: How's that?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: That's us.
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  Speaker 1: That's us, guys. So head on over to crooked.com slash
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  Speaker 1: friends and subscribe. We're past 50,000 now. And so I
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• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go.
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  Speaker 3: Let's pick up the pace here.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Let's pick up the pace. All right, let's get to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the news. J.D. Vance and his New York real estate
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: duo did such a bang-up job negotiating with the Iranians
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: in Islamabad this weekend that Trump has ordered a naval
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: blockade of all Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and might resume military strikes, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: The 21 hours of direct talks between the U.S. and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Iran broke down over some minor stuff like the fate
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: of Iran's nuclear program. control of the Strait of Hormuz,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: nothing big. Vance, who is just absolutely crushing his audition
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: as future world leader, sandwiched a quick statement about the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: failure of the talks in between stumping for Hungarian loser
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Viktor Orban and watching silently as the moral and spiritual
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: leader of his church was insulted and attacked by his boss,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the president. Here's Vance in Islamabad. We've had a number
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And I think that's bad news for Iran much more
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: than it's bad news for the United States of America.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It's quite a good news, bad news there.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: He tried that again on Fox today. He was like,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: everyone's talking about what went badly, but not what went well.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Right. He was like, you know, no one's talking about
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: how it's the first time, I think, since the Iranian
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: regime took power that we sat down for face-to-face talks.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, why did that happen? Because you bombed
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the shit out of them and now they're holding the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: global economy hostage?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And also just, it's... It's not good news if you've
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: had talks, and then the bad news is that the
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: talks failed, insofar as it's not good news if your
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: plane flies almost all the way to your destination and
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: then crashes.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It's just that mountain at the end.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Inputs, outputs.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Other than that, how was the play? Kind of a situation.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Anyway, while Vance was in Islamabad trying to negotiate and failing,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was monitoring the situation with his Secretary of
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: State and other important figures. Let's take a look. so
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: there's donald trump in miami hitting on usc fighters.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: It goes on he tells that guy he's hot like
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: two or three times he is.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Hot i'm glad he's confident nice i see a kind
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: of non-toxic version of masculinity on display a man can
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: admire another man being attractive without resorting to you know
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: sexual innuendo that's how i feel that's how i feel
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: about it in the middle of a high stakes negotiation
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: over the future.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Oily wrestling match.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Hey, one thing for Donald Trump to be there, uh,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: which is bad enough, but we don't expect much of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Very weird that the secretary of state and
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: national security advisor and national security advisor. And I realized
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: he's from Florida, but like just as hanging out with,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: hanging out with Trump in Miami at a UFC fight,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: you got to get anything better to do Marco.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. Why isn't Rubio a part of these talks?
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Why isn't he leading the talks? Probably because he wants
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: to stay out of it. Well, too much, uh, Islamabad news.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, Things are going from Islamabad to Islamawars.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: He's like, remember, I'm the guy who got Maduro.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: The famous closer, Marco Rubio.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I did that other war.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So Trump claimed Monday morning that actually the Iranians just
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: asked for another round of negotiations. So who knows? Vance
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: didn't seem quite as forward leaning on that during the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Fox interview as Trump did. But why do you guys
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: think J.D. Vance, the closer, as he's known to no one,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: couldn't get it done in Islamabad?
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Tommy? Three problems as far as I can tell. One,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: both sides seem to think or at least say they
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: are winning. Two, trust. And then three, just major substantive differences,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: especially the straighter who moves in Iran's nuclear program. I
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: think in terms of like the who's winning question, obviously
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: the U.S. is winning every military battle, as we often do,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: but we are losing the broader economic war. And the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Iranians know that they can just kind of wait it
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: out and continue to increase the economic pressure. And then
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: on trust, I mean, the U.S., we don't trust the Iranians.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: But the Iranians don't trust Trump for good reason. He
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: pulled out of the JCPOA. And then we in Israel
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: have bombed them the last time we've been having talks.
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  Speaker 3: So there's not a lot of goodwill.
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  Speaker 1: Literally kills the people that we talk to sometimes.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Literally killed the negotiators often. That's not cool.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And uses negotiation as a pretext to do a surprise attack.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: To do more bombing. Yeah. And then the substance, like
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Trump wants the Strait of Hormuz open. The Iranians want
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: to de facto control it and charge a fee. And
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: then the nuclear program. The U.S. position was reportedly end
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: all nuclear enrichment, dismantle enrichment facilities, and hand over the
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: highly enriched uranium stockpile. And taking that position going into
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the talks was doomed to fail because Iran has repeatedly
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: rejected those positions and asserted their right to peaceful civilian
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: nuclear enrichment. It sounds like they might have proposed a
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: middle ground. There was a 20-year halt on enrichment activities,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: which is interesting because we were always told the JCPOA
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: was really awful because there was a 10-year sunset. Now
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: they proposed a 20-year sunset.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: But obviously, so if they took it, they could say, well,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we doubled the Obama deal. Exactly.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: But the Iranians, we've all seen their 10 point wish list.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: It's like control the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, get
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: the U.S. bases, close them down in the Middle East.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: So I think the Iranians think Trump's going to get
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: bored of this. He's going to taco. He's going to
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: give up. And meanwhile, the Iranians are like, we literally
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: have nowhere.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Else to go.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: So see you next time. Love it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Trump did say right as the negotiations were about to happen.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: other than a short-term extortion of the world by using
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: international waterways. The only reason they are alive today is
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to negotiate. Regardless of what happens, we win. We've totally
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: defeated that country. Do you think that set the negotiations
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: up for success?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I was struggling with this, just watching all this unfold. Like, okay,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: so Vance is going to Islamabad for high-stakes negotiations. Oh no,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the negotiations have fallen apart and now we're doing a blockade.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: But wait, the negotiations are back on and it's all
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: in like, We're allowing like Trump's attention span to like
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: describe what's happening. And like, oh, you didn't resolve this
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: intractable situation in 21 hours? Of course you didn't. Oh,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: people have walked away, but they're gonna maybe re-approach the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: negotiating table. Like that's how these laws.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: It's all Subaru dealer. Right, like- Two years to get
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: the Obama- It was 18 to 20 months.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Right, you're not trying to get to like a clean,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: like lease terms where you roll it all in on
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the front end. Like it's a complicated negotiation. There should
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: be kind of complexities to take time to unwind, like, oh,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: it's a stalemate, wait, we're back on, and now we're blockading.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know, who knows what the actual strategic logic
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: is of a blockade, but if anything, it just shows
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: that clearly they feel as though they need a deal
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: that's better than what Obama got out of Iran, but
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: because we fought a war, we have created all these
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: conditions that require us to give on all these other things.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: They have to be in some way compensated, or the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: consequences of the war have to be dealt with, and
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: so what do you have to do to get to
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a better deal? You have to find some other place
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to ratchet up the pressure and make it harder for
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Iran to walk away from a deal. It all just
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: to me seems like maybe it'll work, but it's an
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: admission against interest.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: The New York Times helpfully reminded us of what Trump
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: said during one of those Easter events a couple of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: weeks ago about J.D. Vance going. He said, if it
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen, I'm blaming J.D. Vance. If it does happen,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I'm taking full credit. Honestly, like, that's where he's great.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I completely, look, as I say to the team at
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Love It or Leave It, I cannot fail. I can
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: only be failed, and I kind of respect that ethos
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: from Trump.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: A double fail, though, from J.D. Vance after his little
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: rally in Budapest.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it didn't go so well for Victor.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And he said that on Fox News. He was like, look,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: we can read polls. We didn't think that Victor was
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: going to run away with it. He's on a first-name
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: basis with them. He's like, but you know, sometimes you
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just do what's right, which is stumping for an authoritarian.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: In Eastern Europe, I guess. Yeah, the kleptocrat in Eastern Europe. Also,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: I remember a couple of weeks ago when I think
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: it was Scott Besson said we were jujitsu-ing Iran by
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: lifting sanctions on them to increase global supply.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Forgot about the jujitsu.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Now we're blockading the Strait ourselves.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the blockade. Trump announced it shortly
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: after Vance's bad news announcement, which the military then had
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to explain is not a blockade of all ships entering
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump initially said,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but a blockade of Iranian ports. Trump also said that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: other countries would be joining us, but once again, that
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: hasn't happened yet either, though Israel approves. Tons of questions
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: about what all of this actually means.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Thumbs up from Israel. That's two BBs.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Even Israel's like, are they helping with the blockade? No,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: but they're like, go for it.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: We like it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Keir Starmer's like, we're not getting dragged into that. Tons
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of questions about what all this actually means, which Trump
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: attempted to answer on Monday morning in the most natural setting.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: a press event where a self-described DoorDash grandma knocked on
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the door of the Oval to deliver the president McDonald's.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Here's how it went.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Do you think that men should play in women's sports?
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I really don't have an opinion on that.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: You don't? I'll bet you do.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: I'm here about no tax on tips.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: You're really nice. Would you like to do a little
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: news conference with me with these people?
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: These are not the nicest people. They're not nice like you.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: You know that, right?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I'll do whatever you ask me to.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Do, sir.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and we're going
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: to get the dust back.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: We'll get it back.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Either we'll get it back from them or we'll take it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Is it your anticipation, Mr. President, that other countries will
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: assist in this effort to blockade Iran in those?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, other countries are going to also.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Which countries, sir?
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: We don't need other countries, frankly.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: Does your threat from before still stand?
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't want to comment on that, but it
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: won't be pleasant for them, let me put it that way.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Worst delivery ever. Can you imagine? Like, hey, sir, here's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: your McDonald's. What do you think about men playing women's sports?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: He's like, I don't know, but I have to take
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: a picture of this in front of the door. So
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about trans, but I do
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: need to take a picture of this just for the app,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to get this through the app.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Press conference?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Fuck.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: DoorDash grandma, it's a very dystopian kind of sad concept,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: this poor woman being just like forced to do delivery.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe she enjoys it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Hopefully. It made me sad. The whole thing made me sad.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: If you told, just you sort of shake someone awake
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: in 2011 and you're like, Donald Trump's going to be president.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: He's pretending he's Jesus and accepting McDonald's delivery at the
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Oval Office while talking about blockading the straight up Hormuz.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: You'd be like, what are, that's a joke. That's a
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: 30 rock thing. What the fuck are you talking about?
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: No one believes that.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: That's not possible.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So what is happening with the Strait of Hormuz right
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: now and this naval blockade? Anything getting through? What's happening?
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: So it sounds like where the U.S. is going to
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: blockade all Iranian ports and then Iranian-linked ships, not just
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: flagged ships, but ones that U.S. intel says are Iranian ships.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I think ships going to non-Iranian ports will not be stopped.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: So basically the way this works is there's like 15 U.S.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: warships in place.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The U.S.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln is the aircraft carrier. That's kind of like
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the base of operations there. They have these Navy amphibious
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: assault ships that will deal like with interdictions and boarding
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: along with helicopter assets. And then you got the big
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: ass guided missile destroyers, which will like, you know, block
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: things and push them in one direction or the other
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: and also do missile defense because they have all the
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: missile defense systems on them. Then there's some sort of
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: like mine sweeping and mine hunting operations that'll happen. And
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: so the question I have is, is the U.S. going
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: to be providing escorts to all the friendly ships? Because
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: the average... The average number of ships through the Strait
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: before this was 130 a day. That's a lot of ships.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of escorts. And this is risky even
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: during the ceasefire because like there's apparently the Iranians have
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: lost contact with all their sea-based landmines. Not landmines. They're
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: naval mines that are in the Strait of Hormuz. They
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: can't account for them.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: We don't know where we put them.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: You don't know where they put them. You never know.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: We kind of did it under pressure.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. With some IRGC guy might fire off a rocket
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: or a drone. But if the conflict restarts, like I
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: don't really see how this works because like It's not
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: just about the U.S. being able to defend the ships.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: It's commercial shipping owners and captains being willing to go
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: through the strait while they're getting fired at.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you have also Trump threatening to blow up
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: ships the way that they've blown up ships and the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: drug ships in Venezuela. That's obviously indefensible in war crimes,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: but those are at least ostensibly their claim is that
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: they're talking about ships that have drugs on them. This
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: is just about commercial vessels that they're now threatening to
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: blow up as well. Then on top of that, I think.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: The threat was for, like, because the Iranian Navy has
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: been destroyed, according to the president, but that, like, if
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: ships are going through, like, their smaller ships or their
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: drones could still launch attacks.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So those are the ships that they want.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Well, there are multiple, I mean, he said multiple things.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: That's one thing he said. He was talking about the
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: small attack ships. He also made a separate point about
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: going after any ships that try to violate the blockade,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: which I hope that, I have no, he's completely unclear
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: and the military has been clarifying it. We have no
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: idea what he fucking means. We don't know how this
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: is going to be implemented. I hope that that's what
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: he means, but it's not clear that if a ship
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: is not listening to a US- Killing everybody.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Who knows? And then the other part of it is,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: are we now saying that we're going to have the
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: US military board ships that may be hostile? This is
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: also something that sets up a possibility of a whole
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: bunch of horrible contingencies. Troops being grabbed, people getting hurt,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: people dying in accidents because boarding a ship in the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: fucking sea that doesn't want to be boarded is a
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: complicated endeavor. Who knows where this is going? It all
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: puts him in a position, if he wants, to escalate
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: and resume bombing and claim it's because of some incident
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: that took place on the seas. It's a dangerous thing
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to be pursuing without really understanding why we're doing it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: He's known to be a bit imprecise in his language.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: The military said it was the latter thing you said,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: which is that for the blockade, it's about them stopping
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and trying to board Any vessel. Of course, that does
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: raise the question, like, what happens when it's a Chinese
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: vessel that's trying to bring oil to Iran or an
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Indian vessel?
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And the Chinese said, we're coming. We have contracts and
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: we're going to go get that oil. And by the way,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: like the problem is once you start operating the Strait
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: of Hormuz, it's 21 miles that it's like sort of
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: the narrowest choke point. But the Iranians can fire missiles
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and drones from like anywhere along their coast. And your
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: reaction time to respond to that with missile defense is nothing.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: So this is getting real risky.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And just so people understand the purpose of the blockade,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: because I don't know if I explained it, by having
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a blockade of all Iranian ports, the idea is Iran
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: has to get its oil exported out to people who
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: are buying it through all of its ports. And if
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: it can't do that, then Iran's going to lose billions
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and billions of dollars. And that is, and obviously that
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is how they get most of their money.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: It's like half their, I think, oil and gas revenue
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: is through those straits.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's through the straits. And if, so if you're blocking
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all the Iranian ports, they can't get anything in, can't
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: get anything out. And that's how, it also, by the way,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: like it could continue to squeeze the Iranian economy, but
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it's also going to raise oil prices everywhere else because the,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the rest of the world and the oil
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: prices around the rest of the world depend on Iranian
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: oil to some extent. So in the short term, it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: also going to raise oil prices for everyone else as
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: well as squeezing Iran itself. And the question is, like,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: can the Iranians take the pain more than the rest
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the world and us here in the United States
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: who are very sensitive to higher gas prices?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: And so far they've shown yes.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: What are you trying to get out of a deal?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Iran is not currently willing to give you, but that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: they will give you after two to three to four
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to five weeks of pressure from a blockade. And like,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: we just don't know. I mean, maybe that is known
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to them. Maybe they have some sense of what they're
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: trying to achieve, but nothing public has made clear what
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: the point of this pressure is other than just to
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: get to some sort of a deal, I guess.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It seems like their idea is squeeze the Iranian economy
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: even more So that either suddenly there is a popular
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: uprising because now we're not bombing them anymore and people
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: are so upset.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And that, uh, and so this will, and then the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: leadership will say, okay, let's just make the deal and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: let's give up, let's give up the dust. And make
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the promises and give them what they want on nukes and,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I guess, reopen the strait and then maybe lift economic
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: sanctions for the Iranians as well. And that's the J.D. Vance,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump view of this.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: The dust is what he gave Justin Trudeau before he
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: went off to Burning Man. Sorry, Coachella.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Did you hear J.D. Vance say... He's talking about the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: nuclear material on Brett Baer, and he knows, of course,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that it's called enriched uranium. He understands all this, but
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: he has to go, as some people call it, dust.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: One person calls it dust, you fucking idiot.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: There is a question of what does a blockade do?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I guess it chokes off the ability to have revenue.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: to run the government. But yeah, the idea that people
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: are going to rise up again, like the IRGC has
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: all the weapons, the besieged militia has all the weapons,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: the Iranian people have nothing. And you're bombing them.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The history of blockades is it usually hurts the people
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: more than it hurts the regime that it's directed towards.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, I do think on some
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: On some level, it is about making the pain felt
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: outside of Iran to make other people feel as though
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: they're kind of dragged into this conflict.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Spokesman for Iran responded to the blockade on Monday by
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: calling it an attack on the global economy and asking,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: is it ever worthwhile to cut off one's nose to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: spite one's face? Trump doesn't seem too bothered by it.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He's a fan of cutting off his nose to spite
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: his face. Here he is talking to Maria Bartiromo on
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: So are a lot of people Mar-a-Lago. Yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they have a doctor
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: that does that. You charge like a hundred grand. You
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: come out, they cut off your nose, they spite your face,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: and you're done.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: A little filler. A lot of filler.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: A little derma-juvederm.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: A lot of spited faces.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Spat?
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Spitted? Spitted.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Anyway, let's play the clip.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Do you believe the price of oil and gas will
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: be lower before the midterm elections?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It could be. Or the same. Or maybe a little
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: bit higher. It's so funny. The full range.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: The full range.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: At some point, did someone tell Maria Bartiromo, hey, you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: we can attach a lav to your shirt and you
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: can speak naturally. She's going to, no, boom across the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: room and I'll keep shouting at it for no fucking reason.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: You need to mic on your shirt. You don't have
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: to shout, it's crazy.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: She's like a real boomer with just the TV on
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: constantly when you walk into the house.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: The idea that the Iranian regime is posting these Confucius-like
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: sayings about revenge, lowering their head and saying, before embarking
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: on a campaign of revenge, dig two graves. It's more
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: than I can take from these people.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: I will say that. Along with some Lego movies.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they got us with the Lego movies.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Fire. Got us. That was tough. That was tough for sure.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Great lyrics.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: I was talking to someone today who does, works in
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: an organization that does a ton of polling and research
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: on Trump and US politics or whatever. And they have
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: consistently like on a weekly basis. And he said, this
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: is the first time Trump's approval has moved significantly in years, literally.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: It was like, as we've all seen public polls, rock
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: solid at like 43% approval always, right? It like moved
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: a little around Butler, moved a little around the Alex
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Pretty shooting. Now it is in a straight line that
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: is going down and it looks like Joe Biden's approval
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: a month after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which we all remember,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: essentially ended his presidency. And so maybe it'll come back,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: but it just seems like the energy shock is just
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: getting started. Oil prices are back up. And Trump seems
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: to think, as you said earlier, he seems to think
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: that he's like, ah, whatever. We drill our own oil.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: We'll be fine here. It's a global market. And then
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: the Financial Times today had a report out where it
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: said that U.S. crude exports will be up about a
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: third this month. And demand from Asia is also increasing.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: So that's going to put upward pressure on all the
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: prices here. It's going to hurt.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: It's already hurting.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: It has not.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The real pain hasn't hit yet. And all of the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: energy analysts keep saying this. And we're getting very close
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to that point. where it's like, you can look at
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the oil futures all you want, but like the actual
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: physical manifestation of the oil futures is about to hit. Um,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and I remember when we were in the white house, uh,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: David Plouffe would always say gas prices are, uh, a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: hit to the entire enterprise.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Like the whole thing could collapse, like the whole political
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: project could collapse on gas prices. And that's when they
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: went up like, I don't know, a dime, five cents
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: here and there. This is, I mean, you know, uh, the, uh,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the parliament speaker, uh, Galabaf that negotiated with J.D. Vance.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: He said, soon you'll be nostalgic for $ 4 to $ 5 gas,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: as he's been saying.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Also, on the Iranian point, I know something I was
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: talking to today reminded me that Iran prepared for this
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: by taking a bunch of oil and placed it in
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: tankers outside of the Strait of Hormuz. They have something
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: like 130 million barrels kind of sitting in anchor in
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: various places. So at current prices, that is $ 18 billion
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: in So that's a nice little cushion for them.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny about that is that they prepared
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: for this, but the United States, which is the one
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that launched the war on its own timetable, its own decision-making,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: did not refill the strategic petroleum reserve ahead of Trump
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: launching it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: It was only 60% full.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: It's almost as if Bibi and Pete Hegseth persuaded Trump
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: that this would be faster and easier than it actually is. was, yeah,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: we were watching Vance before we came in here and
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: he said, you know, look, obviously gas prices being up
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: is bad, but we had such a low benchmark and
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: we were doing so good and it's not nearly as
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: bad as it was under Biden. And it is true,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: there was a moment during the Biden administration where gas
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: prices shot up to higher than they are now, I
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: think $ 5 on average, so higher in more expensive places.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And that, I think, actually was the rising of prices,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: including gas prices, into the Afghan withdrawal that probably were
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the one-two punch that kept Biden below uh, in the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: low approval for the rest of his presidency. Uh, but
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: right now, today, gas prices are higher than they ever
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: were after that peak right now. And there's no hope
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: that they're going to, or at least we don't expect
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: them to go down between now and the election. So
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: it's just not true.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Voters historically more sensitive to price increases than they are
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: even to job losses. And within the realm of price increases,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: there's nothing that people are more sensitive to than gas.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: And they have eyeballs and they see them everywhere. They
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: are posted.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Uplift Desk.
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  Speaker 1: sanctuary for for our environment for generations to come. So
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Trump was also asked, with DoorDash grandma by his side,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: whether he regretted the holy war he's decided to launch
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: against the Catholic Church, the world's largest Christian denomination that
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: includes more than 50 million Americans. The background here is
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: that Pope Leo has been speaking out with increasing frequency
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: about the church's opposition to Trump's brutal treatment of immigrants
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and his war of choice in Iran. which reportedly led
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: to a meeting where a Pentagon official allegedly berated the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Pope's outgoing ambassador to the U.S. Always a good thing.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It also led to a 60 Minutes segment Sunday night
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: where the three most powerful American cardinals who were close
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: with the American Pope spoke bluntly about the church's issues
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: with Trump on war and immigration. The president was watching
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: 60 Minutes because right afterwards, he posted a lengthy tirade
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that read in part, quote, Pope Leo is weak on
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: crime is a sentence that I will think about- It
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: was like I was shocked, but I also couldn't stop
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: laughing thinking about it.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Me too. It's like they're on some debate stage in Iowa,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: and he's like, you are soft on crime. You are
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: soft on nukes.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Also, you met with David Axelrod. Pope Leo, weak on crime,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: weak on nuclear weapons. and uh and wrong for america.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: And friends with david axelrod that was mentioned my.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Name yeah i just talked to ax today about um
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: it was wild it's like yeah i was trying to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: meet with the pope and then suddenly it's.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Like a you know a rabbi and a rabbi and
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: a priest walk into a bar in chicago you know
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: have you ever had ham no have you ever had
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: sex no oh you gotta try ham.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: You know I did ask Ax if he brought if
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: he brought the Pope manis as a it's like an
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: interfaith offering oh that's nice but I guess they didn't
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: what he said they didn't meet in Chicago anyway he
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: also warned the Trump also warned the Holy Father to
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: quote get his act together okay And he took credit
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: for Leo's selection as the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: That is Trump's doing. Spot the line. For good measure,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Trump also posted an AI image of himself as Jesus
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: healing the sick.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Truly, like, did you just say, like, no? But yes,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: he really did.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: It's what, I mean... I would love to just, we
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: should have done a whole, we could do like a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: whole video on just going through the actual.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: The images.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: The actual image. Because it's an AI slop image for sure.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: There's a lot in there.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: There's a lot in there. There's a lot of confusing
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: things in there. But what you really need to know, Trump, Jesus.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: healing a sick man in bed who could pass for
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Or Jeffrey Epstein.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Also maybe, yeah, mention maybe even more Jeffrey Epstein.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: I thought it was Jeffrey Epstein.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: I just didn't look.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: A divorced slob.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: It also looks like there's like a demon behind him
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and maybe some G.I.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Joes. I thought I saw a ninja turtle maybe.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a ninja definitely.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: So the pontiff was asked about all of this on
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Sunday night. Here's what he said.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: I have no fear, neither the Trump administration, or speaking
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: out loudly about the message of the Gospel.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And that's what I believe.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I am called to do what the Church is called
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to do. Blessed are the peacemakers. I do not look
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: at my role as being political or politician. I don't
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: want to get into a debate with him.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I don't think that the message of the Gospel is
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: meant to be abused in the way that some people
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: are doing.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Too many innocent people are refilled.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And I think someone has to stand up and say,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: There's a better way to put this.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: The pope was also asked directly about the post, and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: he did say that Truth Social was an ironic name
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: for the platform.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Not wrong.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I love just a pope in just Chicago English. It's
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: so strange.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: The first American pope. Truly American. Yeah, it's awesome.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Do you think he flies business?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I was about to say, oh, he cares about the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: least among us.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: What's he flying? It's a nice-looking plane.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: What's he flying?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Just kidding.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Woke Marxist Pope.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Pope's sitting next to Assam Piker in Delta One. And Bernie.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Bernie and AOC right behind him. Here's what Trump had
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to say for himself when he was with DoorDash Grandma.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Which is what he calls Melania.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I think he's very weak on crime and other things,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: so I'm not.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, he went public.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: I'm just responding to Pope Leo. There's nothing to apologize for.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: He's wrong. The other thing is he didn't like what
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: we're doing with respect to Iran.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Did you post that picture of yourself depicted.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: As Jesus Christ? Well, it wasn't depicted.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: It was me.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I did post it, and I thought it was me
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. I
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: just heard about it. And I said, how did they
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: come up with that? It's supposed to be me as
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: a doctor making people better. And I do make people better.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: I make people a lot better.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: That's such a funny lie.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: So many doctors, just a healthcare provider dressed as Jesus.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It's one of those lies. I'm like, why, why does
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: anyone even spend time on it? Anyone with eyes knows
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that it's even JD. JD Vance was asked about it
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: when we were watching Fox just now. What, what a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: couple answers from him on this. First of all, He
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: said the whole thing was not newsworthy. The president of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the United States picks a very public fight attacking the Pope,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the Bishop of Rome, as weak on crime and weak
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: on nuclear and warns him to get his act together.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: J.D.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Vance says it wasn't newsworthy. He said that of the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: AI Jesus, Trump was just joking. So it wasn't meant
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: to be a doctor.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: According to J.D.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Vance, he was joking. People don't get Trump's sense of humor.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And it's good that he posts his own stuff on
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: social media and that it doesn't go through a filter of,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, press assistants and people who work for him
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and everything else, because it's good that he speaks directly
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to people.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: He also said that the Vatican should stick to matters
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: of morality.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not like war.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Not the policies of the most powerful nation on earth
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: as it pertains to war, which is, I guess you
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: mean like what? Like just no divorces and the rhythm method?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Like it's just basically all that they want. That's what
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: they want.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: It's so revealing that he said that. And I was like...
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about this even before you said that,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: is to J.D. Vance and to a lot of the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: right-wing Catholics and especially evangelical Christians in this country, issues
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: of morality are issues of personal morality. And so that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is why for so long they have been focused on
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: abortion and sexual orientation. And what Pope Leo and Pope
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Francis before him have revealed is that the core of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Catholic social teaching is about matters of war and peace,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: is about preferential option for the poor, is about treating
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: immigrants with dignity and respect and valuing life. And I
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: think that is all more explicitly mentioned in the Bible
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and the New Testament and from Jesus' mouth than anything
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: related to abortion or sexual orientation or any of the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: other personal morality issues that have become political in the
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: United States.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Thomas Aquinas over here.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look at this guy. Thomas Aquinas. Actually, he knows
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: what he's talking about.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, yeah, bad. I'm Protestant.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Not since Henry VIII has a divorced slob. The Pope
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: had overstepped his bound, but at least Henry VIII did
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Barry Ann Boleyn on a golf course. You know what
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I'm saying?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Smart fight to pick?
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: Incredible.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you, we've talked about We talked about
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Trump picking a fight with Muslims, which he has, obviously.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: There was the whole Muslim ban. Also in the United States,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: he's viciously attacked Muslims in the United States. He has
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: talked about dual loyalty and has said plenty of anti-Semitic
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: things about Jews in the United States. There's 20% of
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the country are Catholic in the United States of America.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Is it that much?
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: There's over 50 million Catholics in the United States. So
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of Catholics.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of Catholics. Politically, this feels worse. I mean, remember,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: this is not his first big fight with a pope. Remember,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: he tweeted about Pope Francis. If and when the Vatican
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: is attacked by ISIS, which, as everyone knows, is ISIS's
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: been president. because this would not have happened.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Remember that one?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: That's a wild one. This one feels bad, though, politically.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: First of all, it's like mood music. Things are a
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: little rocky for Trump, especially with his far-right followers. I
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: don't know if you and Dan covered the op-ed-length screed
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: attacking Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones from
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: last week.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I read it aloud.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so Trump's biggest supporters are not in the mood
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: to defend him, and it also comes right after the
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Easter tweet. where he offended a lot more Christians by tweeting,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: close the fucking straight and praise Allah on Easter.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he offended Christians and Muslims in one tweet.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: All over the, I started a little holy war there.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, it is an American Pope. It's
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: just like, what are you doing, dude?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he posted a picture of himself as the Pope
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: in May of last year. And I do think that like,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: he's said, he's done moments, like you said with Francis,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: he's done this before. I actually think he's just, doing
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: at a time in which he actually no longer seems
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: kind of tough and blustery, but it just seems sort
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: of sweaty. And so he's getting attacked from people that
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: would previously have never said a word about something like
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: this and would have done what Vance did and say, oh,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: he was just kidding around. That's our president. That's our
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: big boy. But instead, they're actually saying what they think
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: about it. Yeah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: If you guys listen to the full 45 minute Tucker
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: Carlson monologue attacking the Easter tweet that led into a
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: broader Iran critique, it actually started by pointing out that
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Trump did not put his hand on the Bible when
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: he was sworn into office.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I hadn't realized that.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that either.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I missed that.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: And it really it built to an argument basically that
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Trump thinks he's God and his thinks he has godlike
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: powers and that that is wrong and evil. Um, and
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: it's also, it's kind of like kicking up a debate
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: again about whether Trump is mentally well. I mean, he
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: was asked this at a press event the other day,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: like people, Hey sir, people think you're crazy. What do
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: you think?
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And my view on that is, um, he's been like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: this forever. Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I just, I listen. It didn't make sense when I
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: saw it as a kid, but as I get older,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: stupid is as stupid does, you know?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I think he, I think watching the 60 minutes segment
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is what, obviously that is what set him off and
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: there's been reporting on this. Um, but it is worth
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: watching everyone. Nora O'Donnell, uh, does a pretty great job.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: talking to the three cardinals, the Archbishop of Washington, Chicago,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and New York. And, I mean, they accused the White
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: House of gamification of warfare, calling the administration's videos, the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: snuff videos, sickening. Quote, we're dehumanizing the victims of war
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: by turning the suffering of people and the killing of
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: children and our own soldiers into entertainment. Cardinal Tobin called
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: ICE a lawless organization. They hide their identities to terrify people.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was just it went on and on
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and on. And I think that for Trump, when he
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: hears that, he's like, oh, this is a personal attack.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And I get to I get to hit back just
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: like anything else. But it's like what they are revealing
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: is that it's not just Trump's own personal morality, but
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: like his entire political agenda is incompatible with not just
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Christian Christianity and Catholic social teaching, but like most of
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the world's major religions. Yeah, it is like based in like.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: because they are based in empathy and compassion and grace.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And banning abortion, which he kind of already gave them.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: So we're on the other side. He gave them a
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: pretty big win and now they're turning on him?
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Side note, not as important. Interesting that 60 Minutes aired
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: that piece, given all the concern that Barry Weiss would
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: be spiking anything kind of. critical of Trump. So I
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: guess good that that made it through.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Anthony Perez broke the story.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: He broke the story about them saying that they're going
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: to get the papacy back to Avignon.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So like on the politics of this, I mean,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it'll do lasting damage. Like a
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: lot of Catholics might be like, yeah, it was weird.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: He deleted it, but he overturned Roe versus Wade. So like,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: we're good. But it is interesting. I think that once again,
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: the anger of and the criticism falls into the character
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: values bucket. This isn't like, he didn't give us the
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: tax credit or let us like be mean to the,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: you know, the cake artist who won't make an LGBT
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: like wedding cake or whatever. It was like, there's people
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: in true social saying, this is desecration. Trump is the antichrist.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Trump thinks he's God.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I've heard from people who, who like, they have mag
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: relatives who are like, this was it. They were done.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: This was, cause it's, it's the, the, the extremely political
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: types who, like their first issue, even more than their Catholicism,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: is abortion is one thing, like you were saying. But
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I think for most Catholics, when you start attacking the
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Pope like that, and then you put yourself as AI Jesus,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: like that is a pretty, it's pretty blasphemous. And it's
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: very Trump too, because with Islam and Judaism, Catholicism has
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: a head of the church. And so there is someone,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: there is like a person who can be a threat
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump, who is a moral leader around the world.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: He's not used to that. He's used to just being like, see,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: that politician, they're just as bad as everyone else. We're
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: all the same, we're all bad.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: And so it's he- Look, not the first leader also
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: just to think that like, oh, what could the Pope do?
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have any armies or anything. I do wonder
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: if maybe Trump could maybe go on the road to
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Kenosa and then walk all the way to the castle
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: and then take his shoes off and then beat on
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: the doors for a few days until the Pope lets
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: him in. And then he can apologize. And then the
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Pope would absolve him. And then he could go back
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: to leading the Holy Roman Empire.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good idea.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: What about that?
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good idea.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: That's really good.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Did you see the other interesting thing before we move
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: off on the CBS, on the 60 Minutes thing is
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that the Pope has decided to spend the 4th of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: July in Lampedusa, which is the Italian island where tens
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of thousands of migrants have landed.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: On their way to Europe.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: And you know, Nora asked if that was symbolic. And
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, of course.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, they have great spritzes there. It's
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: beautiful because it's on the coast, it's on the waters,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: the waters really chill on that side.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, your hair doesn't get curly.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And it's like, what a contrast with, you know, Donald
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Trump celebrating July 4th with what he's going to do.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: He's bucking all of like literal violence, like UFC matches.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: And he's meanwhile welcoming migrants to the shore, which is what,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you know. as one of the cardinals said, which is
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: what the Statue of Liberty is supposed to represent.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Also tough for Vance's I Became Catholic book tour.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Big time. Yeah. Like I said, my road, what's
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: it called? Like the road home. It's taking the long
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: road back to Catholicism.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I only know about Catholicism up to the Reformation.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: That's where the end of my.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Memory of AP European history cuts off.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: It's going to really ruin the book tour for JD Vance. It's,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: what is it called?
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Communion.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Communion, finding my way back to faith. He found his
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: way back.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: How many books about himself is that guy going to write?
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Too many already.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: VP, bud.
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  Speaker 1: could save. That's policygenius.com slash crooked. All right, let's get
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to the big development here in the California governor's race.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Eric Swalwell, who was one of the leading candidates, has
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: dropped out after four women accused the congressman of sexual misconduct,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: including a former staffer who has offered a detailed and
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: corroborated account of Swalwell raping her in a New York
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: hotel room after a night of heavy drinking in 2024.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: The women spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office has now opened a
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: criminal investigation into the allegations. Swalwell was initially defiant, but
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: after losing most of his endorsements, he ended his campaign
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: on Sunday night, writing in a statement on X that
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: he was, quote, deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that he, quote, will fight the serious false allegations that
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: have been made, just before we record it, Swalwell also
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: resigned from Congress. What are your reactions to both the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: news and, in general, it's secondary, but just the audacity
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: to run for governor knowing that this was out there?
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it was shocking. I mean, I think
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of rumors about Eric Swalwell kind
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: of being one of the younger members of Congress who
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: would go to bars, get too drunk, hang out with staffers,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: maybe fraternize with them in inappropriate ways, but nothing. I
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: had never heard anything like this.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: No.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: So I read that CNN story and I thought he
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: should drop out of the race. He should resign from Congress.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Then he should hire a criminal defense attorney because there's
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: a damn good chance that guy gets prosecuted and could
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: see jail time. And then shortly after the Manhattan district
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: attorney announced an investigation. So, you know, it's horrible. I'm
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: glad the Democratic Party moved quickly to to push him out.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: It's a nice it's a contrast with how the Republicans
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: operate and the Tony Gonzalez to Trump to many in between.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: But it's despicable.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at first, Swalwell was issuing these denials that sort
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of referenced to mistakes in judgment, but that, oh, he'd
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: never done NDAs and had never been members of staff.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: And then those were, I think, disproven, or at least
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: there was reporting that showed that those weren't true. So
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: then those statements sort of changed. Hard to get into
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: the mind of somebody that would have this in their
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: past and think that they could run for governor because
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: you can't even say, oh, he... Because it's like, this
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: is not... I don't know what stories people tell themselves,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: but he's not the first person to have terrible skeletons
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: in their closet and still believe that they could do
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: whatever they want and keep rising and be brazenly ambitious.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: And right up to the end, the video he recorded
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: reportedly at some billionaire donor's home in Beverly Hills, his
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: staff wasn't around, where he refused to drop out and
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: said he was going to stay in it. It's like
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the woman who came forward on this Um, she, if
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: you read the CNN story in the San Francisco Chronicle story,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: like she has text messages to a friend, um, saying
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: that she was sexually assaulted by Eric Swalwell saying exactly
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: what happened, like right after it happened in 2024, she
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: had told multiple family members, her partner at the time.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And then you have three other women having similar saying
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: similar things. The woman who, um, alleges, uh, the sexual
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: assault also like got tested for had a pregnancy test
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and test for STDs and had the person at the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: lab send her a note that said like, you're a survivor.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Hang in there. I mean, just like there's, there's so much,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of, a lot of, and to like read
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that story as Eric Swalwell and to like see the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: other ones and just be like, I'm going to film
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a video being like, fuck it. I'm a, I'm hanging
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in here. And then his, his lawyer gave this insane
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: interview with Alex Michelson on CNN and Alex did a
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: great job, but it was just like, it was so
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: hard to watch because he just was like sitting there
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: not giving any answers on anything. It's like, why did
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: you even go on TV? Sociopathic.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: We've seen like a lot. I also just like, there's
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: a story I think people tell themselves that, oh, like
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I've been, you know, I've looked, I've stepped outside of
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: my marriage and I've been unfaithful, but I've never done anything.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: I've never heard anybody. It's always consensual, always consensual. And
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: then these stories come out, whether it's... We've seen over
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: and over the powerful men that they truly cannot... Either
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: they are in denial of themselves or just lie in perpetuity,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: but they cannot accept that what they've done is not
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: just been unfaithful, but actually been sexually assaulted people. Yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: And there was a story in, I think it was
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the Times, about... you know, it's indicative, like this whole
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: thing was indicative of how, what a shit show the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: California governor's race has been. And people were like clamoring
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to get behind some kind of candidate because Kamala didn't
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: run and Padilla didn't run. And so Swalwell comes and
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: then they're all like, okay, this is our guy, this
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: is our guy. And there were rumors, some of the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: rumors like that you were just saying, Tommy, that like,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe he'd been inappropriate. And people kept going
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: to him and saying like, any truth to this. And
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: they said that his denials and his categorical denials, even
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: in private, like one-on-one before endorsements were like so intense
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: that they were like, okay, I guess he's saying absolutely not.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Nothing's going to come out. You know, MAG has been
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: after me for a while. Wouldn't they have surfaced this already?
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Well, there was also this thing where, you know, there
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: was a report that Kash Patel was going to put the,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: you know, eye of Sauron from the FBI on Swalwell
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: and like inappropriately release investigative files. So I think there
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: was There was also, I think, legitimate concern that maybe
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: like the Trump administration was going to use the power
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: of the government in some inappropriate way to target him, which, right,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: like I think it led to maybe more second chances
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: for him. But then also I was thinking back to
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: that weird video he released with his wife where they're
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: like walking in Santa Monica and it's like his wife
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: like endorses his candidacy. And we're like, what is this?
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: What is the context? And it's just like so clear
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: that that was front running these controversies, by the way.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: As we were recording, CNN and some others reporting that
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: in battle, GOP rep Tony Gonzalez announces he's stepping down
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: from Congress. So he's another absolute scumbag on the Republican side.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: So people know like the Swalwell thing brought up these
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: other House members who they all thought that they maybe
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: would try to expel together. So there's Swalwell, Gonzalez, who
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: had had an affair with the staffer who later committed suicide.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Democrat Sheila Turfilis McCormick. who the house ethics committee found
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: guilty of stealing COVID relief funds for her campaign. Republican
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Corey Mills, who's under investigation for committing campaign fraud and
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: sexual misconduct and domestic violence. Um, and so now Swalwell
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: has resigned. Uh, Gonzalez, uh, has said he's going to
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: resign or retire tomorrow. And so now I don't know
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: if the vote will go forward on, um, Turfilis McCormick
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and Mills or the whole thing will get dropped, but, um, wow.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot about the house just to kind of,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: it's like, Oh, someone did something bad. Let's get them
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: all together. Let's expel them all.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: It's, there's such a, um, cause like Santos was basically
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: the first person expelled since what, like, uh, reconstruction. And
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: with that, it was like, Oh, well, it's so obvious
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: that you should have this person removed. Cause it's just
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: so brazen. And there's so many examples, but the idea,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: there's something so like, look, I'm glad Swalwell's resigning. All
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: these other people should be resigned and expelled. Uh, But
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: there's something so ugly about like, oh, we have to
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: do it in pairs because we're only going to enforce
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: our ethics in a bipartisan way, which tells you that
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: actually what you need is some kind of a standard
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: or process at the end of which there's a way
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: in which you say, all right, this standard has been met.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: We will vote to expel. That won't be kind of
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: abused or politicized or ignored by either side.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: And it is why I get why when sometimes people
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: face these expulsion votes, they say like, well, we need
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: either the House Ethics Committee to have completed an investigation
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: and find the person guilty through the House Ethics Committee
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: or- like an actual criminal conviction outside.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: It's some kind of legal determination.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Right, because you do want that because otherwise then everyone's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: going to start saying, oh, you did this, you did this, expelled, right?
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Like the evidentiary standard.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: And by the way, like I'm glad too that there
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: was like genuine reporting that dug in. Like, cause there
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: were like random posts on social media. Like, oh, Swalwell's
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: a creep. And someone like, this is just a hit piece.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: This is by the opponents. And it's impossible to know. Like,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: we're just trying, we don't know.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: You can't go by that. Right.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: And so I'm.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Thankfully someone, these women came forward.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: So it sort of like was a combination of like
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: people kind of drumming this up online, including people sort
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: of outside of traditional journalism, and then it getting kind of,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: you know, journalistic outlets sort of putting in the resources
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: to go and kind of run these things down, which
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: ultimately I think is why it was able to successfully
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: make the story breakthrough and get him to resign.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about what happens now in the California
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: governor's race. We can do, you know, J.D. Vance, good news,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: bad news. Bad news is this. Bad news is that guy.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Good news is, I feel like the lockout fears are
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: over at this point.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think, kind of revive them. We
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: can get to that, but yeah.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about it because I think, um, I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: think now that Trump has, Trump has jumped into endorse
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Steve Hilton, Swalwell's out.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: So now you have, um, California's roughly 60, 40 state Democrats, Republicans.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So you have two Republicans splitting the 40, um, but
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: one endorsed by Donald Trump. And then now you have
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Tom Steyer, Katie Porter. And then I guess, you know, um,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Matt Mahan is the mayor of San Jose, Javier Becerra,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: former AG and Biden administration cabinet member, and Antonio Villaraigosa,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: former mayor of LA, sort of vying for the third spot.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: So most of the people I've talked to in the
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: California political world since the Swalwell news think that this
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: race will go down to, on the Democratic side, Steyer
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: versus Katie Porter. Um, Katie Porter's campaign has said, I
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: think the Politico today that they, in their internal polls,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: they get half of Swalwell's vote. Steyer's team, I think
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: said they get a quarter of Swalwell's vote. So we'll see. Um,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: the problem for Katie Porter is no matter how much
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: she raises or how hard she campaigns in the next
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks, like it's going to be impossible to
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: match the 120 million that Steyer has already spent. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: the problem for Steyer is he spent 120 million and
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: he's still kind of stuck in this heat.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: He was spending millions attacking Swalwell, which at this point
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: means that money was just wasted.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: And so most of the candidates, as you said, are
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: polling significantly lower than those two. The X factor seems
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: to be Matt Mahan, who may get a ton of
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: money from a bunch of tech industry billionaires, already has,
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: but may get a ton more. And maybe that'll move
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: the needle. The problem for him is that California is
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: so big. We have, what, 10 media markets. They're all expensive.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: even spending 20 million is not going to get you
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: that much. So that's the assumption of where this will
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: set you at. Now, the good news for all of
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: us is everyone's in the field right now with polls, campaigns,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: media organizations, PACs.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, we'll get some new data.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I think the scary scenario is a situation where you
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: have Mahan, Porter, and Steyer all splitting the Dem vote.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: Then you could see a Steve Hilton, Chad Bianco lockout scenario.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: It is very unlikely. It is more likely, I think,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: that the Democratic Party comes in or the DGA comes
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: in and elevates Steve Hilton further in some way to
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: ensure that it's a Republican Democrat general election, but we'll see.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the reason that it seems unlikely that there's
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: going to be a lockout now is if you've got,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: so Becerra, Viragosa, and Mahan have like, maybe in one
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: or two polls, one of them has hit five. No
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: one's gotten to more than five, right? So say you
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: generously give All the candidates who aren't Porter and Steyer, 15%.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: That still is 45% between Steyer and Porter. And divided
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: by two is as long as they're over 20, neither
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Chad Bianco or Steve Hilton is getting over 20% because
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: it's 40% of the voters are Republicans in California.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: The argument for this kind of all redounding to Porter
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: is Steyer has spent whatever it is, over a hundred
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: million dollars. He's gotten to wherever he's gotten. He's gotten
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: billions of impressions and, and he sort of stuck where
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: he is. Katie Porter hasn't really spent anything. Like she's
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: been very little on ads. And I hope that this
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: would be an opportunity to go spend that money. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: so for, before you even get to where the voters go,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: like where does Swalwell money go? It doesn't make sense
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: for it to go to Tom Steyer. He's a fucking billionaire.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: So like, maybe, maybe, but, or like some of them,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: some of them, but like.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Cause he's a, Matt Mahan is like very, like a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: lot of the, A lot of the tech-focused people, you know,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: so he's got a lot of money throwing on that campaign. Now, again,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: he's got some similar issue with Steyer. He's jumped in
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: the race later, but a lot of money spent and
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: still sitting around 4% or 5%.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: I feel like, I don't know. We'll see.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: But, like, the idea that there's a bunch of people
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: that were behind Eric Swalwell are now suddenly going to
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: go to the more kind of, like, they're not going
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: to go to the other traditional them in the race.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: We'll see. But it does seem like it's a moment
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: for Katie Porter to, like, spend some money and try
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to, like, kind of bump herself up.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: I'm sure she's been waiting because she's so outgunned by Steyer.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: It's also, like, at some point in this environment where
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: attention matters most and people barely watch ads, like, I
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: do think finding a moment to capture attention is more
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: important in some ways than how much, as Tom Steyer
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: has found out, and then spending a whole bunch of money.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: And it's a challenge in a statewide race, especially a
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: state as big as California, because you have a huge state,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: so you have a huge fucking audience, but everyone's talking
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: about national politics all the time, and we have a
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: couple big debates coming up, And do we think California
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: voters are all going to be tuning into those debates?
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: You'd hope so, but I don't know.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a forum tomorrow night, which will
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: be the first time I think they've all been together
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: and to comment on Swalwell. And I do think that
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: will be a newsmaking thing and we'll see something coming
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: out of there.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Luckily, there's lots of better news for Democrats to focus on.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: On Monday, the Cook Political Report shifted its outlook for
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: several key Senate races in Democrats' direction. North Carolina and Georgia,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: this is wild, from toss-up to lean Democrat. Ohio from
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: lean Republican to toss-up. And Nebraska, from solid Republican to
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: lean Republican. In Iowa, a survey commissioned by a Democratic
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: group gave Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand an eight-point lead
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: in the governor's race, while the same poll has Republicans
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: holding only a narrow lead in the Senate race, where
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: there are two strong Democrats in a tough primary. Over
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: in Alaska, Mary Paltola raised almost $ 9 million in the
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: first three months of the year, quadrupled the amount raised
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: by Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, probably the most money ever
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: raised in that state. Do you guys think the Democrats'
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: chance of taking back the Senate has been underrated? I
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: feel like it might have been underrated by now.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Might have been underrated.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just started picturing an Ayatollah coming to the
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: microphone the day after the election and saying, we didn't
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: set out to change the American regime, but the regime
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: did change.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to think about.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it's underrated other than it
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: was rated correctly and then we launched a war and
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: gas prices are through the roof and now it needs
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: to be rated according to what's happened. It's been overtaken
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: by events. It was maybe a toss-up when gas was
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: $ 3 a gallon. If it's $ 5 or $ 6 a gallon, suddenly...
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: the Senate is not just in play, but we have
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: a real, real chance of taking it.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I've long felt pretty optimistic about North Carolina and
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: Georgia just because those are great candidates in states that
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: are genuinely swingy. Ohio and Iowa, tough states in 2024.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: I think Trump won Ohio by 11 points, won Iowa
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: by 13 points. Some big headwinds. But Ohio, we got
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: Sherrod Brown. He's probably the best candidate we could ask for.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: He's to win a primary, but he's going to win
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: the primary. And then In Iowa, we will not have
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: a candidate until June 2nd. I interviewed Josh Turek a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: couple weeks ago. Folks want to listen to that. We're
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: out to Zach Walls to try to get him on
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: soon too. But Iowa Democrats have a really strong candidate
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: at the top of the ticket in Rob Sand, who
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: is reportedly up eight points. Randy Feenstra is his opponent.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: He's not that popular. He's got a lot of baggage.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: And between like high gas prices, high fertilizer prices, and
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: then tariffs, Trump has done everything he can to piss
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: off farmers and fuck over Iowa's economy. So there's just
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: like There's just a lot of tailwinds for these candidates.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: We should know that Cook, in the same breath as
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: moving those races, also still doesn't think the Democrats are
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: favored to win the Senate because they basically think we'll
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: pick up one to three.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: We need four.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: And so there must be counting Maine, North Carolina, and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: then either Ohio or Alaska or Iowa. Um, and not
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: two of the three. Now we also, I think Texas
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: is a good chance too, but they don't, they don't
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: rate Texas as I think Texas is still lean Republican
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: in their ranking. If I'm remembering correctly.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: I would also like to see like part of this too, like,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: like how, who does gas prices hit? Obviously geographically it's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: going to hit, you know, states where people are driving
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: a longer distance or driving bigger cars. Like I, like
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: I would bet if you looked at like, who are
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: the kinds of people that were kind of soft Trump voters,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: and are now open to voting for a Democrat, it's
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: going to be people that they're not driving Teslas, they're
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: driving SUVs, and they find Democrats talking about these issues
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: pretty annoying, but they're pretty fucking pissed about how.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Expensive gas is because we went to war on Iran.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: And it's not just gas, it'll be, you know, supply
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: shortages and the cost of other, I mean, inflation is
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: still a problem.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: So it can be a big problem. And then the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: argument that Why are we spending X billions on bombs
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: to drop on schools in Iran when we could be
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: spending it on anything else here? Like, polls through the roof,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: and everyone's going to be able to use them.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Right, like, wait till we find out how much this
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: blockade is going to cost us today.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, billions.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Trump was, Trump, right before the election in Hungary... was
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: promising like economic help for Hungary if they elect Viktor Orban.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Which he's done so many times.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Remember the beef, the Argentinian beef.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Argentinian bailout. Like he keeps doing that. It's insane.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: Brazen election interference. Then J.D. Vance goes over there and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: is like, the bureaucrats in Brussels tried to interfere in
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: your election. I won't, but also vote for Viktor Orban.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm not here to say, like, what are you doing,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: you absolute loser?
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: He wasn't doing it to win. He was doing it
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: because they're friends. That's right. He was doing it to
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: help a friend, all right? If you don't love J.D.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Vance at his Viktor Orban, you don't deserve him.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Just the most corrupt person I've ever met, Viktor Orban.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Finally, before we get to Lovett's interview with Nithya Raman,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: one more quick item for you. Well, plenty of political
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: leaders from liberal democracies all over the world posted statements
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: celebrating Viktor Orban's defeat over the weekend. One in particular
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: caught our eye from former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: not because of what he posted, but where he seemingly
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: posted it from, Coachella, where the 54-year-old was spotted in
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: a backwards hat with girlfriend Katy Perry in a series
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: of viral photos, which drew this comment from Twitter user,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: at the departed rat, quote, when you're faded and need
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: to squint one eye to type, but you're trying to
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: tweet about Hungarian politics. Do we have the picture? There
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: This picture is enraging. This picture is enraging to me.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: He looks so vital, young, and happy. He looks half
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: his age.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Look, maybe there's hope for 54.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: I guess. For me, all Coachella is is a great
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: weekend where the traffic is less in LA. And there's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: the former prime minister just living his best fucking life.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I like that there's also a video that's come up
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: too on the screen.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He's like, what are you doing?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: What are you doing? What are you doing? What are
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: you doing?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: I was talking to a Canadian friend today who said
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: Trudeau is getting shit in Canada. I have friends in
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: Canada too.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Do you have friends in Canada?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: We love it.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: Lots of friends in Canada.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go on. Sorry, your ex or something up there.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Girl from the camp. Because he pushed.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: What a promise I'm from Canada.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: He pushed for a plastic cup ban in Canada. And
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: as you can see there, he's got a red solo.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Cup on his knee.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: That's why he was getting shit? That's one of the reasons.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: People are also making fun of him for wearing like
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: relaxed clothes. Do you expect him to be in like.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: A blue suit? Yeah, like a suit.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: What are we talking about here?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I do like the backwards hat. Enjoying some Chinese food
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: in a.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess I like Trudeau. He was on Pod
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Save the World. Check out Pod Save the World. Subscribe
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: anywhere you get your podcasts. I guess my advice to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: him would be like post about Coachella or post about
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: the Hungarian elections.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Don't do both.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. And you think he needs your advice.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, he absolutely does.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: He is dating a pop star at Coachella. We're fucking here.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: He's crushing it.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: He's living the most divorced dad life.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: He's doing great. He's posting about Viktor Orban throwing back
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: a ketamine lozenge.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: He's crushing it. It is a very relatable situation. We've
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: all been there. Oh, no, we've got to do some work.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: We're looking at Twitter. Here we are in a fun time.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: Drafted a convention speech from Vegas.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: Done it all. Was he just there to see Bieber?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: Or was that just a coincidence? A lot of the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: reporting connected them because.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: They're both Canadian. I mean, she's there, so I'm sure
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: she was just there to see everyone and get all the,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: you know. She's Katy Perry.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: She's Katy Perry. Yeah. Imagine you're tripping balls waiting for
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: a port-a-potty. Justin, you're like, Justin Trudeau?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: I bet he has artist passes. I bet he has
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: the good passes.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. But he's still got to pee.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: He's got to pee. And that's the thing.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: We all got to pee. Bernie was at Coachella last year, right?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: But he spoke. Remember that?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: I think it was he opened for Skrillex. God, my
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: references are getting so old.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: Wow. So old.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: It was a bare naked ladies show.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: We'll be seeing you at 54 with your hat backwards.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Who was there? Not Wilco.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: Was Wheezy?
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: Hey buddy, hey old man, stagecoach is down the road.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: No, no.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: That's next weekend.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: She actually started out with a band called No Doubt.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: It was fun.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: I wish I was there. Yeah.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: We're just jealous.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: That's for sure.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Anyway, when we come back, love it talks to Nithya
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Raman about her race for LA mayor.
• 1:06:47
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• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Joining me in studio, she's a city council member and
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: candidate for mayor of Los Angeles. Nithya Raman, welcome to
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: We have a lot to get through. I'm going to
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: go pretty quickly. I also do want to disclose that
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: I've been a supporter of yours for a long time.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: But I was really excited to see you jump in
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: the race, not just because you're you, but because I
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: thought Los Angeles deserved a big, contentious, hard fought mayoral campaign.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: And we were about to not have one. Yes. You
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: had endorsed.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: Karen Bass for mayor.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Yes. She was a political ally of yours. Then literally
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: in the hours before the noon deadline, you decided to run.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: What happened in the month between endorsing your former political
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: ally and deciding to run against her?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Well, the endorsement request had come months prior. Um, so
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: I just want to be very clear about that. It
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: wasn't like an overnight change of heart, but I will
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: say that, um, I had been getting really frustrated with
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: the way that things had been going in the city
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: and in the way that things had been going in
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: city hall on so many of the issues that I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: really cared about on housing and housing production and the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: cost of housing, the extraordinary cost of housing here in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles. I felt like the city was actually fighting
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: against state mandates to build housing. The city was fighting
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: affordable housing. And we didn't have any clear direction or
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: urgency around the issue at all. On issues like homelessness,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: where people were demanding accountability, that is possible, absolutely possible
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: to deliver things that I have actually made progress on
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: in my own district and in my limited way as
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: the chair of the committee. We were just not doing
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 5: on a system-wide level and we didn't feel any urgency
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: around it. And I feel like that lack of urgency
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: was everywhere in every issue that I cared about. And
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: I kept trying to push back against it and kept
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: hitting a wall. And I think I got increasingly frustrated.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: And I'm not a traditional politician in that this is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: what I want to be doing for the rest of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: my life. I actually didn't even really think that I
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 5: would ever run for office. But I really care about
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles and the idea, exactly like you said, of
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: having a mayoral election where we weren't even talking about
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: the fact that L.A. is struggling right now, that a
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: lot of people feel like it's moving in the wrong direction,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: that the city hall needs to be doing things differently
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: in order to address our biggest problems. that we weren't
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: even going to have that conversation, I mean, it made
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: me crazy. It made me absolutely crazy. And so finally,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: in the last couple of days, I seriously considered running.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: And then on the very last day, threw my hat
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: in the ring.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about what's wrong with Los Angeles, which
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: would be too long of a conversation to have. But
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: stepping back, the city of LA has a budget of
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: around $ 14 billion. Yet we can't fix sidewalks, repave streets.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: We don't plant trees. We can't replace the bulbs in
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: our street lamps. Why in the richest state in the country,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: in the fourth largest economy in the world, is Los
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Angeles such a basket case?
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: You know, I think a lot of it has to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: do with really poor fiscal management here at the city.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: We are making decisions that undermine our capacity to be
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: able to deliver basic essential services for our residents. And
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: I think that's a shame because it is, again, it's
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: completely possible to do it. We last year had a
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 5: billion dollar budget deficit that definitely had some kind of
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: impacts from the fires the year prior and from, or
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: a few months prior, and from heightened liability claims that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: are impacting a lot of municipalities across the country. But
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: the biggest issue was that we signed unsustainably large contracts,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: beginning with the police union, which is one of the
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: biggest players in local politics. We signed an enormous contract
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: with them that everybody at City Hall knew would lead
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: to hundreds of millions of dollars of shortfall. And yet
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: we signed it anyway because the mayor and many other
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: City Hall leaders, I voted against it, many other City
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: Hall leaders knew that the police union is the major
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: player in local elections. They're the biggest funders of independent
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: expenditure committees of campaign funding here in LA. And so
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: we signed that contract. We knew that we would be
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 5: hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole as a result.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: And then exactly as everyone knew, we ended last year
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: with a billion dollar budget deficit and 1,600 layoffs on
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: the table. And because that happened, we are now in
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 5: a situation where we have 30,000 streetlights off across the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: city of Los Angeles and an average repair time of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 5: a year. to fix a streetlight. We haven't paved a
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 5: single mile of street this entire fiscal year because we
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: don't have the money. We're filling fewer potholes because we
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: have the trucks to fill potholes, but we can't pay
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: for the drivers to fill potholes. We are doing everything
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: worse than we could. And now we're going back to
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: residents and asking them to pay more in order to
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: deliver these essential services.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: So you would, if you were to become mayor, you
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: would inherit these contracts. How do you fix it? How
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: do we dig ourselves out of this hole? And How
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: do you do it when it's not just the mayor
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: that's kind of making these decisions, but also the city
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: council and other people that feel beholden to these groups,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: even if they're supportive of making sure public employees receive
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: good benefits and good pay?
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: 100%.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: And I think you can offer, I think we can
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: have a vision for Los Angeles where we are paying
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: public sector employees what they deserve, giving them raises to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: be able to live in this city that is so
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: extraordinarily expensive. but also negotiate adequately in order to make
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: sure that we're also delivering basic services. And that inability
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 5: to negotiate, that's what we're losing in a system which
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: is so insular here in LA, where the people who
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: are really constituents of city hall politics are a very
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: small group, as opposed to all of the residents of
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: the city of Los Angeles for whom the decisions being
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: made in city hall really matter.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can you talk about what happened with the convention center.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: So I think this is a good example. There was
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: a proposal to expand the convention center. You just tell
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: people what happened, how much it's going to cost, and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: what happened there. Yeah.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: So there's been a proposal being kicked around for actually
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: a decade to expand the convention center. We have a
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: convention center in downtown LA. It is pretty old. It's
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: smaller than other convention centers. And there's been kind of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: a discussion to see whether we should expand it and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: brighten it up. Suddenly, just a few months after we
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: had a billion dollar budget deficit, the convention center was
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: back on the table. And by this time, the costs
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: had ballooned significantly. Now the cost of that rebuilding that
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: convention center with a debt service, we're going to be
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: close to $ 6 billion, $ 6 billion. That would mean that
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: we were going to be paying out a hundred million dollars, uh,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 5: annually out of our general fund. Those are our discretionary
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: dollars that we use for providing basic services here in LA,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: everything from public safety to streetlights. And, uh, That proposal
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: was pushed through very, very quickly, despite the fact that
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: we are in a fiscal crisis, despite the fact that
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: we have the Olympics coming up, despite the fact that
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: local and economic headwinds are very, very uncertain here in
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles, because a small cluster of downtown businesses who
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: fund local elections really wanted to push it forward. And
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: For me, I represent a district right now that is
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: very vocal about their views. It's one of the relatively
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: wealthier districts, and they know how to get in touch
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: with City Hall when they care. I didn't hear from
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: any of my constituents saying that they wanted this project
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 5: to move forward. That's very unusual for big decisions in
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: front of the city.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: How long would the project take, too? How many years
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: would it take to build this convention center?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: It's going to take a couple of years. And what
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: is interesting about it is that we actually have Olympics
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: events that are scheduled to happen at the convention center.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: And so in order to make sure that the Olympics
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: events are happening, what we have to do is to
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 5: move the project forward until it gets to Olympics readiness.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: It won't be done by the time the Olympics are happening,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: but we need to get to Olympics readiness. And then
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: we're going to kind of put walls around the remaining
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 5: parts of the conventions that are there still under construction.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: Then we're going to have the events there. And then afterwards,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 5: we'll finish the project.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: And that's going to cost $ 6 billion.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: With debt service.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: With debt. Including all the costs plus the borrowing and
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: all the rest is going to cost the city $ 6 billion.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: And how long would it take us to make back
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: that $ 6 billion?
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, we're going to be paying the debt for
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 5: that for the next 30 years. And the revenues will
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: never cover the costs.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is... Terrific.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: Love that for us. All right. Sorry.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: So how does it get to the point where a
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: small group of people, Democrats or, you know, left associated
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: people are all coming together to make these decisions, not
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: Republicans that are causing these problems. It's not Donald Trump.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: It's this is a problem generated by the only thing
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: between us and solving these problems is Democrats.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: And so for like people that maybe aren't from Los
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Angeles and see this, like, What have you learned being
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: in the city council about what it takes to get
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: a group of people that are maybe ideologically aligned to
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: care about just the basics of good governing?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't know the answer to that, to
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: be honest with you, because that is not what we
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: have right now here in Los Angeles. So I don't
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: know what the solution for actually caring about good governance is,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 5: except that I think it is absolutely necessary at this moment.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: To me here, to live in this city, to think
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 5: about the fact that I have to look my constituents,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 5: in the face and say to them, you trust me,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: I'm going to address really complex issues like affordability. I'm
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: going to address really complex issues like homelessness, but I
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: can't fix your streetlight for a year. And just trust me,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: I got this. That felt unacceptable to me. That felt
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: like an absurd situation to be in with my constituents.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: And that is really what had, what pushed me into running. And,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 5: you know, at this time, I had actually been so
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: frustrated with the that I had started to lose hope
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: in how things could get better here in Los Angeles.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 5: And I think in the context of a federal environment
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: where I feel relatively helpless and hopeless as well, feeling
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: that locally has also been really, really, you know, frustrating.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: But I will say that since I started the campaign
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: and since I've been going out and talking to communities
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: about these decisions and talking about how the city can
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: do better, how we can achieve all of the goals
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: that we want to set out to achieve, if we're
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: honest with our constituents, if we're open, if we're transparent,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: And if we really work towards good outcomes, I really
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 5: do feel like people are excited by that message. People
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: are getting enthusiastic. People are organizing their own meetings so
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: that I can meet their friends. Like it is a
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 5: message that is getting a lot of positive reception, which
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: is really exciting.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about one of the key challenges for LA,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: which is housing. I actually interviewed Zoran Mamdani about this
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: when he was running in New York, that he had
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: actually evolved as somebody that was associated with the the DSA,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: the socialists, democratic socialists, that he had come to see
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: the importance of not just like rent control and measures
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: to control the cost of housing, public housing, but also
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: market rate housing. I think you've had a similar evolution.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about what is standing in the way
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: right now of Los Angeles building enough housing supply to
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: meet the need?
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think I definitely had that same movement.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 5: I was very focused on affordable housing when I first
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: started my first race, building more affordable housing, building more shelter,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 5: making sure that we were building kind of what people
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: talked about needing here in LA. But as I was
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: in office and I started getting calls from constituents who
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: were struggling with their rents, I realized these were often
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: people who would never qualify for affordable housing. But they
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: had no choice but to live in a unit with
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 5: a terrible landlord in terrible conditions because there was simply
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: nothing else available to them here in Los Angeles. And L.A.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: is a city where there has been an active anti-housing
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: movement that has shaped our local politics for decades. In
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: the 80s, there was an anti-Manhattanization movement. that downzoned, that
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: reduced the capacity to build more housing along every major
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: boulevard and thoroughfare, that reduced capacity to build multifamily housing
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 5: across the entire city, leading to what estimates, what is
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: an estimated shortfall of something like 500,000 units here in
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: the city of Los Angeles right now. But I think
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 5: we can actually fix it. There are ways in which
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: the city of Los Angeles can build more. A huge
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: change would be getting the city out of the way
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: rezoning so that we actually have capacity to build more housing,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: building more density, particularly near our major transit corridors, building
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 5: more gentle density like, uh, duplexes and triplexes, even in
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: some single family neighborhoods that can be more walkable that
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: are near transit. I think that's a key change that
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: we need to make. We need to get the city
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: out of the way. We have enormous red tape standing between, uh,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: an application for a new housing unit coming in and
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 5: when it is actually approved. And our timelines for approving
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: housing are double, even triple what other jurisdictions are, which
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 5: leads to significantly less housing being produced. And by the way,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: more expensive housing being produced because the longer you have
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: to sit and wait for your permits to come, the
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: more expensive that housing becomes ultimately.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: And the fewer projects that get started because the people
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: building those projects know they have to be able to
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: make money on the end when there's going.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: To be a huge Yeah, I also wanted to say
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: that we really have a culture in City Hall where
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: delay and denial are kind of rewarded and saying yes
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: is not. And I think we have to completely flip
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: that around. We have to build a city where saying
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 5: yes is the goal of our housing processes, not the opposite.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: And that is a culture shift. That has to happen
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: at every level of the bureaucracy. It has to be
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: enabled and undergirded by technology that allows cooperation between departments.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: And it has to be rewarded at the highest levels
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 5: of government. And that's really what I think needs to happen.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like after the fires in the Palisades and Altadena,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: there was this sense even from the mayor that like,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: we're going to make this process faster. We're going to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: make it work better. Of the 4,100 that have applied
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: for permits to rebuild, fewer than half have been approved.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: Only 34 homes.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: So even when there is an impetus, even when there
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: seems to be an understanding that we need to move faster,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: it's not happening. Is that a technical problem of the rules?
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: Is that leadership? Is that the mayor not like what's happening?
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 5: Well, I think it is leadership. I think it is
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: a I think the mayor here in the city of
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles has while it is a weaker mayor system
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 5: than in other places, we the mayor has the capacity
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: to hire and fire every department head. And that means
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 5: that the mayor has the capacity to determine the priorities
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 5: of every department. They're getting motions and legislative efforts from
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 5: the council members to push them in a thousand different directions.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: The mayor is the one that departments respond to. And
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 5: so it is up to the mayor to set housing
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: production and permitting timelines as a priority. She can set
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: deadlines by when these things have to happen. You can
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: appoint leadership that is responsive to those goals. You can
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 5: create metrics through which you can hold department heads accountable.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: And if they meet those goals, you can reward them.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: And if they don't meet those goals, you should replace them.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: That is not happening here in the city of Los
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: Angeles at all, across all of the departments that are
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 5: involved in the housing production process. Also, we haven't had
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: a deputy mayor of housing for almost two years. In
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: a city where the cost of housing and housing production
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: and rebuilding are key issues for This city, we need
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: a deputy mayor for housing. But that position has been
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: left empty for, I think, an inexcusably long time.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: So we're in this crisis in housing. We've lost 54,000
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: people in the county. Now, Los Angeles passed something that's
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: called ULA. It's the mansion tax, as people would know it.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: And I actually supported the mansion tax because I thought, OK,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think it was written in a stupid way
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: by people who seem, honestly, mathematically illiterate. But it put
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: a tax on houses over $ 5 million and then a
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: bigger tax on houses, I believe, over $ 10 million. And
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: I thought all things considered, better to have it than
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: not have it. I didn't understand when I voted for it, honestly,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: that it also applied to multifamily housing because that was
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: so– it wouldn't even have occurred to me that it
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: would do something so fucking stupid. Truly, I feel stupid
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: that I voted for it. I would have voted no.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: You tried to fix it. And you say, hey, we'll
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: keep the mansion tax, but we won't apply this to
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: new multifamily housing because all the evidence– says that multifamily
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: housing is being stopped and this is counterproductive. And yet
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: the council doesn't do it. It was enraging. I am
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: mad sitting here. What is the logic of it? How
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: do you show up with these people? What is stopping
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: them from doing that? Sputtering to a stop is so
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: fucking stupid. Why didn't they support what you were trying
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: to do?
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think because people, A, people don't
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 5: believe the evidence. So there's, I mean, I was very
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: convinced by the evidence. There were real differences in LA
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 5: City versus LA County. LA County is producing more housing.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: We're producing less. San Diego, which is facing the same
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 5: macroeconomic conditions that we are, is actually increasing permits while
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 5: LA has seen a 25% drop in permits. I mean,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 5: to me, the evidence was very clear that this was
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: impacting multifamily housing production. I think there's two things that
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 5: are happening here that are preventing people more robust action
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 5: from being taken on issues that are obviously addressing housing production.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 5: One is that there is significant pushback from, again, those
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: same kind of insider groups that have huge sway in
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 5: City Hall, both the ULA Coalition that I worked with
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 5: very closely to try and negotiate a pathway forward. I
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 5: was talking to them for many, many months to say,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 5: because I too was a supporter of ULA, I really
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 5: value the money that it provides to the city for
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 5: rent relief and other things. And so I worked very
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 5: closely with them to say, hey, can we craft an
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: exemption that allows for this much needed housing to be
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 5: built here? Ultimately, we just were not able to come
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 5: to an agreement on what that would look like. And
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 5: I got extremely frustrated because to me, this is the
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: single most important issue that is, you know, hampering our
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 5: future resiliency, that is making Los Angeles into a place
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: of less opportunity. Secondly, I think both labor groups that
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: funded the effort also were not on board with making
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: any changes. And so with nonprofits and with labor groups
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 5: that had supported the effort not making any changes without
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 5: a real push from the mayor and from other leadership
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 5: to really move this forward, this effort died. It is
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 5: now going through a committee process, but I'm not sure
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 5: what is going to come from it.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: So I think more than half the council had already
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: endorsed Karen Bass before you decided to run. They've, I think,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: all stuck with their endorsements. But I assume behind the scenes,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: others on the council are as frustrated as you are.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: You happen to have also been somebody that endorsed Karen
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Bass but was unhappy. Are you hearing from them privately
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: that they actually want you to win but they're afraid
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: to say so publicly?
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't. look, I don't want to betray my
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: private conversations. I still have relationships with people on the
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 5: council that I'm working with. And whatever happens in this election,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: either outcome, I will need to work with them going
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: forward as well. But I will say that I've interacted
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 5: with a lot of local political figures here, not just
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 5: people on the council, but across the entire region. And
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 5: I think there have been a lot of questions about
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 5: the lack of leadership on issues. And I think that's
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 5: the most perplexing thing here in L.A., which I think
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 5: Angelenos can feel on the streets, which is just like
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 5: there's a rudderlessness. There's just a lack of pushing. There's
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 5: a lack of urgency on the things that— I feel
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 5: really urgent about. And that I think residents of the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 5: city feel really urgent about. There's a lack of just
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 5: kind of being out there and fighting. Like Angelenos need
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 5: a fighter at a moment when things feel really bleak here.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: And to not have that fighter in city hall, to
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: not have that person Really articulating a vision of how
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: things could change, whether it's on the cost of housing,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: whether it's on our transit and safety infrastructure for our streets,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: whether it's on homelessness, whether it's on ICE, whatever it is.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 5: We're just missing that kind of that leadership here in
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: the city. And this is an incredible place. This is
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 5: an incredible place. It deserves that kind of leadership. It
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: deserves that kind of vision. It deserves someone pushing with
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 5: all of their might. To push it in the right direction.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 5: And I just, I know I felt that absence and
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: I don't think I'm the only one. I really don't.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: So I want to ask you about MacArthur Park. There's
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: a beautiful park in the middle of the city. Yeah.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: If you go there right now, if we drove there
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: right now, it's the middle of the day, you would
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: see basically like an open air drug market. And the
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: mayor and the police, they set up chain link fences
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: on the sidewalks around the park. They're blocking off. They're
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: not coordinating anything in. It's hard to believe that this
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: is the solution. They have built boxes of chain link
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: fence to close the sidewalk so that people do not
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: use those spaces to sell drugs. This was touted as
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: a temporary solution. Years it has been devolving. There was
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: a plan for like about $ 27 million to try to
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: beautify the park over a long period of time. You're
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: the mayor of Los Angeles. How long does it take
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: until MacArthur Park is a place that's safe for families?
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: I personally, like, look, I can be told why I'm wrong,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: but the idea that it's a six-month problem as opposed
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: to a one-month problem, two-week problem to really kind of
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: make the place safe again, like, what would you do
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: and how long do you think it takes with real
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: attention to make a place like that reflective of the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: kind of city we think Los Angeles should be?
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it would take six months to a
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 5: year to change it because I think it takes repeated
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 5: engagement and presence in that location to address longstanding issues.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 5: And I think you have to address both the homelessness
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 5: crisis that is on the streets. You have to address
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 5: the mental health issues that are out there. And you
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 5: have to address very obvious criminal activity that's happening there,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: drug dealing and other kinds of things for which you
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 5: need police presence there dealing with really ugly issues that
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: are out there that require their attention, investigation and arrests.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 5: And I think if you do both of those things,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 5: if you are really, again, robustly engaged, um, pushing with
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 5: all your might on that issue, I do think that
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 5: you can make some real improvements there. Uh, I, you know,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 5: we have had in council district four where I've, I've
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 5: been engaged, um, We don't have anything that resembles that
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 5: scale of crisis. But we did have very large encampments, very,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 5: very large encampments, 30, 40 people that were there when
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 5: I first got elected. And each of those, addressing each
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 5: of those, took that kind of effort. We were able
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 5: to offer shelter, services, housing, and really push on the
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 5: system to be able to address issues. There were cases
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 5: where we had to work a much longer time to
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 5: address people who had severe mental health issues. who, you know,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: despite repeated engagement, even arrests that came about from their
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 5: own behavior, would end up right back in the same place.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 5: That requires engaging with the Department of Mental Health. That
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 5: requires engaging with mental health clinicians. It takes time, but again,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 5: with time and effort, progress can happen. And I think
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 5: the key, the missing link here, the thing that I
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 5: keep articulating over and over again, is that you have
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: to put in the time and the urgency and the
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 5: leadership and the focus on these things that can actually
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 5: push things in the right direction. And it has to
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 5: be sustained over time.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, because what I, what I'm hearing too, is
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: like a lot of this is pushing back even at
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: times on your own constituencies, whether it's a public employees
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: union or maybe advocates for, uh, uh, for, for the unhoused,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: you know, Gavin Newsom, it's almost taken as a given
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: in some quarters that Gavin Newsom was performatively cruel in
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: the way that he wanted to clear encampments. Uh, But
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: at the same time, I imagine most even Democrats in
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: California would say, oh, that's what I want. I want
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: someone who's going to be aggressive about doing that. Is
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: part of the job of mayor making decisions that are humane,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: that are reflective of our values as progressives, but at
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: the same time, sometimes the advocates are going to be
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: out there protesting if you do need to clear an encampment,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: or sometimes you are going to have to go against
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: a labor union, even if you broadly support unions.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 5: I think that for me, like on the issue of
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 5: encampments or the issue of homelessness overall, to me, I
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 5: think it is, and actually let me take a step back,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 5: whatever issue that we're talking about here in the city
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 5: of Los Angeles, I think the issue for me as
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 5: a person who is deeply progressive, as someone who believes
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 5: in the power of government to do good things and
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 5: to make our lives better, my goal is to ensure
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: that you as a resident of Los Angeles and every
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 5: resident of Los Angeles feels like the government is working
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 5: for them and that they can palpably feel the positive
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 5: presence of government in their lives. And I think you
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 5: have to do what it takes in order to deliver
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 5: those results. On homelessness, I happen to believe that for
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 5: the encampments that I've dealt with in my district, housing, shelter, services,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 5: focused work has been what has reduced street homelessness significantly
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 5: in my district at almost every encampment that we've worked in.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 5: And that is the work that I would be doing,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 5: is create that system of sustained effort to generate results
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 5: on reducing street homelessness, on addressing mental health issues, on
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 5: making our streets safer, cleaner, brighter, fixing street lights, whatever
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 5: it is. You have to push on these issues. And
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 5: I think that, that is really, I think for me,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 5: my governing principle as a, as an elected representative and
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 5: as someone who is a very proud progressive is like,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 5: I want people to feel like the government is working
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 5: for them.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: When you were on the council, you supported what would
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: become Mayor Bassett's signature policy to address homelessness. It was
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: a $ 300 million program to get people off the streets.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: The city spent about a about $ 259, 000 per person housed.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: 40% of the participants, more than 2,000 people, ended up
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: back on the streets. What went wrong with that program?
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: And what does it tell you about how you.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: Do it differently?
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: So initially, I thought the emergency response of the Inside
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 5: Safe program was.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: Necessary for LA.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 5: I also supported declaring a state of emergency on homelessness.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 5: I think Street homelessness is a crisis. It is an
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 5: emergency and we should respond to it at that scale.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 5: And the kind of effort that it was where you, again,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 5: it was renting hotel and motel rooms and using those
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 5: as shelter to go to encampments and get off for
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 5: that shelter and then moving an entire encampment off the streets.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 5: That's called encampment resolution. It's not unique to Inside Safe.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 5: It's something that I've done in my district. In fact,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 5: we did it years before the mayor came into office.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 5: We've done it in Venice. It's been pioneered across the
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 5: city and it's very effective by really focusing encampment by
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 5: encampment and offering real shelter to people that we're able
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 5: to actually move people indoors and then clear those encampments
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 5: and then those areas stay clear because you've actually addressed
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 5: the reason why people are on the street in the
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 5: first place. So to me, that kind of an encampment
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 5: resolution focused response is really important. The issue becomes when
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 5: the intervention that you're using is enormously expensive and And
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 5: you're not doing the work to ensure that you are
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 5: making it into a fiscally sustainable response. So inside safe
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 5: motel rooms cost an average of over.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: $ 80, 000.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 5: Per person or per room per person per year. And
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 5: people are staying in them for an average of a year.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 5: And sometimes they're costing as much as $ 100, 000 per person
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 5: per year. That is an enormously expensive intervention that I
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 5: think was appropriate as an emergency intervention and but needs
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 5: to be made into a real fiscally sustainable system that
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 5: actually can respond to the crisis on our streets with
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 5: the dollars that we have, because this is not sustainable.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 5: And so to me, I want to build that system.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 5: I've actually, in the city, generated data about the performance
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 5: of our homelessness investments for the first time, working with
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 5: LASA that shows us where beds are vacant, where our
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 5: permanent supportive housing units are available. And through that work,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 5: I've actually brought people into these beds, filled every bed,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 5: filled every unit. We need to be building a system
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 5: which is cost less per person, but is actually working
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 5: better at actually bringing people indoors, filling every bed, filling
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 5: every resource, and then doing the work when they're in
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 5: those units and those shelter beds to get them the
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 5: case management they need to transition to whatever is their
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 5: next step, whether it's reunification with family, whether it is
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: moving into a permanent supportive housing unit, whether it is
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 5: coming into self-sufficiency, getting a job, being able to actually
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 5: live independently. These are all things that the system can do,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 5: but you have to design that system. You need to
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 5: make sure that there is leadership there and resources to
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 5: create that system, to make sure that people are moving
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 5: through it into safety and to permanent housing appropriately. But
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 5: that kind of work is not happening right now, despite
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 5: despite pushing within the city to create oversight, to create
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 5: responsibility here.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: All right, a couple final questions. Look, I realize that
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: as mayor of LA, the Middle East has very little
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: to do with your portfolio, but you've been hit from
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: the left for not speaking out enough about Gaza. You
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: also would be running to be the mayor of a
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: city with a very big Jewish population that is deeply
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: concerned about the way in which anti-Zionism bleeds into anti-Semitism.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: What do you view your role is in speaking about
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: this issue? And what do you think people in Los
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: Angeles should know about how you feel about it?
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I have spoken up about the issue in the past.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 5: I called for a ceasefire, introduced a ceasefire resolution in
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 5: city council. I've called what's happening there, which is incredibly
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 5: horrific to witness what's happening in Gaza. I've called it
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 5: a genocide and you know, I've been deeply disturbed by
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 5: what I have seen. At the same time, in my
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 5: role as city council member and what I imagine in
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 5: my role as mayor would be the impacts on people
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 5: here and kind of the knock-on effects from what's happening
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 5: in the Middle East, I think have to be also
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 5: the focus of our work here in the city. So
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 5: in my district, we've had increases in really horrifying incidents
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 5: of antisemitism and Islamophobia. And I've had to respond to
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 5: both of those. And as mayor, I would need to
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 5: do more of that. I would need to ensure that
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 5: this city is a place where people are able to
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 5: express their political opinions freely, where people are able to
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 5: express their First Amendment rights, but that they are not
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 5: victims of antisemitism and Islamophobia. And when those happen, we
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 5: have to speak up about it. We have to make
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: sure that this is a place that's safe for everyone.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about the film industry briefly. There's
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: so much to talk about.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: So LA, we had only 19,000 on-location film and TV
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: production days. That's a 16% decrease from 2024. That's the
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: lowest number of production days ever recorded outside of COVID.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: What would you do as mayor to bring production jobs
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: back to this city that Mayor Bass hasn't been.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 3: Able to do?
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, one of the big things that I
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 5: think we need to be doing is making it easier
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 5: to film here. And there have been some efforts that
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 5: are making their way through the council around kind of
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 5: reducing restrictions on how production happens, on reducing costs for production,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 5: improving how Film LA works. These have been moving, I think,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 5: all too slowly. There's no reason why through executive directive
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 5: these fixes can't be made immediately and that the bureaucracy
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 5: that's standing in the way of people producing here, actually
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 5: making films here, cannot be eased more quickly by a
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 5: mayor who is deeply focused on this issue. But I
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 5: think there's more that can be done. You know, last
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 5: year we had a conversation about a tax credit that increased.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 5: You know, I wanted to see more advocacy from our
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 5: mayor for a tax credit that would have no cap
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 5: and that would be guaranteed a decade into the future, right?
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 5: That's the kind of system that studios are looking for
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 5: as they're thinking about where to invest. And LA should
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 5: be the loudest advocate. The leadership of LA should be
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 5: the loudest advocate for the kind of tax credit system
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 5: that other states are putting into place and actually getting
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 5: production moving there, like in New Jersey. We should be
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 5: advocating for that same system here. Okay, Sacramento may not listen,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 5: but the leadership of Los Angeles should be fighting as
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 5: hard as they can to make sure that that tax
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 5: credit system is put into place. I would also say that,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 5: you know, I think we need to be really engaging
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 5: with studios. We need to be engaging with companies that
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 5: are headquartered here and saying to them, what do we
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 5: need to do to make sure that you're shooting here?
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 5: What do we need to do to make sure that
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 5: we are having production stay here? How can we make
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 5: sure that this industry, which is so central to Los Angeles,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 5: so central to Los Angeles, stays in Los Angeles? How
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 5: can we make sure that the incredible talent that we
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 5: have across this city can work here, a place that
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 5: they moved to, to build their dreams, to work in
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 5: the film industry? And I think that's That's the kind
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 5: of engagement that I want to see. I haven't been
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 5: seeing that kind of engagement happening. That's what I would
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 5: want to do if I were mayor.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, and then can you reopen the Arclight? Oh, I
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: don't know if I can.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 5: I would love to figure out why it's closed.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: For so long. What's going on with the Arclight? I
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: don't know. It's nuts. Yeah.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 5: Let's go talk to that property owner.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: Made some progress today. Yeah.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: Nithya Raman, thank you so much for being here. Good
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: luck in your race. I hope we get the Arclight open.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: All right. We're done.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Nithya Raman for
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: new show on Friday. If you want to listen to
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