Latest / Pod Save America / “McCarthy’s Malarkey.”

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“McCarthy’s Malarkey.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Here in LA. In studio. A Dan Pfeiffer appearance. We
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: love it. We love it. And we have Elijah here.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We have Dan and Elijah in person, which means we're
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: going to play Take Appreciator later.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And it could get heated.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: But first, President Biden gets no starbursts from Speaker McCarthy
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: during their first White House meeting. That's the headline. George
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Santos steps down from his committees. Wisconsin gears up for
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: America's most important election of 2023. And new polling shows
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis trouncing Donald Trump, even in a crowded field. Exciting.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Just going to do this every day for 2020. A
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: lot of episodes in 2023 about this primary. Before we start,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: exciting news. We just posted the first episode of our
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: new political game show, Liberal Tears. Tears is spelled T-I-E-R-S.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You can't see that because it's a podcast. On the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America YouTube, in this episode, our very own
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor and Brian Tyler Cohen draft the lies of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: George Santos from the absurd to the morally depraved as
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the lies about his past mount. Head over to the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America YouTube channel to see who wins first.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: This political draft. Liberal tears, Dan.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Great title, but I will say this, Tommy Vitor. I
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: know what you're doing. I see you on my corner.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Dan is the biggest YouTube star at Crooked Media, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: now Tommy's coming for him. So we'll see what happens.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Smash that subscribe button. Go check it out.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Pretty smart to bring.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Vote with your feet.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen for the first episode.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he brought in a ringer for that one.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Clever.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Something Dan has never done. Not for the first episode.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I had to build that thing from the ground up.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Just you and me, Elijah. And you betrayed me for Tommy,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: your boss.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. On Wednesday, President
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Biden and Speaker McCarthy held their first meeting on the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling. The White House said the president would ask
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: our Kevin. He's our Kevin now. Two questions. One, does
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: he agree with leaders Schumer, Jeffries and McConnell that the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: United States should never default on its debt? And when
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: will House Republicans release their budget? McCarthy responded through punch bowl,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: as one does, saying that he does believe the debt
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: ceiling needs to be lifted, though not without cutting spending,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and that Republicans will be releasing a budget about a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: month after Biden. Meanwhile, McCarthy's goal was to get Biden
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to agree that he'd pay an unspecified ransom to House
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Republicans if they'll stop holding the entire economy hostage. The
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: president did not take him up on that offer. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: McCarthy refused once again to specify the ransom. when he
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: spoke to reporters outside the White House after the meeting.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip. Where should those budget cuts come from
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Medicare and Social Security, the White House insists Republicans want
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: to cut.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: What cuts do you want to make?
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Well, let me be clear about that, and I've been
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: clear many times. No, we're not talking about that. And
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: to really be able to do this right, I'm not
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: going to negotiate this in the press, right? I respect
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: the conversation we had together, and we will continue that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So from everything we've heard from the meeting— Anything surprise you?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Like you, I was disappointed that Kevin McCarthy did not
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: arrive with some curated candies for President Biden, as he
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: would do for Donald Trump.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Even if he just gave him the yellows.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Are the yellows good? Do you like the yellows?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: No, they're terrible.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: You hate the lemons?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm not a lemon fan, nor am I an
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: orange fan. Pink and red. I guess I'm like Donald Trump.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: In so many ways, my friend.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: In so many ways. I don't know.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I was, I was surprised it was a 90 minute meeting.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It was a long, a long meeting where very little
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: was discussed and nothing was decided.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Joe Biden told him a lot of stories.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: That's the one thing they did say happened. McCarthy and
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Biden said that a lot of stories were shared in
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: the meeting.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it was very congenial. Absolutely.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: That's the only kind of meeting Joe Biden has.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: He's a congenial guy. If you're going to sit with
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: someone for 90 minutes with no deadline coming up, I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: don't see why, you know.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you added up all of the meetings
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: that Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell had over the course
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: of eight years, I don't think it got to 90
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: minutes combined.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's why during the Correspondents' Dinner when he said,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: you have a drink with Mitch McConnell, it wasn't just
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a joke, it was just real. So yeah, McCarthy after
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the meeting said, good first meeting, no agreements, no promises,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: we'll continue the conversation. He also did dismiss the proposal
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: floated by some, like Joe Manchin, for a commission. to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: recommend cuts to punt the whole thing, which doesn't seem
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: like a good sign. Yeah.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It seems like McCarthy's first instinct in all cases is
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: to paint himself into a corner. Like in all seriousness,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: like in a high stakes negotiation like this, McCarthy needs
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: to leave himself an off ramp because the white house
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: is not going to give him what he wants. The
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Senate is not going to give him what he wants.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And if he wants to keep his job, he has
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: to maintain some sort of fig leaf or fully capitulate.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: And a toothless commission is a fig leaf. It's barely
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: a fig leaf, but it's a fig leaf. It's an
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: exit ramp, but he has paid it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: He just drove right past it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Burned that bridge behind him.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Why do you think the White House released a memo
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday that said Biden would ask those questions? What
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: were they trying to achieve?
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: These meetings are always this absurd PR exercise where the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: leaders go in, the president, the congressional leaders go in
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: the room. Maybe there's staff, maybe there's not. As soon
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: as it's over, everyone races. Like, you've been here. The
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: staff waits outside the Oval Office for the second Kevin
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: McCarthy's gone. I'm sure the White House staff ran in there.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: They got the download from Biden, and they're on the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: phone with reporters trying to spin what happened on background.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy just goes directly to the frost to his Nixon,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Jake Sherman, and tells him exactly what happened.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I don't even mean that as an insult. I don't
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: even know what it really means, but.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: But that is how he speaks to America is through
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Jake Sherman.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: At least he's talking to someone.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And so what the White House was really doing, and
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: it warms my heart as a geriatric former communications professional,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: that the memo trick still works. You put out a memo,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: you set the stakes for the meeting, and everyone writes
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: about it. And it gives you your chance to frame
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the meeting before you go in, and then you frame
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: it coming out. So it worked. It was smart. I'm
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: sure he asked those two questions. We know that McCarthy
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: did not answer him and forced McCarthy to have to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: answer those questions when he did.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The stakeout afterwards. I'll be up to Jake Sherman.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, to Jake Sherman and to the White House press corps.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And then to the stakeout, yeah. Yeah, no, it seems
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: like the Republican message is, why won't the president negotiate?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And the president's message is, why are you willing to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: plunge the country into recession unless you get to gut
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: health care, retirement, all the other things? And I think
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the White House in that memo is also using McConnell, Trump,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: other Republicans saying that we should never default to try
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to isolate House Republicans, which is why you saw Mitch
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: today giving Kevin the, oh, we got your back.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's also worth remembering that House Republicans, Kevin
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: McCarthy included, voted to give Donald Trump a clean debt
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: ceiling three times as deficits were going up, debt was
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: going up. This is, I mean, it's very nakedly partisan.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Not that we should be surprised by that, but that's
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the reality.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And I think the White House also wanted to make
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: sure everyone knows that Republicans are playing this game where
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: they they're not specifying what they want to cut because
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they know that reducing debt and deficits is popular in
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the abstract. But as soon as you detail what you
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: want to cut, it's usually not that popular.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Well, they also can't agree on anything.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there's that. There's that. We're going to get
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to that in a second. You wrote a message box
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: about how Biden is right to not negotiate on the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling. though you made the point that there's going
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to be a lot of political pressure to do so,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: including from some Democrats, already has been, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Sinema's having dinner tonight, Wednesday night with Kevin McCarthy. Nothing
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: good can come from that, I'm sure. So all this
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: political pressure on Biden to negotiate is going to be
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: tough for the guy whose brand, as you wrote, is
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: unity and working with Republicans. How does he handle that? It's,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you know, you can see him handling it now as
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: we get closer to the deadline. You could see the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of pearl clutching in D.C. People are there.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: There will be tremendous pressure on Biden, in part because.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The green rooms will be up in arms.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: The but it's not just that Biden's brand is being
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: able to work with people. He's very proud of the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: bipartisan accomplishments he had in his first two years. But
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: it's also that everyone knows that he is the adult.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: He is a serious person who cares about the country.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is not a serious person. Nope, we're not
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: really positive what he cares about other than his own job.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And so when people start panicking, they're going to turn
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: to Biden and say, you got to do something because
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: we cannot let the fate of the economy be in
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: these people's hands. And so there's going to be the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: pressure on Biden. So here's what I think Biden should do.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And the way they've handled this meeting suggests this is
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: exactly what they're going to do, which is make the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: point that you are more than happy to negotiate with
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Republicans over the 2023 budget over the funding of the government.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: We're going to have to pass a bill in September
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: to fund the government. That is where these budget negotiations
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: traditionally happen. That is what the country said they wanted
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: when they gave Republicans this narrow majority, was there would
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: be some conversation between the Republican House, Democratic Senate, Democratic president,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: how you fund the government. But you will not have
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: those conversations with a gun pointed to the head of
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: the U.S.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Economy.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Pass the debt limit, do your job, and you're going
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: to have to do it early in the summer, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: then we will sit down We'll have meetings. We'll have
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: as many meetings as you want.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Negotiate anytime, anywhere, willing to compromise, willing to listen, talk about, yeah,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: all that stuff.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: And then the second part of this is that what
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Biden is going to have to do, and the State
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: of the Union next week is the first best opportunity
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: to do that, is remind the country and educate the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: country about what the debt limit is. That has nothing
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: to do with spending to come. Shut up.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I know. As a former speechwriter, I just had to.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: chill down my spine.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: You had to do this in two State of the Unions.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Thinking about Corvin and I in the section where you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: get to educate the public about something.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: But this, I mean, it's not even really the public.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: You also have to remind the people talking about politics,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: people writing about politics. You have to fill, this is
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: going to be, these budget battles, these debt limit battles,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: these government shutdown battles are PR battles. They're information warfare
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: and you're going to have to fill the space and
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: you're going to have the biggest stage of anyone on Tuesday.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I think you've got to use that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And I also think that, you know, eventually when the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Republicans put out a budget, like once they detail the cuts,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: then the conversation and the debate is about the cuts,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the abstract principle of negotiation. We'll get back
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to the negotiation as we get closer to the debt limit,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: but having the budget out there, having the Republican budget
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: out there, I think is going to help the whole
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: thing too.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is another point here that, I don't
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: know that Biden should make this point himself, but people
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: around Biden can make it, is who are you negotiating
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: with and about what? Like, as we said, they have
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: no idea what they want. They can't agree on what
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: they want And even if we were to stipulate for
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: a second that Kevin McCarthy is a serious, substantive person
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: with ideological principles and policy preferences.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Which you have made clear you do not.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: I do not believe that. And I don't think anyone
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: believes that. Even if you could cut a deal with Biden,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: if Biden McCarthy could come together and cut a deal,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: there is zero chance McCarthy could deliver that deal. He
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: does not have the power to do it. There is
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the Venn diagram of something that Joe Biden is going
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to sign off on. and the Freedom Caucus is gonna
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: agree with are two circles that we'll never touch.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And I think the White House smartly wants to make
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: sure America knows that.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Because I think what McCarthy's trying to do is if
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: McCarthy can get some kind of a deal with Biden,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: then he doesn't need all the crazy Freedom Caucus members
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to get on board with the deal. He can get
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a deal with Democrats and Republicans and everyone agrees, stuff
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: like that. So he, of course, he wants a deal
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: with Biden. Yeah, but that's his only out.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: He hasn't, he hasn't, I want to, I don't want to,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: this is going to be alarming to you. Oh, he
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: has not thought this through because he does that.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Then he loses. Yeah.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Chip Roy or any of the Freedom Caucus will say
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: he violated their deal and can do a motion to
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: vacate and he loses his job.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the, like getting agreement within the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Republican Caucus. I'm like, What can actually pass the House? Nothing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: What kind of a budget could at least all the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: members or, you know, enough members to have a majority
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the House of the Republican caucus agree on? What
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is the plan? I mean, McCarthy told Punchbowl that he
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: basically wants to cap spending at 2022 levels. Doesn't seem
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: like that. Well, and Biden, first of all, wouldn't agree
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to that. A, because he's not negotiating over the debt ceiling,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: but B, that would be a drastic cut in a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: lot of programs. But I don't think that that cut
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: would not be nearly enough for the Freedom Caucus yet.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And it's too much for other members of the Republican
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Caucus because that's also a cut in military spending. And
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: the chairs of the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Committee that fund the military do not want that. They,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: in fact, think we should increase military spending. The Senate
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Republicans think we should increase military spending. There is nothing
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Republicans could agree on that could pass. That is the problem.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: It does seem, though, with the— crazy right-wingers in the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Republican caucus these days, what they care most about is, like,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know, cutting all the funding for wokeism, as we
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: made a joke about. But it feels like they care
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: about the culture stuff so much more than they care about, like,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: really cutting the budget down to the bone that I
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: do wonder if some of these, like, crazy right-wing yahoos
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: will sort of, you know, take a spending cut and
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: be okay with it at the end of the day.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it'll make the negotiation easier.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully there will not be a negotiation.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, whatever. I mean, there's going to be a negotiation.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: There's going to be, like you said, there's got to
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: be some kind of, pick your metaphor, fig leaf, exit ramp, whatever,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: fake thing.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: There wasn't in 2013. They just folded. And that is
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: the ultimate test here is, can you make them capitulate?
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: And if Kevin McCarthy capitulates, he probably loses his job.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And that is why this is, Quite dangerous. And in
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: previous times, what eventually happened was people started to freak out.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: The markets tanked. The big businesses that fund the Republican
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Party go to Mitch McConnell and they say, fix this.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And then Mitch McConnell gets in a room with Chuck Schumer.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And when he was the vice president, Vice President Biden,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: someone with the White House, and they cut a deal
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: on something that is essentially a clean debt limit. Then
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: they go home. They pass it and they go home.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And they throw that hot potato at Kevin McCarthy and say,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you pass it. And this is the one positive sign
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: we have now that we did not have in previous ones,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: is that Kevin McCarthy's majority is so small that if
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: he is willing to let that hit the floor, it
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: is very easy to get the votes for it because
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: you get all the Democrats, you only need a small
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: handful of Republicans. In 2011, if you remember, we thought
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: we were going to default because the House majority was
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: sizable enough that we didn't think John Boehner could deliver
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: the 30 votes we needed to go with the Democrats
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: to get to 218. Here are You can easily, I think,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: find the six that you're going to need to get there,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: but it requires him to put it on the floor,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: and putting it on the floor could cause him to
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: lose his job.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So the real question is not what, probably not what
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy can get done, but what Mitch McConnell can pass.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and McConnell's situation is more complicated now than it
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: has been in the past. He has more.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Because there was 24 Republican senators who basically said they're
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: not raising the debt ceiling. They wrote a letter, a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: clean debt ceiling, and then they also asked for cuts
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: equal to the amount you raise the debt ceiling, which
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is crazy.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: That's the Boehner rule from 2011. Dollar of cuts for
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: dollar of debt limit raising.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Which would just be way too much. So I don't
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: know what's going to happen there, but I guess McConnell
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: can try to get some kind of portion of his
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: caucus to go.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing I would say, that if I were
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: speaking to the ad sales department at Crooked, I would
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: start calling some gold companies. Well, okay.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back, I know. So Kevin's had a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: lot of problems managing the five-seat majority that he made
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: himself too weak to lead. There's the debt limit. They've
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: only been able to pass half of the nearly dozen
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: pointless message bills that they said they'd pass in the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: first two weeks. They can't even get an agreement on
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: message bills to pass. It looks like they'll just eke
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: out a win on voters' top priority of kicking Ilhan
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Omar off the House Foreign Relations Committee. They almost didn't
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: get that done. Though that comes just after One of
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: their own members lost his committee assignments because he may
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: go down as the biggest pathological liar ever to serve
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: in a place that was built on bullshit. George Santos
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: resigned from his committees after a meeting where our Kevin
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: reportedly leaned on him to do so. What do you
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: think changed since McCarthy defended his decision to put Santos
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: on these committees?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I think Kevin McCarthy was having a really hard time
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: explaining to his members why they had to vote to
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: kick Ilhan Omar off her committee. while George Santos got
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: to be on his. It's a very uncomfortable conversation that
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: is really hard to defend publicly. And no one cares
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: who's on what. Kevin McCarthy doesn't need his vote to
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: get something through the small business subcommittee. He needs George
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Santos' vote to stay speaker. So as long as he
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: gets to stay in the House, I think Kevin McCarthy
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: is happy.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: He's also now under more investigations than days he spent
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in Congress.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, these people are all backing Donald Trump for president.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: He's under more investigations than George Santos, in more jurisdictions,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: at least.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. Well, today we learned that FBI
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: agents are investigating the GoFundMe scheme where he allegedly stole
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: money from a disabled veteran who was trying to raise
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: money to help his dying service dog. So that's the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: latest investigation. One prosecutor told Politico that that could be
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a way to bring a quick indictment because that's an
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: easy one. You don't want to be stealing money from
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a disabled veteran who's trying to save his dying dog.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And so maybe they indict him with that while they
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: investigate the bigger crimes. But you were saying before... You
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: think maybe if he's indicted that he still stays in Congress?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: No, there were at least one and I think two
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, who were indicted
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: and then re-elected in 2018 and then eventually left Congress
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: in 2019 when they were convicted of crimes.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It's dark shit.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: I do not think the indictment would affect... He has
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to decide to resign. Why would he? He's getting a
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: salary from Congress right now paid by us. Right.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Just because he's indicted, why would he? Yeah. Was he
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: worried about his reputation? Yeah.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, he's got to keep buying those
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: fake glasses to wear.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Does he have a moral core?
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And Kevin McCarthy can't force him out because Democrats would
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: almost certainly win the special election for George Sanchez's seat,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: reducing the majority by one.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Four. Yeah, so you got to go with Santos. All right,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the most important race of 2023 that
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you all might not know about. It's a state Supreme
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Court race in Wisconsin that will determine whether abortion is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: outlawed and whether Republicans are allowed to maintain a gerrymander
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that has essentially turned Wisconsin into a one-party state where
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: even the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has very little power.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But now the conservative chief justice on the court is retiring.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And if a progressive wins the race to replace her,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the court will finally have a progressive majority that will
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: likely rule abortion is legal and that the maps are
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: not the actual thing. You know, there's a very old
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: law outlawing abortion that now has gone into effect because
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Roe went down. And then, of course, the gerrymandered maps
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: are just awful. What else is at stake in this race?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Anything else? And maybe you can talk about some of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the unique challenges facing the progressive candidates in this race.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want to overstate the importance of a state
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court special election, but Give it a shot. The
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: future of democracy could be on the line. The state
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court will hear in the 2024 election a series
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: of challenges to voting procedures, to where drop boxes can be,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to attempted voter purges and all these things. And the
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin Supreme Court, under its conservative leadership in past elections,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: has been very favorable to voter suppression laws and legal
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: efforts to keep people from voting or make it harder
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: to vote. So having a progressive... majority who believes in
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the right to vote would make a gigantic difference in 2024.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Who knows what is going to happen in terms of
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: challenges to contest the election in Wisconsin, alternate slates of electors,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: all sorts of things could happen. Those things are all
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: going to be handled by the state Supreme Court. We
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: should not overstate the importance of the maps. Wisconsin say
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the Democrats won in 2022, 2020, 2018. a Senate race
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: in 2016, every other election, Republicans have like 68% of
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: the House seats in what is clearly a 50-50 state.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is wild what would happen there. And
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it would affect the writing new maps would change, would
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: create more seats potentially for Democrats to have a shot in,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: both in the state legislature and in congressional. It would
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: be a huge difference. This is incredibly important. What is
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: challenging about it is it's a special election. Republicans have
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: been very good at special elections in Wisconsin over the
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: course of history. They defended the recall against Scott Walker
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: back in 2011, I think that was, or early 2012.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And this is a nonpartisan primary. So you have in
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: it two progressives.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Janet Protasewicz and Everett Mitchell.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And two conservatives.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Dan Kelly is a far-right activist who says Clarence Thomas
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: is his hero. And Jennifer Dorough, who called the Supreme
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Court ruling that struck down laws criminalizing sex between men
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: as a, quote, Prime example of judicial activism at its worst.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So two fantastic candidates.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And Jennifer Dorough is relatively famous in the state because
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: she was the presiding judge on a very high-profile murder
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: case involving six deaths from a Christmas event last year.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: And because this is what is often called a jungle primary,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: top two make it to the special election. So you
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: could be in a world where you have one progressive
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: and one conservative, or you could be in a world
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: where you have two conservatives.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And so it is very.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Or two progressives.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You could have two progressives. You absolutely could. But the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: danger for progressives is getting shut out in one of
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: these because the vote splits or something like that. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: so it is absolutely... Like I said, maybe the future
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: of democracy was a slight bit of hyperbole on my part,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: but not really. But this is an incredibly important race.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It's not often that you get a chance to, with
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: one election, have such a dramatic impact on so many
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: people's lives.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Also... forget about the rest of the country, just abortion
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: access for millions of people who live in Wisconsin and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: also democracy in Wisconsin. Because right now, again, like Tony Evers,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Democratic governor, just won his second term. Because there's a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: near supermajority, a Republican supermajority in the legislature, like not
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: only can he not get a lot of shit done,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: like he can't even, he's trying to appoint people. They're
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: not letting him appoint people. They've pulled all kinds of
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: shenanigans to basically like make him a governor who can
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: do very little on his own. Not even staff as administration.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin, along with North Carolina, are the models of Republican authoritarianism.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: It is the playbook. As soon as Tony Evers won
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: in 2018, the then outgoing governor and the legislature took
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a bunch of his powers away. They did the same
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: thing in North Carolina under Roy Cooper. And if you
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: want to be able to get those back to allow
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the people, Tony Evers, to do for the people of
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin what they elected him to do, twice, we have
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: to win this race.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And if we don't win this race, the next chance
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to tip the balance of the court is until 2026.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: So this is.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: These are 10-year terms, people.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So the primary is February 21st, and then
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the special is April 4th. So those are the dates.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: If you want to help, if you want to donate...
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So the Wisconsin Democratic Party, we should say, is not
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: taking sides between the two progressive candidates, but you can
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: donate to help turn out the vote in Wisconsin because...
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I imagine that, you know, this is going to be
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: an incredibly expensive race. I mean, a lot of money on, on,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: on both sides of this race, but the, the right's
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: going to pour in a ton of money and getting
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: people to care and to turn out in an off
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: year election. It's also an off month election in April.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Like that's tough. So, um, if you go to vote, save.us
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: slash Wisconsin, vote, save.us slash Wisconsin and donate, that'll go
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a long way. And we will, um, continue to update
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you here at Crooked about how you can help in
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: this election. Okay, one follow-up to our conversation on Tuesday's
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: show about Don versus Ron, Battle of the Florida Men.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Our friends at The Bulwark conducted a Republican primary poll
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: with Republican pollster Whit Ayers, who described the findings of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: their poll this way, quote, Donald Trump has slipped to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: his lowest point since he emerged on the political scene
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: almost eight years ago. He remains a formidable force to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: be sure, with a lock on approximately 30% of the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: likely Republican primary and caucus voters nationally. But a majority
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of the GOP is ready to move on. The poll
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: shows DeSantis beating Trump in a head-to-head matchup by 52
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to 30. But also, in a 10-candidate field, DeSantis beats
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Trump 39%, Trump gets 28%, and everyone else is in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: single digits. Now, What do you think this poll shows?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Does it show that Trump remains a formidable force with
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a lock on only 30 percent of the vote when
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: he still can't lead a 10 candidate field or what?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: To answer that question, it's important for people to understand
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: how Republican primaries work. As we all remember from we
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: talked about this incessantly in 2020, you get the nomination
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: of your party by reaching a certain number of delegates,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the majority of delegates awarded in the Democratic party. primary process,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: delegates are awarded proportionally by congressional districts. So if you
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: have 30% of the vote in a primary, essentially the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: most delegates you can win is 30%. Oftentimes you get
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: less because of how your vote is geographically dispersed among
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: congressional districts. Republican primary contests are mostly winner-take-all or winner-take-most.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: So in most cases, if Donald Trump gets 30% of
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: the vote, and that's more than anyone else got, he
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: will get 100% of the delegates. That is exactly how
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: he won in 2016. And I think what is confusing
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to people here is, well, he has only 30%. He's
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: even losing in a 10-candidate field. Because you guys talked
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: a lot on Tuesday about how the more people get
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: in the race, the easier it is for Trump to win.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Because probably the polling right now says he would lose
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: pretty easily a one-on-one to DeSantis and maybe a one-on-three.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: But what I think the mistake we're making with this
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: poll is what is clear from This poll, whether it's
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: the one-on-one, whether it's the Trump's approval rating, whether it's
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the one on nine other candidates, is there is a
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: very strong majority of Republican voters who would prefer a
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: generic Republican over Trump. And in this poll, all the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: other nine people are pretty close to generic Republicans. And
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: that changes as voters learn more about them. Ron DeSantis
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: is the, he is the generic non-Trump Trump. Like people know,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: they know enough about him to know he's Trump without
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the baggage. Like that's, I think if you did like
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: a word recall with a lot of Republican voters, that's
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: what they would say. If even they know nothing else
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: about him. And how are people going to feel when
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: that ninth slot is not just a random Republican, you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: nothing about it. It's Mike Pompeo. Would you prefer Mike
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Pompeo or Donald Trump? Maybe you prefer Donald Trump. You don't,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: you don't really know. And so, I think that this
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: poll tells us what I think you and I talked
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: about a couple weeks ago, which is that Donald Trump
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: remains a vulnerable frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of comparisons to what happened in 2016,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: where obviously the field sort of split the vote, and
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: then Trump won with around 30% in some of these
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: early primaries, at least, before he got to Nevada. But
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: there was no one like Ron DeSantis in 2016, and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the other candidates. No one was as strong as he
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: is right now. Uh, not, not Jeb, not all these other,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, in, I think on a number of, in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a number of areas, right? There's polling, there's state polling,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: there's money, there's like relationship with the right-wing media, right?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: There's like all of, and all of these different factors,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I think Ron DeSantis has strengths are, and again, we
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: have not seen him on the national stage. We've not
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: seen him in a debate with Trump take a punch.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: So for sure, all of this, you know, these big
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: caveats here. But I think that I would argue that
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: DeSantis on a number of fronts is well ahead of
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: anyone else that anyone else was in 2015 running against
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I think that is correct, in part because in 2015,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump was running in one primary and all the
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: other camps were running a different one. Donald Trump won
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: because he was running the primary the voters were in.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: The other ones were, I don't know what primary they
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: were in, but I think it was taking place at CNN.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: So everyone knows the deal now. They know what the
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: voters want. They know they want a lot of what
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Trump has to offer, and they are competing on his territory.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And the other thing, it's not just that they split
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the vote in 2016. It's that they all made a
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: calculation that Trump would fall under his own weight. So
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the goal was to become the only other person in
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the race besides Trump. And so they didn't attack Trump.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: They attacked each other. Jeb Bush tried to take out
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio. Chris Christie tried to take out Marco Rubio.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio tried to take out himself. And I would
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: imagine they have somewhat learned some lessons from that. So
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: if they're going to do this, they're going to have
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: to try to take Trump on. Maybe DeSantis won't do
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: that for all the reasons you suggest. He has a
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: little bit of, he's not going to need to do
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that as early as others, but the strategies are going
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to impact this as well. What slice of the electorate
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: are they going for? Are they going to try to
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: separate Trump from some voters? What states are they going
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: to prioritize?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: It also depends on how they take on Trump. This
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: poll also shows that there is plenty of goodwill for
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Trump To the extent that these voters don't want Trump,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it's not because they were upset about the insurrection. It's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: because they don't think he can win.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And so it's electability. And I think that if and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you are I mean, DeSantis, the other day sort of
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: hit back at Trump, but in a very oblique sort
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of way, which is, I think, what you'll see from
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: him going forward for a couple of months, at least,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: where he said, well, I won reelection. And when you
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: win re-election by as much as I did, and he's
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: going to keep talking about how he won re-election. And
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: guess who didn't win re-election?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is just so, like, sure, that's probably
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do right now since he's not
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: an announced candidate for president, doesn't have the infrastructure to
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: fight back necessarily. But it's just so funny that Trump
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: basically just walks to the back of his lane, press
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: reporter goes, Ron DeSantis is a disloyal loser who lied
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: about COVID. And then DeSantis is like, well, I won re-election.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: But the way that the media writes this up is like,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: DeSantis hits back at Trump. Like a little goes a
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: long way, as we know, right? Like you make sort
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of an indirect attack at a candidate and the president
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: attacks candidate, trades barbs.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So you don't need to do much to sort of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: get your message across. But I also think like, I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: get why DeSantis doesn't have much of a choice because
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: like I said, these voters like Trump. So he can't
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: say Donald Trump's an asshole. He's going to have to
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: just be like, do you want a winner or what?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I'm a winner. He's not. And at some point he'll
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: go from just I'm a winner and like wink, wink.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: He's not. I'm a winner. He's not. Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, that will be interesting to see. We have
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: a long way to go. Yeah. I don't know exactly
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: what the Republican primary calendar is going to be like
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: and how the changes the Democratic one theoretically could impact it.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: But we're basically a year. I think next Tuesday, necessarily,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: probably the New Hampshire primary calendar. We're basically 12 to
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: 13 months from the first contest.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: A few other things stood out at me in this poll.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: DeSantis' favorability is 73-11. And that's also, the name ID
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is very high for someone who is, I mean, you
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: know he's governor of Florida and being talked about, but
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty high name recognition. There's a lot of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: people who like him. The next highest favorability is Trump
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: at 68-29. And the next person after that is Mike
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Pence of Hang Mike Pence fame, 61-29.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: As it turns out, the part of the Republican Party
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: that wants to murder Mike Pence, smaller than we thought.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, about 29%. And then everyone else they tested, the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley's, the whole, I don't think they even tested
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo. But Nikki Haley, Young, and all the rest,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: they were all under 50% favorability.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Which is all name ID.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Name ID. And most of them didn't have the name ID,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: which is, again, what DeSantis has and a lot of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the rest of them don't. I also thought it was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: interesting that they asked people, do you support, they gave
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: people an option, do you support Trump's policy goals and behavior?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Do you support his policy goals, but not his behavior?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And then do you support neither? And then supporting the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: policy goals and his behavior was only 24% policy goals,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: but not his behavior, 69%. Nice. And then anything else
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: stand out to you?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Well, there was this big, a lot of attention was
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: paid to this in the bulwark right up of it,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: which is that 28%, I think it is, The 28
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: percent of Republican voters are they are Trump before party
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: and that they said they would support Trump if he
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: were to run as a third party candidate.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Wow. That that how likely do you think either outcome
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is that many people will go that he'll run as
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: a third party candidate if he loses or that he
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: or that that many Republicans go vote for him?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to make a prediction here, John. I
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: will not do that.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I almost got you.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I almost did. I almost did. But I just find
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: it highly unlikely that if Trump were to lose, that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: he would then turn around and say, you know what?
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I'm into more work. So I'm going to spend more
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: of my money. I'm going to focus on ballot access,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: get some petitions signed, just to lose the president.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to travel with Ron DeSantis to Unity, New Hampshire.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And if his goal... Is to sink the Republican nominee
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: because he's pissed about it. There are much more efficient
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: ways for Donald Trump to do that than run for president.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're saying all the work. I thought you meant
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the work of endorsing. No, no, no, no.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I think just running for president on a third party
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: candidate is very hard. It takes a lot of work.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think he's going to do that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: He can just burn it down in an easier way.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: He can absolutely burn it down.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And then a couple of phone calls.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I would say, let's say he even did that. I
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: think there is close to zero chance that nearly 30%
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: of Republican voters are like, you know what?
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I'm out.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I'm out. Let's just reelect Joe Biden.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Knowing that, yeah, Joe Biden will win.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: But that's what they were, the 28% number. This is
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: ultimately what kind of the implicit strongest argument Trump has is,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: which is if you don't give me the nomination, yeah,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: maybe it won't be 28%.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's 4%.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: If 4% of people stay home, then you're toast. If
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: 2% of people stay home.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: You are toast.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: That's, I mean, I'm sure he'll make that argument explicitly
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: by the end of this pandemic.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: If not tomorrow.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Someone get on Truth Social right now.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Now, do you think this poll is worthless since it
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't account for the surge in momentum that will surely
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: follow Nikki Haley's announcement that she's running, which is supposed
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to happen February 15th?
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I feel like this question is not on the level.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I will say, I just, again, could be proven wrong.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: All of the other people not named Donald Trump and
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, I don't, why are you in the race?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Why are you in the race? It's not happening for you.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I feel so sure about that. Is that a, that's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: a prediction.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Oh man. We've been doing this thing for six years.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Like fucking Mike Pompeo and his angry inch book or
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: whatever the fuck it's called. I know Tommy and Ben
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: covered this a lot, but like what, I don't know
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: what that guy's doing. You know what they're, you know
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: what else? I'm sorry. Like give me a Glenn Youngkin,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a Brian Kemp. I still don't think they have much
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of a chance, but I, I can, I could have
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that argument. I could hear that argument. Nikki Haley, eh,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence?
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: No.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, shockingly popular Mike Pence?
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shockingly popular.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: The reason they're running is not to win. It's to
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: be famous.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It's honestly to have a- Which is a good strategy.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: That's how you be famous. And to get a deal.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Podcast. What they want is a podcast. You run for president,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you lose your pocket.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: We didn't have to run for president.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: We got in early.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: We got in early.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: You want to launch a podcast in 2025? Get your
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: ass in New Hampshire.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they're also competing to be. We'll see if
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: any of them attack Trump. They want to be on
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the VP list.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Sure. Maybe that's it, too. But you're right. It's wanting
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to be famous. He's going to die someday. So 2028,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: at some point, they want to raise their national profile,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: sell more books. It's ridiculous. Okay, when we come back,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Elijah will be here for another round of an in-person
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: round of Take Appreciator. Okay, we're back. Elijah's here in person.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Dan's here in person. What a day. What a day.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: So great to be here with you guys.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you hosting Take Appreciator here in
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, when I found out I was doing
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: it today, the takes were, it seemed like they were
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: going to be a little thin today, but the discourse
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: always delivers.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: You dug deep.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to get deep. You got to go
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: extra deep in the take mine.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: All right, what do you got for us?
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Before we get started, I'll share the rules. The producers
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: have seen these takes. John and Dan have not. They'll
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: react and rate them on a scale of one to
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: four politicos, with four being the worst. We got some
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: audience feedback. on the segment.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: So before we.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: You've been in your mentions?
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I appreciate an engaged audience. They want
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: us to guess the author after we talk about the
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: take a little bit. You know, we get sidetracked a
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: little bit.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: That's fair.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: And we'll guess it before we do the Politico rating because,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: you know, that contributes. But today, it's not really about authors.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think you're going to know this.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a really, that's a good note
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: because that means that the rating is based purely on
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the take and not about our preconceived notions about the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: person yes i.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Know i don't work in the ad sales department here
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: but another option just we're giving politico all of this
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: name id for free do you think we should go
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: pitch semaphore.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: Semaphore sponsor this.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: You want to be one to four semaphores puck you
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: want to up your numbers or just be it's one
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: to uh semaphore.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: That that yeah Well, I was thinking that maybe we
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: could keep the Politico rating, but then Semaphore sponsors the segment.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, that works too, yeah.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Because we're shitting on their competitor, you know. Anyway, just
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a thought, GC. Just a thought.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Consider it. Thank you to the audience, as always, for
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: the feedback. Let's jump in. We're going to start with
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: a piece from the New York Times titled, DeSantis Takes
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: on Education Establishment and Builds His Brand. This is a
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: piece about Ron DeSantis attacking education in Florida as governor.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: He's limiting teaching about LGBTQ and race issues and This
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: piece specifically covers him mandating courses in Western civilization and
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: eliminating diversity and equity programs. Now, what makes this particular
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: piece so bad and so rare for take appreciators is
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: that it's not opinion. This is straight reporting here. Here's
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: a quote. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, as he positions
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: himself for a run for president next year, has become
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: an increasingly vocal culture warrior, vowing to take on liberal
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: orthodoxy and its champions, whether they are Disney, on Martha's Vineyard,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: or in the state's public libraries. Guys, what do we think?
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I will say this. Until you got to
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the phrase liberal orthodoxy, I was going to say it's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a fair reading of what he is doing. But to
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: call what he's going after in all of those institutions
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: liberal orthodoxy is, I would say, not correct.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Did you stumble on this take as people were tweeting
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: about it? Were they angry about this particular passage in
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the New York Times? And especially the headline, building his brand.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what he's doing. It is what he's doing.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: He's building his brand. I don't love it.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I take issue with the liberal orthodoxy, so I'll give
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it a Politico. Just one? Just one.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Same. Barely a one Politico.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: The liberal orthodoxy on Martha's Vineyard can't get you to 1.5?
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: That's fair. Do you guys want to take a guess
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: at who wrote it? Again, straight reporting, so not our typical.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: It's a news article in the New York Times.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Three authors, so you get credit for getting any one
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: of them.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: We probably have an education reporter, a Florida reporter, and
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: then whoever now sits at Jonathan Martin's desk.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, Reed Epstein?
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: No, Reed Epstein. Jeremy Peters.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Nope.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Ooh, those are two, uh.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think we're going to have heard of any
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: of these people? Let's see.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Stephanie Saul, Patricia Motzi, and Tripp Gabriel.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, Tripp Gabriel we should have known.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: But he's... Yeah, good reporter. Yeah.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: There you go. Well, you know, I feel like that's
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: the exact kind of coverage that DeSantis wants, so.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, it is. It is. But that's more a function
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: of DeSantis, um, picking mean culture war fights. Yeah. He's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: going to pick them. Someone's going to have to talk
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: about them.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: His brand will be built from them.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Not a good brand, but it's a brand.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Certainly.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: All right. Next up, we have a piece from the
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Washington Post titled, Real People Don't Care About George Santos.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: This piece is incredibly short. I was ready to go
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: with it just because of the title, but then I
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: got into it. It simply cites Google search trend data,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: noting that Kevin McCarthy- Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump all
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: get more Google searches than George Santos. Here's a quote.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Santos' ethical struggles do matter, but the daily airing of
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Santos' latest insane fabrication is mostly a diversion for political
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: junkies in Washington. Guys, what do we think?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Here's what makes me annoyed about this take, is that
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: you know the real people that do care about Santos
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: are the people who he's representing. in his district, 70-something
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: percent of whom- 78%. 8% believe he should resign. So
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: those people care, and those people are not the DC set.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: So I don't know why you would write this piece.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: It seems like a silly piece to write. Three politicos.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: This is just plug and play, cut and paste.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Lazy.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Lazy punditry.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Lazy punditry.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: There's nothing easier to be like, Look, I know I'm
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: here in Washington, but I visited America once. I talked
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: to the people, and they told me they didn't care
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: about what you care about. See you at Cafe Milano.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: As we talked about today, if the Republicans had a
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: 30-seat majority, that's one thing. They got a five-seat majority.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: George Santos leaves. There's only four seats.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: It matters. I do think we should use Google search
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: data for more stuff.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: It's good.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Are you serious?
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: It's actually pretty interesting.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: It is interesting. It helps us with our YouTube titles,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: but I thought that was some weak shit.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, look, I would prefer, I mean, like,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: there's fucking polling covered in glory these days.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: That's true. You guys want to guess?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: It's over over here.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think you guys are going to guess the author.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Should I just tell you?
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: David Beiler.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm disappointed in David Beiler. He's really good.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Well, no one's safe from that.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: He's a political scientist.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: It's like when Lovett went off on a take and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: gave it like a full playbook. He's like, that person's awful.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And it was Ashley Parker.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: The Biden vogue wedding.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was briefly canceled.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Well, take appreciate her. It comes for everyone eventually.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Should we move on? I'm excited about this one.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: It's a Washington Post Bloomberg collaboration.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: It's titled, Republican Tax Proposals Aren't as Bonkers as They Sound.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: So this is a piece about the Fair Tax Act,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: which Kevin McCarthy agreed to bring to the floor for
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: a vote if he got the speakership. For those of
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: you who aren't familiar, the bill would abolish the IRS
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: and it would replace all existing federal taxes with a
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: flat nationwide 30% sales tax on top of existing state
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: and local rates. Here's a quote. Sure, the bill probably
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't have much of a chance of passing, But it
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: has some merit and is a good starting point for
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: a discussion about tax reform. I'm so excited to hear
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: y'all's thoughts on this thing, the Fair Tax Act. What
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: do we think?
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, Grover Norquist, of all people, the guy
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: who's famous for saying that we should shrink government down
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. Like,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: never met a tax cut he doesn't like.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: He.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Told, I believe, Semaphore that this was a crazy idea
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and that this was a crazy Republican. So I'm trying
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: to think of who is out there defending this. Is
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: it a secret Democrat pretending to be a Republican?
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Bloomberg guy writing on the Washington Post. Bloomberg guy writing
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: on the Washington Post.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Like a regular Bloomberg columnist?
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not familiar with the regular Bloomberg columnist.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Nor am I, but I thought I would at least
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: try to.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I've wandered around this office for years looking for a terminal.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Never found one in here.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think 30% national sales tax is a bad idea.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I think most people would agree with that from all
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: parties all across the country.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Look, I think if there's an opportunity to make our
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: tax system more regressive and make it so that people
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: who have less money pay more in taxes. Seems like
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: a great fucking idea. Yeah.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I think this is a, I I'm, I'm leaning towards
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: a full playbook on this.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Do we have any more takes or just the last one?
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: Uh, I have a bonus one about Tom Brady because
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: it's so newsy.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Okay. All right. I'm going to give this three playbooks. Uh,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: do you want to, do you guys want to guess
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: who wrote it?
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't want to like, I'm not.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Could Michael Bloomberg, Carl Smith, Carl spelled with a K.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: That's not a real person.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: It's George Sanchez's campaign manager.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Who is, Carl Smith's just a columnist? Who is he?
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: I couldn't tell you, honestly. Yeah. But again, Take Appreciator
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: comes for everyone, whether you know him or not.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Carl Smith, David Beiler, a bunch of random New York
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Times reporters just co-bylining a story.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: You know who I hear was, just cut this piece
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: out of the newspaper and was waving it around? Kevin McCarthy.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He brought it to the Biden meeting.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: He brought it to the Biden meeting. Yeah, he's trying
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: to push his 30% sales tax. That's what I'm going with.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm not a political analyst. I just know it takes.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: But it's just exciting to see Republicans come with an
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: actual affirmative piece of policy that they are putting forward
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: and just have it be completely insane. Something that even
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I can be like, that sounds crazy.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's a good one. Hope they put it
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: in the budget.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, please do.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to have a budget. You
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: don't think they're going to have a budget? No. Wow. Okay.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: They don't, there's no like, they don't have to formally
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: release one. They're not going to pass.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: They give a date. They said they would do it
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: a month after Biden. I mean, when have they imagined,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: imagine them not keeping their word.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: All right. This is the last one.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Tom Brady retired yesterday morning. So in honor of that,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: we have this piece from Fox news titled Tom Brady's
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: retirement leaves a gentleman gap in the NFL. Great headline.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Here's a quote. In a world of tarnished idols, of gossip,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: of shamelessness, Brady stands out as a true role model.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Not just because he won more Super Bowls and set
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: more records than any other NFL athlete. Instead, it's because
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: he does things the right way. Humility is a lost
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: art in today's chest-pounding, follow-me-on Snapchat world. Guys, what do
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: we think?
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I wrote this take.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: No notes.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no politicos.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: No politicos for me.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I would like to declare myself as a Tom Brady centrist.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: When he was the underdog, late round, fifth round, sixth
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: round pick, that was great. Later, Brady, when he was
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: the greatest of all time, rooting for the underdogs, don't
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: care that much.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Buck Thayer, Brady, still.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: The one thing I would say is I would, that
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the last few years have not been colored in glory
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: either to reuse that phrase. And I think probably remaking
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: himself as a crypto pitch man, Towards the end there
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: was less idea.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: This is all the short-termism. Years from now, no one's
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: going to remember the end.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Deflategate.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Kissing his son.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. He showed affection to his family.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of affection. For those who know.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: I was really torn because I thought there was a
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: real chance that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to see 80 for Brady this weekend for sure.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Are you really?
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: That's going to be your return to the movie theater?
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: The Boston guy.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: I was torn because I thought if Brady did not retire,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: he would be a San Francisco 49er next year.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Exciting for you.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: And I was raised as a Washington Commanders fan, which
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: is not something I'm going to pass along to my children.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: So I thought if they wanted to become Niners fans,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: they could.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Speaking of being covered in glory.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just the absolute worst. But now that's
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: not going to be any sort of, it would be harder,
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: more complicated, I think, if Brady was there. I don't
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: have to worry about it. Yeah.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: You got a Politico rating for it?
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Two. Two.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: I think it's a, there is a subtext there that
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: I think is kind of gross.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Which is? It's just that it is.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: The older, white guy, stereotypical, you know, he reminds a
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: certain set of people of what they think NFL quarterbacks
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: should be. And they very willfully ignore some other more
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: complicated parts of his life, which he's more than welcome
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: to have as a football player, in order to make
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: a point that is it's a point about Brady, but
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: it's really a point about the rest of the NFL
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: that I think is unfair in a lot of ways.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for calling my take on this problematic.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Well, look, you're from Boston. You get a pass.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Phantoms.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I give this take two politicos. John's take, full playbook. Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Cleveland fans got behind Deshaun Watson. So, I mean, I
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: guess you get a pass.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: All right. Great segment, Elijah. I think this segment went well. Oh, good.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I know you're always wondering about that.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: I was wondering about it.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Get the side text afterwards. You guys think it's okay?
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Is it cool?
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us today. Our one guest on today's show.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: Great to be here.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Great to have you here. Great to have you here, Dan.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk to you
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: next week.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.