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Transcript

“Tuck Around and Find Out.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's show, Tucker Carlson hates Donald Trump but loves
0:27
Speaker 1: his insurrectionists. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake stops by to talk
0:30
Speaker 1: about Joe Biden's new economic plan and the coming battle
0:33
Speaker 1: with Republicans in Congress. And later, there are some takes
0:37
Speaker 1: that need appreciating, and Elijah is here to give them
0:40
Speaker 1: to us. But first, if you're in the Los Angeles area,
0:43
Speaker 1: the Love It or Leave It weekly residency continues.
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Speaker 2: Come on.
0:50
Speaker 1: Weekly residency. Oh, boy. It's like a Dell. Yeah. Tickets
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1:10
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1:13
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1:16
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1:22
Speaker 1: I gotta start reading this housekeeping before I read it
1:24
Speaker 1: live on air.
1:27
Speaker 2: Very Trump of you.
1:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Honestly, we're being honest. A little Barack Obama, too.
1:34
Speaker 1: All right. All right, let's get to the news. The
1:37
Speaker 1: Republican Speaker of the House and the extreme right-wing host
1:40
Speaker 1: of the country's most popular cable show conspired to air
1:44
Speaker 1: a few minutes of selectively edited surveillance footage from the
1:48
Speaker 1: January 6th insurrection in order to spread the lie that
1:51
Speaker 1: the violent attack on the Capitol was actually nothing more
1:54
Speaker 1: than peaceful tourists who were protesting against what they genuinely
1:58
Speaker 1: believed was a rigged election. Tucker Carlson, who we now
2:01
Speaker 1: know from his text messages never believed any of that,
2:05
Speaker 1: got the footage from Kevin McCarthy after demanding it back
2:08
Speaker 1: in January as a condition of supporting him for speaker.
2:12
Speaker 1: Here's some of the lunacy from his show Tuesday night.
2:15
Speaker 3: These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers. Footage from inside
2:20
Speaker 3: the Capitol overturns the story you've heard about January 6th.
2:24
Speaker 3: Protesters queue up in neat little lines. They give each
2:27
Speaker 3: other tours outside the Speaker's office. They take cheerful selfies
2:31
Speaker 3: and they smile. They're not destroying the Capitol. They obviously
2:35
Speaker 3: revere the Capitol.
2:36
Speaker 1: They obviously, they obviously revere the Capitol. Anyone who was
2:41
Speaker 1: around on January 6th watching the riot unfold, of course,
2:46
Speaker 1: knew that they revered the Capitol. Also, anyone who watched
2:49
Speaker 1: the primetime January 6th hearings, let's listen to a clip
2:52
Speaker 1: from from that. Fuck you, police!
3:00
Speaker 3: We're still taking metal, sharpened objects, missiles to include bottles
3:05
Speaker 3: and rocks, and hand-thrown chemical-grade fireworks.
3:13
Speaker 1: Sounds peaceful, huh? Just some tourists out for a stroll?
3:19
Speaker 2: Reverie, that's what that is. People revering the Capitol.
3:21
Speaker 1: So I guess the 140 cops who were assaulted and
3:24
Speaker 1: the over 500 people who pled guilty to various federal
3:28
Speaker 1: charges in connection with January 6th were just part of
3:32
Speaker 1: some other insurrection that Tucker didn't see? What do you think?
3:36
Speaker 2: I mean, it is wild because it is something we
3:39
Speaker 2: all watched in real time. And all the people, including
3:43
Speaker 2: the person who gave the footage to Kevin McCarthy, decried
3:46
Speaker 2: the violence in the days and weeks after. Everyone knew
3:50
Speaker 2: what happened. I mean, it is as Orwellian as really
3:55
Speaker 2: anything we've seen in this era, right? The Orwellian quote
3:58
Speaker 2: about telling people not to believe the evidence of their
4:01
Speaker 2: eyes and their ears, right? This is truly, it is wild.
4:05
Speaker 2: It is absolutely a wild thing that is happening. And
4:07
Speaker 2: it's even scarier or more alarming or more fitting, whatever
4:12
Speaker 2: it is, that the person who made it happen is
4:15
Speaker 2: third in line for the presidency, right?
4:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, a person who, like you said, again, decried the
4:20
Speaker 1: violence and Donald Trump's role in it immediately after January 6th.
4:24
Speaker 1: Someone who could have died in the violence, right?
4:29
Speaker 2: He was a potential victim of the violence. He was
4:32
Speaker 2: hiding in his office, clearly scared in the footage we've seen.
4:35
Speaker 1: I mean, we could go on forever, but we all
4:39
Speaker 1: heard testimony from police officers. And as we know, Republicans
4:43
Speaker 1: are huge supporters of police officers. Police officers who testified
4:47
Speaker 1: under oath that they were brutally assaulted, some with their
4:49
Speaker 1: own weapons, their own weapons. An officer said that the
4:53
Speaker 1: fighting was medieval and a trip to hell. So I
4:58
Speaker 1: guess Tucker Carlson and Kevin McCarthy and Republicans just maligning
5:02
Speaker 1: police officer, not really standing with the blue right there.
5:07
Speaker 2: Sorry to keep doing this, but Kevin McCarthy was on
5:09
Speaker 2: the phone with Mark Meadows on begging him to send
5:14
Speaker 2: the troops to protect him from the tourists.
5:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:19
Speaker 2: That's what was happening.
5:21
Speaker 1: So Tucker could spend his time, his hour every night,
5:25
Speaker 1: lying about all kinds of shit that's more believable than
5:28
Speaker 1: trying to convince people that January 6th didn't happen. Why
5:32
Speaker 1: do you think he has become so obsessed with this issue?
5:36
Speaker 2: I think there are three reasons. One is he is
5:39
Speaker 2: a greedy grifter. And he is in the outrage business.
5:44
Speaker 2: And he gets attention. He gets money from being outrageous.
5:46
Speaker 2: And the thing about being in the outrage business is
5:48
Speaker 2: you have to get more outrageous every day. You have
5:50
Speaker 2: to up the dosage every single day to keep it going.
5:53
Speaker 2: And this is how you get from being angry about
5:56
Speaker 2: people saying happy holidays to great replacement theory and insurrections
6:00
Speaker 2: are good. And so he just is grabbing whatever third
6:04
Speaker 2: rail he can find, he will grab to get attention.
6:06
Speaker 2: And this is clearly one because It is an absolute
6:11
Speaker 2: edge case because there is a– not among the far,
6:14
Speaker 2: far right or even among like Fox Prime. The general consensus,
6:17
Speaker 2: even among Trump-loving Republicans is the election was stolen. We've
6:22
Speaker 2: already done that. Donald Trump is not necessarily responsible for
6:26
Speaker 2: what happened, but the violence was bad. And so he
6:30
Speaker 2: has to take that last one on. The second reason
6:33
Speaker 2: is– and we're going to talk about this– He now
6:36
Speaker 2: has a tremendous need to prove his MAGA bona fides
6:41
Speaker 2: to his audience because he's been caught texting about Donald Trump.
6:45
Speaker 2: And so this is a way to do that. This
6:47
Speaker 2: is the sort of the– he is sacrificing the credibility
6:51
Speaker 2: he lost long ago to do this. And the third
6:54
Speaker 2: one is Donald Trump is a frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
6:56
Speaker 2: There's a very real chance he's going to be indicted
6:58
Speaker 2: for his role in January 6th at some point. And
7:01
Speaker 2: so you're going to have to begin– creating a permission
7:04
Speaker 2: structure for people who don't like January 6th, but do
7:07
Speaker 2: want to vote for Donald Trump to be able to
7:09
Speaker 2: do those two things. And one way to do that
7:11
Speaker 2: is just throw a bunch of mud at the thing
7:14
Speaker 2: and make it just throw disinformation at it in the
7:17
Speaker 2: hopes people throw up their arms and say, I don't
7:19
Speaker 2: really know what happened, but I like Donald Trump so
7:21
Speaker 2: I can vote for him.
7:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that Tucker looked at the midterm results
7:27
Speaker 1: and just like we have and realized that January 6th
7:31
Speaker 1: and the pro-insurrection part of the Republican Party is a
7:35
Speaker 1: real weakness for Republican politicians. And he needs to somehow
7:40
Speaker 1: try to neutralize that. And he knows he can't convince everyone,
7:42
Speaker 1: but you're right. He might as well just throw some
7:44
Speaker 1: shit at the wall and see what sticks. I also
7:46
Speaker 1: think to your outrage point, like the Fox texts are
7:51
Speaker 1: really revealing here. Like Tucker and the rest, they just
7:56
Speaker 1: reveal that Tucker and Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity are
8:01
Speaker 1: they all just live in fear every day that they're
8:03
Speaker 1: going to lose viewers to some crazier outlet. So, you know,
8:08
Speaker 1: they probably spend their day checking out 4chan and Steve
8:10
Speaker 1: listening to Steve Bannon's war room and reading the daily
8:13
Speaker 1: stormer or whatever, uh, for the most outrageous conspiracies. So,
8:19
Speaker 1: you know, they can give the people what they want.
8:23
Speaker 1: That's it. They don't want to, they don't want to
8:24
Speaker 1: lose viewers to someone else who's saying that, uh, that
8:27
Speaker 1: the insurrection was a false flag operation. So they got
8:29
Speaker 1: to jump on that. They got to jump on that train.
8:31
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing about MAGA politics is you're defined
8:36
Speaker 2: by the people you anger. And so January 6th is
8:40
Speaker 2: a way to anger all of the right people to
8:43
Speaker 2: prove that you are as MAGA as can be right now. You, you,
8:46
Speaker 2: anger the press. You anger Rhino Republicans. Liz Cheney comes
8:50
Speaker 2: out of retirement to come after you. And so, I mean,
8:54
Speaker 2: this is what Ted Cruz does. It's what Matt Gaetz does.
8:56
Speaker 2: What Marjorie Taylor Greene does is that you go out,
8:58
Speaker 2: you pick things and inflame as many people who are
9:01
Speaker 2: the quote unquote enemy of right-wing Americans as possible. And
9:05
Speaker 2: this is a absolutely effective, very loud way to do that.
9:10
Speaker 1: And it shows what Fox is, right? It's obviously not
9:13
Speaker 1: a news outlet. it's not trying to inform viewers. It's
9:16
Speaker 1: not even trying to persuade people who tune in, like
9:20
Speaker 1: I would like to think we're trying to do. It's
9:23
Speaker 1: basically telling their audience that the craziest conspiracies that they
9:28
Speaker 1: believe are absolutely true. Whatever you're feeling, whatever you heard,
9:32
Speaker 1: whatever you saw in some comment section on some crazy website,
9:35
Speaker 1: it is true, and we're going to reassure you that
9:37
Speaker 1: it's true. That's all they're doing. That's all they're doing.
9:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really hard to establish where Who's leading here, right?
9:44
Speaker 2: Because a reason a lot of people want to believe
9:46
Speaker 2: these things is because Fox has created the context for
9:49
Speaker 2: them to believe it. So they believe it. So then
9:51
Speaker 2: Fox then reinforces it. And it's not like Fox is
9:54
Speaker 2: not leading people like sheep. It's like they're both leading
9:56
Speaker 2: each other right off a fucking cliff.
9:59
Speaker 1: Well, and I do think it's, it's the competition within
10:02
Speaker 1: the MAGA media complex that is driving this too, because
10:07
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, they don't want OAN to
10:09
Speaker 1: get out ahead of them or Newsmax to steal their viewers.
10:12
Speaker 1: So they all, they're in a race, race to the
10:14
Speaker 1: bottom in terms of who can be the craziest. And
10:17
Speaker 1: that competition between outlets within the MAGA media media universe
10:20
Speaker 1: is what's sort of causing all the content to become
10:22
Speaker 1: even more extreme. Do you think the Fox executives who
10:26
Speaker 1: are currently facing a billion and a half dollar lawsuit
10:29
Speaker 1: for lying about an attempted coup or excited to see
10:32
Speaker 1: Tucker lying about an attempted coup on Tuesday night?
10:38
Speaker 2: I mean, there's some reporting about the tremendous discomfort summit
10:41
Speaker 2: Fox have with what Tucker's doing. You felt similar things
10:44
Speaker 2: that when he rare air, the documentary airs, and I've
10:47
Speaker 2: used documentary in air quotes about this a while back. And,
10:52
Speaker 2: but they can't stop them. And the reason they can't
10:54
Speaker 2: stop Tucker is because he calls the shots. He is,
10:57
Speaker 2: he's the one who makes the money. And we tend
10:59
Speaker 2: to think about Fox is this true, phenomenally successful business
11:03
Speaker 2: because it's the most watched cable channel, not new channel,
11:07
Speaker 2: cable channel every year for the last seven years. It's
11:10
Speaker 2: the most watched cable news network for 20 years. They
11:13
Speaker 2: routinely kick the shit out of MSNBC and CNN, but,
11:17
Speaker 2: Fox is also a dying business, like every cable company.
11:22
Speaker 2: Every year they make less money. Every year they get closer.
11:24
Speaker 1: Dying business with a dying audience. Yeah, exactly.
11:26
Speaker 2: That is the exact thing. They know the end is
11:30
Speaker 2: coming and they have no plan for how to monetize
11:32
Speaker 2: the next phase. And so part of this is they
11:35
Speaker 2: are just trying to, it's real like end of Rome shit,
11:38
Speaker 2: where it's like, we're going to try to make as
11:39
Speaker 2: much money as humanly possible in the very few years
11:43
Speaker 2: we have left. And that's why you can't, Lose Tucker
11:46
Speaker 2: because he makes the money. That's why you can't piss
11:49
Speaker 2: off the audience because you may not get them back
11:51
Speaker 2: because every minute you're not monetizing that huge audience, you're
11:55
Speaker 2: not going to get that on the back end. There
11:57
Speaker 2: is no future. It is over soon enough. And they
11:59
Speaker 2: are acting like people who know that. And so all
12:02
Speaker 2: these decisions come from this perpetual state of existential crisis
12:05
Speaker 2: that allows this shit to happen, which is greatly magnified
12:09
Speaker 2: by the fact that no one who works there has
12:11
Speaker 2: a shred of fucking experience. ethics or shame or morality.
12:15
Speaker 2: And so those are two very bad things flowing in
12:18
Speaker 2: the same direction. They give you this stuff.
12:20
Speaker 1: And by the way, Tucker and the other hosts know
12:23
Speaker 1: they have this power. And we know that now from
12:25
Speaker 1: the texts that have been revealed. There's an exchange with
12:28
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and Sean Hannity, where they're
12:30
Speaker 1: all texting each other and they're all pissed that the
12:33
Speaker 1: news side has called Arizona for Joe Biden. And I
12:37
Speaker 1: think Laura Ingram said, Oh, they hate us. We're working
12:41
Speaker 1: for a network that officially hates us, but you know what?
12:43
Speaker 1: We have a lot of power here, and we should
12:45
Speaker 1: be able to force some changes, the three of us.
12:47
Speaker 2: And they did.
12:48
Speaker 1: And they did.
12:49
Speaker 2: Because they fired the people who made the call. They
12:52
Speaker 2: sent them all packing, even though they were right.
12:55
Speaker 1: Yep, that's right. So the broader reaction to Tucker's latest
12:59
Speaker 1: bullshit has not been positive. He was criticized by President
13:03
Speaker 1: Biden and the Democrats in Congress. Rare for Biden himself
13:07
Speaker 1: to weigh in. He tweeted about this. The U.S. Capitol
13:10
Speaker 1: Police chief, who never gets involved in politics, called the
13:13
Speaker 1: footage cherry-picked, offensive, and misleading. Even Senate Republicans were critical,
13:19
Speaker 1: including Mitch McConnell. Let's listen.
13:20
Speaker 4: It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News
13:25
Speaker 4: to depict this in a way that's completely at variance
13:31
Speaker 4: with what our chief law enforcement official here at the
13:34
Speaker 4: Capitol thinks.
13:34
Speaker 1: I think it's bullshit. I was here. The point is,
13:39
Speaker 1: what happened that day shouldn't have happened.
13:41
Speaker 5: Breaking through glass windows and doors to get into the
13:45
Speaker 5: United States Capitol against the orders of police is a crime.
13:49
Speaker 6: There were a lot of people in the Capitol at
13:51
Speaker 6: the time who I think were scared for their lives.
13:57
Speaker 1: Those were not a bunch of rhinos. A lot of
13:59
Speaker 1: very conservative senators you just heard there. Why do you
14:02
Speaker 1: think they and Mitch McConnell found their voice on this one?
14:06
Speaker 2: Well, let's separate some of them from McConnell. I do
14:09
Speaker 2: think that there remain a handful of Republicans who are
14:11
Speaker 2: willing to hold a grudge when a member of their
14:13
Speaker 2: own party tries to have them murdered. I mean, people
14:19
Speaker 2: were scared on that day. Everyone involved was scared, as
14:22
Speaker 2: they should have been. It was a deeply dangerous situation.
14:25
Speaker 2: As we know from the January 6th hearing, one thing
14:28
Speaker 2: happens differently, and a member of Congress, a senator, a
14:32
Speaker 2: staffer loses their life on that day. That easily could
14:35
Speaker 2: have happened.
14:36
Speaker 1: Very close.
14:37
Speaker 2: It's a traumatic thing. And some of them recognize that.
14:40
Speaker 2: And they're willing to suck it up and support Trump
14:43
Speaker 2: over it. They're willing to continue pushing the big lie.
14:46
Speaker 2: But they're not going to let someone say, no, they
14:49
Speaker 2: were not almost murdered or their staff was not almost
14:51
Speaker 2: murdered over it or they were not attacked. They're not
14:53
Speaker 2: going to do that. Now, Mitch McConnell is not someone,
14:56
Speaker 2: I think, who operates out of morality or patriotism or
15:00
Speaker 2: community spirit. I think Mitch McConnell, everything Mitch McConnell does
15:03
Speaker 2: and says. I don't think, I don't think, so anyway,
15:10
Speaker 2: I don't think, so when Mitch McConnell speaks, it's part
15:15
Speaker 2: of a plan. And the plan is always about how
15:17
Speaker 2: you gather more power. And Mitch McConnell knows one of
15:21
Speaker 2: the reasons that he is the Senate minority leader and
15:24
Speaker 2: not the Senate majority leader is because A bunch of
15:27
Speaker 2: candidates ran on some insane MAGA big lie bullshit. And
15:31
Speaker 2: now you have the most powerful force in the Republican Party. Yes,
15:35
Speaker 2: the most powerful force in the Republican Party, Tucker Carlson,
15:37
Speaker 2: creating another conspiracy theory that makes it less likely that
15:41
Speaker 2: Republicans can win the majority in what should be a
15:44
Speaker 2: very good year for them in 2024. And this isn't
15:46
Speaker 2: like us guessing. Stanford researchers did a study comparing big
15:51
Speaker 2: lie believing candidates to not big lie espousing candidates. And
15:56
Speaker 2: The ones who pushed the big lie got, on average, 2.3%
16:01
Speaker 2: less vote share than the other candidates. That's enough to
16:03
Speaker 2: win a whole bunch of races. And so now you
16:06
Speaker 2: have the forces that push the Republicans in a direction
16:09
Speaker 2: to lose the election in 2022 doing it again. And
16:11
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell is trying to stop it, I assume.
16:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he needs Republicans to win in a
16:18
Speaker 1: bunch of competitive states where being pro-insurrection isn't all that popular.
16:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:24
Speaker 1: That's what it comes down to.
16:26
Speaker 2: Where are the states where being pro-insurrection is popular?
16:30
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
16:31
Speaker 2: There isn't one. There's one where it may be tolerated,
16:33
Speaker 2: but there's not a competitive state.
16:36
Speaker 1: Not a majority position in any state. So on the
16:40
Speaker 1: other side of the Capitol, Kevin McCarthy defended handing over
16:43
Speaker 1: the tapes in the name of transparency, even though other
16:46
Speaker 1: media organizations have asked for the tapes and none of
16:48
Speaker 1: them got it except for Tucker Carlson. And the House
16:51
Speaker 1: Republican Twitter account called Tucker's segment, Must Watch, in all
16:56
Speaker 1: capital letters. So it's safe to say that none of
16:58
Speaker 1: these House Republicans or most of these House Republicans aren't
17:01
Speaker 1: really concerned about being seen as January 6th truthers.
17:05
Speaker 2: Most of these Republicans are in safe districts, so they're
17:08
Speaker 2: more concerned about more vehemently pro-insurrection primary challengers than anything else.
17:14
Speaker 2: But when it comes to Kevin McCarthy, there's two reasons here.
17:18
Speaker 2: The first is he's a fucking idiot. He didn't think
17:21
Speaker 2: this through. Just like Tucker Carlson asked him. He said, yes,
17:24
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson seems important. Gave it to him. Did not
17:27
Speaker 2: once think about how this would play out. Didn't see
17:29
Speaker 2: around the corner. Didn't know the next move. That is
17:31
Speaker 2: always the most likely explanation for all things Kevin McCarthy.
17:34
Speaker 1: Indeed. He didn't see around the corner. He ran right
17:36
Speaker 1: into the corner.
17:39
Speaker 2: Constantly running into the corner. Just stepping on rakes like
17:42
Speaker 2: Sideshow Bob through a parking lot every single time. The
17:46
Speaker 2: other thing that I think is true for this, and
17:48
Speaker 2: it's going to be true in the Dead Sea and
17:49
Speaker 2: everything else, is Kevin McCarthy is not the Speaker of
17:52
Speaker 2: the House. He's not the Speaker– he's not the leader
17:54
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party. He essentially is Marjorie Taylor Greene's
17:58
Speaker 2: like manservant, right? He works for the MAGA faction. Because
18:04
Speaker 2: like we know that technically any member of Congress could
18:07
Speaker 2: throw Kevin McCarthy out of the Speaker's job. Like that
18:11
Speaker 2: can happen. But no– moderate-ish or less MAGA person is
18:16
Speaker 2: going to do because they know the person who's going
18:17
Speaker 2: to replace Kevin McCarthy is going to be even more
18:19
Speaker 2: MAGA than Kevin McCarthy. So the people he's afraid of
18:22
Speaker 2: are Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene. They're the
18:25
Speaker 2: ones who might blow the whole thing up. So he's
18:27
Speaker 2: got to do a bunch of things that make them happy.
18:29
Speaker 2: And this could be something that Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested
18:31
Speaker 2: to him. It could be something that Donald Trump suggested
18:34
Speaker 2: to him. If Donald Trump turns on him, that could
18:36
Speaker 2: push these people to toss him overboard. So It is
18:39
Speaker 2: like the nature of his politics is it's better to
18:42
Speaker 2: appease those people and piss off 85% of the country
18:44
Speaker 2: than the opposite.
18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's worth highlighting here how much different his
18:48
Speaker 1: political calculus has been from Mitch McConnell, who we just
18:52
Speaker 1: spoke about, because you're right that a lot of his
18:54
Speaker 1: caucuses and safe districts, so it doesn't matter. But there's
18:58
Speaker 1: a bunch, there's like 18 or so Republicans who are
19:01
Speaker 1: House Republicans who are sitting in Biden districts. Those people
19:04
Speaker 1: definitely don't want to be known as insurrectionist sympathizers. And
19:08
Speaker 1: if Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans want to hold their
19:12
Speaker 1: majority in 2024, they probably don't want to be seen
19:16
Speaker 1: as January 6th truthers. But again, McCarthy cares more about
19:20
Speaker 1: keeping his job than even keeping his majority, I think,
19:23
Speaker 1: at this point. He just wants this job more than anything.
19:25
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the debt ceiling fight, too. I'm sure
19:27
Speaker 1: you talked about this with Celinda. But, like, what he's
19:29
Speaker 1: done on the debt ceiling now is he's basically made
19:32
Speaker 1: all these promises to become Speaker, none of which he
19:36
Speaker 1: can keep, right? Although I guess this one he kept
19:38
Speaker 1: by giving Tucker the tapes. But on the debt ceiling stuff,
19:42
Speaker 1: there was a good Washington Post story about this where
19:44
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, he promises one faction he's not
19:47
Speaker 1: going to cut Medicare and Social Security, promises another faction.
19:50
Speaker 1: he's not going to raise taxes, promises another faction that
19:55
Speaker 1: he's going to balance the budget in 10 years. Well,
19:57
Speaker 1: the math doesn't add up for any of that. So
20:00
Speaker 1: he's not even going to be able to pass a
20:03
Speaker 1: budget within the Republican caucus in the House because he
20:06
Speaker 1: made all these promises to get the job and now
20:09
Speaker 1: they're going to cash in and he's not going to
20:10
Speaker 1: be able to keep them.
20:11
Speaker 2: This is a problem that is uniquely bad for McCarthy,
20:16
Speaker 2: but it's been true of every Republican speaker since the
20:18
Speaker 2: Tea Party took over. When we worked for Obama, Boehner
20:23
Speaker 2: used to do things just like this, right? He would
20:25
Speaker 2: set himself up for things that were obviously going to
20:27
Speaker 2: blow up in his face. And President Obama would do
20:29
Speaker 2: the thing he would do to us where he would
20:30
Speaker 2: like quiz you on why they did certain things. And
20:32
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you find yourself defending, trying to
20:34
Speaker 2: explain away the position. You're like, all of a sudden
20:36
Speaker 2: you're defending the John Boehner, and he's pushing you, and
20:40
Speaker 2: you're like, why am I explaining this? And the way
20:43
Speaker 2: I finally explained this to Wong, who was always like,
20:45
Speaker 2: why would he do this? It makes no sense what
20:47
Speaker 2: he should do. It's like, because Republican House leaders operate
20:52
Speaker 2: on a one-week timeline. They are just trying to get
20:55
Speaker 2: through the next caucus launch without it blowing up in
20:57
Speaker 2: their face. So if I can get through lunch without
21:00
Speaker 2: someone yelling at me by saying I'm not going to
21:02
Speaker 2: cut military spending, I'm going to do that. If next
21:05
Speaker 2: week the way I'm going to get through lunch is
21:07
Speaker 2: by promising to give Tucker Carlson a bunch of insurrection footage,
21:11
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that. And you never, if you
21:13
Speaker 2: can survive the lunch, you're still speaker when the lunch ends.
21:16
Speaker 2: And Kevin McCarthy has that to the nth degree compared
21:19
Speaker 2: to some of his predecessors.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is all true. We should also
21:24
Speaker 1: dig down in the question, like, is there a politically
21:28
Speaker 1: important January 6th truther constituency out there for just the
21:33
Speaker 1: Republican Party? Certainly not in the electorate at large. But
21:38
Speaker 1: what's the politics of this?
21:41
Speaker 2: They're terrible. They're absolutely terrible. In all the polling we
21:44
Speaker 2: saw in 2022, huge swaths of Republicans believe some form
21:50
Speaker 2: of the big lie, that there was fraud, the election
21:53
Speaker 2: was stolen, Donald Trump should have won. Many of them
21:57
Speaker 2: believe that Donald Trump is not responsible for what happened
22:00
Speaker 2: on January 6th. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15% to
22:04
Speaker 2: 18% in some of the polling I've seen are quasi-supportive
22:09
Speaker 2: of the people who broke into the Capitol. You have
22:12
Speaker 2: picked the least appealing, the most polarizing, the most easily
22:18
Speaker 2: blamed group if you're going to side with the people.
22:21
Speaker 2: It's just why it's insane that Donald Trump's releasing We
22:23
Speaker 2: Are The World songs for The January 6th prisoners, right?
22:27
Speaker 1: I think we have a clip of that right here.
22:30
Speaker 6: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
22:34
Speaker 6: of America.
22:44
Speaker 1: That is Donald Trump and the January 6th insurrectionists. It's
22:48
Speaker 1: a new single that was, we're not joking, that was
22:50
Speaker 1: released the other week. It's a banger of a song.
22:56
Speaker 2: You remember that there was a time in your life many,
22:59
Speaker 2: many years ago where you wrote a victory speech for
23:02
Speaker 2: a victory that didn't happen. Obama gave it anyway, and
23:05
Speaker 2: then Will.i.am turned it into a hit song.
23:07
Speaker 1: I do remember that.
23:09
Speaker 2: That's a thing that happened. This is basically that for
23:12
Speaker 2: Stephen Miller. This is his Will.i.am moment.
23:19
Speaker 1: If you had told me that. in 2000, which was
23:23
Speaker 1: already felt extremely bizarre when it happened back in 2008,
23:27
Speaker 1: that this would be the mirror image of that this
23:29
Speaker 1: many years later. Yeah. I would not have, uh, would
23:32
Speaker 1: not have believed you safe to say, but yeah. So
23:35
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, very pro insurrection. He has gone from like, uh,
23:39
Speaker 1: saying that it didn't happen. It was a false flag operation,
23:42
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff to now. And we all,
23:44
Speaker 1: we all knew he would get there, right? The insurrection
23:47
Speaker 1: was good. The people who have pled guilty, uh, have
23:51
Speaker 1: done so under duress. They are patriots. There are some
23:54
Speaker 1: who are being held, you know, wrongly, unjustly. I think
23:59
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to get
24:01
Speaker 1: like a congressional group to go visit them in prison.
24:06
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a whole, the Republican Party is
24:08
Speaker 1: getting ready to run in 2024 with a good chunk
24:12
Speaker 1: of their politicians being unabashedly pro-insurrection and pro-insurrectionists with these
24:18
Speaker 1: numbers that you just mentioned. It's fucking wild.
24:21
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump has talked about pardoning them if he
24:23
Speaker 2: gets reelected.
24:26
Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned some of the polls. The most
24:29
Speaker 1: recent polls, and these were like in January, February 2023,
24:33
Speaker 1: around the anniversary of January 6th. 67% of all Americans
24:38
Speaker 1: in an AP poll described January 6th as very or
24:40
Speaker 1: extremely violent, and that includes 40% of Republicans. Only 3
24:44
Speaker 1: in 10 Republicans say the attack was not violent. You
24:49
Speaker 1: gov poll around the same time. Forty percent of Trump
24:52
Speaker 1: voters said they approved strongly or somewhat strongly of the
24:56
Speaker 1: supporters taking over the Capitol. Just over half said that
24:59
Speaker 1: they disapproved. And then Data for Progress did an interesting
25:02
Speaker 1: poll where they they asked a question. When thinking about
25:06
Speaker 1: the actions of Donald Trump supporters on January 6th, which
25:09
Speaker 1: comes closer to your view? One. the supporters did the
25:12
Speaker 1: wrong thing by inciting violence and threatening our democracy. Or two,
25:16
Speaker 1: the supporters did the right thing by standing up for
25:18
Speaker 1: Trump and trying to overturn the election results. Wrong thing, 74%.
25:23
Speaker 1: Right thing, 17%. Only 27% of Republicans said it was
25:28
Speaker 1: the right thing. Now, then they did a messaging test,
25:31
Speaker 1: Biden versus Trump in 2024. And straight test, Biden versus Trump,
25:36
Speaker 1: 47 Biden, 45 Trump. So Biden wins by two points.
25:40
Speaker 1: When you tell people that Biden opposes the January 6th
25:43
Speaker 1: attack and Trump supports it, which is, of course, Trump's position,
25:46
Speaker 1: it moves to 49% Biden, 42% Trump.
25:51
Speaker 2: It's still wild that we have a ballot test with
25:56
Speaker 2: a candidate who's pro-political violence and that candidate's opponent still
26:00
Speaker 2: doesn't get to a majority in America, which is very concerning.
26:03
Speaker 1: No, we have 40% of the country. We may have
26:05
Speaker 1: lost them, but that's... We got that 60 that we're
26:08
Speaker 1: playing with. It's important that we got to get.
26:10
Speaker 2: That full 60. We are glass half full here. The
26:12
Speaker 2: thing that's interesting about Trump's rhetoric that is he is
26:16
Speaker 2: the insurrection didn't happen. Those people are political prisoners. But also,
26:23
Speaker 2: I didn't tell them to be violent, to be very clear.
26:27
Speaker 2: And I also repeatedly asked for them to not to
26:31
Speaker 2: stop being violent and nancy pelosi failed to stop them
26:34
Speaker 2: so he's he's not he doesn't pick it one item
26:37
Speaker 2: on the menu he takes the whole menu right.
26:39
Speaker 1: And it might have been antifa but also it was
26:41
Speaker 1: good yeah that's right now one notable figure in this
26:45
Speaker 1: extreme minority with donald trump elon musk did you see
26:50
Speaker 1: that he was tweeting support for tucker he was supporting
26:52
Speaker 1: tucker A couple tweets from Elon Musk supporting Tucker. And
26:56
Speaker 1: he also attacked Mitch McConnell for not being pro-insurrectionist enough.
27:01
Speaker 1: He tweeted, does Mitch McConnell, does he forget which party
27:05
Speaker 1: he's from? This is the great centrist Elon Musk, right?
27:09
Speaker 1: He's not right. He's not left. He's in the middle,
27:11
Speaker 1: just like most Americans.
27:12
Speaker 6: Yeah.
27:12
Speaker 1: Well, now Mitch McConnell is not pro-insurrectionist enough for Elon Musk.
27:18
Speaker 1: That's where Elon Musk is these days.
27:19
Speaker 2: I mean, the red pill is a powerful drug, my friend.
27:22
Speaker 1: Ugh. So obviously another person who rushed to Tucker's defense
27:26
Speaker 1: here was Donald Trump, who said that he did a
27:28
Speaker 1: great job on Truth Social. Unfortunately for the former president,
27:31
Speaker 1: the feeling isn't mutual. In the latest batch of text
27:34
Speaker 1: messages from the Dominion lawsuit against Fox, Tucker said this
27:38
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump. Quote, I hate him passionately. We're all
27:43
Speaker 1: pretending we've got a lot to show for the last
27:45
Speaker 1: four years because admitting what a disaster it's been is
27:49
Speaker 1: too tough to digest. But come on. There isn't really
27:53
Speaker 1: an upside to Trump. Tucker Carlson, welcome to the resistance.
27:59
Speaker 2: Just the reason they have the worst person good point
28:02
Speaker 2: meme right there.
28:05
Speaker 1: What do you think? Do you think Tucker will lose
28:08
Speaker 1: MAGA viewers because of this? Do you think Trump will
28:11
Speaker 1: lose Tucker fans over this? Or will fans of either
28:15
Speaker 1: man ever even know about these texts at all?
28:19
Speaker 2: Probably option three. is that very few people who care
28:23
Speaker 2: about this will know Tucker said these things. I don't
28:26
Speaker 2: think Trump will get mad at Tucker because Trump does
28:29
Speaker 2: understand power dynamics quite well. He knows how much power
28:34
Speaker 2: Tucker generally has, but he also fucking loves leverage on people,
28:38
Speaker 2: which is why when those recordings from the Jonathan Martin,
28:41
Speaker 2: Alex Burns book came out about Kevin McCarthy, did Trump
28:44
Speaker 2: attack Kevin McCarthy? No, he just called him and made
28:47
Speaker 2: him do his bidding. And so this is probably, this is,
28:49
Speaker 2: these texts are partially why I'm sure Tucker's doing the
28:52
Speaker 2: January 6th footage stuff, because it is a way to
28:56
Speaker 2: appease Trump. And Trump is very happy about it. And
28:58
Speaker 2: he'll go around to Mar-a-Lago bragging to, the 85 year
29:02
Speaker 2: old real estate moguls and the Chinese spies and whoever
29:05
Speaker 2: else about how he made Tucker do this stuff. And
29:07
Speaker 2: so everyone wins and we all lose.
29:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and Tucker knows this too, because also in
29:13
Speaker 1: the text, he says that the one thing Trump is
29:15
Speaker 1: good at is destroying and he can destroy all of
29:18
Speaker 1: us if we're not careful. So that was by far
29:21
Speaker 1: the most enjoyable text of the latest bunch, but there
29:24
Speaker 1: were plenty of others that have been dribbling out over
29:27
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. What are, what were some
29:28
Speaker 1: of your favorites of this latest bunch? And, uh, And
29:31
Speaker 1: did we learn anything new?
29:33
Speaker 2: I just think we had all of our pre existing
29:36
Speaker 2: notions confirmed about how terrible everyone who works at Fox
29:39
Speaker 2: News is and how.
29:40
Speaker 1: Just always always a comfort.
29:42
Speaker 2: Yeah it's just it's nice to be right that's what
29:44
Speaker 2: I would say I think I particularly enjoyed everything involving
29:50
Speaker 2: Brett Baer the.
29:51
Speaker 1: Bell I knew that was gonna be your first your
29:56
Speaker 1: first comment I have.
29:58
Speaker 2: Been I'm not going to be one of those people
30:00
Speaker 2: who's going to go back and refer to my tweets
30:02
Speaker 2: from like 2017 about how right I was, but I've
30:05
Speaker 2: always hated Brett Baer. I've always known he's a fucking
30:08
Speaker 2: fraud and it's good to have that exposed. And my
30:10
Speaker 2: hope is that everyone in DC who cites him as
30:13
Speaker 2: the one real person at Fox, because once in a
30:16
Speaker 2: fucking blue moon, he has a tough question of Republican,
30:18
Speaker 2: now recognizes what a propagandist he is.
30:20
Speaker 1: I also enjoy- We should tell people, by the way,
30:23
Speaker 1: what you're referencing with Brett Baer. So Brett- Brett Baier
30:26
Speaker 1: said that at one point was texting that after Fox
30:30
Speaker 1: made the call on Arizona for Joe Biden, obviously Fox
30:34
Speaker 1: got a ton of blowback from their viewers, of course,
30:37
Speaker 1: not from anyone else, but from their hardcore fans. And
30:40
Speaker 1: Brett Baier was texting Fox executives saying that they should
30:43
Speaker 1: seriously consider putting Arizona back in Trump's column, or at
30:47
Speaker 1: least not calling it for Joe Biden because they're getting
30:51
Speaker 1: killed on Twitter because they're viewers. And he basically says, look,
30:54
Speaker 1: I know I know the numbers are what the numbers are,
30:56
Speaker 1: but there's another layer here that we should think about.
30:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two elements of the Brett Baier stuff. One
31:03
Speaker 2: is the text that came out in this batch. And
31:05
Speaker 2: then there's been a bunch of reporting that is all
31:08
Speaker 2: kind of related to some of the revelations in this
31:10
Speaker 2: that was in a big New York Times story. Some
31:11
Speaker 2: of it even dates back to the book that Peter
31:15
Speaker 2: Baker and Susan Glasser wrote about Trump that gets into
31:19
Speaker 2: how Brett Baier repeatedly pushed Fox to pull back the campaign.
31:24
Speaker 2: Arizona call because voters were mad and Trump was mad
31:26
Speaker 2: at them. And then even in a meeting with Suzanne
31:31
Speaker 2: Scott and the sort of high command Fox, Brett Baer
31:34
Speaker 2: and Martha McCallum, someone else who walks around with this
31:36
Speaker 2: sort of quasi journalistic legitimacy, argue that we should not
31:41
Speaker 2: just look at the numbers when making calls for states.
31:44
Speaker 2: We should factor in what our viewers want, which is
31:48
Speaker 2: definitely how math works.
31:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's all fan service. That's it. That's Fox. It's
31:54
Speaker 1: just fan service. Anything else? Anything else for you in
31:58
Speaker 1: this batch of text?
31:59
Speaker 2: I also enjoyed Bill Salmon and Chris Steerwalt. Bill Salmon
32:02
Speaker 2: was the Washington Bureau chief or editor of some kind,
32:06
Speaker 2: and Chris Steerwalt was the politics editor, both of whom
32:08
Speaker 2: were quickly shown the door when Fox's ratings went down,
32:11
Speaker 2: talking about how Bill said that this was his greatest
32:17
Speaker 2: journalistic existential crisis in 22 years at Fox. And Chris
32:21
Speaker 2: said that they were following– basically losing a silent majority
32:25
Speaker 2: of Fox viewers to follow a bunch of nuts off
32:28
Speaker 2: a cliff, which really speaks to– and also that's basically
32:33
Speaker 2: I'm sure what was in the post-January 6 PowerPoint for
32:37
Speaker 2: how Fox got their viewers back was just a bunch
32:39
Speaker 2: of nuts going off a cliff, right? Because that's the
32:41
Speaker 2: strategy they adopted.
32:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's pretty clear they hate their viewers. It's just–
32:47
Speaker 1: for all– They tell us about the elites looking down
32:51
Speaker 1: on real Americans and liberals and coastal elites. They fucking
32:55
Speaker 1: hate their viewers. And they see their viewers as a
32:59
Speaker 1: way for themselves to make money. That's all. I thought
33:02
Speaker 1: that to the sort of decision desk point, there's a
33:07
Speaker 1: text from Rupert Murdoch that says, I hate our decision
33:11
Speaker 1: desk people. I hate our pollsters too. I think they're
33:13
Speaker 1: some of the same people. I think this is important
33:16
Speaker 1: going forward because One thing we've said, we've talked about
33:19
Speaker 1: Fox News polls on here because they are done by
33:23
Speaker 1: legitimate pollsters. The Fox News decision desk, obviously, it proved
33:28
Speaker 1: itself to be a legitimate operation calling Arizona for Joe Biden.
33:32
Speaker 1: And I don't know that we're going to be able
33:34
Speaker 1: I certainly don't think we're gonna be able to trust
33:35
Speaker 1: the decision desk at Fox anymore for future elections after
33:38
Speaker 1: they pushed out all the people who, you know, were
33:41
Speaker 1: not crazy. And I'm wondering what they'll do with their
33:44
Speaker 1: pollsters too. I think that they are going to move
33:46
Speaker 1: to a place where you're not going to be able
33:48
Speaker 1: to trust even the numbers people at Fox, which I
33:52
Speaker 1: know sounds crazy, but you usually have been able to
33:56
Speaker 1: trust them in past elections.
33:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. As an example of how far it's gone is
34:00
Speaker 2: many people of a certain age will remember in 2012
34:04
Speaker 2: when Fox was prepared to call Ohio for Obama, which
34:07
Speaker 2: was essentially give him reelections. Karl Rove was acting like
34:10
Speaker 2: a lunatic about– because he was talking to people in
34:12
Speaker 2: the Romney campaign who didn't know that black people could
34:15
Speaker 2: vote and was talking about how there are all these
34:18
Speaker 2: votes out there, Ohio, et cetera. And Megyn Kelly basically
34:23
Speaker 2: walked back into the room where they made the decision
34:25
Speaker 2: and just completely embarrassed Karl Rove because it was obvious
34:28
Speaker 2: that Obama was going to win Ohio. You flash forward
34:31
Speaker 2: to now where you have Bret Baier pushing to not–
34:35
Speaker 2: to rescind calls because it upsets the– MAGA president of
34:39
Speaker 2: the United States.
34:41
Speaker 1: A few other good quotes, uh, texts from this bunch,
34:44
Speaker 1: Tucker asking his staff, do we have enough dead people
34:47
Speaker 1: for tonight? Basically, this was him asking for examples of
34:50
Speaker 1: dead people voting in Nevada or Georgia, even reached out
34:53
Speaker 1: to the Trump campaign. Uh, Trump campaign gave him four
34:56
Speaker 1: examples from Georgia. Three ended up proving, uh, to be false.
34:59
Speaker 1: And Tucker had to walk that back, but then said, well,
35:02
Speaker 1: there are dead people voting everywhere. Just so you know, um,
35:06
Speaker 1: Murdoch said in the deposition that he never believed Dominion
35:09
Speaker 1: rigged the election, which seems legally problematic for them. And
35:12
Speaker 1: he said that Sean and Laura, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, quote,
35:15
Speaker 1: went too far. He then told everyone, we've got to
35:18
Speaker 1: focus on the Georgia Senate by helping any way we can.
35:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, seems.
35:23
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we try to do here, but
35:26
Speaker 1: we tell you about it.
35:28
Speaker 2: That's right.
35:30
Speaker 1: The idea that it's just secret and that Fox is
35:33
Speaker 1: ostensibly a new... I mean, come on. It's just fucking big.
35:35
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Oliver Darcy had a good point about this.
35:38
Speaker 1: He's been interviewing people at Fox too. He's the CNN
35:41
Speaker 1: media reporter. He said, these people are just paid actors, basically,
35:44
Speaker 1: to make money for the network. That's who Tucker and
35:47
Speaker 1: Laura and all of them are.
35:48
Speaker 2: It's true.
35:49
Speaker 1: They are. They're basically paid actors. That was a good point.
35:51
Speaker 2: There are two kinds of people who work at Fox.
35:53
Speaker 2: There are obvious propagandists like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and
35:57
Speaker 2: then there are subtle, cynical, even more dangerous propagandists who
36:02
Speaker 2: pretend to be journalists like Brett Baer and John Roberts
36:04
Speaker 2: and the rest. They're all part of the same And
36:07
Speaker 2: anyone who's ever read anything, written anything about how Fox
36:10
Speaker 2: was created knows the purpose was to push Republican conservatives
36:14
Speaker 2: into power. And if you took a job there, that's
36:17
Speaker 2: what you were agreeing to be a part of.
36:19
Speaker 1: I do think the dynamic, the sort of divide between
36:21
Speaker 1: news and opinion and the fact that they don't like
36:24
Speaker 1: each other is interesting, even though none of them have integrity.
36:28
Speaker 1: So there's an exchange between Sean Hannity and Steve Doocy
36:32
Speaker 1: of Fox and Friends in the Morning. Brilliant journalist. And
36:36
Speaker 1: Hannity says, news destroyed us today. And then Doocy says,
36:40
Speaker 1: every day. And then Hannity said, you don't piss off
36:43
Speaker 1: the base. That's the cardinal rule at Fox. You don't
36:45
Speaker 1: piss off the base. And then Doocy says, they don't care.
36:49
Speaker 1: They're journalists in like a mocking, sarcastic way. Which is
36:53
Speaker 1: also funny, by the way, because Doocy's son, Peter Doocy,
36:56
Speaker 1: is one of those supposed journalists.
36:59
Speaker 2: I don't even think, I don't think Peter Doocy puts
37:01
Speaker 2: journalist on his business card.
37:05
Speaker 1: But it is interesting that the news people, because they
37:07
Speaker 1: like getting sort of the air of legitimacy from the
37:11
Speaker 1: larger DC set, does get embarrassed by the opinion people
37:14
Speaker 1: from time to time, even though the news people are
37:17
Speaker 1: also doing what the opinion people do.
37:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the people are gross.
37:23
Speaker 1: So you wrote a great message box yesterday about how
37:26
Speaker 1: Democrats can take advantage of what might be the greatest
37:29
Speaker 1: crisis Fox News has ever faced. Or maybe any media organization.
37:34
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of the biggest media scandals,
37:36
Speaker 1: I think, in my lifetime.
37:37
Speaker 2: Because it's both a challenge of credibility and could be
37:41
Speaker 2: a massive financial blow all at the same time.
37:44
Speaker 1: Yes. So what should Democrats do here? What are the options?
37:48
Speaker 2: So I will give the short version here. First is
37:53
Speaker 2: Democrats have to stop giving Fox full legitimacy. We say
37:58
Speaker 2: all the time that Fox is a MAGA network propagandist,
38:00
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson. But in the day-to-day life of most Democratic
38:06
Speaker 2: politicians and political operatives, Fox still exists in this quasi-legitimate place.
38:12
Speaker 2: They're in the network pool. They get to ask a
38:14
Speaker 2: bunch of questions. And if you think that sounds ridiculous,
38:17
Speaker 2: just remember like a month ago, the absurd conversation we
38:19
Speaker 2: had about whether Joe Biden should do a Fox interview
38:22
Speaker 2: at the Super Bowl.
38:23
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
38:24
Speaker 2: With these text reveals that Fox and Breitbart are the
38:26
Speaker 2: same thing. So we have to treat Fox like Breitbart.
38:29
Speaker 2: If Breitbart was doing a Super Bowl interview, no one
38:31
Speaker 2: would be like, why is Joe Biden missing this opportunity
38:33
Speaker 2: to speak to the American people through Breitbart? Like, what
38:35
Speaker 2: the fuck are we doing?
38:36
Speaker 1: Right?
38:36
Speaker 2: Stop. We don't, when Breitbart, like, this is not to
38:39
Speaker 2: say that Fox can't come to the White House. They
38:41
Speaker 2: can't cover things. Of course they can do it. When
38:43
Speaker 2: we were in the White House, Breitbart, the daily caller,
38:45
Speaker 2: they showed up in the briefing room every day. And
38:47
Speaker 2: sometimes they'd call their office with questions. And what we
38:49
Speaker 2: would do? Not fucking call them back because we don't
38:51
Speaker 2: have time to deal with MAGA propagandists. They are as
38:54
Speaker 2: as adversarial to us as the RNC. And we should
38:57
Speaker 2: treat them the same way. And Fox is the same way. Second,
39:01
Speaker 2: and related to that is we should stop pretending that
39:04
Speaker 2: Fox is a good way to reach persuadable voters. It's not.
39:09
Speaker 2: And the math is pretty simple. Just think about it
39:11
Speaker 2: this way. There are 2 million people that watch Bret Baier.
39:14
Speaker 2: That's a shitload of people compared to like what CNN
39:16
Speaker 2: and MSNBC are getting at the same time. But it's
39:18
Speaker 2: a fraction of the overall electorate. And so let's generously
39:25
Speaker 2: say that 10% of those viewers are persuadable viewers, because
39:29
Speaker 2: the vast majority of all cable news viewers are not
39:31
Speaker 2: persuadable voters. And Fox is even to the extreme of that.
39:33
Speaker 2: So let's say that 10% of the 2 million are persuadable.
39:39
Speaker 2: So that's 200,000 voters. So let's say you're a Democrat
39:42
Speaker 2: in a Trumpy district. And you do have some Fox,
39:46
Speaker 2: some Fox, some Trump voters you have to win to,
39:49
Speaker 2: to be reelected. What are the odds that of the
39:53
Speaker 2: small sliver of your 750,000 or so voters who are, um,
39:59
Speaker 2: persuadable fit in that tiny 200,000 watching Fox at that moment?
40:04
Speaker 2: It's almost zero. It's like the odds of winning the lottery.
40:06
Speaker 2: It's insane. And so this is not to say people
40:08
Speaker 2: shouldn't go on Fox.
40:09
Speaker 1: So, um, This seems like an argument to– if you're
40:14
Speaker 1: working in politics, not to put your boss on CNN
40:18
Speaker 1: or MSNBC either.
40:20
Speaker 2: Well, you can at least– you would at least talk
40:21
Speaker 2: to some of– I think in.
40:24
Speaker 1: All– You're talking a lot of persuadable voters on MSNBC?
40:28
Speaker 2: No, but there's an argument for talking to your base
40:30
Speaker 2: sometimes as well, right? Which is why people may– I
40:33
Speaker 2: don't know. They want to come on a couple of
40:34
Speaker 2: podcasts I could think of off the top of my head.
40:36
Speaker 4: So, yeah.
40:37
Speaker 2: It's just– Thank you, politicians, for joining us. This is
40:45
Speaker 2: not to say no one should go on Fox. There
40:47
Speaker 2: may be reasons to do it. Pete Buttigieg is kind
40:49
Speaker 2: of the model of go on Fox, know what you're
40:52
Speaker 2: getting into, have the talent and a plan to make
40:54
Speaker 2: it a moment that will reach people outside of Fox.
40:56
Speaker 2: But if you're just going to be like, if I
40:57
Speaker 2: can just get on there and talk to my vote
40:58
Speaker 2: for the biff, it's going to move voters. It's just
41:00
Speaker 2: not efficient.
41:02
Speaker 1: I want to push on your Pete Buttigieg point because
41:04
Speaker 1: I thought it was great that you made this in
41:08
Speaker 1: the message box, which is like, The way media works today,
41:11
Speaker 1: and you've written about this in multiple books now, you
41:15
Speaker 1: don't necessarily, if you're a politician, go on a show
41:19
Speaker 1: to reach that audience right there that's watching the show.
41:22
Speaker 1: Sometimes you do.
41:23
Speaker 2: Unless it's local news.
41:25
Speaker 1: Right, unless it's local news, or it is a Super
41:27
Speaker 1: Bowl interview that's not Fox News, or someone with a
41:31
Speaker 1: huge following that's maybe non-political that could interview you. There's
41:35
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of ways to do it. But what
41:36
Speaker 1: you're usually going to do is Go on, get a
41:39
Speaker 1: clip of yourself, and then blast it out to your
41:41
Speaker 1: supporters or put it in a paid ad or do whatever.
41:44
Speaker 1: And so I do think that if– you basically advise
41:48
Speaker 1: people in the message box if you're going to go
41:49
Speaker 1: on Fox, like pick a fight and have a plan
41:53
Speaker 1: and also have the talent to pick a fight, right?
41:57
Speaker 1: Which you said Pete does and Bernie did a couple
42:00
Speaker 1: times as well.
42:00
Speaker 2: Like Katie Porter could do it. Like there are a
42:03
Speaker 2: whole bunch of people who have done it and can
42:04
Speaker 2: do it.
42:05
Speaker 1: And I guess what my point is, there should be
42:07
Speaker 1: more people who do that and have the talent to
42:10
Speaker 1: do that. You should practice because a clip of you
42:14
Speaker 1: fucking owning someone on Fox News, it's not only good
42:18
Speaker 1: for your supporters. If you can get it in front
42:20
Speaker 1: of persuadable voters through whatever campaigner apparatus you have, I
42:23
Speaker 1: think that's helpful too. I do think we should have
42:26
Speaker 1: more people who can go on there ready to pick
42:28
Speaker 1: a fight. And ready to sort of have a moment
42:31
Speaker 1: and sort of develop that talent that I think Pete
42:34
Speaker 1: and Bernie and some other people who go on Fox have.
42:36
Speaker 2: I mean, this is sort of what got around the
42:38
Speaker 2: whole Biden Super Bowl debate is there is an argument
42:41
Speaker 2: for Biden to go on Fox one day and have
42:45
Speaker 2: a battle with someone. The time to do that is
42:47
Speaker 2: not when people are stuffing their face with wings two
42:49
Speaker 2: hours before the Super Bowl. Like that is not the
42:51
Speaker 2: time to do that.
42:51
Speaker 1: I very much agree with that. Very much agree with that.
42:54
Speaker 2: And then the third part here is there are all
42:57
Speaker 2: these efforts that have been afoot to try to hurt
43:00
Speaker 2: Fox in some way, shape or form. Before this and
43:03
Speaker 2: then they're sort of amplifying this moment. Like Lincoln Project
43:05
Speaker 2: and others have been running ads to tell Fox viewers
43:09
Speaker 2: that Fox lied to them, which is interesting. Except the only,
43:13
Speaker 2: I think, flaw in that plan is let's say you
43:16
Speaker 2: do finally reach some of those voters and they do
43:18
Speaker 2: get upset that Fox lied. I don't think they're going
43:20
Speaker 2: to go to PBS NewsHour for their news, right? They're
43:22
Speaker 2: just going to go somewhere else to get more radical news.
43:26
Speaker 2: And so I'm not sure that we're solving the deradicalization
43:29
Speaker 2: problem that way. And then there are these arguments about,
43:33
Speaker 2: can we do advertiser boycotts or can we more importantly
43:36
Speaker 2: convince cable companies to take Fox out of the bundle?
43:40
Speaker 2: Which I appreciate that effort Media Matters has won. It's
43:44
Speaker 2: worth putting pressure on people, but Ultimately, Fox is the
43:47
Speaker 2: most successful cable channel. And I don't know that cable
43:49
Speaker 2: companies in a dying industry are going to, out of
43:51
Speaker 2: the goodness of their heart, speaking of people who aren't
43:54
Speaker 2: into community spirit, I'm not sure Comcast is going to
43:56
Speaker 2: be like, you know what? We're willing to lose money
43:59
Speaker 2: in our dying industry for the good of democracy. I'm
44:01
Speaker 2: not sure that's going to happen. And so just my
44:03
Speaker 2: advice to people, and it is very biased advice as
44:06
Speaker 2: I summarize my progressive newsletter on my progressive podcast that
44:09
Speaker 2: is hosted by your progressive media company. is the only
44:13
Speaker 2: way we're ever going to beat Fox is to build
44:15
Speaker 2: up a progressive megaphone that can compete with it. Because
44:17
Speaker 2: Fox will go away in some shape or form, as
44:19
Speaker 2: we said, it's dying, but it's going to be replaced
44:20
Speaker 2: by something else that's probably more powerful and more dangerous.
44:23
Speaker 2: And the days in which traditional media, objective media could
44:29
Speaker 2: overwhelm that sort of propaganda and disinformation are so far gone.
44:33
Speaker 2: And to be honest with you, they're not coming back
44:34
Speaker 2: in our lifetime. And so we live in an era
44:37
Speaker 2: of ideological media. And the problem with that for us is,
44:41
Speaker 2: The right gets it and most in the left don't.
44:42
Speaker 2: And so what that means is if you are someone
44:47
Speaker 2: who spends some of your money on media, allocate some
44:50
Speaker 2: of it to progressive media. Invest in some progressive media.
44:54
Speaker 2: If you are someone who spends your time with media,
44:57
Speaker 2: allocate some of it to progressive media. Smash the subscribe
45:01
Speaker 2: button is a joke we do on Political Experts React,
45:03
Speaker 2: but it fucking matters because the more subscribers that progressive
45:08
Speaker 2: YouTube channels and Facebook pages have, the more the algorithm
45:11
Speaker 2: will show that content to people on those platforms. The
45:16
Speaker 2: right gets that. That's why Daily Wire is approximately 1
45:19
Speaker 2: trillion YouTube subscribers and all of that. And then there
45:24
Speaker 2: need to be more people investing time and energy in
45:26
Speaker 2: creating new platforms. That is ultimately how we're going to
45:28
Speaker 2: do this. All the other stuff is sort of managing
45:30
Speaker 2: the decline. Actually winning is building up a progressive megaphone.
45:34
Speaker 1: You know, that was just, I'm going to leave it
45:35
Speaker 1: there because that was just such a great pitch for
45:37
Speaker 1: Crooked Media. And I'm just kidding. I'm not going to,
45:39
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't improve on that. When we come back,
45:42
Speaker 1: Dan will talk to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake about Joe
45:45
Speaker 1: Biden's new economic plan.
45:56
Speaker 2: This week, President Biden released a budget proposal that tells
45:58
Speaker 2: us a lot about how he'll run in 2024. Joining
46:01
Speaker 2: us to talk about how it'll fly with voters is
46:03
Speaker 2: Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake. Celinda, welcome back to the pod.
46:06
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you. I love being here. And thanks for
46:08
Speaker 5: your good work and good analysis.
46:11
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Well, we'll see how that analysis goes.
46:13
Speaker 2: For really good analysis is why we invite you on
46:15
Speaker 2: the pod. So for our listeners who may not know,
46:19
Speaker 2: presidents are required by law to present an annual budget
46:21
Speaker 2: to Congress. Because this Congress will not act on it,
46:25
Speaker 2: the budget is essentially a political document, a statement of values,
46:28
Speaker 2: as are, frankly, most of the budgets that Obama put
46:30
Speaker 2: out when I worked for him. But because it's a
46:32
Speaker 2: political document, I wanted you to help us understand the
46:34
Speaker 2: political environment that Biden is putting this budget into. And
46:37
Speaker 2: it's largely an economic document. So let's start here. How
46:41
Speaker 2: are people feeling about the economy in your research? Has
46:44
Speaker 2: it changed from where it was in Election Day 2022,
46:46
Speaker 2: where people were concerned, less concerned about inflation? Do they
46:49
Speaker 2: feel a little bit better, a little bit worse? What
46:51
Speaker 2: are you hearing?
46:53
Speaker 5: So in general, people still feel negative about the economy.
46:55
Speaker 5: But they are feeling a little bit better. They're worried
47:00
Speaker 5: about recession in the future. They're worried about what steps
47:03
Speaker 5: we're going to take to get rising prices under control.
47:06
Speaker 5: But it doesn't have as much intensity as it has.
47:09
Speaker 5: And people are starting to be open now and starting
47:13
Speaker 5: to pick up more on what the president has done,
47:17
Speaker 5: like the $ 35 on insulin. Gas prices are down, which
47:22
Speaker 5: is always very vivid, particularly to men. And so there
47:25
Speaker 5: are a lot of things going on that are quite good.
47:28
Speaker 5: The number one thing that the public wants, and this
47:31
Speaker 5: has really been underreported and under understood, if you will,
47:35
Speaker 5: two thirds of voters said the most important thing for
47:38
Speaker 5: them is to have stability. They want to get on
47:40
Speaker 5: a track and they want to get going back to
47:44
Speaker 5: a better state. And that's what Joe Biden's budget plan offers.
47:47
Speaker 5: And that's what Joe Biden offers as his presidency, stability
47:51
Speaker 5: and security and making our way steadily back from the
47:54
Speaker 5: COVID economy.
47:57
Speaker 2: The I always pay attention to how the president and
48:01
Speaker 2: the staff present the budget. It's several hundred-page document. There
48:04
Speaker 2: are a million things in there. So what are the
48:06
Speaker 2: things they highlight? And they've really been leaning into how
48:09
Speaker 2: his budget is going to reduce the deficit. I was
48:11
Speaker 2: very sort of curious about that because compared to previous
48:15
Speaker 2: election cycles, we haven't heard a lot about the deficit recently.
48:18
Speaker 2: Nate Cohn wrote the other day that only one person
48:22
Speaker 2: of the 1,600 respondents he did open-ended question with said
48:25
Speaker 2: that debt, deficit, or spending was the most important problem
48:29
Speaker 2: Is there this sort of subterranean growing concern about the deficit?
48:32
Speaker 2: What is it you think the president and his team
48:35
Speaker 2: are trying to do there?
48:37
Speaker 5: I think that what the president and his team are
48:40
Speaker 5: trying to do is create a permission structure. There is
48:43
Speaker 5: a very vivid contrast here in terms of what the
48:47
Speaker 5: priorities are for spending. They want to jeopardize the economy.
48:51
Speaker 5: They want to default on our debts. They don't want
48:54
Speaker 5: to increase taxes so the wealthy and big corporations pay
48:57
Speaker 5: their fair share that They don't want a minimum tax
49:00
Speaker 5: for billionaires. They don't want to increase the investments or
49:06
Speaker 5: continue the investments we're making. But if you start from
49:09
Speaker 5: that point, a lot of independent swing voters will say, well,
49:13
Speaker 5: that's just spending. We can't afford it. Prices are already
49:16
Speaker 5: going up. I think what the emphasis on the deficit.
49:20
Speaker 5: does is to provide permission to draw these other contrasts
49:25
Speaker 5: more vividly and say, listen, we are getting the deficit down.
49:28
Speaker 5: We are doing that by cutting costs of prescription drugs,
49:32
Speaker 5: by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share,
49:36
Speaker 5: by cutting spending that doesn't make any sense. And we
49:38
Speaker 5: are not going to jeopardize Social Security. We are not
49:41
Speaker 5: going to cut Medicare. And it allows you to make
49:44
Speaker 5: those contrasts in a way that I think people will say, well,
49:47
Speaker 5: those are the right choices. The choices the Republicans are
49:51
Speaker 5: offering or the lack of choices the Republicans are offering
49:54
Speaker 5: is the wrong way to go.
49:55
Speaker 2: So sort of in a sense, maybe Republicans are going
49:59
Speaker 2: to say, we know it's the math doesn't work. It's
50:01
Speaker 2: kind of bullshit. But we're cutting the deficit and we're
50:04
Speaker 2: cutting all the stuff you may like as a part
50:06
Speaker 2: of that. And Biden's saying, I'm going to do both.
50:08
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a bunch of deficit reduction over here.
50:10
Speaker 2: Some of it's very popular, like raising taxes on the
50:13
Speaker 2: wealthy or the prescription drug stuff. But because we're doing that,
50:16
Speaker 2: we can do these other things we know we need
50:18
Speaker 2: to do. Is that what you're saying?
50:20
Speaker 5: That's right. And it gives permission to draw the contrast.
50:24
Speaker 5: So it's not big spender versus no spending. It's smart
50:29
Speaker 5: spending versus jeopardizing our economy cutting Social Security and Medicare,
50:34
Speaker 5: which are sacred promises to our seniors.
50:38
Speaker 2: The other thing that the White House has really emphasized
50:40
Speaker 2: is the plan to strengthen Medicare. The president rolled it
50:43
Speaker 2: out in a New York Times op-ed a couple of
50:45
Speaker 2: days ago. He said he would extend the solvency by
50:47
Speaker 2: 25 years, in part by some increase in taxes on
50:51
Speaker 2: the very wealthy, making over $ 400, 000, and expanding the prescription
50:55
Speaker 2: drug provisions that he passed as part of the Inflation
50:59
Speaker 2: Reduction Act. We all sort of know intuitively that Medicare
51:04
Speaker 2: and Social Security are politically powerful issues. But one thing
51:08
Speaker 2: that I think some folks are curious about is, one,
51:11
Speaker 2: do they work with younger voters, voters under 40? And
51:15
Speaker 2: are they– we see the polling that shows that even
51:18
Speaker 2: Trump voters don't want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
51:20
Speaker 2: But is that sufficient or is that an issue that
51:24
Speaker 2: really could drive a wedge in the Republican coalition?
51:28
Speaker 5: It's an issue that could definitely drive a wedge in
51:30
Speaker 5: the Republican coalition, starting actually with rural voters, because rural
51:35
Speaker 5: voters are disproportionately dependent on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
51:41
Speaker 5: I grew up on a ranch in Montana. We never
51:43
Speaker 5: had health insurance the whole time I was growing up.
51:45
Speaker 5: And I can remember sitting around kitchen tables and people
51:48
Speaker 5: would say when Joe had his 60th or 65th birthday.
51:51
Speaker 5: But at least now we get Medicare first insurance for
51:54
Speaker 5: lots of farm and ranch families. or the first plan
51:57
Speaker 5: that isn't a high deductible plan. So this is a
52:01
Speaker 5: great wedge. And what's happened is with Trump, for a
52:06
Speaker 5: long time, the Republicans and independent voters didn't believe that
52:10
Speaker 5: Trump would cut Medicare and Social Security. This budget fight
52:15
Speaker 5: is a great opportunity to say, no, look at their plan.
52:19
Speaker 5: Look at what Rick Scott put on the table. Look
52:22
Speaker 5: at what these candidates endorsed. Look at what their budget
52:25
Speaker 5: is addressing. People also think that Social Security would be
52:28
Speaker 5: just fine if politicians would keep their mitts off the money.
52:32
Speaker 5: But they think that Medicare could be in trouble because
52:35
Speaker 5: of rising health care costs. So it's very reassuring to
52:38
Speaker 5: them that there's a plan here to make Medicare more
52:42
Speaker 5: solvent and including getting prescription drug prices down. And it
52:47
Speaker 5: goes back to that. What do voters want? They want stability,
52:50
Speaker 5: number one. They want security, number one. That's particularly true
52:55
Speaker 5: for women voters. And this is saying to those voters,
52:58
Speaker 5: we know what's going on. We're going to make this
53:00
Speaker 5: program stable. We're going to keep your Medicare. You don't
53:03
Speaker 5: have to worry about it.
53:06
Speaker 2: This budget has been talked about, and I frankly talked
53:08
Speaker 2: about it in the context of a 2024 reelection blueprint
53:11
Speaker 2: or roadmap. But it's also the first volley in the
53:15
Speaker 2: upcoming debt ceiling battle that's going to happen later this summer.
53:19
Speaker 2: As you sort of look towards that fight, are there
53:22
Speaker 2: things that you worry about for Democrats? We know we
53:24
Speaker 2: sort of hold the high ground on Medicare and Social
53:26
Speaker 2: Security and some of the other budget cuts, but are
53:29
Speaker 2: there sort of, as you advise Democrats on how to
53:33
Speaker 2: talk about this, are there some guideposts or things we
53:36
Speaker 2: should be aware of?
53:37
Speaker 5: Yes, I think the first thing is don't debate the
53:40
Speaker 5: debt ceiling as the debt ceiling, because it's terrain that
53:45
Speaker 5: Republicans are stronger on. What you need to debate is
53:49
Speaker 5: whether we're going to default on our bills and whether
53:53
Speaker 5: we're going to torch the economy in the process. Are
53:56
Speaker 5: we going to introduce this major instability by defaulting on
54:02
Speaker 5: our debts and our bills? And Joe Biden comes across
54:05
Speaker 5: very strongly on that. But I would warn other Democrats,
54:10
Speaker 5: don't get tied up debating the debt ceiling. That's a
54:14
Speaker 5: dead ringer. Debate whether or not You're going to torch
54:17
Speaker 5: the economy, whether you're going to let the economy default,
54:20
Speaker 5: whether you're going to let people default in their debt,
54:24
Speaker 5: which could be a national and global crisis.
54:27
Speaker 2: You know, in 2022, you know, we're talking about this
54:29
Speaker 2: in the economy. We've all sort of worked in our
54:31
Speaker 2: careers in politics under the guise of it's the economy, stupid.
54:34
Speaker 2: That it's always the single most important issue. And then
54:37
Speaker 2: in 2022, a surprisingly large segment of voters that were
54:41
Speaker 2: concerned about inflation or disapproved of Joe Biden on the economy,
54:44
Speaker 2: voted for Democrats anyway because they prioritized other issues. They
54:48
Speaker 2: were more worried about extremism, on abortion, or the big lie,
54:52
Speaker 2: or all of those sorts of things. Do you think
54:55
Speaker 2: that was an anomaly, or are we seeing other issues
54:58
Speaker 2: rise to the surface? Or are we sort of seeing
55:00
Speaker 2: the end of it's the economy, stupid sort of politics?
55:05
Speaker 5: I think it was an anomaly. And I think it
55:07
Speaker 5: was also the fact that people don't expect their local
55:10
Speaker 5: congressperson or even their senator to solve the economy. They
55:13
Speaker 5: do expect the president to solve the economy. So I
55:17
Speaker 5: think that, and I'm really pleased to see the administration
55:21
Speaker 5: emphasize so much its economic message and repeat and repeat
55:25
Speaker 5: and repeat to break through because it's so frustrating how
55:29
Speaker 5: little people know what they've done for the economy. But
55:32
Speaker 5: it's going to be the economy stupid in 2024. And
55:36
Speaker 5: what I want to make sure is that when we're
55:38
Speaker 5: talking about the deficit and the debt and the budget,
55:42
Speaker 5: We don't forget the economy because the budget is inherently
55:46
Speaker 5: a very awkward prism for discussing the economy. And I
55:51
Speaker 5: think we need to make sure that our economic message
55:55
Speaker 5: takes advantage of the opportunities and the contrast in the
55:58
Speaker 5: budget document, but that we lay out more fulsomely our
56:03
Speaker 5: economic vision for the future and our economic vision for
56:07
Speaker 5: jobs and wages and health care costs. Because the budget
56:13
Speaker 5: has alone is just a very flawed vehicle for discussing
56:18
Speaker 5: an economic vision.
56:20
Speaker 2: It's frankly, it's one that takes place on traditionally Republican territory,
56:24
Speaker 2: because we're now talking about spending and deficits as opposed
56:28
Speaker 2: to growth and jobs, which is where in wages where
56:31
Speaker 2: we have been stronger, traditionally, at least.
56:33
Speaker 5: That's right. And I think in the end, voters also
56:36
Speaker 5: think it's a lot of political games. And it is
56:39
Speaker 5: in this case, yes. Well, there you go. You can
56:42
Speaker 5: only keep the voters so long. And they also are
56:45
Speaker 5: not going to hold their individual member of Congress responsible
56:48
Speaker 5: for the entire federal deficit. The thing that I think
56:53
Speaker 5: Democrats have to keep focused on is on election day,
56:57
Speaker 5: we have to be even or ahead on the economy.
57:00
Speaker 5: We have never won the presidency when we have not
57:03
Speaker 5: been even or ahead. That's our goal. That's what we
57:06
Speaker 5: got to keep focused on.
57:08
Speaker 2: Were we even or ahead in 2020 on the economy?
57:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, we pulled up even by election day.
57:16
Speaker 2: You recently surveyed voters in, quote unquote, factory towns and
57:19
Speaker 2: battleground states like Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio. And that was
57:23
Speaker 2: with the group American Family Forces. That was a fascinating
57:26
Speaker 2: survey that really laid out some of the challenges for Democrats.
57:29
Speaker 2: I would recommend that everyone read it. I think it's
57:31
Speaker 2: an incredibly important document. But could you maybe walk us
57:34
Speaker 2: through some of the big takeaways from that research?
57:37
Speaker 5: So this is Mike Lux's vision, and it's really very,
57:41
Speaker 5: very exciting. So the first thing is we're focused so
57:44
Speaker 5: much on what we've lost in rural America. And again,
57:48
Speaker 5: I come from rural America. Rural America is important. But
57:51
Speaker 5: what Mike identified working with Target Smart and others was
57:55
Speaker 5: that the real losses and the bigger losses have actually
57:58
Speaker 5: been in factory towns, small towns that used to be
58:02
Speaker 5: the manufacturing base. that aren't anymore. They dominate the Midwest,
58:06
Speaker 5: but they're also present in places like Georgia and North Carolina.
58:11
Speaker 5: These three things are happening in these towns. First of all,
58:15
Speaker 5: they're very populist economically. They really are anti-big corporations, wealthy
58:21
Speaker 5: big corporations, anti-CEOs. They think they've been taken advantage of.
58:25
Speaker 5: The best thing to call Fox News, by the way,
58:28
Speaker 5: in these factory towns is to call them corporate media.
58:32
Speaker 5: These towns hate corporate media. And now we're seeing Fox
58:36
Speaker 5: really proving to have been corporate media after all, which
58:39
Speaker 5: is what we knew all the way along. They're very
58:41
Speaker 5: interested in trade. They're interested in bringing manufacturing back. They're
58:45
Speaker 5: interested in wages. They're pro labor unions and labor unions
58:49
Speaker 5: are very strong spokespeople to them because they once had
58:53
Speaker 5: labor unions or their grandfathers and fathers were in labor unions.
58:57
Speaker 5: And so while they're not labor members today, They're very,
59:01
Speaker 5: very responsive to that view of the economy. They also
59:04
Speaker 5: believe that all of their friends and neighbors and half
59:07
Speaker 5: of their relatives are Trumpists. And they think, okay, I'm
59:10
Speaker 5: just keeping my head down low. I'm not saying anything
59:13
Speaker 5: because I'm surrounded by Trump supporters. And so social math
59:17
Speaker 5: is very important to them. Letting them know, no, there
59:20
Speaker 5: are a whole bunch of people in this neighborhood who
59:22
Speaker 5: believe in that chips factory that's being brought in, who
59:26
Speaker 5: believe that we ought to be tough on China with trade.
59:28
Speaker 5: who believe that we ought to bring manufacturing home, who
59:32
Speaker 5: believe that renewable energy can generate jobs here at home,
59:37
Speaker 5: and who believe that the wealthy and big corporations ought
59:39
Speaker 5: to pay their fair share, and that there should be
59:42
Speaker 5: a billionaire minimum tax. Why should a secretary be guaranteed
59:46
Speaker 5: a minimum tax, but a billionaire is not? So there's
59:50
Speaker 5: a lot to talk about in these cities, these small
59:54
Speaker 5: towns and cities, and they're like the Flint, Michigan, the Ottumwa, Iowas,
59:58
Speaker 5: the Waukesha, Wisconsin, these are places of great opportunity for us.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: And your research shows that a democratic economic message, if
1:00:11
Speaker 2: delivered consistently and credibly, can overcome some of the culture
1:00:16
Speaker 2: war stuff from Republicans that's been pretty effective at moving
1:00:19
Speaker 2: some of these voters out of our column, despite our
1:00:21
Speaker 2: shared policies on the economy.
1:00:23
Speaker 5: Yeah. So that was really interesting. It was a tough
1:00:26
Speaker 5: test that we did. We put up, these places are
1:00:29
Speaker 5: being hit very, very hard with cultural messaging. And we
1:00:33
Speaker 5: have good answers on the cultural messaging. But what we
1:00:36
Speaker 5: said is, can a populist economic message beat back the
1:00:40
Speaker 5: cultural wars? And it was resounding. It absolutely did. In fact,
1:00:44
Speaker 5: these folks are far more interested in jobs and then
1:00:48
Speaker 5: what kind of sex education their fifth grade teacher is
1:00:52
Speaker 5: giving their kids. or their grandkid. And so this is
1:00:57
Speaker 5: a way to beat back. It's a twofer, right? It
1:00:59
Speaker 5: puts us ahead on the economy and it beats back
1:01:02
Speaker 5: the cultural wars that the Republicans are trying to wedge
1:01:04
Speaker 5: right now in these rural and small town areas.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: So Linda, this is fascinating stuff. Thank you so much
1:01:10
Speaker 2: for joining us. Super interesting as always. And we can't
1:01:13
Speaker 2: wait to talk to you again soon. I love it.
1:01:15
Speaker 5: And thanks for your great questions and your fabulous analysis.
1:01:19
Speaker 2: Only superseded by your even more fabulous analysis. So thank you.
1:01:22
Speaker 5: That's very kind.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: We have to have real experts who talk to real
1:01:24
Speaker 2: voters on here periodically.
1:01:26
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks so much.
1:01:37
Speaker 1: All right, before we go, Elijah's back to play another
1:01:42
Speaker 1: round of Take, Take, Don't Tell Me. Elijah, tell us
1:01:44
Speaker 1: about the rules.
1:01:45
Speaker 7: I will, but first I got to say, if you're
1:01:47
Speaker 7: the audience, you just heard the Celinda Lake interview, but
1:01:49
Speaker 7: for us, we just heard Dan talking about how you
1:01:51
Speaker 7: should subscribe to the Crooked Media YouTube channel and the
1:01:54
Speaker 7: whole video Slack. We're freaking out. Dan, wow. You won.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: I won the Crooked Media video Slack channel. I don't
1:02:07
Speaker 2: know how I'm going to get through this weekend.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: Honestly, tough crowd, tough crowd. So I think that's pretty good.
1:02:11
Speaker 7: All right. I'll explain the rules now.
1:02:14
Speaker 2: Look, if you can't win the video channel at an
1:02:16
Speaker 2: audio company.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: We're a multimedia company, Dan.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I apologize. That was very
1:02:26
Speaker 2: 2017 to me.
1:02:28
Speaker 7: Yeah, real cross-platform outlet here. Okay, let's do it. Welcome
1:02:33
Speaker 7: to the second installment of Take Take, Don't Tell Me.
1:02:36
Speaker 7: This is Dan's first time playing... So this is how
1:02:40
Speaker 7: it works. I'm going to present you both with five
1:02:42
Speaker 7: news stories. You haven't seen these news stories. You're going
1:02:46
Speaker 7: to have to rank them from best to worst, with
1:02:49
Speaker 7: the worst story being number one. Here is the catch.
1:02:53
Speaker 7: You don't know the takes that are coming, so be
1:02:55
Speaker 7: careful not to fill that number one slot too early.
1:02:58
Speaker 7: Are you guys both ready?
1:03:00
Speaker 1: So ready. Dan, do you understand the rules?
1:03:02
Speaker 2: Tell me again.
1:03:06
Speaker 7: Blind ranking blind blind resume season and.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: We do have it's not each of us ranking we
1:03:10
Speaker 1: both have to agree together on them okay.
1:03:14
Speaker 2: So we're not building so there's no chance i'm gonna
1:03:16
Speaker 2: lose to john yet again in another game here no.
1:03:20
Speaker 7: You you can only lose to yourselves in this.
1:03:23
Speaker 2: One fucking the story of democratic politics i'll tell you that.
1:03:29
Speaker 7: All right, we'll kick it off with a classic meat
1:03:32
Speaker 7: and potatoes take that was sent in from Pod Save
1:03:34
Speaker 7: America fan at GP2K on Twitter. It's a piece from
1:03:38
Speaker 7: Brookings titled, Is this the end of Trump? Yes, but
1:03:42
Speaker 7: that's not good news for Democrats. So there's two takes
1:03:45
Speaker 7: in that headline. The piece basically argues that not having
1:03:49
Speaker 7: Donald Trump is bad for Democrats because he takes up
1:03:51
Speaker 7: media attention and he's uniquely bad and he makes the
1:03:54
Speaker 7: Republican Party worse. Here's a quote. Donald Trump is in trouble.
1:03:59
Speaker 7: A return to a more normal Republican Party may be
1:04:02
Speaker 7: good for America, but could pose a problem for some
1:04:04
Speaker 7: Democrats who need to build a stronger rationale for their
1:04:08
Speaker 7: party than we're not Trump.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: What do you guys think? I kind of want to
1:04:15
Speaker 1: give that fifth place because I might. There's some truth
1:04:19
Speaker 1: to that. To be completely honest with you. Look, I
1:04:25
Speaker 1: don't want to be like Tucker Carlson. Just tell you
1:04:26
Speaker 1: what you want to hear. Might be a little truth
1:04:29
Speaker 1: to that take.
1:04:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think strategically it makes sense just to leave
1:04:33
Speaker 2: our options open for the rest. So, yeah, I agree
1:04:35
Speaker 2: with that.
1:04:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:37
Speaker 7: Do you think that it is the end of Trump?
1:04:39
Speaker 1: Oh, no, that I'm not going to. I guess I
1:04:43
Speaker 1: was responding more to the part of the take that, like,
1:04:45
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to need to make a stronger case
1:04:47
Speaker 1: once Trump departs, which I agree with. I don't, yeah,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: I have no idea if it's the end of Trump.
1:04:53
Speaker 2: We don't do predictions here, Elijah.
1:04:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you know. Nice try, though. Nice try getting
1:04:57
Speaker 1: us to try to predict.
1:04:58
Speaker 7: All right, cool. Well, we'll go ahead and put that
1:05:01
Speaker 7: at number five. The end of Trump is bad for Democrats. Sorry,
1:05:06
Speaker 7: the problem with this game is I have to type
1:05:07
Speaker 7: the list in real time. There's a lot of scrolling,
1:05:09
Speaker 7: there's a lot of takes, but okay. Next take. I'm
1:05:12
Speaker 7: really excited for this one. I texted it to Madeline
1:05:15
Speaker 7: and Andy super early this morning. I think it broke
1:05:17
Speaker 7: both of their brains. This is a piece from the
1:05:20
Speaker 7: Wall Street Journal titled, The Fox News Lawsuit and the
1:05:23
Speaker 7: Public Taste for Lies. So this piece is hiding behind
1:05:27
Speaker 7: a seemingly non-problematic headline, but the author makes the case
1:05:32
Speaker 7: that the Fox News lies about the election are basically
1:05:35
Speaker 7: on par with the media's handling of Hunter Biden's laptop
1:05:38
Speaker 7: and COVID. It then argues that the tax revealing that
1:05:41
Speaker 7: the Fox News host knew they were lying is actually
1:05:44
Speaker 7: a good thing because it shows their quote that they
1:05:48
Speaker 7: kept their wits and that they took accountability. Here is
1:05:53
Speaker 7: an excerpt. When are the lives of a disreputable and
1:05:57
Speaker 7: widely discredited figure like Mr. Trump a bigger danger to
1:06:00
Speaker 7: the republic than the lives that receive near universal endorsement
1:06:04
Speaker 7: of the establishment and its institutions?
1:06:06
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a pretty bad take. What do you
1:06:12
Speaker 1: think of Dan?
1:06:16
Speaker 2: Once again, I'm trying to think about this strategically, like
1:06:18
Speaker 2: a very McCarthy way. So I think maybe we want
1:06:21
Speaker 2: to go with three.
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to say two or three. I'm
1:06:24
Speaker 1: comfortable with three.
1:06:25
Speaker 2: That way we got room for a less good take
1:06:28
Speaker 2: or less bad take, and we still got some real
1:06:31
Speaker 2: winners here.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: All right, let's slot it into three.
1:06:35
Speaker 7: Would you guys say that texting in private, that you're
1:06:37
Speaker 7: lying in public, is being accountable?
1:06:41
Speaker 1: No, that's the antithesis of accountability.
1:06:45
Speaker 2: Well, it's personal accountability. We tell people to take accountability
1:06:48
Speaker 2: for themselves all the time, so maybe that's what they're doing.
1:06:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, that one is really special.
1:06:55
Speaker 2: Can you tell us the author? Is that a secret?
1:06:58
Speaker 7: Oh, no, I can totally tell you the author. I
1:07:00
Speaker 7: actually prepped for this. I put it in the doc.
1:07:01
Speaker 7: So it's Holman Jenkins. Holman Holman.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: Never heard of that person. But I will note also
1:07:09
Speaker 1: that I almost want to make this one, too, but
1:07:12
Speaker 1: I'll do three because this was also written in Murdoch paper.
1:07:16
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
1:07:19
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
1:07:21
Speaker 7: It is the number one story on the Wall Street
1:07:24
Speaker 7: Journal today. They do rank their stories.
1:07:27
Speaker 1: Of course.
1:07:27
Speaker 2: If I was going to write a novel and one
1:07:30
Speaker 2: of the characters was going to be sort of a preppy,
1:07:35
Speaker 2: shitty Republican takeover, Holman Jenkins would be a good name
1:07:39
Speaker 2: for that character.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:07:40
Speaker 7: Technically Holman Jenkins Jr., which is even better.
1:07:43
Speaker 2: Oh, it should be. You know what? Holman Jenkins III
1:07:46
Speaker 2: is the way you go with this.
1:07:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:07:48
Speaker 7: So he's building a legacy. Okay, I'm trying to think
1:07:52
Speaker 7: which one I want to do next. Let's do this
1:07:54
Speaker 7: one next. Many people sent it to me, including Dan Pfeiffer.
1:07:57
Speaker 7: We have to go back in time a little bit.
1:07:59
Speaker 7: It's a piece from the New York Times titled, In
1:08:01
Speaker 7: the Fog of East Palestine's Crisis, Politicians Write Their Own Stories.
1:08:05
Speaker 2: Number one.
1:08:06
Speaker 1: Number one.
1:08:07
Speaker 2: Number one. Absolutely number one. With a fucking bullet. Put
1:08:11
Speaker 2: it right at the top. I mean, you should tell
1:08:13
Speaker 2: the audience the take, but it's number one.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, give us the take.
1:08:18
Speaker 7: Okay, just in case you need a reminder, a train
1:08:20
Speaker 7: derailed in East Palisade, Ohio. There was an environmental catastrophe. This,
1:08:24
Speaker 7: of course, came in the wake of several train industry
1:08:26
Speaker 7: deregulations from the Trump administration. Here's a quote from the author.
1:08:31
Speaker 7: Democrats see East Palisade as actions and consequences. Rail regulations
1:08:36
Speaker 7: were gutted, blame assigned. Republicans see it more as an
1:08:40
Speaker 7: operatic narrative, a forgotten town in a flyover stage struggling
1:08:44
Speaker 7: against an uncaring megacorporation and an unseeing government. In some sense,
1:08:49
Speaker 7: both sides are right. Both sides are wrong. And the
1:08:52
Speaker 7: bifurcated politics of this American moment, none of those arguments
1:08:56
Speaker 7: matter much.
1:08:57
Speaker 1: Was this Jonathan Weissman or Jeremy Peters?
1:08:59
Speaker 2: Jonathan Weissman. Weissman. Jeremy Peters wrote a very similar piece,
1:09:02
Speaker 2: but you have to find and replace rural disaster with
1:09:06
Speaker 2: Fox News.
1:09:08
Speaker 1: Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, no, I'm very comfortable with
1:09:10
Speaker 1: this being number one. Also, the whole like Republicans see
1:09:13
Speaker 1: it as and everything that followed that. Hi, I'm a Democrat.
1:09:16
Speaker 1: I see it as that too. Uncaring corporation, unseen government,
1:09:20
Speaker 1: meaning the Trump administration, which repealed all the regulations. Like,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: a town that's been forgotten? Yeah, no, I'm there on
1:09:28
Speaker 1: all of that. It's just not a fucking Republican thing
1:09:30
Speaker 1: to think.
1:09:31
Speaker 2: Just also, what a fucking dunderhead to put both sides
1:09:36
Speaker 2: in the quote itself. Like, talk about on the nose.
1:09:40
Speaker 1: That makes me feel like he is trying to troll
1:09:43
Speaker 1: his critics at that point. Like, you know... At this point,
1:09:47
Speaker 1: you know that both sides has become a punchline, the
1:09:49
Speaker 1: phrase both sides, and you're putting it in your piece.
1:09:53
Speaker 1: You think Jonathan Weissman is too stupid is what you're.
1:09:55
Speaker 2: Going to say. I'm not going to say too stupid.
1:09:57
Speaker 2: I don't think that's nice.
1:09:58
Speaker 1: I can see it on your face.
1:10:00
Speaker 2: It might be oblivious enough to have done that. I
1:10:03
Speaker 2: will say that when we play this game at the
1:10:06
Speaker 2: end of the year, I think this one has secured
1:10:09
Speaker 2: its spot in the top 10 worst takes of the
1:10:11
Speaker 2: year already, and we're not even– Wow.
1:10:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:10:14
Speaker 4: Wow.
1:10:15
Speaker 1: Make that note, Elijah. Make that note.
1:10:17
Speaker 7: I know Olivia Martinez is already writing that down. Fantastic
1:10:20
Speaker 7: producer here. Yeah, that was really a great idea. So
1:10:22
Speaker 7: we wanted it at number one.
1:10:24
Speaker 2: That's where I would like it. Chad may disagree.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. Let's do it.
1:10:28
Speaker 7: Okay, so to recap before we go to the next story,
1:10:30
Speaker 7: we have number five, the end of Trump is bad
1:10:32
Speaker 7: for Democrats. Number three, Fox News lying is not a
1:10:36
Speaker 7: big deal. It may actually be good. And number one,
1:10:40
Speaker 7: both sides in East Palestine. So you have the number
1:10:42
Speaker 7: two and number four slots still available.
1:10:45
Speaker 6: Interesting.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go.
1:10:47
Speaker 7: So for number four, it's not really a take. We're
1:10:49
Speaker 7: going to assign part of this a take, but you
1:10:51
Speaker 7: guys requested that we talk about this Elon Musk public
1:10:53
Speaker 7: feud with his employee. I have a ton of context here,
1:10:59
Speaker 7: so please just interrupt me at any time. So it's
1:11:02
Speaker 7: not just like me reading. So in case you missed this,
1:11:08
Speaker 7: this started when a Twitter employee named Hallie Thorleifson publicly
1:11:13
Speaker 7: asked Elon Musk on Twitter... about why he wasn't able
1:11:16
Speaker 7: to access any of his work, and why Twitter HR
1:11:19
Speaker 7: wasn't responding to him, and if he'd been laid off
1:11:21
Speaker 7: by Twitter. In the following exchanges, Elon Musk publicly said
1:11:25
Speaker 7: that Hallie didn't do any real work, and that Hallie
1:11:28
Speaker 7: was using his disability as an excuse. He mocked him
1:11:31
Speaker 7: with memes for the movie Office Space. He said Hallie
1:11:34
Speaker 7: no longer was working at the company, but he wasn't
1:11:36
Speaker 7: fired because, quote, you can't be fired if you weren't
1:11:39
Speaker 7: doing any real work anyway. He also simply said, quote,
1:11:42
Speaker 7: He's the worst, which we'll go ahead and use as
1:11:44
Speaker 7: shorthand for our take here. We'll go on in the story,
1:11:47
Speaker 7: but do you guys want to respond to any of that?
1:11:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he didn't just mock his disability. He basically
1:11:52
Speaker 1: said that the disability wasn't real. And then this guy
1:11:55
Speaker 1: came back and was like, oh, actually, I have muscular dystrophy.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: That's what Elon Musk did. Dan? The guy's a shit.
1:12:01
Speaker 1: The guy's a shit.
1:12:04
Speaker 2: My only thought is the person who I learned about
1:12:06
Speaker 2: this from via their tweets and also the person who
1:12:09
Speaker 2: suggested this be one of the takes for this game.
1:12:13
Speaker 2: Is the host of Crooked Media's podcast offline?
1:12:17
Speaker 1: You know what? We used that joke last time I
1:12:20
Speaker 1: complained about Elon Musk on this podcast.
1:12:23
Speaker 2: And I'm probably going to use it the next time
1:12:25
Speaker 2: you do, too, just as a fair reward. It's like,
1:12:27
Speaker 2: I love it here. I got like one joke. I'm
1:12:29
Speaker 2: not going to give it up. I've come down the line.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: Now, are we supposed to rank this thing that happened
1:12:37
Speaker 1: or what's the take?
1:12:38
Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
1:12:40
Speaker 7: Well, I'll continue on so you can appreciate the full
1:12:43
Speaker 7: thing of the story here, because I think we have
1:12:44
Speaker 7: to go into some of Howie Thorleifson's replies to Elon
1:12:46
Speaker 7: Musk and who he is. Howie Thorleifson is a designer
1:12:50
Speaker 7: who sold his company to Twitter for an undisclosed amount
1:12:52
Speaker 7: of money. He, as John noted, has muscular dystrophy and
1:12:55
Speaker 7: was actually named Iceland's Person of the Year last year.
1:12:58
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:13:00
Speaker 7: Got in his own shots at Musk, saying things like,
1:13:02
Speaker 7: I've worked at big companies like Twitter when it started
1:13:05
Speaker 7: and small companies like Twitter today. That's funny. The story
1:13:11
Speaker 7: ultimately concludes with Elon Musk apologizing publicly to Hallie, saying,
1:13:16
Speaker 7: I did a video call with them. It's a long story.
1:13:18
Speaker 7: Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet. I
1:13:21
Speaker 7: want to apologize to Hallie for the misunderstanding of his situation.
1:13:28
Speaker 7: For ranking the take, we could just go with Hallie
1:13:30
Speaker 7: is the worst.
1:13:33
Speaker 2: That's got to be two, then, right?
1:13:34
Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be two. It's one of
1:13:36
Speaker 1: the biggest owns on Twitter. In the history of Twitter.
1:13:43
Speaker 2: It was a real choice to lean into this one.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: Real choice.
1:13:46
Speaker 2: And then keep it going for hours.
1:13:48
Speaker 7: It would appear that Elon Musk exposed himself legally to
1:13:53
Speaker 7: a very large degree, and that led to the retraction there.
1:13:57
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:13:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say so.
1:13:59
Speaker 7: John, I mean, you have a company with several employees.
1:14:01
Speaker 7: Could you imagine doing this kind of thing? No.
1:14:04
Speaker 1: No. No. I keep that kind of stuff to slack. Yeah.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: Just kidding. Just kidding, everyone. Just kidding. All right, let's
1:14:14
Speaker 1: give us the, what's the last one.
1:14:16
Speaker 7: So you, it's the number four slot. Uh, my employee who's,
1:14:19
Speaker 7: who also is the person of the year is actually
1:14:21
Speaker 7: the worst is number two. Um, let's end with this
1:14:25
Speaker 7: piece that set the crooked slack on fire last week.
1:14:28
Speaker 7: It's from the Washington post and it's titled the Biden's
1:14:32
Speaker 7: ordered the same dish at a restaurant. Who does that? Uh,
1:14:37
Speaker 7: The piece notes that the Biden went out to a
1:14:39
Speaker 7: restaurant called the Red Hen, not that Red Hen, and
1:14:42
Speaker 7: ordered the same thing. For those interested, it was rigatoni.
1:14:44
Speaker 7: Here's an excerpt from the piece. For many, it's verboten
1:14:48
Speaker 7: to choose the same entree as one's dining partner. It
1:14:50
Speaker 7: quotes someone who says, getting the same thing as the
1:14:53
Speaker 7: person you're eating dinner with is silly. The whole point
1:14:56
Speaker 7: of going out to eat is getting to try as
1:14:58
Speaker 7: many things as possible. This is our number four automatically,
1:15:02
Speaker 7: but any thoughts?
1:15:04
Speaker 1: You know what? I'm very comfortable with this in number four,
1:15:07
Speaker 1: I should say, because I think it is the same
1:15:11
Speaker 1: sort of level as that number five Trump take, but
1:15:14
Speaker 1: it has angered me a little bit more just because
1:15:16
Speaker 1: it's like, stop telling people what the fuck to get
1:15:19
Speaker 1: when they go out to restaurants. They can get the
1:15:20
Speaker 1: same dishes as their partner. They can get a different
1:15:22
Speaker 1: dish as their partner. It doesn't fucking matter to you.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: Mind your own fucking business. Mind your own fucking business.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: Everyone's too fucking nosy.
1:15:32
Speaker 2: Move to the free state of Florida. Yeah, I'm with John.
1:15:37
Speaker 2: Order what you want. Eat what you want. I don't
1:15:40
Speaker 2: even care if it's the President of the United States.
1:15:41
Speaker 2: Mind your business. My family, we don't order the same
1:15:44
Speaker 2: dish ever because we like to share, but other people
1:15:47
Speaker 2: can do other things. Sometimes you go to a restaurant
1:15:49
Speaker 2: that has something that's so fucking good that you don't
1:15:50
Speaker 2: want a half portion of it. You want the whole portion.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: Right. Sometimes maybe Emily and I order the same dish.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: Sometimes a different dish. Who the fuck cares? Mind your
1:16:01
Speaker 1: own business.
1:16:04
Speaker 7: Also, as Sarah Lazar was pointing out, Biden's like, he's old.
1:16:08
Speaker 1: He knows.
1:16:09
Speaker 7: He knows what he wants.
1:16:10
Speaker 1: Dr.
1:16:11
Speaker 7: Jill Biden, she knows what she wants. They can get
1:16:12
Speaker 7: the same thing. If it's a new restaurant, maybe not,
1:16:14
Speaker 7: but they've been to every restaurant at this point.
1:16:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:16:17
Speaker 7: So, anyway.
1:16:18
Speaker 5: All right.
1:16:19
Speaker 7: The final list, number five, the end of Trump is
1:16:21
Speaker 7: bad for Democrats. Number four, the Biden thing is bad.
1:16:24
Speaker 7: Number three, Fox News lying isn't a big deal. Maybe
1:16:28
Speaker 7: it's actually good. Number two, My employee who is the
1:16:31
Speaker 7: person of the year is the worst. And number one,
1:16:35
Speaker 7: both sides in East Palestine. How do you guys think
1:16:37
Speaker 7: you did?
1:16:38
Speaker 1: I think we fucking nailed it, Dan.
1:16:40
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. There's no other way to order that.
1:16:42
Speaker 2: That is objectively correct.
1:16:45
Speaker 1: I'm two for two in this game.
1:16:49
Speaker 2: I'm two for two. I'm subjectively assessing my results in
1:16:53
Speaker 2: this game.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: In my podcast, my company. Yes. I'm basically Tiger Carlson
1:17:01
Speaker 1: right now. Thank you once again to Elijah for taking
1:17:05
Speaker 1: us through the takes. Thank you to Celinda Lake for
1:17:07
Speaker 1: joining us and everyone have a great weekend. We'll see
1:17:10
Speaker 1: you next week.
1:17:10
Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
1:17:16
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:17:19
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
1:17:23
Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
1:17:26
Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
1:17:29
Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
1:17:32
Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
1:17:38
Speaker 1: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
1:17:42
Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.