Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Deports Noem

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Trump Deports Noem · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: On today's show, Donald Trump fires Kristi Noem like a dog.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Who she shot. We'll dig into the congressional hearings that
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: finally brought her down and talk about why Pam Bondi
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: will be in the hot seat next. We'll also discuss
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: the latest with Trump's war in Iran and why some
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Democrats aren't ruling out funding it. Then Dan talks to
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: our friend Jonathan Martin, senior political columnist at Politico, about
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Tuesday night's primary results and Republican strategy heading into the midterms.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: And finally, I'll tell you why RFK Jr. can take
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: this delicious, oversized vat of caffeine and chemicals out of
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: my cold, dead hands.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I've got a lot of questions for you on this topic.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Just be prepared.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm ready with answers, Dan.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I have no doubt. I have no doubt.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: This is my second Dunkin' Coffee of the day. I
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: did this just for the prop.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Just note that every morning through some format, John complains
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: about how little sleep he gets. I'm sure these two
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: things are unrelated.
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• 4:17
  Speaker 3: let's start with the big news of the moment. Kristi
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Noem has been deported from the Department of Homeland Security
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: along with her top advisor and reported fuck buddy, Corey Lewandowski.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: Oh, man.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Trump announced that he's nominating Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: former MMA fighter, to replace her and that Noem will become, quote,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: special envoy... For the Shield of the Americas, our new
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: security initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Christy for her service at,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: in quotations, Homeland. If you're wondering what finally led to
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Nome's firing, let's start with a fun compilation from her
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: dual appearances before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees this week.
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: Have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: Mr.
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: tabloid garbage.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: I know you said it's garbage, and it may be,
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: but I really think you need to say the word
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: no into the record so that you can clear that up.
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: I think the ridiculousness of this and the tabloids that
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: you are quoting and referencing are insane. And this has
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: been something that I've refuted for years and I continue.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: To do that.
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: We used a 737.
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: I've been on it once, but it is being used
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: by other administration officials and it is used for command
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: and control flights.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: What kind of deportee justifies being flown out of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: country in a luxury jet with a bedroom and accommodations?
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: Like this.
• 5:53
  Speaker 8: A 14 month old dog is basically a teenager in
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you
• 5:59
  Speaker 8: had not invested the appropriate time and training. And then
• 6:02
  Speaker 8: you have the audacity to go into a book and
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices. Those are
• 6:08
  Speaker 8: bad decisions.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Made in the heat of the moment. Not unlike what
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: happened up in Minneapolis.
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: I just asked if you had anything you wanted to
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: say to the parents or to the family of Renee
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: Good after you called them domestic terrorists. I can't even
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: imagine what they have gone through in the loss of
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: their son, in the loss of their family members.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely tragic.
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  Speaker 7: But how about specifically calling them domestic terrorists without any
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: evidence of that?
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: Ma'am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I
• 6:38
  Speaker 6: said it appeared to be an incident of.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I think the parents saw it for what it was.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you, Dan. I think she nailed it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, just top-notch performance all the way around.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've heard all those clips. We've even talked
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: about them on YouTube, but just every time it just,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: it really hits.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: And that's just, I mean, it would have been, we
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: would have been here for an hour. We could have
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: played so many more. It was hard to pick.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: And yet of all those, the straw that really broke
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: the camel's back, like the one that you probably shot also,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: was this exchange. with Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Republican Senator, let's play.
• 7:24
  Speaker 9: How do you square that concern for waste, which I share,
• 7:33
  Speaker 9: with the fact that you have spent $ 220 million running
• 7:42
  Speaker 9: television advertisements that feature you prominently?
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: to the country and to other countries where we were
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: seeing the invasion come from. That has been extremely effective.
• 7:57
  Speaker 9: The president asked you to run these advertisements. Is that right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: this position and sworn in and confirmed and since then
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: as well.
• 8:09
  Speaker 9: Okay. Did you bid out those service contracts? Yes, they did.
• 8:16
  Speaker 6: They went out to a competitive bid, and career officials
• 8:19
  Speaker 6: at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials.
• 8:24
  Speaker 9: My research shows that you did not bid them out.
• 8:29
  Speaker 9: In fact, one of the people you picked, the strategy group,
• 8:33
  Speaker 9: I'm sorry, Safe America Media was a company formed 11
• 8:38
  Speaker 9: days before you picked them, and that The strategy group
• 8:44
  Speaker 9: got most of the money, and the head of that
• 8:47
  Speaker 9: is married to your former spokesperson.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: That would be Tricia McLaughlin, who we have spoken about
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: before on this program.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Once or twice.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: And maybe I've tweeted about it a few times as well.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: That's her husband who got the contract. Sorry, the subcontract.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Because he had no connection whatsoever. to the firm who
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: got the real contract because that firm was created just
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: 11 days before it got the contract in what was,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: I'm sure, a competitive bidding process.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. Usually, the government likes to give money to recently
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: formed shell corporations.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Now, if you happen to miss these ads that Kristi
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Noem used $ 220 million of your hard-earned tax dollars to
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: create and air, Here's one that apparently set Trump off.
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: Why do I love these wide open spaces? They remind
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: me of why our forefathers came here. Not just for
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: its beauty, but for the freedom only America provides.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: I'm Kristi Noem.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: What? What does that have to do with anything?
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, having watched... I saw that ad many, many
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: times during football games and other sporting events. But just
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: watching it here in this context, it's very clear that
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: it doesn't, like the whole point was to tell people
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: to do self-support. Like that was the idea. Now, I
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: don't think there's a lot of evidence that television advertising
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: is a good way to convince people to do that.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: But even this ad does not actually tell them to
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: do that. No, it's just a political ad for her.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: In her home state where she wants to probably maybe
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: reportedly run for Senate in front of Mount Rushmore on
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: a fucking horse who she probably then shot. So I
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: don't know if everyone caught the moment in her exchange
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: with Senator Kennedy, who could use some caffeine himself, was
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: a little slow, where that really ended it for her.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: which is when he was like, oh, did you talk
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: to Trump about these ads? And she said, yes. And
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: he's like, oh, Trump approved these ads? She said, yes.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: So apparently Trump did not, or at least Trump says
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: he did not approve these ads. And when Trump heard
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: about that from Senator Kennedy, who then called him and
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: asked him if what Christine Ohm had said was correct,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: and Trump said no, and then Trump got so angry
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that he called Reuters and told them, I never knew
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: anything about this. And then today, Thursday, that was it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: That was it for Christine Ohm. Are you surprised that
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: this is what finally did her in, after all that
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: we've talked about, about everything that Kristi Noem has fucked
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: up in her tenure as Homeland Security Secretary?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: In a normal country with a normal president, the murder
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: of and smearing of to American citizens by the Department
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: of Homeland Security would be the fireable offense.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the kidnappings, rendering people to a foreign torture dungeon...
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Just incompetence and chaos all over the place.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: A lot of it. A lot of stuff to do.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: All the cruelty and then the incompetence even in executing
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the cruel missions. Like complete shit show all around. But
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: in Trump's world, it is corruption and graft that does
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: not involve him. And so that is what bothers me.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And I will say watching this, Lovett and I did
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a YouTube rap response on this after the Senate hearing.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And Kennedy does masterfully walk her into the trap.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: He like sets it up. talks about the ads, gets
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: her to say it. She kind of like implies yes,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: but doesn't say yes. And then he follows up and asks.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: And then when she kind of sort of says yes
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the next time, then he's like, oh, really? I find
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: that surprising. I can't imagine the president or Russ Vogt,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the head of OMB, signing off on $ 200 million of
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: ads to improve your name ID. And in that moment,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: it felt like her day's probably always numbered, but particularly
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: numbered there because Everyone can see the trap happening, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: she walked right into it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not only corruption that doesn't involve him.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: It's corruption that she blamed on him.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And leveraged him for, like, he's in those ads, right? Like,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: he's in those ads in a way that seems, but
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: he's second. He's second fiddle in that ad. He's not
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the top of the movie poster for these ads.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: But, like, say she was lying. She didn't ask Trump
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: about the ads. She did the ads. The ads pissed
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: him off. He was annoyed about the ads. What you
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: do in Trump world is you fall on the sword.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: And you say, oh no, I just did that on
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: my own. And then he probably keeps you at that point.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Because he doesn't mind having a bunch of fuck-ups around him.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: He does mind having people around him who then point
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: the finger at him. That's like, that is the only
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: rule in the Trump world. You do not blame Donald
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Trump for anything. Donald Trump is perfect in every way.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump can do no wrong.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: But the thing with Kristi Noem is... And it's really
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: like this is the key to explain everything is that
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: she is particularly dumb. Oh, yeah.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: She didn't mean to– she didn't like think she was
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: blaming him. Yeah, she thinks the ads are great. Yeah,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: of course.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: She's like there's this incredible lack of self-awareness in how
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: she has done everything. No sense of how she's actually
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: being perceived by anyone else. And it's like every person
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: in that room, every person watching on TV as it's
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: happening is watching– kennedy march her into this trap and
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the only person who doesn't see what's coming is christina.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Even cory lewandowski probably saw what was happening you know
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: who probably didn't see who what was happening her husband
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: because he famously is not seeing what's happening but was
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: sitting right behind her the whole time while they were
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: asking if she ever had sex with cory lewandowski and
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: then she didn't say no because she was under oath.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And there's been a lot of blowback to this in
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: some places online. Like, is she being shamed? Does her
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: personal life matter? But here's the thing, and this is
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the point.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: She's sleeping with a subordinate. Of course your personal life
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: matters in that situation. It matters for anyone in any job.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And it's not like he was a subordinate, and then
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: they just fell into love through the shared passion for
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: mass deportation. He was her boyfriend. She hired him at
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: taxpayer dollars, gave him an incredibly sketchy job that allowed
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: him to- And a gun.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: And a gun.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Well, he never got the gun, right?
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: He did get the badge. He did get the gun.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I thought he just got the badge.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's some dispute there, but anyway.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Either way. But gives him this incredibly sketchy job that
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: allows him to circumvent all ethics and security clearances to just,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: or all of his ethics requirements, and gives him full.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Run of the entire- To brandish his gun on the
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: back of the plane.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Are you using air quotes for gunned?
• 15:25
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, just checking.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: I meant penis.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: A lot of.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, good stuff. And so it's like, it is quite
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: relevant here. Basically, all the reporting shows, he basically was
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: running the department, making all the decisions. Everything came through him.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Some of the reporting now, since the firing was announced,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: points out that, yes, the hearings were the final straw, but...
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: you know, it's, is it according, well, this is what
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the White House is trying to say now, but that
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: like Trump started souring on her around the pretty and
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: good killings and her going out and calling them domestic terrorists. Again,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: not because Trump thinks that she was wrong to do that,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: but that it caused the White House all this trouble
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: and all this political trouble and all the stories about
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the corruption and the Lewandowski affair apparently bothered Trump as well,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: which we saw in the, read about in the Wall
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Street Journal story about the two of them. So I
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: do think it was a number of things that sort
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: of built up to this for him, which in the
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: same way that like, if Pam Bondi gets fired at
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: some point, you're going to, we're going to be like, well,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: there was a, there's a whole bunch of things, uh,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that led up to whatever she finally does that gets
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: her fired. If that happens. So Mark Wayne Mullen, Oklahoma Senator, who,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: by the way, also after Alex Preddy was murdered, said, uh,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: that he was there to, uh, cause, you.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Know, maximum violence or something.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That he was there to cause maximum violence or
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: terrorism or whatever. He said something very similar to what
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Noam said and Miller. Do you think he gets confirmed
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: pretty easily? And how would you advise Democrats to handle
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: his confirmation hearing?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I presume it's not going to be hard to get
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: 50 Republicans to vote for him.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Maybe they're going to get John Fetterman who already said.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: And so Fetterman, so you only need 49, which means, uh,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: If she wants it, Susan Collins can take a pass
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: on this and separate herself from it, even though that's
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: not going to solve her political problems on ICE, and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: she's the one who writes the ICE funding bills. I
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: think Democrats– so, yeah, I mean, look, they confirmed a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Fox News host to be the head of the Pentagon
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: and an anti-vax guy who put a dead bear in
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the back of his car to be in charge of
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: health and human services. So anything is possible here. I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: think for Democrats, we should use this as an opportunity
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to highlight There will be high-profile confirmation hearings. There will
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: be the vote here. There will be debate around it,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: reporting around it. Use it to highlight all of our
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: arguments against ICE and everything Trump is doing and the
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: problems with how they've handled things and everything from what
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: happened in Minnesota to the detention centers to the U.S.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: citizens and legal residents who have been detained, some cases
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: for weeks at a time, just across the board. The
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: mass surveillance techniques and the facial recognition used to track
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: protesters and things like that. Here's a chance to raise
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the salience of something we should be making a strong
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: argument about. And then every single person, apparently not named
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: John Fetterman, should vote against this person because here's the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: one thing I can promise you. I give two fucks
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: about Senate collegiality because you used to slowly work out
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: next to this person on the treadmill at the Senate gym,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: which is how we ended up, Marco Rubio ended up
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: getting 99 votes. There's just no way that you're going
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to feel good one month from now, two months from now,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: three months from now for voting for Donald Trump's DHS secretary.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent. I mean, it is, it is absolutely
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: insane to vote for this man.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: And I assume I've heard, I would be shocked if
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: anyone other than John Fetterman voted for him, honestly.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Me too. Me too. And I would be like, I
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: think you could see Collins and Murkowski perhaps not vote
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: for him as well. But like even someone like tell
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: us who, really doesn't like Noam and was calling for
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: her resignation, I bet Tillis votes.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: For him as well. Yeah, this is, in his eyes,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: an improvement. He got what he wanted.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: And I agree with you that that's the focus. I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: would also focus on one or two issues. I would
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: try not to do a whole smorgasbord of things with Mullen.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: You want a story coming out of that? I would
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: focus on the murders of Alex Pretty and Renee Good
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: as a way to talk about the constitutional rights of
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: of all Americans and legal residents being violated by ICE and,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: and people in the violence that they're committing and the
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: horrible conditions. Like I would try to narrow in on
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: that and, and, you know, try to get answers from
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: him on both things that the administration is hiding from us.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And that hasn't, been forthcoming about. Like, are we getting
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: an independent investigation into these murders? What's happening in some
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of these detention centers? But also like, you know, put
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: him on record making promises that he will, you know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: then break, but at least have him on record saying
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: under oath, saying that he'll do certain things or he'll
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: uphold certain rights.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It used to be you could use these hearings to
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: extract promises.
• 20:09
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: For people to release certain reports or those sort of things.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But he won't need a single Democratic vote, not from
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: anyone other than Fetterman. And so even if you ask
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: for it, he's not going to say yes because he
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: doesn't need your vote.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Now, I don't think that he is somehow a better
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: person than Noam or is going to run a kinder,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: gentler DHS. But I do wonder if they will use
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the transition and the fact that there's a new secretary
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: to do some window dressings on DHS to try to
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: make it seem like Mullen is riding the ship. But
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: what do you think? Do you expect DHS to look
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: any different under Mark Wayne Mullen than it has under
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: Kristi Noem?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I think there's a chance it'll look less chaotic and stupid.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Just the way DHS was run under Kristi Noem and
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Corey Lewandowski was insane. When you read the stories about
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: how they ran the department, Corey Lewandowski approving every single
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: contract for everything, like over $ 1, 000, just insanity. I think
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: that it will be a more effective department in terms
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: of probably executing on what Donald Trump wants, because it
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: won't have Kristi Noem at the top, but it will
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: not be a better department in the way in which
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: we want it to be a better department. Although the
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: thing I would say is that Donald Trump doesn't really
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: understand why Kristi Noem failed so bad. Yes, she was
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: a particularly stupid, particularly inexperienced, unqualified person for this job,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: and he picked her because he thought she was good
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: on TV. He's making the same mistake with Mark Wayne Mullen.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Mark Wayne Mullen- ran a plumbing business before he entered politics,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: which is totally fine. Like we probably want more plumbers
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: in Congress, but he has no actual expertise in any
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: of the issues that DHS does. He's not even on
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the committee in the Senate. And he also doesn't.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Have- Makes him like the rest of the cabinet secretaries.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Right, right. And he also doesn't have any management experience either, right?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And that is a beast of a department to manage.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And Trump picked him because he thought he's good on
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Fox News. So he's committing the same sin again. Maybe
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: it'll turn out better this time, but he doesn't understand
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: why the first choice went so poorly.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: And again, Stephen Miller's still the boss.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Boss of Pete Hegseth, boss of Pam Bondi, boss of
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Christine Ohm, and now Mark Wayne Mullen. And J.D.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Vance, also boss of J.D.
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: Vance.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: And J.D.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Vance, right. I mean, he didn't really have a boss
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: anyway because he doesn't do anything except shitposts.
• 22:36
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• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, so Kristi Noem getting shit-canned only briefly stole the
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: spotlight from the biggest story in the world right now,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Trump's new war in the Middle East, which has become
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: a global crisis that spread all the way from the
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Indian Ocean, where the U.S. sunk an Iranian Navy ship
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: near India, to Turkey, where NATO forces shot down an
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Iranian missile. More than 1,300 people have died so far,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: mostly in Iran, but also in Lebanon, Israel, and all
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the other Gulf nations that have been hit. Missiles have
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: rained down on not just military targets, but embassies, airports, hotels, hospitals, schools.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: travel and commerce in the region? Is it a standstill?
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Oil prices keep surging, causing markets to tank. Thousands of
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Americans are still stranded in the Middle East trying to
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: get home. And of course, six American soldiers have died
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: in a war for which Trump and Republicans have offered
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: no time limit, no price tag, no exit plan, and
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: no coherent answers about what the goals are, why we attacked,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: or even whether the war is actually a war. Let's
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: listen to the cascade of bullshit from the administration and
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Republicans from just the last few days.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: To strike Iran and that that's why we needed to
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: get involved. Today, the president said that.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Iran was going to get.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, your statement is false.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: So that's not what I was asked very specifically.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Were you there yesterday?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: opinion that.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: They were going to attack first.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: If we didn't do it first, They would have done
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: it to Israel.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: They have declared war on us.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: We're not at war right now. You'll concede this is war.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: We haven't declared war.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: They declared war on us, but we haven't. The president
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: called it war.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Secretary Hicks said it.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: We haven't declared it. Just now you said this is war.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: They called it war.
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: They called it war.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: What I was saying, okay, well, that was at MISCO.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: We're doing very well.
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: On the war front, to put it mildly, I would say.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: Somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: rate it? I said about a 15.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: I guess the.
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: Worst case would be we do this and then Somebody
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right?
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: That could happen.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: That could happen.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: So, clear as day. We attacked Iran because Israel was
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: going to attack Iran, but also because Iran was going
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: to attack Israel, but also because Iran was going to
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: attack us, but also we're not at war, but also
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: the war is going well, but also we may just
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: end up with an Iranian regime that's even worse than before.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: That all make sense to you, Dan?
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: How are you feeling about all this?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Not great, I'd say. I mean, it is... Like, in
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: some ways, it's not surprising that Donald Trump, who has
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: never read a briefing, paid attention in a briefing, has
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: any sense of world history, military strategy, the Middle East,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: would get this wrong at every opportunity. Like, he's a knucklehead,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: we know that. But the fact that no one else
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: in the administration, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, I was going
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to say the National Security Advisor, but that's also Marco Rubio,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: can explain... why we're there, what we're doing, what happens next,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: what victory looks like, is something bigger than a communications problem.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: It's not that they lack a message. It's that they
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: don't have a strategy. There's no plan. They did not
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: think this through. The military had a plan to blow
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: things up, and they have clearly done that quite successfully,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: but that's the full extent of the plan. There is
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: no actual idea. It really is one day it's regime change.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: The next day it's not regime change. Today, Donald Trump
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: told Axios that he wanted to have a hand in
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: picking the next Ayatollah. And he does not like the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: leading candidate right now.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: We need a good, we need a great Ayatollah. I'm
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: going to have the best Ayatollah in there. It's going
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: to be, you wouldn't believe the Ayatollahs I'm looking at.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants an Iranian Delsey is basically what he's saying,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: referring to- He's.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Talking about picking an Ayatollah like it's the fucking curtains
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: for his ballroom.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's- We're not in charge there. We don't
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: have control of it. Like what? I don't think they're going.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: To take our advice after we are raining down missiles
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and bombs on them.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: It's like one day we're going to arm the Kurds
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: in Iraq to come over and invade. The next day
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: we're telling people to– like there's just no plan. And
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: it really– like this was always the nightmare scenario with
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Trump as president. was that he would just like stumble
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: ass backwards into war. And that is exactly what's happened here.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: And also, just for what it's worth, he said he
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: had a feeling they were going to attack us.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Just a feeling. But that is- You got to trust
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: your instinct on these things. I think that country might
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: attack us. Let's invade.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: But it is a lie bigger than any of the
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: lies told by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: in the run-up to the last Iraq war. It's just
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: like they're just lying all the time to hide the
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: fact that they have no idea what the fuck they're
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: doing in a war in the Middle East that is
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: causing chaos, stranding American citizens, having troops die, and spiking
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: oil prices all at the same time.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: One of the most, to be charitable to the administration.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Which we do on this podcast periodically.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Which we love to do. You know, maybe the most
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: coherent explanation was given by Rubio at one point.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: He's sort of gone back and forth.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: You know what they say about broken clocks, right?
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah. He's tried out a few different rationales as well.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: But basically, he's saying, okay, so we know that Iran
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: wanted to develop a nuclear weapon. Of course, we obliterated
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: their nuclear sites, but not really. They've already tried to rebuild.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: At one point, Trump says they were two weeks away.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. That's a lie. No one thinks that. Someone
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: else says maybe they're a year away. So that's shifting, whatever.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: But anyway, let's say Iran still wants to build... a
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapon. So then Rubio says, well, if they want
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to build a nuclear weapon, they're also churning out all
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: of these ballistic missiles and conventional weapons so that they
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: basically can put up a shield around their country so
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: that no one can attack them for trying to build
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon so that they can build their nuclear
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: weapon in peace while they have all these missiles to
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: protect themselves from when we try to bomb them to
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: stop them from creating a nuclear weapon. So that's the
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: most charitable rationale, and it is still fucking bonkers.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: It still makes no sense.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: It makes no sense. So you're going to have so
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: many ballistic missiles and conventional weapons that that's going to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: stop the United States and potentially other NATO allies or
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: other countries around the world from attacking NATO? Which we
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: already did once before when we bombed the nuclear sites.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: So what the fuck are you talking about? And if
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: that is the rationale, then when do we know? When
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: do we know that we have destroyed enough missiles in
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: a country of 90 million people where probably most of
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: the regime, except for the dozen or so senior leaders
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: that we've killed already, is still intact? What's the plan there?
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: And look, I saw in Financial Times, there was like
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: an Israeli official that went on background and was basically like, look,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: if there's a new regime, great. If not, whatever. If
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: it's a worse regime, if it's a better regime, that's fine.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: If it's just chaos, if it's civil war, if the
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Kurds come in, any kind of chaos is good with
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: us because it will degrade their ability to develop a
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapon or at least take their focus and attention
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: off that for a while. That was the plan from
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: the Israeli officials.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: That's what we want is a giant failed state of
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: 92 million people in the middle of the Middle East.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: We're just going to sow chaos. How long it will last,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: what it will lead to, we don't know. We can't say.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But it seems like what Trump wants to do in
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: his mind is in a couple weeks or apparently Central
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Command said they're asking for military officials to come help
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: them out at Central Command through September of this year,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: it said in Politico. But anyway. Uh, so a couple
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: of weeks, months, whatever it is, and then Trump declares victory.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: We're done. We did it. We look, look, we obliterated
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: their nuclear sites. We got rid of all of their
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: ballistic missiles or we got rid of enough of them.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And then we're, we're gone. We're done. We win. And
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: the bet then is that the chaos and the killing
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: and the repression and everything else we unleash in the
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Middle East because of this just won't be the focus
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: of our attention, uh, anymore. Once the bombing stops, that
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: seems like that's his bet.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is a potential short-term political solution to
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: a problem that's much bigger than politics.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Like, think about what you've unleashed in the Middle East
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: under all those scenarios.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Well, and also Trump's probably like, eh, I won't be
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: around by the time it bites us in the ass again.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I'll be out of office.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I can't, I apologize. I can't remember who said this.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I heard someone say that, it was a Middle East
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: scholar of some kind was saying that, like, there are
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: whole generations of Iranians who were coming up who wanted
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: a more modern Iran, who really didn't have antipathy towards
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: the United States. That was from a different generation. And
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: now they all will because we've been blowing up their
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: homes for five days now.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: We bombed a school, a girls' school. We killed 175 people,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: mostly little girls. Originally thought maybe it was an Israeli missile.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Now the New York Times just has a new piece,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: put it together, and think that it's in all likelihood
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: it was a U.S. attack that did it. So that's
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: something that we did. Medical centers, hospitals bombed. Just killing
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: people left and right. And then also the destruction that's
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: happened in all these other Gulf countries.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: For what?
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: For what?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: And no one can answer that question.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: So we killed the 86-year-old Supreme Leader, who may now
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: be replaced by his son, even though Trump doesn't like
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: the son. Maybe they'll kill the son. Who knows? Then
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: there'll be someone else. The idea that we are going
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: to bomb and kill these people into submission, and that
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: is going to create a peaceful Middle East is just,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: it's fucking insane and not borne out by any evidence
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: throughout any of history. Yeah.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: It's just, like you just, they can't answer like two
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: follow-up questions on this where it's like, oh, we want
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: regime change. Well, how's that going to happen? Who's going
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: to be in charge? What kind of regime is it
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: going to be? Are we going to do anything to
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: ensure It's a regime. Is it a democracy? I mean,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Trump did say one of his, you know, 19 random
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: phone calls with reporters who happened to call him that
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: he wanted freedom for the Iranian people was his first
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: thing he said.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: He definitely doesn't want that. He doesn't care about that
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: for sure. For sure. They are probably hoping that they
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: can get, and I forget where I was reading this,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: but there's like basically, you know, two factions in Iran
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: in the regime. And one is, you know, We repress
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: our people at home. And then also we're very aggressive
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: outwardly to the rest of the world. And the other
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: is we have a detente with the rest of the
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: world and we still repress the hell of other people
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: at home.
• 36:18
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: And Trump clearly doesn't care if the Iran about the
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Iranian people at all. He clearly doesn't care if the
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: violence and repression continues there. What he hopes is that
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: maybe he'll find a regime that's corrupt enough to do
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: a deal with the West, with the United States and
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: and they can go on doing whatever they want to
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: the Iranian people at home. That's his probably best scenario. Now,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: even that's not something that you can just fucking plan out.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: That's just, hopefully that's where everything lands. We don't know.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: We don't know.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: On Tuesday's show, we played Trump responding to the first
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: American casualties in the war with, quote, that's the way
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: it is, likely be more. Pete Hegseth was arguably even
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: more callous and offensive on Wednesday when he scolded the
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: press for, for hurting the president's political standing by reporting
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: on the deaths of American troops. Here's what he said,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: followed by Caroline Levitt's angry defense of Hegseth during her briefing.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: This is what the fake news misses.
• 37:16
  Speaker 11: We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots
• 37:20
  Speaker 11: on the ground.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: We control their fate.
• 37:24
  Speaker 11: But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen,
• 37:29
  Speaker 11: it's front page news. I get it, the press only
• 37:32
  Speaker 11: wants to make the president look bad, but try for
• 37:34
  Speaker 11: once to report the reality.
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: Secretary Hexup was complaining that it was front page news
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: about these six service members who were killed. That's not
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: what the secretary said, Caitlin, and that's not what the
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: secretary meant, and you know it.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: You know you're being disingenuous. There is not- We've never
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: had a secretary of defense. Who cares more?
• 37:51
  Speaker 10: We try to get through where tragic things happen.
• 37:53
  Speaker 8: It's front page news. I get it.
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: The press only wants to make the president look bad.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: As you know, we cover the deaths of U.S.
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: Service members under every president.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: The press does only want to make the president look bad.
• 38:02
  Speaker 10: That's a fact. Especially you.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: No, listen to me.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Especially you and especially CNN. Good for Caitlin Collins. So
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: I don't want to give political advice to the White
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: House here, but I'm not sure the most effective response
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: to Americans... dying in the Middle East is going to be,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: but think about all the American soldiers who weren't killed,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: which is basically what he wants the press to report.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: You don't, you don't talk about any of the good stuff.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: You just talk about a, you know, an errant drone
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: or tragic things happening. I mean, what the fuck?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sick.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: How do they not see that though? Like, like that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: was not, that wasn't Hegseth off the cuff. Hegseth was
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: reading a statement.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Here's how that is. Because to be Trump, to work
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: for Trump, to be a Trump superfan is to only
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: be able to see the world through Trump's eyes, to
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: view everything in the context of how it affects Donald Trump.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Is it good for Donald Trump? Is it bad for
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump? And that disease is so prevalent that it
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: even applies to the death of American troops who serve
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: under Pete Hegseth. He is the Secretary of Defense, and
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: he can only see the death of troops who died
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: in part because they did a very poor job of
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: planning for this war.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Because by reports, they were in an unarmored, unfortified trailer
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: as attacks were being launched. Attacks that we chose. We
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: picked the timing of them. We chose when they would be.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and they left the troops out there. But the only
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: way you can see it is as something that is
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: bad for Trump, not what's bad for these families, not
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: for the families and young kids here, but what's bad
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: for Donald Trump. And that's it. And that's all that matters.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: That's all they can think of. And it's honestly perverse.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: We should note that the reason Trump has unilaterally taken
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: this country to war is because Republicans in Congress and
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: now a few Democrats have voted to let him. In
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: the Senate, Republicans this week blocked a vote on a
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: War Powers Act resolution that would have stopped Trump's military
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: action in Iran unless Congress explicitly authorized it. John Fetterman
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: was the only Democrat to vote with the Republicans and
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: In the House... Only four Democrats voted against the resolution.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: And it did, of course, fail.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And none of the two that we screamed about last week.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, Jared Moskowitz and Josh Gottheimer
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: changed their minds. Good for them.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: And Moskowitz did a really, I thought, long, thoughtful statement
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: about why he did it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: He did. And I haven't seen anything from Josh. No,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: but yes.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Everyone has the right to change their mind. And if
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: you do so and you explain it, kudos to them.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: But.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: These aren't the last votes Congress will likely face on
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: the war. Trump officials have said that they're probably going
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to send what's known as an emergency supplemental funding request
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: to Congress, a.k.a. give us more money for the war,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: reportedly with a price tag of $ 50 billion, with a B.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: This is after Congress already approved nearly $ 1 trillion in
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: defense spending since Trump took office last year. And if
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: that makes you angry, get ready for the lead of
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: this Politico story, about the extra war funding. Quote, some
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Democrats aren't ruling out voting for a multi-billion dollar military infusion,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: setting up a potential internal clash in the weeks ahead.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: You want to tee off on this one, Dan?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: I do. This is an illegal regime change war of
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: choice being conducted by a corrupt tin pot dictator who
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: is unable or unwilling to explain to us why we're
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: in this war, what we're doing, or what victory looks like.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: The idea that we would give him funding to pay
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: for this war, to do that would be to take
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: every last bit of power and influence that the Congress
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: has and to hand it to the president. This is
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: the only check available to this president that we could
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: possibly do. And to see that would be to validate
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: every criticism fair and unfair that people have had about
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Democrats since Trump was elected. It would be a truly
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: insane thing to do.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, I am going to give Democrats
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: here the benefit of the doubt and that maybe they're
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: just thinking through things. Maybe they didn't want to go
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: on the record, although they did talk to the reporters
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: about this.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Some of them went on the record.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Some of them went on the record.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Um, And maybe they'll change their mind, just like Jared
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Moskowitz and Josh Gottheimer changed their mind. So maybe they'll
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: come around. But I do think voting for funding on
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: this war would be perhaps the most catastrophic vote of
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: your career. I really do. And so I've heard a few,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: you know, so it's people on the Armed Services Committee,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Democrats on the Armed Services Committee, I guess, that were
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the focus of this Politico piece. They have Alyssa Slotkin,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: which I was surprised about on record, saying she's like, well,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it, but we're in it now. I
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: don't like this war, but we're in it, some version
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: of that. And I've seen people say, well, during Iraq,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of Democrats voted for supplemental funding bills because
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: they wanted to make sure that even though they hated
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: the war and they were opposed to the war in
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: Iraq and they wanted the war in Iraq to end,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: that you can't just leave the troops in the field alone.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: without armor or without the funding they need, because that
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: puts troops in danger. And like, first of all, back then,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: I always find that argument a little, you know, the
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: idea that a vote in the Congress is suddenly they're
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: going to run out of money. But at least then,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the troops were in battle. They were on the ground
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: in Iraq, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of American troops, right?
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: And so you could make an argument that You can't
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: just withdraw all at once immediately and you need some
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: extra funding. I get it, right?
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Also, there's a bigger point here than that.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. The bigger point here is, like,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: this is just money to keep bombing Iran, which Donald
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Trump can stop any second he wants, leaving no American
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: soldier at risk at all.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: But I think there's an even bigger point than that,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: which is that was an authorized war. Congress, there was
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: a process in which Congress president asked for authorization to
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: The Congress gave it to them. They shouldn't have, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: they did. It was a war that was a military
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: action approved by the UN Security Council. This war has
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: no domestic legal framework at all. It is an illegal war.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Violation of international law, violation of domestic law, against the Constitution,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: no clear rationale, president who's a fucking criminal. Like, what
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: are we doing? Yeah, it's just.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: We can argue, and I'll take that criticism that even
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama in the Senate shouldn't have voted for some
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of these, but these are apples and fucking oranges. These
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: are two different situations. This is a war of choice.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: The whole process is so fucked up that they have
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: to stop themselves from saying the word war because to
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: do so is to admit to the illegality of what
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: they're doing. The choice should be, if you want money
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: for this war, come try to get authorization for it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: We're not going to fund any legal war that you
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: could end any day. You're choosing.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: So it's like you're asking us to first of all,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: you've got a trillion dollars over the last year at
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: the Pentagon. You're now asking us to pony up another
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: 50 billion dollars at a time when people can't afford groceries,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: a home, their health care. So that Donald Trump and
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Bibi Netanyahu can keep dropping bombs on a country of
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: 90 million people because they think that's how you bring
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: about peace in the Middle East? What the fuck are
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: we talking about? How do you even consider voting for that?
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: I believe in the end, the overwhelming majority of Democrats
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: will vote against this. John Fetterman obviously will. Maybe one
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: or two others will. I certainly hope not. I plan
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: to yell at yell about that at every platform available
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: to me if they do that, because it is truly insane.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: And it should be the Democratic leadership should not be
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: trying to manage the caucus here. They should be lobbying
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: members to vote against us. It should be the position
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party, the House and the Senate, that
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: we are not going to vote for this for the
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: reasons we just laid out. And if people do it,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: that can happen. We are always going to have members.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: They if it feels like to voters that the Democratic Party,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: the Democratic leadership is okay with this, then that is
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: catastrophic even for the people who voted against it.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's bad enough if you're like a John
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Fetterman who supported the war and is going to vote
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: to fund it as well. That to me is insane anyway.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: It's insane, but it's consistently insane.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's coherent. The idea that someone who, like all
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: the rest of the Democrats have said it's an illegal
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: war that they oppose, That you would say, this illegal war,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: now that we're in it, I must vote to just
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: fund it with taxpayer dollars?
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: It's also just weak, you know? Maybe that's like the
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: least of the problems, but it just makes you look
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: so fucking weak.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: I am going to believe that in the end, Alyssa
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Slotkin is going to vote against this.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Me too. That's why I can't, like. If you just
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, if a political reporter caught you
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: in the hall and you weren't ready to say anything, whatever.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: That's fine.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: It's kind of happening to Gallego on CNN.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: I thought it was weird because Gallego's answer was, well,
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: at least half of the funding would have to come
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: from the other countries in the Gulf because we're not paying.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, why are the other countries in the
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Gulf didn't ask for this fucking war either and now
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: they're getting hit?
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Then he tweeted that he was definitely not voting for it.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I saw that.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: He clarified that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: No, no, which is good. But I'm just like, what's
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: everyone doing here? It's a no. It's a no.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: So this thing is costing a billion dollars a day.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: A billion dollars a day.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: If this is going, that $ 50 billion is not going
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to get you that far.
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  Speaker 7: that go last. Go to Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crooked
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: slash crooked.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: So obviously, as we said, Hegseth and Noam are doing
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: all the heavy lifting this week when it comes to
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: cabinet members embarrassing the White House and themselves. But Pam Bondi,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: she's out there saying, hey, don't forget about me. Due
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: to popular demand, she'll now be doing an encore performance
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: of last month's congressional testimony. And by popular demand, we
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: mean that five Republicans on the Oversight Committee voted with
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: all the Democrats to subpoena Bondi for her handling of
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: the Epstein files. Notably, the 50,000 documents DOJ has reportedly withheld,
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: including those related to unverified claims of sexual misconduct against
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: a minor by Epstein and Trump himself. The New York
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Times and other outlets also reported on Wednesday that DOJ
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: has been forced to abandon the case they were reportedly
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: trying to build against Joe Biden and his top aides
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: for their use of the presidential auto pen. Everything is
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: so fucking stupid. Since federal prosecutors in Jeanine Pirro's D.C.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: office couldn't find any evidence of a crime. Oh, no shit.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: The Times also just reported that Lindsay Halligan. The Trump
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: defense attorney he appointed to indict Jim Comey and Tish James,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: after all the other real prosecutors refused, is now under
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: investigation by the Florida Bar Association for the nakedly political
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: prosecution she attempted and could potentially lose her law license.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Bondi's DOJ just crushing it, Dan. Let's start with the subpoena.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I'm actually a little surprised we're getting another round of
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: Bondi hearings.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: I was assuming these were closed-door hearings. depositions.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: You think so?
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: My assumption was this was similar to the Hillary booklet.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Now we'll probably see video of it, but it was
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: a similar process.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: But what do you think the focus is? Is it
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: just these most recent files that came down, including the
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Trump stuff?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is why the files haven't been released.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I think it's chain of custody on the files. I
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: think now she's going to be in a position where
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: she's also going to ask questions about Ghislaine Maxwell ending
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: up at the country club, the whole process about which
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: they came to be– the release was compelled and what
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: was not. And I think there is something here. It's
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: sort of a consistent thread between what happened in Nome
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: with John Kennedy. What's happening here to Pam Bondi is
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: there are– I'm not saying Republicans are breaking with Trump.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: They are not. But they are finding places– they are
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: desperately looking for places to show some measure of independence here.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: And in this case, Nancy Mace actually surprised them by
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: this was like, they didn't know this was coming. And
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: then they were just like forced to make a decision,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: which I think is probably pretty hard for these Republicans
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: to make a decision on the spot. But there is
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: something about where they are trying to find places to
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: where Trump's weakness is now becoming more manifest in how
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: they respond to his cabinet secretaries at least.
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: You know, on all the rest, the failing to you know,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: bring an indictment or even a case against Biden, Lindsay Halligan,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: all the other failures of them trying to indict people,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: the grand jury failures. Like on one hand, it'd be
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: fun to see Bondi go the way of Christine Ohm.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: On the other, I do think that the fact that
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: her incompetence has led to such an epic losing streak
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: for Trump's political revenge tour that, I don't know, maybe
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: we might be better off if he keeps Bondi at DOJ.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: What do you think there?
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's, there's no good person he's putting in. He's not,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: he's not putting, appointing someone who's not going to do
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: bullshit political vengeance investigations. Like that's not.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I'd rather, I'd rather, I don't want someone more effective.
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure that any person could effectively do what
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: Trump wants. He is at the end of the day,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: he's asking his attorney general to prosecute people for crimes
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: they did not commit. And in some cases for things
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: that are not actually crimes.
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: His problem is the juries and the judges really.
• 53:48
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: And like that, that is, that's what is stopping it.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: And the problem is Trump, not the person like, I
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: think she's particularly bad at her job. I don't really
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: care if she stays or goes because as we see
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: with this Mark Wayne Mullen situation, you're just going to
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: get someone who shares Trump's odious views and is maybe
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: slightly more effective at implementing those odious views.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: And it's still reporting to Stephen Miller.
• 54:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Essentially. So somehow Tuesday night's primaries already feel like ancient history.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: It's Thursday afternoon as we're recording this. But we haven't
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: had the chance to talk about the results on this show.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: In Texas... MAGA World has already started previewing how they're
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: going to go after James Tallarico, who beat Jasmine Crockett.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: This includes resurfacing Tallarico's old tweets. It's always the old
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: tweets that get you. About Black Lives Matter, where he
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: said that racism is a virus that white people spread
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: everywhere we go. And a video from 2021 on the
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Texas House floor where Tallarico said God is non-binary. He
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: also talked about how there's technically six genders involved. There's
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of them, whole bunch of tweets, whole
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: bunch of... What do you make of the attacks so far?
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: How do you handle them if you're Tallarico?
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: They don't actually worry me that much. Every Democrat's going
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: to face some version of this. I think Tallarico's particularly.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: If you were alive between 2017 and 2021.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: It had access to the internet. And every Republican has
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: a similar set of things.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of Democrats should just try
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: to take a mulligan on all those tweets.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: And every Republican had... The things Republicans have tweeted about
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: January 6th and a bunch of other stuff, also problematic.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I think Tallarico handles it the way he's handled this
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: whole campaign, which is don't hide from it, take it
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: head on, be out there all the time, always be communicating,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: go into unfriendly territory to talk about it, take questions
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: about it, go on right-wing radio, go on Christian radio, do,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: you know, do that Jubilee debate again, do, do things
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: where you're just like, the worst thing you can do
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: is just is abandon the strategy that got you the nomination,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: which was to be sort of someone who was always available, omnipresent.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: It just stick with that. Like he, He won this nomination,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: but he's still an underdog in the Senate race. And
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: so he's got to always play– he's got to embrace
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: risk and do things and just be out there and
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: talk about it. I really don't think it's that hard
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: because he is someone who is going to be very
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: hard to paint as a radical if people get exposed
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: to him because he comes off as such like a down-to-earth, common-sense,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: conciliatory person. It is honestly an advantage Obama always had.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: was they would paint him as this like radical Muslim
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: who's coming to like implement Sharia law in your neighborhood.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Then you like see him on TV and he just
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: seems like a pretty normal guy. And I think Tallarico
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: has that same asset in this race.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: I do think the added challenge Tallarico faces that someone
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: like Azor and Mamdani or maybe.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Because he's in Texas?
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Or Graham Plattner, right, doesn't face as much as that
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: he's in Texas and in a smaller state or city
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: or somewhere like that. You can sort of pierce people's
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: perceptions of you by just meeting them in person. And
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: in Texas, you know, you can meet a lot of
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: people in Texas, but it's going to be ads that
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: do it at some point.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And it's going to be what he's been doing, which
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: is organic social content. I think a little bit in
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: this race, although he did not win, I think a
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: little bit about our old friend Jason Kander. And he
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: was someone they tried to paint him as a giant
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: radical in his Missouri Senate race in 2016. But he
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't come off that way. And in Tallarico, I think
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: it's particularly difficult to find high-profile ways for people to
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: see him. And I do think the way he talks
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: about his faith is inoculation against some of these attacks.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: I also think him saying, which he does quite often,
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: that what most people care about is making a living,
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: trying to afford things. And the right uses these attacks
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: to divide us. I think that is both true. and
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: the right political message, I don't think you can just say, oh, well,
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to focus on any of that other
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: stuff and just ignore it completely. Because I think, and
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: I think we've learned this over the last several years,
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: like there has to, and however you want to describe,
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: however he wants to describe his views on trans issues
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: or racism or whatever it may be, he should do
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: it and he should do it on his terms and
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: he should do it confidently. But you still have to
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: answer people's questions on this kind of stuff. And you
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: should do it on your terms and not only lean on, well,
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: people actually don't care about this. They only care about
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: cost of living stuff. Because while true, they still do
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: want to know if they have questions about like, well,
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: what did you say? What did you mean by that?
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: You need to have some kind of answer there.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: In a red state in particular, but in politics generally,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: you have to reach a threshold of acceptability culturally.
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Right.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Is this person, do they seem like they have my values?
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Is there someone I would trust? Just like there is
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: a level at which, are they like me? Can I
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: relate to them? And if you ignore the critiques that
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: go right at that strength of yours, then you leave
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: yourself quite vulnerable.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, I agree. Let's talk about who Tallarico's opponent will be.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Incumbent John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: headed for a May runoff, but things got interesting on
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Wednesday when Trump announced that he'd make an endorsement, quote,
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: soon and demanded that the non-endorsed candidate drop out. Reports
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: say Trump is expected to endorse Cornyn. And on Thursday morning,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Paxton announced that he would, quote, consider dropping out, but
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: only if Senate leadership agreed to ditch the filibuster in
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: order to pass Trump's voter ID law, the SAVE Act.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Paxton also called Cornyn a coward and said that, quote,
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: no one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: What do you think of that strategy by Paxton?
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: I think he's, I talked to Jonathan Martin about this
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: a lot, which you're going to hear shortly, but it
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: seems like he is trying to maybe find a fig
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: leaf to get something out of dropping out if he
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: feels like he has to. I mean, I think the
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: assumption is that whoever Trump endorses will win this primary.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure that's accurate, but everyone seems to
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: believe that. And it would probably be very hard for
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Paxton to raise money if Trump says, I'm endorsing Cornyn,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: and I want Paxton to drop out, and Paxton does
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: not drop out. That's probably a challenge.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think that– I guess the grand fear here
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: is the Senate– takes him up on this offer and
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: passes the SAVE Act, that would be pretty bad for
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: the world. But I would be surprised.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think Thune has... I don't think he has
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: the votes for it.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: I wonder if then Paxton wants to say... Because what
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: he's hoping is that Trump then says, oh, God, Thune
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: and Cornyn is just like Thune. They're establishment guys who've
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: been in leadership and they won't do this for me.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: And maybe... Because I'm sure that there's part of Trump
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: that really wants to endorse Paxton or at least not
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: endorse Cornyn. And so I'm sure... I think he's probably...
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: playing the best hand he has here, Paxton, but I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's going to work.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, like what Trump says is what matters here.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: And if Trump doesn't endorse then, because Trump clearly does
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: not want to endorse John Cornyn. It's not entirely clear why,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: but he, and I talked to Jay Morty about this,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: but I mean, he's the incumbent senator. He could have
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: endorsed him at any point and he hasn't. And so
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: there is something there that's preventing it. But in the end,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I think he's going to be convinced that Cornyn is
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: the better Shot to beat Tallarico.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: One more piece of election news in the Senate. On Wednesday,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: just before the filing deadline, Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: announced that he would not seek reelection, clearing the way
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: for late entrant Kurt Elme, who currently serves as U.S.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: attorney for the District of Montana, a role he also
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: held in Trump's first term. Trump quickly endorsed Elme on
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Truth Social, calling him, quote, exceptional. CNN's Manu Raju reported
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: on Thursday that Daines' last-minute switcheroo was intended to keep
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Democrats from fielding a top-tier candidate like former Montana Senator
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: Jon Tester and that Trump and Senate Republican leaders were
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: aware of the strategy. Pretty shocking that this happened last
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: minute and no one expected Daines to not run again.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: What do you think about this whole thing?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: It is crooked as hell, as it was when a
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: House Democrat did this a while back. And it does,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: it's both screwing any other Republican who wanted to run
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: for the seat, but it should point out Democrats' opportunity
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: to run a potentially more high-profile candidate for it. Like,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: there is something, states should try to fix this, because
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: this is now going to become a real threat. It's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: yet another way in which democracy is getting curtailed in
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: this country. It should be, the incumbent has to, like,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: I saw someone tweet out this idea, but there should
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: be a rule or a law that is, if you, like,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: obviously there has to be state laws, but the incumbent
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: has to make their decision first, and then the filing
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: deadline comes after that. So there's like two weeks between
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: when an incumbent says, I'm in or I'm not, and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: then when there's two weeks after that in which other
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: people can decide to run based on it. Because this
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: is really going to be something that happens a lot
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: in politics now as a way for the party establishment
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: to avoid messy primaries. Because that's what this was. The
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Chuy Garcia thing was Chuy Garcia working something out with
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: his chief of staff to ensure his chief of staff
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: got to run and essentially win because it's a safe democracy. Here,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: within seconds of the announcement, the entire Montana political establishment
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: and the White House endorsed the guy.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: So shady. I mean, I am interested in, there's a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: couple of Democrats running the Democratic side. They haven't raised
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: much money at all. They're not like big names. Again,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: the big names would have been like Tester or former
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: Governor Brian Schweitzer or Steve Bullock. But there is the
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: former president of the University of Montana, Seth Bodnar. He's
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: also a former Army Green Beret and a Rhodes Scholar.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: He has filed to run as an independent. And Tester
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: had apparently said some nice things about him. And I
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: don't know too much more than that, but I'm kind
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: of interested if it could possibly shape up to be
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: like a Dan Osborne in Nebraska situation where maybe because
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: he's got such broad name recognition in Montana, if he
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: has more democratic leaning positions, which I don't know, or
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: even if he's more centrist, um, that would be a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: lot better than a Trump Republican running. And I don't know,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: it'd be interesting to watch.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: There's some interesting happening in Montana too. Cause Ryan Zinke, who, uh,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: it was Trump's interior secretary and had to resign for
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: some sort of corruption scandal. I can't remember what was
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: at this point. Um, He returned to Congress, but he
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: just announced his retirement too. And that is a district
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: that Trump won by 11. I think it's 11. And
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: it's in the zone of the kind of state seats
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: that might be competitive with the right candidate in this
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: political environment.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: Didn't we win Montana in 08?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 8: No? No.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: We came close.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: We lost by three, I think.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: I remember thinking that Montana was.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: There was a big debate at the end about whether
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: we were going to compete in Montana. And we just
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: ultimately decided the juice was not worth the squeeze because
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: Because it's only, what, three electoral votes? I think it's four.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: Well, something like that. But the reason I bring this
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: up is because Montana is not as deep, deep red
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: as you might think for where it is. Of all
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: those states out there, it is one where you always
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: think like, someday, maybe, right number of people move to Montana.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: Could it be something? So, yeah, I don't think it's...
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: I think if you had a really strong candidate there, clearly,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: we just had Jon Tester as senator. You know, it's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: a shot.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: One last thing we had to get to, and this
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: one is, this is personal. RFK Jr. last week at
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: one of his Eat Real Food rallies, he previewed a
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: crackdown on a beloved staple of many Americans' diets. Here's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: some of what he said, and here's some of the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: reaction from my brethren.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 12: We're going to ask Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, show us
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 12: the safety data that show that it's okay for a
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 12: teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 12: of sugar in it.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to be able to do it.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 11: Bostonians seem to have a clear message about changing their
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 11: favorite orders.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: Don't try it. Is not the promise.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: and the beauty of the freedom we get in America
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: to get however much fucking.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Sugar you want in your Dunkin's iced coffee.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 10: The guy that snorted coke off a toilet is trying
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 10: to take my Dunkin, and I'm not gonna let him.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 10: Bobby baby must have done a few more lines, cause
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 10: he's crazy if he thinks me and the rest of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 10: the nutjobs who live here are gonna let him take
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 10: the only joy most of us miserable assholes have left.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: RFK, sleep with one eye open, bitch.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I love Boston.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: It's the best. What the fuck? Come from my fucking Dunkin'? Do.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: You know what's the only drug more powerful than sugar?
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: What?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: Polarization. Because here's the thing. He's not wrong.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: He is wrong.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: He's not wrong.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: He's not wrong in this way. You should know. You
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: should be able to know when you walk into Dunkin'.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: if you order one of the more ridiculous fucking things
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: on that menu, exactly how much sugar you're getting. I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: think that's totally fair. And they also, by the way,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: put the calorie counts up there.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: You know who did that?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Michelle Obama did that.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Which I think it's good. I think giving people more information,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: more transparent, forcing companies to be transparent about what they're
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: putting in their products is a good thing. And then
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: you give people the choice. Because guess what? This right here.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: Talk to me about what's in that cup right now.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, I will. This is an iced coffee. There's a
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: splash of half and half in here. Maybe a little
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: more than a splash.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: It's quite a shade of a crew for it to
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: be just a splash.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: It's a Duncan splash, which is a little heavier than
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: your Starbucks splash. And it's got five pumps of sugar-free vanilla. Sugar-free.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, see, RFK approved coffee.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: And a couple Splenda's. A couple Splenda's. So again, how
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: much sugar am I having? No sugar. How much chemicals
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: am I having because I'm having sugar-free all kinds of
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: whatever sucralose, whatever the fucklose it's called. Lots of it.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: Lots of it, which is how I like it.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 12: All right.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: I would say I'm glad you're on board with the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: calorie counts. I'm concerned about your coffee artist in general
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: as someone who's concerned about your health.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: You know, and I do, and I do think, and
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: like the, the quasi serious part of this wholly unserious
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: part of this podcast is like, you know, we're probably
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: gonna look back on sugar and, and ultra processed foods
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: is like the nicotine of our, the cigarettes of our time. Um,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: and this is like, it's this stuff that has always
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: been RFK juniors gateway to the anti-vaccine lunacy is like
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: that stuff makes sense to people.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: I will say when we were in Australia, New Zealand
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: for nine or 10 days, you would think that when
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: you were traveling, you're like, Oh, well I was traveling.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: And so my, My whole routine is out of whack
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: and I didn't feel great because I'm eating on the road.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: I felt better on the road than when I came
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: back and started eating the shit that we have in
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: this country.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: And I saw what you ate and drank in Australia
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: and I'm impressed.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: I ate some– we ate great in Australia.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: We ate a lot in Australia.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: We did eat a lot. But like I also think
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: it's– you know, you– You're in a house, there's snacks everywhere.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: It's just, it's a lot. It's a lot. But I'm
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: with RFK on the processed foods, for sure. I'm just
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: also all about choice. And I'm especially, you know, I'm
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: especially into my Dunkin'..
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Look, if this is going to turn people against RFK,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I'll take it.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fine. Look, he's wrong about everything. This is
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: another thing he's wrong about. So, go back to your
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: toilet seats.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Dan's interview with Politico's senior political columnist,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: Jonathan Martin.
• 1:10:22
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• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: You and I met was in 2004 when I was
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: working for Daschle and you were covering Senate races for
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: National Journal.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. You were a Daschle guy. And you and
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: I talked about this, but there should be a political
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: 30 for 30. Well, just period. But there really should
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: be one for those 02 and 04 back-to-back epic South
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: Dakota Senate races. It's just a crime that we don't
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: have a documentary about those two races. And I don't know.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe that could be your next series.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Maybe in our next life, we can start the political
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: 30 for 30. Exactly.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: Now, one thing I've learned about you over the years
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: is that you cover races based in part on the
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: quality of barbecue where those races are taking place. So
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: I know you have been in Texas and North Carolina
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: covering the primaries that happened this past week. Let's start
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: with Texas where James Tallarico won the Democratic nomination. Republicans
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: are now headed to a What could be quite nasty
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: if it continues a runoff between incumbent Senator John Cornyn
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: and Ken Paxton.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: This thing seems to be moving very fast here in
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: the runoff. Trump is thinking of an endorsement. He just
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: did an interview with Politico, I believe, where he said– Yes.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Where he heard that Paxton said he was staying in
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: no matter what. Trump said that could cause him to
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: endorse Cornyn because he wants whoever– He does not endorse
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: to drop out. Paxton then said this morning that he
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: would drop out if the Senate Republicans drop the filibuster
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: to pass the SAVE Act. What are you hearing about
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: what's going on here in Texas on the Republican side?
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, talk about fast moving events, as they say
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: in the news business, but also a sort of neat encapsulation, Dan,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: for the for the. the sort of internal GOP politics
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: of the Trump era. It's really one man's decree more
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: than anything else. And that's the way he wants it.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: I was in South Texas with Senator Cornyn, and I
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: wrote my column from there. And the lead of my
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: column was basically, here's this almost 40-year career as a judge,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: state AG, and senator, pretty distinguished. And Dan, his entire
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: fate rests in the hands of, you know, Trump is
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: Augustus in the Coliseum doing the thumbs up or the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: thumbs down. It's a hell of a way to live
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: your life as a senator. Who, by the way, it's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: like most incumbent senators of their own party get the
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: endorsement of their president. That's pretty typical in American politics.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: The fact that he's had to work for this tells
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: you everything about this moment that we're in. But as
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: for the president, all signs point to Trump endorsing Cornyn.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: Trump's top lieutenants from the 24 campaign are working for
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: Senator Cornyn. That's Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio. They're very
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: close to Susie Wiles, who, of course, is Trump's chief
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: of staff. And now that Paxton is sort of dragging
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: his feet about whether he drop out, Dan, that's just
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: going to, I think, ensure that Trump doesn't, in fact,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: endorse Cornyn. What does that do? Well, it's a sigh
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: of relief for Senate Republicans. It probably means that they'll
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: have to spend less money on the Texas race, And
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: if they have to give Paxton some face-saving pledge to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: a vote on the Save Act, they'll probably do it.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: But you can't make that up. Like, Ken Paxton is
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: looking for some thin reed, some fig leaf here to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: drop out of the race. And I'll do it if
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: they vote on a voter ID bill, or they drop
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: the filibuster for a voter ID bill, which is all
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: just sort of a charade for, he just needs a cover, right?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: Here's the question. What did Cornyn do? Like, why, like,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sort of unfamiliar. I don't really understand why. What
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: was Cornyn's mortal sin against the MAGA movement? Yeah.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question. And I wrestled with this
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: too when I was down there. It's like, look, Bill Cassidy,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: the senator from Louisiana.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: He did something, right?
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: It's clear as day. He voted to impeach Trump in
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: February of 2021. Like, okay, I understand that from a
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: political standpoint. But you're right. Like, what is Cornyn's sin? Like,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: what's his his fireable offense, if you will. I actually
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: asked him that question. I said, like, Senator, do you
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: have a fireable offense? And there's really not one. Now,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: what folks on the right in Texas will point to
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: is the bipartisan deal they did after Uvalde, which was
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: a fairly modest set of gun control regulations, but it
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: was pretty small beer. And I think the bigger issue
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: is he's just not MAGA. You know, he doesn't come
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: off as MAGA. He's a bushy, Everybody in Texas knows it,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: and he doesn't really fake it that well. And so
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: I think it's more just he's not where the party
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: is today, sort of tonally and culturally, and therefore he's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: got to go. Now, where it gets complicated, Dan, is
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: that Trump himself isn't that MAGA, right? I mean, Trump
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: is MAGA when it's convenient for him, but he really
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: wants to figure out and determine what MAGA is. And
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: this is why people like MTG have had this sort
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: of loss of faith, Dan. Because Trump himself is like
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: conveniently MAGA, right? And so, you know, they can coax
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: Trump to be for corn in here. It looks like
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: Trump is going to side with a traditional wing of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: the Republican Party.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: You know, in some of these other races where Trump
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: got involved in 2022, they were sort of like fake
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: MAGA candidates. He made MAGA like Herschel Walker, Dr.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: Oz.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Ken Paxton is MAGA through and through. He is sort
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: of a canary in the coal mine on a lot
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: of issues that become cause celebs on Fox News or
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: right-wing media. Is there any potential consequence to him for
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: picking the bushy, the establishment guy over at a time
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: when there's division on the Iran war, there's division on
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: the Epstein files, et cetera?
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: So I think it's at the margins, but the margins
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: matter in midterms. Nobody knows that better than you. I mean, look,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: You know, he's going to alienate, I think, very online,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: extremely ideological figures who come from that Bannon-Tucker-MTG wing where
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: they actually believe in this stuff when it comes to
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: a policy agenda that is very different from the traditional
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: wing of the party. I don't know how big that is.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: I think the bulk of the party is with Trump
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: on whatever Trump decides he wants to do, whether that's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: politics or policy. But yeah, there's definitely a faction. I
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: don't know if it's 15% or 30% of the party base,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: but it's real. And those folks matter. And if they
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: stay home in November, that's devastating. Because if you don't
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: get that crowd out and you're a Republican, there's nowhere
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: to make up for it.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: Based on what you said about the Republicans think if
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Cornyn's the nominee, they'll spend less money. From what you're
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: hearing from the Senate Republican types, is their assumption that
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: this is a safe state if Absolutely.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: No, it's that Cornyn is not going to alienate the center-right.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: Suburban, indie or republican woman especially in a way that
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: paxton would and that we can basically uh you know
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: spend less money i think you're right that it's still
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: a ball game i think it favors the republicans more
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: heavily but they can't go to sleep on it because
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: obviously talarico is going to have a ton of cash
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: It's a good cycle for Dems in Texas. Obviously, it's changing.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: But I just think it makes it a lot easier
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: for the Republicans given the nature of Cornyn versus Paxton.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: And looking at the general election, one of the things
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: I think was notable in Tallarico's victory was his performance
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: with Latino voters, not just in his margins over Crockett,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: but the number of votes he got out of– The
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: wall votes. Yeah, right. That he got out of the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: Rio Grande Valley– I think this is particularly important in Texas,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: not just because it cites Latino vote, but the entire
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: principle underlying their redistricting was that there was this shift
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: among Latino voters. And it seems like there's at least
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: real evidence of a snapback in Texas, if not nationally.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: Well, I think there is a modest realignment along education
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: and class lines among all working class voters, no matter
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: their ethnicity. But this assumption that suddenly the working class
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: Hispanic had become MAGA, is totally unfounded. They were voting
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: in a one-off election against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: and frankly, against inflation and open borders. They weren't voting
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: for the MAGA party and embracing Donald Trump as their
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: political icon. It was a momentary vote. And I think
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: that the redraw in Texas that you allude to made
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 4: a mistake because they assumed those voters were were theirs,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: and they were just leasing them for one cycle. And
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: I was there with Cornyn. I spent some time down
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: there with a Democrat running for a House seat named
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: Bobby Polito, who's this Tejano singer who's like an icon
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: in the Valley. And he's running in a seat that's
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: drawn for a Republican, but I think he's got a
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: better than even chance to win, in part because of
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: his personal fame, but also in part because of what
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: you mentioned, that snapback. There's a real backlash against ICE
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: among Hispanic voters. And these, by the way, are center
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: and center right Hispanic voters. I mean, your listeners should
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: know this. Like, if you're Hispanic on the Rio Grande Valley,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: you're pretty middle of the road, if not right. And
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: they're up for voting for Republican. They're just not going
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: to do it in this environment. And you give them
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: the right kind of Democrat, and they'll vote for a Democrat.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: And we saw that, to your point. Just the raw
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: votes in those counties along the Rio Grande, The amount
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: of folks voting in the Democratic primary exceeding the number
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: of votes Kamala Harris got in a general election.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: And sometimes by a factor of two or three. I mean,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: it's just wild.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, you just don't see that kind of turnout
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: in a primary compared to a general election. That tells
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: you everything about the amount of energy with Democrats broadly
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: and the fact that ancestral Hispanic Democrats who may have
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: moved to Trump temporarily in 24 or even 20 are
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: coming back to the Democratic Party.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: There are a couple other interesting races down ballot in Texas.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: You mentioned Bobby Pulido. That's an interesting one. Another one
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: that I just wanted your take on as someone who
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: hears a lot from what the Republicans are saying is
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: what happened to Dan Crenshaw? So Dan Crenshaw was elected
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: in 2018, Navy SEAL, lost an eye in combat, was
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: a real star of the Republican Party. You couldn't turn
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: on TV without seeing him. I think probably in 2020, 2022,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: maybe 2024, people thought he was the future of the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: party in some ways. And he just got absolutely clobbered
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: in his primary by a candidate endorsed by Ted Cruz.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: What was his sin against the MAGA world or the
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: Trump world?
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: Let me just say, before talking about the actual race,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: it has sort of karma-type vibes that remind me of
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: Elise Stefanik, too, which is these younger Republicans who everybody
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: knows they're not really Trumpy, and they reinvent themselves to
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: accommodate where the party is. And then it just ultimately
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: leaves them going nowhere. And so there is something that is,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 4: you know, there's some poetic justice there in terms of
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: these folks who are faking it in public life. But
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: in terms of Crenshaw's race, a few things happened. You
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: mentioned the redraw of the House map. That really hurt him.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: But that's a choice they made. They chose to hurt him, right?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: We're getting greedy. We're going to grab some more House
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: seats and we're going to make assumptions about Hispanic voters
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: staying with us. And we're going to make some other
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: assumptions too about the nature of our incumbent House members.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: And by the way, Dan, you know this, there's no
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: House member likes their seat being redrawn. I don't care
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: what their party is. They hate it because they have
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: to meet new voters, right? And it's a pain. But
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: the Texas Republicans, they saluted Trump and they went along
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: with this redraw. And in the case of Crenshaw, he
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: gets tons of new voters he doesn't know. And the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: state rep challenging him is running in a seat that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: includes a big overlap of his current state house district.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: And then he gets a big, big infusion of money
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: from a donor who doesn't like Crenshaw into a super PAC,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: which these days can mean a lot. You add the
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: Ted Cruz factor in, and then Trump doesn't really get
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: involved for Crenshaw, and it adds up to a pretty
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 4: decisive loss.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: Let's switch to North Carolina here, which also has good barbecue,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: and you've been covering that race as well.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know from Carolina, Dan, exactly.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: They were probably on Tuesday. It wasn't that much interesting
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: on the primary ballot, but what was interesting was the
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: turnout among Democrats, even though Roy Cooper did not have
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: an actual ballot. There was not a big statewide race
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: like there was in Texas. What are you hearing from
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: North Carolina?
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: Look, I think Democrats' path to 50– starts in Maine,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: but it goes to North Carolina.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no path without 50. There's no way without
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: North Carolina, no path to 50.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: That's right. And so I think Maine is their top
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 4: target for obvious regions we can go into. But I
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: think number two in a pretty close second is North Carolina.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: You've got a two-term... former governor, 100% name ID, was
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: very popular. He was a small-town lawyer-type Democrat. And it's
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: uncontested in the primary. And yeah, it was so striking
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: looking at the raw votes in both parties. Neither party
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: had a real primary for its Senate seat on the
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: Republican side or Democratic side. And Democrats had significantly more
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: raw votes showing up. Now, that's in part because they
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: had a little bit more down-ballot action in some House races.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: But still, it tells you where the energy is this cycle. Now,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: It's not easy. Look, this map is tough for Democrats.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: The environment is good, but the map is difficult. You know,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: you have to beat Susan Collins, which you haven't done
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: in 30 years that you've been in office. You haven't
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: won a federal race in North Carolina, Dan, since you
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: guys won there in 08 and brought Kay Hagan along
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: with you. And then you have to go to Ohio,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: which has turned so Trumpy for the last three cycles.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: And those are your three best seats, right? So it's
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: a tough cycle. But boy, I think Cooper may be
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: the best recruit in America this year. And he's running
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: against somebody, the former RNC chair, who's just not that
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: well-known like a former governor is. So if you're ever
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: going to win North Carolina in a federal race, besides
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: having Obama on top of the ticket, it's going to
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: be this year. Yeah.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: The Watley choice is going to be– it's going to
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: be interesting how that plays out in the end if
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: Cooper wins to just pick the random RNC chair, Trump's
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: RNC chair for that role.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: He's a Trump proxy, right? It's just like nominating– You know,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: the idea was Laura Trump, his daughter-in-law, was going to
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: run and she didn't want to do it. And so
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: they found Whatley as a way to forestall a primary.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: And there's no primary, but I just, you know, it's
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: just not a fair fight against the former governor. Now,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: that said, structurally, it's still a hard state for Democrats, right?
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, you just look at 16, 20, and 24,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: so much money, so much effort, and they couldn't carry
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 4: the state.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, and have basically got the same vote share
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: every single time, you know.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right. You put so much effort in and
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: you get to the top of the mountain and you're
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: almost at the peak and you're like 48.3. You just
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: can't get there, right?
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: I guess one of the questions we'll have, and I
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: think Democrats got to think this through, is you see
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: this– like Democratic turnout is going to be through the roof.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: We see that.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: Thus far for Republicans, there's been kind of mixed signals
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: on this, right? Like even in 18, Democrat turnout was
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: through the roof. Republican turnout was also pretty high.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: You know, there was high turnout in Texas, but the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: fact that there were more Democratic... But that was the
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: most expensive primary in history, and turnout usually follows money.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: So, like, notable that Democrat... And there were just more
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: Republican voters than Democratic voters, so notable you got more
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Democrats voting that primary. The question will be whether.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: Well, you're smart to bring up 2018, though, because, you know,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: that's the first Trump midterm in his first term, and
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: it's analogous to this year in terms of the massive energy.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: And even with that energy, you still lose... what, four
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: Democratic incumbents, Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: Joe Donnelly. So you had the 2012 cycle, where the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: last time Obama was on the ballot brought.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: All those people over. Yeah. Which, by the way, this
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: is a longer conversation, but 2012 was really the last
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: sort of, you know, what I call B.C. versus A.D.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's like the last election in the before times,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: you know?
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, starting after that, everything changes in American politics. Anyways...
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: Great cycle. You get a huge House pickup, take back
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: the House, and you're losing all these purple to red
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: state Senate Democrats. And so I just raise that as
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: a cautionary warning because even in a big cycle where
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: Democrats have anti-Trump energy, it's still hard structurally for the
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: party to win some of these senators.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: It's easier, though, in a wave year to beat an
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: incumbent than to defend an incumbent.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right. I'm totally right.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: That's what we have going for us.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: And you were playing defense in 18.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: And we're playing offense here. And now, like you point out,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: there's no path to 50 that doesn't require winning at
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: least two seats in states that Trump won by more
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: than 10 points. There are some unique political circumstances in
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: those states that make it potentially feasible, you know, either
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: quality of recruit like Sherrod Brown or Mary Patola in Alaska,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: or just sort of states that have, you know, probably
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: the longest shot of those four is Iowa. But it's
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: a state that Trump is like essentially waged economic war
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: on with his tariffs and the soybean stuff. But yeah,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: it's like, it is a hard path. The question is
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: whether Trump is going to get 18 turnout or something
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: like Democrats gotten 14, which is that like lame duck,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: second-term turnout. Because it's not a dress rehearsal for the
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: forthcoming presidential election. It's just like, ugh. That's the difference
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: between picking up those seats and not picking up those seats,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: is my guess.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: You make an important point, though, about how 14, you're
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: playing defense, now you're playing offense. I mean, it's a
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: silver lining to a pretty damn gloomy cloud, which the
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: Democrats have lost so much ground in the Senate, in
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: red America, that now they're not.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: We're on offense everywhere in red America.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: They left.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 4: There's nowhere left. We've played offense now. But yeah, I mean,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 4: like the jokes that I make is when you're a
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: Democrat and you're looking at the possible of taking back
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 4: the Senate and your 51st seat is Alaska, Texas, or Iowa,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: you know, it's not ideal.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no. You wouldn't draw that up in
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: a lab.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit about- It's not exactly the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: Upper West Side of Manhattan.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about the broader midterm landscape here.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: You know, there is The first two and a half
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: months of this year have been insane from a news perspective.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: We had a war in Venezuela, tariffs, what happened in Minnesota,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: but now we have an ongoing war with Iran. What
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: are you hearing from maybe people on both sides of
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: the aisle about the potential impact of this, how nervous
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: they are, particularly maybe the Republicans are about this being
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: added to the docket?
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 4: I mean– Everybody is holding their breath because the expectation
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 4: among Republicans is that this is closer to Venezuela. And
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: it's just a different part of the world with far
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 4: different circumstances. And, you know, I think Trump got emboldened
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 4: by the success of Venezuela. But, Dan, it was so
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: clean that I think it led him to think he
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: could just keep doing that. And you just grab the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: joystick again, do it for somewhere else. And it's not
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: the same. So the question I have is, you know,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: how long does this go? Is it really weeks, which
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: is what you hear from the Republicans now, or is
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: it months? And if it is months, boy, I just
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 4: think that takes a toll politically if the Iranians can
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: keep lobbying drones and missiles in response and we're losing
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: American service members week after week. I think that just
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 4: adds to the burden the Republicans have in an already
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 4: tough cycle. And I just don't think that there's a
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 4: rally around the flag ethos in this year. No, not anymore.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 4: It's just times have changed. It's a preemptive war. They
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 4: haven't made any kind of a public campaign. You know,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, the Bush folks went to the UN, went
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 4: to the Congress, months-long public campaign. The war went south. Obviously,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 4: you know that better than anybody given what happened in
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: 06 and 08 and Obama's rise. But they did something
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 4: on the front end to at least sell it. There's
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: none of that. So I think if this thing doesn't
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: go well, it creates a huge political burden for the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 4: Republicans in an already tough cycle. I just don't know
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: if that's going to be the case because you and
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: I can't sit here and guess as to what's going
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: to happen in the next 10 days, two weeks. So
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: I think we have to wait and see how this unfolds.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 4: How interested is Trump? How much does he sustain this campaign?
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 4: Does he declare victory, Dan, in three, four days? It's
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: sort of difficult to grasp. But he has started a war,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 4: which is easy, but it's really hard to end a war.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a couple of moments here. There's like
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: what's happening right now. There's if more troops die and
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: there's the– it seems like we're spending a billion dollars
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: a day on this. The Congress is probably going to
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: have to vote on a supplemental. That is going to
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: be a moment. I mean I've seen some internal Democratic
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: polling that suggests that spending billions of dollars on this
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: war in the same time you cut a trillion dollars
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: in Medicaid is not a particularly popular stance for these Republicans.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: But so then that's going to line up with some–
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: this is a weird cycle because you really have no incumbents.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: You have Collins and you have Ossoff and everything else
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: is essentially, you know, I guess on the Democrats, you
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: have Ossoff and then I, you know, I guess you
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: have Sullivan and, um, and Husted, but the rest of
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: it is just like how much those votes will matter
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: will be interesting. And then you're right. If this thing
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: ends in a few weeks, you know, um, It's hard
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: to guess.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 4: But you mentioned the lack of incumbents, and I think
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 4: that's vital to understanding this cycle because in a place
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 4: like North Carolina, it's not like it's Tom Tillis up
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 4: for re-election, right? It just– it changes the equation and
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 4: the same thing in Iowa. Now, in Iowa, you could
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: argue if you're a Republican, it's actually better to have
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 4: a new face there than it is to have Joni
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 4: Ernst who– speaking of having to fake it on MAGA.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 4: But– This is so salient. Ohio. Who's the incumbent senator?
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 4: Most of your listeners don't know. He gets no attention.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 4: His name is John Husted. He's the former lieutenant governor.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: He's an appointee who took the van seat that was vacated. And,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: you know, when you're an appointee senator, historically, you're in
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 4: really weak political shape. Now, he's run statewide before, but still,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: that's a disadvantage. We haven't even mentioned Florida here. Florida
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 4: is so forgotten politically. But there's an appointee in Florida
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: as well. Ashley Moody. who's got, you know, very light
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: name ID statewide. And it's just, it's so different from
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: a two or three-term incumbent senator when you have these appointees. Now,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: I think Florida is still tough for Democrats, but this
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: is a wave year. The Gov and Senate races there
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 4: are getting no attention, but they probably should get more,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I generally am of the view that Democrats have. Like,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: I spend most of my life worrying about the 2032
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: redrawn electoral map. And so, like... So that's why I
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: worry a lot about Texas and Florida, because if we
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: can't become competitive in those states, we're pretty screwed as
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: a party.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 9: Totally.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: If you're losing a net 14 votes between California, New York, Texas,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: and Florida, we're in pretty big trouble. But that's either
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: here or there. Let me ask you a little bit.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: But this is an important point, though, because for all
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: of the energy against Trump, and I understand, the bigger
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 4: challenge is 2030. Can you compete structurally– for a majority
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: in the U.S. Senate without adding Puerto Rico and D.C.?
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 4: And right now, the answer is maybe you can get 51,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 4: but that's really about it. And then how are you
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: going to keep a House majority if the shift in
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 4: population is moving from blue to red America? Those are
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 4: the more sobering questions for Democrats going forward, right?
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of my fears is... I have two fears.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: One is that is the map itself shifting and us
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: not thinking about that, not thinking long-term and the investments
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: you have to make to take some of these places
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: that are not competitive now and make them competitive. And
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: the other one is that Democrats will make the same
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: mistake we did in 2022, which is to do very
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: well in 26, think everything is– all the problems are
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: solved and move on. Because the bigger structural problems don't
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: come into play until the less engaged voters get involved.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: And we haven't mentioned this yet, but I mentioned the
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 4: House and Senate, but also– If you have a huge
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 4: shift in population from blue to red America, that changes
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 4: the electoral college. And as you alluded to, 2032 becomes harder.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: Forget the blue wall. That's not enough anymore. If you're
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 4: not competitive in Florida and Texas by 2032, you're creating
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 4: a huge challenge for yourself and holding the White House.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you basically have to draw an inside straight every
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: year to win. That's the only way to do it.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: Let's end here with, I want to figure out how
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: you convinced your employers to do what everyone wants, which
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: is to pay to send you to places around the
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: country to eat really, really good food. So talk to
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: me about On the Road with Jonathan Martin.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 4: Well, thanks, Dan. Over the years, friends, colleagues, sources have
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: always asked me, like, hey, I'm going to New Orleans.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 4: I'm going to Denver. I'm going to Boston. Where should
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: I eat? What should I do? Where should I stay?
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 4: And you and I have had these conversations over the years,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 4: and it's like, you know, I'm happy to share ideas.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: So I said, like, I should actually find a way
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 4: to make this into something fun. And this is a
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: sobering moment in politics, but you've got to find a
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: way to also have a good time. So I'm starting...
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 4: this roadshow called On the Road. And the idea is
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 4: basically evoke three things, food, politics, and place. And by place,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: I mean history, culture, identity, sort of localism. You know,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: things that aren't part of the Starbucks TGI Friday's America.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 4: And so I started this week in Arkansas with Sarah
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 4: Huckabee Sanders at a barbecue joint. I'm going to do
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 4: Governor's Dan for the first season. And, you know, the
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 4: hope is kind of like one part Anthony Bourdain, you know,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 4: one part nerdy almanac of American politics stuff you and
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 4: I have been doing for the last few minutes here.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 4: But also, you know, like to like really capture these
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 4: places and localities and let folks sit in on a conversation,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 4: kind of like the lunch with the FT feature. If
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: folks ever listen or, you know, read the Saturday FT,
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 4: they have that lunch with feature where you can sort
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: of like eavesdrop on the lunch. I want to have that,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: but with cameras there rolling to capture these conversations about
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 4: politics and food and history and all that stuff. So
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 4: we're starting with governors. It's going to be fun for
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: a season. And this fall, you know, happens to be football.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 4: So season two is going to.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: Be even better, I think. When does it start and
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: how can people get it?
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 4: Dan, it starts this coming week. You can catch it
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: wherever you get podcasts, but this is also a video series,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 4: so it's going to air on YouTube as well. And
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 4: the idea is we would love folks to watch it
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: on YouTube, but if you don't want to see me
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 4: with barbecue stains on my shirt, no offense taken. You
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 4: can just crank it up as a podcast and listen
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 4: to it when you're driving or working out or jogging
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: or whatever you want. It's on the road with Jonathan Martin.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: It's going to start this coming week. And you can
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: catch it wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: Jay Mart, good to talk to you, man. We'll talk
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: to you again later soon. Thanks, Dan.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: Good to see you.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to Jonathan Martin for
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: coming on. Tommy and I will be back on Sunday
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 3: with a conversation with Governor Gavin Newsom.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 1:39:35
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  Speaker 3: episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save
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  Speaker 3: America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin.
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• 1:39:57
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  Speaker 3: is our head of news and politics. The show is
• 1:40:03
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