Latest / Pod Save America / Can Newsom Stop Trump's Steal?

Transcript

Can Newsom Stop Trump's Steal? · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. There's a lot
0:03
Speaker 1: of performative, tough-on-crime talk out there. SimpliSafe Home Security is
0:06
Speaker 1: effective against crime. Their active guard uses smart tech and
0:10
Speaker 1: live agents to proactively deter criminals, not just react once
0:13
Speaker 1: they're already in.
0:15
Speaker 2: I set up a SimpliSafe system. It's incredibly easy to do.
0:17
Speaker 2: I customized it to my house.
0:19
Speaker 3: I ordered it.
0:19
Speaker 1: It came.
0:20
Speaker 3: I installed it myself. It worked great. The app is great.
0:22
Speaker 4: The customer support is great. Highly recommend it.
0:24
Speaker 1: Most security systems only take action after someone breaks in.
0:27
Speaker 1: That's too late. SimpliSafe's new active guard outdoor protection helps
0:30
Speaker 1: stop break-ins before they happen. Someone's lurking, agents talk to
0:33
Speaker 1: them in real time, turn on spotlights, and can call
0:36
Speaker 1: the police proactively to turn crime before it starts. Named
0:39
Speaker 1: best home security system of 2025 by CNET, 4 million
0:41
Speaker 1: plus Americans trust SimpliSafe. Ranked number one in customer service
0:44
Speaker 1: by Newsweek and USA Today. Monitoring plans start around a
0:47
Speaker 1: dollar a day, 60-day money-back guarantee, no contracts, no hidden fees.
0:51
Speaker 1: Just visit simplisafe.com slash cricket to claim 50% off a
0:53
Speaker 1: new system. with a professional monitoring plan and get your
0:56
Speaker 1: first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe
0:59
Speaker 1: like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:24
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
1:25
Speaker 1: On today's show, we got vehicle checkpoints and street patrols
1:28
Speaker 1: in newly militarized D.C. ICE is out of control and
1:32
Speaker 1: showing up at Democratic political events. Trump thinks Putin wants
1:35
Speaker 1: to make peace ahead of their Alaska meeting. Gavin Newsom
1:38
Speaker 1: talks to us about his big redistricting announcement today. And
1:42
Speaker 1: we'll end with a few minutes on the podcast guest
1:45
Speaker 1: everyone's talking about this week. How's that? But let's start
1:50
Speaker 1: with this week's big economic news. Wholesale prices, which are
1:54
Speaker 1: basically the prices that producers like farmers, factories, other businesses
1:58
Speaker 1: get paid for their goods and services, just rose at
2:02
Speaker 1: the fastest rate in three years. Economists say this is
2:06
Speaker 1: a sign that the cost of Trump's tariffs are starting
2:08
Speaker 1: to hit hard and will start affecting consumers in a
2:12
Speaker 1: bigger way, driving up inflation. So what does Donald Trump
2:16
Speaker 1: have to say? Here he is just hours after the
2:18
Speaker 1: report was released.
2:20
Speaker 5: We've ended Biden's inflation nightmare.
2:23
Speaker 6: So we had the worst inflation in the history of
2:25
Speaker 6: our country.
2:27
Speaker 5: And now our inflation is down to a perfect number,
2:29
Speaker 5: a beautiful number, hardly any at all.
2:32
Speaker 1: Perfect number, beautiful number, hardly any at all. He didn't
2:36
Speaker 1: need to say that. Like he could have said nothing
2:38
Speaker 1: about inflation after a bad inflation report. But he chose
2:43
Speaker 1: to go in the other direction and say that it's
2:45
Speaker 1: completely solved. What do you think? Is he going to
2:47
Speaker 1: be able to lie his way through higher prices and inflation?
2:51
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of my time worrying about how
2:53
Speaker 3: Trump can sort of gaslight reality, how he can get
2:56
Speaker 3: either his right-wing media to echo and amplify what he's saying,
3:00
Speaker 3: how he can sort of cowl the media and other
3:02
Speaker 3: stakeholders into going along with what he says. This is
3:06
Speaker 3: one place where I am not worried about it. It's
3:09
Speaker 3: just people know how much things cost, and they notice
3:14
Speaker 3: when they go up. You go to the grocery store
3:15
Speaker 3: one week, and you buy milk and eggs and beef
3:18
Speaker 3: and vegetables, and then you go back the next week
3:19
Speaker 3: and you buy those same things and they cost more,
3:20
Speaker 3: people will notice that. It was the first week of
3:23
Speaker 3: school in our house this week, but all across the country,
3:25
Speaker 3: people are going back to school over the next month.
3:26
Speaker 3: When you go school shopping, you realize that school supplies
3:29
Speaker 3: and school clothes cost more than they did last year.
3:30
Speaker 3: People will notice that. They'll notice when stuff for Thanksgiving
3:34
Speaker 3: costs more, when presents over the holidays are going to
3:37
Speaker 3: cost more. You can't miss it. We went through this
3:43
Speaker 3: whole debate in 2024, about how the media was covering
3:47
Speaker 3: the economy wrong and they weren't giving Biden credit for it.
3:50
Speaker 3: And what we then realized was the people who don't
3:51
Speaker 3: follow the media at all, the ones who have the
3:52
Speaker 3: worst opinion of the economy because they see the reality
3:55
Speaker 3: of what's happening. And so Trump can lie about this.
3:58
Speaker 3: He can pretend like it's not happening. He can cheat.
3:59
Speaker 3: He can cook the books and these reports. He can
4:01
Speaker 3: do whatever he wants. But if prices keep going up,
4:03
Speaker 3: people are going to notice it. And whether they directly
4:06
Speaker 3: attribute it to tariffs or not, they're going to blame
4:08
Speaker 3: him because he's the person in charge. So I have
4:10
Speaker 3: some measure of confidence on this one.
4:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, the people, including the Biden administration, who were blaming
4:15
Speaker 1: the media coverage back in 2024 and three and two
4:20
Speaker 1: for the inflation, they were wrong then. And the Trump
4:23
Speaker 1: administration is wrong now. And they're also both wrong that
4:26
Speaker 1: people aren't going to realize it themselves. I also think
4:29
Speaker 1: that because Trump is so insulated and just in his
4:35
Speaker 1: own reality, not only are people not going to believe him,
4:38
Speaker 1: but he's not going to understand that. the level of
4:43
Speaker 1: frustration and anger out in the country about inflation, because
4:48
Speaker 1: no one is going to tell him about that. And
4:49
Speaker 1: anytime he hears any information about that, he's going to
4:51
Speaker 1: think it's fake. So that's just another, it's also another
4:56
Speaker 1: opportunity for Democrats to go out there and make a
4:59
Speaker 1: huge deal about this. Because, you know, you're already starting
5:03
Speaker 1: to see in, I think Axios did a set of
5:05
Speaker 1: focus groups with voters in Georgia, all of whom were
5:09
Speaker 1: Biden voters who switched over to Trump in 2024. And
5:13
Speaker 1: I've seen a few other focus groups. You're starting to
5:15
Speaker 1: hear from voters who voted for Trump maybe for the
5:19
Speaker 1: first time that the costs haven't gone down. That was
5:22
Speaker 1: their main reason for voting for Trump. And they're frustrated
5:25
Speaker 1: and things just keep getting worse. And it doesn't necessarily
5:28
Speaker 1: mean that they are suddenly enamored with the Democrats. The
5:33
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has some work to do. In fact, they
5:34
Speaker 1: are not. but they are definitely souring on Donald Trump.
5:38
Speaker 1: And this is before the tariffs have really shown up
5:42
Speaker 1: in some of the economic data and higher prices that
5:45
Speaker 1: people are going to be facing starting this fall and
5:48
Speaker 1: probably into next year.
5:49
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing in the inflation report that came out
5:52
Speaker 3: was a huge historic increase in fresh vegetables, which is
5:56
Speaker 3: also related to labor shortages because of Trump's deportation rates.
6:00
Speaker 3: And so people are going to notice the price increases
6:04
Speaker 3: And I think they will hold Trump accountable. The secret
6:06
Speaker 3: sauce for Democrats here is to make people understand that
6:08
Speaker 3: Trump has made the problem worse.
6:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:10
Speaker 7: Right.
6:11
Speaker 3: Through his tariffs. And the tariffs are going to keep
6:12
Speaker 3: getting worse and worse. They are kicking in now. The
6:16
Speaker 3: reason why these costs are going up now is because
6:19
Speaker 3: the companies knew the tariffs were coming. They bought huge
6:22
Speaker 3: stockpiles of things to try to get them to the tariffs.
6:25
Speaker 3: Those stockpiles are now expended. And now they have to
6:29
Speaker 3: buy it. Now they're actually paying the tariffs and they're
6:30
Speaker 3: passing those costs on to other people. And we know
6:33
Speaker 3: this from the last time we had supply chain shortages
6:36
Speaker 3: right after the pandemic. Even companies who are not affected
6:38
Speaker 3: by the tariffs will also raise their prices because they
6:41
Speaker 3: see an opportunity to make more money and price gouge
6:44
Speaker 3: in this environment. So prices are going to go up everywhere.
6:46
Speaker 3: And it's because of Trump's policy decisions. I think that's
6:49
Speaker 3: the important point for us to.
6:50
Speaker 4: Get through to people.
6:52
Speaker 1: It's more mad king shit. The guy comes into office.
6:56
Speaker 1: And unilaterally, illegally slaps a giant tax on American consumers
7:03
Speaker 1: so he can try to cut off our trade with
7:05
Speaker 1: the rest of the world because he doesn't understand economics.
7:09
Speaker 1: And because he wants to extort our allies and other
7:12
Speaker 1: countries into making fake promises to please Donald Trump that
7:17
Speaker 1: they're going to like invest in America. invested a bunch
7:20
Speaker 1: of money in America that they'll never make good on,
7:22
Speaker 1: but they just needed to like get out of whatever
7:23
Speaker 1: negotiations they were in with him. And so now he
7:26
Speaker 1: thinks he controls the rest of the world. He said
7:29
Speaker 1: today to Canada and Mexico, do what I tell them
7:31
Speaker 1: to do. So he just wants more power. He just
7:34
Speaker 1: wants more control. And all of us are going to
7:37
Speaker 1: be paying as a consequence and he could crash the
7:39
Speaker 1: economy or at least send us into a recession because
7:44
Speaker 1: we already weren't in a great place before the tariffs.
7:46
Speaker 1: And now he's just making it worse.
7:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we could be headed towards stagflation, which
7:50
Speaker 3: is the worst of all scenarios where you have high
7:51
Speaker 3: prices and low growth, which is sort of what the
7:54
Speaker 3: economy is modeling out to if these trends continue. You
7:57
Speaker 3: made an important point on his media diet, which I
7:59
Speaker 3: just want to hone in on for a second. Trump
8:02
Speaker 3: has been always very good at figuring out why people
8:05
Speaker 3: are mad at Democrats because he watches right-wing media and
8:08
Speaker 3: he sees what animates their audience. But watching right-wing media
8:13
Speaker 3: will never tell you why people are mad at Republicans,
8:15
Speaker 3: which is how he missed– reactions to the pandemic. It's
8:19
Speaker 3: why he's missing the reactions to inflation here. And it's
8:22
Speaker 3: why he doesn't fully understand the consequences of his Epstein
8:25
Speaker 3: problems down the line.
8:27
Speaker 1: And he also, he understood around Liberation Day when the
8:30
Speaker 1: market started crashing, because he does care about the stock
8:33
Speaker 1: market and he watches the stock market. But now that
8:35
Speaker 1: the stock market is basically like, all right, these are
8:37
Speaker 1: the tariffs. And we just want to make sure we
8:40
Speaker 1: get a rate cut and maybe we can get a
8:42
Speaker 1: rate cut. And we care about AI investment more than
8:47
Speaker 1: Anything else? So he thinks the stock market's going well.
8:50
Speaker 1: And so, again, he's going to be totally insulated from
8:53
Speaker 1: other economic news. And one way he's trying to hide
8:57
Speaker 1: the bad economic news is by hiding the bad economic numbers.
9:02
Speaker 1: Last week, we talked about how he fired the head
9:04
Speaker 1: of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because Trump didn't like
9:06
Speaker 1: the jobs numbers. And this week, he nominated E.J. Antony
9:10
Speaker 1: as the replacement. Who is this guy? Well, 37, got
9:14
Speaker 1: his PhD five years ago. from Northern Illinois University on
9:17
Speaker 1: an unrelated topic, works at the Right-Wing Heritage Foundation, writes
9:22
Speaker 1: for The Daily Caller, Breitbart, The Federalist, goes on The
9:26
Speaker 1: War Room, which is why he was Steve Bannon's suggestion
9:29
Speaker 1: for the job. He's been criticized as utterly unqualified and
9:34
Speaker 1: extremely partisan by even conservative economists, including Trump's first term
9:40
Speaker 1: pick to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Trump guy, conservative,
9:45
Speaker 1: headed up the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is like,
9:47
Speaker 1: I liked Trump, but this guy, too much. Antony has
9:50
Speaker 1: called the jobs numbers, quote, phony baloney. He's compared the
9:53
Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics to a random number generator, said
9:57
Speaker 1: that Trump should take a chainsaw to the agency, and
10:01
Speaker 1: told Fox News last week, after he was nominated, that
10:04
Speaker 1: the government should stop putting out monthly jobs numbers until
10:07
Speaker 1: the system is fixed. Best of all, best of all,
10:12
Speaker 1: I know, it's hard to believe there's more. Antony just
10:15
Speaker 1: happened to be in the crowd outside the Capitol on
10:19
Speaker 1: on January 6th. But don't worry, the White House says
10:24
Speaker 1: he was just there for unrelated meetings. I hadn't realized
10:29
Speaker 1: there was also an economic roundtable happening at the Capitol
10:32
Speaker 1: on January 6th. Did you know that?
10:34
Speaker 3: I think you're being overly cynical here, John. What I
10:37
Speaker 3: think happened here is that it's clear that Mr. Antony
10:41
Speaker 3: has a deep reverence for America's government and democracy, and
10:44
Speaker 3: he simply just happened to be in Washington on January
10:48
Speaker 3: 6th to tour the Capitol. And while he was there,
10:53
Speaker 3: he also just happened to run into a large group
10:56
Speaker 3: of people, many of whom armed, carrying gallows with the
11:00
Speaker 3: vice president's name on them, who all shared his political
11:02
Speaker 3: views and his views on the election. And he just
11:04
Speaker 3: thought he would stay. He found new friends.
11:08
Speaker 1: And honestly... He's kind of like.
11:09
Speaker 3: And then when he was there, he was just observing.
11:11
Speaker 3: He's sort of like Tocqueville, if you will, right? He's
11:15
Speaker 3: just reporting on what's happening in America.
11:18
Speaker 1: I got to say, when I first read this, I
11:20
Speaker 1: hadn't seen the picture. And when I read it, I
11:22
Speaker 1: was like, okay, maybe he really was in D.C. And
11:26
Speaker 1: maybe he was like at the, like just, you know,
11:29
Speaker 1: across the street somewhere. And then I saw the picture.
11:33
Speaker 1: He's like in the fucking crowd.
11:35
Speaker 7: Yeah, of course.
11:36
Speaker 3: It's not, he's not.
11:38
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, he was there for an unrelated meeting, I'm sure. Also,
11:41
Speaker 1: have you seen him in his office before? there's like
11:44
Speaker 1: these videos of him in his office and the big
11:47
Speaker 1: picture behind him is the Bismarck, which is a famous
11:51
Speaker 1: Nazi warship from World War II.
11:55
Speaker 3: I had not seen that. That's the information I made. Also,
11:58
Speaker 3: I'm sure.
11:59
Speaker 1: He's just a naval ship enthusiast.
12:00
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm sure when he is not standing in the
12:04
Speaker 3: periphery of a mob trying to murder the Republican vice president,
12:07
Speaker 3: he is just building ships in a.
12:09
Speaker 7: Bottle, maybe?
12:09
Speaker 1: He just loves ships. And his favorite ship just happened
12:12
Speaker 1: to be A Nazi ship from World War II, not
12:14
Speaker 1: all the other ships. Yeah.
12:15
Speaker 3: I mean, he's a maritime enthusiast. What can you say?
12:17
Speaker 1: Who among us doesn't have the Bismarck hung up in
12:19
Speaker 1: our house and office somewhere?
12:20
Speaker 8: All right.
12:21
Speaker 1: What are the chances we can stop this asshole's confirmation?
12:23
Speaker 1: And if not, what are the chances we can trust
12:26
Speaker 1: the government's economic data going forward?
12:29
Speaker 7: Let's start with the former.
12:31
Speaker 3: So I'd like to think that being at least on
12:35
Speaker 3: the periphery of the mob that tried to murder the
12:37
Speaker 3: people who are going to vote for his nomination would
12:40
Speaker 3: be disqualifying. However, these Republicans suck. They confirmed a pro-Russia
12:48
Speaker 3: kook as the head of US intelligence. They confirmed a
12:53
Speaker 3: weekend cable anchor with a reported drinking problem and all
12:56
Speaker 3: sorts of other misconduct issues as the head of the Pentagon.
13:00
Speaker 3: And they confirmed a anti-vaccine enthusiast as the head of
13:06
Speaker 3: Health and Human Services. So I'm not going to place
13:09
Speaker 3: a large wager that this will be the moment in
13:12
Speaker 3: which they find courage to deny Donald Trump what Donald
13:15
Speaker 3: Trump wants.
13:17
Speaker 1: I can't wait for these fucking confirmation hearings because, you know,
13:21
Speaker 1: they're going to ask them, like, are you going to
13:23
Speaker 1: suspend the monthly jobs reports? Of course not. I think
13:26
Speaker 1: that I'm going to I'm going to. treat the job
13:29
Speaker 1: with the integrity it deserves and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
13:32
Speaker 1: And then he's just going to do whatever he wants. Yeah.
13:34
Speaker 3: Then they're going to confirm him. They're like, he told
13:35
Speaker 3: us what he needed to hear. He seemed like a
13:36
Speaker 3: serious guy. And then he's going to suspend the reports
13:39
Speaker 3: or do whatever else. Now, the latter part of your
13:41
Speaker 3: question is how worried should we be that he cooks
13:44
Speaker 3: the books? You have pointed out on multiple occasions, because
13:47
Speaker 3: you're a realist, and you generally wage war both publicly
13:54
Speaker 3: and privately against anyone who is hyperbolic in their concerns
13:57
Speaker 3: about Trump, which has really gone well for you, I think,
14:00
Speaker 3: over the years.
14:03
Speaker 6: What?
14:03
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. But generally, here's what I actually, the nice,
14:09
Speaker 3: truly nice way to say this.
14:10
Speaker 1: I'm the optimist.
14:11
Speaker 3: No, it's not that you're the optimist. It's that you
14:13
Speaker 3: read the details. And then so when everyone's like, he's
14:15
Speaker 3: cooking the books, you actually look and see. And so
14:17
Speaker 3: you understand, and I've pointed out on this podcast, that
14:21
Speaker 3: There's quite a process that goes through that involves a
14:23
Speaker 3: ton of civil servants that actually the BLS director, by
14:29
Speaker 3: current practice, did not even see the numbers until they're
14:31
Speaker 3: basically finished. And you and I know from being in
14:33
Speaker 3: the White House that there is a very serious procedures
14:38
Speaker 3: for keeping those numbers secret because they are market-moving information, right? Like, no,
14:41
Speaker 3: we would– like, you and I would learn the numbers
14:44
Speaker 3: at 8.30 in the morning with the rest of the
14:46
Speaker 3: world when they came out. Like, almost no one– only–
14:50
Speaker 3: like the person's top economic aid would like get the
14:52
Speaker 3: numbers in advance and no one else would.
14:53
Speaker 6: I know.
14:53
Speaker 1: And we, and because we, we couldn't know, we would
14:56
Speaker 1: like watch their expression all day thinking like, are they happy?
15:01
Speaker 1: Are they not happy? Does that mean the jobs numbers
15:03
Speaker 1: are good? Does that mean they're bad? It seems so
15:05
Speaker 1: quaint right now.
15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. I, yeah, I would sort of wander by their
15:07
Speaker 3: office to see if I could kind of get a
15:09
Speaker 3: sense of what was happening. So there, there are some
15:12
Speaker 3: checks in place that prevent the cooking of the books. However,
15:17
Speaker 3: I do not come– once again, I'm not incredibly confident
15:20
Speaker 3: that something that– if Trump doesn't want numbers, he's going
15:24
Speaker 3: to find a way to force something else. You can
15:27
Speaker 3: see them saying, oh, there was a bad data sample, right?
15:30
Speaker 3: We're not going to do it this month. There are
15:34
Speaker 3: levers that we have not thought of that they can
15:37
Speaker 3: pull to try to either make a bad report go
15:40
Speaker 3: away or change the numbers in some way, shape, or form.
15:43
Speaker 3: And they are coming up with– the other thing is
15:45
Speaker 3: they're coming up with a new method to do it.
15:48
Speaker 3: The odds are the new method, maybe not so statistically rigorous,
15:51
Speaker 3: but will get them the answer they want, right? Under
15:54
Speaker 3: the current process, it's hard for them to cook the books.
15:57
Speaker 3: They're coming up with a new process. That could be
15:59
Speaker 3: very book-cooking friendly, if you will.
16:02
Speaker 1: I mean, we have seen this play out now across
16:06
Speaker 1: many agencies with Doge and other actions by the White House,
16:12
Speaker 1: which is hack comes in who's unqualified, who's just a
16:16
Speaker 1: Trump loyalist, and a bunch of you know people with
16:20
Speaker 1: integrity who are civil servants and non-partisan sound the alarm
16:24
Speaker 1: talk to reporters resign there's an uproar they sue it
16:30
Speaker 1: goes to the courts and every you know for a
16:31
Speaker 1: day or two everyone's like oh no the bls people
16:34
Speaker 1: like a top bls official who'd been there forever has
16:37
Speaker 1: resigned because antony is cooking the books or they're worried
16:40
Speaker 1: that he won't give them the job he won't give
16:43
Speaker 1: the president the jobs numbers that they all calculated and
16:46
Speaker 1: So everyone will freak out about it. And then, you know,
16:48
Speaker 1: the lawsuit will work its way through the courts and
16:52
Speaker 1: we'll be on to the next thing. And meanwhile, Trump
16:55
Speaker 1: will be just, you know, talking about whatever numbers he
16:58
Speaker 1: wants to talk about. So, like, I do think that
17:01
Speaker 1: there are these safeguards in place. But the ultimate safeguard
17:04
Speaker 1: is our attention, our public attention on the shit that
17:08
Speaker 1: they're doing. And that seems to be waning on a
17:11
Speaker 1: host of issues, which is what I worry about.
17:23
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by AG1. AG1
17:26
Speaker 2: is the drinkable multivitamin with gut health support. And now
17:29
Speaker 2: they're introducing AG1 Next Gen, three new flavors with all
17:32
Speaker 2: the benefits of the original AG1. The new flavors include Tropical,
17:36
Speaker 2: which is vibrant and fruity, like some hosts. Berry, which
17:39
Speaker 2: is subtle and sweet.
17:41
Speaker 4: Not like our hosts. Is that going to be for John?
17:43
Speaker 2: I guess.
17:45
Speaker 3: And Citrus, sweet and tangy.
17:46
Speaker 1: That's our Dan.
17:48
Speaker 4: He's tangy.
17:50
Speaker 2: Of course, you can get AG1 original with the subtle
17:52
Speaker 2: sweetness of pineapple and vanilla. One scoop of AG1 contains
17:56
Speaker 2: your multivitamin pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants into one
18:00
Speaker 2: delicious daily habit. I like made a change and I
18:02
Speaker 2: started making a morning smoothie where I put basically some
18:06
Speaker 2: frozen fruit, some non-dairy milk, some AG1 and some protein.
18:10
Speaker 2: And honestly, creatine. There's a lot of data for creatine,
18:13
Speaker 2: you know? And so you do that smoothie, you feel
18:15
Speaker 2: like no matter what happens with the rest.
18:17
Speaker 1: Of the day, you're good.
18:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
18:18
Speaker 1: You're good. I love AG1.
18:20
Speaker 2: So it's the easiest thing you can add to your
18:21
Speaker 2: daily routine to support whole body health. It's backed by
18:24
Speaker 2: clinical trials. AG1 NextGen is clinically shown to support gut
18:26
Speaker 2: health and fill common nutrient gaps. AG1 is a comprehensive
18:29
Speaker 2: nutrition supplement that provides nutrients to support body, brain, and
18:33
Speaker 2: gut health. Make your daily health drink more flavorful. Give
18:36
Speaker 2: new AG1 flavors a try today. Head to drinkag1. com slash crooked.
18:41
Speaker 2: When you subscribe, you'll also get a free welcome kit
18:43
Speaker 2: worth $ 76. That includes five AG1 travel packs, a shaker, canister,
18:47
Speaker 2: and scoop. That's drinkag1. com slash crooked to get started. Again, drinkag1. com
18:54
Speaker 2: slash crooked.
18:59
Speaker 1: So, outside the White House, the Big Balls-inspired militarization of D.C.
19:04
Speaker 1: continues apace. There are now hundreds of National Guard troops,
19:09
Speaker 1: federal agents, and ICE agents patrolling the streets of Washington
19:12
Speaker 1: along with the D.C. police, all under the command of
19:14
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Some are standing around next to big army
19:18
Speaker 1: trucks taking pictures with tourists. Others were protecting the SoulCycle
19:23
Speaker 1: and Georgetown Cupcake on M Street, very dangerous areas for
19:28
Speaker 1: those who don't know. And then there are the armed
19:30
Speaker 1: masked ICE agents who set up a vehicle checkpoint in
19:34
Speaker 1: the middle of busy 14th Street Wednesday night. They stopped cars,
19:40
Speaker 1: they handed out citations, they arrested people for permit violations.
19:44
Speaker 1: They also drew a big crowd of protesters Here's some
19:47
Speaker 1: of the D.C. sights and sounds from that night.
19:50
Speaker 9: Just know, right, learn, teach, tell your boys, like, yo,
20:05
Speaker 9: everybody's out.
20:07
Speaker 4: FBI, police.
20:10
Speaker 9: So do your thing.
20:11
Speaker 7: Let them know.
20:12
Speaker 9: Don't be smoking outside.
20:13
Speaker 3: Don't be drinking outside. Because Donald Trump.
20:15
Speaker 8: Is tired of this.
20:17
Speaker 6: Just in case anyone still.
20:20
Speaker 1: Thinks This is all just about crime in DC. Here's Trump.
20:40
Speaker 1: Deportations are Tom Homan and Republican Congressman James Comer talking
20:45
Speaker 1: about what they're really up to and what they got planned.
20:48
Speaker 7: Thank you.
20:49
Speaker 1: Your federalization of the police has a 30-day limit unless
20:52
Speaker 1: Congress acts to extend it.
20:54
Speaker 8: Are you talking to Congress about extending it or do
20:56
Speaker 8: you believe 30 days is sufficient?
20:57
Speaker 7: Well, if it's a national emergency, we can do it
20:59
Speaker 7: without Congress.
21:00
Speaker 1: President Trump doesn't have a limitation on his authority to
21:04
Speaker 1: make this country safe again.
21:05
Speaker 3: There's no limitation on that.
21:06
Speaker 5: We're going to support doing this in other cities if
21:09
Speaker 5: it works out in Washington, D.C. Why don't you vote
21:12
Speaker 5: to allow President Trump to come into Chicago or New
21:15
Speaker 5: York City or Philadelphia and try to combat the criminal
21:21
Speaker 5: activity in their cities? So I think that this is
21:24
Speaker 5: an experiment that's probably needed in a lot of the
21:28
Speaker 5: Democrat-run cities in America.
21:30
Speaker 1: So let's start with, you know, we both lived in D.C.
21:34
Speaker 1: for many, many years. You longer than me. You went
21:37
Speaker 1: to college there. What did you make of the scenes
21:41
Speaker 1: from D.C.? I mean, it's.
21:43
Speaker 3: Just so surreal because we know that crime is actually
21:49
Speaker 3: down in D.C. Violent crime is down in D.C. There's
21:53
Speaker 3: still too much crime for sure, but it is down
21:55
Speaker 3: significantly from where it was in 2023. We don't have
21:58
Speaker 3: a full picture of what's happening, but they seem to be,
22:01
Speaker 3: the federal troops, the FBI agents, the ICE agents, whatever else,
22:04
Speaker 3: seem to be in the places where there's less crime, right?
22:08
Speaker 3: Where they are in the more well-to-do areas, the places
22:12
Speaker 3: where tourists are, and not all parts of the city,
22:15
Speaker 3: particularly the parts where longtime D.C. residents live. It's almost
22:18
Speaker 3: like they're avoiding the crime. It's performative, not actual. It's
22:22
Speaker 3: like the people they're trying to protect are Big balls, right?
22:26
Speaker 3: People who were driving a car jack. If you had
22:33
Speaker 3: told people in the election that seven and a half
22:37
Speaker 3: months or whatever it is under Trump's term, there would
22:39
Speaker 3: be mass federal agents walking the streets of D.C., harassing people,
22:44
Speaker 3: telling them that Mr. Trump wants them inside. We are
22:50
Speaker 3: so far beyond– I was joking with you before about
22:54
Speaker 3: hyperbolic concerns. This is very real. You go through all things.
22:59
Speaker 3: You listen to what Tom Homan had to say there,
23:01
Speaker 3: that they're manufacturing a crisis that is completely made up
23:07
Speaker 3: in order to deploy federal agents and then assert unlimited
23:11
Speaker 3: authority for the president to control the population through those
23:16
Speaker 3: forces that he deployed under false pretenses. It's what happened
23:20
Speaker 3: in LA. It's happening here. Now they want to expand
23:23
Speaker 3: it to everywhere else. And we were just at the
23:27
Speaker 3: same time talking about the BLS numbers. What happens when
23:30
Speaker 3: they start rigging the crime numbers to make it seem
23:33
Speaker 3: like crime's gone up in certain places to justify sending
23:36
Speaker 3: these troops in?
23:38
Speaker 1: I mean, and they don't even need to. They're just saying,
23:39
Speaker 1: they're just asserting it, you know? And look, there's this
23:44
Speaker 1: debate about, you know, is crime really down? Is it just,
23:47
Speaker 1: is it down from pandemic level highs? And so now
23:50
Speaker 1: it's still at a higher level than it used to
23:52
Speaker 1: be before the pandemic. And it's like, yeah. Too much crime,
23:56
Speaker 1: for sure. All in on crime-fighting strategies. I'm all in.
24:01
Speaker 1: We talked about this earlier in the week. There's this
24:03
Speaker 1: whole menu of options that the president, the D.C. Police Department, Congress,
24:09
Speaker 1: which cut a billion dollars from the D.C. budget. Remember
24:13
Speaker 1: they were going to restore all the money they cut
24:16
Speaker 1: from D.C. in the bill way back when?
24:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, how's that going?
24:18
Speaker 1: They just never got around to that, even though everyone
24:20
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, we'll fix that later.
24:22
Speaker 3: They've been very busy hiding from Epstein questions, so they've been.
24:24
Speaker 1: Unable to do this. Right, yeah, could have used the
24:26
Speaker 1: money to put more cops on the street. Didn't do that. Instead,
24:28
Speaker 1: we have National Guard there standing at Union Station next
24:32
Speaker 1: to this huge Army truck just looking bored, taking pictures
24:36
Speaker 1: with tourists. And then, I mean, for people who don't
24:39
Speaker 1: know D.C., don't live in D.C., M Street in Georgetown
24:42
Speaker 1: and 14th Street, where the vehicle checkpoint was, are the
24:45
Speaker 1: most high-trafficked, touristy areas of D.C., some of the most.
24:51
Speaker 1: And I kind of think it's a show of force.
24:56
Speaker 1: They want the libs who live in those areas to
24:59
Speaker 1: see what they're doing. They want people to get angry.
25:03
Speaker 1: They wanted those protesters to be there. And the vehicle checks,
25:08
Speaker 1: the checkpoint, what the hell was that for? That was to...
25:11
Speaker 1: make people pissed off. That was to scare people. That
25:13
Speaker 1: was to show people we're in control and you're not,
25:17
Speaker 1: and we can do what we want and we can
25:19
Speaker 1: even do more. And what are you going to do
25:20
Speaker 1: about it? And, you know, you heard those protesters and
25:24
Speaker 1: thank goodness they were all peaceful protests, but like, how
25:27
Speaker 1: long does that last? Because, you know, it's human nature. Uh, yeah,
25:31
Speaker 1: there was already, uh, the, the, the most, the most
25:34
Speaker 1: violent protest we've seen so far was the, um, uh, the,
25:38
Speaker 1: the man, The man who threw the sandwich. Have you
25:41
Speaker 1: heard about the guy who threw a Subway sandwich? I
25:44
Speaker 1: believe that was right on, I think that was like
25:45
Speaker 1: right around in DuPont. That was like right near my
25:48
Speaker 1: old apartment.
25:49
Speaker 3: Oh, that Subway over there? That Subway still open? I
25:52
Speaker 3: guess it's a great question.
25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to go there all the time. Anyway,
25:55
Speaker 1: it turns out he was a Justice Department employee who
25:58
Speaker 1: threw a Subway sub at the officers. They arrested him
26:03
Speaker 1: and charged him with a felony. Pam Bondi, the Attorney General,
26:07
Speaker 1: now I guess the Chief of Police of D.C. as well,
26:09
Speaker 1: tweeted about it. And she said, oh, we also found
26:11
Speaker 1: out he was a Justice Department employee. And no tolerance,
26:15
Speaker 1: no tolerance for hurting law enforcement or threatening law enforcement
26:19
Speaker 1: here in the Justice Department, except for the guy who's
26:22
Speaker 1: the senior advisor in the Justice Department, who at January 6th,
26:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if he saw E.J. Antony, the new
26:28
Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics guy there while he was there,
26:30
Speaker 1: but was screaming for people to kill cops. So. No tolerance, though.
26:35
Speaker 1: No tolerance for hurting police officers. What did you make
26:39
Speaker 1: of sort of the protest angle and how that could go?
26:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's understandable. It's the right thing to do.
26:46
Speaker 3: Peaceful protest is important. We want to shine a light
26:49
Speaker 3: on this so people understand what's happening. It's important that
26:53
Speaker 3: it stays peaceful, not for the politics of it, but
26:55
Speaker 3: because who knows how Trump and these officers would use
27:00
Speaker 3: that as a way to justify violence and even more
27:03
Speaker 3: aggressive actions. It's, I mean, it's just, it's very, the
27:08
Speaker 3: goal here is to make people feel powerless. And one
27:10
Speaker 3: way to show that you're not powerless is to use
27:12
Speaker 3: your voice, right? To use your presence, to send a
27:15
Speaker 3: signal that you are not afraid and kudos to the
27:17
Speaker 3: people who are doing that. Good for them.
27:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And obviously don't throw things
27:24
Speaker 1: at law enforcement or federal agents.
27:27
Speaker 3: Not even sandwiches, especially not even sandwiches.
27:30
Speaker 1: You know, don't be burning cars, causing all, don't give
27:34
Speaker 1: them an excuse, right? But also, I mean, we noticed
27:38
Speaker 1: this in Los Angeles too. Like a lot of these
27:41
Speaker 1: National Guard, especially the Guard, who are there, they don't
27:45
Speaker 1: want to be there either. And they're just there because
27:48
Speaker 1: that's their job and they were sent there. And so, look,
27:52
Speaker 1: there are people, plenty of people with bad intentions in
27:55
Speaker 1: ICE right now. There are sometimes police officers with bad
27:58
Speaker 1: intentions in ICE. But I do think everyone should keep
28:01
Speaker 1: in mind when you're out there protesting that, like, let's
28:03
Speaker 1: focus on Donald Trump and his administration because that's who
28:08
Speaker 1: we have to oppose. That's who we have to fight. And,
28:11
Speaker 1: you know, it's scary that it's getting to this point.
28:14
Speaker 1: But authoritarian takeovers, like, and I talked to Erica Chenoweth
28:20
Speaker 1: about this a couple months ago in that episode about
28:22
Speaker 1: the three and a half percent rule and protests. And
28:25
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you want the security
28:28
Speaker 1: forces to of the authoritarian government to eventually defect. That
28:34
Speaker 1: is like one way authoritarian regimes fall. And so you
28:37
Speaker 1: want as many of these cops and federal agents and
28:41
Speaker 1: ICE agents and National Guard to at some point be like,
28:45
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth or Pam Bondi tells
28:48
Speaker 1: them to fucking fire on a crowd or something like that,
28:51
Speaker 1: God forbid, you want them to be like, no, of
28:54
Speaker 1: course I'm not going to do that. This is crazy.
28:56
Speaker 1: And so I'm not saying like you have to bend
28:58
Speaker 1: over backwards to be nice to them. But like, just
29:00
Speaker 1: keep in mind who the real villains are here, which
29:03
Speaker 1: are the people in the White House who are giving
29:06
Speaker 1: these orders. So it certainly seems like Trump would need
29:10
Speaker 1: 60 votes in the Senate to maintain control of the D.C.
29:13
Speaker 1: police indefinitely because every, you know, 30 days now, I
29:17
Speaker 1: guess he has to reauthorize his control of the police force.
29:21
Speaker 1: He won't get that. We heard him talking about declaring
29:23
Speaker 1: a national emergency. We've already seen him deploy National Guard
29:27
Speaker 1: troops here in L.A. over the objection of our governor. Obviously,
29:30
Speaker 1: he can do it in D.C. because the president controls
29:32
Speaker 1: the Guard in D.C. Is there anything stopping him from
29:35
Speaker 1: doing this in cities across the country and just saying,
29:37
Speaker 1: screw Congress? I don't need their authorization for D.C. I'm
29:40
Speaker 1: just going to take the police force, do what I want,
29:42
Speaker 1: and I'm going to start sending in troops to Chicago
29:44
Speaker 1: and everywhere else.
29:46
Speaker 3: There's not that much to stop him.
29:48
Speaker 7: Right.
29:48
Speaker 3: There are very few limits. The one thing is he
29:51
Speaker 3: is resource constrained. You can't do this everywhere all the time.
29:56
Speaker 3: He does it for him. They'll do a vote because
29:59
Speaker 3: they want to make Democrats vote against this, which I
30:02
Speaker 3: have no problem with them voting against. But in their mind,
30:05
Speaker 3: they think, you know, Trump in this press conference thing
30:07
Speaker 3: he did earlier today in the Oval Office where we
30:09
Speaker 3: heard the sound from, he's like, Democrats are against crime.
30:12
Speaker 3: Democrats want crime. We're trying to stop crime. My Democrat
30:15
Speaker 3: friends are calling me and thanking me for this. He
30:17
Speaker 3: gives zero shits about the people of D.C. Maybe he
30:21
Speaker 3: cares about his staffers who live in D.C., but probably
30:24
Speaker 3: not even that. He just wants to send a message
30:26
Speaker 3: to the rest of the country that he's tough on crime.
30:28
Speaker 3: He wants to try to make this a political issue.
30:31
Speaker 3: Crime is, I would say, nowhere near the top of
30:33
Speaker 3: people's issue list when you look at polling. People are
30:37
Speaker 3: concerned about crime just generally in their lives, but as
30:40
Speaker 3: a political issue, it's not what Trump wants it to be. Yet,
30:42
Speaker 3: he's trying to raise the salience of it to make
30:44
Speaker 3: himself more powerful. The other thing about this that I
30:47
Speaker 3: think is just really notable at Trump's intentions and some
30:50
Speaker 3: of the potential consequences of this approach substantively is– In
30:55
Speaker 3: the Oval Office media availability, Trump was asked, isn't by
30:59
Speaker 3: one of the rare real reporters who was allowed to
31:01
Speaker 3: be in this ass-kissing fest that he did with the press,
31:05
Speaker 3: isn't this going to make us more vulnerable? They're taking
31:08
Speaker 3: away resources from their real jobs, including terrorism. And Trump says, no,
31:11
Speaker 3: the terrorism is there. He thinks about this in terms
31:15
Speaker 3: of an internal threat to the country. And by internal
31:18
Speaker 3: threat to the country, he means an internal threat to
31:19
Speaker 3: him and his power, not how do we stop a
31:23
Speaker 3: foreign terrorist organization from attacking us, right? It is liberal
31:30
Speaker 3: protesters in cities who are trying to take us down.
31:33
Speaker 1: I mean, enemy from within. He said it all through
31:35
Speaker 1: the campaign. He's been saying it ever since. One more
31:37
Speaker 1: note on the politics of crime, because I saw on CNN,
31:41
Speaker 1: Harry Enten was going through some polls saying that, you know,
31:44
Speaker 1: people trust, American people trust Republicans more on crime than
31:48
Speaker 1: they do Democrats. Donald Trump has good ratings on crime, right?
31:51
Speaker 1: And so it's like, oh, Democrats should be careful and
31:53
Speaker 1: all that. And, you know, the polling is all right,
31:56
Speaker 1: but I will just remind everyone that when Trump took office,
32:02
Speaker 1: everyone kept saying the same thing about immigration. Republicans and
32:05
Speaker 1: Trump have a huge advantage on immigration. When they started
32:09
Speaker 1: sending people to El Salvador, maybe we shouldn't make this
32:12
Speaker 1: an issue. This is a distraction. This is his turf
32:15
Speaker 1: that he wants to play on. And it is true
32:18
Speaker 1: that people care about a secure border. It is true
32:21
Speaker 1: that people would want to deport or detain at least
32:25
Speaker 1: people who have criminal records who are in this country,
32:27
Speaker 1: undocumented for sure. People, it turns out, now that Democrats
32:32
Speaker 1: stood up and fought this and we've all made a
32:34
Speaker 1: big deal of this, people do not like sending people
32:37
Speaker 1: to a gulag without due process. People do not like
32:40
Speaker 1: ICE agents masked and armed, rounding up legal residents, American citizens,
32:46
Speaker 1: scaring the shit out of people, taking away people who've
32:49
Speaker 1: been here for decades, working hard. who are trying to
32:53
Speaker 1: become citizens. People don't like that. And now he's underwater
32:56
Speaker 1: on immigration. And so I do not think Democrats should
33:00
Speaker 1: look at this issue and say, OK, because people genuinely
33:03
Speaker 1: don't want to live in a place where there's crime
33:05
Speaker 1: and do want to make sure there is enough law
33:08
Speaker 1: enforcement to fight crime, which is true, that that also
33:11
Speaker 1: means they want to live in a police state. And
33:13
Speaker 1: that also means that they're fine with, you know, vehicle
33:15
Speaker 1: checkpoints in their neighborhood and National Guard troops on the mall,
33:19
Speaker 1: because I don't think that's true.
33:21
Speaker 3: This is a very important point because when Trump began
33:23
Speaker 3: his presidency, he had huge advantages on immigration and the economy.
33:28
Speaker 3: And now he's deeply underwater on both. It's just important
33:31
Speaker 3: for Democrats to look at this and not say, here's
33:34
Speaker 3: what voters think now. It's what do we want voters
33:38
Speaker 3: to think next November when they go vote? And how
33:41
Speaker 3: do we get them to understand that? And we know
33:43
Speaker 3: from his response to what happened in L.A., All the
33:48
Speaker 3: polling shows that was deeply underwater. Even Republicans did not
33:52
Speaker 3: like sending military troops to an American city. There is
33:58
Speaker 3: precedent here of people rejecting Trump's approach here, and I
34:01
Speaker 3: think it can happen again. We just have to not
34:03
Speaker 3: be afraid of the issue.
34:14
Speaker 4: This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all
34:18
Speaker 4: in one website platform designed to elevate your online presence
34:20
Speaker 4: and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you
34:24
Speaker 4: need to promote and get paid for your services in
34:26
Speaker 4: one platform. Create a professional website to showcase your offerings
34:29
Speaker 4: and attract clients. Whether you offer consultations, events or other experiences,
34:33
Speaker 4: Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace employs a
34:37
Speaker 4: complete library of professionally designed and award winning website templates
34:40
Speaker 4: with options for every use and category. No matter where
34:42
Speaker 4: you start, your website is flexible to what you need
34:45
Speaker 4: with intuitive drag and drop editing, beautiful styling options, unrivaled
34:48
Speaker 4: visual design effects, on-brand AI content, and more ways to
34:51
Speaker 4: list what you offer, no experience required. Squarespace domains make
34:54
Speaker 4: it easy to find the best name for your business
34:56
Speaker 4: at one fair price, an all-inclusive price, no hidden fees
34:59
Speaker 4: or add-ons required. Every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy
35:03
Speaker 4: and security tools included to ensure your domain remains online
35:06
Speaker 4: and protected. Plus, Squarespace provides everything you need bring more
35:10
Speaker 4: of your dream to life. Whether that means building a
35:12
Speaker 4: website or adding a professional email service, don't wait to
35:14
Speaker 4: claim your name. Invest in your dream domain today. Head
35:18
Speaker 4: to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready
35:21
Speaker 4: to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10%
35:24
Speaker 4: off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com
35:28
Speaker 4: slash crooked.
35:33
Speaker 1: Speaking of ice, a big part of Trump's show of
35:35
Speaker 1: force is about giving ice free reign, freer reign. to intimidate, detain, arrest,
35:41
Speaker 1: and in some cases disappear whoever they want. Now that
35:44
Speaker 1: the D.C. police are under Trump's control, they announced Thursday
35:47
Speaker 1: that they'll be helping ICE find and transport immigrants. They
35:51
Speaker 1: arrested one delivery driver off the street in D.C. Thursday morning.
35:55
Speaker 1: Wouldn't tell him or anyone why. The man just yelled
35:58
Speaker 1: to a local reporter, quote, they're taking me. This continues
36:02
Speaker 1: to happen all over the country to people with no
36:05
Speaker 1: criminal record who are here legally, including U.S.
36:07
Speaker 4: Citizens.
36:08
Speaker 1: A New Zealand woman who lives in Washington state and
36:11
Speaker 1: her six-year-old son, both with valid visas, were recently stopped
36:16
Speaker 1: by ICE at the Canadian border. They had dropped off
36:19
Speaker 1: her other two children at the Vancouver airport. They were
36:22
Speaker 1: going to fly home to New Zealand to see their grandparents.
36:25
Speaker 1: And the mother and her six-year-old son drove back, were
36:26
Speaker 1: stopped at the border when they're coming back to their
36:29
Speaker 1: place where they live in Washington state. And she's got
36:32
Speaker 1: two visas. She got an employment visa and a visa
36:36
Speaker 1: to live there. And because one of the visas was
36:38
Speaker 1: just renewed, but the other one was still pending approval,
36:41
Speaker 1: but she thought they were both renewed. It's just like
36:44
Speaker 1: honest mistake was the same card. So why would she
36:46
Speaker 1: think it wasn't renewed yet? Because of that, they detained
36:49
Speaker 1: her and she's currently locked up in a detention center
36:54
Speaker 1: in South Texas with her six-year-old. And she has been
36:57
Speaker 1: there for three weeks. And we only know about this
37:00
Speaker 1: because one of her friends said, called reporters and it
37:04
Speaker 1: was in the Guardian and they're trying to raise money
37:06
Speaker 1: for her legal funds to help her get out. But
37:09
Speaker 1: like this woman, she's got two sons who are in
37:11
Speaker 1: New Zealand. She's got another six-year-old with her. Imagine the
37:14
Speaker 1: trauma that that kid's going to go through because of
37:16
Speaker 1: a fucking visa wasn't renewed. This is someone from New Zealand.
37:22
Speaker 1: Here in LA, a 15-year-old student with severe disabilities was
37:26
Speaker 1: in a car with his mom outside school when a
37:30
Speaker 1: truck full of masked men surrounded them Pulled the boy
37:33
Speaker 1: out of the car, handcuffed him. The fucking liars at
37:37
Speaker 1: Homeland Security said, oh, mistaken identity. They thought he was MS-13.
37:41
Speaker 1: They were looking for an MS-13. You were looking for
37:44
Speaker 1: an MS-13 member who was actually a 15-year-old with severe
37:48
Speaker 1: disabilities sitting in a car with his mom outside of
37:50
Speaker 1: school for a fucking MS-13 member? That's all they could say.
37:54
Speaker 1: You don't get anything else from DHS. You don't get
37:56
Speaker 1: anything else from the Trump administration. Someone asked Trump about
37:58
Speaker 1: it at the press conference today. He just didn't answer.
38:02
Speaker 1: He just said, oh, there's horrible people. There's terrible people.
38:04
Speaker 1: That's what it's about. These are good people, ICE. They're good,
38:07
Speaker 1: tough people. That's all. And just today, ICE agents showed
38:11
Speaker 1: up outside Gavin Newsom's redistricting event. You're going to talk
38:15
Speaker 1: to Newsom in a bit. We're going to talk about
38:17
Speaker 1: the event. He holds this event here in LA. And suddenly,
38:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of ICE agents are right outside the event.
38:24
Speaker 1: Someone asked them. Someone went up to them, recorded on
38:26
Speaker 1: their phone, said, why are you here? And one of
38:28
Speaker 1: the agents, federal agent, said, we're just here making Los
38:32
Speaker 1: Angeles a safer place since we don't have politicians who
38:36
Speaker 1: will do that. Yeah, so they're just doing their jobs
38:39
Speaker 1: in ICE. They're not political. They're just straight shooters.
38:43
Speaker 4: I don't know.
38:44
Speaker 1: I feel like it might be time for Democratic leaders
38:46
Speaker 1: and anyone who doesn't want to live in a police
38:49
Speaker 1: state to get even louder about this and to become
38:52
Speaker 1: more focused on what ICE is doing. I don't know.
38:55
Speaker 1: What do you think? Any ideas here? It feels like
38:57
Speaker 1: it just keeps happening and we're just like, okay.
38:59
Speaker 3: Here's the thing that haunts me about this is that
39:03
Speaker 3: I think we have an iceberg problem here, that we
39:05
Speaker 3: are only seeing the tip of what's happening. Because it
39:07
Speaker 3: just happens to be that some of these most horrible
39:09
Speaker 3: cases are people like the family in New Zealand who
39:12
Speaker 3: have friends who can get word to the Guardian. Or
39:16
Speaker 3: people happen to witness what happens and they had their
39:19
Speaker 3: phone and recorded it. How many people who don't have
39:22
Speaker 3: a voice, who don't have friends who know Guardian reporters–
39:26
Speaker 3: are getting disappeared, who are in custody right now, who,
39:29
Speaker 3: when they get released, even if they ever are fortunate
39:31
Speaker 3: to get released, don't even know how they would make
39:33
Speaker 3: their story known to the world.
39:36
Speaker 7: Yes.
39:36
Speaker 3: We're seeing a fraction of what's happening. This is the fight.
39:41
Speaker 3: This is the moment. I was listening to your conversation
39:46
Speaker 3: with Pete Buttigieg from this past Sunday, and you asked him,
39:51
Speaker 3: quoting Rachel Maddow, that we are now living in an
39:53
Speaker 3: authoritarian state. And you can, as Pete sort of did,
39:57
Speaker 3: you can argue we're this close, we're not that close.
40:00
Speaker 3: We can argue where we are on the scale, but
40:02
Speaker 3: we are much fucking closer than we ever thought we
40:04
Speaker 3: would possibly be. And if you can't yell and scream
40:09
Speaker 3: about this, if you cannot make this a cause that
40:12
Speaker 3: you care about and are passionate about and you're a
40:14
Speaker 3: person in politics. And I am not sure why you're
40:17
Speaker 3: in politics. I understand all the polling. We just talked
40:22
Speaker 3: about tariffs and the economy and inflation, all of that.
40:24
Speaker 3: But I also think voters want to see us fight
40:26
Speaker 3: for something real. And you have to stand up for people.
40:30
Speaker 3: And shining a light on this has worked. It has
40:34
Speaker 3: driven Trump's numbers down. It has taken his greatest political strength,
40:38
Speaker 3: which is immigration, and made it into a liability. He
40:42
Speaker 3: is underwater on immigration. And when you make it about deportations,
40:46
Speaker 3: he's even more underwater. When you ask specific questions, people
40:49
Speaker 3: do not like what's happening, including some Republicans, and specifically
40:54
Speaker 3: the voters that we need who are gettable for us.
40:56
Speaker 3: And so it's not just, I'm not asking anyone to
40:59
Speaker 3: go on some sort of political suicide mission because of
41:01
Speaker 3: some Sorkin-esque way in which we're going to win this.
41:04
Speaker 3: It's the right thing to do, but it also can
41:06
Speaker 3: be good politics if we do it right.
41:08
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And I just, I want to, I mean,
41:11
Speaker 1: I don't, I wish I had better answers because it's like, yes,
41:14
Speaker 1: we should organize. We should protest. You know, I do
41:17
Speaker 1: give a lot of Democratic politicians credit who were maybe
41:21
Speaker 1: a little nervous about taking on this issue at first.
41:23
Speaker 1: They've come around. Obviously, you know, Chris Van Hollen went
41:26
Speaker 1: to El Salvador. Like, people are standing up on this.
41:30
Speaker 1: But it's a really tough information environment, media environment. It's
41:33
Speaker 1: hard to get the message through. It's hard to get
41:35
Speaker 1: people to pay attention. And I just think we need
41:37
Speaker 1: to figure out new creative ways to get people to
41:39
Speaker 1: pay attention to this because this is– It's like the
41:43
Speaker 1: National Guard, the D.C. takeover, all that kind of stuff.
41:46
Speaker 1: Like to me, ICE is the most dangerous development here.
41:50
Speaker 1: The transformation of ICE, which was always, you know, ICE
41:54
Speaker 1: was never a great organization in the first Trump term.
41:56
Speaker 1: But now it is, you know, I've been calling it
42:00
Speaker 1: secret police and like, look, it's not much different. I
42:03
Speaker 1: don't think it's an exaggeration. I don't think it's just
42:05
Speaker 1: something I'm saying. It's like they wear masks. They have guns.
42:09
Speaker 1: They jump out of trucks now at fucking Home Depot's.
42:11
Speaker 1: to start just grabbing anyone they can. And like, yes,
42:14
Speaker 1: are they picking up criminals? Are they picking up dangerous
42:17
Speaker 1: people who shouldn't be in this country? Are they picking
42:20
Speaker 1: up undocumented people who even if they should be in
42:22
Speaker 1: this country, you know, well, they came here illegally. And so, yes,
42:25
Speaker 1: of course. But they're also just rounding up detaining and
42:29
Speaker 1: deporting people who absolutely do not deserve to be treated
42:33
Speaker 1: like this. No one deserves to be treated as inhumane
42:36
Speaker 1: as a lot of the people that they're rounding up
42:39
Speaker 1: are being treated right now. We don't even have time
42:41
Speaker 1: to talk about fucking alligator Alcatraz. There's now reports out
42:44
Speaker 1: of there that the conditions are just fucking horrible, horrific conditions.
42:50
Speaker 1: People have been stuck there. They haven't been... That's the
42:53
Speaker 1: other thing, too, is like, everyone's like, oh, well, they're deported.
42:56
Speaker 1: Go back to your country. It's like, people aren't getting
42:58
Speaker 1: sent back to their country. Even that would be better
43:00
Speaker 1: than this, right? People are getting just, like, stuck in
43:03
Speaker 1: these fucking squalor In these detention centers that like they're
43:08
Speaker 1: not getting the food they need and they're just there
43:09
Speaker 1: and they're stuck there. And it's it's so unbelievably fucked up.
43:14
Speaker 1: It is a stain on this country. We're going to
43:16
Speaker 1: look back on it like like Japanese internment, like all
43:19
Speaker 1: of this others. I mean, it's just it's so bad.
43:22
Speaker 1: It's so bad. And if you're a Democratic politician and
43:24
Speaker 1: you have a platform or anyone who has a platform,
43:26
Speaker 1: you should speak out about it. All right. When this
43:28
Speaker 1: episode drops on Friday morning, Trump will be en route
43:31
Speaker 1: to Alaska for his meet cute with Putin. The White
43:35
Speaker 1: House has been tamping down expectations for the summit. Now
43:40
Speaker 1: they're saying, it's basically just a temp check. You're just
43:42
Speaker 1: going to see how he's doing. Just fly to Alaska
43:44
Speaker 1: to check out how Putin's doing. Thankfully, Zelensky and European
43:48
Speaker 1: leaders were able to connect with Trump before the meeting
43:50
Speaker 1: so they could urge him not to hand over Ukraine
43:53
Speaker 1: to Putin and try to hammer out a negotiating strategy.
43:57
Speaker 1: That's what they said. The reports are they hammered out
43:59
Speaker 1: a negotiating strategy with Trump, who I'm sure he's going
44:02
Speaker 1: to stick with it because he is famously disciplined. Trump
44:05
Speaker 1: was asked about the meeting in the Oval on Thursday,
44:08
Speaker 1: and here's what he said.
44:10
Speaker 7: And I think President Putin will make peace. I think
44:14
Speaker 7: President Zelensky will make peace. We'll see if they can
44:17
Speaker 7: get along.
44:18
Speaker 3: And if they can, it'll be great.
44:19
Speaker 6: You know, I've solved six wars in the last six months,
44:24
Speaker 6: a little more than six months now.
44:26
Speaker 1: Six wars? What the fuck is he talking about?
44:28
Speaker 3: I can name two. I mean, he didn't solve any wars,
44:32
Speaker 3: let's be very clear about that. He started a war
44:36
Speaker 3: or tried to finish a war between Iran and Israel,
44:39
Speaker 3: and he claims to have averted a war between India
44:42
Speaker 3: and Pakistan, although that's quite skeptical. But I don't know
44:44
Speaker 3: what the other four are.
44:45
Speaker 1: There's an Azerbaijan-Armenia thing that was in the Oval last
44:50
Speaker 1: week that I think he's claiming. I don't know. Did
44:53
Speaker 1: you see that he cold-called the Norwegian prime minister to
44:56
Speaker 1: ask for the peace prize?
44:58
Speaker 3: You just don't want a president who's that thirsty.
45:04
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, you know.
45:05
Speaker 3: He's going to get the prize, John.
45:06
Speaker 1: Do you think he's on his way to the prize?
45:08
Speaker 1: Does Vladimir Putin want peace? Is Trump right? Do you
45:12
Speaker 1: think Vladimir Putin wants peace? He seems like a peaceful guy, right?
45:16
Speaker 3: He wants a piece of Ukraine. It seems like that's
45:18
Speaker 3: what he wants.
45:20
Speaker 7: I don't know what.
45:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should boo me. Honestly, we should just edit
45:25
Speaker 3: that out. I'm sorry. We just went through this very deep, serious,
45:29
Speaker 3: heartfelt conversation. discussion about immigration and I had.
45:32
Speaker 1: To make– Look, that's what we needed.
45:33
Speaker 3: I had to be a jokester like Marco Rubio.
45:35
Speaker 1: I was going to say, don't give it away. Don't
45:36
Speaker 1: give it away.
45:37
Speaker 3: He obviously doesn't want peace. It is in his interest
45:41
Speaker 3: to keep this going or at least– he's not leaving
45:45
Speaker 3: without something that he can go back to the Russian
45:48
Speaker 3: people and say it was all worth it for this.
45:52
Speaker 3: I followed through on my post-Soviet expansionist goals. What I
45:56
Speaker 3: worry about in this meeting is that Trump is a
45:58
Speaker 3: fucking idiot and– Putin is not. And Trump is easily
46:02
Speaker 3: swayed by Putin. I know it is like resistance fan fiction,
46:09
Speaker 3: but he did, last time they met in person, or
46:12
Speaker 3: at least one of the more recent times they met
46:13
Speaker 3: in person, endorsed the FSB over his own intelligence agencies
46:19
Speaker 3: when it came to the Russian involvement in the election.
46:26
Speaker 3: The main deliver will probably be some sort of statement
46:29
Speaker 3: about Uh, how it.
46:31
Speaker 1: Related and James Clapper actually.
46:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
46:34
Speaker 7: Yeah.
46:35
Speaker 1: It'll be the Russia investigation. Yeah. No, I worry about that. Look,
46:38
Speaker 1: the best outcome for the world would be if, you know,
46:44
Speaker 1: Putin pisses Trump off somehow. Like, you know, we've seen
46:47
Speaker 1: now for the first time ever in the last couple
46:49
Speaker 1: of months, like a few flashes of anger from Trump
46:52
Speaker 1: about Putin, because he says he talks to him on
46:54
Speaker 1: the phone. He says the one thing, and then he
46:56
Speaker 1: gets out the phone and then he just bombs another
46:58
Speaker 1: Ukrainian city. And, you know, Trump got a little angry
47:00
Speaker 1: about that. So if Putin says something to piss Trump off,
47:05
Speaker 1: you can see Trump leave the meeting and be like,
47:07
Speaker 1: all right, now I'm going to be tough and whatever.
47:08
Speaker 1: But Putin's probably not that dumb. And so, yeah, Putin
47:13
Speaker 1: knows how to flatter him. Putin's going to tell him
47:15
Speaker 1: what he wants to hear. He's probably going to try
47:17
Speaker 1: to tell him in a pretty private way. I'm sure
47:20
Speaker 1: it's going to be a couple of them and interpreters
47:21
Speaker 1: and God knows who else. So we're not even going
47:23
Speaker 1: to know. And I don't know. I'm not expecting much
47:27
Speaker 1: from it.
47:28
Speaker 6: And.
47:29
Speaker 1: And and Trump keeps saying now, too, like, well, I'll
47:31
Speaker 1: get a temperature check and I'll see I'll see how
47:33
Speaker 1: Putin is in the first couple of minutes. And I'll
47:35
Speaker 1: know if I can make a deal. This will be
47:36
Speaker 1: the first of many meetings, first of many meetings. But
47:39
Speaker 1: I don't know. I kind of think he's setting it
47:40
Speaker 1: up for, you know, coming out of the meeting, having
47:44
Speaker 1: some deal where then he goes to Zelensky with the deal.
47:47
Speaker 1: And then Zelensky says no, because it's a crazy deal
47:50
Speaker 1: that he can't accept, both because it's probably a bad
47:53
Speaker 1: idea and all because of his own constitution doesn't allow
47:55
Speaker 1: him to accept a deal. that's bad like that. And
47:58
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian people aren't going to want a bad deal either.
48:01
Speaker 1: And then Trump can say, well, Putin tried, but Zelensky
48:05
Speaker 1: said no, and he's just getting greedy. So I'm washing
48:07
Speaker 1: my hands of this whole thing.
48:09
Speaker 3: That's a very likely outcome. He's going to leave that
48:12
Speaker 3: meeting more pro-Russia than when he goes in, because Putin
48:14
Speaker 3: will flatter him, talk about some property opportunities there. But
48:19
Speaker 3: the one thing is, I don't think Putin will give
48:21
Speaker 3: him a fake award. I think he is, unlike the
48:23
Speaker 3: rest of these fucking yahoos, he's got enough pride to
48:26
Speaker 3: not show up with a special letter from the king
48:30
Speaker 3: or an invitation to a special party or a gold-plated
48:34
Speaker 3: thing like Tim Cook did. But I think he knows
48:37
Speaker 3: how to play Trump because he's been playing Trump for years.
48:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
48:41
Speaker 3: Or he walks in, drops a videocassette on the table.
48:46
Speaker 1: The P-tape.
48:47
Speaker 3: And he says, do you know what this is? Or
48:51
Speaker 3: even better, he just puts it there and never mentions it.
48:54
Speaker 1: Or he cooks up some emails that show that actually
48:57
Speaker 1: the 2020 election was rigged.
48:58
Speaker 4: Yeah.
48:59
Speaker 1: And Trump actually did win the 2020 election. And then
49:01
Speaker 1: he'll be like waving that around.
49:02
Speaker 3: I'll trade you these emails for the dumbest.
49:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's fucking.
49:06
Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
49:07
Speaker 1: But like Trump is a victim of the last person
49:09
Speaker 1: he talked to as well. Like he's easily flattered. But
49:12
Speaker 1: the readout from the calls with Zelensky and the European
49:14
Speaker 1: leaders were like, oh, these were good calls with Trump.
49:16
Speaker 1: I think he sort of got it. Yeah, because again.
49:20
Speaker 1: he's easily fooled by Putin he's probably easily manipulated by
49:23
Speaker 1: the Europeans and Zelensky as well so who knows he
49:27
Speaker 1: could leave the meeting and be like pro-Russia and then
49:28
Speaker 1: he could talk to Zelensky and the Europeans and maybe
49:31
Speaker 1: they'll bring him back it's it's ridiculous that this is
49:33
Speaker 1: that the entire world has to do this with this
49:36
Speaker 1: fucking man that we have to just cater to his
49:39
Speaker 1: crazy whims. All right, two quick things before we go
49:41
Speaker 1: to break. Crooked's got some great news to share. The
49:44
Speaker 1: subscription content that we're always talking about, that we don't
49:48
Speaker 1: shut up about, is now available on Substack. Oh, look,
49:54
Speaker 1: I guess they don't trust me with this. Dan, feel
49:56
Speaker 1: free to riff about the importance of Substack. Okay, go ahead, Dan.
49:59
Speaker 3: Because you and I spend my time waiting for permission
50:01
Speaker 3: to riff. Just sitting here silently, biting my tongue, waiting
50:06
Speaker 3: for whatever faceless person writes that copy to say, Dan,
50:09
Speaker 3: you may riff now. Look, you could do this. You
50:13
Speaker 3: could do this better than I would. But my short
50:16
Speaker 3: riff would be, in this modern media age, we have
50:19
Speaker 3: to be everywhere. You have to be on all the platforms.
50:22
Speaker 3: And Substack is a growing platform for politics. It is
50:25
Speaker 3: going to become, I think, very influential in the 2028 election.
50:28
Speaker 3: You already have Pete Buttigieg, Chris Murphy, Jake Ockenkloss, a
50:32
Speaker 3: whole bunch of politicians getting on there now, more and
50:34
Speaker 3: more media personalities, more progressive media is happening there. So
50:37
Speaker 3: Crooked needs to be there. Go subscribe.
50:40
Speaker 1: And when you do subscribe, you will unlock ad-free episodes
50:43
Speaker 1: of all your favorite Crooked shows like this one, plus
50:46
Speaker 1: Love It or Leave It, plus Pod Save the World,
50:48
Speaker 1: plus Offline, plus exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan.
50:53
Speaker 1: Dan's got a whole secret show you guys don't even
50:55
Speaker 1: know about. It's behind the paywall. So just subscribe and
50:57
Speaker 1: you can go on Substack You can get the message
50:59
Speaker 1: box there because Dan's been on Substack. He knows what's up.
51:02
Speaker 1: And then you can also get Polar Coaster and learn
51:04
Speaker 1: all about what's the latest with the polls. And also,
51:08
Speaker 1: you can get a show inside 2025 where there's a
51:11
Speaker 1: new episode out right now. And in honor of us
51:15
Speaker 1: joining Substack and our whole pitch about digital media, the
51:18
Speaker 1: two of us and Elijah did a whole episode about
51:21
Speaker 1: the future of digital media and where we are now
51:23
Speaker 1: and what's working and what's not and Right-wing media, how
51:26
Speaker 1: it grows, how we can defeat it, how we can
51:28
Speaker 1: counter right-wing media, all the good stuff. It was a
51:30
Speaker 1: great episode. It was pretty fun.
51:32
Speaker 3: I won't say anything because I'm not allowed to riff.
51:34
Speaker 1: No riffing yet. You already did your riffing, so sit
51:36
Speaker 1: tight with your riffing. Anyway, go to crooked.com slash friends
51:41
Speaker 1: to sign up, subscribe, get all the content your heart desires,
51:46
Speaker 1: and add free episodes, and it'll be great. Crooked.com slash friends.
51:59
Speaker 4: Positive America is brought to you by Helix. Love a
52:02
Speaker 4: good Helix mattress. Very, very comfortable. We have one in
52:05
Speaker 4: our guest room. Everybody who sleeps at our house says,
52:08
Speaker 4: that's the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. Where'd
52:10
Speaker 4: you get it? And I say, Helix. You know what else?
52:12
Speaker 4: They'll ship it to your house. Right to your house.
52:13
Speaker 4: How about that? How about that? How about that?
52:15
Speaker 2: Comes in a box.
52:16
Speaker 4: Helix knows there's no better way to test out a
52:18
Speaker 4: new mattress than by sleeping on it in your own home.
52:21
Speaker 4: That's why they offer a 100-night trial and a 10-
52:23
Speaker 4: to 15-year warranty to try out your new Helix mattress.
52:27
Speaker 1: Everybody sleeps differently.
52:28
Speaker 4: That's why Helix has several different mattress models to choose from,
52:31
Speaker 4: each designed for specific sleep positions and feel preferences. So
52:35
Speaker 4: how will you know which Helix sleep mattress works best
52:37
Speaker 4: for you and your body?
52:39
Speaker 6: Easy.
52:39
Speaker 4: You take the Helix sleep quiz. You find your perfect
52:42
Speaker 4: mattress in under two minutes. Love it. I think you
52:45
Speaker 4: were a Don Lux.
52:46
Speaker 2: That's right.
52:47
Speaker 4: I don't remember the name of my mattress, but it's great.
52:50
Speaker 4: It's a perfect name.
52:51
Speaker 2: Just the names of the people you brought to it.
52:55
Speaker 4: Just the notches. And the best part about the Helix mattress,
52:59
Speaker 4: they just ship it straight to your door.
53:01
Speaker 7: Right.
53:01
Speaker 4: Free of charge.
53:02
Speaker 1: Here's what you do.
53:02
Speaker 4: You go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27% off site wide.
53:06
Speaker 4: That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27% off site wide. This
53:10
Speaker 4: deal is exclusive for Pod Save America listeners. Make sure
53:13
Speaker 4: you enter our show name after checkout so they know
53:15
Speaker 4: we sent you helixsleep.com slash crooked.
53:22
Speaker 7: All right.
53:23
Speaker 1: Big news on Trump's attempt to rig the midterms. Gavin
53:26
Speaker 1: Newsom announced today that he will ask the California legislature
53:28
Speaker 1: to draw and voters to approve new congressional maps for
53:32
Speaker 1: the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The plan is to
53:37
Speaker 1: put the measure on the ballot this November 4th, 2025.
53:40
Speaker 1: We expect to see the maps on Monday, but Newsom
53:43
Speaker 1: said Democrats are aiming to pick up five more House
53:45
Speaker 1: seats and protect four more swing districts currently held by Democrats.
53:48
Speaker 1: Right before we started taping, Newsom jumped on a call
53:50
Speaker 1: with Dan to talk more about the announcement. Here's that conversation.
53:59
Speaker 3: Governor Newsom, welcome to Pod Save America.
54:01
Speaker 7: Good to be with you.
54:03
Speaker 3: Let's start with the big announcement today. Can you walk
54:05
Speaker 3: our listeners through the process that California is going to
54:08
Speaker 3: go through to redraw their maps for the 2026 midterms?
54:11
Speaker 6: So on Monday, the legislature will introduce in both houses
54:16
Speaker 6: a constitutional amendment that includes new maps that will be
54:20
Speaker 6: done in a transparent way to request of the voters
54:24
Speaker 6: on a special election on November 4th to move forward
54:28
Speaker 6: with mid-decade redistricting that in essence will neutralize or neuter
54:34
Speaker 6: whatever happens in Texas.
54:36
Speaker 7: We won't move forward.
54:37
Speaker 6: It's a trigger unless Texas or other Republican states move forward.
54:42
Speaker 7: It will be temporary. It will be done on an
54:44
Speaker 7: emergency basis.
54:46
Speaker 6: It will also be done in a way that reinforces
54:49
Speaker 6: our commitment to nationwide independent redistricting.
54:53
Speaker 3: How will the reinforcement of the nationwide redistricting work? What
54:57
Speaker 3: part of the provision is that?
54:59
Speaker 6: It's a policy statement, a policy statement in support of
55:02
Speaker 6: that framework. It's also, in the initiative itself, it also
55:07
Speaker 6: reinforces as policy our current statewide independent redistricting commission. It
55:13
Speaker 6: just calls for the change of the congressional maps, not
55:16
Speaker 6: the state maps or the statewide elected maps in California,
55:20
Speaker 6: just specific again, to the congressional maps in 2026, 2028,
55:26
Speaker 6: and then reverts back the census in 2030.
55:30
Speaker 3: And then the commission will redraw the districts again post-census
55:33
Speaker 3: like they would do in any other year.
55:35
Speaker 7: Exactly.
55:35
Speaker 6: So again, we've had for about 15 years, people may
55:37
Speaker 6: not know this, in California we've had independent redistricting. And
55:40
Speaker 6: while it's true, and some of my Republican friends point
55:43
Speaker 6: this out, there are not that many Republicans' differences in
55:47
Speaker 6: California because of the independent redistricting commission A lot of
55:50
Speaker 6: these seats are extraordinarily competitive, which is incredibly important. And
55:54
Speaker 6: it's our proof of the framework, something I've long supported,
55:58
Speaker 6: independent redistricting. I actually opposed very publicly the repeal of
56:02
Speaker 6: the Independent Redistricting Commission. So this is an emergency measure, again, temporary, transparent,
56:07
Speaker 6: and very democratic, since we're going to ask the people
56:10
Speaker 6: to ultimately decide.
56:12
Speaker 3: I know we'll see the maps on Monday, but can
56:14
Speaker 3: you give us a sense of how the maps could
56:17
Speaker 3: change the equation in terms of keeping the House? Is
56:19
Speaker 3: it a direct response to what Texas is doing? I
56:21
Speaker 3: don't know if you can speak to how the seats change.
56:24
Speaker 6: So the maps are likely to come out as early
56:28
Speaker 6: as tomorrow, Friday, this weekend. Certainly are going to be
56:30
Speaker 6: out formally on Monday. And again, the legislature has to
56:35
Speaker 6: make ultimate determination of whether or not there's going to
56:37
Speaker 6: be a special election in this constitutional amendment. We'll end
56:40
Speaker 6: on the ballot That will be done over the course
56:42
Speaker 6: of next week. We hope they'll conclude that business by Thursday.
56:46
Speaker 6: It will be done, again, with the maps being fully
56:48
Speaker 6: present and discussed. On that basis, though, I haven't reviewed
56:52
Speaker 6: personally the maps. Quite literally, I have not seen the maps.
56:56
Speaker 6: But my understanding of the maps is when I say
57:00
Speaker 6: neutralizes or neuters what's happening in Texas, it means a
57:03
Speaker 6: pickup of five seats, fire with fire. I mean, we're
57:06
Speaker 6: just making no bones about it. We'll pick up five seats.
57:09
Speaker 7: Likely.
57:10
Speaker 6: Pick up five seats with the right candidates to neutralize
57:13
Speaker 6: what's happened in Texas. And there is a likelihood on
57:17
Speaker 6: the basis of some of the new maps that some
57:19
Speaker 6: of the more competitive districts, there's a number of them,
57:21
Speaker 6: probably a minimum of four that are quote-unquote toss-up seats.
57:26
Speaker 6: There'll be some changes there as well. So we talk
57:29
Speaker 6: about punching a little bit above our weight. Again, Texas
57:32
Speaker 6: chose this fight. They made this decision. If they choose
57:37
Speaker 6: to have an exit ramp, We won't move forward, but
57:39
Speaker 6: if they do, we'll neutralize them and we'll also punch
57:42
Speaker 6: a little bit above our weight in those four additional seats.
57:46
Speaker 3: Outside of the press conference you held today, there were
57:49
Speaker 3: ICE agents showed up. I'm assuming that's not a coincidence.
57:52
Speaker 3: Can you maybe react to that?
57:54
Speaker 6: It's pretty sick. I mean, what more evidence do you need?
57:56
Speaker 6: I don't think we needed to say a word at
57:58
Speaker 6: our press conference. I mean, he sent the border patrol.
58:01
Speaker 6: He sent the regional head of the border patrol out here.
58:04
Speaker 6: And by the way, Dan, I want folks to know
58:05
Speaker 6: where we are. I'm at the Democracy Center. I'm at
58:08
Speaker 6: the site where the Japanese were bused in 1940s. Quite literally.
58:13
Speaker 7: It's not figurative. And I hope people are listening.
58:18
Speaker 6: ICE or Border Patrol was out there at the exact
58:21
Speaker 6: same site that the Japanese were being picked up and bused.
58:26
Speaker 7: Decades ago to intimidate.
58:30
Speaker 6: You think of all the places to be in this country.
58:33
Speaker 6: They chose to be here at this exact time. That's
58:36
Speaker 6: how weak and pathetic The Trump administration is how desperate
58:39
Speaker 6: they are. What more evidence do people need at what's
58:43
Speaker 6: at stake in this country and why California needs to
58:47
Speaker 6: do this?
58:50
Speaker 3: This will be a special election. Is there anything else
58:52
Speaker 3: on the statewide ballot or will this measure be the
58:55
Speaker 3: only thing on the statewide ballot?
58:56
Speaker 6: What's nice about this special election, it will coincide in a.
59:02
Speaker 7: Date that people are very familiar with, November 4th. because
59:06
Speaker 7: it will.
59:06
Speaker 6: Coincide with a lot of existing municipal elections. So people
59:10
Speaker 6: have reason to come out to vote for many different things.
59:13
Speaker 6: But look, I think at the end of the day,
59:14
Speaker 6: there's going to be a huge turnout in this. I
59:17
Speaker 6: think people are really tuning in and recognize what's at stake.
59:20
Speaker 6: I mean, what more evidence do you need down here
59:22
Speaker 6: in Southern California where they nationalize or rather federalize.
59:25
Speaker 7: The National Guard?
59:26
Speaker 6: I'll remind everybody because they need to be reminded Donald
59:29
Speaker 6: Trump did not send the military overseas in his first term.
59:32
Speaker 6: He sent 700 active duty Marines within the United States
59:37
Speaker 6: of America to an American city here in Los Angeles.
59:40
Speaker 6: He just literally threatened to take $ 1 billion, to extort
59:45
Speaker 6: $ 1 billion from one of the finest research institutions in
59:49
Speaker 6: the world, UCLA. And let me make this crystal clear
59:51
Speaker 6: to everyone watching and make it crystal clear to the
59:54
Speaker 6: folks at Harvard. If you, we will never, ever sell
1:00:00
Speaker 6: our soul to Donald Trump. Harvard, I pray you are listening.
1:00:05
Speaker 7: How could you, of.
1:00:06
Speaker 6: All institutions, on tens of billions of dollars, what the
1:00:09
Speaker 6: point is your damn endowment if you cannot stand on principle?
1:00:13
Speaker 6: This guy is coming after every institution of independent thinking,
1:00:18
Speaker 6: from the media, going after people that disagree with him
1:00:21
Speaker 6: in institutions, large and small, higher education, obviously, and now,
1:00:26
Speaker 6: of course, intimidating people threatening people, showing up, by the way,
1:00:31
Speaker 6: not just ICE and Border Patrol showing up for an
1:00:33
Speaker 6: event like this. That is a preview thing, Dan, of
1:00:36
Speaker 6: things to come. I assure you, just like the National
1:00:38
Speaker 6: Guard was a preview two months ago of what's going
1:00:41
Speaker 6: on in D.C. and will go on in other American cities.
1:00:44
Speaker 6: You will see the same kind of activity intimidating people
1:00:47
Speaker 6: around November 4th here in the state of California and
1:00:50
Speaker 6: around Election Day next year and in 2028. That's what
1:00:55
Speaker 6: Donald Trump will do. He will send out ICE agents.
1:00:58
Speaker 6: He will send out Border Patrol to intimidate and chill
1:01:01
Speaker 6: free expression, free speech, and the right to access the
1:01:04
Speaker 6: polling booths.
1:01:05
Speaker 7: Mark my word.
1:01:06
Speaker 3: Are there things that you can do as governor to
1:01:09
Speaker 3: prevent that or provide protection or security or safety or
1:01:13
Speaker 3: comfort to people as they vote?
1:01:15
Speaker 7: Well, we're doing our best here.
1:01:17
Speaker 6: They were kicked out of the plaza here because they
1:01:19
Speaker 6: were on private property. But look, they can assert their rights.
1:01:23
Speaker 6: We do not legally get in the way of federal
1:01:25
Speaker 6: law enforcement activities that are funded by the federal government
1:01:29
Speaker 6: despite well-established policies, our sanctuary policy that is not inconsistent
1:01:34
Speaker 6: with many other jurisdictions all across this country. By the way,
1:01:37
Speaker 6: same sanctuary policies that Rudy Giuliani used to celebrate as
1:01:42
Speaker 6: mayor of New York City, just reminding people of what
1:01:44
Speaker 6: it's worth in that respect. So look, we'll do what
1:01:47
Speaker 6: we can, but there's limits ultimately on that. But there
1:01:52
Speaker 6: cannot be limits in mindset. People have to understand that
1:01:57
Speaker 6: what is occurring here is a preview of things to come.
1:02:00
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little about the politics of this initiative.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: It's theoretically a low turnout election. I think there could
1:02:06
Speaker 3: be high turnout for low turnout elections, people engaged, but
1:02:08
Speaker 3: there's a poll out today from Politico, which I will
1:02:12
Speaker 3: stipulate does not test the actual measure that you're hopefully
1:02:16
Speaker 3: put on the ballot, but does show some resistance to
1:02:21
Speaker 3: the idea of redrawing the districts. How are you, like,
1:02:25
Speaker 3: what is your polling show? How are you thinking about
1:02:28
Speaker 3: how to sell this to a state that has supported
1:02:31
Speaker 3: independent redistricting on multiple occasions?
1:02:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, and this supports independent redistricting. We're not eliminating the
1:02:37
Speaker 6: independent redistricting, the commission, and I think that's consistent on
1:02:39
Speaker 6: that basis. What Politico is calling for, it's the pathway
1:02:43
Speaker 6: that we're trying to take here.
1:02:44
Speaker 7: This is temporary.
1:02:45
Speaker 6: We keep the independent redistricting commission. We reinforce and affirm
1:02:49
Speaker 6: our desire to see it happen nationwide. I'll remind everyone listening,
1:02:52
Speaker 6: Democratic Party, has overwhelmingly supported national independent redistricting. The Republican
1:02:57
Speaker 6: Party does not believe in it. They want to continue
1:03:00
Speaker 6: the gerrymandering. They want to continue to pick their voters.
1:03:02
Speaker 6: They want to continue to rig elections. This is not
1:03:05
Speaker 6: isolated to Texas. This is coming to Indiana, potentially Missouri. Obviously,
1:03:09
Speaker 6: Ohio is already on a fast track in places like Florida.
1:03:12
Speaker 6: These guys are not screwing around. They do not play
1:03:15
Speaker 6: by any set of rules. It's not a different set
1:03:17
Speaker 6: of rules. They're going to try to rig the system.
1:03:19
Speaker 6: This provides power to the people to stop Trump. power
1:03:23
Speaker 6: to stand up against rigged elections, power to stand up
1:03:27
Speaker 6: for our democracy. And it's why it has profound impacts
1:03:30
Speaker 6: all across this country. But look, we have drafted this
1:03:32
Speaker 6: with a pathway to win. We're very sober about what
1:03:36
Speaker 6: we're up against, and the mis- and disinformation will come
1:03:38
Speaker 6: from the RNC. We expect them to put tens of
1:03:41
Speaker 6: millions of dollars into this. We expect others to come
1:03:44
Speaker 6: out against it. And so we're not naive about that.
1:03:48
Speaker 6: Eyes wide open, and we need people that are listening
1:03:51
Speaker 6: to support our cause. And we need folks, low dollar,
1:03:54
Speaker 6: to make contributions, to show up. This is about all
1:03:58
Speaker 6: 50 states, not just 58 counties in California.
1:04:01
Speaker 3: How could our listeners who, either in California or around
1:04:04
Speaker 3: the country, who want to help, is there a place
1:04:06
Speaker 3: they can go yet, or is that still to come?
1:04:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, we have a website up for people to take
1:04:10
Speaker 7: a look at.
1:04:11
Speaker 6: And you can see right behind me, quite literally, Election
1:04:15
Speaker 6: Rigging Response Act is quite literally the name of the
1:04:20
Speaker 6: initiative that will have an actual numeric once the legislature
1:04:24
Speaker 6: moves forward as early as next Thursday, when a number
1:04:28
Speaker 6: of pieces of legislation will land on my desk, the
1:04:30
Speaker 6: constitutional amendment and the special election moving directly forward on
1:04:34
Speaker 6: November 4th. But look, this is an opportunity to be
1:04:36
Speaker 6: for something, not just against someone. This is an opportunity
1:04:41
Speaker 6: to protect our democracy, the enduring values that many of
1:04:44
Speaker 6: us were taken for granted for the last 249 years,
1:04:48
Speaker 6: co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, rule of law, not
1:04:51
Speaker 6: rule of dawn, and it's an opportunity to participate. You
1:04:55
Speaker 6: have the power, your voice, choice, show up, contribute, and participate.
1:05:00
Speaker 6: This is a big damn deal because if the most
1:05:03
Speaker 6: un-Trump state in America can't do.
1:05:05
Speaker 7: This, we're in real peril as a nation.
1:05:09
Speaker 6: And our democracy, I really believe, may not recover if
1:05:12
Speaker 6: he rigs the midterms and gives him complete unfettered power
1:05:17
Speaker 6: with no oversight into 2028.
1:05:20
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, this is not like you're directly responding
1:05:23
Speaker 3: to Texas, which is under their current version of the maps,
1:05:25
Speaker 3: trying to pick up five seats. But Ohio is moving forward.
1:05:28
Speaker 3: Indiana is moving forward. Missouri is moving forward. Ron DeSantis
1:05:30
Speaker 3: is making noise. Have you talked to your fellow blue
1:05:34
Speaker 3: state governors about whether they can do similar things, whether
1:05:39
Speaker 3: it's New York or Illinois or Maryland? Do you know
1:05:40
Speaker 3: where that stands?
1:05:42
Speaker 7: Yeah, we've got to move. I mean, look, I really applaud.
1:05:44
Speaker 6: I admire what JB did in hosting the Texas delegation,
1:05:48
Speaker 6: obviously Kathy Hochul.
1:05:49
Speaker 7: As well, I really appreciate what they're saying on this topic.
1:05:52
Speaker 7: And it's been wonderful.
1:05:53
Speaker 6: And of course, we're so proud of what Texas delegation
1:05:57
Speaker 6: did because they put a lot of wind in the
1:05:59
Speaker 6: sails of what we're doing.
1:06:00
Speaker 7: They raised so much awareness. And by the way, Dan,
1:06:02
Speaker 7: I don't think that. I know that.
1:06:04
Speaker 6: We've seen it numerically with polls we did just a
1:06:06
Speaker 6: few weeks ago. And people not even understanding what redistricting
1:06:10
Speaker 6: is or what it isn't. And now how overwhelming it is,
1:06:13
Speaker 6: universal almost, how people now understand what's at stake But
1:06:18
Speaker 6: now it's time to put a stake in the ground.
1:06:20
Speaker 7: It's not just about rhetoric. It's about moving that rhetoric
1:06:23
Speaker 7: to a different reality.
1:06:24
Speaker 6: And it's about doing whatever we can, not just in
1:06:27
Speaker 6: those two states, but in other states all across this country.
1:06:30
Speaker 6: I know Maryland's talking potentially about something in January. I
1:06:34
Speaker 6: know that Kathy in New York has something not totally
1:06:36
Speaker 6: dissimilar to what we have in California.
1:06:39
Speaker 7: There's a version of that in Michigan. But look, at
1:06:41
Speaker 7: the end of the day, there is no do-over here, man.
1:06:44
Speaker 7: There's no do-over.
1:06:46
Speaker 6: If we fall short, If we see this guy roll
1:06:49
Speaker 6: up and go to all those other states, just like J.D.
1:06:52
Speaker 6: Vance rolled up into Indiana just a week ago, I mean,
1:06:56
Speaker 6: we could lose this thing.
1:06:57
Speaker 7: It's not an exaggeration. It is not.
1:07:00
Speaker 6: This guy's rewriting history. This guy is censoring historical facts.
1:07:04
Speaker 6: This guy is taking down independent thought, independent.
1:07:07
Speaker 7: Media, journalists, the rule of law and lawyers.
1:07:10
Speaker 6: I mean, this is it, guys. And so I just,
1:07:13
Speaker 6: I pray. that people dial things up in other states,
1:07:16
Speaker 6: not just here in the state of California.
1:07:19
Speaker 3: There has been a bit of a debate within the
1:07:21
Speaker 3: Democratic Party about just how to think about Trump, as
1:07:24
Speaker 3: to whether he's an existential threat to democracy as we
1:07:27
Speaker 3: know it, or someone who is sort of a very,
1:07:31
Speaker 3: very bad, but sort of a passing problem in the goal.
1:07:32
Speaker 3: We just have to survive the next three and a
1:07:35
Speaker 3: half years. I take it from how you're acting here.
1:07:38
Speaker 3: that you certainly believe this to be an existential threat.
1:07:40
Speaker 3: How do we convince more people? And particularly, because I
1:07:43
Speaker 3: think one of the arguments you're going to have to make,
1:07:44
Speaker 3: and all of us will have to make in the
1:07:46
Speaker 3: course of trying to get this passed, is you're going
1:07:47
Speaker 3: to have a lot of well-meaning Democrats who do not
1:07:50
Speaker 3: like Trump, but worry about the idea that we're getting
1:07:53
Speaker 3: in the mud with them, that we're speeding up the
1:07:55
Speaker 3: end of democracy. So what's sort of the best argument
1:07:58
Speaker 3: to those people?
1:07:59
Speaker 7: He's going to roll it over. I mean, look, if
1:08:01
Speaker 7: we roll over, it's over. Over and out. There's no
1:08:04
Speaker 7: independent redistricting nationwide.
1:08:06
Speaker 6: If he rigs the 2026 election before one vote is cast.
1:08:10
Speaker 6: There's no 250th anniversary of we the people in enduring
1:08:14
Speaker 6: the best of Roman Republic and Greek democracy. We're not
1:08:18
Speaker 6: going to be out there celebrating that. There's no rule
1:08:20
Speaker 6: of law. It's the rule of dawn. The extortion racket
1:08:23
Speaker 6: he's running, capitalism.
1:08:26
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm old enough.
1:08:28
Speaker 6: To remember my Republican friends supporting free enterprise. I think
1:08:31
Speaker 6: it was Churchill said, a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon.
1:08:35
Speaker 6: I'm a small business person. I'm proud to have created
1:08:37
Speaker 6: a thousand jobs myself.
1:08:39
Speaker 7: This is crony capitalism. Corruption at a level we've never
1:08:42
Speaker 7: seen in our life. This is sick. I mean, this
1:08:46
Speaker 7: is real, guys. He's an invasive species. This is not
1:08:50
Speaker 7: about parties. This is about power. I'll say it again.
1:08:53
Speaker 7: It's about the rule of dawn. They sent me a.
1:08:56
Speaker 6: 20... 2028 Trump hat. That wasn't just to own the lib.
1:09:03
Speaker 6: It wasn't just to have fun.
1:09:04
Speaker 7: They mean it. He means it.
1:09:07
Speaker 6: I sat there 90 minutes, Dan, 90 minutes. I work
1:09:10
Speaker 6: with Donald Trump 1.0. No Democratic governor worked more closely
1:09:14
Speaker 6: with him. No one communicated more. Just an objective fact
1:09:17
Speaker 6: during COVID.
1:09:18
Speaker 7: He's different. I spent 90 minutes with him.
1:09:20
Speaker 6: I was the first Democratic governor to visit him in
1:09:23
Speaker 6: the White House after the fires in LA.
1:09:25
Speaker 7: Try to have an.
1:09:25
Speaker 6: Open hand, not a closed fist. You can't work with him.
1:09:29
Speaker 6: Ask the mayor of DC. No one worked harder to
1:09:31
Speaker 6: have a relationship with him. And she just had her
1:09:34
Speaker 6: police force federalized. You only work for him. I'm not
1:09:39
Speaker 6: going to work for Donald Trump. UCLA is not going
1:09:41
Speaker 6: to sell.
1:09:41
Speaker 7: Their soul like Harvard or Brown or Penn or Columbia.
1:09:46
Speaker 7: Shame on all of them. We're not.
1:09:50
Speaker 6: And we're going to fight like hell to protect our democracy,
1:09:53
Speaker 6: our liberties, our freedoms.
1:09:55
Speaker 7: I love Republicans. I love Democrats.
1:09:56
Speaker 6: I don't care what your party affiliation is. I honestly don't.
1:10:01
Speaker 6: I care about this country and our democracy. I care
1:10:03
Speaker 6: about the rule of law. It's all on the line.
1:10:07
Speaker 6: This is not about redistricting. It's not about the lines
1:10:10
Speaker 6: that are being drawn on maps. It's the line we
1:10:13
Speaker 6: have to hold to protect our democracy.
1:10:18
Speaker 3: Governor Newsom, that's a great place to leave it. Thank
1:10:20
Speaker 3: you so much for joining us and good luck with us.
1:10:22
Speaker 3: We'll be watching closely.
1:10:23
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, Dan.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: Okay. That was a very fired up Gavin Newsom. What'd
1:10:34
Speaker 1: you think, Dan? What do you think of the plan?
1:10:36
Speaker 3: It's a very smart, well-done plan. I think from the
1:10:40
Speaker 3: perspective of putting this together to get the buy-in you
1:10:43
Speaker 3: need from all the people to get the buy-in, the
1:10:44
Speaker 3: broad coalition of people he had at his press conference,
1:10:47
Speaker 3: including some people associated with the redistricting commission. It's very smart.
1:10:51
Speaker 3: Putting the trigger in is very smart. So if Texas
1:10:53
Speaker 3: doesn't do it, or the other Republican states don't do it,
1:10:56
Speaker 3: then California doesn't feel the need to proceed forward. Only
1:10:59
Speaker 3: doing it until the next census is smart to revert
1:11:03
Speaker 3: back to redistricting. It's hard. I think the politics of
1:11:07
Speaker 3: this are challenging. Not that it can't be done. I
1:11:11
Speaker 3: certainly think it can be done, but it's not a
1:11:13
Speaker 3: slam dunk, I think. As you look at the ballot,
1:11:15
Speaker 3: you look at some of the initial polling, it's going
1:11:16
Speaker 3: to take work. And the Republicans... are going to dump
1:11:18
Speaker 3: money in here. We talk all the time about how
1:11:22
Speaker 3: Democrats are not fighting. And there are many who are.
1:11:26
Speaker 3: But for the most part, the sense has been within
1:11:28
Speaker 3: the base. We felt that people do not recognize the
1:11:32
Speaker 3: threat of Trump and are not responding as such. And
1:11:35
Speaker 3: you cannot say that about Gavin Newsom right now. He
1:11:37
Speaker 3: did not have to do this. I certainly didn't ask
1:11:41
Speaker 3: him this, but my suspicion is one day he's going
1:11:43
Speaker 3: to run for president. He's putting a lot of skin
1:11:46
Speaker 3: in the game here. Because if he does this and loses,
1:11:48
Speaker 3: it's going to be very damaging to him as governor
1:11:50
Speaker 3: for the final part of his last term and in
1:11:54
Speaker 3: a potential presidential campaign. And he's stepping up. And he
1:11:57
Speaker 3: put a bunch of money into this. He's putting time
1:11:59
Speaker 3: into it. It's like we need more of this. I'll
1:12:02
Speaker 3: be honest.
1:12:04
Speaker 1: I feel a little less worried about the polling. Yeah,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: I'm not.
1:12:08
Speaker 3: I just think it's not a swing dunk. I don't
1:12:10
Speaker 3: care about the polling.
1:12:11
Speaker 1: Oh, no, definitely. Oh, not than you, just in general,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: because I saw the Politico poll, which, I mean, if
1:12:16
Speaker 1: you just go by that Politico poll, it's like, it
1:12:17
Speaker 1: seems awful, right? It's like 36% support it, and it's,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: you know, it's two to one against. So, but first
1:12:25
Speaker 1: of all, the wording of the question is, of course
1:12:28
Speaker 1: that's going to get 36%, right? It's like, people are
1:12:31
Speaker 1: not tuned in to the stakes of the fight yet,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: and by November, they will be. Not everyone, but like,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: not everyone's going to vote, right? It's going to be
1:12:39
Speaker 1: a high, it's not going to be a high turnout election.
1:12:41
Speaker 1: It's not like this is going to be a presidential
1:12:45
Speaker 1: election or a midterm election even. This is going to
1:12:47
Speaker 1: be a low turnout election. The people who are most
1:12:49
Speaker 1: interested in the issue are going to go turnout. Sure,
1:12:52
Speaker 1: Republicans can spend a lot of money to try to
1:12:54
Speaker 1: make sure Republicans can go and deny California the seats, right?
1:12:57
Speaker 1: But then you need a bunch of Republican voters who
1:13:00
Speaker 1: are paying really close attention to politics and the news
1:13:03
Speaker 1: and turnout in low turnout elections, which Republican voters haven't
1:13:06
Speaker 1: been for the last several cycles. And California is a
1:13:09
Speaker 1: heavily Democratic state. And you get a lot of voters?
1:13:12
Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of young voters? Do you
1:13:14
Speaker 1: get a lot of working class voters? Probably not, but
1:13:16
Speaker 1: you get, uh, college educated libs. They bet they're going
1:13:20
Speaker 1: to the poll who pay attention to who listen to
1:13:22
Speaker 1: positive America and pay attention to politics and pay attention
1:13:25
Speaker 1: to news. And so like I do, I feel better
1:13:27
Speaker 1: about that, but I think you're right. It's still going to,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: it's going to take a big campaign. It's going to
1:13:31
Speaker 1: take a lot of work. It's going to take a
1:13:32
Speaker 1: lot of money. Um, but I feel, I feel okay
1:13:34
Speaker 1: about it.
1:13:35
Speaker 3: But in the course of listening to you and thinking
1:13:37
Speaker 3: about it, I've actually convinced myself even more to feel
1:13:39
Speaker 3: better about it because I was thinking about like These
1:13:42
Speaker 3: sorts of measures do fail, but they usually fail when
1:13:45
Speaker 3: people are going to vote for other reasons, like a
1:13:48
Speaker 3: presidential election or gubernatorial election, and they have to fill
1:13:51
Speaker 3: out their ballot in California, and they've been inundated with
1:13:54
Speaker 3: tens of millions of dollars of TV ads, and all
1:13:56
Speaker 3: they know is whatever the spin of the people with
1:13:59
Speaker 3: more money on the side. Where this probably performs more
1:14:03
Speaker 3: like than a typical ballot initiative is the abortion constitutional
1:14:07
Speaker 3: amendments in places like Ohio and elsewhere. where the only
1:14:10
Speaker 3: reason you're turning out is this. And you're more likely
1:14:13
Speaker 3: to turn out for this to vote for it than
1:14:16
Speaker 3: to turn out to vote against it, is my guess.
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the challenge with state and local
1:14:22
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives is we live in a nationalized media environment.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: And so someone's not going to know the local debate
1:14:30
Speaker 1: that's going on unless you see a billboard or get
1:14:32
Speaker 1: a mailer. But everyone who pays attention to the news
1:14:36
Speaker 1: pays attention to national news. And if you pay attention
1:14:37
Speaker 1: to national news, you know about this. And so I
1:14:40
Speaker 1: think that's going to help. All right. It's been a
1:14:42
Speaker 1: heavy pod. Very heavy. As most of them are these days.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: So we're going to end with something for everyone to
1:14:49
Speaker 1: hopefully laugh at. One of the biggest stories of the
1:14:52
Speaker 1: week involved a podcast host leveraging their relationship to land
1:14:56
Speaker 1: a high profile guest with a highly anticipated announcement.
1:15:00
Speaker 3: Not Gavin Newsom today.
1:15:02
Speaker 1: Here's a clip. So Mark Rubio is known as a
1:15:05
Speaker 1: funny jokester.
1:15:06
Speaker 3: What's the funniest joke he's told you?
1:15:09
Speaker 1: Or the funniest moment you've had with him.
1:15:11
Speaker 4: Okay.
1:15:12
Speaker 8: So you guys will have to determine whether we can
1:15:14
Speaker 8: actually put this in the final.
1:15:15
Speaker 3: We can cut it if not.
1:15:16
Speaker 8: We can cut it if not. So this is, we
1:15:19
Speaker 8: were talking about something very serious related to the Middle East.
1:15:23
Speaker 8: And he starts this joke totally deadpan. He's like, you know,
1:15:27
Speaker 8: I learned something interesting about the Middle East because I
1:15:31
Speaker 8: had a constituent call a few years ago when I
1:15:33
Speaker 8: was in the Senate and a woman was visiting Israel.
1:15:36
Speaker 8: And her husband died while they were in Israel. And
1:15:39
Speaker 8: I was like, oh, man, that's terrible. And she was
1:15:41
Speaker 8: trying to get help from us for how to get
1:15:43
Speaker 8: the body back to the United States.
1:15:45
Speaker 3: And she said to me, you know, man, I don't know.
1:15:48
Speaker 8: Maybe I don't want it back. The last time somebody was.
1:15:53
Speaker 8: Sorry, the last time somebody died over here, they rose
1:15:56
Speaker 8: from the dead three days later. And I didn't know
1:16:00
Speaker 8: until the very end that it was a totally bullshit joke.
1:16:04
Speaker 8: I was like, on the edge of my seat, like,
1:16:05
Speaker 8: what happened to this poor woman and her husband?
1:16:08
Speaker 1: He's got jokes. He's got jokes, Dan. Mark or Ruby
1:16:12
Speaker 1: has jokes.
1:16:13
Speaker 3: I have so many thoughts here. One, Mark or Ruby.
1:16:16
Speaker 1: First of all, we should say, we should say, because
1:16:17
Speaker 1: we didn't introduce it, because I tried to make it
1:16:19
Speaker 1: seem like it was Taylor and Travis.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: So.
1:16:22
Speaker 1: That was Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, former White
1:16:25
Speaker 1: House employee, Mike Pence communications director, Elon Musk Doge spokesperson,
1:16:32
Speaker 1: left the White House to work in the private sector
1:16:33
Speaker 1: for Elon Musk. Now she's got a podcast because there's no,
1:16:37
Speaker 1: because as she says in her intro video to intro
1:16:39
Speaker 1: the podcast, there's just no space online for conservative women
1:16:43
Speaker 1: to talk about politics. So that's, so anyway, so her
1:16:47
Speaker 1: first guest, J.D. Vance, I watched the whole thing. You
1:16:51
Speaker 1: can all watch the thing. We have a great, Lovett
1:16:52
Speaker 1: and I did a great react on YouTube that is
1:16:54
Speaker 1: very funny. Check it out on the Pod Save America
1:16:56
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. I watched all 44 minutes of it. I
1:16:58
Speaker 1: don't know if you did, but all I can say
1:17:00
Speaker 1: is it's all like that. It's all like that.
1:17:04
Speaker 3: Can we break down this clip for a second?
1:17:06
Speaker 7: Yes, we can.
1:17:07
Speaker 3: I follow politics pretty closely. I follow Marco Rubio's presidential
1:17:10
Speaker 3: campaign pretty closely. I've never once heard Marco Rubio described
1:17:14
Speaker 3: as a funny person. Hey, I can't think of a
1:17:17
Speaker 3: single moment in his public life where he has been
1:17:21
Speaker 3: anything other than dour.
1:17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:17:24
Speaker 1: What about when he, what was the dick joke he
1:17:27
Speaker 1: made about Donald Trump?
1:17:27
Speaker 3: It wasn't even a joke. It was an attack. It
1:17:29
Speaker 3: was like an attack.
1:17:30
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:17:30
Speaker 3: It wasn't, it wasn't a funny joke. It was just
1:17:32
Speaker 3: like lashing out.
1:17:34
Speaker 1: I often laugh at him in that big chair. Marco
1:17:38
Speaker 1: in the big chair. That's Tommy's Twitter picture.
1:17:41
Speaker 3: That's not a joke he made. It wasn't a thing
1:17:43
Speaker 3: he did.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: No, that's what I'm saying. He's someone I have laughed
1:17:46
Speaker 1: at before, but never someone I've laughed because of. One.
1:17:49
Speaker 2: Two. J.D.
1:17:50
Speaker 3: Vance screwed up the joke. Whatever it is.
1:17:53
Speaker 1: The joke makes no sense.
1:17:55
Speaker 3: The last person who died in Israel did not rise
1:17:58
Speaker 3: three days later.
1:18:00
Speaker 1: Also, and then she decided maybe she doesn't want her
1:18:03
Speaker 1: husband back because the last guy who died there rose three...
1:18:07
Speaker 1: The sentence doesn't even make sense.
1:18:09
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:18:11
Speaker 3: They use the term jokester? Okay, we got a lot
1:18:14
Speaker 3: of questions about that. Neither of them, neither Katie Miller
1:18:20
Speaker 3: nor J.D. Vance seem to have any... They discuss humor
1:18:23
Speaker 3: like I would discuss astrophysics. Like it's something I'm vaguely
1:18:27
Speaker 3: aware exists, but I have no familiarity with it.
1:18:31
Speaker 1: J.D. Vance goes on to butcher his favorite dad joke,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: which is a joke from Pulp Fiction that is... Also bad.
1:18:37
Speaker 3: It's not a dad joke either.
1:18:39
Speaker 1: It's not a dad joke. So there's that also about
1:18:42
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. I don't know if you knew this Dan,
1:18:44
Speaker 1: but this Marco Rubio jokester thing was in a series of,
1:18:49
Speaker 1: there was a round of this interview of, it's called
1:18:52
Speaker 1: Cabinet Confidential. And you had to pick which cabinet member
1:18:55
Speaker 1: you'd want for various activities. And for playing basketball, Marco
1:19:01
Speaker 1: Rubio was the pick, even though he's not a tall guy.
1:19:04
Speaker 3: I mean, you can be good at basketball and be short,
1:19:06
Speaker 3: but he.
1:19:07
Speaker 1: Doesn't- No, no. Oh, sorry. I only said that because
1:19:09
Speaker 1: that's what J.D. Vance says. He randomly throws out there
1:19:12
Speaker 1: that Marco's short.
1:19:14
Speaker 3: When no one asked him. He's got to appease Trump.
1:19:18
Speaker 1: J.D.
1:19:18
Speaker 3: Vance is someone who clearly has never had real friends.
1:19:23
Speaker 3: It's just like he just lacks that. He's like a
1:19:25
Speaker 3: facsimile of a human and a poor one at that.
1:19:28
Speaker 3: It's just like.
1:19:29
Speaker 1: He- I think he had a group of dorky friends.
1:19:33
Speaker 3: No, I don't even think that. Because there's just sort of,
1:19:36
Speaker 3: for men, women, anyone, he just doesn't seem to be
1:19:42
Speaker 3: able to relate to other people. I think he played
1:19:44
Speaker 3: Magic the Gathering, which is something he said he was
1:19:46
Speaker 3: very into by himself.
1:19:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not allowed to make fun of that
1:19:50
Speaker 1: here because there's some Magic the Gathering fans.
1:19:53
Speaker 3: I mean, look, that's what he wants to do with
1:19:56
Speaker 3: his first time. It's probably the most human thing he's
1:19:57
Speaker 3: ever done.
1:19:58
Speaker 1: You know, I don't, yeah, believe me, 44 minutes of
1:20:01
Speaker 1: this conversation, that is the, maybe the best thing, honestly.
1:20:06
Speaker 1: He was also asked by Katie Miller, which member of
1:20:09
Speaker 1: the cabinet would you want to sit next to for
1:20:11
Speaker 1: a transatlantic flight? He just talked to the whole time.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: And he said, probably your husband, although I guess he's
1:20:17
Speaker 1: not a member of the cabinet.
1:20:20
Speaker 2: What?
1:20:21
Speaker 1: Sitting next to Stephen Miller for a transatlantic flight? Well, A, that's...
1:20:27
Speaker 1: I'd fucking jump out of the place.
1:20:28
Speaker 3: Well, obviously he doesn't really believe that. He's just saying it.
1:20:31
Speaker 1: I think he really likes him. No, I think he
1:20:32
Speaker 1: really likes him.
1:20:33
Speaker 7: Either way.
1:20:33
Speaker 1: I've heard him say, but this is my whole... But
1:20:35
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Yeah, go ahead.
1:20:37
Speaker 3: Even if he really believed it, if he had grown
1:20:40
Speaker 3: up around other humans, he would have known that that's
1:20:43
Speaker 3: the kind of thing you were to say, and your
1:20:45
Speaker 3: good friends who actually like you Would make fun of
1:20:48
Speaker 3: you for it. You are trained in a Pavlovian way
1:20:52
Speaker 3: not to be a doofus like this. But he's incapable
1:20:55
Speaker 3: of that because he's never been around people in a
1:20:59
Speaker 3: normal way in his whole life.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: I know.
1:21:02
Speaker 6: I know.
1:21:03
Speaker 1: It was very unsettling. It was very unsettling. I've been
1:21:06
Speaker 1: having this fear that we're underestimating J.D. Vance in 2028,
1:21:10
Speaker 1: and I still do. I think he code switches well.
1:21:14
Speaker 1: And can be– like he was good in the debate
1:21:16
Speaker 1: with Tim Walz or at least he was more normal
1:21:18
Speaker 1: than he is. But I think that this kind of stuff,
1:21:21
Speaker 1: like he can't do– Human. He can't do the small talk.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: He can't do human.
1:21:25
Speaker 3: He is a podium politician. He's good at a podium.
1:21:27
Speaker 3: He's good in debate.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: He is good at a podium.
1:21:29
Speaker 3: What he can't do is have normal conversations with people.
1:21:31
Speaker 3: And the problem for him is as Trump.
1:21:33
Speaker 1: He might not need to though. He might not need
1:21:34
Speaker 1: to by then.
1:21:35
Speaker 3: Well, because the media has been taken over.
1:21:37
Speaker 1: Because the media's been taken over, retail politics goes away,
1:21:40
Speaker 1: and it's just like, you know, he's just looking into screens.
1:21:43
Speaker 3: The only media outlet in America is Lindell TV. See,
1:21:48
Speaker 3: that's what you do. John, you take it from the beginning,
1:21:50
Speaker 3: you wrap it at the end, and now we're done.
1:21:51
Speaker 1: You know what, Dan? Here's the thing. People listening to
1:21:53
Speaker 1: this don't even know the Lindell TV thing. because you
1:21:56
Speaker 1: and I did that, is a YouTube response before this recording. Oh, fuck,
1:21:59
Speaker 1: you're right. This is how long... We've been doing so
1:22:01
Speaker 1: much content. This is how long we've been talking today,
1:22:04
Speaker 1: just because we're trying to fucking.
1:22:05
Speaker 7: Save Elijah's job.
1:22:05
Speaker 1: Are we on YouTube?
1:22:06
Speaker 3: Are we on Substack Live? Are we on a podcast?
1:22:08
Speaker 3: Are we just in a WhatsApp group? I do not know.
1:22:10
Speaker 3: Who knows?
1:22:11
Speaker 1: Who knows?
1:22:12
Speaker 3: Is anyone listening to this? Okay, fine, whatever.
1:22:14
Speaker 1: Anyway, one of the reporters at the press conference was
1:22:16
Speaker 1: from Lindell TV, Mike Lindell, the Pillow TV guy. But anyway,
1:22:20
Speaker 1: to know all of this, you should go subscribe to
1:22:22
Speaker 1: Pod Save America on YouTube. First of all, you can
1:22:24
Speaker 1: watch the rest of this hilarious... JD Vance, Katie Miller
1:22:27
Speaker 1: react that Lovett and I did. You can also see
1:22:30
Speaker 1: what Dan and I did today as reacting to the
1:22:32
Speaker 1: press conference. And you can save Elijah's job because if
1:22:35
Speaker 1: we hit a million subscribers before the end of August,
1:22:38
Speaker 1: Elijah keeps his job.
1:22:39
Speaker 3: What happens if we reach 1,250,000 subscribers?
1:22:43
Speaker 1: Then Tommy owes Elijah $ 250, 000 and Tommy has to sit
1:22:47
Speaker 1: down with JD Vance for a video where they discuss
1:22:52
Speaker 1: their shared favorite television series. Emily in Paris because also
1:22:56
Speaker 1: in that video J.D. Vance goes on and on and
1:22:59
Speaker 1: he has a whole bunch of takes about Emily in
1:23:00
Speaker 1: Paris I don't know I don't know what else is
1:23:04
Speaker 1: happening here that's our that's our pod for today thank
1:23:07
Speaker 1: you to Gavin Newsom for for joining the pod giving
1:23:09
Speaker 1: it some energy and thanks to all of you everyone
1:23:13
Speaker 1: have a fantastic weekend and uh we'll be back next
1:23:16
Speaker 1: week bye everyone If you want to listen to Pod
1:23:22
Speaker 1: Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord
1:23:25
Speaker 1: and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod
1:23:28
Speaker 1: community at crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts
1:23:32
Speaker 1: directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider
1:23:35
Speaker 1: leaving us a review to help boost this episode and
1:23:38
Speaker 1: everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is
1:23:41
Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich-Frank,
1:23:44
Speaker 1: and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin
1:23:48
Speaker 1: Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The
1:23:54
Speaker 1: show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor
1:23:57
Speaker 1: is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin
1:24:00
Speaker 1: and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
1:24:03
Speaker 1: Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
1:24:07
Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellevive,
1:24:10
Speaker 1: David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly
1:24:13
Speaker 1: unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.