Latest / Pod Save America / “Little Ronny Pudding Fingers.”

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“Little Ronny Pudding Fingers.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, little Ronnie Puddingfingers finally responds to Trump's
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: attacks and quietly signs a six-week abortion ban in Florida.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy has a new debt-sailing plan that's probably dead
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: on arrival.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: You know, he may not have wanted to sign it,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: but his fingerprints were all over it. Pudding. Pudding fingers.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The proof. The Democrats' Dianne Feinstein problem is not going away,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and neither are Clarence Thomas' ethics scandals. Then, we talk
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to Crooked's own Max Fisher about the epic defamation case
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that's set to begin this week between Fox News and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Dominion Voting Systems. All right, let's get to the news.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: The Republican presidential primary starting to give off some 2016 vibes.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been attacking Ron DeSantis as a grandma-killing
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: establishment rhino pedophile for weeks now.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That tracks, yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: But it was this MAGA Super PAC ad that finally
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: prompted DeSantis' ironically named Never Back Down Super PAC to respond.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don't belong.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: And we're not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: dirty fingers all over senior entitlements. Tell Ron DeSantis to
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: keep his pudding fingers off our money.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Here's the response from DeSantis World.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: New York. So why is he spending millions attacking the
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Republican governor of Florida? Trump's stealing pages from the Biden-Pelosi playbook.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Repeating lies about Social Security. Trump should fight Democrats, not
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The Super PAC also ran this online only ad about
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Trump that was targeted at Republicans who attended the NRA
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: convention in Indianapolis over the weekend where Trump spoke, but
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: DeSantis did not.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Trump promised NRA members he'd have their back. But when
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump abandoned us. You guys,
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: half of you are so afraid of the NRA. I
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: like taking the guns early.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Take the guns first.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Trump cut and run like a coward. Trump, the gun grabber,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: doesn't deserve a second chance.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: All right, what do you guys think of these ads?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Take on the strategy behind them, and do you think
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they're effective? Tommy?
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The pudding thing worked.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: It's weird and gross and funny and memorable, and it's
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: getting covered in mainstream media, on social media, and it's
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: Trojan horsing in this message about cutting Social Security.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It was well done.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's a very good point about the Trojan horsing.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I think the horse was pretty open.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: No, but I get it because it's like, If you
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: just did another Social Security Medicare hit, who's going to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: cover that? You get some fun pudding stuff in there?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: We got some weird pudding pops.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And then you got a really effective message about Social
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Security Medicare in there. A-plus ad. It's an A-plus ad, and.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: We were talking about this when it first came out.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: It's a shockingly normal political ad. It feels like it
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: could be made by any normal, for a Democrat or
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a Republican, it's just a traditional, professional ad.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: The first thing I thought was, I'm like, David Plouffe.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: probably loves this ad.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I could see him.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: This is like a Barack Obama versus John McCain ad,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney ad.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: And the DeSantis response, like when you whine about tactics,
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: that to me always says you are losing. If you are,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: you're saying, how dare Donald Trump attack a Republican? Are
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: you just meeting Donald Trump? Did you not watch the primary?
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: That's all he does.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: No Trump voters are upset that Trump is attacking another Republican. Also,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: so also, first of all, I do think it gives
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you a little bit there's a little bit of a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: hint of where they want to go, which is like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: there's a little bit like he's creepy, he's filthy. Oh, DeSantis. Yes,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: the DeSantis. Oh, I thought you meant, okay. No, no, no.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: There's a little bit of that like, you know.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a weirdo.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: He's a weirdo. He's a creep. They want to get
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: those photos with the teenagers back out there. So that's
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: under there a little bit. The DeSantis response, I think,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: gives itself away when it ends with what happened to
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, which is kind of like saying like, oh,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: because even the DeSantis ad says he used to be
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: fucking awesome, you know? You don't want your own ad
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to say like, God, I miss that Donald Trump guy.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: Even the NRA ad, like maybe there are some hardcore
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: NRA fans and gun supporters that are upset by that.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: But most of the ad was Trump looking tough and
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: talking about fighting the NRA, a powerful interest group. Like,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: are you kidding me?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It really was like it was the gun one was
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: much worse, I think, for DeSantis. First of all, the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: gun ad, maybe who knows how it plays for the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: wackadoos attending an NRA convention. But it showed him negotiating
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: for modest gun reforms with Democrats and Republicans. And we're
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: seven years into this fucking Trump fiasco, and you still
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: think you get points by showing Trump not caring what
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: interest groups think? It's wild.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: To me, it speaks. Their theory of the case here
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is so flawed. Republican voters who are considering ditching Donald
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Trump are not doing so because they think he's not
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: conservative enough on issues like guns or abortion or because,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like Tommy said, they think he's too mean to other Republicans.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: If they are considering ditching Donald Trump, it's because they
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: are worried that he has now lost them several elections.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And for some insane reason, DeSantis isn't making an electability argument.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But by the way, Trump is. Trump knows that's a vulnerability.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And what he's trying to say is, hey, all you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Republican voters who are maybe thinking about DeSantis, He's going
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to be a weak general election candidate because he wants
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: to cut Medicare and Social Security and because he's also
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a little weird.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: A little establishment, a little too rhino, but like really
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: vulnerable in a general election against Joe Biden. You sure
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you want to put Ron DeSantis up against Joe Biden?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: That's what Trump's trying to say. It's smart.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things I think you can get
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the Republican base to believe about Donald Trump, but you're
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: never going to get them to believe he's not on
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: their side. Like, first of all, everyone's tried that. It
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: has never stuck. No.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Aside from immigration, I would argue that Republican voters did
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: not back Donald Trump in 2016 in the first place
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: because of any specific policy position. Immigration was, it's vibes.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: He owns the list of artists.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: He's an asshole.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And it's also like, the guy doesn't sound like a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: regular fucking politician. And guess what? DeSantis does now.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: And this is when DeSantis was doing well, when he
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: was fighting Disney and yelling at, you know, woke corporations.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Which he's back at again.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: He's trying to do it again, yeah. Yeah. And there's
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: that line from Mad Men that I'll paraphrase, which is
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: what I think of whenever I see DeSantis and Trump
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: going at it, which is DeSantis is trying to make
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Republicans feel as if their needs are met, but Donald
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Trump makes them feel as if they have no needs.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And it's just over and over again, DeSantis gets himself
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: wrapped around the axle because he's trying to win on points.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: And there's this underlying kind of inherent qualities that these
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: two guys have. He's not able to get past. Electability
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: is the only thing. Yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And you hear all these Trump people, even the ones
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that they're interviewing now who are like thinking about both
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: candidates and they'll say, you know, what about Donald Trump?
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I wish you wouldn't tweet as much. And
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes what he says gets in trouble. But I like
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that he says what's on his mind. I trust that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And with DeSantis, they don't trust that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like you want you want the fun dad
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: that's going to take you on the roller coaster or not?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: No one's going on any roller coasters now.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: It's like shh. Go up the.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Roller coaster, you can see the state prison.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: He's putting in there.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Putting dead.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did make a joke that he was going
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to maybe put a prison near Disney World just to
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: punish them more. DeSantis is also trying to get to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the right of Trump on the issue of abortion. He
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: signed legislation late Thursday night that would ban abortion in
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the state of Florida after six weeks, which is essentially
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a full ban since most abortions occur after six weeks.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And many people don't even know they're pregnant by six weeks.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: DeSantis didn't say a word about the new law at
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the multiple events he held around the country, which tells
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you how much of a winner he thinks the ban is.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: One of DeSantis' billionaire donors, Thomas Pederphy, sounds like a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: perfect billionaire donor, told the Financial Times that he and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of his friends are now, quote, holding our
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: powder dry because of the governor's stance on abortion and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: book banning. From a political standpoint, why do we think
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis did this? He had a 15-week ban.
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: This seems like a political suicide. The numbers are not
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: even close. The University of Florida did a poll in
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: February that found that 75 percent of Florida residents opposed
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: a six week ban, including 61 percent of Republicans. This
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: is an insane idea. It will have huge ramifications outside
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: of Florida because Florida was unfortunately a place a lot
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: of women had to go to get abortion services because
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: other states around it had even more draconian bans. The
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: only reason the Florida legislature could pass this is because
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: the state is so gerrymandered. But this just seems like
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: an insane decision, like sort of a kamikaze political decision
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: to try to win a primary that will have huge
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: ramifications for DeSantis and the party in any general election.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Somebody close to DeSantis said this to The Washington Post.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Abortion is not an issue that motivates him. I can
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: tell you that. But it's one of those, what choice
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: do we have? And it's like he clearly had hoped
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: that the 15-week ban would get him to the other
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: side of this issue without having to pick a fight
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: with the evangelical base that wants a total ban. But
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: he couldn't come out against this. He clearly didn't want
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: to do a six-week ban, but felt dragged to it
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: by the right-wing members in the Florida legislature. And now
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: he has tied himself to this evil fucking thing. And
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: he can sign it behind closed doors all he wants.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It is going to follow him for the rest of
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: this campaign.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Clearly, Like you guys said, the motivation is to try
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to win this primary and the general election will worry.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: About that later.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if it really is going to
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: help him in this primary, partly because of what we
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: were just talking about with the NRA.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Ad, too.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It's like this theory that the evangelical base, they really
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: just care about abortion and that's it. Maybe at one
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: point they used to. It's all vibes now. They're not
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: backing Donald Trump. The guy who's probably paid for multiple
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: abortions himself, who's been married multiple times because they think,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you know, he's a he's a righteous person. But also, like,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what are we doing here?
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Take it from the other side. Take it from the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: other side. Donald Trump on the on the issue of abortion.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the most successful Republican president in in
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: a in a half century. He stacked the court with
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: right wing judges who are who are anti-abortion. He delivered
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: them the majority that got rid of Roe v. Wade.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: You can't, you can try to get to the right
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: in this politically stupid way, but you're not going to
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: win on that issue. It's, it's, it's, it's really baffling.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: There are reports that, um, uh, Trump's been telling anti-abortion
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: activists that Republicans risk losing big on this issue unless
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: they soften the messaging. Uh, and Trump wants to be
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: emphasizing exceptions to bans. And he thinks that all of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: these total bans are, are bad now, which by the way,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for Trump is very silly. Cause it's like, like you
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: just said, he's the guy that, um, Literally, his judges
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: are the reason that Dobbs happened.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Well, he's basically saying, look, guys, we got to lie
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: a little bit. Come on, work with me here. He's
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: been saying this for years. He's been saying this for years.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: He was when he was first before he was before
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: he even got the majority to do it. He was
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: worried about the political implications of this and kind of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: is always kind of joked about the evangelicals being kind
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: of weird to him. He's never got them. They're not
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: they don't resonate on the same frequency.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, how long until Donald Trump starts openly attacking
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: DeSantis for the six week ban?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: You can see it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's going to be hypocritical, obviously, but I can.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: He's going to be too extreme. He's not going to
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: win the general Medicare and Social Security position, his abortion position.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: This guy's a weirdo. It's the pudding, the pedophilia.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: The one piece of this is I can imagine DeSantis
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: thinking like, I'm just trying to get this, get past
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: this issue, right? If he fights this thing that the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: majority of the caucus wants in the legislature, he's now
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: in a fight over abortion that makes it more salient.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: He signed this law and now he kind of moved
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: past it, even though the politics will trail him. That's
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the only kind of cynical political argument you can say.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: I think you can't move past it because he's going
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: to own the ramifications. It's going to be story after
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: story after story of the horrific consequences.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Of this law.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I think it is crazy to me. I've really tried
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to think of it from his point of view, like
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: just from pure hard politics.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: I remember thinking he was smart for not doing this
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: and just sort of standing behind a 15-week ban. The
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: more palatable politically, at least.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: And there was the Republican Senate majority leader who is
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: someone who is less conservative on this issue, was asked
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: why she was getting behind this. And she's like, asked
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis. She basically was like, look at him, help
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: me get out of this.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: This is not like the legislature just like handed him
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: something that he's, oh, now I have to sign it
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: or not sign it. Like he runs that legislature.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: He had a choice to make. He had a choice
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: to make whether he wanted to have the fight or not. Yes.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Believe it or not, there are other Republicans in this race,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: though the potential field shrank by one over the weekend.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: As Never Give an Inch author Mike Pompeo did, in fact,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: give several inches when he announced that he won't be
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: running for president, a political earthquake that upended the GOP primary.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Other 2024 hopefuls seem to have a higher tolerance for embarrassment.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence was booed at the NRA convention in his
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: home state where he once served as governor. Nikki Haley's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: campaign was caught lying about their fundraising totals. They inflated
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: them by about $ 3 million because they were double counting
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of money. Oops. Just getting through a news cycle, right?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: At a big GOP donor retreat in Nashville over the weekend,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Governors Chris Sununu and Brian Kemp offered some gentle criticism
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of Trump. And then Trump got up there and mocked
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: every single candidate's single-digit polling. He was like, Chris Christie, 1%.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Wow. Phenomenal.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley, she's working hard.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: 4%. Working hard.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Now, before we get to the rest of the field, Tommy,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is this Mike Pompeo announcement a huge blow to worldos everywhere?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you, John, for asking. This was a tough weekend
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: for me and tens of others. Actually, I prepared something. Oh, God,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: he's got to fold something up in his pocket. Why
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: would it be separate than his laptop?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Andy and Olivia do have their hands over their mouths.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I don't understand why you'd have to print something. He
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: has his laptop. It's an important moment. It's just drama.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: We gather here today to mourn the death of Michael
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Richard Pompeo's presidential ambitions. Um, I know that some of
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: you traveled from as far away as Santa Monica to
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: be here. Uh, and I just wanted to say thank you.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: And that means a lot to me. Uh, as Neil
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: Young once wrote, Oh my God. My, my, hey, hey,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: parens out of the blue, close parens. Uh, it's better
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: to burn out than it is to rust. The King
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: is gone, but he's not forgotten. It's not a spot.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Of rust on you.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: Mike once described the New Yorker as a heat seeking
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: missile for Trump's ass. Mike Pompeo soared to intercontinental political heights.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Born in Orange, California to Dorothy and Wayne Pompeo, Mike
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: met his real daddies, the Koch brothers, after moving to
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: Kansas in the mid-90s. From there, he took on Congress,
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: the deep state, the State Department, and the world. It's
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: hard to quantify what his absence will mean, John. As
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: John Steinbeck said, according to Brainy Quotes, it's so much
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: darker when a light goes out than it would have
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: been if it had never shone. Mike Pompeo, the Cav Pack,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: from tweets with no engagement to Tier 2 Sunday shows
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: to sparsely attended Iowa events, you lit the way for dozens,
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: and we will miss you.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's a beautiful performance. He really captured the tone. Okay. Oh,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: there it is again. You should just, we need the,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: we should also layer on the ozempic jingle. Okay. I thought, yeah, also,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: just saying. You think he did that with discipline?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Wasn't he like the first person and maybe only person
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to blurb his own book too?
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he blurbed his own book. Yeah, he did
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: his own book blurb. I want to, there was one
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: part at the end. Thank you, Tommy, by the way.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you for giving me this moment. So Mike Wimpeo,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: whose whole public persona is about how sort of unstoppable
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: he is, backs out. Doesn't give an inch. Doesn't give
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: an inch. Decides to give all the inches and step out.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: And he releases a full-page statement on Twitter about why
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: he's doing it. But the end of the statement, to me,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: captured everything that makes Mike Pompeo the absolute worst personality
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: in public life. And he ended the statement by saying this.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: To those of you this announcement disappoints, my apologies. And
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: to those of you this thrilled, know that I'm 59
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: years old. There remain many more opportunities for which the
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: timing might be more fitting as presidential leadership becomes even
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: more necessary. What's the problem with that? That is an
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: incredible statement to be like, Like, it's very much like,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't meet you at the flagpole after
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: school today. I have violin practice. But oh, next couple
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of days, we're going to find a time. And boy,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: are we going to fight at that flagpole. He is
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: really embarrassing.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Don't threaten us with a good time, Mikey.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's like, but also even the end of that statement.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: So you're saying that now is not the time for
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: presidential leadership. But in the future, it might be. It's
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: just so arrogant and stupid. God, may his memory be
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: a blessing.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I miss him already. Raises a question. We're not going
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to do predictions here.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: We're not going to.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: That's going to feel like a little... So far, do
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you think any of these fucking yahoos are showing what
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it takes, not even to beat Trump, but to be
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the new Ron DeSantis if for some reason Ron DeSantis
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: continues to shit the bed?
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: It's pretty.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: You would say, all right, obviously none of these other
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: fucking jokers, but you look at someone like Tim Scott
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: and say, okay, maybe... And then he gets the most
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: obvious question that you could possibly ask about abortion and
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: gives an absolute, just a word salad in response. Though
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: it actually captures, I think, the problem that has nothing
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to do with each one of those individuals. There was
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: a sort of a column looking at like the politics
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: of what Tim Scott is supposed to say. And he's
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: supposed to find a place in the Venn diagram that
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: will please the evangelical base without pissing off the vast
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: majority of Americans who are pro-choice. And they don't overlap.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: They just don't overlap.
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: Nor does nor does the Republican base and being hopeful.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not what they're looking for.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: It seems like the plan right now is once again
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to hope that Donald Trump will implode on his own,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: even though they all chose to defend him over the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: indictment that might have led to that implosion.
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So even when things come up that might hurt Donald Trump,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: no one is going to take advantage of it or
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: hasn't so far. No one wants to exploit it. Like
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: if you do not go after Donald Trump directly and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: do so. And again, I get that most of the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: base and most of the voters you need loves Donald Trump.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: So you have to be careful on how you do it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But the electability argument is that is what's on Republican
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: voters minds. They are willing to hear a case about that.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Just fucking go do it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's it's a bunch of people throwing buckets of water
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: on a house fire, hoping that the house burns down.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: How about that?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: OK, I like that. I like that.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Just came to me.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Congress, which is back in session this week.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: They're back, baby.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Didn't even know they were gone. Kevin McCarthy is still
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: trying to pass a budget through the Republican House that
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: raises the debt ceiling. His latest plan is a one-year
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: extension of the debt ceiling to May of 2024. Right
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: in the middle of campaign. That should be fun.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Good idea.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And this plan... would gut all non-defense, non-entitlement spending, repeal
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: student loan forgiveness, repeal clean energy tax credits that were
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: in the IRA, increase fossil fuel production, and institute work
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: requirements for Medicaid and food assistance. What's the thinking behind
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: this plan? What are the chances it actually passes?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Love it. It's funny to say, what's the thinking behind
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the plan? It's Kevin McCarthy. You know, he is the
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: political equivalent of checking your watch while holding a coffee. And,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: you know, as a rule, when Kevin McCarthy does something,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: you could ask, if you don't really understand it, it's like,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: is he smart or is he stuck? And the answer
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: is never that he's smart. And in this case, you
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: would want to say, OK, he knows he's in a bind.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: He made all these promises to the base to get
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the speakership. So he needs to go through the motions
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: of putting forward these kind of draconian cuts to show
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: that this can't pass ultimately on the road to what
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: can pass, which is a clean increase that is mostly
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: passed with Democrats in the House with some Republicans who
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: jump on board. You would like to think that that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: is what you're heading towards, but more likely he is
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: just putting one foot in front of the other, trying
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to get through a day. Beyond that, I don't know.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: He's just trying to figure out, he has to put
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: something forward so he can blame Biden for refusing to negotiate,
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: and they haven't released a budget yet, I think still,
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: even after the speech. The thing that bumped me was
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: doing this speech at the stock market was an interesting choice.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he went to Wall Street today and spoke at
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the stock market.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, a bit like an Al-Qaeda member doing a press
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: conference on an airplane, you know what I mean?
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Like, check out this thing I'm about to crash. I
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: I say, I guarantee you that these CEOs care a
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: hell of a lot more about their stock price than
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: deficit spending.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Look, I don't know what the guy's doing. I mean,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it's what you said, Tommy. He wants to, all he's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: thinking about is I got to get something through the House, right?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And so I got to find a majority of House,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I've got to find basically all of his House Republicans
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to vote for this plan. And that means he needs
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the Freedom Caucus wackos. He needs the the problem solvers, right?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: He needs everyone. He needs most of the caucus. And
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: then if he can pass it, he can say, okay,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, you told me you'd sit down and negotiate.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: If I had a plan, I passed a plan. If
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you don't like it, that's fine, but at least sit
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: down and negotiate. So then he gets Biden to the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: negotiating table. The question is, can he even get this
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: past the House? Because the way this plan is now,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it's not the draconian balanced budget in 10 years, which
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: they've all given up on, or cutting Medicare and Social Security,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: which they seem to have given up on as well.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But the cuts are deep enough that some moderate Republicans
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: are already starting to balk at the plant. Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I just, it all is heading to the same place,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: whether it's, whether it gets killed by some house Republicans
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: or it makes it to the Senate and gets killed
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: by Republicans there. We're heading to a place where at
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: some point this will be, the question will become, will
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy say, sorry guys, I tried. And that is
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: where this has to head, but it doesn't seem like
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: he's going to acknowledge that. I just think he's trying
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to keep the speakership as long as he possibly can.
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: But I mean, Creating work requirements to receive Medicaid and
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: food stamps. So if you have cancer, you have to
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: go out and get a job and then you can
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: get chemotherapy. That's what we're doing here. And then Reuters
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: found that most of the spending cuts McCarthy wants will
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: hurt states Trump won in 2020 more than blue states.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: No, yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Both the cuts to domestic spending on education and transportation
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: would hurt those states and instituting work requirements would also
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: hurt those states because the vast majority of people who
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: are on Medicaid and food assistance are in those states.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just, you sort of step back from all this.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, this ridiculous, these ridiculous cuts are never
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: going to become law. There's not, what, there's probably not
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: 40 votes in the Senate. Yeah, they're dead in the Senate.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: They're dead. And so, okay, well, where are we heading?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: And it's just, whatever shenanigans McCarthy pulled over the next
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: few months, is he going to bring to the floor
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: something that would pass with majority Democratic votes? And then
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: lose his speakership, yeah. And then lose his speakership.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But I do think if this fails in the House,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: this plan, if he can't even get it through the House, ironically,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: we might get a better outcome sooner. Because he will
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: continue to fucking drag this along. If he gets it
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: through the House, he's going to claim it's a big win.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to know it's not. The press is probably
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: going to be, oh, McCarthy got it passed. Time for
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Joe to negotiate. We're going to get a round of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: time for Joe to negotiate. Or it's like now it
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: falls to McConnell. There's just going to be, yes, sure.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: It is going to be a bring McCarthy. Why don't
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: you bring McCarthy to the White House and just sit
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: down and talk about the plan? You don't have to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: accept the plan. You just have to negotiate. And Biden's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: going to have to say, no, I don't want to negotiate.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It's got to be a clean debt ceiling.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And this is what McCarthy is telling to the members
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: that are like, don't make me vote for this fucking thing.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But if McCarthy fails now, then I think it's right to...
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Then McConnell and Schumer have to get together and just
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: start figuring something out.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: And then force a jam through the House. But someone
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: has to call it for a vote.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: On the floor.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: We have an update on 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, who Lovett's
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: been trying to shove out of the Senate.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Excuse me. There's no shoving. Gentle. An invitation. Push. An invitation.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: An invitation. Just sort of a prodding.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Prodding.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Cattle.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer said he spoke to the senator who said
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: she hopes to return soon. but he still wants to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: appoint a temporary replacement on the Judiciary Committee. Ain't happening. First,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they thought maybe unanimous consent. Then Tom Cotton was like, nope,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: not unanimous consent. And then they're like, okay, well, You
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: could do it with 60 votes if maybe Mitch McConnell
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: will help us out. And then all these Republican senators
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: over the course of the day are like, what? Why
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: would we help Democrats and firm judges?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Which, of course, if the shoe was on the other
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: foot and this was an old Republican senator that they
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: were trying to replace, would we be like, oh, yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Democratic senator. Help out Mitch McConnell. Help them pass those judges.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Of course not. Of course not.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Crazy.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And so, and yeah, so there's the idea that there
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: would be these 10 Republican votes, like everyone from the
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: furthest right like Cod and all the way to like
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins are like, I'm sorry, what are you asking me?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: No.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So what other options are there now? Love it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: There's really two options. Option number one is that Senator
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Feinstein returns to the Senate to participate in her vital
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: work as a representative of the most populous state and
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: a member of the Judiciary Committee or she resigns.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And although you and I were talking about this before
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the pod, if she resigns. it still might be hard
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to replace her.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: It still might be hard to replace her on the committee.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: So basically everyone is, there's been a lot of kind of,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I think, now this will happen on Twitter. And if
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: you notice it, people just saying things like Schumer can replace, no.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: In fact, Schumer does not have the ability to put
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: anyone on a committee that requires the Senate to vote. Now,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: normally that happens without incident at the beginning of the Senate.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It's very, you know, it's very decorous. Everybody gets along,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: but it requires 60 votes or unanimous consent, which is
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: ultimately the same thing. And that have basically Republicans get together,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: decide who's on their committees, Democrats get together, and then
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: they all kind of agree. Although, if you remember, there
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: was a moment at the beginning of the last Senate
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: where Mitch McConnell held up the vote with a filibuster
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: for a while. I remember we were like this. The
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: committees can't meet. It's going to be really important. We've
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: all forgotten about it, but it did happen. But Cornyn
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: today told reporters that the temporary replacement thing is out
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: of the question and But there's a precedent for a
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: senator resigning and there being an opening in the normal
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: course of business that they would allow someone to fill
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the seat.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Now, my concern could be assholes if they want it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Well, my concern is that we've now had like a
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: two week news cycle that began with Dick Durbin saying, hey,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I can't confirm judges. That is now basically made this
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: not about a routine filling of an open opening, but
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: a question of will Democrats get to confirm more judges?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: So I worry that that is planted a seed that
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: is growing in the minds of, the fertile minds of
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: your Tom's Cotton and so forth.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: If only you hadn't started this news cycle.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Dick Durbin started this news cycle. I just helped it along.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: Don't blame Durbin. You always blame Durbin for everything.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to do with this power, guys.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I've never felt so powerful. I'm eating raw meat and
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: thinking about what other old people I can push out
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: of their jobs.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: How about Karen Thomas?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Perfect segue, Tommy.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: That's a good idea. Oh, wait. I do want to
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: make one more point, though, about... We.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Were flying into the next.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: What else you got?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: What else you got?
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: How powerful are you? I just want to make one
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: more point about this, all right? Because this could happen
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: quickly between pods, and I just need to have said this.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Which is this.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Do you want Dan to take this point?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which is this. That's how it usually goes.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say it before it ends up in
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the message box.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: His lips to God's ears. It usually goes the other way.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It usually goes message box through me to the pot.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I basically chat GPT for ad jokes to message box.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: But basically, if Senator Feinstein can't return soon and she
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: does decide to, as the LA Times said, heroically step aside,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: which I think is a nice term, then it would
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: be Newsom's job to fill the seat. Newsom promised to
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Joy Reid in March of 2021 that he would replace
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Dianne Feinstein with a black woman. Barbara Lee is obviously
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a black woman who is running for the seat. That
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: would mean that both of, if he were to appoint
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Barbara Lee, that would mean both Senate seats were filled
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: by appointment. And now I don't think, given that the
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: campaign's already started, I don't think that means we don't
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: have a race between Adam Schiff and Katie Porter and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Barbara Lee. But I do think everyone who's paying attention
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: to this, I think we all should really hope that
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom appoints, he said when he told Joy Reid,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: there are many people on his list, he should appoint
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: someone if this seat opens up that is not going
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: to run for the seat so that Democrats, so that
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: we have a chance to vote for a senator so
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: that both of our senators have not come from an appointment,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: but that one of our senators has been chosen by
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: us in an election.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Look, I just want to thank you very much for
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: making that point that we discussed extend on Thursday's pod.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I didn't discuss it. Just a whole conversation.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly that.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Did they really? Leave it in.
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: It's all staying in.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Andy, how much of it? How much of it? The
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: sausage has been eaten. Wait, what do you mean? Wait, Andy.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: So you just cut it then? No, we're leaving this in. No,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: now we're leaving it in. I gotta listen to the
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Thursday pod? Yeah. I'm making a show Thursday. Check it
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: for me. Let's see if we can tighten this up.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: We'll get you a reader.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas. The right-wing justice now plans to amend his
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: financial disclosure forms after ProPublica, on a roll, reported that
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: he failed to include a real estate deal with sugar
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: daddy Harlan Crow, where the Nazi memorabilia buff bought three
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: properties from Thomas, including a home where the justice's mother
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: still lives rent-free. The Washington Post then reported that Thomas
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: has also erroneously claimed income from a defunct real estate
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: firm for the last several years, though that one may
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: be more of a bookkeeping error. But, you know, not great.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: So Dick Durbin, who's coming up all the time these days,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: people are talking more and more about him these days. Yeah,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: he's being recognized more and more. He said that they'll
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: hold a hearing about Supreme Court ethics on the Judiciary Committee.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: But some activists are calling on Congress to subpoena Thomas
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: to testify. Can they? Should they? What do we think, Tommy?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, they should give it a shot.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: I do want to just talk about this real estate
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: deal for a minute because Harlan Crowe, they buy the
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: house that Clarence Thomas's mother still lives in. Someone did
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: the math on how much rent she hasn't paid. And
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: they say business insider suggests that saved her 150 grand.
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: So that's interesting. He also bought like the whole neighborhood.
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: He's gentrifying the whole neighborhood. And he's refurbishing this house
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: that Clarence Thomas's mother lives in while also saying he
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: wants to turn.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: It into a museum.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Which is a weird museum.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. No, it's all about a museum, which is
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a weird thing.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Nazi memorabilia.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. For Clarence Thomas.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Like a Clarence Thomas museum.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: But if you're going to turn, if they're going to
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: be like, this is his childhood.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Home, you don't run out of places to keep all
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: my Nazi memorabilia.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: If you're, if you're going to like turn a childhood
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: home into a museum, you probably don't like gut the
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: place and refurbish it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: So it's also not the first time he's made some
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: sort of bookkeeping error. He also, Thomas failed to disclose
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: his wife's income. from the Heritage Foundation for years. She
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: made $ 686, 000 between 2003 to 2007, and he kept clicking
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: the box that said no on whether she had any
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: non-investment income.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: You know... It's just.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: The stakes keep happening to him.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: He doesn't think these rules matter or that they're important
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: or that he should be held to any kind of standard.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: To your question, John, can they subpoena him and should they?
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: They can and they should. Yeah, that's it. They can
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and they should.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And there's going to be a lot. They can if
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: if Dianne Feinstein comes back.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: We're going to need every vote. We're going to need
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: every vote. And I don't want to be a shingles
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: issue voter, but I do think it's really important.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. Can't believe you save that till now.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I forgot. I typed it, actually. I forgot to say
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: it earlier. That's prepped just in case if I if
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I if I'm called, if I'm canceled for it, just
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: know that it was premeditated. That's good.
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: investigate Thomas as well.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. Oh, yeah.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: We'll be dead by then.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Merrick Garland wandering in the Justice Department with his
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: candle and his nightgown. Slowly moving through the old house.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: But look, there's been a lot of senators saying how
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: there's all these kinds. There's so many different people that
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: should be doing oversight. Well, they should do it, too.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: They should give it a shot.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I realize there's not going to be an
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: extremely satisfying outcome to this, likely. But just from a
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: pure political perspective, like what's going to happen? There's all
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: this corruption surrounding this judge. He doesn't have high approval ratings,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: nor does the institution on which he serves at this point.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: You drag him before the Senate to ask him a
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: bunch of questions. Yeah, it's a bad news cycle for
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: two days and maybe doesn't go. But what's the harm?
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Even what's the harm?
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Even Mitt Romney today. What are they going to do?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: He said that this story stinks.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: They're going to they're going to retaliate. So then you
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: were now they're going to call justices all the time
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to testify. Great.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: Great.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Drag Elena Kagan before the Republican Senate Judiciary Committee someday.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she'll flap circles around you, you fucking dummy.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Sonia Sotomayor, what are they going to do? They're going
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to give great answers.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, remember when they were like, we're going to get
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton to testify all day about Benghazi? She made
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: you look like dopes. It was the best day of
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the campaign for her.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not retribution that I'm really worried about.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, counterpoint.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: She did say, this is from the Wall Street Journal
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: opinion piece defending Clarence Thomas. Quote, one may be tempted
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: to think that of all people, a judge should know
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: what the law says, but that's a nonsensical standard. A
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: judge's job isn't to memorize statute books. It's to discern
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: laws meaning and their application to the facts and cases
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: that litigants bring before him.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: How are we not doing Take Appreciator today? That's a
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: full playbook. I stole a lot of stuff under there.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: That is a full playbook.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: James Toronto? Oh, he's awful. I bet he muted or
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: blocked him. You know, when we were in Wisconsin for
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court race, it was this incredibly refreshing thing
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: that everybody was just campaigning, not... on some imaginary concept
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: of what a judge does with calls, balls, and strikes.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be the most impartial person you've ever seen.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: But it was like, hey, this is an ideological context.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: There are real stakes. We have real views. Abortion is
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: on the line. Democracy on the line. We should just
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: be doing everything we can to pull the Supreme Court
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: down from this mountaintop it's been on. They are lawyers.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: They're doing a pretty good job themselves. Yeah, they are.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: But they're lawyers in drag. Six of them are freaks.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: At least one's a criminal. Like, let's do everything we
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: can to have accountability. Just like, it's the right thing
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: to do. When is John Roberts doing another public event?
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: Because someone needs to say to him, hey, man, you
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: whine all the time about political attacks and the legitimacy
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: of the court and don't attack it, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: You're doing more harm to the court's reputation than anyone
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: else by letting this flagrant corruption go and not saying
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: a word, not doing anything.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I bet his schedule is pretty clear right now.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I bet he's not.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think he wants to appear at a
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: public event and get that question.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: These dorks are always talking at some law school about something.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: This is the problem is they're so insulated from any
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: kind of... This is why if you can subpoena him,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing to subpoena him.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a whole, like, just idiotic news cycle.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: People throw in terms like separation of powers and overreach
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: and it's already being described as a showdown. Just fucking
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Just asking you to come answer some questions.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: But the idea that, like, the idea that that like
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the laws that Thomas is accused of breaking are made
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: by Congress. If he is to be impeached, it's going
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: to be impeached by Congress. He has got that seat
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: because he was confirmed by the Senate. It's not a
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: violation of the separation of powers to have a Supreme
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Court justice testify for Congress.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: We're also doing here is we're building support, in my mind,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: at least for term limits. That's what I want is
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: expanding the court. That's a little bit of a fantasy
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: right now. That's like thinking we're going to get rid
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of the Electoral College.
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: It's far, far, far away. You're probably not on that
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: PJ after six years. That's like a 12-year kind of.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Well, he famously said he's been on the court for 30.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: He's like, I've been friends with Harlan Crowe for 25 years.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Let's start by trying to get some term limits on
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. That's my new thought. We're all going
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to yell about expanding the court. We're so far from that.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: We're so far from being able to do that and
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: having the votes. But I bet term limits is probably easier,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: and I still think it would be pretty effective.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of these octogenarian senators are
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: going to be big fans of term limits. What else
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: do you guys talk about on Thursday? A lot of
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: senators just looking at that wet bathroom floor thinking, there
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: but for the grace of God go I.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, Tommy and I will
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: talk to.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Do not DMCA this. It's just YouTube.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Tommy and I will talk to
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Crooked contributor Max Fisher about the Fox versus Dominion trial.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: The defamation case between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: is scheduled to kick off this week. Though, as of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: right now, we're recording this on Monday afternoon. A last-minute
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: settlement is still possible, guys.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Could be in the offing.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Could be in the offing. Here to talk about the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: strength of Dominion's lawsuit and the many implications of this
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: case is Crooked's newest contributor, Max Fisher.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, Max.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Hey, pals.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: What's going on?
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Why aren't you in Wilmington? That's where all the cool
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: kids are.
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: I'm hologramming in from Wilmington.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, right. That's what that is.
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: It is wild down here. It is popping off.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Some very fired up media reporters in Wilmington for no trial.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Case of the century.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: It's a glamorous field. What can I say?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So there's been reporting that Fox has wanted to settle
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: this case for a while now, but so far Dominion
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: has refused. What do you think might get them to
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: change their minds at this late stage?
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: So we don't know why Dominion has declined to settle.
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: It stands to reason that Fox News wants to because
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: they've already settled one separate case over 2020 election lies.
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: There are two kind of most plausible reasons in my mind,
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: although we don't know for sure. One is just that
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: Dominion and Fox News might just have very different reads
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: on the likelihood of the suit succeeding because successful lawsuits,
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: defamation lawsuits against big media companies are really rare because
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: the standard is so high for them, which I know
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: we're going to talk about. So it might just be
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: like there's not a lot of precedent to look through
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: to see the likely outcomes. Another that I find a
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: little bit more persuasive, but it's speculative, is that Dominion
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: has a bunch of defamation cases out right now related
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: to this specific set of lies around the 2020 election.
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: And this might partly be about signaling resolve to those
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: other defendants that we are really willing to go to trial,
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: like watch us, So therefore, we're not going to be
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: pushovers when it comes to settlement.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. I.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Been reading about this, and what struck me is that
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Dominion seems to have a pretty strong case on the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: liability front, on the fact that Fox is liable for this,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: but less of a strong case on the amount of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: damages that they asked for. which is 1.6 billion. And
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I think the company was valued at like $ 80 million.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: Some of these numbers are a little like pulled from
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: thin air.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: So perhaps if this is less about a cause for
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Dominion and more about like just it's a company and
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it wants financial rewards here from Fox, they just want
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to settle and get as much money as they can.
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Though for all of us, we'd rather... We'd rather go
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to trial.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: We like the show.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: We like the show. Or like a very public apology
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: from Fox.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: Right. The whole thing is a little weird because like
• 40:23
  Speaker 6: the reason that we care about it and that like
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: people should care about it is that it is a
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: test for like how far can you go in lying
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: about elections and inciting insurrection? But the terms that the
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: case will be decided on are like, like you're saying,
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: it's like how do you count up corporate damages? So
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: there's this like, I think like something that is coming
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: through a lot of this is there's a little bit
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: of a mismatch between the significance of the trial and
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: the actual like facts of it on the face. I mean,
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: it's also possible like, you know, they make voting systems.
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: Maybe they care about the sanctity of democracy.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: What?
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: I know, I know. These are lawyers we're talking about.
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: So it's possible I'm overly optimistic there.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: Well, so Max, I mean, you sort of alluded to this.
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, you're seeing a lot of coverage of this
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: case where it's described as like the trial of the
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: century for press freedom. The First Amendment seems important as
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: far as amendments go.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Is that fair? I'd rank it number one.
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: I'd rank it number one.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: Freedom of speech, freedom of the press are sort of
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: derived from this. But when it comes to libel law,
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: I know a lot of liberals, us included, are rooting
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: against Fox because they lied and they did it egregiously.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: And that is bad. And we want them punished here.
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: But the landmark case that protects all of us from
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: liability was brought by A racist Alabama guy who oversaw
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: the police during the civil rights era against the New
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: York Times and a bunch of civil rights leaders.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So it can cut both ways.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: So, you know, for you as a lifelong journalist, how
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: do you feel about the prospect of a potential new
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: precedent that could govern or curtail press freedom?
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: So the premise of that is, of course, that the
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: standard set in that 1964 Supreme Court trial is famously
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: incredibly high for proving defamation against a media organization. It's
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: always really set the United States apart and is considered
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: part of its press freedoms that it is so, so
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: hard to prove defamation by a media organization because you
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: have to prove that they internally in their own minds
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: knew they were lying when they did it, which is
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: incredibly hard to prove.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: The actual malice standard.
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: The actual malice standard.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: And so because of that, there are very, very few
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: successful defamation suits against the media, even when they get
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: it wrong. And that's seen as an important part of
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: the protections for like, you can get something wrong and
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: it's not going to blow up your entire news agency.
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: I think that there is a view among a lot
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: of First Amendment lawyers and maybe a lot of journalists
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: that that standard is a little bit out of sync
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: with how much our world has changed in the last
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: 65 years. and even just the last five or ten years,
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: where extreme polarization is so high now, and the media
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: environment is so kind of wild west because of social media,
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: because you get all these little networks like Newsmax, One
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: American News popping up, and the stakes of it are
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: so high, because we've seen that it can lead to
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: insurrection coups, that maybe there is a need to effectively
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: soften those standards a little bit. Now, the people bringing
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: these cases aren't saying we want to overturn that standard.
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: They're all saying we meet that standard set in 1964,
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: but Any First Amendment lawyer will tell you if a
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: good number of these cases, because Dominion is bringing a bunch, Smartmatic,
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: another voting machine company is.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Bringing a bunch.
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: If a good number of these cases succeed because it's
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: set by a Supreme Court precedent, not by law, it
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: will move that standard a little bit in practice. And
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: maybe that is necessary in an age where our democracy
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: is at imminent risk from disinformation. And I think there's
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: also a case for it on Twitter. journalism grounds that like,
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: if you are concerned about the future of journalism in
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: this country and faith in journalism as an institution, maybe
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: you want some harder guardrails to come up in the
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: form of higher threats of liability. Because, you know, I
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: don't like the fact that people think of the media
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: as a monolith and think of journalism as a monolith,
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: but they do. And their perception of whether journalism as
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: a concept works and can be trusted is tied up
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: and how they perceive some of the largest actors in
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: the media. So you may be one, if you care
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: about journalism, people to see their consequences for deliberately lying.
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: But at the same time, I do have this reservation
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: that cuts a little bit the other way, where there's
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: this specific scenario that I wouldn't say keeps me up
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: at night, but I do worry about in a world
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: where a good number of these cases succeed, and that
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: standard for bringing a defamation suit gets a little fuzzier,
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: which is that it would become, I think, a little
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: bit easier for companies with big pockets to try to
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: bully or coerce news agencies into not running or into
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: watering down stories that they don't want to see run.
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: Even if everybody knows the story, it's true, because this
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: thing that big companies will do, and they've done it
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: to me many times, is when you go to them
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: with a story that they don't like, they will try
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: to extract as much information from you as they possibly
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: can about what's going to be in the story. And journalistically,
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: you're compelled to at least take that seriously because you're
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: supposed to give them an opportunity to comment, to respond
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: to things. They will go to your editors and try
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: to get as much information as they can about the story.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: They'll go to your boss's bosses and try to get information.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: And then they will create a paper trail of giving
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: you lots of emails and things in writing saying that
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: thing that you're going to report, that is not true.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: That's false.
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: And the thing you learn very quickly.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Is that- So then they trap you into- Deliberately lying,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: which would be the actual malice.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: In London, this is a big problem, right? You have
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: Russian oligarchs bringing completely frivolous lawsuits against journalists and basically,
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: you know, putting them out of business with fees for attorneys, etc.
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: Right, right. And the fear is if you're the New
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: York Times, the Washington Post, and a big company is
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: creating this paper trail and saying, you know, all of
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: these things you're going to report are not true, even
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: if you know they're lying. if you make some innocent
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: mistake along the way, right, then they can hold the
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: threat over you of, are they going to bankrupt your
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: news agency over this one mistake?
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk about this very high
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: standard of actual malice, which is, you know, either the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: outlet knows the information they aired was false or did
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: so with, quote, reckless disregard for the truth. That's the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: description of the standard. But in this case, it does
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: seem like Dominion might be able to meet that very
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: high standard. Like we might not even need to move
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the standard at all just because, and you see a
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: lot of first amendment lawyers, a lot of media lawyers
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: who've like represented media companies in these cases before just
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: saying that, like, I mean, the sheer amount of texts, um, emails,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: testimony that we've already seen in the pretrial period suggests
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that yeah, Fox did deliberately know they were wrong. Like
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to go with the reckless disregard
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: for the truth standard, which is just.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: The easier one.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, they clearly knew this. What do we know
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: at this stage about the strengths and weaknesses of Dominion's case?
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: So there's not a like email from Rupert Murdoch saying
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: we're going to do the big lie now and lie
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: about Dominion voting systems. But it's pretty close.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: It's pretty close.
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: You have to do like a little bit of connecting
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: the dots. It's not like a one million percent slam dunk.
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: But basically what you have is. After the election, you
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: have a bunch of internal emails and text messages within
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: Fox News, which we have now because they came out
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: in discovery in the course of this lawsuit, saying, we
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: know that this Dominion conspiracy theory that's out there and
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: Trump's election denial generally is false. Because initially they said,
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: we don't want to follow him on it. They said,
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: we don't want to go there. And they were talking
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: about how the like Sidney Powell, who's Trump's lawyer, was
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: pushing the Dominion conspiracy about how she's crazy and she
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: doesn't have any evidence. And then you see that their
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: ratings start to drop. And then they start making, it's
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: not exactly they say, let's do this Dominion conspiracy after
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: all to get viewers back. But you see them kind
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: of allow themselves to be pulled in to making this
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: choice because they have a couple anchors who are a
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: little bit rogue and errant. And at first they're concerned
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: about that. And then they're saying, well, actually, this has
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: a lot of ratings. And then they're saying, well, actually,
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: we need to bring our viewers back. And so I
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: think that it is, it's clearly pretty strong, which is
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: why it's going to trial in the first place, whether
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: they can prove, you know, each step along the way
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: adds up to an intentional lie that is responsible for
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: that level of damages is going to turn a lot
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: on not just were they lying, because of course they were,
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: and the judges basically come out and said, I think
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: that they're lying, but whether they can prove that the
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: executives at the company were involved in the lie.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's key because I've seen that now they
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: want to go with the defense that Lou Dobbs and
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Maria Bartiromo and actually believed this and so it wasn't
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: deliberately spreading misinformation so they really believe this and they're
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: just crazy so we're going to throw them under the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: bus but i think the judge said at one point
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: in the pre-trial period like it's not about who said
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: it it's about the choice to publish and air these
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: lies and that rests with the executives.
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: Right or it rests, or at least it doesn't, they
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: can't push it off on the guests. Because initially they
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: were saying, we're just reporting what the president and his
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: allies are saying. These are just guests on our show.
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: We're not responsible for the lies they tell. And I
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: think what Judge Davies was saying is that, no, you
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: chose to air that and you knew it was a
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: lie when you chose to air it. So that is not,
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: that you're responsible for that. The question is whether Fox
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: will be able to, as you say, to portray Lou
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo as rogue actors. And we know
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: now that they actually tried to coerce one of the
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: assistants on Maria Bartiromo's show into giving false testimony that
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: would portray Bartiromo. Right.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: It seems bad. And it also seems bad for Fox's
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: case that that assistant then came out and sued the network.
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: And it does seem like she was also pretty complicit
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: in that lie coming out. So she's not the most
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: sympathetic figure, but there is a lot of documentation that
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: the executives were at the very least aware that it
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: was happening and aware that it was false and chose
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: not to intervene or pushed it to happen.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: Um, I want to push you on this, this sort
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: of question of democracy, play a little devil's advocate here,
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: because you do hear a lot of people say like, well,
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: with the big lie, this is bigger.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: This is about a threat to our democracy. Right.
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: But, uh, I think a lot of academics in particular
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: would argue that press freedom is core to democracy right now.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: In India, for example, ostensibly the world's largest democracy, the
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: leader of the biggest opposition party, the Congress Party, was
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: just sentenced to two years in prison for defamation of
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: Prime Minister Modi. Actually, of like three dudes named Modi
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: for reasons I'll set aside. That seems to be the
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: biggest threat to India's democracy, using defamation law to throw
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: an opposition leader out. What do you make of the
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: argument that this case could do more harm than good
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: to our democracy if it in any way curtails press freedom?
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: I think we are balancing through these trials, although no
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: one in the trial is doing this deliberately. We are
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: balancing a really tough set of questions about our democracy,
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: about how we balance the absolute standards of press freedom
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: that we have right now against the rising threat of
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: deliberate disinformation that clearly subsumed Fox News. even against the
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: wills of its own hosts and executives, that they felt
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: compelled to tell these lies that they knew were going
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: to these extremes. How do you balance those things? How
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: do you balance the freedom to get things wrong in
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: the media against the clearly rising intentionality of lies? And
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: just the fact that we are in such a rapidly
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: changing political environment where we have so many political actors
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: now who are leading the media rather than the other
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: way around and trying to pull them towards election denialism
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: that has clearly real gravity and real weight with the audience.
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's an irony that these big weighty questions
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: of trade-offs are being litigated through a question of corporate
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: damages for a for-profit company, which like, welcome to the
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: United States of America. Like, that's where the priorities are.
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: It's not like, if you tell lies that lead to
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: an insurrection, like, we're not going to sue you over that. But,
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: you know, you lose some profits for a company that's bad.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Um, it's just like, what do you, what do you
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: define as journalism? You know, we've talked about Fox a
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: lot on this program and they like to think of
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: themselves as a media outlet. I think there was a
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: time when other journalists would think of them as a
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: media outlet that was just conservative. I think that time
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: has passed for most, for a lot of people who
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: aren't Fox fans or mag people. So then like, are
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you able to get away with, um, just lying intentionally
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and Because you call yourself a media outlet.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: You know, and I think that's one of the things
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to balance as well.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: And it's degrees to it. I think what's fascinating about
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: the disclosures that we saw of Fox News' internal emails
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: and text messages is you actually see them wrestling with
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: this question in real time because they have reporters. They
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: do have, they're obviously a diminishing part of the network,
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: but they do have reporters who do re-reporting. And they
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: had a reporter who fact-checked, I think, one of Sidney
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: Powell's press conferences yesterday. And was getting just dragged internally
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: within the network because people saw, the host saw, the
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: executive saw that that was playing into hurting their ratings. Now,
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: at the same time, the executive.
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: I think Hannity and maybe Tucker Carlson said, we need
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: to fire her like right away.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: They claimed that she was hurting the stock price, which
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: might actually be true.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Right. Oh, yeah, sure was. Hopefully.
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: And, you know, you saw Rupert Murdoch initially after the
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: election saying, We're not going to go down election misinformation.
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: We're not going to go around down election denial because
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: I think this is bad for the country. And then
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: he changed his mind. So I don't have any delusions
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: that the people at Fox are going to make the
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: right choice because of ethical reasons. But I think there
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: is a question of what are the financial incentives that
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: are going to push them to do the right thing?
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: And maybe ultimately the question of what right-wing media in
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: this country looks like will come down to are the
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: financial penalties acceptable? of lying to the extent that Fox
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: and others lied going to exceed the financial penalties of
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: telling the truth, which means that you're going to lose
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: viewers to YouTube channels, basically.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: What do you think it says about Fox and the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: larger right-wing media ecosystem that they felt the need to
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: chase these online conspiracies because they were afraid of losing viewers?
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: So it's so fascinating because it didn't look like what
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: I thought it was going to look like. You know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: I really thought that... watching like Fox News arrive at
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: this place in real time in 2020, that it was,
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: you know, they love Trump. They want to keep Republicans
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: in power. So they're making a deliberate top down choice
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: to broadcast these conspiracies. And what we know now is
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: that they did it basically out of fear and they
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: did it out of this realization that they had. I mean,
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: you can pinpoint it almost exactly to like November 12th,
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: if you look or like November 10th, 12th, if you
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: look at the emails and the text messages that Where
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: they initially said, we're not going to do election denial.
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: And they thought that that decision was going to be
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: enough to shape the narrative. Because for 25 years, Fox
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: News has been in charge of what the right thinks.
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: And they've had an iron grip on what are the narratives,
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: what are the facts, who's right, who's wrong, what are
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: the good policies, bad policies. And you see them realize
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: that that's not true anymore. And they no longer have
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: the power to set that narrative because they can tell
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: people that Trump lost the election and then they're just
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: going to go someplace else. And they are realizing that
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: they now live in a world where there is always
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: going to be someone, some social media, some crazy network,
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: Trump himself, who will serve the kind of most base
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: extreme QAnon parts of the party. And they made the
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: wrong choice in deciding what to do about that. But
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: I think it's a big question about what choice are
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: they going to make going forward. And I mean, hopefully
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: facing at least the threat of financial penalties will guide
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: them on a better direction.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Well, and to Tommy's questions about sort of the balance
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: between protecting press freedom and stopping the spread of disinformation,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: the fact that Fox now chases these conspiracies that are
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: mainly developed online that then get fed to places like
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: OAN and Newsmax makes that question even more complicated because, again,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: what is a media outlet if it starts in some
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: 4chan forum and it spreads around in YouTube?
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: I would argue, though, they've been doing that for a
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, what was the birther of conspiracy, if not
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: for like an online thing that hopped to Fox and
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: to other, you know, so look, I mean, I think
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: like this is, the courts are catching up with Fox's
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: practice for a while here.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I think the internet was always a, where at least
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: for the last 20 years, however long we've been doing this,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I think the internet was always a source, but the power,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: their power to set the narrative and change it and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: cut it off, that has diminished.
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: It feels like it's flipped.
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, like, you know, I think the big moment
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: was when, uh, They sent Megyn Kelly out to ask
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: Trump a bunch of tough questions at a debate. He
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: attacked her in the most vile ways imaginable. They backed
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: her for a couple days and then eventually showed her
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: the door.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny is when you just said Megyn Kelly,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to talk about the 2012
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: election night. Remember when Karl Rove and all the Romney
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: people were like, no, Obama didn't win yet. This is fine, whatever.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: And they were because they forgot that that black people
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: voted in Milwaukee and Um, and then Megyn Kelly went
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: over and was like, no, that's wrong. He, you know,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: and so like that was the reverse and Fox was
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: able to stop the crazies, but they've, they've long lost
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: that power.
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: I think you're right though, that the 2016 election was
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: like another big version of this moment. Or it's like,
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: it's like, it's what you see with the Republican establishment.
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: Like 2016, they hated Trump, tried to stop him, failed.
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: And then we're like, I guess we'll just embrace him
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: no matter where it takes us.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Get in front of this parade. Yeah.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: It is clear that there are not a lot of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: tools to fight disinformation right now. And the legal one
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that we're going to be witnessing this week and in
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: the coming weeks is definitely a different one that we've
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: talked about over the last several years. And it's not perfect.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: The standards are not perfect. But we'll see what happens.
• 58:27
  Speaker 6: It does feel like, in my mind, it's very of
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: a piece with the Trump-Stormy Daniels indictment and the many
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: other indictments where it's like, it's a sideways way into
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: what I think is like the biggest question facing this
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: country right now, which is, is there going to be
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: accountability for trying to do a coup and overturn American
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: democracy two years ago?
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Because the guy who did it is, you know, a
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: coin flip away from becoming president again.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: Although maybe president from a jail cell.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Either way.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Max Fisher, thanks for joining us in this. And I
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: know you're going to be following the trial for these
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: next couple weeks, if there is a trial. Unless we
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: wake up and there's a settlement.
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: Are you guys coming down to Wilmington with me?
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, we'll be there.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe says it's fun. There's things to do when
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: you crash into his house. I don't know.
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: Does Amtrak go there from LA?
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: It's gotta. I think you go through Wilmington on the
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: way to New York, right?
• 59:15
  Speaker 6: That sounds right.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: That would be my only point of reference. Train through country.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Is that a thing? Fly over country?
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: Give him a second term and we'll have those trains
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: out there.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Dan's going to yell at us now for making fun
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: of Delaware.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: He's running for Senate there. All right, Max, thanks for
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: stopping by, and we'll check in with you as the
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: trial continues.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Max Fisher for joining, and we will talk
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: to you on Thursday.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: You want to join the pod?
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Sounds like he doesn't.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.