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Transcript

Tucker’s War With Fox · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Priya Zepik. Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden gets some rough polling as
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: he prepares for his debt ceiling showdown with Republicans. Donald
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Trump offers no defense as a jury decides the rape
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and defamation case against him. Tucker Carlson goes to war
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: with Fox News. And Dianne Feinstein is still MIA as
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas scandals pile up. Then later, the host of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Pod Save the UK, Nish Kumar, talks to Tommy about...
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: King Charles' coronation and a whole bunch of other stuff.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: We talked coronation. We talked about politics. They just had
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: a bunch of elections. What does that mean for the
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Labour Party? There's a lot of shared challenges right now
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: between the Labour Party in the UK. That's Pundit hacking
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: up a bone. It's the Labour Party in the UK
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: and the Democratic Party over here. And we, you know,
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: misery loves company. So we talked about it.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: So Tommy talks to Nish and all of you should
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: check out the very first episode of Pod Save the UK.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's up now.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: The number one podcast in the UK.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The number one podcast in the UK. It is funny.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: It is insightful. It is a joy to listen to.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Please go subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and check
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: out the first episode.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. Joe Biden got a suboptimal
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: poll from the Washington Post and ABC over the weekend.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that has him losing to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: among all adults by 7 points, 49-42% for Trump and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: 48-41% for DeSantis. That's if you push leaners, people who
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: are leaning one way or the other. The president's approval
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: is at a record low of 36% in the poll,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: which is down from 42% in February, and 63% say
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's up from 43% in 2020. Not great news in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the poll for Trump either. A majority think he's a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: liar who should face multiple criminal charges. Though about a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: quarter of all independents who support charging Trump said they
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: would still vote for him over Biden. I'd like to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: talk to some of those people.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the people that he should be in jail and president.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Really just dumbfounding. That's your independent swing voter for you.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: And we love him.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: God love him.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: God love him.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Make the world go round.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: You think they're listening? Anyway. Great news.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: No.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Any evidence this is an outlier?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: I feel like you just recited something.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Does anyone want to unskew the poll? Yeah.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: First of all, we should stipulate that we don't yell
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: at polls here. They're inanimate objects. They did nothing wrong.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: They did nothing to you. They're just data sets. Yeah.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Look, here's what I would also say. You know, unskew
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: so you can sleep at night, but spend all day
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: thinking that they're pretty real.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: But if we were to yell at some polls, it
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: is weird that 56% say that Trump should face criminal charges,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: but 49% say they'd vote for him. That doesn't That
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: seems challenging to make work.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Other sort of, I don't know, I wouldn't say it
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: unscues the poll, but gives you reason to believe that
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: it's less, it's, you can step a little bit, you
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: can step back off the ledge a tiny bit, is
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: that it says he has 26% approval among under 30,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: 42% among non-whites, 41% among urban residents, 46% amongst those
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: with no religious affiliation. these would be people that may
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: not approve of the job Joe Biden is doing right now,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: but these are, don't compare me to the almighty, compare
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: me to the alternative types. That was my one sign
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: for hope. What do you got? I'm looking for something here.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: It's a very bad poll.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Trump's winning young people, Biden's winning old people. That doesn't
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: make a lot of sense either. It's all just sort
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: of weird.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: It's confusing. Here's what to do. Throw it in the average.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Sure, 38.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: 538 it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: 538 it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we were going to do that after the conversation,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but we have to- But we still got stuff to
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: do before the mattress ads.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So the average has Biden's approval steady around 42, 43%.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So no sudden upticks or downticks in the approval rating
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: for Biden. So it's a little higher than the 36%
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: in this poll. Though, you know, the Quinnipiac poll, in
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: terms of like high quality polls, first of all, there
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: haven't been many for 2024 yet. But the Quinnipiac has
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: them at like 37% The Wall Street Journal, NBC one
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: had him at 42. So it's in the range. The
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: difference is, is that Biden's horse race number is higher
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in those other polls than it is here. And Trump's
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is higher. Now they did push leaners at the regular
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: poll was like, I think Trump only got 45 or
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: 46% when they didn't push leaners. And 45, 46% is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: what Trump has received in the last two elections.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You said that this doesn't have a lot of
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: good news for Trump either, which is true. But It
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: sort of fits with where Trump always is, which is
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: just he always has very bad polling that kind of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: fits with where this was at. The one thing that
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I pulled out that I did think was worth talking
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: about is it said 33% say Trump is honest, 63%
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: say he's not. That is where Trump has always been
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: on the honesty mark. But Biden is only at 41%
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: saying that he's honest and trustworthy, while 54% say he's not.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: In the lead up to 2020, that was, if not flipped,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: close to it. And that has been dropping pretty steadily.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And to me, is like a really, like put aside
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: the actual kind of horse race numbers, the comparisons, all
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the rest, the fact that there's been that drop in
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: honesty and trustworthiness when that is, I think, one of
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: his big selling points and one of the ways he's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: sort of ridden sort of waves of disapproval was alarming
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I got to check with Obama because I do think
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that for a lot of presidents, their honest and trustworthy
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: numbers tend to go down over the course of the eight.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Do you have an AI thing ready? Oh, no, no.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Imagine if I just had a soundboard.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: You have the face that you have when you're ready
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to introduce a bit to us, which I was really excited. Yeah.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, it has been steadily going down and
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: that is probably just a result of people just being
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: disappointed with the difference between what a candidate sounds like
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and what a president sounds.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Like, which is of course true.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But like you look at Obama over eight years and
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: even when his disapproval dropped, there were certain metrics of
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: his sort of personal likability that kind of stayed buoyant,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: which was a protection against people like Mitt Romney, for example.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, that was just nerve wracking to me.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: So easily could be a bad sample, bad poll, or
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: could be right. We don't know. The RCP average has
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Trump leading by one with this poll in it. So
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: either way, it's going to be a close fucking race.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: That's a long time. Right? A lot of undecideds.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Trump is once again around 45, 46, right? When you
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: don't push leaners, which is always where he's been. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: If it's just Trump and Biden, then, you know, probably
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a little better for Biden. But again, we get third
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: parties in there and suddenly it could be 2016. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Trump doesn't have to get much higher than 45. That
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Magic.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: No labels and whether they're going to Joe Manchin or
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Kyrsten Sinema or someone else.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the drop in here is not
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: just independents, but Democrats.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's and that one that one's probably most easily fixable.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I will say it's hard to, you know, the 60
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: percent saying he's not doesn't have the acuity. viewing Trump
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: as being more kind of up to the job.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: That may be a little more nervous than the honest
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and trustworthy ones, even.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I don't like either.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, instead of just complaining about what we don't
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: like about this poll, that's easy enough to do.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Well, that part's over.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: We got any advice? Any advice for the Biden campaign
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: as they look at these numbers?
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I think that ultimately Joe Biden is going to have
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: to say, things are better, but they're not perfect. I
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: know you don't love me, but these guys are crazy. Like,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: look over there. They're going to destroy the economy with
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: a debt ceiling. They're going to do nothing to stop guns,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: gun violence. They're going to take your freedoms away. The
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: key is the choice. It's Joe versus the wackos. And
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: when we don't have a Republican nominee yet, it's very
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: hard to do that.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think Trump, it's,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: you know. I think like the political press and a
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: lot of people that are very engaged are paying attention
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: to the ongoing legal machinations, but there's nothing compared to
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: a campaign. And he really is out of the limelight
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. And you see the kind of,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: even in this poll, like just like places where his
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: just approval rating has gone back up. Like he had
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: this sort of immovable approval on the economy that basically
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: stayed pretty high up until the pandemic and then started dropping.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And now it's kind of back up to where it
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: was pre pandemic and all of this is a really,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: and it's the, it's, I hate to say it like
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: absence makes the heart grow fonder and it sucks, but.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, you said with Trump?
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: With Trump.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think, I can't tell. I mean, I think
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that I feel like opinions about Trump are pretty hardened,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: but that the, that the campaign is going to hinge
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: on reminding people how awful he is.
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Which is not hard to do. Sometimes he just opens
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: his mouth and does it. Um, There's plenty of, like
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you said, legal issues that he's dealing with that will, again,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: shine a light on who he is as a person.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I think for Biden, Tommy's right that it's all a choice.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: It's all about why Trump is crazy. It's all about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: why the Republicans are extreme. But in terms of his
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: own personal style, I think Biden's got to really flood
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the zone with being in people's faces all the time.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I think that stepping back when you're the challenger to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Donald Trump's president, and Biden's just the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: alternative to what you don't like right now, I think
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: that works. I think it's tougher when you're the incumbent,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: as Joe Biden is. And if there's a lot of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: people who they only hear from Joe Biden when there's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: some right-wing TikTok of him seeming old, then they're gonna
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: have a bad opinion of him, right? And I think
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the only way to combat that is Joe Biden out
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: there all the time, showing some energy, being loose, Being
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: with people, right? He's he's really good one-on-one with people
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and whether it's town halls, whether it's meeting people on
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: rope lines, like I think all of this, if I
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was running a campaign, this is what I would, I'm
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: sure the Biden people are thinking about all this. Like,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: this is what I would do. We were just talking
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: about the correspondence in her speech last week and his
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: delivery was really good and he was having fun. And
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: also when he's in fighting mode too, when he's like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Talking about Donald Trump, talking about the threats to democracy,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: he tends to have a lot of energy there, too.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I think that reminds people that he's got a fighting spirit, too. Like,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I think there's ways to help combat the perception that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: he is, you know, too old.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure they're very frustrated because I think the
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: economy has added 13 million jobs or just shy of
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: 13 million jobs since he took office. Unemployment is at
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: record lows, like three and a half percent. you're reading
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: all these announcements about companies literally opening manufacturing plants in
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Georgia and other places because of tax credits in the IRA,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: but he doesn't seem to be getting any credit for it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: So I agree with you. He's got to be out more.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I do think it's good advice, but I think there's
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: limits to how many people are actually going to hear
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: about these stories just because of the way the media works.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So hard. So, you know, that's why it's just a volume.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: I'd be like big shoes, big shoes.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, it is, it's quantity at some point, right?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Because it is so getting attention. even when you're president
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of the United States in this media environment, it's just harder,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you know? And doing a typical event where you're just
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: going and touting some manufacturing jobs, like it's just, that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: won't get you the attention anymore. You got to keep,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and I think it's not only what Joe Biden has done,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: but that he continues to show this like fighting spirit
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: on behalf of working people. He did this today. On Monday,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: he announced new regulations with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. that
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: would require airlines to compensate customers beyond a ticket refund
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: if there's a delay or canceled flight.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Love this.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Love this.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: This is good stuff.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: They should do some fun stuff with this to, again,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: really get some attention. I love the fee stuff. People
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: aren't going to know that. Now, the problem is it's
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: not going to take effect for like months, if years.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Don't harsh my vibe.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The rulemaking process. The rulemaking process.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I love it. It's a great idea. Integrated character IP
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: life enhancement system. via airlines.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: The other thing.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Community's infinite freedom.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Don't just give me a voucher. Fork over some extra cash.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Go to an airport.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Why didn't we do more of this? Going after these
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: terrible monopolistic companies is a great idea. Do it every day, Joe.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: So many fees.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: We did a passenger bill of rights, but it didn't
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: quite go as far as this. We did the, if
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: airlines overbook and that you get kicked off a plane
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: because of the overbooking, then they have to pay you
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: like double the money.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: And we said they couldn't leave you on the tarmac
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: for more than eight hours or something. So, you know, there.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Was that jet flight that went fully kind of Lord
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: of the Flies.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: But Biden out there fighting against corporations on behalf of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: working people over and over again. That's that's good stuff. Yeah,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that's good stuff.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: And just, you know, let's get him out there meeting
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: people between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. That's the sweet spot.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Get him out there. Sun shining, birds chirping, ice cream
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: in his hand.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And he should be joking about his age all the time. Yeah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: He did it at the Correspondence Center. He should do
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it some more. I'm older than the trees. He said
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: something about his 280-year career.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: The other day, which is really fun.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Do that. It's funny. I like it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump still has a few bumps on his road
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: back to the White House. New York Times reports that
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: in the classified documents investigation, special counsel Jack Smith has
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: obtained cooperation from a secret witness who worked at Mar-a-Lago,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and he's also issued a new wave of subpoenas, including
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: for records related to Trump's business dealings with Saudi Arabia.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: His name?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Juan Jr.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: With a little mustache. Juan Jr.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: You get it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: You get it. That's funny.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Also, after the leader of the Proud Boys and three
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: others were convicted of a seditious conspiracy, Congressman Jamie Raskin
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: told Jen Psaki over the weekend that Trump could absolutely
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: face the same charges. And jurors have just heard closing
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: arguments in the rape and defamation case brought by the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: writer E. Jean Carroll against Trump, who not only turned
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: down a second last minute chance to testify, but presented
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: no defense in the case whatsoever.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: None.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Well, just so people understand. So the reason there was
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: this second chance to testify is that when he was
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: opening up a golf course in Scotland, he did the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: thing he always does, which is I could testify, happily testify,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: love to testify. And the judge was like, okay.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And he said, I'm coming back home. I got to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: go back home to testify.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to leave the country early. I have
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: to leave Ireland earlier. I have to go testify.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: And the judge was like, okay, you weren't going to
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And then the judge was like, okay, tell me by
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: 5 p.m. if you're going to want to testify. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, no, no, no.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Of course not.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: What are you, crazy?
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Very strange. So.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Though jurors did get to watch video of Trump's deposition
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: from October, which we have some clips from.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Let's listen.
• 14:38
  Speaker 7: And when you're a star, they let you do it.
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: can do anything. That's what you said, correct?
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Well, historically, that's true with stars.
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: It's true with stars that they can grab women by
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: the pussy?
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Well, if you look over the last million years, I
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately or fortunately.
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: When you said in that video that Ms. Leeds would
• 15:04
  Speaker 7: not be your first choice, you were referring to her
• 15:08
  Speaker 7: physical looks, correct?
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Just the overall.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: I look at her.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: I see her. I hear what she says.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: You wouldn't be a choice of mine either, to be
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: honest with you. I hope you're not insulted. I would not,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: under any circumstances, have any interest in you. I'm honest
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: when I say it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: It's just such.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: An awful feeling. So disgusting. Unfortunately or fortunately.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of these are things he said before,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: but he just compounds it any way he can by
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: just being the most disgusting human being in these depositions.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's things he said before, but I will
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: just say, I know that we're all a nerd to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: this now because we've had a lot of years of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But let's remember when the Access Hollywood tape
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: comes out and Donald Trump actually gives the, remember the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: live on air apology he does that is, you know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: this is not what I meant, blah, blah, blah. Now,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it's just like January 6th. He's long gone past, oh,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't say that, or that was just a joke.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: And now he says, oh, no, what I said was true.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: What I said was true and it was good. It
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: was good. You do get to do that if you're
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a celebrity.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: When he makes it worse and he insults the lawyer
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: and he's, yeah, it sounds awful.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: We'll leave the legal consequences of Trump's actions to juries
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: of his peers. It does seem like the political consequences
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of all these cases could be a bit more damaging
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for Trump than the hush money case. But what do
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: you guys think of all these developments that have popped
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: up recently?
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of, I mean, certainly this conversation we're
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: having right now reminds you there's just a ton of
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: legal uncertainty swirling around him as a person around the campaign.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: And the fact that DeSantis and all the other opponents
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: can't seem to get it together to leverage not just
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: what he actually did, but the kind of political risk is,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: you know, another indictment of how bad they are running
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: against him.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd also just say that deposition interview footage always
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: looks bad.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Really bad.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: It has a feel to it. It has a feel
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: to it, as does all kind of hidden camera footage
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: always kind of feels bad. I don't know what the
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: impact of this specific case will be a year and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a half from now, but what are his two lowest
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: moments as a candidate and president? I'd say one of
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: them is around the Access Hollywood table. I'd say the
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: three lowest moments. One is Access Hollywood. Second is the
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: healthcare vote. And the third is the insurrection. You'd probably
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: say those are the three.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I definitely include trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I don't even mean, obviously, but I mean, in terms
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of like the public, the public reaction to him where,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: you know, like we just talked about how robust and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: like how stable his polling always is. And like, what
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: are the things that managed to kind of like pull
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: that clothesline down a little to weigh it down? It
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: was Access Hollywood.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: It was healthcare.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: And it was the insurrection. And this is as bad
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: as that ever was, even though we are all fucking
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: desensitized to it.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I realize that this is incredibly hackish of me, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: when I saw that deposition footage, my first thought was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Democratic super PAC. If I was a Democratic super PAC
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: out there, I would throw some of that deposition footage
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: in an ad and test it first, you know, test
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: it in front of voters, focus groups, see how it goes.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: But I would bet, particularly after talking to Celinda Lake
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: on this show a couple weeks ago, that this would
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: break through. She said that this case is breaking through
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in a lot of her research, especially among women, especially
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: among young women. says something about our society, of course,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that it's not getting as much coverage as the Hashwani case.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I realize it's a civil lawsuit, not criminal, but it's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a pretty big deal if a jury decides that a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: former president is a rapist for the first time.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's getting less coverage because
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: it's just different phases of the trial. I mean, similarly,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: in the Mar-a-Lago case, I've always wondered whether people would
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: really care whether or not he took classified documents. But
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: when you start to read about how The FBI is looking,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: they're talking to his staff to see if they were
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: directed to hide or move things after the subpoenas came
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: through or if they deleted footage of what happened. That
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: feels like a big deal. I mean, Jack Smith is
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: flinging subpoenas like a blackjack dealer down there. The whole
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: staff has now been subpoenaed. Both of the Calamaris, who
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: can forget the Calamaris?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: It's a double Calamari.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Matthew Calamari Sr. and Jr.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I think the plural of Calamari is Calamari.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I think you might be right. Here's my favorite.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I think one of them is a Calamaro.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Calamaro. My favorite anecdote from this New York Times story
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: about the Mar-a-Lago case was, among the information they have
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: gathered in interviews concerned his habit of flushing material down toilets,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: according to a person familiar with the matter. And I just, like,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: love the idea of some very serious FBI agent, like,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: asking questions. Like, number one.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: So this goes down the chitter as well.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: If it's a yellow, let it mellow. Okay. Number two.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Tommy, can you give us your take on the potential
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Saudi connection here? It was just sort of slipped in
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: as paragraph 20 of the New York Times story. It's like, oh,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, there's a subpoena for Trump's business dealings
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: with the Saudis over their golf venture.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what to make of that. And
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I've never really believed that.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You want to red string it for us?
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Yep. They never really believed that Trump took a bunch
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of classified documents to sell them to some other country
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: or anything like that. But if you were looking for
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: a way to trade this information to, let's say, the
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Saudi government for cash, it does seem like having the
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: live golf tournament host a bunch of uh, matches or
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: whatever they're calling them. They constantly different at his clubs
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: would be a great way to launder that money. Great
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: way to get his beak wet.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: We didn't even also talk about the fact that they've, uh,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: given immunity to a bunch of the fake electors.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Which, uh, like Georgia, you know, those people, uh,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: They got immunity. So what do they know? And why
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: are we giving?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And, and, Finney Willis isn't giving out immunity for free.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: And what those people did was very serious, very illegal,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and very wrong. And so, you know, who are the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: people you're going after? There's not very many above the
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: electors that aren't named Donald Trump.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: As Tommy pointed out, one person who's still not taking
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: advantage of any of this is Ron DeSantis, who's busy
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: dealing with more of his own bad press. ABC obtained
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: video of Tiny D's debate prep sessions from his 2018
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: race for governor, where an advisor suggested that when he
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: gets to the podium, he should write the word, likeable.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: in all caps at the top of his notepad. You
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: can also see Matt Gaetz telling DeSantis to tone it
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: down during prep and DeSantis struggling with how to avoid
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: pissing off Trump's voters. Let's listen.
• 21:11
  Speaker 8: Has the NRA.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Donated to me?
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: I don't think the NRA is quite the boogeyman the
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: Democrats think it is. Do we hit him on guns
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: or does everyone who cares about guns is going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 8: vote for me?
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Is there any issue upon which you disagree with President Trump?
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: Obviously there is because I voted contrary to him in
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: the caucus. I have to frame it in a way
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: that's not going to piss off all his voters. So
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: what I do is I do what I think is right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 8: I support his agenda in terms of what he's been
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: able to do. If I have a disagreement, I talk
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: to him in private.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I think when you walk up there, the other pad,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: you have to write in all caps at the top
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: of the pad, likeable. I do the same thing because
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I have the same personality.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: We're both aggressive. I see the same thing.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Do you guys think it's a good sign for your
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: political prospects when the person advising you on likability is
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz?
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz is dressed like he's going to go sell
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: nitrous balloons at a Dave Matthews concert. He's wearing like
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Nirvana flip flops and a too tight t-shirt.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Matt Gaetz is telling you to tone it down?
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: This fucking guy?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz is like, here's how to be likable.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Can we just be honest?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Take it from me, Matt Gaetz.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: It's not bad advice. It's such pretty good advice from
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz. The whole thing seems kind of normal and
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: more reasonable. I don't know. Even DeSantis kind of seems
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: smarter about politics, but he comes off as very angry
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: about everything.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: That fucking voice of his.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You might say he comes off as a little sanctimonious.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: He comes off.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Like the Mars Attacks Aliens. The other, it reminded me
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: of something, which is the way in which they're trying
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: to corral this fucking humorless, stale-voiced, whiny, awful personality into
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: candidate to being a likable politician. When I was first
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: working on the Hill, I worked for Senator John Corzine,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: much more likable than Ron DeSantis, but he was just,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: he was like a finance guy. Public speaking was not
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: his forte. And they like, very early on, they wanted
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: him to come up with jokes or have like be funny.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And they brought me into a kind of speech prep.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And I just remember realizing how far we were from
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: jokes because one of the pieces of advice was, It
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: would be helpful if you stopped rolling up the speech
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: and using that to scratch your beard while you're talking.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Write that one at the top of the notepad.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: That's what that reminded me of.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: But saying write likable on your notepad is so goddamn funny.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: It's terrible advice. You can't just remind yourself to be likable.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: You are or you are not.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: When George H.W. Bush was running against Bill Clinton— Bill
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Clinton was obviously more likable and seemed more compassionate and
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: more able to relate to people. And so there's a
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: famous moment where George H.W. Bush says something about grocery
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: prices and he goes, message, I care. And that was subtext.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: He was supposed to show, not tell.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It was like saying, your name here. I think there
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was something revealing. When Gates is telling him, oh, you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: were too aggressive in what you just said, what he
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: was referring to is, during debate prep, Remember back in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the 2018 race, at one point, DeSantis says, all right, Florida,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: don't monkey this up by voting for Andrew Gillum. And
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: everyone took it as a racist statement. And so in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: debate prep, they hit him with that. They hit DeSantis
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: with that. And he basically was like, yeah, I was
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: pretty hot in response to that. But what I learned
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: from Kavanaugh is you can never even show a hint
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of weakness on these things or even seem apologetic at all.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: You've got to just go hard and seem angry. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that's the only way to do it because otherwise our
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: base will think that we're weak. And that is the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: lesson that all of them have learned.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: That is the whole lesson of the Trump era. Never apologize.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Act like an asshole and you can get through it.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It's just, but he sounds so whiny. So whiny.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: He's a big whiner and he's resting dumb face. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: the whole thing, I mean, yeah, it's a weird debate staff.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, Matt Gaetz is running your debate prep. That's
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: just a strange decision.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And now he's for Trump, so.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, that must worry them. I mean, these
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: kinds of tapes leaking, I don't know if I've ever
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: heard of that happening before.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty big breach. Like debate prep is kind
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: of like an inner circle, kind of sacred space. That
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: shit doesn't leak.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: So in Gates goes from DeSantis guy to Trump supporter, sycophant.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: DeSantis had a big split with Susie Wiles, who was
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: running his campaign at the time. She's now working for Trump.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I would be sitting there thinking, oh my God, what
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: else are they sitting on?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Big week in D.C. Joe Biden has his
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: first debt ceiling meeting with the four top leaders in
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Congress at the White House today. Just in time. A
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: couple weeks away from default.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Janet Yellen is just white knuckling on a toilet somewhere.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Just fucking anxiety for fucking days.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: She's not.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Janet Yellen hasn't had a solid shit in two weeks.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Just saying she's anxious.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: You can't hear that on any other podcast. You're not
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: getting that on MSNBC. This comes after 43 Republican senators
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: signed a letter over the weekend saying they will not
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: support a debt ceiling increase without substantial cuts of the
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: kind the House passed. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy and leadership aides
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: are trying to tamp down expectations within their caucus about
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: what would constitute a win for Republicans, since his most
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: extreme members are saying they won't vote for anything less
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: than the House bill. Are we just headed for either
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: default or a less crazy version of the House bill?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Is it still possible at this point for Biden to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: get a clean increase? Is any kind of deal possible?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I would say, first of all, I think to get
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: 43 Senate Republicans together to say anything close to this,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: it had to be vague and purposefully vague. So what
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: they say is they're united behind the House Republican Conference
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: in support of spending cuts and structural budget reforms as
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling. That
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: leaves a lot of room to maneuver. And they won't
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: vote for cloture on any bill that raises the debt
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms, which also gives
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: you a lot of space. Fifty Shades of Grey, the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: starting point was fan fiction about Twilight. You can go
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: very far from your starting point.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: It's just something to think about.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It was vague, but still, they didn't get Romney, Collins,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: or Murkowski to sign on to that letter. They didn't,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you're right.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like they got above 40
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and they patted themselves on the back.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I think what the Republicans have done, which is smart
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: here in the Senate, is they're like, we cannot leave,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: at least at this point, we can't leave McCarthy out
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to dry. He got this pass through the House. We've
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: got to lock arms with McCarthy. We can't have any
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: daylight between the Senate and the House Republicans. Otherwise, we're
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: not going to get anything out of Biden. To me,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that seems what that letter is about.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I would say it's getting this off. This says where
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: the Senate Republicans are. I don't know that this is
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: something that puts any more pressure on Biden than what
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: he already was facing. But I think publicly it answers
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the mail on what McConnell's been getting asked over and
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: over again.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm just still caught up on that previous comment
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: about the Secretary of the Treasury. I mean, I guess
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: good news, bad news. Good news, you can't really get
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: much worse than a $ 1. 5 trillion debt limit extension for
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: less than a year for $ 5 trillion in cuts. So
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: baby steps to better.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I still don't see a path forward, though.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: The reason I mentioned on the McCarthy side, what we
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: saw in Playbook today that he's tamping down expectations, is
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: there were some senior Republican aides in the House who
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: were like, if we just get the unspent COVID funds
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and permitting reform, that's a win. And I'm like, yeah,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: oh no, don't get that.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: That'd be horrible.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: We can't get that out.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It's a reminder that with the House Republicans, some of
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: them play crazy, some of them aren't crazy. And some
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: of the ones that play crazy are just a little
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: bit nervous with some of the ones that are, hey,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I'm visiting this asylum. I don't fucking live here with
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: you people.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: But yeah.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I do think though, I don't see a clean increase
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: happening at this point. Because Forget about the 43 Republicans.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You also got Joe Manchin and you're dealing with the Senate.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Forget about the House at this point. Getting a clean
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: increase through the Senate seems like it's very difficult at
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: this point.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I also think a lot of this is semantics. Like,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know what, like, for example, we don't know
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: what's going to come out of a conversation with McCarthy
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: and Biden tomorrow. But one thing potentially is some sort
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: of a framework that is a short-term debt ceiling extension
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: with some kind of cap on spending that kicks you
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: to a negotiation over government shutdown plus that. Biden gets
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to call that a clean raise to get you to
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the negotiation.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Two-track strategy.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: And so, but like, did Biden get a clean debt
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: limit increase in that case? Yes, no. I think the
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: semantics fall apart when you tie it to another negotiation.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: We need a bipartisan coalition of reporters, TV broadcasters, podcasters
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: to come together and say, We're sick of talking about this.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: It is so boring. It makes us want to die.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Please just fix it so we don't have to talk
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: about this again.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: You know who's going to help us with that? Our audiences.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: People keep saying it. People keep saying it's boring.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: I'm interested.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I'm interested. I think the gamesmanship is kind of interesting.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of game theory stuff.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's game theory. It's real negotiations.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Who are you to?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: It's real snakes.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Happened to my friends.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I think what's also exciting to me about a two-track
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: strategy is you get to do something that's, I think,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: classically American, which is you kick the can down the
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: road and raise the stakes. which is a classic American move.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Kick the can, raise the stakes.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Procrastinate and make it worse.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: We're at season six and everyone's lost the plot. It's
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Westworld all over again.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It's Westworld all over again.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Westworld all over again.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: It's all over again.
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Anyway.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Your mind is the scene of the crime.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Speaking of entertainment.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Different thing.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Axios reports that Tucker Carlson is about to go to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: war with Fox News in order to get out of
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: his contract, which is basically paying him $ 20 million to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: not work for any competitor or himself until 2025. Tucker's
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: apparently thinking about starting his own media venture. He's approached...
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk about working together.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Of course he did.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And a friend said that when it comes to Fox, Tucker, quote,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: knows where a lot of bodies are buried and is
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: ready to start drawing a map.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I don't, they keep saying this thing that like, what,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: what fucking bodies over there? What do we not know
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: about this heinous right-wing fascist organization?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: It's gotta be actual bodies.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Like, is it actual corpses? Cause it, cause it actually,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: what it feels like, what Fox News feels like right now.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: They bury Roger Ailes under the, under the newsroom?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Like how, how it's felt watching this over the last
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: like six months is like, a graveyard after a hurricane
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and all the bodies have kind of come fully up already.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Like what bodies are left? I'm crushing it today. I'm
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: crushing it today.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Here's what I know.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: What do you know?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Every generation needs a hero. Your Ellsbergs, Daniel.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Your Brockoviches, Aaron. All right. You could be that. Tucker,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Serpico and a bow tie. Tell the truth.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: The way in which Aaron Brockovich, Serpico and Ellsberg are
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: so different and just different analogies.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Tell the truth. Tell your truth, Tucker.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Tell me. I have a different take.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I want Fox News to win this one.
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: I'm with you.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: You've always been a Fox fan.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Because to Lovett's point, what else is Tucker really going
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: to do to Fox that they haven't already done to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: themselves through various depositions and discovery processes over the last
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: several months? But if Fox can somehow stop Tucker from
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: having a platform for the next two years, I think
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: that's a win for all of us.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I think that's great. Yeah, that's where I'm at too.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I want Fox to just hold the line on this– Fascist. Non-compete.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: We're with you, Murdochs.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Keep the faith.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Jokes aside, I think what I'm most interested in in
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: all of this is which mainstream media outlets are willing
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: to uncritically print everything Tucker's lawyer says. Bodies are buried.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I got bare knuckle brawlers standing by to fight.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Allies, friends, sources close to Tucker.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Everyone is offering Tucker money. I mean, the amount of
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: posturing going on in these news stories that are just
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: going unquestioned is notable. I, I, one of the, one
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: of the reports was said that Daily Wire was like, I'm,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: I've been waiting for the fucking Tucker Carlson, uh, Tucker Carlson.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Caravan and the Ben Shapiro caravan. Those places, those people
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: should meet in the middle.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, there is, look, Tucker Carlson will wind up
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: on a Rumble or a Daily Wire type outlet. I
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: think the question really is whether his non-compete prevents him
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: from going to 60 Minutes.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Washington, New York Times column. Cancel culture run amok this
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: week at the New York Times.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Pamela Paul and Tucker Carlson have a conversation.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: We're doing one of those chats. I was watching CBS
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Sunday morning because I'm 75 years old.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: How do you even get that thing? Do you have
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: rabbit ears?
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: And they had George Will doing a puff piece on
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger. And I was like, what era am I
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: living in? You saw that too?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I did not see it, no. I saw Tommy tweet
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: about it then.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Sorry to do that to you. Anyway.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Anything that keeps Tucker Carlson quiet for
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: a while, I'm for.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: But you know what? Go at each other. Burn the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: whole conservative ecosystem.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: My point is quiet is going to be a range
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: because I do think he's going to have a podcast
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: on Rumble or something like that. He's going to do something.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: It's a question of whether he's on Newsmax or he's
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: a non-compete.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Or he can just tweet a video and Elon will
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: just juice it and promote it. All right. Finally, the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: list of Clarence Thomas scandals just keeps getting longer. Harlan
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Crowe didn't just secretly pay for private jet rides, luxury
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: yacht trips, and the home of Clarence Thomas' mother. The
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: latest ProPublica bombshell says that Crowe also paid the private
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: school tuition for Thomas' grandnephew. And the Washington Post reports
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that Federalist Society goon Leonard Leo paid $ 25, 000 to Ginny
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Thomas through Kellyanne Conway's polling company and asked that the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: paperwork have, quote, No mention of Ginny, of course. Can
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the Senate Judiciary Committee do anything about these scandals or
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: any of the judicial nominations that are stuck in committee?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Of course not, because Dianne Feinstein is still absent. Jake
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Tapper made a point about this to Dick Durbin over
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the weekend. Let's listen.
• 34:49
  Speaker 9: All due respect, sir, you and your fellow Democrats were
• 34:52
  Speaker 9: very ginger and very polite when it came to Justice
• 34:55
  Speaker 9: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and not pushing her to retire when
• 34:59
  Speaker 9: you had a Democratic majority in the Senate.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: How'd that work out for you? How'd that work out?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: for Roe v.
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: Wade?
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: Well, I can tell you that you can play these
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: out and try to guess what the Supreme Court opinions
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: resulting from it will be. The bottom line is, though,
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: we have in the past had members of the Senate,
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: I can think of a handful as I'm sitting here,
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: Democrats and Republicans, who've been absent because of medical conditions
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: for lengthy periods of time. I want to treat Dianne
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: Feinstein fairly. I want to be sensitive to her family
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: situation and her personal situation. And I don't want to
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: say that she's going to be put under more pressure
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: than others have been in the past.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: What is going on?
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I will say this. So, first of all, Dick Durbin
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: is the person that has set off this. It was
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Dick Durbin's comments to CNN that set off the calls
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: for Dianne Feinstein to retire. It was him telling a reporter, hey,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be able to move judges through
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: this committee. We're deadlocked in a bunch of shit. This
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: is creating a real problem that set off the firestorm
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: of people calling for her to retire. So I'm sensitive
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: to the fact that clearly he is reacting to what
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the Feinstein people have been saying, which is she's not
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: going to be forced out. He's trying to be delicate.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: But that being said, yikes.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I agree with all that. Probably people
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: would have noticed. That's why the nominations were holed up.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: They can count the votes on the committee at some point.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: He went out there. But I'm saying he went out
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: there and kicked it up.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Well, in a very Dick Durbin way.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Look, all of this is in a very Dick Durbin way.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: The velveteest of velvet gloves is that he is approaching
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: all of this. I mean, this went viral because of
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Jake's question, not because of Durbin's answer.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I get that these people are all collegial and they're
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: all friends in the center. I get it. I get it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be nasty to someone who you've
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: served with for years. But like, fucking, there's a lot
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: at stake here. There's a lot at stake.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Well, he goes on to say in that interview... that
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: when Feinstein put out in her statement that nothing is
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: being held up, that he just doesn't agree with that,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: that her absence is being felt on the committee. They
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: can't do these subpoenas for Harlan Crowe or for Clarence Thomas.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: It is slowing down the nomination process. So He is
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: saying that. I mean, look, I don't know why I'm
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: defending Dick Durbin. Biggest Dick Durbin defender here. I'm surprised
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: by myself. Dianne Feinstein should fucking retire.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: The reason Durbin's answers, Durbin's sort of letter to the
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: chief justice of the Supreme Court about ethics, inviting him
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: to come to the committee was very frustrating and seemed
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: incredibly feckless because it was.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Sadly, the RSVP, no.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Not only the RSVP, no.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Will not attend.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: He sent a scathing response. It was basically like, how
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: dare you even ask me? Strict scrutiny did a great
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: episode on all these sort of ethics issues that you
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: should listen. But the biggest challenge is because Feinstein isn't there,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: he can't issue a subpoena. They can't do anything. And
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: so listen, setting aside the whole Dianne Feinstein of it all,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: no one individual lawmaker's hurt feelings should take precedent over
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: the work that we all send in there to do.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: And like the suggestion otherwise, this silly forced collegiality, she's
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: 89 years old. Several years ago, there was a round
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: of stories about her asking the same question at a
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: hearing verbatim twice in a row. That's when people really
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: started talking about this stuff.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I think the saddest part of this also is now
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: we are now in, we've been in weeks and weeks
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of stories about a lot of people calling for her
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to retire. A lot of people questioning whether she's mentally
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: fit and certainly whether or not she has the sort
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: of physical stamina to ever return to the Senate. Through
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: that entire period of time, she said, I will return,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: but will not give a date. That is really sad
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: because it tells you that her health condition is very serious,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: that she cannot return to the Senate. So it is
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: all very like it is obviously human and it is
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: somebody who is afraid to have their final moments in
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: public life be defined by their illness and calls to resign.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: That is obviously sad. But one person's ego and the
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: staff's desire to protect that person's ego is not more
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: important than confirming justices, getting these subpoenas out the door
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: and having full representation for California in the Senate.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. And. this, I hate, this isn't even potentially
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the worst of it. Like, you know, Dianne Feinstein's making
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: an argument that, oh, look at how many judges they confirmed.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, this argument is like, we're getting
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: through all the judges that can be confirmed right now. And,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: but down the road, there's going to be a roadblock.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Of course, there's going to be a roadblock with her,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: without her on the committee. And then of course there's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the Supreme court stuff, but as Amy Klobuchar mentioned, when
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: she first talked about this, we need it for the
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling too, potentially.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: If, if, if, if we get, if we get either
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, one of them to not
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: be an asshole and it will be required, like, you know,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: 51 Democrats to be there or 50 Democrats to be there.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Plus Kamala Harris. and we don't have Dianne Feinstein, that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: could be a real fucking problem.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Or it just sets one card against us even further
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: of having to need every vote.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Ro Khanna tweeted about how, because Senator Feinstein was absent,
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: the Senate overturned a Biden rule that would cut pollution
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: from heavy-duty trucks and cause all of us to breathe
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: in worse air. I mean, that has happened in the past.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it's not just about confirming judges. I mean,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: they can spin this all they want, but that's not
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: the extent of the problem. More broadly on these Clarence
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Thomas revelations, it's now like multiple stories about Clarence Thomas
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: and ethics. There was a story about Justice Neil Gorsuch
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: selling a law firm to a big, selling real estate
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: to a law firm that had a bunch of issues
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: before the court. There's questions about Roberts's wife placing lawyers
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: at big firms and maybe earning $ 10 million. I think
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: what we're learning is that maybe decades and decades of
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: really chummy coverage of Supreme Court that, you know, ends
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: up in book deals and people being friends has not
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: really served us very well. And maybe we need a
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: little more adversarial work here.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Sub-tweeting Nina Totenberg.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not sub-tweeting.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Take that, Nina Totenberg. I'm with you.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Everybody. I know, I know. We got to go a
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: little harder with these folks.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: These people... Got to reform the court. That's the only
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: way out. They're not going to make ethics rules for themselves.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be... They're clearly not embarrassed by
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: any of the reporting. They don't feel shame on this stuff.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: They feel like they're above the law because the way
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that we've set up the system right now, they really are,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: unless we have, you know, 60 votes in the Senate
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: to pass some reforms or to expand the court or
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to put into place term limits.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Or we have enough senators to get rid of the filibuster.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: We can do it with a few more. Yeah, or
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: if we have enough senators to get rid of the
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: filibuster and like, you know, I mean... again would love
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: it if diane feinstein could come back and we'd actually
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: could subpoena justice roberts or thomas and then have them
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: yeah and then have them be you know answer for
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: themselves on national television great um but real change we
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: gotta fucking change.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: The court the uh the clarence thomas story about the
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: tuition is i thought pretty funny because the only defense
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: that it's not a gift for clarence thomas is that
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: it was actually a gift to the child which is
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: really funny to think about a billionaire giving a suitcase
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: full of cash some kids who go to school like
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: As we all know, it's the child who pays tuition
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: at school.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that was, and Crow's statement in response
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to the story was like, how could you turn his
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: love of education into something political?
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, his love of education.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Education and Nazi memorabilia.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: And I believe that Thomas did disclose when someone else
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: paid for part of this kid's tuition. So this is just,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the most amazing thing about the Thomas revelations is it's
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: even forcing reporters from the New York Times to be like, Yeah,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I looked at it. No offense, but it's pretty illegal.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: They have no way to, they can't spin it into
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: a they said, he said, they said. Every defense of-
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: He said, they said? They said, they said?
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Sure. Every defense of Crow giving all this money to
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas in a variety of ways has fallen apart.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: For example, Crow gave an interview with the Dallas Morning
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: News where he recounted how he first met Clarence Thomas.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: And it was Crow offering Clarence Thomas a ride home
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: on his private jet. That's how they met. On a
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: private jet.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: They're PJ buddies.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: They're PJ buddies. During that flight, we found out we
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: were kind of simpatico.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I bet you did.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: That's a direct quote.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I bet you did. You know, the other thing too.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I saw my copy of Mein Kampf fall out of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: my bag.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: Okay. He's a collector.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: He's a collector.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: It was a statue of Hitler.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: LA dad to find over there.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: It was a little like, you know, those Statue of
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Liberty ones they sell at like the airport in New York.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: It was a Hitler. It was a little Hitler. It's
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: a paperweight for history.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got this at an auction. The funny thing.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Is, it's like, oh, so you caught a ride on
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: a billionaire's private jet and then you had a great
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: discussion with him, paying for the privilege of being on
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: that private jet with your conversation, you know, like earning
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: your keep as an interesting guest aboard this private jet.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: It's gross.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: I say it's gross.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: RBG should have retired. And you know what?
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you something else. I'll tell you something else.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: We got shit for that. I wasn't one of these
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: ginger people. No, I'm just saying. I'm sexist for calling
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Feinstein to resign. I'm sexist for calling for RBG to resign.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Listen, I have a position here. You're looking for a
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: third to make it a trend?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I'll call on old people to resign all the time.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Can you find some old dude? Chuck Grassley.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Chuck Grassley. He's got to get out of there. Strom Thurmond.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Let me just say, I'm just saying, I remember whenever
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: you even hinted at the idea that RBG should retire,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: you were properly... For Notorious RBG, you were castigated at
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the time. I'm just saying, you look back at it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Well, hopefully our producers can find some clips of you
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: calling for the RBG retirement.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: You can find it. Olivia, you can find it. Go
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: to the archives.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: To the archives. To the archives.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Pod Save the UK host Nish
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Kumar talks to Tommy about his new podcast and King
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Charles' coronation.
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: It's been a wild week in the United Kingdom, which
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: is why I am so excited to welcome the co-host
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: of Pod Save the UK to the show. Nish, it
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: is so great to see you. You are number one
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: in the UK on Apple podcast charts. Are you drunk
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: with power right now?
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: I'm drunk with power and I'm drunk with alcohol, Tommy.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: I don't know how much you know about British culture,
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: but when things go well, we get incredibly drunk. And
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: when things go badly, we get incredibly drunk.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: I love that. Let's all get pissed. Also, I want
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: to clarify to all listeners in the UK that I'm
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: wearing this hat with Pat the Patriot on it, not
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: to be a troll, but because I need a haircut.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: So let's just get that on the table. Okay. King
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Charles had his coronation bash over the weekend. A lot
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: of the stories I saw in the run-up to Saturday
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: basically argued that nobody cared. First coronation since Queen Elizabeth
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: II in 1953 was There's a poll that said 64%
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: of adults had no real interest in the ceremony. Did
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: you end up watching and do you think 64% of
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: the country really just tuned this thing out?
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think that there is, there remains like
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: a section of the public for whom the royal family
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: are an incredibly important part of their, of their lives.
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: And I don't, I don't know if I can speak
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: to 64%. I mean, I think in terms of who
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: watched it, it would probably be more than that, just
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: sort of out of sheer curiosity. I think whether you
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: care or not, there are a lot of people that
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: just tuned in. I mean, literally because they sort of
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: took over all the TV channels. You know, like a
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: supervillain does in a movie when they're.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Threatening a country. I have images of BBC broadcasters kicking
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: down your door and shoving a TV in your face
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: to make you watch. I love the BBC, but God,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: they love these royal events.
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: I couldn't agree with you more strongly on both of
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: those things. Absolutely love the BBC, but yeah, they go...
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: They go hard. They've got a perma boner for the
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: royal family and for coverage of the royal family. It's relentless.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: This is why I love your show so much because
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: you guys had this really thoughtful academic on and you
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: were talking about federalism versus the monarchy. And I want
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: to ask you more about that in a second, but
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: you teed it up, I think saying, but it's more
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: difficult than just getting rid of these cousin fuckers, right? Which,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: you know, that kind of candor is the show for me.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: But before we get to that, There were a bunch
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: of arrests of peaceful protesters. What happened there? When did
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: London decide to outlaw peaceful protest on the streets?
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: The larger background to this is the government has passed
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: a bill that specifically makes it more difficult to protest
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: in this country. And some of that protest bill was
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: on the back of some of the climate protests that
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: have been happening all over the world. But specifically in Britain,
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: some of the climate protests that have been happening. The
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: government have passed a bill, some of the terms of
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: which allow police to set an appropriate level for protest,
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: which I mean, I don't think anybody thinks a good idea.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: But some of the new powers given to them in
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: this protest bill seem to have been used on protesters.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: It's weirdly not actually just protesters that have been arrested.
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: there were three people were arrested in Soho on Saturday
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: on a conspiracy to commit public nuisance. And it transpires
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: that those people were volunteers for a programme run by
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: Westminster City Council to distribute rape alarms to women who
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: might be vulnerable travelling on their way home. And the
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: reports that have come out today suggest that arresting officers
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: claimed that they were acting on some intelligence that those
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: people were planning to set rape alarms off and throw
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: them at the horses to make the horses go crazy.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: And this could not come at a worse time for
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: the Met Police, whose reputation in terms of handling particularly
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: female members of public is, you know, is at an
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: absolute all-time low and with huge amounts of justification. So, yeah,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: it was a very, very... That's a very specific thing
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: that's worth keeping an eye on as the days develop
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: as to whether any charges are going to be brought.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: They've arrested... yeah, some protesters. They even arrested a journalist
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: who was filming the protest and who sort of filmed
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: himself being arrested in a kind of weird sort of
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: Blair Witch found footage horror nightmare of being arrested simply
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: for that. Where he's trying to tell, you can see
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: on the footage, he's sort of saying to people, Well,
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: I'm a journalist, and the police are just sort of going, no,
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: we'll crack on with this.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll arrest you anyway. Every time we talk, I
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: realize how similar our nation's problems are. Getting that balance
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: right of allowing protesters to do their thing has been
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: a real challenge for us the last couple of years, too.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: So the monarchy has existed for a very long time.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean it's going to be around forever. On
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: last week's Pod Save the U.K., and Coco had this
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: great conversation with a scholar, and you talked to this
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Labour MP about what it would take to get rid
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: of the monarchy. Now, the only kings we have here
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: in the US are Elvis, LeBron, and Burger. So help
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: us understand, how do we get rid of this family
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: that just won't go away?
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: And let me say, as a representative of the United Kingdom,
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: we would like to thank His Majesty the Burger King.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: Several of his embassies have opened throughout our country. And
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: we remain grateful. It's the interesting thing about having a
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: conversation with someone like Amelia Hadfield, who's a politics professor
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: that we talk to on the show, is that the
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: mechanism for removing the royal family, moving to a republic
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: is very complicated and would require... almost certainly a referendum,
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: which is, I think at this point, if you told
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: the British people that they could either have a referendum
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: or repeatedly be smashed with a cricket bat in the genitals,
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: they would say, well, bring on the bat. Cricket's the
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: most English of games. Let's crack on with this. Just
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: because I think we may be referendumed out. but for
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: people like Clive Lewis, who was the Labour MP that
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: we spoke to, I think one of the most important
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: things in the short term is actually a reform of
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: the Royal family, because the Guardian has done a lot
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: of really amazing reporting in the last couple of weeks
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: to show the extent to which the Windsor family has essentially,
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, they've sort of basically actively been fighting to
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: prevent scrutiny into their financial affairs. And Prince Charles is,
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: net worth is sort of estimated to be in the 1.8
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: billion pound region. But the truth is.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Billion? Yeah.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: But the truth is.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: But Tommy, that's also an estimate because they have fought
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: any attempts to kind of really get full clarity on
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: how much they earn. Just to set this in context,
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: we know every single thing that every one of our
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: MPs who, like the Royal Family, are public servants, earns.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: We have the right to know that. We know, for instance,
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: that our former health secretary, as we discussed when we
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: had the chat on the bonus episode of the show,
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: our former health secretary was paid £ 320, 000 to go on
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: a reality TV show where he ate bugs for a while.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: But we have the right to know that. We have
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: the right to know how much, say, Gary Lineker is
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: being paid, who's a kind of presenter of football highlights
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: on the BBC and who found himself kind of mired
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: in a political row after he criticised the Borders and
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: Migration Bill. Because he works for the BBC, we know
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: how much the BBC pays him because the idea is
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: we pay that money. And so the idea that the
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: royal family is able to be opaque about its finances
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: when they take money from the public purse is something
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: that I think in the short term, I think a
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: lot of people, regardless of how they feel about the
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: ongoing institution, feel should happen pretty urgently.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds like our Supreme Court. Seems like there's some
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: transparency needed here. Before we move on, have you seen
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: this Twitter theory that people who believe that Meghan Markle
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: actually did attend the coronation despite saying she was sticking
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: around in California? There was a 79-year-old man named Sir
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Carl Jenkins, apparently he's a composer, he's got long white hair,
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: he's got a mustache, he's got glasses, your classic disguise get-up,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: and many people are saying that Meghan Markle just snuck
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: in dressed like this 79-year-old white dude. Care to comment?
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: Yes, look, I'm afraid to say Sir Carl Jenkins is
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: an extremely talented composer. Unfortunately, he has chosen a moustache
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: and haircut and glasses combination that makes it look like
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: Sacha Baron Cohen is doing some sort of bar out
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: style prank movie. It is deeply unfortunate. And he did...
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: He was pictured at the coronation. And, yeah, I understand
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: that there is a theory that Meghan Markle... That people
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: are saying Meghan Markle... If anything, it would be fitting
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: that the most high-profile member of the royal family who
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: is a person of colour had to disguise themselves as
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: a white man to get into the coronation. If anything,
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: there'd be something, like, deeply apt about that. But I'm
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: pretty sure... Even if Meghan Markle tried to get in
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: heavily disguised, there'd be some sort of alarm that would
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: have been set off. I think they might have put
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: a chip in her. And if she'd set foot anywhere
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: near the crowd, a bunch of alarms would have gone
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: off and the Metropolitan Police would have thrown her in
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: jail with the other criminal elements, such as people trying
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: to give women rape alarms.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: I love this because the absurdity of this theory did
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: not stop the New York Post from writing it up.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: So that's how I read all about it.
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: Well, I understand the New York Post is, I believe,
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: at least philosophically, the bastard child of the Sun newspaper
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: in the United Kingdom. I guess both of those newspapers
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: have had a tenuous relationship with the truth of the past.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, tenuous at best. Okay, so back to a little
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: more serious stuff. England just had some local elections. Yes.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: In the US, I think it'd be the equivalent of
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: a city council or mayoral type position, but they're always
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: looked at as a bellwether ahead of the next national elections.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: The conservatives did quite poorly. I think they lost around
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: a thousand local council seats. The Labor Party gained about 500.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: The more centrist Lib Dems and the Greens independents, they
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: won too. A lot of analysts are wondering, given how
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: bad a run the Tory party, the conservatives have had
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: from Theresa May to Boris Johnson's party scandals and handling
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: of COVID to Liz Truss nearly sinking the economy with
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: a budget. should Labour have done better? What do you think?
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: How are you analysing this kind of what we just saw?
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: Well, the first thing I want to say is, just
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: briefly on Liz Truss, and it is good to be
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: brief on her, as fits her time in office. She
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: was at the coronation, and it's this weird spectacle that
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: I guess an equivalent is you guys having one-term presidents
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: at the inauguration ceremony. And I guess it's the equivalent
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: of this, but she's going to be at all of
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: these events. And she was at the fucking coronation for
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: longer than she was prime minister. Like, it was absolutely
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: obscene that she got a ticket. But yeah, the Conservative
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: Party lost 1,061 seats. And there have been a lot
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: of reports that they have encountered on the doorstep a
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: lot of hostility to the legacies left by Boris Johnson
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: and Liz Truss, and that Rishi Sunak hasn't been able
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: to detoxify the immediate legacy of his two predecessors. And
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: you're like, yeah, of course he hasn't, because it was
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: like six months ago. Like, amazingly, people in the United Kingdom...
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: are able to remember things that happened less than a
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: year ago. And less than a year ago, a lady who,
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: from what I can tell, huffed a bunch of crystal meth,
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: read Margaret Thatcher's Wikipedia page, and then built a policy
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: platform off of it, nearly tanked the British economy and
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: wiped £ 30 billion off the public purse. So that still
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: continues to damage the Conservative Party. I mean, as to
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: whether Labour... should have done better. I mean, there was
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: some sort of hasty expectation management from the Labour Party
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: in the immediate lead up to the local elections. And
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: they were sort of trying to say, well, you know,
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: if the Conservatives lose sort of 600, 700 seats, that's
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: a good night for us. Obviously, the figure is 1000,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: which were some of the harshest predictions that people were
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: saying would happen. I think for Labour, the mood at
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: the moment coming out of the Labour Party is beyond euphoric.
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: And Keir Starmer has said that these local election results
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: are evidence that the party is ready for power. But
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: people who understand these things more than I do have
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: been warning that the results are not completely clear cut.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: They've got a way to go before they can be
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: confident about that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of comparisons to 1997 when Tony
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Blair had this massive victory and that was preceded by
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: doing even better in local elections. But boy, my big
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: takeaway from your answer there is, my God, am I
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: jealous that you have an electorate that remembers things that
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: happened six months ago? We're working on 30 days, man.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: A couple of years ago, Trump was like, yo, storm
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: that Capitol and kill some people. And we're like, oh,
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: he seems like a decent guy. But I mean, to
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: your broader point of like, OK, what will the Tories
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: do to blunt whatever momentum labor has? It does seem
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: like like in the United States, immigration is a big
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: emotional issue for conservatives. As we speak, people in Washington
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: are very concerned about preparing for a potential surge of
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: migrants to our southern border because Joe Biden. has to
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: get rid of this sort of pandemic era rule that
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: would essentially force everyone to be expelled. But for you guys,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, the last time I checked, and correct
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: me if this has changed, the UK is an island.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: And You can't just kind of like stroll up to
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: London from another country.
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: I genuinely, I would love for you to come and
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: explain that to some of the people that live here, Tommy.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Help me understand this.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: How the Tories made this such an issue?
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: As far as I can tell, there is a section
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: of people in the United Kingdom who believe that the
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: country is connected via airport style travelators that just bring
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: a ceaseless stream of job stealing immigrants into the country.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: it's become but the key thing with it is that
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: like the US Republicans the sort of the tail is
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: kind of wagging the dog here the Conservative Party is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: being led by a small section of its electorate Conservative
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: voters actually said that the poll of Conservative voters found
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: that stopping the vote was actually the kind of second
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: most important issue to Conservative voters ahead of cutting nhs
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: waiting times and.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: That is stop the boats or the or the migrants
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: were coming from yeah.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: That's right yeah that's right so people are making crossings
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: of the english channel from france and uh they're sort
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: of um it's they've turned stop the boats into our
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: caravan of migrants it's it's the bogeyman and the phrase
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: stop the boats uh you know sort of fits into
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: this kind of um campaigning pattern of the Tory party
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: and the Brexit campaign. You can boil everything down to
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: three words, take back control, stop the boats, get Brexit done.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: These are the sort of key slogans. And I think
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: Sunak is sort of hoping that stop the boats is
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: his version of that, that he can sort of animate
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: the conservative vote. But I'm not sure how it's going
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: to play in terms of winning over swing voters, because
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: ultimately it's, you know, every element of the country is struggling.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: You know, you can't see a doctor and there's going
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: to be more train strikes over the weekend. There's the
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: threat of more strikes than the nurses, threat of more
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: strikes than the doctors, because public sector pay is still
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: in real terms to recover from 2008, really. That's how
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: long standing a lot of these problems are. And those
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: problems are kind of as prevalent in the private sector. So,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: With the whole country grinding to a hole, I just
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: feel like there's a lot of people that are going
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: to think, why the hell are you talking to me
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: about boats when I can't see a doctor?
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems right. I mean, it is remarkable how
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: much scar tissue there is in both countries, the US
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: and the UK, from 2008 and the financial crisis and
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: everything that kind of came after. So there's this new
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: book out called Johnson at 10. It's about Boris Johnson's
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: time as prime minister. Some of the excerpts are unbelievable.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: It says he referred to himself as the Fuhrer. It's
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: probably not something I'd call myself. He called himself the King.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: I think you already have one of those. It describes
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: him as having no vision for how to govern, talks
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: about fights with his wife, his top advisor, Dominic Cummings,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: this like Karl Rove, Steve Bannon creep. Are these revelations
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: seen as explosive? And do you think there's any chance
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: it will change opinions about Boris Johnson? Because over here,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: There's a book a minute about Donald Trump with some
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: new revelation and his approval rating is at 42% in perpetuity.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: I don't think this is going to change anybody's minds.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: I think it is a really valuable... Look, I think
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: ultimately all of these things are really valuable historical documents.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: So the book's written by a guy called Sir Anthony
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: Selden who's been writing about British prime ministers for 40 years.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: And he's actually a head teacher as well. So the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: whole thing... it plays like this kind of report card
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: you get when you leave office. And the thing with
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: Boris Johnson is so much of his kind of incompetence
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: is kind of priced in. I get a lot of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: stick here from various people, including a lot of journalists,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: for drawing parallels between Johnson and Trump. But there is
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: a huge amount of common ground between the two men.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: You know, not just the like repeated uses of racist language,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: not just the building of their brands through the media
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: and kind of the use of celebrity cultivated by entertainment
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: television that they've then leveraged into political power.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: Our countries are both stuck in this weird place where
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: we threw our leaders overboard, you know, Trump and Boris Johnson,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: but they won't go away. It's like you threw a
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: party That drunk guy is still there. He keeps turning
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: up the music. He's hitting on your girlfriend. Like, what
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: do we do here? How do we get them to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: take the hint? Do you have any ideas that we
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: could borrow? Because I think you guys have done a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: little bit better job. But Rishi Sunak, the current Tory
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: prime minister, hasn't, for example, thrown Johnson out of the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: party itself.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: No, I mean, he's where possible. He's sort of trying
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: to distance himself from Johnson. which is very difficult to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: do because he was Boris Johnson's chancellor. So notionally, he
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: was the second most powerful person in that government. So
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: it is extremely difficult for him to distance himself from that.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: But I think the similarities between the two projects, I mean,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: which doesn't feel like you should even call it a project,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: but between the two shit shows, one of the key similarities,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: I think, is both of them kind of approach to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: scorched earth policy to their own parties. So either you
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: got in line or you were bounced out. And what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: that means is they've created sort of power vacuums in
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: the Republican Party, in the Conservative Party. And so you've
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: got this situation where, you know, potentially dissenting voices were purged.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: And so you're now left in a situation where everybody
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: involved in the party was very much signed up. And
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: part of it. And so it's very difficult to distance
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: themselves from those leaders. I mean, the only thing that's
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: going to help here, I think, is getting them out
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: of office. But as we've seen in America, you know,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: you did vote him out. You got rid of him.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: You survived an attempted coup d'etat. It is weird how
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: often I think... Do you remember that time when, like,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: some Nazis tried to steal America?
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: Like, it's... It comes to me in waves. It was
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: a really strange thing. Late at night, lots of waves. Yeah,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: it was a terrible thing. And it's just, it's deeply
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: frustrating that a big chunk of the country doesn't look
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: at that memory or think about that history and think,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: that was really bad. Let's not do that again. That's
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: all I'm asking.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: But if you have the kind of apparatus of a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: media machine, you know, that regardless of You know, all
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: of those revelations in the Vanity Fair article about Rupert
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: Murdoch and his contempt for Trump didn't stop him from
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: eventually completely signing up to it wholesale. And Trump was
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: this kind of careering freight train that Murdoch forgot he
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: was responsible for setting off from the station. You know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: it's the same thing in this country. You know, the
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: Daily Mail, the Sun newspaper, which is a Murdoch paper,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: they all have done such an aggressive PR job. And
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: even the day Boris actually officially left office, the Sun
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: and the Mail both had headlines to the effect of,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: how could the Conservative Party do this? So they were
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: trying to take root that sort of betrayal narrative as
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: he was leaving office in an absolute cloud of disgrace.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: Because it's not just the parties that caused Johnson to go.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: There was also a Conservative called Chris Pincher who'd been
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: accused of sexually harassing various people who worked for the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: Conservative Party. And Johnson was warned about this. And when
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: he was warned about it, he said, pincher by name,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: pincher by nature, and then gave him a fucking job.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: So it wasn't even just the parties. It was a
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: total kind of cloud of disgrace he was removed from
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: office in. But if you then have newspapers essentially telling
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: the country that this person was turfed out for no
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: good reason, you end up in a situation that you
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: guys are in as a country where you have this
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: like lunatic who mismanaged COVID, caused the deaths of hundreds
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: of thousands of people, then tried to kind of lead
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: a fascist coup. And people are still thinking, well, maybe 2024?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, Nishkumar, that is why Pod Save
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: the UK is so critical because you are the leading
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: edge of the spear that is going to take down
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: the Murdoch empire. We heard it here first.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: I don't believe he could be killed, Tommy. I don't
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: believe he could be killed.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: He's very old. The guy in Succession died. Spoiler alert.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: That's, I think, because Jesse Armstrong is not just a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: great writer, but a deeply moral man. And I think
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: he's hoping Logan Roy is some sort of voodoo doll,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: that if he gives a heart attack to it, it
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: might take down Murdoch.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to not comment on that. Nish, thank
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: you so much. It was great talking with you. And
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: everyone subscribe to Pod Save the UK. It is a
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: fantastic show. We have so many shared problems. I think
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: there are shared solutions. We'll hear about both, but also
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: you're just going to laugh a lot. So I think
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: we all need to laugh so we don't cry.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Toby.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: You're the best.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Nish Kumar for joining us today. And we'll
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: talk to you guys later.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: Thanks to the Calamaris too.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks to the Calamaris as well. Pod Save America is
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:09:16
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• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our
• 1:09:23
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• 1:09:27
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• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:09:34
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• 1:09:38
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• 1:09:46
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