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Trump's Flailing Goon Squad · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: MSNBC's Jen Psaki, host of The Briefing.
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  Speaker 3: We've never experienced a moment like this in our country,
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  Speaker 3: and it leaves.
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  Speaker 4: Us all with a choice.
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  Speaker 3: Are we going to speak out, or are we going
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: to be pressured into silence?
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: I've worked for presidents.
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  Speaker 3: I've faced the tough questions from the press and even
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  Speaker 3: threats from the Kremlin. And if there's one thing I've learned,
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  Speaker 3: it's that you can't cower to bullies.
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  Speaker 4: We don't need to be hopeless.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: We have our voices, and I will continue using mine.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Tuesday through Friday at 9 p.m.
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  Speaker 5: Eastern on MSNBC.
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  Speaker 3: The Briefing.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. It's Dan's
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  Speaker 1: turn to be on vacation. So with me today, my
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  Speaker 1: good pal Alex Wagner, MSNBC senior political analyst. It's so
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: good to see you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: I've never heard the phrase senior political analyst sound so exciting.
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: Thank you for having me on this fantastic podcast, John.
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: I'm thrilled to be Dan's vacation sub.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Thrilled to have you. Thrilled to have you. We had
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a big show for you today. We got a Trump
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: whistleblower on deportations. MAGA World still angry about the Epstein files.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: FEMA officials criticizing Kristi Noem over the Texas flooding response.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Democrats worrying about the midterms. Then I talked to Ana Ramon,
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  Speaker 1: an outstanding organizer whose group is working with Vote Save
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: America to help recruit candidates to run for office in Texas.
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  Speaker 1: So stick around for that interview later. But Alex, let's
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  Speaker 1: start with Donald Trump's global trade war. It's back and
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  Speaker 1: it's dumber than ever. You might remember this line from
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  Speaker 1: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, who White House colleagues have
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  Speaker 1: called dumber than a sack of bricks.
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  Speaker 6: We're going to run 90 deals in 90 days.
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  Speaker 1: Alex, we are recording this on day 90. And I
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  Speaker 1: regret to inform you that the number of trade deals
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  Speaker 1: stands at two. The UK and Vietnam. That's not 90.
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  Speaker 6: That's not 90. Nope, not even close.
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  Speaker 1: Trump has, of course, decided to buy himself more time
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  Speaker 1: by pushing back the deadline yet again to August 1st,
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  Speaker 1: a date that everyone believes he'll stick to. In the meantime,
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  Speaker 1: Trump spent the week threatening at least 22 countries with
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  Speaker 1: higher tariffs via letters that read like, The president's Truth
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  Speaker 1: Social posts, complete with an abundance of capitalizations and exclamations.
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  Speaker 1: It's all very official. Yeah, they were on White House letterhead.
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  Speaker 1: The tariff threats went to countries we already have trade
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  Speaker 1: deals with, like South Korea. There's a free trade deal
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  Speaker 1: with South Korea, so there's already zero tariffs between both countries.
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  Speaker 1: And countries we have a trade surplus with, like Brazil,
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  Speaker 1: which Trump threatened with 50% tariffs in part because he
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  Speaker 1: says he's upset that former President Bolsonaro is facing a
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  Speaker 1: trial for attempting a coup. Obviously, Trump's not big on
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: people getting charged with trying to incite a coup. If
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  Speaker 1: you're wondering whether there's a method to all this madness,
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  Speaker 1: this clip of Trump speaking about tariffs at a meeting
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  Speaker 1: with African leaders this week should clear things up.
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  Speaker 7: Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round
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  Speaker 7: of tariffs?
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  Speaker 4: Was there a formula that was used?
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  Speaker 8: And do you expect any of these countries to face
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  Speaker 8: tariffs as well?
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  Speaker 5: The formula was a formula based on common sense, based
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  Speaker 5: on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years,
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  Speaker 5: and based on raw numbers.
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  Speaker 8: Do you expect any of the countries here to face
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  Speaker 8: tariffs as well?
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  Speaker 5: I haven't thought of it, but maybe, I don't know.
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  Speaker 5: Let's see, I like him, him, him, him, and him. No,
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  Speaker 5: I don't think so, not too much. He's very good.
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  Speaker 5: He's a friend of mine now.
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  Speaker 1: It's a rigorous process, Alex, rigorous. Definitely.
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  Speaker 6: Vetted highest standards.
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  Speaker 1: The highest standards. So the markets have recovered since Trump
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  Speaker 1: retreated from his Liberation Day tariffs. Prices on some imports
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  Speaker 1: have risen, but nothing drastic, although we've actually lost manufacturing jobs.
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  Speaker 1: So that part of the promise of tariffs has not
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  Speaker 1: come true. Trump's approval on the economy and especially trade
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  Speaker 1: has taken a hit, but his overall ratings aren't too
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  Speaker 1: much lower. What do you make of the White House
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  Speaker 1: decision or Trump's decision to restart this trade war right now?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I think, you know, numerically, they can still get
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  Speaker 6: the just the basic counting correct. Like 89 comes before 90.
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  Speaker 6: So there's that. Right. They had set this arbitrary deadline
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  Speaker 6: of 90 deals in 90 days. It was day 89.
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  Speaker 6: They had to do something. But like, John, it's the
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  Speaker 6: most foolish, clownish thing. Endeavor ever? I mean, you focus
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  Speaker 6: on some of these countries that we have trade surpluses with.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, I know that Burma, Myanmar, where my mom
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  Speaker 6: is from, is on the list with maybe a 40% tariff.
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  Speaker 6: For anybody that's been following even the scantest of news
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  Speaker 6: about Burma, there's a civil war going on. There's millions
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  Speaker 6: of displaced people there, tens of thousands dead. the annual
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  Speaker 6: per capita income is $ 1, 200 a year. Like the idea
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  Speaker 6: that we're going to launch a trade war with Burma
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  Speaker 6: is like, I mean, not only stupid, but craven in
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  Speaker 6: the same way that Trump's talking about needing Vietnam to
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  Speaker 6: buy more American SUVs in a country that has insanely
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  Speaker 6: narrow roads and where the average per capita income is
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  Speaker 6: like $ 4, 000 a year. Like there is no sense. There
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  Speaker 6: is no actual economic strategy that undergirds this. It's like literally,
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  Speaker 6: I don't know, there's the human facts person that he
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  Speaker 6: employs at the White House. There's someone standing at the
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  Speaker 6: copy machine just firing off the tariff letters with arbitrary
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  Speaker 6: numbers plugged in. And the worst part about it, I mean,
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  Speaker 6: I honestly think the thing that most hurts Trump is
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  Speaker 6: that everybody's on to him. The taco thing, Trump always
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  Speaker 6: chickens out, I think is, for Trump, the most humiliating
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  Speaker 6: piece of all of this, which is the market saying like,
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: Screw you, dude. This is why we didn't see market
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  Speaker 6: panic this time is because they get it. This is
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  Speaker 6: his game. This is his shtick. It's August 1, then
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: it'll be September 15, then it'll be November 9, or
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: whatever the fuck it's going to be. But all of
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  Speaker 6: this is so arbitrary and ill-conceived, it makes Herbalife look
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  Speaker 6: like some brilliant marketing scheme. Do you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 6: I don't even know how it ends. Maybe someone gets
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  Speaker 6: hit with a tariff at some point, but the idea
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  Speaker 6: that we're restructuring a trade imbalance... in the course of,
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  Speaker 6: you know, even a couple months is a laughable concept.
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  Speaker 6: All this stuff takes years to hammer out. And if
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  Speaker 6: he had just stuck with, oh, I don't know, the TPP,
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  Speaker 6: which was not hammered out by his administration, but he unwound,
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  Speaker 6: we would be in a much better place. But I mean,
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  Speaker 6: what does actual, you know, economic policy really matter when
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  Speaker 6: you can just, you know, have fun at the Xerox machine? Like,
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  Speaker 6: I don't know, Xerox in your butt and make it
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  Speaker 6: a bunch of letters, which is.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently what's happening. You're just freelancing. Apparently the new numbers...
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that they sent to all these countries. They are sort
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  Speaker 1: of like the Liberation Day numbers, but they're like off
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  Speaker 1: by one or 2% for no apparent reason in different countries.
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  Speaker 1: Like they just sort of like rounded up or down
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  Speaker 1: just based on whatever. And then of course there's, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the idea that he's doing 50% tariffs on Brazil because
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  Speaker 1: he's just pissed that they're holding a former leader accountable.
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  Speaker 1: So there's just no rhyme or reason to it. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: as it is now, We're already at, like, I think
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  Speaker 1: we have, like, an average tariff rate of, like, 17.5%
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  Speaker 1: in the United States with all of our trading partners,
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  Speaker 1: with the rest of the world, if you average all
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  Speaker 1: the countries together. And that's higher than it's been at
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  Speaker 1: any time since the 30s, I think. And I think people, like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, certainly the markets calmed down because he walked
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  Speaker 1: a lot of this back. But some of the price increases, like,
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  Speaker 1: they're not going to take effect until... A bunch of
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  Speaker 1: importers rushed to import a bunch of goods before some
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  Speaker 1: of these tariffs went into effect. So we're still going to, like,
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  Speaker 1: it's not showing up in the economic data yet, but
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods, even
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  Speaker 1: if he doesn't impose any new tariffs and keeps kicking
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  Speaker 1: the can down the road. But I don't know. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you're right about the taco thing. Like, I think it's
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  Speaker 1: humiliating enough to him that I also wonder if he's
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  Speaker 1: not going to be like, fuck it, I don't want
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: to be called that again. I'm just going to hit
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: them all.
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  Speaker 6: The taco thing on so many levels. is like his kryptonite, right?
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  Speaker 6: Because it goes right to his ego. And the idea
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  Speaker 6: that Wall Street, which he is obsessed with, would think
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  Speaker 6: he's a clown, is enough to motivate someone like Trump
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  Speaker 6: to do something totally reckless. And that's, I think, that
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  Speaker 6: it's both, you know, sort of delicious to see some,
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: you know, a group of, you know, Wall Street's finest
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  Speaker 6: just embarrass him. But it's also a little terrifying because
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  Speaker 6: when he is in that position, he tends to do
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  Speaker 6: even more unusually foolish and foolhardy and reckless things. So
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  Speaker 6: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Which, by the way, also is why I don't love Democrats, like,
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  Speaker 1: doing the taco thing as a joke and, like, continuing.
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  Speaker 6: To push it. You're like, watch out, guys. Watch out.
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: Watch out. Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't... I mean, I guess politically, right, if
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: he goes and crashes the economy, that's probably... That's really
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: politically bad for him. But do we really want to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: live through a global trade war that sends prices skyrocketing?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't think most people do in this country.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: On the Iran thing, I think Chuck Schumer was like,
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  Speaker 1: he taco'd on Iran. It's like, well, then he bombed Iran. So,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, are we happy now?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, be careful with the taco. It may come for
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  Speaker 6: you next.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So we'll see, though.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: You know, we can't predict these things because who the
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  Speaker 1: fuck knows? And he has he keeps kicking the deadlines back.
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  Speaker 1: But I do think that one of these days soon
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  Speaker 1: he's going to he's going to snap and say, no,
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  Speaker 1: we're going with tariffs.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, let's hope it's not. I mean, and
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  Speaker 6: it'll be interesting to see which country it is.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, we're all there are people that are negotiating
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  Speaker 6: in earnest.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 6: The EU is there. There is actually there is movement
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: happening behind the scenes. And if we're lucky. the sort
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: of net-net of all of this is that one of
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: those real, actual substantive negotiations comes through and he can
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: point to it as an example of his reset and
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: then move on and say, I'm not a taco. Like,
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: look what I did with the EU. You're welcome. Bye.
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: And that is where it ends. But who knows with him?
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  Speaker 6: I mean, look out, Myanmar. Like, you may get a
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  Speaker 6: 40% tariff in the middle of your civil war. I
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: just obviously find that particularly galling.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And by the way, one more drawback, too, to taco.
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  Speaker 1: I hate that I fucking keep saying this. But is
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that these countries, they don't really have an, like some
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of them haven't reached out to negotiate because they don't
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: have an incentive to do that because a lot of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: them don't believe him because he keeps backing up. So
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: even from his perspective, he's not going to get the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: deals he wants to get or have the leverage that
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  Speaker 1: he wants to have because a lot of these countries
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  Speaker 1: just aren't taking him or us seriously, which I completely understand.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, I think and also the taco narrative, I'm sorry,
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: we've just got to keep talking about it, got to
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: keep saying it, is being used liberally in this moment.
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  Speaker 6: But it is something to pay attention to because it
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  Speaker 6: is also a placeholder for so much of his attitude
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  Speaker 6: towards so many different things, right? Like this idea that
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: he'll say one thing, whether it's prosecuting political enemies or
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: whether it's, you know, financial trade matter, economic and trade matters.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: there is so much bluster, there's so much threatening behavior
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  Speaker 6: at all times because that's effectively the only strategy he
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: knows how to run. You know, I think this is
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: an interesting development in that because if that is taken
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: out of Trump's quiver, if he is, you know, if
• 12:56
  Speaker 6: that arrow is taken out of his quiver and it's,
• 12:59
  Speaker 6: you know, he's widely seen as, you know, if it
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: is an emperor has no clothes moment, it sort of
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: does beg the question of like, okay, well, what happens
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: next on a host of other you know, area in
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: a host of other areas where Trump's threats are his
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: only and essential negotiating tools. I don't know, but it
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: is in that way. I think it's more meaningful than
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: just the sort of like tariff Xeroxes that are being
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: circulated around the world.
• 13:32
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• 15:10
  Speaker 1: All right, lots of news this week on Stephen Miller's
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: quest to live out his teenage fantasy of deporting people
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: who don't look like him. He got some bad news
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: from a federal judge in New Hampshire on Thursday who
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump's decree that being born
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in America no longer makes you a citizen. You might
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: remember the Supreme Court recently limited lower court judges' ability
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to issue nationwide injunctions, but they did carve out an
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: exception for class action lawsuits, which is exactly what the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: ACLU did in this case, and it worked. Now we
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: wait to see what the Supreme Court says about the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: constitutionality of ending birthright citizenship and whether the Trump administration
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: will abide by their ruling, since they don't seem to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: think they really have to with some of these rulings.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: We got more evidence for that thanks to a new
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: whistleblower report from Erez Rouveni, a 15-year veteran of the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Department of Justice who defended some of the first Trump
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: administration's most controversial immigration decisions in court, including the travel ban.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: So not a lib, not a rhino. This guy was
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a DOJ career guy who defended the Trump administration in
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the first administration, a lot of their immigration stuff. But
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: he says that back in March... Top Trump personal lawyer
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: turned Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who's waiting to be
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appellate judgeship, said
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in a meeting that the Department of Justice, quote, would
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: need to consider telling the courts, fuck you, and defy
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a court order blocking Trump from using the Alien Enemies
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Act to send Venezuelans to the foreign gulag in El Salvador, SICOT.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Rouveni also claims that another Trump DOJ lawyer, Drew Enson,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: lied to a federal judge when asked whether he knew
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: if planes of migrants were about to take off for
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: El Salvador. Rouveni has texts, emails, and other documents to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: back up his claims. So Trump administration's obviously trying to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: discredit this guy. How well do you think that's going
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to go? And could Erez Rouveni be a problem for
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the White House?
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: First of all, this whistleblower report is just like, confirms
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: everything you imagine is happening in the DOJ, right? Like,
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: why don't we just submit an emoji of the middle
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: finger as our response to this filing? That's like literally
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: from the documents. It's like a bunch of guys sitting around.
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: I mean, these guys are saying it, I think, as
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: has been characterized as gallows humor, right? They're like, this
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: is so fucking depressing that we're saying fuck you to
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: the courts. But the general climate inside of the DOJ
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: appears to be one of complete impunity. Like, And sort
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: of like joking about the rule of law at the
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: Department of Justice. We should just never get past the
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: fundamental allegations in this whistleblowing report. But I mean, I
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: think it's a problem for Emil Bove and his confirmation
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: to be the feeder to the Supreme Court. As absurd
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: as it would be, I think Trump is genuinely thinking
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: about Emil Bove becoming a Supreme Court justice if he's
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: trying to put him on an appeals court seat. And
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: I think, you know, look, it's hard to say whether
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: or not it's going to be a problem for the
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: White House. I mean, I do think there is a
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: sense that in Magaland, you do whatever the president asks
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: of you, no matter what. And there, as I'm sure
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: we'll talk about, there's a real lust for deportations in
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: any form or fashion, extrajudicial or not. Like, And if
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: you're not falling in line with those deportations, no matter
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: what the circumstances, then you've got to get tossed out
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: on your ass. And whether this costs Trump anything with
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: his base, I think it probably doesn't. It should cost
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: him with the broader American public, but I don't know.
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: There are so many things that we deal with on
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: a daily basis. Does one whistleblower do it? I think legally, though,
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: it could be a problem for him. I think that
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: there is the court of law that will not look
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: kindly into these allegations. especially given the reality of these
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: deportations and how Trump is trying to break the law there.
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: So this is further fuel for that fire. And I
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: will say, John, it's an interesting thing, right? During Trump 1,
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: there was a feeling that Trump mistakenly hired these semi-principled
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: people who acted as guardrails and like, oh, in Trump 2,
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: it's like the worst of the worst. And The entire
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: system is populated by Neanderthals who will just do whatever
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: he says. And moments like this just offer a little
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: bit of hope that there are still people who don't
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: think of themselves as partisans, don't think of themselves as
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: gatekeepers for democracy or institutional atlases holding up the entire firmament,
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: but that still absolutely recognize, even though they may be
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: diehard kind of conservatives, that you can't do certain things.
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: And I don't, I think we should hold onto that,
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: that there are still people inside the system who can
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: understand right from wrong. And if they are, if, if,
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: if I think people who care about that can help
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: protect this person's integrity, assuming he deserves it, and this
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: is all true, then that hopefully will encourage more people
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: to do the right thing, even though they may be
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: subsumed in the, you know, the Trump swamp. I mean,
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: I found it really heartening that there's a whistleblower right
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: now who's saying like, this is fucking unacceptable. And Here
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: are all the text messages that prove the way in
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: which these guys knew that they were breaking the law
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: and flouting it and doing whatever they needed to do
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: to just get people that they don't like out of
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: the country.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's two ways it can be a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: problem for the Trump White House. One is Beauvais's confirmation, right?
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about Tom Tillis in a bit.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And he did an interview with Jake Tapper where he's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: suddenly courageous now that he's retiring. But he was asked
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: about Beauvais and he was like, yeah, yeah, I'll probably
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: confirm him. Now, this was before this all broke today.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So maybe Tillis' mind will be changed and maybe he
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: won't have enough votes. But Rouvenet said he would testify
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: before Congress, testify in court. So this guy's willing to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: do whatever. But I do think in some of these
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: legal cases, especially like, you know, the Supreme Court has
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: not yet decided the constitutionality of the Alien Enemies Act, right?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: And Trump using that in the first place. Like there
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: are still so many questions around deportations, even though it
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: seems like the Supreme Court has issued many rulings around
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the deportations now. There's still a lot of big questions
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that they haven't answered yet. And, you know, this guy, Rouvenet,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I should have said, the reason he got fired was
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: because he's the one who admitted in a court filing
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to a federal judge that they made a mistake in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: deporting Abrego Garcia, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to Seacott in the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: first place. So this guy was there for turn the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: planes around when they were going, and then he was
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: there for this was a mistake And, you know, he
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: gives this interview to the New York Times, and he's like, look,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the reason this is important is they sent 248 people
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to Seacott. And we have no idea where these people
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: are right now, whether they're alive, whether they've been tortured
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: like Abrego Garcia claims he was when he was there.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: There was no due process. And we now know from
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this whistleblower and from a bunch of other evidence that, A,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: they they knew that the judge and the courts didn't
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: want them to send these planes. They sent them anyway.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So they sent a bunch of people to a foreign
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: gulag in defiance of court orders, knowing that the court
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: didn't want it and saying, yeah, maybe we're just going
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to say, fuck you anyway. And then when they found
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: out that they mistakenly sent someone, they've just fired the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: guy who just told the truth about that. I mean,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: when you think about like, Being that person, right? Or
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: being Andre Ramirez, right? Or being any of the people
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: whose names we don't know, her and Seacott, who like,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: could they be Tren de Ragua? Yeah, some of them.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Could they be really bad people? Yeah, some of them.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But like, some of them seem like they're completely fucking innocent.
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: Well, and you put that, you put the whistleblower's account, right?
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: And his sense of alarm about what's happening to people
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: in this country together with the viral videos that now exist.
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: of people just being snatched to court or snatched in
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: parking lots and like in the most sort of violent,
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: terrifying fashion by masked ICE agents in unmarked cars. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: you think, I mean, that does not look like a
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: study in a well-oiled deportation machine. It looks like vigilante justice.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: It looks like dragnets. It looks insanely haphazard and maybe illegal.
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: And then you couple that with the alarm that's happening
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: inside the Department of Justice, where they're processing these deportations and,
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: you know, dealing with the courts and actually getting people
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: out of the country. You have someone saying, oh, this
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: is really wrong and we don't know what we're doing
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: and you shouldn't be doing that. I mean, that, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: think those two things collectively could create a problem for
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: the Trump administration because you have the combination of like
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: the American public bearing witness to what's happening in their
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: cities and towns across the country. And then this coming
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: from inside Washington, and it's not just a, local story.
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: It's not just a D.C. story. It's the two things together.
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: And I think that makes it more resonant.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And by the way, even if the Department of Justice
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: still has, you know, hundreds of Erez Ruvenees there who
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: are willing to speak up, the challenge now is ICE
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: is going to have a bigger budget than the FBI.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And it's going to be the biggest law enforcement agency
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: in the country. And the standards for training and recruiting
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: for ICE are much, much lower than the FBI agents
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: who spend, you know, weeks and weeks in Quantico and,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and have graduate degrees and go through all these, like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: it is, we're headed for a really dark place now.
• 25:00
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: I will just say, even with a bigger budget, I'll
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: say nothing of the, of the actual employees, but even
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: with a bigger budget, the fact of the matter is
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: you're not going to get 3000 trend to Agua gang
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: members every day. You're, you're going to always have to
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: grab people at Home Depot. You're going to always have
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: to find hotel workers and farm workers. I mean, You
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: cannot get the numbers that they have set out, Stephen
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: Miller has set out, without going after those people.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And legal residents.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: Exactly. And you're just going to, honestly, with more budget
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: and less trained people, you're probably going to have more
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: of these videos and more of these things happening and
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: more coverage of these violent sort of raids and seizures
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: of people who may be here with the right papers. So,
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think it's not good news for people
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: who are getting deported. But in terms of the story
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: really having legs and the situation becoming measurably, palpably worse
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: and therefore resonant and affecting to the American public, I
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: think it will be.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a DACA recipient in alligator alcatraz right now,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Miami Herald just reported today. So worst of the worst,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: but it's a DACA recipient who absolutely has a right
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to be here.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: And that's why Democrats need to champion the stories of
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: the people that are getting... snapped up in this stuff.
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's where the storytelling really matters because Trump
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: has painted everyone with a very broad brush. And until
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: you can say that person's name and where they went
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: to school or what their story is, I don't, I mean,
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: I think the sense of tragedy needs to be piercing
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: because right now I think it's just kind of a
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: more abstract horror at what's unfolding. But I think you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: there needs to be a little bit more personal investment
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: in like the trials of these people who are whose
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: lives are being upended by all of this.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Miller's immigration purge is running
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: into other problems, thanks to Trump's agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and prominent Trump supporters like Joe Rogan, who apparently had
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: dinner with the president last week. On last episode, we
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: played a clip of Rogan talking about how I thought
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it was supposed to be criminals. And now they're deporting
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: all these farm workers and the Home Depot raids and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: all that. And apparently he had dinner with Trump. And
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: basically what's happening is Rollins, the ag secretary and Rogan
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: types keep getting Trump to promise that he'll exempt undocumented
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: farm workers and perhaps hospitality workers from deportation. And then
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: after he makes that promise on Truth Social or says
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: he's going to do work permits or whatever else, people
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon get really pissed and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Trump changes his mind again. So do you think this
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: immigration split in Trump's coalition is meaningful at all? Or
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: do you think it will keep getting this back and forth?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Or do the Millers and Bannons just went out? I'm
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: interested in this.
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: I think that, I mean, look, I'm very interested in
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: the fracture that's forming within Trump's base. Like it can't,
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: the center can't really hold between you know, the sort of,
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: the big beautiful bill that is the largest, most significant
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: redistribution of wealth in a generation and pushes it upwards
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: at the expense of the poor and the working class,
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: many of whom are in Trump's base, to, you know,
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: the immigration stuff, which pits, you know, sort of wealthy
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: business owners against MAGA nativists who want to see, you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: who probably believe in many ways or in many corners
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: in great replacement theory, ideas about, you know, white supremacy
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: being encroached upon by brown people. I mean, these are
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: deeply held ideals and beliefs on either side of the
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: Trump coalition. And I, you know, I think it's a
• 28:41
  Speaker 6: real stress test. And on the immigration stuff, like the
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: tax stuff, he can just hope that because the worst
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: cuts don't happen until after the midterms that he can
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: sort of like blame the Democrats. Yeah. So maybe there's
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: a reprieve there in terms of being able to stitch
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: the coalition together on it for a little bit longer
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: than might otherwise be the case. But on the immigration stuff,
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: like we were just talking about, you cannot do what
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: the MAGA base wants, which is the excision of some
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: significant part of this country from the economy and from
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: the fabric of our democracy without going after the gardeners
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: and the Home Depot people and the hotel workers. The
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: math does not work. And I know math is not
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump's strong suit, John, as we discussed at the
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: top of the show. But I mean, the 3,000 deportations
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: a day figure is popular knowledge at this point, and
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: they seem very intent on managing it. One thing I
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: don't think you can do is keep teasing reproach and
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: then not delivering. That debt is going to get called
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: in at some point, and it's going to start to
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: affect actual industry. So I do think that this is
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: a real problem for him, and I have no idea
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: how he navigates it because he constantly talks out of
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: both sides of his mouth. And this is one of
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: those things where it's like, The rubber's literally meeting the road.
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: I mean, every passing day exacerbates the tension between, you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: business and MAGA. And there's no, there's literally, they're diametrically opposed.
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: And therefore, I don't know how you square that circle.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Well, and to your point about why, when we were
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: just talking about the deportations to, you know, Seacott and everything,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: making sure that we're telling these stories is going to
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: be important because of debt coming due, as you mentioned, right?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Like Joe Rogan has dinner with Donald Trump. Donald Trump says, oh, yeah,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: we're going to protect the farm workers. No problem. And
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: then Joe Rogan sees a video of a bunch of
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: farm workers getting rounded up and deported or hotel workers
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: or whoever. And what does he think he's going to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: do that? You think Joe Rogan is just going to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, well, I must have been mistaken. I'm
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: sure he was like, he's going to get criticism from
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who supported him. And, you know,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you're starting to see these cases we've already seen over
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the last several months where There'll be deportations and people
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: getting rounded up, people with legal status in like deep
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: red areas. Right. And in these like that woman who
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: was in that rural Missouri county who everyone is like, oh,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: she's been a part of our community for decades. And,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: you know, they finally released her. But I think it's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: starting to make even hardcore Trump supporters or at least
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: people who voted for him, you know, a couple of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: times think think like, hmm. I thought only the bad
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: ones were getting deported.
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: Right. Exactly. I mean, this is this. Yeah, that's the
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: thing is people know these people. And I think with
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: so much in Trump land, he can get away with
• 31:33
  Speaker 6: these generalities about the libs or whatever. But these touch
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: people in their backyards and at their diners and, you know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: like in their ordinary everyday American lives. And you can't
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: escape that reality.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: So the president has another problem with his mega base
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that's less consequential to the country. but possibly more consequential
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to his political standing, and certainly way more fun to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: talk about, the case of the missing Epstein files. So,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Tommy and I have been talking about this all week.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: I'm sure you have, yeah. I'm not surprised.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: But the fire just keeps burning, with the White House
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: now taking criticism from all corners of the MAGA coalition.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, Laura Loomer, Tom Fitton,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Megyn Kelly, Andrew Schultz. They're all pissed. Many of them
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: have called on Pam Bondi to resign. And then here's Tucker.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And I do think as someone who voted for the president,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: campaigned for the president a lot, I'm not attacking the president.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: But I think even people who are fully on board with,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the bulk of the MAGA agenda are like,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: this is this is too much.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 32:39
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that with love. And I hope that they're
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: listening because I think this threatens to blow up the
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: whole thing. But but let's just.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Do you agree with Tucker? Does
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: this threaten to.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: Blow up the whole thing?
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: Is that what it sounds like when Tucker says things
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: with love?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Like, I haven't... Yeah, right.
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: I didn't know what that intonation sounded like. Yeah.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: That was lust. First of all, this is not the
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: first time Tucker has said, I think this threatens to
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: blow up his entire presidency or the whole whole shit.
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: So let's just acknowledge that.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Proud to exaggeration, that one. I.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: As someone on the sidelines in all of this, I
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: will say I'm torn between thinking Democrats should absolutely... Chris
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: Van Hollen, I think, today is calling for an amendment
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: to an appropriations bill that asks for further investigation and
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: a report about Jeffrey Epstein.
• 33:30
  Speaker 9: Nice.
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: Part of me is like, ride that pony all the
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: way to the bank, Chris Van Hollen. Keep those home
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: fires burning. Maybe Pam Bondi needs to be ousted. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: The very, very capable Miss Bondi needs to actually feel
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: some consequences because it's such just desserts, right? Like ye
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: who have spent, you know, a significant portion of the
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: last several years spinning conspiracy theories, deluding the American public,
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: poisoning our democracy. Now you, Kash Patel, and you, Pam Bondi,
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: and you, Dan Bongino. Are in the hot seat. How
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: does it feel? What does it feel like to be
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: actually doing a thing and have everybody telling you you're
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: like doing the devil's work? Why don't you go visit
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: Comet Pizza and have a fucking slice?
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: So that's a Pizzagate reference to anybody who's not from Washington, D.C.
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: You know, like, why don't you give John Podesta a
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: call and like ask him some advice?
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: So, right.
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: So there's that piece of it. However. Like, this is
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: the trial. This is the Sophie's Choice for all Democrats
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: and liberals and people who give a shit about democracy.
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: So there's that schadenfreude piece of this, which is like, yes, okay,
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: keep digging. And then there's the reality that like so
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: many DOJ employees who were actually working on real criminal
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: concerns were taken off that work to work on the
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: Epstein stuff, which was a complete waste of resources and time.
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: In a moment, they're like real, you know, the DOJ
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: has legitimate work to do. setting aside whatever Trump wants
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: them to do. There's work that needs to be done
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: in those halls. And maybe now we can just shut
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: the door on the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory and we
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: can please all move along. If you are offered the
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: opportunity to lay to rest a nasty conspiracy that has
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: just fueled speculation and turned some people's lives upside down,
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: maybe we should take that opportunity. It's tough math though, John.
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: It's tough math.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is tough math. That's the theme of this episode.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: The schadenfreude is great, right? Like, screw these people. But
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the base, right? Like, what has led
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of people to join the MAGA movement, right,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: is not necessarily any one policy, though there's some of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that for some people. They like the deportation stuff. They
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: want to build the wall, all that. And obviously, it's
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: like a love for Trump. But some of it is they,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it's... We've split into new coalitions. We're the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: institutionalists and the Democratic Party and the Republicans got all
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the cranks, right? This is like Matt Iglesias, I think,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: coined the term a couple months ago. And so it's
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a crank coalition now, right? And that's why they got
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. and they got Tulsi Gabbard and they got
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: all these people and they believe in conspiracies and they
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: don't believe in any kind of authority or expertise or anything.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And so for those people who put these people into office,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: now to have these people who promised them that they
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: would uncover the worst conspiracies and that they would go
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: after the deep state and they would do all this stuff.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: To have that promise broken by Donald Trump himself, I
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: don't know if this is the thing that cracks the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: coalition or hurts Trump, but I think it opens the door.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is a bigger wound, or
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: at least it could become a bigger wound than I
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: thought at first, just because this is the stuff that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: really drives his base, unfortunately, for all of us.
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: Right. It's like bombing Iran, maybe getting us onto another
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: Middle Eastern war. That's bad. But like not finding out what,
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: you know, Prince Andrew was really doing. Like that is
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: the thing. That's the straw that broke the camel's back.
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: But you may be right. And I think probably collectively
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: the feeling that the Trump administration is betraying, you know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: the promises made to the base, whether it's, I mean,
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: they may not register it, the shredding of the social
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: safety net, whether it is getting the U.S. involved in
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: foreign wars or whether it is offering special dispensation to
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: the hotel industry and the agricultural industry, or whether it
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: is not delivering on one of the greatest conspiracies of
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: the 21st century, all of this can lead to a
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: mounting sense of betrayal. So maybe there is some wisdom
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: in Tucker Carlson's words of love.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Also, this can go on forever because there's only two
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: possibilities here. The most likely one, which is the list
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: They're telling the truth now, right? So the list doesn't exist.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: They're telling the truth. In which case, no matter what
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: they do, they can keep pushing. They're never going to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: get a list. They can fire Pam Bondi. But then
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the next attorney general, the primary litmus test for the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: next attorney general will be, can you produce the Epstein list,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: which they won't be able to because there's no list.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, I don't... Do you remember they like
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: had an influencer event at the White House where they
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: like they gave out binders with like already previously released like,
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: you know, Rolodex rolls or whatever it was from Jeffrey
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: Epstein's office. I mean, they're so desperate to find anything.
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: It shocks. It shocks me. They couldn't find a thing
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: to try and spin up like that. It must be
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: such an open and shut case that they couldn't even
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: find like. Well, we did find a packet of Splenda
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: in a cell that may or may not have been
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: Splenda or something, you know, just like anything. There was
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: literally nothing for them to hold on to in the report.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: It tells you something about the.
• 38:55
  Speaker 9: State of affairs.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Or the less likely possibility that there was something and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: now they're just going to cover it up forever.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: Well, then, you know.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Then Tucker and all of them were right. So who knows? Okay.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but a quick
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: announcement before we do that. Love It is going to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Canada for one night only. Love It or Leave It
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: is going to be in Montreal on July 24th for
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Just for Laughs with special guests Zach Zucker, Roy Wood Jr.,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and Gianmarco Seresi. Then it's back to Dynasty Typewriter in L.A.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: for the usual business. They've got a great lineup of
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: guests here, including Alice Wetterlin, Peppermint, Ken Jennings, Amy Schneider,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Kristen Johnson, Mary Beth Barone, and more. Grab tickets now
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: at cricket.com slash events. Pod Save America is brought to
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• 40:46
  Speaker 1: That's rocketmoney.com slash crooked rocketmoney.com slash crooked. Now, if you're
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: in the White House and you're dealing with all this,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: you'd obviously rather direct your supporters' attention elsewhere. And so
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: one thing you might do is let them know that
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you're launching new investigations into more deep state traitors. Sure enough,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Fox News broke the story this week, of course, Fox News,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that the administration is spinning up criminal investigations into former
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: CIA director John Brennan. and former FBI Director James Comey.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Current CIA Director John Ratcliffe apparently has referred Brennan to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the FBI for potential criminal prosecution, allegedly for his testimony
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to Congress related to the inclusion of the Steele dossier
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in the agency's 2016 intelligence assessment on Russian interference. Real
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: callback to season one of this drama we're still living.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe season two. Early seasons. Season one.
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: It was season one. I think we can call it
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: season one. I mean, I guess if they'd gone after Hillary,
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: that really would have been season one.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I was going back and forth. So
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: it's not clear exactly what they plan to hang on
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: James Comey, but the Times is reporting that plainclothes Secret
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Service officers tailed Comey's car and tracked the location of
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: his cell phone the day after he posted a photo
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: of seashells spelling out 8647 back in May, which Trump
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: World made a big show of treating as an incitement
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to a threat for assassination. The secret service visited Comey.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: That was another, that was, that was a more recent episode. Um,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Trump got asked about these potential investigations, uh, in that
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: meeting we talked about earlier with African leaders on Wednesday. Uh,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: let's listen.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I know nothing about it other than what I
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: read today, but I will tell you, I think they're
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: a very dishonest people. I think they're crooked as hell. And, uh,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: Maybe they have to pay a price for that. I
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people. So
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: whatever happens, happens.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Just absurd.
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: But what does he really think of them?
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, how real do you think these investigations will be? Like, clearly,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: and of course, I know and worked with John Brennan
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: when he was in the White House. And, you know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I saw him on Nicole Wallace's show and he gave
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: his first public comments there and he was like, you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: no one's reached out to me. He's like, I read
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: about it in the New York Times. I haven't gotten
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: called by the FBI. I haven't gotten visited by anyone.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what this is supposed to be about.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: This is clearly going to be a huge pain in
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the ass for Brennan and Comey if these investigations unfold.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's all or is it something worse?
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: I think this is So the mechanism by which this
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: is being executed is clownish, obviously, as so many other
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: things are. I don't think there's anything there. May I
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: call to mind the Durham report, which already went through
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: all of this, right? Like, we know how this story ends.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: The point is not the actual investigation. The point is
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: to reseed John Brennan and Jim Comey's names in the
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: American sort of conversation and get you know, MAGA world
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: fired up about them. It's a redirect from the Jeffrey
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: Epstein stuff. And that is a precarious place for any
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: public person to be, right? You do not want the
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: president of the United States to be talking about you,
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: especially using that language, right? I think they're very bad people.
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: I think they're as crooked as they get. Whatever happens, happens.
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: Like you talk about an incitement towards violence. That's what
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: it sounds like. It's not a bunch of seashells on
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: the beach. Although what the fuck was James Comey thinking?
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: Like what? Anyway, setting that aside- Like that kind of
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: language coming from Trump, who begs to know nothing about this,
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: which is hilarious because it's like, I mean, what is
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: the one thing you have is a bunch of stooges
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: in office doing exactly what you want. But the idea that,
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: you know, they're just terrible people and it would be
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: a shame if something happened to them is kind of
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: what I hear when I hear that. And that's, so
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: regardless of whether there's actually a Folsom investigation and whether
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: they subpoena him or whatever happens, it's the sense of vulnerability.
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: It's the sense of, I think, danger, imminent danger that
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: this puts them in. And I think the sort of
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: long tail of this is any public official, right? I mean,
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: it's already we're seeing purges at the DOJ. Already we
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: have whistleblowers, right? Anybody who stands up to Trump, whether
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: he's president or even in his post-presidency, you know, this
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: is the kind of thing that gives you pause, right? Like,
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: do I really want to do this? Because like, even
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: when I think it's over, even when season two has
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: passed and we're in season three, season four, we may
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: be even in season five. Like somehow Trump will go
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: back or Trump's allies will go back and when it
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: suits them and when it's politically expedient for them, they
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: will go back to it to stoke rage and animosity
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: for nothing but, I mean, for nothing. for a goal
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: no bigger than personal gain and political survival. So that's dangerous.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: And I think that is the thing that matters in this,
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: maybe more than the actual investigation itself.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, there's also a lot of space between
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: a nuisance and being worried that your life is being
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: threatened by this, right? Which is, they start an investigation
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and And about one thing and then they keep going
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and maybe they don't find anything, but they leak a
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: bunch of the investigation just to embarrass them, to publicly
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: shame them. So there's that that they have to worry about, too.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And once they investigate those two, then they start getting
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: statements from other people. And it's all becomes a thing
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: about like, do you entrap people with false statements and
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: all that kind of shit? And so it is a
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: it is a recipe for the kind of dangerous politicization of.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: of the justice department of our criminal justice system that,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think, you know, publicly, a lot
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of people are going to look about this and look
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: at this. And even people who are like Democrats be like, oh,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they didn't do anything wrong and it's fine,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: but whatever. But it's like, it's not going to stop
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: at James Comey and, and John Brennan at all. And
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: what it does is sends, it just sends a message
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to everyone, whether in the government or out of the
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: government that you cross these people and we're going to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: send FBI, DOJ after you. And within the FBI and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the DOJ, I'm sure they might have some problems finding
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: people who are going to do these investigations and take
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: these cases. But if you're those people, you're thinking to yourself, okay,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: do I say no and lose my job? Or do
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I go along with it?
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: Well, it's like, it's like Raveni. And like the idea
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: that there are good people in there who are like, well,
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: wait a second, are we just going to take a
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: middle finger to justice? And some people do.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: So Trump isn't just taking revenge on the deep state.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: He's attempting to purge most of the federal government of
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: anyone who's not completely loyal to him, with mixed results.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: This week, the Supreme Court greenlit Trump's plan to fire
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan, nonpolitical civil servants. Challenge for
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Trump is that there aren't enough Fox News hosts and
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: podcast hosts to staff an entire administration, though he is
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: certainly trying. Marco Rubio's got four jobs now. Todd Blanche
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: has a few. Stephen Miller's running just about everything. And now,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: former real world road rules change. and real-world Road Rules
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Challenge star. I wanted to make sure he gets credit
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: for all three of his reality shows that he's been in.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Sean Duffy. He's apparently going to run NASA, at least
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: for the time being, as well as the Department of Transportation,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: where he has had some trouble keeping all the planes
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: in the skies. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seems
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to be struggling to balance all her duties with her
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: press hits and photo ops. FEMA officials just told CNN
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: they had to wait days to get the funding necessary
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: to respond to the devastating Texas floods thanks to a
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: new rule that requires Nome's personal signature on any expenditure
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: over $ 100, 000. The official said that normally they'd pre-stage search
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and rescue teams to areas they know will flood. They
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: weren't able to do that this time. Nome didn't provide
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the approval for those assets until Monday, more than 72
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: hours after the flooding started. But she did find time
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: on Sunday to ask her Instagram followers which equestrian portrait
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: of her they'd like to see hanging in the South
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Dakota state capitol. So, you know. There is that.
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, who among us? Who among us hasn't gotten
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: just totally sidetracked from really urgent work matters? Trying to
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: figure out which equestrian portrait to hang.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Who among us doesn't have multiple equestrian photos to choose from?
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: A lot to choose from. I mean, it is, we
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: talk about Sophie's Choice, but I wish if only there
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: was a Department of Government Efficiency that could look at
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: this incredibly inefficient government setup that we have and figure
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: out a way to streamline it. It's not, I mean,
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: I say that, but it's like, can you imagine Being
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: the parent of one of these children and reading the story,
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: it is un-fucking-fathomable. First of all, $ 100, 000 for an organization
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: like FEMA is effectively asking your accountant to approve every
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: $ 5 expenditure you'd be spending all day on the phone
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: with your accountant. It totally hamstrings FEMA. And we haven't
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: seen the worst of this. We're going to have multiple...
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: natural disasters that we have to contend with, both because
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: it's hurricane and wildfire season, and we're burning the earth
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: up at an alarming rate. So this is one of
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: those things where you want to hear this charge being
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: led by people affected directly by these disasters, like asking questions.
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: This is where if I were in Kerrville or I
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: were in Texas, or just as an American citizen, there
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: have got to be answers about this, right? If there's
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: truly a delay, if Texas isn't getting the deployment of
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: federal resources that it needs, I think that there's more
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: reporting that like, they didn't have enough people to answer
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: the disaster call center because she hadn't approved extra federal
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: support for that. They needed more data for their search
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: and rescue operations, but they didn't have the cooperation of
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: the federal government. I don't know if an equestrian portrait
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: takes that long to decide upon, but this is someone
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: either who is in the most, I'll be the most
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: generous I can be, either so overwhelmed with work that
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: she cannot delegate in the way that she must, Or
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: who is just completely out to lunch and out of
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: her league in like the most urgent and pressing matters
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: of like human survival.
• 51:13
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: So none of it's excusable. And now we have. I'm sorry,
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: I just need to go back to like the road
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: rules champ running NASA. Like if you wrote it in a.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Screenplay, John. Because he's been doing such a good job
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: at transportation.
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: Well, road rules taught him so much about the road.
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: Why can't he apply that to zero gravity? I mean.
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: What is happening?
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Well, see, this is OK. Let's even if we lived
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: in a world, let's just live in an imaginary world
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: where all these people have the best intentions.
• 51:44
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: And they want to do right by the American people
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and they want to they want to serve the public
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: as they're supposed to do. When you hollow out government
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: and fire people who aren't loyalists and just, you know,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: send the Doge teams in and all the rest of
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: the bullshit that's happened since January, like this is what's
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: going to happen. You're just going to get rank incompetence.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: When you fill the administration with Fox News hosts at
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the cabinet level, people who've never done any of this
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: shit before, you're going to have these problems, even if
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: you had the best intentions, which, you know, we can,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I don't really have a lot of hope that they do. So,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of course, this is going to fucking happen. And of course,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: it's going to get worse. And, you know, there's two
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: big consequences to hollowing out the government and to the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: way that Trump has staffed the government. One, we just
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: talked about, which is you get loyalists who are going
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: to do your bidding and not do the bidding of
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the American people and go after people and take revenge
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: and just basically be your sort of personal patronage army
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: out there. And you're going to hollow a government and
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: not have enough good qualified people to just do the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: basic functions that need to be done in government. And
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the most basic function is protecting the American people and
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: helping them when natural disasters hit.
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: Well, and I would say it's exacerbated. Not only is
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: there the incompetence and the cravenness, there's also the stupidity
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: of making the job even harder by saying, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: passing rules like every expenditure over $ 100, 000 I have to
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: personally sign off on. I mean, this is making a
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: job that you are already unqualified for that much harder.
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: And it's not just like sort of, sitting on the
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: sidelines and cackling as these people, you know, are incapable
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: of doing their jobs, there is a very real human
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: consequence here. And that's what makes it so unacceptable. But
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: I mean, again, this is a thing where it's like,
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: you have to keep, I mean, the people, the questions
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: need to be, I mean, what really truly needs to happen.
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: And this is the sort of will, I'm always asking myself,
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: is this a catalytic moment? Is this a moment where
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: you really see citizen outrage on the level where you
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: need to see it and from the people you need
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: to see it from. These are people who are losing
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: family members or their entire, you know, their life in
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: these catastrophic floods. Like, will they ask the questions? Will
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: they hold these people accountable? Because this will keep happening.
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, this is not a one-off, right? It's only
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: going to get worse.
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And we're only at the beginning of hurricane season, you know,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: even just this year. So one person with both the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: courage to speak out about this and the power to
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: do something about it was retiring North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: who this week explained to Jake Tapper why he did
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: neither of those things on two big administration nominations just
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: this year. Here's a sampling.
• 54:32
  Speaker 9: Well, you know, first, I need to set the record
• 54:35
  Speaker 9: straight on Hegseth. With the passing of time, I think
• 54:37
  Speaker 9: it's clear he's out of his depth as a manager
• 54:39
  Speaker 9: of a large, complex organization. Based on the information I
• 54:42
  Speaker 9: have today, if all I had was the information on
• 54:45
  Speaker 9: the day of the vote, I'd certainly vote for him again.
• 54:47
  Speaker 9: But now I have the information of him being a manager,
• 54:51
  Speaker 9: and I don't think that his probationary period has been
• 54:54
  Speaker 9: very positive. Quite honestly, the main reason I support it...
• 55:00
  Speaker 9: Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see
• 55:04
  Speaker 9: how it plays out.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Just... Okay. It makes me so mad.
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: With the passing of time? With the passing... First of all,
• 55:16
  Speaker 6: I had the information. We all had the information. We
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: all had the information that he couldn't run a non-profit.
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: Why did we think that he would be able to
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: run the Pentagon? Nobody thought he could run the organization.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: And You know, the.
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: Idea that these Republicans can actually say the truth only
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: when they're no longer running for office, there is a
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: special place in, you know, the underworld for people who
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: know better, I think, in all of this, right? It
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: is one thing if you've been fed a steady diet
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: of misinformation and you've grown up in the far, you know, stretches,
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: the farthest right corner of the universe and you really
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: genuinely don't know better, which is, you know, a strange
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: and unfortunate place to live. But Tom Tillis knows better.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: Tom Tillis knew better. And the fact that he can
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: only find moral fortitude or a backbone or, you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: some part of his frontal lobe once he's decided not
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: to run, I think makes the admission and the, you know, the...
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: It's not even a mea culpa. It makes it even worse. Like,
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: on some level, it might have been better if he
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: had just shut up and not said this, because I
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: find it utterly enraging.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: And... What's even worse is we know from a lot
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: of reporting that during the Hegseth nomination, MAGA folks like
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: leaned on Tillis, threatened Tillis. He felt threatened for offering
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: some mild criticism and maybe suggesting that he wasn't going
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to vote for him. So we already know that story.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: And like the idea that Tom Tillis wouldn't just be like,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: you know, he could have had a moment where you're like, yeah, no,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I was I was threatened. And these people are crazy.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: And now I'm retiring to get away from this. Like
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: he could have just said that. And not have to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: pretend that it's all the information I had at the time.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Or like, RFK Jr., Bill Cassidy made me do it.
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: Blame Bill Cassidy. Just like that t-shirt with an arrow.
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: But also, the passage of time. It's like, bro, there's
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: been no passage of time. It's like yesterday that these
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: guys were confirmed. What are you talking about? Nice try.
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: We're still living in this time-space continuum. We all had
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: the information. Don't even try it. To try and pretend
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: that he's come to a realization... After the passage of time,
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: given more information, if he'd known then what he knows now,
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: I mean, give me a break. It is.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: It's just so, and he's like, just watching him and
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: he's like, you know, he's got a pep in his
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: step now and he's feeling better. And, you know, everyone
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: should watch the rest of the interview with Tapper. And,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: you know, he does say like plenty of critical things
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: about the Trump White House, which makes you realize that. Like,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: where were you when you were when you thought you
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: might be running for reelection? And how many other Republican
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: senators are thinking the same thing and just doing this
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: bullshit anyway, still in year 10 of this?
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: This is why I feel like there really is a
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: special place in the underworld for people who know better
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: and continue on and just say it's because it's just
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: a revelation that it's it's just power. And once power
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: is the pursuit of power over literally everything else, including
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: our democracy. And once you relinquish that fight for power
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: or the fight to hold on for power, you can
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: actually be a person with integrity. I mean, that's just,
• 58:20
  Speaker 6: you've ceded your integrity once you've made that bargain.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what Democrats are doing and not doing.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: It's been a week since Trump signed his economic plan
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: into law. And according to a new report from Lauren
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Egan at the Bulwark, some Democratic electeds are getting cold
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: feet about going on offense because the popular parts of
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Of the bill, like the thousand dollar investment accounts for
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: newborns and no tax on tips on overtime or overtime,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: they go into effect right away. And of course, the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Medicaid cuts or at least most of the Medicaid cuts
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: and most of the snap cuts don't kick in until
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: later in the piece. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says she's
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: worried about voters concluding that Democrats are just crying wolf again.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think of of that?
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: I worry. I do worry. I mean, I think the
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: fact that the Medicaid cuts are delayed until after the 25th.
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: 2026 midterms and that there are going to be other
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: sweeteners that kick in before then, the American public has
• 59:15
  Speaker 6: the attention span of a fruit fly. I mean, I
• 59:18
  Speaker 6: will never forget, John, and we talked about this. I
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: think I had you as a guest on my MSNBC
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: show when I went to Michigan and talk to like
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: 25 year old union workers who are working on projects
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: that were funded by the Inflation Reduction Act that were
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: literally being put to work by something Joe Biden and
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: the Democrats passed and they both did not give Biden
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: credit for that and were much more interested in Donald Trump.
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: So just because something in Washington seems like it should
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: either benefit or harm one group of people doesn't necessarily
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: mean that the fallout will fall along the logical lines.
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: And I think it's entirely possible that this is one
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: of those things, in part because it's massive. It was
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: passed in the dead of night. People are going to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: hold on to different parts of it. And like you said,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: people won't feel necessarily the worst effects of it for
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: a little while. And so I do think it's incumbent
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: on Democrats. I mean, listen, I think the party needs
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: to be more proactive generally, right? It's so much of
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: a responsive, back-footed stance. And there needs to be so...
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, I get it. Like, it's hard. They're not
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: the governing majority. Trump every day is setting something on fire.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: But the party needs to coalesce and figure out its
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: priorities and then get aggressive because just simply being a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: receptacle for Trump dissatisfaction or outrage is not going to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: be enough in the next two years or the next four.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, it may be enough in the midterms, but...
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I also think, of course, Democrats should put together a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: proactive vision for what they want to get done. Now,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I think there's a challenge, which is you want to
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: put together a forward-looking agenda and something that will actually
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: inspire people to vote for you, not just that you're
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: not Donald Trump or not Republicans. But Democrats also can't promise,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: at least in advance of the midterms, that that agenda...
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: has any chance of being enacted if you vote for
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: a Democratic Congress?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: Okay, first of all, I'll just say, I think the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: House is one thing, the Senate's another. And I know
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: Democrats have designs on the Senate because of the passage
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: of the one big, beautiful bill. And I do think
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: that that's where, you know, that's where I think everything
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: should be handled. Like, a healthy amount of skepticism should
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: attend any predictions that some of these harder seats are
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: going to be easier wins because of this bill, right?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: I do think... the American public is largely smart enough
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: to know that the Democrats can't pass anything until they
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: are given power. But I do think there needs to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: be some kind of statement of principles because it does
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: feel a bit rudderless. And it is hard because the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: Democratic Party really is, as my colleague and friend Nicole
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: Wallace always says, it's the pro-democracy coalition, right? It's a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: massive tent. And figuring out how to sift through the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: remains of the election and even what's happening in the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: Trump administration, what to prioritize is going to be really difficult.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: But it is okay to be quiet now and circle wagons.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: But I do think there needs to be something that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: is not about Trump, but it is about the Democratic
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: Party and what the party stands for and is a
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: statement of priorities.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Because I don't see it like that. And around affordability.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: And I think partly because we also have to be
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: honest about how people feel and what has gone into effect, right?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Like we can't, The worry about the Medicaid cuts not
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: hitting until after the midterms, that is real and that
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: is valid. And what we can't do is go out
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: there and just pretend that they've happened when they haven't happened,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: which you could see. But also, as we know, whether
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: you're a Democratic or Republican president or Democratic and Republican Congress,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: people hold you responsible for how they're feeling in their
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: own lives. And if prices have not come down, if
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the trade war kicks up again, If interest rates are
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: still high, which clearly Trump knows, which is why he's
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: like threatening to fire Jerome Powell every day. If the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: lived experience of most voters by the time we get
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to next November is not great or has not improved,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: then the worry about specific provisions of the bill and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: when they take effect, I think will fade into the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: background a little bit. But that's still your point remains,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: which is Democrats should be fighting that not just by
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: saying we're not that, but like, yeah, one, you know,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: if you put us into power in 26 and then
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: In 28, if we win, this is the agenda that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: we want to pass. This is what we want to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: do for people. I think that is critical.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: And I think even immigration, that could be a more
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: resonant issue given the draconian approach Trump has taken. But
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: it's not just about saying this is wrong and telling
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 6: the stories. That's the first piece of it. The second is,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: what are you going to do?
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: What's the plan? Well, as you said, the party has
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a number of different efforts to find a pathway out
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: of the wilderness here. The latest is from a band
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: of about 30 Democratic officials that launched this week. It's
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: called Majority Democrats, which the New York Times describes as, quote,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: a number of prominent younger Democrats with records of winning
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: tough races who have, quote, big ambitions to remake their
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: party's image, recruit a new wave of candidates, and challenge
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: political orthodoxies they say are holding the party back. Some
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: of the names involved, Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Sherrill, Ruben Gallego,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Alyssa Slotkin, So some of the big names in the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, up and coming big names in the Democratic Party,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: they say there's no ideological litmus test and they don't
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: have a policy agenda just yet. But several Democrats involved
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: told the Times they're focused on issues around, quote, affordability, safety,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: challenging the power of big tech. What do you think?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Good idea? Bad idea? Need more info?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not going to dismiss anything. First of all,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: I think this should be a moment of like, like
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: policy rumspringa. You know what I mean? I feel like
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 6: everybody should be like, going for it. And I think
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 6: if there's one thing Democrats should learn from the example
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: of the Trump administration and MAGA world is be not afraid,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: like go out there. Like it is one thing. I mean,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: it is the one thing I'll give them is like,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: there is a boldness with which she has acted. And
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: I do think the American public wants, they want forward movement.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: And I think, you know, Democrats should obviously need to
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: think about electability. They need to think about what's going
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: to win. But I think this is the moment when
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: there should be, you know, a lot of spitballing. And
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: if this group filled with winners can create an environment
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: where people can talk really strategically, but also with frankness
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: and looseness and like come up with ideas, I'm all
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: for it. I think my concern is like, I don't
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 6: just want it to be about what wins because I
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 6: think that there's a... I mean, it's obviously a hugely
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 6: important piece of this, but there needs to be... This
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: is the petri dish part of the science experiment, and
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: there needs to be a sense of... I mean, as
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: dark as these times are, it is a moment where
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: so much is possible. There are a lot of ideas
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: that could fly. We exist in a climate where the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: unthinkable is happening, and that is... largely being interpreted in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: the sort of negative. But I also think the old
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: ways are outmoded in a lot of respects. And therefore,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: that's huge opportunity. And Democrats should try and capture some
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: of that possibility and to the extent that they can
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 6: be joyful and creative about what the solutions are. And
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: the party really needs to recapture that because there's so
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: much sorrow and sadness and a lot of it is well-placed.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: But now is the time to experiment and to be big.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: And so if there's a bunch of new people coming
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: up with a lunchtime sandwich conclave to talk about what
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: has to happen, go for it. Do it. Go forth
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: and truly prosper. Because without that excitement of new ideas
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: and new strategies... I don't know what happens in 2028.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: But like the one thing about MAGA, the one thing
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: about Trump, you go to those rallies, you hear him speak,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: there is a passion and a verve and an excitement
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: and a feeling of like kinetic energy. And I largely
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: find it, much of it morally abominable, but that is
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: something that like the left needs to find. So I
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: guess that's my feeling about it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, Donald Trump, promised, has been promising since
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: 2015 to burn it all down. And in this term,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: he is doing his very best to burn it all down.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: And whatever remains is not going to be much. And
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: the silver lining there is we can think about how
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: to rebuild from scratch this country and this government that
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is doing his best to destroy. And I
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: do think that can push us to think outside the box.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think voters vote for people based on like
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: a checklist of policies. But I do think one thing
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: that's similar to Donald Trump's elections and even, you know,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: just for a more recent example, Zoran Mondani's election is
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: there were policy ideas, but they were policy ideas that
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: are sort of easy to latch onto. They grab your attention.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: They stick in the mind, right? Like, oh, you know
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that Zoran is for freezing the rent, right? You know it.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Free city buses just broke through. And Donald Trump is
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: for building the wall. You just knew that. And you
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: need these policy ideas that are big, bold, but also
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: easily accessible, stick with people, go directly to what their
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: concerns and hopes are, which has been around affordability for
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of decades now, but certainly over the last
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: couple of years when inflation hit. So, you know, I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: think that figuring those policies out and making, and then
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: like you said, they gotta be good. We have some
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: fresh ones too, right? Like, I mean, we, we always
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: joke about this, but like we've been, I've been in
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: democratic politics for 20 years and we laugh.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: Oh my God. But you're only 22.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: But we laugh about how many times, like, you know,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Democratic politicians are out there being like, I'm going to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: give tax breaks to companies that create jobs here in
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: America and stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: jobs overseas. Like, it's the same shit that has polled
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: well for 20 years. And pollsters will tell you it
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: polls well. But it's like, you can't, you need to
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: break through and you need to grab people's attention. So
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: big and bold, yes, but also new. And I do
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: think that, yeah. And not too many, but just a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: couple that really grab people.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: Be free.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 6: Think of it as ideas Woodstock. I mean, I know
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: it's hard, right? But it is a remarkable moment in
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: American politics for a party to fully, not reinvent itself,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: but be wholly responsive to this kind of moment of
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: uncertainty and look at it as a moment of opportunity.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: I know that sounds Pollyannish or overwrought or whatever, but
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: I do think capturing some sense of opportunity and ambition
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: in this moment is essential.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: One last thing I got here on my list. I
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: need to get your thoughts on Nazi Grok.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: Speaking of uncertainty and ambition.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: That's how we're going to end. You know, last Friday,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk announced that Grok had been improved and was
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: better than ever. So people started testing that proposition and
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: in response to various questions, admittedly leading, Grok did the following,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: praised Hitler, went on an insane rant against people with
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Jewish last names, vividly described a theoretical sexual encounter with
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: Twitter CEO Linda Iaccarino, who stepped down on Thursday. Then overnight,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: just last night, we're recording this on a Thursday, Elon
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: said that the new version, the new new version has
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: been released. And this one you're going to be able
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: to have in your Tesla. So I don't know if
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: you'll be driving around in your Tesla And hearing Hitler
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: praise or what, but this is what's happening. It's all
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: happening on X, the everything app.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's just perfect. It's exactly what we should expect.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: I got an email at one point a long time ago.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: I was thinking of buying a Tesla, and I somehow
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: got on their mailing list, and it was this long email.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: kind of like a mission statement about Tesla's commitment to
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: the environment. And I very quickly, I almost wrote back, like,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 6: how dare you? Like, go fuck yourself. Like, you have
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: betrayed the fundamental principles of all the things that are
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: good about environmentalism. And that, I mean, just how dare
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: you try to do this right now? I think it
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: was on Grok Nazi Day that this went on. So,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: so like this both tells me that we're doomed.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: I just, right.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: Like this is, this is also like an AI, this
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: is an AI discussion as much as it is, as
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: it is, um, an X discussion. I left Twitter like
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: a long time ago cause I, I just couldn't keep up.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: And then I had every excuse in the world because it's,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: you know, a toxic swamp. But, um, but you know,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: I guess this, the theme of this episode is like you,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: you get what you pay for. Like this is, this
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: is a person who has, you know, took X over
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: to allow the flourishing of like hate speech, hate speech
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 6: and misinformation. And I mean, are we surprised that this
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: is the thing that he built? Um, I, I, I
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 6: honestly read about this and I was like, I don't,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 6: I don't, I, by the way, Linda Yaccarino insists that
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: her like leaving the company had nothing to do with.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Which may, which, you know, Entirely coincidental.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: Entirely coincidental. How many of us have had lewd AI
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: Nazi bots explaining sexual fantasies about us? That's a Tuesday.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 6: That's a Tuesday.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: I do think it probably, for me at least, it's
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: definitely more of an AI story and also the limits
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of what artificial intelligence is going to be able to do,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the dangers of what it could do, but the limits
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: of what it can do at least in relation to
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: what people in Silicon Valley like Elon Musk, like Peter Thiel,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: like all these other assholes think that it can do,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: which is we're going to create something so intelligent that
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: it's going to be able to solve all the problems
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: that these messy humans have not been able to solve.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: And especially these idiots in government, right? Because, but we
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: are going to create the super intelligence, but it's like
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: the intelligence is based on all the rest of the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: shit that's out there in the world that That is
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: put into the world by humans, including some very awful
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: humans who said the kind of things on X that
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Grok has been trained on. And so at the very best,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: you're always going to get an amalgamation or artificial intelligence
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: is always going to be an amalgamation of like everyone
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: else's intelligence of us.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: For all for ill and for. Mostly ill.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: Well, we're pretty ill right now.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: If we think we're going to have these systems, these
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: AI systems that we're supposed to trust to give us
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: factual information and the truth and we already have a
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: crisis in trust in this country that has led us
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: here and this shit's going to happen? I don't know.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, and I do worry there's like a
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: whole subset of people for whom it's like, well, finally,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: validation and vindication about, you know, my like great race theory,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: Grok AI proving the case. You know, I mean, that
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: is the other dark side of this is there's a
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: whole bunch of people who are like, why'd you have
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: to change the algorithm? Seemed fine to me.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: I just, I mean, it's like you eat poison, you
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: get poison. And that's kind of where we're at. Little Grok.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: Little Grok is just feeding on the shit of the
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: 21st century. And so it goes. That is for a
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 6: man who... like loves shoveling shit. So here we are.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: Well, that is a perfect place to end.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: Cool.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Alex, Alex Wagner, thank you so much for, uh, for
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: joining positive America for coming on.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: Thank you for going on vacation, Dan.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: The big pile of shit that we had to, uh,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: that we had to wade through today. That was fun.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: It was fun to do it with you.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: No one I'd rather be swamped in fecal matter with.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much, John. Thank you so much.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 8: Pod Save America is brought to you by Quince. I'm
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• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Joining us today is Ana Ramon, executive director of the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: Texas Leadership Pipeline and Annie's List, two organizations that recruit,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: train and help elect Democrats up and down the ballot
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: in Texas. Ana and Texas Leadership Pipeline recently partnered with
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America as part of our effort to help
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: our audience, people just like you, run for office in Texas,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Arizona and North Carolina. We wanted to have her on
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about that effort. what it'll
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: take to turn Texas blue, and why you shouldn't be
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: afraid to take the plunge and run for office in
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: your community. Ana, welcome to the pod.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: So first and foremost, can you tell us a little
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: bit about the work that you do with Texas Leadership Pipeline?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: A lot of it is the quiet behind the scenes,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 7: sneaking around, you know, classic Texas politics activities. We want
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 7: to find the next generation County Commissioner of Hood County.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 7: We want to find the next County Commissioner of Nueces County.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 7: We want to dig deep. And what that takes is
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 7: that qualitative and quantitative approach to building what we term
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 7: a groundswell of candidates coming from the top, not only
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 7: the top four counties, but what is the top 10,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: the top 25 counties. As you mentioned, turning Texas blue
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 7: will take people pushing up as much as it takes
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 7: people pushing down. So it's having those one-on-one conversations with candidates.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: It's helping candidates understand how much it really takes to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 7: get from signing your name up and putting your $ 25
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 7: down to raising, if you're running for state house, like $ 1. 2
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 7: million to take out a Republican candidate, right? So it's
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 7: all that in between. And what's really exciting is getting
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 7: to meet the people along the way and really testing
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 7: the map in Texas across what I would deem six
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 7: states in one state.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You guys have races all up and down the ballot,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to recruit candidates for races all up
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: and down the ballot. And I realize there's a lot
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: of uncontested races. And by uncontested, I mean there's a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: Republican and there's not even a Democrat running. And can
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: you give us an idea, at least in Texas, like
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: what is the scope of races that go uncontested? Why
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: aren't they contested? And like, are they unwinnable or are
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: they just races that we might be able to win
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: if we could just find candidates to run?
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 7: Well, I'm sure these fun facts have been shared on
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: the pod before.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: We have 254 counties running.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: We have thousands of school board races. We have thousands
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 7: of city council races, countless commissioner races. And what it
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 7: takes is both that really the people power and investing
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 7: in individuals, but it also takes resources to really think
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 7: about what does a six region, six state approach look.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: Like in Texas?
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 7: When I talk to national entities and organizations, I ask them, like,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 7: when you look at Texas, do you think about us
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 7: in a Virginia to the Carolinas kind of aspect. And
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 7: we need the kind of people who are willing to
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 7: run almost in multi-states to really get that same ROI.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 7: You know, we're looking at who knows how much opportunity
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 7: and that's what we see in the people who are
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 7: in Texas. So it takes what we see as more
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 7: of that people power and having essentially like strong conduits
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 7: and platforms like yourself teaming up with us to really
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 7: reach an audience that we wouldn't normally get a chance
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 7: to talk to. We have to democratize the very undemocratic
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 7: process of running in.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: Campaigns, right? I'm sure you know this better than I do.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 7: Like we live in a world where barriers exist to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 7: raising money, to actually understanding what makes sense for you
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 7: to run for, to even like, what does it mean
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 7: to run for office? Like there are barriers along the way.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 7: What data does it take to get there? So what
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 7: we're trying to do is that wide net of catching
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 7: people who are that untraditional candidate. We have to find
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 7: those individuals, those untraditional, non-traditional candidates. It's what's going to
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 7: get us people who can outperform top of ticket, who
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 7: understand their district, understand their community. And I would almost
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 7: argue most importantly, understand themselves to really go against the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 7: barriers that are erected in Texas. We always joke about
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 7: being Texas tough. I'm like, maybe more like Texas punched
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 7: in the teeth, like to run for office, like it's
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 7: a tough role. And you need people who are willing
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 7: to not be afraid of the far right pushback, not
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 7: be afraid of even personal and individual attacks, right? Even
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 7: like physical attacks and what that can mean. So what
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 7: that looks like is really doing that large catch. At
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 7: this point, we've been able to identify about 35,000 people
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 7: outside of the major cores that want to run for
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 7: office in Texas. But we also have, of course, the
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 7: quantitative piece and the qualitative piece is the individuals. We
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 7: have three full-time scouts who are on the ground year
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 7: round talking to people at running office, creating warming events
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 7: where we get people in the room and last but
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 7: not least, even knocking on doors and dragging them to
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 7: go sign up to run because that's what it takes
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 7: to get someone to run in Oyster Creek, Texas, right?
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 7: So there's a lot in between that, but ultimately having, again,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 7: these kinds of partnerships and relationships with folks like Vote
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 7: Save America, you guys are able to talk to a
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 7: whole group of people who we.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: Just don't have access to.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 7: As much as I like to think, like when I
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 7: tweet out, I get 1.9 million Listeners, that's just not
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 7: the case. But it could be folks like at home
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 7: who are listening to this right now, who is, you know,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 7: a mom having margarita or like a dad who just
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 7: got home off of work. Like we need those individuals
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 7: who understand who they are in their community to really
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 7: take on the apparatus, which is the far right and
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 7: the effort to control not only the soul of Texas,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 7: but the soul of our union.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: So I am sure that for a lot of people listening,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: listening who might live in Texas, know people who live
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: in Texas, who've never thought about running for office, or
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: maybe who've thought about it, but sort of shied away
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: from it, a couple barriers may be like, one, I
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: don't know if I have the right background. I don't
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: know if I have the right skills for this. You know,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not well known enough. What if I can't raise money?
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Do I really is, you know, I'm just kind of scared, like,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: you know, some of the threats that you talked about,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: but also just scared of like, even if we didn't
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: live in this awful political environment, just putting yourself out there.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that you guys and
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: your recruiters talk to people about who are, maybe who've
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: thought about running for office, but either decided against it
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: or just sort of on the fence?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: I have to be brutally honest with people, right?
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 7: Brutally honest about how much it'll take the raise, especially
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 7: on the type of election in Texas and the realities
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 7: of our state, of course. But I also talk about
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 7: their why. I think that's such a critical point because
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 7: if you do not understand intrinsically why you want to
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 7: do it, you are more prone to getting torn and
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 7: quartered in this space. But like, for example, I'll give
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 7: an example. I recruited a candidate out of the Las
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 7: Palapas on Broadway, shout out San Antonio, over a margarita.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 7: And she knew after seeing the healthcare system, seeing what
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 7: happened to her family and everything, what it would mean
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 7: for her to run. And the next day she found
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 7: it within herself to raise over months, eight to $ 700, 000
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 7: to run for a race. And granted, that's not the typical,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 7: the norm, but it's just awakening sometimes that intrinsic thought
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 7: that truly people who come from less can achieve more
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 7: and people who have done less have run for more.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 7: Like those are barriers truly, but you can be the
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 7: more in your community.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: That takes us because I can say this from personal experience.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 7: I've done five as a kind of six and a
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 7: half legislative sessions and multiple cycles in the, in both
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 7: the house and the Texas Senate, the right person in
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 7: the wrong room or the, the right person in the
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 7: wrong room can make an incredible difference. So to your point, yes,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 7: there are barriers, but understanding your why, understanding the realities
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 7: of running, not running away from those realities, and then
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 7: partnering with folks, like, which was really exciting, like with
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 7: Annie's List, but also, you know, Latino Victory Fund, you know,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 7: Run for Something, entities that can help you get to
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 7: that next point and tracks that we can put you on.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 7: It's not so daunting when you realize you're not alone running, right?
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 7: That actually gets me through a lot of the work
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 7: in our own state in Texas.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: So if someone listening comes to the Texas Leadership Pipeline,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: what kind of support do you offer?
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 7: We will have hands-on experience because we know, especially in
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 7: the beginning, you have to understand at least the bare
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 7: bones and the structure of what it means to run
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 7: for office. So Running 101, Story of Self 101, Finance 101,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 7: Field 101, and having that personal touch with our scouts
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 7: who are doing this year-round work under not only our
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 7: Texas Leadership Pipeline umbrella, but we are the affiliate for
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 7: the National Pipeline Fund. So we actually do also have
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 7: not only our resources, but resources that we're able to
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 7: share and push people into other tracks and opportunities, if
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 7: it makes sense. Like, for example, we did a training
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 7: with Latino Victory Fund and we connected them with like
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 7: a broader umbrella of organizations that could help if you're
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 7: a Latino running for office. The same thing, we're working
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 7: on something that's LGBTQ focused. We're working on tracks of like,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 7: what does it mean to be a pro-immigrant candidate in Texas?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 7: So there's innovative ways that, of course, we have more
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 7: of that one-on-one connection through our larger pipeline in our entity,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 7: but we also have our larger network of organizations that
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 7: we want to make sure we're connecting people to so
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 7: they can find their track and their people when they're
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 7: running for office.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: So I'll ask my political hack question, which is a
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: big cycle coming up in Texas. We've got a Senate
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: race that's on the map. Greg Abbott just announced that
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to push for redistricting ahead of
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the midterms. to try to squeeze out a few more
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: gerrymandered seats for Republicans in Texas. Obviously, you guys are
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: dealing with tragedy right now with the floods. Texas over
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: the last couple cycles has gone back and forth from,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: you know, coming really close to flipping blue to then,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: you know, some of the folks along the Rio Grande Valley,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: you know, voting for Trump. And so what does it
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: look like on the ground right now? What are you
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: hearing and seeing? And what hopes do you have for 2026?
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 7: What I'm seeing is, which is, well, one, to talk
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 7: about redistricting, this is a very much like a Bobby Hill,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 7: that's not my purse moment. Like, that's not your purse,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 7: Greg Abbott.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: Like, Jesus Christ. Like, what are we doing?
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 6: Well, I know what we're doing.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 7: We're trying to steal races from black and brown Congress
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 7: people and constituents. But that's besides that point. What I
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 7: am seeing is, though, people who are unwilling to give up.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 7: And I think we have been having actually multiple conversations
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 7: about this today. I, you know, even myself in a
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 7: staff position and capacity, I've had to respond to one
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 7: too many, one too many crises, one too many natural disasters.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 7: But I tell myself, all we have to lose.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: Is more lives.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 7: So there is something that pushes us. We have so
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 7: much at stake. And working in Texas is, of course,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 7: turning Texas blue is critical. It changes the union, it
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 7: changes the world, but it also changes lives that I
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 7: get to see.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: Every day, right?
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 7: Working along and being in community with our brothers and
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 7: sisters in the Valley or what's happening not only in Kerrville,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 7: but in surrounding counties, right? Those mass disasters don't have
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 7: to be making us strong again. Like they could instead
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 7: not happen because they're preventable. And some of the things
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 7: that we're seeing on the ground, like we're having communications
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 7: and conversations with folks who are wanting to talk about
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 7: being a candidate around natural disasters and like environmental justice,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 7: the cancer corridor. We are mapping around and looking at
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 7: candidates who are surrounding ICE detention facilities or ISCs that
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 7: work with ICE. Like There are ways to push back
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 7: because you have community members who are impacted by this
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 7: daily and they know what it means if it can
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 7: and it doesn't have to, but if it continues. So
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 7: I am sensing that people are ready to fight and
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 7: they're very much interested in what a Texas could look
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 7: like that really reflects the home that I love. And
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 7: that's not reflected in the Greg Abbott or the Dan
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 7: Patrick or the, you know, whatever Paxton is right now,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 7: like in my lifetime. But I also think that you
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 7: have this window, in my opinion, coming up in Texas.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 7: And I say this, like I will never sell the
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 7: Texas dream, but I will sell the Texas program. We
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 7: can move Texas in those 10 counties, but we have
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 7: to invest in that leadership year round, right? Having those
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 7: year round conversations, having year round training, having year round
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 7: platforms where we can continue to talk to people because
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 7: whoever is going to win this state may not even
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 7: be in electoral politics right now. And we got to
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 7: get them that hand up because I wholeheartedly believe in
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 7: my lifetime because I'm, I'm 36 and I have to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 7: believe this because there's, there's little left in Texas, but
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 7: hope and dreams. But, uh, I have to believe that
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 7: I'll work for like a U S Senator from Texas,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 7: you know, as a Democrat at some point, because I
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 7: see the people on the ground actually moving and shaking
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 7: and working, even though we are Sometimes, yes, the beginning
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 7: of democracy. And I don't want to see Texas be
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 7: the end of democracy. Like there's so much that can
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 7: happen for new four or five new congressional seats, hopefully
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 7: in the other direction, more electoral college votes, because we
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 7: have some of the fastest growing populations in the country.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: But what it will.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 7: Take is making sure that those people who have the
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 7: opportunity are invested in really.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: And we can do that by investing in the people
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: power of Texas.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I believe that you will work for a Democratic
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: senator in Texas one day. And I also know that
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: whoever that senator is, they will be extremely lucky to
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: have you working for them. And we are extremely lucky
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: that you are doing the work you're doing in Texas.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: And we're so very excited that you guys are partnering
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: with Vote Save America. And anyone who is listening, who's
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: from Texas, who lives in Texas, who knows people in
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: Texas or North Carolina or Arizona, the other two states
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: that we're doing this in, please think about running for
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: office today. Um, because if you do, and you're in Texas,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: you have wonderful people like Anna, uh, who will help
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: you out, which we love. And already, you know, this
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: has just been a week. We have been like bowled
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: over by the number of you listening, uh, who have
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: reached out and decided to sign up and say that
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: you want to run for office. We just, we just
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: never expected the response that we, that we got. We
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: know it would be good because we love you guys,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: but we were just, we were overwhelmed by the response.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: So that's good news. Ana, thank you so much for
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: all the work you're doing. And thank you for joining
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America. I appreciate it.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: My pleasure.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 7: And thank you for being willing to take a chance
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 7: on Texas.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: And if you don't live in Texas, North Carolina, or Arizona,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: but you still want to run for office, we love that.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: Please reach out to Vote Save America and sign up
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: for Vote Save America at votesaveamerica.com. And the folks at
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: VSA will put you in touch with people in your state,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: in your region, in your area who are helping people
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: run for office and giving people support to run for office.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: So it's not just Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona. If
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: you're anywhere and you want to run for office, reach
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: out and we will help you out. You can sign
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: up at votesaveamerica.com slash run. That's our show for today.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: Dan's back on Sunday with an interview with Mark Cuban.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: Make sure you check that out. Have a good weekend, everyone.
• 1:33:10
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• 1:33:31
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