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Roe vs Republicans · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
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  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Republican presidential candidates and Joe Biden
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  Speaker 2: What? Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: a Rube.
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  Speaker 2: Goldberg pride machine. It's got disco balls. Olivia's about to
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  Speaker 2: let it go. Let's see what happens. Let's see what happens.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Look at that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, the balls are heading down the ramp. We're supposed
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  Speaker 1: to be doing color commentary on this.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Wait, that one worked. That one went down. There we go.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Now it's going by I think that's makeup. Wait, wait, wait.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It's not over yet. It's going to hit the dominoes.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: It's going to hit one more.
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: Boom!
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  Speaker 1: Whoa.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Woo.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Are those shoes supposed to spin? Ben, spin the shoes. Yeah.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Happy Pride, everybody.
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  Speaker 4: All right.
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  Speaker 1: That's some A-plus content right there.
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  Speaker 2: Incredible.
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  Speaker 6: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. One year after the Supreme
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: The Republican presidential candidates took a victory lap at a
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  Speaker 1: gathering of evangelical voters in Washington, D.C. over the weekend.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the twice-divorced frontrunner who's been indicted for paying
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: hush money to a porn star, told the crowd that, quote,
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  Speaker 1: no president has ever fought for Christians as hard as
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I have. And, quote, I'm being indicted for you. Just
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: like Jesus. Oh, yeah. He also bragged about appointing the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, while opponents like Ron
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: DeSantis and Mike Pence... sort of, kind of criticized Trump
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  Speaker 1: for not yet supporting stricter abortion bans. Let's listen.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Exactly one year ago today, those justices were the pivotal
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: votes in the Supreme Court's landmark decision ending the constitutional
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  Speaker 3: atrocity known as Roe v.
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  Speaker 6: Wade.
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  Speaker 3: But I got it done and nobody thought it was
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: even a possibility. But I'm proud to be the most
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  Speaker 3: pro-life president in American history.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Of course.
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  Speaker 7: We have also delivered in Florida on promoting a culture
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: of life. And that means signing the heartbeat bill into
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: law that protects unborn children when there's a detectable heartbeat.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: It was the right thing to do. Don't let anyone
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: tell you it wasn't.
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  Speaker 6: Every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And of course, Trump has refused to say whether he
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: would support that 15-week ban. And he has also criticized
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: DeSantis' six-week abortion ban in Florida, which is what DeSantis
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: was obliquely referring to when he said, don't let anyone
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: tell you it wasn't the right thing to do. So
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: now that it's been a year since Dobbs, what do
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you guys think about the effect that decision has had
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: on voters' belief about abortion and how that compares with
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: where Republican voters are right now.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Tommy?
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  Speaker 5: It seems to have drastically increased support for abortion rights
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  Speaker 5: in this country. There was a USA Today Suffolk poll
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: that found by almost four to one, so 23% to 6%,
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: those whose views on abortion have changed in the past
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: year said they've become more supportive of legal abortion not
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: less supportive, including among independent women, a critical swing group.
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: They became more supportive by 28% to 5%, so pretty
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: big swing.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is one, look, polls are polls,
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  Speaker 1: they're all over the place. This is one issue where, like,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of outlets did something about this
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: for the one-year anniversary of Dobbs. Like, every single poll
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: says the same thing, or it's moved in the same
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: general direction The New York Times had a nice roundup
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of all of them. For the first time, a majority
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of Americans say abortion is morally acceptable. Most now believe
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: abortion laws are too strict. They are significantly more likely
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to identify in the language of polls as pro-choice over pro-life,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and this is for the first time in two decades. Also,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: big jumps in support for legalized abortion among Republican men,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, three groups that were not very
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: supportive of abortion before Dobbs. So it's a pretty big change.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Mike Pence... is at least voicing the
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: position that has been held, whether out loud or not,
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  Speaker 2: by Republicans for a very long time. The support for
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: national ban isn't just unpopular in the country. The country
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: supports abortion rights. It's unpopular among Republicans. So two to
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: one in that same poll that Tommy mentioned, it was
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  Speaker 2: like 58 to 30 oppose overturning Roe. 80 to 14%
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  Speaker 2: oppose a national ban, which means a sizable portion of
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: people who are anti-abortion or say they're anti-abortion still oppose
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  Speaker 2: the national ban, not just Democrats. 83% of independents and
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  Speaker 2: 65% of Republicans oppose a national ban. The other thing
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  Speaker 2: that's interesting, I think, historically, I think the narrative has
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: been that Republicans are really motivated by the abortion issue
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  Speaker 2: more so than Democrats. That is completely flipped. The NBC
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: poll found that.
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  Speaker 5: 87% of Democratic voters strongly disapprove of Roe's overturn versus
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: 52% of Republicans who strongly approve. So it's a 35
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: point gap in terms of the intensity of feeling about
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: the change.
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  Speaker 1: And in terms of Ron DeSantis's six week abortion ban,
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  Speaker 1: 18% support. Terrible. That's it.
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  Speaker 2: 18%.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I mean, the only thing I'll say, you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: just there are still, and one of the polling, the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: polling director Gallup said this, there still aren't a lot
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  Speaker 1: of all or nothing people So if you ask people,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you know, do you want no restrictions on abortion whatsoever?
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That is still, I think it's like 25% quarter right now. Now, look,
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  Speaker 1: I also think that has to do with people not
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: really knowing exactly what happens or why people get abortions
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  Speaker 1: very late in the pregnancy, which is usually because there
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is a fetal abnormality or the health of the mother or,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you know, various other reasons. So it's like these do
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: not happen all the time, but every other number. every
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: other number shows a country that is rejecting intensely the
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  Speaker 1: abortion bans that have been put in place and stops.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I do think there's also like a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of a subtlety in terms of what this
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: does inside of Republican politics, because, you know, you hear
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: the enthusiasm inside of that crowd. And these are people
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: that are going to get behind candidates early. These are
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: people that knock on doors. So I think there's a
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: little bit of that dynamic at play. But on the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: other hand, I also wonder what this does to the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: electability argument that someone like Ron DeSantis is going to
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: have to make. It's gone.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It's gone. Well, do you guys see any evidence that
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: hitting Trump from the right on abortion, like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: DeSantis and and Pence are sort of kind of doing?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: might peel off enough Trump voters to make a difference
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in the primary for them? Forget about the general.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Not yet.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, DeSantis is currently dropping like a rock in
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: most of these national polls, so it's not really.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Showing up for him. Rolling down like a rock.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: Rolling down like a rock. Picking up speed down like
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: a rock. Pence is not exactly popping. I mean, DeSantis
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: is basically running his entire campaign to the right of
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: Trump on all sort of culture war issues to the
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: extent that he thinks he can, but it doesn't seem
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: to be doing anything for him.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I... I think the question is, like, how salient
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: is this inside of Republican politics right now? The difference
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: between a bunch of candidates who all completely agree with
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: appointing right wing judges who will continue to, you know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: support not having national abortion rights versus what level of ban,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: you know, at the national level they're going to get behind. Like,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: it's just not clear. You have you have Trump refusing
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: to do it. Nikki Haley gave a whole speech on abortion,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: refused to take a position. on a national event. And
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: then when she's asked about it, she dodges the question.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, the strategy would be take these right-wing positions
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  Speaker 5: on abortion and make a hard play in Iowa for
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: the evangelical voters there. But DeSantis doesn't seem to be
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: doing that effectively, and it doesn't seem to be working,
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: at least not so far.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I'll go as far to say that, you know, it
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have a lot of salience in the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Republican primary issues.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: That's fair.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It feels like the big issue that is going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: be predictive of how you vote in the Republican primary
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is what you think about Donald Trump, right? And It
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: was interesting. Ralph Reed, who runs the conference that they
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: all went to in D.C.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Terrible person.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, longtime evangelical Christian activist in Republican politics. He sat
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: down with Politico's Ryan Liz a few weeks ago, and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Liz asked him, what's the deal with Trump? Twice divorced,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: hush money to a porn star, clearly not a natural
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: ally of the evangelical community. And he said, Trump knew
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: that evangelicals helped him win the nomination, and he felt
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: like he had a debt to repay, and he repaid it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: And that mattered, and that matters now. And all these
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: other guys, they're great people, and they're probably more closely
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: aligned to right-wing Christian values, but Trump won and Trump delivered.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So that's all they've ever said.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Just also, you sort of step back from this. What
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: would any of these... people do as president. They would
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: nominate anti-choice judges and they would sign whatever Republican Congress passed.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: They would all sign a national abortion law. We'll talk
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: about this during the Biden section, but the end result
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: of any of them will look very similar.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: So Politico has a story about vulnerable House Republicans in
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: California and New York and a lot of those Biden
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: districts who are now saying they aren't afraid of Democratic
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: attacks on abortion in 24, so long as they support
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: exceptions for rape, incest, life and health of the mother
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and and or first trimester abortions, which a lot of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: them do. What do you think about that? What do
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you think about their views on?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I found it's a bunch of people confusing like strategy
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: for geography. You know, they're acting as though they're dancing
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: on the head of the pin on this issue to
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: try to create some kind of distance from national Republicans
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: made any difference. The one thing we did see is
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: that voters in states where electing Republicans might lead to
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: a ban in that state, the issue was more salient.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So it is true that the issue was more salient in, say,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: a state like Pennsylvania than it was in a state
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: like New York or California. Does that mean the reason
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: some of these Republicans hung on is because they didn't
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: take as extreme a position as, say, a Mike Pence?
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I don't think we know that. I think the question
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: for us is less, how do we tar them as
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: looking like other Republicans? I think there's some truth to
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the argument that that didn't necessarily work as well. It's more,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: how do we make How, as we head into 2024,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: when a Republican Congress would meet a national abortion ban,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: how do we make that feel real and pressing and
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: central to the argument we make? And then it won't
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: matter what some Republican who is not as far to
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: the right on the issue as MTG says. I forget
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: what the name of the Republican, the story, the political
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: story quoted.
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: Some New York representative bragging about fighting off these attacks
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: in 2022.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: The Democratic Party was a mess in New York in 2022.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: If you think it's going to be the same electorate
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: in 2024, you're an idiot. I don't think you really
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: believe that. You're just trying to Posturing for the cameras here.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: Maybe they could create a position that included a bunch
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: of exceptions on paper that, you know, would look good
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: on a Gallup poll. But I would just, if I
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: was running against these people, I'd say, if you support Trump,
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: you support his judges, you made this outcome happen.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: You own this. You own this.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Of course you do. I totally agree with that. I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: think that if you're a Republican who supports, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: exceptions and first term abortion or whatever, like I could
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: see you squeaking through if you really hit that message hard.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: where I don't think, I think that if you tag
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: these Republicans though, as supporting Republican leaders and Republican presidential
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: candidates who are much more extreme, then you're gonna have
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a much tougher time. And also like these people have
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: all taken votes that are, that are bad votes, anti-abortion votes,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and you can hold those up too. So it's like, yeah,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: if you're a brand new candidate who hasn't governed yet,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and you want to have some like mealy-mouthed, middle-of-the-road position, yeah,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: maybe you can squeak through. But at some point, someone's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: going to say, so do you support Donald Trump? Do
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you support Ron DeSantis? Do you support what Kevin McCarthy's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: doing and Mitch McConnell's doing? And it's not going to work.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: And also, if it's a referendum on electing a Republican
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: House means they will attempt to do a national ban.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Electing a Democratic House means codifying Roe. Getting these people
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: on the record squirrelly and afraid to come out either
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: for a national ban or against it, while certainly refusing
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to say they'd support codifying Roe is, I think, you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that's what we have to do.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Before we move on, we should say that before we
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: even get to 2024, there are a couple of big
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: fights over abortion that we should all pay attention to.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: This year, on August 8th in Ohio, Republicans put a
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: measure on the ballot that would raise the threshold to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: pass constitutional amendments from 50 to 60 percent. They're hoping
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that they can defeat an amendment in the fall that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: That would guarantee the right to an abortion. And then
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin is trying to pass a statewide
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: ban unless Democrats hold their four seat majority in the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: state Senate. That'll be November election. So go to votes
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of America dot com. We'll have ways for you to
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: help both in the Ohio ballot initiative elections, plural, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: then and then in Virginia in the fall. So about
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's got quite a bit on his plate right now.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: President spoke to Vladimir Zelensky on Sunday. about the Wagner
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Rebellion in Russia. He'll deliver a major speech in Chicago
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday about Bidenomics. And he's signaling that he intends
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to campaign on abortion rights in the next election. President
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and Vice President held events to mark the Dobbs anniversary
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: over the weekend. Here's what Biden had to say.
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: I know I'm 198 years old, but all kidding aside,
• 17:06
  Speaker 8: think about that. I never ever thought I'd be signing
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: an executive order protecting the right to contraception. But the
• 17:16
  Speaker 8: only sure way to protect a woman's health and rights
• 17:19
  Speaker 8: is for Congress to pass a law. As I said before,
• 17:28
  Speaker 8: the Court got Roe right 50 years ago, and I
• 17:33
  Speaker 8: believe Congress should restore the protections of Roe v.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Wade once and for all. But we need your help.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm asking again, are you with us?
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Are you going to get this done?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Just as an aside, I do like that every time
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: he jokes about his age, he picks a new big number.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I do, too. It's funny. It's great. It's a good joke.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Works every time.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think is the best way for
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Biden and Democrats to make abortion matter as much in
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: 2024 as it did in 2022? Like, what's the right
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: message here?
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: I would lean hard into the consequences of what the
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: Republicans have already done and how, as we discussed earlier,
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: how the party is pushing them to go further and
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: make it part of a broader narrative about how extreme
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: the Republican Party is. you know, the extreme MAGA GOP
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: stuff that Biden is already doing. You know, the other
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: helpful thing for Democrats in making this argument is everyone
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: knows this is happening. You know, this is not an
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: issue that like some people are paying attention. It's like
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: 92% of the country in polls know this is happening
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: and it's causing a cultural backlash. I remember last year,
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: the CEO of Barstool Sports came out and said how
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: Roe v. Wade is a litmus test for him and
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: how it went against the Republican rhetoric on limited government.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Like this is an issue that that can splinter the
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: Republican Party. Because I think there's some Trump fans even
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: that like the version of him that's like the rich
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: guy on The Apprentice and the kind of playboy, you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: like that image of him. They're not, they didn't buy
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: into a party that has this like moral right-wing crusading,
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: Mike Pence, invasive, scolding, awful strand of the GOP. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: so I would just talk about the consequences, push this
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: as hard as we can. make this a part of
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: every story and make it part of this broader extremism narrative.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: I think Mike Pence coming out there and saying every
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Republican needs to come out for a 15 week ban
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: is going to force a lot of them to either
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: say they agree or avoid the question, which is just
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: a way of saying that they're open to it and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: would sign it. I think we just be crystal clear
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: about this. If Republicans win the Congress, they will try
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to pass a national abortion ban. Every single Republican that
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: has a chance of becoming president will sign one. So
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the question is, do you want a national abortion ban?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Or do you want to elect people who will fight
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: to protect abortion rights? And a whole bunch of other
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: freedoms that are currently at stake in a court that
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: may come for contraception next, may come for gay rights next,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: may come for a whole host of other freedoms next.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: And I think that's of, we're going to have a
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Congress that protects freedom, or we're going to have a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: bunch of busybodies that tell you how to live and
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: what you can teach and what you can read and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: what your doctors can do.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And, you know, there are Republican candidates like Nikki Haley,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: who are going to try to weasel out of this,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: are already trying to weasel out of this by saying like, well, Really,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you can't pass a national abortion ban unless there's 60
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: votes in the Senate. So it's very unlikely. But all
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: we need to say is if Republicans get enough power,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: they will pass the national abortion ban. That's all you
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: need to know. They get the votes. They'll do it.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I don't think we need to explain the filibuster to people.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I think we've done enough of that. No more of that.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: And then DeSantis, I'm sure, will attack everyone else on
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: the debate stage with him for not coming out in
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: support of a heartbeat bill, which is a six week
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: abortion ban. So he's going to push them to be
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: more extreme and he's going to attack them from the
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: right over and over again. I don't think it will
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: work for him, but I think it will harm the party.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I think your point about consequences and talking more about
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the consequences is very important.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: The stories are gut-wrenching.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: They're gut-wrenching. And it's also, you know, as this is
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: talked about in politics and in the media, it becomes
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: very– there's some antiseptic language used. People are talking about
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: weeks and policies and exceptions and all this kind of stuff.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And it's like, no, you know– Republican supported decision that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: forced a 10 year old rape victim to cross state
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: lines to get an abortion, force women to give birth
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to babies that their doctors knew would suffer and die
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: right after birth and force women to give birth who
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: were on the brink of death.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: Or essentially force them to miscarry before they'd give them
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: a treatment, like nearly kill them.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: It's just, and like the other thing to your point
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: about like, everyone knows what's going on. Like, more and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: more people have stories about people that they, that they
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: know who went through this and not just, uh, and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: actually mostly not Democrats in blue states, mostly people who
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: are living in states that have implemented restrictions.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: It's, um, it's remarkable just how much local news coverage,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: just local news coverage there is about all these different
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: experiences that people are having that are making it real
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: for people in a way that just goes far beyond
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: anything like a political debate can do. It's more akin
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to what happened, I think, with the quick shift on
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: gay rights, which is just more people started coming out,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: people started to know gay people, it became unassailable. You
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: can convince someone to go from being anti-gay to pro-gay,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: you can't make them go the other round. And there
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: are people out there that in the abstract would have
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: told a pollster that they were against abortion access, but
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: they start hearing these stories, they start seeing it in
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: their own lives, and all of a sudden you see
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: the numbers moving.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can imagine an ad, not hard to make,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: where you have people who've been through some of this
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: tell these stories. And then you have Donald Trump saying,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: they never thought I could do it, but I did it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I overturned the constitutional atrocity of Roe v.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Wade.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I put the justice there. All he's doing is bragging
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and bragging and bragging about it. And you just have
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that voice running in the background as you have all
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of these stories.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And as we get closer to, I think just the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: reality of, I do think even now, You see the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: sort of the same people that said it was hysterics
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: to say that Roe v. Wade was about to overturn
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: are now saying it's hysterics to say that a national
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: abortion ban is possible. It is absolutely possible. I mean,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: to really start driving that home for people. If Republicans,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: the Senate map is fucking terrible. Republicans could win the House.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: They can win the White House. They will pass a
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: national abortion ban.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And now, you know, we were talking about the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: percentage of people who opposed a nationwide ban, which is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: like 80%. 53% want a federal law ensuring access to abortion.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Biden is promising to do that. Considering the current Senate map,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: which is not great, do you have any concern that
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Biden's overpromising when he talks about codifying Roe?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: He doesn't describe it as we will do. He describes
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: it as if we win, we will do it. It's
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: something we need to do. I don't think there's anything
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: wrong with laying out the stakes. If enough people come
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: out and make this an issue, we can do it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: If they don't, we can't.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: That was tough.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Best pick up chances are Florida and Texas for Democrats
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: in 2024.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So here's what we need to do. We need to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: win all of the slightly easier Senate races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. Not states where you usually put easier Senate races.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But right now, Democrats probably favored in those states slightly.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Then we'd need to win Ohio. Sherrod would need to win.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And Tester would need to win.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Manchin, it doesn't really matter because if he loses or
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: he stays, he's still going to be a pain in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the ass about this, right? But you wouldn't need that.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: You just need Ohio and Montana, but you need to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: win both. And then we'd need Gallego to win in Arizona.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Then you would have possibly 51 Senate Democrats or 51
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: votes because you'd have Harris breaking the tie to get
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster to codify abortion rights. And then
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: we'd also need the House.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: So.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: We can do it. It's not impossible to do that. Well,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's like You also then need to make
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: sure all of the Democrats would be willing to get
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster. But I do think at that point,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: if there are some who are a little nervous about it,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: would they want to be the one to stand up
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and say, no, I'm blocking this? Like Tester, who just
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: won six years? I don't know. I think then you'd
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: have a good chance.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: We just went through the first midterm elections we've had
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: since the overturning of Roe. And we saw the way
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: that it already scrambled some of our expectations in politics. So, yeah,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: I think we have to fight for it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: All right, so the White House released a memo this
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: morning on Bidenomics, where they argue that the president's economic
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: policies are both working and supported by most Americans. What's
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: your take on the memo, the strategy, the name Bidenomics?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I'm into Bidenomics. I like the name.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I kind of like it, too.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I really like it. It reminds me of when we
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: just embraced calling it Obamacare, and then as Obamacare became
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: more and more popular. I thought you were going to
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: say Freakonomics. What I was going to say is only
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: that you read the memo that the White House put out,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: kind of walking through all the policies, and it is
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: just sort of a You know, it's a strategy. It's
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a restatement of their policies into a kind of coherent message.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: But it's just a reminder, too, in seeing them all
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: laid out. You're like, we spend so much time in
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: this swirl of culture wars and the latest bit of
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: like right wing bullshit and Trump going off and all
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the nonsense and the noise we deal with day to day.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And then you read the memo walking through the policies like, oh,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that's right. That's why this world exists. Democratic economic policies
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: are incredibly popular. Republican economic policies are incredibly unpopular.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: It's also a memo that has just like so much
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: language that we used to put in speeches all the time.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all the time.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: All the time.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: The middle up and the center out, the top through
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: and the bottom forward.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: This investment spurred private investment to the tune of a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: lot of money. I like that they are framing their
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: economic message as a strategy to follow instead of just
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: a record to brag about. Because I think they are
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: going to have, and you can see both of these
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: at tension in the memo a little bit because it
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: does go on and on a little bit about the accomplishments,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: which you can tell there's obviously a constituency in that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: White House. Like there wasn't our White House. Like there
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: isn't every White House who's like, no, no, we just
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: got to talk about the accomplishments more. We're going to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: talk about the accomplishments more. And it's fine. Like go
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: for it. Talk about the accomplishments. But I think you're
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: going to have more luck convincing people that the Biden
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: approach to the economy is better than Republicans, then you will.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Biden deserves more credit for the economy than he's gotten.
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, they have a genuinely good case to make,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: I think, on the merits. When you total up the
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: COVID stimulus, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: Inflation Reduction Act, there are tons of examples of things
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: happening right now because of things Joe Biden signed into law.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: There's roads and bridges. A couple of days ago, the
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: government made a $ 9. 2 billion loan to Ford, I believe,
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: to begin construction of three battery factories for electric vehicles.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: They're using the CHIPS Act to create jobs in the US.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: And they're forcing companies who get that funding to do
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: things like guarantee high-quality childcare for workers who construct the
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: plant or work at the plant. So they're really leveraging
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: this all these different ways. The problem is just it
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: takes a while to get the money flowing. Even when
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: you get the money flowing, you have to convince people
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: that this was because something Joe Biden did and not
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: just something happening in the world. Or, you know, maybe
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: they just don't read the news about it. So it'll
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: take some time, but I'm glad they're pushing on it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Dynamics is fun to say.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Look, at the end of the day, this is going
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: to come down to sort of a simple argument that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Biden and Democrats are going to have to make on
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the campaign trail, which is like, what do you want
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: your government doing? Do you want it to spend time
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and money and policies on reducing the cost of health care,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: prescription drugs? building roads, reducing the cost of education? Or
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: do you want to spend like $ 4 trillion on tax
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: cuts for rich people? Because that's what the Republicans want
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Or burn books.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Like, do you want to, here's the thing. We're going to,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: on this side, we're going to try to build a
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: train track. On this side, we're chasing Adam Schiff around
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: with a fucking torch until we catch him. One thing
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I will say is that I- Both are a good time.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I also appreciate too, like, I know you're right about
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: sort of, you know, you feel the tension and the
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: desire to like, we have to tether our accomplishments. We
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: have to tether our accomplishments. I appreciate that there was
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: only a couple of places, maybe only really one in
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: that whole memo where they did what we used to
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: feel like we had to do all the time, which
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: is like, we know there's a lot left to do.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: We know there's more work to be done. It was
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: just on inflation where clearly they must see a lot
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of sort of headwinds in the polling that they made
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: sure there's a, that There's more work to be done here.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We're not all the way there, but we're seeing some improvement.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: And the United States is doing better than a lot
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: of other countries, if not all of them, when it
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: comes to inflation.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: They do love that point, too. It's a good point.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: It was a global problem, thanks to the war and
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: a bunch of other challenges, supply chains, blah, blah, blah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: No, I get that. I just think that voters are
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: going to be like, I don't care that folks in
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the UK are paying more for their bread than I am.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I'm still fucking annoyed.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: If you go to a supermarket and yell at a
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: woman buying eggs, being like, there was a bird flu cull,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: it's not going to work for you.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: But again, if you just say... Elections are a choice.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: You either get cheaper health care or you get tax
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: cuts for rich people. What do you want? That's an
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: easy one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It's a good one. It's an easy one.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: There's also a new NBC poll that has Biden ahead
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of Trump by 49 to 45%.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Percent.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: We like that, though. His approval rating is at 43
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: percent and 55 percent of voters say they have major
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: concerns about Biden having the necessary mental and physical health
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to serve another term. What do you guys make of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: those seemingly contradictory numbers? And were there any other parts
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of that poll that stood out to you?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they're particularly contradictory because I think everybody,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: everyone's concerned about Biden's age, but they also don't like
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and now they don't like Ron DeSantis.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: They have bigger concerns about Trump's personality than Biden's age.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Right. The part that really stood out to me was
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: actually not just how unpopular Ron DeSantis already is, but
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: how unpopular and well-known he already is.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: He's at he's at 30 percent to 46 percent disapproval
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: to approval. That's three quarters of the country that's already
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: gotten to know him. He's already nearly at 50 percent disapproval.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: That is really fucking bad. And it turns out becoming
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: nationally known for picking fights with librarians and Disney is
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: not the winning strategy to rally the country he might
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: have otherwise have thought.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Apparently not even a winning strategy in your own Republican
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: primary so far. But Trump has widened his lead in
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the primary in this poll. which I want to mention
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: because last week, I think there was some poll that
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Dan and I talked about where it did seem like
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Trump was slipping a bit, but... CNN. A CNN poll, right.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: But in both polls, Ron DeSantis isn't gaining. Neither poll
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: was he gaining.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: The good news for Ron is that in the expanded poll,
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: it's 51% Trump, 22% DeSantis. The head-to-head, it's 60% Trump,
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: DeSantis at 36%. So he's just getting crushed. I mean,
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: I found that poll depressing, but what I expected, but
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: more than anything, bad news for DeSantis.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Although... Half the.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: Republican primary wants Trump to be the leader of the
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: party going forward. Half of them want new options. There's
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: an opening there for somebody to make a play. DeSantis
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: is just flailing at it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: I was at Disney with my family the other week,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and I don't know if this is a story that's
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: real or not. I hope it is real, that no
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: one ever dies at Disney World because they continue to
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: resuscitate and so you're off the grounds so that no
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: one ever, ever dies in Disney World. I was just
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: thinking about that. What if you choke? Disney has defeated
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: death itself. You think they're going to lose to Ron DeSantis?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse? I was at this, they do these light
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: shows and things. People were calling for Mickey to come
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: out like they wanted to kill him. They were like,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: bring me Mickey. Ron's not going to beat that. You
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: can't beat that. That's in our blood.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: You can't beat that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: That's all I wanted to say about that. Run, Mickey, run.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was, look, a four-point Biden lead where he's
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: at 49%. I almost didn't believe it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't believe it. Honestly, it was better than I thought.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I don't even talk about it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I'll take it. All I'll say about that is I
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: never thought I would be excited about just a four-point
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: lead over Donald Trump. But now that we've lived through
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: 2016 and 2020, I'm like, yeah, if that's true, that
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: would be amazing.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Well, it's also like, it's not like... do people need
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to get to know their options? Joe Biden versus Donald
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Trump is most fucking overdetermined thing. We went through that completely.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Well, and on that note, the other part of this
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: poll that stood out at me that got me a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: little nervous was, so they did, they asked us about
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: support for a third party candidate. Would you be open
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to a third party candidate? And then they compared it
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to that same question that they've asked in the last
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: four elections. So support for a third party option is
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: lower than it was in 2016. That's the good news.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: But pretty much higher than it was in 2012 when
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Obama was running for re-election. So it's somewhere in the middle.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: It's not quite as worrisome right now as 2016 was
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: when clearly it was determinative.
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: Who's going to say that you wouldn't consider it? Like,
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: would you consider a third-party candidate?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. What if a really great one emerged? Sure,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I'd consider it. Yeah, you know why?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So then they broke it down into, like, definitely and probably.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And the definitely's I was looking at, because probably, you're right.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Probably is just like, yeah, probably.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: Like, I would definitely consider it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Not in this cycle. I think that's true. I also
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: just think... a country choosing between Obama and Mitt Romney
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: and a country choosing between Biden and Trump is just
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: in a different mood. You know, like people have a
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: lot of concerns about Biden's age. Those concerns does not
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: exist for Obama. People have a lot of concerns about
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump as a human being. Those concerns didn't exist
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: for Mitt Romney. It's a different context.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: So speaking of Biden's age, the Wall Street Journal just
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: ran an interview with George Clooney where he talks about
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: how Hollywood studio exec Jeffrey Katzenberg has been advising Biden to, quote,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: own his age and turn it into an asset, citing
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: 80-year-olds Harrison Ford and Mick Jagger as examples for Biden
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: to emulate. What a sentence. Didn't think I'd be saying
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: that today. You guys think that's good advice? I don't
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: even know what the advice really is. I guess to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: own his age?
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I think own your age, laugh about it, make jokes
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: like the one we heard earlier. That's great advice, but
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: it has to be coupled with great management of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: country and things generally going well. The part in that
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: story that made me flinch was the, like, Democrats need
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: to come to Hollywood for narrative and storytelling help. If
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: I had A dollar for every time I heard someone
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: say that I would be as rich as George Clooney
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: post tequila sale because it's this cliche thing you always
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: hear out here. But again, like, yes, of course, there's
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: lots of great screenwriters in L.A. but you get to
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: write the movie and then shoot what's on the page, right?
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden like- Not even anymore. Deals with the things
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: happening in reality.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: It's a different- I love that. That's why we came here.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That's why we do the show here. We look for
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: our narratives here in LA and then we come on
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the pod and give our takes.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: The quote is always, I always just say, look, everybody
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: keeps coming to Hollywood for cash and they don't come
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: to us for the one thing we do better than anybody,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: which is tell stories. We were joking about that like
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: two days ago. That is such an old fucking joke.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I will also say, I love George Clooney and he's
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: actually one of the more politically astute uh actors in
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: in hollywood for sure but it's just funny that they
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: none of them can help themselves no i know it's also.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Like the other thing too is it's like katzenberg doesn't
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: tell stories he makes quibi writers and directors tell stories
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: katzenberg gives notes and i'm sure maybe they're good but
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: he still gives notes.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But back to biden kind of what this article is
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: right i.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Guess that's true he wants to give biden the ultimate
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: executive yeah that's right he wants to give notes we solved.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: It i think the the the What Biden can control
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: is in terms of his age and perceptions of his age,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: he's the age that he is. He can't control that,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: but he can joke about it. He can show some
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: fight with Republicans like he did during the State of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the Union. And he can connect with people, which he
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: does very, very well in like small settings.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: When he meets someone on a rope line and remembers
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: them and remembers their family, like he's very, very good
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: at that. And I think if he keeps those three
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: things in mind, that to me is better than like
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: getting in your head that because they think I'm old,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I have to like be sharp, right? I can't stop,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you know, like I can't gaffe, right? Sometimes I don't
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: put them out because they're worried he's going to get like,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't, I would rather him figure out the jokes,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: figure out the fight with Republicans and then figure out
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: how to connect with you.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: And then just protect that painting of him as a
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: young man in the White House attic at all costs.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And then tighten up act three and then just write
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: out that Putin part. Biden's going to, Biden's going to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: trip over an extension cord and fall down and Katzberg's
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: going to be like, we shouldn't use that tape. We
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: have something better where he doesn't fall down. He'll use
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: one where he doesn't fall down.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's do a few quick hits on the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: latest headlines. Tommy and Ben recorded an excellent bonus episode
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of Pod Save the World over the weekend. Thank you.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: On the Wagner Rebellion in Russia. You should check it
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: out if you haven't. And if you want to know
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: what the hell is going on there, it's great. Progozhin,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: leader of the Wagner group, said Monday that he never
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: actually meant to overthrow the government. He just wanted to
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: lodge a protest, which is I guess to lodge a protest,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you get a bunch of troops together and you march
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: on Moscow with guns.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: It was a civil rights march, yeah. It's like, I
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: fell down and ate a pizza.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Tommy, for people who haven't been paying close attention to
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: what happened over the weekend, what should they know and
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: where do things stand right now?
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: So the gist is this guy, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who's this
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Russian oligarch who.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for saying his first name.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: No problem.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He runs this private mercenary force called the Wagner Group. He.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: Has been in a fight with the Russian military for
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: months now. And then he claimed that his guys got
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: hit with a Russian airstrike. And then he went nuts
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: and he started marching his troops towards Moscow. He stood
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: down after basically getting on the phone with the president
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: of Belarus, who's a Putin stooge in cutting this deal
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: where Prigozhin will now be exiled to Belarus. This idea
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: that he was just protesting is very funny. It's kind of,
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: I don't know, it's a tough sell when you march 25,000
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: guys towards Moscow and shoot down Russian military helicopters and
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: planes on the way. It feels like a little more
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: than just sort of a march. But right now, basically,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: Putin came out today. He's very, very angry. He's trying
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: to reassert control. Prokofiev says, oh, I wasn't trying to
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: undercut Putin, but clearly he was. The problem for Putin now, though,
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: is Prokofiev undercut the entire rationale for the war. He
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: said the Ministry of Defense was corrupt. and that the
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: war is based on lies and corruption, and then Putin
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: looks like he lost control because he did, and now
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: he has to keep on trying to be a dictator
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: of a country where there's a lot of people who
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: would like to take him out. So it's a very
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: fraught moment.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I'm no foreign policy expert, but Vladimir Putin doesn't seem
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: like the kind of guy who will just let bygones
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: be bygones. He's going to let him live in Belarus
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and just forget about him?
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: I'm wondering if Bogosian's going to fall out of a
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: very tall building in the near future.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: We'll see.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I would not.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: If he offers to pour you tea, I would say
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: don't share tea.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: No.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: You drink from a different pot. You bring your own tea.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: We got a few 2024 primary updates for you. Ron
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: DeSantis is taking his deft political talents to New Hampshire,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: where the most influential Republican women's group there released a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: statement attacking him for scheduling an event at the same
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: time as their annual fundraising lunch. One New Hampshire Republican
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: strategist called it, quote, The worst strategic move he has
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: exhibited thus far, which is really saying something. I don't know, guys.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to think this Ron DeSantis thing might not
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: work out. What do you guys think?
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Women be kneecapping Ron DeSantis' campaign? Republican luncheon. What do
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: you think? Liv, you think that's okay? Yeah, it's good.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: We'll leave it in.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I love this story so much.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: I have no idea if it means DeSantis' campaign in
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: New Hampshire is good or bad.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: It just shows you how fucking entitled early state primary
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: voters are. This group.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Especially activists. Voters are one thing. The activists are the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: really entitled.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: They attacked him.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not running for anything.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: It's the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women. They attacked
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: DeSantis for holding a town hall meeting with the same
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: day as one of their events that featured Trump. Even
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: though their event is sold out, it's an hour away,
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: and it's at different times.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: So it seems like that's just a... It's nonsense.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Just a shot.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Just a shot to take a shot at him. Yeah,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: it's the best. That's because he's so weak. That's great.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: It is funny, though. It's like, you do not pick
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a fight with the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that group existed until I read
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: the story today.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: It's just incredible.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But there isn't... The larger point here, there isn't a
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: single state or national poll... That has shown Ron DeSantis
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: making any progress at all. There is no fundraising metric,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: no endorsement metric, no nothing. You can't see a sign
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: anywhere of Ron DeSantis making up any ground yet.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: That's the other fun thing in the story is DeSantis
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: rolled out a bunch of state. uh, elected endorsements and
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: like four of them had already announced that they endorsed Trump.
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: So then they got into a big fight. The DeSantis
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: super PAC got in a fight with these state elected officials.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: And it's like, what are you guys doing?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. It's um, I love it.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: It's also just like, it's a little bit of a,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: it's a, it's a virtuous circle from our point of view,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: which is that he's covered as a unpopular weirdo. And
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: so all the stories that lend themselves to the narrative
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and unpopular weirdo, and this is, and we're in Hollywood
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: where we tell stories, uh, are, you know, you can't
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: get away from it. I mean, there's reporters chasing Rhonda
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Sanders around waiting for her to eat a hamburger weird,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: And so eventually they're going to get it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: It's not good.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Because he's weird.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Freaks and geeks too.
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I think that's a good show though.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: I think about that.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: It's a bad show.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Here's a shocker. Rolling Stone looked at the Federal Election
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Commission filings and found out that the super PAC supporting
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was created by people who've also
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: worked for Marjorie Taylor Greene, George Santos, and Herschel Walker.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Great stuff. Great stuff, huh?
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: We got them. Fucking RFK Jr.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Are we saying that this is not on the level?
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Is that what we're being told here?
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: The treasurer of RFK Jr. 's pack got paid $ 372, 000
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: by Marjorie Taylor.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Greene and her entities in 2022. What a terrible fucking person. Yeah,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: he really is. Just what a garbage human being.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Well, you know.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Not to help anything, but it's just what it is.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Here's all you need to know about all of the,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you know, tech bros and Elon Musk and all them
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: who are telling you to give a look at RFK Jr.,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: there are a bunch of MAGA grifters out there who
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: are doing everything they can to get Democrats to support
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And they're doing it publicly.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: That's all you need to know.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Steve Bannon is doing this publicly. Roger Stone praised him publicly.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: RFK Jr.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: Went to one of those Reawaken America events that Mike
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: Flynn runs around the country doing, like the craziest of
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: the crazy things. RFK reportedly interviewed for a job with
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Trump in 2017. He wanted to do something on vaccines.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: You see what Trump said today too about him?
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's praising him.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Trump's like, he's a great man. He's a great man.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Okay. It's so funny.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: Did you see how swole RFK Jr. looked when he
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: was lifting weights shirtless in jeans?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I want to pretend I didn't see any of that.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I also just love the idea. That's some HGH right there. Yeah,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I know. It's like, you know, there's the vaccines they
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: have lead in them from deep underground. Yeah, yeah. I'll
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: take steroids from a failed actor with muscles in my neighborhood.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: So because there aren't enough Florida men in the Republican primary,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the New York Times reports 70-year-old Senator Rick Scott is
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: considering running for president, though his office then responded by
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: saying he's still running for reelection in the Senate.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Not a denial.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Is a rich hospital executive who
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security just the candidate
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party needs?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: A rich hospital executive connected to massive health care fraud
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: who wants to privatize Social Security.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Who ran the Senate Republican campaign arm in a year
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: where they lost the Senate.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Who has the message instincts of the villain from Seven.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Is this my camera?
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: Rick. Oh, no.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Don't listen to them.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: America needs you, buddy. He knew it was his camera. Look,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the way Mitch McConnell... And these liberals disrespected you. There's
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: one camera over there. It's insane.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: It's insane that Ron DeSantis would think he's the brightest
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: star in Florida.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Look at the camera if you're going to look at
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the camera. You're talking to Rick Scott. Don't look at us.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: There's a sky full of stars. And I think I
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: see you, buddy. The next president of the United States.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Rick Scott. Okay, well, we wish you the best, Rick Scott.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: We wish you the best.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Please run.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: All right, finally, two pieces of great news. You might
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: remember that President Biden got quite a bit of criticism
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: from the left for supposedly abandoning railroad workers after he
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: signed legislation ending the strike that didn't include paid sick
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: days because of Republicans in Congress. Well, last week, the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Railroad Workers Union announced that its members at the largest
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: freight carriers finally have paid sick days. And the union
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: specifically thanked the Biden administration for quietly pushing behind the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: scenes to make it happen. They thank them for playing
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the long game and never giving up. Any lessons from
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: this story?
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: That John keeps a list and he's checking it twice.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: But I would say two things.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not naming names.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you that. I'll say two things about this.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Because I don't want to give them any fucking... I
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: think two points about this. I think that there was
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: two kinds of criticism from the left that Joe Biden
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: received when the original deal was made. One was, I'm
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: disappointed that this deal doesn't include paid sick leave. I
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: hope the Biden administration continues to.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Work on it.
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: The deal being when Biden and Congress enact legislation to
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: block the strike.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: To block the strike. To get them back to work.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Or to prevent them from going on strike the first time.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: That was one kind of criticism.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Fine.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: There was another kind of criticism. which was, this is
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: exactly what we can come to expect from Democrats who
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: are corporate chills and evil, and this is corruption and
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: every kind of assumption of bad.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Take money from the railroads.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: And every assumption of bad faith. Just some sign that,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: you know, that Biden and Democrats are irretrievably corrupt and
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: you can't trust anything they ever say. It is exactly
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: what we always knew they were going to do, that
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: kind of like throw the baby out with the bathwater stuff.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: And I just would say, like, moving forward, the people
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: that are, I think, critical, but still believe that there
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: can be work done are better to listen to than
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: the people who use every instance like this to reinforce
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: the same narrative. Yeah, same there.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: The work of government doesn't usually progress on the same
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: timetable as Twitter. It's one lesson. I also think, to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: your point, Lovett, the Biden administration deserves the presumption of
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: good faith. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be criticized when
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: they make bad decisions. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't push
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: them to make good decisions. But it means that we
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: should start with the assumption that their intentions are good.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And if they're not making the progress we expect, there
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: might be other reasons, which, by the way, like at
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the time, even the constructive criticism at the time.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Congress sends Joe Biden a bill because there's a bunch
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: of Republicans in Congress that stops the strike but doesn't
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: give paid sick days. If Biden vetoes that legislation, he's
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: not going to get the sick days. The strike's going
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to continue. Then there are people who are like, oh,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: he could just do executive action because this is the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: new thing. When something doesn't happen that we want, it's, oh,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Biden should do an executive action. Well, now we have
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: faced many executive actions that are being currently challenged or
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: have already been overturned by a right wing judiciary.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Yes. Right.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: And so from the Biden administration's point of view, it's like,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: would I rather do an executive action that is probably
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: going to get overturned by the judiciary? Or do I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: want to just keep pushing behind the scenes, try to
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: negotiate and get the sick days? And that's what they did.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: And it was the right move.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And so I think, again, like you can be critical,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: you can propose things, you can push them on stuff.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: But like there are usually if something's not getting done
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: more often than not, it's because there are constraints, political,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: legal or otherwise, that either we don't know about or
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the Biden administration is just trying to work through and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: they're still trying to fight.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: You know, government is just slow sometimes. Yeah. And I
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: wish it was faster, too. But like you got to
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: go to the outcome.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: I do agree with that, too. It's like at this point, too,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: like The Biden administration has earned the benefit of the doubt.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: They are, I think, far more progressive than even some
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: of those progressive people could have ever hoped that they
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: would be. Now, does that mean they're perfect?
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: No.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Does it mean they fight every fight the way you'd
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: want to?
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: No.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: But... Yeah.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And I can, look, and I can tell this is
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: coming with, you know, we're waiting for a student loan
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: relief decision from the Supreme Court. And there have already
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: been proposals like, well, if they overturn this, then the
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Biden administration should just do another executive action. It's like, well,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: it's not going to work.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: It's not going to work. We need a new court
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: or we need a majority in Congress to pass this legislation.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: And that's what we should work for. Also, it's just
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: one more annoying thing. It's about 100 times easier to
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: find criticisms of Biden on the railroad workers thing than
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to find almost any story that they just praised him
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: for getting the deal. Just in preparing for this, I
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, who wrote this up? It was on
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Twitter as the union put out a statement. And I
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: don't know. Almost no one wrote it up.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Typical.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Last but not least, when a big section of I-95
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: collapsed in Philadelphia on June 11th, experts predicted it would
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: take months for the government to rebuild the highway. But
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: thanks to the Biden administration, Governor Josh Shapiro and a
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: lot of union workers, it opened this weekend. What do
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you think? Is it time to bring back hashtag Democrats deliver?
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: A couple of points about this. One, Jews get shit done.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: That's all. That's all I want to say that. OK,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I can say that in this
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: country anymore. Depends on the audience. But two, we can
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: build a highway in two weeks. In this state of California,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: it takes six months to get an environmental impact statement
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: for a bike path. It's just going to be a lane.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: They don't have to move anything. There's no there's no,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: there's no digging, just paint. So we can build things
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: really quickly. So maybe we fucking should a highway in
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: two weeks. Think about how long it takes. LAX has
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: been a pit. Oh my God. For years. There's a
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: pit in the courtyard of our office. We can't seem
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: to fill.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: When we came back from New York and I was
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: trying to, that, it was insane. Yeah.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Every, every day they, they put up another window.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: What is happening with that airport?
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: What's happening at LAX?
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Bring Josh Shapiro.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Get Josh Shapiro on that. Some kind of a czar.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I don't care what it is.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration, though, they, you know, whether it's the
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: infrastructure bill, like Mitch Biden and Mitch Landrieu, who's sort
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: of overseeing the infrastructure bill. plus Shapiro. They were all
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: at a press conference about this, touting this, and I'm like,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you know what? This is good. This is good. This
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: is another one that's not going to get a ton
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: of attention, but that is.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: In Philly, it will. In Philly, it will.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: That's an important statement.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think we should be covering that out here,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: but yes, it would be great.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Sure we should. We have problems of our own that
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: we could be fixing.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Gritty drove across, got Taco Bell, drove back.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, Tommy talks to the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: man who wants to finally get Ted Cruz out of
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the Senate. Texas Congressman Colin Allred.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: Colin Allred is a member of Congress and he's running
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: for the U.S. Senate in Texas.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being in L.A.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: You have the coolest path to Congress that I've heard of,
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: which is via the NFL, which I want to get
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: to later. But You are currently running against Ted Cruz,
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: who I believe is a full-time podcaster.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: That's right. He's one of your main competitors.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: You're a part-time senator. Does he show up still? I
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: can't tell anymore.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: We're very excited. We're supporting you, obviously. We're also big
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: Beto O'Rourke fans here at Cricket Media. We threw our
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: heart into that race in 2018. He fell a little short.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: What do you think makes Texas different this time? What's
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: different about your race?
• 51:18
  Speaker 9: Well, we're going to build on what Beto did. I
• 51:20
  Speaker 9: think what Beto showed is that Texas... as a place where,
• 51:25
  Speaker 9: you know, change is possible. And, uh, you know, the
• 51:28
  Speaker 9: folks who got excited in 2018, uh, was incredibly important.
• 51:32
  Speaker 9: It's going to be important for this election. Uh, but
• 51:35
  Speaker 9: you know, I've never lost an election and I don't
• 51:37
  Speaker 9: plan on starting now. And I have experience, uh, beating Republicans.
• 51:42
  Speaker 9: Back in 18, I ran against a 22 year incumbent
• 51:45
  Speaker 9: Republican who had been unopposed in 2016. At this time, uh,
• 51:50
  Speaker 9: before that election, No one thought I was going to
• 51:52
  Speaker 9: win that race.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: It was a big flip.
• 51:54
  Speaker 9: It was a big flip. And we ended up beating
• 51:55
  Speaker 9: them by nearly seven points. So, you know, we know
• 51:58
  Speaker 9: what we're doing. I think Texas is ready, but it's
• 52:00
  Speaker 9: also true that Ted Cruz has shown that he's not
• 52:03
  Speaker 9: serious about this job, right? As you said, he's a
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: mostly full-time podcaster. He's podcasting three times a week.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: I don't even do that. It's my full-time job.
• 52:10
  Speaker 9: Honestly, just think about representing 30 million Texans in the
• 52:14
  Speaker 9: United States Senate, all the responsibilities that come with that,
• 52:16
  Speaker 9: and finding time to demagogue three times a week.
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: Or.
• 52:20
  Speaker 9: When you're not doing that, finding ways to get onto
• 52:21
  Speaker 9: Fox News every chance possible. But that's actually not the job.
• 52:26
  Speaker 9: The job is to pass legislation to help Texans, to
• 52:28
  Speaker 9: help the country. We can't afford six more years of
• 52:31
  Speaker 9: him in Texas, but also at the national level. I
• 52:34
  Speaker 9: was there on January 6th, about 50 feet away from him,
• 52:37
  Speaker 9: when he was the senator who objected to the results
• 52:40
  Speaker 9: in Arizona. I'm sitting there thinking, what does my own
• 52:42
  Speaker 9: state senator know at all about what happened in the
• 52:45
  Speaker 9: election in Arizona? And we know, of course, what happened
• 52:48
  Speaker 9: that day. And We have to have a response to that,
• 52:51
  Speaker 9: and I think we will.
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: Were a lot of people kind of making their way
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: over to you on January 6th, kind of introducing themselves
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: for the first time? I feel like you could have, like, look,
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: the QAnon shaman was not going to get past you
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: and pass protection or anything else.
• 53:04
  Speaker 9: I have to say, anything physical that comes up in
• 53:07
  Speaker 9: the House of Representatives, people look to me. But especially
• 53:09
  Speaker 9: that day, you know, it's funny and it's not funny, right?
• 53:13
  Speaker 9: I texted my wife, who was at home with our son,
• 53:17
  Speaker 9: who was not yet two, and she was about seven
• 53:19
  Speaker 9: months pregnant. And I sent her a text that I
• 53:21
  Speaker 9: thought I'd never have to send in this job. Whatever happens,
• 53:25
  Speaker 9: I love you.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 53:27
  Speaker 9: And I took off my jacket, which I've never done
• 53:29
  Speaker 9: on the House floor. It's against our rules to remove
• 53:31
  Speaker 9: your suit jacket. And I stood up and I was
• 53:35
  Speaker 9: ready to defend my colleagues who, as you said, were
• 53:38
  Speaker 9: going to need me to do it from whatever came
• 53:40
  Speaker 9: to that door. We had barricaded the door with furniture
• 53:43
  Speaker 9: that we used to hold paper. It's the ceremonial doors
• 53:46
  Speaker 9: the president walks through when the sergeant at arms says,
• 53:49
  Speaker 9: Madam Speaker, the president of the United States.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: It's that door. That's where the banging was and the
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: glass was being broken.
• 53:56
  Speaker 9: And folks like Ted Cruz, who whipped up that mob,
• 54:01
  Speaker 9: have to be held accountable electorally. And that's what our
• 54:04
  Speaker 9: chances in this election.
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: It's important to remember his role in this whole thing is, boy,
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: there were a lot of enablers that helped Donald Trump.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Is it true that your campaign headquarters will be in Cancun?
• 54:15
  Speaker 9: No, although Ted Cruz thinks it's very funny that he
• 54:18
  Speaker 9: jetted off to Cancun when 30 million Texans were freezing
• 54:21
  Speaker 9: in the dark.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: He thinks he can laugh that off.
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: I don't know how you, any politician laughs off a
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: dereliction of duty that glaring and obvious.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 54:28
  Speaker 9: Over 240 Texans died and every Texan knows where they
• 54:31
  Speaker 9: were when the power went out. And, you know, I
• 54:35
  Speaker 9: was a congressman at the time. I know how busy
• 54:37
  Speaker 9: I was at that time. There was, you know, calls
• 54:40
  Speaker 9: with FEMA, with state agencies, trying to direct resources, trying
• 54:44
  Speaker 9: to find what we called warming centers. You know, we're
• 54:46
  Speaker 9: just basically places that had the power on where folks
• 54:48
  Speaker 9: would come get warm. And to think that that was
• 54:52
  Speaker 9: a good time to go on vacation is just a perfect,
• 54:54
  Speaker 9: just encapsulation of the way he sees the job.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: So clearly you do the job better. So if you
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: get to the Senate, we keep reading these horrible stories
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: about the Supreme Court. They're accepting private jet flights and
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: all kinds of like goodies from these billionaires. And then
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: we keep reading their horrible rulings on all kinds of
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: issues that are stripping away people's rights, like abortion rights.
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: Do you support any Supreme Court reforms, like term limits
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: and things like that?
• 55:21
  Speaker 9: Well, listen, I actually represented Harlan Crowe for the last
• 55:25
  Speaker 9: four years. He's a constituent of mine.
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: I know him. You've been to his museum?
• 55:29
  Speaker 9: I've been to some properties of his. I don't think
• 55:32
  Speaker 9: I've seen that. And I just think it's ridiculous what
• 55:37
  Speaker 9: we're looking at right now in terms of this being
• 55:38
  Speaker 9: the most unaccountable body really in our government. All of
• 55:42
  Speaker 9: the lower courts have some system of ethics, some code
• 55:46
  Speaker 9: of conduct, and they're self-policing. And so we have to
• 55:50
  Speaker 9: change that. I think that when it comes to the
• 55:53
  Speaker 9: Supreme Court, the most important thing we can do is
• 55:57
  Speaker 9: have 50 senators who will vote for Joe Biden's next nominees.
• 56:02
  Speaker 9: Because as you know, we saw the last time Mitch
• 56:05
  Speaker 9: McConnell was in charge of the United States Senate, how long,
• 56:07
  Speaker 9: 11 months, he held open the seat that Mary Garland
• 56:12
  Speaker 9: was nominated for. And I think that'll happen again. And
• 56:16
  Speaker 9: so that's why it's so important that we win this election,
• 56:18
  Speaker 9: because it could determine who controls the Senate.
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: And we can.
• 56:22
  Speaker 9: That's one of the things that folks have to really,
• 56:24
  Speaker 9: I think, understand and get on board with. This is
• 56:26
  Speaker 9: a very winnable race. It's a tough race, but it's
• 56:28
  Speaker 9: a winnable one. And we need your help. So if
• 56:31
  Speaker 9: you're listening to this, go to ColinAllRed.com and get involved.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: So it's been about a little over a year since
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court stripped away abortion rights by overturning Roe
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: versus Wade. President Biden is promising to codify Roe versus
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: Wade into law. That would probably require getting rid of
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: the filibuster in the Senate so that we can get
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: to a vote so the Republicans couldn't block a vote.
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: Is that something you'd consider doing?
• 56:54
  Speaker 9: Well, I've been calling for us to get rid of
• 56:56
  Speaker 9: the filibuster. I was a voting rights lawyer before I
• 56:58
  Speaker 9: came to Congress. And our big push in the last Congress,
• 57:02
  Speaker 9: as you probably remember, was the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
• 57:05
  Speaker 9: We I spoke with Senator Manchin about it. I was
• 57:09
  Speaker 9: actually asked to give him a call and talk to
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: him about it from a voting rights perspective. And I
• 57:14
  Speaker 9: thought we had an agreement on moving to a speaking filibuster.
• 57:19
  Speaker 9: It's obviously a legacy of some of the darkest days
• 57:22
  Speaker 9: of our country, but it's also at this point just
• 57:25
  Speaker 9: standing in the way of fundamental reforms that are necessary
• 57:28
  Speaker 9: to keep our democracy thriving. And when you can't address
• 57:32
  Speaker 9: voting rights because you have to have 60 votes in
• 57:35
  Speaker 9: in a body that's determined by geography, then you're locking
• 57:39
  Speaker 9: yourself into a future where you can't have any kind
• 57:40
  Speaker 9: of legislative advancements. And we know the Supreme Court's not
• 57:43
  Speaker 9: going to do it. And of course, I actually have
• 57:45
  Speaker 9: been thinking this for some time, that the model of
• 57:49
  Speaker 9: relying on the courts to be sort of our advancer
• 57:51
  Speaker 9: of our civil rights is long past. And we now
• 57:54
  Speaker 9: have to do it through legislation. We had 50 votes
• 57:57
  Speaker 9: in the Senate to do that in the last Congress,
• 58:00
  Speaker 9: but not 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster.
• 58:02
  Speaker 9: I will certainly not let the filibuster stand in the
• 58:04
  Speaker 9: way of that or anything else, I think we have to,
• 58:08
  Speaker 9: we will have to still work in a bipartisan way
• 58:11
  Speaker 9: in the United States Senate. That's going to continue to
• 58:12
  Speaker 9: be true. But I don't think that we should allow
• 58:15
  Speaker 9: this super majority threshold to stay in place.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: The other thing that I imagine is probably really important
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: to your constituents in Texas is immigration or immigration policy.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: I think for a lot of people in other parts
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: of the country, it can feel like a problem that's
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: far away, right? The southern border is not where you
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: live if you're in Michigan or something. For you guys,
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: it's literally on your southern border. I saw a poll
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: from last year that showed 52% of Texas voters supported
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: busing migrants to other parts of the country. So clearly
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: there's enormous frustration about, you know, feeling like this is
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: a problem that's being put on Texas. What are you
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: hearing from voters and what do you want to see
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: President Biden or Congress do to solve the problem?
• 58:56
  Speaker 9: Well, I have kind of a personal relationship with this
• 58:59
  Speaker 9: because after the Second World War, my grandfather of fought
• 59:02
  Speaker 9: in the Navy in the Pacific, and then came back
• 59:04
  Speaker 9: and was a customs officer in Brownsville, Texas, the very
• 59:07
  Speaker 9: tip of Texas. That's where my mom and my aunt
• 59:10
  Speaker 9: grew up, went to high school. And then I spent
• 59:14
  Speaker 9: most of my summers driving down my mom to Brownsville
• 59:18
  Speaker 9: to see my grandmother there. And, you know, I think
• 59:22
  Speaker 9: that when you talk about the border, It's not just
• 59:25
  Speaker 9: a political backdrop. And that's what I see Ted Cruz
• 59:28
  Speaker 9: using it as, is to go on almost like a
• 59:30
  Speaker 9: political safari and be like in the bushes pointing out migrants.
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: That literally happens for listeners who don't know.
• 59:36
  Speaker 9: You're a United States senator. Where's your legislation to do
• 59:39
  Speaker 9: something about it? How are you going to help these
• 59:41
  Speaker 9: border communities deal with these surges, which, as you know,
• 59:44
  Speaker 9: are driven by geopolitical forces, sometimes by climate change, sometimes
• 59:47
  Speaker 9: by many factors, right? Venezuela's in collapse. Five million Venezuelans
• 59:52
  Speaker 9: have left the country. We're seeing a lot of them
• 59:54
  Speaker 9: showing up. the southern border. So we have to support
• 59:57
  Speaker 9: those border communities much more. And this has been across
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 9: multiple administrations where the burden of these geopolitical impacts and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 9: of our inability to pass any kind of comprehensive immigration
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 9: form ends up falling on communities on the border that
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 9: then have to have the Catholic charities maxed out, local
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 9: communities maxed out, people sleeping under the bridges, people sleeping
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 9: on the street corners. And that's frustrating But it doesn't
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 9: have to be that way. As you know, we've had frameworks,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 9: both in the Bush administration and in the Obama administration,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 9: around a comprehensive reform that would have billions of dollars
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 9: for border security. Every country has to secure their own border.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 9: But that would also much better allow us to process
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 9: folks who are seeking asylum, much better allow us, I think,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 9: to treat people consistent with our values, which is the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 9: kind of false dichotomy that I see Ted Cruz and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 9: others setting up. which is that if we're going to
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 9: have an immigration system, it either has to be so
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 9: harsh that it's completely out of whack with our values,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 9: that we are going to try and make it so
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 9: hard and mean for folks.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Separating families.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that they're not going to want to come, which
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 9: we know from the situations they're leaving, that's not going
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 9: to work. Or that we can't do anything at all.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 9: That's just not true. We can do something about this.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 9: And so that's my frustration, I think, on the issue
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 9: by and large is that It's been used as such
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 9: a political divider. But we pretty much know what we
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 9: need to do to address it. And we need a
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 9: senator from Texas who will do that. We know Ted
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 9: Cruz won't.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, one thing I wonder about, I worked in the,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: we both worked in the Obama administration. I was on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: the foreign policy side. I saw the administration use sanctions
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: to punish countries frequently.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Currently, the U.S.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: Is sanctioning the hell out of Venezuela, which you mentioned,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: I think a quarter of the population has left the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: country in recent years. Do you think, I mean, what
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: do you think about sort of the international, we talk
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: a lot about the border. Are there things you would
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: like to see Joe Biden or any president do like
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: sanctions relief for Venezuela or Cuba or other places that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: might kind of reduce the flow of migration?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 9: Well, I remember when in the Trump administration, uh, they
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 9: cut foreign aid to the Northern tribal countries because they
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 9: weren't doing enough to stop migration. And it's like, do
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 9: you understand that cutting that aid is going to increase
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 9: migration from these countries? I mean, we do have a
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 9: role to play, certainly, in helping to stabilize, particularly the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 9: countries that are in our own backyard. And I think
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 9: that when we're talking about the competition with China globally,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 9: great power competition, the global south is where that competition
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 9: is being held. And that includes our own hemisphere in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 9: South America and Central America, where the Chinese are making
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 9: big investments. And we need to be on the field
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 9: and playing a productive role, helping as much as we
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 9: can to be a stabilizing force and yes, looking at
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 9: things like our sanctions policy and how that's contributing to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 9: some of this suffering, but also seeing the programs that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 9: we know have worked around the world and applying them.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: In our own hemisphere.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 9: And so to me, we're not going to be able
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 9: to solve all the problems of the countries that are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 9: around us, but we certainly shouldn't be contributing to their problems.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: Like I mentioned earlier, this amazing path of the NFL
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: to Congress, but you also worked in the Obama administration
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: at HUD. You also you went to the NFL to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: get your law degree, right, at Berkeley, I believe. Can
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: you talk a little bit, like, what were you doing
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: at HUD as a civil rights lawyer? Like, what was
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: that work like?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I took a normal route to Congress.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 9: You know, I was raised by a single mother, played
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 9: in the NFL, went to law school, and became a
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 9: civil rights lawyer, right? You know, just the normal route. Well,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 9: I had spent my last year of law school basically
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 9: working in the administration, like in the White House Counsel's
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 9: Office under Kathy Rumler, and then DOJ under Rod Rosenstein,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 9: at that time, well-respected U.S.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Attorney.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: Oh, he led one of the leak investigation cases that
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: I had to get interviewed for.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't do anything wrong. I was absolved. Someone else
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: was indicted and scared the shit out of me. So
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: I know Rod, yeah.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he was the U.S. attorney there.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 9: And then I was doing my voting rights work and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 9: was asked to come back into the administration as an
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 9: appointee at HUD in the general counsel's office.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: And, you know, basically.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 9: trying to tie together different programs and make sure that
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 9: the trains were running on time and kept everything legal.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 9: And I was working there with another Texan, Leon Castro,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 9: who I was very proud of and was proud.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: To work under him.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 9: And when the transition came, I remember preparing a lot
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 9: of documents, particularly around ethics and Hatch Act and things
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 9: like that for the incoming administration, thinking they're not going
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 9: to read any of this stuff. But it was a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 9: lot worse, actually, than I could have even imagined. And
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 9: it was an honor for me to serve in the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 9: Obama administration. I know you feel the same way. Obviously,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 9: you run the campaign. But as an African-American, to serve
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 9: in the first black president's administration, it's something that I'll
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 9: always remember.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: Just cherish.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: I feel incredibly lucky to have met the guy and
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: then got to work there. So broader question about the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: Democratic Party. We have been struggling with getting support from
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: young men of all races. I don't know if there's
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: a single reason, but it does seem to coincide with
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: the rise of these horrible characters like Andrew Tate or
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: Jordan Peterson who preach these deeply misogynistic worldviews. You played
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: in the NFL. I don't think that Ben Shapiro is
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: going to hear this conversation and call you like a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: beta male soy boy or something.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: He probably shouldn't. Did football teach.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: You anything about how politicians can communicate with and lead
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: young men and convince them to sort of steer away
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: from these toxic speakers?
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 9: That's such a good question. Not only did I play
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 9: in the NFL, I was a linebacker in the NFL.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 9: So Come at me if you want to have a
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 9: conversation about masculinity on that front, right? But you're exactly right.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 9: There are so many toxic examples out there. One of
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 9: the things I've been most proud of in my time
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 9: in Congress has been that I was the first member
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 9: of Congress to ever take paternity leave. And I talked
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 9: about it very openly. I said, I'm going to take
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 9: paternity leave. And just under the kind of pretense of, well,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 9: if a former NFL linebacker can do it, then maybe
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 9: it'll make it easier for some other man in some
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 9: other field to do it. and I took paternity leave twice.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 9: I didn't know I was going to be the first.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 9: I just thought it was the right thing to do.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 9: And then you see something like what happened when Secretary
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 9: Buttigieg took paternity leave because his twins were in the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 9: emergency room. And they're saying, well, you didn't have the baby.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 9: Much worse than that, of course.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: Horrible things, yeah.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 9: And I think, what is wrong with this culture around men?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 9: That's the conversation that we're having. But I know that
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 9: we have to have examples. And I think You know,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 9: one thing that people, I think, don't realize about athletes
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 9: and my experience in the NFL is that there's a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 9: lot of really decent guys who are very productive and
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 9: do good work in their communities, who are thoughtful, who
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 9: want to be productive citizens, who've overcome tremendous things to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 9: get to.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: Where they are.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 9: And they have nothing in common, by and large, with
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 9: these idiots you see, you know, taking pictures of themselves
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 9: with expensive cars and spreading these worse versions of what
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 9: it is to be a man. And if I can
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 9: be an example to counter that, I will. But trust me,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 9: if you think that, as Donald Trump said, that that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 9: was just locker room talk, the way he was talking
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 9: about women, that's not been my experience. And I spent
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 9: most of my life in locker rooms. And there is
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 9: a much better and different way. And we just have
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 9: to have examples to model it. And we have to
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 9: be out there and out front. And you're right, though.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 9: We have had an issue with young men feeling like
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: this democracy is for them as well. And so that's
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 9: one of the things I've been working on since before
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 9: I came to office, and I'm going to keep working
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 9: on it, that, as President Obama used to say, this
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 9: is not a spectator sport. You're not just watching it.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 9: You've got to be engaged. If you're not at the table,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 9: you're going.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: To be on the menu.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 9: And so that's going to be something we certainly focus
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 9: on in our campaign.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: That's great. Ted Cruz, by the way, is also— been
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: a real spreader of these kinds of views. I mean,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: his co-host for.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: His podcast, but he's also one of the guys who
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: would retweet the videos that people would make of like
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: some Russian military propaganda film compared to a U.S. Army
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: recruiting film where they're trying to be inclusive and be like,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: oh boy, you know, the, of course we would lose
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: in a war. Fast forward two years and the Russian
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: military is getting this clock cleaned by the Ukrainians, right?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just so ludicrous.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 9: And we have a diverse military where you've got to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 9: get along with folks who come from a different background
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 9: than you do.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: And that's the same thing in sports.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 9: And one of the things I noticed immediately about some
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 9: folks who were not athletes is when they just have
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 9: no ability to get along with others. I mean, I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 9: kind of feel like it should be a requirement to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 9: have to do some kind of team activity if you're
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 9: going to be a legislator.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: But you're right. I mean, this idea that.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 9: In order to be effective, you have to have this
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 9: kind of stylized, fake uh, you know, just completely, I
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 9: think counterproductive version of masculinity or toughness or whatever you,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 9: whatever word you want to use. That's just not true. Uh,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 9: and you know, Ted Cruz was a debater. I was
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 9: captain of the Baylor football.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: Team, you know? So I think I know where I'm
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: coming from on that.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Ted could barely beat Jimmy Kimmel in basketball. Uh, so
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: you mentioned you played at Baylor. It's like a real deal.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: D one program, shout out RG three, uh, Robert Griffin,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: the third, um, four seasons in the NFL for the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: Tennessee Titans. Was playing in the NFL a lifelong dream?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 9: Yes and no. I think that I didn't think that
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 9: I was going to be able to play in the NFL.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: I was all ready to go to law.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 9: School and basically started getting calls and was convinced that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 9: I was going to have a chance.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: And I was like, well, you should talk to my teammates.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: He's going to be good.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 9: And they're like, no, no, you're going to have a chance.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 9: We want to represent you in the NFL. And so
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 9: finally I decided to give it a shot. And While
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: I was playing, I was deferring my law school admission
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 9: until finally they told me to just reapply when I
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 9: got done. I remember I hurt my neck. I played
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 9: four seasons, but I was in the NFL for five years.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 9: It was in my fifth year, my fifth game against
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 9: the Cowboys in Dallas. My family's in the stands, and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 9: I get hit the wrong way. Not a big hit,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 9: but the wrong.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: Kind of a hit.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 9: My whole right side is basically shut down. I knew
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 9: I'd had a neck issue. I'm lying on the turf.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 9: Probably the only person who's ever had this happen before thinking, yeah,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 9: I'm so ready to go to law school. You know,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 9: I mean, you're just, okay. I think, I think I've
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 9: proved something here. It's time to move on.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: You prove something here. I mean, that's an amazing story.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of people get talked into trying
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: to try out for teams, but to make it and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: to play for four years, I mean, you knew Reggie Love,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: I imagine Barack Obama's body guy played at Duke, uh,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: played football and basketball. I think he got talked into, yeah,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: great athlete, like one of the best athletes I've ever known,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: got talked into, I think, coming to Cowboys camp and
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: playing linebacker. And he said he went and tried to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: hit some running back and just got his clock clean.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know that I can do this.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: I can see Reggie telling that story.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: And it happened. What's tougher, covering a tight end or
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: a running back out of the backfield?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: Definitely a running back. I think tight ends are glorified
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 9: offensive tackles.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Those are fighting words.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: I've heard some influential people in sports media suggest that
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: Ohio State uses a field for their pro days that
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: might be slightly shorter than 40 yards, which is why
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: you see Buckeye players putting up these blistering 40 times
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: on their NFL pro days. Have you heard these theories,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: and would you consider holding hearings on 40-time fraud?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 9: Listen, having played against the Patriots, I put nothing past anybody.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Urban Meyer, too. I mean, my God.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: That's right. That's right.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Who was the best linebacker ever?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 9: I think still probably Singletary maybe. But the best I'd
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 9: ever seen was Patrick Willis. He was incredible.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: No Junior Seau, no Terrell Suggs, no Ray Lewis?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think Ray Lewis is probably a bigger Singletary.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 9: He's probably the prototype of the modern inside linebacker. But,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 9: I mean, if Willis had played longer, we'd be talking
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 9: about him as one of the all-time greats.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask you about a 2009 game
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: where the Titans played the Patriots and lost 59 to zero,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: but I decided not to do that.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: It's funny.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: I just come back from a neck injury and I
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 9: was like out there in the snow and we could
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 9: not hang on to the ball to save our lives.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 9: It was like, it's like it had, you know, I
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 9: don't know, oil on it or something. And Tom and
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 9: Randy are out there just playing pitch and catch. And
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 9: I'm like, you know, what's going on? And of course,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 9: a few years later, I hear that, Maybe the ball
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 9: was deflated.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: Tough.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 9: No, but seriously, that team was so good. They set
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 9: every record. I think it's thrilling that I got to
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 9: play against Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, some of the best
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 9: quarterbacks in the history of the game.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: Final question for you.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: If you win, have you thought about launching a big
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: and tall caucus with John Fetterman, maybe John Tester?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: We're calling them. Cock hoss, hoss caucus.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: We're spitballing.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 9: When I win, I will definitely do that. We also
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 9: will have a very large and growing bald men caucus,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 9: although historically that's probably been the case, right?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 5: That's a good, that's a well-worn group of men. Congressman Allred,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: thank you for coming in. Remind us where we can
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: go to help the campaign out.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, we can win this race, but we need
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: your help.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 9: So if you care about 30 million Texans getting the
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 9: representation they deserve, go to Collin allred.com or text Texas
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 9: to 90678.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Perfect. Thanks for coming in.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, before we go, we have some feuds to adjudicate.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: Stop talking. Sometimes the enemy.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: Here's a new one. I was going for a feud.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: I was going for a feud vibe. Sometimes the enemy
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: of your enemy is your friend. Sometimes the enemy of
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: your enemy means two people who suck are right about
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: each other and little else. Far-right It Girls, Marjorie Taylor
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: Greene and Lauren Boebert are trash-talking each other publicly after MTG...
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Far-right It Girls, Marjorie.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: are trash-talking each other publicly after MTG called Boebert a
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: little bitch on the House floor for copying her articles
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: of impeachment. Let's take a listen. Congresswoman Greene claims you
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: copied her resolution. Yeah, I'm not in middle school. Can
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: you comment on the report that she cursed at you
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: on the floor? Like I said, I'm not in middle school. Meanwhile,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: the boys are fighting too. Last week, Elon Musk was
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: making fun of Meta's upcoming Twitter rival Threads when a
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: fan warned him about Zuck's martial arts prowess. Musk responded,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: I'm up for a cage match if he is, LOL.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: And Zuckerberg took the bait, posting on Instagram, send me location.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: Ultimate fighting champion president Dana White proclaimed that both these
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: guys are absolutely dead serious. But then after Elon Musk's
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: mother seemed to put the kibosh on the whole thing,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: that's real.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I missed that part.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: People thought his mom was canceling the fight. But then
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: Elon tweeted, and this is also real, mom, I'm fighting him.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: Stop it. Did you know that?
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: No, I did not know that.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: The point is we live in hell, but maybe hell
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: has an octagon because the worst people you know are fighting.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: So we're going to play a game we're calling Billion
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: Dollar Baby. I'm going to give you a current matchup
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: and you have to tell us who would win that fight. Basically,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: you have to pick a winner and say how many
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: rounds it would take from one to nine. Round one,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: you think it's a quick knockout, not even close. But
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: if you think it would go all the way to
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: 10 rounds, then you're calling it a draw. And basically,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: they fight until they both collapse into the arms of
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: their trainers, who several of them are also trying to date.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: Could we just say draw instead of 10? Yeah, you
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: could say draw. So less confusing. Yeah, it's one to
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: nine or draw. Good.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: That's what I was getting at. Great.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks for helping me.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: No problem.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for making me better, Tommy. First up.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Sorry about my sports ball.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Lauren Boebert versus MTG on one... On one hand, MTG
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: is into CrossFit and is already so enraged, she's shit-talking
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: Lauren Boebert in the press like she's Stone Cold Steve Austin.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: squaring off against someone called the Bret Hartman Hit. Hitman Hart.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: Bret the Hitman Hart. A reference I get.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: Wrestler.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, Lauren Boebert co-sponsored a bill with
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: George Santos to make the AR-15 the national gun. So
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: you know she's loca. And that goes a long way
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: in a one-on-one brawl. There is a correct answer, by
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: I think... Marjorie Taylor Greene would fucking wipe the floor
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: with her in two rounds.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: Have you seen the video of MTG doing those crazy
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: CrossFit pull-ups where it looks like you're going to rip
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: your shoulders.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: Out every single time? It's called kipping.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't mess with her.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: It's called kipping. Kipping. One round MTG. Boebert's done. The
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: Crooked community thinks 90% MTGV. That is correct. However, John
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: gets the point because it is round two. Because round one,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: MTG just toys with her like a kitten. And then
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: round two, she beats the average. Sorry, that's what happens.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: I can see that. That's what happens. Okay, round two.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: So point goes to John there. Round two, it's billionaires
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: versus the ocean. Here's why. Jesus. In a submersible, the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: ocean's going to win every time. But on the board
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: of a multinational corporation extracting value from carbon-based fuels deep
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: in the ground, billionaires are getting a lot of rounds in.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that you put the billionaire in the ocean.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: The ocean wins. Right. Billionaire from the safety of land
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: can kill the ocean.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: So you have to decide. Now they're facing off over
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: the long term.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Who is facing off?
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Billionaires versus the ocean.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, billionaires.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: Billionaires. All billionaires. All billionaires. Versus the ocean.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Who's going to win in the end?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: When the billionaires go in the ocean, no good, famously, lately.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: But the oceans themselves, the billionaires from the land, are
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: launching an attack over time.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right. Okay.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 5: So I'm going to say, I think that the ocean
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: wins in the eighth round because that ocean is coming
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: for us all. And it's going to hit the most
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 5: expensive beachfront property first where the billionaires live. So they're
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: all going to drown.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: See, I think the billionaires are going to win because they, well,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: the oceans end up swallowing all of us and all
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: life on this earth. The billionaires are going to escape
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: to Mars.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Or seasteading.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: But I think that's like round nine.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: Point goes to Tommy, the oceans are going to win.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, yeah, the oceans are going to win, but
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: it's in, wait, what did you think was going to win?
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: The billionaires are going to win because they're going to escape.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: They're just going to leave the planet.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: No, Tommy gets this one. The oceans are actually going
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: to win in round nine technically. It won't be pretty,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: but the oceans will survive and ultimately thrive.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: Sweet.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk tweeted the other day, there is a slight
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: chance he will end his life on Mars. He will
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: end up on Mars.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: With any luck.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: Mark Zuckerberg would kick his ass, though.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: That's what's next.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: That's what's next. That's what's next. Sorry, you put the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: oceans in there. I'm alternating abstract. I'm doing the data
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: ones in the middle of the real ones. Trust the process,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: as Dan would say. Next up, Mark Zuckerberg versus Elon Musk.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: In the Octagon, things to consider, Elon is 51, Zuck
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: is 39, Musk weighs an estimated 187 pounds, and Zuckerberg
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: less than 154 pounds. Zuck is a white belt in jujitsu,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: while Elon spends a little every day tweeting in reply
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: to bigoted tweets. And he's not doing that from one
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: of those, you know, treadmill desks, probably. On the other hand,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: you know, if you're in charge of deciding when Zuckerberg
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: gets a new belt, what are you going to make him?
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: You're going to say no? You want to keep those Oh,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: you think he doesn't deserve his belt? I don't know,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: but I'm just saying it's easier to give him the
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: belt than say you haven't earned it yet.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: We also think that he took an involuntary nap while
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: doing jujitsu.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: He choked out.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he lost consciousness. But then the Facebook PR people
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: were quick to say, no, that's not true. He didn't
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: lose consciousness.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: He was just grunting or something like that. Here's the
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: thing about jujitsu. It's not like.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: It's not a boxing match where you just punch each
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 5: other out until you win. It's like weird pressure points
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: and like twisting your arms in ways until you have
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: to tap out. That requires training and knowledge. And I
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: think Mark would kick his, his ass.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Elon is also a soft wimp. You can, it just
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: comes through in every fucking tweet. Mark Zuckerberg will kick
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: his ass.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: How many rounds? What do you think? Three for me. Yeah. Two.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I'll go two.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: Uh, Tommy takes it. It was round three. That's when
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: it's going to happen. Though technically, but actually, you know what?
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give it to both of you. That's
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: going to be a tie because John got at the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: essential point, which technically Elon is going to quit. They're
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: going to dance around each other for two rounds, and
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: the second it gets real in the third round, Elon's
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: going to take one hit of some kind, and then
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: he's going to have like a knee problem. And then
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: he's going on Twitter and say he wished he could reschedule,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: but it's been hard to find the time to get
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: the real fight back on the books.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: He'll do it on Twitter, fortunately.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: Next up, and finally... We have Ron DeSantis versus eye contact.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis versus eye contact.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to judge this one.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: Who's going to win? Who's going to win in a fight?
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: That's the question.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: You know, on the one hand.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, Ron DeSantis is not going to win anything.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: Which means that eye contact will win.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing is that, you know, one of the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: most important things standing between Ron DeSantis... And political success
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: is his ability to relate to another person. And so
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: all the ambition in the world, is it enough to
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: teach him how to fake knowing how to interact one-on-one
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: with another human being? That's the question before us.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 4: That's tough.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think so either.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: How many rounds?
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: What do rounds mean? I think he's going to go
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: in five. Yeah. Eye contact wins in five.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: I actually, because he has so much money and is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: still like second in the primary, I think it could go,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say nine rounds.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give it to John. John takes that one.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: That's going to take someone putting you both at a tie.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: The question is basically it will be round nine, which
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: will be after New Hampshire. It has to be after.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: How is round nine after New Hampshire?
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it's going to be a second primary and then
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: there's a general election.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: What is this rounding? Rules are capricious. Outrageous.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: This fucking time machine telling us who wins. Unbelievable. I'm
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: just saying that's what happened. That's what happened in the battle.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you don't agree with my judgment as
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: to who would win in a fight between New eye contact,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: and Ron DeSantis, and when the victory takes place. How
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: dare you? How dare you insult my methods? I apologize.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: And that's been Billion Dollar Baby. That's too early on
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: the fucking bells, Ben.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: No tiebreaker?
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: No tiebreaker? Yeah, all right. Here's a tiebreaker.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: Here's a tiebreaker.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: Shit, I asked for it.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: Here's a tiebreaker. On the fly. Me versus Dan. In
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: a fist fight? It's a... I think we have gloves.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: Mathlete?
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: It's gloves. Just... Just boxing.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you why this is hard. This is
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: hard because I want to pick Dan, but if I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: pick Dan, I'm definitely not going to win because you
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: just decide. Future me. Love it. You'd wipe the floor
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: with him in one round.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 5: I think you would give Dan a run for his money,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 5: but he's got the reach and he would beat you
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 5: in the ninth round. But everyone would come out saying
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: Love it was the real winner. Tommy tried to go
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: with being a straight.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: Love it won the moral winner.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Tommy tried to appeal to the straight shooter. Yeah, it'd
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: be like Rudy.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: Carry you out.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I think Tommy's closer for sure. I think
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: the question is, I think the question is, I've got
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: those crazy eyes and does that come out? Is there
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: a demon inside of me? Cause there might be, there
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: might be. And I don't know if there's a demon
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: inside Dan. Have you done any fist fighting in your life? These, these, these,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: these are for writing. These are for writing and signaling.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: Are they for writing? High school happens, you know what
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: I mean? Well, they're more for writing than they are
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: for punching.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: More for, for hand waving? The game is over.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Colin Allred for joining us. Talk about a
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: guy who would kick our asses. Thanks to the guy
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: who wins in fight, Colin Allred.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman,
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: Ben Hefko, and David Tolles. Subscribe to Pod Save America
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  Speaker 1: on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other
• 1:25:04
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