Latest / Pod Save America / Trump's Epstein Doodle Grosser than Expected

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Trump's Epstein Doodle Grosser than Expected · Pod Save America

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• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to talk about the Supreme
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Court giving ICE the green light to detain U.S. citizens
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: who look like they might be here illegally, Trump's new
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Department of War, which seems to be itching for one
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in Venezuela, whether Democrats should fund Trump's government, the release
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of Trump's birthday doodle to Epstein that he claimed didn't exist,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Democratic midterm strategy, and the latest episode of MAGA Fight Club.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with the Democratic nominee for
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: governor of New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill, who stopped by the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: studio to talk about one of the biggest races of 2025.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: But let's start with how the president kicked off the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: weekend by posting a meme where he appeared to declare
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: war on Chicago. That's where we are. Having already deployed
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the U.S. military to Los Angeles and D.C., which Trump
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: has declared a crime-free safe zone, despite three people getting
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: shot over Labor Day weekend. He's been hinting that Chicago
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: is next and ICE agents have been staging at a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: naval base outside the city. Then on Saturday, Trump posted
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a meme titled, Shypocalypse Now, with an AI-generated image of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: him wearing aviators as attack helicopters descend on a Chicago
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: skyline in flames. It also kind of looks like he's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: farting fire in the meme. Did you guys notice that?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe that was just me.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he's supposed to be Colonel Kilgore from
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Apocalypse Now. It's sort of him crouching on the beach.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: He's farting fire. There's an unfortunate placement of flames. No, yeah, no.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: His face is vaguely Robert Duvall-like.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: In the picture, it has emerged as a face.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: He's lost the swollen hands and the cankles on that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's supposed to be him.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: No. Right, right, right. Big cankles. Alex Jones told us
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in great detail. Did you guys watch that segment, Alex Jones? Yes.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: He said that Trump's cankles were the size of Alex
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Jones' neck, and Alex Jones was like, my neck's like
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: 19 inches. It's fantastic. Got to get compression socks. Yes.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Got to get compression socks.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Anyway, back to the terrifying declaration of war against America's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: third largest city. So the caption reads, I love the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: out why it's called the Department of War. Followed by
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three helicopter emojis.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: The Department of War is as of Friday.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: But like the newscopter version of a helicopter. You know
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: what I mean? You work with what you got. Apache.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Take it up with Tim Cook.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Sorry, you're right.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: The Department of War is as of Friday. Nobel Peace
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Prize hopeful Donald Trump's new name for the Department of Defense.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: We're going to get to that in a minute. Trump
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: was asked whether he had in fact declared war on Chicago.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Here's what he said. You say that, darling, that's fake news.
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  Speaker 3: Listen, be quiet.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Listen, you don't listen. You never listen. That's why you're
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: second rate. We're not going to war. We're going to
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: clean up our city.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: We could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: A decision as to where we go over the next
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: day or two. No war. No war.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Just that's why we call it the Department of War.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: And that's how Chicago is going to find out because
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I posted this meme.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: But no war. That's such a condescending way to talk
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: to a reporter. It's just hard to get over it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: White House told Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic that this
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: entire debate about troop deployments in cities has put Democrats
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: on the defensive. and that Trump wants crime to be
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a central issue in the midterms.
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  Speaker 2: What do you guys think? I believe it. Yeah, I mean,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Harry Anton from CNN did a piece today on Trump's
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: approval rating. The headline takeaway is Trump's been underwater in
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: his approval for 181 days in a row, which is
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: not great. But if you look at his approval on issues,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the best issue was crime at negative two. And then
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: when you get down to economy and trade, it's negative
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: 14 and negative 17, respectively. So I think they think
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: this is a better narrative, better footing for them politically
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: than the economy is. where unemployment is ticking up, inflation
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: is getting worse.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: U.S.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Health insurers are raising insurance premiums by the most in
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  Speaker 2: 15 years. You guys see that?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Nice little report sprinkled in.
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  Speaker 2: 75%. Massive, massive increase. Yeah, up to 18% for people
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: buying on the exchanges in 2026.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Sorry, it will be 75% if, we'll talk about this
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: at some point, but if the subsidies go away, which
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: they're expiring.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry. The cost of company health insurance is about 6.5%
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: increase on average. Government exchanges, 18%. Anyway, But yes, I
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: do think like they want to talk about crime. They're
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: calling this Operation Midway Blitz. You guys see that? I
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: didn't see that, but. They've named it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, the Boston one is Operation Patriot 2, 2.0.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know what Patriot 1.0 is. What's 1.0? The team?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: No idea. Yeah, maybe. Drake me out of this. Patriots. Continue. Annie,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: what do you think? Why do you look terrified? I
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: didn't know what the, oh, you're saying the sports team. Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: We also have Patriot's Day in Massachusetts. It's a state holiday,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: not a federal one.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So when you guys celebrate fighting the desegregation of the schools,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: or is that a different holiday? Different holiday. This is
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  Speaker 2: the one with the founding of the country. This is
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  Speaker 2: the birthplace of liberty.
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  Speaker 4: This is the day when Wendy Bolger threw that cocktail
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  Speaker 4: into the Kennedy house.
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  Speaker 2: Honor that day, you freaks. What? Fucking Massachusetts. Sorry. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know. What's happening on the island?
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  Speaker 2: Anything good ever? No, actually. What a wonderful place you're from. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I know. It's the Boston of New York. I can
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  Speaker 2: face that. All right. Come on. Keep going. Keep going.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Charlie Gasparino. What do you think about this? What do
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  Speaker 2: I think about this?
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  Speaker 4: So Tommy pointed out that it is his best issue.
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  Speaker 4: He's only underwater by two. This is a spin about
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  Speaker 4: the fact that they're on defensive politically going into the midterms.
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  Speaker 2: And there was this.
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  Speaker 4: The whole premise of the piece, not from the, from
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  Speaker 4: the Meyer, but from the Trump people are in.
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  Speaker 2: 2018, Trump was too conciliatory. All right. He was, he
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  Speaker 2: was too bipartisan. He was too kind. And so now
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  Speaker 2: we really need to go on offense.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Which is, which is.
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  Speaker 2: You go, like, I'm sorry, like, I know we all
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  Speaker 2: are like goldfish.
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  Speaker 1: The lesson he took from 2018 was that he reached
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  Speaker 1: across the aisle too much.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: And I was like, I was like trying to, you know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: you like, I was like allowing myself even for a
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: moment to be gaslit by that. And it's like, well,
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: I remember him calling us mobs, saying we were going
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: to turn America into Venezuela, blaming us for the migrant caravans.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: A crazy man sent a pipe bomb to the Obamas
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and a couple other Democrats, I remember, and he thought
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that was kind of cool.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Caravans, remember the caravans coming in 18? He did
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  Speaker 2: do that event with Van Jones, though. So maybe that
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  Speaker 2: was the problem. First Step Act. Oh, I do remember
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  Speaker 2: that now.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was an important moment. But the point being, like, okay,
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  Speaker 4: they want to put Democrats on defense because of this.
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  Speaker 4: And Republicans, like CBS just had a new poll that
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  Speaker 4: found that Republicans understand that this is what they're meant
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  Speaker 4: to do because they said what's the most important issue,
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  Speaker 4: and it's immigration, the border, and crime, right?
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  Speaker 2: But that's not true of what other voters are telling people.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: But then you look even on like who is in
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: favor of National Guard deployments to cities, not most Americans,
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: most people don't support it. And it's also very geographic
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: because geography is very partisan. And so what are we
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  Speaker 4: talking about here? Who is this popular among? It's a
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: popular among people who are consuming information about the cities
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  Speaker 4: that they do not live in and support the policing
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: of by National Guard because of what they're receiving about
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: the cities from Fox News, other television, from the algorithm.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: But then if you ask people, do you support having
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: National Guard deployments to your city? Even more people say no.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: So this is sort of a like it is a
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: it is a it is a very popular thing amongst Republicans.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: It is not popular among independents. It's not popular, certainly
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: among the Democrats who live in the cities where these
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: deployments would take place. So even on this, I don't
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: I don't see it as an issue.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: We should certainly act like we're on defense.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It's the same issue we had with immigration after he
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: became president again. which is pollsters were just asking about
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: immigration writ large and getting people's approval or disapproval of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: him on that issue. And then it turned out after
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a couple months of mass deportations and rounding up people
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and throwing them in vans, that if you asked, how's
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Trump doing on the border, he gets really good ratings
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: or some of his best ratings on any issue. If
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you ask, how's he doing on deportations, he's way underwater, right?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't surprise me that if you ask people,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: who's better on crime, Donald Trump or Uh, those, you know, there's,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: there's weakling Democrats. People are gonna be like, yeah, Trump,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Trump's better on crime. He's tough on crime. But now
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: that we're breaking out the troop deployments and national guard
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the street, he's going to be a little less
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: popular in that, but it is all very, it's very
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: war on terror to me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Which is like, we can do whatever we want, detain
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: whoever we want, arrest whoever we want, provide no evidence,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: provide no due process. But if you complain, you're just
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: soft on crime like the rest of the Democrats.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: That's where we are now. So the latest example of
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Trump trying to make crime an issue is this video
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that is all over right-wing media of a horrific stabbing
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that took place on a light rail train in North
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Carolina back in August. A young Ukrainian refugee was killed,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and it looks like the suspect has a long list
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: of past convictions for crimes like armed robbery. Not sure
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: why this is Democrats' fault, but we got Trump is
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: weighing in on it. He's blaming Roy Cooper, who's now
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: running for Senate in North Carolina. you know, everyone in
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: right-wing media is saying, why isn't the real media covering this?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Or why isn't the mainstream media covering this? And of course,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: they also didn't cover it back in August 22nd when
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it happened that much. It was a local news story until,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I guess, the video got out and was amplified by
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk and all the rest of them. What do
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you guys think about this one?
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, the video is horrifying, right? It's getting attacked
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: for no reason by a stranger on a train that
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: is a nightmare. And it's especially awful to know this
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: woman escaped the war in Ukraine to come here and
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: have this happen, right? So This guy should go to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: jail for life. Given his rap sheet, I do think
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: it's appropriate to sort of ask questions about why he
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: was on the streets in the first place. I think
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is talking about this because this is exactly
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: the kind of video and imagery he wants to use
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: to justify trip deployments or whatever crime policy. And also
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: because Roy Cooper is going to be the Democratic candidate
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: in a really important Senate race. And they're saying that
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Cooper did something that might have led to this person's release,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: although it seems completely made up and there's no connection.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: There's obviously a racial component. You know, this is a
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: black man stabbing a pretty blonde woman as Trump himself notes.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: He talks about her appearance in his statement, right? But
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: like in the term, this meta point about coverage, like
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: actually generally speaking, like stories like this are the kinds
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: of stories that get the most attention in American media.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And the idea that there's some liberal media bias against
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: stories about the grisly murder of a pretty blonde woman
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: is crazy, right? Like that's, We cover these things for
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: months at a time. So this is just Trump exploiting
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a horrible incident for political gain.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it sort of has half of what they're looking
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: for in a story, right? Because it does have a
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: black person attacking a white person. But the person who
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: was attacked is an immigrant or someone who was escaping Ukraine,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: a refugee.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: By the way, Trump might have had deported because he's considering...
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: removing protections from Ukrainian refugees who are here.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: And so like they're, they're, they're kind of making, trying
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: to make it an issue just about crime or, or, or,
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: or something to that effect.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: But like the reason stories be, it's a terrible story.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: It's an awful story, but the reason stories gain national attention,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: or at least that's why they should gain national attention
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: is because it represents some deeper policy failure. It represents
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: some larger issue that we're all confronting. Uh, and now
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: they can.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: Make some kind of argument that this is like represents
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: the kind of whatever, the decadent left's inability to tackle
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: crime or some, that's what Trump needs to do in
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: our cities, whatever story they can try to tell. But
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: that's the reason this wasn't a national news story. It's
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: a terrible, terrible, terrible crime.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: The worst crime that this guy served time for was
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: armed robbery, served a sentence, long time ago was released.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: The mother tried to get him to be involuntarily admitted
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to a mental institution because she thought he was a danger.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Like they didn't do that or they let him out.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Whoever did that, that's a big problem, right?
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And don't know why, but like it seems like this
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: person should not have been out on the streets. Hopefully
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: now this person goes to jail for a very, very
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: long time. But like the Roy Cooper, they are really
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: stretching on this. Like Roy Cooper signed some executive order
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: That basically was sort of toothless, like reimagined public, called
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: for reimagination.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It was a racial profiling task force that sought to
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: reduce systemic racism. Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And then a few months later, this guy got out.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It had absolutely no sense that they were connected. Nothing
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to do with it. There wasn't a politician who pardoned
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people who later committed or were convicted
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of sexually assaulting a child, violent assault, robbery, aggravated DUI,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and reckless homicide. But that was Donald Trump. That was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: pardoning the, that was just some of the crimes that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the pardoned January 6th rioters went on to commit. Now
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: that is a direct connection from his, he pardoned them,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: then they went to commit crimes. This one is someone
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: didn't keep this person getting the mental health help that
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: they needed or keep them behind bars or whatever it
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: may have been.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And this is why the media coverage is so stupid,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: because if a Democrat did what Trump did with these
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: January 6th. Can you imagine? Criminals and they reoffended like
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: they did. It would be all they talked about. Instead,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: we're pretending that somehow this is unfair and that all
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the media talked about was Daniel Penney. who was the
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: guy who strangled the person on the New York subway.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: But that was because that was like a big vigilante
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: justice case that was novel and it happened in a
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: New York subway and the media is all there and
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: they are biased towards covering things in New York. And
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: so like this whole, it's just frustrating.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: By the way, it would be fair. If we worked
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: for a Democratic politician who pardoned someone who had been
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: convicted of assaulting a police officer and then for no
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: reason they let them out and then they went and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: sexually assaulted a child, I'd be like, yeah, bad.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: That's bad.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: That person shouldn't be in office anymore. Don't care if
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: it's a Democrat.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: And everybody universally sees this as a horror, right? And
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: if there were mistakes that allowed this person to be
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: free that could have prevented this from happening, that needs
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: to be remedied. That's not something anybody would disagree with.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: Stories gain national prominence and coverage for days or weeks
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: because of controversy, disagreement, some question that needs to be answered.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: This is just a horrible, horrible thing.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: And because there is an image of a black man
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: looming over a white woman, it has sort of taken
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: off on Elon's internet and from the rest, it's everywhere else.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: We've talked about how Trump's crackdown is less about violent
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: crime and more about helping ICE round up immigrants, most
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of whom have no record of committing any kind of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: crimes in this country. ICE also got some help on
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: this from the Supreme Court this morning, which lifted a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: lower court's restraining order that had stopped ICE agents here
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: in L.A. from detaining people based solely on factors like
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: their race, their skin color, or what job they're doing
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: or what language they speak. Justice Kavanaugh basically said, no
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: big deal if ICE finds out someone is a citizen
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: or here legally, quote, They just promptly let the individual go.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: That's what the officers do.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: That's what happens. Yeah.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said, that's bullshit. One of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the U.S. citizens in this case that Justice Kavanaugh and
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the other justices in the majority heard was thrown against
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the fence with his arm twisted behind his back, a U.S.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Citizen. The other U.S.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Citizen was taken from his job to a warehouse for questioning.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: What do you guys make of the decision and the implications?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Kevin, not putting that line in there, the promptly let
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the individual go. It's just such like trolling, you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: like he knows damn well, there's so many examples of
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: American citizens or people with visas or TPS who get
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: swept up into ice systems and then detained for days,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: if not weeks, we've heard about it a thousand times
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: and he just decided to ignore that fact. Um, I
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: do think in the near term, this is going to
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: make racial profiling worse. You're going to see more ice
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: raids at home depots and, you know, job sites and
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: stuff and all the things Trump keeps sporadically telling us
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: he will not do anymore because his business buddies call
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: him up and say, Hey, you're killing my construction business
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: or whatever. But this case is almost certainly going to
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: go back to the Ninth Circuit and then get ruled
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: on again, and then almost certainly go back to the
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court again. So it's not the end of it.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: It seems like they tipped their hand. Right.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: It's a really bad sign that Kavanaugh jumped in to
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: make this argument that the lower court overstepped, not for
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: any procedural grounds, but for the substantive argument that he
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: makes here. And just practically speaking, the temporary restraining order
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: had restricted the administration's conduct. When there was that truck,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: the Penske truck that opened up and a bunch of
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: guys jumped out, that was novel and newsworthy because it
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: was a violation of the order. But overall, the number
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: of people that ICE was able to arrest had gone
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: down because of the order. The Kavanaugh language is so bloodless.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: And you just think about how much empathy this court
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: has had for the rights of a football coach who
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: was fired for preying on the field or a student
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: who feels that they were unable to gain admission because
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: of affirmative action. And then It is just this, well,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: you just clean it up. You just clean up the
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: mistake like it's a parking ticket or some sort of
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: misfiled document. And it ignores what happens when people just
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: touch the criminal justice system during an ICE raid. So
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: this woman, Andrea Velez, The Guardian reported on this example,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: one example.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: She's a citizen. She was born in Los Angeles.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: She happened to be downtown when a bunch of guys
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: jumped out of an SUV in gators or grabbing vendors.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: She gets picked up. She's thrown an SUV.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: She gets out and runs the LAPD because she doesn't
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: know who these people are. She trusts them because they're
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: in uniform. They pick her up again. They throw her
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: in the back of an SUV. She's described as an
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: alleged citizen. She's then brought to a jail where she's
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: held for days and then charged with assault because one
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: of the officers claimed that at some point she had
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: extended her arm and he had been unable to stop
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: himself from running into it. She's four foot 11. Okay.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Two days she spent in jail, right? Before she's charged.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Her lawyers then request the body cam footage. Two weeks later,
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: they drop the charges, right? And so according to Kavanaugh,
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: this is an example of a job well done or
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: the system working. Meanwhile, she had this incredibly traumatic experience.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: She's afraid now to go downtown because she's afraid that
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: they could grab her again. Her life has been altered
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: by this. She was held in jail because of this.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: She almost was charged with assault because of this. Fortunately,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: they dropped it. But that's just one story of all
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: these people that are going to just be impacted in
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: some way.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Remember, there was that story.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: And these stories continue long after they leave the news.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: There was that kid who stepped in because he saw
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: it's just a guy he knew from work being arrested.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: He gets accused of assault. They drop that. They lower
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: it to a different charge. Meanwhile, he lost his job
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: at Wal-Mart. They questioned whether or not he was a citizen.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: It's wrecking people's lives.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I did that video for socials about that woman in Massachusetts, mother,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: three daughters are, get ripped away at the airport. She
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was gone for like two weeks, shipped to Maine, shipped
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of different detention centers. She's now like
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: not well. She's sobbing every day because they, we talked
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: about this on the show, that they like threw her
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: out of the van in the rain by the Burlington
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Mall in Massachusetts. Like this is, it's just happening all
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the time. And it's like, It's one thing I'm like,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: first I was like, did Kavanaugh, does he just only
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: consume right-wing media? Is he just lying? But then as
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Sotomayor said, the two plaintiffs in the case were U.S.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Citizens.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And then he says later, he goes, well, to the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: extent that excessive force has been used, the Fourth Amendment
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: prohibits such action and remedies should be available in federal court.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: He's like, but we're not talking about excessive force right here.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And Noah Feldman points out in Bloomberg, too, that it
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: is rightly seen as this is going to allow racial
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: profiling in Los Angeles and all over the country. but
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: he said also the way that the ruling is written,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it means that they can do this to anyone, anyone.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: They can make up any kind of category of people
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that the government, because reasonable suspicion is a very low standard.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, he was like, and it's weird
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that we're, he's like, we're talking about it because it's immigrants.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: And so we're like, oh, well, if you speak Spanish
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and if you're, you know, your last name, whatever he goes,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: but it would be plainfully unlawful for the government to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: stop all young black men in high crime neighborhoods, or
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: for that matter, all Patagonia-clad white guys on Wall Street
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in a suite for insider training. But that is now
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: what the Supreme Court has set out. So anyone walking around,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: they can stop you and be like, well, we have
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: reasonable suspicion based on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: that's it. And then until you prove that you're a citizen,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: not until they check it, but until you prove it,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: then you can be held.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And they often won't let people provide proof of citizenship.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: There's an example in one of the, I think it
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: was the AP story today, where the guy gave his
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: ID to these cops or the ICE agents. They held
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: onto it. for 20 minutes before letting him go and
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: then kept his ID. Yeah.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: And even before you get to like broader ways in
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: which this could be abused, what is the advice? Is
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: the advice everyone needs to carry their papers? Are we
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: at the phase of the Trump government takeover where like
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: you have to carry papers with you? A classic, a
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: sign of an authoritarian state that you need to have
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: a piece, you have your documentation with you because at
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: any time you could be stopped. And if you don't
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: have your papers, if you can't prove you're a citizen-
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: or have valid immigration status. You could be held for
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: hours or days. Do you know your parents' number? Do
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: you know your sister's number? Do you know your friend's
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: number to go into your apartment and go find the documentation?
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: Because if you don't, and it's the weekend, you may
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: be here.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: For a while.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucking outrageous. One of the more surprising immigration
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: stories over the last few days was the federal raid
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: on a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, where agents detained
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: 475 people, the majority of whom are workers from South Korea.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Trump was asked about this on Sunday. Here's the really detailed,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: cogent explanation he gave.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: If you don't have.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: People in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: We should help them along and let some people come
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: in and train our people.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: But it's going to be very interesting what comes out.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: I think we may have learned something because when they
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: come here and there's nobody that can do what they're
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: supposed to be.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Doing and they bring people, those people can also teach
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: our people. You know, it's complicated stuff.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: And something very interesting could come out of that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: He's such a fucking idiot.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So you're saying other people who aren't Americans may have
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: skills that could be useful to Americans and America? And
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: maybe we should bring them here for a bit?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: The reason we're not bringing them here is because your
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: administration has a cap on H-1B visas that are used
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: for this kind of specialized work and training. That's what
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: those people, these Koreans, didn't have, which is why they
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: were arrested for misusing a visa and are now being deported.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Which you told the doofuses at the All In podcast
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that you were 100% for.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's like, it's so infuriating. I mean, yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Tommy, you were saying this morning that this is now
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like a full-fledged international incident.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge thing. First of all, just roll
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: back the tape. Under Biden and then Trump, South Korea
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: was asked to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: the U.S., and they did so. This battery plant in
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Georgia is part of that, and it's supposed to be
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: exactly what Trump wants. It's a way you buy yourself
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: out of some 40% tariff or whatever. And then these
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: arrests happened, and they don't just arrest these people and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: quietly send them home. They shackled them, hand to waist
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to toe, released a like hype video of it and
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that video just exploded across Korea and The media and
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: the opposition political parties went insane Understandably because it's a
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: huge insult to these individuals to the country to this
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: like US South Korea alliance It's supposed to be rock-solid
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and all of these these companies and political leaders are
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: wondering like what is the deal we cut with this guy? right,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I thought we were supposed to invest and and get
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: not a favor but like get treated decently and so
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I what was it last month? I think the Korean
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: president was in the Oval Office talking to Trump. And
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: now it's just viewed as this gigantic betrayal. And I
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: think this kind of thing, it doesn't go away. So
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: this will bear out over time and really harm the
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: US-Korean relationship.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Did you see one of the politicians in South Korea
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: said they should start looking at Americans who were teaching
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: on visas over in South Korea and maybe send them
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: back home?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It's like, I get that. I mean, we have 28,500
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: troops sitting in South Korea. There's a lot of reasons
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: not to be dickheads.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the shackling of these people as if they were
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: like some sort of danger. They're there working in a
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: battery plant. We sought these deals, these partnerships to have
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: these battery facilities. Some American companies were part of them
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: in part because it allowed them to hire people outside
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: of their.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Unions, right?
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: That's how some of these people come in to do
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: these jobs. The other part of this too is when
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Trump is speaking here, it's just one of those moments
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: where you see him Remembering a meeting he was in
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: where he was explained some, some complication of this, right?
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Like that, cause he's aware that this is an international
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: incident and he's aware that they want these plans to
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: succeed and that this looks bad.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: So he's like trying to make some reference to how
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: we really need these jobs. Like we're not trying to
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: shut down these plans.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: This is important. This is good.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: We got to get other people, but like he has
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: no familiarity with the, the, the context or H1B visa
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: can't retain any of this information.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So it was a good example of that. He has
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: like a new industry, right? This is this new like
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: EV battery industry. It's specialized work. Of course, you need
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: people to come in and train you into how to
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: create the factory that will then employ all these people.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: But like his administration is the one making it harder
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: for these companies to do that. And he just doesn't
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: seem to understand anything. No substance.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Or the idea that maybe this is not zero-sum. Maybe
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: bringing in South Koreans to help teach Americans how to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: make batteries and then giving them the privilege of living
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: here as well can benefit Americans and South Koreans and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: our whole economy.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: And it's always the workers, too, who are the ones
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: who get shackled and carted off, right? Like at the
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: meatpacking plants or all these other places. It's amazing how
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: it's a crime being inflicted on the companies.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:07
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• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the peace president's new Department of War,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: which is what the Defense Department used to be called
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: prior to 1949. Trump signed an executive order on Friday
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to rename the department, which you can't actually do without
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: an act of Congress. So the EO just says it's a, quote,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: secondary title. This did not stop Pete Hegseth from changing
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: his Twitter handle from atsecdeaf to atsecwar. He also shot
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a video of the nameplate being changed on his office door. Defense.gov
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: now takes you to war.gov, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: What do we think of the rebrand, guys?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I don't care. I find myself not caring. I see
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: people being like, I can't believe he's doing this.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: I find it all pretty confusing because even as he
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: lectured and talked down to that reporter, he doesn't want
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: to be a war president. He constantly talks about how
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: he's ending wars, but yet war seems tougher than defense.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: The whole thing is garbled and nonsense. It's really fundamentally
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: not the name of the Department of Defense, which it
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: continues to be.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It is a nickname. So he can call it whatever
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: he wants.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: I have trouble getting spun up about this.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the National Security Act of 1947 and
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the amendment in 49 that changed the name, that was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: not just a rebrand. That was like a fundamental restructuring
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: of the way we do defense in national security. It
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: put the Army and the Navy and the Air Force
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: under the SECDEF, and then it created the NSC, the
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: National Security Council, and it created the CIA. So that
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: was a substantial change in our history. This is just...
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: You're right. It's just a nickname. They don't really even
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: change the name to Department of Defense. So I'm with you.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I don't give a shit. I do find it just confusing, though.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: It's like, he is going for this peace mantle. He
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: is sending the U.S. military into American cities. Why do
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: this rename now? I guess they just think it sounds cool.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he started from the war on Chicago
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: meme and then worked backwards to make that work by saying,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: now you know what the Department of War is all about. Clearly,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: they love... calling it the Department of War because they
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: want to be bellicose and tough. And the whole thing
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: about peace is just that the way that you get
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to peace is by being big and strong and tough
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and kicking the shit out of everyone else and being
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: able to bomb everyone else into submission.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Do they think Vietnam went well for us? Do you
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: think you've seen Apocalypse Now?
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Does he know that it's an anti-war movie?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no. They would say, well, that was because of
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the department name change.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Things worked better when it was the Department of War. Right, right, right.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So the Trump administration did decide to take the Pentagon's
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: new name out for a spin by deploying eight warships
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to the Caribbean and then killing 11 people on a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: speedboat who are suspected of trafficking drugs from Venezuela to Trinidad.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: The administration didn't bother to provide any kind of legal
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: rationale for the killing, though J.D. Vance did get into
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: a Twitter fight with a Krasenstein brother over the whole thing.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: The vice president tweeted that, quote, killing cartel members who
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of our military. To which the Krasenstein brother, not sure
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: which one, responded that killing another country's civilians without due
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: process is called a war crime. To which Vance replied,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I don't give a shit what you call it. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: then I guess he took the rest of the Saturday off.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Here's what Trump said about whether he's planning more military
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: strikes against a country we haven't declared war against. I'll
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: tell you what, whenever he says you're going to find out,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that's a yes.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Thoughts on a preemptive war of choice against Venezuela, Tom?
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is. When you look at like kind
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: of the hardware they're sending down to the Caribbean, it's
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: eight Navy destroyers. Apparently a nuclear sub is on the way.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I've read that in, I think, Newsweek or CNN. Ten
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: F-35 fighter jets were just moved to Puerto Rico as
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: part of whatever this new war is. And again, you
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: don't need a sub. You don't need an F-35 stealth
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: fighter jet, fifth generation fighter jet. to take out a
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: boat full of drugs, like this would be something you
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: would do with a helicopter or a drone. It's unnerving.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And so I find it unnerving. Nicolas Maduro, the president
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: of Venezuela, it's quite unnerving. He thinks it's the threat
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: of an invasion. He's talking about deploying this kind of
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: hybrid militia. He's constructed of, I think, 4.5 million people
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: all over the country in case they are invaded. And
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: other leaders in the Caribbean are all freaked out too.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: They're kind of like, you know, what's happening here? Trump,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you know, remember he was We were threatening to retake
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: the Panama Canal like two weeks ago, right? So this
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: is odd for them. Look, I have felt since the
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: campaign that there was a lot of momentum towards militarizing
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the war on drugs. Remember, they talked about it all
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the time on the campaign trail. The polling is surprisingly
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: good for some pieces of this plan. I fear that
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Trump is going to love looking decisive in the press
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: coverage and releasing these snuff videos of boats blowing up.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And before long, we're going to be hitting sites in
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Mexico or Venezuela or Ecuador, not just international waters. And
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of sources told CNN that the strike was
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: the beginning of an effort that could include regime change.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: So it's pretty scary stuff. And look, none of this
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: is going to reduce the demand for drugs in the US.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: It seems unlikely to me that blowing up drug boats
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: is going to do more to stop the flow of
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: drugs than interdicting them would. But I guess we'll see.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: But right now, we're just doing summary executions of drug
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: runners now. That's what we're doing.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: What do we think is going to happen with destabilized
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: regimes and people who are desperate? Where are they going
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to go? Is that going to reduce the push towards
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: our border?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: A nice regime channel and toppling of the Manila government
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: in Venezuela. Yeah, that will send a lot of people north.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: They've offered no explanation for why they couldn't just interdict
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the boat, right? Why couldn't they just Men.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: With guns jump on the boat, say, give me all
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: your drugs and you're all coming with me, arrest them.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Because we were aware of where the boat was. That's
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: how we killed everyone on board. And look, to your
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: point about the war on terror earlier, we just watched
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: this language come to mean whatever they want. And you
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: just described the people on this boat as narco-terrorists. I
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: don't know what that term means. I know what it
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: means in the context of the brutality of living amongst
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: drug cartels. in Mexico or South American country. I don't
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: know what it means in this context, because I don't
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: think it's the fucking kingpins on the speedboat running the
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: drugs between countries. And so you're blowing up people that
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: are part of a serious crime that we have a
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: huge problem in trying to address, but these.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Are the people that deserve to die. And they just
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: say like, well, they're narco terrorists. So yeah, they can die.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: We can kill them and kill them from above. And
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: they just, they lay this process where like, we get
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: to designate you a terrorist. If you're part of Trinidad,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: then we do a secret directive that says the military
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: can kill these terrorists who are part of these gangs.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Maduro is connected to the gang. So you just like,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: you create this daisy chain of legal justification or authority
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: in air quotes, and then you just start killing people.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's as, it's as simple as we think
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: this person's bad. They did something horrible that you think
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: is horrible because you think drug trafficking is bad and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: bad people are bad.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: And so we killed them.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And so if you think that it's bad that we
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: killed them, then you must love drug traffickers, right? And
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: we can't believe a word that they say, right? You know,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: at first when the New York Times wrote about this,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: there was an, we talked about this on the last episode,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: there was an official who used to work on sort
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of in the government, in our government on narco trafficking
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and said like, that doesn't seem right. That usually, that's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: probably a boat full of migrants and maybe not. And
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: then there was actual reporting of from the town in
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Venezuela where it left. And it's like, no, this is
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: probably a drug boat, but it's like they already designated, uh,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Andre Romero Hernandez as, as trend de Aragua and shipped
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: him off to Seacott to be tortured, even though he
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: was clearly not trend de Aragua. So how are we
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: supposed to believe our government now when they tell us
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: who's a narco terrorist that they just murdered?
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: This is the Rodrigo Duterte Philippines model of death penalty
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: for drug dealers, which Trump has long pined after and
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: talked about.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Did you see what I think it was Rand Paul
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: posted in response? I thought it was kind of heartfelt
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: and from his libertarian side that I thought was exactly right.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, this is the highest use of our military?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Extra judicial killings? J.D., I don't give a shit. Vance
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: says killing people he accuses of a crime is the
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: highest and best use of the military. Then he goes,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Yeah. Jump
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: to Harper Lee so fast.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: But he's right.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Like, did you ever wonder what might happen if the
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it seems like a problem. And I forgot
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: what the White House tweeted to Rand, but it was something.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Like, you pussy. I didn't see their response.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Like, as usual, oh, yeah, they just went nuclear on
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Rand Paul.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Well, Rand Paul did recently create an entire media cycle
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: about getting disinvited from a picnic. Yeah, that is so hard.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: He was told he couldn't come to the congressional pick.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: It's a fair point. He's a complicated guy. Complicated guy.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Good points. Sometimes. What happened with that leaf thing? Remember
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: when he got in a fight over leaves? Yeah, I'm
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: not getting into that. I never found out what happened there.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: No one ever knows. All right.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: It's been a while since we've talked about Congress. Once
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: known as a co-equal branch.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: A word that never made sense. That co-did nothing.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: They're back in the news. They're back in the news
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: only because they must soon fulfill one of their only
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: remaining duties. Funding the federal government. Money runs out on
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: October 1st, which means a shutdown is officially looming.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: The shutdown is looming. We got a loomer.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: The question is, will Chuck Schumer's Senate Democrats provide enough
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: votes to fund the government like they did back in March?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Or will they use their leverage to demand concessions from
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Trump and the Republicans? Stay tuned. Ezra Klein wrote an
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: essay in the New York Times over the weekend where
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: he said this, quote, I'm not going to tell you
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I am absolutely sure Democrats should shut the government down.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: At the same time, Joining Republicans to fund this government
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: is worse than failing at opposition.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: It's complicity.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: a plan. If there's a better plan than a shutdown, great.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: new leaders.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Thoughts? If you shut down the government, it's really hard
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: to insider trade. And make money off the stock market.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I thought he had a serious joke face going. How
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: are you going to high frequency trade if you shut
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: down the government? No, like I read Ezra's piece. I'm like,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I read Ezra's piece. I'm a hundred percent with him
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: on the description of the problem. Yeah. Description of the moment.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: The idea that we can't do business as usual, that
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: we can't legitimize this lawless administration. Then it's like, what's
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the plan? You know what I mean? Like we're going
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: to break out of prison. What's the plan? Cause like,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: what is our demand? What is the end game? What
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: do we want? What's the political plan to work backwards
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: from there? I truly have no idea. And like, I just, he,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: part of what he says, he's like, I think the
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: shutdown would focus the attention of the media on kind
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: of like the merits of what's happening. I don't have
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of faith in that having been through some shutdowns.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Like I think they tend to report on it as
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: a fight. I also don't think we have great messengers
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: who would be leading that fight. I'm not like, uh,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: if we're doing a UFC match on the white house
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: lawn and Chuck Schumer versus Trump, uh, in terms of,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: you know, getting the media's attention. I don't think we're
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: winning that one. So like, I'm with them, but I
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: still think we have some work to do.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like I get to the end of the argument
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: and I think, man, this is a great argument for
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: having a time machine and going back six months and
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: figuring out an argument we'd slowly be making up until
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: this moment for why we should walk away. Like Chris
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Murphy's been out there. And this was in the original
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: reporting about him being the kind of lone vote against compromise.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: In the committee.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: And I went and pulled it because it stuck with
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: me at the time. And he said, every single day
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: there's new evidence that our democracy is failing. Every time
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: that we go along with these appropriation bills, we're putting
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: a bipartisan veneer on the endorsement of an illegal process
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: that ultimately is part of a campaign to destroy our democracy.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: That is true. It's a good point. It's a true statement.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: It's a good point. And, you know, we went through
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: this debate. Sometimes I wonder if, like, that's all you need. Yeah,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: it could be. That's the only explanation.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: And I find that I get to the end of
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: this and I feel the same uncertainty and I worry
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: too about the people that are meant to be our
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: leaders through any kind of shutdown. And I think, okay,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: that makes the right decision uncertain from a strategic standpoint.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: But the moral argument is simple and clear. And if
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: we don't know the right strategy, we're not positive of
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: what the right thing to do is from a tactical standpoint,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: shouldn't we rest on what is obviously... the truth about
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: the circumstance?
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: So I find myself agreeing with everything you said, Tommy,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: about like the challenges with this. Of course, we don't
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: have better messengers, unfortunately. I don't think there's a good
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: plan to do something that we could declare victory over.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you get out of it once
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: you get into it. And I do think it's an,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: as Ezra puts it, an attentional event. I don't think it's,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I think you're right that like, It's attentional for a while.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Like a week. And then who knows?
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Now, when parks are closed and people aren't getting their checks,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: then maybe the attention comes and who knows if it's
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: good or bad. And that depends on the messengers, right?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Then I'm trying to play out another step after that.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: So what are the downsides of the shutdown, right? So
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party has the lowest approval rating since we've
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: all been alive. And so I don't know how much
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: lower we can get.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We, uh, we'll show you what I was going
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: to say. It's sort of like what Trump always likes
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to say. What do you got to lose? Right. Um, right.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And so, uh, we, uh, briefly, um, contributed to a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: government shutdown in 2018, which as we're, uh, not, he
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't talk about us, but he talks about the 2018
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: shut down over a week over the dreamers. Remember we
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: had the waffle house. We had all the sound. Those
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of you who've been with.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Us all this time, you'll remember it. Um, and, uh,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: it didn't work.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: It was a failure. Government shut down. And then it
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: was embarrassing. The Democrats did usual thing, which is like, yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: we'll kind of shut it down. But now we're nervous.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: So we'll open it back up. And, you know, it
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: was a loss for the Democrats. But we kicked ass
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in the midterms.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: It was fine.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: And that was closer to the midterms than this one is.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to figure out what it's like. We
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: have not taken a lot of risks as a party
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: in the second Trump term. And we have not done
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: any big moves. And I'm not sure how to get
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: out of this one. And I'm not sure that we
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: could declare victory, but I do wonder if now is
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the time to start throwing a few more things at
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the wall to see if they stick.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: But I feel the same.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: I don't feel like spitting fire at the people that
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: would disagree either. And part of the problem is what
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: the democratic message should be in a shutdown, right? What
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: are we going for? What are we fighting for? Where
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: do we think there's any chance of us eking out
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: a claim of victory for the shutdown, actual practical results?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: But part of the problem is that It's not just
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: that we don't think our leaders are going to be
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: up for that fight on the White House law. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: part of it is that like our leadership doesn't have
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: the same kind of like constituency that Donald Trump has.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Really have like keep coming back to this, which is
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: like I think of all the people that don't just
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: like Donald Trump, but love Donald Trump and that are
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: really kind of just enthusiastic, engaged supporters of Donald Trump
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: and his project. And then I think of Democrats. I
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: think of how few Democrats have any kind of basis
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: support like that. I know AOC does. I know Bernie
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Sanders does. I know Barack Obama did. I know Mamdani
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: is building that.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: But then I look at the leadership of the party
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: and I know there are people that support them and
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: other people that are frustrated by any kind of criticism
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: of them.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: We hear about from them all the time. Right.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: But is there a sizable group of people that love
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: and are ready to fight for Chuck Schumer and Akeem
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Jeffries and the leadership of the Democratic Party?
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And that's partially their fault. It's not all their fault.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: It's a collective failure to build a kind of collective
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: story that gets people excited to be those kinds of messengers,
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: which you need, especially online in any kind of a shutdown.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Even just even shy of love them or support them,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: like have faith in them that they understand the moment.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Because remember the last time we all got very mad
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: at Chuck Schumer about this, he did like a New
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: York Times interview with and I think he sort of
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: like was again doing that thing where they talked about
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: how the fever was going to break among Republicans and
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: You don't know what I say to my colleagues behind
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the scenes. And you hear that stuff and you're just like, no, man,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to happen. And also to
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: your risk averse point. I mean, I do think like
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: you are sending a signal to the Democratic base when
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Zoran Mamdani wins the Democratic primary in New York for
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: the mayoral race and you will not endorse him. Why?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Because your donors are telling you not to? What's happening here?
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: What possible reason could there be? Because we're holding out
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: hope for Andrew Cuomo. For Andrew Cuomo, right? And it's like, yeah, man.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: So you're right. There are reasons that are unfair that
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: people don't have faith in them or aren't excited about them.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: And there's some reasons that are quite fair that people
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: do not have faith and are not excited by the leadership.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: I think most of the reasons are quite fair. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: by the way, with that too, it's like, I don't
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: even know that it's as logical as, oh, I'm hearing
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: from my donors. I think it is a fear of
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: some segment of the people that elect him in New.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: York, right? It's like a kind of an instinct against
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: anyone who's outside of like a, core Democratic center left
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: message that they just feel unsure about and are afraid
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: of the consequences of getting by.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: We have talked before about how one of the big
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: problems is that Democrats sometimes act like this is an
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: emergency and Trump's dictators, you know, consolidating authoritarian power. And
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: then sometimes it's like everything's fine.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Today and whatever.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Dan just wrote a message box about this, I think,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: last week, which was like the dividing line is with
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Democrats is do you believe we're an emergency or not?
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: if they're all in for this, the one thing that's
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: saying we're not going to fund this government because this
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: is what he's doing. And, uh, you know, he's placed
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: an illegal tax on every American with a tariff. He, um,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: he's using our tax dollars to occupy our cities with
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: our own military. He's, uh, using our tax dollars to
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: create a secret police force that's rounding people up.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: And, and You could say that and be like, we're
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: not funded. Like basically what Murphy said, we're not doing
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: this and this is an emergency and we're going to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: start acting and we're going to not start, but we're
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: going to act like it's an emergency, you know? And
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I could see that. The challenge there is all 47
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Senate Democrats and all, however many in the House have
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: to go along with that and every governor. And you
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: can't have some being like, yeah, well. Now, I want
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to know what you guys think about this. One of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the suggestions is. is and you can see the democrats
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: calling some democratic strategists pollsters senators coalescing around this is
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: all right let's make let's shut it down but let's
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: make the fight about um extending the aca subsidies because
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: health care is the best issue the best polling issue
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and if we have a fight about yeah the reason
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: we're shutting the government down is because they're gonna uh
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: if if they get their way everyone's premiums are going
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: to go up now for sure great polling issue i'm
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: sure we're on the right side of that is that
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: what do you guys think about that as the reason
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to shut down the government.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I think on the merits, we're doing a good thing
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: for the American people. On the political, hackish political view
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: of it, we're bailing him out. We're helping him avoid
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: something bad that would happen that he probably would have
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: gotten blamed for.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're saying like if we win on that, it's really, yeah,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that's good.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it has the feeling of, you know, we found
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: our best testing message is we don't, Americans don't want
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: troops in our streets. Americans want more affordable healthcare, right?
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: And that line polls well. But haven't we Have we
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: not learned anything from a decade of losing while having
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: the winning argument and the best message and the right
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: policies and the winning polling story over and over and
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: over and over again? Isn't there something missing here? And
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: this one is more of an edge case because that's
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: a great thing to fight for. That's a great thing
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: that we should fight for. And it's actually something where
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: we could win.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: I see it.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: In fact, if we do the shutdown, I think that
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: should be part of the message no matter what.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: But should it be the only message? I worry about
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: it too.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: I do. It just feels inauthentic. It feels fake.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: It just feels like you looked for something that felt
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: safe that everybody could get behind.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I said this to someone this morning, but I can
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: see the end of this now. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Jeffries declaring victory at a press conference for getting an
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: 18-month extension on ACA subsidies that are smaller than they
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: were before and means-tested, while in the background, ICE is
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: just throwing more people into a van.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: That sounds right.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's the troops, too. The troops are in
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the background, too, and they're like, we did it!
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: And Trump posts AI of himself having Schumer on a leash,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: like the gimp in Pulp Fiction.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: But you know what?
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: But you know what? Then we get the message testing out,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and everyone's like, boom! Democrats won on this one, guys.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Republicans are now 30 points underwater on health care. So
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: march off to the midterms.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: It's bleak. It's bleak. Yes, it's popular. I get it.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And you are right. It is the actual right thing
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: to do for people to fight for ACA subsidies. But
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of other risks out there. And this government,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: if we think it's an illegal government and that's authoritarian
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: takeover and all that stuff, then fucking act like it.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: We're not going to get credit from the people we
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: need to get credit from. I know.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: It's tough.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Armra. Why
• 49:30
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• 50:37
  Speaker 1: slash cricket. One thing we could shut the government down over,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, good pivot.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Because as we know, this is all a distraction from
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: On Monday, not long.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Before we got into the studio, the House Oversight Committee
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats said, They'd gotten a hold. See, who said Democrats
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: can't do anything? They got a hold of the famed
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Epstein birthday book and other files from the Epstein estate.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Shortly after that, they posted the image of FBI informant
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's now famous letter to Epstein with the figure
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: of the naked woman drawn over it. Deputy White House
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Chief of Staff Taylor Budwich immediately tweeted that the signature
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: shown in the letter isn't Trump's, even though it looks
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: nearly identical to all the other times he signed personal
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: notes with just his first name. Separately, Epstein survivor Lisa
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Phillips told our What A Day newsletter that the Epstein
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: list that she and her fellow survivors are compiling will
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: include 30 to 50 names of Epstein associates, though she
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: stressed that in a bunch of cases, they don't know
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: whether the people they're naming knew about the abuse going
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: on or whether they were just billionaires who hung around
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: a lot. What do you guys make of the infamous
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: doodle and the chances that Trump can just make the
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: scandal go away by saying that it's just a hoax,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: just fake? That's it.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: It's a gross doodle. Uh, it looks like an under,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: let's not call it a woman. It looks like an
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: underage girl. There's no arms also. Um, there's a debate
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: about whether the signature is intended to be pubic hair
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: or not. That's gross. The fact that we're having this
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: conversation is gross. Also, I don't know if you guys
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: saw this, the wall street journal, um, also now has
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: a photo of someone holding up a poster board size
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: check for $ 22, 500, which has been mocked up to appear
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: that it was sent from Trump to Epstein beneath it.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: There's a handwritten caption that says, Jeffrey showing early talents
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: with money plus women sells fully depreciated name of a
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: person that's been redacted to Donald Trump for $ 22, 500. So
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: that was a funny joke. Mocked up check of Trump
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: selling him a woman. I haven't seen that one yet.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: What more do we need to see? I'm learning that
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: from you now. It is disgusting. Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: They also, they also, the journal also compared the handwriting,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of course, to other letters that he signed and it's
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: all the same.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Including Hillary Clinton. And all the.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Fucking asshole MAGA influencers and media types and everyone on
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Fox probably now in the White House, they're all showing
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: signatures of Donald Trump with his full first name and
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: last name, which of course look different than letters that
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: he signs with just his first name and say.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: We got him, we got him.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: This is so, this is so asinine that the idea
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: that they're going to, that they're going to claim that
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: the signature doesn't match and therefore it's a forgery. So
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: you're saying that the Wall Street Journal in cahoots with
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: God knows who went into this giant scheme to pretend
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump wrote the letter for a decade.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: And a half.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: You're saying that 20 years ago someone planted this in
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the birthday book thinking that maybe someday Donald Trump would
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: become president and this would become a problem for him.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: And so this extraordinary act of sabotage, which has been
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: going on for so long, that no one involved in
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: this scheme had the wherewithal to go look up the
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: way Donald Trump signs his name in personal letters? So
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: they did everything except that last tiny little step. I
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: do appreciate that the Wall Street Journal is really trolling
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: Trump by showing the way he signed his name personally
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: to Hillary Clinton, Epstein, and George Conway, which I fucking love.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Beautifully done. Chef's kiss. I'll tell you what, on the
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: MAGA media front, though, what's happening here is the MAGA
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: influencers for hire, the ones you can buy and sell,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: the Charlie Kirks, the Benny Johnsons, they are going along
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: with this spin, right? the more extreme, the most extreme
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: MAGA media people are not buying it. The Candace Owenses,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: the Nick Fuenteses, they are saying, this is bullshit, guys.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: This is crazy. They think you're stupid. You're idiots. And
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: MAGA is over. Let's move on to the next thing.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: And that, there's going to be second and third order
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: effects to that too, because those like neo-Nazi anti-Semitic voices
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: are going to be seen as credible or more credible
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: than the kind of even more mainstream MAGA types.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Benny Johnson- Before, back when Mike Johnson, for a brief day,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: decided to tell everyone that Donald Trump was actually an
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: FBI informant on the whole Epstein affair before he sort of,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: you know, cleaned that up today. Benny Johnson said, you
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: know what? What Mike Johnson said, it's just proving that
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the real hero in this whole story is Donald Trump.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: He's called him the undisputed hero in the Epstein saga.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: There you go. Thank you.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Undisputed hero. He's the undisputed hero.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: We've all been saying that.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: What is it like to say something like that and
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: then turn the computer off and go live a part
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: of your day and maybe lay down at night and
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: stare up at the ceiling?
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: What is that like?
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I hope that he at least turns to everyone in
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: his close circle and laughs and was like, did you
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: think they bought that?
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: I hope that he's at least aware of it. I
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: think he's living a very inauthentic life in many ways, unfortunately.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that was a good one. So, I don't know.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: For a while, I was like, is the Epstein thing
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: going to go away? But we've got... uh, after the
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: survivors press conference and after, uh, this, the birthday letter
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: has come back and the oversight committee, Jim Comer has
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: been like sort of going along with some of this.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't know. I think he's, I also.
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: Think sometimes Republicans underestimate how much, how much Democrats care
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: about other Democrats, because I feel like one of the
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: looming threats is that they're going to like, well, they're
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: going to bring in Bill Clinton and, uh.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone gives a fuck. Nope. And they're right.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: They're going to like, it's, Oh no, you're not, not
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: our precious billionaires. Like they're going to go after the
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: people are going to go after like, great.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: If you were involved in fucking Epstein Shadyness, fuck you.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: If you were abusing children, go to jail.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Who cares? Go to jail.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: And so I guess the threat is that they're going
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: to be like going after Democrats too in these hearings.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Because that's how they think about politics and polarization, right?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: It's our team.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: We must defend our team.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: And by the way, speaking of the Epstein list, one
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: of the things, I don't know if you guys talked
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: about this last week, but Thomas Massey is, talked about
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: the list that Lisa Phillips and these survivors might generate
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: and saying that because they might be afraid to release
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: it because they could be sued, that Massey and Marjorie
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: Taylor Greene, both of whom we always liked.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: She spoke at that press conference too. Yeah, could potentially
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: just read the names on the House floor because they're protected.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: And Thomas Massey, he doesn't give a fuck. No, no. Well,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: you got a bunch of mega billionaires raising like, I
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: think $ 2 million at this point for super PACs to
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: run against him. And he's like, I don't care, whatever. Yeah, no,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: I do. I do think there's an open question of,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: How much attention will this get? Because Fox News is
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: never going to touch it, right? The Benny Johnson of
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: the world, the Charlie Kirks, they've all shown that they're
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: now on Team Trump. They don't care what's said. I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: think there will be these fringe people that are out
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: there talking about it. There will also be like the
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: comedian space, like Tim Dillon, right, will be hammering this.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: He's kind of like a Trump-friendly, comedy, kind of hard-to-pin-down-views guy.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: I wonder if Rogan will pick this up. Hopefully, for
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: a few of them, they will be like, the scales
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: have fallen off my eyes. Donald Trump is a liar.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: He was absolutely 100% a part of whatever Epstein was doing.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: We know this now.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Can I just do one more thing before we move
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: off this? Everyone on the internet is dunking on J.D.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Vance's tweet. Oh, yeah. Well-deserved.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: When the Wall Street Journal first broke the story about
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the letter, the birthday wish, whatever you're fucking calling it,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: he wrote, Forgive my language, but this story is complete
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: and utter bullshit. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: shocked to learn they never showed it to us before
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: It's so... He's such a.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: He's so fucking smug and condescending, even when he is
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: so wrong all the time.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: It's really also the, like, would you believe that they
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: didn't show us the letter?
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: Like.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: It's Smug and also just, he does play on, he
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: just has so little respect for the people that support
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump, right? Because no, a journalist doesn't provide you,
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: I'm sure they got a detailed readout of the letter,
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: all the details you could ever need to comment, of course,
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: but he's saying they.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Didn't show us the letter. But then there's the part
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: of it where it's so fucking stupid.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Like we talked, we did a video about this earlier
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: and it's like, Do you not believe that the future
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: will be as real as the past? Like, we're going
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: to move forward through time, JD. And eventually this will
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: come to pass that, of course, the Wall Street Journal
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: owned by Rupert Murdoch is not making it up.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: He's learned from Trump that you only have to get
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: through the day, but he doesn't have Trump's skill at
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: doing it.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: He's just not as skilled as fucking Ted.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: He's a doof. I also like, look, they are trying
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to sell him as the NAGA heir apparent and that
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: he will be the next up for the president, right?
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And there was all this reporting early on, like, is
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: he a uniquely influential vice president? He's going and giving
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: these speeches, trolling all of Europe. He's doing this. And
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: now we know that Donald Trump does not respect him. He,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: they're like, uh, you're going to be my human shield.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: in the press on this Epstein thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't do it. It's a fake fucking letter. Yeah,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: go say whatever. Gets gunned down on Twitter all day today.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Trump has no respect for him. People have him lie
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: for him. They didn't give a shit.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: You go do your long tweet threads to all of
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: your former friends in the establishment that you used to
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: hang out with.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Give me 800 words of Curtis Yarvin.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: See if you can piss them off with your long tweets.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Good luck, JD.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Have fun at Disneyland. All right, let's talk about Democrats
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: in the midterms.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: I got run over the bathroom so badly I'm going
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: to die. One or two. Wow. Two, two, two. He
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: says one, everybody. John and I are just going to
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: vamp and see how this goes. Oh, my gosh. He
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: just broke the Kamala whiskey. Love it. Broken the Kamala whiskey, everyone. Oh,
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: that's a bad. Well, it can't get worse. Maybe it
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: was number two. I wonder if he didn't take him crazy.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: He whipped the door open. A loud laugh down the hall.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: We got a bedlam here at Crooked Media HQ. Oh,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: it's the fucking clock. Oh, the clock.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, Lovett broke a clock.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, Lovett broke the clock.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming we're recording all this and we're going to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: release it later.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. This is going in the episode.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Lovett had to shit so bad that he ran from
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: the office like I've never seen him run that fast ever.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: 4.05 p.m.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Shattered a clock. Time stops here at Crooked Media.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Shattered a clock in the studio.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: I suppose we could do the red zone part with Adam.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: He's not going to contribute to that. Yeah, that's true.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: He's got two sections to go. You know, you got
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: to go.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: You got to go. I do. We've all been there.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I've been there for sure.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: I have breaking news. We have a second J.D. Vance
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Epstein tweet has hit the timeline. The Democrats don't care
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: about Epstein. They don't even care about his victims. That's
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: why they were silent about it for years. The only
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: thing they care about is concocting another fake scandal like
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Russiagate to smear President Trump with lies. No one is
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: falling for this BS. That's J.D. Vance quote tweeting Caroline
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Leavitt trying to pretend that the Wall Street Journal birthday
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: card story was false. So rather than admit he is
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: a shameless liar, J.D. Vance is digging in. Leavitt, how
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: was your dump? So it was... Just a fantastic number one.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Tommy. Great. I'm not ashamed of, listen, everybody poops.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you gotta go. You all gotta go. What'd I do?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: You smashed the clock. How did that happen?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: You whipped open the door so hard.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: You've been lifting too many weights, man. Lay off the creasing. Wow.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: For two reasons.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: I just, I can't believe this was painted as a shit.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: There's no way to not defensively say I didn't take
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: a shit just now.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: I hope it wasn't painted as a shit in the bathroom.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Do you remember when we got that all-staff email that said, FYI,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: they've closed the men rooms because they have to jet
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: clean the whole plumbing system?
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: That's tough. That's tough. Should we do the rest of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: the show? Yeah, let's do it. We're recording.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Democrats in the midterms. Annie
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Carney at the Times had an interesting roundup of the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: blue-collar candidates running in some of the most competitive districts
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and how they're resonating with voters by talking about how
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: much Republicans are screwing over working-class people like them. Right
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: on cue, Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow got some social
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: media buzz over the weekend with a video that railed
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: about corporate greed, pegged to week one of the NFL season.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: Football is back, and seven hours of commercial-free football.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Is not.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: This is just the latest example of corporate greed ruining
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: the things we love.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Because it's not just commercials on TV.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: It's also your grocery store run.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: Or chicken wings are going to cost you $ 19. 00.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think ad-supported NFL Red Zone is the new
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Cracker Barrel rebrand?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: What do you think? I like it. I like that ad. Also,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Graham Platner, Senate candidate from Maine, tweeted about Red Zone.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: For those that don't know, Red Zone is supposed to
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: be seven hours of commercial-free football. That is the promise
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: of Red Zone. Now, ESPN, they acquire the property, and
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: they're jamming in what they claim will be a few
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: minutes of commercials, but we should not believe them. But also,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: it's a station you pay for. Imagine if all of
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: a sudden Game of Thrones had commercials. I'm trying to
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's probably coming. The whole enterprise is failing.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: You pay for it and you get ads? You pay
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: for a premium and then all of a sudden you
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: get ads.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Red Zone is like not cheap.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: No, it's expensive. It's very expensive. And so I think
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: her talking about Red Zone and making this anti-corporate message
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: with it as the news peg is really, really smart. Yeah,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand that.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: I was confused about the whole football thing because I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: saw that, oh no, no more seven hours of football.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: And I was like, you people have been getting seven
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: hours commercial free of football?
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. God, what a society they've built for the people
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: that like sports. It's almost too much. It's like, it's
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: too frenetic. Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was, I think it was a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: good ad. I think that there's like, I mean, here's
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: the thing. It doesn't, we're setting a low bar here
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: with the democratic candidates and Mallory McMorris has always been
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: great at just speaking like a normal human. Um, our
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: buddy Abdul was also running that race. Also all his
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: stuff looks just like it doesn't look as polished as
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: as your typical ad that drives you nuts because you've
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: heard a million times before. He's doing a good job
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: of that. Graham Platner is doing a good job of that.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: A lot of candidates running.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: It's been shorthanded as working class, but it's also just
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: like being a normal human being. And I think there's
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: some Democratic candidates who maybe are not the The choice
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: of the DSCC or the DCCC who are maybe out
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: of necessity, maybe out of just the fact that because
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: they're normal human beings who haven't been in politics that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: long are figuring this out this time. So I think
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: it's a great thing.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: Graham Platner sounds like the name a s'more would take
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: if it became a person and needed to come up
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: with a name super quick. Okay.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: I like the ad.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: Uh i do like the ad i do like i
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: i sometimes think like when we we're our bar is
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: so low and then we're so desperate for people just
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: that sound like people and then they do and it
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: sounds like a person like talking about something that might
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: bother some people and like okay great but then you
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: think like okay corporate greed that's the problem and i
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: think what is the democrats view collectively like what's our
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: party's position on how we're going to take on corporate
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: greed and like i just like i'm sure we have
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: there's a bunch of like interesting policy proposals and and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: white papers out there but like The other side of
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: it to me is the like, I don't know, like
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: the like fighting the enemy and making more clear who
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: the enemy is and what you're gonna, and why corporations
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: need to be afraid of us.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's fair to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: say there's not like a clear white paper on sort
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: of like how you deal with the oligarchy, right? But
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: I do think more like what's happening in this cycle
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: is you've got this deliberate effort to run candidates who
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: are mechanics or veterans or oyster farmers, and they just,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: they look and they sound and they are working class people.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: And I just think like your average voter learns, two
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: minutes worth of information about someone before they vote for them.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: And if you look credible and like, look like you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: will fight for them, uh, and they believe it, they
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: believe it from your bio, uh, you're more likely to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: get their vote than like a lawyer or, you know,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: a rich guy. Yeah. A lot of lawyers.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: And you know, I'm sure a lot of good, there
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: are a lot of good lawyers out there. A lot
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: of good lawyers are going to be good candidates, but
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: we've got a lot of lawyers at Never Credit Party.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Too many. Too many.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Also, uh, James Tallarico, who I believe you interviewed, up-and-coming
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Texas state rep, is expected to announce on Tuesday that
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: he's jumping into the Senate primary. So it's him and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Colin Allred, who was just here as well. What do
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you guys think is his theory of the case against
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: a more established guy like Colin Allred?
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. I'm waiting to find out. I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: really do. I was like, huh, that's interesting.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: Got a taste of that national press going up there
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: to Illinois.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Want another hit? Yeah, I'm not really sure either. I mean, like,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, he did well on Rogan. People were,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: it was interesting to hear a Democrat talk about faith
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: in that way. It felt sort of unique, although, you know,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: we've heard Democrats do that before, just not in a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: little while. But I don't know. I mean, I think
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: in some recent polling, it looks like maybe he's behind
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: all red, although it's not clear who did that polling,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: if it's credible, right? It was like 500 voters in Texas,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: which is a lot of people in it. So who knows?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting test case in attentional strategy.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: which is like, like Texas is, you know, a huge
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: fucking state to run statewide in. And, uh, you know, he,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: Con Allred has run statewide before, James Tallarico has not.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: And so I'm sure his name ID is not quite
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: as high. Now he did Rogan, huge audience. He's getting
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: national attention. So does the, can he get the attention
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: necessary to run in a state like Texas and get
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: known in a state like Texas against someone like Allred
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: who has already run once in Texas? and who presumably
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: has been running for a little while and has a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: larger fundraising network.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting to see.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: Right, and then attention towards what end? Like, why are
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: you so... All Red's running. Why are you so pulled
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: into the race? What needs does he not meet that
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: you do? You know what I mean?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: You can imagine him... He'll try to run more of
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: an outsider... uh, strategy than all red and maybe like
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: take on the, I'm going to fight more, take on
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the system more because all red is more, um, you know,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and this is true when he was in Congress too,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: is more of like a work with the other side
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: kind of guy.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Um, but we'll see. We'll see.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Before we get to Tommy's Mikey Sherrill interview, we do
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: have to talk about the Trump cabinet secretary, most likely
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: to beat the ever living shit out of one of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: his colleagues. Of course, talking about Scott Besant.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: What a surprise. But that pink-housed fairy is going to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: be the one.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, are you a homophobe?
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Is that why? That's what you think? That's why? Yes.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: You're surprised?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. We're a sensitive bunch.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: He's a big guy. He's a big guy.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Okay. I would only be surprised because he's like 63
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: and an economist. But a cursory Google search suggests that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Besson is between 62 and 63. Big guy. And that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Pulte is only 5'8, but also inexplicably 37, although he looks,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: if you told me he was 50, I would have.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: believed it. Wait, I'm sorry.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Like the fact that it was just fucking 37? Stephen Miller's, what,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: 38th birthday, too, was the other day? Like, these people
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: look so fucking old.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: That's just some ages, yeah.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Also, the New York Post, did you see they did
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: a story, sort of an informal poll of White House
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: staffers to see who they'd want to win in a
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: fight between the two of them?
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, we didn't even set up that.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, go ahead.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying people are listening unless you read Political
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Playbook and everything Rachel Bade writes. But anyway, so there's
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: a story about Besson nearly coming to blows with White
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: House chief mortgage fraud investigator Bill Pulte at a dinner
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: last week. Rachel Bade sets up the story in a
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: way that will make you want to scream into a pillow.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one of celebration.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: It was both the much-anticipated inaugural dinner at Executive Branch,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: the ultra-exclusive Georgetown Club created by and for Trump World's uber-rich,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and a birthday party for MAGA-friendly podcaster Chamath It's the worst.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: It's like the worst couple sentences I've read in a
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: long time.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: Your punishment for being a part of this crowd is
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: hanging out with this crowd. What if that's your Russian
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: doll night? You know what I mean? It fucking sucks.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Key party at executive branch.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: During cocktail hour, Besson accused Pulte of bad-mouthing him to Trump.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: He then told Pulte he was going to, quote, punch
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: him in his fucking face. Then, after the club's owner intervened,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Besant told Pulte he wanted to take things outside so
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: he could, quote, fucking beat his ass.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Again, fisticuffs. Again, fisticuffs. Right.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no. Those kind of fisticuffs. Anyway, incredibly, this isn't
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: the first time that Besant has gotten in a fight
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: with another administration official. If you guys remember, back in April,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: Axios' Mark Caputo reported that Besant and Elon Musk got
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: into a, quote, heated shouting match at the White House.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: I think we had more details that it got even
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: worse than that, but.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there was a shoving. But I think it
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: was Elon shoved Besant and then that's when Elon had
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: to leave.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: But Besant, now maybe he made another threat where he said,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to fucking beat your ass or whatever.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about this?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Well, so the New York Post asked White House staffers
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: who they'd want to win. Here's a quote from the
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: story that I think was representative. The general consensus in
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: the White House is that Scott would have beat that
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: little midget's ass and everyone would have paid big money
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: to watch it happen. One person close to the president's
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: inner circle told me. So apparently... Does that person work
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: at Treasury? It sounds like... Honestly, it sounds like Steve
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Bannon to me.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: Another official said that Besson actually has a surprisingly big cock.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: But he's not braggy about it. Just gives him a confidence.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: He's a grower, not a shepherd.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: I think Bannon's a pulty guy.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know either. It's a good question.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: The other thing, too, is this dinner. I'm making this.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: The dinner took place.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: at a table for, I think it's at 30, like
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: it was a very long, a very long table. And I,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: was thinking about how to call this the Night of
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: the Long Tables.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been workshopping that one.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: And I never cracked it. Since our night name call.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: Never cracked it. And you know what? Since our night
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: name call. We only had a good seven hours. Well,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: I had to find out about what was going on
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: with that. A lot of news. A lot of real news.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: You get a soft launch on a call with five people,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: and then if it doesn't work there, you just go for.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: The full audience. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That was good.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: I was going to say just in defense of Scott
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: Bessence being a gay guy that wants to fight people,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: there are two paths for the gay boy. And one
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: of them is to become soft and meek and hide
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: in theater. But there is the path of the tough
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: gay guy who's like, I'll take on any of you.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: I'm Scott Besson, damn it.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Bill Pulte.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's also possible. So the piece goes on.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: They've been fighting these two for quite a while now.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: It's over.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: You know, Bill, Bill Pulte when he's not, uh, you know,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: investigating the president's enemies for mortgage fraud that his own
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: family has committed as well. He is trying to like
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: reorganize Fannie and Freddie and he's the, you know, he's
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: the federal housing guy and there's some like turf battles
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: over this. And also he wants Jerome, he wants, he
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: was the one who sent the letter to Trump, um,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: saying that he should fire Jerome Powell and drafted the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: letter for him. And Besson's like, that's fucking crazy. It's
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: going to screw up the markets. Everyone's going to go nuts.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: And so they've fought about this before. I think that
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: like Besant probably has learned how to really appeal to Trump,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: how to work Trump. And the best way is to
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: look like you're a fucking tough guy. And he knows
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: like I'm gay cabinet secretary. And for Trump, I need
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: to play against type and be as tough as possible.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if like Besant was very happy
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: leaking this whole story.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: It's a good point. It does make you wonder if
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: third term, he's just slapping the shit out of people
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: in the Oval Office. You don't get far in Trump
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: role by being sub-dom, you know? That's right. That's right.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: Fannie or Freddie.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's going to be at the UFC fight on
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the White House lawn that Trump's organizing.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: I saw someone. What's the undercard? He could be the undercard. Oh,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: that's a good point. He could beat the shit out
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: of Bill Pulte on the undercard. Do you guys remember
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: when there were like a week or two of news
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: cycles about Elon Musk threatening to fight Mark Zuckerberg? Remember
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: when we did that? Oh, yeah. And they were like,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: in the Coliseum.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Simpler times.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Didn't Zuckerberg say yes? Yeah, he was really leaning into
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: it because he had been like doing karate training. Yeah.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Thought it was cool. No, I mean.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: And it is cool. We're doing karate training in his bunker.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: And it is cool. He had a little brown belt,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: some yellow belt.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Making statues of his wife on the lawn.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, he does the karate and then everybody
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: gets a little juice and a little crustless peanut butter
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: and jelly. And then back to coding.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: And he dresses up as Benson Boone and.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: Sings to his wife. Bring me my stylist. I need
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: more street wear. Yeah, that he burns the report on
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: how meta sex bots are targeting teens or whatever. Unbelievable.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: I'm really happy we transitioned the Bessent fight into just
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: shit on Mark Zuckerberg for a little while.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: That's well deserved.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe Bessent will go beat his ass.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: You know? Did you see the clip from last week
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: where Trump's like, Mark, how much are you going to
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: invest in the U.S.? And Zuckerberg's like, uh... What do
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: you want me to say? $ 600 billion. What do you
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: want me to say? Hot mic. He said the $ 600.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Billion, and then he said, I don't know what number
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: you want me to say.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: Sir, was that the right number? It's so... It's the worst.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: This is it. This is... This is our empire. That's
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: who's dining at the executive club with Chamath. Chamath.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Happy birthday, Chamath. Just want to make sure he had
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: a great birthday.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: What was the tweet about his penis? Chamath. Remember that one?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: You judge a lot about it. You judge a person
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: by their friends. Amen. That's what I say. Amen. All right.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: When we come back, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Congresswoman
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Mikey Sherrill about her campaign for governor. Again, I'm sure
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: right now she's thinking, great choice.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Another seamless transition. Did you ask her about the pizza
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: like I asked you? I didn't know how to Pivot
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: to that because I'd never eaten it. All right. I
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: did ask her about filling up our own gas tank
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey and why we can't do that. Because
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: you're going to get hurt. You're going to get hurt
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: One quick thing before we get to that interview. You
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: guys have all heard us talking about how excited we
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: are for CrookedCon in November. CrookedCon.com.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: I can say it now.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a day to join some of
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: the smartest organizers and least annoying politicians in America to strategize, debate,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: and commiserate about where we go from here. We'll also
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: be drinking. We'll be kicking off the event on Thursday,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: November 6th with a live Pod Save America show at
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: the Warner Theater. Then on Friday, November 7th, we'll be
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: hosting a full day of conversations, panels, workshops, and live
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: pods at the Wharf with all of our favorite National
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Guard members.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Have you guys thought about that at all?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I only thought about it when I did an AMA
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: on the Discord and a couple of people were like,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: how are you guys feeling about the security there and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: doing it in D.C.? And I was like, I haven't
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: really thought about that.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: It's going to be fine. Marketing is going to make
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: us cut this, but the wharf turns into the largest
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: ice detention facility on the East Coast. Cricket Con, once
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: you enter, you cannot exit. Leave it in, Jordan.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Anyway, the announcement that I'm supposed to be reading is
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: that we're really excited to share the lineup of folks
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: joining us.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: Who we'll be locked up with. Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: This is who you get.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Endless Q as it is.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: This is who you're going to Seacott with. Ready? Hasan Piker.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: No surprise there.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: Fad Shakur.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: Sarah Longwell. Brian Tyler Cohen. Jessica Tarloff. Senator Ruben Gallego.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Governor Andy Beshear. Representative Sarah McBride. Representative Janelle Bynum. Ben Wickler.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: And lots more. It's exciting.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: Great group.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: More names to come more names to come guys very
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: exciting we'll be there too of course along with dan
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: and ben rhodes and aaron and alissa from hysteria and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: we'll close out the day with strict scrutiny live and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: by popular demand we just added more tickets because you
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: guys just kept buying the tickets so fast now we're
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: adding more tickets especially with that lineup and who knows
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: whoever's coming next you know.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: It's funny that i've just it's funny that just like
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: uh shout out to our marketing team that uh puts
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: Hasan Piker first on virtually every.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Of course. And, you know, great.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: He's like, the senators and governors, but Hasan Piker's coming.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: The 2028 hopefuls, they go at the end of the list. Yeah,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: that's right.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: We got Hasan Piker first. Anyway, see the full lineup
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: and buy your tickets before they sell out at.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: Crooked.com. You fucked up. Tommy, you want to try? Jesus.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: All right. You're out. Jesus. Crookedcon.com. That's right.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Crookedcon.com. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Hiring. Boy. It's tough. A lot of resumes. Takes time.
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• 1:18:37
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• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: all these resumes. It'd be great if there was someone
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• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: Joining me today in studio is New Jersey gubernatorial candidate,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: Mikey Sherrill. Congressman, great to see you. Welcome to the pod.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, this is fantastic. I'm a longtime listener. First time.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: Person on the pod.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: The listeners can hold me accountable for all the wrong takes,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: all the bad language, all the things we get wrong here.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm from New Jersey. I'm going to hold you
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: so accountable.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: For bad language. You're good with that. Well, we did
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: just spend 10 minutes talking about potty training. So, you know,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: our headspace is right. I have a two-year-old who's doing
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: potty training right now. So, A lot of folks are
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: watching the New Jersey gubernatorial race because it's important, but
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: it's also a bellwether. On the one hand, the party
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: out of power tends to do well in off-year or
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: midterm elections. On the other hand, New Jersey Democrats have
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: held the governor's seat for two terms, and Trump gained
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of ground in 2024. Why do you think
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: Trump's margins improved so much from 2020 to 2024? What
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: does that say about the Democratic Party and what we
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: were getting wrong? And how are you guys feeling about
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: the state of your race?
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: So I think we just see election after election after
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: election being a change election. And I would say that's
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: because voters want to be heard and they're not feeling
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: heard in any way. And so I think the 10-point
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: swing to the right in New Jersey is largely because
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: as people in New Jersey were saying, I can't afford anything.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: My costs are bad. Inflation is bad. Home prices are bad.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: Groceries are expensive, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: response from Democrats, in many cases, was largely the economy's good.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: We had a soft landing.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: And everyone's going, I don't know what the flip of
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: soft landing is. Also democracy over here, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah. And it's hard. Look, I have served
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: this country. almost my entire life. Like you, I got
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: into public service young. I was 18 when I went
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: to the Naval Academy and then served for almost 10 years.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: So I care deeply about democracy. It's central to so
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: much of what I do. But if I'm coming at
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: you with democracy and you're coming at me with, I'm
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: about to lose my house and I'm not sure how
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: I'm feeding my kids, that's not going to go well, right?
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: And we, shame on us, really.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a little disconnected from the reality. Over
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: the weekend, President Trump posted this image on social media.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you saw it. It was him as Colonel
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. There's helicopters flying over Chicago. There's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: text that says, Chicago about to find out why it's
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: called Department of War. And I love the smell of
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: deportations in the morning. Obviously, he posted this to get
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: a reaction from Democrats, outraged liberals on social media, et cetera.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, I think threatening to wage
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: war in an American city with the US military is
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: a big deal. What was your reaction Reaction to like
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Apocalypse Don in his post over the weekend. And how
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: do you think Democrats should handle these threats to deploy
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: the National Guard to U.S. cities in the name of
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: fighting crime?
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: Well, my first thought was that guy never served. And
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: so good old Corporal Bonespurs should probably not be, you know,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: acting as if he's a tough guy when he had
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know how many deferments. And I also agree
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: with you. You know, as countries across the world are
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: holding major meetings and symposiums without the United States and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: looking to work around the United States, and we're losing
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: power daily. And so instead of making sure that we
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: have a full-throated response to how we move forward on
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: so many of the key issues, whether it's AI or
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: energy prices or trade, Instead, he's looking to wage war
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: on one of his own cities. That's really beyond the pale,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: but kind of par for the course on how destructive
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: this administration is. And I think you're right. A lot
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: of it is very dire, but a lot of it's
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: also performative to sort of be saying, like, look over here.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: I'm going to put these troops on the streets. Don't
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: pay attention to the fact that my tariff program is
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: is driving up costs everywhere, and that this bill I
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: forced Congress to pass, and look, I'm not crying a
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: river for Republicans in Congress who lacked courage, but, you know,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: force this bill through that is going to raise costs
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: on everyone. Don't pay any attention to that. So as
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: I'm running, and it's really, as you sort of laid
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: out a kind of extraordinary race in New Jersey right now.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: This is the only race that's really been going on
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: super competitively for almost a year now. We had a
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: really competitive primary, and now we're into the competitive general.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what I think is, you know,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: what I can tell you from listening to thousands and
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: thousands of people across New Jersey is people are really
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: upset about the cost of living. And they are upset now,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: with Trump because he promised to drive costs down. We've
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: already talked about why they're upset with Democrats. And so
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: it's oddly the least partisan race I've run. I started
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: running in 2018. So I usually go to diners and
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: especially if I'm in a red area of the state,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: you know, I'll go, oh, I'm Mikey Sherrill. I'm running for,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: you know, previously Congress, now governor. And people say, oh,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: I support Trump or I'm a Republican, kind of get away.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: Now they look at me and they say, how are
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: you going to lower my costs? And I think it's
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: because at this time, they're looking for leadership on the
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: issues that are key to them. And I think this
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: presents a real opportunity for Democrats right now.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: So what you're saying is all you're hearing, despite all
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: these kind of national stories and trends, are just cost
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: of living, cost of living, cost of living. I mean,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: it's similar to the Mamdani race in New York, where
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: the media narrative was kind of like acted as if
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: he was trying to get elected prime minister of Israel.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: But it was really like he was focusing on housing costs,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: free bus, et cetera. You're hearing the same sort of things.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: It's both. You know, there's been a lot of people saying, oh, well,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: this bill that he passed that's going to raise health
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: care costs and energy costs and higher education costs, et cetera.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: Are people really aware that that's coming? And A, yes.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: But B, it almost doesn't matter because these tariffs are
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: hitting people hard. And so to give you a sense
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: of that, because maybe some people, you know, you hear
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: from economists, oh, this is about to happen. And you
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: kind of think, well, it's happened months ago. What's going on?
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: So what I always find interesting is if the economists
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: are saying something and then people on the ground are
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: saying the same thing, if you have that connection. And
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: so economists are saying, oh, this is about to hit
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: in the holiday season. And now I'm going, you know,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: I was talking to a coffee store owner, this guy Chuck,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: who was telling me, look, I used to buy this
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: huge burlap sack of coffee beans for $ 2.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: 50. Right.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: Now, because, and this is sort of how he put it,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: because Trump got in some fight with that guy in Brazil,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: now I have to pay $ 6. 50 to $ 7. I didn't
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: change my prices because reprinting menus was expensive. Reprinting the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: signs was expensive. But I think it's here to stay.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: So I just emailed all my customers and costs are
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: going to go up.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: So he's going to have to eat it. Yeah. And
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: the fight with the guy in Brazil- is over the
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Brazilian government wanting to prosecute someone who did his own
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: January 6th and tried to stage a coup that included
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: killing senior political leaders and a judge. So that's why
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: we're tariffing Brazil.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: And just to add insult to injury, the only place
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: we grow coffee beans is Hawaii, and that's not nearly
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: enough for the market. So it's not as if there's
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: some industry here that we're somehow protecting. It's... It's horrible
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: that he's punishing the nation for that, and it's horrible
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: that he's just raising costs on everyone at a time
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: when they're already feeling the stress of it.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, including healthcare premiums are about to go up. The
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: other thing we're seeing, though, is in addition to these
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: National Guard deployments and threats, we're seeing major ICE and
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: CBP deployments to especially cities and states run by Democrats.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: I know that the Department of Defense gave immigration agencies
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: the approval to use a New Jersey military base to
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: detain between, I think, 1,000 to 3,000 migrants. I think
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: it would make it the largest immigrant detention hub on
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: the East Coast. And then Newark Mayor Ross Baraka was
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: arrested outside an immigration detention facility back in May, I believe.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: What was your reaction to this growing ICE presence in
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: your state and DOD signing off on the use of
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: military assets for immigration detention operations like that?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: So as I mentioned, I'm a Navy veteran. I now
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: sit on the House Armed Services Committee. And I can
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: tell you I've been incredibly opposed to this for so
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: many reasons, not the least of which is it's moving
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: resources away from our troops to support a mission that
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: we should not have on our bases and the military
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: should not be involved.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: In this.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: And I even, you know, I heard from one military
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: member who said, I'm about to deploy. And I said
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: to him, oh, I'm sorry, because I know he has
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 3: some young kids. He goes, I'm kind of relieved because
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: I don't want to run concentration camps here at home.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's horrible. And so we're seeing this push
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: to really undermine a lot of the rules here. And
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: it's really chilling to me because, as I mentioned with
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: my background, I watched in Trump's first administration as he
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: tried to again and again and again co-opt a private
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: militia for himself. And he tried initially during the Black
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: Lives Matter protest to utilize the U.S. military. Remember, and
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: he was always calling generals my generals as if they
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: were— you know, solely serving him, not the Constitution, and
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: constantly trying to undermine the military. And I thought it
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: was odd at the time because the worst time for
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: his numbers was when he was attacking John McCain. I
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: thought that was an odd thing to do. But in hindsight,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: I think he was again and again trying to undermine
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: the prestige of the military because it was the one
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: organization that people trusted and that stood against him. And
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: so if you recall, the troops got all the way
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: to Fort Belvoir. But they stayed out under pressure from
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: General Milley and I think Mark Esper was sected at
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: the time and really pushing back. And so then he
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: had troops all over the mall guarding the monuments. And
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: we didn't know. They were in camis, but they had
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: no insignia. They had masks on. It was during COVID.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: And they wouldn't say where they came from. They wouldn't
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: answer any questions. And we think maybe DOC, Department of Corrections.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: But it was a little bit unclear. So again and again,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: trying to co-opt these militias. And then finally, January 6th,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: his private militia. So he still had to leave office,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: I would say unwillingly, and then came back into office.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: And one of the very first things he does is
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: start to fire admirals and generals. He fired C.Q. Brown,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He fired
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: Lisa Frank-Keddie, who was the chief of naval operations. When
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: I said to Pete Higgseth, I think he did it
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: because he was black and she was a woman. He
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: didn't deny it. I think it's pretty clear.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: Very specifically.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: Very specifically.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: C.K.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: Brown filmed one video about being a black man in
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: America after Black Lives Matter, and I think that led
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: him to being fired.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 3: He fired the head of special ops, and part of
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: the understanding was that that's because he suggested that women,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: if they could compete, should be able to be Navy SEALs.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: We've had multiple three-star admirals fired who are women and
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: then others across the board who express anything. I've heard
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: from DHS officials that there is a loyalty test. I've
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: heard some people quitting because they aren't going to do
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: a loyalty to Trump instead of the Constitution. So again
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 3: and again, you see him trying to both weaken the U.S.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: military and then strengthen ICE. And now we're putting more
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: money into immigration enforcement than we are into the United
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: States Marine Corps. And you're seeing the commercials. A lot
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: of people around my way out in New Jersey, see
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: them on the football games. There's a lot of ICE
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: recruiting commercials. And they're very aggressive. And so you're seeing
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: him really try to have this. I think it's really dangerous,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: which is why governors need to really stand in the
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: breach and demand accountability and understand who these people are
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: on the streets. And that's why in Congress, I'm on
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: legislation to make sure that you have to identify yourself,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: that you can't go around masked with no insignia. unmarked cars.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: And then on the streets, I think the courts are
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: where some of the battle is. But you also have
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: to be very careful with your own state police force.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: So I was talking to someone who said he was
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: a former police officer. He said he was just chatting
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 3: with one of his friends who's currently a police officer
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: who spoke to an ICE agent. The guy came up
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: to him and demanded something. He goes, show me a badge.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know who you are. And he goes, I
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: don't have to show you who I am. I'm with ICE.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, you do. And he goes, well,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: I'm taking you to jail. And the guy goes, well,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: I'm taking you to jail and we'll sort it out there.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: But I mean, this is the kind of lawlessness that's
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: going on. And it really, and a lot of our
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: police officers are coming forward saying, this is making our
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: streets less safe. And this is not our mission.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: That's tough in Jersey. You have to watch a Jets
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: game and see an ICE ad. That's like a double whammy.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Sorry, I'm a patriot.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: All right, I'm over. This interview is over.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: My team sucks. Another issue I saw in New Jersey
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: is last week, I saw there's another measles case popped
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: up in New Jersey. I think it brings the states
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: total to 10 this year. This is happening as the
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he's gutting the CDC. Florida,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: I think, is doing away with all vaccine mandates. I
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: don't know if you saw this interview, the Florida health administrator,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: whatever his name was, did with Jake Tapper over the
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: weekend on CNN. It was Clearly, they had done absolutely
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: no research or modeling about the impact of these changes
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: before they put them in place. How worried are you
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: about a potential measles outbreak in New Jersey? And as governor,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: how would you manage this erosion of trust we've seen
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: in public health since COVID, basically?
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: I'm incredibly concerned, not the least of which because I
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: have four kids and I'm a mom.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: But also because New Jersey is the most densely populated
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: state in the nation because we're about to go into
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: the winter months where all of the diseases become much
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: more transmitted because of being indoors. And so it is
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: a really dangerous scenario, especially for our state, really unique
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: in the country, our state, with winter. And a dense population,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: a very international population. We have the airport, we have
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: 95 going through. I mean, we have train stations, we
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: have everyone in and out. And so without vaccines, our
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: state could become very dangerous, especially for kids and for seniors.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: And so when you look back at the numbers, of
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: kids who died of preventable, what are now preventable diseases
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: before a vaccination. So look at two, three million kids.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: When you look at the babies who've already died from
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: whooping cough, which totally, if you have herd immunity, preventable.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: Babies can't get the vaccine, which is why we make
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: sure others have it to protect them. So across the country,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: we are seeing this threat coming back. I mean, I'm
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: almost just waiting to hear about cases here of polio
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 3: and stuff because of this movement going on and this
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: surge in listening to RFK Jr., who seems to get
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: a lot of his information. And I wish this was
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: just a snarky comment, but I think this is true
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: on TikTok and with influencers online. I was talking to
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: one doctor who said he was saying all this weird
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: mitochondria stuff, and she's like, what the heck is this?
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: I don't even think he knows what mitochondria is.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: He could diagnose people by looking at them.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: They were showing some mitochondria damage on their faces. Of course,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: we've all spotted that in the wild. We've all noticed.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: We've noticed.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: So I just, to think that that's the person then
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: who's not just the head of HHS, but actually making
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: these huge decisions that could impact the nation, which is
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: why governors, again, are so important because actually... There are
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: coalitions now. And in the Northeast, we have some of
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: the best research and development into health and medicine. And
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: so working in the Northeast, New Jersey has been called
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: the medicine chest of the world. So really working as
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: governor to make sure that we're still putting out credible information,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: that we're still getting vaccines to people, still manufacturing those vaccines,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: is something that I'm going to work with. other governors
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: in the Northeast, like Maura Healey, who's doing just that
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: right now, to make sure that citizens in New Jersey
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: are safe, as you see, I mean, just real nitwits
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: across the country making decisions based off of zero information or,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: at best, something they saw online.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Instagram comments. Yeah, I don't know if, look,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: I have a one-year-old and two-year-old when I see reports of, like,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: a measles outbreak, I start to think to myself, do
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: I have to move up my own kids' vaccine schedule, right? Like,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: these are the conversations we're having in our own houses.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: Well, and there's breakthrough cases. So, you know, you want
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: to get to 95-plus percent vaccines, I think, for herd immunity.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: If I remember correctly, I am not a doctor, so
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: I don't, you know, I use medical experts to discuss
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: these things with. But I think it's north of 95
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: percent for herd immunity so that you don't, You know,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: so that you can keep people safe because even with vaccines,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: you have some breakthrough cases and stuff like that, putting
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: everyone in danger, which is why we traditionally have demanded
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: if you're going into schools with little kids, you have
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 3: vaccines so everyone doesn't get sick and die. And I
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: don't think that's too much for the community to demand
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: that your kids safe going to school.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: Did you watch his hearing in the Senate last week?
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: I did not.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: In addition to just the horrible words coming out of
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: his mouth, he was wheezing in this very unhealthy seeming way.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: He had a very Jersey Shore vibe, like Snooki JWoww,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: like the super intense spray tan and juice head. Take
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: a look. There's some good clips on Twitter. You'll enjoy it.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: Another Jersey question. Alina Haba, Trump's former personal attorney, she
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: was briefly appointed to the acting U.S. attorney in New
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: Jersey before a judge ruled her appointment unlawful. You were
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: a federal prosecutor. What did you make of that mess
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: and what impact it could have on the integrity of
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: federal prosecutions? in your state?
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: That's my old office. And I have to tell you,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: I worked there for several years. I knew a lot
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: of the different lawyers and the head of the public
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: corruption office, who I'd worked with quite a few years.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: We'd eat lunch together occasionally. The minute I started running
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: for office... would not even talk to me.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: Just out of fear that there was an association?
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: No, because he prosecuted public officials.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, got it, got it.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 3: And so he was like, look, I don't want impropriety
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: and I don't want the appearance of impropriety. I don't
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: want anyone to think that I have some relationship with
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: you and that that is impairing my judgment. I mean,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: that is what a high ethical standard is. he held.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: Like I would walk into a room at some U.S.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: attorney gathering and he would walk out of the room
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: or he would like see me and start, you know,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 3: marching the other way. But that's kind of the level
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: of integrity that many people in that office demanded of
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: themselves and certainly others. And so to think now that
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 3: not only is that certainly not happening, but she says
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: that she is going to use the office to turn
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 3: New Jersey red, I think was the comment that she
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 3: is actually blatantly political. She has, she has now, um,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 3: said she's going to prosecute the governor, the attorney general
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 3: of New Jersey. She's prosecuting a sitting member of Congress
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: who was doing her oversight duty. She actually had the
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: mayor arrested and said she was going to charge him
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: until the tapes came out, which she had.
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: And showed that he was innocent. And so she couldn't.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 3: So then she went after the Congresswoman. Um, And at
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: every turn, she's making these threats. And it's a very
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 3: Trumpian move. He was in Atlantic City going bankrupt all
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: the time and leaving everyone holding the bag and threatening
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 3: court cases and stuff because it's very expensive to go
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 3: to court and hire lawyers. So it's not as if, oh,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 3: you're just innocent. So you go to court and you're like,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: I'm innocent. So leave me alone. And you're like, okay. No,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 3: it's tons of money to hire lawyers and to do this.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: And then you're living under this especially in these times
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 3: when you don't think things are fair. So several defendants
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 3: have brought cases saying, look, you can't even prosecute me
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 3: because she's not even there legally. So that's going through
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 3: the court system. But it is, again, I think this
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 3: total co-opting of power at every level as quickly as
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 3: possible that Trump's trying to do and taking all these
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: levers of power to quell dissent, to punish anyone who
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: speaks out against this, And find any means you can
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 3: to shut down any ability to create a different path forward.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm kind of waiting on Bob Menendez to go
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: full Rob Blagojevich and kind of go for that pardon.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: I think he's already made suggestions. You know, like you said,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 3: Trump is right and stuff. So, yes.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No gold bars in your closet house anywhere? Oh, God, no.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: No?
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 3: We can't even keep water. After Superstorm Sandy, like we
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: had like these things of water and my kids just
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 3: drink them all. So yeah, gold bars would be really
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: beyond us.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: Speaking of corruption, do you agree with President Trump that
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: we should reopen the Bridgegate investigation into Chris Christie? He
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: tweeted this the other day.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: No, we've already had that investigation. I mean, we've, you know, it's,
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 3: I deeply believe in investigations into wrongdoing, but to use
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 3: investigations to go after people that you don't like or
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 3: that have said things you don't like is really, really
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 3: troubling to me. And to use the criminal justice system
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: like that, I think is, again, a way that you
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: quell dissent. And in these times, it's really dangerous.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Basically, I think he was mad about an ABC
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: News interview. Christy did in this case.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: Is that Which one?
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: Trump was mad. He was tweeting about John Carl's bad
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: haircut and something Chris Christie said. And then he said,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: let's reopen the investigation.
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 3: That's how we got there. So was it the CDC
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: stuff or something different?
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what it was anymore. It was
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: just Trump watching TV and tweeting. Like we do at
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: NFL games. He just sort of foils away. So you
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: were a helicopter pilot, right, in the U.S. Navy. Was
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: it the H-3 Sea King?
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. Some
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: helicopter questions. Is it harder to learn to fly a
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: helicopter than to fly a plane? First question.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 3: Depends on the weather conditions. Helicopters are, I think, much
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 3: more susceptible to high winds and changes in humidity, and
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: it changes the power dynamics of it.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: What's the timeline for learning that? the process for getting
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: approved to fly on your own.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: Now you're testing my memory. So everybody in the Navy,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: not in the Army, but everyone in the Navy learns
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: to fly fixed wing. And so you go through pre-flight school,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: and then you go through flight school, primary. I think
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 3: that takes about six months. And then you go through
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: helicopter school, which is maybe another four to six months.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 3: And then you go off into the replacement air group,
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 3: the RAG, and your squadron, And you do that. That's
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 3: a lot shorter. And then you kind of go right
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 3: into your squadron. And my reg was kind of co-located
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: with the squadron.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: So it was like a couple-year process? Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: You could probably speed it up if you were churning
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 3: people out a lot more quickly. But at the time
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 3: I did it, it was probably about one and a half,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 3: two years.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: Okay. That's less than I would have thought. So if
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: I were sitting in a Sea King at the Sticks, right?
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: There's a meteor coming at Los Angeles. Could you talk
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: me through how to get that thing off the ground
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: or am I dead?
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, if it was running, I could get it off
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 3: the ground.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah. You just like press this button, do that?
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a checklist. So we'd get all the... We'd
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: have to get all the circuit breakers in the right
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: place and stuff like that. But flying it itself, like
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: lifting up and flying it, yeah.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: It looks really hard. I've seen my primary experience watching
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: this happen.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: If you were doing it, I would be riding the
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 3: controls to protect my own safety here. But yes, but
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 3: I could.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: Because we used to watch the... The Navy men and
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: women like take off and land on the South Lawn.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: And that was just some high stakes shit, I guess,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: because you're like coming in on the South Lawn and
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 2: you're turning and you're doing it in front of the
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: President of the United States and all these assembled people.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: And it just looked, it was very cool.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And that was the helicopter I flew.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: So Marine One is the H3.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: So that's the model. And they were always stealing our parts.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: Why? Stuff would break?
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, because it was an older helicopter, so there
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 3: weren't as many parts through the supply chain. And so
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: they had the top priority, as you can imagine. So
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 3: we were constantly, you know, getting parts grabbed from the
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 3: supply chain.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: Is that like a jet engine? It's so loud. Yeah.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: Because Donald Trump likes to do his press avails in
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: front of the helicopter while it's on. I'm sure you've
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: noticed this. And it's like insanely loud.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: It's insanely loud. Um, so it's, uh, but it's, it's
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 3: a great, great helicopter. And one of my favorite things
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 3: about it is it has a boat hole. So when
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: you're in the military, you have to, if you're flying
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: over water, which if you're in the Navy, you're flying
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 3: over water. So you have to go through the helicopter dunker,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 3: which is this like total torture hazing situation where you
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: strap yourself into this thing, uh, get blindfolded by the
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 3: fourth round. get dropped into a tank of water, flipped
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: upside down, and then you have to swim out.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 3: And I mean, I've been a swimmer my entire life,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 3: but it is just, I hated it. I hated it.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: So then after that traumatic experience, I never wanted to
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 3: go down over water in a helicopter, as you can imagine.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: No, for a lot of reasons, yeah.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: But at least I always took comfort in the fact
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: that my helicopter had a boathole, so you could actually
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 3: land on the water.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: Would it float? Yeah, yeah. That's cool.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought so.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: I was real pleased. That's good to know. Last question
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: for you. If you're elected governor, will I be able
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: to pump my own gas in the state of New Jersey?
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: Or is that just going to still be a thing?
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: You guys do.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: That is really, you know, that is a fight right
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: now going on. But that is something that is beloved
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: by New Jerseyans.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 3: Well, because if you have like four kids and they're
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: all having a huge fight and you just need gas
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: really quickly and you don't want to get out of
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 3: the car because you don't know what's going to happen,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: you just like to pull up and be like, gas
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: and you can just be in the piece of your car,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: you know, with the doors and windows closed, yelling at
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: your kids.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: What if you desperately need to escape your kids for
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: just 30 seconds?
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 3: Then you might want to pump your own gas. Yeah,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: you might want to cross the line.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: You just drive to Pennsylvania or something. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: Congressman Mikey Sherrill, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it and good luck in your race. And
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: how can people help you out if they want to
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: get involved?
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you for asking. I was told by my team
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 3: I could not come home.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: I could hear them sighing behind me. Yes, exactly.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: It's like the Please go to www.mikeysherrill.com slash volunteer. We
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: can use all the support we can get. This is
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: a huge race and it is one of only two
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: statewide races going on in the nation right now, New
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 3: Jersey and Virginia. I think this will set the table
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: for all of next year's races as we is I
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: think we really develop the engagement that we need to
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: see on the ground. Right now, it's been hard. People
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: are feeling exhausted. If we build events, they'll come, but
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: we have to build them. And that takes a lot
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 3: of money and people on the ground and effort. So
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 3: please donate. Please come. Knock on doors or get involved
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 3: on the phones and the texting. So thanks so much.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: It's a big race. Very, very important, not just for
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: the people of New Jersey, but also to send a
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: message that We're still in this. Democrats, we're fighting, we're trying,
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: and we can win in the midterms as well. So
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: please get involved if you can.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 3: I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks. That's our show for today. Dan and I will
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save
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• 1:48:42
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• 1:48:49
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